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BTBaum

@btbaum.bsky.social
477 followers 372 following 293 posts

Author, freelance reporter, dog-lover, recovering editor; bylines in San Francisco Mag, LA Times, NYT, Cal Academy Science Today, Catamaran Literary Mag. Remember when generalists armed w/ curiosity made for good journalism?

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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Coming here to say—and I do have the type of thinking and speech that interrupts itself frequently—that I love the em dash, the en dash, the hyphen, and the Oxford comma. Once upon a time, I was as a typesetter and production artist. You never forget your first hot type letterpress.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
My favorites were from the earlier seasons where Captain Pioe came to terms with his future tragedy. I feel this season they’re just teasing us!
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
It wasn’t even that good, but after the Puppet episode, it felt like Chekhov. Anton Chekhov, Ensign Chekhov…it was recognizable as science-fiction is what I mean.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I remember interviewing author Susan Griffin (“Woman and Nature;” “Chorus of Stones”) reflecting on her friendship & discussions on radical feminism with poet Adrienne Rich. She said they said made a similar observation—that gender “was and remains the first way they divide us.”
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I think you, like most women, are ageless and timeless.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I’m just trying to be clever.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Someone in the early 40s who looks like they’re in their early 30s?
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Yes
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
What a crazy juxtaposition that must have been!
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Yes. And the meme of Rod Serling standing in from of Trump at the resolute desk in the Oval Office summed up the sense of dislocation. Remember how so many TV shows in 2017-18 were about landing in or coping with alternative universes? Russian Doll, Counterpart, Man in the High Castle and more.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
We were at a watch party that included consumables b/c legalized pot was on our ballot. As more GOP faces began appearing on TV, we decided to go home. I did not literally hide under the bed, but the turning off of tv, computer, and iPhones felt decisive. Like hanging black fabric over the mirrors.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
It was as an awful day. And similar to experiencing an unexpected death. The polls had her winning even on that day. So many vignettes. Tears from learning voters were leaving their stickers on Susan B. Anthony’s gravesite. The festival parties that grew increasingly somber….
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Also molecules of animals that couldn’t escape. Very much headache and tears.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Exactly.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
As a NYRB article in 2017 put it, and following his Senate blockade of Obama’s last nomination to the Supreme Court, McConnell is (or was) America’s “grave digger of democracy.”
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Politics now is all cult-adjacent. Personalities and team identification. Real actual struggle for power and a better world requires mature and clear-eyed skepticism. MAGA isn’t the only political cult with built-in denial of reality. Every day we get new and disturbing examples of where this leads.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
Torch Song Trilogy?
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
“Eggs belong in the dairy section!” “No, they don’t!! Personally, I don’t think the online world has ever (or could ever) adjudicate this one.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Yes! And who’s afraid of…..
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
My marker for feeling ancient was when my nephew insisted he knew that “Liz & Dick” were the same people as “Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.” But when asked what they were famous for, why their names were bandied about, he tentatively said, “they were comedians?”
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Jane Rosenberg LaForge @elrosenberglaforge.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
@rbreich.bsky.social notes on this occasion that five corporations now control up to 90 percent of American #media market.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
@leahbrooks.bsky.social —you’ll like this!
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Not to mention The Parallex View directed by Alan J Paula in 1974. That, plus the two you mention are more incisive than the entire output of Oliver Stone.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
What would cause this? Aside from the obvious (sulfur running thru their veins).
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
We lived through an Age of Material Abundance! (Unevenly distributed, but still real) How can we make lists of “the best” of any number? Museum curators say that ‘what is loved will be saved.’ Like the survivors in Fahrenheit 451, I hope everyone helps save even 1 treasure before it all blows away.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
You are a fantastic writer and you inspire me with your dedication!!
