One little thing you can do if you’re feeling helpless tonight: throw a few bucks to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. They’re reportedly stretched thin for obvious reasons and could use some help if you can offer it. www.ilcm.org?ref=badfaith...

Okay, so. Time to leverage some clout. If you are outside MN and don't know how to help, here's one way. Pick a fund from standwithminnesota.com and I'll match them up to $1000. Post a receipt if you want but I'll probably believe you

Democratic leaders need to fear being branded as collaborators more than they fear being called soft on crime

Eight minutes matters. A pulse matters. Denied medical care matters. Doctors don’t speak out like this for politics or optics. They speak out when a line is crossed, when an oath is violated, when someone who could have been helped is instead left to die. It’s utterly vile they have to do this.

Watch that. And then tell me how we replace Schumer with her

i was talking with someone in the twin cities about how it’s not even accurate to call them protesters. they’re literally just people protecting their city from TERRORISTS.

New: We built an interactive map of every ICE contractor working with the Trump administration. readsludge.com/2026/01/16/t...

one year since David Lynch passed, happy friday and RIP big dawg

I find it necessary these days to affirm the obvious because the descent into fascism is mostly a continuous, not discrete, process so here it goes: these are internal checkpoints by secret police for what is routine freedom of movement.

So she had a pulse. That’s what the doctor on the scene wanted to check. She wasn’t breathing, but she had a pulse. He could have started CPR right away. Instead ICE barred the doctor from attending her and waited 15 mins for EMT to get to her.

pulling this reflection on white silence/fear over here, too:

“I will be blind for life. They pulled a piece of plastic the size of a nickel out of my eye. I had shards of metal, glass, plastic in my skull. They said it was a miracle I survived.” Kaden Rummler was shot in the face by Trump’s ICE goons, then dragged

Imagine doing a PhD in electricity, just so you knew how to blow up nuclear power plants and heavy water-producing facilities. “I learned from them very early that what one does with Nazis is kill them... I am not a pacifist.” A profile in absolute courage.

I know that our attention is being pulled in so many directions, but if you have a few bucks to spare for my friend Ramzi, I would be so grateful. He needs to buy a water tank so that his family has access to clean water, and donations have stalled. If 12 people donate 10 euros, he’ll have enough.

“The development of a feminist consciousness, for Kraf, is the fall from Eden, out of a blissful, childlike ignorance and into the unbearable knowledge of the impossible condition of womanhood.”

i reviewed a book on sexual violence that utterly baffled me in its final section newrepublic.com/article/2042...

i reviewed a book on sexual violence that utterly baffled me in its final section newrepublic.com/article/2042...

"It wasn't murder, and if you say it was murder we will kill you, which again will not be murder."

Second piece of 2026! For @theatlantic.com, I wrote about Kay Cicellis’s brilliant, brutal short story trilogy, The Way to Colonos, which consists of three modern retellings of Sophoclean tragedies. This one is for all the Greek mythology girlies. ❤️ Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...

For #smallpoemsunday, from i Was Working by Ariel Yelen

Here’s my first piece of 2026! For @washingtonpost.com’s Book World, I had the pleasure of reviewing Trina Moyles’ fascinating, deeply sensitive memoir, Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival, which recontextualizes humanity in a compelling way. Gift link: wapo.st/3L1SDc5

I've been deep in Daniel Berrigan's writing, thinking abt our genocide in Vietnam, early attacks on Afghanistan, the war on Iraq, etc. etc. Waking up to news about Venezuela felt both surreal and inevitable. It's so past time to admit this what America has been and what we the people allow (demand?)

2026 in: me never worrying about money again / me having the most hot rod little bod of all time / my bf loving me even more deeply with each passing day / me being universally praised and possibly given a nobel out: anything bad

happy birthday all horses (northern hemisphere)

Ramzi is struggling to raise the money he needs to buy food for his family. If everybody who sees this donates just 5 dollars, he’ll have what he needs. chuffed.org/project/1319...

2025 was an excellent year for books, if nothing else...

every >6 minute joanna newsom song 💜

rewatching to see if true detective season 2 is still bad, and baby, you guessed it ...

Gay hockey show and Trauma Plot by @veryhotmomm.bsky.social - seems like a solid morning to me 🩷

James Merril’s poem “Christmas Tree,” written while he was dying of AIDS. 1995.

Laura Palmer's Theme

accidentally walked in front of a bunch of teens making a tiktok video last night and they yelled YOU FUCKING BITCH YOU FUCKING WHORE at me for like five minutes while i waited to cross the intersection ... baby, the kids ARE alright :)

maybe santa will bring me the thousands of dollars in freelance payments i'm owed before i pay rent in 10 days ♥️

That we need the files of a dead man to corroborate the reported trauma of over a thousand women - and that even those files need to be cartoonishly redacted - pretty much says everything about whose experience is considered real.

i finalized the manuscript of trauma plot in june '23; by the time it published 9 months later, we'd re-elected a man convicted of sexual abuse to the presidency; 9 months after *that* we're here (not that we ever weren't, but the shamelessness of this kind of talk feels appalingly normalized)

watching this in public was a huge mistake, oh my god. the fact he's still eating like he isn't being violently thrown around is killing me.

what is almost certainly my last newsletter of the year, on hope, ego, and some recent films: proustproject.substack.com/p/xix-on-hope

“I wanted heaven But space spat me out. I heard earth girls are easy. I’m so easy I only learned how to fight Back last week. I didn’t win. But I cured my depression By making the bed!” - Jamie Hood (@veryhotmomm.bsky.social) voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/m...

pretending you're going to take a big chomp out of your dog is one of life's most wondrous experiences

as some of you know, i've been working on a series of unhinged, unpolished love poems all year and now one of them is floating out in the world voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/m...

🍁 fall issue's up! 🍁 ft. @veryhotmomm.bsky.social, @jennacardinale.bsky.social, @aporianautics.bsky.social, @c-late.bsky.social, & more! voicemailpoems.org/2025/11/07/f...

"World's first potential trillionaire has killed 600,000 people, including 400,000 children" is the only headline that anyone should ever read about Elon Musk

my new mayor getting sexual predators off the streets on day 1 i KNOW thats right

heads up to anyone who holds trans kids near: amy harmon from the nyt is searching for and having a hard time finding people to interview to find out exactly what trans kids are doing when their care is limited or cut off, and for purposes of community safety, please shut the fuck up around her.

was totally slammed and miserable bartending an election watch party last night but i also cried in front of 300 people during his acceptance speech ... woman, multitudes, et cetera

I've pledged not to write for the NYT until it reviews its anti-Palestinian bias, retracts "Screams Without Words," and calls for a U.S. arms embargo on Israel. I'm honored to join Catherine Lacey, Kiese Laymon, Sally Rooney, and many more in this www.boycottdivestunsubscribe.com/opinion-boyc...

Today ICE arrested New Yorkers in a shameful raid on Canal Street. I joined my colleagues outside of Federal Plaza to call for Mayor Adams to STAND UP for New York immigrants and REMOVE ICE from NYC. We are a sanctuary city and we will protect our neighbors. #ICEOutofNY

the transcript is up for the conversation with Diana Arterian: tinhouse.com/transcript/b...

after the hunt was so beautifully shot and performed that i almost forgot how ideologically incoherent and basically evil it was