An update: this newsletter just hit the “over 1,000 subscribers” mark (welcome, new readers!). This is flattering, but also means that now I have to pay Buttondown $29 a month. Luckily I’m not fully out of pocket for this, thanks to the generous paying subscribers whose support means that I am already at the almost-break-even point. If you are able to contribute to make this newsletter fully break-even (links to do so in footer) it’s appreciated but not required.
But editorial indulgence has resulted in such a sludge of footnotes and block quotes that the eye must often dismount and continue on foot.
“Zero Tolerance”, Andrea Long Chu for New York Magazine
I love disliking stuff, and sometimes I simply take a dislike to perfectly inoffensive shit for no reason at all, as a treat or just to keep my hating skills sharp.
“Hate-Reading Wirecutter in the Nascent Era of AI Slop”, Andrea Grimes for The Flytrap
Submitted by Chris.
At this juncture, there’s just too much scuttling in American politics to call it anything other than a flawed lobster republic.
“Watchdog Group Downgrades U.S. From Democracy To Whatever Political System Lobsters Have”, The Onion
i try not to think too much about exotic transistors.
Greg A in a comment on hackaday
Submitted by Wesley.
The job of New York City Mayor is not to be jester for a wannabe king, it is to protect the people of this city.
Zohran Mamdani in a press release
Via Peter Sterne on Bluesky.
Solitary feral domestic cats tend to form colonies and tolerate each other.
Still posted by Sasha Fury on Bluesky
Submitted by Sam.
Off plane it’s like opening the door to a wrong version of the city.
“Ruminations of a Maintenance Man on an End of Season Trip to Wendover” in the Center for Land Use Interpretation’s newsletter The Lay of the Land
Shit is roofs caved in, windows boarded, thin trees already rising out the wreckage, with roots that slip through gaps in the brickwork to return the brief work of man to the senseless rubble that came before.
“In my zombie era”, Sam Kriss for his newsletter Numb at the Lodge
Submitted by Wesley.
New sentences have appeared on earth, not written by human beings.
“Back to the Rectory”, Patricia Lockwood for the London Review of Books
Submitted by Ren. Runners-up from me: