NEW: ICE has a plan to lease offices across the US as part of a secret, months-long expansion campaign. Today, @wired.com is publishing dozens of those locations. Many are near schools, medical offices, and places of worship. Vital work from @leahfeiger.bsky.social that I'm proud to publish.

is the problem that tens of thousands of ppl are still incarcerated for weed related "offenses", & that arrests & incarcerations for said "offenses" continue despite widespread legalization because this country is fixing to become one giant prison & has a different justice system for the rich, or

🐄🐄🐄🐄 "'Thirty more years of mobility with you' / is what my partner said she wants a statement about / how to sustain common pleasure like “having a Coke with you” for middle- / aged queers with chronic pain compiled griefs the thing is / pleasure is harder to come by"

it’s genuinely reassuring to me that this is the most miserable and paranoid person in the entire world

Thank you, Philly! Thank you, @alinapleskova.bsky.social and @eshanisurya.bsky.social and everyone who came out! Loved talking pop divas, fat lips, the new sincerity, and the horrors known only to God and teenage girls.

worth noting that the second rich people stopped being afraid of mobs tearing them limb from limb, they stopped building libraries and opera houses and stuff and started ripping the copper wiring out of the walls of society instead

Re-sharing this today! I wrote about an emerging millennial poetics of work, as represented through three great poetry books. fencedigital.com/2026/01/30/c...

please someone invent a human xerox machine so we can make more Larry Krasners

to date, i've had like four dozen writers representative of vastly different demographics & personalities & genres on this reading series where they talk about formative/inspiring records, & not one person has dared to discuss Rumours....... are they cowards, or are they saving it for me

met up with my 🔌 this morning…….. (cvs candy section)

ok so my plan was to avoid Big Writing Conference this year, as i do (due to, you see, a severe allergy to laminated badges & fluorescent-lit convention centers), but then @neonpajamas.bsky.social had to go & scheme the most incredible lineup for an offsite, & now...... 🪄🪄🪄 SEE YOU THERE!!!!

at 7:30 am, someone came down my little side street absolutely shouting SIX MORE WEEKS OF WINTER!!! SIX MORE WEEKS OF WINTER!! SIX MORE WEEKS OF WINTER!!! so i guess there’s a new town crier in the italian market of south philadelphia & i need not go online for my news, farewell

Reminder that, in recent days, children have rallied and protested for their freedom inside an ICE detention center where water has been described as "putrid" and meals reportedly contain “bugs,” dirt, and debris. This is where the kidnapped 5-year-old Liam Ramos is being held.

in response to ICE’s ongoing, state-sanctioned violence, funds from community pool tickets at this event will be donated to Tending the Soil, a MN-based coalition that supports organizers, legal observers, rapid response efforts, & community defense: tendingthesoil.org

coming up on 2/3— one week from today 💿🎶 
 so excited to feature @eshanisurya.bsky.social & @kristinaten.bsky.social on the February edition of Track Changes along with their terrific books. 🎟️: feb-2026-track-changes.eventbrite.com

Honestly, so remarkable that there was a huge group of people in this country who, for years, hollered about the villainy and cruelty of law enforcement, and everyone just assumed that those people didn't have the right to expect to go through life without being abused and killed by the state.

the whole web of this is terrible & cursed (& i don't think we can refer to all their behavior in the past tense just because epstein is dead now, so there's that sickening thought), but there's something very illuminating about seeing the utter jibberish correspondence of ultra wealthy "elites"

thread

The Inquirer’s obituary of Dan McQuade, written by Gary Miles with his unparalleled empathy and detail-rich prose: Dan McQuade, award-winning writer, tireless community activist, and ‘Philadelphia institution,’ has died at 43 www.inquirer.com/obituaries/d... via @inquirer.com

my hope is that the more they push AI-ified media & art, the odder, sillier, messier, more eccentric, & voicier independent art & other cultural production will become. we're chaosifying, we're gibberish maxxing, we're making up new words & shapes & sounds that the robot has no fucking clue about

among other things (endless things, really) to notice here, i've never seen someone tee up a tell-all exposé so perfectly..... the writer literally doesn't even have to go undercover

i put out a book called SLOPPY last year! as the philosopher king nomi malone would say, it doesn’t suck www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/751421...

love to see the mainstream media apparatus learning (??) about mutual aid… like its inconceivable to wealthy people who hoard resources & cloister themselves from the lives of others that many of us deeply care about the wellbeing & safety of our neighbors & communities & even people we don’t know!

here, please have a joy molecule

Rest in peace to one of the great bloggers and the de facto mayor of Philadelphia. It was my honor and pleasure to work with him. defector.com/dan-mcquade-...

If you want to help the Haitian community in Springfield, consider donating to the Haitian Community Help and Support Center. They are a local non-profit that helps Haitians in their city with education, economic security, legal services, and more. haitiansupportcenter.org

More about Tending the Soil: tendingthesoil.org More mutual support funds and ways to help those doing on-the-ground work in MN: www.standwithminnesota.com General strike tomorrow. Boycott always. Reading, dancing, and community in Philly February 3. ICE out of everywhere.

