memento mori (hot girl edition)

Call for (post-PhD) historians and cultural scholars for the pod! We have a specific wishlist of scholarship we’re looking to add to the lineup:
- ancient & medieval history
and/or
- histories of anywhere other than the US and UK, preferably outside Europe

Pitches to: podcast@thisguysucked.com
🤗🤗🤗

Movers hate her! Local woman somehow acquires ~300 books since last move 16 months prior.

I read Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance around this time and it was - and remains - a favourite. M.G. Vassanji's the In Between World of Vikram Lall was also a favourite, but that might be Canadian specific.

O'Hara as Cookie Fleck, limping wildly into the arena at the climax of Best in Show. Incredible, subtle physical comedy. Every second she is on screen is a dream. Unparalleled.

I need a new one. There is no limit to the number of niche properties I can be weird about.

I need to get really weird about a niche media property very soon so I stop caring about finding meaning in my career.

I bought an e-version of my class textbook so I can read it on my phone It has AI-generated questions to "test your knowledge". I gave them a shot - genuinely. I want to retain what I'm reading. But they're straightforwardly wrong about half the time.

Now that the White House is using AI to edit photos of their political opponents to create fascist propaganda I’m wondering if anyone could have seen this use of AI coming. Okay I’m hearing lots of people did and they were forced to watch corporations smother the masses with the technology anyways

Which is fair! If, like me, you are entertained by movies where the crux of the plot is "car fast", I recommend Gran Turismo (silly) or Ford vs. Ferrari (marginally less silly).

This movie was Not Good. And I'm not just saying that because I don't enjoy anything (save season one of AMC's The Terror (2018)). One might even say, it was Bad!

??? WHAT ???

Text on a green background. It says, "Wildthorn: Wildthorn Books is a new imprint of Tor Publishing Group focused on commercial stories that are irresistable, genre-blending and genre-bending. Wildthorn's mission is to become the destination for compulsive, page-turning reads."

NEWS! My next book, TRANSLUNAR, about a closeted trans woman who's an astronaut in the sixties, is coming out in fall 2027! It'll be on Wildthorn, Tor's brand-new general fiction imprint -- a dream, as it lets me work with @englelaird.bsky.social on my literary and historical fiction as well as SFF.

A small sign of the times: my downtown apartment that I'll be leaving in six weeks is advertised for a lower monthly rent than what I pay now.

Nunavummiut rally to support Greenland Dozens of Nunavummiut gathered in Iqaluit to show their support for the people of Greenland who are under threat from the United States.

Dozens of Nunavummiut braved the cold to stand in solidarity with Greenland and against threats of annexation by the United States.

About 90 per cent of its 60,000 people are Inuit.

Opinion | In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War

fantastic piece from my colleague @polgreen.bsky.social that gets at something i have been thinking about. what, exactly, is the administration's strategic goal in minnesota? what does "victory" look like for trump and miller?

Justin Ling: It’s time Carney joined the fight against Trump’s Arctic ambitions Our co-operation with the U.S. should be contingent on the White House dropping its absurd claims to Greenland.

🎵 let's stop being so chickenshit 🎵
www.thestar.com/opinion/star...

Presented by the artist 1978

CH OM Henry Moore, Working Model for Three Piece No. 3: Vertebrae, 1968
https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1124959

Renfrew Christie Dies at 76; Sabotaged Racist Regime’s Nuclear Program

Holy hell, what an obituary

Statistics Canada to cut 850 jobs in 'dark time' for public service, union says Federal statistics agency entered its workforce adjustment period Monday, sending notices to thousands of employees.

Quite frankly, it’s outrageous that Mark Carney is cutting Statistics Canada. If he was Stephen Harper or Pierre Poilievre, I feel like this would be getting a lot more backlash.

Carney of all people should know the importance of high-quality data and information about the country.

Renee Nicole Good, murdered by ICE, was a prize-winning poet. Here’s that poem. Renee Nicole Good, 37, mother to a six-year-old boy, was murdered earlier today by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, a few blocks from her home. According to the Minnesota Star Tribune: [An ICE agent] s…

“i want back my rocking chairs, / solipsist sunsets, / & coastal jungle sounds...”

A poem by Renee Nicole Good, who was murdered by ICE earlier today.

lithub.com/renee-nicole...

no one wants to hire me. because my whimsy is a liability

2026 is about embracing my role as a Tastemaker.

My only 2026 resolution is to lean into how pretentious I am. Why yes, I do believe myself to have impeachable taste, and I will be smug about it.

2025 was the first since 2019 that wasn't Very Bad. In fact, it was frequently great. Grateful for friends, for an excellent partner, for art.

Everything is on fire, but everyone I love is doing beautiful things and trying to make life worth living, and I know I don't have to believe in everything, but I believe in that. - Nikita Gill

A soft, small, hopeful thing.

A hardcover copy of the book Flesh by David Szalay against a white fabric background. The book cover is bright red with an image of the painting of a man's undressed shoulder and chest.

My last book of the year. Flesh, by David Szalay. Bought this pre-Booker nomination (and eventual win) but only got around to it this week. Spare and circular. Dialogue that felt both natural and absurdist at once. I tore through it. It's excellent.

Going to start asking men who play hockey "Oh cool - because of Heated Rivalry?"

ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/12/22/a... Wonderful writeup in the Ancillary Review's 2025 Notable Books -- you can always rely on them to have some of the most thoughtful criticism in the field.

As anyone watching this space has been saying for some time: Grammarly is a cheating machine. Might as well sell the enterprise to Chegg.

My family wraps everything which no one else seems to do. It's fun!