Subscriber Writing, May 2026

Hello folks! Here’s the latest bimonthly roundup of writing written by subscribers, for the month of May 2026. Readers, please take a little time and see if any of these descriptions appeals to you. This post will exceed the allowed size of most email clients so please click through. I’ve discovered so much great writing through these roundups, and many who submit things report that they’ve meaningfully grown their audience this way. If you aren’t a subscriber and you want to take part in this opportunity in July, you know what to do. Be kind in the comments, far kinder than you feel you have to be with me.

Now on with the show.

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Zack Morris the Elder, Focker-in-Law: A qualitative poststructural analysis to demonstrate how a movie is going to suck real bad

Here’s how to tell that a movie is going to really, really suck

Amod Sandhya Lele, Snakes wrongly grasped: on the psychedelic experiences of Musk and Manson

Being certain about your experience doesn't make you right.

Amod Sandhya Lele, If only Bentham had read the Kāma Sūtra

The explicable appeal of spicy food

Twerb Jebbins, The Strage del Cermis, Adolf Eichmann, and Minnesota

A analysis of the invasion and occupation of the Twin Cities by ICE and the creeping fascism which accompanied it written by someone who lived there and experienced it firsthand.

David Mark Levy, Doug Ford should be caned on the queens park lawn

In Ontario we were having a lot of trouble with our premier, and things have gotten even worse. So I reckon he should be caned. It's an old petition, but I reckon it's worth rehashing in Toronto now.

Bill McCallum, Senior Advisor at Illustrative Mathematics

As I move into retirement, I decided to start a Substack about mathematics education. Some of the posts are about research and controversies, some are just about the mathematical ideas behind school mathematics, which are often buried. This is one of the latter type, exploring the complexities of fractions and division.

David Roberts, The Madison Is a Hate-Coded Show

A look at how The Madison TV show gets NYC, its wealthy, and its impoverished completely wrong

Chris, Stop Watching TV Like a Conspiracy Theorist

The ending of Stranger Things was bad, but conformitygate - the idea that it was bad on purpose to set up a secret finale - uses the exact same logic as a conspiracy theorist scanning TV shows for evidence of the Illuminati.

Eric McLaughlin, One More For The Ditch

One More for the Ditch is a savage, darkly comic triptych about collapse, cancellation, and the violent search for meaning in a culture addicted to outrage. Moving between addiction, grief, satire, and rebellion, the book asks what, if anything, is worth worshiping when institutions fail, morality fractures, and survival itself becomes an act of defiance.

Erica Etelson, Rural Organizers Are Plowing Common Ground

Flying below the radar of toxically polarized national politics, small town mid-westerners are racking up ultra-local victories

Luke Allen, The High Cost of Schadenfreude

When we delight in the suffering of our neighbors it makes real organizing impossible

Mari, the Happy Wanderer A Horseshoe Theory of Being Wrong about Us

A theory about why (almost) everyone loves Project Hail Mary.

Dr. Dana Leigh Lyons, DTCM, When in doubt, I choose simplicity and consistency

Reflections from the Thai countryside, on paring things back to their essentials

Tony Bozanich, Behold the Treasures of my Library 11: Improv Edition

More than you wanted to know about improv comedy.

The Memory Hole, Moon Over Lyme Bay

A rehearsal turned into a mass casualty event and no one was to know about it

Barrett Hathcock Notes on ‘Privacy’

A short review of Molly Young's pregnancy memoir

Alistair, So this is what normal feels like

When I began taking the magical weight-loss pills, I didn't expect they would also change my perspective on self control, my own limitations and the challenge of loving myself.

Rosemary Zimmermann, Smoke

I run a small free home-care clinic for the indigent, and write reflections on my patients, faith, medicine, and the meaning of it all.

Brian Howard, How I Handle Those Pesky Medical Bills

I don’t pay them.

Sara Eckel, Under His Eye

Virginia Giuffre, Lindy West and the male gaze.

Javier Ergueta, “Can’t really recommend it. Stay in school, kids.”

Cole Allen was no whack job, he was a nearly model young man, who got lost in the moral labyrinth that is today’s world. His story, our story, is being misrepresented by the press on both sides of the political divide. This points to a calamitous, broader moral failure.

Adam Whybray, Failing to Name Things in the Park

I’ve avoided the natural world because it makes me feel stupid and incapable.

Javier Ergueta, How should we think about war leadership–and Trump’s?

The just war tradition gives us the standard, the historical record gives us the comparison--and the conclusion urges impeachment: A president who lacks the knowledge to anticipate the consequences of war, the humanity to feel its cost, the integrity to hold a coalition together, and the humility to recognize error–is not a war leader. He is a war risk.

