If LoTR: SHADOW OF THE PAST ever does come out, gay Halloween parties are gonna be lit that year. Bear Bombadils! Drag Goldberrys! Old Man Willows and their stepsons! (Yellow)boots the house (barrow-)down!

The Tonys = Gay Oscars The Oscars = Gay Super Bowl Eurovision = Gay Olympics A season of The Comeback = Gay World Series

Dune It and Dune It and Dune It: Well

Only a churl would point out that SENTIMENTAL VALUE, which won best international feature, was the only international feature nominee that was about filmmaking. And I? Am no churl.

Somewhere on the Upper West Side right now, Big Ballet and Big Opera are toasting each other with plastic tumblers filled with tiny amounts of lousy Chardonnay.

Demi’s gonna spend the next thousand years getting slowly digested by her feather duster Sarlaacc pit dress

Matt Berry’s delivery of “brought to you by buhguh KEENG” is, officially, fun.

Presenting best original songs with old-school production numbers is an approach that some will call dated, I will call back-to-basics, and most people won’t care about. Big production numbers are definitionally cringe and sweaty. Knowing this, and doing them anyway, is not. Does that make sense?

There’s a crowd shot in Jewison’s JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR when JC’s entering Jerusalem where an uncredited Amy Madigan reaches out to him and you will find no documented proof of this but I maintain it is true because THEM BANGS DON’T LIE

Paul is serving berries and cream, berries and cream…

Spent the weekend talking to non-critics. Civilians. Normals. Among this cohort, the Timothée Antipathée is weirdly strong.

A friend told me he picked up his weekly comics, stopped into an ice cream shop, put in headphones and listened to his favorite music while eating and reading. I love comics, and ice cream, and music. Of course I do. Yet my instinctive, reflexive reaction to his story was revulsion and judgment.

Shout out to Linda for suggesting the heading “One Batter After Another” and to Aisha for “Sentimental Value Meal.” They are otherwise blameless.

What now qualifies as a yearly tradition. www.npr.org/2026/03/11/n...

“You pinkie-sweared, Fredo.”

Flashing back to the interview I did about my second book - don’t recall the outlet - where the interviewer kept demanding I explain why I wrote a whole book declaring that Batman was like the Roman Emperor Nero. I hadn’t, I didn’t. They grew annoyed by my abject confusion: “It’s your thesis!”

Happy 13th Anniversary to the day I found out 1. that my first book’s publisher was folding a month before the book launched 2. that another publisher had bought its catalog of books but would not be promoting them, and 3. that my book now fell under a division called “Pets, Crafts and Other.”

Diane 11:30 a.m. February 24th. Entering the town of Twin Peaks.

There was a lot of stuff that entered the zeitgeist - Great White North, Count Floyd, etc. But there was lots of stuff that was way more weird than funny, that I loved for the weirdness. -Pre-Teen World -An extended Body Snatchers riff feat. Conrad Bain’s brother

Not a sports guy. But I wrote about the Olympics once, sort of. In Defense Of Bronze: The True Mettle Of The Metal Of The 3rd-Place Medal www.npr.org/2016/08/11/4...

TOY STORY 5: REVENGE OF THE 5ID Andy’s childhood bully, now a tech billionaire, uses his vast resources to track down Woody and Buzz and turn them into IP that he can cynically leverage into endless installments of entertainment content.

If you see people out today looking like this don’t make them angry.

Talking with people who love ChatGPT feels like I’m at a party where boring people play Cards Against Humanity and convince themselves they’re funny.

In brightest day In blackest night Our logo won’t at all excite

Jo Nesbo’s Sunglasses Hut Jo Nesbo’s Shake Shack Jo Nesbo’s Cheesecake Factory Jo Nesbo’s Pottery Barn Jo Nesbo’s Piercing Pagoda

never did no wutherin’ HI-iiiiiiiiii never did no wutherin’ lowwwwwww

I believe these two crazy kids might just make it after all.

It’s bonkers, yes, but you can’t say “WUTHERING HEIGHTS” isn’t sexy af. I mean the scene where Jacob Elordi swallows that fish whole then pulls it back out of his throat and it’s just the skeleton? Woof.

I remember after I came out to Mom it was bad for a long time. The one day she called me and told me she went into Philly (she never left West Chester) to see Les Miz and wanted to talk to me about how wonderful it was. But I was and remain a Sondheim gay. Some divides can never be crossed.

F was born in Puerto Rico and has been dealing with blithely ignorant people considering him a foreigner for 55 years now. Blithely ignorant people have been here forever. We used to ignore and dismiss them, given their ignorance. That’s what they deserved. I miss those days.

The only way I can hope to get through this, the Most Culturally Sportsy Weekend Ever, is by staying inside and mainlining like Drag Race, Dropout and Critical Role. INDOOR KIDS RiSE UP.

In workshop one time after I’d said my piece about a story Marilynne Robinson told me I had the best verbal italics she’d ever heard so yeah, I’m uh think I’m prepared to discuss “Wuthering Heights” on PCHH next week.

Uh-oh. Some intern is DEFINITELY not getting fired.

First, the Coens. Then, the Safdies. If these two jamokes go their separate ways, don’t tell me. I couldn’t take it.

Hear me out

Astonishingly, gratifyingly, and often, over the years, by-the-skin-of-its-teethingly, my old stomping ground, the WCP, abides and endures. Get on that.

TODAY: The Amazon guy shutters the Post Books section. TOMORROW: The Apple guy starts the Butlerian jihad.

I mean god the number of times I’ve broken an awkward silence by busting out “IN THE LEE OF A PICTURESQUE RIDGE….” I will continue to do so, of course; it will just feel smaller and sadder.

Wrote something, got to say some stuff on the radio. It’s not enough. It don’t begin. www.npr.org/2026/01/30/n...

You don’t have to sit through the credits to see the MELANIA blooper reel because it is all around us in the very air we breathe

“And so we are resolved! First, we reflect varied ideological perspectives! Second, we assure viewers that we understand them, give them a fair shake, respect them. Third … and Sinestro, buddy, I know you’re way ahead of me on this … We let loose the Undead Army of Face-Eating Fire Badgers.”

There are middle-aged theater queens working at Disney animation and I want to befriend each and every one of them. youtu.be/-7jWt3JvJto?...

Passive voice cited as cowardly distancing maneuver, say some experts

Became a late-in-life manifesting Board Game Gay(tm) over lockdown. But when friends suggest Hues and Clues? To this color-blind schmuck? My worst nightmare. Arguing over subtle shadings and nuances that are invisible to me. A hate crime.

“Hey Glen your very favorite thing in the long and storied history of ever stopped by the office today but we couldn’t be bothered to give you a quick heads up.” - My “friends” at NPR

I will watch every Oscar-nominated short film this year, as I do every year. I love the form, I love discovering new filmmakers. I also love hearing about them for the first time at the nominations are listed, because their titles never fail to scream “OSCAR-NOMINATED SHORT FILM OVER HERE GUYS.”

Unknowingly switched my weather app from my location in the Shenandoah Valley to Cape May Point NJ at some point so when I checked the weekend snow totals this morning they were like 1-2 inches and the stomach-dropping despair I felt all day was a potent, vicious thing. An attack. An assault.

If, like me, you spent the 2010s putting up boring non-fiction/literary fiction-only folks dismissing GoT because it was about “dragons and fantasy shit,” tell them to check out A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS and pretend it’s alt-history. www.npr.org/2026/01/16/n...

See now I suggested Molly Mondays and the squares in the NPR newsroom just clucked their tongues and stroked their beards.