You will, I hope, forgive me my instruments.
“What Will You Do?”, Kaveh Akbar for The Nation
The sofa bed was designed for someone different from me—not just smaller but also, it seemed to me, with a different personality.
The Idiot, Elif Batuman
Submitted by Hannah, with these runner-ups:
They were still talking, laboriously, like seals.
Walking through security was like dying—the way you had to say goodbye to everyone, the way you became just your name on a paper and gave up your money and your watch and your shoes.
I began to intuit dimly why people drank when they went dancing, and it occurred to me that maybe the reason preschool had felt the way it had was that one had to go through the whole thing sober.
I dislike everything about them, especially at eight-thirty in the morning.
Joan Didion in an essay she wrote when she was 15 years old??
The sentence that follows the one above is also incredibly funny:
However, after giving it considerable thought, I have come to the conclusion that I dislike people who can play the ukulele.
To me, this suggests that in her life Joan Didion was a top-tier hater of Zooey Deschanel in the 2010s. Imagine the indignity of trying to explain twee indie rock or ModCloth or the movie (500) Days of Summer to Joan Didion! Imagine her disdain like a knife! (This also makes me want to revisit Didion’s writings on Hawaii and search for signs of ukulele loathing.)
Sprinkles left us to ponder this alien praise of obscurity, which went counter to the reigning quantitative metrics of an entire generation’s self-worth.
Health and Safety, Emily Witt
Submitted by Hannah.
Every shower curtain and paper clip is shot through with animistic sovereignty and panpsychism.
Review of Fernando Flores’ Brother Brontë by Mark Leyner for The New York Times
Why remove a tumor when you can train it to perform data entry?
Metamorpho: The Element Man #4, Al Ewing & Steve Lieber
Submitted by james.
just because the clown car goes very fast does not mean it isn’t full of clowns
Submitted by (a different, capitalized) James.
In Japan, an Iceless Lake and an Absent God Sound an Ancient Warning
A real New York Times headline
In general, software projects get sadder as they go on.
“The Zeno Effect”, the Aboard Newsletter
Submitted by Nour.
It’s like The Purge, but for happy thoughts.
“The best-case scenario for the 2025 San Francisco Giants”, Grant Brisbee for The Athletic
Submitted by Henry.
That is what I want to say every time someone asks me, “What about A.I.?” with the breathless anticipation of a boy who thinks this is the summer he finally gets to touch a boob.
“Actually, A.I. is Pretty Mid”, Tressie McMillan Cottom for The New York Times
Looting, even when done by Germans, is not an activity that lends itself to precise statistical enumeration.
The Wages Of Destruction The Making And Breaking Of The Nazi Economy, Adam Tooze
Submitted by craig.