McSweeney’s

An Interview with Dave Eggers About His New Novel, Contrapposto

Knopf — Sat, 23 May 2026 14:28:00 -0400

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KNOPF: This is a very funny, very moving book about the deepest kind of friendship. It unfolds over many decades, and the novel took shape over decades for you, too. When did you begin thinking about these characters?

DAVE EGGERS: I’ve been thinking about Cricket and Olympia for about twenty years, and was writing random passages about them much of that period. Sometimes a certain book takes an especially long time to gestate and make its correct form known, and this was one of those books.

Q: The book covers about 65 years in the lives of its two main characters, Cricket and Olympia. Their interactions take place all over the world, from Indiana to Thailand, from Philadelphia to Turkey and Paris. Did you always see this as a book with that kind of epic scope?

DE: Once I decided it would cover most of their lives, yes. I knew that having grown up in rural Indiana, they’d be restless and curious about the rest of the world, and I really came to love tossing them all over the globe. Each section of the book starts in a very different place in their lives, physically and mentally, and the reader’s left to fill in the gaps.

Q: Which becomes surprisingly easy, given how long we’ve known them. The novel starts when they’re 8 and 9. Cricket is a quiet kid who loves to draw. What does he see in Olympia?

DE: She’s obviously far more worldly and erudite and quick on her feet, even at age nine. Some kids are. There are just some humans that develop exponentially faster than others. Olympia is that way—just intellectually on fire from minute one, along with being this beautiful human, too, with golden eyes. Cricket is a talented draftsman, but Olympia’s mind works at about ten times the pace of his.

Q: And she has ambitions for him.

DE: Without her, his ambitions might be pretty modest. He doesn’t ever know what to do with anything he creates. But from the start, she is his champion. She wants to start movements, change the face of the art world, on and on. He just wants to draw.

Q: You were a young draftsman yourself, going to art schools and such. Did you have such a champion? An Olympia?

DE: No, nothing like this. Olympia was created out of whole cloth. I wanted to conjure someone who would drag Cricket out of a studio and into the world. She was huge fun to write because while she’s brilliant and loyal, she’s a bit mercurial, too. You know she’ll re-enter Cricket’s life periodically, but you’re never really sure what angle she’ll be coming from.

Q: She’s very comfortable with the business of art, eventually becoming a gallerist and curator. Cricket is not so adept, and struggles with the commerce aspect of it.

DE: I think we’ve all known people like this—they have great talent but are stubborn about even the smallest compromises, and they loathe the business side of the artist’s life. Cricket can’t really manage it. He’s a bit of a classicist at a time when trends and theories were very important to observe and address.

Q: Contrapposto is a pose in figure drawing, which is something we see Cricket and Olympia take part in again and again over the course of the book. Can you say more about the long tradition of learning to draw the body—the rigor of it, the intimacy—and all of what that means in the context of the book?

DE: When you see that trope of an artist holding their thumb out and squinting, that’s the artist “measuring” the proportions of a figure. It’s a real thing! You look at the model, stick your arm out straight, and you cover their head with your thumb. That thumb-height becomes your unit of measure. Then you count how many heads the model’s total height is, how many heads the width of their shoulders are, on and on. By comparing all of these dimensions against each other, you can arrive at perfect accuracy (if you’re seeking that, of course). I’m convinced most people can be taught these techniques, too; it’s the same process that’s been observed for hundreds of years. The rigor of classical drawing was revelatory to me, and I wanted to convey that to a reader, too—the fact classical art education was much like a classical musical education, in that it was based on hard skills, hundreds of hours of practice, and a certain humility, too. But it is imminently learnable, and in an exhilarating way, it teaches any student how to see.

Q: In college they have a teacher, Marcus Carpenter, who is a bit of rebel in that he’s a classicist at a time when that’s not in vogue. He doesn’t kowtow to the theories of the day, and he’s ostracized for it.

DE: There are such people, always, thank god. In Carpenter, Cricket finds a mentor who also appreciates the intrinsic beauty of the art he loves, as opposed to art that rides certain temporary fashions. More than anything, Carpenter takes all the competitiveness out of what’s often present in art schools—a very strange misery that comes from students pitted against each other. But there is a way, a better way, to bring up young artists together.

Q: Cricket and Olympia know each other so well that they bicker with total, hilarious abandon, but they also fight fiercely for each other. Were you always sure about their path together?

A: I’ve had the same friends since grade school, so with these ancient friendships, you can speak candidly to each other, and pretension doesn’t get you far. But there’s an element of mild resistance, too, embedded in these old friendships. Cricket and Olympia want to reinvent themselves over their lives, but they also know they can’t pull one over on someone who’s known them since they were eight. At that point, you know each other on a molecular level. So you fight for that person as you would fight to keep a limb of your own body.

Q: In a time when AI relationships have suddenly left the realm of sci-fi and are seemingly both common and legitimate, this novel argues for the irreplaceable connection that can occur between two humans, in either romance or friendship. Do you think Cricket and Olympia share something rare in their relationship?

DE: I don’t know that it’s rare, but I did want to show a complex friendship over time. For millions of people, there are times when you’re in love, then you’re friends, and maybe love happens again… The line for Cricket and Olympia is blurry, which I think happens with so many people who don’t get married but who provide a certain familiar comfort to each other. Together they have a kind of perfect imbalance, which is really about as good as we can do.

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Contrapposto is out June 9, but is available for preorder now.

My Typical Day According to My Thirteen-Year-Old

Audrey Burges — Fri, 22 May 2026 13:00:00 -0400

I wake before dawn to coordinate with my vast network of parental co-conspirators. Our agenda this morning is straight fire, as the youth would say, beginning with a vigorous debate about scheduling sunrise for maximum cruelty. We ultimately settle on triggering dawn just a liiiiiitle bit earlier than it was yesterday.

We think it’ll be funny to do this incrementally over time, and then start inching it back again, just to make sure our kids can scream “But the sun’s not even up yet!” at a slightly different time each day.

After receiving an updated list of slang we can use to mortify our children, we adjourn. In my rush to rouse my child from her blissful slumber, I trip, deliberately upending her curated mountain of Floor Clothes. The exact pair of micro-shorts she planned to wear is now lost forever. I have no one but myself to blame for blowing past our intended departure time.

I set this time arbitrarily, just to be mean. The resulting argument is absolutely my fault.

After dropping off my exhausted, mistreated child at what is basically jail, I drive to work, where I callously disregard a cascade of urgent texts.

Mom

MOM

MOMMY

Where r presents in my lunch

Pretzels not prezzies

Can u bring

Mom

I forgot to finish my project

Did u buy

Glitter

Can u bring and

MOMMY

When I finally wrap up whatever meeting, brain surgery, or congressional testimony is preventing me from attending to my child’s needs, I respond only “We will discuss this tonight. Stop texting before you get suspended.”

I do this because texting complete sentences takes forever, and also because I don’t care that my child is starving and facing a flunk-inducing glitter penalty.

On my way home from work, I don’t pick up food my child actually likes. Why would I? We have gross food at home, and I enjoy preparing it for maximum disgust.

I cruelly ignore her gags of despair over both food and math, because I’m too busy tapping away on some stupid work thing.

When I finish drafting my presentation for the CEO, sequencing DNA for a cure to cancer, or writing some speech for the United Nations, I close my laptop and announce that it’s time to relax.

My child’s friends are all watching the ending of Trashy People Treating Each Other Atrociously, but I make sure she misses it. It’s time to watch Documentary About Fonts or, if I’m feeling adventurous, People in Old Clothes Talking Fancy.

I enjoy making my child a social pariah. The world is full of children who never get to learn this much about kerning.

I’m so busy watching my show that I forget to remind my child about her overdue project. The fact that I don’t know to remind her is beside the point. My child is resourceful, and she will totally be able to finish as long as I know, without being told, to take her to Target before it closes at ten.

I set this time arbitrarily and just to be mean. The resulting argument is absolutely my fault.

After another hard day of ruining my child’s life, it’s time for bed. I begin my evening routine of slathering myself with cheap drug-store lotion and maybe Vaseline, who knows? It’s like I don’t even know about retinol or Sephora. I think Drunk Elephant is an intoxicated pachyderm.

That’s why I look exactly as ancient as I am. I may say that forty-whatever isn’t old, but pores don’t lie.

I am asleep by 10:30 p.m. Then by 11:15, after my child wakes me up because she heard a noise. Then by 12:02, after she wakes me up again to remind me about the glitter.

Then, at 5:15 a.m., when my alarm wakes me up so I can get to CVS when it opens at six (or is it seven?), so I can assess their craft supplies.

I hurry back to make the daily Parent Conspiracy Roundtable, of course. I never miss it. Today’s agenda looks like it’s going to eat and leave no crumbs.

Reviews of New Food: Fenway Park’s Lobstah Poutine

Kristen Mulrooney — Fri, 22 May 2026 09:00:00 -0400

So you spent the last two hours fighting for your life trying to merge into aggressive traffic, avoid potholes, find the one open space in the parking garage near the T stop, and stay on your feet in a crammed Green Line train with no handholds, and now you’re going to sit your sorry ass in a rigid wooden seat for nine innings on a forty-fucking-degree night and watch your beloved team ground out into a double play more times than is even statistically imaginable.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Fenway Park.

Home of your underachieving Boston Red Sox, the holy cathedral of baseball, the Dartmouth green jewel box of New England, this most magical place on Earth is rooted in suffering, which I have to assume is the basis for their latest culinary affair: the Lobstah Poutine.

Back in 1917, an explosion devastated the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The city of Boston shook its collective head, muttered “Are you kidding me, guy?” and quickly organized a relief ship to send aid, kicking off a century-long bromance that led our friendly French Canadian neighbors to the north to allow Boston to co-opt their regional delicacy. A traditional poutine consists of french fries and cheese curds drenched in hot gravy, but as one might expect from the city behind those horrible robot dogs in that Black Mirror episode, Fenway has applied forward thinking and innovation to create something completely unnerving.

While maintaining the integrity of the french-fry base, the cheese-curd experience has been replaced with lobster claws fresh from a plastic bag out of the mini fridge, and in a mind-blowing move of epicurean invention, the hot gravy has been swapped out for hot chowder. The rich mound is garnished with chopped scallions for an herby zip and bits of bacon because, I don’t know, they’re just adding things to add things?

The dish comes in a flimsy cardboard fishing boat that holds up impressively well for how heavy the Lobstah Poutine is. I’m talking heavy heavy, like as heavy as your heart feels every time you see that clip of Mookie Betts saying he wanted to stay in Boston his whole career. Credit where credit’s due, they aren’t scrimping with these hefty pieces of lobster claw, and honestly, they’d better not be at $39.00 plus tax, especially when you know that tax isn’t even going toward fixing the potholes that fucked up my car’s alignment on the way in here.

