Last month I began a new seasonal tradition for God of the Desert Digital Media Studios, an annual shout-out to writers and “content creators” who had really contributed some wonderful work to the creative community during the previous months:

In preparation for the Fall edition of this feature, I decided to go through my list of likes for Substack pieces published this month and then assemble them into a rough ordering of favorites.

I ended up with 40 on the nose, however the list includes multiple pieces from certain authors who deserve recognizing first.

Comedian taped his new comedy special on October 25 and it sounds like he killed it, as is to be expected since he kills it everyday here on Substack. There are three posts from him on here, including a video of him explaining his joke writing process and another offering a comedy manifesto.

continues to shine as my favorite artist on Substack. There are three of his pieces on here too. As I get back into drawing and cartooning more, his approach is a core inspiration.

, AKA the self-proclaimed “Soup Girl,” has emerged in recent months as a creative fireball on Substack. She also has three pieces appearing on the list. She’s a humor writer and is hilarious, thoughtful, and empathetic. While this ranking is based on the work in Substack pieces, it also has to be pointed out that she has developed a very strong Notes game. She’s regularly dropping clever jokes and has developed an amusing writer persona:

Give Soup Girl a subscribe and some encouragement as she begins her ascent up the mountain of the Substack bestseller list.

There are two pieces from my new friend , including my #1 post of the month. Cody and I have had two wonderful live-stream discussions this month and have had further wonderful talks and exchanges. He’s had such difficult times the last few years recovering from some disturbing crimes he experienced. Seeing him pushing himself to turn his life around and develop a more positive way of living has really moved me.

You can see those talks here:

God of the Desert Digital Media Studios

My First Ever Substack Live: Cody Taymore and I Talk for More Than 2 Hours

My new friend Cody Taymore and I had a great discussion about all sorts of topics on Saturday afternoon…

Listen now

22 days ago · 5 likes · 7 comments · Rev. Dr. David Michael Swindle and Cody Taymore

The Rant

Live with Cody Taymore and David Swindle

Listen now

14 days ago · 11 likes · Cody Taymore and Rev. Dr. David Michael Swindle

is one of Generation X’s greatest writers.

I’ve been reading Susannah for about 17 years now and I’m always stunned by the power of her prose, the vividness of her storytelling, and the depth of her thinking. She made the porn industry her professional speciality and has also thus emerged as the most sophisticated journalist to ever cover the industry. There are two of her pieces on here. (The only two she published this month, so 100% of her output is on the list.)

is a TV show producer who writes on pop culture and lifestyle topics. He does such a phenomenal job of making whatever he’s writing about so accessible and welcoming. I’ve been so impressed by the quality of his prose and just what a big heart he has.

is who you’re going to need to read right now to understand how Hollywood is being transformed. He wrote the definitive history of the Warner brothers and thus is now deeply equipped for analyzing the moves the Ellison family is making now that they have gained control over Hollywood’s greatest film studio.

Chris convinced me that Warners is the crown jewel of Hollywood. They made the best films going back to the 1930s and still do today, as evidenced by coming conclusion of the “Dune” trilogy:

I’ll keep my comments below more minimalist:

1. Cody Taymore

The Rant

Kill The Silence Is Now The Rant

Over the last few years, I’ve contemplated everything…

9 days ago · 47 likes · 42 comments · Cody Taymore

2. Matt Ruby

The Rubesletter by Matt Ruby 💎

How does a comedian write jokes?

What’s my writing process for comedy like? How do you get ready to film a special? This video reveals all…

Listen now

8 days ago · 8 likes · 2 comments · Matt Ruby

3. Douglas Rushkoff

Douglas Rushkoff

Team Human is Over. Long Live Team Human

Hi All …

6 days ago · 99 likes · 14 comments · Douglas Rushkoff

This piece by and the one below by Matt Ruby are both very important and I’ll be discussing them in an upcoming article that I’m working on now. Please give them both a read, a subscribe, and some encouragement.

4. Matt Ruby

Funny How: Letters to a Young Comedian

A comedy manifesto

I’m taping a special on Sunday (Oct 25) in NYC. Get tickets here. (Promo code “groovy” for discount…

4 days ago · 5 likes · 1 comment · Matt Ruby

5. Celeste Davis

Matriarchal Blessing

I’m so sorry, but none of your solutions for fraternity reform are going to work

*content warning: discussion of rape and sexual assault…

24 days ago · 1367 likes · 202 comments · Celeste Davis

This piece by is the very best, most insightful analysis I read about the Cornell 7 horrors.