Dan Hoyle, San Francisco 1992-1996

Adolescence in a Bohemian Eden, and nostalgia as a galvanizing force to reclaim that cultural ecosystem

Triangulation, Some Thoughts on Habermas: Oversociality and the Power-Trust Exchange

The politicization of civil society arises from a exchange in which political elites trade money and power for the credibility and trust possessed by actors in civil society

Jonathan Kissam, When you can’t sing anymore, all they remember is your name

The death of Kurt Cobain and the confusion of Generation X

Whitney Sha, The Process of Processing

An inquiry into the colloquial verb "to process"—why we use it and what it means when we do

Alexander Kaplan, Judging All Art by the Standards of Twentieth-Century Realism Was Never Insightful (and Is No Longer Funny)

A rant about a type of "literary criticism" I see bandied around, featuring Clerks, The Wizard of Oz, and Donnie Darko, among other things.

Liam, Nefarious Russians on Substack

A newsletter and a bedtim podcast

A.W. Martin, Ranked Choice Voting is a False Idol

The central problem of the American electoral system is that it is unrepresentative and unresponsive, and RCV does not make the system either more representative or more responsive.

Kristen Smith, A Letter for Teachers in May

A reflection on what makes teaching difficult in a particularly human way with a small side of hopefulness.

Tanner Gesek, Persuasive Moral Slop: A quick primer on sophistry

You can make any idea sound good with enough rhetorical skill – and now everyone has that skill on tap. This essay argues that's not a minor problem; it's the engine of the coming multipolar tribal warfare over what's true and worthwhile.

Mark Newheiser, All Art Is Political, but Andy Weir Has a Point

All art is on a continuum of preachiness, even Project Hail Mary, but there's nothing wrong with avoiding overt social commentary or having a different perspective

Old Mole, Marx, Rawls, and the 1960s New Left

In the tumultuous 1960s, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) gave up trying work out what it meant by the "participatory democracy" it advocated. SDS hesitated to say "socialism," yet by the end of the decade it splintered in its haste to embrace Marxism-Leninism in some form. John Rawls was meanwhile formulating a theory of justice whose rejection of capitalism, and debt to Marx, was slow to be appreciated.

Carter Vance, Author and writer of the A Place of Unreality Substack

A debut coming-of-age novel set in Canada's political scene, it has been described by Ross Barkan as "an affecting portrait of failed romance and political ambition".

Josh Hilgart, Let's Take a Year Off and Save the Human Race

A proposal to fix the world; it might not work but it is our best chance.

Donal Lardner Ward, California 1978

An ill-advised bus & hitchhiking trip to California at 15 to escape the emotional fallout of my mother's 3rd divorce and my father's continued deterioration after losing his share of famed NYC literary restaurant, Elaine's. ( Excerpt from memoir-in-progress. )

Doctrix Periwinkle, Good girl

Thoughts on the sacrament of confession, sin, and mental health. And my dog Abby.

Harold Johnson, Terrible Punning Conundra

I wrote ~30 of the worst puns conceivable. I don't usually indulge in this vice!

Barry Goldman, How Can This Be?

Thought on being an American, a lawyer, and a Jew

Old Mole, When Britain Went Socialist

The political moment requires that a transformational program be offered by the opposition party, as Adam Przeworski writes. Yet he also claims that a socialist program has never succeded in winning an election. This overlooks the 1945 victory of the Labour Party, led by Clement Attlee, over Winston Churchill's Conservatives. Labour ran under the banner of Socialism and from 1945 to 1951 established the National Health Service (NHS) and brought most major industries into public ownership.

Arthur Sants, Judge people for that one thing they did

A review of The Drama and a case for epistemic humility.

Harjas Sandhu, Sleep advice that actually works (for me)

I’ve struggled with sleep for my entire life. Most online sleep advice is hopelessly generic, so I brute-forced my way to individualized sleep habits over several years of experimentation and wrote the post I'd always hoped to find.

michael helsem, The Theory anbnd Practice of Oligarchic Collectivism

collection of aphorisms & journal entries, mostly from the 80s

Jason Dubow, Signs & Wonders

Seven index cards, a hybrid-essay (of sorts): wanting to be good (and bad), O.J., Sandy Hook, agitprop, a widow's recliner, Trump, things fall apart, Kafka's dog.

Christopher J Feola, Sora AI is the new Disney Studios! Oh wait-never mind

OpenAI’s three-year licensing agreement with Disney lasted three months. This is what is called a pivot in Startup Land; leadership is saying ZOMG Our Business Plan is Completely Underwater So We Will Shift To This Completely Different Thing. It’s Yet Another Sharp Reminder that AI is following the path every tech revolution has followed since it was first laid out by Thomas Kuhn 5 decades ago.

