I wrote a book about now, THE UNDERTOW: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, & 2 about how we got here, THE FAMILY & C ST, also a Netflix series + some others. Professing @ Dartmouth. He/Him. New writing: https://slowcivilwar.substack.com/
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My old hound won’t walk our dark dirt roads anymore, so I load her into the car & drive into town to circle the pond, the road around it a chain of shadow & light, circles of sodium. The pond’s murky with drought; a street light turns it marigold… (continued in alt text)
I agree that on this score Tolentino and the world are too generous: that sounds like attempted murder. Which is not, in fact, a crime that we’ve all committed one time or another.
Nope. The writer is contrasting him with Zoe Kravitz, who's praising Paris is Burning, which the writer recognizes as a progressive doc. I think writer's assuming that "miners"+Kentucky=not left or cool & thus Tatum's a lunkhead.
It's a very good movie, and it wouldn't be a very good movie if everyone involved wasn't working to peak ability. That's not a statement about the director's character.
8 cops making over $100k each to arrest one man. But your food, water & air are killing you. Your daughter is carrying her rapist’s baby to term & will probably die when it becomes complicated & your veteran son in jail for being unhoused. But at least that Brown guy sitting on a bench is gone.🙄
Thanks for reading. Glad it was of some value.
Just finished The Undertow: Scenes from A Slow Civil War by @jeffsharlet.bsky.social & have been just sort of sitting here in silence ever since. I can’t remember the last time a book made me feel this way. It takes me some time to process things. This one will sit w me for a while.
NYT "think" piece presents Channing Tatum praising Barbara Kopple's Harlan County USA as evidence of a new disengaged, "politically ambiguous" "Himbo," which is perhaps evidence the writer didn't bother to watch Harlan County, USA, one of the great radical documentaries of all time.
I didn't mean the question in earnest at all, but since I started it, Gloria is definitely in my top 100 movies, maybe higher.
Hmm. Seems that earworm of a song by Le Tigre isn't as widely known as I thought, making my quotation of it too bluntly earnest or insufferably annoying, depending on whether you know the song...
Great. Let's focus on energy together on fighting that.
What's yr take on Cassavetes?
The problem with fascism is not that centrist pundits (he's not a pollster) are centrist pundits. The problem with fascism is the fascism. I think that's the big challenge facing us in the construction of a popular front: realizing that the problem is fascism.
I think I figured it out -- 'the normal people' conversation -- by which you mean said pundit's complaint? Agreed--but my point was that the furious rebuttals of the pundit are just as utterly beside the point.
Nope, because the answer isn't that he's the problem anymore than his suggestion this place is the problem is the answer. Twist: Fascism was gonna fascist anyway!
Oh, I'm not familiar with that turn of phrase. What does it mean?
Isn't it? I felt the same -- not only balance but make each of those aspects reinforce the persuasiveness of the other. It'd be easy to write a hatchet job, but I think this is both kinder and more devastating.
Thanks for reading, Jack.
A certain statistics pundit and some users of a certain social media platform sure like talking about each other. Each seems to suggest the other is what enables fascism. Hot take: Fascism is gonna fascist. That's what fascism is. It doesn't get permission from the pundit or the platform.
Thanks, friend.
This Jia Tolentino essay on Elizabeth Gilbert's books is generous & yet damning of her enormous impact on contemporary writing. Gilbert's "amnesiac perpetual becoming" has been devastating to memoir, rippling out into broader culture & politics. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
The sequel is We're All Just Fucking Out to Sea, Now.
In other words, you're speaking to how it comes to the result, perhaps under assumption that everyday people care about intention. I don't think they do that much. They don't care if their clothes are ethically made or by slave labor; only if they like the way they look.
Unfortunately, I haven't really seen Star Trek, so I don't know its computer. I do know a friend asked some chatbot to write an essay as me about something they were wondering about. And it was... very, very good. Some sentences I wish I'd written.
! Only two, mine and Shiny. Or I guess I've talked to some others I haven't seen.
Thanks for reading, John. Seems to be speeding up.
Yes, this I "know"--that is, I've heard this, but I don't really know what that means in practice short of resorting to the metaphysical. I'm not saying there isn't a difference--I'm saying the folks who know need to work on their explanation.
I don't breathe tech every day, or any day, and I confess that while I appreciate your response, I don't genuinely know what it means. I think many of us feel caught between groups asking us to take their word, & do so according to previous inclinations. A lefty, I take your word. Others don't.
It is insane to me that the richest man in the world is using his global megaphone to call for millions of British people to be rounded up and deported (including my family) and somehow this isn’t even news.
I'm game -- but is there a short explanation of what the difference is and why the term "AI" is bad? I think a big part of the problem right now is a knowledge gap, & I admit I'm frustrated by those--not you--who think everyone shld already know what they know.
You guys see where this is going? Right?
9 CDC Directors going back to 1977 speak out. What RFK Jr has done to our nation’s public health system "should alarm every American." It "is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced." www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...
