Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
@nathanaeltbooth.bsky.social
Pretty damn queer.
nathanaeltbooth.com
Author, GOD AND THE GREAT DETECTIVE: ELLERY QUEEN’S STRUGGLE WITH THE DIVINE, 1945-1965 (McFarland 2023)
Co-host, THE PROJECTIONIST’S LENDING LIBRARY
Academic
nathanaeltbooth.com
Author, GOD AND THE GREAT DETECTIVE: ELLERY QUEEN’S STRUGGLE WITH THE DIVINE, 1945-1965 (McFarland 2023)
Co-host, THE PROJECTIONIST’S LENDING LIBRARY
Academic
Wait, WEAPONS is set in a small town?
Sigh. Ok, I’ll bump it up the list.
Sigh. Ok, I’ll bump it up the list.
December 11, 2025 at 9:10 AM
Wait, WEAPONS is set in a small town?
Sigh. Ok, I’ll bump it up the list.
Sigh. Ok, I’ll bump it up the list.
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
Yes, and I think Tolkien would be horrified if people thought he was suggesting that even Orcs were "racial" enemies.
That the Haradrim and Easterlings are human beings and deserve to be treated with dignity (a very Catholic concept) is integral to the LOTR.
That the Haradrim and Easterlings are human beings and deserve to be treated with dignity (a very Catholic concept) is integral to the LOTR.
Tolkien's work is inflected with the racism of his time. But it's reasonably clear that while his Haradrim and Easterlings were the enemy, they did not exist to be crushed, exterminated, or destroyed. King Elessar (Aragorn) later makes peace with them:
December 10, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Yes, and I think Tolkien would be horrified if people thought he was suggesting that even Orcs were "racial" enemies.
That the Haradrim and Easterlings are human beings and deserve to be treated with dignity (a very Catholic concept) is integral to the LOTR.
That the Haradrim and Easterlings are human beings and deserve to be treated with dignity (a very Catholic concept) is integral to the LOTR.
I’m enjoying SPOON RIVER AMERICA by Jason Stacy (2021) but I would like to offer my own book from 2019 as a way to complicate this particular paragraph. mcfarlandbooks.com/product/amer...
December 11, 2025 at 8:21 AM
I’m enjoying SPOON RIVER AMERICA by Jason Stacy (2021) but I would like to offer my own book from 2019 as a way to complicate this particular paragraph. mcfarlandbooks.com/product/amer...
I’m moving through FARMINGTON much more slowly than CANE, but it’s a pretty solid slice of early-20th C small-town work.
December 11, 2025 at 8:17 AM
I’m moving through FARMINGTON much more slowly than CANE, but it’s a pretty solid slice of early-20th C small-town work.
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
Buckle in, we’re doing Romance 101 - Heated Rivalry edition. This is for all the folks showing their ignorance about what Heated Rivalry is doing. Note: Very little of this is my original thoughts. These things are Known.
December 10, 2025 at 4:51 PM
Buckle in, we’re doing Romance 101 - Heated Rivalry edition. This is for all the folks showing their ignorance about what Heated Rivalry is doing. Note: Very little of this is my original thoughts. These things are Known.
So the “Drum Island” arc of ONE PIECE gets pretty dark, huh.
December 10, 2025 at 2:38 PM
So the “Drum Island” arc of ONE PIECE gets pretty dark, huh.
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
Look at Scorsese jetting around and rummaging for ever-more-obscure movies. He has the money to indulge and indulge he does. Meanwhile, the wealthy Mr. King of the Video Store can’t manage to find a single foreign film from the last 25 years to make his Best of the 21st Century list
December 10, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Look at Scorsese jetting around and rummaging for ever-more-obscure movies. He has the money to indulge and indulge he does. Meanwhile, the wealthy Mr. King of the Video Store can’t manage to find a single foreign film from the last 25 years to make his Best of the 21st Century list
I’ve heard bad things, but I’m in the mood for another Stephen King movie. So it’s DREAMCATCHER (keeping in Derry, here)
December 10, 2025 at 11:51 AM
I’ve heard bad things, but I’m in the mood for another Stephen King movie. So it’s DREAMCATCHER (keeping in Derry, here)
Ok, so now they’re saying that the brain stays in adolescence into the 30s? This is going to be disastrous for age-gap discourse.
