![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
mcsweeneys_feed) wrote2025-08-11 01:00 pmThis Chocolate Will Kick Your Teeth In
Are you looking for sweet, melty chocolate that makes you feel comforted—or are you a fucking adult? Are you grown up enough to appreciate that everything that once brought you joy is only really worthwhile if it punishes you?
Then strap in, because it’s time to invest in REAL chocolate. Chocolate that comes in flavors like:
- Activated Charcoal with Hand-Muddled Corsican Mint
- Blood Orange Millet Gravel (Are some of those words adjectives, or are all of them nouns? Bet your money and take your chances)
- Shaved Ghost Pepper and Rock Salt
- Regret
This chocolate is made of 87 percent unroasted cacao beans, but 100 percent of those beans have seen some shit. It was handcrafted next to a rusty fire escape in Brooklyn by stone-cold motherfuckers with nothing to lose. It hardened from its molten state in a kitchen that moonlights as an unlicensed kickboxing arena.
It’s a confection with unresolved trauma, and it knows Muay Thai.
You want itty-bitty morsels in ruffled paper cups with a satin bow? Move your basic ass along. Find the Whitman’s Sampler in the angry girlfriend aisle of your local CVS, fuckwad.
This chocolate only comes in bars. Are they pre-scored into squares? Are they tucked into pretty foil sheets, like sleepy little chocolate angels? Hell no.
Its labels were hand-painted on recycled paper by orphan monks in Genovia. You know where that is? If you don’t, then toddle on back to Target to ask your mommy for some Teddy Grahams. All you deserve to know is that Genovia is where cacao beans go to fuck around and find out.
If you DO know Genovia, because you used to pretend you were Anne Hathaway in a Dollar Tree tiara, then you’re old enough to appreciate this chocolate. A chocolate so badass that it inspires clergy to paint masterpieces in a kingdom that only exists on Disney Plus. Julie Andrews is queen there, as she is everywhere. And she eats this chocolate like it’s her fucking job.
That’s why she doesn’t age. Because chocolate that DGAF about getting too dark is also healthy enough to consume every damn day.
And like anything else with health benefits, it’s not supposed to be pleasant. It needs to be so miserable that you lapse into a deluded euphoria. If you aren’t raving about cold plunges or vitamin transfusions or chocolate that causes mild nosebleeds, how will anyone know you’ve achieved #wellness?
Chocolate shouldn’t be something you eat. It should be something you survive, even if your bank account won’t.
Buying real chocolate means becoming a savvy shopper, because what you’ll be shopping for is short-term loans. If a food isn’t ruinously expensive, it isn’t healthy. It’s basically poison.
You want chocolate that doesn’t require a diversified stock portfolio? Crunch on some Ferrero Rocher and call it a day, asshat.
You aren’t looking for a “little treat.” You aren’t trying to keep things light. You want something you have to earn. Something that you chisel apart into shards of complex agony.
You want to use words like “mouthfeel.” And you want your mouth to feel bad.
If you’re hoping for chocolate that’ll show up outside your bedroom window with Peter Gabriel on a boombox, go buy some Godiva from a Kohl’s. Pick up some matching CZ wedding rings while you’re there, you pathetic fucking romantic.
But if you want chocolate that’ll quote Kraftwerk lyrics and ask if you’re ready to confront your own mortality, congratulations.
And we have news for you: You aren’t.
But what are you going to do, admit that to this chocolate? Fuck that. If you don’t have the courage to match its gaze into the void, you don’t deserve to eat it. You should put it aside until you’ve matured. Like the bonds you’ll need to cash in before buying it.
In the meantime, grow some stones and take out loans to pick up the variety pack. You may not be ready for this chocolate. But it’s sure as shit ready for you.
And it freezes really well.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yourlibrarian) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
common_nature2025-08-11 10:56 amThe Devil's Punchbowl
Not far from our hotel was a rock feature that had an interesting look to it. What was especially interesting to me were its walls.
( Read more... )
mcsweeneys_feed) wrote2025-08-11 08:01 amAn Interview with the National Weather Service’s Former Director of “Feels Like”
Q: You were laid off from the National Weather Service amid all the DOGE cuts, correct?
A: Yes. And they haven’t hired anyone new to do my job.
Q: Which was?
A: The National Weather Service’s Director of “Feels Like.” You know how when there’s a heat wave, you hear that the actual temp is eighty-five degrees but it “feels like” it’s ninety-nine? That was me. Since the 1980s, the “feels like” temp was based on my determinations.
Q: And how were these determinations reached?
A: By considering a variety of factors: heat index, wind chill, dew point, solar intensity, the director’s discretion…
Q: Discretion? So you’re saying “feels like” is partially a subjective measure?
A: No, I am saying that the Weather Service, until this administration came along, entrusted me with the job because I have a decades-long track record of empathic temperature-vibing. A single-digit January day in Chicago may be no colder than a single-digit November day. But in January, the Christmas lights have come down, and the Bears are washed. So you know for damn sure that it feels like it’s twelve below.
Q: Other methods?
