Timothy McSweeney Is the Cheese
Hello and welcome to the fifty-fifth edition of McSweeney’s Internet Substackency, the Substack of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, a humor and satire website run by McSweeney’s Publishing.
Time again to clean out our files…
BOOK WE’RE READING: Alison Espach’s Wedding People. Late to this one, it came out last summer, but it’s funny and compelling, and features some of the best dialogue we’ve ever read in a novel.
TV SHOW WE’RE WATCHING: The Eastern Gate on HBO Max. Late to this as well (it debuted in January), but if you’re a fan of espionage, kick-ass female leads, ill-fitting pantsuits, and Eastern European politics, you’ll find it a riveting watch. Better yet, it’s been renewed for a second season.
MOVIES WE’VE SEEN: We haven’t seen any REALLY good movies. Sinners was great, but that was months ago. Naked Gun? Perfectly fine, maybe even better than that, considering the dearth of Hollywood comedies. We apologize, we are at the movies-should-be-seen-on-the-big-screen-but-our-bedtime-prevents-us-from-going-to-theaters-regularly stage of our lives.
SONG WE’RE LISTENING TO: “Two Times” by Blondshell. The top comment on the video’s YouTube page is “Blondshell is the queen of romantic self-sabotage anthems,” and that pretty much sums it up perfectly.
TIKTOK WE’RE LOVING: Breanna Banaciski (@tampa_bre) is a realtor in Florida who makes absolutely hilarious video tours of actual homes for sale. She is single-handedly changing the way real estate companies showcase their inventory.
BEACH ACCESSORY WE’RE LUGGING DOWN THE DUNES: A Cool Cabana. We broke down and bought one of these during our vacation. They’re everywhere you look on Cape Cod beaches this summer. Yes, they take up more room than your average beach umbrella, and some scofflaw shadebathers use them to mark out way too much territory, BUT they are easy to set up and take down, and provide enough protection from the sun for three or four people.
PROFESSIONAL ATHLETE WE’RE DAZZLED BY: Boston Red Sox rookie Roman Anthony. Sure, it helps to be a Sox fan to like him, but baseball fans everywhere are going to be hearing about this guy for years to come. He’s about as calm, cool, and collected 21 year old we’ve ever seen in a uniform. Anthony’s knack for getting on base is a revelation, and every at-bat feels like an event.
FOOD WE’RE PUTTING ON OUR SANDWICHES: Carmelized onions. Chop up a red onion, sauté it in a bit of olive oil, salt, and orange marmalade, then spread some on your turkey sandwich. Thank us later.
MARINATED SHEEP & GOAT-CHEESE BASED FOOD WE ARE EATING: Marinated Sheep & Goat Cheese by Meredith Dairy. Have we mentioned this before? At any rate, it’s delicious. Soft cheese, peppercorns, and rosemary in olive oil. Thanks much to the Australian sheep and goats who made this possible.
PHYSICAL AILMENT WE ARE ENDURING: Cranky hip flexors. Less a recommendation and more a warning. In the end, cranky hip flexors come for us all.
DISCLAIMER: These are all, well, just like our opinion, man. We’re not getting paid to mention any of the above. But if you are a certain marinated sheep & goat cheese maker, we are open to negotiation.
Alright, on with the links…
A tourist standing to the left on a Metro Center escalator
The line at Call Your Mother on a Sunday morning
The price of one beer at Nats Park
Someone eating a granola bar on the metro
A Virginia driver trying to navigate Chevy Chase Circle
Read the rest of this hard-hitting exposé, direct from the streets of DC—written by Tendency assistant editor, Lucy Huber, no less.
I have no idea how anything works here. I will pause in the middle of crowded sidewalks, amble in rushing zones, and fail to possess the correct app, ticket, identification, or change. I will wait to decide my deli order until I’m at the front of the line so I can ask the sandwich maker to explain the difference between mortadella, soppressata, and capicola, and that’s before I start asking him about the bread options.
A WORD OR TWO FROM OUR STORE…
An extraordinary debut from Camille Ralphs, heralding the arrival of a major new talent. In After You Were, I Am, charged moments from history collide with our own godless modern world. The book’s three sections—rewritings of canonical prayers, dramatic monologues from the Pendle witch trials of 1612, and the divine tragedy of the Elizabethan magus John Dee—obsess over individual human characters, and how our past informs (and informs on) our present. This is poetry as incantation, plea and invocation.
Drawing on a vast range of influences, from sacred texts and early modern drama to metaphysical wit, twentieth-century Confessionalism and contemporary irony and mistrust, this ambitious debut embodies the variety and singularity of living voices past and present, which through rapturous music, anarchic wordplay, and formal distortion are dragged to breaking point. The very history of the English language glows through the cracks. The effect is a terrestrial transcendence, as spaces within and between human thoughts expand to reveal a shared heritage of faults and answerless questions at every turn. Ralphs’s style is utterly distinctive; she is a modern metaphysical, maker of poetry that in comprehending the past manages to make of it something utterly original and contemporary.
This is a preorder. After You Were, I Am will be released this September, with copies mailing prior to release.
Our noble effort to skew the congressional map in our favor has implications far beyond Texas politics. If Democrats take back the House in 2026, they will have the power to certify the 2028 election. We must avoid a repeat of 2020. We cannot let the left subvert democracy by thwarting our attempts to overturn any election where they get more votes.
Finally, here’s this week’s BLAST FROM THE PAST, an older classic from our archives…
Belligerent Gouda
Felonious Swiss
Recidivist Brie
Knife-wielding pepper jack
Knife-wielding zombie pepper jack
Explosive Camembert
American
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Another cheese:
You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead Handkäse!
Dear McSweeney's,
Great piece as always!
I love this: "Texas Democrats Are Subverting Democracy by Preventing Us from Subverting Democracy"
Thank you for sharing!
Love
Myq