Given the poutine’s viscosity, I requested a fork from the vendor who served me. He responded, “The fuck you need a fork for? What are you, the Queen of England?” So I picked up a big chowdery lump of lobster with my fingers and took a bite. It tasted fresh, but was very cold. I took another bite. This one was piping hot. Every bite of Lobstah Poutine is a surprise. The biggest surprise of all was that, despite this being an establishment where young men traverse the stands selling clam chowder from a portable metal urn, our chefs chose to go with a potato chowder, presumably as a nod to everyone’s Irish uncle in Southie.

The Lobstah Poutine begs a few philosophical questions. Should food be soggy? Do flavors need to feel good inside my mouth? Why did I just give my hard-earned $39.00 to an organization that is intentionally tanking my team and exploiting America’s most beautiful tradition for their own avarice? It gives you something to noodle over while you’re stuck in traffic behind a Storrowed box truck.

It also begs the question “Who is this for?” and I think the answer to that one is obvious. This boatload of fridge leftovers is tailor-made for people who are gonna keep buying the jerseys of their favorite player, even though the very next day that player’s probably moving to LA, where they have parking lots and they pay their guys a billion dollars a year and the fans probably eat their french fries with a fucking fork, leaving us with a roster of random underdogs we’ve never heard of but are obligated to root for under the laws of genetic memory. Lobstah Poutine is for people who are built to suffer.

And that leaves us with one last important question about Fenway Park’s Lobstah Poutine—is it good? To that, I can answer with confidence:

Who the fuck cares? Since when does something have to be good for you to love it?

I’ll Take This Costco Sample, but Only So I Can Make an Informed Purchasing Decision

Tyler Gooch — Fri, 22 May 2026 08:00:00 -0400

Oh, hello—sorry, almost didn’t see you here at the end of the aisle with your hairnet and your alluring toaster oven full of mysterious, cost-free delicacies. I was just passing by, shopping for things that cost money. That’s what I do when I come here. I participate in the bulk-purchase economy.

My stumbling upon your cart of treats just as you took them out of the toaster oven was a mere happenstance. I wasn’t loitering, watching you like a hungry lioness crouched in the grass, eyeing a decrepit gazelle straggling at the back of the herd. I was just standing here, seriously considering purchasing this $4,000 massage chair, which just so happens to be displayed between the eighty-four-packs of Dr Pepper and your sample stand with its scrumptious aroma.

Oh, I suppose if you insist (by simply standing there, droning the name of the product in monotone), I guess I’ll try one. I hardly ever do this. I have not wandered this cavernous warehouse in search of free handouts, nor would I ever do so. No, my breath stinks of chicken pot stickers, which are being handed out in the next aisle over, for a different reason. I don’t even really want to try this sample. If anything, I’m eating this for your benefit, so you can feel accomplished and meet your samples quota (which I assume is your main KPI).

Now, I know I could take this sample and vanish into the gentle breeze created by the enormous ceiling fans. It would be well within my rights as an Executive (brag) Member at this Costco to abscond with this little paper cup containing a bite-sized treat. But instead, I am going to stand here while you tell me about its lack of preservatives, organic nature, and nutrient-packed punch. Why? Because I want you to think that I’m truly considering purchasing this. I don’t want you to think I’m taking advantage of this free perk I pay for.

Why is it important to me that you don’t think I’m just grabbing a free sample? I don’t know. Why is a sunset? How is love? There are things in this life that can’t be explained. This is one of those things.

Perhaps the saddest part of our interaction is that you’ll never truly know whether or not I enjoyed the sample. Even though you probably just showed up to work this morning and were handed a box of these treats and a pair of slender tongs, I feel like you feel ownership over this product. My mind knows you didn’t develop this recipe, and you likely don’t care about this product. But, because you’re wearing a uniform and handing me this sample, my heart feels that, were I to show even a hint of anything less than exuberance when tasting this, it would hurt you, somehow.

As a result, I will show an immense, over-the-top, cheesy-TV-commercial-level faux enthusiasm for this product as I bite into it. I will mmm and wow and put on a whole masquerade to spare you the feelings you are not feeling.

Do you want to know how dedicated I am to this made-up cause? I’m about to ask you where these delectable little treats can be found. And then, once we part, I’ll walk in the direction you pointed. I’ll peek back over my shoulder and, if you’re looking, I’ll even reach for a box of them. I’ll examine the box.

And though your eyes have now returned to the tongs and I have surely left your consciousness forever, I can’t help but feel like I would be betraying you were I not to toss this box into my cart and buy these snacks.

Screw it. Not only will I buy the snacks, but I’ll also buy the massage chair just to prove to you that I wasn’t pretending to look at it in order to be first in line for the snacks earlier.

Tonight, as the hard, sharp prongs on the expensive massage chair dig painfully into my back, I’ll unwrap the first of the 150 of these snacks that were in the enormous 3′x3′ box I purchased, and I’ll think of you, dear, sweet, mentally overpowering Costco Sample Provider. And as I take my first bite, I’ll stop and think, Hey wait, this isn’t what I sampled at the store. I must’ve grabbed the wrong box.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at AI

Kristina Grob — Thu, 21 May 2026 10:00:00 -0700

With apologies to Wallace Stevens.

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I
Meeting with the academic dean
I asked him to share with faculty
How admin are using AI.

II
A colleague shares a short story:
Kafka sitting in a sales meeting
For AI.

III
AI can help faculty take
Burdensome things off their plate,
Says the dean who doesn’t use it
Or know how the plates will empty.

IV
Students want faculty to teach them
Responsible use of AI.
Students refuse to read AI statements in
Syllabuses.

V
The thinker and the thought
Are one.
The thinker and the AI thought partner
Are less than one.

VI
O slumped and gray writing professors,
Why do you imagine human-filled writing?
Do you not see that AI is the future?

VII
A philosopher writes doggerel for
An English professor
Frustrated about the lack of leadership
Regarding AI in higher ed.

VIII
I know what transformative learning can be,
And I know that outsourcing
Wonder—perhaps to a generative AI—
Transforms no one
And leaves landscapes
Ravaged.

IX
Copilot will protect your data
From outsiders;
Your campus owns your private
Questions.

X
I asked ChatGPT to review
My thyroid levels,
And was prepared for the doctor’s phone call.

XI
Is this strong student writing or
Is this a revised draft of a strong
AI prompt?

XII
It’s finals week.
Can we map electricity spikes
To college towns
To academic integrity reports?

XIII
It was the semester’s twilight.
No one knew what AI would look like
In the morning.

Nature Cam

Ali Fitzgerald — Thu, 21 May 2026 12:00:00 -0400

Underground Artists is an ongoing comic by Ali Fitzgerald (Hungover Bear & Friends) that follows woodland creatures as they create art and search out whimsy in a bleak forest.

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Epidurals, for Him

Ginny Hogan — Thu, 21 May 2026 08:00:00 -0400

You’ve had a long, hard nine months. Your wife’s been pregnant, and in month nine, she was so uncomfortable in bed that she made you sleep on the futon. Twice.

And yet, you survived. At long last, the big day is upon you. A baby’s birth is a significant medical event, and pain management is critical. It takes two people to make a baby, which is why we’ve designed Epidurals, for Him.

The Labor Room Is a Hostile Environment

The labor and delivery market has long been characterized by a significant pain-management gap. While existing clinical infrastructure reliably serves one demographic—namely, the birthing person—it systematically neglects another: you, the person who drove her there. The medical system is famously biased in favor of women: indeed, over 90 percent of pregnancy-related epidurals are for women, not men.

While your wife got easy access to an epidural—all she had to do was scream bloody murder for a hundred minutes—you did not. If you’re a man and you want an epidural during your wife’s labor, the hospital staff may ask questions like “Why?” and “For what reason?” Or they may make insensitive comments like “Technically, epidurals are only for patients,” or “But this isn’t happening to your body.” They may totally dismiss your pain.

Until now.

Use Cases

There are all kinds of pain a man may experience during delivery. Fortunately, Epidurals, for Him offer full-body relief, covering you for:

Back pain from sitting on a stackable chair in the labor room. Those chairs are the worst. The worst. Like, worse than the kind you’d find at a literal church potluck. With Epidurals, for Him, this pain is gone in an instant.
The scalding-hot coffee in the cafeteria. Your wife isn’t allowed to drink anything during labor, just in case she needs a C-section. She has no idea how lucky she is. Your tongue hurts, and you deserve relief.
The ear pain from your wife’s screaming due to her contraction pain. Obviously, this is worse for her—but is it?
The neck strain from looking at your phone. Epidurals, for Him target the cervical spine, so you won’t get bent out of shape texting “Nope, no updates yet!” thirty-eight times in a row. You’ll text when there are updates. JFC.
The anxiety about holding a baby. Like, they’re so small. What if you drop it? No one seems to understand how traumatizing this would be for you. This is why you need the fentanyl in Epidurals, for Him. We all need to chill out, right?

Easy Implementation

Epidurals, for Him are administered by a male doctor, so you don’t have to worry about him making fun of you. And they’re taken orally, not via a massive needle. Why? Because clinical studies of randomly selected prospective patients (men) included too many who found the needle unacceptable. Which is fair. That needle sucks, and you shouldn’t have to deal with it.

Cost

Epidurals, for Him are fully covered by health insurance. Obviously.

Testimonials

Here’s what patients are saying about Epidurals, for Him:

“I didn’t think I’d make it. The chairs were bad. Like, really bad. The epidural got me through.” —Derek, Hoboken
“I don’t know how anybody gives birth without an epidural.” —Frank, Atlanta, who didn’t give birth.
“Life-changing.” —Kevin, Portland, who drove fourteen miles to the hospital even though he had carpal tunnel.
“Finally.” —Men

Risk Factors

Early studies suggest that Epidurals, for Him are so enjoyable that you may want your wife to have another six kids, just to try them again. Bringing this up within forty-eight hours of delivery may cause long-term marital issues.

Epidurals, for Him. For the other kind of labor.

Easier Way to Win a Million Dollars: Going on Survivor or Storming the Capitol?

Rachel Levit Ades — Wed, 20 May 2026 19:40:00 -0400

“In the end, only one will remain and will leave the island with one million dollars in cash as their reward.” — Jeff Probst, host of Survivor

“For the moment, the fund has been capped at the patriotically symbolic sum of $1.776 billion, and many Jan. 6ers have already done the math in an effort to determine the maximum amount that each of them could get. If all of them sought money and received the same amount, the payouts would be around $1.125 million each.” — New York Times

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*-“Paramount Is Rolling Back DEI Initiatives to Align With Trump Mandates.” — Variety

Corruption Has Gotten Way Too Lazy

Carlos Greaves — Wed, 20 May 2026 12:30:00 -0400

“President Donald Trump dropped his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service on Monday in exchange for a settlement deal to launch a $1.8 billion fund to pay claims made by his friends for purported unfair prosecution.” — Mother Jones

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This used to be a proper country. One where people acknowledged a difference between right and wrong, and agreed that if you wanted to do wrong, you had to do it in a dimly lit backroom full of cigar smoke. Now, when I, Richard Nixon, look up at the United States from my fiery torture chamber in Hell, I see a level of laziness, stupidity, and petty corruption I never thought possible. And I once knew a guy who went by the code name “Deep Throat.”

