Summer Brennan
@summerbrennan.bsky.social
Award-winning writer and Orion Book Award finalist. American in Paris. Books: THE OYSTER WAR; HIGH HEEL. Next: THE PARISIAN SPHINX, A TRUE TALE OF ART & OBSESSION. Leonard Cohen blew me a kiss one time.
Substack: https://www.awritersnotebook.org/
Substack: https://www.awritersnotebook.org/
From Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, 1985.
January 6, 2026 at 8:32 AM
From Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, 1985.
Reposted by Summer Brennan
Happy new year, lovely creatures. To better days ahead.
January 1, 2026 at 5:51 AM
Happy new year, lovely creatures. To better days ahead.
I loved this woman's can-do attitude and the accidental joy it brought. A legend. www.rte.ie/news/2025/12...
Spanish woman known for failed fresco restoration dies
The Spanish woman whose failed restoration of a century-old painting of Jesus Christ captured global headlines more than a decade ago has died at 94.
www.rte.ie
December 31, 2025 at 3:46 AM
I loved this woman's can-do attitude and the accidental joy it brought. A legend. www.rte.ie/news/2025/12...
Charles Dickens's handwritten draft of A Christmas Carol in the Morgan Library archives www.themorgan.org/collections/...
December 26, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Charles Dickens's handwritten draft of A Christmas Carol in the Morgan Library archives www.themorgan.org/collections/...
Reposted by Summer Brennan
This is an almost shockingly wise essay. I'm glad I've finally read it.
There Is No Mary Problem in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’
George’s vision of his wife without him is essential to the film, but critics continue to miss its true—and profound—meaning.
open.substack.com
December 24, 2025 at 12:34 AM
This is an almost shockingly wise essay. I'm glad I've finally read it.
Reposted by Summer Brennan
Oof
FFC review: AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH (2025), by Walter Chaw (@mangiotto.bsky.social). filmfreakcentral.net/2025/12/avat...
Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) - FILM FREAK CENTRAL
ZERO STARS/****starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winsletscreenplay by James Cameron & Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silverdirected by James Cameron by Walter Chaw I think, for white ...
filmfreakcentral.net
December 22, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Oof
Thanks for another absurdly inaccurate and also un-turn-off-able AI summary, Google. By all means, have it take up the whole page too. Really appreciate it.
December 22, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Thanks for another absurdly inaccurate and also un-turn-off-able AI summary, Google. By all means, have it take up the whole page too. Really appreciate it.
Reposted by Summer Brennan
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Seems like it's worth posting this one again.
Why Do Historians Still Have To Go To Archives?
Why do historians go to archives? Hasn’t everything already been digitized?
contingentmagazine.org
December 22, 2025 at 1:40 AM
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Reposted by Summer Brennan
The thing about the archive is that you don’t even know what you’re looking for until you’re looking at it. I spent half my time with manuscript and typescript archives looking at the backs of pages that were written on
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Seems like it's worth posting this one again.
December 22, 2025 at 4:50 AM
The thing about the archive is that you don’t even know what you’re looking for until you’re looking at it. I spent half my time with manuscript and typescript archives looking at the backs of pages that were written on
Reposted by Summer Brennan
yes of all the horror stories of AI, I think the use of "synthetic publics" to do research on might be - in a very crowded field - the worst one?
*as a novelist* - I can write you fake characters who believe whatever you like. it is just stories.
this is a whole culture developing AI psychosis.
*as a novelist* - I can write you fake characters who believe whatever you like. it is just stories.
this is a whole culture developing AI psychosis.
Pleased to see this piece. Personally, I find these uses of synthetic data v concerning and I find the traction and endorsements that this work has to be quite baffling, esp given the well-storied role of algorithmic targeting in undermining democracy
"We risk inheriting a future in which institutions answer to synthetic publics rather than real ones" rebootdemocracy.ai/blog/researc...
December 22, 2025 at 10:36 AM
yes of all the horror stories of AI, I think the use of "synthetic publics" to do research on might be - in a very crowded field - the worst one?
*as a novelist* - I can write you fake characters who believe whatever you like. it is just stories.
this is a whole culture developing AI psychosis.
*as a novelist* - I can write you fake characters who believe whatever you like. it is just stories.
this is a whole culture developing AI psychosis.
With a stock photo image of Beatles fans watching the band deplane in 1964 🙃 www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-fans-of-the-beatles-at-airport-waiting-for-their-news-photo/517474856?adppopup=true
December 19, 2025 at 4:08 PM
With a stock photo image of Beatles fans watching the band deplane in 1964 🙃 www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-fans-of-the-beatles-at-airport-waiting-for-their-news-photo/517474856?adppopup=true
Reposted by Summer Brennan
"Profits collapsed. Newsroom morale soared."
Amazing piece from @joannastern.bsky.social
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...
Amazing piece from @joannastern.bsky.social
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...
We Let AI Run Our Office Vending Machine. It Lost Hundreds of Dollars.
An AI agent ran a snack operation in the WSJ newsroom. It gave away a free PlayStation, ordered a live fish—and taught us lessons about the future of AI.
www.wsj.com
December 18, 2025 at 5:01 PM
"Profits collapsed. Newsroom morale soared."
Amazing piece from @joannastern.bsky.social
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...
Amazing piece from @joannastern.bsky.social
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...
Reposted by Summer Brennan
Reading @elizmccrack.bsky.social’s craft book on fiction A LONG GAME—one of my favorite reads this year—and connected with everything but especially this through-line (which I might be enlarging) of articulable learnings against the intuitive and ineffable execution.
December 18, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Reading @elizmccrack.bsky.social’s craft book on fiction A LONG GAME—one of my favorite reads this year—and connected with everything but especially this through-line (which I might be enlarging) of articulable learnings against the intuitive and ineffable execution.
