Nick

Writer finally home in PA after a sojourn in DC and the midwest. If you saw something I wrote, then A) thanks very much, or B) chill out man, don't be so upset.

[River Page @river_is_nice]

Rebuilding it would have turned it into an office park again. You’d have have people responding to slack messages and eating sad little slop bowl meals at their desks atop a mass grave everyday. Let me be clear, turning ground zero into an office building where you have some “grindr for dogs” tier VC backed tech startup headquartered on the 57th floor WOULD be the most American thing to do. Luckily, more tasteful minds have prevailed.

[Nick @NickPompella]

If you force an American to read Chaucer, he will tell you that it takes place in "ancient history." If you tell him one of Aesop's fables, he will say it is a story from "olden times."

[Nick @NickPompella]

Very cute to suggest that the Anglophone world is just so darn agreeable, compared to those rascally French. (All of the most persnickety, needling people I've ever met are British, specifically ENGLISH.)

More likely: AngloWorld isn't opinionated because no one knows anything.

[Leigh Phillips @Leigh_Phillips]

When I lived in Brussels, dinner parties with my francophone friends (French French and French Belgian) were rich with these sort of conversations. Gastronomy or cinema or music as much as politics were the catalyst for furious contestation—the mark of true friendship, for why would you care about what someone thought who wasn’t your friend?

Upon my return to (English) Canada, I was reminded how this *joy in disagreement* simply doesn’t exist anywhere near as much in the anglophone world: argument is to be avoided at all costs, malheureusement.

[Nick @NickPompella]

No one is reading. They are listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks for the 30th time. No one is watching normal films. Any show that precedes, like, Squid Game may as well not exist. Who among us knows who this "Bach" person in the video is, much less this alleged "Schubert"?

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

Borges was led in on his cane by his nurse. She sat him down in front of the small group of us, facing us, in his big dark glasses. He began, after a pause:

"What would you like to know?"

Total silence. Which went on. People too astonished and shy to speak. Genuinely dumbstruck. He can't see us, of course (or can he in some way?) but we can see him. No one knows how to begin.

Then he starts with the Shakespeare business. To break the ice.

[Nick @NickPompella]

"One real problem with American democracy is that the perspectives of literal children aren't incorporated into our politics."

Is this truly a prime issue of social justice for this person? Does he believe that people should be awakened to the indignity of this? If so... really?

[Nick @NickPompella]

I have witnessed more Normie Progressive opinions than usual recently.

It strikes me that they handwave away issues that actually affect people. But they possess incredibly serious beliefs about problems that no one has ever cared about, which they have invented wholecloth.

[Caleb Wait @calebwait]

I try to keep an open mind about new ideas and opinions, but this take on parents and children is the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long time. Douthat’s response is perfect:

[Nick @NickPompella]

@valerificent Spectacular

[Nick @NickPompella]

@AbeGreenwald I am a huge fan of "how could you do this to San Francisco?"

[Nick @NickPompella]

Do Gen Xers ever tire of being so arch, so twee?

[David Burge @iowahawkblog]

Zeppelin: midwit British toffs ripping off dead Mississippi Delta bluesmen and hiding their blatant plagiarism under 7 minute guitar solos, Hobbit lyrics, and Crowley occultism

Ramones: Brilliantly dumb anti-commies from Queens slaying Rock pretentions 2 minutes at a time

[yoshimi battles dracula @nise_yoshimi]

this is what happens when you arent reading every day. if you stop reading for even one day you will be writing like this. you will be spewing rubbish into the grand cesspool of people who want to be writers because it's easy. dont do that

[The Dispatch @thedispatch]

How Mystical Japanese Sci-Fi Captured American Millennials: The 30th anniversary of ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion.’ | @NickPompella

https://t.co/X3H2wGZJSd

[Nick @NickPompella]

I appreciate this, not because I have any productive disagreements with Shermer's critique (I agree with maybe 90% of it), but because the replies (which keep coming after 2 days) are a throwback to 2000s-style YouTube arguments I didn't know people were still capable of.

[Michael Shermer @michaelshermer]

"New Atheism is dead—in fact, hardline atheism in general seems to have stopped in its tracks."
Dear @NickPompella :
Atheism is not a worldview, belief system, ideology, or set of tenets.
We just don't believe in God. Full stop.
We do not define ourselves by what we don't believe.
What do we believe?
Enlightenment Humanism is a system of positive beliefs:
reason, science, natural rights, civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, property rights, free speech, press & assembly, rule of law, equal treatment under the law, liberal democracy, market capitalism, etc.
Do theists not believe such things?
Of course they do!
Christians are thorough-going Enlightenment Humanists who don't know that's what they are because they think if you add "God" to the equation it grants special power to belief.
https://t.co/FOxdzmivVh

[Nick @NickPompella]

@LycanFerret @levonbier12784 Legendary pull

[The Dispatch @thedispatch]

"New Atheism’s scorched-earth policy taught people to burn, but not build." | Nick Pompella

https://t.co/ANeYQ09cl1

[The Dispatch @thedispatch]

Against Millennial Halloween Obsession: Seriously. Please stop. | @NickPompella

https://t.co/R4BTVtdS94

[Lara Lawlor🌱 @lawlorlara]

@MKupperman Someone should put together an anthology designed to make readers feel better about their own writing.

[Yeerk.P 🦆 @PYeerk]

These might involve the showrunners cathartically drawing on their experiences or show some degree of emotional drama but that's very different from what I call the millennial therapeutic sensibility which can be seen in everything from Adventure Time to Rick & Morty

[The Dispatch @thedispatch]

"A poem can put you in touch with another mind—either the specific author’s mind, or with a kind of collective unconscious that speaks for a whole generation." | @NickPompella

https://t.co/tVozzruSNy