How did this country get to the point where the president can sue his own government for $10 billion, “settle” the case by getting a $1.8 billion slush fund for his allies, and then grant himself and his family a free tax-fraud-for-life card? The only thing worse than burning in Hell is watching this country burn itself to the ground in the dumbest, sleaziest way possible.

Don’t get me wrong, the daily penis panini presses and poison-ivy enemas here in Hell are no picnic. But do you know what true Hell is? Watching the same country that forced you to resign in disgrace collectively shrug its shoulders every time the current president takes to Truth Social to brag about committing another felony.

It used to be that if you wanted to be a crook, you had to be discreet about it. When I wanted to dig up dirt on the Democrats, I had a team break into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate Complex. And it would’ve worked if it weren’t for Bob Woodward and those thumb-nosing narcs at The Washington Post.

These days, if the president wants to get back at a political enemy, he just sics the DOJ on them without any pretense. Where’s the style? Where’s the panache? Having billionaires buy up all the newspapers to kill any negative coverage of you is dastardly, sure, but it lacks class. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe criminals should at least have to try to get away with crimes.

And don’t even get me started on foreign policy. Back in my day, when we wanted to bomb civilians in other countries, we did it covertly like decent war criminals. We sure as hell didn’t stitch the footage over SpongeBob memes and share it with the entire world.

Doing evil used to take guts. You had to have chutzpah. Do you have any idea how hard it is to declare a “War on Drugs” and then carefully coordinate multiple intelligence agencies as they distribute crack cocaine in low-income neighborhoods? That’s how you’re supposed to undermine marginalized communities—with plausible deniability. You can’t just hire masked goons to round up all the people you don’t like and ship them out of the country. That kind of brazenness and stupidity gives being a bad guy a bad name.

I’m not saying other American presidents have been saints. Hell has an entire Hall of Presidents that’s like the one at Disney, just with a lot more eye gouging and testicle torsion. But even the worst among us never had the audacity to launch a coup, or create his own form of currency that’s obviously a scam, or invite a bunch of evangelicals to literally pray before a giant golden statue of himself.

So please, for the love of all that is unholy, cut it out with all the grifting in plain sight and do your dirty deeds behind closed doors like a respectable crony.

Scenes from The Baltimore Beefcake, an Edgar Allan Poe Biopic in Which He is Totally Jacked

Sarah Totton — Wed, 20 May 2026 08:03:00 -0400

SCENE 1.
EXT. A BOULEVARD. MIDNIGHT.

POE drops his frock coat, loosens his cravat, and tears open his shirt, buttons flying, to reveal his body, which is totally jacked. His nipples glisten in the moonlight.

A BLACK CAT, in the process of killing a RAT, spies POE’s lithe, freshly waxed chest. The BLACK CAT swoons. The RAT escapes, but in the process of fleeing, sees POE’s shredded physique and also swoons.

A BELL tolls. POE nonchalantly flexes his guns: boom, boom. A RAVEN in a nearby magnolia tree also swoons, falls from the tree, and expires.

- - -

SCENE 2.
INT. A STUDY. MIDNIGHT.

POE, hard at work composing deathless verse, paces the room.

POE (muttering)
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating…

POE stops walking. A meaty pop rings out as he cracks a walnut between his glutes.

POE
… ’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door…

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SCENE 3.
INT. A BEDCHAMBER. MIDNIGHT.

POE, nearly naked, kicks the rug aside to expose bare floorboards beneath. He picks up a jump rope coiled on the bed. POE windmills the rope, skipping progressively faster and faster.

DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR, overcome by the cacophony created by POE’s large, powerful thighs, starts pounding rhythmically on his ceiling.

POE stops skipping, perturbed. The pounding continues, growing louder and louder.

POE (screaming)
Shut up!

Nothing must disrupt Leg Day.

- - -

SCENE 4.
INT. A CELLAR. MIDNIGHT.

LEWIS GAYLORD CLARK, holding aloft a lantern, beckons to POE.

CLARK
I know where to find some good booze, Eddie.

CLARK points at a hole in the cellar wall. POE, grinning, leaps through the hole.

CLARK picks up a hod and begins bricking up the hole. When he’s finished, he cackles gleefully.

POE, apprehending his rival’s deception, roars and bursts through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man (only buff). CLARK shrieks and turns to flee, but POE seizes him by the breeches and administers a wedgie (though not an atomic one, owing to the absence of elastication in early Victorian men’s underthings).

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SCENE 5.
INT. A DRAWING ROOM. MIDNIGHT.

POE lounges on a chaise, smoking opium (because it’s cheat day). VIRGINIA, his wife, stands by his side, bouncing dice off POE’s twelve-pack.

POE
Who’s big daddy?

VIRGINIA barks a consumptive cough.

Oh No, I Left the US Because of Trump and Moved to the Part of Europe Where All Live Performances Are Cirque du Soleil Knockoffs

Devorah Blachor — Tue, 19 May 2026 14:00:00 -0400

Like many others, I left the United States because I wanted to get away from Trumpʼs America. But now that my only entertainment opportunities involve two men riding neon glow-in-the-dark motorcycles inside an enormous orb, I must ask myself if I made the right decision.

It wasn’t easy to move. But I consider myself an open person and felt compelled to leave a place that was becoming increasingly intolerant and closed off. Little did I know that this openness would bring me to this regional theater, with this man, whose thighs are covered with henna tattoos, and who’s rocking a loincloth that’s not really a diaper but also not quite a thong.

My friends back home say that they’re jealous of me. I understand why—they’re still there, which means they see terrible news every day. But it also means they’re not seeing this woman in a gold bikini pick up bamboo sticks with her toes and construct a tower for the peacocks.

To be honest, I believed that coming here meant that I’d be moving towards a more cultured environment. And I guess a guy dressed in a blue velvet catsuit, hanging upside down and doing air splits in an industrial hamster wheel is a kind of culture, but it’s just not what I expected.

There are so many things I didn’t understand before coming here, like how strange it would feel to be this far away from home, or how challenging it would be to learn the language. I didn’t even realize this was an ice-skating rink until I saw that woman dressed like Cleopatra gliding by wearing a live snake.

I’m no refugee, but I do consider myself politically homeless. Once upon a time, we took things like democracy and freedom for granted, but that’s no longer possible. I feel as if I’m witnessing the end of a golden age. I’m also witnessing a man with a man bun use his teeth to lift a second man by his man bun, while they dangle from a chandelier, waving peacock feathers.

I have so many questions about my new home. Like, why don’t people like to see children in restaurants? Who has the right of way at traffic circles? Where did all those ferrets come from? And what are those inflatable horses doing with that hobo ballerina?

It’s hard not to feel alienated, being in such an unfamiliar place. I miss the little things, like going to my regular coffee dive and knowing where everything is in the supermarket. And also theater that doesn’t include someone flying across the stage in a spandex lizard costume. Even the flying machine is wearing a spandex lizard costume.

Was leaving a mistake? I guess I felt like everything I once loved was being destroyed. Sometimes it seemed like there was this uncontrollable fire that no one could put out. And now there is an actual fire, and this blindfolded bald man in leather chaps is throwing it across a pyramid of contortionists while psybient EDM plays at a worryingly high volume. Surely we must all ask: How did we get here?

Well, I’m here, so I’ll have to make the best of it. I can only hope that things will be better, that the European Union is more resilient than its former ally, and that it can withstand the dark challenges the world is facing without losing its moral compass. I also hope that this man stacking chairs on top of each other so he can climb them will not remove his satin-sequined pinstriped suit before he does his one-armed handstand…

Oh dear. He’s wearing a thong diaper.

What I Imagine William Shakespeare Thought Every Time He Rewrote the Same Scene Over and Over Again

Josh Mendez — Tue, 19 May 2026 11:00:00 -0400

It is widely believed (by me, just now) that William Shakespeare revised his plays constantly, fueled by ambition, self-doubt, and whatever they drank instead of coffee back then. Based on that and vibes alone, here is what he probably thought each time he tweaked the same scene again.

1. Ah! A fresh draft. This one shall be perfect and require no further changes.

2. What if the line were slightly sadder?

3. What if it were also a little funny?

4. Can something be tragic and funny? I shall invent this.

5. “To be, or not to be”—hmm. Feels wordy. Perhaps just “To be”?

6. No, no, no. Put the rest back. It was good. It was fine.

7. Actually, what if he says it while holding a skull?

8. Where would he get the skull?

9. I will simply give him one. The audience will not question it.

10. I am a genius.

11. Wait. What if the skull has a name?

12. Everyone loves it when objects have names.

13. Yorick. Yes. That feels right.

14. I should write that down.

15. I did not write that down.

16. Back to the top. “To be, or not to be”—still excellent.

17. Perhaps he could say it faster.

18. Or slower. Much slower. Painfully slow.

19. I will write “(pause)” in the script and let the actor figure it out.

20. The actor will absolutely ignore that.

21. Why do I even include directions?

22. Maybe I should act in my own plays.

23. No, that sounds exhausting.

24. I am already tired from all this thinking.

25. Halfway through revisions, and I have improved everything and also nothing.

26. Is this even good?

27. What is “good” anyway?

28. What is “is”?

29. I am spiraling.

30. Focus. Add a ghost.

31. Every story improves with a ghost.

32. The ghost should be his father.

33. This is now deeply emotional.

34. I am a genius again.

35. Wait—does the ghost talk too much?

36. Maybe less ghost?

37. No. More ghost.

38. The perfect amount of ghost is unclear.

39. I will simply commit and refuse to revisit this decision.

40. I am revisiting the decision.

41. Perhaps I should start a different play.

42. Something lighter. A comedy.

43. With misunderstandings!

44. And disguises!

45. And also, somehow, still a little sadness.

46. I cannot escape myself.

47. Back to the skull.

48. The skull is strong. The skull endures.

49. I have no idea if any of this works.

50. Whatever. I’ll just hand it in and let future centuries decide.

McSweeney’s Books: An Excerpt from Our New Book, Documentary Now!

Burt Lancaster — Tue, 19 May 2026 08:01:00 -0400

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McSweeney’s and Broadway Video present the official over-six-hundred-page comprehensive companion book to IFC’s Documentary Now!, made with the assistance of series directors Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono and including new writing by Seth Meyers, a foreword by Pulitzer Prize–finalist Matt Zoller Seitz, the complete sheet music for John Mulaney and Eli Bolin’s Co-op: The Musical, and much more.