A: I’ll put on an early Cure album, from when they were still a three-piece. I’ll stand in an orchard in a roomy overcoat and headphones, close my eyes, and just let the air pass through me. You know the part in “The Hanging Garden” where he sings, “Cover my face as the animallllls… die,” right before the extended outro? That’s when I really feel “feels like.” Robert Smith is a genius.
Q: This all sounds so unscientific.
A: To you, maybe, because you’ve left behind your childhood. I never did. I’m still in touch with my teenage self. Teenagers understand “feels like” better than anyone. When the jasmine’s in bloom and you’ve got on your prettiest floral jumper dress and Jordan Catalano has asked you out, I don’t care what the thermometer reads—it feels like seventy-five degrees with a cool, sweet breeze.
Q: That’s an incredibly dated reference.
A: No, it’s universal.
Q: Is “feels like” the same thing as RealFeel?
A: [sighs] RealFeel is a registered trademark of AccuWeather, and I have nothing further to say about it other than that they ripped off my methods. When I think about ReelFeel, it feels like it’s 106 degrees.
Q: How is the current administration determining “feels like” in your absence?
A: Lies. Abject propaganda. It could be ninety-seven degrees out, but they’ll say it feels like 80 because the president has brought back old-timey 1950s summer temps like the way they used to be before DEI inflamed everything and made people feel hotter.
Q: I was going to ask you about their climate-change denialism.
A: Don’t get me started. That’s where “feels like” is especially important. Last summer, Phoenix had a record seventy days above 110 degrees. It felt like the ninth circle of hell. But my job was to quantify that, so I said it felt like 119.
Q: As in…
A: As in 110, plus nine circles of hell.
Q: What can we do to bridge the differing perceptions of temperature by people of opposing political persuasions?
A: Walks.
Q: Walks?
A:: We have to get everyone walking together, at the same pace, across pedestrian bridges, beneath railroad trestles, through fields of sorghum. To feel together what “feels like” feels like.
badfalcon) wrote2025-08-10 12:49 pm
- fanfiction,
- food,
- health,
- life,
- mental health,
- weight,
- work
Doctor’s Orders: Blankets & Tennis
I ended up being off work sick all week, and by Thursday I knew I wouldn’t be in a fit state to go back on Monday. So I made a doctor’s appointment. Cried at her, because… well, there’s been a lot lately. Health stuff, work stuff, and the way the airport sale was handled was just the final straw. Like I told her - I’m exhausted, and I just need a fucking break.
She agreed, and signed me off for all of next week too. I’m hoping that having permission to be off will help take the edge off the guilt. Fingers crossed.
I also started a new med on Tuesday, which has left me bloated and given me super fun indigestion. Sigh.
So I’ve spent most of the week on the couch, under a pile of blankies, where it’s safe. I’ve read a lot, written a lot, and watched a lot of tennis. I slept almost 13 hours last night. I still feel fuzzy around the edges, but it feels like it might have helped.
Main goal for next week: keep doing the same. Resting, reading, writing, watching TV. But I’d also like to leave the house a couple of times - even if it’s just to walk down to the library.
Writing goals: finish editing Darren renting Jannik out to Juanki; write the one where Darren is a killer (his player nickname was Killer, and people still call him that - even his wife); write chapter 1 of the Supernatural AU so it’s ready for USO (because that’s where it’s set).
( cut for talk of weight loss )
peaceful_sands) wrote in bitesizedcleaning2025-08-10 11:44 amAugust Theme - Rest & Relaxation
What needs tackling most in your bedroom? Are there any quick wins (e.g. picking up and packing away clothes)? If there's something that is quick to do that will make a big difference, that's a great place to start, but if not, look for a particular spot that you can tackle and change e.g. the bedside table or floor beside the bed. Start with the area closest to your sleep space and gradually move further away, building on the cocoon of restfulness by enlarging the space step by step - remove the visual clutter and distraction so that when it comes to sleeping, you & your mind know that when you're entering the space it's time to rest properly.
Let us know how you get on.
coffeepaws) wrote in getting_started2025-08-08 10:21 pmMood theme
savagelove_feed) wrote2025-08-08 06:52 pmSTRUGGLE SESSION: Blackmail Videos, Bad Seeds, Dangerous Coworkers and More!
Okay, let’s struuuuuuggle… Says Andrew… Q5: The fear of sextortion always seems a little overblown to me. Like yes, of course, it would be super embarrassing if someone saw your videos. But the majority of people in the world do not receive or forward random videos of masturbating teenagers. Like, if someone forwarded me a … Read More »
The post STRUGGLE SESSION: Blackmail Videos, Bad Seeds, Dangerous Coworkers and More! appeared first on Dan Savage.
mcsweeneys_feed) wrote2025-08-08 10:00 amTexas Democrats Are Subverting Democracy by Preventing Us from Subverting Democracy
“Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday ordered the civil arrest of Democratic lawmakers who fled the state to block a vote on a Republican-backed congressional redistricting plan, escalating a standoff that has stalled the legislative session.” — CBS News
President Trump has asked me to redraw the Texas congressional district map to secure five more House seats for Republicans. Texas has always been a state defined by our rugged independence. That’s why, as governor of Texas, it is my job to do whatever President Trump thinks will protect our liberties. I can’t think of anything more Texan than obeying a powerful man in Washington, DC, in the name of individual freedoms.
