My reflections on the month of October and why it’s my Jack Kerouac and Chet Baker month. Also, what I am reading and you should read, too. Oh, and my favorite horror films. Mentioned: @lukeoneil47.bsky.social @jasondiamond.bsky.social @specktor.bsky.social billshea.com/2025/10/29/u...

You mean it wasn’t actually like this?

I’m watching an illegal stream of the game on tik tok and the host has to use filters to keep the feed up so im consuming this hell game like this fyi

Guess I picked the right night to be totally destroyed by jet lag so I could enjoy a relaxing eighteen innings of easygoing small hours baseball, just as the good lord intended

I did not enjoy writing this; it can't even serve as an ad for my newsletter, which I've suspended due to an overbilling situation that has me almost regretting leaving Substack. But, you know, it's evidence for the piece I just didn't get to include. talkingpointsmemo.com/tpm-25/patro...

10/23/78: Stories of John Cheever Stellar collection bagged well deserved Pulitzer Standouts incl The Swimmer (later film w/Burt Lancaster) [ @specktor.bsky.social "the fevered delirium of suburbia in decline"] & our favorite Goodbye, My Brother More via @tcboyle.com: www.npr.org/2006/08/17/5...

Very excited to be in conversation about SQUIMBOP with the great @specktor.bsky.social in LA this coming Tues -- we started the conversation several years ago, w/r/t DODGE CITY 2: @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social @southwestreview.bsky.social @1111press.bsky.social lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

Every half inning of Mariners baseball

Loved writing this for the good folks at @nyreviewofarch.bsky.social

Really looking forward to this, on Tuesday night! Eastsiders, come through! (And don't forget to RSVP at the link . . . it's free)

Been in Los Angeles less than 24 hours and six people have asked if I’ve seen One Battle After Another and my response is “I’m on book tour. My life is one battle after another.” Anyways. I’m talking with my king of LA @specktor.bsky.social, at Skylight tonight. I’m so psyched.

Good all-the-time record really. But Andrew, as usual, is on point here

Can’t get the first guy in this clip out of my head, frankly. The best kind of Italian

“They own the legal system” really makes you wonder both what world these people are presently living in and whether they just forgot the multiple sets of parentheses around the “they” here

Tomorrow night I’ll be at @skylightbooks.bsky.social with my pal @jasondiamond.bsky.social to discuss his rad, rad novel Kaplan’s Plot and we’d love it if you’d come through (Sandy Koufax possibly not included, tho we live in hope)

plenty of things going against the right globally: Bolsonaro's conviction in Brazil, the defeat of the right wing in Norway's election, the student strikes and Saba Saba protests in Kenya (brutal as the repression there was), the EU's von der Leyen pursuing sanctions and trade suspension for Israel

No paywall on this LAT article (for once).

We can acknowledge this without abandoning these people to a white supremacist police state! Please imagine something beyond punishment.

Wrote about American Gigolo and the rise of the Armani Era for @gqmagazine.bsky.social www.gq.com/story/how-gi...

LA friends: I'll be in conversation with the wonderful Matthew Specktor (The Golden Hour) re SHE'S UNDER HERE at Skylight Books in Los Feliz, Tues 9/16 at 7 pm. Do come out and say hi! On Sun 9/28 at 4pm, I'll sit down w/my pal Samantha Dunn (Failing Paris) at Diesel in Brentwood. It'll be fun!

Edition Release News. Please Share. lisajanepersky.bigcartel.com Debbie Harry, Goddess In The Hair-Light Moon Offered for the 1st time. Taken by Persky in the "Blondie loft." Signed, numbered edition of 10. From the original b&w negative, lovingly digitized and colored by LJP ©Lisa Jane Persky 1975

The quote is from @specktor.bsky.social's extraordinary book. Buy it *now*!: tinhouse.com/book/always-...

HBD to the magnificent Tuesday Weld, who’s incandescent even in the (alas) terrible A Safe Place, truly

RT if you also wish ill upon JK Rowling.

look I'm not myself a political scientist so I can't say what effects it would have for a spate of politicians to crop up saying "the enemy is the oligarchy" and "the enemy is billionaires" while swinging a kettlebell but I think we should try it for science and see what happens

Gav’s a tool, obviously, but: LFG

Sums it up well 🧵

Looking forward to being in conversation with Nicholas in a few weeks myself. Bay Area folks you should go to this (you can snag a signed copy of The Golden Hour while you’re there, along with Nick’s book)

"Some immigration experts and community activists cite the organized resistance in L.A. as another reason the numbers of ICE arrests were lower in California than in Texas and even lower than dozens of states by percentage of population."

8/10/70: Diary of a Mad Housewife D Frank Perry/W Eleanor Perry w/Richard Benjamin, Carrie Snodgress, Frank Langella @kinolorber.com blu w/ @larrythek.bsky.social commentary More @specktor.bsky.social: www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/07... @tnyfrontrow.bsky.social: www.newyorker.com/goings-on-ab...

I like Decision to Leave as much as the next guy—more—but these are some scab motherfuckers

Just came across this in my timeline. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the number but the sentiment is spot on. We need radical reform of the LAPD and we’re not gonna get it under Karen Bass @mayor.lacity.gov or any Republican challenger. We need a progressive primary challenger in LA, please!

massive protests against ICE and the administration happening all over the u.s. and news about it is being suppressed on tiktok people are talking about all the “music festivals” going on to get around censorship lookup LA music festival if you haven’t seen footage

Ed Park, “Seven Women,” from An Oral History of Atlantis.

Just started reading this—very good, very sharp and very funny—novel myself and propose to you that this is an excellent move

I just finished Matthew Specktor's The Golden Hour and if you 're at all interest in Hollywood and how the bad old world turned into the new worse world, it's pretty amazing. Great companion piece to the stellar Always Crashing in the Same Car by same. Shout out @specktor.bsky.social

“We all know that Epstein was a pedophile and a close friend of mine. What this administration presupposes is… what if he wasn’t?”

It is early to post this, but I’m so excited for this. Karen’s book is so damn good

‘The suspension, which lasted approximately 3 hours before his account was reinstated, was explained by Instagram senior directors in an internal leaked memo that his content was deemed “too socialist,” and goes against current national US interest.’ Wow, freedom of speech in the US really is dead

This is happening in 10 minutes! Tune in: it'll be excellent

And more than this — no one deserves to DIE in a CLIMATE DISASTER because of who they voted for or didn’t vote for. Cannot believe this needs to be said.

Psyched to moderate this talk at LA Design Fest w Alex McDowell (design futurist known for his work on Minority Report) and Alejandra Guerrero (architect/urban planner bringing radical community-centered rebuilding to Altadena post-fires)- RSVP here www.eventbrite.com/e/the-storie...

This thread just about covers it. So damn good

14) Obscurity is a blessing. Don’t ever think otherwise.

whoever you support, read this. you have rights if there are irregularities or errors when you show up at the polling station. Don't just leave. As he says, demand an affidavit ballot and submit it.

We all know this, of course, but whenever a motherfucker like this starts talking about “garbage” and sweeping unhoused people off the streets it is as pure a fascist dogwhistle as they come. There’s not a millimeter of daylight between this guy and DT. Vote (and do not rank him) accordingly

This dude’s got a very long neck, is all I have to say about this