Reposted by Summer Brennan
Man answering his phone on the train: Yes? Correct, I’m not at work (pause) I’m not going to answer that because I am not at work today. No, you’re going to have to ask someone who is. Goodbye.
December 17, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Man answering his phone on the train: Yes? Correct, I’m not at work (pause) I’m not going to answer that because I am not at work today. No, you’re going to have to ask someone who is. Goodbye.
Reposted by Summer Brennan
When Rob Reiner was on his all-time epic run at the start of his career, he had an opportunity to read a script that was looking for a production partner, and he lost his mind for it. He decided Castle Rock had to have it, no matter what.
December 15, 2025 at 7:37 AM
When Rob Reiner was on his all-time epic run at the start of his career, he had an opportunity to read a script that was looking for a production partner, and he lost his mind for it. He decided Castle Rock had to have it, no matter what.
Once upon a time we learned how to drive cars. In rain, in snow, in fog. We looked at maps. We remembered routes. Think twice about technology that renders you dependent and helpless.
tesla owners admitting without shame they don’t know how to drive anymore
December 15, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Once upon a time we learned how to drive cars. In rain, in snow, in fog. We looked at maps. We remembered routes. Think twice about technology that renders you dependent and helpless.
Once again: generative AI create plausible-seeming lorem ipsum text. That's it.
December 15, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Once again: generative AI create plausible-seeming lorem ipsum text. That's it.
Reposted by Summer Brennan
A Few Good Men. Best in Show. A Mighty Wind. Miss Congeniality. Barcelona. All three movies in Linklater's "Before" trilogy. Music & Lyrics. Michael Clayton. All films that were able to be made because of the production company Reiner co-founded in order to give talented filmmakers creative freedom.
without Rob Reiner’s Castle Rock production company we wouldn’t have:
City Slickers, Honeymoon in Vegas, In the Line of Fire, The Shawshank Redemption, Before Sunrise, Dolores Claiborne, Lone Star, Waiting for Guffman, and more - in a six-year period alone
City Slickers, Honeymoon in Vegas, In the Line of Fire, The Shawshank Redemption, Before Sunrise, Dolores Claiborne, Lone Star, Waiting for Guffman, and more - in a six-year period alone
December 15, 2025 at 6:31 AM
A Few Good Men. Best in Show. A Mighty Wind. Miss Congeniality. Barcelona. All three movies in Linklater's "Before" trilogy. Music & Lyrics. Michael Clayton. All films that were able to be made because of the production company Reiner co-founded in order to give talented filmmakers creative freedom.
Reposted by Summer Brennan
I try not to know the sales numbers of my own books or others, but it appears that my book on writing has this week outsold Olivia Nuzzi's book on activities that she enjoys (including, I presume, writing). Not vastly outsold, so I have included a link.
www.harpercollins.com/products/a-l...
www.harpercollins.com/products/a-l...
A Long Game
From bestselling and award-winning author and professor Elizabeth McCracken comes an irresistible look at the art of writing.
Writing can feel like an endle...
www.harpercollins.com
December 12, 2025 at 9:46 PM
I try not to know the sales numbers of my own books or others, but it appears that my book on writing has this week outsold Olivia Nuzzi's book on activities that she enjoys (including, I presume, writing). Not vastly outsold, so I have included a link.
www.harpercollins.com/products/a-l...
www.harpercollins.com/products/a-l...
AI only produces lorem ipsum that sometimes sounds coherent on the surface. It does not "write."
“Machines can predict, remix, and regenerate. Only humans can report.” www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/in-2...
December 12, 2025 at 7:07 PM
AI only produces lorem ipsum that sometimes sounds coherent on the surface. It does not "write."
Reposted by Summer Brennan
Wow, I love the idea of an Anthony Jeselnik Book Club! www.vulture.com/article/anth...
Anthony Jeselnik’s 2026 Resolution Is to Make Guys Read
“I’d like to go a bit deeper than just holding up a book and saying, ‘This month we’re reading this,’ and then never mentioning it again.”
www.vulture.com
December 11, 2025 at 4:21 AM
Wow, I love the idea of an Anthony Jeselnik Book Club! www.vulture.com/article/anth...
Reposted by Summer Brennan
Rereading Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden, posthumously published in 1986, and was struck by this passage this morning—his novelist character is doing the math on his sales, earning out his advance after selling 5000 copies. A simpler time (likely setting for this is circa 1926).
December 11, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Rereading Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden, posthumously published in 1986, and was struck by this passage this morning—his novelist character is doing the math on his sales, earning out his advance after selling 5000 copies. A simpler time (likely setting for this is circa 1926).
Before AI, I never heard writers talk about "refining" our work. We edited, we polished. I don't recall "refining" being a thing until AI decided it was a good euphemism for "edit" so as not to hurt people's feelings. Nothing needs to be edited or improved in AI land, only "refined," like a jewel.
I've been seeing people say about their work lately, "I used AI in the edits & refining of this piece, but it's all my own words & ideas."
I think people don't quite understand what "my own words" means. If you're using AI, the words are not your own. They are an amalgam of other people's words.
I think people don't quite understand what "my own words" means. If you're using AI, the words are not your own. They are an amalgam of other people's words.
December 6, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Before AI, I never heard writers talk about "refining" our work. We edited, we polished. I don't recall "refining" being a thing until AI decided it was a good euphemism for "edit" so as not to hurt people's feelings. Nothing needs to be edited or improved in AI land, only "refined," like a jewel.
Reposted by Summer Brennan
They are betting AI will replace us. Make them lose the bet.
The markets are staying afloat right now on the hope that AI will destroy American workers. What a bleak thing.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/b...
November 30, 2025 at 3:07 AM
They are betting AI will replace us. Make them lose the bet.