6. Richard Drew

Life Unscripted

Life After (Career) Death

Jobs come and go. But what happens when they don’t come back…

9 days ago · 15 likes · 14 comments · Richard Drew

7. Tana Ganeva

Substance

Two kinds of men. What does real masculinity look like?

“Look, look, look!” my friend Ali gushed, shoving his phone in my face. I assumed it’d be a video of a goal in a Real Madrid game I don’t care about. “Coool!” I prepared to pretend…

10 days ago · 15 likes · 1 comment · Tana Ganeva

is on a real roll. Her piece last month was also fire:

Substance

How to scare a generation out of having kids, then blame them for it

We weren’t friends, but I still remember the name of the girl in my high school who got pregnant at 16. She skulked around, head hung in shame, gargantuan belly exploding out of the bottom of her stretched tank top. I don’t recall ever seeing her get bullied, maybe she was, but I suspect not really: You almost got the sense that the tragedy of her pligh…

2 months ago · 154 likes · 54 comments · Tana Ganeva

8. Susannah Breslin

The Reverse Cowgirl

Porn Blind: Part 7

“Porn Blind” is a 10-part series about what I learned writing about the adult movie industry for nearly 30 years, how the business changed, and how it changed me. Subscribe here…

15 days ago · 15 likes · 1 comment · Susannah Breslin

9. Elliot Grove

Elliot Grove

HOLLYWOOD DOESN’T NEED SAVING: IT NEEDS IGNORING.

Raindance Seven…

15 days ago · 166 likes · 35 comments · Elliot Grove

is now the keeper of the flame of the 1980s-1990s independent film spirit. Anyone still dreaming of the DIY film career that you may have once wanted should read him. You can still have it if you want.

10. Laura Hope Z

Soup Girl

The One That Got Away To Try Dog Meat in China

1. July 2007…

8 days ago · 21 likes · 20 comments · Laura Hope Z

Subscribe now

11. Cody Taymore

The Rant

The Future Doesn’t Exist

My dad showed up with coffee this morning…

10 hours ago · 25 likes · 4 comments · Cody Taymore

12. Laura Hope Z

13. L.E. Mullin

L.E. Mullin

Some toxic wisdom for you

2 days ago · 119 likes · 23 comments · L. E. Mullin

14. Navi

Navi’s Substack

The Kybalion Can't Be Saved

A Hermetic book that isn't…

15 days ago · 20 likes · 2 comments · Navi

The piece is a much appreciated take-down of The Kybalion, a New Thought text masquerading as Hermetic philosophy.

15. L.E. Mullin

L.E. Mullin

You have to read this

Hey, In today’s strip we have The Condor’s daughter asking our hero to read C.S. Lewis…

20 days ago · 174 likes · 38 comments · L. E. Mullin

Adventures in the Archive

Jack Warner and the Tribulations of Family History

Studio bosses have been in the crosshairs of critics as merger mania continues on Hollywood. David Ellison and company continue their PR blitz to convince that growth and success are on the horizon - and for the sake of everyone at his companies, I hope that becomes a reality. Yet, we cannot overlook the history Ellison has now been allowed to purchase…

16 days ago · 5 likes · Chris Yogerst

17. Joel J Miller

MILLER’S BOOK REVIEW 📚

I Bit Off More Books Than I Could Chew

Some people love reading goals. Others? Not so much. I’m in the first camp, but the research on reading goals is admittedly mixed. One study by Yasaman Jafari and colleagues of Goodreads challenges, for instance, found the vast majority of participants—81 percent of 787 users—logged more books during years they participated in challenges than those they…

21 days ago · 89 likes · 37 comments · Joel J Miller

Everyone who loves books needs to subscribe to . His love of books is infectious and his writing is amazing.

18. Evan Hurst

The Moral High Ground

Maybe Tucker Carlson Just Hasn’t Met The Right Horse

Hello, Moral High Grounders! If you’re new here, WELCOME and check out what this place is all about — and why you belong here — by starting here! If you like this newsletter, and if you care about supporting independent media with the free press under attack from the Trump regime, AND you like sticking it to MAGA Christian nationalist assholes, PLEASE…

8 days ago · 205 likes · 25 comments · Evan Hurst

19. Susannah Breslin

The Reverse Cowgirl

Porn Blind: Part 8

“Porn Blind” is a 10-part series about what I learned writing about the adult movie industry for nearly 30 years, how the business changed, and how it changed me. Subscribe here…

8 days ago · 21 likes · 2 comments · Susannah Breslin

20. Susie Bright

Susie Bright’s Journal

Why Lady G Couldn’t Just Be “Gay”

A short documentary, The CLOSETocracy, hits the headlines today, with three men going on the record: when they were young hustlers, advertising as twinks, they were hired by Lindsey Graham for some fairly strenuous kink sessions…

5 days ago · 58 likes · 4 comments · Susie Bright

You simply are not going to find anyone on Substack with more perceptive insights into sexuality than .

