Patrick Nathan
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patricknathan.bsky.social
Patrick Nathan
@patricknathan.bsky.social
790 followers 220 following 750 posts
author // freelance copy/dev editor // he/him // patrick dot nathan at gmail

twitter's death is a good thing and we don't need do it again
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patricknathan.bsky.social
discovered the same texture thing in Paris earlier this year - this is 35mm 400TX from an Olympus OM1-D
a bridge spans the Seine while an avenue vanishes into the shadow between two Haussmann buildings
December 14, 2025 at 5:13 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
btw I lived in Europe for three months and forgot to tell anyone
Me in swim trunks in mid cartwheel on the deck of a sailboat, the ship’s wheel in the foreground; on the horizon, a few small hills line the Mediterranean
December 14, 2025 at 2:39 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
watching White Lotus, intrigued by evil Jon Hamm
Press shot of Jason Isaacs
February 18, 2025 at 11:50 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
Btw for anyone wondering why "the left" has become so obsessed with the culture of punishment, exclusion, purity, and disqualification, I wrote a book about the fascist function of social media, including websites like this one. patricknathan.com/image-control
paperback copy of Image Control: Social Media, Fascism, and the Dismantling of Democracy, lying flat on a blonde wood table
February 18, 2025 at 5:29 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
Blurb Box is my fav blurb joke btw
still from 2018's shit show, Bird Box, with the following phrases surrounding Sandra Bullock's blindfolded face: "luminously dark the result is a haunting isn't afraid shows us what it means to darkly illuminating at the same time a rectangular meditation transcends a volcanic eruption of a new voice in cookbook writing tour d'eiffel it was fine"
February 17, 2025 at 11:06 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
Ayşegül Savaş, The Anthropologists
Life and Death All this time, we were waiting. For the news of some momentous change; that we were being summoned to serve in real life; that the time for playing games was over. We lived with the abstract shape of the news, informing us that it had arrived. We lived with the imaginary shock. Maybe, I thought, it would also be a relief: Here it was, finally. Here was life itself. I scanned abstractly through the list of things awaiting us, like probing an aching tooth, but I couldn't bear to think specifically about any of it.
February 17, 2025 at 9:55 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
when the essay idea hits
still from The Two Towers: Gollum, from the scene where he’s speaking to his reflection, cradles his head in his right hand, looking incredibly distressed
February 17, 2025 at 3:16 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
can’t wait to use my cereal
top corner of a cereal box: “best if used by: 9/24/25 12:05”
February 16, 2025 at 12:03 AM
patricknathan.bsky.social
The Guardian is saying that people saved Rushdie because they were readers and books gave them empathy, so it’s a good time to peddle my anti-fetishistic wares patricknathan.substack.com/p/faithless-...
Contemporaneous with this shift from producing books to producing authors are the perennial justifications of reading as an activity. In the second decade of this century, for example, most literary magazines and book review sections published some version of the “empathy” article, citing various studies and quoting myriad scientists whose findings indicated that reading fiction was correlated with an increased capacity for empathy, which made it scientifically and socially useful to read novels – as if they were vitamins.
February 15, 2025 at 2:20 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
screenshot from Entertainment, Weakly: “is the movie really an underrated masterpiece or did you have it on VHS before your parents got divorced” posted Feb 4
February 14, 2025 at 2:36 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
from iMessage: “feels like 2017 on bluesky (derogatory)”
February 13, 2025 at 10:43 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
Well, I did write a historical novel about making a life and finding pleasure despite the apocalypse bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
Screenshot of the LA Times: the headline says “Seeking happiness despite McCarthyism”
February 13, 2025 at 9:12 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
short story proofs
an angled view of a printout with a pen blocking the title; the first sentence reads "By then, Monica was primed to see the dog as salvation."