The book is out today, and to celebrate, we’re sharing an excerpt featuring the show’s very first host, the legendary Burt Lancaster.

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A fierce advocate for independent cinema and documentary, Burt Lancaster was the original host of Documentary Now!¹, serving in this capacity for over a decade. He began his career as an acrobat, and after serving in WWII, ascended to the heights of Hollywood stardom, appearing in such classics as From Here to Eternity, The Leopard, The Swimmer, and many more. This introduction has been included in all editions of this book.

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The original 1975 introduction by
Documentary Now!’s first host,
Burt Lancaster

The first time I saw a film camera, it was in the hands of an amateur documentarian. He was a small man with piercing blue eyes who had come to record the circus where I was performing as part of the acrobatic team, Lang and Cravat. He owned a chain of picture houses outside Miami, and he wanted a one-reeler he could show before the main attractions. I can still recall the butterflies fluttering in my stomach that afternoon. Suddenly, the bars seemed slipperier. The crowd seemed louder. Performing our trapeze routine on film added a layer of permanence to the whole affair.

I share all this to give you a sense of how momentous it is to have one’s life recorded. Documentary as a medium is one of our most powerful precisely because it can reach out into the real world and extract beauty and complexity from one’s actual life.

A still from Kunuk Uncovered.

It’s always a lovely compliment when an actor’s performance is praised as honest, or when a Hollywood film is lauded by the press as “real.” But in the documentary, there’s no need for such puffery. This business of costumes, and casting, and producers calling with notes about the script, well, the documentary doesn’t have to contend with all that. The stories you see are the truth. The people you meet aren’t pretending. If film is the most democratic of modern forms, then documentary is its pinnacle.

A still from Globesman.

In that regard, hosting Documentary Now! has been one of the great honors of my career. This fine program consistently showcases bold, thoughtful, and revolutionary work. The films they’ve broadcast since their inception are unlike anything else in the entertainment landscape. And now, as we set down words and cement celluloid dreams onto the printed page, our humble aspiration is that we might capture a fraction of this essence.

Classic posters from two classic documentaries.

As for that first documentary, the one-reeler of my trapeze performance. Well, I never saw the final result. But I can still recall the incredible feeling of being filmed. It was the feeling that perhaps my story was worthy of telling. It was the feeling that, perhaps, they all are.

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¹ After his retirement, Lancaster was replaced by a rotating cast of hosts, including Gregory Peck, John Pierson, Mel Gibson, James Naughton, Richard Roeper, and Billy Bob Thornton, before Helen Mirren took on the mantle permanently in 2008.

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You can buy Documentary Now! in our store.

First They Came for the Pieds-à-Terre…

Carlos Greaves — Mon, 18 May 2026 14:00:00 -0400

"The phrase ‘tax the rich’ can be ‘just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs,’ according to the New York City billionaire Steve Roth, who said that the top 1 percent should be ‘praised and thanked.’” — The Guardian

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First they came for the pieds-à-terre, which they said were driving up the cost of housing.

And I did not speak out.

Because my pied-à-terre was in Greenwich, Connecticut, not Greenwich Village.

Then they came for the capital gains, which they said should be taxed as income.

And I did not speak out.

Because I had all of my company stock in a tax-sheltered backdoor Roth.

Then they came for the bad landlords, who they said were ripping off tenants.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was so wealthy I didn’t even bother renting out any of my investment properties.

Then they came for the 1031 exchanges, which they said were an unfair tax loophole the wealthy use to buy fancier vacation homes.

And I did not speak out.

Because I inherited all of my vacation homes from my father using a totally different tax loophole.

Then they came for the real estate shell corporations, which they said shady billionaires were using to anonymously buy up enormous swaths of properties.

And I did not speak out.

Because, years ago, I had my name legally changed to Equity Holdings LLC.

Then they came for the corporate income tax increase, which they argued companies would happily accept in order to continue operating in arguably the most lucrative city in the world to do business.

And I did not speak out.

Because I just assumed that corporate lobbyists would find a way around this, either at the state or federal level, because that’s the sort of thing corporate lobbyists seem to always be able to do.

Then they came for the mega-mergers, which they argued, at this rate, would eventually turn the S&P 500 into basically the S&P 5 and result in the nation’s entire wealth being split down the middle between Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was good friends with Bezos, this actually seemed like it could work out in my favor, though, admittedly, I began to worry we were definitely reaching some sort of breaking point as a country.

Then they came for the general notion that the ultra-wealthy should be exempt from paying their fair share in taxes on account of them being “job creators,” which they argued was true, but only in the narrow sense that having a small group of mustache-twirling centi-billionaires hoarding all the wealth results in an economy where average people have to work three or more jobs just to survive, so, yes, technically there are more jobs but all of the jobs suck.

And I did not speak out.

Because I was just a deca-billionaire and because I was also getting a little scared that perhaps they were right; perhaps American society was completely falling apart at the seams, and we were quickly spiraling into an authoritarian kleptocracy, even though the offensively simple solution would be for the wealthy to simply agree to an increase in taxes so small they likely wouldn’t feel it in any meaningful way.

Then they came for me.

And there was no one left to speak for me.

Because the rest of the oligarchs had moved to Miami Beach.

Lest We Forget the Horrors: An Unending Catalog of Trump’s Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes: April 2026: Atrocities 867-930

Emily Greenberg and Chase Bush-McLaughlin — Mon, 18 May 2026 08:01:00 -0400

Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes, and it felt urgent to track them, to ensure these horrors—happening almost daily—would not be forgotten. Now that Trump has returned to office, amid civil rights, humanitarian, economic, and constitutional crises, we felt it critical to make an inventory of this new round of horrors. This list will be updated monthly between now and the end of Donald Trump’s second term.

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These lists, along with everything McSweeney’s publishes on this site, are offered ad-free and at no charge to our readers. If you are moved to make a donation in any amount or subscribe to our website’s Patreon, please do. This will help support this project and our other work.

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ATROCITY KEY

– Authoritarianism
– Constitutional Illegalities, Collusion, and/or Obstruction of Justice
– Environment
– Harassment, Bullying, Retribution, and/or Sexual Misconduct
– Lies and Misinformation
– Musk Madness
– Policy
– Public Statements and Social Media Posts
– Trump Family Business Dealings
– Trump Staff and Administration
– White Supremacy, Racism, Misogyny, Homophobia, Transphobia, and/or Xenophobia

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March 2026

Main Index

Trump’s first term

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April 2026

– April 1, 2026 – Tuan Van Bui, 55, died in ICE custody at the Miami Correctional Facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana. ICE claimed Bui, who entered the country legally in 1990 under the Amerasian Homecoming Act and was challenging his detention through a habeas corpus case, was found unresponsive in his cell. The cause of death was linked to heart disease and high blood pressure.
– April 1, 2026 – Donald Trump, who has frequently threatened and criticized Supreme Court justices, became the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the Supreme Court. He listened to the government make its case against birthright citizenship, but left when the ACLU presented opposing arguments, defying a longstanding tradition that spectators remain seated and silent. Steven Lubet, an emeritus professor at Northwestern University’s School of Law, characterized Trump’s presence during oral arguments as “an attempt to intimidate the justices” and “a challenge to the Supreme Court’s independence.”
– April 2, 2026 – Luanne James, 57, a library director in Tennessee, was fired from her office after she refused to move LGBTQ+ books from the children’s shelves. Last year, Trump signed an executive order targeting “gender ideology,” and Tennessee has also passed anti-DEI laws. “As a librarian, I knew [the library board’s order to move the books] was wrong, and I had to say something,” James said.

