This is a stunning novel, both timely and chilling.

Wildfire Moon

Shadetop Day

Spotted today at the protest in Melrose, Massachusetts.

United States senator Alex Padilla. The Brown Shirts come to mind.

Misty Night in Greater Boston

My good buddy Edmund and I are working up a program for Malden Porchfest on May 31. I’ll be singing some songs by Hank and Jimmie, there’ll be some Edmund Jorgensen originals and a fiddle tune or two. Last time we played out was five years ago right before the PanD. Y’all come.

Metaphor

Five Failures in the Oval Office (video) America hurt itself badly today.

Here I react to the shameful encounter between American leaders and media and the Ukrainian president. No doubt there were more, but I saw five failures on our side: of hospitality, decency, democracy, strategy, and independence. Please watch and share.
snyder.substack.com/p/five-failu...

I knew Megan Marshall was a great biographer. It turns out she’s a fabulous essayist too. There’s not an inelegant sentence in this entire collection, and the essays are deeply moving. I won’t be if she wins her second Pulitzer. It would please me if she does.

Count me in!

Me too!

The Relic Last week, while tidying one of my desk drawers, I found a silk pouch that contained the rosary I got from my grandmother years ago.

open.substack.com/pub/ewahryni...

Lies, Damned Lies and Trumpflation Big worries — and some investment advice

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Crossing a line Borders between one kind of life and another

open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

There were protests at every state capitol 2/5, now happening again on President's Day. Last time thousands of people showed up despite limited lead time and promotion.

Share widely so that media won't be able to ignore Americans this President's Day!! #50501 #buildtheresistance #wethepeople

How the looming Trump Constitutional crisis could play out The email quoted below was sent to me last night by my old friend, Terrence Goggin.

open.substack.com/pub/luciantr...

February 10, 2025 As soon as President Donald Trump took office, his administration froze great swaths of government funding, apparently to test the theory popular with Project 2025 authors that the 1974 law forbidding...

open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

The Oligarchs Who Came to Regret Supporting Hitler They helped him in pursuit of profit. Many ended up in concentration camps.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Opinion | To Obey Trump or Not to Obey The voluntarily surrender of the public’s power is how autocracies are built.

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/08/o...

No. And all the ones who don’t, as well as all the ones who do but don’t care, have brought us here. And I hope History accords them the treatment they deserve.

92 years ago today Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. I wonder how many Americans know that. I wonder how many know where that led.

David Borofka is one of the best short story writers on the planet, and his new book is unimaginably special. Highly recommended.

He is the same one who told us in SHOUT that John Lennon was 75 percent of The Beatles. Which to my mind is pure BS.

Thank you, Liz. Happy to reconnect on this venue.

A little more depth to the characterization than I saw here; also, being especially interested in Harrison as a guitarist, I would have liked more attention to what differentiated his sound from, for instance, Clapton’s.

I wouldn’t call this a great biography, but it’s a good one.

Great piece.

Great piece!

Social Darwinism is upon us.