February 13, 2025 at 7:28 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
Noam Chomsky waving to a camera at his desk, in his home
January 28, 2025 at 1:51 AM
patricknathan.bsky.social
In addition to writing books and being annoying online, I also edit manuscripts. If you have a book (or even pieces of one) and you’re looking for professional feedback, hmu patricknathan.com/manuscript-c... Thank you 💙
With a strict eye toward pacing, tone, character, syntax, vocabulary, plot developments, prose style, and structure, we’ll anticipate many of the hesitations editors, agents, and even reviewers may encounter. From simple line-by-line critiques to in-depth, ongoing consultations, my goal is to bring writers outside of their perceptions and into the manuscript itself, ensuring that all its questions are, if not resolved, at least addressed, and that you’ve created the strongest possible work.
January 27, 2025 at 5:07 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
Denis Johnson
One changes so much from moment to moment that when one hugs oneself against the chill air at the inception of spring, at night, knees drawn to chin, he finds himself in the arms of a total stranger, the arms of one he might move away from on the dark playground.
January 27, 2025 at 4:20 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
on the hold shelf at my local library 😭
books spine out on a library shelf; The Future Was Color is among them
January 27, 2025 at 1:14 AM
patricknathan.bsky.social
resharing this since the paper of record is just tech autocracy propaganda today patricknathan.substack.com/p/choking-on...
Like social media, online retail, and every other aspect of the socio-commercial internet, "Al" is not a product; it is propaganda meant to degrade labor, steal intellectual property, destabilize facts, discredit government institutions and regulatory agencies, destroy the environment, and corrode democratic society. What "Al" makes clearer than all previous iterations of this propaganda is, in its total disregard for the environment, the unwavering reality of our widespread allegiance to Silicon Valley technology: a future where you beg men like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk for a drink of water.
January 26, 2025 at 2:29 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
Just read these three in a row. All out later this year. All marvelous. Lots of stuff going on, lots to think about, lots to enjoy. Don’t let the discourse get you.
three ARCs arranged in a row on a table. From left to right: Katie Kitamura’s Audition, Ada Calhoun’s Crush, Hal Ebbott’s Among Friends
January 25, 2025 at 5:19 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
cher monsieur macron enclosed is my application for prime minister of France when do I start
photo of rather beautifully laminated pain au chocolat arranged on parchment paper
December 6, 2024 at 3:42 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
Wrote about buttholes and smartphones after a brief trip to New York
I went (and was invited, I suppose) because it’s easy for me to see the shadow in hole care— the same shadow in all beauty products, which DeFino writes about so marvelously. As I said then, if you’ve eaten your share of ass you know that each has its own flavor; like dicks and tits and cunts, every asshole is unique. But if you listen to the companies trying to sell us serums, creams, scrubs, and so forth, you’d think there’s only one acceptable kind of asshole: smooth, silky, pale, puckered, hairless, and above all shitless. This is the idealized asshole that beauty marketeers, in their copy and graphics, have created as the imagined standard; its perfection is advertised at us relentlessly while scrolling or browsing. In fact, like many aspects of sex and of beauty, the smartphone is inseparable from beautifying the asshole.
October 8, 2024 at 5:47 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
time for bart fall tbh
Bart Simpson reading a book on the couch under a lamp
September 25, 2024 at 1:14 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
what am I doing in New York? well, I'm glad you asked
The Hole Debate: A One Night Only Debate on the State of Our Holes, October 3rd, doors at 6:00, show at 7:00, Duane Park, 308 Bowery, New York
September 23, 2024 at 6:24 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
hope this helps 👍🏻
This is why centrists react: they can’t envision a culture or a society in which they don’t profit from genocide. This, too, is why so many neoliberal intellectuals and entertainers veered to the right after Trump destabilized centrist power and invited a more visible and vocal leftist opposition. After decades of talking down to them, of making fun of them or making vulgar entertainment about their deepest beliefs, however harmful, the “tell it like it is” neoliberal (e.g., Bill Maher) has realized how important fascists are for their own livelihood and identity. Because just as they ingratiate themselves to fascists, so too must they ingratiate themselves leftward: at least I’m not a Republican, so you’ve got to hear me out. This is that “both sides” centrists imagine themselves between, regulating the language, the comportment, of vulnerable people and those who want to kill them.
September 23, 2024 at 3:55 PM
patricknathan.bsky.social
writing about 25 years of this absolutely marvelous thing
album cover of The Fragile, by Nine Inch Nails
September 20, 2024 at 4:53 PM