Lit City Blues

Okay, this going to seem like a tangent, but stick with me, because it's part of a larger point I think is worth making. I never left Twitter. Some people I know did, but I sort of stuck around to see what would happen and when I didn't see an appreciable decline in the quality of the septic tank fire that it always had been, I shrugged and kept going. On impulse a few weeks back, I downloaded the Threads app, because I find the Threads web interface incredibly clunky and MAN OH MAN is Threads so much better on the app. But I've been running them side by side for a few weeks now and I'm starting to see what people are talking about when it comes to the declining usefulness of Twitter. Now, it's not all bad. Full credit to Elon, Community Notes was a brilliant and much-needed feature that honestly, more social media platforms should copy-- and it should be a lot more widely used than it is on Twitter. But man... it's getting rough. Either my algorithm is breaking

It's just a game, but at the same time it's not. I think it would blow people's minds the number of moving parts involved in making sure a stadium is ready to go for 70,000 people to walk in, sit down, and watch a sporting event for three hours. But last Saturday, I worked the day job for nine hours, holding the baton (in my case, my trusty tactical spork) and dealing with the symphony of gameday chaos. It went better than week one, as it always did, but there was an extra fillup of crazy in the air because it was Iowa State and that's just how the world works. But after my shift, I drove home, grabbed a burger, poured myself a generous measure of single malt whiskey, and wandered down to my firepit where the Missus was waiting for me. The kids eventually joined us, and Smores were made. We listened to music, looked at the stars and it was just perfect. The tension of the day bled out of me and I realized that it was just a game. I walked away from downtown and drove do

I'm trying to think where my fascination with this period of British history began and I think it might stem from a trip to visit relatives in the UK when I was younger where we went and saw a historical re-enactor present about the English Civil War at my cousins' school. The re-enactor in question was dressed as a Cavalier and I thought the overall look, but especially the hat was pretty damn cool. (He also, once he found out we were American informed us that at least one battle of the English Civil War took place in Maryland, which is true .)  As I grew older, I think it was a combination of picking up random books on various UK trips ( Cromwell, Our Chief of Men , King Charles II , and most recently, The Glorious Revolution ) but I think I have to give credit to Mike Duncan's incredible Revolutions podcast that got me interested not just in expanding my own knowledge of the period, but trying to trace back what influence it may have had on the development of American d

I tweeted this: What I’m 👀 for the campaign: 1. Harris VP pick 2. Convention Speech Would hope to see her do some interviews (actual, non-soft ones) after that. Am increasingly convinced that she’s a fundamentally different candidate from 2020. — Tom Nixon (@litcityblues) August 2, 2024 #1: Nailed it.  I get that Walz has some detractors in the Punditocracy, but Harris is working on a condensed timeline and has not time for an intraparty fight, even if it might be one worth having. Shapiro would have helped in Pennsylvania, but he also would have meant an intraparty fight and she ain't got time for that. Walz helps in the Upper Midwest (MN, WI and probably MI) and it doesn't hurt that he used to be a teacher, served in the national guard and is an effective communicator to boot. I have not worn a uniform, so I'm going to let the folks who have litigate any fights over the nature of his service. To me and probably a lot of other normie voters, the fact that he wore the un

This is a well-written essay . I will give the author all his flowers: it's well-written, it's compelling, it's even persuasive (in parts) but it's also utterly wrong. 'Reflections on the revolution in England' immediately grabs your attention, because: what Revolution? The anti-immigrant riots? The criminalization of speech? There's a reason people sailed away from that Island over there and landed on these shores, buddy and it's because there hasn't been a revolution on that sceptered island and its relationship with speech has always been sketchy. This is the same Kingdom that brought us the Star Chamber after all Full credit for this quote, however: The latter shed more heat than light-- the American grasp of European affairs is generally poor, a quality amplified by orders of magnitude when discussing the European grasp on American affairs, which is simply abysmal. Truer words have never been put to paper or screen. It's even worse because

Once, in 9th Grade, I filibustered on the cotton candy-filled goo of Olympic coverage for a solid thirteen minutes because all I wanted to do was watch some fucking speed skating, but no, whoever had the Olympics at the time insisted on filling so much time with human interest stories that it crowded out the sport . Of course, I was in 9th grade and was full of teenage arrogance and lacking in any sort of knowledge of basic media criticism, but I believed what I believed damn it . So when I watch the Olympics, I do judge the coverage. And the older I get, the more judgey I get about it. But, you know what: Paris was awesome .  Medium Spawn and I watched the tape-delayed broadcast of the Opening Ceremonies and, the weird menage-a-trois moment aside, it was awesome. It did something no other Opening Ceremony managed to do effectively and that was a showcase of the host city itself. The boat parade on the Seine? Perfect.  This-- which on the broadcast I remember being dead silent apart fr