The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. The objection to it is not that it is predominantly painful, but that it is lacking in sense.
~ H. L. Mencken
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Matthew Pitman is six feet tall, with hazel eyes and blond hair, which he keeps buzzed on the sides and floppy on top, or slicked into a stubby pony. He wears wraparound sunglasses with a bandanna or a backward baseball cap, or both. His land speed is a consistent half sprint. He speaks in complete, fluid sentences but, at times, jackhammer fast. No topic escapes his enthusiasm, or his powers of observation.
~ Paige Williams via The New Yorker
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Record-breaking Angine de Poitrine performance at Montreal Jazz Festival
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via The Atlantic:
The Literary Genre That Thrives in Hard Times
by Carolyn Kellogg
published on July 8, 2026
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A mind tutored by history and literature knows that actors in the grip of a sacred cause tend to mean what they say — and that bombing a founding myth is more likely to consecrate it than to dissolve it.
~ Yonatan Touval via The New York Times
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Since the 1990s, political parties across the West have been hemorrhaging members amid a wider weakening of internal structures. While especially damaging on the left, always reliant on popular support, the trend affected forces across the spectrum. As a void opened between voters and parties, many citizens stopped engaging with them and even decided to opt out of voting altogether. The result has been a steady erosion of mainstream parties’ electoral support.
~ Anton Jäger via The New York Times
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Obedience to Authority | Concepts Unwrapped
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