I’ve now watched the interview and the performance three more times. Bless the man.

Your name is aces.

Damn, that was worth it in every way, thank you. When he said, “I don’t think it’s Alabama, I think it’s the people who live there,” I snorked with laughter. And bless Trevor Noah for saying as much as he loves Isbell’s music, he could listen to him talk all day. Isbell is a good, good guy, and he’s written some of…

Crap, the video won’t play on any browser. I got as far as “tight jeans” and it just stopped.

I’m also projecting, because my stepmother was half-Native (her father) and god help me if I had been raised by her and urged to adopt that identity — such as she made of it — I would be a disaster. She was also abusive, a psychological torturer of sorts, so I’m sure I’m just seeing myself in Shania’s mess.

IIRC, she and all of her siblings were brutally abused by her stepfather, who had adopted her (including, when she was a teenager, sexually) and then he and her mother were killed in a car accident, leaving her responsible for her many brothers and sisters. I’m not saying she shouldn’t have done more for First Nations…

No, but will I cry? Because dude makes me cry CONSTANTLY.

Did you grow up in . . . Hell?

I recently re-read *one of my own books* that came out ten years ago, and there’s a single description (it’s very close third person POV, so it’s the protagonist’s) that made me wince so hard I nearly fell off my chair. But at the time no one thought anything of it — not my first readers, agent, editor, or two…

A friend asked me a couple days ago if I’m the person in his life who hates Love, Actually so much (he couldn’t remember), and I texted back, “Of course I hate it — I’m not a monster.”

Trumpian is exactly right, or like one of the millions of men who put up a charming facade while approaching women, but the second they’re rejected turn into turn into Ted Bundy screaming in court because he didn’t get his way.

Am I missing something, or do the photo caption of the homeless person and the Racked interview say opposite things? Wait, I think I get it. He took a stealth photo of someone, wrote a virtue-signaling caption, got called out for the photo being disrespectful, and in defending himself showed his dark underbelly by…

Craig Childs is one of my favorite non-fiction writers working today, and he gets pigeonholed as a nature writer — for obvious reasons — when in fact his work is about a lot of things. Finders Keepers is a good example. He’s intellectually rigorous, his writing is so elegant, and he’s open-hearted. I love him.

During the election I read (numerous times) that before he was needed as a prop, Barron had only been in Trump’s company four or five times in his life. And Trump is still “married” to Barron’s mother — there isn’t even the excuse of a divorce and a move to the opposite coast!

I’m unclear why you think the phenomenon is unusual, given the article we’re commenting on, but I accept this exchange has no future. Best wishes to you.

I don’t think you understood my original comment at all. I in no way suggested we shouldn’t do everything we can to protect our animal companions. I’ve never had fewer than two dogs in my home, often up to four, and I fostered dogs for thirteen years. I adore and respect them. But the way we think and talk about our…

I appreciate you correcting me, but yes, these things matter. They matter in terms of how we understand and treat an entire species, one that isn’t actually a reflection of our egos and needs.

They’re so panicked they’ll go after newborn babies, if that’s what it takes to protect themselves from the imaginary danger they’re going to destroy with their guns.

Jaaaaysus that book was so bad.