John Saward
@rbuas.bsky.social
flaming hydra // john.m.saward@gmail.com // ig: johnsaward
Wrote about Philip Seymour Hoffman for The Small Bow www.thesmallbow.com/p/like-a-sha...
Like a Shadow Among Other Men
Twelve years without Philip Seymour Hoffman
www.thesmallbow.com
February 10, 2026 at 5:01 PM
Wrote about Philip Seymour Hoffman for The Small Bow www.thesmallbow.com/p/like-a-sha...
Flaming Hydra officially turned 2 last Friday. It's one of the truly special and exciting places on the internet. I feel proud all the time of what a great thing it is. flaminghydra.com/issue-492/
And now we are two
Celebrating Flaming Hydra’s second birthday
flaminghydra.com
February 2, 2026 at 7:38 PM
Flaming Hydra officially turned 2 last Friday. It's one of the truly special and exciting places on the internet. I feel proud all the time of what a great thing it is. flaminghydra.com/issue-492/
Was in a bar Saturday night for the Bears game, and there really is an amazing dumb-crazy voodoo in a crowded place rising all at once from the dead during a comeback. All that begging! All these dear friends. Who's that guy? Raining sweat, babbling to himself? Who cares. You'd bail him out of jail.
January 12, 2026 at 10:46 PM
Was in a bar Saturday night for the Bears game, and there really is an amazing dumb-crazy voodoo in a crowded place rising all at once from the dead during a comeback. All that begging! All these dear friends. Who's that guy? Raining sweat, babbling to himself? Who cares. You'd bail him out of jail.
Reposted by John Saward
Wyo Hill North,
1/8/2026, 5:19:32 PM
1/8/2026, 5:19:32 PM
January 9, 2026 at 12:19 AM
Wyo Hill North,
1/8/2026, 5:19:32 PM
1/8/2026, 5:19:32 PM
Reposted by John Saward
We're going to make it
December 11, 2025 at 11:54 PM
We're going to make it
There's a scene in Gay Talese's book about building the Verrazzano Bridge where a half-foot long steel bolt falls from way up and hits an iron worker in the cheek with such insane force the tip of the bolt punctures all the way into his throat. Few weeks later he was back working on the bridge again
Time Magazine puts the "architects of AI" on its Person of the Year cover time.com/7339685/pers...
December 11, 2025 at 9:46 PM
There's a scene in Gay Talese's book about building the Verrazzano Bridge where a half-foot long steel bolt falls from way up and hits an iron worker in the cheek with such insane force the tip of the bolt punctures all the way into his throat. Few weeks later he was back working on the bridge again
Hell yes
If you'd like to get Flaming Hydra, plus two zines in the mail in the Spring and Fall, plus quarterly broadsheets next year, why it's doable here:
flaminghydra.com/subscribe
flaminghydra.com/subscribe
December 9, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Hell yes
Wrote about going home for this month's Hydra flaminghydra.com/home-for-the...
Home for the Holiday
Upper West Side; night before Thanksgiving; here’s a cousin I haven’t seen in many years, and there is some ache in having let things wither like that, letting it go on so long, all those plotlines of...
flaminghydra.com
December 3, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Wrote about going home for this month's Hydra flaminghydra.com/home-for-the...
Reposted by John Saward
Reposted by John Saward
This is one of the best and most exciting things I read all year. It's a profile of these two terminators, but there is so much brilliant, wonderful stuff in here too about human genius, obsession, confidence, & the nature of sports narratives. It's dynamite. bookshop.org/p/books/chan...
Changeover: A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men's Tennis
A Young Rivalry and a New Era of Men's Tennis
bookshop.org
November 15, 2025 at 6:09 AM
This is one of the best and most exciting things I read all year. It's a profile of these two terminators, but there is so much brilliant, wonderful stuff in here too about human genius, obsession, confidence, & the nature of sports narratives. It's dynamite. bookshop.org/p/books/chan...
Reposted by John Saward
Yes, true.
@flaminghydra.com is $3/month, it is a coop 100% owned by 60+ writers / artists who make it
Recent unpaywalled pieces:
@samthielman.com on Platner's tattoos:
flaminghydra.com/boys-lives/
@josie.zone and @zachrabiroff.com on Marvel's secret ghostwriter:
flaminghydra.com/a-swingin-su...
@flaminghydra.com is $3/month, it is a coop 100% owned by 60+ writers / artists who make it
Recent unpaywalled pieces:
@samthielman.com on Platner's tattoos:
flaminghydra.com/boys-lives/
@josie.zone and @zachrabiroff.com on Marvel's secret ghostwriter:
flaminghydra.com/a-swingin-su...