“I Had No Choice”: Ousted TN Library Director Addresses Firing over LGBTQ Books Removal (WSMV Nashville).
– April 2, 2026 – The Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled that the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, was a homicide. Alam, a refugee from Myanmar with severe visual impairment, was found dead on a Buffalo street in February, five days after Border Patrol agents dropped him off at a closed Tim Hortons. “This tragedy was entirely preventable, and it reflects a serious failure in the systems meant to protect vulnerable people,” said Imran Fazal, a friend of the Alam family.
– April 2, 2026 – Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, frustrated over her handling of the Epstein files and her unwillingness to investigate or prosecute enough of his opponents, even though she had overseen multiple politically motivated investigations against his foes. During Bondi’s tumultuous tenure, the Justice Department surrendered some of its independence, and many of its career officials resigned. Bondi became the second cabinet member, after Kristi Noem, to be fired.
– April 2, 2026 – After Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed the Iran war was being fought “in the name of Jesus Christ,” Pope Leo XIV offered a different take. “We tend to consider ourselves powerful when we dominate, victorious when we destroy our equals, great when we are feared. God has given us an example—not of how to dominate, but of how to liberate; not of how to destroy life, but how to give it,” Pope Leo said in a homily during Mass.
– April 3, 2026 – New figures showed that ICE, despite claims to the contrary, was still arresting many immigrants with no criminal history. After Alex Pretti and Renee Good were killed in Minneapolis, White House border czar Tom Homan said that “all operations will be targeted” and that the agency would prioritize “criminal aliens, public safety threats, and national security threats.” Trump also claimed he wanted a “softer touch.” However, a Washington Post analysis of ICE data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit found that people with no criminal record still made up 42 percent of those detained.
– April 5, 2026 – On Easter morning, Trump posted a profanity-laden threat to Iran on Truth Social, demanding that the country reopen the Strait of Hormuz. “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell,” he wrote, adding, “Praise be to Allah.” Just days earlier, Trump had declared Iran effectively defeated, claiming its navy and air force were “gone,” its missiles were “just about used up,” and its radar systems were “100 percent annihilated.” He had also dismissed concerns about the Strait of Hormuz closing, saying, “When this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally.” Two days after those remarks, Iran shot down two American military planes. Hours before Trump’s Easter post, Pope Leo XIV had delivered his first Easter address, warning against “the many conflicts raging in different parts of the world” and lamenting “what a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day.”
– April 5, 2026 – After Iran shot down an American aircraft and US forces carried out a rescue mission for a stranded airman, Trump threatened to attack Iranian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Experts warned that intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure could constitute a war crime and trigger wider attacks across the region. Iran later threatened retaliation against infrastructure in Gulf states.
– April 6, 2026 – The Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to move forward with efforts to erase Stephen Bannon’s contempt of Congress conviction stemming from his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Bannon, a longtime Trump ally, served only four months in prison after a jury convicted him in 2022. The Trump administration asked the court to help remove the conviction from Bannon’s record, arguing that dismissing the case was “in the interests of justice.” During Trump’s first term, Bannon was also pardoned after being indicted on charges that he defrauded donors to a group raising money for Trump’s border wall.
– April 6, 2026 – The Trump administration terminated multiple civil rights settlements aimed at protecting transgender students from discrimination in schools, including agreements involving school districts in California, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Some of the settlements had required schools to respect students’ preferred names and pronouns or allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity. Education Department officials said there was no precedent for the federal government revoking civil rights agreements of this kind that had been previously negotiated. The Education Department told one Pennsylvania school district it could face an investigation and potential federal funding cuts if it did not reverse protections for transgender students.
– April 7, 2026 – Annie Ramos, the undocumented wife of an Army staff sergeant, was released from ICE detention. She spent five days in custody following her arrest at Fort Polk, Louisiana, where she and her husband had gone to complete paperwork so they could move in together. Ramos, 22, who was brought to the United States as a toddler and had no criminal record, was detained after authorities cited a deportation order issued when she was twenty-two months old. Her case drew widespread media attention and intervention from Senator Mark Kelly, who said he contacted Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin about the case. Legal experts said military spouses in similar situations were typically allowed to pursue legal status while remaining with their families. While in detention, Ramos was prohibited from wearing her wedding ring.
– April 7, 2026 – President Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly endorsed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban just days before a national election that polls had predicted his party could lose. Speaking by phone to a rally in Budapest, Trump declared, “I love Hungary, and I love Viktor,” and praised Orban for preventing migrants from “storm[ing] your country and invad[ing] your country.” At the same event, Vance called Orban “one of the only true statesmen in Europe” and said Hungary under Orban could serve as “a model to the continent.” Five days later, Orban lost in a landslide to opposition leader Péter Magyar, who had criticized Vance’s visit by warning that “no foreign country may interfere in Hungarian elections.”
– April 8, 2026 – EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin headlined a climate-change denial conference in Washington hosted by the Heartland Institute, a group that has spent decades attacking mainstream climate science. Attendees gave Zeldin a standing ovation before he spoke. Speakers at the event falsely claimed that climate change was a hoax, that rising carbon dioxide levels posed little danger, and that fossil fuels were environmentally beneficial. Zeldin told attendees that the Trump administration would not follow “doom-and-gloom prediction[s]” about global warming and boasted that the EPA was “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.” One pamphlet distributed at the conference read: “Fossil Fuels Are the Greenest Energy Sources.”
– April 8, 2026 – Trump lashed out at NATO after members of the alliance refused to participate in the US-Israeli war against Iran or help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Following a tense White House meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, whom some allies have nicknamed the “Trump whisperer” for his attempts to flatter and manage the president, Trump posted: “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN.” He added: “REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!” Rutte later acknowledged that Trump was “clearly disappointed” with many NATO allies and described the meeting as “very frank” and “very open.”
– April 9, 2026 – Trump turned on several prominent conservative media figures who criticized his handling of the war with Iran, including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones. In a 482-word Truth Social post, Trump called the commentators “stupid people” with “low IQs” and said they were “LOSERS.” The attacks came after Carlson called Trump’s threats toward Iran “evil” and Jones said the president sounded “like an unhinged super villain from a Marvel comic movie.” Trump also targeted Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, once one of his closest allies in Congress, calling her “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown.” Greene responded that Trump had “gone mad as he wages war against Iran.”
– April 9, 2026 – Trump met privately at the White House with leaders of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement as administration officials tried to calm frustrations among MAHA supporters ahead of the midterm elections. Some movement leaders, many of whom had abandoned the Democratic Party to support Trump after Kennedy endorsed him, had recently criticized the president for siding with Bayer in litigation over the weedkiller Roundup. The same day, the administration published a new charter for a federal vaccine advisory committee that could allow Kennedy to revive vaccine policy changes that had recently been blocked by a federal judge. The revised charter expanded eligibility for committee membership to include people with experience in “recovery from serious vaccine injuries.”
– April 9, 2026 – Melania Trump delivered a surprise statement from the White House denying any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell and declaring that “the lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today.” She did not specify which reports she was referring to. The remarks stunned even some White House officials and reignited scrutiny of Donald Trump’s longtime association with Epstein, which the administration had spent months trying to contain. Afterward, Trump contradicted earlier White House accounts by saying he had known his wife planned to speak about Epstein and that “she had a right to talk about it.” The speech also renewed public interest in Paolo Zampolli, a former modeling agent who introduced Melania to Trump and later appeared in documents related to Epstein. Zampolli recently sought ICE intervention against the mother of his child during a custody dispute.

Melania Trump Makes White House Statement Denying Ties to Jeffrey Epstein (Bloomberg News).
– April 9, 2026 – After Trump administration officials pushed for greater American access to the country’s gold and mineral reserves, Venezuela’s National Assembly approved a new law opening the country’s mining sector to foreign investors. The move came after the Trump administration used criminal charges and extradition threats to pressure Venezuela’s new leadership following the US capture of Nicolás Maduro. Trump had previously declared that the United States was “in charge” of Venezuela and said American oil companies would “take our oil back.” Despite years of US sanctions targeting Venezuela’s mining industry and warnings linking mining operations to human rights abuses and deforestation, the law is expected to expand mining in regions already controlled by armed groups and corrupt military officials.
– April 9, 2026 – Trump shared graphic security footage of a fatal hammer attack in Florida involving a Haitian immigrant and used the killing to attack protections for Haitian migrants. “I don’t recommend you watch this tape, because it is so terrible, but felt I had an obligation to put it up so that people can see what Democrats are protecting,” he wrote on Truth Social. Trump and his aides have increasingly used individual crimes committed by immigrants to argue that immigration drives violent crime, despite studies consistently finding that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans.
– April 10, 2026 – The Trump administration released plans for a 250-foot triumphal arch near the Lincoln Memorial as part of the president’s effort to reshape Washington and celebrate America’s 250th anniversary. Trump said the proposed monument, which resembles the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and is topped with giant eagles and a golden angel, would be privately funded. Asked last year whom the arch would honor, Trump replied: “Me.” The proposal advanced through a federal arts panel that Trump had recently stacked with allies, including a former White House receptionist.

More Details on Trump’s Proposed “Triumphal Arch” (ABC 7 Chicago).
– April 11, 2026 – Alejandro Cabrera Clemente, 49, died in ICE custody at Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Louisiana. ICE claimed Clemente, who had lived in the US for more than twenty-five years, was found unresponsive in his cell.
– April 11, 2026 – The US military struck two alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Pacific, killing five and leaving one survivor. Similar strikes killed two people on April 13, four people on April 14, and three people on April 15.
– April 12, 2026 – Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt, 27, died in ICE custody at the Federal Detention Center in Miami, Florida. ICE claimed that Carbonell-Betancourt, who immigrated to the US from Cuba in 2024, died of a presumed suicide, but the cause of death was still under investigation. Carbonell-Betancourt was arrested in November 2025 after a police officer observed him wandering around an “abandoned farmer’s market,” warned him against trespassing, and patted him down. When the officer asked Carbonell-Betancourt for ID, he ran. The officer then ran after him, tased him, and took him to a hospital. Carbonell-Betancourt was charged with resisting an officer with violence and transferred into ICE custody in February 2026. The charge was eventually dropped.
– April 12, 2026 – In a lengthy Truth Social post, Trump called Pope Leo XIV “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” Later, while answering a question from a reporter, Trump also criticized the pope for being “very liberal” and accused him, without evidence, of supporting nuclear weapons. Pope Leo has criticized the Iran war and the American abduction of Venezuela’s president. A day after Trump’s social media post, Leo responded that he had “no fear of the Trump administration.”

Pope Leo XIV Responds to Trump’s Comments Against Him in Feud over Iran War (AP).
– April 13, 2026 – Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus to Truth Social. The image depicted Trump in a white and red robe, touching the forehead of a sick man on his deathbed as light radiates from Trump’s hands. Following criticism, Trump deleted the image. “I thought it was me as a doctor,” he said. “I make people better.” Later, Trump added, “I viewed that as a picture of me being a doctor in fixing—you had the Red Cross right there, you had, you know, medical people surrounding me. And I was like the doctor, you know, as a little fun playing the doctor and making people better.”
– April 13, 2026 – A day after Trump lashed out against the pope on social media, JD Vance, a Catholic, said the pope should stay out of American affairs. “In some cases, it would be best for the Vatican to stick to matters of morality,” said Vance. “Stick to matters of, you know, what’s going on in the Catholic Church. And let the president of the United States stick to dictating American policy.” A day later, Vance also criticized Leo’s statement. “Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis? I certainly think the answer was yes,” said Vance. “In the same way that it’s important for the vice president of the United States to be careful when I talk about matters of public policy, I think it’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.”
– April 14, 2026 – Trump received a DoorDash McDonald’s delivery at the White House from “DoorDash Grandma” Sharon Simmons and tipped her one hundred dollars. The White House’s rapid-response X account then quoted Simmons as saying she had saved more than $11,000 in tips by not having to claim them on her taxes, though this would not be possible under the current policy, which labor advocates have heavily criticized. Simmons had previously lobbied for Trump’s “no tax on tips” policy, testifying before Congress in July 2025. DoorDash later admitted the delivery was a stunt.

President Trump Receives DoorDash McDonald’s Delivery at the Oval Office (C-SPAN)
– April 14, 2026 – At the direction of DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the Department of Justice moved to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of twelve Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who helped plan and lead the January 6, 2021, attacks on the...

At Long Last, I Have Maxximized My Looks

Josh Gondelman — Fri, 15 May 2026 13:00:00 -0400

After months sequestered in the Pagoda of Masculinity, which is beneath my parents’ house but is fair to consider my basement, I have emerged a new man. Through my relentless commitment to living the ascetic lifestyle of a monk who is allowed to play video games, I, the Angulord, have at long last fully maxximized my looks.

There is no length I have not gone to for the sake of cultivating my flawless aesthetic. I have smashed my jaw with a hammer to increase its definition. I have injected testosterone to enhance the capacity of my muscles. My abs are as firm as freshly quarried gravel thanks to peptides (which I take subcutaneously) and riptides (which I allow to carry me out to sea during thunderstorms, forcing me to swim ashore or die). So far, I’ve only been declared legally dead twice, and just for five or six minutes each time. My doctor says that the oxygen deficit has left me with the cognitive capacity of a police horse on the verge of retirement. I told him to suck my sharp dick.

Oh, I should have mentioned: I have cryogenically frozen my penis and filed it down to a fleshy icicle to replace any feminine roundness on my body with a masculine point. Also, my doctor is a woman, but I use he and him pronouns as a sign of respect.

The penis-freezing is just the tip of the iceberg, both figuratively and literally. For the past nine years, I have devoted my waking hours to the task of becoming more handsome, and due to my nightly infusions of owl blood, many of my sleeping hours as well. My unyielding pursuit of perfection has allowed me to achieve the striking visage of a tertiary character on the Vanderpump Rules reboot. At long last, I am a stone-cold seven, the kind of guy who could win a Jacob Elordi lookalike contest in a farm town with a population of two hundred.

