hey man is everything ok? I noticed when we fled a scary cave, you ran head first into every single stalactite, and every single stalagmite you tried to hurdle hit you squarely in the crotch—meanwhile i was weaving though the very same obstacles with no issue, like the wind itself

the prose in my latest novel is so breezy, people can read all 500 pages in one sitting and remember nothing about it, and the prose in my 500 word flash fiction piece is so turgid, not even one reader has ever finished it, but they all have a million opinions about what it means

“mandalorian and grogu” is how I have always referred to fiction and poetry, and I’m sad that they are now making it mean something else

hey man is everything ok? I noticed a pretty big asteroid hitting nearby where you live, causing an incomprehensible cataclysm

hey man is everything ok? I noticed your sworn allies, fatigued by the frequency of your psychological collapses, and baffled by their esoteric character, were beginning to ghost on you

hey man is everything ok? I noticed that since the dawn of time, another continent was plowing into you at the rate of an inch per year, causing huge mountains to form on you

We need a new “We Didn’t Start the Fire” song about recent current events, but not by Billy Joel, by one of those new cool people that have a billion followers on tiktok, like Amanda Spaxola or Devirka jeMure or whatever their names are

The Met Gala is being attacked by a giant cowboy hat with spider legs, skittering here and there and tucking fleeing celebs up into its digestive sac. Disgraceful.

every spiritual discrepancy: resolved youtu.be/u5rBhhlkm2s?...

hey man is everything ok? I noticed you were inexpertly milking the treasure trove of intellectual property you technically and legally control

adding “this is not my tombstone. it is my stepping stone” to the list of things my wife won’t let me put on my tombstone

hey man is everything ok? I noticed you read the last line of a haiku first, the first line second, and the middle line last

hey man is everything ok? I noticed your gritty, unflinching civil war drama—a masterpiece of action, acting, production design, and cinematography—had a discordantly lush synthpop soundtrack, recasting our nation’s greatest tragedy—and triumph—as something to simply dance or shop to

our village woolmonger’s suit against the weaver’s guild is a legal gordian knot with ramifications for trade across the duchy, yet every stable boy and tavern wench with a fucking garment to their name is popping off with an opinion like they’re monastery-educated jurists

one of the only downsides of actions is consequences. but it's a big downside.

hey man is everything okay? I noticed you’re tagging the albums you’re adding to your bandcamp page as ambient despite them being full of pulsing house style beats in 4/4

peasant farmers, tavern wenches, and stable boys don’t know shit about the types of things blacksmiths, wool merchants, and weavers get up to

was dressing a hotdog and had the thought: “ketchup is consolation. mustard is advice.”

hey man is everything ok? your normally wet, piglike eyes are even more glistening and porcine than usual

trying to help sci fi writers break out of their ruts open.substack.com/pub/markleid...

everything I say is an artfully veiled sarcasm, a joke of such sophistication that anyone who falls into my meticulous trap of belief immediately reveals themselves a boorish rube of the highest caliber. whereas everything you say is an honest admission, a disgusting truth borne of an ugly soul

the beatles having a song called "mean mr. mustard" is a joke id make about the Beatles

hey man is everything ok? I noticed your data recording instruments were registering a profusion of unprecedented and fragmentary signals, indicating that some kind of outlandish activity capable of defeating all of your attempts at analysis was at hand

the words that make up the title THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU are unpleasant and the order in which those words appear is upsetting

some of y’all need to spend less time worrying about ben lerner and more time just “been learning” what good literature is

Feeling inspired by Artemis II and reading @markleidner.bsky.social’s RAMDOM MOONS from our “POP!” issue. Read along with us: tinyurl.com/ExpoRandom. #moon #space #poetry

hey man is everything okay? I noticed that you have been haunted by an immense and shapeless sorrow all your life, and neither the the gratitude practice you’ve woven into your daily routine, nor your incessant clawing for influence online has been able to permanently exorcise it

dreamt my therapist was also a billionaire and they had their own therapist who was homeless. the whole time I was in therapy I couldn’t concentrate on my own needs bc I was so distracted by the fact that my therapist was a billionaire who also got therapy from a homeless person

Padme: I think the yellow M&M is kinda cute ☺️ Unassuming and nice. I guess that’s why….. I always save the yellow ones for last… Anakin: 😏 I like grinding the shells 😒 in my teeth and 😔 spitting the chocolate onto the hot grass 😌 To put spit onto my grass out here.

if your convulsions don’t steadily intensify, peaking in a final, violent convulsion that brings about a blessed oblivion and allows you to actually leave the chrysalis of the flesh behind, then you’re not convulsing correctly or effectively

imo the bottom right quadrant is the “cool” quadrant on a standard four-quadrant grid. and no, idgaf what the axes are labeled

dreamt golfers were crucified if they shanked a drive, and the fairways were lined with the crucified golfers each hole had claimed, many of them still alive, moaning and groaning their warnings about which clubs not to use as the new golfers passed through

every toilet in the world should be connected to the internet, and flushing it should mine a digital asset

these are straight up movies. they just happen to be in poem form because I couldn’t pull the funding together to make them conventionally markleidner.substack.com/p/four-poems-that-are-a24-films

hey man is everything ok? I noticed you playing musical chairs with your coworkers; your boss controlled the music; when the music stopped, everyone but you had a chair; your boss pulled you aside; he said you were fired; your coworkers sighed; you slunk away in sobs

William Butler Yeats gazing in the direction of Bethlehem:

the big-quad-trad-pub-arc-drop challenge is when you publish 4 books in 4 genres in 1 year, each through a different traditional big 4 publisher like simon & schuster or penguin random house, and all 4 advanced review copies hit 4 diff reviewers’ desks on or before midnight 12/31

my creative writing pastor told me that clear, lucid prose that seamlessly communicates without self-consciously highlighting its own stylistic inventiveness is “godly,” and lyrical prose whose idiosyncratic syntax and diction excites and prods, regardless of the content conveyed, is “satanic”

hey man is everything ok? I noticed you seemed to be an inert hulk of irrelevant language convulsing at the center of a disappearing halo

if you can’t handle keeping me and my family in your thoughts and prayers, then you don’t deserve me respecting the privacy of you and your family at this time

the episode is the powerhouse of the show

hey man is everything ok? I noticed you lived in the wrong place and were the wrong religion and had the wrong culture

if you don’t rewatch all the old episodes of every show with me, afterwards you won’t know what’s going on in them as well as I will. I’m serious, don’t do this to yourself. don’t do this to us. don’t build that damn wall between us. rewatch every episode of everything with me

if you look at the strait of hormuz and immediately get strait of gibraltar vibes, you’re not a real strait head

if you buy one slice of pizza, it should entitle you to eat any other slice pizza for the rest of your life. in other words, pizza should be free to anyone w documentation proving they have bought pizza before—because all pizza is connected in the same way mycelium networks are

there should be a whole new system of numbers based on there being a number between every number: one twone two thrwo three throur four fourve five sive six sevix seven eiven eight nieght nine teine ten elen eleven tweven twelve thirlve thirteen throurteen fourteen fourveteen fifteen siveteen etc

hey man are you ok? I noticed you have a bunch of unique attributes but none of them happen to be aligned with the actual niche you inhabit

love this poem about why poetry is the way it is among other things @darabarroisdixon.bsky.social Dara Barrois/Dixon in new iterant.org

every spider is actually a tiny artificially intelligent robot and every web they weave is AI slop