1. Open the event with some pleasantries, perhaps a quick lighting of the holiday candles. Feel free to say a few blessings. A quick note: This will be the only time you should NOT bring up 1999’s soup-to-nuts, flawless film Blue Streak, starring Martin Lawrence at the absolute p … | Continue reading

“You see these guys walking out with air conditioners with refrigerators on their back, the craziest thing. And the police aren’t allowed to do their job… if you had one day, like one real rough, nasty day… if you had one really violent day…one rough hour, and I mean real rough. … | Continue reading

We are thrilled to announce that Google Translate has recently added “Deanspeak” to its suite of language-detection tools. In addition to offering translations from Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and other languages, Google Translate can now render your college administrator’s opaque … | Continue reading

Listen, son, when I was your age, I thought I knew everything, and it looks like we have that in common. You think you know what this is all about? You think you understand what it means to be married to someone for over forty years? I’ve been married since 1977, and let me tell … | Continue reading

“Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, a former police captain who ran on a law-and-order platform but whose tenure has been consumed by accusations of corruption, spent years accepting free airline tickets, lavish overseas accommodations and illegal campaign donations from Turkey, … | Continue reading

Dear Applicant, Thank you for your embarrassingly eager interest in our job opening and for getting to know us over the course of twelve rounds of interviews. We regret to inform you that we have selected another, far more suitable candidate for the role—a starchy ten-pound sack … | Continue reading

It’s actually funny to me and not something that makes me mad that your office returned my business license application with the cartoonishly large word DENIED stamped right across the first page (in red ink) and several needlessly specific and not hurtful comments about why I am … | Continue reading

There are several common lines of inquiry when someone learns you’re vegan. These scripted responses will spare everyone a tedious conversation and might even make you less annoying at dinner parties (but probably won’t). Where do you get your protein? From peanut butter, seitan, … | Continue reading

Forty years ago this month, the great Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” was the number one song in the United States. - - - If I tend to look dazed, I’ve read it someplace that it’s been forty years since that song hit number one. Four decades! Hard to believe. We’re … | Continue reading

Dear Parent or Guardian, Despite our laughably small budget, the district insists we keep up with tech trends. As a result, you must manage a shit ton of cheap, hard-to-use apps and websites this year. Classroom Assist Students use this platform to chat with teachers and submit a … | Continue reading

THE STRAIGHTFORWARD TITLE: The Condiments Aisle 2 THE FOREBODING ROMAN TITLE: The Condiments Aisle, Part II THE PUNNY TITLE: The Secondiments Aisle THE PUNNY TITLE THAT’S OVERDOING IT: The Condiments Aisle 2: Come What Mayo THE REDUNDANT TITLE: The Condiments Aisle 2: The Next Ch … | Continue reading

Dear Patient, In our continual efforts to provide you with the confusing level of treatment you’ve come to expect, we’d like to introduce you to HellthChase, our new cumbersome and contactless check-in solution. HellthChase invites and obligates you to engage in the unpaid data e … | Continue reading

Look, this is not up for debate. We’re going to keep feeding the grizzly bear. Sure, he may not protect us in any tangible sense. In fact, sometimes he hurts us. But that’s just how the cookie crumbles. The thing is, the grizzly bear has always been there. We’ve always been feedi … | Continue reading

Though her family sometimes received food stamps and occasionally had their utilities cut off, Marcie Alvis Walker’s parents led her to believe that they were an average middle-class Black family. They encouraged her to pursue her dreams and told her that if she worked hard enoug … | Continue reading

Our parties have totally realigned. Democrats are conservative now. Kamala Harris made not one but several references to the American military in her DNC acceptance speech. That’s not what Democrats used to be about. According to pop culture, they used to be about soft, fuzzy thi … | Continue reading

“A Midwestern town grappling with the fallout from an influx of Haitian immigrants became a focal point for racist and xenophobic memes this week after Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (Ohio), claimed Monday that in Springfield, Ohio, people ‘have had their pets abducted and e … | Continue reading

On September 12, 2024—the birthday of the late writer Gabe Hudson—McSweeney’s is honored to announce the winner of the inaugural Gabe Hudson Prize. After Gabe’s sudden passing from complications due to undiagnosed diabetes in November 2023, his mother, Sanchia Semere, made a gene … | Continue reading

2024 Presidential Debate Philadelphia, Pennsylvania September 10, 2024 9:01 PM: The candidates enter the stage. Vice President Kamala Harris walks decisively to former President Donald Trump’s podium, introduces herself, and extends her hand to shake. Trump tells her to have fun … | Continue reading

As we approach the third straight Most Important Election of Our Lifetime, many of us face the same question we faced the last two times. Specifically, do we really want to vote for that guy who is old and bonkers and dangerous? Sure, he totally seems like he’s in this only for h … | Continue reading

1. Two trains are heading toward each other. Jane’s train left the station in Atlanta at 5 a.m., traveling north at 60 miles per hour. 1,124 miles away, Tom’s train left the station in St. Paul at 5:30 a.m., traveling south at 70 miles per hour. At what time will Jane’s train col … | Continue reading

1. Are you sure you’re really trapped? You don’t look that trapped. 2. But you’re too smart to be trapped in a well. 3. Yeah, I was trapped in a well once too. It was pretty dank. But the well just went away when I made sure to sleep more every night, eat protein at breakfast, an … | Continue reading

Dear All, Thanks to everyone who attended the communications brainstorming session I moderated earlier this week. As a reminder, the question was which emojis we should include in next week’s message to employees impacted by our restructuring program. Here’s a brief recap of what … | Continue reading

Zoë Hitzig’s newest, called Not Us Now, is a collection of poems written against—into the teeth of—the particular kind of algorithmic society many of us are now ensnared in. A society in which our moves are tracked and goaded by corporate systems for guiding behavior and feeling. … | Continue reading

The sun rose a blazing orange ball through the gray mist over the hill. Black dendritic shadows of rhododendrons pirouetted in a wild dance as a murder of crows pecked methodically at the detritus of some abandoned breakfast, unholy miners searching for a vein in cracked and buck … | Continue reading