Lauren Sarner

The practical advice I would give is: get to the end of the damn thing, whatever it is. Even if it’s provisional and stupid, even if you know that’s not the right second half of the novel, it’s important to find a way to zoom out enough to see it holistically so that you can figure out what it needs. The sooner you get to some kind of end, the sooner you’ll realize that this book—even if it’s Infinite Jest—isn’t going to do everything you want it to do, or say everything you want to say. And that realization will hopefully help get it to the best version of itself it can be. Some kind of deeper meaning, for me, so often comes in revision, or later. It’s rare that a book says what I thought it was going to say.

Andrew Martin the importance of finishing drafts and revision:

countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...

Honestly, I am absolutely disgusted by academics suggesting that AI can do the reading and writing for you. At a certain point, what you're bragging about is fraud. And in a broader sense, what you're contributing to is the erosion of knowledge and the destruction of trust in academic publishing.

This quote has been with me every day since I first heard it and I love her so much for saying it.

this is like

the thesis statement of our times

Watching the classical performance internet drag Timothee Calamity to hell and back is incredibly entertaining.

If I were a dude who only recently added a fourth facial expression to my acting rep I simply would not come for the best in the business but that’s me.

I lack the words to capture it, but ... it's just endlessly remarkable to me that so many people in our society have chosen trans kis -- TRANS KIDS, the smallest, least significant, most vulnerable demographic slice you could possibly pick -- as a repository for all their fears & insecurities.

You don't have to love all of these movies, but you do have to understand that a studio that makes Sinners and One Battle and Mickey 17 and Wuthering Heights and The Bride and Weapons grasps its responsibility to filmmaking and its own history and tradition in a way that David Ellison does not.

A few broad Oscar hot takes:

1. Both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor are races that I legitimately feel like all five nominees could win. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.

My review of the Peaky Blinders movie also sums up Peaky Blinders as a whole pagesix.com/2026/03/05/e...

Truly!

Just saw a friend who likes TV and movies, but doesn't always keep track of who actors are, and she was like “Cillian Murphy….is he the one who is handsome in a way where he looks like a ghost?”

I lay a lot at the feet of publishers being uninterested in midlist anymore, such that they’re trying to game the system for universally-appealing blockbusters or nothing. it pulls out a lot of the interesting variety in the middle.

Can't remember the last time someone went from "Who?" to hosting SNL as quickly--and successfully!--as Connor Storrie.

if you are in line for Michael B. Jordan to win the oscar stay in line!!

Meta won’t let morality get in the way of a product launch What a great time to add facial recognition to everything!

“Just because you are outside of your home doesn’t mean you have consented to having a random bozo collect your face and your name, the latter of which can enable them to search for your digital presence or even home address. The act of existing in public should not carry those risks.”

This is bad.

Unparalleled hater energy to this headline, I respect it

Every day I wake up and deal with people romanticizing the early 2000s and making me feel old

Juicy on the ass

Someone a decade+ younger than I asked me if I saw the Matrix in theaters and how cool that must have been

Getting shown up in the arena of elite impunity by *the British monarchy* is an incredible “America at 250!” achievement

The 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It was the first time I was ever like, “that made no sense, and it felt like an act of contempt. Like they didn’t think we’d notice or care that it made no sense, and they didn’t bother trying”

Sorry to get radical but I don’t think it’s my job or yours to embrace, accept, understand - and certainly not to use - the thing being sold to us as AI. I don’t like any part of it, so I won’t. I’m missing out? Good, that’s what I want. You’re worried about me missing out? That’s fuckin weird, man.

it is not enough to disable the feature that produces an AI summary of my emails at the top of my emails in gmail, I need a button that delivers an electrical shock to the person who thought it was a good idea

I saw Wuthering Heights. My most boring letterboxed review in the world is: it’s Fine. Not great, not the worst. Awful as an adaptation, but I didn’t have a bad time watching it. But there’s been so much hype about making it freaky, and it’s 1000% not freaky enough

A National wildlife federation job post advertises a position opening for “beaver conflict resolution technician”

I need to know everything about job #6 right now

Tuesday has once again fallen upon us. But be brave, my darlings, if we are courageous we will be rewarded with…Wednesday? Wait, that’s not right. Fuck.

Every other Super Bowl ad is for AI because it's going really well and everyone wants to use AI. This is just like how two years ago all the ads were for NFTs and last year all the ads were for Crypto and you don't see as many ads for NFTs and Crypto anymore because everyone loves them now.

I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

JRR Tolkien seeing Macbeth, getting so pissed off he created the Ents:

Macbeth: SHIT