Subscribe now

21. Natalia Antonova

The Normie Restoration

“Safe spaces” get burned down eventually

The best thing about working as a private investigator is hearing people’s stories. And occasionally winding up a part of them. (One of these days I’ll tell you all about being trapped in an attic in Fairfax in the middle of a heatwave, 0/10 experience, do not recommend…

16 days ago · 23 likes · 5 comments · Natalia Antonova 🇺🇸🇺🇦

is hilarious and also consistently killing it.

22. Oliver Bateman

Oliver Bateman Does the Work

The Work of Dennis Hastert

Dennis Hastert died today at 84, after a long (at least by historical standards!) and disappointing life. What follows is an essay I wrote a…

22 days ago · 31 likes · 7 comments · Oliver Bateman Does the Work

23. Michelle Teheux

Untrickled

My Everyday Smoothie: A Cheap, Nutritious Way to Use Up Food

This isn’t my usual topic but I want to share it, and it’s too long and image-heavy to be a Note…

6 days ago · 31 likes · 16 comments · Untrickled by Michelle Teheux

24. Sam Jamieson

Blue Collar Scholar

The Great Enemy

The church bells chimed nine times this morning as I sat in my backyard drinking coffee. The sound of the bells reminds me that I’m alive and I will die and I feel the weight of my ancestors and their life and work and love that led to me being here and I feel grateful for them, for my life, and grateful that I live close to a church with a clear, reson…

10 days ago · 14 likes · 15 comments · Sam Jamieson

Many appreciations for the kind words here.

Everyone particularly needs to keep a close eye on Sam’s notes feed as he’s started dropping photos of handwritten poems:

25. Gary Marcus

Marcus on AI

We must recall open-ended AI agents with internet access from the market, now

Breaking new from The New York Times, the latest of many agent-caused incidents that are happening with frightening regularity, but this time from Anthropic and fairly serious…

18 days ago · 349 likes · 247 comments · Gary Marcus

26. Chris Yogerst

Adventures in the Archive

A Warner Bros. Legacy Worth Defending

David Ellison is finally ready to celebrate the history of Warner Bros. and Paramount – we hope. The mogul wrote on his new Twitter/X profile that “Paramount and Warner Bros. shaped over a century of culture. By combining them, we aren’t rewriting history — we’re equipping these iconic studios with a more powerful engine.” The Engine is Skydance…

25 days ago · 6 likes · 1 comment · Chris Yogerst

27. Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Reason Magazine

Welcome to Unregulated, from Reason Magazine

Welcome to Unregulated, Reason magazine’s first foray into Substack…

12 days ago · 27 likes · 12 comments · Elizabeth Nolan Brown

It’s so wonderful to see expanding Reason Magazine’s Substack presence. She’s such a thoughtful writer and we really need more pro-freedom perspectives like her and other Reason writers.

28. Joseph L. Flatley

Failed State Update

The Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, and Me

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn attempted something extraordinarily ambitious: to organize Tarot, astrology, Kabbalah, colors, planets, elements, divine names, and other symbolic systems into a single network of correspondences — and then train its initiates to internalize it…

Listen now

2 months ago · 13 likes · 5 comments · Joseph L. Flatley

29. Laura Hope Z

Soup Girl

What My Whore Shorts Would Say to Shane Gillis If I Saw Him In the Gym Again

Is it Sean or Shane? Is Gillis one “L”, or two? I can never remember, it doesn’t matter…

14 days ago · 30 likes · 16 comments · Laura Hope Z

30. Elwood Watson

Elwood’s Kitchen: Always Sizzling

Cornell 7 and LSU Rape Cases

Cornell University Campus The New Yorker…

24 days ago · 10 likes · 4 comments · Elwood Watson

31. L.E. Mullin

L.E. Mullin

Where the gold can be found

Hey, “Going to the market can be an adventure with the right mindset…

12 days ago · 173 likes · 33 comments · L. E. Mullin

32. David Z. Morris

Dark Markets

“The Altruists” - the Trailer vs. the Truth of FTX

Welcome to your weekly Dark Markets update from me, David Z. Morris. I’m a longtime tech fraud investigator, finance analyst, PhD historian of technology, and author of Stealing the Future: Sam Bankman-Fried, Elite Fraud, and the Cult of Techno-Utopia…

14 days ago · 20 likes · 4 comments · David Z. Morris

You have to subscribe to to understand what’s happening in AI right now.

