Tal Lavin

journalist, author, reads too much. haggard and unblest. trans guy, he/him.

newsletter:
buttondown.email/theswordandthe...

book!! hachettebookgroup.com/titles/talia-l...

contact: talialavinwrites@gmail.com

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Last Notes

2026-03-29 08:07:31 UTC

time to write an immortal existentialist novel after i finish this book of essays about remarkable sandwiches, i guess

2026-03-29 08:06:56 UTC

found my historical doppelganger and it's mikhail lermontov
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2026-03-29 00:22:38 UTC

i feel like every time i try to look butch i just wind up squinting
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2026-03-27 04:03:17 UTC

it's the summer of burliness. im gonna be able to lift sacks of grain for the revolution so easy. im gonna be able to haul rice across the plains. im gonna be able to lift a small hatchback and tenderly set it back on the road

2026-03-27 03:56:04 UTC

dont ask me why im seven books deep into a series that's high key offensive and has a bad reader, it's like asking someone why they finished that bag of takis

2026-03-27 03:54:47 UTC

my spring/summer fitness goal is to become brawny as fuck. im gonna be so stocky. i shall be a strapping lad. gonna be burly. burly is the goal

2026-03-27 03:42:59 UTC

i just feel if you are an audiobook narrator if a character "wails" or "screams" a line thats a cue to not say it in a monotone, you know

2026-03-26 15:30:11 UTC

mavis beacon did not teach you typing so you could make such terrible posts

2026-03-26 03:54:21 UTC

im not talking about messing up someone's pronouns and apologizing, i mean the hardcore "your GENITALS are WRONG" shit, its invariably linked to every other bigotry around

2026-03-26 03:35:23 UTC

yes this has a lot to do with me finally transitioning, but i notice that transphobia seems to often be the hinge that turns people from relatively normal into frothing would-be genocidaires

2026-03-26 03:16:18 UTC

me (happily as i begin this column): gosh guess i can't write a book about sandwiches without including some facts about mayonnaise!
me (weeks later, having trawled catalán webpages, read the duc de richelieu's memoirs, & the 3 major bibles of french cuisine): What Is Truth. Is Knowledge Real

2026-03-26 03:01:43 UTC

the spanish: no. u stole it from us. it was minorcan first. it's spoils of war but we made it
the proof: vibes
pep pelfort: vibes plus some recipes i made and a salacious theory about the duc de richelieu having an affair with a minorcan woman

2026-03-26 03:00:38 UTC

the french: mayonnaise, or possibly bayonnaise, moyeunaise, or magonnaise [each with a folk etymology that sources to: vibes]
the french: possibly the duc de richelieu's chef invented it after his victory in minorca in 1756 and named it after the port of mahon (mahonnnaise)

2026-03-26 02:57:40 UTC

the count em five french etymological theories about the french origins of mayonnaise are equally sus though. i hate having to end on a We Shall Never Know The Truth i *hate* it

2026-03-26 02:54:16 UTC

he's been featured all over spain in newspapers with this horseshit and im just gonna say it: bite me pep pelfort, you should be ashamed. although he wrote an article called "the name of the mayonnaise" in the style of umberto eco's "the name of the rose" which i can only admire

2026-03-26 02:51:18 UTC

pep pelfort calls his research methodology "intuitive philology" and i call it Bullshit. "aioli bo" isnt defined by the author of the 1740 cookbook but "we thought it tasted better with mayo" isnt empirical evidence! its subjective at Best.
https://puffball.us-east.host.bsky.network/xrpc/com.atproto.sync.getBlob?did=did:plc:z233fl2onqt7wbjkolynhsi3&cid=bafkreigvnmaydfxtlisfha7wq5jwop3u6jgqlrzmjpu2eszntnngep5dz4

