Rory McCarthy
@roryisconfused.bsky.social
Hey, it’s Rory. I like fiction and I like films and I like people. “Well, sir, I guess there’s just a meanness in this world”. U can buy me (an unemployed dude) a coffee while I hunt for jobs here https://ko-fi.com/roryisconfused
Pinned
Walking in the middle of Hampstead Heath, an American guy came up to me and said “hey, how do I get out of here?”, I said “well, that depends where you need to go”, and he looked at me like I was some fucking Alice in Wonderland character
Ah…someone has committed the only truly chic crime…even as we speak, a suave art thief makes their way through Paris to the sound of quick, tense jazz…
October 20, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Ah…someone has committed the only truly chic crime…even as we speak, a suave art thief makes their way through Paris to the sound of quick, tense jazz…
I love the bit on synesthesia in the new Patricia Lockwood
October 16, 2025 at 6:09 PM
I love the bit on synesthesia in the new Patricia Lockwood
Reposted by Rory McCarthy
I was saddened to learn of the sudden passing of Kaleb Horton. (See thread below.) One of the best American writers of his generation. Most recently at Rolling Stone, but at every outlet where his byline appeared, he had that very rare gift for literary eloquence that read like ordinary speech.
RIP Kaleb Horton
kalebhorton.ghost.io/2025-so-far/
kalebhorton.ghost.io/2025-so-far/
September 27, 2025 at 3:21 PM
I was saddened to learn of the sudden passing of Kaleb Horton. (See thread below.) One of the best American writers of his generation. Most recently at Rolling Stone, but at every outlet where his byline appeared, he had that very rare gift for literary eloquence that read like ordinary speech.
Reposted by Rory McCarthy
Really sorry to hear about the sudden passing of Kaleb Horton, a fantastic writer. Only seems fitting to share what he wrote for David Lynch kalebhorton.ghost.io/death-is-jus...
Death Is Just A Change
David Lynch has gone on to whatever the next place is. I’m very sad about it; it came at a hard time for the city of Los Angeles, a place he dearly loved, and it’s hard not to think his change of cons...
kalebhorton.ghost.io
September 27, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Really sorry to hear about the sudden passing of Kaleb Horton, a fantastic writer. Only seems fitting to share what he wrote for David Lynch kalebhorton.ghost.io/death-is-jus...
It’s Your Party and I’ll cry if I want to
September 18, 2025 at 7:01 PM
It’s Your Party and I’ll cry if I want to
This and that gets said about “what would David Foster Wallace say about our current era?”, the whole idea of the numbing addiction of ‘The Entertainment’ at the core of Infinite Jest being realised in the smart phone and all, but I reckon what he’d hone in on…
September 18, 2025 at 6:32 PM
This and that gets said about “what would David Foster Wallace say about our current era?”, the whole idea of the numbing addiction of ‘The Entertainment’ at the core of Infinite Jest being realised in the smart phone and all, but I reckon what he’d hone in on…
Reposted by Rory McCarthy
All this for a historically unpopular president.
September 18, 2025 at 10:20 AM
All this for a historically unpopular president.
Saw a Labour councillor boasting about the tariffs Starmer had negotiated with Trump, and have just seen this too. It becomes the only thing Keir’s fans can brag about: thus far, he’s managed to suck up pretty well to a fascist, he’s managed to make him bully us less than he bullies other countries.
September 18, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Saw a Labour councillor boasting about the tariffs Starmer had negotiated with Trump, and have just seen this too. It becomes the only thing Keir’s fans can brag about: thus far, he’s managed to suck up pretty well to a fascist, he’s managed to make him bully us less than he bullies other countries.
Reposted by Rory McCarthy
developed an earth-shattering crush on Conan earlier this year so watched a bunch of his early late night shows, like a creep, and was really taken aback by how properly funny and *really* odd most of it was, the cultural mainstream has become so much more sanitised over the past decade or two
I’m sure a lot of us watched Conan growing up and that show was surreal and weird and writer driven and on network tv, and now it’s just Jimmy Fallon asking Ariana Grande if she could sing Get Lucky like Christina Aguilera, like what the fuck are we doing here
September 18, 2025 at 12:28 PM
developed an earth-shattering crush on Conan earlier this year so watched a bunch of his early late night shows, like a creep, and was really taken aback by how properly funny and *really* odd most of it was, the cultural mainstream has become so much more sanitised over the past decade or two
Reposted by Rory McCarthy
thinking once again about one of the all-time great newspaper mixups, when Dennis the Menace and The Far Side got their captions swapped
September 16, 2025 at 11:11 PM
thinking once again about one of the all-time great newspaper mixups, when Dennis the Menace and The Far Side got their captions swapped
Reposted by Rory McCarthy
"But for many, and not only the young, politics is chiefly mediated through an anarchic and externally opaque torrent of short video, in which fraud is rife, critical thinking rare, and trust accrued through charisma and parasocial identification."
‘Keir Starmer is in trouble.’
New on the blog: James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) on Labour’s problems.
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
New on the blog: James Butler (@piercepenniless.bsky.social) on Labour’s problems.
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
September 18, 2025 at 11:35 AM
"But for many, and not only the young, politics is chiefly mediated through an anarchic and externally opaque torrent of short video, in which fraud is rife, critical thinking rare, and trust accrued through charisma and parasocial identification."
Reposted by Rory McCarthy
‘Robinson’s street movement is more likely to find electoral expression in Reform than any of the minuscule fascist parties. Labour’s approach to this electoral threat has so far been incoherent.’
James Butler on Labour’s problems, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
James Butler on Labour’s problems, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
James Butler | Labour’s Problems
Keir Starmer is in trouble. ‘Phase two’ of his government launched on 1 September and was immediately derailed by...
www.lrb.co.uk
September 18, 2025 at 11:23 AM
‘Robinson’s street movement is more likely to find electoral expression in Reform than any of the minuscule fascist parties. Labour’s approach to this electoral threat has so far been incoherent.’
James Butler on Labour’s problems, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
James Butler on Labour’s problems, from the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/se...
Still really, really fucking rankles me whenever people talk down Ta-Nehisi Coates. Marilynne Robinson or Rowan Williams can use an elevated register and even archaic diction and people accept it; a black guy does it — and he’s so good at it — and suddenly people think he’s getting above his station
Ian Leslie and Hadley Freeman unhappy with how Ta-Nehisi Coates writes about black people and black issues, it seems
September 18, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Still really, really fucking rankles me whenever people talk down Ta-Nehisi Coates. Marilynne Robinson or Rowan Williams can use an elevated register and even archaic diction and people accept it; a black guy does it — and he’s so good at it — and suddenly people think he’s getting above his station
It’s been dizzying going on that crawl from when Nick Griffin appeared on Question Time when I was a kid, the shock that these sort of abhorrent hateful views would get a mainstream airing, to all of this becoming the mainstream, the seeming inevitability that it’s all going to rise and take over
September 18, 2025 at 9:53 AM
It’s been dizzying going on that crawl from when Nick Griffin appeared on Question Time when I was a kid, the shock that these sort of abhorrent hateful views would get a mainstream airing, to all of this becoming the mainstream, the seeming inevitability that it’s all going to rise and take over
Reposted by Rory McCarthy
"the hard data suggests that the largest of the UK’s very real problems are no more being caused by mass immigration than they are by a group of charity fundraisers rowing past Great Yarmouth"
on.ft.com/3IsyVVu
@timharford.ft.com with his facts and reasonableness
on.ft.com/3IsyVVu
@timharford.ft.com with his facts and reasonableness
The UK’s problems aren’t caused by immigration
It’s not hard to see how so many came to worry about the issue. But the data isn’t there
on.ft.com
September 18, 2025 at 5:34 AM
"the hard data suggests that the largest of the UK’s very real problems are no more being caused by mass immigration than they are by a group of charity fundraisers rowing past Great Yarmouth"
on.ft.com/3IsyVVu
@timharford.ft.com with his facts and reasonableness
on.ft.com/3IsyVVu
@timharford.ft.com with his facts and reasonableness
Well yes it makes sense that he’s love all the gaudy golden pomp stuff, that’s Trump all over. He’d probably buy it all if he could.
King Donald the Terrible in his horse drawn golden carriage at Windsor Castle: “He said he was really, really looking forward to this.”
September 18, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Well yes it makes sense that he’s love all the gaudy golden pomp stuff, that’s Trump all over. He’d probably buy it all if he could.
