Writing Under Water
"Quatre Arbres" by Egon Schiele, 1917 Faded the flower and all its budded charms,Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,Faded the shape of beauty from my...
The Truman Show: A Capote Reader
Welcome back to Culture Club, the recurring feature where David and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or...
Notable Sandwiches #85: Hani
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the baffling and mercurial document that is...
In Soviet Times
Welcome back to Culture Club, the recurring feature where David and I discuss our preoccupations—what we’ve been thinking about, reading, watching or...
Notable Sandwiches #84: Hamdog
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the baffling and mercurial document that is...
The Decline and the Fall
Note to subscribers:Talia has another big book deadline and is also dealing with some creeping burnout, so for the next while the Tuesday columns will be...
A Burns Night Reader
By David Swanson Welcome back to Culture Club, the feature where David and I talk about what we've been reading, watching, playing or thinking about lately....
Notable Sandwiches #83: The Hamburger
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the bizarre and ever-mutating document that...
Abortion, Underground
An abortion rights poster by Andréanne Quesnel Yesterday saw the shambolic and somewhat parodic Iowa caucuses; despite the lavish media attention devoted to...
On the Theory and Practice of Reading
Welcome back to Culture Club, the feature where David and I talk about what we've been reading, watching, playing or thinking about lately, for premium...
Notable Sandwiches #81: Ham Redux
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the bizarre and ever-mutating document that...
"What We Are Up Against"
Dear readers! I am a bit under the weather today with a virus, so we are re-publishingi an older column, from when this was a significantly smaller...
The Oral Histories of TV'S Greatest Shows
By David Swanson Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid...
Notable Sandwiches #80: Five Ways of Looking at a Ham Sandwich
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where we trip merrily through the bizarre and mutable document that is Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
New Year, new platform: Putting your money where our mouth is
setting sail into new waters Hello and happy new year to all our lovely sandwich-eaters & sword-wielders! You might notice that this email isn't coming from...
Shit Sandwich
Readers, sword-wielders, and sandwich-eaters, Today’s post is meant to be about a Dutch sandwich called the hagelslag, which is buttered bread with some...
How to Respond to Critics
“Art Critic” hy Norman Rockwell, 1955 Any writer faces critics, and any life led in public, even to a small public, faces the same. As much of my work has...
Me Me at the Moors
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Notable Sandwiches #78: Gyros
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where we trip merrily through the bizarre and mutable document that is Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
Substackers Against Nazis
Hi readers—Below is a letter to the Substack founders that I helped draft as part of a group of publishers seeking answers to questions about the platforming...
Natural Born Killers
Shelley Shannon, on trial In 2018, a woman walked free after twenty years in prison. In wire photos from her 1993 trial, 46-year-old housewife Rachelle Renee...
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Eight Links for Chanukah
Happy Chanukah! Talia is presently turning in her revised book manuscript and David is otherwise indisposed, so in lieu of a sandwich column we're presenting...
Autocracy Now!
As I write these words, an American election is going on, in the way that American elections go on, and on, and on—years and months of un-fun pageantry as...
Regarding Henry
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Notable Sandwiches #77: Guajolota
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the odd mutable ranks of Wikipedia’s List of...
On the Big Terrible Thing
A week ago, I picked up Matthew Perry’s memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, a book about a life plagued by addiction that came out a year...
Talking Turkey
Howdy all, David and I are taking the week off to rest and recharge (aka: move house, and frantically work on book revisions, respectively), so we’re leaving...
Full Windsor
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Notable Sandwich Notes
It’s been a busy week here at S&S Industries, for a variety of reasons both personal and professional. So when we realized that the regularly scheduled...
Fuck You and Your Word-Stealing Machine
The Luddites: Man vs Machine This week, The New Yorker, an august magazine from which I resigned in national disgrace five years ago, dedicated its entire...
Master of Tasks
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Notable Sandwiches #76: Gua Bao
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where we trip merrily through the bizarre and mutable document that is Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
Israel-Palestine: 100 Years of Coverage
1932 fundraising map for a Jewish State With Talia focused on one last book deadline, I decided to use this opportunity to try to make some kind of sense of...
Ekphrasis
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Notable Sandwiches #75: Grilled Cheese
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where we trip merrily through the bizarre and mutable document that is Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
Halloween Column: Hexes for Your Exes
Last week, as part of my general declaration of witchcraft and retirement from society, I offered to hex your exes if you wrote in with a request. Today is...
Christopher Lee: The Lord of Horror
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Notable Sandwiches #74: The Glasgow Oyster
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where we trip merrily through the bizarre and mutable document that is Wikipedia’s List of Notable...
I Have Decided to Become a Witch
“The Witch” by Andy Warhol, 1981 In accordance with the season (spooky) and apropos of my current mood (desolate and capricious) I have decided I am going to...
A Brief History of New York Punk
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Notable Sandwiches #73: The Gerber
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the bizarre and mutable document that is...
America's Apocalyptic Cheerleaders
“One of the things I think about a lot—for self-preservation reasons—is how a particularly odious swath of evangelicals in this country are Real Weird About...
All the Things I Want
Late Saturday night I found myself writing a piece of antipropaganda. It turned into something between a poem and a shopping list. I confess lately I have...
Notable Sandwiches #72: The Gatsby
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the bizarre and mutable document that is...
Speech and Speechlessness
“Girl Before a Mirror” by Pablo Picasso, 1932 In her new book, Doppelganger: a Trip into the Mirror World, the author Naomi Klein offers a meditation on...
The Making of Donald Trump: 2000-2015
Welcome back to Culture Club, a feature where David and I write about what we’ve been reading, watching, playing, and listening to, for paid subscribers....
Notable Sandwiches #71: Fried Brain
Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my noble editor David Swanson, trip merrily through the ever-shifting document that is...
American Noir, Part I
A man with a troubled past sits behind a desk and a woman — in a hat and veil or a clinging sheath number or a pressed suit depending on the decade — walks...
The Making of Donald Trump: Parts I — IV
Over the last few months I’ve been going through the media’s coverage of Donald Trump, from his arrival on the New York real estate scene to his dalliances...