2026-03-26 02:41:35 UTC

so ive been diving very deep into the disputed history of mayonnaise and i thought i truly had something, but it turns out this one catalán researcher who claimed to have documentary evidence of mayo's spanish origins was going off, to put it mildly, highly dubious vibes

2026-03-25 02:11:31 UTC

i dont actually need them translated-translated, more summarized and not via google translate

2026-03-25 01:57:34 UTC

i need a Catalán speaker to help me out with a few passages from a book I need translated
no im not diving too deep into mayonnaise history shut up

2026-03-24 06:55:02 UTC

rewatching unforgotten because a) its a great show and b) my inner bi chaos demon has gigantic crushes on both sanjeev bhaskar and nicola walker

2026-03-23 23:36:58 UTC

in terms of best protagonists for mystery fiction my preferences are PI --> random busybody --> cold case detective --> normal detective. in the latter two categories you just have to accept youre in an alternate universe type situation

2026-03-23 02:50:05 UTC

the criterion is ive read them at least five times and would read again ahah

2026-03-23 02:38:03 UTC

some of these have stuck with me since high school others i encountered a few months ago i fully expect the list to be totally different a year from now

2026-03-23 02:37:19 UTC

rounding out the top 10
the gastronomical me by mfk fisher
the selected works of guillaume apollinaire
jane eyre
home ice advantage by ari baran

2026-03-23 02:34:54 UTC

favorite books of all time that i will return & return to if i had to list em right now:
moby dick (ofc)
the wapshot chronicle by john cheever
in a lonely place by dorothy hughes
farthest north by fritjof nansen
a hero of our time by lermontov
dancing in odessa by ilya kaminsky

2026-03-23 02:18:43 UTC

also is it "shameful" or is it "societally coded as feminine"

2026-03-23 02:16:44 UTC

people who disrespect you for unashamedly enjoying things that they view as beneath their intellect probably suck and are also almost certainly hypocrites

2026-03-23 02:04:28 UTC

if your pleasure harms someone then it is a guilty pleasure.
like.... who does chocolate pudding or romance novels harm. chill out with the puritanism pleasure makes life worth living in addition to fulfilling work
#nevent1q…mmwe

2026-03-23 01:41:21 UTC

football girdles, nineteenth century paleontology feuds, cataplexy, the word "facticity," sex swings, things of this nature

2026-03-23 01:33:42 UTC

like i read sixteen books this week but they were the type of books you can read sixteen of in a week you know? so there's that. that being said i learned a lot about some things

2026-03-23 01:26:20 UTC

i don't find pleasures guilty unless they harm anyone, and i don't think me reading a metric fuckton of dumb books is hurting anyone

2026-03-23 01:24:17 UTC

considering just doing a thread of all the books im reading on the daily but worry it will be too long and too revealing

2026-03-22 20:28:05 UTC

not now universe im reading gay murder mysteries. theyre really bad

2026-03-20 22:39:52 UTC

im gonna try to be Less Sad

2026-03-20 22:32:48 UTC

its nowruz.... eid..... the vernal equinox..... rosh chodesh....... good day to make a change

2026-03-20 01:40:37 UTC

*tries to dig up out of the pit of despair*
*mud splats on me*
*i drown*
alas

2026-03-19 02:27:44 UTC

my book deadline: nears
everyone in my life: prepares for me to lie on the floor for hours at a time howling like a wounded wolf cub

2026-03-19 02:24:30 UTC

while it's nice not to be writing about stuff that inherently traumatizes me for once, im discovering i can be just as melodramatic about the history of mayonnaise as i can about like, spiritual warfare or neonazism

2026-03-19 02:22:45 UTC

sometimes lines from old youtube videos are like intrusive thoughts for me and "hanging out in a bar with like fifty dogs" is one of them for me. also jealous this dude is aidy bryant's husband tbh, she's a fox youtu.be/oYLxkGz00d0?...
Irish Mob

2026-03-19 02:06:25 UTC

just having my regularly scheduled book deadline breakdown. i will survive
https://puffball.us-east.host.bsky.network/xrpc/com.atproto.sync.getBlob?did=did:plc:z233fl2onqt7wbjkolynhsi3&cid=bafkreihyqyhse3eheu76hfxau6zw4qk5yc4cuvdyszx6ozphbe3qdekl6e

2026-03-15 04:50:24 UTC

are YOU sufficiently wary of the ides of March? BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH
https://puffball.us-east.host.bsky.network/xrpc/com.atproto.sync.getBlob?did=did:plc:z233fl2onqt7wbjkolynhsi3&cid=bafkreiezwgbkyryv6wjkvsmp43gwzinnd52hsxlbeluh627yon7qmxniqu

2026-03-14 18:57:39 UTC

thank you thomas carver iii's four seasons in the street, this is the most thoughtful prelude to a spitroasting ive ever read
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2026-03-14 18:54:53 UTC

i love when erotica is better written than it has any business being and youre like "wow ive been inadvertently enriched by my own horniness"

2026-03-14 15:39:22 UTC

i like when newborn babies have eyes that sorta hint theyre reincarnated 10,000 year old beings horrified to be reborn into such soft and tiny bodies

2026-03-10 17:26:26 UTC

sorry to poast too much about this but its my first published fiction since high school and i had fun imagining the many many spies at mar a lago
buttondown.com/theswordandt...
https://puffball.us-east.host.bsky.network/xrpc/com.atproto.sync.getBlob?did=did:plc:z233fl2onqt7wbjkolynhsi3&cid=bafkreicvsxmq6ebynhs26ocvqi5ihgll3eqi44lcakvt64aj67uhc7ukm4

2026-03-10 16:47:59 UTC

in which i got so le carriéd away i wrote some spy fiction of my own
buttondown.com/theswordandt...
The Submarine of Czechia: Or, ...

2026-03-10 16:39:57 UTC

in which i imagine the life of a spy at mar a lago, in a short story
buttondown.com/theswordandt...
https://puffball.us-east.host.bsky.network/xrpc/com.atproto.sync.getBlob?did=did:plc:z233fl2onqt7wbjkolynhsi3&cid=bafkreiaybqpihhsd66xzkxenknlyi3gqcyebegiqd2tnshvxqqxwinexhe

2026-03-10 16:37:33 UTC

In which I write a short story about the many spies at work at Mar-a-Lago & how they keep tripping over each other
"The waitstaff had a Russian agent named Vladimir and a Ukrainian agent named Volodymyr and an older Polish agent, Włodzimierz."
buttondown.com/theswordandt...
The Submarine of Czechia: Or, ...

2026-03-10 16:31:51 UTC

so what happened was, i read nine john le carré books, then i saw the pictures of the preposterous drapery SCIF at mar a lago where the iran war was being conducted, and then i thought about how many spies there must be at that place
and then i wrote a short story
buttondown.com/theswordandt...
The Submarine of Czechia: Or, ...

2026-03-10 02:20:20 UTC

well written smut is such a balm in these trying times

2026-03-10 01:34:07 UTC

[or, in my case, sperm]

2026-03-10 01:33:40 UTC

i am reading an exceedingly witty book called the palace of varieties by james lear (a gay virgin-to-whore picaresque set in a london music hall in 1934) and this quote had me dyingggg
https://puffball.us-east.host.bsky.network/xrpc/com.atproto.sync.getBlob?did=did:plc:z233fl2onqt7wbjkolynhsi3&cid=bafkreifp2egf3cfzmdcd5kxu26bfsktw5prtvf3t4r34axpyodn6gx27pe

2026-03-09 23:57:50 UTC

in which I get Le Carriéd away and wrote some spy fiction of my own for @flaminghydra.com@bsky.brid.gy flaminghydra.com/issue-518/#t...
Poisonous paradise

2026-03-09 14:50:37 UTC

i don't, however, think people reading books is a crisis of literacy

2026-03-09 13:54:54 UTC

also im fully capable of enjoying the hell out of dumb sexy books (like the one im reading about estranged stepbrothers FORCED to cuddle during a blizzard and having Erotic Feelings) and also literary doorstoppers and nonfiction opuses. theyre not mutually exclusive!

