"...No nurse should be asked to accept less pay, fewer benefits, or less dignity for doing lifesaving work. Our nurses have kept this city alive through its hardest moments. Their value is not negotiable.” —New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani

It’s out in German and will be soon in English: Jeff Brown and I considered the new Matthias Pintscher opera DAS KALTE HERZ at Staatsoper Berlin.

I went to see Hamnet and found it pretty tedious, though I may be allergic to this genus of weepy period piece:

BREAKING: Jeff Bezos’ ex-wife has made a “transformational” donation to the LGBTQ+ advocacy group. This large gift comes just months after the Trump administration shut down counseling services for queer youth. My latest for @wired.com:

Somali aunties were giving out samosas to the anti ICE protesters in Minneapolis.

Really saddened and shocked to hear of Andrew Clements' death. A wonderful critic, matchless on 20 and 21st century music, and a great colleague and friend to whom I owe an immense debt of gratitude for his role in giving me my own break as a critic. It's a huge loss. And he will be greatly missed.

we’re in the vet’s office waiting room and they just called for Agamemnon. we all looked at the Great Dane but it turns out Agamemnon is an orange kitten in a backpack that makes him look like an astronaut cheese puff

Immigration agents have shot at least nine people since September. All of them have been in cars.

If calling a state secret police agent a murderer for committing murder will lead to more murder by the state secret police, it sure seems like the problem is with the secret police

"In America, when a officer murders an innocent person, billionaires give them a cash bonus."

The American Dialect Society's Word of the Year is SLOP! “Slop isn’t a new word. It has moved from the pig sty, to the algorithm, and now forms newcompounds such as sloppunk, slopification, and friend slop,” Dr. Kelly Elizabeth Wright said. “This productivity has no end in sight.” 🧵

excuse me @mayor.nyc.gov, will you invite the unhoused basement bear to live in the greatest city in the world

On Festen, my favourite opera of 2025

Gonna have to rename the Streisand Effect the Bari Weiss Effect

Can you believe I paid less than a dollar for all these hits?!??!

Not the Onion. Literally, NOT the Onion. @bencollins.bsky.social

The storied Washington National Opera decides to leave the Kennedy Center where it has played since 1971, perhaps the most significant artistic rebuke yet to Trump’s campaign to remake the facility in his image and attach his name to it. @adamnagourney.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/a...

I will read every interview with Heated Rivalry writer and director Jacob Tierney because his quotes are truly a reporter's dream: www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

Looks like ICE is now cracking down on … Native Americans. This letter was just posted by the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North/South Dakota: “Our Nation is a sovereign government and our members are not immigrants. We are not subject to immigration enforcement on our own lands.”

Great @vanityfair.com story about how wealthy Upper East Side "liberals" have gone full QAnon about Mamdani. www.vanityfair.com/news/story/m...

In a @phillymag.com exclusive, here's the inside story of how Sasha Suda's reign at the Philadelphia Art Museum fell apart so spectacularly, and the board of directors who made it happen.

A photo essay from @chrisgeidner.bsky.social on Washington, D.C.’s 14th Street protest on Thursday evening. “The people, united, will never be defeated.“ www.lawdork.com/p/dc-ice-pro...

Hochul and Mamdani Announce Plan to Make N.Y. Child Care Universal in a rational world, this policy should make natalists happy, but it probably won't www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/n...

More violence. It is not an accident. The goal is to scare us.

this guy is a fucking hero

Music, non-stop. Get ready for the biggest week in contemporary music, plus listings for recommended new-music performances Jan. 8–13, 2026. Photograph: Gelsey Bell by Maria Baranova

this is just a correlation but there has been a sharp rise in men using the hip abduction machine at the gym ever since the gay hockey show came out

Here is a poem Renee Good, under her earlier name Renee Macklin, wrote, "On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs." It won a prize. It's really good. "it’s the ruler by which i reduce all things now; hard-edged & splintering from knowledge." poets.org/2020-on-lear...

This is what broke me: her own words. lithub.com/renee-nicole...

On only hours notice, hundreds of New Yorkers are gathering in Foley Square to protest the murder of Renee Nicole Good

I wish negative major historical inflection points would stop occurring on a daily basis.

"A doctor at the scene attempted to help the woman who was shot, but was kept away by federal agents. When an ambulance finally arrived, it was blocked from reaching her by law-enforcement vehicles, and paramedics had to reach her on foot. The woman has died." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

everything today is ahhhhhh so here’s my dog

Breaking news: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, one of the oldest American newspapers, says it will close down, citing losses and labor rules. The newspaper will print its final edition May 3.

see it say it sorted

Fate of B.C.’s drug #decriminalization pilot to be determined. Province’s pilot is set to expire Jan. 31. Premier Eby says old policy on public drug use will not return, by @andreawoo.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/briti... via @theglobeandmail.com #HarmReduction

You're not ready for the name of the energy transition specialist at Heat Pump Association UK

The Globe and Mail is now running scenarios for how the US may take parts of Canada.

Copy Editing Matters, from HHS's release on the new childhood vaccine schedule: All the diseases will still be available to anyone who wants them

Amanda Burrows has put forward the first major policy promise of the OneCity mayoral nomination race in Vancouver: a Community Food Trust on city-owned land

Folks interested in science philanthropy should read this interview w/Simons Foundation President David Spergel on the role of philanthropy, support of early career scientists (from incentives to a call for more retirements), and the pivot point between future scenarios. issues.org/american-sci...

We got one of these too, for a paper in revision - which creates a nightmare for ownership of ideas; we all collectively decided not to open it, but what if we had? Could this guy try to claim authorship on our paper? Would we be at risk of being accused of violating journal AI policies?

Not the first time this new regime has dealt a body blow to the classical music institutions in America, wondering how many it will take before one of the speaks up

Just wanted to say I'm a big fan of Parker Molloy's newsletter The Present Age! She does great media criticism and I just read her last, excellent piece about Jack Smith's House Judiciary Committee deposition www.readtpa.com

A reminder that before France & the US overthrew Aristede in 2004 they called him & his circle drug traffickers too. Their real reason: stopping Aristede from pressing a case for reparations, not only for slavery but for the Indemnity (debt France made Haiti pay for *depriving slaveholders* of $)

the news story that associated zohran mamdani with nicolas maduro because they both identify as socialists appears to have been edited to be slightly less insane www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/w...

The inevitable Globe and Mail editorial: "International law should be respected, but in this case Maduro was a bad guy so Trump's imperial actions have merit. But can Canada's oil sector now compete?"

New Interview: www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a...

And there ya have it… Officials from top Wall Street firms will be traveling to Venezuela to investigate “investment prospects” of the country. “The trip will feature about 20 officials from the finance, energy and defense sectors.”

you're telling me Bush set a precedent that's been abused by Trump? i'm shocked, SHOCKED i say