Reading

Created
Fri, 08/08/2025 - 03:01

Remember Ecto Cooler? IT remembers you.

IT remembers every dark day you spent hiding in your room. All the hours listening to NSYNC while you carved the names of dead gods into your Trapper Keeper. IT knows your flesh, your sins, your AOL user ID. No, not that one. The one you used to spy on your crush. IT remembers StoneColdTeenAustin89.

Your shirt said NO FEAR. But now there’s a dread deep in your bones. Those bones you made firm for IT with whole milk every day in the cafeteria. The spell you and your best friend read off that GeoCities website? That was real. Those clip art skulls bled into your reality. Gnawed at the edges of your consciousness. Crept behind the static of channel three. Your Furby going off in the middle of the night, even after your dad took the batteries out, that was IT.

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 22:15

After the tragic 2023 passing of Gabe Hudon, a longtime McSweeney’s writer, editor, and friend, Hudson’s mother, Sanchia Semere, endowed a new award in his honor. Annually, McSweeney’s convenes a panel of jurors to select a writer’s second book-length work of fiction that embodies the spirit of humor and generosity that Gabe and his work did. The first-ever winner of the Gabe Hudson Prize was Ayana Mathis for her novel The Unsettled. Gabe was an unflagging champion of writers and books, and one way to honor the memory of Gabe’s unparalleled enthusiasm and encouragement for writers is to celebrate this award, conferred annually on his birthday, September 12.

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 22:00

Dear Marge,

You might have forgotten about the time your husband jeered at you on stage, as you spoke through a miniature wooden version of yourself. It happened in 1996, almost thirty years ago. Let me remind you of the circumstances.

Your son, Bart, started working at a local burlesque house without you knowing. Upon finding out, you convinced the town of Springfield to tear down the risqué business at a town hall meeting—your righteous anger on full display. Right before an angry mob seized the house, the owner, Belle, and her dancers put on an Emmy-winning musical number (“We Put the Spring in Springfield”), which won over the crowd’s hearts, minds, and loins. Unfortunately, you—who showed up late and missed the song because you were renting a bulldozer—remained unconvinced. You tried to put your feelings into song, but you’re not a performer, and no one cared. Then you accidentally drove your bulldozer into the building, requiring you to pay for the damage one amateur ventriloquy show at a time.

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 13:24

Johnny “Taz” Mulford, who works for a security contractor in Gaza, has tattoos of Crusader-style crosses that have been co-opted by the far right.

The post Team Leader at Gaza Aid Distribution Sites Belongs to Anti-“Jihad” Motorcycle Club, Has Crusader Tattoos appeared first on The Intercept.

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 08:41
ingredients:1 plump 4-pound duck (cleaned, singed, and washed)7 Tablespoons butter1 canned or fresh trufflesalt, pepper30 pitted prunes½ pound foie gras (goose liver mousse)1 envelope unflavored gelatin instructions:1. Stuff the duck with a walnut-size piece of butter, the sliced truffle, salt and pepper. Sew up the openings.2. Brush the duck with butter and season with salt […]
Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 07:51

Long-time viewers of Adam Curtis’s BBC documentaries might see a trailer for Shifty, his new five-part online-only series, and wonder if it is saying anything new. ‘There come moments in societies when the foundations of power begin to move’ reads the caption, and we see Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Stephen Hawking, Ian Curtis, […]

Created
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 07:51

The final defeat of the Spanish Second Republic at the hands of Franco’s Nationalist rebels in 1939, after almost three years of bloody fighting and brutal repression, not only presaged the global conflict into which the world was about to sink, it also set the stage within Spain for what would come after the war. […]