Relax, Everyone—Clarence Thomas Has Got Us “In the first case to reach the Supreme Court arising from the blitz of actions taken in the early weeks of the new administration, lawyers for President Trump asked the justices on Sunday to let him fire a government lawyer who leads a watchdog agency.” — New York Times – – – Look, I get it. You’re stressed. Trump’s executive orders are coming …

I Gave a Thousand Typewriters to a Thousand Monkeys, but Instead of Hamlet, They Just Keep Writing Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar Any scientist worth their salt eventually becomes accustomed to unpredictability. The unfortunate reality is that the majority of experiments fail—lab rats explode, bacteria escape the petri dish, etc. Still, I never anticipated that things could ever go this awry. For the past decade, I have been conducting a highly expensive and groundbreaking…

Short Conversations with Poets: Matthew Zapruder Mahmoud Darwish called clarity the greatest mystery. Matthew Zapruder writes poems that are precise in their architecture and mysteriously limpid in their meanings. And full of avowals, resistances to any final conclusiveness, open to—even when saddened by—the endless mutability of things. A mutability that seems to call up in him an energy of d…

How Our Pants Fit To determine whether your body will fit our pants, please use this sizing guide. Our pants are measured in cubits. The cubit is a unit of measurement less ancient than legs, but more ancient than the notion that we should clad them somehow. It’s equal to the distance between someone’s elbow and their longest fingertip. Whose elbow and fingertip?…

Thanks to Our New Efficiency Czar, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Is Saving More Money Than Ever “Trump administration officials fired more than 300 staffers Thursday night at the National Nuclear Security Administration…. Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons.” — CNN, 2/14/25 “The Trump administration has begun firing several hundred Federal Aviation Administration employees… jus…

It’s a Snow Day, Welcome to Hell Good Evening, Burkwood Hills Families— Due to expected inclement weather, the Burkwood Hills school district is moving to a Flexible Instruction Day (FID) tomorrow. All students should log in virtually for instruction and follow their typical daily schedule. And by “typical daily schedule,” we mean an absolute clusterfuck of pleading and consequ…

We Are Ending Our DEI Program at Four Loko Let’s get something straight: Four Loko was founded with the mission of making the world a better place. Our cans stand twenty-four ounces tall for the values of liberty, free speech, and the right to booze. Every human has a mouth to drink with and a liver to enlarge. That’s exactly why we are ending our DEI program. The diversity, equity, and …

Please Stop Ripping My Bodices Lathaniel, thou knowest how I crave thy touch. Many a night—and morn, and afternoon!—have I lain enfolded in thine arms, as thou tendered thy lips upon my ivory throat and plundered my crevices with thy capable, veiny fingers. But there is a matter we must discuss. Lathaniel. You have to stop ripping my bodices. Yes, thou didst detect a switch t…

Quotes from Famous Romance Films Rewritten for the First Weeks of Trump’s Second Term When Harry Met Sally… “I came here tonight because when you realize you want to ruin the future for everybody, you want the future to start as soon as possible.” Notting Hill “Don’t forget—I’m also just an unelected tech billionaire, standing in front of a Treasury Department, asking it to give him sensitive taxpayer data.” Love Story “Filling t…

Valentine’s Day Card Inscriptions Inspired by Submarine Disasters Our love is like the USS Scorpion… The initial construction was reasonable, but regular maintenance was refused until negligence distilled an inescapable nightmare. Our love is like the Titan submersible… It was constructed upon premises that we were warned repeatedly would not go the distance, prompting concern from both professionals and those…

Excerpts from The Believer: The Joy of Persona ON THE MEDIUM OF ARTISTIC PRESENCE – – – THE ACCEPTANCE OF PERSONA Every artist expresses persona. For performers, the public face is inside the art. The work of Charlie Chaplin, Billie Holiday, Ana Mendieta, or Jimi Hendrix cannot be separated from the undeniable power of persona. For artists who send their work into the world, persona may …

Government Welfare Is Evil, Unless the Money Goes to the Wealthiest Man in the World “The Trump administration is expected to purchase $400 million worth of armored Tesla vehicles, according to a new State Department document detailing procurement for fiscal year 2025”— NPR – – – How lucky are we ordinary Americans to be living in the Age of Trump? Our president is sticking it to the globalist elites by giving the world’s wealth…

Finally, My Tax Dollars Are Being Used to Uncover Publicly Available Government Information Under President Trump’s bold leadership, his administration is ushering in a new era of financial transparency in government. I’ve long wondered where my tax dollars are going but haven’t bothered to do the five minutes of research it would take to learn that all that information is already meticulously documented and tracked in numerous publicl…

Valentine’s Day Guide for the Huberman Lab Listener in Your Life Ladies, are you ready for your man to commit to you with the same diligence and enthusiasm he pours into his intermittent-fasting regimen? Then optimize your relationship this Valentine’s Day with the only Huberman-approved date-night guide. This list has something for everybody—long-term lovers, a new fling, and sunscreen-truthers alike. Mornin…

I Vow, from This Day Forward, to Watch Every Episode of Freaks and Geeks with You My love, you have been my faithful partner in watching shows on streaming services. Every day, I fall more in love with joining you to watch these programs, from the entire twenty-eighth season of The Bachelorette to a couple of episodes from the first season of Baskets, which I agree was very silly, to a single, intriguing episode of Paranormal…

Trump Is Just Threatening to Do Something Stupid as a Terrible Negotiation Tactic “The president also repeated suggestions that the U.S. could come to control Gaza, but he said that it wouldn’t require committing funds and would come to fruition. He also said that would be possible ‘under the U.S. authority,’ without elaborating what that actually was… ‘We’re not going to buy anything. We’re going to have it,’ Mr. Trump said …

We’re Being Maximally Transparent. For Instance, We “…all of our actions are maximally transparent. I don’t know of a case where an organization has been more transparent than the Doge organization.” — Elon Musk, in a statement from the Oval Office “In reality, Mr. Musk’s team is operating in deep secrecy… his financial disclosure filing will not be made public.” — New York Times – – – Here at th…

McSweeney’s Books: An Interview with Author Ahmed Naji and Translator Katharine Halls Katharine Halls won the 2024 Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for her work as translator of Ahmed Naji’s Rotten Evidence, published in 2023 by McSweeney’s (and currently available for 20 percent off in our store). Publishers Weekly called the book “a moving testament to the power of free expression,” and the Banipal jud…

I Know This Is a Bad Time, but I Would Like a Refund for My Ticket to Our American Cousin Hey there, it’s me again. Just following up on my letter from earlier this week. I know this is a bad time, but I’d like a refund for the April 14 performance of Our American Cousin. I’m aware the Ford’s Theatre team has been rather busy the past few days. I understand you have so many more things to worry about, but I’d really appreciate a refu…

I Vow to Fight Autocracy with Unprecedented Levels of Finger Wagging “Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, has reportedly been criticized by some of the party’s state governors for not resisting Donald Trump’s agenda and cabinet nominees strongly enough.” – The Guardian – – – FROM THE DESK OF CHUCK SCHUMER Desperate times call for incremental measures. As radical conservatives gut our institution…