“With fear for our democracy, I dissent” — Justice Sotomayor, today, in a statement that is chilling in its necessity and also vital.

That statement, her statement, keeps doing laps around the inside of my skull. You can read the whole thing here (the bottom for the dissents). But that final statement of hers is a terrible, essential echo.

It feels like the distillation of everything that’s gone on with Trump, since Trump, about Trump — how electing him unleashed something terrible, or perhaps worse, simply mirrored it, multiplied it in that reflective visage.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

It feels like the thing you wear on a t-shirt, you put on a protest sign, that you spraypaint on walls, that you ink into your skin, a statement you can both co-opt as a weak signal to virtue and a statement you say as some cop or brownshirt or fascist neighbor shoves you up against the wall and pushes a gun barrel against your chest. It’s both a plaintive cry and a defiant call. Something to make art of, to make poetry of, to make a prayer out of, an apology, a whisper, a song, and of course, above all else, a dissent.

I don’t have any great wisdom here. I’m just talking. I feel the energy of agita and want to type it out. That isn’t always the ideal way forward but sometimes, especially with people like myself, it feels like the only way forward. It’s clear that the shadow cast upon us, one we hoped would soften, would lighten and brighten, is now growing wider and darker. This thing we’ve thought of for so long as bedrock — freedom, democracy, America — isn’t. It never was, to be sure, it was always a little bit of an illusion, but that shared illusion made it sometimes, sometimes, true. And now, I dunno. While it’s good to dispel illusions, sometimes we need them. But, perhaps at least we have clear eyes now and we know what’s happening, what’s coming. We’re going to walk into a Trump presidency if we’re not diligent, if we don’t stand vigil. This isn’t a GO JOE BIDEN post or any shit like that, and it’s certainly not a post about WE CAN VOTE OUR WAY OUT OF THIS but it’s a reminder we’re walking toward a black, bleak, very deep pit, one that might as well be bottomless, and we have to stop and turn around and do whatever it takes to not see Trump re-elected. If we turn him away, it doesn’t fix everything — there’s still a sucking chest wound gulping air and bubbling heartsblood, and it’ll still kill us when the next, smarter version of that guy comes along. But it’ll give us a chance. If we elect him, that chance dies.

We have a vote. It is imperfect and it is weak but together, with the votes of others, it gets stronger, louder, better.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

And not just that chance, either. We’re on the edge of a lot of things. Loss of freedom and loss of human rights and the teetering availability of bodily autonomy for women and trans folks, not to mention the boiling tidal wave that is climate change. We get Trump, that wave gets bigger, hotter, faster. It’s not just democracy we might lose there. It’s everything.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

Mourn today and tomorrow, figure out what you’re going to do. Not just in a selfish “build that bunker” way, but in a… community building, join hands, adopt-a-politician, call-your-politician, whatever you gotta do way. I’m not smart enough to know what that means, not today, probably not tomorow, but others are, and do, and we need to stay sharp, ears open.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

Good luck to all of us. Not just in America. The shadow isn’t just darkening over us. The pall is thick and blanketing most of the world.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

HEY WHO HAS TWO THUMBS AND A CASE OF COVID? *shakes little plastic baggy of two severed thumbs at you* This guy. As in me. As in I have COVID, and also this little baggy containing two severed thumbs.

This is pretty much exactly what happened to me last year on my Amsterdam – Germany – Spain trip. Came back, two days later, ta-da, COVID. As we left a whole month earlier this time I thought maaaayyyyyybe we’d get ahead of any Summer Surge, but nope, not so much. So far I’m the only jabroni in the family with this jawn, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the others catch it. I’m currently in quarantine though was able to Escape Containment long enough to come out to the shed to do this post.

So far (knock on all the wood), this case is fairly mild — a high sub-fever temperature (100F) last couple nights, a cough, some congestion, nothing that wouldn’t normally come with a proper good bad cold. No idea if it’ll show sharper teeth — COVID is a sneaky creature. (And before anyone starts in, I did mask during traveling, plane and airport, and I have no idea where I got it. If it’s a full two-day incubation, I could’ve gotten it on the last full day in Sintra, where the only person I was really close to that my family wasn’t was, I believe, the actor Wilmer Valderrama. Yes, I’m serous. I’m 99.9% sure it was TV’s Wilmer Valderrama. Fez. Handy Manny. I can tell that story later if you’re interested.)

Regardless, COVID is ass and I don’t like it, but I guess I’m glad I’m catching it now and not, say, in 2020. The landscape has dramatically changed for this virus and how we deal with it just four years later, and for that I’m pretty thankful. Anyway. Portugal!