How have I accomplished this? For starters, I spend sixteen hours a day live-streaming my gym routine while simultaneously giving betting advice on overseas cockfights and state-sanctioned executions. My stamina is made possible by a battery of prescription and designer drugs that would make the doctor who killed Michael Jackson black out from jealousy. A billionaire, who describes himself as “apolitical” despite earning his fortune by creating an AI application that automatically deletes Black people’s résumés from hiring databases, finances my lifestyle. And yes, I have been banned from YouTube for calling for Janet Yellen to be imprisoned for earning a degree in economics while female. But I have a new platform on the free speech purist app CHODE (Connecting Heterodox Orators… Dudes, Exclusively.)

Has this immense effort made me appealing to women? Absolutely not. But that’s fine with me. I already have one mommy, and she’s a bitch. I do occasionally have sex, an act that I consider yucky. It also takes valuable time away from my regimen of doing crunches while improving my mind by listening to recordings of Theo Von guessing how science works. It’s honestly better than school. I dropped out of eleventh grade after my civics teacher wokely suggested that the holocaust happened.

So, yes, I bone. I smush. I push my man-stalactite into the world’s driest caves. Of course, I don’t care whether women enjoy intercourse. In fact, bringing a woman to sexual climax is gay to me, actually. Why are you, as a man, engaging in lesbian behavior? And I should note: Sex is not pleasurable for me either. On account of my extensive battery of implants and injectables, my sperm are so full of microplastics that each one is the size of a marble. Every time I reach orgasm, it’s like an agonizing game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Still, my unstoppable #grindset has earned me the adulation of thousands of men who are only allowed to see their children with third-party supervision present, as well as those guys’ teenage sons who hate them. I have also been the subject of fawning profiles in all seven remaining print publications, each of which has ignored that my whole deal is basically medieval eugenics wrapped in an eating disorder and peppered with substance abuse and misogyny.

Speaking of which, my primary care physician, Dr. Yesenia Cordova, who I’d better not find out is Latina, says I have mere hours to live. Apparently, eating a fistful of iguana tranquilizers for breakfast every morning has turned me cold-blooded, and I am no longer appropriately adapted for life on the Earth’s surface.

I have alienated everyone from my past because with all the focus on my looks, I never spent any time personalitymaxxing. So while I am on my deathbed, I am joined only by several of my worst-smelling Patreon subscribers, who have been taking selfies with me for clout since they arrived. Death cannot come soon enough, mostly because I’m excited to finally meet Charlie Kirk and achieve alpha status in the afterlife by telling him how sad his wife isn’t.

I bid you all a stoic farewell from the Angulord. But thanks to all the microplastics, at least I am leaving a maxximally beautiful corpse.

Women Be Like “I Needed This,” and It’s Just Trusting Themselves

Taylor Harris — Fri, 15 May 2026 09:00:00 -0400

You’ve Always Been This Way is a column written by Taylor Harris, a late-diagnosed neurodivergent woman and 1980s preschool dropout, who identifies every moment from her past that filled her with shame, and mutters, “Yep, that tracks. I see it all now.”

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Dearest Neurobaddies of the Finest Order,

I did a thing. No, not procuring a pint of Graeter’s ice cream before 9 a.m., though who am I to discount the diminutive glory of my former days? Just because I write to you from the summit of Midlife Desire and Acquisition, doesn’t mean I’m untouchable. It just means I trusted myself and didn’t ruin everything. In fact, I kind of nailed it. Did I question myself 13,000 times first? Think of every reason I should abandon the want lighting up my heart like a 1980s Glo Worm? Yes and yes. And then I proceeded to do the thing anyway. So pull up your stretchy pants and lift ye old breasts back into the cups of your threadbare brassieres, ladies. It’s story time.

On Monday, May 4, 2026, I flew to Austin to see Raye in concert with her sisters Amma and Absolutely. You KNOW how much I love sisters. But do you know how much I hate being away from home? Much. I hate it muchly, same with flying.

Raye and her sisters on stage in Austin.

I’d bought tickets, last-minute, on Sunday. Packed my colorful self-identified autistic Cotopaxi backpack with books I wouldn’t read that could fix my life and a bag of sour candies to properly spike and plunge me into a cold hypoglycemic state. Quick joke: What do you call a state that’s not being gutted by Republicans? Answer: Let’s hope there’s still time to find out.

I had to leave my two teenagers behind, even though I knew they were as obsessed with Raye’s sophomore album, This Music May Contain Hope, as I was. My son keeps the vinyl spinning and was the first to memorize the impossibly quick lyrics to “Click Clack Symphony,” the lovechild of Raye and Hans Zimmer. My daughter practices the runs and riffs, commands Alexa to play “I Will Overcome.” We blast “The WhatsApp Shakespeare” in the car and stare maniacally at my youngest, Juliet, willing her to crack a smile at the words, “Juliet must run / Juliet must vanish.” We’ve formed a small but steadily neurodivergent cult, and we are asking for a certain British singer to lead us home. Did my son write an entire article, “Why Raye’s Newest Album is the Ultimate AuDHD Album,” in Google Docs? Sure did. Complete with The Devil Wears Prada references.

A bit of context, baddies: I am forty-three years old. Some days I feel twenty-five; other days, I understand my ovaries have been replaced by two candy cigarettes, puffing chalk into the dark alleys of my abdomen.

So I read Miranda July’s All Fours when it came out. Did I relate to the woman, the motel, the living of a second life within or along the perimeter of your first? Not exactly. I come from purity culture, babes. I’m loyal as they come, terrible at lying, and just learned “raw dogging” isn’t only about bros flying without iPhones. Let’s be honest: I can barely sleep, let alone get buck neck-ed, in any hotel, motel, or Holiday Inn, because I’m terrified of germs. But I sensed I was supposed to relate to something in that book. Which is literally the definition of autism. My whole life is “Oh, you’re supposed to do it that way? Wear those jeans? Negotiate your salary? Have emotions at the time of the emotional event? Who explained this to you?”

But hats off to Miranda July, because even if I can’t write a sex scene without plagiarizing the Song of Solomon, I did feel a shift in my late thirties. As though my brain unlocked another backroom full of questions and accouterments related to How Things Work, and once your brain opens that door, dear reader, there’s zero point in shutting it. You have to look around. Even if opening the boxes and pulling books off the shelves (my back room is a library, of course) unleashes exhausting rumination or contributes to burnout. You can slam the door, take some time off, go drink a daiquiri on the beach, but you’ll come back. Midlife is in that room. I found autism and ADHD boxes in mine; a box of oil pastels and paint markers stuffed into a tin labeled DELIGHT; and I’m just starting to examine this thing in the corner, a complex and vintage contraption labeled WANT. We are born with it, all of us. So what happened to mine?

Can I tell you the first thing I tried to do with a piece of my want? After I acknowledged my desire to see Raye, with ridiculous flight costs, during the school week, when I would have to lean on my spouse and community to fill in, I tried to build a container for my want. I put it away in big Rubbermaid containers, marked as DUMB, IMPOSSIBLE, SELFISH, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, WE CAN’T AFFORD THIS.

It kept bursting out from under the lid, like Strega Nona’s noodles. But I’m a modern, therapized woman. I have workarounds and cognitive flexibility and meds for situations like this.

I leaned harder into “shoulds” and shame. I reminded my heart that stay-at-home moms who are adjunct professors and freelance writers who do deep dives into human behavior when other parents are making money, don’t get to take last-minute trips if someone’s not dying. When shame left me hungry, even if dejected, I tried to put the want on a shelf marked MOTHER’S DAY. If I could just do a two-factor verification of why I deserved this trip, maybe I could go without guilt. My want proved too big for the particle board shelf. Too heavy. Too living for the stuff men created to seem real.

I have spent many hours, many days, years, then, convincing myself my wants must align with certain rules or the passionate desires of others. I’ve told myself that what I want is impossible. Or that I can only want and choose a thing when my back’s against the wall. A 9-1-1 desire, like the old Kmart blue-light special. There are three billion reasons why I do this, and my therapist and I have only uncovered fifteen, so I hope she’s ready to push up her Quince sweater sleeves and get to work for another decade. The reasons why matter. But right now, they don’t matter as much as trusting that sometimes I do know what I want. And I’m not talking about ice cream or soft tees or a pair of clearance Nikes.

I can want something big and bright for myself. Something that isn’t required or “for a job” or “for a kid” or “for the family,” and that is okay. Good, even.

Taylor (left) with friends at Raye concert.

If you see me out and about (good luck) in my first-ever oversized concert tee, let it remind you that aging autistic baddies, lovers of lattes and libraries, creatures of habit and predictable highs, are allowed to want things that cost or take up space or hinge on the assistance of others. There’s a good chance what we desire will be gorgeous and complex, dripping with depth. A Raye concert in an outdoor amphitheater on a mildly breezy night in Austin? She and her sisters singing “Joy” like three little girls dancing in their backyard, unaware or uncaring that hundreds or even thousands are looking on? Yes, please. But if it’s not as glorious as a night with a dream artist and her no-skips sophomore album, at least we will have trusted ourselves enough to choose our want and call it good.

US Army Basic Training for Muscular Olds

Jennie Egerdie — Fri, 15 May 2026 08:01:00 -0400

“The United States Army has officially raised its enlistment age limit to 42.” — New York Times

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Arrival

Once you step off the bus, basic training has begun. Recruits carrying ergonomic rolling luggage will be immediately singled out for punishment. Next, your bags will be inspected for contraband. Any attempts to smuggle in heating pads, lumbar-support braces, or Lactaid pills will cause your drill sergeant to go ballistic. Full-fat dairy is a big part of the warrior ethos.

Red Phase
(Weeks 1-3)

The goal of the Red Phase is to begin your transformation from soft, middle-aged weakling into an unstoppable, silver-fox warrior. During these first three weeks, you’ll get a thorough introduction to the following:

US Army’s core values, traditions, and ethics
Protein binging
Exercise purging
Combat 101: fighting hand-to-hand soldiers, guerrilla insurgents, and hypertension
Crowd-dispersion
Sodium-reduction
Identifying, ignoring, and over-medicating chronic knee pain
Tactical sudoku
Nuclear-biological-chemical chamber analysis (also known as a “colonoscopy”)
The RFK Jr. mid-life challenge: One hundred push-ups. Fifty pull-ups. Spray-tanned and in jeans.

Obviously, this is an intense training schedule, geared toward building physical endurance. You’ll move up once you’re able to kick a training dummy without shattering your ankle, or complete two days without complaining about sleeping on your neck funny.

