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bdmcclay.bsky.social
BDM
@bdmcclay.bsky.social
critic & essayist / my dog's name is Boswell

i have a newsletter: https://notebook.substack.com/

header image: https://collections.mfa.org/objects/237761
Pinned
some professional news
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the mirror crack’d from side to side / my fate has come upon me cried / the lady of shalott
October 1, 2025 at 2:34 AM
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Has everyone bought their copies of Moon Songs?
“MOON SONGS: THE SELECTED STORIES OF CAROL EMSHWILLER is, as it sets out to be, an exemplary primer on the work of an extraordinary writer.” @niallharrison reviews work from Carol Emshwiller locusmag.com/review/...
September 29, 2025 at 9:33 PM
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a short history of the word "spooktacular"

books.google.com/ngrams/graph...
Google Books Ngram Viewer
Google Ngrams: spooktacular, 1800-2022
books.google.com
September 28, 2025 at 9:04 PM
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tfw you’ve got a ball
September 19, 2025 at 12:44 AM
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"Politics is not the nursery."
www.unpopularfront.news/p/this-is-it
This Is It
Obedience and Support are the Same
www.unpopularfront.news
September 18, 2025 at 12:40 PM
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Announcement: my new book is BEAST MODE
September 9, 2025 at 3:59 PM
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The weeks round up: @bdmcclay.bsky.social on Sydney Sweeney; @jackhanson.bsky.social on "perfomativity:" @williamhogeland.bsky.social on TCW's bad history and more!
www.unpopularfront.news/p/good-takes...
Good Takes on Bad Discourse; Hindsight on 2020; The Age of Innocence
Reading, Watching 09.07.25
www.unpopularfront.news
September 7, 2025 at 12:54 PM
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I’m a firm believer that with SHIN GODZILLA returning to theaters, Toho should also re-release the figurines of the kaiju giving apologetic press conferences.
August 22, 2025 at 8:59 PM
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had a pretty good day but I've concluded I can just never tell when my vizier is being polite or scheming against me
August 4, 2025 at 3:36 AM
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My NYT op-ed this morning
I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/o...
Opinion | I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.
www.nytimes.com
July 15, 2025 at 11:54 AM
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"It has a really nostalgic feel" this thing is from before you were born you have nostalgia for that like you have nostalgia for Narnia
July 14, 2025 at 4:55 PM
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I hate anxiety! I was just drinking paint and I got this awful feeling that it has lead in it, even though I know I would never buy lead drinking paint, but the feeling just gnawed at me until I checked. I wish I could just be normal and enjoy my paint.
July 2, 2025 at 1:21 PM
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I laughed so hard I dropped my phone into the abyss under the ottoman
July 1, 2025 at 12:52 AM
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Next year we're reissuing Nancy Lemann's Lives of the Saints along with a new book, The Oyster Diaries, two sections of which were published in The Paris Review.
“Usually I skip the articles and go straight to the comments section. Because it provides more technical info.”

Nancy Lemann on comments sections.
buff.ly
June 27, 2025 at 3:03 PM
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I like all 3 types of movies: Period, Gay, and Fincher
June 24, 2025 at 2:17 PM
submitting a "chaos" ballot to the nyt thing bc i don't watch enough movies to do an informed one
June 24, 2025 at 7:51 PM
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CHILDREN OF MEN is going to place “surprisingly” high on the NYT Best Movies of the Century list (like #7) and it’s going to formally occasion the Strange New Respect that we all know is coming so I just want to say I have been riding for that movie since I was a sophomore in high school
June 24, 2025 at 4:39 PM
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June 20, 2025 at 8:16 PM
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Breaking News: Brad Lander, the New York City comptroller who is running for mayor, was detained by ICE agents at an immigration court as he tried to escort a migrant out of the courthouse to prevent his arrest. nyti.ms/4jWkANE
June 17, 2025 at 5:13 PM
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Lander and Padilla have set the standard that absolutely every Democratic politician should meet or exceed if they don't want to get primaried.
June 17, 2025 at 5:42 PM
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i can't read the words "A Deskful of Girls" without seeing in my head this scene from Dames (1934)
June 16, 2025 at 5:13 PM
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Hi everyone

I was denied entry, detained, and deported from the USA over the last 48 hours because of my reporting on the Columbia student protests

I arrived back in Melbourne hours ago and had my phone handed back to me upon landing
June 14, 2025 at 1:27 AM
wrote about my favorite Austen novel www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/06...
I Can Read You Like A Book: On Northanger Abbey by B. D. McClay
June 9, 2025 – “How are people, at any rate, to be understood?”
www.theparisreview.org
June 9, 2025 at 5:43 PM
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New pricing policy: a book's retail price goes up by $1 for every 100 words I have to manually italicize in it. This one will be up for preorder soon for $499.99.
May 27, 2025 at 7:49 PM