This brings to an end my couple of years as an associate film editor at Paste. I had an astonishing amount of freedom there as both a freelancer and later in my part-time gig, and the sheer number of movies they were willing to review or otherwise cover put a lot of movies-first pubs to shame!

Today, Paste Magazine shuttered all its non-music verticals, a choice I am both professionally and personally heartbroken about. Sadly, I am once again looking for a place that wants to let me write about Books and TV on the regular, so hit me up if that’s you or anyone you know.

From MinuteEarth, a quick tour of all the different kinds of cats in the world, wild & domesticated, and how they are related to each other. TIL there was an American cheetah, almost as fast as its smaller African counterpart. [kottke.org]

This is never ever ever getting old. Long may it continue. 🤍

This is never ever ever getting old. Long may it continue. 🤍

my takeaway from this letter is that glenn youngkin, rector sheridan and their flunkies on the board are deeply dishonest people who are engaged, with the trump administration, in a mob-style shakedown against the university of virginia

I just want to say there are a lot of journalists and writers who do real, incredible work on topics that matter while maintaining high standards. Many of them do not have stable employment or recognition from major institutions.

There’s so much worth digging into about romantasy as a genre and why, specifically, it’s so big at this moment, but this piece is so clearly from someone who doesn’t approach the genre in good faith OR read in it regularly that it just comes off as more pointless sneering at stuff women like.

I will no doubt read and enjoy all your very good Nuzzi jokes, but I also want to say earnestly, so many of us (myself included) are on the verge of being pushed out of this industry and it's genuinely so dispiriting to see the worst among us, ethics-wise, get such preferential treatment.

I've been on a real foreign language period drama kick of late, so I'm over the moon to see HBO stepping into the space with French series #TheSeduction, a take on Les Liaisons Dangereuses that's full of female fury. My review:

This is the most glamorous opening to an article about a white supremacist flattering journalist who lied to her readers and editors while having an affair with narcissistic crank who eats roadkill, swims in sewer water, will cause children to die, and is 50 years her senior that I've ever read.

I've been on a real foreign language period drama kick of late, so I'm over the moon to see HBO stepping into the space with French series #TheSeduction, a take on Les Liaisons Dangereuses that's full of female fury. My review:

What a terrible day to know how to read

I'm genuinely so into this and not even remotely sorry. #WutheringHeights

Can’t emphasize how much this is true. Your ability to generate attention is your most marketable skill as a writer, for better or worse. Especially right now. If you hate someone but keep sharing their articles, the people who employ them look at that and go “hey, they’re always in the convo”

Yeah, okay, fine, Noel Gallagher can still get it. 😅

The Discussion Panels track for the Gallifrey One 2026 convention is now available... plus, sign-ups for panelists are now open through December 15 (including TARDIS Talk submissions). Details at gallifreyone.com/panels #gally1

🖤💅 www.elle.com/culture/book...

I regret to inform y'all that we are now far enough into 2025 for me to create this year's TV Shows That Aired in 2025 list (to assist all in end-of-year coverage). As always, this is a LIVING DOCUMENT: Feel free to comment with potential issues/changes! docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

our world 💫 #goodomens #goodomens3

The children’s picture book, “Strega Nona, An OldTale,” celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Author and illustrator Tomie dePaola penned the book about the Italian “grandmother witch.” (via @mprnews.org)

As someone who has recently lost their job, this insistence that there is some faceless bottomless pit of subscribers willing to pay dozens of unemployed writers monthly for a product we've spent decades training them to expect for free makes me want to cry.

I profiled the phenomenal Rosamund Pike about playing the #NowYouSeeMe franchise's newest villain, why she's still grieving the end of #TheWheelOfTime, and the roles she's gravitating towards next — although she'll always be interested in more provocative characters:

"The BBC isn’t perfect – but it’s ours. If we don’t defend it now, we may lose a cornerstone of British democracy."

Chatted with #Talamasca's Nicholas Denton about my favorite episode of the season, "Wet Work," and the uneasy but fascinatingly honest bond that forms between Guy and Jasper (a.k.a. the best part of the show).

