Breaking Down That Time Anthony Scaramucci Said Steve Bannon Sucks His Own Cock

In what has already been surpassed as the biggest political story of the last 24 hours, The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza reported that newly-appointed White House communications director Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci called him up and unleashed a profanity-laden tirade in which he vowed to fire and/or kill everyone behind the White House’s continued news leaks. I have quickly been made to regret not writing about this last night, when it was still the number one news item, but frankly, it’s so amazing that I have to write about it. Let’s go through it, line by line.  (more…)

Winners and Losers from Sean Spicer’s Resignation

 

Sean Spicer resigned as White House press secretary literally, like, a couple hours ago. Who wins and who loses from this turn of events? Let’s find out. 

WINNERS: 

Sean Spicer: I mean, duh

Donald Trump: The appointment of Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director reinforced that he is a Big, Independent President Man totally above the objections and whims of his underlings, with the exception of course of his son-in-law (more…)

Death by a Thousand Yards: A Dive Into Jon Bois’ “17776”

Over the last two weeks, I had the privilege of following along as one of my favorite writers unveiled, piece by piece, an extraordinary, ambitious experiment in fiction. Jon Bois’ 17776 is quite something: depicting a distant future crushingly similar to our present; conveyed in writing almost exclusively through conversations between characters, but these conversations supplemented by still images, GIFs, and video; and—here’s the clincher—published via, of all places, the popular sports site SB Nation. I will not offer any sort of synopsis for the piece here. You should read 17776 in its entirety anyway, and you should definitely do so before reading this essay. You won’t regret it: it’s a fantastic, absorbing, and remarkably poignant read.

What it isn’t, however, is all that weird—at least if you’re familiar with Jon Bois’ previous work. 17776 treads very similar thematic ground to several of Bois’ previous projects—which is a strange enough statement, considering that the man is technically a sportswriter, an employee of many years of a major sports website—and in his previous work, we can see the genesis of ideas and themes that eventually manifested themselves more fully in 17776. (more…)