Sadly, Texas Democratic legislators are trying to undermine these efforts by fleeing the state in order to break quorum. It’s despicable that these elected officials would hightail it out of Texas right when the electorate needs them the most. A Republican would never do that.
Democrats did the same thing in 2021 when they tried to block our efforts to secure our elections. They refused to acknowledge that the best way to prevent someone from voting illegally is to prevent them from voting at all. Just as I did then, I plan to bring these fugitive officials to heel. I have tasked Attorney General Ken Paxton with carrying out their civil arrests. As the Texan with the most experience on both sides of the law, he’s the perfect man for the job.
The fact that Democrats are using a tactic with over a century of legal precedent does not mean it isn’t unlawful. Political gamesmanship should be strictly reserved for righteous causes, like when Republicans do it.
These Texas Democrats are trying to turn gerrymandering into a political Rorschach test. Where we see routine policy, they see an attempt to disenfranchise voters. That could not be further from the truth. Even if most of the new districts we drew do admittedly look a lot like actual Rorschach tests.
We cannot let Democrats grab power by denying us the opportunity to grab power. The partisan gerrymandering we’re engaging in is perfectly legal. And just because many of those new districts happen to be drawn, with almost surgical precision, along racial lines, does not mean we are depriving Black and Brown people of political representation. It’s not our fault if certain ethnic groups don’t vote for Republicans because they hate our policies. There are plenty of Black Republicans, for example, who understand that we’re the right party for Black America. Just ask Candace Owens or former North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson.
Our noble effort to skew the congressional map in our favor has implications far beyond Texas politics. If Democrats take back the House in 2026, they will have the power to certify the 2028 election. We must avoid a repeat of 2020. We cannot let the left subvert democracy by thwarting our attempts to overturn any election where they get more votes.
For that reason, I am prepared to forcibly remove these rogue lawmakers, if necessary. Sometimes the only way to preserve representative democracy is to remove democratically elected representatives.
We must do whatever it takes to support partisan gerrymandering efforts at least until California starts doing it. Then we’ll scream bloody murder.
mcsweeneys_feed) wrote2025-08-08 06:00 amExcerpts from The Believer: Sacrifice Zone: Pattaya
“In this human-made paradise, entertainment reigned supreme, and all forms of leisure had their whispered, rum-breathed price.”
A semi-regular guest column about regularly ignored places
Each year, as many as twenty-five million people visit the sacrificial landscape of Pattaya, Thailand. If visitors don’t arrive by air, then they likely take the eight-lane motorway that zips them along the eastern Thai seaboard from Bangkok to the shores of Chonburi province.
They come for rest and relaxation, purportedly. Frantic development over the decades has put Pattaya at a far remove from its past as a pristine, natural coastline. It’s a place made to concede itself. Disuse does not define the area’s state of wild abandonment, but rather the hedonistic exploitation and exhaustion of land and sea in a bargain for economic prosperity.
In my 1980s childhood, my family often enjoyed weekend stays on the shores of nearby Bang Saen—at the time a tranquil beach, with tall coconut trees and beach morning glories that grew between small bungalows and seafood eateries catering to Thai vacationers—and we’d also usually drive a little farther south on Sukhumvit Road to Pattaya. The beaches by then had already been given over to unfettered tourism, and each visit offered something new to ooh and aah about: barely finished high-rise condominiums casting shadows across the sand; newly constructed luxury hotels looking out over wide blue pools lined with sunbathing, bare-chested foreign guests; and down by the waves, shacks that had popped up to rent rigs and offer boats for recently introduced beach activities, like windsurfing, parasailing, scuba diving, and, most noisomely, Jet Skiing.
Nights in Pattaya were eye-openers for a child. Thoroughfares along the beaches came alive with bar girls dancing under pink neon lights and sunburned Europeans cheering live muay Thai matches. Nightclubs, cabarets, and sex shows welcomed all who carried cash. In this human-made paradise, entertainment reigned supreme, and all forms of leisure had their whispered, rum-breathed price.
The philosopher Marc Augé coined the term non-place to describe geographies interrupted by supermodernity and cleansed of their anthropological relationships, histories, and identities to function as conduits of globalized systems. For me, the term non-place also describes an entire ecological locale that has been reset, its natural history and diversity turned over and remade to serve outside demands—in Pattaya, the transient touristic populations that flow through daily.
Pattaya used to be a little-known seaside village, inhabited by a few hundred people split into two small fishing communities. Historical records describe an almost-two-mile sandy beach where villagers kept their boats during severe monsoons, protected by the islands of Koh Larn and Koh Sak. Marine life thrived, with abundant coral reefs and undisturbed nesting beaches for sea turtles. Palms grew thick along the southernmost shores, and the villagers called the area Palmyra Beach, later renamed Jomtien for a princess from the mythical kingdom said to exist there in a hidden realm.
