No disrespect to Ira Gershwin but rhyming brunch with lunch is hack. You can't just go rhyming a portmanteau with one of the two words it's derived from.

“You know, these plans are quite similar to the ones they have at the Reform conference”

One of the things I find hardest about severe episodes of mental ill-health is the number of people you have to lie to about why you’re canceling on them/late in doing something/forgetting to reply to messages/not doing your best work Exhausting!

In Sonic 3 (2024), End of the Line by the Traveling Wilburys (1988) is used as diegetic music in a flashback to 50 years before the present-day events of the movie. All the more galling given that a period-appropriate pop song (The Beach Boys’ Wouldn’t It Be Nice) is used elsewhere in the movie.

I don’t even know why I still had an account on that exploitative and largely useless platform but as of today I don’t anymore.

Pete Mandelson? The Hartlepool MP?

True admiration for Bruce Springsteen, the most “claims to be 5‘10” on Hinge but is 5’7” IRL“ guy in rock, making a tactical decision decades ago to flank himself with actual hobbits Steve van Zandt and Nils Lofgren

Arthur Miller died less than 7 weeks after the release of Meet the Fockers and we can't rule out the possibility that the two events were linked

In a month’s time we get a new Pynchon novel and I just think that’s neat

That’s Don Henley for you

A wonderful former student of mine is struggling with medical bills. While access to healthcare without fear of financial hardship shouldn’t be contingent on being a good or talented person, Matthew is both. If you can spare anything, I know it will be deeply appreciated. gofund.me/46c876c0

Academic request: do I know anyone, or do you know anyone, who has access to the journal African Identities?

I don’t speak to my father any more but alas I can never disown his description of TNG as “social workers in space” (he was a social worker)

PSA: due to [reasons] I'm exploring changing my surname to my mother's maiden name, and I'm choosing Bluesky as a consequence-free place to test out how it feels. Given my career choice, this is the only way I'm ever going to obtain Riches.

[Youth Pastor turning to the Book of Genesis] “let me tell you about the original content creator”

Menswear ads on instagram are either for $49 suits from a sketchy dropshipping operation called either Spvrluocyj or Bloodlust and Hinterland Supply Co., or they’re for high-waist trousers that cost five million dollars

They should just make one cleanser and one moisturizer and one sunscreen that are good.

ill-advisedly ambiguous marketing copy from Spirit, here

An obvious point, made many times before, but surely concert ticket prices for established/legacy acts are unsustainable? I love live music, I have a decent salary, but I am simply not paying $140+ (for a crap seat), plus travel and accommodation for Elvis Costello or David Byrne.

Didn't expect to feel such joy and relief that, after 20 years of dross, pointless covers, and screeds about how Klaus Schwab, George Soros, and Bill Gates are trying to stop him touring, Van Morrison has made a mostly good album and returned to songs about remembering place names in Belfast.

The year is 1955 and I am profoundly misunderstanding Bill Haley and His Comets

JFK is a scam to make you so flustered, frustrated and despairing after the three hours of waiting in lines, the missed flight, the bag recheck, the patdown, the being demeaned by 8-10 different staff members, that you’ll gratefully spend $53 on a burrito and a beer to make yourself feel better

[Henry II joins the Beastie Boys] His strong BELIEFS My cause of GRIEF Rid me of this turbulent PRIEST

Faced with a dilemma whenever I place an order in an American cafe and the person asks "what's a good name?" I don't really think Michael's a good name. Fine, serviceable, but nothing striking. Marmaduke is a good name, so is Alphonse, so is Caractacus, so is Cthulhu. They're not *my* name, but...

Terrified by the 14-legged beasts apparently working at the NYT

More theory/crit audiobooks, please!

The secret to Bruce Springsteen’s appeal is the hope he offers to every scrawny pockmarked goofy goober with a bad beard and a dumb hat (which he thinks is cool) that they will actually achieve peak hotness somewhere between 35 and 75

Discovering how much literally anything costs on my health plan:

Cinema has inevitably been an artform in irreversible decline since "Cheekiest Man on Earth" (1907)

Just found out there's another Dr. Michael Docherty based in La Jolla, CA -- the place where Raymond Chandler (the author I've perhaps written on more than any other) lived the last 13 years of his life

What an unexpected delight to receive such a positive and insightful review of my book from Sofía Martinicorena in the latest issue of Western American Literature. So heartening when someone really reads the work, gets what it's trying to do, sees what its value is. muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/artic...

Incredible scenes here in the intro to Barbara Dodds' "Negro Literature for High School Students" (1968), which to be clear is a deeply admirable and farsighted book, but they sure don't write 'em like that any more

Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” (1944)

You’re laughing. They yassified Ernest Hemingway and you’re laughing.

I don't want fried chicken to make me confront my mortality

It gives me great satisfaction that the book manuscript I've been editing (and will be submitting to the press this week) contains citations for both Randy Newman and Henry Rollins (sadly not in the same chapter)

As a scholar of California I really ought to buy this baffling artifact

Truly cannot decide if Barbra's new album is "dream blunt rotation" or "nightmare blunt rotation" territory

"Beach Boys Party!" is the original "Basement Tapes" -- change my mind

Seeing the literal actual Pope being described as a "shitlib" by Mike Cernovich is so (grimly) funny to me. Not just as an assessment of Prevost's stated views but the idea of even trying to fit the office of Pope into that framing. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Chicago Pope. A deep-dish man in a land of thin crusts. This tension may well define his papacy.

[the new pope is Steven Bartlett] "What we need to remember is it's the VatiCAN city not the VatiCAN'T city"

[George Benson voice] just give me the pope

Time has not been kind to Blazin' Squad

New York, London, Paris, Munich Everybody talk about... pope music

The Vatican's social media manager must be so mad about the conclave being so short; they will never get a better opportunity to drive engagement

Such a tell to hear a supposedly expert NYT Daily correspondent describing Warren Buffett as a huge figure in “the world of capitalism”—as if there’s another!

As we enter conclave season, it's more important than ever to stay vigilant!

Hell yes, I love "Twilight." That's right, Anna Deavere Smith's unflinching work of groundbreaking documentary theatre, "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992"

They're simply not making guys with names like Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle any more