33. Matt Ruby

The Rubesletter by Matt Ruby 💎

The most Jewish thing about the genocide debate

“Genocide…

22 days ago · 5 likes · Matt Ruby

34. Émile P. Torres

Realtime Techpocalypse Newsletter

Humor and Dread: Catching Up on the News

Last July, I published an article celebrating the 1st birthday of this newsletter. At the end of the article, I included a number of poll questions about how often you’d like me to post, which topics you’d like me to cover, and so on. I also included the following question…

9 days ago · 34 likes · 14 comments · Émile P. Torres

35. Linda Caroll

Hello, Writer! by Linda Caroll

Schrodinger's words? What Substack did that Medium wouldn’t

11 days ago · 279 likes · 103 comments · Linda Caroll

36. Richard Drew

Life Unscripted

Divided By Decades: How Much Does Maturity Matter In A Relationship?

A few days ago, a friend of mine sent me the screenshot below – asking for my opinion on this rather irregular relationship…

16 days ago · 5 likes · 6 comments · Richard Drew

37. Zach Kessel

WSJ Free Expression

Mamdani’s Fake Battle Against Antisemitism

When New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani unveiled his plan to fight antisemitism last week, Jewish leaders immediately noticed something shocking. The plan directs $6.4 million to Partners Against the Hate, a nonprofit that makes grants to community organizations…

20 days ago · 32 likes · 2 comments · Zach Kessel

38. Kyle Smith

WSJ Free Expression

We Are a Nation of Pathetic Children

By the legion they came, the spandex and polyester brigades—the Spider-, Aqua-, Iron- and X-men. The dwarves and daredevils and elves and orcs. Voltron and Ultron. Beetlejuice and Bowser. Super Mario and Superman. Drs. Strange and Doom…

9 days ago · 151 likes · 10 comments · Kyle Smith

39. David Epstein

Range Widely

Adam Grant on How to “Vibe”

If there is someone out there with more research at their fingertips than psychologist Adam Grant, I haven’t met them. He is the rare combination of extremely prolific and extremely interesting. (My hypothesis: he has an identical twin sharing the workload. 🤔…

15 days ago · 95 likes · 48 comments · David Epstein

40. Amanda Carpenter

If you can keep it

Why you must care about the ballroom

When you consider all the outrageous things President Donald Trump has done in his second term, you might be tempted to think his big ballroom project doesn…

17 days ago · 113 likes · 17 comments · Amanda Carpenter

and I were classmates at Ball State University 22 years ago. It’s so funny how we both ended up having such similar -style #NeverTrump politics. When we met as undergrads — she a year ahead of me — I was a Noam Chomsky-quoting progressive and she was an Objectivist libertarian campus hellraiser trying to stir up trouble with her website. And now I can’t remember the last time she wrote a piece where I meaningfully disagreed with her.

What were some of your favorite Substack articles this month? Please feel free to share them in the comments.

Also please share your own pieces. I’m happy to take a look.

Subscribe now

1. Cody Taymore

2. Matt Ruby

3. Douglas Rushkoff

4. Matt Ruby

5. Celeste Davis

6. Richard Drew

7. Tana Ganeva

8. Susannah Breslin

9. Elliot Grove

10. Laura Hope Z

11. Cody Taymore

12. Laura Hope Z

13. L.E. Mullin

14. Navi

15. L.E. Mullin

16. Chris Yogerst

17. Joel J Miller

18. Evan Hurst

19. Susannah Breslin

20. Susie Bright

21. Natalia Antonova

22. Oliver Bateman

23. Michelle Teheux

24. Sam Jamieson

25. Gary Marcus

26. Chris Yogerst

27. Elizabeth Nolan Brown

28. Joseph L. Flatley

29. Laura Hope Z

30. Elwood Watson

31. L.E. Mullin

32. David Z. Morris

33. Matt Ruby

34. Émile P. Torres

35. Linda Caroll

36. Richard Drew

37. Zach Kessel

38. Kyle Smith

39. David Epstein

40. Amanda Carpenter

God of the Desert Digital Media Studios

My 40 Favorite Substack Posts for October…