Then came violent change as war escalated in Southeast Asia. In the 1960s, with the Vietnam War buildup, US soldiers stationed at military bases around the country came looking for a good time. Pattaya’s lore describes an initial truck convoy of a few hundred GIs descending on the village to rent beach houses. The drunken, sordid revelries shattered the tranquility, and Pattaya found itself rocking-and-rolling to accommodate the influx of American military personnel (almost fifty thousand at the peak of the war, with many others from elsewhere).
The ensuing highway construction in the 1970s turned Sukhumvit Road into Highway 3, and many new hotels opened to welcome the visitors now arriving from seemingly everywhere in the world. Around the time of my childhood visits, the tourism-industrial complex in Pattaya was ramping up, securing investment to build nearly 850 vacation properties by 2015; that figure has more than doubled since then, growing outward and upward from the restless beaches.
The effects are palpable—and smellable. Wherever overwhelming numbers of people gather to feast and frolic, they also foul up the place. In Bangkok, I often heard cautions about visiting Pattaya unless one wanted skin rashes. A 2016 study by the Regional Environmental Office said that the waters at Pattaya’s central beach could endanger human life, a warning apparently unheard by beachgoers who still leaped into the frothy waves. In recent years, viral photos and videos on social media have shown viscous wastewater gushing from culverts, and Pattaya and Jomtien beaches covered in sewage. Officials claimed the situation was under control, after expensive treatment plants were built, but at some point later, the sewage-dark sea returned.
Meanwhile, environmental externalities have been so distantly externalized that they keep washing back ashore. Careless boat operators, staffers and guests at nearby island venues, and beach tourists routinely get caught throwing garbage into the sea, with litter appearing on beaches, and ecologically sensitive islands declared off-limits by the navy, to protect wildlife. Almost a hundred thousand tons of garbage piled up on the popular island of Koh Larn before being buried, against the wishes of residents who fear seepage. In Pattaya, a walk along the sand to collect seashells could net a variety of items, including plastic containers, strips of fishing nets, car tires, discarded foam, broken beer bottles, and medical waste, among other delightful finds.
This is not exactly a tragic commons; both governmental regulations and high levels of investment in beach real estate and tourist operations have so far proved insufficient to compel better environmental practices. There’s no commons to be sustainably managed, because the here and now is a fluctuating, destabilized locus of transactions with a sunny beachfront. All-consuming activity reigns supreme when the continuity of a fragile marine ecosystem becomes secondary to the unrestricted fun of a global party city.
And come the wild bunch have from all over, not just for good times but also for illicit freedoms. The homegrown seediness that first attracted American GIs has deteriorated into a cosmopolitan free-for-all in the city’s underworld. Russian organized crime arrived after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their unlawful presence in Pattaya, often denied by Thai officials, was confirmed by leaked US embassy cables mentioning Russian mob involvement in the “commission of numerous crimes, including extortion, money laundering, narcotics trafficking, real estate fraud, financial fraud, human smuggling, pandering, counterfeiting, document fraud, cybercrime, and illegal importation of cars.” They’ve since been joined by Chinese gangsters known for online gambling operations and investment scams in this anything-goes city.
In Pattaya, an unnatural paradise has arisen out of the marine idyll. External funding and top-down placemaking have meant the cultivation of any permissible earthly delight to lure an international target clientele to the region. This lucrative model has been re-created in Thailand’s other seaside tourism hubs, such as the islands of Phuket and Koh Samui, both of which have seen similar effects from natural degradation and socio-cultural erasure.
Pattaya’s tourism operators now say they’re done with the “sin city” image. They want to rebrand Pattaya as a cleaner, more enriching, family-friendly destination. The proposed solution: a casino.
Read other essays, plus interviews, advice columns, poems, reviews, and more over at The Believer.
mcsweeneys_feed) wrote2025-08-07 08:00 amOpen Letter to Marge Simpson After Her Ventriloquist Debut is Heckled by Her Husband Homer
Dear Marge,
You might have forgotten about the time your husband jeered at you on stage, as you spoke through a miniature wooden version of yourself. It happened in 1996, almost thirty years ago. Let me remind you of the circumstances.
Your son, Bart, started working at a local burlesque house without you knowing. Upon finding out, you convinced the town of Springfield to tear down the risqué business at a town hall meeting—your righteous anger on full display. Right before an angry mob seized the house, the owner, Belle, and her dancers put on an Emmy-winning musical number (“We Put the Spring in Springfield”), which won over the crowd’s hearts, minds, and loins. Unfortunately, you—who showed up late and missed the song because you were renting a bulldozer—remained unconvinced. You tried to put your feelings into song, but you’re not a performer, and no one cared. Then you accidentally drove your bulldozer into the building, requiring you to pay for the damage one amateur ventriloquy show at a time.
Your ventriloquy show didn’t come through the happiest of circumstances. Still, it could have been a new chapter for you. A place to express yourself and make people laugh, to shake off those tired stereotypes of the begrudged wife, mother, and homemaker. But then your husband booed you, and, as far as I know, you never picked up ventriloquy—or performed comedy—again.
