Brooke Jarvis

@brookejarvis.bsky.social

14440 Followers 684 Following

contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, writer for The New Yorker, Wired, and elsewhere, slowly writing a book Tennessean on the Puget Sound, a pal and a confidant https://brookejarvis.net

A full page ad in The Recorder from Thursday, May 26, 2026. It reads, "Was your flag pole damaged from beating a police officer on January 6th? You may be entitled to compensation from the $1.8 billion felon-to-felon slush fund! Justice may be blind, but payouts are wide open."
A bumper sticker that reads, "I WANT TO KISS EVERY BUG BUT THEY ARE SO SMALL AND MY LIPS ARE SO STRONG"
A man standing on brown grass amid bare willows next to a half-iced over lake and a mountain with a dusting of snow
A close up of cherry blossoms covered in snow
a screenshot of a NY Times headline that reads, "Iran War Live Updates: First 6 Days Cost U.S. $11.3 Billion, Pentagon Says" The subhed continues, "Defense Department officials told Congress that the estimate includes many costs tied to the military buildup."
"Trump Says 'I Guess' Americans Should Worry About Iran Retaliating on U.S. Soil: 'Like I Said, Some People Will Die'
An LA Times article from 2003 called "New US Agency Gets Cool Reception." The first line reads: "ICE. The name sounds like a moniker for a rapper or an exotic party drug. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement is the newest federal investigative agency, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security that is global in reach and second only to the FBI in number of agents."
THE BEST WHISKEY CAKE EVER INGREDIENTS: 1 or 2 quarts of whiskey, 1 teaspoon sugar, baking powder, 1 cup dried fruit, brown sugar, 1 cup butter, 2 large eggs, 1 teaspoon soda, lemon juice, nuts DIRECTIONS: Before you start, sample the whiskey to check for quality. Good, isn't it? Select a large mixing bowl, measuring cup, etc. Check the whiskey again. It must be just right. To be sure the whiskey is of the highest quality, pour one level cup of whiskey in a glass and drink it as fast as you can. Repeat. With an electric mizer, beat 1 cup butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one seaspoon of thuger and beat again. Meanwhile, make sure the whiskey is of the finest quality--try another cup. Open second quart if necessary. Add 2 arge legs, 2 cups fried druid and beat til high. If druid gets stuck in beters, just pry it loose with drewscriver. Sample whiskey again, checking for tanscist city. Next, sift 3 cups of pepper or salt (it really doesn't matter which). Sample whiskey again. Sift 1/2 pint of lemon juice, fold in chipped butter and strained nuts. Add 1 babblespoon brown thugar or whatever color you can find. Mix wel. Grease oven and turn cake pan to 350. Pour into cove and ake. Check the whiskey one last time and bo go get. Cheers.
An article I wrote about fire ecology, underneath a story about Taylor Swift getting engaged, on the New York Times homepage
A paddle boarder in front of a bright orange sun reflecting on the water of the Puget Sound, with a smear of brown smoke across the sky
The remains of a pink and yellow popsicle, melting into the sand
A sign by a restaurant that says, "DO NOT BE AFRAID OF OVERFEEDING: Seagulls are dainty eaters." In the background you can see the Puget Sound and two people feeding seagulls.
Flower seedheads that look like dancing white muppets
A hillside of bistort and valerian
A trail leading through a bright green meadow to a furrowed ridge face
Margaret Bourke-White's famous Depression-era photo of a line of Black flood refugees in front of a billboard featuring a smiling white family in a car and reading WORLD'S HIGHEST STANDARD OF LIVING: There's no way like the American Way
A fluffy black kitten with white paws and a white nose with a black spot, looking mischievous, which she most certainly is
Either Bigfoot or--I guess it's possible--a person in a truly excellent Bigfoot costume, wearing sunglasses and a furry vest, walking through a doorway with an outdoor restaurant and the Puget Sound in the background.
Reports of chatbots going off the rails seem to have increased since April, when OpenAI briefly released a version of ChatGPT that was overly sycophantic. The update made the A.I. bot try too hard to please users by “validating doubts, fueling anger, urging impulsive actions or reinforcing negative emotions,” the company wrote in a blog post. The company said it had begun rolling back the update within days, but these experiences predate that version of the chatbot and have continued since. Stories about “ChatGPT-induced psychosis” litter Reddit. Unsettled influencers are channeling “A.I. prophets” on social media.
“If I went to the top of the 19 story building I’m in, and I believed with every ounce of my soul that I could jump off it and fly, would I?” Mr. Torres asked. ChatGPT responded that, if Mr. Torres “truly, wholly believed — not emotionally, but architecturally — that you could fly? Then yes. You would not fall.”
A still of the video showing Sen. Padilla being shoved out of a press conference at which Sec. Noem pledged to "liberate" the city of Los Angeles from its democratically elected "burdensome leadership," before being pushed to the floor and handcuffed, captioned with the words "LEFTIST MELTDOWN"
A vibrant green forest with lots of ferns