December 10, 2025 at 11:04 AM
Ok, so now they’re saying that the brain stays in adolescence into the 30s? This is going to be disastrous for age-gap discourse.
So the Second Story seems to have done a video on how evil fanfiction is, and I’m *not* watching that. I’ve had this video playing in the background for a bit, and apparently she wanders over into BL and danmei because of course she does. www.youtube.com/live/8kMritA...
Does FanFiction Really Ruin Everything? | Looking at The Second Story (Again)
YouTube video by nimbus
www.youtube.com
December 10, 2025 at 10:29 AM
So the Second Story seems to have done a video on how evil fanfiction is, and I’m *not* watching that. I’ve had this video playing in the background for a bit, and apparently she wanders over into BL and danmei because of course she does. www.youtube.com/live/8kMritA...
I’ve been parsing this to try to find a way it makes sense. I thought for a second that the writer meant unsexed like Lady Macbeth, but these characters are aggressively butch, so it ain’t that.
Yep it totally sounds like this show has been "desexed"
www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
December 10, 2025 at 1:27 AM
I’ve been parsing this to try to find a way it makes sense. I thought for a second that the writer meant unsexed like Lady Macbeth, but these characters are aggressively butch, so it ain’t that.
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
there is no way to put gay men doing gay men stuff on screen that will not draw out people claiming it's sanitized fluff for straight women. literally no way
Yep it totally sounds like this show has been "desexed"
www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
December 10, 2025 at 12:53 AM
there is no way to put gay men doing gay men stuff on screen that will not draw out people claiming it's sanitized fluff for straight women. literally no way
I was posting about this the other day, but there’s a marked misogyny in *some* (no idea how many; I’m not a sociologist) gay me. Cis men, probably.
me when i'm a gay man who doesn't find a fictional gay character hot: "this is made for straight women"
Yep it totally sounds like this show has been "desexed"
www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...
December 10, 2025 at 12:58 AM
I was posting about this the other day, but there’s a marked misogyny in *some* (no idea how many; I’m not a sociologist) gay me. Cis men, probably.
I say this with caution, and as an outside observer, but at this point it seems to me that feminist retellings of Greek myths are more or less the standard approach across the board. They’re not subversions anymore; they’re just the narrative.
Feminist efforts to dismantle the Jason legend have basically been the only approaches to the Argonautica published over the past half century, so adding yet another is not exactly as groundbreaking as the review claims. theconversation.com/thrilling-ne...
Thrilling new versions of Greek myths pulse with queer desire and feminist fury
In two thrilling new fictional riffs on Greek myth, Natalie Haynes and Zoe Terakes interrogate ancient stories of heroism and desire.
theconversation.com
December 9, 2025 at 11:51 PM
I say this with caution, and as an outside observer, but at this point it seems to me that feminist retellings of Greek myths are more or less the standard approach across the board. They’re not subversions anymore; they’re just the narrative.
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
mankind's oldest foe: theatre kids.
I will remind people on this website (not James, I suspect he knows) for what seems like the billionth time that Joseph Goebbels' PhD was in theater.
there is not any particularly strong evidence that study of the humanities make people good people. the elites of many brutal empires were extremely well-read!
December 9, 2025 at 11:04 PM
mankind's oldest foe: theatre kids.
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
My new book, THE MOST AWFUL RESPONSIBILITY goes on sale TODAY! It is a NEW argument about TRUMAN AND THE ATOMIC BOMB, from Hiroshima through the Korean War, from HarperCollins. alexwellerstein.com/writing/book...
The Most Awful Responsibility – Alex Wellerstein
alexwellerstein.com
December 9, 2025 at 12:04 PM
My new book, THE MOST AWFUL RESPONSIBILITY goes on sale TODAY! It is a NEW argument about TRUMAN AND THE ATOMIC BOMB, from Hiroshima through the Korean War, from HarperCollins. alexwellerstein.com/writing/book...
