longreads | Recent Entries

Happy Monday(?)! I don't know about you, but I'm a K-12 educator and I am counting the days until summer vacation. Only five Mondays left for this school year… (Don't worry, I will continue posting over the summer!)

Violent Delights: The serial killer media industrial complex rages on, but what has it taught us? (2022/12)
Technology is supposed to decrease teacher burnout – but we found it can sometimes make it worse (2025/01)
AI Therapy is a Surveillance Machine in a Police State (2025/05)
Cringe! How Millenials Became Uncool (2025/05)
From the archives: Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves (2018/01)
Podcast episode: A Little Bit Culty: Healing In Public: Sarma Melngailis on Life After Netflix

Current Mood: burned out

matsushima

The Price of Remission (2025/05)
When the World Connected on Skype (2025/04)
People are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies (2025/05)
Everyone Is Cheating Their Way through College: ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project. (2025/07)
The Translator's Dilemma: Thinking vs Doing (2025/05)
From the archives: How the Berenstain Bears Found Salvation (2016/10)
Poetry: We Lived Happily During the War, by Ilya Kaminsky

I've added the category "From the archives," which I'll use for any article more than five years old.

Current Mood: energetic

matsushima

Good morning and happy Monday!

Reading Behind Bars, and Beyond Barriers (2025/04)
The Girl in the Kent State Photo (2021/04)
tw: police violence, gun violence, photo of a dead body
When a Child’s Life Becomes the Family Business (2025/04)
Rewriting the Relationship Between Elephant and Keeper (2025/04)
Fiction: To Hurt a Haunted House, by Stephanie Wytovich
Podcast: Behind the Bastards: That Time the British Did a Genocide in Ireland (Part 1)

Two nonprofits this week: CD Books to Prisons is the nonprofit highlighted in the first article. There's also the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop for incarcerated people in MN.

Current Mood: okay

matsushima

Sorry (not sorry) to double post today but this article deserved its own space and I'd love to discuss it with other former Harry Potter fans.

A statement from an HBO spokesperson claimed that the [reboot] would benefit from Rowling’s involvement and that Rowling has the right to her beliefs.

While that may be true, the statement from HBO goes on to say: “We are proud to once again tell the story of ‘Harry Potter’ — the heartwarming books that speak to power, friendship, resolve and acceptance.” Note the last word in that sentence, and you’ll spot the dissonance between HBO’s statement and the reality of the situation. Rowling’s role in the show’s production is directly tied to its existence and vice versa, whether the network likes it or not. She’s even made time for posts about it amid the seemingly endless barrage of transphobic garbage.

-The success of J.K. Rowling's transphobic fight depends on the future of "Harry Potter" (2025/04)

Current Mood: disappointed

matsushima

I reached out to someone I knew on LiveJournal and had never met in person. (2025/03)
A podcast called The Telepathy Tapes claims a group of nonspeaking autistic people can read minds. The truth is more complicated. (2025/04)
The Alabama Landline That Keeps Ringing: Auburn University’s help desk is still answering the public’s calls 70 years on (2025/04)
Contraband Marginalia (2024/09)
tw: incarceration

Why AI isn't going to make art

The Truth About Getting Your Neck Cracked (2025/04)

Fiction:

A Lithuanian Folktale (Told Backwards and Forwards in Time)

Academic: Spirituality in Childhood Studies: Encounters with imaginary friends and angels

This week, I'm going to encourage everyone to participate in

3weeks4dreamwidth! In particular, donating points is a good way to support the platform and your fellow dreamers!

Current Mood: hungry

matsushima

What Happens If You Just Don’t Pay Your Student Loans? (2025/04)
The Worst Magazine In America (2024/09)
They Spent Their Life Savings on Coaching (2024/06)
Mormonism's Sci-Fi Swan Song (2021/07)
Picture of health: the women turning chronic illness into empowering art (2021)
Podcast: A Little Bit Culty: Healing In Public: Sarma Melngailis on Life After Netflix
Short fiction/Podcast: Where a Heart Would Fit Perfectly, by S. Qiouyi Lu

This week's nonprofit is Debt Collective: "We are a debtors’ union fighting to cancel debts and defend millions of households. Join us to build a world where college is publicly funded, healthcare is universal and housing is guaranteed for all."

