good things 02.05.26

minnesotan resolve, traitors s4, maggie's plan

good things is back and so is making out!

so excited for this new era of harry and i can’t stop listening to aperture. the day it came out i was in florida, so now i press play and it instantly transports me away from the frozen, shit covered streets¹ of new york and onto a sunny beach in naples.

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1. A Minnesota Dad Takes on ICE (Question Everything)

i know you’re already paying attention to what’s going on in the twin cities, but i thought this was a good dispatch about what it’s been like on the ground there. brian reed talks to a former reporter and ‘minnesota dad’ who is doing what every ordinary, upstanding citizen of the twin cities is doing right now: mobilizing to protect his city and his neighbors, and documenting ICE’s lawless plundering. not that we should clutch our pearls because all of a sudden a white guy is being treated poorly in addition to the black and brown people being abducted, but i think what’s happening there is a clear example of how no one is safe until everyone is safe.

2. “Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong” by Adam Serwer (The Atlantic)

this piece has been widely circulated but if you haven’t read it yet, you really should. the above is a gift link.

“Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs.

The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

No matter how many more armed men Trump sends to impose his will on the people of Minnesota, all he can do is accentuate their valor. No application of armed violence can make the men with guns as heroic as the people who choose to stand in their path with empty hands in defense of their neighbors. These agents, and the president who sent them, are no one’s heroes, no one’s saviors—just men with guns who have to hide their faces to shoot a mom in the face, and a nurse in the back.”

3. “Broken Country” by Claire Leslie Hall

very entertaining speed read/thriller. it begins with someone dying and you’re plunged into the english countryside with beth, torn between two lovers and trying to make sense of it all. it’s this song in the form of a novel:

4. traitors season 4

i spent my snow day last sunday catching up on traitors, a show that i hadn’t been able to hook into in prior seasons but i’m really enjoying myself. i wish colton underwood nothing but the worst. rob rausch… what i have to say to you is not fit for print. please get in touch.

5. “Maggie’s Plan” (it’s free on fubo or tubi or whatever the f)

greta gerwig, ethan hawke, julianne moore, bill hader, maya rudolph, new york city, washington square park, gowanus brooklyn, writers with obscure academic fixations, and manipulation of men because they are so stupid sometimes. what more do you need to know?? go watch this movie. thank you molly hussey for bringing it to my desk.

6. this tidbit from a piece on substack

freddie deboer wrote this piece about kanye and his recent apology for antisemitic comments in light of his mental illness diagnosis. to be totally real with you, i don’t really understand what the piece is trying to say. but i still liked this point he makes in it, about the way leftists can be just as punishing as conservatives when it comes to falling in line. it’s a reminder (to myself as much as anyone) to ask: am i working toward positive change, or do i just want someone to think the way i think?

“I know it’s trite and cliched to say that social justice politics are like a religion, but in this I find many advocate of social justice quite like many Christians: they are members of a sect whose holy texts demand constant mercy but they hand out none. In these situations, their religion fails them, or really, they fail it.”

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i was all in for the pitt season 2 but then i had to get stitches, so now it’s too close to home and i can no longer watch. i HATE being aware that i have a body with blood and ligaments and skin!!!!! i’m actually being the world’s biggest baby about the stitches and i’m suffering greatly from the Living Alone Tax trying to change the bandage on my back every day. NURSE!!!!

1. this is my first winter in new york where snow has stuck to the ground for more than 24 hrs and i’m experiencing for the first time what that’s like. and what it’s like is: people are lazy and if it’s not a city-owned sidewalk they will only shovel a very narrow pathway. or they just won’t shovel at all cough cough my neighbor who is a famous supermodel. so there ends up being about one square inch of concrete to walk on. and these very small walkways are absolutely riddled with fragments of dog shit. way, way more than usual. and on the snow that stands on either side — yellow dog piss. you have to walk with your head completely down and watch every single step you take to avoid stepping in it. and even then you’re not safe. in fact there’s probably dog shit on my shoe right now. dogs are already suffering from a PR crisis (in my mind) and this is not helping me like them or feel any compassion for their owners.