John Garrison Marks

Double the size of the house.
Put SCOTUS justices on staggered 18-year terms.

I have also been doing this but only because my kids constantly request omelettes and get mad at me if I screw up and they get scrambled eggs. High pressure cooking situation!

I ditched all my household responsibilities and rode my bike for 2 hours today. Was legit cool in the shade along Beach Drive in the middle of the afternoon. 10/10.

The most unbelievable part of the movie Angels in the Outfield is that Coach Knox struggles at first because he just spent a decade leading the winning tradition of the Cincinnati Reds. Also the White Sox are the defending champion juggernaut team.

Some exciting news. So excited to write about JQA with Basic Books, with JQDA by my side, naturally.

Awesome, congratulations!

No, but they’ve got some cool stuff going on! www.usps.com/250/welcome....

A multi-color, 4x3 grid of stamps picturing various portraits of George Washington.

It’s the 250th anniversary of the Postal Service! In 1932, to commemorate George Washington’s 200th birthday, the USPS issued a dozen new commemorative stamps of GW. Across the country people lined up to buy them, generating $1 million in revenue in just two days—during the Great Depression!

“There has never been anything equal to it in the history of the department,” said M. L. Eidsness, Superintendent of the Division of Stamps, “and there probably never will be.”

A multi-color, 4x3 grid of stamps picturing various portraits of George Washington.

It’s the 250th anniversary of the Postal Service! In 1932, to commemorate George Washington’s 200th birthday, the USPS issued a dozen new commemorative stamps of GW. Across the country people lined up to buy them, generating $1 million in revenue in just two days—during the Great Depression!

Thomas Jefferson and the Fight against Slavery Winner: Herbert J. Storing Book PrizeFinalist, Center for Presidential History Book PrizeRunner-Up, Journal of American History Book of the Year AwardIn this...

Thanks! And maybe it was this? kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700635979/

Seeing this incredible faculty seminar at Harvard on commemorations for 2026-27 makes me wish I was actually in a position to apply to/do these kinds of things. networks.h-net.org/jobs/68902/h...

I’m beginning to suspect my book will not be for sale at the Washington Monument when the 2026 crowds arrive next summer.

Damn this fucking rules

There’s a house with multiple beagles on my block and every night at the same time we have to pause the TV while the “beagle parade” goes past, all three just howling at nothing the entire way around the block.

A huge part of the Republican platform is now “we’re scared of big cities” which leads to all sorts of weird results. today.yougov.com/society/arti...

Just got word this thing is officially coming April 2026! I’m ready!

Also, for the record, Chuck E. Cheese is a rat, not a mouse.

Turns out it’s actually impossible to win enough tickets to get the Sega Dreamcast. Glad he’s finally being brought to justice.

Finally reading Sven Beckert’s *Empire of Cotton.* What an impressive book. Boggles the mind to think about the process of researching this.

Brains are wild. It’s how I justify taking naps when I’m stuck on something. “Sub-conscious me will solve this.”

Once while writing this most recent book I sat bolt upright in the middle of the night as my brain solved something while I slept and found it important enough to wake me up. Practically shouted “eureka!”

"You recently bought a bag of mulch. You must be some kind of mulch collector! Here's several months of ads and emails with more bags of mulch."

White text on a red background reads: Declaration Stories, July 23, 2025, Among the papers in Hannah Dunster's closet was her father's copy of the Declaration of Independence. At the top of the image, white pieces of paper in flight. At the bottom, a detail of handwriting reading "Please keep it in the family."

A cat lady, a closet of family papers, and the Declaration of Independence. In this week's story, learn about Isaiah Dunster's broadside, passed down to his daughter Hannah and eventually out of the family.

declarationstories.org/stories/in-the-family

Gotta do it, that stuff is somehow the world’s stickiest substance, I think they cooked it up in a lab. Every cup is a cruel joke, it’s like they’re pressurized. 100% impossible to open without the juice exploding out I don’t understand it.

Lmao, hey it’s good to be clear. “Yes I can get this back to you asap, 3 months tops.”

Trump's Assault on the NPS is Not a Disagreement Over History. It is an Attack on History Itself We need to stop framing this ongoing “review,” ordered by the Trump administration of the National Park Service’s interpretive assets, as a disagreement over history.

Trump's Assault on the NPS is Not a Disagreement Over History. It is an Attack on History Itself. #NationalParks open.substack.com/pub/kevinmle...

I definitely signed up for a credit card in exchange for free pizza.

Separately, I also gave Marlboro permission to contact me for the rest of my life for a free pack of cigarettes, but at least they still send me a birthday card every year, even 5 inter-state moves later.

Reading a biography from 1952 for research and man, biographies have gotten a LOT better in the last 75 years.

Here's the thing about claims that "history will remember."

History doesn't remember. *People* remember.

Reconstruction ended ~150 years ago. For most of that time, Americans have misunderstood, misremembered, & willfully misrepresented it - despite a vast historical record to the contrary.