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I’m gonna be so honest about having let probably more than 90% of actual presidential election coverage skim breezily off the surface of my retinas all year, but I’m glad I read How Podcasts Became the New Battleground State from bestie Nick Quah in Vulture, which boils down the candidates’ media strategies within the microcosm of podcasting. Relatability has always been the coin of the realm of American attention; it shouldn’t surprise any of us how podcasts, as the now-preferred medium of that X factor, have become the new platforms of power. That is, until we get our first TikTok-native candidates…

If you want to know why everyone was tweeting haughtily about creative writing MFAs before the weekend, it’s because Brandon Taylor’s review of Intermezzo in Bookforum went viral for dunking on the mid technical proficiency of Sally Rooney’s prose, which apparently gives Extremely Non-Iowa Workshop Grad. lol. I thought Brandon made some interesting points about Rooneyesque sex, daddy issues, and why American characters don’t have friends, but of course lit Twitter mainly erupted over the MFA stuff. It’s like the trigger equivalent of J-School discourse amongst media types; I suppose when you’re entrenched in a deeply competitive and kind of randomly meritocratic career of writing, the topic of credentials between the haves and have-nots are a hot hot button topic. Press at your own risk!

 Meanwhile, I’m very happy to see Jane Pratt’s newsletter starting to hit its stride with the email strategy! Because hell yeah now this is the kind of shit I am seated w/my feet propped up on a pile of unread New Yorkers for!

The n+1 Bookmatch Quiz Fundraiser is such a chic idea executed with very funny questions; I took it and speedily added my top matches—including Pip Adam’s The New Animals and Muriel Spark’s The Girls of Slender Means—to To Be Read list!

Peak Distraction Mode TikToks:

• What I would call a classic use of the TikTok form
  

• Jane Wickline, SNL’s new resident Gen Z-er, seemed to finally get comfortable on the show while performing this song a few weeks ago; I also enjoyed this pop-punk cover of it
  

• Defies explanation (laudatory)
  

• Landed on classical music ‘Tok recently and would like to stay!
  

• Just Asian household stuff
  

• This kid is shockingly good at bird calls
  

• This clip from the Sweat tour endeared Troye Sivan to me in a way that nothing else has 

Finally…Plug A Dub Dub! Do you secretly find art galleries intimidating and want to know what the actual etiquette is for gallery hopping? That’s what my latest advice column for CULTURED Mag is all about! I also interviewed Chase Sui Wonders for the latest issue of Family Style, and we discussed, amongst other things, the myth of Detroit-style pizza.

Okay see y’all on the other side!!!!

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