I’d have more concern for folks freaking out about Zohran Mamdani’s win if they could also define what a democratic socialist even is.

You really let me down Minneapolis. Jacob Frey is the opposite of Mamdani in every way. Phony, petty, cruel, unable to communicate or lead. He has no discernible policy plan. He doesn’t care about the city he’s been selected to run, just that he won in spite of his detractors. Truly disheartening.

Jon Stewart running cover for Joe Rogan isn’t surprising, but it’s still pretty gross. Rogan may not have started out as “that guy,” Jon, but he certainly is now. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

👇👇👇👇👇👇

Patton Oswalt’s #ghostbox2025 for Hingston & Olsen ends with Bok’s “The Extremophiles” - the natural world can be just as strange as the supernatural. An unkillable organism deserves a drink to match - a Zombie cocktail in a Cthulhu mug with extreme garnishment was my best attempt. Happy Halloween!

The penulimate tale chosen by Patton Oswalt for #ghostbox2025 is the classic “Unseen - Unfeared” from the originator of weird, dark fantasy herself, Gertrude Barrows Bennett. Love it! Ander’s Erickson’s new Black Lantern is also a weird, dark fantasy - mohawk and all. Happy Devil’s Night everyone.

Just atrocious…

Story 9 in Patton Oswalt’s #ghostbox2025 is Gahan Wilson’s “The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be,” a darkly ironic, horror-tinged retelling of Carroll’s classic poem. The critique certainly could be applied to our current oligarchical nightmare A Black Pearl Diver in rememberance of all the oysters lost

Edith Wharton’s “The Lady’s Maid’s Bell” is everything a gothic Victorian ghost story should be, showing the living are scarier than the dead. Nice inclusion for #ghostbox2025, Mr. Oswalt! With the longer story, I chose Jeremy Oertel’s Haunted House to start and the classic White Lady to finish up

“Every story is a ghost story.”’ So says Sonia in “Don’t Go into the Woods Alone” by @gabino.bsky.social, a tale of intergenerational trauma that serves as story #7 in Patton Oswalt’s collection of frights for #ghostbox2025. I decided on Jason Alexander’s Doomsayer’s Grog to guide me through.

Contagion as creation? Creation as contagion? Who’s to say? I enjoyed “Brief Scenes from a Noxious Nativity” by Michael Shea, story 6 from Patton Oswalt’s #GhostBox2025, but I did go wash my hands. A spooky mai tai with a dark rum float and fiery overproof rum garnish seemed fitting…and tasty.

Story 5 from @pattonoswalt.bsky.social’s #Ghostbox2025 is Lord Dunsany’s “The Three Infernal Jokes.” I drink a prohibition-era Satan’s Whiskers (the curly version with dry curacao) and contemplate Mr. Watkyns-Jones, the trade of his “surpassing virtue” and his “bowed and broken” fate.

Time seems to be up in “Flicker” by @ldlewiswrites.blacksky.app, the next Ghost Box IV story selected by @pattonoswalt.bsky.social. Given the current state of things, it might not be so bad if the simulation ended. I’ll be having the similarly-monikered Wibble cocktail should the lights go out.

On night 3 of H&O’s Ghost Box IV, Mr. Oswalt selected a story from @rubycowling.bsky.social that’s pulpy in more ways than one. The Corpse Reviver #2 cocktail was a perfect partner for “Eliminate Toxins and Increase Blood Flow,” though I don’t think it’ll help the lecherous, blubberous Mr. Smeed.

Story 2 of H&O’s and @pattonoswalt.bsky.social’s Ghost Box IV is @mathildazeller.bsky.social’s Kushtuka, a story in which supernatural horror is matched by very real colonial violence. The quotidian monster is more horrifying. Brilliant storytelling. A biting Blood Moon cocktail was a good pairing.

10/21 is the first of 11 spooky stories from Hingston & Olsen’s Ghost Box IV as edited by @pattonoswalt.bsky.social. I saw Bill Pullman’s episode of Night Visions that adapted Leman’s “Window” many moons ago. The story is better. Paired with the Shrunken Skull, evoking the remains of poor Reeves.

Can we all just agree that Jake Tapper isn’t a journalist? Embarrassing.

Itamar Ben Gvir was an extremist POS 30 years ago, and he’s still one today. I hope the Hague does its job.

Shane Gillis being more principled than Bill Burr was not on my bingo card. Good on Maron, Birbiglia, Zach Woods, Atsuko Okatsuka, Leslie Liao, et al as well.

NSPM-7 has to be considered the end of the American experiment, right?

Disney returning Kimmel to the air after losing a bunch of money doesn’t make Brendan Carr any less of a fascist.

Already canceled Paramount over their capitulation in ending @colbertlateshow.bsky.social. Pretty easy to stop giving money to Hulu, Disney, ESPN after the indefinite preemption of @jimmykimmel.com . $60 a month that can go elsewhere. You can vote with your wallets, folks. #cancelDisney #cancelHulu

If not a general strike now, when?

