Neil Serven

I have no idea what either of my grandfathers did for a living.

My grandmother (father’s side) owned a nursing home for a little while.

The coffee is sugary commuter sadness.

But it's where you hung out and smoked cigarettes because your crush worked there and you couldn't drink (or afford to drink) yet. It functions as a home base while you and your friends figure out what you really want to do that night.

"The state with the highest life expectancy at birth is Hawaii ... followed by Massachusetts at 79.6 years and Connecticut at 79.2 years." Checkmate: usafacts.org/articles/whi...

It’s very possible that there will never be a Gen X president.

I’m guessing there’s an article about a preëminent teen-ager’s première or something that demanded the space.

Really gone to seed since I let my subscription lapse. All that to save a little ink.

Charcoal and gray chalk pastel drawing showing fruit (pumpkin, melon, apples, pear) arranged on a wooden table against a stone wall backdrop. Two ears of corn are hanging downward in the upper right corner of the drawing.

Drawing I made from an old Jon Gnagy instruction book. Charcoal and chalk pastel.

Trying to keep my hands busy and stay off the internet.

Cover of pulp novel CONQUEST OF EARTH by Manly Banister. Shows an illustration of a man looking up at the yellow sky against a desert-like backdrop with some spacecraft or robot-like thing next to him.

“The railing on our stairs is too girly. Who can we call about this?

“I know just the person. And get this—he’s a writer, too.”

Lost in Translation came out in 2003.

Still from SOMEWHERE, showing a man (played by Stephen Dorff) sitting on a couch with his daughter (played by Elle Fanning) leaned on his shoulder, asleep. Dorff's character has a cast on his left arm.

Still from AFTERSUN, showing a man (played by Paul Mescal) sitting on a couch asleep with his arm holding his daughter (played by Frankie Courio). Mescal’s character has a cast on his right arm.

Sofia Coppola’s SOMEWHERE (2010) is billed as a “spiritual successor” to LOST IN TRANSLATION (actor biding time in a hotel, etc.), but couldn’t help but think the father-daughter dynamic was replicated in the later (2022) film AFTERSUN, and curiously, in both films the dad has a cast on his arm.

Cover of THE CRACK-UP by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The New Directions cover shows a drawing in blue ink of Fitzgerald in a three-piece suit, seated at a table with a cocktail shaker, with a drink in his right hand and the long index finger and pinky finger of his left hand on the keyboard of a typewriter. His eyes are wide like those of a zombie.

Fitzgerald on the cover of The Crack-Up is also me, working very hard as a writer.

I have thought this too ... this and the cruise ship one are similar in their contempt but this one punches down at plain folks.

This guy gets it.

screenshot of a tv user guide, showing two channels under Tue 8PM: MSNOW - State of the union TCM East- Gaslight

Masterful Troll, TCM.

Reading a 90s novel where a kid is in juvie for stealing "hoodies," here meaning not sweatshirts but car hood ornaments, and now I can't remember the last time I saw a car with a hood ornament?

Neil is from a family name (Kneale), respelled in the way of Armstrong, Diamond, etc.

Steven. Nothing wrong with it. No story behind it or family member honored, my mom just liked it. But it’s two letters off from my last name, which is weird. My mother didn’t seem to notice or care about the aesthetics. A lot of cool anagrams. NEVER EVEN LISTENS. VELVETEEN SINNERS.

The Gen X urge to believe they put a man on the moon

This is why Matt, Ben, and that other guy made this: m.youtube.com/watch?v=jdfS...

School’s closed, kids!

Pour one out for all the national weatherpeople having to do cold reads of Massachusetts town names

Canada gives America one gay hockey show and they start winning games

Frozen breaded veal cutlet patties, baked until slightly burnt, with white minute rice, steamed vegetables, and brown gravy.

Suprematism, by Nikolai Suetin, 1920-21, 📸 by @tiltoncreative

The bobsled track reminds me of a subway line.

CC: @rejectednytwords.bsky.social

police tip line: @rejectednytwords.bsky.social

Played today's Spelling Bee and it did not spare me any of the CONCOMITANT frustration I often feel when I play it.

(John Irving’s grandson!)

Brr! Curving!

The blossoms are crashing all over the place with this one.