PicoBlog

Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci. Most weeks, we quiz a “very online” person for their essential guide to what’s good on the internet. Today we welcome Max Collins, the singer and bassist of the band Eve6, whose Twitter account he uses to post absurd and sometimes poignant commentary on late-‘90s radio rock, his life in music, politicians, and Elon Musk’s Twitter. He’s working on a book, Heart in a Blender, due later this year, and writes an advice column of the same name for Buzzfeed News.

Let’s get one thing clear right up front. I think Tucker Carlson is a racist asshole. But also, I’m a freelance journalist. And in 2018, Playboy hired me to interview Carlson. The magazine’s big interview, the one that featured real icons like John Lennon, Miles Davis, Malcolm X, Stephen Hawking, Bob Dylan, Kurt Vonnegut, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. As a longtime contributor, I’d done numerous Playboy interviews, with celebrities I actually admire like Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, and Steve Carell.

Recently, renowned child psychiatrist Dr. Miriam Grossman, one of the stars of the Daily Wire documentary “What is a Woman?,” was kind enough to join me for an interview about her new book, Lost in Trans Nation. The interview can be read in full over at the Public Discourse; below is an excerpt. DG: Dr. Grossman, thank you so much for speaking with me. Your appearance in the 2022 documentary “What Is a Woman?

I did an interview this week with Haider Mehdi, a Pakistani political commentator, about The Intercept’s recent reporting on Imran Khan. I plan to post future episodes of podcasts and video shows that I do here so that people can follow along. I thought this episode was a very good conversation and plan to appear on Haider’s show more in the future. ncG1vNJzZmilka%2B6qcHSrJiipl6owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpwvI6msGahnqmys8LInq5mr5mptW60wKKbnqpdorKpsMhmpqc%3D

This past week, I spoke with Israel’s new opposition leader Yair Lapid, in what was his first live on-camera English interview since assuming the post. We tackled every hot button topic imaginable—from Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial, to the future of Arab-Jewish partnership in Israeli politics, to West Bank annexation, to how Lapid discovered non-Orthodox Judaism—and much more. You can check it out in the medium of your choice: The video of our conversation can be viewed here, while the full transcript is available for reading and printing in Tablet here.

There’s a simple, seductive bridge in one of Dua Lipa’s new songs, which rides a precisely calibrated disco groove. “But if control is my religion, then I’m heading for collision, lost my 20/20 vision, please,” our girl sings coolly, over a modulation to the vi chord. (If my cocktail-napkin music theory holds, the song, “Whatcha Doing,” is in F minor, which makes that submediant a Db major.) It’s one of many small but crucial decisions that went into Dua Lipa’s third album, which she titled Radical Optimism.

Dear Is My Kid the Asshole, All my son ever wants to do is play “Superhero Wars.” Everything he finds morphs into a gun. Pew pew pew, you’re dead! It makes me uncomfortable, and I don’t know what to do. Should I make a house rule that gun play isn’t allowed? Is my kid the asshole? Sincerely, Pacifist Mom Dear Pacifist Mom, This is such a good question, and one I’ve asked myself over the years.

Last week I wrote a piece for the Free Press (now reposted on my substack) about how TED sandbagged my talk on color-blindness. Chris Anderson, the head of TED, wrote a response on X, which I responded to promptly. But Chris wrote a follow-up, and Adam Grant has also written a public response, neither of which I have publicly responded to.  A number of people have asked me if I plan to respond, so here I go.

Merry Christmas, everybody. Happy Holidays. Just a quick post to share this cover of a lovely song from Mitski’s last record. If I write a follow-up to World Within a Song—World Within a Song 2: Electric Boogaloo—I wouldn’t be surprised if this song ended up being a chapter. Carry on. OxO 2014 / December 18: Jeff is on The Colbert Report for its final episode. He’s part of the performance of the song “We’ll Meet Again” that also includes Jon Stewart, James Franco, Michael Stipe, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, and more.