PicoBlog

In the past year or so, I’ve delivered many pieces of political and pop culture news to my friends and cohorts in casual conversations, often beginning with the phrase “I read an article about _________.” The trouble is: I’ve been lying. I often haven’t read an article on the news I’m sharing. Instead, I’m typically referring to a tweet loosely referencing a Deadline or GQ article - I’m providing a pull quote from a tweet that’s essentially a pull quote itself.

When James Dean rented a West 68th Street apartment in New York City, he was very excited that the fifth-floor room had round porthole windows. These reminded him of a round window he had seen in a picture of Marlon Brando that he had saved, and he took to telling people that his apartment had been Brando’s. I looked everywhere for that photo and never found it. Then, today, Pinterest sent it to me in the daily digest of photos I receive despite not having a Pinterest account that I am aware of and never using the site.

Hi, welcome to the new PosCast, which is basically just like the old PosCast. I’m Joe Posnanski and with me is Michael Schur … Michael, welcome. … … Weird. I thought he’d just appear on here and answer. He’s probably working through his feelings after the Celtics got blown out Friday night (though he expected it … Mike always expects the worst for his teams). Anyway, we have a big announcement.

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world. I wrote a post not long ago about how I evaluate literary journals, focusing mostly on smaller and usually newer ones. These journals are important, especially for the second rounds of submissions, because they give writers the best chance of finding homes for their work. But what about the “better” journals in my database?

Years ago, when we were still in the aughts and indie sleaze was just life in ye olde Brooklyn, there was a GQ article that caught my eye. I probably read it on my Google Reader (RIP), but it stuck with me in a way I can’t say many articles from those wild times when magazines were really into doing whatever while they tried to figure out the Internet. “Bring Back the Power Donut!

Hello, friends! It has been a while since I’ve sent you anything—hopefully you’ll see why when you read today’s post, which took a huge amount of effort and care. For over 100 of you, this is the first newsletter you’re receiving from me. No doubt many of you found me through my essay on Lolita in ’s project . Welcome! I’m so happy you’re here. Please introduce yourself in the comments, if you feel moved to do so.

I  am (up to a point*) quite a fan of Dominic Cummings so I hope he won’t mind my republishing this interesting (lightly edited) extract from an early 2022 Cummings Substack post. Very few ... actually understand how power really works in this country. The power of [the Cabinet and] ministers is massively exaggerated.  The power of the Cabinet Secretary is massively under-reported. The latter has something like 100X, perhaps 1000X, more true power than the average minister.

Thanks for reading Darrin’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Toilet paper math is interesting. You can’t buy a quality roll anymore without it bragging to you about how it’s worth so much more than the competition. Thought you were buying 12 rolls? No way! Toilet papers math says you are really buying 48 rolls (when compared to the bargain one-ply). ncG1vNJzZminoJq7b7%2FUm6qtmZOge6S7zGinrppfma6zvsinqqKloKi8r3vPaKuooZyawW68wKmcq2WdlsGpi9StpJirn6q%2FpLGcqaasrFaYvK65xKerrHWkp8KmctStpJillZm2trmcsJyb

I recently did some self-education on the Power-T offense. This past season, I witnessed a high school game between Grand Rapids Christian High School (MI) vs Northview High School (MI). Both offenses ran pretty cookie-cutter versions of modern 11-personnel, shotgun, RPO offenses (what you see in most college games today). During the first half, both teams struggled to move the ball, and it was 7-0 at half in Northview’s favor.