2026-03-09 13:09:19 UTC

also i hate to tell u but reading doesn't actually make you a better person? like i think engaging with art can increase your faculty of empathy but reading the brothers karamazov doesn't actually make you, like, superior? ive read it and didn't get a +2 to my WIS stat

2026-03-09 11:42:22 UTC

i actually think "books should be difficult and somewhat painful to read and you are Bettering Yourself through Struggle" is a worse attitude for mass literacy than "I have specific preferences and like reading a lot of fun stories" tbh

2026-03-09 11:32:04 UTC

also the exemplar of this trend used first person romances to learn to enjoy reading for fun, reads fifty books a year, and now happily reads third person books. im sure romance novelists have endured some shitty conversations with editors because of the booktok trend, but cmon

2026-03-09 03:13:16 UTC

also weed that doesnt send you straight to hell

2026-03-08 21:49:43 UTC

more like daylight stolen time (stole my sleep)

2026-03-08 06:29:23 UTC

im glad the author eventually realized that their interviewee reading fifty books a year is actually a positive thing but the snootiness so deeply ingrained! romance is joyous and some of it has excellent prose and its just time to Get Over Your Pride

2026-03-08 05:14:46 UTC

step 2: now im gonna shower, wind down, and go to sleep by 2am

2026-03-08 05:06:22 UTC

i did it i went on my little bike for forty three minutes. my butt hurts but it's also stronger

2026-03-08 04:20:00 UTC

okay i am going to work out now. its going to happen. cardio is going to happen. im gonna do it

2026-03-08 01:17:55 UTC

(the issue was neither the novel or the miniseries gave him enough to work with)

2026-03-08 01:10:26 UTC

olivia colman is, as ever, a perfect treasure

2026-03-08 01:08:22 UTC

the other unforgivable change from the novel is changing the mi6 villain's name from "geoffrey darker" to "geoffrey drumgoole." jeff darker is the perfect villain name

2026-03-08 01:06:08 UTC

now starting The Constant Gardener (book) having read up on the massively fucked up case it was based on. what can i say i am a sucker for le carré (and his post cold war switch to antiamericanism is an absolute joy)

2026-03-08 00:58:09 UTC

this is also by far the most fuckable ive ever found tom hiddleston idk what that says about me

2026-03-08 00:44:50 UTC

i realize the first season was 10 years ago (with a fairly unconvincing use of the Arab Spring as enhanced set dressing) but really Dickie Roper is doing an awful lot of work compared to say Sam Altman

2026-03-08 00:43:40 UTC

watching The Night Manager s1 and finding it almost quaint that Richard Roper is this supervillain doing Massive Arms Deals chased by 2 continents' worth of intelligence for ... $240 million. some silicon valley shits out a surveillance drone for 10 billion

2026-03-06 02:12:12 UTC

the new york times just absolutely stole scrabble?

2026-03-05 23:32:54 UTC

markwayne

2026-03-04 22:12:34 UTC

we made it so

2026-03-04 22:08:45 UTC

my partner got me picard's away team jacket for valentine's (it took forever in the mail) so we are now legally [picard voice] Engaged!
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2026-03-04 21:38:02 UTC

War Powers Act becomes Wrap Powers Act for making the most powerful wraps as determined by congress

2026-03-04 21:35:23 UTC

all torpedos and submarines get transformed back into sandwiches. rockets? all made of arugula now. MOAB = Mayonnaise Optional Amazing Bread.

