Make More Pie

By 7:30 this morning, I had to get out of the house and walk it off, “it” being the Democratic primary wins last night of three Mamdani-backed candidates: Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier (whose full name I did not know in the audio) and Claire Valdez. Chevalier and Valdez are backed by the DSA. Lander is not directly but was Mamdani’s man over Dan Goldman so, same-same-ish. Speaking of Gold...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com Arkansas-native Max Steele came to Portland in 2005, responding to the city’s siren song of cheap rent and progressive politics and art you could make on the fly. “All the really DIY stuff was going on in Portland,” says Steele. Until it wasn’t, until certain portions of the population, many of them newbies,...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com Nancy speaks with war correspondent James Verini, who reported from Ukraine about the devastating 2022 bombing of a theater in Mariupol housing 1500 refugees. James (and photographer Paolo Pellgrin ) made his way to survivors of the bombing, and later tracked down every survivor he could find. The result is...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com Jake Siegel talks about his new book The Information State , which explores how government and technology joined forces over the past century to squash dissent. Siegel is an editor at Tablet , an original thinker with great writing chops (our kinda guy), and he talks with Nancy and Sarah about the tools of i...

Hello readers/viewers, and for those in the eastern half of the United States, thank you for checking in between trips to the supermarket to stock up for the coming Snowpocalypse. It is yet to be seen whether this one will one hit big or be another predicted “storm of the millennium!” that isn’t, in either event, I hope you and yours stay safe and warm. “I don’t feel the cold,” my dad, pictured ab...

Narrating “ Musings of the Night Nurse ” pieces the day-after they run. Is this photo of my mom with Elton John that fell out of a book I was putting away meant to snap your neck? It is. A clip from yesterday’s piece, “ The Accountants ”: What you do not know when taking over the affairs of a loved one with dementia: the people your loved one has dealt with are fitting you with a jacket they’ve be...

Narrating “ Musings of the Night Nurse ” pieces the day-after they run. The opening of yesterday’s “ The Wanderings ”: “A weird thing happened to me today,” your mother tells you over the phone, and goes on to explain how she got up that morning, got dressed and, as she had just about every morning since moving to Brooklyn Heights in 1963, went out to grab The New York Times. “But it was still dar...

Taking a page from my pal Ethan Strauss over at House of Strauss and narrating published pieces the day-after they run. Yesterday’s article is here . This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

Remember 2020, when the narrative about the George Floyd/BLM protests became so much Silly Putty in the hands of the media, don’t believe your lyin’ eyes and all that? Chelly Boufferache, known on social media as Hunnybadgermom , remembers it well, both as a longtime Portland resident distressed by what was happening to a city she loved, and as a photographer/videographer watching the chaos night...

This week, and I suspect the weeks to come, will be all about what’s unrolling in Portland: the possibility of Trump invoking the Insurrection Act, the debate about whether Portland is bleeding out or trying to recover, and whether yesterday’s Emergency Naked Bike Riders are anarchists in clever disguise. (NB: The Naked Bike Ride is an annual event going on in Portland since 2003, I did it once my...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com Hey everybody. I have a few minutes before I book down to ICE, where the scene looks a little hotter today than it’s been in previous days. After the break*, a report on what happened yesterday in court, where federal judge Karin Immergut (who, weirdly, I went to kindergarten with but have not seen since) he...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com Not a bad picture from, if I do say - and not a trick one: The attendance outside of the Portland Immigration and Detention Center last night was sparse, maybe 30 active protesters, the same number of looky-loos and press, and a score of federal officers. A lively night of entertainment it did not make. Beca...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com Reporting schedule willing, I’ll post a video or interview each day I am here… Did I write type those words yesterday morning? I did. And then got preposterously swamped. I’ll be posting Portland Debrief, Day #2 later today (… she types). Until then, I got to Portland on Tuesday and have been down to the ICE...

Short-and-sweet show notes today, friends. Cross-posted at Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em . No paywall on this episode, so feel free to share. Nancy and Sarah discuss the killing of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Talking Points USA. He was a husband and the father of two young children, and he was shot yesterday while engaging with college students at a Utah College. There is no version of the...

Pie people, here’s a portion of the latest episode of Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em , where Blocked and Reported co-host Katie Herzog talks about how she quit drinking. We talk about her cancelation for, imo, writing one of the tenderest features (albeit about detransitioners so, no safe ground), her upcoming book, Drink Your Way Sober , the tragic story of Jonathan Joss (who I wrote about in “ Men Alo...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nancyrommelmann.substack.com/subscribe

If you think journalists sit around talking about the failures of other journalists, you are correct! Perhaps no more than in the past two years, when watching the chattering classes and their publications soft pedal President Biden’s mental and physical decline and/or tell people who grew increasingly alarmed that they were liars, in the bag for Trump, deep fakers, “what are you, a doctor?” etc....

I know I promised not to post new stuff, and I’m not , but some of you may enjoy today’s episode of the Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em podcast , which I cohost with Sarah Hepola and which we started to do in video last week. ( YouTube channel coming; please subscribe, it’s free!) Nick, poet and author of the memoir Another B******t Night in Suck City - which became the movie Being Flynn - is a great fri...

Hopefully looking somewhat less bedraggled than during last night’s live muffin tutorial , if on a subject less sweet: sociopaths - the charming ones, the murderous ones - and those with other personality disorders that, based on experience and comments in the scroll, many many of us deal with. Some tips, some solace, some links. Questions/comments, fire away - you people are so quiet over here! R...

For those who joined the live feed, thank you for hanging out with me. (NB: Not sure why we lost the first three minutes of the video but we got the recipe in there so.) Any questions, fire away. I am good at very few things and baking is one of them. No questions too silly! For those who did not join, you might give the recipe a try. As mentioned below, these will be more popular than you anticip...