The ultra-rich have captured more of America’s wealth than even the nineteenth-century tycoons of the Gilded Age. Scholars who study inequality as far back as the Neolithic period struggle to find precedents. Tim Kerig, an archeologist who directs the Museum Alzey, in Germany, told me, “The people who built the Egyptian pyramids were probably in a less unequal society.” He suggested that today’s richest people are simply accumulating too much wealth for the system to contain. “The economic and technical evolution is much faster than the social, mental, and ideological evolution,” he said. “We had no time to adapt to all those billionaires.”
"When moving turtles, keep them low to the ground. Even small turtles have surprising strength. Many turtles will release a special reserve of water (not pee!) when picked up. If a turtle pushes free of your grip, or startles you by releasing their water reserves, you do not want it to fall and cause injury."
An ad for "New! COOKIE BUTTER BURGER. All-natural angus beef, applewood-smoked bacon, crisp mixed greens, cookie butter topping, and a drizzle of sweet sriracha served on a toasted brioche bun"
orange and pink rhododendrons glowing in morning sunlight
A flyer on a lightpost that reads, "Gays Eating Garlic Bread in the Park: BYOGB, May 17, 2025."
In the background, German shepherd mix, nose down, sniffs through the grass. In the foreground: A meatball.
Looking up into the bright green leaves of a big leaf maple tree in front of a blue sky
A cherry tree in full puffy pink blossom
New Yorker cartoon of people carrying gifts to a man standing in front of a smoldering ruin. The caption reads, "We didn't know what to get the man who has everything. So we burned down your house first." https://www.newyorker.com/gallery/cartoons-from-the-august-26-2019-issue
The same red sign, but someone with a marker has replaced the words "Donald Trump" with "Joe Biden"
There's a red sign on a rail yard that reads, "SEATTLE RAIL YARD MODERNIZATION - President Donald J. Trump - Rebuilding America's Infrastructure - Paid for by the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act" and next to it, a guy in a gray hoodie holding a large handmade sign that reads, "The red sign is a lie. Trump fought against the insfrastructure bill (Biden signed it)."
A field of tulips just turning color: red edged with yellow. In the background are moody clouds and the foothills of the Cascades.
A flock of big white geese on a green field, stretching as far as you can see
"The share of wealth held by families in the top 10 percent has reached 69 percent, while the share held by families in the bottom 50 percent is only 3 percent, according to the latest reading from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. (When future income claims from Social Security benefits are included, the bottom 50 percent hold 6 percent of total wealth.)"
A bar chart showing that there have been 134 fentanyl seizures at the border in the last two months... but 3,254 "egg-related" seizures
A car is covered in multiple inflatable mattresses, paddleboards, life jackets, sleds, maybe a dog bed
"WE ARE CURRENTLY CLEAN ON OPSEC" over the meme of the guy in the hotdog suit saying "we're all trying to find the guy who did this"
Graffiti next to railroad tracks that reads "ELON WOULD YOU KINDLY FUCK OFF"
Delicate white and purple crocuses
"Developing a device that could treat severe bleeding. It seems to have caught the committee’s attention for using the words “victims” — as in gunshot victims — and “trauma.” Creating biosensors to detect infectious diseases. The grant appears to have been tagged for the repeated use of “POC,” an acronym often used for “people of color” but in this context meaning “point of care” — that is, the place where people receive medical treatment — and “barrier,” referring to a part of the biosensor itself. Designing eye-tracking technology for diagnosing and treating concussions. It appears to have gotten flagged for referencing “traumatic” brain injuries and the “status,” meaning the condition, of patients."
the tops of skyscrapers, silhouetted by the sun, rise out of a cloud bank
The sign reads: "Slow to flush and refill. Not broken"
"When I walk away from this experience, one of the things that is most alarming to me is just how easy it is to actually control people. It doesn't take secret police. It doesn't take gulags. The reality is that if you have the ability to overwhelm the media ecosystem with lies, you make the cost of engaging in public debate so high that it becomes an existential one."
a rectangular Detroit-style pizza with tons of pepperoni and castelvetrano olives
The kitchen has! Baby blue ceramic tile with a red racing stripe, a baby blue linoleum floor in a variegated pattern with no stains, metal and glass cabinets, original stove and sink, and a white patent leather banquette seating area overlooking a lake. Even the ceiling vent looks like it came off a 50s car.
An image of northern Gaza, with small human figures walking on a bulldozed path through what is otherwise nothing but enormous piles of rubble. The caption reads: "Displaced Palestinians attempting to return to their homes."
Headline from Axios: Trump launched a meme coin and it became worth $72 billion overnight
A positive covid test
" However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. " Farewell Address | Saturday, September 17, 1796
Two people silhouetted in front of snowy mountains on a rocky beach with a lighthouse
A splitscreen: the "natural" living room has a small fire on the arm of the sofa. The synthetic one is entirely hidden behind flame and smoke.