Iâll be repping @illinoispress.bsky.social books in Tent E all day Saturday. Sunday at 5 Iâm talking about SinĂ©ad OâConnor and her legacy of dissent with @britticisms.bsky.social @zoezolbrod.bsky.social & Gina Frangello on the Center Stage.
Music critic for Chicago Tribune. Occasional freelance writer and editor. The last girl on the dance floor. đȘ©âš HIT ME UP: http://brittjulio.us
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Iâll be repping @illinoispress.bsky.social books in Tent E all day Saturday. Sunday at 5 Iâm talking about SinĂ©ad OâConnor and her legacy of dissent with @britticisms.bsky.social @zoezolbrod.bsky.social & Gina Frangello on the Center Stage.
I get to talk about Sinead O'Connor's legacy of dissent at Printers Row Lit Fest this Sunday in our beautiful city with @marthabayne.bsky.social, @britticisms.bsky.social, and @circegirl.bsky.social.
Received a press release from my momâs old pastor, whose church she stopped attending because he had a private jet and called Trump âour savior.â
Planning a âBack 2 Skoolâ shopping day just to feel alive again.
Thank you for sharing my newsletter. đđ„°
Thank you for sharing!
Some great ones in today's "what we're reading" section, including this one from @britticisms.bsky.social! --> Unbodied 001: The Wisdom of Ourselves theunbodied.substack.com/p/unbodied-0...
Did you tell him, "Well, you oughta know."
I was talking to my new physical therapist about monoculture and I mentioned Alanis Morissette and he said, âWho?â Havenât felt this old in a while.
It feels like fall. đ
Always annoyed that we have to wade through whatever bullshit angle they decide is the reason why Dems lost in the weeks post election, only to completely ignore that issue when Republicans make it worse months later. This is about âvoting for the economyâ but it could be about a lot of things.
It's true! I'll be discussing Sinead and her legacy of dissent at 5 pm on 9/7, with @zoezolbrod.bsky.social @britticisms.bsky.social and Gina Frangello. We are in the final time slot of the final day, so come by and hang out with us!
"The nightclub scene is not dead. Itâs just been transformed into something different." My new story on the rise of DJ sets and coffee shops as a nightlife alternative is now live on the Chicago Tribune. www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/06/d...
âI ran and I ran. Iâm still running away.â
Hate that my life, every year and like clockwork, involves yelling at insurance companies/pharmacies to get the medicine I was actually prescribed and not the alternative that sent me to the hospital five years ago.
Doechii at Lolla. It doesnât get any better. The star is here.
Iâve relaunched my Unbodied substack about healing, the body, and culture. The first issue, discussing everything I went through to attend the Cowboy Carter tour, is now live! theunbodied.substack.com/p/unbodied-0...
Frozen into The Power of Good-Bye into To Have and Not to Hold into Little Star into MER GIRL hits different. Like, I am unraveled.
I listened to Ray of Light for the first time in like 20 years, and I cried. This is definitely an album that makes the most sense in your late 30s.
Shit suddenly got real.
I saw a group of six girls in a car last night, windows down, shouting along to Taylor Swiftâs âAll Too Wellâ and I smiled because GIRLHOOD but then 20 seconds later, I heard them hit a parked car because the girlhood was too distracting.
Is playing one song on repeat for hours/days always a bad sign?
Not Malcolm. This seems especially unfair.
Theyâre just two lil shy bbs đ„ș
*in my most unhinged woo woo astrology girl voice* âYou donât believe astrology? Well, explain this on the night before Mercury retrograde in Leo!!!â
Love Island ended and I just read a book in one day. Iâve finally reset my brain after obsessing over six weeks of Fiji nonsense.
I see on tiktok that gen z has been saying âtheyâre so buzzyâ as in âtheyâre so cuteâ or âtheyâre so hotâ and that feels like the first slang word of theirs they I actually enjoy. This old head WILL be incorporating it into her vocabulary.
I donât think anyone is prepared for what they just did w/ ICE. This is not a simple budget increase. It is an explosion - making ICE bigger than the FBI, US Bureau of Prisons, DEA,& others combined. It is setting up to make whatâs happening now look like childâs play. And people are disappearing.
