James Parenti

This issue features our latest Rotting Leaf 🍂 Dry Season, by @jamesparenti.bsky.social 👇

art is weird to exist as a commercial product, because it's not just for the "consumer." if the consumer gets something out of it, great! i'm glad. but it's mostly for the artist to work things out that cannot be spoken. it's expressing ideas that cannot be expressed

sylvia townsend warner in 1926, foreseeing the type of author who would use AI:

Man I need that AI bubble to burst like yesterday. I’m so unbelievably sick of having to deal with it and hear about it. And now it keeps cropping up in my real life. It’s like the goddamn Bodysnatchers.

Ten acts you’ve seen, female lead singer edition: Aimee Mann Mitski Cat Power Courtney Barnett Sharon Van Etten Garbage Alanis Morissette Tori Amos Black Belt Eagle Scout Florence and the machine

Do you think everybody onstage with Nine Inch Noize has really weird dreams after doing that show?

Such gothic weather we’re having lately

Really, really enjoyed Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! Jessie Buckley is volcanic as always, and Christian Bale shows a sweet, tender, conflicted Frank. Impressive across the board, and I’m usually pretty lukewarm on Bale. May Maggie Gyllenhaal live long and make many more strange, singular movies.

POST AN EMERGENCY CAT PIC

Wednesday literally loves smelling flowers #blackcat

Check it out: "Last Play of the Game," an urgent, breathless flash piece by @marioaliberto3.bsky.social that uses a single sentence to move laterally, backward, and forward in time. I love that the whole team is the protagonist rather than a single player! www.vestalreview.net/last-play-of...

This is a great thread, and one I really needed to read today. I'm always grateful when @delilahsdawson.bsky.social shares her hard-won wisdom!

if you think "AI" is going to "outperform" writers at "literary fiction" we have nothing else to talk about. there is a fundamental rift in the way we see art and humanity and it's never gonna get solved, even when this AI horseshit goes away

A bunch of writer friends are noting that they have not used LLMs to write. Me either, absolutely not. I feel like we need to stop asking kids what they want to BE when they grow up and start asking them what they want to DO. Because: I am not here to BE A WRITER, I am here to WRITE.

Out here representing in PA. Hoping for good news from NYC.

Happy November 1st! Welcome to second October. Things are dying. Night comes sooner, hungrier than in the summer. The cold is here. Things haunt the woods. Snow can trap you, Donner Party your plans. Colds and flus awake, go hunting. Yeah, it’s still spooky season. It’s always spooky season.

There’s a chance refreshing the Submission Grinder 1000 times a day won’t make these responses come any faster. But I’m willing to put in the time to find out.

This shit with Kimmel, after what they pulled with Colbert, has me more scared than ever of this country. I don't think it's been safe here for a long time, and I don't know if I can stay much longer

Tell me your pet’s name with a gif:

Tell me your pet’s name with a gif:

Here, have a photo of Claudia holding my hand while we read together.

Make an observation about your pantry that also sounds like the title of a novel. Mom Requested Peaches