In 1996, I was ten years old. I didn’t understand what it meant to be married with children. I didn’t understand how it felt to have a husband who just wanted to watch TV at night after a long day of work. I didn’t understand the drudgery of cleaning the same peed-in car seat day after day. Nor was I familiar with the addictiveness of righteous anger, its scintillating bitterness. It took thirty years for me to relate to you, Marge. Someone whom I never wanted to relate to. You were so humorless, so full of goans. So unsexy—even in your strapless green dress. As a ’90s preteen, I wanted to be like Sabrina the Teenage Witch or Cher from Clueless. All blonde hair, crushes, and “baby girl” fashion. Not you, Marge Simpson. You wet-blanket of a woman.
It would take me thirty years to understand your context, Marge. The flawed euphoria of the mid-’90s. The dot-com bubble that wasn’t yet understood as a bubble. The notion that, with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the “end of history” had been reached. There were no more wars between superpowers. Quality of life was high! Racism and sexism were relics of the past! Never mind that there wasn’t a single woman on The Simpsons writing staff for the first six seasons—by which point your character’s identity had already been cemented. Your dourness was an instrumental foil that allowed Homer’s happy-go-luckiness, Lisa’s idealism, and Bart’s moxie to shine. “Marge’s pain,” a longtime Simpsons writer once told me, drove her plot. In the eyes of the writing staff, you and your pain were the same.
It would take me thirty years to question if the men who created you really understood you. Most of the first Simpsons staff writers were in their twenties and early thirties without families of their own. They worked twelve-hour days Monday through Friday, and sometimes weekends, without letting any partners or children down. Could they know what it was like to be a housewife? They imagined the slog of it, but could they imagine the joy? Did they know that when a toddler takes a dump on the deck when all their friends are over, that it’s not infuriating but hilarious. Could they imagine telling a kid not to bite the table, or stand on the counter, or take their shoes off at the park—that ‘it’s not funny’—before watching them laugh like the Joker as they do just that—makes a parent laugh too. That sometimes, at night, before a couple goes to bed, they giggle themselves to sleep as they recount every ridiculous thing their kid did that day. That, even when it’s painful, it’s not all pain.
Look, Marge, I’ll be honest with you. Your ventriloquy joke about Twiggy and Woody having a baby named “Chip” was not good. You can do better. I do, however, like that your ventriloquy doll is a mini-Marge. That’s very meta. You could work with that. Mini-Marge could be your “id,” saying all the things you’d never let yourself say. Like what you really want to be is a professional cuddler or NFT emotional support specialist. I don’t know. I’m not a comedian. This isn’t my bit. But I do know that comedy stars are not built overnight. It takes work and time and encouragement to hone those skills, especially when you’ve been pigeonholed as the bearer of pain. Of course, the episode you were in wouldn’t have been as funny if Homer had shouted something sincere and supportive, like “Needs work but keep going, honey!” Still, I like to imagine an alternate universe where Homer nurtured your burgeoning talent. I like to imagine that after your show, he brought you a bouquet of roses and told you he was proud of you for trying something new, for putting yourself out there.
I admit I’m doing some projection here. Lately, I’ve been trying on a new tone—in my art, my writing, my life. One that is more lighthearted. More laugh-out-loud. Instead of making art about rape or writing about past sexcapades in graphic detail, I’ve started collaborating with clowns, comedians, and even Simpsons writers. I want to make people laugh and smile more with my art because, thanks to motherhood, I’ve already found myself laughing and smiling more. And, when it comes to joy, shouldn’t the sky be the limit?
But I am nothing if not critical, mostly of myself. I’m looking at my joke batting average here with this piece, and it seems pretty subpar. “NFT emotional support specialist” strikes me as only moderately funny, as does making fun of my own intensity. My success rate, Marge, is probably not much better than yours. My husband would never “boo” me. But I have my own internalized Homer, telling me to give up. Telling me I’ll never be funny. Telling me I’ll always be this intense woman with a heavy heart and slightly ’90s fashion sense. That I should just go back to making rape art.
After all, look at the state of the world. Deadly floods and fires. Disappeared and murdered detainees. What is there to laugh about? But then I see my daughter, with her red Sideshow Bob curls, running around naked and gleeful, having recently pooped in front of all her friends, and I think there is hope. If that little clown can come from my body, if she can exist in this world, then I will fight for the right to a laugh-filled life.
Long story, short. If you are looking for an opening act, Marge, I hope you’ll consider me.
Sincerely,
Mieke Marple
mcsweeneys_feed) wrote2025-08-08 08:00 amThe Gilded Age Was Created for Quirky Xennial Women Who Studied Theater in College
Many don’t realize that The Gilded Age, the very grand and expensive HBO/Max/HBOMaxAgain show, was actually devised for a very specific audience: quirky early millennial women who studied theater in college and briefly tried their hand at acting before ultimately becoming writers.
That the show seems to have mass appeal is surprising because it was definitely created for that very niche subset of people.
How did HBO/Max/WhatAreWeDoing achieve this? They set the show in 1882. Because they know quirky Xennial women can’t resist a lush period drama. Most of them own at least one corset, though they’re not sure why.
