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.

In first grade the teacher told us she was giving each of us our own folder that would hold our papers & that we had to be careful not to lose. It was a huge responsibility, she said. I imagined we were each getting our own tiny robot; we’d hand it our work & it would fold it for efficient storage.

That Love Island Traitors dude is giving Guy You Crushed On From Afar In High School But Then Actually Met And He Was The Heat Death of Charisma And You Were Like Oh

The PCHH newsletter drops in a few minutes, and everything I review and recommend this week has been engineered to offer an infusion of joy, of humor, of, essentially, Not This. Sometimes this job feels like a calling. This week, especially.

F and I have the flu - he’s upstairs in bed, I’m downstairs in my office. Whenever I cough - always honking, always twice - I wait a beat and hear him do the same. As if in response. It’s like we’re a pair of geese out in the wild, only you know, phlegmier.

Max Dugan will return in Avengers: Doomsday

the week of circling back … … it begins

Trying to purge things by watching Robyn and David Byrne doing Dancing on My Own on SNL50 and what should be a cathartic experience is undercut by the shots of egregiously white people clapping on the 1s and 3s.

KUMAIL on TASKMASTER. I’s calling it: The all too rare CONFLUENCE OF AWESOME. www.comedy.co.uk/tv/news/8613...

Can’t wait tau faurget saume auld acquaintances. THEY KNAUW WHY.

Gonna head outside at midnight because I want my face to be the last thing 2025 sees before it dies.

The week between Christmas and New Years is the calendar’s perineum.

The cottage isn’t a cottage it’s a lake house. That’s first. Also I loved that the mom pivoted to Shane’s endorsements immediately and adroitly. Because she would. She should. Also, it was always gonna default to schmoopy doe-eyed love because genres are defined by their parameters.

(To her friends) “He’s funny. I mean he’s got the ugliest body I’ve ever seen in my life. …. I don’t care if he heard.” Luckily this occurred in ninth grade, when I wasn’t entirely consumed with the fear of someone saying … well pretty much that exactly.

The day before Boxing Day is Unboxing Day

Ok no but for real tho If you’re not doing this What, the fuck, ARE you doing?

The state of discomfort experienced among queer folk when they go home for Christmas and find themselves once again mired in the culture of blithe, heedless, implacable straightness of their youth: -heteronativity

FARMER GRAY: Hey handsome. PARSON BROWN: Wha- what? FARMER GRAY: Relax. Have some coffee and some pumpkin pie. PARSON BROWN: Th-Thank you. FARMER GRAY: It’s like we’re in a game of Clue, you and me. PARSON BROWN: Pardon? FARMER GRAY: You know: Brown, Gray. PARSON BROWN: Oh. Yes. Clever.

From the studio that brought you A CHRISTMAS CAROL … Evil stalks the shadowy cobblestone streets of Edwardian London … An evil born many years before, when one old man’s redemption unleashed a dread curse … Christmas 2026 Terror will be annoyingly cheerful Because … TINY TIM DID NOT DIE

IT’S THE HOLIDAY SEASON! -Uh-huh THE HOLIDAY SEASON! -yep sure is -SO HOOP DE DOO! -sorry what -AND DICKORY DOCK! -what are you saying now what’s going on -AND DON’T FORGET! TO HANG UP YOUR SOCK! -gross -and like, settle down

JOSEPH: No room? We booked ahead! INNKEEPER: Sorry sir we have no record of that. JOSEPH: This is unacceptable. INNKEEPER: Perhaps you’d like to speak to our manger? JOSEPH: Absolutely. Wait what why’d you say it like that

My seven-year-old realization that Snow Miser sings “friends call me Snow Miser” but Heat Miser sings “they call me Heat Miser” means that HM doesn’t have friends - was the moment I unlocked that lyrics reveal character and was probably the reason I became whatever the hell it is I am today.

Celebrating - no, OBSERVING - the very first time someone made you watch a funny video and then sat there watching you watch it. It changed drinks out with friends. It changed dinner parties. It changed family get-togethers. It changed holiday meals. It changed the world.

Canada: Your reliable resource for both gay hockey sex and actual journalism

Every so often I suddenly remember that THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING includes a character bellowing “Crebain from Dunland!” and the movie keeps going like that’s a thing a person can just like come out with and everyone’ll just go yep guess so

Prancer and Vixen are an unstoppable gay guy/straight girl combo. Dancer, Prancer’s ex, keeps trying to insinuate himself but the bitch had his chance and be blew it. Maybe he shouldn’t have accepted Blitzen’s invite for Netflix and Schnapps.

Had a dream where Scott Hunter called me down onto the ice but as soon as I stepped out I faceplanted because “toe pick!” No it doesn’t make logical sense. But it makes emotional sense.

I have trans kids. I am not a weirdo. I swear.

Albert Mouse. Rejector of groupthink. Iconoclast. Heretic. Interrogator of received thought. Intellectual in a community of dull sentimentalists. STEM girlie. Hero.