so pleased that @blankcheck.bsky.social will be covering THE WIZ on the subscriber feed. when we first met at Whiskey Friday, that lost but not forgotten institution at the old Onion offices, Griffin held me spellbound by his passion for that movie.

I'm seeing friends on FB joke about "the warmth of collectivism," but I think it's a little hacky. I think the phrase points to something nonpolitical about Mamdani. for many of us, participation in a group makes us feel submerged and neglected. Mamdani, a natural extrovert, is warmed by it.

... do people not know La Guardia was an actual Republican? did they forget that he was the anti-Socialist candidate for NY-14? Tammany backed him because the uniparty didn't want Scott Nearing in the House -- you know, the super old guy in REDS, that favorite movie of radical-posing Millennials.

just gonna point out: 1989 Dinkins: 50.4% 1993 Dinkins: 48.1% keep your eye on the ball.

"the build" meaning "the construction (of a model, of a game character)" the modern sense of the word "building" is relatively recent; it was receiving complaints in the nineteenth century: "it's a-building what, my good man?" odd how the root concept is still unstable.

in a film that co-stars both Sam Elliott and Ben Gazzara there's no way this is a coincidence

Luke Hasz, who just scored, has a hell of a headshot progression

Reveals how so much of American “secularism” is just unselfconscious protestantism

this is anti-butterscotch discrimination

yeah, still immune to Mamdani's charisma. I see why people might respond to him; it's not like the hemorrhoid in the White House or the canker sore in Vermont. but...he's just a guy?

new skill unlocked: learning to fold a kimono yes I am still on my PLURIBUS road trip no disrespect to the Japanese or the Balinese but I am glad my antecedents are from Simpsons islands not Flanders islands

an alleged urbanist at the other place is looking at American ski resort towns and claiming they're a model for American urbanism. they're populated by transient amateur athletes surrounded by a lot of nothing. that's why they're dense and walkable. about 1 in 8 Americans is mobility impaired.

Has anyone done this yet

here's a hard truth for 2026: the reason so few people can work in the creative fields full-time is because so many people are cheap bastards. they want free music, free TV, free books, free porn etc. the more people pay for them, the more jobs are available. surprise me: turn this trend around.

Hey guess what’s live right now…

2026 resolution: to reclaim the word "neurotic" as a descriptor, the same way I do with "yuppie"

what will be the first non-manufactured WTF Mamdani moment? please no affairs please no affairs and only incomprehensibly dirty threesomes

and the gods and tutelary spirits of ranked choice voting shake their psephomantic Scrabble bags with his departure

HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🎆

apparently the chronic jackoffs at the other place are using Apartheid Clyde's pet AI to algorithmically remove the clothes from photos of women, then reposing them and adding fetish content. how pathetic do you have to be to automate your *stalking*?

a guy at the other place is claiming that Prussia would have cleaned up at the colonization game because it understood the importance of staff work, and dude. dude dude dude. short version: it did. the colonies were charnel houses. some people see them as a test run for midcentury Germany's plans.

I'm a NYC ? but I'm a Midwest #

I know it's a product of the edit, but when that truck says, to hell with the magnet, and drives into the crusher...

This is true and I was the only one on set excited about it (and playing the song on my phone to blank stares)

PLURIBUS season two SPOILERS: Lakshmi yells at her kid at lunch. most of the Eastern Hemisphere dies from the seizures. the Western Hemisphere is asleep and survives. people shake themselves free and reestablish society. the state of New Mexico charges Carol Sturka with the exploitation... etc.

lot of wannabe Martian colonists who couldn't even survive Ozaukee County

checking in the other place and: 1) one of the worst eugenics dorks, Lasker, is claiming to have been bitten in the face by a pit bull. yeah, I'm gonna tweet that immediately. he also used to claim to be a large-breasted woman.

Maybe 15 years ago I was in Western Massachusetts with a partner who wanted to check out the Norman Rockwell Museum. I only knew of Rockwell as 1950s kitsch and had low expectations. As it happened, we showed up while an exhibit on Rockwell's Civil Rights legacy was on display. Blew my mind.

Also, any time I work on a project and suddenly push beyond the range of Available on Wikipedia and / or Reddit, my forehead vein bulges when people suggest that "everything's on the internet" or that you can "just ask an AI."

the all nightshade diet

If you think of "hiring in entry level positions" as "procuring labor to do the tasks entry level people do" then you probably do think AI is a magical headcount reduction machine. But the point of hiring in entry level positions is to produce mid-career employees.

Country music started being unlistenable when they stopped writing songs about being a bartender, gas station attendant, janitor etc. I don't want to hear a country song about a big party on a boat I want to hear about being a substitute teacher

spotted a "is this guy smart or does he just have one very good trick?" guy in the wild. how you tell is when he misapplies the trick.

Just watched the new Knives Out and I think it's really important you know that the scene in the Seminary's Gym is filmed in the same place Rick Astley filmed the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up. I saw the window tracery and immediately made my friends pause the film so I could tell them.

modesty laws prevented showing even one lousy frame of John Waters' PINK FLAMINGOS (1972) in the trailer, so the only footage in it is of people reacting to a screening they just came out of. every single type of extant queer person is contained in the specific sequences I have selected here

a lot of gig work -- and I did a lot of gig work -- was weird semi-shady matching problem issues. the same reason you could sometimes deadhead on insane flights for a pittance. but most of those... labor arbitrage opportunities, I guess? have been discovered and regularized.

a mellow Sunday afternoon to encounter the alarmingly plausible theory that Bill Clinton hung around Epstein because he had a thing for Ghislaine Maxwell

Bi Gan Blank Check miniseries when @blankcheck.bsky.social boxd.it/chSE2D

I like PLURIBUS because I could easily rack up a body count in the ten figures just being myself

thinking about the hundreds of millions of Americans who think their society is poorer and more violent now than it was in the past why are they so badly mistaken? it's a deep and wide folk belief.

amazing religious devotion tho

Pablo Picasso, Still Life with Glass Under the Lamp. Linoleum cut, 1962

man I stick out so much less in collegiate urban America, and I have fancy tastes like collegiate urban America, but I *like* rural small engine repair America

delicious roast pork arepa in Dundee, Florida

Last night @jayasaxena.com told me about a 20 year old NY Mag profile of a raw food chef/subway flasher and it is more unhinged than I could have anticipated nymag.com/news/feature...

Owl and Bat Hōraku (active early to mid-19th c) Ebony with inlays

Actually tannerite phenomenon in general is such a weird thing and I’m happy I predate it

Happy Pop-Tarts Bowl Day to all who celebrate

PLURIBUS thought: slowly paced dramas with well-composed shots (written for the shots) are now a yuppie class marker

The highlight of the birding year here in West Wales was for me a Dartford warbler but for many people it was a visit from a Hoopoe.