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Why I Hate Substack February 17, 2025
Earlier this week, the online magazine Current announced it will be shuttering in April. A small magazine run by a dedicated team of editors volunteering their time, Current was a lovely diamond in a whole mess of internet rough. I was only able to p...
El Car Wash February 12, 2025
As a professional journalist, I have, over the years, developed a "nose for news," which is why I pride myself on my ability to "break" the occasional "juicy" story and, in the process, misuse “quotation marks.”So as you can imagine my ears really "p...
Paranormal Phenomena February 12, 2025
What’s something supernatural/paranormal that you’ve done, experienced, or witnessed?* I asked many people this question. These people answered:Adam Humphreys, Alan Rossi, Alec Zeck, Alex Perez, Amanda Fortini, Andrew Weatherhead, Anna Dorn, August L...
Too Busy Blurbing Books to Write One February 06, 2025
Maybe we all got fed up at the same time. Last week, Sean Manning, the publisher of Simon & Schuster’s flagship imprint, announced that it would no longer “require” authors to procure blurbs for their books. This news came just weeks after I told my ...
The New Coke Revisited February 06, 2025
When I’m behind the wheel, no road trip is complete without a country-fried steak from Cracker Barrel, preferably served with turnip greens and fried okra. I’ve become a total sucker for their wholesome nostalgic Americana vibe, being marooned on the...
O Canada! Time to Talk Tariffs February 04, 2025
Note: The tariff news is breaking by the hour. As I prepared to hit publish, the Trump administration announced that tariffs on Mexico were paused for a month. Further developments with Canada are expected this afternoon. Thus, while the specifics wi...
The Vibe of Things Is the Heart of Things February 03, 2025
A vibe, Aristotle might say, is said in many ways; Becca Rothfeld, in her self-described “rant” against the term “vibeshift,” mentions a few. It can refer to a style or disposition, the way someone cuts through the air or the atmosphere of a street, ...
Stop Blaming Misinformation for Cynicism and Mistrust February 03, 2025
Meta is ending fact-checking and removing restrictions on speech across Facebook and Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg, its CEO, recently announced, calling the move an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms. Fact-checkers will be replaced with...
Ode to a Fallen iPod January 10, 2025
September 9th, 2014—a date that still lingers in my personal infamy. That was the dark day that Apple officially discontinued the finest portable music player ever devised, the 160-gigabyte iPod Classic. And just the other night, January 7th, 2025 ma...
Substack: The Next Big Thing? January 10, 2025
The media industry needs a savior. Maybe the entire knowledge economy does. Enter Substack, the newsletter platform that punches far above its weight in cultural impact, despite its mere $650 million valuation. Launched in 2017 by Chris Best, Hamish ...
The New York City Subway Is a Madhouse. And a Miracle. January 07, 2025
I travel frequently between Los Angeles and New York City, often taking a redeye flight into JFK. The final leg of this journey is nearly always the subway, specifically the A train, which runs the longest subway route in the city, spanning 31 miles ...
The End of Fun in the NBA January 03, 2025
The big power forwards and centers, wide as canyons in the shoulders and waist, used to bludgeon each other in the post like elephant seals. That was basketball once — Charles Barkley backing down defenders like a bulldozer, Shaquille O'Neal shatteri...
The Village of Archery Was A Plantation January 02, 2025
“My life on the farm during the Great Depression more nearly resembled farm life fully two thousand years ago than farm life today.” – Jimmy CarterWe know that social change occurs glacially, and that the victories discussed in textbooks represent ra...
My 2024 in Reading January 01, 2025
Every year, I write a piece rounding up all the books I read. I chart almost nothing in my life except reading; I’ve got notebooks listing all the books I’ve read for more than a decade, with little letter grades placed next to them. These grades are...
Walt Whitman: the Original Substacker December 31, 2024
I can remember exactly where I was when I first read Walt Whitman. Lying on the bed in my girlfriend’s dorm room in college, I started reading “Song of Myself” from Leaves of Grass out loud and, much to my girlfriend’s annoyance, sort of couldn’t sto...
The Best & Worst Movies I Watched in 2024 December 25, 2024
This year was not a good one for movies. Frankly, my enthusiasm to venture to the theater or even plop on the living room couch (and forfeit my valuable time to 2024 films) was slim-to-none. Overall, I saw only 105 movies — compared to 120 from last ...
The Absurd Genius of Netflix Christmas Films December 23, 2024
Ah, the holidays, that season of sensory delights. A Christmas tree twinkling in the corner, the scent of cinnamon wafting through the air, and on the television, a wholesome, snow-draped fantasy film driven by one pivotal question: What if Frosty th...
The Cruelty Is the Point December 23, 2024
After Donald Trump won reelection, scores of Americans once again failed to make good on their loudly shared and oft-repeated plan of moving to Canada; but a good number of them did partake in a different, rather less cumbersome, exodus. Complaining ...
Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse, the Internet & Me December 20, 2024
There’s a curious resonance between writers and the names of their first biographers. Proust, for instance, twinkles in the eye of his infatuate Painter. Nabokov playfully outfoxes and hides in his Field. Larkin is blurred in Motion. Bellow wobbles b...
Winter 2024 Book List December 17, 2024
It is the “holiday season,” which means it’s time for you to make your sacrificial offering to the Baals of our cult of consumerism…I mean, to commemorate the Almighty’s gift-of-self by giving gifts to your loved ones....
Geometries of Geopolitics December 16, 2024
In all my years of schooling, only one math class ever captured my imagination: ninth grade Honors Geometry. Most of that came down to an exceptional teacher, Mr. Curtis James, who eloquently laid out the course of study not just as lines and angles ...
Culture Slop December 10, 2024
In a recent interview, Tim Robbins said that if you want a picture of moviemaking’s destiny, imagine a mudslide of algorithmic garbage coming out of the streaming-industrial complex and crushing a human brain—forever. “You go on Netflix right now, yo...
The Ultimate Men's Gift Guide (2024) December 09, 2024
I asked men, actual living men, what they really wanted for Christmas this year. And - just like last year - they answered1....
There Is No Surplus Elite in America December 06, 2024
Over the course of the last decade, a seductive idea has conquered the discourse: the notion that the sudden surge in political instability in democracies like the United States has been due to “elite overproduction” and the subsequent formation of a...
The New Status Anxiety December 02, 2024
In the 2000s, there were many blogs. They were both popular and snickered at. Some of this was due to the name itself—nothing called a “blog” could carry much gravity—and some of it was a matter of money, or lack thereof. Most bloggers wrote for free...
