I didn’t know the astounding and truly radical history of the early anti-Zionist Jewish Labor Bund until I read @dfelsenthal.bsky.social historically steeped and eloquent review of @mollycrabapple.bsky.social book, "Here Where We Live Is Our Country"

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · 5d ago

For @newrepublic.com , I wrote about about the Jewish Labor Bund—who predicted the evils of Zionism from the very invention of the philosophy—and the new book by @mollycrabapple.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/2121...

Do you know Roxy Music and foppish frontman Bryan Ferry? Here’s a twisty, exquisite essay by @dfelsenthal.bsky.social in @pitchfork.com that limns Ferry’s later work as a juggle of Brit social class and style — and a way of swimming through age and grief. pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

Bryan Ferry: Boys and Girls

Each Sunday, Pitchfork takes an in-depth look at a significant album from the past, and any record not in our archives is eligible. Today, we look back at the inimitable chanteur’s 1985 solo record, a...

pitchfork.com

Thrilling and poetic, brave and moving piece by @dfelsenthal.bsky.social , filled with a great writer’s spirit. www.theparisreview.org/blog/2026/05...

Ode to the Kitchen Bath by Daniel Felsenthal

May 28, 2026 – “There is something so luxurious and, dare I say it, extremely gay about having a bath in the middle of your kitchen.”

theparisreview.org

Too Good To Go offers “Surprise Packages” at a big retail discount, and who doesn’t love a surprise? Plenty of us, but the real surprise is that this for-profit company doesn’t make a dent in lowering waste and getting food to those who desperately need it.

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The great @jiweinste.bsky.social is back at it for @thebaffler.com, writing about food waste, an app called Too Good To Go that has provided, like, 40% of our meals for the past year, city-run groceries, and City Harvest. Food is necessary. Language, here, is luxurious thebaffler.com/latest/hunge...

Remember vile Orval Faubus targeted black students, the Little Rock Nine? Carlotta Walls’ house was bombed a month before her graduation. She believed "her chemistry teacher had helped other students build the explosive that targeted her.” A must listen, and must read. from @dfelsenthal.bsky.social

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · 4mo ago

For @pitchfork.com , I wrote about the record that got me obsessed with jazz, and in particular the song “Fables of Faubus,” an unbeatable lampooning of American racism circa the dawn of the 1960s. Mingus forever pitchfork.com/reviews/trac...

And I’ll add that I have never read anything like @dfelsenthal.bsky.social review/essay/sonorous exegesis of @waynekoestenbaum.bsky.social ’s fat and hairy new book. Can’t wait to dive in.

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Thrilled to write about @waynekoestenbaum.bsky.social and his new novel, an immersion in gay sex, erotic yearning and religious self-knowledge unlike any I've ever read. Glad @nymag.com and @vulture.com let me wax rhapsodic on this one. www.vulture.com/article/wayn...

Tonight I made the winter chicken soup my imaginary Taiwanese mom or dad would have: TAIWANESE SESAME OIL CHICKEN SOUP (台湾麻油鸡汤). No photos. Broth memory.

"Queer trickster” Kevin Killian was mentor, novelist, memoirist, playwright and and supreme poet, as this astounding essay by #dfelsenthal.bsky.social makes clear: "In these poems, culture is the lens through which survivors understand their own desolation…" www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/176...

My husband @jiweinste.bsky.social , a legend of food writing, is back in @thebaffler.com with this skeptical, humane, hilarious and exuberantly written exploration of a certain class of upper crust east coaster’s favorite supermarket. A critical piece like no other thebaffler.com/latest/wegma...

Wegmania! | Jeff Weinstein

Wegmans fancies itself “local.” But while it’s drawn near-rabid excitement from brand loyalists, it doesn’t truly serve the place it calls home.

thebaffler.com

Criticism is a crucial and democratic counterforce in the face of marketing budgets and recommendation algorithms. Help FSP-NWU fight for better rates! nwu.org/join Illustration by @colleentie.bsky.social

A wise and gorgeously written essay about the new MG album: "Death may be inevitable, but Darnielle casts out lifelines in his work, rescuing old motifs in order to refuse simple interpretations, tidy conclusions, and despair."

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Wrote about the new Mountain Goats record for @pitchfork.com pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

What a find.

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Have no idea who put this pristine copy of 11 late-career Frank O’Hara poems—copyrighted by the estate and compiled by Ted Berrigan in 1974—in a little free library box on Cooper Square. But, I think I’m going to hold onto this one…

Hello friends! I’m a New York State “ambassador” for PrEP Aware Week.These amazing drugs prevent folks of all genders and ages who have sex from becoming infected with HIV. But with health care under attack, we must fight for access. #PrEPRevolution #PrEPAwareWeek2025 youtu.be/Yc65c2CN7mU

PrEP Aware Week 2025: Jeff's Story

YouTube video by PrEP Aware Week

youtu.be

PrEP Revolution! PrEP is for everyone, and PrEP is Revolution! #PrEPRevolution #PrEPAwareWeek2025

Note to folks who also use X/Twitter. My X account was hacked and my request to get it back was quickly denied, for no good reason.

