fascism is when you make me root for Jimmy Kimmel

I wish I could read Adorno on the Disney adults

made a van morrison playlist for a skeptic (excluding moondance, astral weeks, “gloria,” & other obvious selections) open.spotify.com/playlist/0Mr...

made a van morrison playlist for a skeptic (excluding moondance, astral weeks, “gloria,” & other obvious selections) open.spotify.com/playlist/0Mr...

my best-of-year playlist so far, from Miley Cyrus to Pissgrave open.spotify.com/playlist/5QI...

“Masochism and apocalypse are deeply interconnected for me, their common denominator anxiety.” Michael Robbins ( @alienvsrobbins.bsky.social ) on kink in dark times. buff.ly/5GKZpez

my best-of-year playlist so far, from Miley Cyrus to Pissgrave open.spotify.com/playlist/5QI...

People who watch awards shows, you are as mysterious to me as people who collect glass figurines of corgis

People who watch awards shows, you are as mysterious to me as people who collect glass figurines of corgis

neither Van Morrison nor Deftones have any business making great records this late in the game but here we are

One thing I love about Van Morrison—a very problematic artist in many ways—is his penchant for just making up language that sounds vaguely mythological. What is the Veedon Fleece? St. Dominic’s Preview? Blue regretion? No one knows, not even he

Whether or not you support political violence won’t change where we’ve come to, nor where we’ve been for some time in this country. I am quite taken aback by how many people only invoke the term ‘political violence’ when it happens to a person with power. It’s political violence the other way too.

I read Greil Marcus's Mystery Train in college; it, along with Lipstick Traces, changed my life. I never imagined I would someday find myself in its pages. I wish I could tell my 19-year-old self From the forthcoming 50th Anniversary Edition:

Jonathan Swift invented the name Vanessa. For some reason I think about this a lot. I wonder how many Vanessas know it

I read Greil Marcus's Mystery Train in college; it, along with Lipstick Traces, changed my life. I never imagined I would someday find myself in its pages. I wish I could tell my 19-year-old self From the forthcoming 50th Anniversary Edition:

"I mean, we're so old—we've been going on for eight years and we can't go on for another eight.... I just can't, I mean we're so old—Bill's thirty-three!" — Mick Jagger in 1969

"I mean, we're so old—we've been going on for eight years and we can't go on for another eight.... I just can't, I mean we're so old—Bill's thirty-three!" — Mick Jagger in 1969

Highest level of support since Gallup started asking this question a quarter century ago

I almost regret to report that five years after his disgusting anti-lockdown “protest“ songs, Van Morrison has made a great record open.spotify.com/album/5Xvc6O...

stumbled upon this weird little fountain in an “impasse“ in Paris then came home to find the book of Atget’s photographs I’d ordered. opened it up to the very fountain, c. 1900

Ok so in case yall missed the memo like I did. David Lehman, series editor of Best American Poetry is a Zionist ass. Literally feel embarrassed that I wound up in this situation. I was literally the only person of color in a room of 50+ people. It was terrifying. #poetry #bestamericanpoetry

stumbled upon this weird little fountain in an “impasse“ in Paris then came home to find the book of Atget’s photographs I’d ordered. opened it up to the very fountain, c. 1900

these guys are now one wack job away from openly espousing the restoration of slavery

"Bomarzo, my God, what a novel!" Michael Robbins reviewed Manuel Mujica Lainez's Bomarzo for @bookpostusa.bsky.social "There is no reason Bomarzo should be less well known in English than Hopscotch or One Hundred Years."

I wrote about Mujica Lainez’s grotesque, glorious masterpiece Bomarzo, which deserves to be as well known in English as One Hundred Years of Solitude, for @bookpostusa.bsky.social. Newly reissued by @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social books.substack.com/p/review-mic...

The special section from our 50th anniversary issue, The Responsibility of Intellectuals in the Age of Fascism and Genocide, is now online. Robin D. G. Kelley revisits Noam Chomsky’s classic argument, with @dwaldstreicher.bsky.social, Jennifer Zacharia, and @martinoneill.bsky.social.

I wrote about Mujica Lainez’s grotesque, glorious masterpiece Bomarzo, which deserves to be as well known in English as One Hundred Years of Solitude, for @bookpostusa.bsky.social. Newly reissued by @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social books.substack.com/p/review-mic...

“Ten billion snow crabs have disappeared from the Bering Sea. Oceans have never been this hot in recorded history. The one torture method G proposed that I shut down immediately was cold-water immersion. Researchers say the ocean is suffocating.” —@alienvsrobbins.bsky.social buff.ly/AL2A8j0

One of the better essays I’ve read about seeing a Domme - among other things. harpers.org/archive/2025... via @harpers.bsky.social

when I read some infuriating bullshit about AI I think of something Calvino wrote in 1985 (!!): “we are in danger of losing a basic human faculty: the power to bring visions into focus with our eyes closed, to cause colors and shapes to spring forth from an array of black characters on a white page”

when I read some infuriating bullshit about AI I think of something Calvino wrote in 1985 (!!): “we are in danger of losing a basic human faculty: the power to bring visions into focus with our eyes closed, to cause colors and shapes to spring forth from an array of black characters on a white page”

“When we met for the first time a couple weeks later, she pissed on my socks and beat me until I bruised with the copy of Mary Gaitskill’s Bad Behavior I’d brought her, stupidly thinking she was soliciting a gift when she told me to bring a book I loved.”

do stop believin' let go of that feelin'

do stop believin' let go of that feelin'

I have an essay in this month’s @harpers.bsky.social on freaking out during the pandemic & hiring a dominatrix & how this relates to our historical moment of deranged vibes probably TMI

damn, RIP. as I wrote years ago, "The American mastodon (the name means 'nipple tooth,' which would also be a good name for a metal band) weighed around five tons, which is exactly how much the Atlanta band’s music weighs"

‪Michael Robbins (alienvsrobbins.bsky.social‬) writes about dominatrixes and apocalyptic anxieties. harpers.org/archive/2025...y/

I have an essay in this month’s @harpers.bsky.social on freaking out during the pandemic & hiring a dominatrix & how this relates to our historical moment of deranged vibes probably TMI

when I'm in Paris later this month I will visit Jim Morrison's grave but I will do so ironically

when I'm in Paris later this month I will visit Jim Morrison's grave but I will do so ironically

it would suck to be an astronaut because yeah you get to go to the moon but then for the rest of yr life you’re like “sigh it was better on the moon”

the only good joke anyone has ever made about my wearing a mask indoors—in rural NJ, no less, at the State Fair: a man inviting us to the Renaissance Faire: “and we have no plague this year, milord!”