Decided to touch grass instead of watch Love Island live tonight.
Probably connected to the Chicago Park District's struggles with lifeguard hiring because they sexually assaulted so many of them that parents no longer wanted their kids to be lifegaurds. chicago.suntimes.com/politics/202...
What did they say?!
MADISON, Wis. (AP) â Wisconsin Supreme Court's liberal majority strikes down the stateâs 176-year-old abortion ban.
There was a slight wobble in his voice when he said that. I was cackling.
Relatable đ
I use Raindrop.io
In the aftermath of the fire that destroyed the historically Black Altadena, corporations with murky structures have been quietly buying up the area
âWoods has overheard Leto asking to see their kidsâ birth certificates before letting them into the pool.â
WHOA. I missed that.
This man should have been locked up years ago and had no business being near children and the general public. blockclubchicago.org/2025/07/02/a...
The âlifeguardâ who shot & killed 1 teen at the park & injured another was previously involved in a standoff with SWAT after he shot & killed a dog. Both incidences he claimed self defense. He received NO charges after the SWAT incident. Then was hired by the Park District. WTF?
Discovering and losing Tiny Chef all within the course of a day has been devastating.
Shanteari Young, the daycare owner who shot her husband when she learned he was sexually abusing children at the facility, has been released from prison
Am I mean, or are you ignorant and you donât like the tone I use to call you out on it?
This was inspired by seeing a tiktok that said Uffie and Santigold were Y2K artists. No.
Like weâre losing recipes!? I feel like Iâm losing my mind lmao.
The cutoff really should be pre-9/11 (which fundamentally changed culture), but Iâll extend it to the end of the first Bush presidency if weâre being generous.
Since when did we start extending Y2K culture to 2008?!
i feel sick
âI saw this and thought of youâ is the nicest sentence in the world to me. I like to say it. I like to receive it.
Just looked at my receipts in Gmail and my drink was $4.80 before taxes in December 2021 đ
Heat wave naps hit different. Feel like I was drugged.
âHello!â âHi!â âYouâre all alone.â âOh! Well, yes.â âHow sad for you!â
MTE.
The effects of being detained by ICE is monumental. One gap I hope to fill is mental health care. Please join me in raising funds for therapy for those who have experienced the trauma of detainment and their loved ones in Illinois, Missouri, and Georgia. donorbox.org/therapy-for-...
Debates about 26-year-old Sabrina Carpenterâs âsexual image?â Thatâs a grown woman. Letâs wrap this convo up today.
DON'T TELL ME I'M OVERREACTING: Black women & girls between the ages of 10-20 make up about 30% of Chicagoâs missing person cases, despite being only 2% (TWO) of the city population, a 2023 investigation by the Invisible Institute and City Bureau found. blockclubchicago.org/2025/06/08/a...
According to the FBI, 97,924 Black women and girls were reported missing nationwide in 2022. Black women and girls represented over 36 percent of missing persons, despite making up only 14 percent of the countryâs female population that year. blockclubchicago.org/2025/06/08/a...
They always turn to the âTrump as superheroâ narrative when they realize heâs caught up in some bullshit. âActually heâs a super secret spy whoâs leading a covert operation to âŠâ đ«©
I like knowing someone at Love Island USA is also a big Janelle Monae fan based on this intro. Like yes, exactly.
đđ thank you
As Elder Hive, I do find it delightful that something from BeyoncĂ©âs back catalog trends with gen Alpha/Z every couple of months, like clockwork. Mariah Carey and Janet, too. LEGACY. IMPACT.
Yep đ
Oh!
I finally responded to an email that I was afraid to open and everything was fine and it took me two minutes. đ
I saw a girl on TikTok say, âHe looks like a gimmick to meâ as a form of an insult and I had to write it down because itâs so good.
Of course she did, because that brand of American christo fascism that has taken over right wing politics is a death cult. Sheâs just saying the quiet part out loud.
Yeah, I spent 15 minutes trying to explain the Patti LuPone/Kecia Lewis/Audra McDonald drama to my parents after we all attended a Chaka Khan concert. Their ears perked up when I talked about who used the word âbitch.â
considering the overton window has shifted (once again) to "should women vote?" AND women are actively being imprisoned for the crime of miscarriage AND we're policing gender presentation.... the idea that men are "under attack"????????????????????? c'mon you babybrained asshole
No! Definitely not.
