Brandy Jensen

The Defense Minister of Israel says it was "blood libel" to go after Israeli soldiers caught on camera raping a Palestinian.

The Academy Missed Some Of 2025’s Best Film Scores | Defector What do you listen for in a great movie score? An iconic theme, perhaps, or a meaningful leitmotif that ties the film together. Maybe you want something innovative, compositions that make a film feel ...

Over at @defector.com, @brandyjensen.bsky.social let me dig into the strange history of the Academy's Best Original Score category and then construct my own alternative ballot for 2025: defector.com/the-academy-...

Look what we've done to our beautiful Ray Ratto.

incredible read

Calling Cormac McCarthy’s authorial style a “mistake” that AI no longer makes is so funny

It's stiff competition, but Nellie Bowles may actually be the most evil, vapid person to work at her wife's stupid website:

Lost Recipes | Defector In 1991, Spin magazine took the Compton rap collective N.W.A out to eat for a profile at the Russian Tea Room in Manhattan. The white author presents gangsta rap as a cynical enterprise, no different ...

This is so real.

It’s about hip-hop, about capitalism, about the way that marginal cultures are erased, and about a million other things, all integrated into a cohesive thing, and it’s why I keep being a loyal DEFECTOR subscriber.

It’s Not Complicated The mainstream media failed the public during the genocide in Gaza. The Key's editor-in-chief shares her vision for what comes next.

Former LA Times managing editor @sarayasin.bsky.social launches The Key, a new publication about Palestine that will be "a home for journalists who have had their stories spiked in mainstream outlets."

Her opening essay is worth every second of your time: www.thekeymagazine.com/p/western-jo...

This is excellent.

Outlets can just do this! No current events hook, not even a new release for the author, just 'this writer is good as hell' backed by a lot of close reading.

Lost Recipes | Defector In 1991, Spin magazine took the Compton rap collective N.W.A out to eat for a profile at the Russian Tea Room in Manhattan. The white author presents gangsta rap as a cynical enterprise, no different ...

I wrote about old rap magazines, the fight for the future of hip hop’s past, and the impact the digital age has had on history, for @defector.com
defector.com/lost-recipes

Lost Recipes | Defector In 1991, Spin magazine took the Compton rap collective N.W.A out to eat for a profile at the Russian Tea Room in Manhattan. The white author presents gangsta rap as a cynical enterprise, no different ...

Really good deep dive on the terrible state of hip-hop media archives and what that means for culture writing today

lol okay I can respect that

Don DeLillo's Funniest Novel Is A 1980 Hockey Sex Romp He Won't Acknowledge | Defector The end of the 1970s seemed to be a moment of uncertainty for Don DeLillo, creatively speaking. The previous decade had seen him become a rather important American author, enough so that he had left h...

If anyone has a copy I am willing to pay you a reasonable price for it

lol yeah email me

Yoko Tawada Is A Genius In Any Language | Defector There’s always a song to sing, but first a silence must be created for the song to be born in. — Yoko Tawada, Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel The best argument I can make for why I like reading...

Yoko Tawada—exophone, master of the "poetic ravine," genius—is my favorite living author. Maybe she will be yours too: defector.com/yoko-tawada-...

Hello! I am a trans journalist looking to speak with trans kids and parents of trans kids across the US who have been impacted by the clinic closures---please get in touch or share!

Cool hey did anything happen *before* 1979 between the United States and Iran

How Can You Not Be Romantic About Women's Basketball?  | Defector Most “women’s sports novels” are really novels about girls. In them, girlhood is something mourned before it’s over. Like the games themselves, the books are set to ticking clocks. When the high schoo...

really good essay on romance novels, women’s basketball, and the wishes fulfilled by both

Claims of 40 dead after an Israeli airstrike on a elementary girl’s school in Iran
www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblo...

Victor Wembanyama Sighting Confirmed In Brooklyn | Defector A couple months ago, some friends and I made plans to see the San Antonio Spurs when they were in town to play the Brooklyn Nets. Obviously, we weren’t going for the opportunity to see the Nets’ youth...

I have laughed at this photo Samer took of Wemby approximately 30 times since last night. it’s perfect

oh man 😔

Lmao

For the first time in Gallup history —

More Americans sympathize with Palestinians in the “Middle East Situation” than with Israelis.

41% Palestinians (+8)
36% Israelis (-10)

Democrats: Palestinians +48
Independents: Palestinians +11
Ages 18-34: Palestinians +30
Ages 35-54: Palestinians +18

A Complimentary Profile Of Jason Lee That Was Surprisingly Difficult To Publish | Defector If you walked down Colorado Boulevard in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles at some point in the past three years, you might have noticed a modest, pueblo-style beige building with “PHOTO” pai...

He always struck me as a chill guy. Guess I was wrong!

The Mournful Ballad Of Punch The Monkey | Defector When I first heard rumblings that the world had assembled a conclave to elect a new celebrity zoo animal, I felt preemptively wary, partly due to world events and partly because we still don’t know th...

beautiful work here from @sabs.bsky.social 😭

I can't believe a guy who doesn't believe in school would use a metaphor that doesn't make any sense

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms rules so much. Ser Duncan and Egg forever

Cherien Dabis Discusses The Challenges Of Writing, Filming, And Distributing A Palestinian Movie | Defector For Cherien Dabis, it all comes back to 1948. Her latest film All That’s Left of You takes place primarily across three different decades, with a brief visit to a fourth at the end, but for her, this ...

My interview with Cherien Dabis, on the challenges of writing, filming, and distributing a Palestinian movie: defector.com/all-thats-le...

What Should Recorded Musicals Do? | Defector One dreary weekend this past December, I decided to fight back the winter gray with the color and vibrancy of musical theater. I routed myself not to Times Square but to the closest AMC, which was…

What should recorded musicals do? defector.com/what-should-...

The trajectory of the men’s hockey team over a blistering 12 hours