Via the wayback machine, budgies.

Just endured all of that interview with Jeff Bezos. Too much money contorts any human being. And what was once a man is now, for the rest of the world, a fully metastasized cancer.

Nice.

if you subscribe to the print edition of the Star Tribune, you will not be served this portrait of the GOP-endorsed candidate who strangled his former fiancee and threatened to kill her

The @authorsguild.org has won a default judgment against deadbeat publisher TouchPoint Press, enabling 18 writers to get their rights back authorsguild.org/news/authors...

The vice president of the United States is just standing up here saying people should feel sorry for domestic terrorists who were given free and fair trials and were then convicted in a court of law. Absolutely despicable.

In case you need any more motivation to hold the most corrupt "president" in U.S. history accountable. #Register&VOTE 🌊

This sucks, and it does, but Google search sucks now, too. In just the last year or so, searching up stuff has become considerably harder -- it invents entire false headlines and descriptive bits that, when you click through, you see are wrong and contain none of the relevant info it claimed it had.

“Most of the world’s problems are phallic.” - Jonathan Ames

Where do you stand on Trump’s corrupt $1.776 billion dollar taxpayer-funded boondoggle for the January 6 insurrectionists, #RepTomTiffany? If you don’t want to answer here, perhaps you’ll have to during your Wisconsin gubernatorial campaign.

“When I was just 3 years old, I learned to recognize plainclothes police officers and undercover agents in a crowd,” he writes. “It was a bit like playing a game—a grown-up version of dress-up or make believe—that only my family was good at or knew all the rules.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/b...

Pretty cool.

The felon-in-chief’s administration, saving the tax payer every single day.

I’m firmly in favor of each and every one of these guys coming face to face with the public and realizing in real time that they’re unlikable, antisocial goons

The Jacobeans had a sure grasp of catastrophe. They understood not only evil, it seemed, but the extravagance of tricks with which evil presents itself as good. --Donna Tartt, THE SECRET HISTORY ('an extravagance of tricks' feels very apt to today's disinformation landscape)

Kobayashi Issa Thus spring begins: old stupidities repeated, new errs invented [tr. Sam Hamill] Photo: Issa’s grave

Seedling Friday

The CDC failed to warn New York public health authorities about a Manhattan resident who is now traveling freely after being exposed to the hantavirus on the cruise ship.

When given the options of "true," "false" or "not sure," and asked whether each of the incidents "was staged," a majority of respondents said they thought each event was either staged or were unsure. n.pr/4nrbbRJ

“Red, White and Kinda Blue,” by Barry Blitt, one of the truly great covers of the American Fascist era.

Here’s @gabino.bsky.social with the word: Publishers and money: a short guide for new authors open.substack.com/pub/gabinoig...

Happy Mother’s Day!

Lulu wants to give her gift this evening, but she’s been overruled.

My favorite story collection and anthology from the past year are now Anthony Award nominees! Congratulations, @cwblackwell.bsky.social and @curtisippolito.bsky.social!

Tom Tiffany voted for this: Medicaid cuts’ impact to cost Wisconsin $7 billion in 10 years, advocacy group says wisconsinexaminer.co... #wipolitics

“My mind shot back a decade, to that day we had marched into Vietnam, swaggering, confident and full of idealism,” he wrote. “We had believed we were there for a high moral purpose. But somehow our idealism was lost, our morals corrupted and the purpose forgotten.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/b...

GOP candidate for governor Tom Tiffany voted against protecting abortion access across state lines www.wispolitics.com/... #wipolitics

Join us Monday, May 18 from 5 to 6:39 pm at Tredyffryn Public Library for MWA-NY's panel, Creating Unforgettable Characters. With Jane Kelly, myself, John Dobbyn and moderated by Michael Bradley. See you there! ccls.libcal.com/event/16690759

“The complaint accuses Meta and Zuckerberg of illegally using millions of copyrighted works to train their artificial intelligence program Llama, and of removing copyright notices and other copyright management information from those works.” www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/b...

“If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” HBD, Orson Welles ... 📷Irving Penn, 1945

I knew I shouldn’t have put away the snow shovels.

“We have people who are interested in doing nationally resonant work. They’re just as ambitious about pushing themselves as anyone else, but it’s not at the expense of other writers. Our local writers are really trying to lift each other up & show up for each other.” captimes.com/entertainmen...

“The ugly truth is that many authors don’t like each other even if they won’t admit it,” Patricia Cornwell writes. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/b...

Remember Kent State, May4 www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN_9...

R.I.P. Beverley Martyn youtu.be/MWSdgs4hxIs

County commissioners in Utah are meeting today to decide whether to approve a massive data center -- one that would require double the amount of energy the entire state uses. And no public input is allowed. www.sltrib.com/news/2026/04...

“He’s the kind of smug little prick who Cal reckons spent much of his schooldays getting his head flushed down the john, although apparently not regularly enough to do much good.” Tana French, THE KEEPER #SundaySentence

"The surgeon asked me not to move my eyes. He was specific. He told me if I moved them, the red dot would lacerate my retina." If eye surgery wasn't already horrific enough, Nora Ray adds a whole new layer in the unsettling displacement of her weird horror story "LASIK".

Say, it’s #IndependentBookstoreDay and I’m headed out to my local indie, Foxes and Fireflies. I know you can go too, and maybe purchase this, my first short story collection, signed. 🫰

Uncle Hal at right, with ghost view of Mount Fuji in the background (July 21, 1949)

Good lord, how depressing it is to read this Liebling paragraph about Earl Long and be able to apply every line to the past decade.

Thanks, Gabino! ON COMICS AND GRIEF combines a look at the comic books of 1976 with creative nonfiction about my Mom’s life and my grief at her death. www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Books/O/On-C...

Out next week. A true modern classic

thanks Gabino! my latest novella, Amusement Park Arcana has ebook preorders open! Action Park meets The Backrooms in 1994 books2read.com/AmusementPar...

Thanks Gabino! Couple of new things coming. Story in @literarygarage.bsky.social new Warren Zevon antho later this this year. More on that soon. And here's one of several awesome cover tries on my latest novel (design by @oivas.com), a brutal, heartbreaking thing coming in 2026: