Matthew Specktor

I wrote about Cormac McCarthy, and the new biography, for @harpers.bsky.social harpers.org/archive/2026...

10/23/78: Stories of John Cheever Stellar collection bagged well deserved Pulitzer Standouts incl The Swimmer (later film w/Burt Lancaster) - @specktor.bsky.social: "the fevered delirium of suburbia in decline"] And our favorite, Goodbye, My Brother More via @tcboyle.com: www.npr.org/2006/08/17/5...

Thrilled to welcome the one and only Jarett Kobek back to WAKE ISLAND for another wild talk! @specktor.bsky.social @wakeisland.bsky.social wakeisland.substack.com/p/zap-youre-...

LFG, boys

HBD Tuesday Weld!! Key New Hollywood streak 1968-72: Pretty Poison, Walk the Line, Safe Place, Play it as it Lays ++ More @specktor.bsky.social: lithub.com/inside-the-c... @sheilakathleen.bsky.social: www.sheilaomalley.com?p=106223 @bilgeebiri.bsky.social: www.vulture.com/article/revi...

Goddamnit. Well, it seems a good day to remember--EVERY day is a good day to remember--Al Green still walks among us.

The best

8/10/70: Diary of a Mad Housewife D Frank Perry/W Eleanor Perry w/Richard Benjamin, Carrie Snodgress, Frank Langella KIno blu w/ @larrythek.bsky.social track More: @specktor.bsky.social: www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/07... @merrillmarkoe.bsky.social: merrillmarkoe.substack.com/p/why-i-wait...

Having hung out with this record now for several months, I really do reckon it's a masterpiece. "Go there and wiggle," as George Clinton once said prairiewolfcf.bandcamp.com/album/zone-p...

Been thinking a lot lately about how bonkers great the show Patriot was, and how people who are into Lodge 49 and/or DTF St Louis should hightail their way to watching it ASAP. Because it is, it absolutely rips in ways that TV just doesn’t (and won’t, sadly) anymore

Shirley Hazzard's Transit of Venus (as screenwritten by @specktor.bsky.social , who almost was able to make this happen in the early 2000s... still wish the stars would align for it)

Saw this last night, and for all the hints of A24ishness (derogatory), Kane Parsons is massively gifted. Sam’s been on this beat for years

Kicked off today with the (excellent) Boards of Canada record, closing it with a 7:40 of The Backrooms. It’s Hauntological Friday with Tony Dokoupil!

Still one of the best damn things American television has ever delivered

Happy to have a chance to unpack Neil's greatest, dumbest (complimentary) moment. Happy "T-Bone" Day (now designated) to all who celebrate

As someone who was lucky enough to know Vidal in his twilight years—amazing, lovely man—I…did not know this. Wild

Extremely excited for Hot Jamesian Firehanging Summer. LFG!!

🎵 These people are not going to save you 🎵

Reminder that this book slaps even harder than its outstanding cover. The best kind of wild American weirdness—Portis and then some—exists herein

An excerpt from WATCHING THE DETECTIVE is up at @oldstermag.bsky.social and Neko Case approves! Please check it out if you're curious. open.substack.com/pub/oldster/...

As they roll out one heavy hitter after the next to discuss their NY song of choice eloquently and persuasively, I start to wonder about my forthcoming appearance stanning for one of Neil’s most perverse and maligned (but secretly great) songs. JJT is great here

ActBlue donors can request refunds if they donated to Swalwell’s campaign. Pass it on.

This is propaganda.

everything we are seeing now is the consequence of having a political environment in which indifference to the deaths and suffering of other people - even by the state whose supposed responsibility is to safeguard their welfare - is a superpower rather than a political liability

Well this seems like approval to promote! God's Angry Men is out April 30th! I spent far too many years deep in the John birch Society and the rich men who branched off to make the Hertigae Foundation. Project 2025 was a planned outcome by wealthy, powerful men.

That this will probably never be in print again bums me out no end. Like T. Rex on soporifics if Marc Bolan wuz a girl. The best.

I do hope that one day deliberate misgendering and deadnaming will be viewed with the same revulsion as a non black person using the n word. They cause so much harm and distress to trans people. Any cis person who disagrees, well frankly they don't get to decide what hurts trans people.

I’m still not over this loss and I’m never going to be. I swear this man might have led us to the promised land…

Absolute banger sequence/film. Goddamn

This film remains one of the sublime bummers (complimentary) of its era.

Kat Abughazaleh used her campaign to try a lot of things that the party should been embracing a long time ago. The entire left coalition is better off because she ran.