Current Mood: overworked

matsushima

In Defense of Spiders: One writer explores the liminal spaces between self-censorship and creativity (2025/04)
The A.I. Romance Factory (archive link) (2025/04)
The Sea of Crises (?)
tw: suicide (graphic, method described)
The Battle of Boca Chica (2014/05)
This Be The Place: Singing in Many Languages (2025/04)
Poetry: The Storyteller Gets Her Name, by Ari Tison
Podcast: Behind the Bastards: Part One: Thomas Kinkade: The Evil-est Painter

If you like these round-ups, you might also enjoy The Lazy Reader, who does more detailed weekly posts with links to recommended longform articles!

This week's nonprofit is J-ALL: Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation. From their website: "Japan needs a LGBT Anti-Discrimination Law equivalent to the standards of other industrially-developed countries."

Current Mood: sleepy

matsushima

There's so much news right now I decided to dig up some older articles this week.

The BTK Killer’s Daughter. Gabby Petito’s Parents. JonBenét’s Dad. (2024/08)
tw: murder, sexual violence
A history of "kidults" (2022/08)
Why some people respond to stress by falling asleep (2013/12)
The Old West's Muslim Tamale King (2016/05)
Podcast: Project 1933, Part 1: January to March 15 from "In Bed with the Right"
Poetry: Mysticism for Beginners by Adam Zagajewsky, translated by Clare Cavanagh

This week's fundraiser is for Mo Bye PDF. tw for medical images (not graphic) in the post
There's more information at the link but Mo Bye PDF is a casualty rescue and medical aid organization in Myanmar. Myanmar is already under a brutal military dictatorship and recently suffered a catastrophic earthquake.

Current Mood: worried

matsushima

What happens when the U.S. declares war on your parents? (2025/03)
Enduring the Long Night: Survival, Resistance, and the Breaking of Authoritarian Spells (2025/03)
The Shape of Time: Lessons from a queer garden (2025/03)

From the archives:

A curse on capital: queer occultism as radical spirituality? (2016/05)
Academic: Does teacher burnout affect students? A systematic review of its association with academic achievement and student-reported outcomes (2021)

Poetry:

"The Bookstore," by Beth Cato

This week's nonprofit is We Thrive, Cape Cod's LGBTQ+ center.

Current Mood: stressed

matsushima

My £2,500 cavapoo is a middle-class cliché. He’s also a fake. (2025/03)
The Romance History Forgot (2025/03)
Operation Atacama: The $1m cactus heist that led to a smuggler's downfall (2025/03)
Inside the Fight to Save the World's Most Endangered Wolf (April/May 2025)
Ultra-processed babies: are toddler snacks one of the great food scandals of our time? (2025/03)
Academic: Literature & Cultural Studies: Cute Studies Syllabus (Prof. Erica Kanesaka)
Podcast: The Lazarus Heist (series)
Poetry: Every Morning by Mary Oliver
Fiction: Work, and Ye Shall Eat by Walker McKnight

This week's nonprofit is Trans Lifeline.

Current Mood: working

matsushima

Good morning! Today is St. Patrick's Day, a holiday I am reliably informed by Irish friends and coworkers is baffling/annoying because it is not a big deal at all in the country it ostensibly celebrates but is an excuse to get drunk almost everywhere else - including Japan.

Nevertheless, I am wearing green socks today.

Shamrocks Not Required: A Reading List on Modern Ireland (2022/03)
The Nuns Trying to Save Women on Texas's Death Row (2025/02)
The Great AI Art Heist (2025/03)
The Life and Mystery of Luigi Mangione (2025/03)
Academic: 'Snapewives' and 'Snapeism': A Fiction-Based Religion within the Harry Potter Fandom (2014)
Discussion: What long read do you most often bring up in conversation? (2025/03)

Inspired by the discussion: What long read do you most often bring up in conversation?

Let's chat in the comments!

Current Mood: okay

matsushima

For better or for worse, it's Monday! I'm in GMT+9, so it's evening here. If Monday is just starting for you, I hope yours goes better than mine.

