I’m not big on scolding prescriptivism these days. Language is fluid; we use it as we wish and it rises to meet our needs. But clarity still has value. And in contexts like this headline—and countless online real estate listings—for the love of god please say “New York State” unless you mean NYC.

In his first 100 days, Zohran Mamdani has: -Delivered millions in restitution for workers cheated by gig companies -Cracked down on predatory landlords -Launched the first stage of a universal childcare program -Fixed thousands of potholes in NYC streets This is what leadership looks like.

If Franzen and Lerner were to follow the lead of King and Straub and collaborate on a series of horror novels, would you read y/n

Three modern story-songs that drip with charm: “Kathy: A Story of Love, Lust, and the Country” by Kate Stephenson youtu.be/iJNS0vje_A4?... “White Trash Romance” by Karen Jonas youtu.be/N3bkgEUPlFc?... “Two Horses” by Black Country, New Road youtu.be/oX_yA8aVwIA?...

“Kathy: A Story of Love, Lust, and the Country” by Kate Stephenson youtu.be/iJNS0vje_A4?... “White Trash Romance” by Karen Jonas youtu.be/N3bkgEUPlFc?... “Two Horses” by Black Country, New Road youtu.be/oX_yA8aVwIA?...

Sitting in a diner today, reading about Paul writing Yesterday, I thought, I’ll sit here a little longer, and read, until it comes on the radio And I have And it has

Every year I think the same thing: the greatest moment in Oscar history will be when they announce a winner WHO WASN’T EVEN NOMINATED

Left: Bingham Hall, Yale University, 1928 (Walter B. Chambers, architect) Right: Sleeping Giant Observation Tower, Hamden, CT, 1935 (Russell T. Barker, architect)

History: Never before has life been this stressful Also history:

The National Association of Black Bookstores aims to “amplify Black voices, and preserve Black culture by increasing the visibility, sustainability, and impact of Black bookstores and booksellers.”

You can hover over the page, or you can enter it.

I don’t second-guess folks who rank “Wild Honey Pie” toward the bottom of the list of Beatles songs. But today I realized that WHP bears a surprising resemblance to the guitar interludes in “Girl.” Can you hear it? As a fond callback to that classic, it suddenly feels more embraceable.

Question: I’m refreshing my schoolboy French with Duolingo. When I write a sentence ending with an exclamation point, it shows an error and adds a space before the exclamation point. Yet this doesn’t seem to be true of periods. What explains this French usage nicety?

Just now I was waiting for my lunch and an unfamiliar song started playing, kind of a whingey song, and I listened because I couldn’t change the channel, and eventually it dawned on me that this song I’d never heard before was “Wonderwall” Who knew today was gonna be the day

larry david on bkcoffeeshop when

larry david on bkcoffeeshop when

if you're an older person who finds words like mogg and maxxing annoying, just starting using them. people over the age of 30 have the superpower to end trends by simply adopting them

I think the reason I mourn— unreasonably, I know, my values are descriptivist— the erosion of strict meaning adhering to words like “literally” is not that I don’t know when people mean it figuratively. It’s that we will no longer have any word that means, literally, literally.

Did Hitch take a cue from Dodge?

Very fine unheralded filmmaking happening in Wales and Cornwall these days

This is who runs this account

Is my passion perfect? No, do it once again I was handsome, I was strong I knew the words of every song Did my singing please you? No, the words you sang were wrong

A 30-pt swing in South Carolina in November makes me a Senator and retires Lindsey Graham. 🇺🇸

I don’t want to hear anything from an elected official unless it’s a plan to defund the DHS and impeach Noem, Bovino, etc. No texts. No emails. No talk about the economy. Step up or step off.

Thought for the day: " . . . this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short of itself and dies with the doer of it! but Good, never." -- OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.

Half the battle with this guy is just reiterating government can and already does good things that are so ubiquitous they’ve become invisible. He’s able to remind you in a way that you understand that good government can exist outside of a 24/7 vengeance operation, and in NYC already does.

Americans who’ve started to use phrases like “to be sat” instead of “to be seated” or “to be sitting” (which would be considered standard usage): did this change come naturally to you? Do you consider it a language trend you’ve adopted, or a correct form you hadn’t known before?

What a difference a dais

This is not books This is not music or art This is just tomatoes Very tomatoes

Performing scorn for human frailty, human disconnect, human effort simply to survive in this benighted quarter-past century invites self-loathing spirits to pass through your body and struggling smile and heart, as if to test, through trust, a belief that we’ll be safe will we?

✨️💗💗✨️

IF YOU HAVE MANY DESIRES YOUR LIFE WILL BE INTERESTING

Art lives in the process, in the struggle to grow and figure out the specific needs of the work, and in the arrival at a better understanding of the artist’s limitations. The product is just the end result of the art.

Merry Christmas from the biggest present my father ever wrapped (kitty for size)

Every time book folks think the world is ending, it ends up not ending. A thought for our down-in-the-mouth literary moment.

I think one of the reasons pretty much every field of art is struggling to figure out a way to make profit for shareholders is that art inherently wishes to be free

Not only do I do like, single hour brainstorm your project sessions this time of year, I also do major mss consults, with notes, and developmental edits. Those a pricier, but very worth it. Or get a gift card! www.theshipmanagency.com/classes/manu...

Good morning! Poetry is resistance. 🔥

Business on the street, party in the back

"there's a new serif in town"

with the new year fast approaching, thoughts are turning to who will win next year’s coveted soccer peace prize

Apropos of nothing, just thinking about when one of us got the great Paul Dano to star in our Harper Perennial promotional video for Adam Wilson’s FLATSCREEN (also starring Michael Signorelli and Stoya) youtu.be/GRmfeWf6fBw?...

You know what’s an idiom lots of folks have a hard time with? “each more [adj] than the last.” One often sees “each more [adj] than the next,” which means the opposite, and this morning I saw “each more [adj] than the other,” which does not mean what one thinks it means.

(l) Summer Evening, Edward Hopper (1947) (r) Slightly Drunk, Jing Zhiyong (2021)

@timmiller.bsky.social Where’d you get that @sunrecords.bsky.social shirt you’re rocking on @msnownews.bsky.social?

When will the swan begin to sing? We’re so weary of everything And the swan on the river goes glidin' by The swan on the river goes glidin' by —Bob Dylan, “The Ballad of the Gliding Swan”

Random take: Shouldn’t there be a Pulitzer Prize for film?

Sounding the depths: Digging the bari (or bass?) sax on the beautiful new @NekoCase album, now in rotation with the cello-laden Chamber Version of the evanescent new @florencemachine record just out this morning.

The news: I’m thrilled to be joining the brilliant Annie DeWitt and her amazing team @ Enliven, a new agency devoted to visionary writing. I’m looking to work with brave voices, epic storytellers, writers exploring across the borders of tradition. Let’s go www.enlivenendeavors.com/home