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Caleb Crain

@calebcrain.bsky.social

3.6K followers 550 following 2.3K posts

Into #birding, #CrossFit, and sometimes writing. Wrote the novels "Necessary Errors" and "Overthrow" More at https://calebcrain.substack.com and https://steamthing.com. New short story! https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/08/12/clay-fiction-caleb-c

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · Nov 26

Hi, new followers! I wrote "Necessary Errors," a gay coming-of-age novel set in Prague a year after the Berlin Wall fell, and "Overthrow," a novel about Occupy protesters aswim in surveillance. My short stories have won n+1's Anthony Veasna So prize and the Paris Review's Susannah Hunnewell prize.

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Dr. Aaron Thierry @thierryaaron.bsky.social · 1d

A partner to this similarly jaw-dropping chart...

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 1d

Just remembered this jaw-dropping graph by @oceansclimatecu.bsky.social showing the rate of change in CO2 during the previous two deglaciations of the Pleistocene (which, as a fun aside, featured ~400 feet of sea level rise) as compared with today

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 1d

A silly frog costume is an excellent way to protest ICE. Maybe couldn't be improved upon. It says we are not afraid. It says you are being ridiculous, so we will be just as ridiculous. And it punctures and deflates the illusion of "menacing rioters" that ICE is trying to project onto the crowds.

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Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 1d

I’m sorry, I love this

Lux "Nightmare" Alptraum @luxalptraum.com · 1d

TFW you paid $1400 to see Beckett’s most famous work without knowing anything about it

One Star Review of Waiting for Godot on Broadway
I recently attended Waiting for Godot on Broadway and spent over $1,400 for two Row C seats (103 and 104). I'm a longtime admirer of Broadway productions and even hold a season pass for Shea's Performing Arts Theatre, so I came in with genuine enthusiasm and high expectations. Unfortunately, this show was unlike anything ! have ever experienced —and not in a good way.
What I encountered was not the artistry, music, or emotional storytelling I usually associate with Broadway, but instead what felt like an endless cycle of nonsensical conversation between characters who seemed trapped in their own madness. I tried-truly tried-to find meaning, symbolism, or even a thread of emotional resonance. I stayed through the first half hoping the second would offer clarity. But by intermission, it was clear: this was a waste of both time and money.
Keanu Reeves is an actor I respect greatly, but I cannot fathom why he would agree to participate in such a disjointed, inaccessible production. His talent was lost in a performance that defied reason rather than provoked insight.
To anyone considering attending: unless you are drawn to highly abstract, nearly incomprehensible theater, I strongly caution you against this show. For the average, educated, thoughtful theatergoer, it is far more frustrating than fulfilling. In my opinion, this was the single most disappointing Broadway experience I've ever had - an unfortunate waste of money and, more importantly, of time.

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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 1d

I’m going to be very disappointed if my local bookstore doesn’t have a novel called “The Girlfriend of Antifa” out on its front display table sometime next year. Or it could be a short story collection.

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Nicholas Slayton @nslayton.bsky.social · 1d

Coming around to the theory that they're Truman Showing him

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

Good lord.

@apnews.com

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Adam Keiper @adamkeiper.com · 1d

not doing much to disprove the allegations of mental decline

Brad Heath @bradheath.bsky.social · 1d

WSJ: President Trump believed his Truth Social post demanding prosecutions of James Comey and other political foes was a private message to his attorney general, and "and was surprised to learn it was public."

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah, I spent an hour today trying to resist replying, to this one guy, "I am probably as old as your grandmother, and I already know how to suck eggs."

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Adam Sternbergh @sternbergh.bsky.social · 1d

A cartoon rendering of a woman in a purple dress with long black hair, it is Natasha Fatale, girlfriend of Boris in Rocky and Bullwinkle

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 1d

I've been trying to be philosophical lately about what people do with QTs of me, too, but it's hard when they're completely wrongheaded.

Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 1d

“If I were a science fiction writer I would be working on a story about venture capitalists building a runaway artificial intelligence that will likely enslave or destroy humankind, only to be thwarted by a minor poet suing them for copyright violations for scraping her poems.”

AI Insurance Is Expensive

P(doom), STAAR Surgical projections, Bitcoin life insurance and YouTube self-help.

www.bloomberg.com

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 1d

repost this if an editor has ever saved you from yourself

violent alien @blipstress.bsky.social · 1d

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 1d

What if the pee tape was just the Epstein Polaroids that we had in DOJ custody all along?

Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.bsky.social · 1d

This is fascinating. I would bet trump doesn’t care if we see photos of him with topless girls - but he certainly does not want us to see them laughing at him and pointing.

Richard Power @wyrdsofpower.bsky.social · 1d

I’ve seen the pictures of Trump with Epstein’s girls. Here’s what’s in them - @michaelwolffnyc.bsky.social

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1d

The elimination of USAID is a moral atrocity and all involved made a choice to enable, and then lie about, ending the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) - Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family's food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food.
On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher's little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: "No one has died" because of his government's decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: "No children are dying on my watch."
That, Taher says, "is a lie."

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Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 1d

I will not back down.

Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power.

What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?

Donald Trump Truth Social Post: Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also.

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 1d

“Harvard may be partly to blame for encouraging student absences, with a policy that allows students to enroll in two classes that meet at the same time.”

Harvard Students Skip Class and Still Get High Grades, Faculty Say

www.nytimes.com

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Cristian Farias @cristianfarias.com · 2d

Supreme Court on banning gender-affirming care for trans youth: Sure, that's fine, no constitutional violation.

Supreme Court on banning so-called conversion therapy for gay youth: No, can't have that, grave constitutional violation.

Here, Ketanji Brown Jackson gets to the bottom of it:

Excerpt of Supreme Court transcript in Chiles v. Salazar:

JUSTICE JACKSON: No, but here's what
I mean, right? In Skrmetti, we had a state
that wanted to prohibit certain medical
treatment, gender-affirming care, being given
to minors in the form of medication.
And we said that was okay. And I
understand there are particulars with respect
to how the -- the arguments, the constitutional
arguments, worked, but the state can prohibit
that.

Here, we have a state that wants to
prohibit gender-related medical treatment in
the form of talk therapy, but we now have the
First Amendment that is inhibiting the state's
ability to do that.

And I'm just, from a very, very broad
perspective, concerned about making sure that
we have equivalence with respect to these
things.

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Tim Watson @timwatson.bsky.social · 2d

Today I'm thinking about the fact that the first Black person elected to Congress, John Willis Menard in 1868, was never sworn in and seated.

He won a special election for the US House in Louisiana after the previous rep died, but his white opponent (a Democrat, of course) contested the election.

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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 2d

She’s left us no choice. It’s time for Isaac Chotiner to interview Bari Weiss.

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Leaving FilmStruck @leavingfilmstrk.bsky.social · 18d

Another incredible photo of Rev. David Black being assaulted by ICE agents outside an ICE facility in Broadview. Photo by Ashlee Rezin, Chicago Sun-Times

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Gene Ha @geneha.com · 2d

“The Rev. David Black of First Presbyterian Church recoils as a U.S. Customs and Border agents deploy tear gas and pepper balls Friday at the Broadview ICE facility outside Chicago. Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times”

Source: Chicago Sun-Times Sept 20, 2025 chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

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Kurt @flglchicago.bsky.social · 2d

Here’s video of the incident

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 2d

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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Jennifer Szalai @jenszalai.bsky.social · 2d

I was struck by that line too. I reviewed Walter’s book “How Civil Wars Start” when it was published way back in 2022. her analysis was incisive; I was hoping it wouldn’t be prescient:
www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/b...

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Caleb Crain @calebcrain.bsky.social · 2d

Chilling insight by @barbarafwalter.com: "Once citizens view their own government’s security forces as an occupying army, violence becomes inevitable. Trump’s team knows this… They’re trying to trigger the very unrest that would justify further crackdowns."

via www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/o...

Screenshot from a NYT article by Thomas Edsall, quoting Barbara Walter of UC-San Diego: "The quickest way to piss people off is to send soldiers into their neighborhoods especially when there’s no reason for them to be there. It’s inherently provocative, and Trump and his team understand this. Research by the political scientist Robert Pape shows that the single most powerful predictor of suicide terrorism is the presence of foreign troops on local soil. People hate, hate, hate that. They hate the humiliation, the powerlessness, the feeling of being occupied.

"Once citizens begin to view their own government’s security forces as an occupying army, violence becomes inevitable. Trump’s team knows this. In fact, that’s the point. They are not trying to restore order; they’re trying to trigger the very unrest that would justify further crackdowns. In the end, violence serves their ultimate end: They want to create the illusion of disorder so they can tighten control and stay in power indefinitely."

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