M. Gessen is one of the writers I look to for naming the way this cookie crumbles. “It was never a cookie,” you say. No, & Gessen knows that, but having fled Russia to keep their kids, they also know there was something worth holding onto. But we didn’t. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/o...

Philly friends come hug me and cheer for me! 🥰

TGIF

TGIF

The saying “more than you can shake a stick at” doesn’t make sense to me. I can shake my stick at one thing. I can shake my stick at an infinite number of things. The amount of things does not determine my stick shaking ability.

There are many varieties of assholes in the world, but one thing they all have in common is that they hate it when you laugh at them

ALERT: In the past week I have seen two different young people wearing Von Dutch t-shirts

Bullshit "noise-cancelling" headphones only cancel the noise outside my head.

You'd think all the legal weed products would've helped America chill the fuck out

Trying to get my Gen Z students to engage in class discussion, so I’m replacing the desks with couches and giving them all lavalier mics they have to hold in their hands for some reason

All the remembrances of Robert Redford have reminded me that, like my father, he was a man who found a haircut that worked and stuck with it his entire life

I feel like George Saunders' essay "The Braindead Megaphone" might be the most prescient piece of writing about our current moment's discourse, and I think about it nearly every time I scroll through my timeline on here.

If you live in Philadelphia, PA, make sure to stop by The Head & The Hand Books on 9/23 for @samuelashworth.bsky.social & @writesloud.bsky.social's literary throw down! buff.ly/oqdsqDX Can't make it? Treat yourself to THE DEATH AND LIFE OF AUGUST SWEENEY: buff.ly/9XXzRnG @susanschulman.bsky.social

Style lessons from Robert Redford, one of the most stylish men in the last century. 🧵

Are there other jobs where people actually get worse the longer they do them, or is that specific to political punditry?

On the whole I think Gen Z is pretty good, but this is one area where they could really step up their game

College deans don’t get pranked the way they used to. We’ve allowed them to get complacent.

Not sure it's a sign of a healthy society when every 2-3 weeks we have to take a break from our regular lives to become amateur forensic scientists, trying to figure out the specific political positions of another murderer.

By the way, some news! I have a book coming out with the wonderful @autofocusbooks.bsky.social. I'm incredibly excited to join the list -- I so admire the work they've been putting out.

Not sure it's a sign of a healthy society when every 2-3 weeks we have to take a break from our regular lives to become amateur forensic scientists, trying to figure out the specific political positions of another murderer.

Going over feedback from last semester's classes and one student said I was "very fun" and "light up the mood in the room," so I'm going to need a handwritten apology from every single one of you who has ever called me a curmudgeon.

This appears to be significant news. (Trump team restoring some/many Harvard research grants. After Harvard stood up, and won sweeping judgment in court.) Everything is day by day, but worth noting this development. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/u...

Building up a nice little callous on my tapping finger

I wrote about what I think is a genuinely revealing document of elite depravity and impunity. It is shocking and sickening. But it's also a crucial moment. We're about to see what happens when conspiracy theorists actually get what they asked for but it turns out not to be what they want.

Idea for an amicus brief: We list the powers in a chart let's say Louis XIV claimed for himself, and maybe the courts can just indicate with a checkmark which ones of those Trump doesn't have. Seems more efficient.

Student in my gen ed creative writing class asked if I'd ever written a book and I said 'yes' and he said 'what's it called' and I told him and he wrote it down very carefully with a pencil in his notebook and let's just say certain family members could learn something from that kid

Told my first-year-writing class that I'm not entirely sure what our policy should be on AI usage, and that we can talk about it throughout the semester in a spirit of collaboration and intellectual curiosity. This is either the best or worst idea I've ever had as a professor.

Student in my gen ed creative writing class asked if I'd ever written a book and I said 'yes' and he said 'what's it called' and I told him and he wrote it down very carefully with a pencil in his notebook and let's just say certain family members could learn something from that kid

You want a tradwife, fine, build me a house. Fill it with solid wood furniture you made with your own two hands. Help the mare deliver her foal in the springtime. Catch tuberculosis and make me a widow at 32

If I could offer a quick workshop suggestion: you could go back and kill Teen Hitler instead. He was probably kind of a dick. Might fight back a little, but also, much better for you, PTSD-wise.

Just witnessed a couple arguing over who gets the window seat on the subway

Nerdy to admit, but if I time-traveled into the future I’d probably spend a fair amount of time reading historical accounts of the present (also sports almanac, obviously)

Yo, writer and editor friends: I'm looking for a few themed online issues of lit journals to share with my students (in an editing and publishing class). If you've got some recent(ish) faves, share a link?

I am fascinated by this guy who was a Higher Ed administrator and has now moved into teaching classes as a faculty member. He is documenting his whole journey on TikTok. Over the summer, he had so much excitement 🧵

they say the best revenge is living well, but good lord that sounds exhausting

jesus christ

When I was younger, I often felt like my physical appearance didn't match my inner self. Like, people on first blush thought I was kind of a jock bro, but I felt like a little insecure, dorky, artsy boy. Anyway maybe that's why I'm interested in people who look like exactly what they are.

I know it's unkind to talk about people's looks, but I can't help but feel that Mitch McConnell's deeds over the course of his life have turned him into an actual physical demon. Like, if you turned a corner and saw this guy you'd do a horror-movie jump scare.

If life hands you lemons, google the Serious Eats' instructions for making preserved lemons, then leave that tab open for so long, unread, that when you finally click back over to it, you'll think, "Oh, that sounds good, I should get some lemons."

A year ago, doctors told me I had neuroendocrine cancer of the pancreas. I’d probably been living with it for a decade. I will likely never be cured. But after a year of surgeries, radiation and monthly shots with a giant needle, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. defector.com/my-life-with...

Now that I don't have a podcast anymore I'm not sure where to share my book opinions, but I just read Mary McCarthy's THE GROUP, and: pretty good!

I think I’ve finally hit my “10,000 hours” on a very particular skill, which is giving people the finger in ways that are subtle enough I could plausibly deny I did it on purpose.

I’ve been rewatching Girls (no follow-ups please) and it gives me very little pleasure to say this, but I think I may be a Marnie?

Inside of you are two tacos.

I also think we need to keep hammering home that you don’t go to college to “debate.” You go to learn, which is not the same thing.

Really loved Tom’s book, IT ALL FELT IMPOSSIBLE, and we had a great chat about it earlier this summer. Excited the convo is out and for you all to read it (and his book!)!

Thanks to everyone who sent book pitches to the recent @barrelhouse.bsky.social call. We got a lot! I'm making my way through them, and can already say that it's going to be really hard to narrow down to just a few to work on in the short term. An embarrassment of riches!

When 2 Unlimited sang "ya'll ready for this?" back in the early '90s, they were trying to warn us.

A thing they don't teach you during those grad-school pedagogy classes is how much of Day One is just crowd work.