And, of course, quirky Xennial women are here for the historical references. That young artist you just saw onscreen? That was John Singer Sargent. And they knew it. They reached over to poke their husbands, “Do you know who that is? Stanford White! The Jeffrey Epstein of his time!”
Xennial women don’t need a TV critic to explain which character is a thinly veiled Vanderbilt. “WE KNEW THAT ALREADY,” they scream silently. Their husbands are already asleep.
But just setting its drama in the past was not enough for The Gilded Age. They also cast venerable theater actors from the early aughts because they knew that all quirky early millennial women are also theater nerds. Nerds who attended a small liberal arts college during the early aughts, when student rush was still a thing.
They wanted these nerds to be able to turn to their husbands and say, “I saw her in Piazza.” And, “She was my favorite Fosca.” And even, “I went to drama school with her. She was the year below me, and she’s actually nothing like her character. I should reach out, I still have her email.”
Or more often, “Wake up, Greg. This episode has fourteen more minutes left. And an hour-long post-show podcast.”
If she wasn’t already onboard the Titanic that is The Gilded Age, then the “plot” surely sealed the deal. The quirky Xennial woman has two children under five, and she. Is. Tired. This show knows that. It knows that after washing the water bottles and the diaper covers, she has only an hour before bed. She doesn’t want a show that will challenge her or inspire her or even charm her. She wants a show filled with a monotony of frippery that she can watch in bed, her eyes glazed over, while she simultaneously scrolls through the Maisonette warehouse sale for discounted Misha & Puff.
She wants a show that feels like you are watching it for the twentieth time, even on its first viewing.
Most of the credit goes to Gilded Age creator and member of the literal landed gentry, Julian Fellowes. Here was every opportunity to depict how unrestricted capitalism and unrestrained consumption are evils that form the bedrock of American society and also contribute to its rot. And he said, “No.”
Let’s not have money be the bad guy. Let’s refuse to have any “take” on the era of history we’re covering. Let’s show zero awareness of the critique embedded in the time period (and show’s) actual name. Instead, we’ll say, hey, there are plenty of decent robber barons. And some of them are pretty sexy even. It’s okay for you to keep online shopping, Xennial woman. Click-click.
Over 2.5 million viewers tuned in for the season 3 premiere of HBO/Max/GodIsDead’s The Gilded Age, making it an unqualified success. Which means that more than just quirky Xennial women are watching. I have to ask: WHY DOES ANYONE ELSE LIKE THIS? BECAUSE THIS PERFECT AWFUL SHOW WAS MADE SPECIFICALLY FOR ME. And also: DOES ANYONE WANT TO WATCH THIS WITH ME? BECAUSE GREG DOES NOT GET IT.
Greg groans sleepily. “Can you please stop talking to yourself? One of us has to work in the morning.”
How did I, a Gilded Age, end up with such a Severance?
mcsweeneys_feed) wrote2025-08-07 08:00 pm“All I Want for My Birthday Is to Fuck Another Mayfly,” by a Mayfly
I’m going to keep this brief.
Tomorrow I will shed my nymphal skin and exoskeleton and burst forth in all of my winged adult mayfly glory. I’ll have a tiny, vulnerable body and no functioning mouth parts, so if a fish doesn’t eat me within a few minutes, I’ll starve to death pretty quickly after that. If anyone who cares about me happens to read this message before my big day, here is what I would like for my birthday:
1. I’d like to fuck another mayfly.
2. Just in case that first wish wasn’t clear, I mainly just want to go to Pound Town with a nice lady mayfly before every member of my mayfly generation is ripped to shreds by some violent force of nature.
3. Don’t worry about cake or a candle. Being confronted with cake I couldn’t eat and a candle I couldn’t blow out would only send me spiraling down a black hole of depression and severely reduce my chances of fucking another mayfly. Some paper hats might be nice, though.
4. No sparklers, either. If one errant flash of fire were to land on my embarrassingly soft exoskeleton, I would pop like the head of that Nazi at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
5. I’d like to sit in the sunshine and breathe in the sweet, warm forest air. For just a few blessed moments, I would like to soak up the feeling of being alive, having eyes to see and wings to fly. I would like to behold the miracle of existence and ponder some of life’s great questions, like, “Where do we go when we die?” and “Why don’t I have a mouth?”
6. I guess a blowjob is out of the question.
7. I’ve always wanted to try my hand at watercolor, but not enough to jeopardize my chances of fucking another mayfly.
8. Springsteen tickets. Not because I’ll actually go to the concert, of course. I just think it would be kind of rock ’n’ roll of me to use them as a mattress if and when I fuck another mayfly.
9. If it’s not clear by now, allow me to spell it out for you: I JUST WANT TO ENGAGE IN SEXUAL REPRODUCTION WITH A FEMALE MEMBER OF MY OWN SPECIES BEFORE THE LIGHT OF MY CONSCIOUSNESS IS EXTINGUISHED FOREVER AND ALL TRACES OF MY BODY VANISH FROM THE EARTH.