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Top 15 shows, gut instincts: Sid Caesar’s Show of Shows Ed Sullivan Star Trek (all of them) That Girl Laugh In Carol Burnett Comedy Hour All in the Family The Mary Tyler Moore Show MASH Seinfeld X-Files Saturday Night Live Mad Men Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul A French Village The Sopranos
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Also, Diana Ross. The supreme supreme.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Either is great! You get to explore the village more that way. But I did love our loop trip spending time meeting cows, goats, dogs, and farmers. We had a company transport our luggage so that made it easy. Enjoy!!
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
We walked the Cotswolds in 2023 and Lake District in 2025. The weather is the only wild card. Walking uphill in the rain for ten miles to reach Beatrix Potter’s house could’ve been improved via taxi. Is your plan town to town in a loop? Or using different villages as a base for your daily walks?
taxi.town
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Yes, absolutely. Becerra’s range of experience is exceptional. I never bought that California was a Blue wonderland. We have dire problems. I think Bercerra knows how to improve things and keep all the parts running in the face of complete obstruction from a Federal Govt that is no longer our ally.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Yeah. And I guess we’ll get there soon enough once we build that base on the dark side & head to Mars in search of water as everyone on Earth drinks Coca Cola made with sand. See? We are already on the dark side and we are already changed.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
C’mon! We have so few nice things these days. I need my happy crew.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Two photos, top one is of Artemis II astronaut Christina Koch. Bottom photo is the science officers
 at Houston’s Mission Control room—all of whom in the photo are women. The caption reads: “The last time we went to the moon, women couldn't open a credit card on their own. Now they're flying to the moon and leading the Mission Control Center.” Reading this brought tears to my eyes.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Not quite! Mike Geisbrecht—who was only in Hole for a short time in 1989–has not (and can no longer) write his memoirs. I will say, however, that his memorial service unfolded like a short heartbreaker story told by Raymond Carver.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
TBH, I was transfixed by lead actress Camille Cottin’s proboscis. American just doesn’t cast women without nose jobs. Her real face was stunning and gorgeous to see.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Now that’s an interesting typo!! I meant to say First (1st) season.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Not a movie but very French: “Dix pour cent” aka “Call My Agent!” which ran for 4 seasons. The fist season, imho, was the hottest!
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Author Myron J. Clifton @deardean22.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Delores Huerta speaks her truth. IMO all recognition for Cesar Chavez should be withdrawn and changed to recognition of Delores Huerta.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
All I've seen on the Hulu Streaming app in SF Bay Area is for Eric Salawell on a repeating loop.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
And then, omg, the 7 season masterpiece of French television from 2009, “A French Village (Un Village Français)” every season = one year of WWII from the fall of France to the post war trials of collaborators. We watched it during his first administration. Phew. Quite a story.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
To everyone loving Casablanca, may I recommend “Rome: Open City”? This 1945 film inaugurates Italian neo-realism. And the realism is about how the danger and need for resistance work. And that final shot of the children walking back to the city stands for all the trauma young people must carry.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Okay, full video from the critter cam. Wait for it…
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Full Moon Coyote be reading headlines like
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Isn’t that a song by Pete Townsend? Oh, wait
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
And now, I’m going to dive back into one of most gorgeous novels I’ve ever read about lesbians returning to historic visibility in the 1800s—“After Sappho.” Stunning.
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Just finished reading a thoughtful essay about Pee Wee Herman — “I Know You Are But What Am I?” Even if you’ve seen last year’s doc abt him, this has even more surprising insights about the Playhouse, our ‘90s relationship to technology, and what survived the moral panic/backlash against him. /1
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BTBaum @btbaum.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Rabbit holes are fun but here’s a great book on the subject: “Fabulosa! The Story of Polari and Britain’s Secret Gay Language.” I mean, the cover alone is fabulosa!
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Boston Review @bostonreview.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
“We—that is, Americans—live most of the time inside the cocoon of our small daily lives. Except for fire, flood, or outright war, the history-making world hardly ever impinges on most of us. For the most part, it is over there and we are over here.” New from Vivian Gornick:
bostonreview.net
Turning a Blind Eye
A memoir of daily accommodation to fascism.
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