d.e.i., claudius

Thinking about how human cloning technology could be used to not only revive famous musical acts, but make them even better. Just imagine Crosby, Crosby, Crosby, Crosby, Stills, Stills, Nash, Young & Young

Opinion | The Right Didn’t Catch Cancel Culture From the Left

great piece from the always-great @pastpunditry.bsky.social and a welcome antidote to vacuous commentators whose historical memories seem to go back no further than the first iron man movie

When Historians Rediscovered These Frederick Douglass Letters, They Were Surprised by His Candid Opinions About Abraham Lincoln In correspondence with a passionate abolitionist in London, the great American orator didn't hold back when talking about the 16th president, or his successor, the much-maligned Andrew Johnson

My latest in @smithsonianmag.bsky.social about newly discovered Frederick Douglass letters.

www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hist...

Two Years After Cormac McCarthy's Death, Rare Access to His Personal Library Reveals the Man Behind the Myth The famously reclusive novelist amassed a collection of thousands of books ranging in topics from philosophical treatises to advanced mathematics to the naked mole-rat

in our new print issue, richard grant delivers an exclusive about cormac mccarthy's personal library — and about the devoted cormackians who have been cataloguing it, lovingly and discreetly: www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture... via @smithsonianmag.bsky.social

in all seriousness “lycurgus” is straightforwardly third reich

these ppl’s basic premise has been that anything is permitted as long as it is against wokeness. now they have boxed themselves in.

Brian Eno's "Ambient 1" only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it went on to start an airport.

Among many scary things happening, this is scary. Having reported in countries without a Times v Sullivan, we do not want to go this route.

What Was the Horny Profile? a collective of 60 writers, on fire and hard to kill

On another note, I really needed to think about something else this weekend. So, for Flaming Hydra, I finished something I've been mulling over since December: the weird horny profiles that men's magazines used to run all the time. flaminghydra.com/what-was-the...

if you care about the band at all you simply must read this

We've finally defeated cancel culture. Now people only get fired for criticizing the government

There's absolutely no reason why my parents should know who Curtis Yarvin is. He's not important enough, way too gross, and they are pretty old and have enough problems as it is. Very upset at the New York Times about this.

Watching the L.A. Fires Close In What it's like on the ground in Los Angeles as a Santa Ana windstorm sparks unprecedented wildfires across the city

Wrote about what it's like on the ground in LA right now. Thanks to all who have reached out, we are safe. Love this city now and forever. 🌴

I am very sad to say, David Lodge died on January 1st.
He was a wonderful man and hugely influential writer.
I was lucky to be his agent and he taught me so much.
His campus novels will be read for years to come.
A great loss.
www.penguin.co.uk/articles/202...

right back atcha

Share your expertise with Your First Byline I'm looking for some working journalists who can answer a quick email to help me put together some guides for aspiring and early-career reporters on those tried-and-true stories we all end up doing at...

Are you a working journalist? Want to help aspiring journalists learn to write the bread-and-butter stories that they'll be assigned at their first job? I'm looking for some quick expert advice. Thanks! forms.gle/KhaTuj7mCghQ...

Look at what was taken in “sweeps” of homeless encampments.

projects.propublica.org/impact-of-ho...

the eyes have it

🚨 JOURNALISM JOB ALERT🚨
@propublica.org is hiring a reporter to cover climate change as an investigative beat, examining how decisions by individuals, corporations and governments are shaping life-and-death outcomes for people across the U.S. and the world.

Details, including salary range, 👇

almost anything by highsmith is great while traveling…

Having just discovered that Suetonius wrote a life of Catullus, which survived until 1455-1460 but was then burned, I am now a) extremely annoyed, and b) plotting a novel where someone gets painfully murdered for this crime. Probably by Poggio Bracciolini, because he would.

"A long time ago, when I was writing for the pulps I put into a story a line like ‘he got out of the car and walked across the sun-drenched sidewalk until the shadow of the awning over the entrance fell across his face like the touch of cool water.’ They took it out when they published the story. Their readers didn’t appreciate this sort of thing: just held up the action. And I set out to prove them wrong. My theory was that they just thought they cared nothing about anything but the action; that really, although they didn’t know it, they cared very little about the action. The things they really cared about, and that I cared about, were the creation of emotion through dialogue and description; the things they remembered, that haunted them, were not for example that a man got killed, but that in the moment of death he was trying to pick a paper clip up off the polished surface of a desk, and it kept slipping away from him, so that there was a look of strain on his face and his mouth was half opened in a kind of tormented grin, and the last thing in the world he thought about was death. He didn’t even"

"hear death knock on the door. That damn paper clip kept slipping away from his fingers and he just wouldn’t push it to the edge of the desk and catch it as it fell."

Raymond Chandler on what people really care about in a story

...and if you buy the audiobook, you get to hear me do the different voices :)

Camp Austen A Paris Review Staff Pick and one of The Millions' Most Anticipated Reads of MarchA raucous tour through the world of Mr. Darcy imitations, tailored gowns, a...

as the yuletide approaches, i am contractually obliged to recommend the friendly romp of 'camp austen' as an ideal gift for any and all bookworms in your life! us.macmillan.com/books/978086...

hi jenn, thank you, i’m checking with our social team

“I wear the chain I forged in life! I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?”

in a dream last night graham nash confessed to me how he felt like a hack bc all his songs sounded the same and i said “hey man the hollies did some cool shit” but he could tell my heart wasn’t in it

Like it’s the turn of the century and the average New Yorker has to make 1 tin can of ham they stole from a foundling last for a month and maybe if they do a zany enough voice and die their hair they can win 3 pennies at the Jack Schlossberg lookalike contest