Powerful analysis of a political culture that uses Barkan's book as a series of writing springboards.

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · last yr.

For @newrepublic.com , I wrote about the stylishly written new book by Ross Barkan, Fascism or Genocide, which purports to deal with fascism in America and genocide in Palestine but actually deals with neither newrepublic.com/article/1980...

Essex Hemphill’s thrilling work has been almost impossible to find, but a new, crucial reissue of his erotic, affectionate, even intersectional poetry is available, and this Nation essay by Daniel Felsenthal explains in gorgeous detail why it can’t be missed.

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · last yr.

I wrote about the humane, profound and until now quite difficult to find poetry of Essex Hemphill for @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Here’s a personal, precise, anger-making analysis that examines a group show as clues and cues that unravel the terror and sadness of surveillance-state education. I can’t recall "art writing” quite like this. Bravo Daniel, and Baffler.

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · last yr.

For @thebaffler.com, I wrote about the surveillance state and education in the U.S., and how an incisive group art show in Brooklyn is affectionately, indignantly, sorrowfully taking stock of education’s history and status quo thebaffler.com/latest/down-...

The Daily News Union mourns the passing of Tom Robbins, brilliant journalist, beloved colleague, friend and mentor to many, and ally to this union. He will be missed.

Claire Shipman, the acting president of Columbia University, was met with a chorus of boos on Wednesday from some of the 12,000 graduates at the school’s main commencement ceremony as she took the podium to deliver remarks.

Graduates Boo Columbia’s President at Commencement After a Fraught Year

nytimes.com

Terri L. Wilder of SAGE and I talking about the threat of funding cuts to HIV prevention: kstp.com/kstp-news/to...

Advocates fear 'devastating' HIV resurgence as Trump administration mulls funding cuts

Nowadays, clinics across Minnesota and the U.S. receive money from the CDC to provide prevention services, but Weinstein and Wilder worry it's all at risk.

kstp.com

Another Felsenthal must-read — and do listen to the later albums recommended, you may be completely surprised.

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · last yr.

I wrote an appreciation about one of my all-time faves, Marianne Faithfull, for @theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com/culture/arch...

This fantastic panel I've helped organize with FSP's Book Critics Working group and the National Book Critics Circle is happening next week! RSVP info in original post ✨

Freelance Solidarity Project@fspnwu.bsky.social · 2y ago

Join us next Thursday, February 6 at 7pm ET for a panel discussion co-hosted with @bookcritics.bsky.social about why the book criticism landscape has shrunk—and how to navigate it. bit.ly/surviving-book-criticism

Wrote for @pitchfork.com about an album that's an early contender for my fave of 2025, the devastating and sometimes hilarious new Joe McPhee record pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

Joe McPhee: I’m Just Say’n

Read Daniel Felsenthal’s review of the album.

pitchfork.com

Was so thrilled when Gay45, the estimable and long-running pan-European queer publication, asked me to send them some poems, including the first poem I wrote in adulthood (back in 2021), among others. Read ‘em here: gay45.eu/daniel-felse...

Insane, evil to use a federal attack on DEI initiatives in order to prevent researchers from uncovering the extent of Harvard’s link to the slave trade—timing isn’t a coincidence! Harvard is just a business using consultants to pad its bottom line, not a university www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Please, listen and then read, or read and listen. It’s a laugh and cry wonderment.

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · 2y ago

Wrote for @pitchfork.com about an album that's an early contender for my fave of 2025, the devastating and sometimes hilarious new Joe McPhee record pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

How did I never know about this word-smitten omnivore, who gave the same (or more) respect to a smoothie blender than to "Bonjour Tristesse?” Nibble, bite, devour, both his essay-reviews and this gorgeous bow to it all.

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · 2y ago

Wrote about the inimitable and beloved Kevin Killian, definitely the best critic in the history of Amazon dot com lol and among my favorite writers whose lifetime (RIP) intersected with my own, for @latimes.com www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

This piece — about his collected letters — finally opened my Joe Brainard door, much wider than I ever expected.

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · 2y ago

Felt like kismet when @thebaffler.com asked me to write about Joe Brainard— a writer and artist who defined what being gay and bohemian could be when I was 22, and now, some ten years on, immersing myself in his work was like remembering an unresolved urge thebaffler.com/latest/no-or...

It was a strenuous and illuminating shoot.

Daniel Felsenthal@dfelsenthal.bsky.social · 2y ago

Me and @jiweinste.bsky.social, photograph by the ever-poignant Chris Buck, from our photoshoot with The Guardian Saturday Magazine earlier this year