Got a haircut today; my hairdresser told me her health-insurance premium just doubled to $1,500 a month. And that's at Kaiser!

The year in (my) pictures. fritinancy.substack.com/p/picture-br...

“Imagine if The Criterion Channel and Netflix had a baby, but the baby only streamed public-domain classics — and it was completely FREE. That’s WikiFlix.” | ht @tinarotheisenberg.bsky.social wikiflix.toolforge.org#/l

Mamdani: Where else can you hear the sound of the steel pan, savor the smell of sancocho, and pay $9 for coffee on the same block? Where else could a Muslim kid like me grow up eating bagels and lox every Sunday?

As a sometime speechwriter myself, I am impressed. This is a hell of a speech. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/n...

Always a pleasure to catch up with Ms. Lebowitz.

🙏

An absolutely wonderful, versatile, powerful and powerfully funny actor who enlivened everything he was in, and a huge loss. I'm not going to say the word, but we're all thinking it in his honor. RIP Isiah Whitlock. deadline.com/2025/12/isia...

Favorite movies of 2025: Porcelain War The Last Showgirl Secret Mall Apartment Freaky Tales Rebel with a Clause (@grammartable.bsky.social) Coexistence, My Ass! Pee-Wee as Himself Two Prosecutors A House of Dynamite It Was Only a Accident Zodiac Killer Project Left-Handed Girl Jay Kelly

From @lynneguist.bsky.social: The UK-to-US word of the year is "fiddly." separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2025/12/uk-t... #woty #woty2025

More "chaos," my word of the year for 2025. #woty #woty2025 fritinancy.substack.com/p/words-of-t...

Feels a touch ironic that “Gigachad” — a bizarrely specific, extremely 21st-century image of the ideal man — was not, in fact, in this guy’s DNA, so he did a bunch of very-much-not-DNA-based stuff to his body to try and achieve it anyway.

"Unibare" is a Japanese word that means “the moment when someone realizes you’re wearing Uniqlo and not a more expensive brand.” And 51 other things I learned in 2025. fritinancy.substack.com/p/52-things-...

Last newsletter of the year: Things I learned from @marthabarnette.bsky.social @kottke.org @99pi.org @bcdreyer.social @emckean.bsky.social @mikepope.com @abrahampiper.bsky.social @acquiredfm.bsky.social @languagehat.com.web.brid.gy & more. fritinancy.substack.com/p/52-things-...

TIL that Super Bowl LX, on February 8, is going to be in the Bay Area. I live in the Bay Area. I had no idea.

This is really interesting.

The largest generation in U.S. history is in their 70s now. And Stephen Miller’s podcaster wife thinks it’s suspicious that there’s a huge surge in home health aides.

per wikipedia, Hatebeak made its second record with Caninus, a band whose lead singers were two dogs. Hatebeak's goal is to "raise the bar for extreme music"

I opt out of everything that requires my presence on video.

From the "We Give Up" school of corporate naming.

🎆Welcome to the Round of 16 of the 2025 Headline of the Year Contest!🎆 Voting will be open in 4 locations for each round for about a day. 16 headlines. Only 1 winner. A reminder of the nominees: bsky.app/profile/paul...

Wild! "Indian walking sticks reproduce mainly asexually (parthenogenetically), with females haphazardly dropping eggs while they feed or rest. Males are known but are rare; nothing is known regarding the conditions required to produce them." ipm.ucanr.edu/home-and-lan...

Canadian linguists rise up against the letter "S." Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/w... via @languagehat.com.web.brid.gy

What an unexpected treat this film is. Charles Laughton as a bum! Marilyn Monroe as a Gilded Age streetwalker! If you don't have TCM, you can find versions of somewhat lesser quality on YouTube (free).

Slang-of-the-year quiz. I somehow managed nine correct answers. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/s...

My final -- and absolute worst -- #tistheseason for this season:

My final link roundup of 2025, feat. @helenzaltzman.bsky.social, @aintweinpain.bsky.social, @lilashroff.bsky.social, and more. fritinancy.substack.com/p/december-l...

Most of the dialogue in "Marty Supreme" is indecipherable thanks to VERY LOUD MUSIC and the usual mushy rendering of all speech in movies these days, but I did manage to note with displeasure "It's in your DNA," which no one would've said in 1952 because DNA was discovered in 1953.

As a Jew, it’s fun watching the administration post Christian nationalist messages while also saying they are doing everything they can to curb antisemitism.

merry christmas

Here’s the U.S. government being officially religious in a country with no official religion.

“Pray tell, the Baron, what sort of gentleman is he?” “Well…”

This is an almost shockingly wise essay. I'm glad I've finally read it.

I hadn't known till yesterday that Robert Altman had made a 1993 film of the B'way musical "Black and Blue." It's streaming on Kanopy, and it's a treat: Ruth Brown! Linda Hopkins! And the great tappers Jimmy Slyde and Bunny Briggs, both in their sixties when the show was filmed.

It's Festivus, when we engage in Feats of Strength. And so . . . www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/n...

My new newsletter contains more than FIFTY Words of the Year from around the world. Those won't be the final hashtag#WotY2025, but it is the final newsletter of the year! lynneguist.substack.com/p/2025-words...

"The practice of acronyming and nicknaming is now widespread, part of a general speeding up of speech: 'def,' 'rando,' 'preggers,' 'fomo,' 'homes,' 'GOAT.' Are these words? They function as words." - Louis Menand www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Holy %$##*%^&. A @newyorker.com essay by Louis Menand about my book

Hahaha! Yes, I published something about "heritage Americans' today.

"Festive as fuck" gift bag, now marked down to $65. It's colorful *and* bespoke! www.wolfandbadger.com/us/festive-a...

Betty Reid Soskin, the National Park Service’s oldest ranger, has died. She was 104.

Tomorrow is Festivus, the holiday for the rest of us! Join me around the unadorned aluminum pole for the traditional Airing of Grievances. fritinancy.substack.com/p/festivus-2...

Virgin Atlantic's current fare levels: Economy Lite Economy Classic Economy Delight [sic] Premium Upper Class

"swag gap"

Diåcritics göne wïld! (At IT'SUGAR, a name that has always set my teeth on edge.)

Random question but when did “making love” go from meaning “wooing” to fucking?

"Even as the F-word has proliferated on smaller screens, a rule from the 1980s that limits its use in PG-13 movies has endured, influencing the way some filmmakers write, shoot and edit." | cc @stronglang.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

"Psychologically, this group was marked by desensitization, shaped less by fear than by boredom. They were not especially anxious about their own futures. They worried more about what AI and automation might do to other people than to themselves." 1/ www.city-journal.org/article/manh...

Yes, it’s illegal. Like changing it to Department of War, like ten thousand other things. Part of the Trump strategy is to break the law and convey “the rule of law is weak and feminine and laughable and should be overridden by Our Guy.” Trump is fundamentally anti-law. /1

From Kehlani to Mamdani and Ohtani!