Political violence is abhorrent. Charlie Kirk was a hateful, racist bigoted misogynist and white supremacist. Both of these things can be (and are) true.

Pete Buttigieg has always been a neolib corporatist shill with conservative ideals and opportunist tendencies. His comments about trans women, while infuriating, are not surprising. He’s a self-promoting, nihilistic, McKinsey shit heel.

Democrats are done. No principles. Refusing to impeach an executive that unilaterally starts a war with a foreign sovereign is deplorable. @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social should resign, and the rest of the 128 dems who voted against @algreen.house.gov’s resolution should be primaried.

RIP Sly Stone. Thinking about this lyric today: Stand, you've been sitting much too long/ There's a permanent crease in your right and wrong #NoKings

#NoKings #Minneapolis #SaintPaul #TwinCities

Jonathan Greenblatt and the ADL have absolutely lost the thread. Speaking out against/telling the truth about genocide is not blood libel.

Seriously, @nyulaw.bsky.social should no longer be considered a top-tier law school. Embarrassing. theintercept.com/2025/05/03/n...

How is admitting to crashing the economy on purpose not an impeachable offense? #tariffs

Add Eugene Daniels and the WHCA to the list of feckless cowards bowing to fascism.

Ami Bera, Ed Case, Jim Costa , Laura Gillen, Jim Himes, Chrissy Houlahan, Marcy Kaptur, Jared Moskowitz, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, and Tom Suozzi are feckless, despicable cowards. They should all be primaried. F David Axelrod, too. #isupportalgreen

Day 24: The Thieves Who Couldn’t Stop Sneezing -Thomas Hardy A fun final story from the humanist poet and novelist He wrote in Christmas 1924: 'Peace upon earth!' was said. We sing it, And pay a million priests to bring it. After two thousand years of mass We've got as far as poison-gas. #ssac2024

Day 23: Anaheim by Jennifer Croft “The year came to an end as it always did, a deafening train blowing your hat off as it sped past your station…He was forty-two, and he felt like everything that was going to happen in his life had happened now, and the rest would just be waiting.” Oof… #ssac2024

Day 22: The One with the Multiverse by Josh Riedel “That was how time worked, or something like that, maybe. He was tired.” #ssac2024

Day 21: “Wars and Winters” by Hannah Pittard “It was the first relationship that I’d felt a part of.” #ssac2024

Day 19 and 20 are from a hotel room in middle Michigan #ssac2024

Day 18: The Exhibition by Alexandra Wuest “It was the illusion of control that had been shattered.” #ssac2024

Day 17: You Again by Seth Fried “In that moment, he was surprised by a regret he didn’t understand, a sweet sadness at the notion that there was a time before this time… Some other time when this treacherous road had existed without them.” Nostalgia’s not what it used to be. Or is it? #ssac2024

Day 16: Conversations Over the Holidays by Jessica Westhead “They were unprepared in so many ways…” Adulting is hard. Bushmills 21 makes it easier (harder?$ #ssac2024

Day 15: Down Burned Road by Jacqueline Baker “But it was nothing. Just the swirling of snow in the headlights, the illusion of animate against inanimate, like standing motionless watching a train pass only to feel, cruelly, you are the one moving.” Carrie and Laura should have lunch. #ssac2024

Day 14: The Lottery - Adam O’Fallon Price “The lottery, the ritual The consequence, the criminal Come back to me, I've been them all Come bedtime, come bad times” - The Lottery, Afghan Whigs Day 14 is my birthday, and like birthdays the story was funny, sad and thought-provoking. #ssac2024

Day 12 and 13: Another two-fer this Friday evening. #ssac2024

Day 11: Children of a Careless God by Elizabeth Gonzalez James “And in Hell I guess anything that’s not fire looks like love.” I’d like to think they’d be as loyal and conflicted as Capt. Jack, but I suspect they’re all Maud. Whisky: 26-year Arran by Douglas Laing Companion: Bruce #ssac2024

Day 10: Tardy Suit by Thomas Pierce “Wick wants zero attention. Tells public no resources to help ppl. Not set up for ppl rescue. Can only rescue things. But a lie. All about money.” Topical story given recent events. World too crazy now to notice, indeed. Whisky: Bushmills from 2000 #ssac2024

Day 9: What to Call You by Casey Plett “I’m talking about how many sad and joking and lively and despairing women have apparated in and out of my life.” A story of loneliness and a dram from a lonely corner of far north Scotland. #ssac2024

Day 8: Ham by John Jodzio Truth, Justice, Patriot Ham…you know, the American way. I often see the eagles over the Minnesota River on my drive to work. They seem a more hopeful sight. Day 8’s whisky: XOP Cameronbridge 30 year #ssac2024

Today was a two-fer. Days 6 and 7 of the #ssac2024