2026-03-04 21:30:48 UTC

everyone gets a piece of the loaf babey

2026-03-04 21:30:04 UTC

my first book (2020) was about online neonazis and my second book (2024) was about christian theocrats. they gained strength, voltronned and became a government. my third book (2027) is going to be a history of notable sandwiches so i hope this means we will be governed by sandwichocracy

2026-03-04 20:16:45 UTC

innocently reading the larousse gastronomique for research and im ambushed by this. babes u know u want my salpicon cussy (hot)
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2026-03-04 18:51:52 UTC

for more about the people seeking to bring about the end of the world who happen to hold the reins of power at the moment, check the book out:
bookshop.org/p/books/wild...
Wild Faith: How the Christian ...

2026-03-04 18:49:42 UTC

today at the newsletter, free: an adapted excerpt from my book Wild Faith, about evangelical Christian prophecies about war in the Middle East and the end of the world & how they influence US foreign policy:
buttondown.com/theswordandt...
Yearning for the Apocalypse

2026-03-04 18:45:45 UTC

i could paint little warhammer guys if i don't have to learn any rules. i just wanna hang out with beautiful and enlightenemed men and women

2026-03-04 17:05:51 UTC

im thinking the key to finding trans community is to get into magic: the gathering but i hate complicated rules based games. maybe i can just be a male cheerleader for awesome trans girl mtg players

2026-03-04 16:58:35 UTC

a perfect spy is my favorite so far, it's pretty much a towering literary achievement imo

2026-03-04 16:50:34 UTC

me (stuff i need doing piling up like a wobbly horrible mountain): time to contemplate the tangled ethics of spycraft in the waning decades of the cold war. i bet it's a stand in for the human condition!!! oooo it's melancholy as hell

2026-03-04 16:46:14 UTC

i wrote a short story i really like that will hopefully come out soon. also need to revise wild faith for the paperback edition and finish sandwich book first draft tout suite. my reaction to all this is to read seven le carré novels in like a week as one does

2026-03-04 16:43:08 UTC

i have so much to write but instead am reading the night manager and it's. so good. but i Will finish a sandwich essay today

2026-03-04 05:44:33 UTC

what stage of depression is missing a night's sleep and then accidentally sleeping from noon to 11pm

2026-03-03 15:51:34 UTC

le carré's absolute obsession with traitors and professional liars makes a lot more sense when you know his dad was a con man

2026-03-03 15:27:11 UTC

none of the rather tiresome mystery elements just a pure raw semi memoir combined with the fractured psychology of the double agent

2026-03-03 15:25:16 UTC

a perfect spy by john le carré was genuinely beautiful and devastating and i loved it

2026-03-02 01:35:20 UTC

this war on iran is senseless and appalling

2026-03-02 00:00:53 UTC

or "miss" gendered rather. man i gotta jettison these tits

2026-03-01 23:59:42 UTC

wow being misgendered and not really being able to say anything about it is a shitty feeling

2026-03-01 02:48:24 UTC

like i want the bbc miniseries with this cast and budget (except oldman). or cut out most of the boring detective shit from the middle of the novel and just show the spicy good bits

2026-03-01 02:45:39 UTC

this is basically the aesthetics of le carré and a good cast but 0 of the substance whatsoever

2026-03-01 02:41:49 UTC

what the FUCK was that travesty of operation testify. absolutely dreadful
gary oldman fucking terrible choice for smiley. way too hot.
they declined to use any of the dialogue from le carré lest audiences perish due to contact with eloquence

2026-03-01 02:40:19 UTC

im watching the 2011 film of tinker tailor soldier spy and so far its such a bloody awful adaptation im choosing to treat it as "loosely based on" or else i'll go insane

2026-03-01 02:22:18 UTC

tinker, tailor, soldier, beggarman, poorman, rich man, thief runs out, required to branch out to other professions not in a creepy british nursery rhyme: fishmonger, whelkman, thatcher, blacksmith, dairyman, herbwife, gynecologist