No full trip report as yet — maybe I’ll just parcel tidbits out as I post these photos — but here, amidst the beauty and the friendliness and the glorious food and the wonderful pasteis de nata, I will take one small moment to talk a little bit of shit about Portugal, and that little bit of shit is in the department of their pastries. I have noted in fact that the egg tarts are the greatest pastry in the world, and as such, any sin committed beyond that is forgivable in the light of the glory of that singular item. That being said, I was told going there that Portugal’s pastry game was unparalleled — and at a distance it would seem as such, given how they have a wealth of pastries unique to their country. One problem, though, is that most of these pastries are a variation on the form. They are, to be sure, exceptional. A delight! But I was told time and time again, “Here, try this one, this one is [insert description here],” and then at the end, it still had… a similar taste. Maybe one was more almondy. Another would be crispier, or flakier. But they were all very much like they were borrowing from the flavor off the egg tart — I found very few pastries interested in, say, using fruit or citrus, odd in a country where both the fruit and citrus are quite good! I may have gone at the wrong time? Alas. Again, this is only a tiny bit of shit-talking, and perhaps it is merely the COVID delirium, but I did feel like the pastry game in other European countries was more on point despite the seeming wealth of variety in Portugal. And again, all is forgiven in the light of the glory of the pastel de nata.

Y’know, since we’re talking pastries and also perhaps, heresies, let’s talk the egg tart. I was told that the very best of the egg tarts is the OG of egg tarts, the only egg tart that can be called the pastel de Belem, as it is the original monk’s recipe made by Pasteis de Belem in, well, Belem. Many swore these, these were the best, the original, and everything else was a mere shadow, a petty imitator, and let me tell you —

Nope! Noooooope. Nope, nope, nope.

(YMMV as with all things.)

Now, my mouth is garbage and my palate is as unrefined as that of a trash-drunk raccoon, so nothing I say should be trusted. That being said… we ate egg tarts every day but one, ranging from grocery store tarts to airport tarts to fancy ones or ones bought at random padarias, and to me, the very best is the one you can get at Manteigaria. In fact, the Belem one was, to my mind, pretty mid? It’s too hard, not delicate and crispy, and the egg custard is way too eggy — think like, an over-egged slice of French toast or something approaching sweet scrambled eggs. Whereas the custard in Manteigaria is smooth and custardy and amazing, and the crisp crackle is — well, I did a very amateur hour ASMR of it over at Instagram if you’re so inclined.

Another thing about the egg tarts that is, to me, somewhat fascinating and perplexing is… each one, from the cheapest grocery store egg tart to the fanciest of the batch, had a final taste slash aftertaste of…

Frosted Flakes.

Not just a taste on the tongue but something that lurked in the hinge of the jaw, this very specific taste memory of Frosted Fucking Flakes. A better version, obviously. Endlessly better. But still, that taste. (And it’s not a knock, to be clear. I loved Frosted Flakes before I grew up and became a banal adult who has to care about things like fiber content.)

Anyway. The food is amazing. Even the cod. Which they love. Even though it’s not from their seas and they get a ton of great seafood from off their own shores, there’s just a historical love of bacalhau there. Not a super big fan of the cod dishes, to be clear. I’m not a huge fish guy in general, but that’s potentially because I am eating fish most times in Pennsylvania, which has — *checks notes* — no ocean. But beyond the cod, the fish was great in Portugal. I have always haaaaated mackerel and I had it there and it was like, one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. I ate a whole baby sardine (our waiter said, “You must eat the tail. And the eyes“) and it was lovely. Anyway. It’s all good. I can talk more about the food later. I should probably go lay down.

In the meantime —

Twenty more photos.

With a bonus two(-ish) more at the end.

Please to enjoy.

And now, for a couple bonus shots — actually, the same shot. First, unprocessed. Second, with some processing. The story here isn’t particularly interesting — we were at Quinta da Regaleira and my son saw someone ooohing and aaahhhing over something in this little niche, and when they left we looked and found a distant duckling. I snapped some photos and what turned out really excited me, though in retrospect, I’m sort of startled by how much even the unprocessed photo looks… weirdly glossy, like it’s AI? I promise, it’s not AI, not at all, it’s raw out of the camera. (Second shot has no AI either, just some tweaks in Lightroom. Adobe kinda sucks and I’ll eventually do the full switch to Affinity, I think, but for now, that’s where my library is until I take the effort to move it.)

Duckling one (unprocessed):

Duck two (processed):

I’ll do a more proper trip report at some point, but suffice to say: Portugal is beautiful. Labyrinthine cities brushed with a soft, uninsisting decay — turn down any street and you will be met with a place you want to stand still and remain for a time, just taking it all in. And the street art? It’s everywhere. Everywhere. All the time, around every corner, and it’s glorious.

