Today: The Editors look back over a harrowing week.

Issue No. 383

National Relaxation Day
The Editors

National Relaxation Day

by The Editors

Bluesky post from Clive Thompson: t’s National Relaxation Day! i’m going to celebrate by playing japanese bullet-hell video games until my heart goes into afib www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day... NATIONAL RELAXATION DAY | August 15 NATIONAL RELAXATION DAY National Relaxation Day on August 15 encourages us to slow down and unwind. It's a day to focus on taking care of ourselves and take a www.nationaldaycalendar.com
Clive Thompson

As Vladimir Putin poses with Donald Trump in Alaska, we thought a relatively low-key survey of the past terrible few days might be best for this Friday afternoon at Flaming Hydra.

Do make sure to come back Monday, when we have a valuable (and very timely) interview from Mark Yarm coming your way. Stay safe out there, everyone.

A GOOD MEME

Bluesky post by Sam Thielman: Slightly diminish a band: Firm Dan
Sam Thielman
Rax King
Bluesky post by Maria Bustillos: Psychedelic Shawls
Maria Bustillos
Four Bluesky posts by S.I. Rosenbaum: Slightly diminish a band: Giving You a Meaningful Look Heads, Periwinkle Girls, The Palliative, Jim
S.I. Rosenbaum

FLAMING HYDRA BOOKS AND EVENTS

Bluesky post by Brian Hioe: Tomorrow night! Join us for a talk on the history of nuclear power in Taiwan and what is at stake with the upcoming referendum on the Ma-anshan nuclear reactor www.facebook.com/events/12705...
Brian Hioe
Bluesky post by Osita Nwanevu: George Packer hates this book! Buy it today! Out tomorrow wherever books are sold.
Osita Nwanevu
Bluesky post by Annalee Newitz: Holy crap -- Automatic Noodle is an instant USA Today and Indie bestseller! Thank you so much, humans and robots, for reading this li'l book and making it soar. Now go eat something! Or get your noodle swag at automaticnoodle.website
Annalee Newitz
Bluesky post from Jide Salawu: It looks even more gorgeous than I thought. This book will definitely give your shelf a new life. I promise. Contraband Bodies is a poetic imaginary of migration from below.
Jide Salawu

AN INTERVIEW

OUTRAGE

Bluesky post by Josephine Riesman: I stand by this ‪🏳️‍⚧️ JOSIE: EARTH‬ ‪@josie.zone‬ · 11/27/2023 I love League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 3 because the installments propose that the most evil villains to emerge from Britain in the 20th Century were Aleister Crowley, Mick Jagger, and JK Rowling
Josephine Riesman
Bluesky post by Sam Thielman: It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday The unholy thing shambles in He’s too big for the chair sitting next to me And he makes an unbearable din Sing us a song, you’re the piano man Your skin is a wooden facade You’ve brass pedals for hands And your hair’s copper strands Give unbearable insult to god
Sam Thielman
Bluesky post from Hamilton Nolan: Trump has done a shocking amount of damage to unions already. If they don’t rethink the way they wield power, soon, we’ll be rebuilding the labor movement from the ground up. www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/fragile-mo...
Hamilton Nolan
Bluesky post by Tom Scocca: Please please fire 500 employees from Palantir and replace them with Grok ‪Gore Vidal Sassoon‬ ‪@jimmyjazz1968.bsky.social‬ · 4d LMAO according to this companies haven’t replaced you because they’re ‘fearful’ of the ‘political reaction’. If they really believed AI can do all these jobs they’d pull the trigger. They don’t BECAUSE IT CAN’T apple.news/AzOb_AoUSS6a...
Tom Scocca

MUSING

Bluesky post by Jonathan Katz: It's pee [QUOTE POST: New York Times article showing Paris Metro entrance and headline: The Smell That Unlocks My Parisian Past]
Jonathan Katz
Bluesky post by Rax King: guys it’s really not funny that the fbi agent took a footlong to the chest. stop laughing. it’s NOT FUNNY that an fbi agent in head to toe tactical gear tried to chase the guy who hucked a sandwich straight at his bulletproof vest but couldn’t outrun him
Rax King
Bluesky post from Sam Thielman: I think this is a very insightful statement about what we call "AI" and will be chewing on it for a while ‪Tom‬ ‪@tbestig.bsky.social‬ · 1d The fact that human language can be broken down on a mathematical level like this to such an extent, WITHOUT building a genuinely thinking mind behind it, is an immense and deeply unexpected discovery about language and cognition. This is something that shouldn’t be possible, and now it is.
Sam Thielman
Bluesky post by Tom Scocca: The thing that’s basically impossible to convey about the three-channel era is how absolutely anything that ran on prime-time network TV was by definition normal. Manimal was a normal television program. ‪Timothy Burke‬ ‪@bubbaprog.xyz‬ · 3d i cannot believe this was a real television show
Tom Scocca

DELIGHT

Bluesky post from Nathan Schneider: Just had my first ride home from the airport with Colorado Drivers Cooperative. Cheaper than Uber/Lyft and pays the drivers more. If you're around here, get on it!
Nathan Schneider
Bluesky post from Sam Thielman: his is the best thing I've ever seen ‪[QUOTE POST Danny Kodicek‬ ‪@dannykodicek.bsky.social‬ · 4d @gralefrit.bsky.social You have to see these! A friend of mine has been collating a series of images entitled "Things my students have written turned into Philomena Cunk quotes" and they're just glorious.]
Sam Thielman
Bluesky post by Anna Merlan: I did this, and if you almost faint and need to be observed for a few minutes after giving blood you get to watch even MORE magic www.nytimes.com/2025/08/09/s... How Far Will People Go to Get Into the Magic Castle? Ask These Blood Donors. www.nytimes.com Anna Merlan ‪@annamerlan.bsky.social‬ Huge apologies to the magician whose Borscht Belt patter was so authentic that I didn’t understand a joke that was premised on me being a woman and thus not buying my own drinks. Was looking at him with my head cocked to the side like a cartoon dog. Possibly it was the blood loss
Anna Merlan

p.s.

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