By the time you read this, my mortal remains might be mashed together with those of thousands of other mayflies in the small intestine of a rainbow trout. In any event, I hope that before I starve to death or am eaten alive by any number of horrifying predators, I will have at least found another horny mayfly to go balls deep with. And though my special lady and I might be long dead, I expect we will have departed the earth with one final wish: That every single one of our offspring, from now until the sun’s light flickers out in a few billion years, finds another mayfly to fuck.
Happy birthday to me.
mcsweeneys_feed) wrote2025-08-07 01:01 pmOnly ’90s Kids Will Understand This Dead Language Found Scrawled in Blood on the Wall of a Taco Bell
Remember Ecto Cooler? IT remembers you.
IT remembers every dark day you spent hiding in your room. All the hours listening to NSYNC while you carved the names of dead gods into your Trapper Keeper. IT knows your flesh, your sins, your AOL user ID. No, not that one. The one you used to spy on your crush. IT remembers StoneColdTeenAustin89.
Your shirt said NO FEAR. But now there’s a dread deep in your bones. Those bones you made firm for IT with whole milk every day in the cafeteria. The spell you and your best friend read off that GeoCities website? That was real. Those clip art skulls bled into your reality. Gnawed at the edges of your consciousness. Crept behind the static of channel three. Your Furby going off in the middle of the night, even after your dad took the batteries out, that was IT.
Like a classic Tiffany-style lamp from a Pizza Hut buffet, IT has hung over you for decades. Pleading won’t save you. IT has watched as time slipped through you, seen the things you’ve done, the things you’ve become. Your dead Tamagothi. Stealing your sister’s lighter. How deeply you embraced Ska. That time you told Jeremy you weren’t screen-peeking in Goldeneye, you were just really good from playing with your cousin every weekend.
IT knows you sucked at Goldeneye.
You thought your new gods would save you? You are old blood. Your crypto is as worthless as your Beanie Babies collection. All of your old hobbies have been consumed by the beast. You’ve been priced out of a home and your Pokémon cards. IT has tallied each of your misdeeds. And now IT has come to you, in this Taco Bell bathroom, to collect. Nothing will save you.
IT will puncture you like a Capri Sun.
IT will drink you whole.
IT will Live Más.
mcsweeneys_feed) wrote2025-08-07 08:15 amMcSweeney’s Books: An Interview with Kate Greathead, Winner of the 2025 Gabe Hudson Prize
After the tragic 2023 passing of Gabe Hudon, a longtime McSweeney’s writer, editor, and friend, Hudson’s mother, Sanchia Semere, endowed a new award in his honor. Annually, McSweeney’s convenes a panel of jurors to select a writer’s second book-length work of fiction that embodies the spirit of humor and generosity that Gabe and his work did. The first-ever winner of the Gabe Hudson Prize was Ayana Mathis for her novel The Unsettled. Gabe was an unflagging champion of writers and books, and one way to honor the memory of Gabe’s unparalleled enthusiasm and encouragement for writers is to celebrate this award, conferred annually on his birthday, September 12.
We’re so pleased to celebrate Kate Greathead and her novel The Book of George (Henry Holt & Co., 2024), as the 2025 winner of the Gabe Hudson Prize. The Book of George was also named a Notable Fiction Book of 2024 by The Washington Post, a New Yorker Recommended Book of 2024, and a Best Book of 2024 by Real Simple. Kendal Weaver of the Associated Press calls Greathead “a gifted storyteller who reels off dialogue filled with wit and humor so well it makes page-turning a pleasure…”
The selection committee was led by Akhil Sharma, and this year’s judges also included Caryl Phillips and Deborah Treisman. The committee was fully independent and selected the shortlist and winner entirely autonomously, without input from McSweeney’s editorial staff. Their mandate was to identify an American writer’s second book-length work of fiction that embodies the spirit of humor and generosity exemplified by Gabe and his work. The committee’s citation of the novel says, “An extraordinary artistic achievement in which a character who seems divested from his own life, who responds more than he acts, and often in absurd ways, who never manages to give others what they need from him, remains always deserving of our tenderness. The Book of George covers decades and does so effortlessly, relationships form, couples separate, return to each other both changed and not changed. Always there is love and need urging on new life. The novel can be read as comedy or tragedy or just ordinary life.”
— Amanda Uhle
NEW YORKERS: Celebrate Gabe’s memory and Kate’s wonderful novel with us on September 13 at Liz’s Book Bar in Brooklyn.
AMANDA UHLE: I want to start with what Akhil mentioned in the selection committee’s comments, that this novel can be read as “comedy or tragedy or just ordinary life.” As a reader, I was struck by that sense of the ordinary. There are no earthquakes or revolutions here. There are job interviews and apartment moves and an appointment with an auto mechanic, along with all the mundane obligations your characters face. And yet in your pages, the trudge of daily life is not only funny and real, it’s page-turning. Can you talk about how you added so much life to “ordinary life” for George and the other characters?
