Benjamin Dreyer
@bcdreyer.social
America's Copy Editor®
author of the New York Times/IndieBound bestseller Dreyer's English and Stet! (the game!) • Random House copy chief/managing editor (ret.) • he/him/his
benjamindreyer.com
author of the New York Times/IndieBound bestseller Dreyer's English and Stet! (the game!) • Random House copy chief/managing editor (ret.) • he/him/his
benjamindreyer.com
Pinned
Benjamin Dreyer
@bcdreyer.social
· Nov 27
Greetings, new people here at House of Copyediting. Besides first-rate, IISSM, prose advice, you'll get:
• a random theater photo of the day, sometimes more than one
• birthday alerts for dead actresses, and occasionally live ones
• Sallie updates
And it's all free!
• a random theater photo of the day, sometimes more than one
• birthday alerts for dead actresses, and occasionally live ones
• Sallie updates
And it's all free!
Happy birthday, Jim Messina!
December 5, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Happy birthday, Jim Messina!
today's random theater photo:
William Faversham, Viola Allen, and Henry Miller in Henry Arthur Jones's The Masqueraders
William Faversham, Viola Allen, and Henry Miller in Henry Arthur Jones's The Masqueraders
December 5, 2025 at 2:47 PM
today's random theater photo:
William Faversham, Viola Allen, and Henry Miller in Henry Arthur Jones's The Masqueraders
William Faversham, Viola Allen, and Henry Miller in Henry Arthur Jones's The Masqueraders
Happy Fritz Lang's birthday!
🧐
🧐
December 5, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Happy Fritz Lang's birthday!
🧐
🧐
Not so very long ago I was to be in conversation with an author whose name wasn't complicated per se but was (a) not Western, and (b) not, to my eyes/tongue, intuitive. And I went online to hear other people saying it, and there were still slight variations.
1/
1/
December 5, 2025 at 4:25 AM
Not so very long ago I was to be in conversation with an author whose name wasn't complicated per se but was (a) not Western, and (b) not, to my eyes/tongue, intuitive. And I went online to hear other people saying it, and there were still slight variations.
1/
1/
Reposted by Benjamin Dreyer
So, my husband barely knows what Bluesky is, which is one reason I love him. And I can count the number of times he has asked me to post something on one hand with fingers to spare. That said, he asked me to share this...>
December 5, 2025 at 4:08 AM
So, my husband barely knows what Bluesky is, which is one reason I love him. And I can count the number of times he has asked me to post something on one hand with fingers to spare. That said, he asked me to share this...>
I don't know why I felt compelled to read beyond the parts of that book that have already been posted and excerpted everywhere—maybe just to see if people were cherry-picking the especially shitty sections?—but: Ye gods, it stinks.
And no chapter breaks? Really?
And no chapter breaks? Really?
December 5, 2025 at 4:10 AM
I don't know why I felt compelled to read beyond the parts of that book that have already been posted and excerpted everywhere—maybe just to see if people were cherry-picking the especially shitty sections?—but: Ye gods, it stinks.
And no chapter breaks? Really?
And no chapter breaks? Really?
pop quiz
If someone says that they like something and your response is "Really? Because it's actually awful," what precisely do you think is going to happen next?
If someone says that they like something and your response is "Really? Because it's actually awful," what precisely do you think is going to happen next?
December 5, 2025 at 3:59 AM
pop quiz
If someone says that they like something and your response is "Really? Because it's actually awful," what precisely do you think is going to happen next?
If someone says that they like something and your response is "Really? Because it's actually awful," what precisely do you think is going to happen next?
Reposted by Benjamin Dreyer
They’re killing people as a twitter joke. It’s depraved. Can’t let yourself lose the capacity to be appalled and disgusted and outraged by this.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announces another boat strike in response to a request/wish from Turning Point USA’s Andrew Kolvet.
December 5, 2025 at 2:28 AM
They’re killing people as a twitter joke. It’s depraved. Can’t let yourself lose the capacity to be appalled and disgusted and outraged by this.
What we really need is a musical of Topper.
The Thorne Smith novel? Not that I know of.
December 5, 2025 at 3:24 AM
What we really need is a musical of Topper.
Reposted by Benjamin Dreyer
41 minutes is a long time to sit in your air conditioned office watching men struggle to survive as you decide to kill them.
December 5, 2025 at 1:48 AM
41 minutes is a long time to sit in your air conditioned office watching men struggle to survive as you decide to kill them.
I was going to counterpropose "Name a book, play, or film that's never been turned into a stage musical that should be and might actually be good," but just about everything one can think of has been musicalized somewhere or other, including (my first thoughts) Mapp and Lucia and Portrait of Jennie.
today's musical theater parlor game:
Name a book, play, or film already adapted into a stage musical that you'd like to see someone take another, entirely new shot at.
As is traditional, I'll go first, plus I've got two:
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
• I Remember Mama
Name a book, play, or film already adapted into a stage musical that you'd like to see someone take another, entirely new shot at.