Democracy is Done: The Rise of Corporate Monarchy (2025/02)
The Delirious, Violent, Impossible True Story of the Zizians (2025/02)
The Missing $25 Gift Cards that's Rocking the Hamptoms (2025/03)
Poetry: Try to Praise the Mutilated World, by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh
Academic: Performing Normal but Becoming Crip: Living with Chronic Pain
Podcast: The Gateway: Part 1: Catalyst
tw: suicide, repressed memories, child sexual abuse

United 24 "is largely focused on helping [Ukranian] civilians. It assigns its funds to the Ukrainian government for use in 3 areas: defense and de-mining, humanitarian and medical assistance, and reconstruction of Ukraine." Thank you,

tanaqui, for the nonprofit recommendation last week!

Current Mood: tired

matsushima

I knew that sooner or later, we would leave to join my mother’s family in America.

Sitting in that classroom, with the muffled hum of traffic outside, I sensed that my history with Iran was going to be cut short, interrupted. Our history—the way we lived, the stories we told, the memories we held, all the unrelenting hurt we bore—was not going to last. It was going to end, and I thought I would be free of it all.

At the time, I did not realize that Iran would cross oceans, following me thousands of miles away. That it would haunt me, my dreams, my memories, my stories—my present and future. That it would reinvent itself, breathe fresh air and speak again, undaunted, like a message from the underworld.

-Feeling in Farsi, Writing in English by Sahar Delijani for Lit Hub

Current Mood: melancholy

matsushima

Good morning and happy Monday!

Your Boss is Watching (2025/02)
The Coming Enshittification of Public Libraries (2023/07)
The Languages Lost to Climate Change (2025/01)
Podcast: "Emotional Labor" on You're Wrong About

Academic:

Librarians and Their Collections

Fiction: The Eight Thousanders, by Jason Sanford in Apex Magazine

If you have the funds this week, please consider donating to the UNHCR fundraiser for Ukrainian refugees. (I know that donating through large organizations like the U.N. isn't necessarily the most efficient way to get funds to people in need. If you can point me to reputable, on-the-ground organizations or individual fundraisers for families, please post links in the comments.)

Current Mood: tired

matsushima

I’m certain that not all of these ideas are applicable to your situation. You’re tired. You’re busy. You’re sick. You don’t have a robust social network. You have anxiety about putting yourself out there. Those are all real. And also, my hope isn’t that every one of these is for you, but that a few might be. And if none fit the bill, what an opportunity: I’d love to hear your idea for what you and others could do.

Thirty lonely but beautiful actions you can take right now which probably won't magically catalyze a mass movement against Trump but that are still wildly important, by Garrett Bucks

Current Mood: tired

matsushima

Good evening!

Every second week, I will post a what are you writing Wednesday? thread where members (and visitors) can share any longish work they've published or posted recently! This can be fiction or nonfiction, academic or journalistic. Please be mindful of content notes.

Please keep all self promo in the threads of these posts.

Current Mood: busy

matsushima

Oops! I forgot to post yesterday because I was off work for Emperor's Birthday (Observed). You can go see him give a speech and everything.
… anyway, on to this week's reading recs!

You Might Not Recover from Burnout. Ever. (2024/10)
Can Dogs Use Human Language? (2023/08)
This is How We Fall Out of Love with the World (2025/02)
ChatGPT Goes to Church (2024/06)
Podcast: "Alien Abductions, Part 1" on American Hysteria

There's an accidental theme here: Are we alone in the universe? Capitalism alienates us from each other, grinds us down to dust, and leaves us hoping that so-called "AI," aliens, and/or animals can talk to us in a language we understand.

This week, I encourage you to support your local public library and/or Queer Liberation Library. (You can sign up for a QLL library card for free if you have a U.S. mailing address.)

P.S. Starting this Wednesday, I'll be adding fortnightly self promo threads. Please keep all self promotion in those posts.

Current Mood: okay

matsushima

The weird AI-powered fake profiles that Meta deployed in 2023 were quietly mothballed six months later, and would have disappeared from history completely, had Bluesky users not found some that had escaped deletion. This appears to be the fate of all commercial AI projects: at best, to be ignored but tolerated, when bundled with something that people actually need (cf: Microsoft’s Co-pilot); at worst, to fail entirely because the technology just isn’t there. Companies can’t launch a new AI venture without their customers telling them, clearly, “nobody wants this.”

And yet they persist. Why? Class solidarity. The capitalist class, as a whole, has made a massive bet on AI: $1 trillion dollars, according to Goldman Sachs – a figure calculated before the Trump administration pledged a further $500 billion for its ‘Project Stargate’.

-AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism, by Gareth Watkins for New Socialist