In the week since Elon Musk announced he was buying Twitter, he has already encouraged racist and misogynist bullying of Twitter employees, he’s publicly embraced alt-right sleazoids including the guy who inspired the “Pizza Gate” misinformation campaign, and he’s continually railed against the “woke” left (which apparently includes Netflix for some reason.) Now I’m not the brightest bulb on the […]

Roughly three-quarters of the population in Seattle seems to have entirely let their guard down when it comes to Covid. I’m in the quarter of the population that’s holding their breath and waiting to see if infection numbers spike, like they did the last two times we started to relax and gather in public. Even […]

As I’ve written multiple times (sorry) the collected edition of the comic I created with artist Fred Harper, Snelson: Comedy Is Dying, will be published on March 15th. I don’t have any celebratory Ides of March bookstore readings or events on the calendar to mark the publication for a couple of reasons: Virtual readings really bum […]

Back when I blogged multiple times a day for a living, I loved a good story about some crank trying to ban a book in her kid’s school library. The parent in question would always have some dumb quote that I could ridicule, I could talk about how great the book they were trying to […]

Earlier this month, for the first time in almost two years, I double-masked up and went to one of the two big chain movie theaters in downtown Seattle. And I want to be positive about rejoining life after lockdowns, but it was an objectively terrible experience.Before the pandemic, I went to the movies a lot—roughly […]

First, and most importantly: If you live in Washington, have you voted yet? If you’re not in Washington, is there an election happening on Tuesday where you are? Please vote. I guarantee you that the person you hate most in the world is voting in this election. Don’t let their voice count more than yours. And […]

I want to call your attention to a letter that my friend Tim Lennon, director of LANGSTON, recently wrote to the Seattle City Council. Tim was responding to Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan’s surprise appointment of a director to Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture—read more about that at Publicola—but even if you don’t live in Seattle I think you […]

I haven’t been posting on Twitter very much lately. Sometimes the news feels too terrible to comment on. Sometimes I feel like I have nothing original to say, or I’m just exhausted by the discourse. I’m also trying not to amplify bad takes, and some days all the takes are bad.  One thing I did […]

Here’s how fast feelings about the pandemic have changed in my peer group over the past month: About a month ago, I rented a karaoke room for the evening of July 31st. I figured a room for 15 people, max, would be enough, and I was looking forward to singing karaoke for three uninterrupted hours […]