Mark Athitakis
Writer, mostly about books.
- Part of what's gutting about WaPo killing its book section for me---aside from losing a freelance outlet---is that it's another episode in the decline of the newspaper book review. 1/n
- This is no great loss to some people. Middlebrow! Badly written! Lashed to the publishers' hype machine! Nothing compared to the robust literary culture of Harper's, NYRB, NYer, etc.
- I like those publications too. But for a ages, the best way for people who aren't "book people" to learn about books was the homely newspaper review. Review sections weren't moneymakers, but they suggested that being an informed citizen meant knowing about new books.
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View full threadI dunno, maybe a bookish teenager finds the NYRB easily now on the internet. But I suspect that for the people who *might* be interested in books, one less newspaper book section just means books aren't something to care about. /end
- brb, gonna learn to code
- oh....oh, no....
- Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
- RIP Jon Talton, longtime AZ reporter and mystery novelist: www.azcentral.com/story/news/a...
- PHX folk: Tomorrow night I'm taking part in what should be a great evening of true sad-funny heartbreak stories. Come by! www.valleybarphx.com/tm-event/bar...
- At least two of these acts have to be AI, right?
- My editor at WaPo, Nora Krug, has a fine piece about her brief correspondence with DFW, charming but also "ugh." www.washingtonpost.com/books/2026/0...
- Next up: puppet show
- Tonight I'm "my 15-year-old kid IDs all the celebs at the Grammys I'm unfamiliar with" years old.
- So, CBS target audience.
- Am I mediocre at Crossplay, or is my opponent just plugging the board into AI?
- The game may need a speed-play or some other kind of clock option to address this.