As is traditional, I'll go first, plus I've got two:
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
• I Remember Mama
December 4, 2025 at 10:59 PM
I was going to counterpropose "Name a book, play, or film that's never been turned into a stage musical that should be and might actually be good," but just about everything one can think of has been musicalized somewhere or other, including (my first thoughts) Mapp and Lucia and Portrait of Jennie.
Man oh man it's irksome that there was no cast recording of Pal Joey in 1940.
I think I'd rather have that than anything else in the pre-cast-recording era, including Du Barry Was a Lady, Jubilee, and, dare I say it, Peggy-Ann.
I think I'd rather have that than anything else in the pre-cast-recording era, including Du Barry Was a Lady, Jubilee, and, dare I say it, Peggy-Ann.
December 4, 2025 at 10:35 PM
Man oh man it's irksome that there was no cast recording of Pal Joey in 1940.
I think I'd rather have that than anything else in the pre-cast-recording era, including Du Barry Was a Lady, Jubilee, and, dare I say it, Peggy-Ann.
I think I'd rather have that than anything else in the pre-cast-recording era, including Du Barry Was a Lady, Jubilee, and, dare I say it, Peggy-Ann.
Reposted by Benjamin Dreyer
He had me at "murdering."
From Signalgate to murdering people off the coast of Venezuela, Secretary Hegseth is putting our troops at risk and breaking international law.
Any junior officer would have been fired for this kind of reckless incompetence. He should resign or be fired. bit.ly/444D3mm
Any junior officer would have been fired for this kind of reckless incompetence. He should resign or be fired. bit.ly/444D3mm
Pentagon IG finds Hegseth could have endangered troops with Signal chat, sources say
Pentagon says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked endangering troops when he relayed information about Yemen strike on Signal a commercial messaging app: Sources.
bit.ly
December 4, 2025 at 6:00 PM
He had me at "murdering."
Hey, Angelenos (and Angelenos-adjacent):
Have you made your reservations yet for this thrilling, chilling, shiversome evening?
Have you made your reservations yet for this thrilling, chilling, shiversome evening?
Writers Bloc Presents An Evening of Shirley Jackson Readings
Dec 15, 2025
www.ebellofla.org
December 4, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Hey, Angelenos (and Angelenos-adjacent):
Have you made your reservations yet for this thrilling, chilling, shiversome evening?
Have you made your reservations yet for this thrilling, chilling, shiversome evening?
“We can also, while we’re at it, unintegrate your neighborhood.”
Sean Duffy on slashing fuel economy standards: "This rule will actually allow you to bring back the 1970s station wagon. Maybe a little wood paneling on the side. We can bring back choice to consumers."
December 4, 2025 at 4:45 PM
“We can also, while we’re at it, unintegrate your neighborhood.”
today's nearly random theater photos:
John Granger, birthday boy Horst Buchholz, and Kim Stanley in Chéri, by Anita Loos (after Colette) (1959)
(costumes by Miles White)
John Granger, birthday boy Horst Buchholz, and Kim Stanley in Chéri, by Anita Loos (after Colette) (1959)
(costumes by Miles White)
December 4, 2025 at 4:11 PM
today's nearly random theater photos:
John Granger, birthday boy Horst Buchholz, and Kim Stanley in Chéri, by Anita Loos (after Colette) (1959)
(costumes by Miles White)
John Granger, birthday boy Horst Buchholz, and Kim Stanley in Chéri, by Anita Loos (after Colette) (1959)
(costumes by Miles White)
Happy birthday to Jeff Bridges, for the love of gawd.
December 4, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Happy birthday to Jeff Bridges, for the love of gawd.
Dybbuk Wants to Spend More Time Haunting Toilets
[film at 11]
[film at 11]
Nancy Mace has told people she is so frustrated with Mike Johnson and sick of the way he has run the House — particularly how women are treated there — that she is planning to huddle with Marjorie Taylor Greene next week to discuss following her lead and retiring early from Congress.
Republican Anger Erupts at Johnson as Party Frets About Future
www.nytimes.com
December 4, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Dybbuk Wants to Spend More Time Haunting Toilets
[film at 11]
[film at 11]
In tonight's Poirot, an "inferring" where "implying" is meant (an intentional character grammatical flaw? pull the other one) and a plot hole so huge even *I* could detect it: A theft depends entirely on a character's leaving a room not once but twice, which the thieves could never have predicted.
December 4, 2025 at 4:35 AM
In tonight's Poirot, an "inferring" where "implying" is meant (an intentional character grammatical flaw? pull the other one) and a plot hole so huge even *I* could detect it: A theft depends entirely on a character's leaving a room not once but twice, which the thieves could never have predicted.
Surname-only book spines infuriate me.
🤷🏻♂️
🤷🏻♂️
December 4, 2025 at 3:21 AM
Surname-only book spines infuriate me.
🤷🏻♂️
🤷🏻♂️
Liddle' Greg and the Lollipop Guild
Commander Greg Bovino led a group of Border Patrol agents on walk around the French Quarter in New Orleans this afternoon.
December 4, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Liddle' Greg and the Lollipop Guild