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The last good website.

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This is Defector, a new sports blog and media company. We made this place together, we own it together, we run it together. Without access, without favor, without discretion, and without interference.

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Defector

VictorPortraitWClaw

David Roth

A crop of four images of people kind of partying and hanging out from Ken Ohara's "Contacts" show at The Whitney, with the relevant Whitney credit language superimposed at lower right.

Ohara

Arts And Culture

Make Yourself At Home


<p><a href="http://Feldman.cool" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Brian Feldman</a> is a software engineer living in Brooklyn.</p>


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Brian Feldman

tim robinson using the computer in the chair company

chair company computer

‘The Chair Company’ Is A Show About How Fun It Is To Use The Computer

<p>August <span class="il">Prum</span> is a writer and filmmaker based in Queens.</p>


August Prum

Martin Donovan, Elina Lowensohn, and Bill Sage, left to right, dance in an empty restaurant in a scene from Hal Hartley's film "Simple Men."

SimpleMen

Hal Hartley Is Still Figuring It All Out Onscreen


<p>charismatic megafauna (they/them)</p>


Typing

Sabrina Imbler

Dave McKenna

a still from the movie Jingle Bell Heist, with Lucy Punch in a fascinator looking at Connor Swindells

Screenshot 2025-12-04 at 12.17.06 PM

Defector Watches A Christmas Movie: ‘Jingle Bell Heist’

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<p>Robert Rubsam writes fiction and nonfiction. His work has appeared in the NYT Magazine, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, the Baffler, and Liberties. He is a contributing writer for Commonweal Magazine.</p>
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Robert Rubsam

TrainDreams

‘Train Dreams’ Is Afraid Of Its Own Shadow

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Israel Daramola

tim-robinson-chair-company

Tim Robinson Understands What The Boys Are Going Through

a photo of the set of the broadway musical Chess, with a sign that says CHESS, and the chorus standing for bows in front of it

‘Chess: The Musical’ Is Somehow More Of A Musical About Chess Than You Can Imagine

Ralph Jones

“Late Fame” Photocall – The 82nd Venice International Film Festival

Interviews

An Illuminating Conversation With The Man Who Was Willem Dafoe’s Stunt Penis

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Kelsey McKinney

elyse myers in a yellow shirt smiles at the camera

2022 VidCon

How Normal Is A Celebrity Allowed To Be? 

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Barry Petchesky

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The Eyes Have It

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Patrick Redford

Screenshot 2025-11-19 at 9.28.13 AM

Thomas Pynchon Is Laughing All The Way To The Brink

<p>Alex Shultz is a journalist based in Brooklyn. He&#8217;s a writer for <a href="https://www.hardresetmedia.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.hardresetmedia.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1763581679564000&amp;usg=AOvVaw07bi0TNndgTXDN2QH72s3J">Hard Reset,</a> a newsletter about tech, labor, and power.</p>


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Alex Shultz

US Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, looks at his cellphone in between Senate votes to reopen the government on day 41 of the government shutdown at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, November 10, 2025. The longest-ever US government shutdown appeared headed Monday to an eventual resolution, after several Democratic senators broke ranks to join Republicans in advancing a compromise deal -- sparking intra-party backlash.

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Politics

John Fetterman’s Memoir Is As Low-Effort As His Senate Tenure

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Joel Pinckney

Gypsum dune fields at White Sands National Monument located within the Chihuahuan Desert and the Tularosa Basin near Alamorodo, New Mexico, USA

‘The High Heaven’ Is A Beautifully Grounded Debut Novel

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Mark Asch

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‘Bugonia’ Makes A Crash Landing

<p><a href="http://www.ddavisla.com"><span style="font-weight: 400">David Davis </span></a>is the author of <i>Wheels of Courage: How Paralyzed Veterans From World War II Invented Wheelchair Sports, Fought for Disability Rights, and Inspired a Nation</i> and <i>Waterman: The Life and Times of Duke Kahanamoku</i>. He lives in Los Angeles.</p>
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David Davis

Marty Reisman, holder of 18 International and US National table tennis titles, and author of the 1974 book "The Money Player" in which he described his life traveling the world, playing high-stakes matches. Reisman won the 1997 United States National Hardbat championship. Now at age 77, he is probably the oldest person ever to win an open US national title in a racquet sport. (Photo by Neville Elder/Corbis via Getty Images)

USA – Sports – Table Tennis legend Marty Reisman

Table Tennis

The Real Marty Supreme

oscar isaac as frankenstein gazes up at his creature on a cross

frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Frankenstein’ Is Flawed Because His Creature Is Not

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In ‘Die My Love,’ Motherhood Is A Mad Mad Mad World

<p>Jae Towle Vieira [they/them] works as a producer for Normal Gossip. Their fiction has been published in <i data-stringify-type="italic">The Normal School</i>, <i data-stringify-type="italic">New England Review, Carve Magazine, Passages North, Fairy Tale Review</i>, and elsewhere.</p>


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Jae Towle Vieira

KidsBooks (1)

Here Is What Reading To My Child Has Done To My Brain

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Don’t Watch ‘Deliver Me From Nowhere’ Unless You Want To Cry About Your Dad

<p>Cat Fitzpatrick is the Editrix at <a href="http://www.littlepuss.net" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.littlepuss.net&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1762370146099000&amp;usg=AOvVaw32JizYx318M3PPu4pk8ywT">LittlePuss Press</a> and teaches at Rutgers University—Newark. Her novel-in-rhyme<i> <a href="https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4458-the-call-out" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4458-the-call-out&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1762370146099000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0x1xQpV0dOeP9rAfMJufQ_">The Call-Out</a> </i>won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award in Transgender Fiction. Her next book <i>The Dinner Party: A Book About Love</i> is due out in May 2026 and you can pre-order it <a href="https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4817-the-dinner-party" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4817-the-dinner-party&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1762370146099000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2GA0SB3SAFIWLj_EdeVhey">here</a>.</p>


Yang Cat on the Fire Escape

Cat Fitzpatrick

kiss 16-9-min

Unearthing The Hidden History Of A Singular Trans Punk Zine