Keep an eye on this space... Submissions open in ONE WEEK! (Bonus points if you now have that song stuck in your head.) Check out the guidelines at forget.cool/submissions and share with your writer friends!

I often think of how more people are employed by art museums than by coal mines now.

Good news, everyone www.cnn.com/2026/05/14/h...

Time sensitive: this is the last day to submit comments opposing the Bureau of Land Management's clearcutting of Oregon's ancient forests. This is a tool that educates you on just how diabolical it is, and it helps you submit your comment. morethanjustparks.com/oregon-old-g...

Celine Dion is a formidable opponent for my @marchxness.bsky.social essay on Kristin Hersh's "Hips and Makers" -- but I'm not giving up yet! Look at this great photo I dug up from Billboard, of Kristin and Michael Stipe shooting the song's video! Read and vote here! marchxness.com/sweet16-dion...

“It made me think about how moments turn into memories, and how memories are like a song that’s performed differently each time it’s played.” I adore the melancholy of this line, this essay, this song.

All Mariah songs are sad. marchxness.com#/2ndround-ca...

Over the moon to have my Mariah essay on @memoirland.bsky.social Memoir Monday in so much amazing company AND back for round 2 against a most excellent Ani song + essay TODAY. read + read + vote!!

Ok, how did I miss this one by @erinlangner.bsky.social ? Such a beautiful mix of personal essay and deep-dive music writing. “A fractured self is sometimes the only kind that can survive the disconnect between how we expect the world to be and how it ends up being.” marchxness.com/2ndround-car...

Over the moon to have my Mariah essay on @memoirland.bsky.social Memoir Monday in so much amazing company AND back for round 2 against a most excellent Ani song + essay TODAY. read + read + vote!!

“I turn on one track repeat, dig my nails into my palms, let myself dissolve. Eventually I don’t exist outside of this song, this tender cave of feeling. “ I mean, these lines alone are such a gut punch, it seems impossible to vote otherwise.

Also, this stunner: “This gentle memory takes it from a song of mourning to a song of celebration. The two things we hold at once at once when we grieve.”

The ending of this @erinlangner.bsky.social essay hits this mama's boy/girl dad in the right spot: between yearning for one more moment and hope for what the day will bring.

Ahh, this is so tight! Last chance to read + vote for my essay, Mariah-loving friends!

So close. If you were ever gonna vote for me now is the time, little under 2.5 hours to go. Only you can make me a Cinderella story…

It seems that I remain allergic to Crash Test Dummies, but I dig Erin M's @marchxness.bsky.social essay on "Superman" & grief for decency. @erinlangner.bsky.social's look back at Mariah Carey & the sad history of "Without You"—which I didn't know; yikes—is also quite good. Get those votes in!

MARCH SADNESS 90S EDITION DAY 8 HALFTIME SCORES Soul Asylum 80, Patty Loveless 70 Blink-182 88, Nick Cave 67 GnR 111, Kershaw 54 Mariah 52, Crash Test Dummies 43 Last day of the first round games finishes up at 9am AZ time 3/11 at marchxness.com

"Daydream" was the first CD I owned so I admit I'm biased here... Still, I'm finding so many quotes to love in @erinlangner.bsky.social's essay: "A fractured self is sometimes the only kind that can survive the disconnect between how we expect the world to be and how it ends up being."

"Other people’s words create space to forge a separate self—one away from the story that everyone believes to be yours. " Erin Langer's @marchxness.bsky.social essay about Mariah Carey's "Without You" captures why covers can be so great: marchxness.com#/1stround-ca...

We didn't plan for this confluence of erins but we're into it

My essay on all of the SERIOUS sadness bound up in Mariah Carey’s “Without You,” now live! Vote vote! Special thanks to the #lambs who put together a truly impressive magazine archive (covers included w. essay!)

I wrote about the first national book banning bill, which effectively seeks to erase trans people. At the end I include a link to let your reps know that you oppose this bill and all it stands for. lithub.com/why-we-must-...

“Enough with the paintings of ships. Enough with the Romantic American landscapes. Enough with the proto-charcuterie board still lifes. We have plenty. And for the love of god, please stop adding portraits of random aristocrats with weird noses.”

The March Sadness 90s Edition First Round Game Schedule (brackets due by end of day 2/28): marchxness.com/schedule

We’ve got this, #lambs. Mariah’s parallel status as Queen of Sadness shall go unrecognized no more.

