John Saward

Was one of those nu-tech symposiums a while back where the diseased little fuck-ups at Kalshi insisted their whole project was not just a casino, a fees pit and a steaming buffet for thirsty insiders, but a virtuous "financial instrument" to hedge against disaster. Everything is always only this.

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My favorite double feature was never made:

Duvall told a story that during Lonesome Dove he drove way out in West Texas because he heard the old quarterback Sammy Baugh was living there on a ranch. Baugh had a great white beard when he came outside. Baugh kept doing this thing with his hands when he talked, so Duvall stole it for Gus McCrae.

View of Navy Pier in Chicago from William E. Dever Crib in Lake Michigan east of North Avenue. // Image captured at: 2026-02-15 21:20:01 UTC (about 17 min. prior to this post) // Image sourced from: glerl.noaa.gov/metdata/chi/ // Current Temp in Chicago: 55.45 F | 13.03 C // Precip: clear sky // Wind: NNW at 5.525 mph | 8.89 kph // Humidity: 55%

Current* conditions near Chicago, IL:

It’s frying my brain how Correct the Suwinski comp is, maybe more correct than anything has ever been.

Perfect. And thanks so much dude

Big thanks to the great @tcraggs22.bsky.social for his help on this. Going to be doing one of these a month; I'm really proud of the series.

Like a Shadow Among Other Men Twelve years without Philip Seymour Hoffman

Wrote about Philip Seymour Hoffman for The Small Bow www.thesmallbow.com/p/like-a-sha...

And now we are two Celebrating Flaming Hydra’s second birthday

Flaming Hydra officially turned 2 last Friday. It's one of the truly special and exciting places on the internet. I feel proud all the time of what a great thing it is. flaminghydra.com/issue-492/

The always-a-little-realer-than-I-remember-it Dean Martin getting sober plot. Walter Brennan just constantly hooting shit. The two Ricky Nelson songs are a blast too.

Was in a bar Saturday night for the Bears game, and there really is an amazing dumb-crazy voodoo in a crowded place rising all at once from the dead during a comeback. All that begging! All these dear friends. Who's that guy? Raining sweat, babbling to himself? Who cares. You'd bail him out of jail.

Wyo Hill North,
1/8/2026, 5:19:32 PM

Ford f150 parked in front of some Christmas lights

Wet blue kei truck parked in the streetlight, house decorated with strung lights behind it

We're going to make it

There's a scene in Gay Talese's book about building the Verrazzano Bridge where a half-foot long steel bolt falls from way up and hits an iron worker in the cheek with such insane force the tip of the bolt punctures all the way into his throat. Few weeks later he was back working on the bridge again

Hell yes

Thanks so much dude, really appreciate that

Home for the Holiday Upper West Side; night before Thanksgiving; here’s a cousin I haven’t seen in many years, and there is some ache in having let things wither like that, letting it go on so long, all those plotlines of...

Wrote about going home for this month's Hydra flaminghydra.com/home-for-the...

Off the Rez food truck featuring mural of indigenous person smoking from a ceremonial pipe and blowing giant cloud of smoke above greater Seattle area parked on the street on a cloudy night. Brewery to one side of it, apartment building to the other.

Changeover: A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men's Tennis A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men's Tennis

This is one of the best and most exciting things I read all year. It's a profile of these two terminators, but there is so much brilliant, wonderful stuff in here too about human genius, obsession, confidence, & the nature of sports narratives. It's dynamite. bookshop.org/p/books/chan...

Yes, true.

@flaminghydra.com is $3/month, it is a coop 100% owned by 60+ writers / artists who make it

Recent unpaywalled pieces:

@samthielman.com on Platner's tattoos:
flaminghydra.com/boys-lives/

@josie.zone and @zachrabiroff.com on Marvel's secret ghostwriter:
flaminghydra.com/a-swingin-su...

The fiction Colin's written for Hydra the last few months has really knocked me on my ass

Flaming Hydra is a coop. All you can do with your share is sell it back to the coop (for $1), and nobody can have more than one.

You have to be ready for growth to take a long time. Journalism is a public trust that should be accountable to readers alone, and that means readers alone pay for it.

Old white pickup truck parked on a wet street covered in orange leaves at night. Behind it is a house and trees and bushes

This rocks

Thank you as always to the great and wise @mariabustillos.com for her sharp eye