1) it's my birthday today!!! 2) I have a new piece out in @mcsweeneys.net that's definitely funny! Haha! Not horrific and depressing! Promise!

McSweeney's@mcsweeneys.net · last wk.

"You can’t pay for anything by card anymore. That stopped being a thing in the 2030s. The Data Lord doesn’t take AmEx. It’s half a pint now, or a full pint every two months, and you’re on a monthly plan. Hold your arm out, and I’ll get the tourniquet." buff.ly/mI21wrK

Every time the em dash thing comes up, I slowly sink into a sense of despair as I think upon my prose work.

An oddly beautiful review (in a sense) of a mildly ridiculous product

McSweeney's@mcsweeneys.net · 3w ago

"The box looks utilitarian. The font doesn’t make me feel like I belong to a country club or drive a luxury SUV. There’s no mention of whiskey (or whisky). It’s just four oversized ice cubes in a box."

I have a new piece up at @mcsweeneys.net and somehow I made it SAD

McSweeney's@mcsweeneys.net · 3w ago

"The box looks utilitarian. The font doesn’t make me feel like I belong to a country club or drive a luxury SUV. There’s no mention of whiskey (or whisky). It’s just four oversized ice cubes in a box."

Beauty and meaning can be in all things, even awful products that shouldn't exist. Great piece!

McSweeney's@mcsweeneys.net · 3w ago

"The box looks utilitarian. The font doesn’t make me feel like I belong to a country club or drive a luxury SUV. There’s no mention of whiskey (or whisky). It’s just four oversized ice cubes in a box."

Someone in DC set up a “little free blockbuster” with DVDs inside instead of books lol

Rosemary Hill wrote a good account of this sad business in @lrb.co.uk in 2024:

Rosemary Hill · Why Twice? Fire at the Mack

The tone of the Glasgow School of Art has been one of victimhood, as if the fires were disasters for which the school...

lrb.co.uk

Helen Gittos@helengittos.bsky.social · 3w ago

Glasgow School of Art is set to announce this week that it has scrapped plans to fully restore the world-famous building... Instead of a “faithful reinstatement” of Mackintosh’s architectural masterpiece... only the façade is likely be retained. www.sundaypost.com/fp/glasgow-s...

Library read of the week

Another historical inaccuracy from Nolan—IMAX had not yet been invented in the Mycenaean period, so this is not the aspect ratio that people saw in! Smh

Handsome lad.

GEESE at Nelsonville!

still thinking about the time my brother made my food-allergic nephew a birthday dino-cake out of watermelon. 10/10 no notes.

UK publishing generated £7.4 billion in revenue last year. Compare that to: Premier League football: £6.6 billion Home entertainment: £5.6 billion UK film industry: 2.8 billion Now tell me again why authors don't deserve fair contracts and better pay.

You guys! They're going to cure lactose intolerance this fall! We can all relax now!

The lady opposite me on the train was reading this. To be fair she was only on the first chapter.

Festive.

Suzanne Vega releases “Luka” 39 years ago this weekend. She said she once received a fan letter about it: “Dear Suzanne, Luka is the most compelling piece of music I’ve heard in a long time. There are no words 2 tell U all the things I feel when I hear it. I thank God 4 U, Prince”

Americana still life.

"As long as there is capitalism, artists will find a way to make loopholes within it." - Erik Keevan, draft MFA statement

Australopithecus?

"I have cryogenically frozen my penis and filed it down to a fleshy icicle to replace any feminine roundness on my body with a masculine point."

At Long Last, I Have Maxximized My Looks

“At long last, I am a stone-cold seven, the kind of guy who could win a Jacob Elordi lookalike contest in a farm town with a population of 200.”

mcsweeneys.net

Area X strawberry? @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social

Tired of wasting your life doing nothing? Waste your life on writing a book instead!

wandering the Sonora desert in a carefree fashion like

Saw Swan Lake tonight at one of the most beautiful opera houses – The State Opera of Prague. 🤍🦢 As I sat there, I kept thinking about how much I love the performing arts (and humans making art!). Watching the dancers and hearing the orchestra below play Tchaikovsky completely overwhelmed me.

My biggest conspiracy theory is that telling working class people that engagement in the arts is a middle / upper class thing and to do so makes you a class traitor is a psyop to make them disengaged with themselves and the world and the beauty of being human, so that they accept worse treatment.

Paul Boldrin@paulboldrin.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I read a history of early 20th century socialism and it's crazy how much of it is just clubs doing art or reading books and trying to get miners and factory workers to do art and read books.

Crazy to think I have a novel coming out in a month. Imagining telling my 19 year old self I finally did it. She'd be like "Why did it take you 20 years?" And I'd be like, "Girl, fuck you. Shut up. I had stuff going on."

Attention:

Big thanks to @short-reads.org and @autumnhouse.org for asking me to read at their event this weekend and printing these mini-zines of my story! They are kitten-approved.