“If at times such foundations seem to loom large, it is because in the United States, government support for health care, education, and the arts is far more limited than in nearly every other democratic nation.” —Aryeh Neier and Gara LaMarche on private philanthropy

Across Georgia, thousands of students are making the same calculation. From Lakeside High to Kennesaw State, they’re deciding that a suspension is a small price to pay to draw attention to the actions of ICE and the recent tragic deaths in Minneapolis.

I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com

I wrote the speech I *wish* Chuck Schumer would give tonight - as an actual opposition leader. Here it is: "My fellow Americans: At this hour, an unrestrained force of militarized and violent federal officers is carrying out a project of ethnic cleansing in the streets of American cities." 1/14

A petition to save the WPA murals inside the Wilbur J. Cohen Building in DC (which the GSA has put up for sale) now has almost 7,000 signatures. Murals are by Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, Seymour Fogel, Richmond Barthé, Ethel and Jenne Magafan, among others. www.change.org/p/save-the-w...

‘Your children, motherless, and the president says, “Good.”’ —Danez Smith

This article says it all. The preemptive censorship. The country’s largest museum body cowering instead of leading. And the head of the Smithsonian deciding which hill he’ll choose to die on.

"So if the violence of the deportations, and the crackdowns, and the cuts, and the raids, and the air strikes, haven’t been enough for you, let something so simple and evil as the daytime execution of a poet move you to action." Thank you, @literaryhub.bsky.social 💥

This review by Erin is a delight -- insightful literary analysis without loss of context. (In addition, I am a huge fan of thinking while riding the bus, which this review also has)

I reviewed Damion Searls’s great novella on navigating the present + making nostalgia meaningful for Zona Motel open.substack.com/pub/zonamote...

In the official photo provided by Bongino, the faces are blurred out. That's ... not how any of this works.

“Dozens of prominent artists and cultural organizations will participate in a series of artistic demonstrations to protest what authoritarian overreach by the Trump administration. The protests, known as Fall of Freedom, will take place on the weekend of Nov. 21...” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/a...

My review of Taylor’s new album is that when Beyoncé turned 35 she made LEMONADE.

Jack Straw Writers Alumni Reading Friday, October 10, 7pm Jack Straw Cultural Center, 4261 Roosevelt Way NE FREE #JackStrawWriters #RecordingStudio #Seattle

Let's reminder that Disney arguably started this wave of media capitulation by settling Trump's lawsuit against ABC last December. And now here we are...

"...weakening public discourse at a moment when open debate is urgently needed. Journalists should not have to fear losing their jobs simply for offering analysis or asking tough questions on matters of public concern." pen.org/press-releas...

🚨 Today is the LAST DAY you can leave a public comment for the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, which meets Sep 18. Reports suggest they may falsely link vaccines to child deaths and restrict vaccines to ages 75 and up. You can submit a written comment here: www.regulations.gov/document/CDC...

Today Melania Trump met with execs in support of AI in education. It's part of a big push by tech companies and the Trump Administration to get AI products into schools fast. If there's an American child you care about, pls read my recent article about what's happening. Let's be informed.

Also, a show about Latino youth movements being replaced with one about salsa music. hyperallergic.com/1037811/smit...

If Democratic politicians do not fight this because it's a "distraction," it will simply happen. They need to get in front of every mic and say that we will not allow Trump to destroy American history. He wants a culture war? GIVE HIM ONE. There are no distractions. Have every fight.

Real talk (reel talk?): BWDR recently lost a partnership that covered nearly half our operating budget, so things are suddenly very tough. If what we do has ever meant something to you, or you’ve ever thought about subscribing, now’s the time—it *truly* makes a difference.

Military "showing force" at the very same site where Japanese Americans were rounded up for incarceration during WWII.

In light of Vanity Fair's recent idiotic decision, WaPo's offering its veteran critic a buyout, the NYT's "reassigning" three arts writers critics, etc., a lot of us are talking about the public's (and thus publications') lack of interest in criticism. It's part of a larger pattern of a war...

RFK Jr. backs down all the time when he gets push back, so if anyone wants to call, here's the HHS number 1-877-696-6775. I'd also call your senators/reps as well.

Knew this was coming with the GSA shutdown, but it still shocks.