Alan Scherstuhl

Evening at the inn in the 1620s and everybody is totally blotto. And Adriaen Brouwer is here to immortalize it! Today was his day.

The Great Strike (1917) A Silent Film Review A strike in New South Wales was caught on film and turned into a feature-length documentary. These fragments are all that remained after the censors got through with it.

This week's review covers THE GREAT STRIKE (1917), an Australian documentary of the important labor action that was screened exactly once and then pulled and censored. Only 15 minutes out of an hour runtime survive

moviessilently.com/2026/02/16/t...

Guy posting about how we need to defend our great and noble heritage, the only one which can produce works of great art: *turns on another episode of Family Guy, the seventh one he’s watched today*

Steven Pinker ® @sapinker • Follow I have no relationship with Epstein & have taken no funding from him. Our circles have occasionally overlapped: In 02, my lit agent invited me to join a group of east-coast TED speakers Epstein flew to CA. In 14, Krauss seated me next to him at a lunch, & someone snapped a photo. 11:09 PM • Jul 10, 2019 from Provincetown, N C

Pinker, Steven <Pinker, Steven> to Lesley Groff Mar 28, 2012 5:47 PM star_border Dear Unfortunately I'm out of town that day, but if Jeffrey is around on Monday the 16th, I'll be back and would be delighted to meet with him. Best, Steve

Okay then

We’ve watch a couple lately from the Salma Hayek/Jon Hamm stretch of episodes, and we have to pause constantly because of the joke density and I’m screaming with laughter

Contrary to the frantic beliefs of all the Silicon Valley blood bois, immortality has always existed and it is in the form of art and/or creating something with your mind and hands that will live far beyond the limits of human flesh.

“With your teeeeeth in your mouth”

This is only related in a sideways manner, but: the story of any small slice of humanity is the story of humanity, just boiled down and distilled. So:

In 2020, we had a lot of conversations about harassment at SF/F conventions, and Isaac Asimov came up several times.

the Epstein files are really devastating because they remind me of how many girls and women miss out on professional opportunities, mentorship and careers because of how many powerful, rich and influential men only view girls and women — and interactions with them — through the lens of sex

The big tech founder whose 417-foot, $500 million superyacht needs a 256-foot, $75 million superyacht to "shadow" it -- because the bigger yacht lacks a helipad -- had to cut his paper's newsroom almost in half, for reasons

This whole thing where billionaires snap up media properties so they can run them into the ground to make it harder for people to call them and their cronies to account is extremely obvious and very tiresome. It also limits our access to largr information about culture and the world, also by design.

Black and white poster for “Melania” featuring the title villain sitting in a dated black and white suit and heels. Graffiti over it says in big red letters “Trump Murderer” in Spanish.

Ah, Mexico City, I knew you wouldn’t let me down!

Y'all do realize ICE "backing down" means they're just gonna stick to terrorizin' minorities, right?

hey folks, six figure opinion columnist here and gotta say, made a big ol’ whoopsie on the most consequential and honestly, probably the most obvious opinion of my life. thats my bad. anyway, guess I’ll just keep getting paid to give my opinion, thanks for reading

Hey, the excellent Minneapolis arts and culture magazine Racket took down their paywall for the day, so you can go read their coverage of the occupation unhindered. Start here: racketmn.com/voices-of-th...

Finally some good news

Elon Musk’s alternate Grok reality Amid a scandal over nonconsensual sexual images, Musk says his AI chatbot is a force for "truth and... beauty."

I wrote about Elon Musk's highly specific way of defending Grok amidst the nonconsensual sexual imges scandal, which is to take on a loopy, quasi-religious tone and suggest the chatbot is a force for "truth" and "beauty." www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

I wrote book reviews for a while for the WSJ well over a decade ago, and Bari Weis was my editor. One of her special tricks was to try to insert a sharp rightward slant into my essays *after* it had been copy edited, as a way of slipping her viewpoint in at the last minute.

Logging into my job at the Department of Truth’s and seeing the latest campaign missive “your mom’s friend Janice is a terrorist.” I voice my misgivings to my advisor and 10 minutes later I spot the chapped-bell end head of Stephen Miller moving toward my cubicle like a shark’s fin.

These are such a treat!

Advance galleys for Oyster Diaries and Lives of the Saints.

Exceptional book post today. If you’re not already a Nancy Lemann fan, 2026 could be your year. @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social will publish her first new novel in a couple of decades in April, while also bringing back Lives of the Saints. This is the good stuff, friends.

Computer, show me the least important information

These columns are essential, so glad they’re still coming

Oh my god yes

Oh my god that show rules and is so wild and incisive can’t believe it exists

[preparing to get screamed at] I think I officially don’t need to know if you’re mad that an article is paywalled. Perhaps that can be an Inside Thought

The magic of @annamerlan.bsky.social: you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll marvel at her ability to draw profound sociopolitical and aesthetic insights from a heart-shaped purple-sequinned souvenir pillow

Joe Ely: A Love Letter in 16 Songs David with some favorite songs by an artist we love

R.I.P. to one of the great ones, roots rocker extraordinaire Joe Ely. Glad we had a chance, back in August, to celebrate a Joe Ely Week at No Fences Review: I wrote about my favorite Ely solo cuts and (link in comments) @charleshughes2.bsky.social essayed the Letter to Laredo album.

Best rock show I ever saw was Ely with his mid-90s band. Widescreen borderlands country rock with wit, grandeur, and the rarest of things … a Buddy Holly bounce

Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks After years of steady sales declines, the format will largely disappear next year.

All my recent books went from hardcover to trade paperback and almost all of my backlist in mass market has now migrated to trade. The role of mass market paperbacks is now handled almost entirely by ebooks. I'm okay with this but it is the end of an era.

www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...