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Mike Barthel

@mikebarthelauthor.com

1.9K followers 810 following 3.6K posts

Writer/critic/researcher/musician in DC. Fiction lotsa places. Writing a speculative novel and a book for DUP “Singles” about “Party in the USA.” mikebarthelauthor.com Making music as APOPHRA https://apophra.bandcamp.com/

apophra.bandcamp.com

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 4d

As promised/threatened! More in a little bit.

bring on the headless horses @ihavethatonvinyl.com · 4d

today at IHTOV:

@mikebarthelauthor.com goes long and deep on billy joel in a beautiful, gorgeously written essay on being a joel fan. you're going to want to read this one. put a few minutes aside. it's good ihavethatonvinyl.com/essays/life-...

Life in a Glass House

All of which is to say that I loved Billy Joel because I loved my dad. I loved that he’d moved 300 miles away from Farmingdale to some little rural town (the Hudson River line would only take you part...

ihavethatonvinyl.com

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Reposted by Mike Barthel

E.A. @eeeeaaaa.bsky.social · 5h

Now listening to the new album from Lebanese composer Yara Asmar. It’s oblique and highly experimental ambient music. I definitely recommend it, and I recommend reading her account of the making of the album on the Bandcamp page.

everyone I love is sleeping and I love them so so much, by Yara Asmar

11 track album

yaraasmar.bandcamp.com

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 13h

I feel very old!

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 13h

Tootin, but perhaps not rootin.

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 13h

I thought I’d turned on a The Other Ones episode!

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 13h

Turned on SNL and genuinely thought the Role Model performance was a skit at first.

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 14h

I thought Mare of Easttown would be better prep but also I didn’t see it.

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 15h

Yeah, they’re getting better at dropping the character details in among the plot points.

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 15h

It’s very nice to see him working!

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 15h

The depths of his suffering made him immune to hangovers? I guess?

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 15h

Mostly enjoying Task, but baffled why the pilot was a glacially-paced 2010s-style prestige drama episode (that took me 3 tries to get through) when the next two are brisk, plotty mystery shows.

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Reposted by Mike Barthel

maura johnston @maura.bsky.social · 16h

turns out the answer to “are they malicious or just stupid” — a question often asked about big media boss types — is “yes, but sliiiightly more the former”

Blake Leyh @earlofedgecombe.bsky.social · 1d

If you think you know why US newspapers died, this feature documentary now streaming for free on PBS might surprise you. It wasn't the Internet. Newspapers were specifically targeted by vulture capitalists.

I composed the score for the film, which features electric cello & Crowfoot guitars.

Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink

A handful of journalists rebel against a hedge fund that is gutting newspapers nationwide.

www.pbs.org

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 16h

I tried it a few years back and my oldest didn’t like it, but I think it aligns very well with the way boy twin experiences the world.

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 17h

Starting Adventure Time with the kids. After years of formulaic cartoons, I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to have the fourth episode (“Tree Trunks”) end with a beloved character finishing their quest and then vanishing into thin air, with no explanation.

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Reposted by Mike Barthel

Anna Merlan @annamerlan.bsky.social · 18h

One time I looked out the window of the thrift store I worked at and saw a beautiful woman hopping down the street on one leg. A second later she burst in the front door and it was Diane Keaton with a broken high heel in her hand. You’ve never seen someone get served by half the staff faster

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 18h

Brother from another Yothers

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 18h

I’m not saying it’s not a problem for colleges. My dad, a community college teacher, had a whole battle with the administration because he wasn’t giving enough As and Bs. But you know what he didn’t do? Write to a daily newspaper in a different state!

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 18h

Nothing more Harvard than for these professors to think the solution is “inform the New York Times” rather than “give the students lower grades.”

NYT push alert reading: Harvard's Campus Culture
Students who skip class and fail to do the reading still get high grades, a group of professors say. Now, they are trying to change the culture.

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Reposted by Mike Barthel

BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 21h

there's a lot of things dangerous about AI and the AI boom, but it's important to get them *right*

⚡️🌙 @dystopiabreaker.xyz · 22h

andymasley.substack.com/p/the-ai-wat...

The AI water issue is fake

On the national, local, and personal level

andymasley.substack.com

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 1d

It’s fun switching from Wikipedia pages about American places to European ones, like “The town was named X in 1887 and no one knows why” to “In 1608, the baron of Y, a shrewd gambler whose wife was known to favor plums, was the subject of a viscous rumor in the court of James I”

Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 1d

Thank you! I liked that one too.

Reposted by Mike Barthel

Hunter Felt @hunterfelt.bsky.social · 1d

"The denial of mainstream America by its countercultures was in many ways a denial that these central places had any history, any limits. But they did and they do. They are collapsing now." I love this.

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Reposted by Mike Barthel

Lonepilgrim @lonepilgrim.bsky.social · 1d

That’s right

Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 1d

childs drawing of a stylish man saying 'sup ladies'

This is what I will look like when I am 100 years old

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 1d

Weekend reminder: I wrote about Billy Joel!

bring on the headless horses @ihavethatonvinyl.com · 4d

Life in a Glass House

ihavethatonvinyl.com

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Mike Barthel @mikebarthelauthor.com · 1d

Making notes for the Leftovers book that will make sense to absolutely no one but me

Reposted by Mike Barthel

Ronnie Chen @ronnieftw.bsky.social · 1d

watching a modern cdrama to improve my language fluency and I'm about 10% better in business and social situations and 1000% better at devastating put downs towards my future daughter-in-law who is not the same social class and station as me

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