Paul Zakrzewski

Driving down to #awp2025 on Thursday. Double edged sword that it's close by: makes sense to go; but also not ready for the overwhelm!

I've watched and rewatched this clip. Mike Myers is brilliant -- perfectly captures Elmo's infantile, desperate churlishness.

FUCK YES

Saw this for sale and....I feel very seen

No one ever expects the Spanish Inqui--er, the Russian avant guardists! ;)

Fascists HATE satire. It cuts autocrats down to size, undermines their authority. It right-sizes things. The great Russian poet Osip Mandelstam got sent to the Gulag in the mid 1930s for describing Stalin in less-than-flattering terms in his "Stalin Epigram." Bravo to this anonymous satirist.

#goals, lol

Graffiti on a pavement reads "Elon Musk is a Nazi"

I've never ever seen graffiti in my boring little corner of Goleta, CA. People are pissed off.

Column | The best, worst and weirdest Super Bowl commercials of 2025 The 2025 Super Bowl commercials featured Eugene Levy, Nick Offerman, Jeremy Strong, Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan and Seal ... as a seal!

There's something especially meta about wading through ads in order to watch the best of the Superbowl ads

www.washingtonpost.com/entertainmen...

Yes this! A vulnerable and insightful comic. Loved it

Great piece by @rtraister.bsky.social -- love this analysis of why Trump is sticking by/pushing thru such an obviously underqualified trainwreck. Because if his administraiton *honestly* felt secure in "owning the libs" they wouldn't need this spectacle. Worth a read for its conclusion alone!

It really will be "a cold day in Hell"

www.axios.com/2025/01/15/i...

I remember how this movie ended

And over time, they’ve identified these factors as the most distinctive in harassers: a lack of empathy, a belief in traditional gender sex roles and a tendency toward dominance/authoritarianism."

What makes some men sexual harassers? Science tries to explain the creeps of the world. Harassers have some distinctive personality traits, and certain situations make people more likely to behave inappropriately.

"Over the years, Pryor — a psychologist at Illinois State University — and others have used socially engineered situations in laboratories to study how well the test predicts people's behavior...

www.washingtonpost.com/news/speakin...

www.washingtonpost.com/news/speakin...

What makes some men sexual harassers? Science tries to explain the creeps of the world. Harassers have some distinctive personality traits, and certain situations make people more likely to behave inappropriately.

Since sexual harrassment (& worse) is once again in the news the nominations of Hegseth, Gaetz & others, I'm re-upping this fascinating WaPo article from 2017...

YouTube video by Alan Pafenbach Volkswagen "Pink Moon"

It was used for this amazing VW commercial about a decade ago...one of the very few times a great song seems perfectly aligned with an ad. Ars longa vita brevis.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-kq...

Just learned it was the 50th anniversary of Nick Drake's passing, in 1974, at age 26. Along with Elliott Smith and Paul Simon, my favorite acoustic strummers/songwriters. Pink Moon is a perfect song. Here's a remastered version:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdl-...

This sent me chasing down the various Virginia Woolf nonfiction I have...her edited notebooks and the 2nd Common Reader. Wow. The breadth and precision of her writing...the sense of deep consciousness at work. Breathtaking!

The fact that despite all the talk of cancellations, there's still so much work to be done in terms of changing public consciousness around r*pe culture.

2/ Meaning? It's hard not to see the worst of Trump's cabinet picks as part of the unfinished work of #MeToo. Not so much "defying" it -- not the NYT/Peter Baker framing -- as simply evidence of its unresolved/open wound...

TW: The Pete Hegseth report is truly vile. One random note that's actually quite fitting is that the r*pe is alleged to have happened the night of Oct 7-8 2017...2 days after the Harvey Weinstein story broke in the NYT -- and 1 year to the day (10-7-2016) that Trump's Access H'wood tape leaked.

Facebook ad for Vintage Style Revival jacket - the pattern of which resembles the (in)famous carpet of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining.

A jacket you can wear forever...and ever...and ever...

Photo taken from a similar convoy in the area last month.

2/ Most of them were absolutely festooned with big-ass flags: TRUMP 2024, TRUMP WON, Blue Lives Matter/US flag, Israeli flag, even one reading "F*CK HARRIS". This wasn't about celebration--they could march downtown for that. Taking over the road is about intimidation: 'We own these roads now.'

1/ I was about to post about sitting at a lunch place today with my 17 y o son when a convey of 1-2 dozen 4x4 trucks roared by, honking their hearts out.

Love this - thanks @authorsguild.bsky.social

We need a "Writers Avoiding Their Pages On A Wednesday" starter pack...

Spending far too much time setting up this account, which inevitably leads to a question posed long ago by ELO: Mr. Blue Sky, please tell us why...