Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 4h

things you can do when you're unemployed (and your kid's in daycare): trek into Manhattan to see a nearly three-hour movie with your wife at 11:10 on a weekday morning, projected *on film* in VistaVision, sitting near the dead center of one of the optimal rows

a movie poster for One Battle After Another illuminated in a display case, with the text "Now Showing 11:10" beneath it

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Reposted by Samit Sarkar

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 4h

white reactionaries disenfranchising black voters to secure political power? that’s a jim crow. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

The Supreme Court Case That Could Hand the House to Republicans

www.nytimes.com

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 21h

time was, if you wanted to embarrass yourself in this country and make some money while doing it, you'd go on reality TV

Oliver Darcy @oliverdarcy.bsky.social · 22h

Scoop: Olivia Nuzzi has written a book during her year in exile, in which she is set to in part address her relationship with RFK Jr. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/olivia-nuz...

Have I Got Nuzzi For You

Olivia Nuzzi is set to address her relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a forthcoming book, galleys of which are circulating among a select group of readers, Status has learned.

www.status.news

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 22h

Seriously: In consecutive home games, the Rangers have made Charlie Lindgren and Stuart Skinner look like Connor Hellebuyck.

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 22h

"It's a walrus! RIDICULOUS!"

also, no lies detected

Matt Calamia @mattcalamia.bsky.social · 23h

Every visiting goalie against the Rangers this season.

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Reposted by Samit Sarkar

T. Greg "Antifa General Counsel (Retired)" Doucette @gregdoucette.bsky.social · 23h

My vote in the 2028 D primary for POTUS will hinge almost entirely on the % of this Administration they promise to imprison

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 1d

Good. Even if this doesn’t work, it’s time to go on offense.

www.newsweek.com/jb-pritzker-...

JB Pritzker looking at prosecuting ICE agents in Chicago

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker has suggested that state prosecutors might examine the conduct of ICE agents.

www.newsweek.com

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 23h

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 23h

whiffed

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 23h

...is that the Knives Out font

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 1d

Nah, my wife and I are already so sick of this commercial on MSG for a sports betting platform featuring Gordon Ramsay and Lisa Vanderpump

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Reposted by Samit Sarkar

Evan Narcisse @evnarc.bsky.social · 1d

This is the D'Angelo performance that I've never forgotten. This song was already a huge hit but the way he took it from contemporary R&B to church revival illustrated how connected those idioms are. A revelation for those who didn't know, and an affirmation for those who did.

D'Angelo - Lady ft. Spanky, Saadiq, Ali Shaheed & ?uestlove

YouTube video by twinbreed

www.youtube.com

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 1d

"Though death by gun violence and drug overdoses often make headlines, what’s missed are the ways Black men are disproportionately vulnerable to death due to cancer, heart disease, stroke and chronic conditions such as diabetes."

Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 1d

I’d been thinking for a while that it seems like a startling number of rappers have died in their mid-40s to mid-50s from natural causes but it didn’t really feel like an epidemic until I saw this list. 😦

Deaths of Hip-Hop Artists Reveal the Alarming State of Black Men’s Health

Neo-soul singer D'Angelo joins growing list of Gen X Black male performers who are dying relatively young.

capitalbnews.org

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 1d

It was a joy to have the chance to read another one of Matt's oral histories ahead of time, especially since Shadow of the Colossus is one of my all-time favorite games. I was honored that he asked me to bring my copy editing fingers out of their forced early retirement!

[the phrase "and Samit Sarkar" is highlighted in blue]

Oral histories

Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history
Celebrate the 20th anniversary of Team Ico’s masterpiece by looking back with 11 people who worked on it (and three who didn’t).

Written by Matt Leone
Additional reporting by James Mielke
Translation by Alex Aniel, Alex Highsmith, and Joy Mielke
Editing by Blake Hester and Samit Sarkar
Main illustration by Takeshi Oga
Photography by Laura Tillinghast
Posted on Oct. 14, 2025

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 1d

Congrats to my old pal @mattleone.bsky.social on the launch of Design Room, and on the debut of his first post-Polygon oral history — it's a banger!

(For some of my favorite passages, check out the intro anecdote, and Ctrl+F "he politely declined," "Battlefield 1942," "crass," and "coelacanth.")

Design Room @designroom.bsky.social · 1d

For the Shadow of the Colossus story, we interviewed 14 people including project leads Fumito Ueda and Kenji Kaido, hired Gravity Rush concept artist Takeshi Oga to illustrate the cover, and put together a 10,000-word story with help from @milkman.bsky.social @shmuplations.bsky.social and others.

Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history

Celebrate the 20th anniversary of Team Ico’s masterpiece by looking back with 11 people who worked on it (and three who didn’t).

www.designroom.site

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 1d

Damn. If you're more familiar with his (great) early stuff than his third album, Black Messiah, go check it out now.

It was such a thrill to see him live at the Roots Picnic in 2016 — I was sick, and it had been raining off and on all day in Bryant Park (and he was late)...but the show was amazing.

a wide shot of D'Angelo performing on an open-air stage in Bryant Park at night during the 2016 Roots Picnic

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 1d

ah, I still remember deleting this for science (i.e., as research for a Polygon article)

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 1d

lol yes I chortled when I saw that last line there

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 1d

yeah, I mean, that'd be pretty weird — why wouldn't you just bury your pets in the backyard instead?

James Kelleher @jameskelleher.pilcrow.ie · 1d

Next time somebody asks me what Bluesky is like, I'll send them this

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 1d

o jogo bonito

CJ Fogler @cjzero.bsky.social · 1d

what in the hell just happened in Milwaukee

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 2d

RIP the 2025 New York Yankees, who died at the hands of *checks notes* a split-fingered fastball

Pinstripe Alley @pinstripealley.bsky.social · 2d

so you’re telling me that Trey Yesavage ISN’T Nolan Ryan?! someone should’ve told the Yankees!! whoopsie daisies

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 2d

was literally just talking with my wife the other day about this, and recited from memory the numbers of like half a dozen of my closest high school friends (both their cell numbers and their parents' home numbers, because I'm old enough to have called my classmates on landline phones)

bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 2d

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?

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Reposted by Samit Sarkar

southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 2d

Auspicious start for the new CBS News, laundering unattributed cop shit-talking through the incoming editor-in-chief’s blog and failing to correct a misspelling of the story subject’s name in the web headline for three days.

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Samit Sarkar @samitsarkar.bsky.social · 2d

Barney Gumble: What do you mean, your work is done? You didn't do anything.
Leonard Nimoy: [chuckles] Didn't I?

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Reposted by Samit Sarkar

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 3d

Ultimately, the death of US manufacturing is about this attitude. It's easy to say "buy american or stfu" because virtue signaling is free. But it's hard to actually sustain a business because many Americans simply don't want to pay what it costs to produce things ethically in this country

Someone on Twitter replies to me: "meh. buy american or stfu."

Two hours later, in a separate thread, the write: "$30 for a single button-up is ridiculous unless it is decent quality silk."

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The Ass is the father of the legs @internethippo.bsky.social · 2d

There's no "regular politics" anymore because you can no longer maintain the idea that we all agree on common goals but we only differ about the means of getting there or whatever. The guys in charge now are plainly amoral, sadistic nihilists. They delight in it! You can't civilly disagree with that

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