the whole article could have just been ten pages of “Brilliant Things Eleanor O’Brien Said,” and some gold was left on the cutting room floor, but this is such a banger of a closer and it’s so very much the theme of today

Purdue to the rescue of IU student newspaper, whose institution was attempting censorship. Details in alt!

During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door. 

It wasn’t the feds —  it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help.

He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days.

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

A large pot sits in plain sight. There’s a frog in it.

Every day, Leader announces his plans to boil the frog. His campaign slogan was “BOIL THAT FROG.”

He has already made at least one run on the stove.

A man stirs the pot with a large stick. “It’s a metaphor,” he says.

TFW you realize your health care provider has scrubbed the phrase "women's health" from its website and you cannot search for the doctor you need. Cowards. COWARDS. #fuckingcowards

It’s too much

IIRC my dad would do this only when he had a bowl of cereal, I think because it made getting more cereal “easier.” He would sit down with ice cream bc his plan was not to get more ice cream but then he would get more ice cream.

My dream scenario tbh
people.com/man-in-norwa...

@acls1919.bsky.social, the AHA, & @modernlanguage.bsky.social filed a lawsuit in federal district court today, seeking to reverse the recent actions of the NEH to devastate the agency, including the elimination of grant programs, staff, and entire divisions and programs. 🗃️

Can’t wait to read stories with Taco Bell references in a bunch of journals after we all get rejected by @tacobellquarterly.org

Make Bert eat it.

Betrayal

When I left the Washington Post in 2023, my colleagues and I were worried AI would hoover up our work and enable "zombies" to churn out stories based on our reporting and writing styles.

Today WaPo announced a partnership with OpenAI. And here it is: Zombie Gillian Brockell. I DID NOT WRITE THIS.

Have you visited a physical bookstore lately? They're delightful. There are actual people there. You can touch the books, flip through them, smell them, and marvel at the crazy way the shop has decided to group the books. Sometimes an author even shows up to read part of her book to you.

And also Stories Books and Cafe www.storiesla.com

Now that I live in LA I feel lucky to live near Skylight Books www.skylightbooks.com/new-front

Most of the NYC Indy bookstores I haunted have closed but Book Culture (neé Labyrinth) still stands. www.bookculture.com

For Independent Bookstore Day, I thought I’d highlight a few of my fave bookstores, starting off with D.G. Wills in La Jolla, CA, which sells new and used books and was a haven for me in high school.
www.dgwillsbooks.com

one of the greatest letterman performances AND one of the great (greatest?) rock songs of the 2000s youtu.be/SlHrCg67axw?...

cut 1K words yesterday, added 1.5K words today am I hacking through kudzu what is happening

JFC
www.npr.org/sections/sho...

Fellow authors, I love you, and I know it feels like we don’t have a choice, but B&N and Am*zon both scheduled sales this week to preempt Independent Bookstore Day, a hugely vital source of income for indie bookstores. Please don’t promote their sales; please promote your local indie this week.

How many times will I expand and contract this story

TFW you are 70% through your application letter to the Elizabeth George Foundation and you find out the grant is no longer.