Walker cannot wait until he sees his doggy bus 🚌 pals 😃

I thought this point Eric made about how libraries are early introductions to a social contract was really interesting, too:

thread

Happy birthday, Chuck!

"Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated which day the New York Mets suffered their 11th straight loss. It was on Sunday, not Monday. Even the Mets cannot lose on an off day."

Two copy editors high-fiving so hard right now

2024-2025 Literacy Statistics | National Literacy Institute Literacy Statisitics

Fun fact: 54% of US adults read below a 6th grade level.

You have to actively remember literally over half the US adult population is *unable to perceive subtext*

www.thenationalliteracyinstitute.com/2024-2025-li...

The DOJ was created to increase the capacity for federal prosecutions during Reconstruction esp. those to be brought under the newly enacted KuKlux Klan Act.

Now the DOJ is being used to prosecute a storied civil rights organization whose central mission has been to expose & dismantle the Klan.

Phoeo of a cute cat behind a super market toy set looking at the camera, with the silly caption of "Khajiit has wares if you have coin" which is a known The Elder Scrolls line.

Khajiit has wares if you have coin

congrats!

I’m so sorry

Screenshot of a search in the new censorship database from ALA for my book BODY TALK. It's seen 12 attempts at censorship, including 9 in school libraries and 3 in public libraries.

The ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom released a Censorship Search Portal with more than 30 years of data on book bans.

I have tracked the banning of my own books–all have been there–but this is higher than my count, even!

Here's the database: www.ala.org/bbooks/censo...

thank you bell hooks

This Is Just To Say

I have turned off
the AI features
that were in
the update

and which
you were probably
hoping
to monetize

Fuck you
they were stupid
so unnecessary
and so annoying

Looks really good! Super inspiring!

dishes

I won the LA Times Book Prize for YA literature!!!

What's happening with Imagination Library across the country is reflective of what's happening to libraries and other literacy goods nationwide.

Keep an eye on this because states cutting the IL budgets is happening in drips and drops, but it's adding up.

A VCR never sold my private info to a nazi

Anthropic Settlement Update: 91.3 Percent of Books Claimed in Settlement - The Authors Guild Yesterday, class counsel in the Bartz v. Anthropic lawsuit filed papers apprising the court that 440,490 of the 482,460 eligible works had been claimed—a remarkable 91.3 percent rate (the typical clas...

New on the Anthropic settlement from the @authorsguild.org : over 91% (!!) of eligible books were claimed as of the claims deadline (I would not have predicted such a high number!)

Looks like the payout will be close to the $3000 originally estimated authorsguild.org/news/anthrop...

The Video Strip has outlived Blockbuster and is still renting out 25,000 movies on the South Side. blockclubchi.co/3Q9baW5

Skyhorse has over the last few years done a brisk business in publishing the books of disgraced and/or disgraceful people at a cut rate, so this move is not exactly surprising.

Is AI the greatest art heist in history? New technologies of reproduction are plundering the art world – and getting away with it

“I saw it as the greatest art heist in history.”

Fantastic piece on AI by @mollycrabapple.bsky.social. Worth your time. Hope you will read it.

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a...

Just 14 seats left for my play! If you or someone you know lives in the Portland area and wants to see new, experimental theater, my play and one other will be part of a Supernatural Saturday performance at HART Theatre tomorrow evening, 7:30 pm.

Tickets: hart.ludus.com/index.php?sh...

A guy asking ChatGPT to review a series of fart sound effects and getting a serious kiss ass response that calls it atmospheric

I can't stop laughing at this post. It's perfect.

A crudely made sign stand of bundled bamboo held together with wire, upon which is mounted a roughly made sign of a single piece of wood, painted black, on which someone has crudely written BOOKS with an arrow pointing to the right, in a street somewhere.

When I know it's definitely a trap, but I'm going anyway.

Cover of THE GREAT BIG BEAR, art by Phineas X. Jones.

It’s the weekend. So why not curl up with some cozy Druids and their dogs? THE GREAT BIG BEAR is out now in print, ebook, and audio. You’ll have laugh and have fun and maybe you’ll have a snack—damn, that’s gonna be a good weekend

Go science! Go art! #steam #stem

*sigh*
If your Kickstarter video/image is AI, I won't back it.
If your book has an AI cover, I won't read it.
If you're a public supporter of AI use for creative work, I will unfollow you.
I cannot stress enough how offensive I find AI use in the arts. It is outright theft, it is lazy, it is gross.

Of The Empire We will be known as a culture that feared death and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity for the few and cared little for the penury of the many. We will be known as a culture that taught and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke little if at all about the quality of life for people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All the world, in our eyes, they will say, was a commodity. And they will say that this structure was held together politically, which it was, and they will say also that our politics was no more than an apparatus to accommodate the feelings of the heart, and that the heart, in those days, was small, and hard, and full of meanness. - Mary Oliver

God this poem is haunting me again.