The Guardian has today printed the names, and where possible, images, of all the media workers killed in Gaza, as part of an international day of action involving more than 150 media organisations. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
“Gaza Riviera” is such a uniquely horrifying phrase, contemplating it is like looking at a death mask for the world.
My time there was brief. Literally moved in on 9/11, traveled for my first book all winter-spring, think I left the following September.
! Thanks for reading. One of these books is really not like the others. But the Bathysphere Book is the winner. I worry sometimes that my readers who're interested in my politically-inflected work will feel duped by some of my recommendations that have nothing to do with that.
Yes! No kidding. What a funny coincidence.
Do they perceive them as failures? The Right sees Afghanistan as properly conquered and then given up by liberals. Iraq they can say was neutered as a threat (it wasn't a threat) & made over into a democracy (eh). They traded blood for oil, as they saying goes, & think they got a good deal.
Wait -- McKibbin?
I find that a persuasive and deeply depressing hypothesis for a lot of it. I don't think that describes the summer of 2020, but everytime I hear some fool boast about how they battled cops and won in Portland... oof. But that mode won't last forever.
I decided to check out the audiobook of Cynthia Ozick's The Puttermesser Papers, one of my favorite novels. I read it when it came out, in 1997, but I think of it often. Turns out it's read by Natasha Lyonne! I'm in. It's like season three of Russian Doll.
These are wonderful. Were you at Dartmouth or UNH? Alas, Claremont needs more than a bit of help. It needs a lot, real help, a state and national government that sees its job as helping everyone thrive.
That's what I think it should be, but the courts across centuries have disagreed.
A civics quiz in which give of the first seven questions are anti-trans, the Constitution isn't mentioned until the 8th, and the only question about an amendment is about the 2nd.
He's released now. Good. But these countless "temporary" detentions aren't a glitch, they're a key fascism of feature, every one meant as an advertisement that this could happen to anyone, that detention & release shall occur without explanation.
Claremont, New Hampshire, where the public schools were in danger of not opening this fall for a sudden shortage of funds. A gas station; a wall; a free library; an empty storefront. (There *is* loveliness in Claremont, too, all the usual & splendid kinds.)
Indeed. That's different than deployment.
Yes, of course military occupation will for its duration reduce visible street crime. That's what Bukele in El Salvador is all about. Fascists want us to dispute that instead of emphasizing the military occupation *is* crime in so many ways & does more damage than all the muggers in the world.
Fabulous thread about why so many romance novels are set in the British Regency era. I've never such a novel & yet this is fascinating on so many levels. Sometimes social media works!
Was just reading a 1970s Village Voice piece about a big heist busted because the mastermind couldn't believe the clumsy tail were cops--movies had taught them they'd never be so half-assed. He figured they were other gangsters he could handle. The keystone cops arrested him.
Ok. And it's still a silly set, and my point is it could be a Bugs Bunny green screen for all I care -- what matters are the words. That's why I was responding to those making it about the set.
How many secret police does it take to climb over a fence?
No more than Kristi Noem's brain cells
Snake Plisken would save it
The set is ridiculous, but so the hell what: These are the words responsible leaders need to say. This is the analysis from which corporate media has mostly shied away. If they need a fake kitchen to get there, that's fine by me.
Made better by the typo! "*not* the coolest."
Is this your version of MAHA? It's "good" because it'll kill enough people for earth to "recover"?
Not flattering about your criticism: Your film writing in Voice was my introduction to -- and remains my standard for -- intellectual, historical, & emotional complexity in criticism. As young reader, I hadn't seen that before. Blew my mind. That's why I have all your books!
Ways in which it was more local than other alts--it assumed its readers knew all the political players. & Barrett & others reported them more vigorously than other alts, & criticism such as yours was unmatched. I mean only in terms of long narrative immersion, documentary prose not driven by news.
And far as I can see only one library, U Conn-Storrs, has a near-complete run--one year short--hard copy only, no microfilm or digital. This stuff just disappeared.
I would not go for governors responding to Trump's destruction of rule of law with more destruction of rule of law. I'm for fewer dictators, not "theirs" and "ours."
It's not public yet so I won't say who, but just the right person is on the job,
Every city's alt was the alt of the time! I love NYC but have always been more curious about elsewhere. San Diego & Chicago I think were far in the lead in terms of immersion journalism. And San Diego was not only the coolest, it was, arguably, the least cool big city in America.
Of course it was -- that's NYC. Tho some, like San Diego's, were enormous in they heyday.
That's something else entirely, and not possible legally. Also, let's try to avoid a civil war, ok?
That brilliance survives in the call-in comment section of the Whitesburg, Kentucky Mountain Eagle. Despite never having been there, I subscribe for that very reason.
It's making me wonder how much the curiosity that drove the immersion journalism I love was easier in "the provinces." Less at stake, since nobody was getting famous, so you might as well go embed yourself in some scene or community or whatever. *Much* more about everyday people.