November 12, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Yes, true.
@flaminghydra.com is $3/month, it is a coop 100% owned by 60+ writers / artists who make it
Recent unpaywalled pieces:
@samthielman.com on Platner's tattoos:
flaminghydra.com/boys-lives/
@josie.zone and @zachrabiroff.com on Marvel's secret ghostwriter:
flaminghydra.com/a-swingin-su...
@flaminghydra.com is $3/month, it is a coop 100% owned by 60+ writers / artists who make it
Recent unpaywalled pieces:
@samthielman.com on Platner's tattoos:
flaminghydra.com/boys-lives/
@josie.zone and @zachrabiroff.com on Marvel's secret ghostwriter:
flaminghydra.com/a-swingin-su...
The fiction Colin's written for Hydra the last few months has really knocked me on my ass
It’s a restrained work, I hope, but I have put my whole self into this. flaminghydra.com/the-paramete...
The Parameters
On the bed in the evening, when the air is cool, I read excellent and important books while she watches movies on her iPad. I hate the iPad. The moving images in my peripheral vision distract me from ...
flaminghydra.com
November 11, 2025 at 5:53 PM
The fiction Colin's written for Hydra the last few months has really knocked me on my ass
Reposted by John Saward
Flaming Hydra is a coop. All you can do with your share is sell it back to the coop (for $1), and nobody can have more than one.
You have to be ready for growth to take a long time. Journalism is a public trust that should be accountable to readers alone, and that means readers alone pay for it.
You have to be ready for growth to take a long time. Journalism is a public trust that should be accountable to readers alone, and that means readers alone pay for it.
How does one invest in left-wing media without a far-right billionaire coming along in a few years, buying said media, and remodeling it in his own image?
That seems to be a recurring problem.
That seems to be a recurring problem.
November 7, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Flaming Hydra is a coop. All you can do with your share is sell it back to the coop (for $1), and nobody can have more than one.
You have to be ready for growth to take a long time. Journalism is a public trust that should be accountable to readers alone, and that means readers alone pay for it.
You have to be ready for growth to take a long time. Journalism is a public trust that should be accountable to readers alone, and that means readers alone pay for it.
Reposted by John Saward
This rocks
Today at Flaming Hydra, I interviewed film and media historian @alicelovejoy.bsky.social on her deeply-researched new book uncovering the role played by Kodak—the household brand that popularized the snapshot—and other film manufacturers in industrial warfare.
Kodak, for the Wartimes of Your Life
Kodak, the company that popularized the “snapshot” and made photography accessible to the world, produced much more than the friendly, once-ubiquitous film rolls sold worldwide in their small, vivid y...
flaminghydra.com
November 6, 2025 at 6:23 PM
This rocks
Wrote about Italy, Caravaggio and man against the machine flaminghydra.com/caravaggio-s...
Caravaggio, Sam Altman, and Me
I was wandering around a humid church in Rome, vibrating on no sleep, and there was a murder going down on the wall. It can feel sometimes in these kind of places like you are hallucinating, the smell...
flaminghydra.com
November 4, 2025 at 2:01 AM
Wrote about Italy, Caravaggio and man against the machine flaminghydra.com/caravaggio-s...
Reposted by John Saward
Current* conditions near Michigan City, IN:
October 23, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Current* conditions near Michigan City, IN:
Maybe nothing in sports as close to hard drugs as watching a bullpen rollicking in and out of jams, wet hair and strange jewelry, spitting and cursing, having entire conversations with themselves. A ship of filthy pirates drunk on the high seas.
October 11, 2025 at 4:36 AM
Maybe nothing in sports as close to hard drugs as watching a bullpen rollicking in and out of jams, wet hair and strange jewelry, spitting and cursing, having entire conversations with themselves. A ship of filthy pirates drunk on the high seas.
Reposted by John Saward
Clairemont, San Diego @rbuas.bsky.social @damonagnos.bsky.social
September 17, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Clairemont, San Diego @rbuas.bsky.social @damonagnos.bsky.social
Reposted by John Saward
Current* conditions near Grand Haven, MI:
September 11, 2025 at 5:07 AM
Current* conditions near Grand Haven, MI:
There's an ancient-looking tree on the corner between us and the elementary school and some city guys came by to take it down. They sent one of them up into the air in the little bucket with a chainsaw, and every time he cut a branch off the schoolkids all went nuts like there was a walk-off homer.
September 8, 2025 at 11:26 PM
There's an ancient-looking tree on the corner between us and the elementary school and some city guys came by to take it down. They sent one of them up into the air in the little bucket with a chainsaw, and every time he cut a branch off the schoolkids all went nuts like there was a walk-off homer.