Loved every minute of it. The people are friendly, the food is astonishing, the pasteis de nata (egg custard tarts) are something my body now craves as much as it craves oxygen, justice, and touch. It’s great. I loved it. I wanna go back immediately, but in the meantime, I’m here in America where everything is definitely going fine and not at all badly hahaha aahahaha AAAHHH

Anyway! Here are a buncha photos. I took a lot. Like, a lot a lot. About 8000, half of which I marked as favorites.

This post will not contain 4000 photos.

It will, in fact, contain only 20.

If you like ’em, I may go ahead and post more as I process them slowly but surely. (And before anyone asks, these cover four places in the country: Lagos, in the Algarve; Lisbon and Sintra; and Porto, in the north.)

Please to feast with your eyeballs.

Well, hey there — guess what? Black River Orchard is now out in paperback, with a new cover, and MORE EVIL APPLES. (Okay, it contains exactly the same number of evil apples. Sorry for the false advertising.)

Hope you feel like checking it out if you haven’t — your local indie bookstore is, as always, the prime location for you to find it. Or ask your local library, because libraries are good and wonderful.

Suburban folk horror, baby! It puts the cult in agricultural.

Check it out now! If you want a signed copy (and if I still have some I’ll throw in a Natalie Metzger evil apple sticker and an evil apple variety all for you), order from Doylestown Bookshop, and they’ll ship directly to you. Otherwise, options include: Bookshop.org, B&N, Amazon, or this full-list of bookmonger sources at Penguin Random House.

And obviously, if you’re so inclined — please talk about the book. Leave reviews, chat it up on social media, wander up to random passersby and yell about it while pressing an apple into their hands. You know, the usual.

(Also out in paperback in the UK tomorrow!)

LOVE YOU BYE

One day last summer I picked up my daughter from camp. We have a rule: she can’t use swear words at school, or around other people. But if we’re alone, she can. I figure this’ll make them less taboo and give her an outlet.

That day in camp, she made a foam princess crown—pink and covered in gems and sparkles. As we were driving home, she asked, “Wouldn’t it be funny if I put on this crown and said a bad word?”

For context, my daughter is 9. She was 8 then, but regardless, she looks and sounds like a tiny little woodland elf.

Being a good dad, I said, “Of course it would be funny.”

And I watched in the rear-view mirror as he slowly put the crown on, smiled, and emphatically said: “Fuck!”

I lost my shit laughing, glad to be at a red light and not actively driving, because I might have crashed the car.

Flash forward to last January, where I teach in the MFA program at Seton Hill University. I was leading a workshop, and one of the students was reading his story to us. It was a banger. Very cool mechs-fighting-monsters business, and a solid start to a book.

I make the students read their stories out loud before we jump into the critique. They tend to hate this, but it’s important to hear the ebb and flow, and it exercises that performance muscle they’ll need to develop.

He used the word ‘fuck’ 12 times in the space of ten pages. I clocked the frequency, but so did he—shuffling a little at each subsequent f-bomb. When the story was over, I said we needed to talk about language, and he nodded before I even finished making the point.

“You’re giving too many fucks,” I told him.

I said he could keep one—one in particular—and asked him if he knew which one I meant. He flipped through the pages, a little unsure. And I told him it was the one that got the hardest laugh from the other students. It was in a dialogue exchange, and it was fun and fast and punchy and it landed.

The rest had to go.

I mean, they didn’t have to go. It was his story. But the thing about profanity is, you have to wield it like a fine-edged blade. Sharp and precise. When every other word is ‘fuck,’ it’s going to lose power and feel gratuitous.

If you hold them in reserve, you can make them land like tactical nukes.

That’s why my daughter’s ‘fuck’ hit so hard. It was unexpected, the context was perfect, and it was delivered with a forbidden glee.

That’s something I was mindful of while writing Assassins Anonymous. I do love a good swear. The Paradox Hotel has 51 uses of the word fuck, including the main character asking, “What in the Cincinnati fuck is this?” I’m proud of that one, because it’s ridiculous and means nothing, but I think the assonance of it is fantastic.

With Assassins, I made a conscious effort to de-fuck the manuscript. There were 30 when I sat down to edit, and I whittled it down to six, in part because I don’t want to rely too much on profanity.

But also, I wondered if it would do anything to placate those readers who will leave one- and two-star reviews over language (violence and sex are okay, but four-letter words are the true signifiers of moral degradation, apparently).

And you know what?

I think those six fucks land much, much harder.

That might make them stand out and offend the pearl-clutchers even more. But I’ll take that as a win, too. There’s no pleasing some people.

All that said, I’m not telling you not to swear. I’m certainly not telling Chuck Wendig not to swear, in his own goddamn house no less, because that man uses curse words like Salt Bae seasons steaks. In fact, he wrote a fantastic post in favor of swearing that’s worth reading to get the other side of this.

But it doesn’t hurt to try something new. Cause, you know, fuck it, why not?

Assassins Anonymous: Bookshop.org | Amazon | B&N