The sounds that have been in my ears over the past few months. soundsoutoftime.substack.com/p/new-listen...?
Kohut
@kohut.bsky.social
rhymes with donut | author, Speaking Out, The Smart Mission, Compelling People | Georgetown U Press, MIT Press, Penguin | comms whisperer | words + music | ersatz intelligence | Oxford comma | curse of the easily amused | http://www.matthewkohut.com
Wendell Berry's last poem in the New Yorker now seems prescient. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
“The Loved Ones”
“The loved ones we call the dead / depart from us and for a while / are absent.”
newyorker.com
Local art press makes good. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/28/a...
A New Declaration of Independence for America’s 250th Birthday From Arion Press (Gift Article)
In the heart of tech-mad San Francisco, Arion Press makes some of the world’s most sought-after dead-tree artifacts, including a new riff on the Declaration of Independence.
nytimes.com
My favourite Louis Armstrong recording is 12th Street Rag. 1927. How he's so rhythmically free is just amazing. The gap between him and the other soloists is crazy. youtu.be/BU1VB6BvbPE?...
Twelfth Street Rag - Louis Armstrong & His Hot Seven (1927)
YouTube video by Atticus Jazz
youtu.be
In honor of Ross Douthat's last day at the NYT, let's remember this particular headline tweak from just last year.
From Ross Douthat's final column: "I lived through the years of peak woke, and it was a McCarthyite experience." Can a sentence die of embarrassment?
I don’t know fam, my first instinct would be to die of embarrassment.
Jimmy Carter hosted a jazz festival that featured Ornette Coleman. The entire event is here. youtu.be/Zn3hx6diwW4?...
JIMMY CARTER'S WHITE HOUSE JAZZ FESTIVAL1978-06-18 NPR/WAMU-FM BROADCAST
YouTube video by classictbone
youtu.be
Vinita Prabhakar, an instructor at South Florida State College, was fired for teaching an Ottessa Moshfegh story.
An English professor in Florida was just fired for teaching an Ottessa Moshfegh story.
Vinita Prabhakar, an instructor at South Florida State College, was suspended from her post when admin got wind she was teaching an Ottessa Moshfegh short story in her intro to fiction course. (Thi…
buff.ly
I love em dashes and I'm not going to give them up because robots that write badly also use them.
John Scalzi@scalzi.com · last mo.Yeah, Kat Tenbarge was much nicer to Jack Osbourne than I would have been, I would have just told him to go fuck himself. Also, if you're going to accuse a writer or journalist of using "AI" on the basis of em dashes, absolutely positively go fuck yourself.
What I’ve learned from the trolley problem is that people getting hit by trolleys must have been a pretty big problem back in the day.
Why a greying American still listens to the radio.
The Economist@economist.com · last mo.It’s cheap, easy and needs no mobile data
Though 'The Third Policeman' is my favourite, 'At Swim-Two-Birds' and 'Country Girls' had bigger impacts on my life, I think. Does one even need to read beyond the O'Briens?! 😄
Irish Literary Times@irishlittimes.bsky.social · 2mo ago
Reminder! There are alternatives to Substack! Which do not have its ethical problems! (My newsletter is on Ghost, which is fabulous, and Buttondown is among the others I've heard praised.) Thread--
Rebecca Solnit@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 5mo agoThis kind of thing at Substack (including their Nazi problem and trans hate problem) are why my newsletter is at Ghost.org and always has been. Andrew Tate is a spectacularly vile human being accused of numerous violent crimes against women and hugely corrosive for young male minds.
www.latimes.com/california/s...
California returns stretch of coast to Indigenous tribes. 'This is beyond huge'
State transportation officials recently approved the transfer of Blues Beach and the surrounding bluffs to Kai Poma, a nonprofit founded by representatives of the Sherwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians,...
latimes.com
NYT top story while this is happening: “America Celebrates Its 250th Birthday With Parades and Tall Ships”
Reuters@reuters.com · 2mo agoMasked Patriot Front white nationalists stage July 4 march through DC reut.rs/4wqsLsi
Nothing will get better from here on out, That’s what I often think. Cheer me up. Tell me there’s room for doubt The way the sunset goes all in for pink Then indigo, the way there are still stars Beyond the light pollution And satellites. @aestallings.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
A.E. Stallings · Poem: ‘Auguries’
lrb.co.uk
(300) Historic Schubert Quintet played by Brainin, Carlyss, Farulli, Metz and Berlinsky - YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUgF...
Historic Schubert Quintet played by Brainin, Carlyss, Farulli, Metz and Berlinsky
YouTube video by Stefan Metz
youtube.com
RIP Mark Rothko. You would have loved how the hydrogen peroxide bleach is only turning the Reflecting Pool blue around the perimeter
Yes. And authors also depend on libraries for books that inform our own works. Try writing a book with a low four-figures advance and buying all your sources.
G. Willow Wilson@gwillow.me · 3mo agoThis is nonsensical. Libraries buy huge numbers of books you wouldn't otherwise sell. They're a massive discoverability vector for authors. The reasons behind the declining author earnings are not hard to guess. People read less, have less $ to spend, +media is being consolidated by megacorporations
Ukraine has become a crucial security partner for Europe. Bringing it into the EU would bolster a continent that looks vulnerable among more predatory great powers
Ukraine is not a charity case
Europe needs its help just as badly as the other way round
econ.st
An original and very readable take on the US Constitution as viewed through the lens of The Domesday Book.
I wrote my last book when ChatGPT was at best a glorified thesaurus. That was then. nymag.com/intelligence...
Nonfiction Book Publishers Aren’t Remotely Ready for AI
They don’t check facts. How will they check hallucinations?
nymag.com