This isn't surprising because of course he sold the American people out again, but Trump talked a good game on Ticketmaster last year, so it's disappointing. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

My love for this movie is incestuous but deep, and it's finally coming your ways next month!

They're stealing the voice of Sinead O'Connor, who risked her own career in 1992 by speaking up about child sexual abuse in the Catholic church, so let's make this theft an occasion to keep talking about Trump in the Epstein files.

After four years between records, Harry Styles has a new would-be-hip sound but also approaches making an album about celebrity burnout in several ways smarter than the standard, despite his often garbled lyrics. I try to break all that down in @slate.com today. slate.com/culture/2026...

Pretty sure they would stop if someone just paid them for all the movie rights to this story.

look i love this tournament, and i want to read and vote on everything. but the fact i was never notified of this top first-round matchup, and indeed not appointed its sole and unquestionable Cosmic Judge, is basically unforgivable. iykyk, my girl katie moulton will back me up

After four years between records, Harry Styles has a new would-be-hip sound but also approaches making an album about celebrity burnout in several ways smarter than the standard, despite his often garbled lyrics. I try to break all that down in @slate.com today. slate.com/culture/2026...

My theory is that Leon on the Harry Styles song is Leon Trotsky.

Just what I needed right now.

We're now entering the era of Freedom Tapas.

UNLOCKED | Canada ‘abandoning’ international law with support for U.S. strikes on Iran, say former diplomats www.hilltimes.com/story/2026/0...

The number of weekend subway shutdowns in Toronto is absolutely ridiculous. @ttcriders.bsky.social @ttcalerts.bsky.social find another way!

Very worth reading from my colleague Fred Kaplan at @slate.com: Iran offered this week to stop its nuclear program. That wasn't enough for Trump. slate.com/news-and-pol...

I don't care which side of the argument you're on, just please everyone stop referring to money spent on war as "treasure." I know it comes from historical sources but in modern speech it makes you sound like deluded children.

Carney could've just fucking said this

The only good thing about a day like today is to be reminded of one of the greatest works of art of the 21st century to date, David Rees' Get Your War On.

Did anyone check the victim's pockets for spiders?

Trump's attacks on Iran will only improve the position of the dictatorship by providing it an external enemy. In turn that is what Netanyahu wants, too, because he needs Iran as an opponent to justify his strongman role. This is no way to help the Iranian people to freedom.

There are many scary things about this but one is that if it were real this would be the one of the two or three funniest and most self-aware Taylor songs of the past few years.

This was Justin's excuse for meeting Katy Perry in the first place, before they stopped hiding that they were dating.

Some days when every news I hear makes me feel crazy and sick, I think, "Man, imagine if I just joined the other side so all those things made me happy instead and I could get paid for pretending to like them." And then I wonder how many people are doing exactly that. I mean other than JD Vance.

Over the course of their Olympic hockey segment, The Daily Show's @desilydic.bsky.social may explain more about the Canadian parliamentary system than has ever been aired on American television before. youtu.be/fOdTHhQ1xY0?...

Every Democrat who doesn't do something to get escorted from the chamber by security during this should be ashamed of themselves. Al Green for president. (Either Al Green, really.)

Apparently Trump's been mentioning his father a lot more in speeches lately, including tonight. Never forget: boingboing.net/2015/09/09/1...

This is a really fine piece about Ochs and political songwriting.

I repeatedly have to remind myself that the "badges" the NYT now gives out on Strands are meaningless. It makes me think there is nothing unrealistic about how Dylan on Severance feels about finger traps and waffle parties.

If the words "Ryan Coogler" weren't in there, I would be a hard no. And I'm still a softer no. The X-Files belongs in the 90s (and never without Dana Scully), and Coogler belongs *not recycling old IP. Haven't we all been celebrating Sinners exactly because it isn't this kind of thing?

Carl Wilson is always a joy to read, and the newest edition of his essential substack "Crritic!" is no exception. Thrilled for the kind words about the Paranoid Style's "Known Associates", available for purchase now by the discerning and bold!

Always have prepared the radical message you are going to pull out if someone interviews you on the street, no matter what their actual question is

Part 2 of a "Crritic!" Top 10: viral Mtl duo Angine de Poitrine & past "anonymous" artists like @theresidents.bsky.social; more on protest music; Destroyer w/ @paranoiacs.bsky.social; Ashbery's afterlife w/ @parisreview.bsky.social; & Beggar Weeds' return. carlwilson.substack.com/p/heres-to-s...

Today in "Crritic!" I have some cranky thoughts about "Wuthering Heights," Hamnet, and country music "authenticity", w/ a couple of more enthusiastic movie and song endorsements. carlwilson.substack.com/p/to-wuther-...

Look, I'm glad they're singing about these things. I'm also relieved I already published my protest music story before this happened

This is today, 5:30 pm ET - c'mon along!

It's R&B WEEK in the Popular Music Books online series w/ Amani Roberts on classic R&B groups & @brandontensley.bsky.social on his 33 1/3 book on Whitney Houston, in conversation w/ Emily Lordi, whose own Whitney bio is due this fall. Join us Wed, 5:30pm ET! iaspm-us.wildapricot.org/Popular-Musi...

For Hilobrow's current series on anti-fascist art, I wrote about Leon Rosselson - the UK's version of Phil Ochs and Tom Lehrer combined, now 91 - and a song that rewired my brain at age 14, his indictment of the class system, "Palaces of Gold." www.hilobrow.com/2026/02/11/c...

RIP Frederick Wiseman. For such a major director, I have seen v little of his work, going to try to make up for that this month. (Lots of it is available via @kanopy.com.) www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/m...

Almost certainly the greatest literary broadcaster ever. RIP

If you missed it over the weekend...

I write about Charli XCX's comeback LP, her witchy music for Emerald Fennell's bitchy Wuthering Heights, today in Slate. What do you do after Brat becomes a brand (& one bound to now long-lost political hopes), & cool risks turning to cringe? Pivot to a period piece. slate.com/culture/2026...

This is why Minnesotans are begging folks outside the state to keep talking about us. Please don’t let the world forget we are still in danger.

Gawddammit, such a great fookin drummer RIP www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/a...

It says a lot about my online networks that I heard all day that Harold from Harold & Maude died but not till just now that Dawson of Dawson's Creek did

Fantastic piece on the current wave of protest music by @carlzoilus.bsky.social slate.com/culture/2026...

Oh, I shoulda mentioned - this also comes with a playlist

The past month has brought a flurry of political music on a level unseen since the BLM uprising in 2020. That's because protest songs come out of movements, not - as rock'n'roll myth sometimes has it - movements out of songs. I wrote about that for Slate this week. slate.com/culture/2026...

Some thoughts about what we misunderstand about protest music

Shame the emotion, on the other hand, is pretty much 100% Canadian.

I was on CBC radio's Commotion this morning talking about protest music with pal @vishkhanna.bsky.social and guest host @justsayrad.bsky.social. (My @slate.com piece on the same subject is coming out later today.) Listen here: www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...

From Canada, must say it's an honour to have our name pass through Benito's lips. God bless the Americas, no matter what "America" has to say about it

So is the Post trying to say Lewis did the wrong thing - in which case reverse it - or just that he's served his purposes and can now go back to being pursued for the phone-hacking coverup he fled to take the job in the first place? What a snake pit.