White Phase
(Weeks 4–5)

The White Phase focuses on strong-arming your aging body into submission, with special emphasis on weapons training. You’ll learn how to identify, target, and engage targets with a rifle. You will also lose what’s left of your hearing. Here’s a rundown of what we’ll cover:

Basic rifle marksmanship (BRM)—engaging distant targets
Basic blurry marksmanship (BBM)—engaging distant targets without glasses
Zeroing a rifle
Zeroing your percentage of body fat
Acquiring a midlife eating disorder
Surprise barracks inspection
Surprise bowel obstruction
Dissociating through a complete physical breakdown
Mainlining hypertrophic vitamin infusions
Yogurt

Soon, you’ll start to get the hang of military midlife. You may even think your drill sergeant is noticing how, after you cough, you’re peeing your pants a little less. You’re developing all the essential soldier skills, which you’ll put together in the next phase.

Blue Phase
(Weeks 6–9)

It’s time to dig deep. This final phase is the most important part of your training. It will either render you a broken bag of bone fragments or turn you into a jacked, over-forty fighting machine. These three weeks are spent on the following:

Undergoing testosterone replacement therapy as part of a team
Engaging in ten-to-fifteen tactical supplements, including Swolverine peptide stacks, ’roids, pumpers, gym candy, and Peter Thiel–inspired blood infusions from a young alpha stud
Saying goodbye to your former life
Final physical inspection before the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT)
Final brain MRI before the APFT
Completing the APFT, effectively grafting your frail, disintegrating human body onto a titanium aluminide insect-exoskeleton engineered by SpaceX. This process is permanent. You must pass the APFT to graduate.

Army Basic Training Graduation
(Week 10)

You’ll receive one day off with your family to catch up on your recent experiences. Thanks to your new seven-foot-tall mechanical praying-mantis cyborg body, you’ll have plenty to discuss.

Congratulations. You’re now ready for your first military assignment:

Administrative Support

Obviously, we’re placing you on full-time desk duty. What did you think would happen? You’re middle-aged.

The Story of Art + Water

Dave Eggers — Fri, 15 May 2026 07:16:00 -0400

For fifteen years or so, I’d been kicking around the idea of resurrecting the artist-apprentice model that reigned in the art world for hundreds of years.

Again and again, I’d heard from young people who lamented the astronomical and ever-rising cost of art school. For many college-level art programs, the total cost to undergraduates is now over $100,000 a year. I hope we can all agree that charging students $400,000 for a four-year degree in visual art is objectively absurd. And this prohibitive cost has priced tens of thousands of potential students out of even considering undertaking such an education.

For years, I mentioned this issue to friends in and out of the art world, and everyone, without exception, agreed that the system was broken. Even friends I know who teach at art schools agreed that the cost was out of control, and these spiraling costs were contributing to the implosion of many undergraduate and postgraduate art programs.

Then I brought it up with JD Beltran, a longtime friend prominent in the San Francisco art scene, who herself was suffering under the weight of $150,000 in art-school debt, which she’d incurred in the late 1990s. She’d been carrying that debt for thirty years—for a degree in painting she got in 1998 from the San Francisco Art Institute—and together we started mapping out an alternative.

It’s important to note that the current model for art schools is very new. For about a thousand years, until the twentieth century, artists typically either apprenticed for a master artist, learning their trade by working in a studio, or attended loose ateliers where a group of artist-students studied under an established artist, and paid very little to do so. These students would help maintain the studio, they would hire models, they would practice their craft together, and the studio’s owner would instruct these students while still creating his own work—usually in the same building.

Somehow, though, we went from a model where students paid little to nothing, and learned techniques passed down through the centuries, to a system where students pay $100,000, and often learn very little beyond theory. A recent graduate of one of our country’s most respected MFA programs—not in the Bay Area—told me that in her third year as an MFA student, she paid over $100,000 in tuition and fees, and in exchange, she met with her advisor once every two weeks. That third year, there were no classes, no skills taught—there was only a twice-monthly meeting with this advisor. Each meeting lasted one hour. Over the course of that third year, she met with this advisor twenty times, meaning that each of these one-hour sessions cost the MFA student $5,000. And during these sessions, again, no hard skills were taught. It was only theory, only discussion. At the rate of $5,000 an hour (and of course her instructor was not the recipient of this $5,000/hr!) This seems to be an inequitable system in need of adjustment.

So JD Beltran and I started thinking of an alternative. For years, it was little more than idle chatter until one day in 2022, I was biking around the Embarcadero, and happened to do a loop around Pier 29, and because one of its roll-top doors was open, I saw that it was enormous, and that it was empty.

JD and I started making inquiries with the Port of San Francisco, a government agency that oversees the waterfront. They’re the agency that helped the Giants ballpark get built, who helped reopen the Ferry Building, and made it possible for the Exploratorium to relocate from the Palace of Fine Arts to their current location on the waterfront. In the forty years since the collapse of the wretched highway that used to cover the Embarcadero, the Port of SF has done great things to make that promenade a jewel of the city.

JD and I started meeting with the Port back in 2023. In particular, Amy Cohen and Scott Landsittel encouraged us to write up a proposal, and early on they matched us up with the Community Arts Stabilization Trust, an SF nonprofit dedicated to helping arts organizations stay in the city. David Keenan and Ken Ikeda at CAST became our partners in navigating the complex zoning and permitting requirements for those tenants inhabiting the piers.

The core of our proposal was this:

Ten established artists would get free studio space in the pier. At a time when all visual artists are struggling to find and keep studio space in this expensive city, this free studio space would help some of our best local artists stay local.
In exchange for this free studio space, these ten established artists would agree to teach a cohort of twenty emerging artists, who also would be given free studio space in the pier.

That was the core of the idea. Simple, we hoped. And it would bring thirty visual artists all to Pier 29, to learn from each other, and the emerging artists would get a world-class, graduate-level education. And because thirty artists would be occupying the pier, the staffing required to maintain the program would be minimal. The thirty resident artists would become caretakers of the space.

Thus began fourteen months of meetings, proposals, and permitting discussions. The Port’s staff were encouraging, because that part of the Embarcadero is a very quiet zone, with few restaurants or cafés—and those who were there, struggle. (The famed Fog City Diner of Mrs. Doubtfire, recently went under.)

OUR NEW MODEL, WHICH IS A VARIATION ON THE OLD MODEL

For the educational component of the Art + Water program, I did some napkin math and discovered something so simple that I assumed it couldn’t work: If each of these ten established artists taught just three hours a week, together they would provide these twenty emerging artists with thirty hours of instruction per week. These three hours wouldn’t put too great a burden on any one of the established artists, but the accumulated knowledge imparted each week by these ten established—and varied, and successful—artists would be immeasurable. And they would be able to do it for free.

And because the thirty artists, established and emerging, would be sharing one pier, they’d be able to consult with each other regularly, even outside of class hours, and more mentorship and camaraderie would occur organically. (One of the strangest things about many advanced art-school programs is how distant the teachers’ and students’ studios are from each other. For hundreds of years, apprentices were able to see, and even participate in, the making of the established artists’ work. Now, that’s largely lost. Professors work across town, or in distant cities; the two practices are miles apart, and so much knowledge is never transferred. When BFA and MFA students are around only other students, they can’t see how successful working artists make their art, or indeed how they make a living.)

With Art + Water, the hope was that if these emerging artists had their studios right next to successful artists, they could see how the work was created, they could ask questions, and they could even assist (just as apprentices used to assist the master artists). Infinitely more knowledge would be transferred through this proximity than could ever be in a classroom-only program.

So when I did my 3 × 10 = 30 napkin math, JD Beltran, who had not only gotten an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute but had also taught at SFAI, the California College of Art, SF State, and Stanford, shocked me by agreeing that my napkin math made sense to her, too. So we kept pressing on.

Next, we had to think of who might head up this group of established artists. We needed a Head of Resident Artists, and immediately, JD thought of Ana Teresa Fernandez, whom she had taught at SFAI back in the day. We both admired Ana Teresa’s work, her bold vision, her strong moral compass, and her ability to excel in a variety of media, from oil to sculpture to site-specific outdoor art on a grand scale. So we called Ana Teresa, and were in the middle of explaining the program when she interrupted us to accept. Because she, too, had struggled to find US programs that taught the skills and techniques she wanted to learn, she found herself seeking out classes in Florence, where she studied in an atelier not unlike the one we were planning. Anyway, Ana Teresa was in.

Over this past summer, Ana Teresa and JD put together an extraordinary group of SF artists who agreed to be the first group of artist-educators at Art + Water. They are Jet Martinez, Taraneh Hemani, George McCalman, Jenifer Wofford, David Wilson, Travis Somerville, and Paul Madonna. Ana Teresa, and JD will have their studios at Pier 29, too, and will teach alongside this first cohort.

This group of resident artists represents a phenomenal range of practices, but they all share one thing: a dedication to the Bay Area and a strong desire to create a new and more equitable model of art education. They will each move their studios into Pier 29 this fall, and they are currently putting together a rigorous one-year curriculum for the twenty emerging artists who will learn from them.

About those emerging artists: Soon on the Art + Water website and social media platforms, you’ll see directions for how to apply. Ana Teresa, JD, and the other resident artists will be looking for twenty San Francisco aspirants of any age (truly any age, please apply if you’re 78 and never had the chance to go to art school). These aspirants will receive what will be one of the most thorough art educations anywhere in the United States. The program will take place over one year and will cover every hard skill an artist working in two-dimensional art could want to learn. In an era when it’s exceedingly hard to learn what the Old Masters knew, Art + Water will impart those skills. These emerging artists must know how to draw, and from there, they’ll be taught everything Rembrandt was taught. After learning these hard skills, these artists can and will create work in any media, in any style. But we feel it’s important that they know the hard skills taught for centuries.

To be sure, the established artists working at Art + Water are not classicists. Jet Martinez is not a stodgy classicist. Jenifer Wofford is not a traditionalist. And yet everyone teaching at Pier 29 knows that these hard skills are crucial in helping an emerging artist develop their unique practices, and in preparing them to make an actual living in the visual arts.

Speaking of that:

ART + WATER’S GALLERY SPACE AND STORE

Pier 29 will feature ample gallery space that the established and emerging artists will be able to use whenever they choose. If one of the resident artists wants to have a show of recent work, they only have to reserve the space they need. If a group of artists wants to have a show together, same thing. Save the space, hang your work, put on a show.

In these galleries, the thirty artists will be able to sell their work—everything from works on canvas to postcard reproductions, from original prints to books and T-shirts. And because these galleries will be promoted from the Embarcadero, we expect hundreds to thousands of visitors a week to drop by to see what some of the best artists in San Francisco are making.