Left “cancel culture” did not cause the current fascist attack on free speech, it is not them picking up the same tools, that’s an absolutely fucking nonsensical narrative and shouldn’t be entertained at all
September 18, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Left “cancel culture” did not cause the current fascist attack on free speech, it is not them picking up the same tools, that’s an absolutely fucking nonsensical narrative and shouldn’t be entertained at all
Reposted by Rory McCarthy
think if you're broadly a centrist and were suuuuuper concerned about attacks on free speech from the left and so you decided to give the right a hearing then you need to realise you were taken for QUITE the ride (and don't really have anyone to blame but yourself)
September 18, 2025 at 6:55 AM
think if you're broadly a centrist and were suuuuuper concerned about attacks on free speech from the left and so you decided to give the right a hearing then you need to realise you were taken for QUITE the ride (and don't really have anyone to blame but yourself)
“Racism is not a legitimate position” — Ta-Nehisi Coates, putting it as clearly and simply as it needs to be put.
the hard line of 'racism is not part of any conversation' is the very minimum to maintain to have a civilized order, and the reactionary centrists are among the biggest quislings around when it comes to that.
September 17, 2025 at 8:32 PM
“Racism is not a legitimate position” — Ta-Nehisi Coates, putting it as clearly and simply as it needs to be put.
!!!
September 17, 2025 at 8:29 PM
!!!
Tell you something about Ed Davey (and this is me being needlessly vulnerable all over your feed): my dad would argue that David Cameron was definitely a good guy because he had a severely disabled son (who sadly passed away), which would have made him compassionate to the disabled…
It is where people will line up to tell Ed Davey that he “can’t meme”, that they think that he’s lame because he can not “meme” like they can, that he is a loser because he does not understand “memes” with the depth that they do
September 17, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Tell you something about Ed Davey (and this is me being needlessly vulnerable all over your feed): my dad would argue that David Cameron was definitely a good guy because he had a severely disabled son (who sadly passed away), which would have made him compassionate to the disabled…
Into writing that has a sort of light angled wryness of tone while still being capable of being “poetic” (ugly bland term for a beautiful thing; maybe I mean somewhat musical) and emotive — Patricia Lockwood, Hera Lindsey Bird, Pavement, Silver Jews. There’s not much in prose fiction like this.
September 17, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Into writing that has a sort of light angled wryness of tone while still being capable of being “poetic” (ugly bland term for a beautiful thing; maybe I mean somewhat musical) and emotive — Patricia Lockwood, Hera Lindsey Bird, Pavement, Silver Jews. There’s not much in prose fiction like this.
Online is where an adult man who chooses a Japanese cartoon of a child as a picture to represent themselves will appear in your mentions to tell you that you are “cringe”
September 17, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Online is where an adult man who chooses a Japanese cartoon of a child as a picture to represent themselves will appear in your mentions to tell you that you are “cringe”
Why would your sectioning split Italy up like that. Can I just be done with the sectioning and choose Italy
For the rest of your life, you can only eat food from one of these regions. Which do you choose?
For more maps: brilliantmaps.beehiiv.com/s...
For more maps: brilliantmaps.beehiiv.com/s...
September 17, 2025 at 10:08 AM
Why would your sectioning split Italy up like that. Can I just be done with the sectioning and choose Italy
Odd to read that Robert Redford was seven years older than Bob Woodward. I wonder how many actors have played real people who were younger than them.
Robert Redford was ‘a principled force for good’, says All the President’s Men reporter Bob Woodward
Robert Redford was ‘a principled force for good’, says All the President’s Men reporter Bob Woodward
Veteran journalist played by Redford in 1976 film version of the Watergate exposé that brought down the Nixon presidency pays tribute to a ‘fiery’ friend
• Robert Redford: the incandescently handsome star who changed Hollywood forever
Bob Woodward, the journalist played by Robert Redford in the 1976 corruption exposé All the President’s Men, has paid tribute to the actor who died on Tuesday, saying he was “a noble and principled force for good”.
In a statement posted on social media, Woodward said that Redford and he had been friends for 50 years and that he “admired him – for his friendship, his fiery independence, and the way he used any platform he had to help make the world better, fairer, brighter for others”. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
September 17, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Odd to read that Robert Redford was seven years older than Bob Woodward. I wonder how many actors have played real people who were younger than them.