Brandon Clarkson, Fallout

Set in November 1962, this short fiction story explores seemingly simpler time when all felt safe and warm but was, in reality, oh so treacherous and fraught with uncertainty. Published by Roi Fainéant Press.

Michael Celentana, Sit

Blaise Pascal — 17th-century mathematician, devout Catholic, notably not a Zen monk — somehow wrote the central koan of Zen Buddhism. Zen got there too, independently, from the other side of the world. This essay is about what happens in that gap: the silence that isn’t empty, the rest that isn’t absent, and why the greatest musicians in history were all, without knowing it, answering the same question. Includes an annotated listening playlist, because some arguments are better made by Bill Evans than by me.

Lance Pauker, The Long Tail of Being Useful

On not knowing the role you're meant to play in life, and finding purpose in becoming a stay at home dad.

Dirk Hohnstraeter, Politics for the rest of us

Hungary, real life, and a moment in the sun

Desystemize, Everyone's Got a Proof When They Explode

Solving the underlying logic bomb behind the red button/blue button style thought experiments.

Spencer Piston, Associate Professor, Political Science, Boston University

Leading media accounts portray the lawlessness and brutality of the United States' immigration policing system as a Republican victory over Democratic opposition. But in reality our authoritarian immigration regime is a bipartisan creation.

Kody Cava, A Pharmaceutical Company Developed a Cure for Cancer With Taxpayer Dollars. Now It Owns the Patent.

An in-depth investigation into how Novartis developed and privatized a single-dose treatment for leukemia using public funds.

Adam Rosen, The Cult Music Documentary ‘Heavy Metal Parking Lot’ Turns Middle-Age

The film capturing the scene outside a Judas Priest show was 17 minutes long, only available on VHS and won the hearts of a generation of rock fans

Nigel Bowen, We’ll all be dinergoths soon

That thesis I wrote in the 1990s on middle-class subcultures has belatedly acquired some relevance in the diner goth era.

William TR Pullin, The Slow Death of the American Rebel

This is an essay arguing that the internet has become a theological and nihilist landscape of micro-Gods and is led by algorithmic proselytizing. It consumes and commodifies the act of rebellion, and makes ideology into theology. My essay touches on Sartre and Camus to show how clinging to moral policing has been bleeding the left long before the internet and things have not gotten much better on that front. The essay also touches briefly on Nietzsche, and Varoufakis to make its critiques and points while framing it through the framework of The Rebel.

Tim (I'm a little teapot), Clawed and the Anticrisis

Some crises can be worked around. Some permanently change us. But the real terrifying possibility is if humanity's biggest turning point might not feel like a crisis at all.

Derek Wagner, Dourglamis

Sentient castles mashed up with late stage capitalism

Skyler Schain, My Weekend in Crossworld

I went to the 2026 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford, CT to find out why people are so into crossword puzzles, what Will Shortz's deal is, and why the structured competition of games is so appealing. I came out with some new friends and a fresh perspective on how to deal with the messy reality of life outside the game.

Tim Small, Adventures in Wonderland

A guided tour of some special California places, from Baja to Alta and back again.

Genevieve Maitland Hudson, Climate state of mind

History, philosophy, medieval measurement, Charles de Gaulle and weekly advice to the UK government

Mikell, Drink Your Nesquik

This is an excerpt from a longer work set in the 90s in Canada, during the tainted blood crisis.

Philip Hulbig, A Formula for Transformation:Your Brain Is Rewriting Itself Right Now... And You Can Help Direct That Process

In this piece, Phil Hulbig explores a framework for personal and academic transformation grounded in metacognition and self-authorship. Drawing on his work with neurodiverse learners, he offers a practical and research-informed formula for how individuals can develop agency over their own thinking and learning. Written for educators, students, and anyone navigating growth and change, the post connects theory to lived experience in an accessible and engaging way.

Mazin Saleem, Welcome to a new art form: on Conner O'Malley's Pipe Rock Theory

On festering art and why it needs the internet

Andrew Berg, This one weird trick could unlock housing for millions

Hosting long-term boarders in spare rooms used to be common in the US. We should bring this practice back.

Brent Lucia, Paranoid Android: Hearing the Internet Before it Arrived

This essay reflects on the 1990s as the last fully analog decade before the internet reshaped everyday life and human attention. Using Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” as a central example, I argue that certain music and artists seemed to anticipate the fragmented, overstimulated experience of the digital age before it fully arrived.

Carlos, Anti-Self-Help: Some advice to fuck your life up

A satire of self-help ideas that are in the water supply

Samantha Hedges, Homeschooling *can* be risky

An article about what parents, and schools, need to understand about children before they can provide an education.

