Chicago! I'll be giving a little talk about Willa Cather's Chicago and *The Song of the Lark* at this party on Saturday: www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticket... It's a fundraiser for the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame, which does great events and runs a nice website. Come! (And HMU for a discount code.)

This small town community theater production of *Singin' in the Rain* (our kids' favorite movie) is restoring my faith in humanity. (Yes I'm doing the Onion dad "raising my kids on media that their peers find unrelatable" thing, but all their grownup friends find them extra relatable so 🤷‍♂️ )

Since everyone is (sigh) debating if writers benefit from reading books, I dissected a passage shared as “evidence” that non-readers can write great prose: countercraft.substack.com/p/what-not-r...

I've read many stories about the number of adult Catholic baptisms. For perspective, it may be helpful to keep in mind how many have shed religious identity. In the US, there are 8.4 former Catholics for every 1 new Catholic. Globally, there are 3.1 former Christians for every 1 new Christian.

A feature of my patented Hyde Park-Kenwood, Chicago political tour : Jackson's headquarters, Farrakhan's home and headquarters, and Obama's house are basically equidistant from each other within a two-block radius. You could write a great book about Black Chicago around this complicated axis...

There has been constant vandalism at Silverio's memorial (which has a much smaller footprint than Renée's):

Yes. Have her books of course, but my favorite is item is broadside of her Gatsby strips. Makes me laugh every day. Tom's money sounds pretty, pretty, pretty old lmao!

We've been waiting for the crypto money to drop this election cycle. Now it has, in attack ads against two state senators in Illinois who voted to regulate digital assets. www.politico.com/news/2026/02...

The left tried for decades to pass green energy subsidies, passed them, the subsidies worked, and now literally the entire planet's electricity grid is going to convert to solar+battery. It just doesn't feel like "tech" because it mostly produces kinda boring blue collar jobs instead of billionaires

Discovered tonight, during one of our road trip wiki-dive listening tours - this time on history of "hard rock" - that Pat Benatar has a song called "Wuthering Heights." "Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy" ... "Leave behind my Wuthering, Wuthering Wuthering Heights" youtu.be/6o96bRMJ7z4?...

From the excellent "Chess & Literature" exhibit at the World Chess Hall of Fame: - a "man vs nature" Moby-Dick set - a Master and Margarita set - Nabokov's chess novel and his book combining poems and chess puzzles - T.S. Eliot's travel set and puzzle notebook, both treasured heirlooms from his dad

This is obviously true but also there are much deeper currents that go back to before the Great Migration. I honestly think you can't understand this stuff without going back to, like, provincial contempt for Restoration London and Enlightenment Paris.

sometimes the pleasure of browsing bookstores is seeing all the things that you will not be buying

Also in St. Louis: the pianist in a dixieland jazz band asks, idly, if anyone in the audience speaks Yiddish. "Kinda!" I shout. They're about to play "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön." We go back and forth about how to translate the title. (His notes have "To Me You Are Grand"; I say "Ya Look Good to Me.")

Visited the St. Louis arch today. It was kind of startling to realize it wasn't built til the 1960s -- it's so identified with the city that I imagine it being there when Lewis and Clark set out, or as a white pixelated feature in *Oregon Trail*.

As some of you may know, I’m writing a book on the history of high school English in the United States, and I’m excited to share a new article from that project—“High School English and the Making of American Readers”—out today in American Literary History! 🧵 academic.oup.com/alh/article/...

What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? Incomplete. With it an abode of bliss.

maybe it will happen today

Headed to St. Louis this weekend. What's good there? Have been through a few times but never really explored it before.

in a text string after the shooting, a fellow agent told Exum he's a "legend" "Beers on me"

{deep sigh} Please tell me I don't have to write this book Please, HaShem, tell me that SOMEone else understands this meme I just made:

It's the freshwater version of the whaleman's chapel from Moby-Dick

Today's etymological find: The "jan-" in "janitor" is cognate with "Janus," the Roman god of doors. Cerberus is described in Horace as the "ianitor" of the underworld.