RENTABLE AND BORROWABLE SPACE FOR OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AND GALLERIES

There will also be gallery space available for local nonprofits, arts organizations, and local galleries. If you had a gallery that was priced out of your brick-and-mortar space, come to Art + Water and reserve gallery space with us. If you’re Creativity Explored, we want you to put on shows at Pier 29. If you’re the Minnesota Street Projects or ICA or Yerba Buena or the Asian Art Museum, we want to be your go-to satellite space. Anyone who wants to learn more about this available space, please email rebecca@artpluswater.org.

We want these galleries to be as lively and varied as we see at the Fog Art Fair and similar events at Fort Mason Center. Fort Mason, of course, is a great inspiration to us at Art + Water. How they do what they do is an astonishing mystery to us, but we look at their model of maintaining an endlessly convertible space as our north star. We have already been bugging them for advice, and we will continue to do so.

The piers in San Francisco are magical places, and Fort Mason has shown how they can be radically welcoming and constantly surprising community spaces, too. We want everyone to feel welcome to Pier 29, to wander the galleries, to visit our artists, to hear talks, and take free classes. Which brings us to:

FREE TALKS AND CLASSES BY VISITING ARTISTS AND CURATORS

With the help of JD, René de Guzman—his role will be laid out in a second—Ana Teresa, Rebecca, and our resident artists, we’ve assembled what we think is a truly stunning list of visiting artists, all of whom believe in our model and have agreed to visit Art + Water in our first year.

These visiting artists might come for an hour to share their expertise with our emerging artists. They might teach, then give a public talk. They might hold a large-scale public demonstration open to all. Or all of the above. Please keep up with the Art + Water website and other platforms to keep apprised of the schedule for these events.

There will be something happening almost daily.

On the south side of the building, we will have a wide open space where anyone—kids, K-12 groups, even families—who have just disembarked from the cruise ship dock next door—can come in and take free classes or simply sit and draw. There will be free demonstrations, group projects, and a wide array of events that will draw in classes from Bay Area schools. Our hope is that kids on a field trip to the Exploratorium would spend the morning there, eat at the Ferry Building, and then spend the afternoon with Art + Water. Families, too—we want to be another reason for people to visit the city and support local businesses.

Which brings us to how we’ll pay for it all.

OUR EXHIBITION HALL CURATED BY RENE DE GUZMAN

Art + Water’s most public-facing element will be a large exhibition hall where René de Guzman, one of the most experienced curators in the country, will curate ticketed shows that will help cover our costs and bring more people to the pier. René headed up the visual arts programs at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, then ran the Oakland Museum of California for ten years. Now he’ll be bringing the same bold and accessible shows to Pier 29.

The first show will be dedicated to the work of iconic musician and filmmaker Boots Riley. Though Riley’s films are groundbreaking works of surrealism, he’s also a fan of practical effects, using old-school methods to achieve the kinds of shots now commonly created digitally. He uses miniatures, maquettes, forced perspective, and beautiful sets. The exhibit will bring together Riley’s costumes and sets from Sorry to Bother You, props from I’m a Virgo, and even a twenty-foot-tall absurdist set piece from the upcoming I Love Boosters. That film comes out in May of 2026. Boots is just as dedicated as we are to giving visitors a peek behind the curtain of filmmaking, so there will be a slew of classes, demonstrations, and public events in conjunction with this show. I promise you it will be unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

And because we know how expensive it is for educators to arrange field trips, we’ll be offering mini-grants to teachers who need help bringing their students to the show. If you’d like information about that program, please email Rebecca Teague at rebecca@artpluswater.org.

The tickets to these exhibits will be affordable to all. We will never forget that a family of four shouldn’t have to pay $100 to see an art show (or any show). At Art + Water, there will be steep discounts for students, seniors, and families. The pricing will be rational and fair.

Subsequent shows will be devoted to the work of Maurice Sendak (and his love of Mozart and the stage), Maira Kalman (imagine her populating 20,000 square feet with her inimitable versions of the creatures of the world), and the Riot Grrrls (including a concert series, reproductions of thousands of zines, and the materials to make thousands more). I could go on about each of these shows, but I’m seeing that I’m already at 3,500 words, and who reads 3,500 words on a website?

LAST FEW THINGS

Our design and buildout will be overseen by WRNS Studios, one of the great architectural firms in SF. They’re located not far away, just off South Park, and they handled, pro bono, the stunning designs for 826 Valencia’s second and third campuses—in the Tenderloin and Mission Bay. Together, our plan is to make Pier 29 a bold, maximalist place full of color, both welcoming and startling to the eye.
Helping make it weird will be the unprecedented Kristin Farr, who has already created a gigantic still life—a bowl of fruit bigger than a truck—that will be the centerpiece of our living room/event space. Know this: Scale will be addressed and attacked at Pier 29.
Flora Grubb has agreed to help fill our big empty pier with plants, vines, and, most of all, trees. Because the pier is filled with light but currently devoid of warmth, we want to create an indoor forest that will give the space the urgent breath of the natural world. Artists deserve organic spaces—and wouldn’t it be nice to depart, for a moment, from white walls and right angles?
Art + Water will be a comfortable, 19th-century-style lounge experience where visitors can luxuriate in a space filled with rugs, pillows, tapestries, silver, copper, and gold. Not a Spartan place where you get your email; this will be something slower and provisional, something more elegant and free of screens and stress. It will be a place, for instance, to enjoy Art + Water’s temporary pop-up coffee experiences by Mokhtar Alkhanshali, the hero of The Monk of Mokha and the man who reasserted the prime role of Yemen in the history of coffee.
Art + Water is a small nonprofit and needs donations. If you’d like to help this project, please write to Rebecca Teague, our extraordinary Co-Director, at rebecca@artpluswater.org. Rebecca used to be a punk rock drummer, by the way, so ask her about that, too. She’s also the one who came up with the idea for the Riot Grrrl show and will be helping to mount that exhibit.
JD Beltran is the co-founder Art + Water, and is the main reason that this bonkers idea is coming to fruition. She is the hardest-working person in San Francisco’s art world, and not a bit of this would have been possible without her.
We also owe a profound debt to the Port of San Francisco, the Port Commission and its hardworking (volunteer!) commissioners, and to Amy Cohen and Scott Landsittel, who guided us through the process for the past 14 months. They are the kinds of civil servants we dream about when we think of public service.
Speaking of which: thanks go to Mayor Lurie. A few weeks after Daniel Lurie was elected, we showed him our vision for Pier 29, and his enthusiasm and support was an essential boon at a key moment.

We at Art + Water think this is a great moment in the history of art in SF art. In SFMOMA’s Ruth Asawa show and in the Legion of Honor’s Wayne Theibaud show, we’ve just enjoyed two of the best exhibitions ever mounted for Bay Area artists. There’s the Further triennial coming. There’s the Space Program and the Box Shop and the coming resurrection of the SFAI’s campus in the form of CASA. There’s the Fog Art Fair and Jessica Silverman and Electric Works, and the many valiant galleries that have held on during these trying times. There’s the de Young, which has struck a gorgeous balance between accessibility—with their brilliant and joyous Open shows—and the very highest achievements in curation and presentation; their Kehinde Wiley show was an unimprovable staging full of drama and nuance. No institution could have done better, anywhere.

We hope that Art + Water can be part of what could be an unending ascension of this city’s visual arts....

I Cannot Throw Away USB Cables, and It Is Becoming a Problem

Andy Orin — Thu, 14 May 2026 13:00:00 -0400

Oh, I see you are reading this on a device. Perhaps you need to top off your battery? Do you need a cable for that? A USB cable? Because I have an assortment.

I have somehow accumulated several lifetimes’ worth of USB cables, and I cannot get rid of them.

How about a 1.0, 2.0, type A, A to B, B to C, or a micro to macro? Because somewhere in this plastic spaghetti, I have them. I have them all. Would you like one? Please, take a cable. I have too many, and it has become a burden, decades in the making. Please. Take a whole shoebox.

I have USB cables from before the year 2000. Vintage cables that barely did anything, transferring JPGs pixel by pixel from one drive to another. Sometimes, not all the data made it. That’s called the Angelfire’s share.

Actually, this one might not be a data cable. It might only be a charging cable. They don’t really tell you. You only find out five minutes before you need to present a PowerPoint to your entire company. Rest assured, we can find the right cable, though.

I have entire desk drawers of USB cables. Shoeboxes under the bed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the shoes themselves came with a USB cable. I really can’t look at a shoebox without having a panic attack about what I am going to do with all these cables.

I have an iPhone charger from 2005 with your name on it.

I just bought an electric toothbrush, and it came with a three-inch USB cable. I wept.

The drawers won’t quite close anymore. There’s always at least one cable trying to escape like a mad octopus.

Whenever I move apartments, I have to hire help because I cannot carry them on my own. At least one mover is dedicated to the cables, usually a short but stout man in overalls. Sometimes, it’s an entire team of men with a van. You can find them on Craigslist.

There are all sorts of connections available on Craigslist. I would know. I’ve offered up every USB ever made, free if you come pick them up. A bushel of cables? Sure. Cables by the pound. You won’t have a missed connection with these cables, friend.

Is there some kind of orphanage that needs USB cables? Can I donate them to science? Does AI need USB cables? Perhaps some enterprising fashion students could knit the cables into a jaunty blazer, sort of an eco-friendly thing. Fashion for the future.

Some day, the Wi-Fi will be down for good, the Bluetooth will be gone, and we’ll have no way to transfer data over the air. And then, surely, the masses will flock to my cables seeking a way to literally connect. Or we could braid some rope. Kind of depends on the post-apocalyptic situation.

I also have the box from every Apple product I’ve purchased in the last twenty years. I’d recycle them, but they might have the charging cables inside. I wouldn’t want them to go to waste.

McSweeney’s

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ATROCITY KEY

March 2026

Main Index

Trump’s first term

April 2026

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Women Be Like “I Needed This,” and It’s Just Trusting Themselves

US Army Basic Training for Muscular Olds

Arrival

Red Phase (Weeks 1-3)

White Phase (Weeks 4–5)

Blue Phase (Weeks 6–9)

Army Basic Training Graduation (Week 10)

Administrative Support

The Story of Art + Water

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ART + WATER’S GALLERY SPACE AND STORE

RENTABLE AND BORROWABLE SPACE FOR OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AND GALLERIES

FREE TALKS AND CLASSES BY VISITING ARTISTS AND CURATORS

OUR EXHIBITION HALL CURATED BY RENE DE GUZMAN

LAST FEW THINGS

I Cannot Throw Away USB Cables, and It Is Becoming a Problem

The original 1975 introduction by
Documentary Now!’s first host,
Burt Lancaster

Red Phase
(Weeks 1-3)

White Phase
(Weeks 4–5)

Blue Phase
(Weeks 6–9)

Army Basic Training Graduation
(Week 10)