Brett Ortler

Well, tickets oughta be cheap by midsummer at least.

BIG BIRD at it again

Also, my thought when reading the headline: Wait, what about BUG

Is it terrible? Yes. Is my Laphria picture nowhere near good enough? Also yes. Am I unhappy I made this? No.

I keep wanting to make a TRUE FLIES ‘90s action poster. With a Robber Fly in place of Arnold.

oh dang, mentioned the same story. A sad one, for sure.

Sad example: Calvin Coolidge, Jr., the president's younger son, just 16, died of an infected blister after playing tennis at the White House. It got infected and he died not long thereafter. It happened in 1924, so this is hardly ancient history. (Antibiotics were just a few years away, too.)

It looks a lot like dendrites (tree-like patterns in some rocks)

A cover of the first edition of Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton with a black silhouetted T rex on the cover over a white background

I love thrifting. First edition! Going to the dino-obsessed nephew.

Beyond the Big Cities, ICE Is Rattling Small-Town and Exurban America

My hometown is in the New York Times, and my mayor, an absolute ding dong, is rolling his eyes at his constituents (me!) who are alarmed that the armed, masked men are disappearing our neighbors, has terrified families and students, and closed businesses. An absolute embarrassment.

Our book, “The World According To Sharks”, is available for pre-order from loads of sources - www.penguin.co.uk/books/473994....

Just realised the acronym for it is TWATS. Too late to change it now. Just have to own it.

Image of an Io Moth (yellow, with black eyespots on hindwings) Are You a Lamp? Because I’m DRAWN to YOU! Happy Valentine’s Day! (Io moth) Image of a brownish grasshopper with huge eyes. You make me very HOPPY! Happy Valentine’s Day! (Grasshopper) Image of an American black bear lying on the ground. I can BEARLY stand how much I like you! Happy Valentine’s Day! (American black bear) A close up image of slime mold sporangia; they are pinkish and kind of look like Q-tips. Happy Valen-SLIMES Day! (This is a slime mold.) An image of a morel mushroom, which looks a bit like a brain. It's yellow. You take up so MUSHROOM in my heart! Happy Valentine’s Day! (Morel mushroom) A fluffy bee fly (which resembles a bumblebee) on a purple coneflower. You FLY right into my heart! Happy Valentine’s Day! (A bee fly; not a bee!)

So for today's lunch letter for my youngest, I ran out of paper. But then I realized I had labels! So I made some impromptu nature-y #valentines using my (uh, slightly overwhelming) library of nature photos. Feel free to share/use 'em if you like 'em. #nature #moth #fungi #slimemolds

Curious & Fascinating Facts: Minnesota Written by Minnesota author Brett Ortler and packed with hundreds of facts—including the weird, wild, and wonderfully unexpected—this book is perfect for the campfire, road trips, family games, trivia...

I'm stoked to announce that after 11 years, a new edition of my Minnesota Trivia book is coming out; it's Curious & Fascinating Facts: Minnesota, and I've wholly updated the book and added several additional sections, including "How to Speak Minnesotan" (OPE, LET ME SCOOCH RIGHT PAST YOU.)

The gar of "I'm not mad, just disappointed"

An adorable moth with fuzzy-looking scales, clinging to a petal of grass, as if to say "please may I have some lamp?" Possibly a Unarmed Wainscot

One of my favorite moths of last year: I think(?) it's an unarmed wainscot. "Please sir, may I have some LAMP?"

Artists, quote with something silly!

Prose Poems issues 11-12 cover, with an image of the vigil for Renee Good in Minneapolis, with haloed streetlights and a street of people. January 7, 2026. Featuring poetry by Erika Zambello, John Levy, R.W. Thorne, and Sydney Lea. With a guest poem by Brett Ortler.

Poem by editor Brett Ortler A Different Sort of Minnesota Winter It’s normal now to take a wrong turn, on purpose, after dropping your kid off at school, to look for SUVs or trucks with out-of-state plates and tinted windows. They wait outside bus stops, school pickup lines, churches. It’s normal now to drive with the radio off, so you can hear cars honking or the sharp sound of a whistle in the distance. And it’s normal now, if you pay close enough attention, for them to visit you—a black Dodge Charger in front of your house, with its lights off, but idling, speeding away once noticed. It’s normal now for the people with long guns and masks and pepper spray and tear gas to say that whistles and pun-filled signs (Ice is Slippery and Dangerous!) are the true threat. A whistle is a small thing, but so is the word no. That is what they are afraid of—of being outnumbered—not by some imagined invasion of migrants, but by a chorus of dissent, tens of thousands of decent people who know what is happening is wrong.

I've run or edited literary magazines for twenty-some years. I run Prose Poems (prosepoems.com) now. An editor should mostly be anonymous. (Editors are helpers.) But given what's happening in #Minnesota, where I live, I felt compelled to contribute, for the first time, via nonfiction

'Why handcuff him right away?' Witness questions ICE tactics “They ripped him right out of his car,” a witness said. “He didn't get to pull out ID or nothing. They ripped his door open and handcuffed him immediately.”

"Why handcuff him right away?": Witness questions ICE tactics

Federal agents followed a car off the highway north of Anoka on Wednesday morning and briefly detained a Latino man and woman before letting them go, according to witnesses.

Today in St. Paul

YouTube video by Country Rap Nation Charley Crockett - Welcome to Hard Times

Such a great writer.

This is glorious

Truly awful

Guess what team is absolutely stepping up during this occupation. Also i’m so grateful to have @natepentz.bsky.social as a friend. Be the kind of people who want to change the world with every second of your life.

He played for the best clubs in the world, though not much at all lately, is famous for his national team play, and is 34. So I would say an aging superstar who didn’t reach true potential vibes? Maybe Josh Hamilton?

Sir Ian McKellen bellows at Trumpies that They Shall Not Pass.

This was great. Thanks for writing it.

Really important article topic that is explained well.

An airline security card but instead of oxygen masks, it's squid. Just roll with it.

Secure your own squid first before helping others.

(I'm disproportionately proud of this drawing.)

U.S. citizen injured by federal agents in Salem who demanded to see “papers,” union says - Salem Reporter A home care worker and union worker was pulled from her car and injured by federal agents Thursday according to a statement by SEIU 503. To comment on this story, use the form at the end of the repor...

4 federal agents pull over an elderly US citizen for the suspected crime of being brown, break her car window, throw her to the ground, then drive off after they find her US Passport in her purse. The Salem Police, when called, say there’s nothing they can do. www.salemreporter.com/2026/01/31/u...

Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college

Philosophy of Science
English, Creative Writing
19th Century Philosophy
Epistemology grad seminar
Grad poetry thesis classes

I am nerd, people

well, I was not really focused on today's action, given everything. I'm glad it seems to have gone well.