I am really proud of this one and I hope you will share it widely open.substack.com/pub/toomucht...

Chatted with #Talamasca's Nicholas Denton about my favorite episode of the season, "Wet Work," and the uneasy but fascinatingly honest bond that forms between Guy and Jasper (a.k.a. the best part of the show).

I would just live my life so that Joyce Carol Oates does not feel the need to destroy me.

Big changes at Stereogum today. A message from our founder: stereogum.com/2478838/ster...

Got super inside baseball for this installment of "Journalism is Fucked and We're All Doomed" asking whether publicists are really aware, or not, of what's happening in entertainment journalism. Like, share, subscribe w/the PR person in your life. [Paywall] thefilmmaven.com/publicity-in...

I always come back to how insulting the idea is that I need a plagiarism chatbot to help me “organize my thoughts” and “come up with ideas,” something I am perfectly capable of doing myself and never asked for any help with

40 years ago we’d have congressional hearings falsely accusing metal bands of putting backwards messages in their songs that told kids to kill themselves & now we have a planet-killing chatbot that’s all like “bet you won’t commit suicide chickenshit bitch” & the government is like here’s $5 billion

If I started a newsletter to write about romance and relationships on TV do you think anyone would read/subscribe to it? (I’m rapidly losing all my outlets that are into this kind of thing.)

Groceries saw their biggest jump in nearly three years last month, a worrisome sign for inflation-weary shoppers. Tariffs are contributing to higher prices for imported staples like bananas and coffee.

Behind the scenes with Michael Sheen, @welshnattheatre.bsky.social and @workingword.bsky.social last week, while they created the brilliant promo film for Owain and Henry. Tickets on sale now www.wmc.org.uk/en/whats-on/...

if you are food insecure for both the humans and pets in your household there is a tool called Pet Help Finder that can help locate pet food banks nearby and other free or reduced price assistance and supplies for pets. no one, ABSOLUTELY NO ONE, should have to give up their pet bc of this.

If I started a newsletter to write about romance and relationships on TV do you think anyone would read/subscribe to it? (I’m rapidly losing all my outlets that are into this kind of thing.)

Rebellion begins. Tickets are now on sale for Owain & Henry, by Gary Owen, co-directed by Michael Sheen and Steffan Donnelly. See @mchshe.bsky.social as Owain Glyndŵr in a fiery reflection on the “hotch-potch of peoples who became England.” 🎟 Watch the full video and book now wmc.org.uk/owain+henry

It took me 14 hours to get home yesterday after flight cancellations and delays on a trip that should have taken four. If you don’t absolutely have to fly right now, don’t — it’s only going to get worse.

Essentially holding my mental health together with glue and Gallaghers at this point. 🤍

Love that we're apparently just normalizing this kind of conversation in the biggest newspaper on Earth.

Essentially holding my mental health together with glue and Gallaghers at this point. 🤍

I love Bluesky because it's often fun but I hate it because I had to read a post where someone called Leslie Knope a neocon shill and to you I say it is a television show and it absolutely does not matter you sound like a maniac

Hi! Preposterously excited (& tbh nervous in the good but also terrifying way) to say that i'm spinning up a podcast that will expand on all the work i do covering politics/technology/information hell. here's a lil teaser we made - first ep will come out 11/14! www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnDE...

Super glad we have a guy from (a subpar season of) The Real World running the Department of Transportation.

BREAKING: Democrat Abigail Spanberger flips control of the Virginia governorship, becoming the first woman to lead the state, NBC News projects. nbcnews.to/47Ljn7Z

Alright I fucking wrote about this. It was apparently necessary to vent my rage about this this afternoon, because that took me two hours to get it all out and onto the page.

I’m on a plane so I voted early for Abigail Spanberger already — but please make sure you have a plan to cast your ballot today! Decisions are made by those who show up. 💙🇺🇸

Wrote about Condé ending Teen Vogue as we knew it. talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/what-we...

Nothing harshes a Duolingo buzz like hearing the language you’re studying spoken in real life. Actual French people will laugh at me.