Flaming Hydra

@flaminghydra.com

70423 Followers 217 Following

A collaborative of 60 writers and artists publishing a newsletter for you each weekday. Culture, opinions, criticism, news, comics, mayhem. $3/month https://flaminghydra.com

THE RULES Create an ENTERTAINING and APT acronym from the letters provided. Use only the initial letters—use all of them, and in the order shown. If there is a theme specified, your HYDRANYM should refer to it in some way. For example if the theme were HISTORY, and the letters given G F P M, a possible submission would be: Greeks Found Perseus Manly. On Thursday, June 19, we’ll publish a form where you can read—and vote—on the best 21 entries received, as judged by a panel of Flaming Hydra editors. Winners will receive bragging rights and their name and winning entry will be posted on the ANNALS of HYDRANYM page.
A screenshot of zombo.com which is just those words in janky letters and font
A pink wheatpaste poster that reads Defebd the Internet archive, we need digital libraries, let them own books. An owl sits atop a stack of books that all say BANNED on the side.
screenshot reads "Hello Flaming. How are you doing today" and a heart emoji
How do I turn on Reading mode in Chrome? Manage Reading mode 1. On your computer, open Chrome. 2. Go to a website with text that you'd like to read. 3. At the top right, select More More tools. Reading mode. 4. Under "Reading mode," use the toolbar to: Adjust the font: Select the Down arrow. Adjust the font size: Select to increase the font size and to decrease it. Google Help https://support.google.com › chrome › answer Use Reading mode in the Side panel - Google Chrome Help
Screenshot of a sentence that reads, "But also.... are you a cult?"
There can be a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship between readers and the writers, editors, and artists who are fairly paid to serve them, on terms as clear as day: We make the best, most interesting, most well-written publication we possibly can, and if you like it, you pay us to continue. There’s no one else involved in the transaction whose agenda might conflict with its purposes. When the deal is that simple, we can treat one another with respect and camaraderie.
A t-shirt that says What's More Punk Than The Public Library
Sketched grass with a foot emerging from it.
Logo of the National Weather Service
The words "Kim Kelly's Riff Wrecks" on a flaming background with a skull.
A picture of Aaron Bushnell on a white background with the text, "I will no longer be complicit in genocide."
A mug that says, "What are you reading now"
A sinister looking green goblin carrying a blade.
The Homework Machine—written in consultation with the Dr. Louis Robinson, Manager of the Mathematics and Applications Department, IBM—is sweet, mildly engaging kid stuff, with the children feeding information into the Professor’s machine so it can do their homework for them, and only realizing at the end that they did more work, and learned more, than they would have by just doing their homework, while learning Valuable Lessons about friendship and fairness, not to mention the machines.
Jim Cooke's sketchbook showing an image of feet diving into seagrass.
A screenshot of a young couple draped in an Israeli flag. Next to them is a text box promising their safety in Israel on a Birthright trip.
The Wikipedia orb logo
AI generated ghosts wearing different superhero costumes in a vending machine
Iago from The Lion King
And now, they are trying to shut Black studies down, women's studies, queer studies. Critical race theory. They're trying to shut the whole thing down. I say to people: Do you see how successful we've been? The ignorant, narrow, and vicious white right wing—they see that young people’s minds are changing. Most young people want Palestine to be free. They say, no, no, no. We can't have people getting this kind of information. Too late. Too late. The genie is out of the bottle. The stuff exists.
A chaotic flyer for an Oscar party hosted in Baltimore, promising prizes and more.
An image of stew being made with seasoning being poured in, by perpetual stew-maker, @DepthsofWikipedia aka Annie Rauwerda.
An image of comic book heroes who are now ghosts, trapped in a vending machine
A caption explaining the popularity of the Shirley Jackson story "The Lottery" when it first come out.
Somewhere, the man who owns that half-dead website is thinking about how much more money he can make from it. The man is identical to the rest of the men like him, sort of eternally 38 years old, with the same tepid essence as a room-temperature scallop sitting lonely on a catering dish as the cocktail hour winds down. He has a fastidiously-tended-to LinkedIn and a Crunchbase profile and once, in 2021, he spent $1.4 million to buy a hat that belonged to Napoleon. He would tell the New York Post afterward that it “was incredibly inexpensive compared to a lot of other collectables that people are buying at auction in the modern day.”
I asked my boyfriend to get engaged a month after she died, and from the outset, everything felt wrong. The jeweler made my ring incorrectly. We spent part of our engagement trip scattering my mother’s ashes, which blew in my face in the freezing Vermont wind. In photos from that time, I look like someone who has been crying a lot, with a pale, puffy face and a smile that stops at my mouth.
Three Playboy covers from different eras, each model making a V with her legs.
I loved writing and assigning articles about underrepresented artists, labels, and scenes. (I may do some of that work again in this very newsletter.) I loved working with people who were as deeply passionate about underground music as I am. People partially understand ourselves through our work—it helps determine our class positions, our networks, the material reality we have access to, and it shapes our days. But it is not and should not be the totality of our being, and we should be wary of the ways employers seek to keep that boundary between work and life indistinct.
A comic that wonders whether or not folks have internal monologues.
An array of voting paraphernalia
A neat but boring mid century living room with nice chairs and a mid century couch from West Elm
An impressionist painting of a woman with her bellybutton
A worker overlooking an abandoned factory
A picture of the desert
Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer
A collection of annoying sayings like "Follow Your Passion" on a locker
“May I see that photo?” I ask, pointing to the frame. Next to me, the lawyer’s assistant shifts and leans forward, almost imperceptibly. “I… don’t believe it’s appropriate.” “It’s a picture of you and Adam, then.” “Why don’t we try to leave on good terms.” “Amicably.” “If you like.” “He does exist, Adam,” I say. “You can’t pretend to be married when practicing family law. It wouldn’t be ethical.” “I can print that contract right now, if you like.” “I bet you could.”
A glimpse of Internal Monologue by Trevor Alixopulos, where the main character wonders what other people's internal monologue sounds like.
"More insidious than mid-century modern, however, is realizing that home design has become a powerful current of populist hyperconsumerism. Adult TikTok users were recently scandalized by the fact that some tweens are obsessed with Sephora and skincare, but like, have you met Pottery Barn Kids? The proliferation of monastic mid-century decor influencers on social media feels like an attempt to reinforce this notion that World War II is where America truly began, a myopic, Hollywoodized fallacy—one that is, at least, finally beginning to disintegrate."