T J Elliott, Not all self-promoters are the Antichrist

Finding out while self-promoting our play RETROSPECTIVE opening in a week at Barons Court Theatre in London that the word ‘self-promotion’ was first used to describe the Antichrist obviously has not stopped me from…self-promoting or self-believing

Jeffrey DeLisle, Prayers

A Poem

Tapirclip Yes, Logan Paul Is Larping. So What?

Logan Paul’s entry into high-end manga collecting was inevitable. Here’s why the backlash is fundamentally about fandom’s role as a surrogate for personal identity.

Shane Trotter, Educator, Coach, Author of Setting the Bar

A cultural critique of delayed adulthood in affluent modern society. The essay argues that technological abundance and insulation from consequence have made maturity easier to postpone than at any point in history—while simultaneously making the intentional cultivation of competence, resilience, and responsibility more essential than ever.

Geoff MacDonald, A “Singles-Centred” Perspective Sounds Uplifting. What Does it Mean in Practice?

Heard of the singles positivity movement? You'd be surprised (or not) at how weak the academic case can be for their claims. Join me in my good faith attempt to demonstrate that.

Aaron Brown, Some Jottings about Hamlet

I have transcribed with some edition musings about Hamlet and existentialism from my winter term notebook.

The Ivy Exile, The Metastasis of Technocracy

Through the lens of a must-read new book by Jacob Siegel, the terrorizing rise of a new form of digital governance based upon constant and ubiquitous information warfare upon the citizenry.

Thomas Barrie, The unlikely story of a North Korean blockbuster

In 1978, Kim Jong-il kidnapped a South Korean director and forced him to make an ersatz, communist Godzilla

Rain Oliver, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is the ugliest show

This show is hideous, and I will prove it with numbers and graphs

Matthew Clayfield, The Pink City parties

The Jaipur Literature Festival has been called the greatest literary show on earth. Forget the books, though. Here's a piece about the nightlife.

Bram E. Gieben, The Recovery Myth

What does "recovery" mean in a digital panopticon? On surveillance capitalism, borderline personality disorder, and other forms of "captured discontent"

Jack Neary, Sometimes it's what you don't do that makes you a man

A letter to my son about the right way to demonstrate masculinity

Jon Busch, Transcendence in Transgression

Despite striving for ugliness, GWAR's cover of "Pink Pony Club" taps into something beautiful, perhaps even divine.

The Loser, Demons of Discourse: “All Art Is Political”

Examining the contention and headache-inducing discourse surrounding the claim that "all art is political."

Liz O’Connor, Five Divorces: A Typology

A very brief guide to what happens.

Annoying Peasant, De(fragment) the Police

Originally intended as a submission for the Boyd Institute's Q1 2026 essay competition, this article talks about how institutional fragmentation erodes the carceral system's ability to deter crime and punish wrongdoers. Lax enforcement of existing laws creates bad political incentives for budget-constrained policymakers, who rely excessively on severe sentences to deter crime instead of increasing the likelihood of criminals being apprehended. This results in a bloated carceral regime and a police culture that is excessively militarized against the people it is supposed to serve. By consolidating police authorities and using the federal government's greater fiscal capacity to bottom-line law enforcement, we can simultaneously deter criminal activity, reduce penal severity, and take a bite out of the embarassingly-large docket of cold (unsolved) criminal cases.

James M, What Can Be Done

We feel distracted, dehumanized, and pressured to conform and consume. So... what can be done about all of this? The shifting trends of culture and the prospect of economic collapse create profound opportunities for positive social change.

Jeremy Keim, thin trust piazza (those are not typos)

A meandering exploration of what community - through pizza and triangles - meant to me as a kid, and where I am trying to build one again as an adult.

Mitch Bogen, Thoughts on Paul McCartney

Watching the Amazon Prime documentary on Sir Paul's life in the years after the Beatles' breakup got me thinking about his underwhelming legacy as a solo artist and how the life he built for himself might be the thing that matters most.

Jarrett Horne, Surgeon At War

A history piece on my grandfather's service in WW2 as a US Army surgeon in the Pacific theater, how he won the Silver Star, and the rationale of the time for nuking Japan.

Eponynonymous, Abandon all hope (or die)

On Children of Men and finding what exists beyond hope and despair

Steven Belaire, Why Are There Still Black People?

A comic but serious breakdown of a catastrophically bad evolution question, using it to explain common ancestry, ladder-vs-tree thinking, skin colour, vitamin D, folate, and why “white people” are not evolution’s destination.

William of Hammock, on Performative Cynicism

An intuitive retelling of a counterintuitive problem. The rest is performative.

Eva Sylwester, Weekend Entertainment Guide 2/14/26

37-year-olds in the news: Renee Nicole Good, Alex Pretti, Erika Kirk

Joanna Cazden, vocal wellness educator

How political activists and songleaders can minimize vocal strain. Written for No-Kings-2026, good anytime!