Picked up âBoots on the Groundâ in less than five minutes and now teaching my mom and aunt. The dance student in me will never truly go away.
I grew up in the trenches of Gawker and ONTD comments. I will argue with you forever and make it funny
Me to my physical therapist: Wait! Do you have your cell phone? This is an emergency. Him: *fumbles taking it out* Yes, whatâs up?! Me: Can you Shazam this song theyâre playing? Him: đ 15 push ups. Me: âŠokay.
*Kamala I love good news gif*
LOL my friends and I used to say we could never date someone who doesnât ârespectâ BeyoncĂ©âs artistry and craft, but honestly, thatâs not enough anymore for me. You have to understand why sheâs great and also like her music. No exceptions!
Gave me the worst migraine. Was awful.
Depression indicator.
I anticipate a Chicago portion of any future Cowboy Carter movie that highlights how we went from tornado warnings to dust storms and low 90s to low 40s in three nights of shows.
Also her rendition of the national anthem was lowkey kinda scary, but in a good way. She looked rightfully mad in a pointed way while singing the lyrics.
Have to laugh thinking about the insane tiktok theories calling BeyoncĂ©âs Cowboy Carter work âpro-American propaganda.â Her tour is quite explicitly critical of the mythology of America.
Has a massive flare this morning and was unable to get out of bed until 2, but somehow rallied and recovered enough to clock 15,000 steps at the Cowboy Carter tour tonight.
It was on the floor like right in the front too so you see Bey and the dancers performing while some folks are fighting, some are singing, and some are watching. A perfectly captured moment.
Grateful that the tiktok algorithm has shown me all angles of a fight that broke out night 1 of the Cowboy Carter tour in Chicago during âII Hands II Heaven.â
Episcopal Church won't resettle white Afrikaners, ends work with U.S. government www.npr.org/2025/05/12/g...
đđŸđđŸ blockclubchicago.org/2025/05/13/b...
Sheâs one of my favorites on TikTok. She goes by âsaltlacroix.â She does social commentary through comedy and this like early aughts Southern California semi-faux persona. So so good.
Yes! So fascism coded. This creator I like called it Operation B.E.I.G.E. Meaning Boring and Engineered to Identify with Gentrification and Eugenics. Itâs so obvious now.
Nope! I almost exclusively wore thrifted pieces in my late tweens and early 20s that were both good quality and unique and stylish. To me. Which was the point of my post. There is a lack of individuality and risk taking. And the popularity of SHEIN shows quality is the least of most folks concern.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has been released after he was arrested for allegedly trespassing at an ICE facility in New Jersey pix11.com/news/local-n...
Why is everyone allergic to serving? Whatever happened to personal style?
Chicago?!
I step away for one hour to eat dinner, and âŠ
Every year, I await the Met Gala red carpet to see what my ex-boss is wearing and make fun of it.
show me show me show me
Pritzker: Time to stop wondering if you can trust the nuclear codes to people who donât know how to organize a group chat. Itâs time to stop ignoring the hypocrisy in wearing a big gold cross while announcing the defunding of childrenâs cancer researchâŠ
Love my governor. One of only a few signs of hope www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/u...
BTW, she thought Beyonce was âdemonicâ because sheâs âalways with those horses.â Iâm not joking.
I canât believe I met part of the 8%. Used to think they were just a myth. Now I know theyâre the folks online in Shaderoom comments calling BeyoncĂ© âdemonicâ (something that cracked woman also said).
Anyway, I know we need âpatienceâ to break through to some folks, and Iâm glad there are people out there willing to do that. But that ainât me. Never has been. Never will be. For the rest of us, I encourage you to just talk your shit. At least once.
Like yeah Iâm a bitch and I donât care.
I called her an idiot. I donât even give AF. Like Iâm done trying to be nice to people. Iâm not gonna respond to the distractions and disinformation and propaganda you lapped up in the comments of AI slop posts on Facebook like itâs based in reality.