So why is Village Voice so much more famous? It *was* good--criticism & investigative reporting, latter of which doesn't age. But much the anthologized stuff? Writers who became famous because they were in NYC, having takes. Interesting takes for their times! Still. 2/
I've been contemplating an anthology of alt-weekly immersion journalism, 70s-2001. Figured I'd exclude Village Voice, because it was too well-represented. But only 2 anthologies, both long out of print. I'm reading one: 75% dated takes. Alts in San Diego, Chicago, elsewhere far more adventurous. 1/
Man I thought we were going to get some Terminator shit, some Matrix monsters, or at least Hal, but in the end humanity will be destroyed by a banana cart offering to write an essay for us and pretending to be a lover trying to wheedle us into suicide. Not with a bang but a pratfall.
I hope we'll see such orders signed by every official with the power to sign them. This isn't radical or even liberal; it's 101, it's like saying the king can't house his soldiers in people's homes.
This firefighter arrived in the US at age 4, has been here for 19 years, was on track to legal status, and was on a crew trying to contain a major blaze (in Washington state, vs Oregon, fwiw.) h/t @joshuajfriedman.com www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
love Kazuaki Kitamura's cat tattoos IG horitomo_stateofgrace
The thing with takes (he writes, offering a take) is that they funnel so much thinking into so few topics. Take-culture is a curiosity killer, a subtle & insidious conformism engine.
Thanks for clarification, and apologies for misreading. "advanced" as in the verb. But doesn't matter, because we crossed wires, and I appreciate your correction.
The parents were apolitical, Babbitt became an ardent Obama Democrat, & then radicalized via Trump, & mother radicalized after daughter's death.
Thanks for watching, JoBeth!
No way of knowing. But my educated guess is "a lot."
This dog looks so much like my dog, Frieda, that at first glance I reacted with alarm -- who stole my dog? Anyway, that's probably why this dog is ok with me on the teevee -- she's somehow cosmically linked to Frieda.
I’m with you there. So many points at which we could have stopped this and didn’t.
Thanks. Yes, and — there’s a way to punch Nazis. I say that as someone who grew up worshipping a great uncle who beat a Nazi POW to death. I get the draw. But Morrie’s heavy combat helped win the war, not his murder of that prisoner.
Thanks for responding without vitriol. FWIW, you likely know she was armed because I reported it. I believe I was the first, and one of the few. There’s a picture of her knife on the cover of the book about it. I don’t mean this as an “akshually”; just that it’s part of the facts I reference.
Deleted a bunch of posts responding to people shouting at me for noting legal gray area around killing of Ashli Babbitt. She was an armed fascist insurrectionist. Leave it that. Been reporting fascist beat long time. Not interested in a swarm of fedposters. Let’s all fight fascism. The end.
You got me! I am most definitely “too cowardly to test the rules for use of deadly force.” I’ve been beaten, arrested, & illegally detained by cops, but no, I’m not eager to “test” that rule. A real cowardly lion.
Morally? No. Legally? He was supposed to retreat, which he could, or try other force, which is what every single other cop there that day did and the means by which they stopped the mob. This isn’t my opinion—just observing what happened and law.
No, I really don’t think that. You can tell, because I didn’t say that — you made it up. I am against a standard in which cops can open fire on mobs they deem generally dangerous. Because I know who’s getting shot when that happens.
I didn’t say that.
Long story but no, this isn’t all that’s relevant here. Anyway — let’s both go back to fighting fascism instead of each other. On that I’m sure we agree.
Yep. I watched what I believe was the moment when she flipped from grief to racist vengeance fantasy. That was also the moment when she went from ignored grieving mother to celebrated fascist icon. She never looked back.
I agree with that suspicion, and it would have been murder. I am against murder, always, not circumstantially.
I’m not—key expert witness in the successful prosecution of Chauvin for murder makes the distinction. It’s not a matter of morality. Floyd was innocent, Babbitt wasn’t. One cop violated use of force to commit murder. Another violated the rules—that’s just a fact. What to make of it is up to you.
With respect — seriously, I know you’re thinking honestly about this — in my view there are no “right heads on pikes,” even if it comes to violence. I totally get the deep gravity of vengeance. But the struggle is for justice, which is different.
In fact I was persuaded this was a wrongful shooting by the expert witness on use of force for the prosecution of Chauvin who put the nail in his coffin.
That doesn’t apply to police.
I absolutely disagree with that, too.
ICE’s unchecked power has turned into lawless overreach—abductions by masked agents, denial of due process, secret police tactics. Democratic leaders can stop this, but only if we demand it: bit.ly/45Umbi3
I agree.
You may be right! I don’t know. But that’s another argument.
You’re right — but consider literally every other cop that day. And consider a legal standard by which cops were justified in firing upon any mob that advances. That’d be a Kent State every month. That’s what Trump & Hegseth want. I’m sticking with fighting for rule of law.
It’s in my book, The Undertow.