SergeSlothrop

The 'Curly Bill Spin' in Shadow Ticket is Pynchon directing the reader to this lunar scene in Tombstone which reveals something important about Lew Basnight and Hicks. It's also TRP joining Bob Dylan in the highest rankings of Tombstone nuts youtu.be/itRKkrcIeWQ?si…

@MerakiDelta @byejudymoody Nah. If you go on a hike you are committing to getting everyone in the group through it.

@byejudymoody This is why you shouldn't be hiking with people who hike at different paces. It's unfair to expect a slower paced hiker to keep up with your pace and it's unfair to expect a faster paced hiker to limit themselves to your pace.

My ex did this to me and it caused psychological damage and genuinely destroyed a part of me lol

@AliceFromQueens @waldmenschen @RnaudBertrand @Noodoggy It's popular enough in Russia that they still have large numbers of men taking Army contracts.

@waldmenschen @RnaudBertrand @Noodoggy Neither war is popular. But it only matters in the US

I don't think people realize just how extraordinary what we're witnessing with Iran is. I was arguing with a dear journalist friend of mine yesterday who was telling me that Iran was winning, yes, but only on the strategic level, not tactically. The type of thing a skinny kid getting stuffed in lockers in highschool tells himself to make himself feel better: "These people will BEG to work for me in ten years. Everyone knows jocks peak in highschool. They'll literally beg." 😏 I think that's precisely wrong, and that's what makes the Iran war different. As of now, Iran is in fact holding its own tactically too. Think about other U.S. wars of aggression these past few decades. Take Vietnam, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Serbia, etc. (the list is unfortunately very long). The pattern was roughly always the same with an immense power differential between aggressor and victim. These wars were, by and large, imperial: the empire attempting to crush a much weaker people whose only realistic recourse was guerrilla resistance. And that is when they actually had the will to resist: some - like Libya - barely even bothered, just resigning themselves to their fate (despite being, at the time, the richest country in Africa). As spectators of these wars, if you had any moral sense, the dominant emotion was a kind of helpless disgust: you were watching a giant stomp through someone else's house. Sure, the U.S. actually lost many - if not most - of these wars, famously replacing the Taliban with the Taliban or being expelled with their tail between their legs from Vietnam, but the power differential was no less real for it. It's just that power doesn't always guarantee victory: sometimes the giant can't kill everyone, and eventually tires of trying. But the “victories” won this way were always pyrrhic at best: the people endured, yes, but what they were left with was a country in ashes that takes decades to rebuild. Meanwhile, in the grand scheme of things, the giant walked away with little more than a bruised ego. Iran is - remarkably - proving to be an entirely different beast: when others were merely surviving a giant, Iran appears to be able to compete with one. What just happened over the past 48 hours is the best illustration of this. You had the President of the United States issue a formal ultimatum: reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours or we "obliterate" your power grid. Iran's response was essentially: we dare you, if you do this we'll make all your Gulf allies uninhabitable within a week. And, as we saw, Trump backed down: pretexting non-existent "VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS" with Iran, he said his ultimatum no-longer applied (or, rather, became 5 days). Adding he now envisaged the Strait of Hormuz being “jointly controlled by me and the Ayatollah.” To the amusement of Iran’s diplomacy (x.com/IraninSA/statu…). That, folks, is a textbook tactical victory. It is, remarkably, Iran demonstrating in this instance that it had escalation dominance over the United States of America. That is, the ability to credibly threaten consequences so severe that the US - for perhaps the first time since the Cold War - found it preferable to stand down. That's no skinny kid being locked in a locker dreaming of revenge fantasies. That's the kid grabbing the bully's wrist mid-shove and watching his face change. And it's not the only tactical victory in this war so far. Take the episode over the Israeli attack on Iran's South Pars gas facility. Iran had warned that if that happened U.S. allies in the region - including Israel - would face a symmetrical response. And they delivered: famously devastating Qatar's Ras Laffan facility - which produced roughly 20% of global LNG supply - and leading, according to Qatar themselves, to a $20 billion loss of annual revenue for the next 5 years (oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-…). Not only that but they also managed to hit Israel's Haifa refinery (aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/19…), one of the country's most strategic and protected sites. The result was Trump distancing himself from the South Pars attack, saying that Israel had "violently lashed out" unilaterally and that "NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field." Israel then said it wouldn't strike Iran energy sites anymore (bloomberg.com/news/articles/…). From where I stand, that's another tactical victory. It is, at least, Iran demonstrating that is can fight back **symmetrically** against the U.S. and its allies. Not through asymmetric resistance with IEDs hidden in the roadside or traps hidden in the jungle, but eye for eye, and against some of the most heavily protected sites on the U.S.'s side. That's qualitatively different from any other adversaries the U.S. has directly fought in recent wars. There's plenty more, such as the pretty relevant fact that Iran has gained control of the single most strategic energy chokepoint on earth and the U.S. is finding it impossible to break that control. To the point where Trump has been reduced to publicly begging China - of all countries - for help, which given Trump's ego mustn't have been easy to do. Only to be told no. By China. And by everyone else he asked. This is the topic of my latest article: how this is, in fact, the first genuine "multipolar war." First, in the narrow sense: because Iran is revealing itself to be a genuine pole of power - not a superpower, but an actor that cannot be submitted, which is all multipolarity is. And second, because the war itself is accelerating multipolarity everywhere else: the U.S. has never been more isolated, never looked weaker and its security guarantees have never been more hollow. In my article I lay out the full scoreboard - military, economic, political - and explain why this war has already changed the world, regardless of how it ends. Enjoy the read here: open.substack.com/pub/arnaudbert…

@patient__zero__ @Sarusaruhjkz @ashotmagazine I want: More long shots of wallpaper. More cameras panning across a room three times. More actors staring at nothing. More synths.

