I have met crows that should be in jail.
“walking through los angeles when the crows are screaming and going through your garbage”, Kaleb Horton for his newsletter
Submitted by @symbo1ics.bsky.social. I was not all that familiar with Kaleb Horton’s work while he was alive, and I regret that now. His passing has put a lot of his writing on my timeline. What a tremendous voice of California.
Talking about the Beatles is fucking exhausting.
“George Harrison’s Quiet Affair With Formula One”, Kaleb Horton for Rolling Stone
Submitted by Ed.
She replied that it was not, but he continued, "Isn't this a teeny-weeny bit of Socialism?"
Wikipedia entry for the history of Social Security in the United States
Maybe more perfect in context: the "he" in the sentence is a senator and the "She" is Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, in a hearing on Social Security. I wonder if that was the first time "teeny-weeny" was written into the Congressional record.
Well, the next time someone brings up a terrible anecdote about Cambodia or Vietnam, I will definitely drop the Star Wars story to show that people have two sides.
Isaac Chotiner while interviewing Cass Sunstein for The New Yorker
Submitted by Chris.
A faint rhythm of warning underlies our walk: a species is noticed, then we find that it is being eaten up, or its habitat is shrinking (or, the thing that it eats is being eaten up, or the habitat of the thing that it eats is shrinking; or, there’s nothing left to eat it, so it’s eating up everything else).
“A Walk With “North Woods” Through Prairie Garden Trust”, Karina Tse for the Daniel Boone Regional Library blog
Submitted by Nathan.
But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged / into our personal weather
"In Those Years", Adrienne Rich
The rare time he goes to sleep for the night is after he retrieves the reflection of the moon from the surface of a lake, dries it by the fire, and wraps himself in it.
“A Children’s Book That Actually Feels Like Childhood”, Nausicaa Renner for The New Yorker
Submitted by Erin.
The human heart is an idol factory.
Why Christians Should Be Leftists, Phil Christman
Submitted by (a different) Chris.
Being raised on Algol, FORTRAN was always a very painful experience.
“Brief history of PROJ[4]”, Gerald Evenden in an email to the OSRS-PROJ listserv
Found via dissertation writing. I think it’s the “raised on Algol” that makes this perfect for me, because I imagine a toddler in a little sailor outfit (for some reason) delightedly clapping its hands saying “Algol! Algol!” as though that’s a normal thing.
Civility obsessives love a silver-tongued devil, wearing a nice suit, sporting a tidy haircut, while whispering sweet bigotries.
“Civility is a Fantasy”, Roxane Gay for The New York Times
Submitted by Angela.
There is, there has to be a difference between striving to create something valuable and striving to sit in a slightly more comfortable chair.
“Boarding Group One”, Joan Westenberg for her blog
Submitted by Derek.
Navy blue is the color of having to have an account.
Color Theories, Julio Torres
It’s hard to write down sentences during live theater so there were many other excellent sentences in this that I probably have forgotten. One runner-up:
I have to get an external hard drive, like an astronaut?
If Blueskyism worsens the inherent defects of academia and the professions, Sewerism does the same for the nastiest aspects of Silicon Valley, so that crypto scams, AI boosterism and unembarrassed power worship run together through the gutters of a social media service that does for the town square model of public debate what Nero did for the Olympic Games.
“The Village and the Sewer”, Henry Farrell for his newsletter Programmable Mutter
Submitted by Ed.
Children also had the ability to talk and walk immediately after birth and battle with demons.
Wikipedia entry for Genesis flood narrative
Submitted by Wesley with the comment “this is actually maybe the opposite of a perfect sentence but that's why i love it.”
my penis is furious, and it needs to shout
Anti-Vagina Monologues poster made by Pete Hegseth when he was in college
Via Jasper Craven’s essay on Hegseth in The Baffler. This is perfect in the sense that it is a perfect encapsulation of Hegseth’s whole miserable deal.
They are patient, and occasionally harsh, instructors who merely wish to show you how to execute their dance.
"Silksong Reminds Us that There’s Room for Tough Games", Moises Taveras for Endless Mode
Submitted by Joe.
All correspondence is now lightly chlorinated.
“How AI is changing the office”, The Economist
Submitted by Justin.
That day, not only did the Xerox not write The Great Gatsby—it literally caught fire.
“Book Review: The Great Gatsby by the Xerox 914 Photocopier”, Jonathan Zeller for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
Compounding the cacophony is a Jonny Greenwood score that veers between manic percolation—imagine a xylophone humping a coffeepot—and grandly operatic surges of synth.
Review of One Battle After Another, Justin Chang in The New Yorker
Submitted by Erik.