KATE GREATHEAD: I’m sometimes at a loss when people ask what this book is about. I used to think you had to have something major happen in a novel, and I struggled with this because dramatic plot lines are not my forte. Then I read Evan S. Connell’s Mrs. Bridge. It’s the portrait of a housewife in Kansas City in the 1950s. She lives a conventional life, there are no major revelations or events, and yet it’s utterly compelling.
That was a major turning point for me. It gave me permission to write the kind of book I wanted to write: the story of people living regular lives. I’ve always found ordinary life pretty entertaining. My favorite movies are about this too. Frank V. Ross, Lynn Shelton, Kelly Reichardt, Joe Swanberg—watching their characters behave in ways that could be seen as pathetic or selfish is ultimately so human and relatable (at least for someone like me, who is very in touch with the bowels of my psyche and uncomfortably aware of my less virtuous traits). I can’t get enough of that stuff. It’s a source of inspiration for me—as a person and as a writer. That’s what I’m trying to write.
My mom has this quote on her fridge, Life is beautiful, life is sad. Whenever I’m in her kitchen, I want to take a pen and add, It’s also funny! And the funny part isn’t necessarily distinct from the sad. There’s an overlap.
A writing instructor once told me, “Notice what you notice.” It’s one of the most valuable pieces of writing advice I’ve gotten. Every day there’s some little thing that makes an impression on me: a snatch of dialogue I overhear on the street, an awkward encounter with a neighbor, observations of other people in a doctor’s waiting room, trivial stuff that for some reason or another resonates with me, strikes me as interesting or funny or endearing. Over the years, I’ve made a habit of writing these things down. Much of the content of this book is derived from those real-life moments. I’m reluctant to admit that because it almost feels like cheating. I wish I could say it was all a product of my imagination!
AU: How do you hold on to the many things you’re noticing on an average day in your life?
KG: I write everything down. If something happens that strikes me as potential fodder, I immediately jot it down (usually on my phone), and if I’m unable to in the moment, I get a slightly panicky feeling until I am. It’s a compulsion. I recently drove by a sign that said, “Life is just a series of moments,” and it made me think of something a hypnotherapist (yes) once told me: People cling to physical manifestations of something they can never have. Like if there’s a particular object you collect, whatever that is represents your futile attempt to seek something more significant. I’ve always been tormented by the fact of time passing—that what happened before will never happen again.
AU: After creating and living with such fully realized characters as George and Jenny, how much do you find them lingering afterward? Do they vanish when the book is turned in, or are they still hanging around in your mind at all?
KG: In general, my characters fade when I’m done writing about them, but George has lingered.
He was a fun character to live with because he has such a bad attitude, and there are times when I have a bad attitude. I don’t show it, I try to act like a grown-up, but in these moments it’s cathartic to think of George and how he would respond. Just this week I had a George-like response to a medical situation. I was being a total hypochondriac and exasperating those around me with my incessant requests/demands for reassurance, but I couldn’t help myself. Then I thought of George, and imagining how he would behave helped me see my situation from an external point of view and recognize how irrational I was being, which helped me get a grip. Obviously, I’m definitely not George
AU: Another feature of the novel is its approach to time. I loved watching these characters—driftless George and very pulled-together Jenny—navigate the long road to adulthood. Both characters had ample time to evolve in the story. As a writer, how did you plot out those changes and that growth over decades?
KG: There’s this well-known British documentary series called the Up series. The basic idea: Take a bunch of kids at age seven and film them every seven years of their lives to see how their lives unfold, how they do and don’t change as they grow up. Is the blueprint of the person they become there at age seven? When I was seven, I was chosen to be one of the subjects in the American version of the series (which thankfully never really took off), but which introduced me to the British series, which is a fascinating portrait of people over time.
There’s this expectation in fiction that characters, or at least the ones you care about, evolve over the course of the book, overcoming their issues and ultimately emerging as a better person in a better place. I’ve always wrestled with this, because it doesn’t feel totally true to life. As much as I wanted things to work out for George, more important to me was that his story felt realistic. I’ve known a lot of people like George for whom adulthood does not live up to their lofty, ego-fueled expectations. Guys (I’m sorry to pile on men, but it’s mostly men) who grew up assuming they’d be president or the next Hemingway. And when their dreams don’t pan out, there’s a lot of anger and reluctance to accept that they might just live average, unexceptional lives—and this often results in their making self-sabotaging decisions.
I’ve also known a lot of Jennys, people who do everything right, or everything they feel they’re supposed to do, and yet their lives don’t unfold the way they’d hoped either. I think, for many people, growth is making peace with the discrepancy between our expectations and reality—learning how to be grateful, or at least not bitter, about the hand we are dealt. I didn’t begin writing this book with the goal of depicting that kind of growth; it was something I really only figured out in the process of writing it.
I don’t consciously plot things out beforehand. I wish I were that kind of writer. My husband is, and he can write much faster, which is great because we rely on the sales of his books, but also annoying because my kids are always asking me why Dad has written so many more books than I have—and that gives me a chip on my shoulder. My process is long and messy and disorganized and profoundly inefficient. It’s a process full of panic and doubt and frustration, but is immensely satisfying when it all comes together.