@Sarusaruhjkz @ashotmagazine i hope it is

First look at Nicolas Winding Refn’s ‘HER PRIVATE HELL’. Starring Charles Melton, Sophie Thatcher, Kristine Froseth, Havana Rose Liu and Diego Calva.

@annakhachiyan They should name it after Michael Douglas like Lou Gerhig disease

My most feminist take is that this is women getting revenge on men for giving them high risk HPV

@dlmjnk @LewisJones_90 Your grandpa was saying the same thing about George Best

@LewisJones_90 It’s definitely got worse. They are much more into fashion, etc these days.

I reckon the days of having an emotional connection to footballers are over.

@AndyGoode10 @PremSportsTV Sounds like Ireland Vs Scotland

Watching Bordeaux v Toulouse on @PremSportsTV, every breakdown is a dog fight with no laws, absolute madness from the French ref!

@LouGoobryuss @cwik_greg .... It's very similar to the misogyny and self regard of The Sheltering Sky. Lowry and Bowles were born 18 months apart and the same age when the novels were published. Neither of them served in the war and I think that's the key to both books

@LouGoobryuss @cwik_greg The alcoholism parts are amazing but the authorial decision to add the movie star wife and include the younger self insert brother are laughable but usually glossed over by it's admirers. The ending is utterly ridiculous as well....

If I could make someone read any book there has ever been, it would probably be Under the Volcano. I've read it 5.5 times and will read it more before I die.

@JokermenPodcast This is Bob's biggest fraud yet. Worse than the autopen or his plastic surgery. We were promised Rough and Rowdy Ways!

RIP Rough And Rowdy Ways Tour November 2, 2021- March 23rd, 2026

@witte_sergei He's winding down nothing. Chabad control him through Kushner, Witkoff and Lutnick. They are determined to destroy Iran *AND* the wealth of the American and European middle class.

Winding down this war quickly is probably ideal, especially if Israel can be left holding the bag, but Trump has a long track record of excitedly announcing incoming deals that turned out to be basically fake.

@KellyKilfeather @AaronBastani Use your brain. Who kills Muslim leaders?

@AaronBastani Honestly… hard to tell if he meant Israel or Iran would kill them. He also said “they knew things were going to happen before they happened”, which sounds like an informant But I also wouldn’t be surprised if Witkoff / Kushner made someone up, to get trump to reverse course

This is crazy. Seems like a tacit admission that whoever America tries to negotiate with Israel will…kill?

@EmmettStinson Toni Morrison is the obvious heir of Faulkner. The range of difference between her and McCarthy demonstrates that he was not simply a Faulkner disciple

I do like that a great many McCarthy stans have responded by saying, 'no, no, only the first half of his career is Faulkner pastiche. The second half is very different.' Totally normal response.

@seller_tomato @haravayin_hogh Food rationing is done by price. If you can't pay you eat poison

@sergeslothrop @haravayin_hogh and how many missiles has China launched at them for having those junkies? How many shipments of fentanyl hit the ruling class? When was the last food rationing in the United States - almost half a century ago?

Americans basically get to play the world on sandbox mode, no matter how retarded the government. This is currently being proved to the comical extreme

@AaronBastani He's just extending l his self imposed deadline for hitting Iran's power grid so he doesn't lose face tonight

Trump could be going full TACO. Could be a feint, of course, but placed stories yesterday seeking to blame Mossad for being wrong about an uprising in Iran were weird. Finger pointing in Tel Aviv about who screwed up.

@tuomaszacheus @ChrisChavez He'll be on rocket fuel PEDs for the Olympics anyway so don't worry

@ChrisChavez Very stupid race by Hocker.

Epic finish of the men’s 3000m at the World Indoor Championships as Josh Kerr holds off Cole Hocker and hits the “Night Night” celebration in front of him.

@Vanyabug @Dude36509305 @I_Miss_Korolev People weren't forced to convert. They generally just added Christian dogma to their pagan beliefs which was easy to do as Judaism and Christianity are both derived from pagan mythology.

@Dude36509305 @I_Miss_Korolev No culture that encountered Christianity chose it willingly. That's a lie told by Christians

Remmick being over 1200 years old demonstrates how people don't realize how similar Irish and American black history is. The same thing happened to both cultures but it happened in Ireland around 431 AD. Even during the timeframe of the movie Irish wasn't considered "white" yet

@syriangeekvibes Last time I was at IMAX I got to hear some idiot loudly eating popcorn for an hour. Cinemas are only good if you can skilfully avoid morons who can't sit quietly

By trade I install home theater equipment. I’ve put together and seen absolutely amazing setups. I’m talking 110 inch screens with a 7.1 Dolby atmos surround sound system. I say all that to say…. Nothing will ever remotely come close to the experience you will have in the actual theaters.

@maxdaniellawton I think you are looking at the wrong kind of history slippedisc.com/2023/04/fascin…

In March 2020, I had tickets to see DIE FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER at the Met Opera, but couldn’t go because of Covid. I now have a ticket to TRISTAN UND ISOLDE at the Met Opera at the beginning of April. Does history rhyme?

@slope_s_ @tnyfrontrow Asteroid City by any metric was something new

@tnyfrontrow Wes Anderson occupies same space as Haruki Murakami to me. Your first exposure to them is thrilling but by like the 3rd/4th work you consume, they feel stale. Like come one, do something new

Wes Anderson's films are underappreciated because many critics worry that criticism isn't a serious-enough activity and therefore reject his comedic (albeit complex, substantial, even philosophical) approach to his films' truly serious matters. Dourness is taken for importance.