We sent @skornhaber.bsky.social to talk with Vanilla Ice about celebrating America www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

I'm painting an apartment for the first time today. I have the tools, I've watched the YouTubes. Nonetheless: What's something I absolutely need to know/do?

The lights are looking a little bright for Wemby….

The Atlantic’s editors and writers have selected 25 books to suit every mood this summer. If you’re searching for a cult classic to obsess over this season, @jeremygordon.bsky.social recommends “The Suicides.” See more selections: theatln.tc/RfPgedPL

“Everyone, especially in South Sudan, wanted to know if the US really had cut off aid. It was easier for them to believe that the aid organizations were lying to them than to think that the United States would do this.”

“But people are the prism through which all this stuff, and much more beyond that, becomes real. Those reasons are sometimes locked away in a black box of bespoke logic, but I know they exist, even if I can’t personally connect with them.”

I wrote a new Substack about some crazy stuff that happened to me, and also the band Geese: jeremygordon.substack.com/p/without-mo...

"Di Benedetto’s writing lingers in the brain; to a receptive reader, it can feel like a secret handshake between dryly mordant minds." @jeremygordon.bsky.social recommends The Suicides for summer reading.

Really wonderful name coming out of the NFL Draft: Ephesians Prysock

Geese aren't really my thing, but it's no grand secret why an experimental, ambitious rock band composed of photogenic young Brooklynites might take off; if the audience-artist relationship could be so easily manufactured, the music industry would be very different

I went to a pro wrestling show in St. Paul and thought about the meaning of participation, among other things

While packing for a flight, I unplugged my primary phone charger and, instead of putting it into my suitcase, left it on my bedroom floor. Fortunately, I remembered to pack my secondary phone charger.

I do appreciate the life this essay has had—it holds up pretty well IMO!

There's so many video games where at some point you're prompted to explore a house, interacting with and reflecting on the meaning of various items. But I actually do live in a house where I regularly interact with and reflect on the meaning of various items, so let me be Spider-Man already.

Fortunately, Buffy is still incredible

SEE FRIENDSHIP was released one year ago today. Thank you to everyone who has read, or intended to read; I appreciate the support more than words alone can say, even from the haters and losers. For anyone on the fence: What better place than here? What better time than now?

Playing the new Rob Zombie and he’s still definitely doing this stuff

we reached the “no WMDs” phase in two days.

From @jeremygordon.bsky.social's SEE FRIENDSHIP: Love to crack open a tome of fiction and be whisked away to a fantasy world far, far from my own!

If you are in Baltimore, I’m talking with @somers.bsky.social about her excellent novel THE TEN-YEAR AFFAIR at Greedy Reads (the one on Remington) on Thursday night (that's tomorrow). Be there or be square:

I wrote about one part of my reaction to recent events: the importance and nuance of what it means to subscribe to something.

Really enjoyed @jeremygordon.bsky.social's SEE FRIENDSHIP. A poke in the ribs of an industry where you make your living in 900-word slices of context (that you might not actually understand) and Podcast as Lifeline, with a mystery that moves, a lot of heart and finding peace in the unknown.

I would never “fight through the tackle,” I’m going down immediately

Kid Rock is the only celebrity guest on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives—and I have watched *so* many episodes—who told Guy Fieri he didn't want to see how the food was made, and instead went to drink in the bar until it was time to eat. What can you do about such incuriosity?

An incredibly evocative piece of writing from @jeremygordon.bsky.social about a terrible, ecstatic moment

smart, funny, and secondhand-panic-inducing distillation of the blog era by @jeremygordon.bsky.social jeremygordon.substack.com/p/theres-a-s...

there are a handful of people who understand what the job looked like. it was exacting. it had no boundaries. it earned only scrutiny. there were panic-inducing shifts. @jeremygordon.bsky.social had one of those 10 years ago.

The full English breakfast is one of society’s greatest inventions

I wrote 10,000 words on my 2025 in culture, with thoughts on One Battle After Another, The Golden Notebook, Caleb Williams, David Lynch, Dave Blunts, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and a lot more jeremygordon.substack.com/p/my-2025-in...

One of the best to ever do it

A woman in my airplane row had her bag on my seat and when I asked her if it was her bag she said yeah, and when I asked if she could move it so I could sit down she looked at me like I was insane before picking it up. And this says something about society!!!

The first live Twitch stream I have ever tuned into, in my life

The other day I discovered a sealed bag of penne under our kitchen hutch. Neither my wife or I recall buying it; it's from a Turkish brand we aren't familiar with; we don't get our groceries delivered; it was packaged this year, and nobody has stayed in our place. Mystery pasta—kind of spooky...

Just digging through old emails on a regular Wednesday morning

The White House plans to bar hospitals that treat transgender children and youth from getting any Medicare and Medicaid payments. The move would affect trans youth who have private insurance, too. n.pr/4qFa1mY

Don't let anyone tell you cultural criticism is dead. But someone does have to pay for it. I toured through the commentary circuit on TikTok, Letterboxd, and other places where the rules of criticism are changing in inspiring ... and depressing ... ways— www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

“The problem the profession faces is material, not spiritual. Culture still craves good criticism—someone just has to pay for it.”

Like everything else, professional arts criticism has been under attack this year, and Spencer Kornhaber reported a really great piece on what might be taking its place: www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

Here is a wonderful essay from @danbrooks.bsky.social on the encroachment of MMA culture into all walks of American life, and what you yourself can—and can't—learn from fighting www.theatlantic.com/culture/2025...

My god. “Watson said she saw agents dragging residents, including kids, out of the building without any clothes on and into U-Haul vans. Kids were separated from their mothers…’It was heartbreaking to watch…seeing kids coming out buck naked and taken from their mothers, it was horrible.’”

The shamelessness coursing through modern society is nothing new, but more and more I think it's the defining tension of the 21st century — attempting to live a meaningful life, characterized by meaningful beliefs, can feel so silly when measured against such rife shamelessness. (At least for me...)

This is Sunday — it's going to be really good

This Sunday, come to the Brooklyn Book Fest and watch me bother @andrealongchu.bsky.social, @jeremygordon.bsky.social, and Sarah Chihaya about criticism

I'm doing a panel at the Brooklyn Book Festival on September 21 with Andrea Long Chu, Sarah Chihaya, and Daniel Drake — no spoilers, but we're solving books. Come through if you can make it, event info here: brooklynbookfestival.org/event/the-fi...

In “Muscle Man,” a new novel about a socially awkward, contrarian professor, Jordan Castro shows how private grievances can blossom into grand obsessions, @jeremygordon.bsky.social writes:

I wrote about the jacked, radicalized minds of Jordan Castro's new novel MUSCLE MAN

I wrote about the jacked, radicalized minds of Jordan Castro's new novel MUSCLE MAN

I was on the New Books Network podcast talking SEE FRIENDSHIP and many assorted topics newbooksnetwork.com/see-friendship

Instead of speed reading 17 pages over 6 train stops I am listening to Pitbull and “liking” one billion posts