Informed by my experiences as an immigrant in the U.S., the characters in Tell Me Yours are immigrants and dislocated people reaching for survival & belonging in environments that are hostile to them, in which the powers that be wage endless destructive campaigns to exert control over their bodies.

A portion of ticket funds will be donated to Tending the Soil, a MN-based coalition that supports organizers, legal observers, rapid response efforts, and community defense. You can donate to the community pool option on Eventbrite (www.eventbrite.com/e/track-chan...) or mention it at the door.

Glad to be back in Philly next week for Track Changes, a lit reading + listening party + conversation series hosted by @alinapleskova.bsky.social. The February edition is going speculative, surreal, and body-horrific as @eshanisurya.bsky.social and I discuss our favorite albums and our new books.

SO STOKED

While independent bookstores are giving out free whistles, hosting protest sign making events, and donating proceeds to mutual aid, Amazon is *checks notes* providing technology that assists ICE in their terrorizing of communities. Independent bookstores deserve your support. Amazon does not.

every time someone has asked me the last week or so about priorities it is rental assistance. please please please people need rent to stay in their homes. scroll down to rent relief funds and pick something www.standwithminnesota.com

coming up on 2/3— one week from today 💿🎶 
 so excited to feature @eshanisurya.bsky.social & @kristinaten.bsky.social on the February edition of Track Changes along with their terrific books. 🎟️: feb-2026-track-changes.eventbrite.com

free ebooks from Haymarket! 🚫🧊🚫 Unbuild Walls by Silky Shah Border & Rule by Harsha Walia The Case for Open Borders by John Washington & lots of good reads listed if you feel so moved to buy a book (or get from your library). i recommend No One Is Illegal by Justin Akers Chacón & Mike Davis ⬇️

i love every normal-ass person doing their best to protect their neighbors from hell. i love every giant donation pile of food and coats and handwarmers and whistles. i love every person throwing sand in the cogs!!!!!!!!

I keep thinking “my god the people they’ve killed seem like exceptionally good folks” and I think the lesson there is that they’re not exceptional, but that wonderful people abound and that a baseline distrust in humanity is a shitty conservative trope that privileges power over collective strength

I can't put into words the feeling of watching our government, a hive of evil antisocial filth, the absolute worst humanity has to offer, colliding with the best. Ordinary people trying to help each other, risking everything to stand up for what's plainly, unambiguously fair and right. It's unreal

having a lot of inside thoughts so i am breaking my no substack links rule to share this post of restaurants on eat street where the most recent execution happened, it is a lot of immigrant owned spots, buy some gift cards open.substack.com/pub/beyondbe...

what fucked me up most today was peeking at twitter for 5 min to see what lies the govt & its enablers are running with, & the ghouls (yes, tons of bots, but there are real ppl perpetuating & believing this shit) who spread it. anything but admitting that the state is murdering people with impunity

my sadness feels bottomless today; trying to route it usefully. if you send me proof of donation to an org on this list, i’ll mail you a copy of my poetry collection, Toska ⬇️ mutual aid funds, immigrant support orgs, legal defense, & more doing on-the-ground work in MN: www.standwithminnesota.com

you can't reform this. you can't throw it a little less money. ICE needs to be abolished. this government needs to be held accountable. these people (the absolute wrong word to use for those who show such contempt & unchecked brutality twd other human beings) are fucking depraved & beyond reckoning

Wise words from WEB DuBois to gird us today: "It would be shame and cowardice to surrender this glorious land and its opportunities for civilization and humanity to the thugs and lynchers, the mobs and profiteers, the monopolists & gamblers who today choke its soul and steal its resources."

teacher, physician, politician, activist, etc... no field is immune from authoritarians seeing abuse of power as a right and the proper way to maintain "structure".

no stats to back me up, but i believe a solid chunk of any people seeking administrative roles where they get to exert some level of authority are either power-hungry people or people wanting to avoid accountability. or both. especially if your position is "the cop" in your field of work.

ICE just shot another one of my neighbors. They had the person on the ground, being beaten by several agents, and then fired multiple shots. In front of the donut shop where we like to get donuts for our kids.

The United States of GoFundMe. GoFundMe to help pay for healthcare. GoFundMe to help pay for rent. GoFundMe to help pay for being abducted by ICE.

When the AI slop summer reading list dropped last year I knew I had to write about making book lists. Thanks to @thebaffler.com for letting me go long with bewildered nostalgia & regret on 20 years of Internet book culture & how we made the slop book list inevitable. thebaffler.com/after-the-fa...

Seeing a bunch of normal ass midwestern moms and dads marching in -20 degrees knowing they might be tear gassed or worse really drives home what a cowardly lot of people the pundit class is