St John Starling (evil now)

You used to log onto the internet and find out it was peanut butter jelly time. Not any more.

There are days when I regret choosing this pen name.

Motown is simply and unambiguously the platonic ideal of pop music. Why did we bother ever doing anything else?

They perfected pop music with 1960s Motown and everything since has just been a downgrade.

I wrote something inspired by @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social and @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy - about why the internet sucks now, the burning of the pop culture rainforest, and what we can do:

stjohnstarling.substack.com/p/regreening...

Didn't know how I missed that Cory Doctorow was on here, so here he is too: @doctorow.pluralistic.net

You! Yes, you! You want fancy clothes! Take a look at the Madwoman in the Attic's Depop! And remember that anything labeled "slow fashion" is something she can recreate just for you - just DM her. www.depop.com/sparrowlux/

I wrote something inspired by @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social and @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy - about why the internet sucks now, the burning of the pop culture rainforest, and what we can do:

stjohnstarling.substack.com/p/regreening...

Basically, the right-wing wants you to think that being racist is the most dangerous (and cool) thing you can do right now. Films like The People's Joker and Nirvanna The Band The Movie prove the most dangerous thing for algorithmic streaming platforms is actually copyright infringement.

None of that makes any sense, and I am forced once more to confront the total lack of meaning in the world. It fills me with a terrifying sense of freedom.

In 1999 she published a cookbook with the same title as her store, which went on to become a best seller and was then followed by a popular Food Network show. Now all of us need to deal with there being a TV cooking show called The Barefoot Contessa as part of the background radiation of our lives

In 1978, Ina Garten bought a specialty food store that, for some unfathomable reason, someone had already named The Barefoot Contessa after this movie

She falls in love with a count and ultimately marries him. The big twist at the end of the movie is that her new husband had his dick blown off in the war and so they can't have sex (because, tragically, he never learned how to do hand stuff). Then he murders her for having an affair.

The Barefoot Contessa (1954) is the life story of a poor Spanish woman who becomes one of the most famous actresses in the world. The movie doesn't bother to give her character traits beyond that she loves to have sex and run around barefoot (the fetishistic connotations are inescapable).

I watch a lot of old movies that nobody cares about any more, and this ends up filling in a lot of gaps in my cultural awareness. You would think knowing more about the world would make me more confident in my understanding of it, but you would be wrong. 1/?

People are so absolute about relationship categories. Sure, I guess you could say we’re dating, but actually what I do is follow him around and study how he talks, wear his clothes, practice his expressions and gestures in the mirror, etc. until I can figure out how to become him.

Yes this was an excuse to draw clothes. Gonna repost some older things from twitter! (tbc)

Does anyone else realize how much work it takes to get work done? Someone should do something about this.

A Pearl

ICE agents are, simply put, fucking clowns. According to The Atlantic, they receive 47 days of training — in honor of Trump, the 47th president, naturally. Many of them, also, can barely read or write, apparently. The ones I spent the weekend following around didn’t even have proper uniforms, with some wearing sneakers. In Minnesota. In January. These dipshits are also wearing camo in the snow. They clearly do not have any training when it comes to their own weapons either. Multiple times over the last few days, I watched officers fire pepper spray balls at the feet of protestors barely a few inches away from them. These weapons are basically paintball guns full of concentrated pepper spray. So when they hit a target, they explode into the air. Which meant ICE agents regularly ended up poisoning themselves with their own weapons. I also watched two agents ask each other if a canister they were about to fire at the crowd was tear gas or a stun grenade. (It ended up being a stun grenade that then ignited the tear gas they had already shot at us, which started a fire in the street that a protestor had to help them put out.)

ICE agents are, simply put, fucking clowns. Some observations from four days on the ground in Minneapolis.
www.garbageday.email/p/we-re-all-...

Reflections on 2025 and updates on A Companion in Vice + an essay project and What Manner of Man physical editions in today's newsletter -> stjohnstarling.substack.com/p/new-yearsl...

Did you hear they’ve decided to build an ancient subterranean labyrinth for people to get lost in and starve to death?

Yes, okay, I’ve been poisoning your daily cup of tea, but don’t tell me you haven’t enjoyed it. Every day becoming a little weaker, a little more helpless, more susceptible, turning pale and waifish and trembling - but suddenly I’m the bad guy!

And lo his skeets were as profound they were was mirthful. And they did laugh mightily.

The world is actually atop a vast crystal spire, the base of which which rests on a plate being spun on a stick by a gnome. Or so the philosophers say.

(To the tune of Personal Jesus)
Your own. Personal. Pizza.
Baked at 500 degrees
Covered in cheese

A Companion in Vice Defy the laws of man and god with me.

sign up to read A COMPANION IN VICE→ stjohnstarling.substack.com/p/a-companio...

Digital art. Butterfly-sized boy, spread-eagle and fixed in place - in the manner that an insect would be mounted for display by a collector - by 6 pins in his clothing. Cute and angry-looking. Two hands threaten him with a 7th pin. Central figure in shades of black and white - hands and background in shades of green.

putting pins into that boy and studying him like a specimen

Wizard

You’re all just jealous of my vast underground tunnel system.