Michael Wriston
@michaelwriston.com
Public record enthusiast and data journalist at @projectsaltbox.com. Sometimes social landscape and street portrait photographer. Forever enamored by the liminal, the misunderstood, and the unconventional. Signal: mwriston.410 ⚫️🟡🦀 BASED IN BALTIMORE 🦀🔴⚪️
The results might shock you. (I talk like someone from Maryland.) As a former linguist and someone from Maryland, I'm peeved it doesn't have any questions about the "o" phoneme so distinct to the Mid Atlantic. Do you pronounce the "o" in "phone" as "oh" or as "o̴̡̪͚̝͊̌͌ ?" mydialect.us/quiz-standar...
Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · 19h agothe dialect quiz said i talk like someone from new york and i AM from new york….remarkable!!!
Tell 'em to stay on vacation because as a 90s kid this is the only way I can digest information.
Maryland Department of Transportation@marylanddot.bsky.social · yesterdayOur social media manager is on vacation and told us to post something about removing the temporary bus lanes on MD 355 (Wisconsin Avenue) and the lanes being opened for all vehicle traffic starting on Labor Day. How did we do?
@ripest-plum.bsky.social and I researched and wrote a whopper of an article on HHS shopping for expanded migrant children housing space.
Project Salt Box@projectsaltbox.com · 2d agoAccording to the Trump Administration, border crossings are at historic lows. But ORR is still preparing to award a contract by Dec. 31 for facilities holding up to 3,000 unaccompanied children, with payments to contractors that continue whether or not children arrive.
A few from AFRAM '26. Druid Hill Park. Baltimore, MD. 2026.
As a volunteer investigative team, we never ask for money. But we back people doing the work on the ground. We report on the detention and enforcement system. Asylee Women Enterprise supports the PEOPLE living under it. They need a permanent home in Baltimore. If you can give, please do.
A Forever Home for Asylee Women Enterprise (AWE)
We’re asking people who believe in our mission to help us reach our goal and build a permanent home for AWE and the communities we serve.
givebutter.com
This Turnstile x DJ Rod Lee collab is pure Baltimore joy and is DE-FUCKING-LIGHTFUL.
next time you want to quote post someone, try throwing a blueberry to a chicken and watching her walk around with it instead
Words and photos about Western Maryland (in four parts).
The rolling western mountains (in four parts)
On the lake, the night, the forest, and time.
michaelwriston.substack.com
I am folding towels in the mud room when the storm blows the teen in off the lake. He careens first into the dock. Lightning obscures his headlong descent into the murky water. His paddle and board are upended. And then at last he is thrown by a wave against the daisy-riddled grass.
Baltimore elemental. Pigtown and Mount Clare. Baltimore, MD. 2026.
Meanwhile, Miles Davis and raindrops while doing the dishes.
Loved this "review" of the Baltimore MetroLink system. So much promise, so little public funding, too many cars.
Why Baltimore Built America's Saddest Metro
YouTube video by Classy Whale
youtube.com
Baltimore Magazine's editors (unexpectedly) named Project Salt Box "Best Watchdog." Thank you to the readers, partners, and sources who make our work possible.
A military aviator performed an incredibly dangerous maneuver directly over a crowd of people, and this is the response from the top? Our country is beyond cooked.
Eric Columbus@ericcolumbus.bsky.social · 2mo agoReader, I checked and checked again, and this is Secretary Hegseth’s actual account
As a young person, I took this social landscape for granted. It was part of the boring milieu of a youth in farm country. I passed a hundred scenes like these on the drive to school.
Driving home from my father's house
The long way back to Baltimore
michaelwriston.substack.com
I took my kids to the art museum and my five year old asked if he could use my phone to take a picture and this is what he wanted to photograph.
Very pleasantly surprised to see Flickr rolled out a new app interface this morning. Between that and the progress being made over at Foto, it’s a good time to be a photographer sharing work online.
I spoke with Lauren Gilger on KJZZ's The Show this morning about ICE's court case and the future of the detention warehouse in Surprise, AZ. Listen here.
Plans to turn Surprise warehouse into ICE detention facility — and other U.S. projects — on hold
Surprise residents who were angry about the federal government turning a local warehouse into an immigration detention center can take a sigh of relief this week.
kjzz.org
Ellman: You want to fire people over DEI? You know that disabled combat veterans are DEI hires? Did you know there are people I worked with who couldn’t work other jobs because they had tbi, or were missing limbs, or had chronic health issues caused by their service to this country?
