Mark Slagle

Witcher 3 (again)

The Squid and the Whale: An Oral History of Noah Baumbach’s Masterpiece Baumbach, Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, and more look back at the deeply personal indie darling on its 20th anniversary: “It was almost like I was haunting my childhood again.”

I spoke with lots and lots of people for this oral history of The Squid and the Whale, for its 20th anniversary. Lots of fun stories here about Jeff Daniels, Noah Baumbach, and more: www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/st...

Still from the first ever MST3K Experiment Crow, Joel, and Beeper are on the bridge of the Satellite of Love

Today in 1988 Mystery Science Theater 3000 premiered on KTMA in St. Paul Minnesota. #MST3K

Border Patrol’s Chaotic Week in North Carolina Agents swept in and left residents to sort through fear, fact, and fiction.

www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

My hometown knows what’s up.

Hundreds protest Border Patrol downtown, chanting ‘Out of Raleigh now’ Moore Square filled with peaceful protesters Tuesday after federal agents detained at least a dozen people around the Triangle

Covered the protest downtown tonight:

Hundreds protest Border Patrol downtown, chanting ‘Out of Raleigh now’

www.newsobserver.com/news/local/a...

Todd Snider, Runaway Locomotive, R.I.P. Make 'em Leave My Boots On, On The Day They Lay Me Down

I wrote about the late, great Todd Snider.
stevenhyden.substack.com/p/todd-snide...

As I often say, the problem with this world is that the wrong people are dying.

Great writeup. I maintain that “Hand of Fate” is probably the most underrated song in their entire oeuvre.

[if Chuck Schumer replaced Liam Neeson in Taken]

CHUCK SCHUMER: [on phone] I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I will find you and I will help you kill my daughter

Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…

Peter Coviello isn't on Bluesky, but this definitely should be: lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...

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

YouTube video by Ace Frehley - Topic New York Groove

youtu.be/DXeeY9D9u94?...

Bill Ackman gotta be on the third draft of a tweet longer than Middlemarch right now

Far too late for it to do anybody any good, Jesse Helms has died. He has done so on Independence Day, which, since he was born too late to own slaves and in too liberal an age to allow him to outlaw sedition, will forever be his only resemblance to Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. It is rude to speak ill of the dead. Luckily, I did so ahead of time.

Every time someone awful but really old dies, I think of Hendrik Hertzberg's flawless take on Jesse Helms:

"Far too late for it to do anybody any good, Jesse Helms has died."

www.newyorker.com/news/hendrik...

Wistfully remembering the days when Dick Cheney was the most malevolent figure in American politics.

This is a great thread that has me missing NC something fierce today.

Change one letter, ruin a candy.

S&M’s

A screengrab from the NY Times, under the category "N.Y.C. Mayor's Race": What Zohran Mamdani Learned as an Africana Studies Major at Bowdoin The Democratic candidate has said his education was formative. But critics say that his degree exemplifies how colleges steep students in leftist dogma.

I honestly don't think the NY Times has been this bad in my lifetime, it's deeply shameful.

Pain at The Post As morale sinks and top talent exits, staffers at The Washington Post are bracing for more pain ahead of the holidays—raising questions about Will Lewis’ leadership, nearly two years into his tenure a...

Some news: The Washington Post is preparing to cut newsroom staff even after several high profile exits. Bezos’ new opinion editor has privately told people The Post is in “severe financial distress.” Details in @status.news www.status.news/p/washington...

The perfect dog costume doesn't exi--

North Carolina’s GOP just enacted a new congressional gerrymander to win an 11-3 GOP majority in a swing state by targeting Black Dem Don Davis.

They already gerrymandered a 10-4 edge in 2024 by replacing a fairer map that split 7-7 in 2022.

Interactive map: davesredistricting.org/join/3f06a7f...

Who robbed the Louvre? Right answers only.

The Guardian headline: “Chemical linked to low sperm count, obesity, and cancer found in dummies, tests find

bad news for my haters

If I had explain American history in one sentence, I could do worse than "John Brown was hung for treason, but Robert E. Lee was not."

NBC News’ 150 Layoffs Gut Black, Latino, Asian American and LGBTQ+ Diversity Teams The cuts affected teams across the NBC News operation and came as the network no longer needed to support two different news operations. MSNBC has begun growing its own newsroom, hiring swaths of tale...

NBC Out has had some of the best coverage of LGBTQ+ news in the last few years. In a time when the Trump administration takes historic assaults on transgender people's rights, this feels short-sighted. Good journalism is good business.
www.thewrap.com/nbc-news-lay...

Drew Struzan, the King of the Movie Poster, Has Died The beloved artist, who illustrated iconic posters for 'Star Wars', 'Indiana Jones', 'Back to the Future', and more, was 78.

This hurts worse in an age of AI slop, when so many people have no appreciation for the kind of art effort and love makes

gizmodo.com/drew-struzan...