Melt and mud commence

My spouse is not on Bluesky, X, etc., so every time I send him a link or screenshot of a quote tweet &c., he gets confused, and I have to explain, “it’s like the Talmud; it’s like the Talmud”

This is true but also the whole alt text culture here is so weird. If you don't use alt text people will chide you, reply by adding alt text, etc., but if you add alt text that's like some abstruse joke that doesn't describe the image at all people are like "great job."

A friend who works at a local journalism nonprofit just said that they're getting applications from, like, people with 15 years of experience at the BBC to fill what, in the before times, would have been early career jobs. It's getting fully as bad as academia over there isn't it.

today's offering: pancake ice

I love how this (credulous but rather innocent) article is introduced with "Who Is Baal?" as if the deity is being cancelled over his Epstein connections

Finally got it after weeks of trying to make this shape in porcelain, for a pair of lamps a friend asked for. Being able to make this shape materialize from mud has always been the dream.

Saw this in a book about the history of ceramics. I cannot unsee it ... I can only make you see it with me. www.ashmolean.org/dish-composi...

My in-laws live in Woodstock and that place is so obsessed with the movie Groundhog Day (which was filmed there). The burger bar has burgers named for the characters; the film locations are marked with plaques; etc etc. It's like they're stuck reliving the same experience forever ...

The University of Illinois revoked the student org status of Students for Justice in Palestine over their anti-genocide protests and forced leaders and most members to attend mandatory "trainings."

There is a very similar pattern for Black over-representation in the military, which is often the employer of last resort in a society with rampant labor market discrimination keeping folks out of other jobs.

Epstein’s economic power among academics was made possible by a capitalist system that makes higher education dependent on the charity economy rather than a public good supported by taxing the rich

Minnesotans on Lake Bde Maka Ska (formerly Lake Calhoun) in Minneapolis. Jan. 30, 2026. 📷: WCCO-TV

Continuing on my bullshit

Poking around on the old job market, and a local community college is hiring for a position called "Adjunct Faculty, Continuing Education - Dungeons & Dragons." The job description explains nothing. Like, are they saying they'd pay me to run a game for adult learners? Cuz, would.

The article doesn't mention that the ADL, which condemns Walz, has taken a hard right turn recently. So has the Holocaust Museum, which now has Trump appointees on its board. It's political grandstanding. I'm Jewish, and I think this analogy is entirely appropriate and, in fact, dead on.

A thread on escalations in ICE tactics I've noted, that struck me as over & beyond what we saw them do in Chicago. (Besides the murders. I don't think I have to mention that, but they did that in Chicago too.) For my own reference & preparedness

Today most ice seems to have sunk under the weight of overlying snow, leaving picturesque ice islands at shallow spots.

In case anyone was wondering how it’s going over on American Girl doll Instagram

Crowd is massive, now overflowing Congress Plaza and taking up a block-long stretch of Michigan Avenue. Reminder: this event was only announced yesterday.

Good afternoon from downtown Chicago, where despite heavy snowfall, thousands have gathered for an anti-ICE/CBP demonstration in solidarity with the Twin Cities. More are still streaming in. Lt. Illinois Gov. Juliana Stratton just addressed the crowd, and called for ICE to be abolished.

Finally made it to the head of the column. The lead vehicle is leading a chant of "abolish ICE, it's not that hard!" Meanwhile visibility is dropping as the snow keeps coming down.

*frozen moonscape intensifies*

People are rightly angry at the murders of Good and Pretti, and the fact they're on video in broad daylight surely contributes, but there's no avoiding how little mention of Keith Porter there is. And ICE has shot or otherwise killed non-citizens, who are no less deserving of attention.

Nearly gasped when I saw the lake frozen over this morning, out to the horizon in some places. It always takes my breath away -- my favorite natural sight, and every time I see it now, I wonder if it's gonna be the last.

Saying there must be trials isn't just an emotive aspiration. Congress can: - Create a new court (complying w/ 6A jury vicinage) - Give it jurisdiction over defined category of crimes - Also create dedicated prosecutors for the same - Strip SCOTUS of appellate jurisdiction It can be done.

Nearly gasped when I saw the lake frozen over this morning, out to the horizon in some places. It always takes my breath away -- my favorite natural sight, and every time I see it now, I wonder if it's gonna be the last.