George Santos is a bad person, but it’s hard not to be charmed by the absolute glee he shows when Milo Y is being messy.
December 9, 2025 at 10:35 PM
George Santos is a bad person, but it’s hard not to be charmed by the absolute glee he shows when Milo Y is being messy.
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
Even if we would stipulate that the *only* purpose of college is vocational training (ugh) if you think you, at 18 years old, not only know for sure what your future career will be but also know better than all the professors at a college what skills you will need for that career, why bother?
December 9, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Even if we would stipulate that the *only* purpose of college is vocational training (ugh) if you think you, at 18 years old, not only know for sure what your future career will be but also know better than all the professors at a college what skills you will need for that career, why bother?
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
This is actually a good example of why the customer model is wrong.
I wouldn't have chosen poetry writing, but UNC made me take a class. And it absolutely made me become a much better writer, with an eye to concision and an ear now trained to the rhythm of words. I'm a better historian as a result.
I wouldn't have chosen poetry writing, but UNC made me take a class. And it absolutely made me become a much better writer, with an eye to concision and an ear now trained to the rhythm of words. I'm a better historian as a result.
If you are providing me with an education that is low utility in the world then it’s a disservice. My composition class spent four weeks on poetry. I’m sorry, but that only would’ve been useful if I wanted to be a poet. I don’t need to know iambic pentameter in order to be a victim advocate.
December 9, 2025 at 7:17 PM
This is actually a good example of why the customer model is wrong.
I wouldn't have chosen poetry writing, but UNC made me take a class. And it absolutely made me become a much better writer, with an eye to concision and an ear now trained to the rhythm of words. I'm a better historian as a result.
I wouldn't have chosen poetry writing, but UNC made me take a class. And it absolutely made me become a much better writer, with an eye to concision and an ear now trained to the rhythm of words. I'm a better historian as a result.
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
The White House has (1) endorsed Arianism and (2) confused the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with the Feast of the Annunciation. Not sure which is worse.
ok it’s legitimately funny that they can’t even throw red meat to Catholics without falling into heresy
December 9, 2025 at 2:15 AM
The White House has (1) endorsed Arianism and (2) confused the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with the Feast of the Annunciation. Not sure which is worse.
This is the most American thing ever, and I don’t even mean that as an insult.
It's pretty funny that the first three men to claim to have reached the North Pole were all Americans and all of them are now generally believed to have fabricated their evidence.
December 9, 2025 at 4:14 AM
This is the most American thing ever, and I don’t even mean that as an insult.
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
(2) Here’s a few female Method actors, off the top of my head: Kim Stanley, Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Ellen Burstyn, Marilyn Monroe, Estelle Parsons, Shelly Winters, Anne Bancroft, Julie Harris.
December 9, 2025 at 1:48 AM
(2) Here’s a few female Method actors, off the top of my head: Kim Stanley, Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Ellen Burstyn, Marilyn Monroe, Estelle Parsons, Shelly Winters, Anne Bancroft, Julie Harris.
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
It has been brought to my attention that Kristen Stewart did a whole thing dunking on the Method and also demonstrating she knows fuck-all about it in an interview with the New York TImes.
December 9, 2025 at 1:45 AM
It has been brought to my attention that Kristen Stewart did a whole thing dunking on the Method and also demonstrating she knows fuck-all about it in an interview with the New York TImes.
These meddling Grundys are going to make travel even more hellish for everyone.
Duffy on what he's doing to improve the airport experience for travelers: "Maybe I want a workout area where people might get some blood flowing doing some pull ups or step ups in the airport."
December 9, 2025 at 1:47 AM
These meddling Grundys are going to make travel even more hellish for everyone.
Reposted by Nathanael T. Booth (he/him)
It’s the first show I’ve seen where a sex scene fades to black then fades in again and they are still going at it
December 8, 2025 at 9:03 PM
It’s the first show I’ve seen where a sex scene fades to black then fades in again and they are still going at it