Today is the ninety-second anniversary of the first-ever SAT!

Holy hell, that was a long one. It’s been a dark week, with the mercury climbing, mass immigrant graves turning up in Texas, and the Trump administration’s ghoulish family separation policy dominating headlines.

But today’s Saturday, and we’re all going to find the space to recharge, this is probably it. There’s been a lot going down in the world of books this week, too, and, as ever, your intrepid Melvillains have been keeping tabs:

• Michael Seidlinger extolled the moral virtues of non-book-theft.
• Taylor Sperry winced gloriously at the dismal prospect of a forthcoming Mike Pence biography.
• Michael Barron brought together an anthology of writing about soccer (ok, Brits: football) from ten of the countries currently vying for pedispherical supremacy in the Earth Bowl World Cup.
• Tom Clayton was mysteriously absent… but we’re hoping to hear from him again next week.
• Stephanie DeLuca spread word of the new Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist, must like a koala putting beets on a boomerang burger… or something.
• Ian Dreiblatt dared to ask: How much musk would an Elon musk if an Elon could musk musk?
• 

  And happy birthday to the typewriter, which was first patented by Chrisopher Latham Sholes 150 years ago today!

  Nikki Griffiths issued a stern warning to Will Ferrell, on the announcement of his forthcoming made-for-Netflix movie about Eurovision: dude, people like Eurovision, so do it justice, ok? And then you, too, can do do El Breikindance, El Crusaito, El Maiquelyason, El Robocop.

• Ryan Harrington brought us the low, sad tale of Terry Gilliam, holy fool, who, no sooner than he had finished his two-decades-in-the-making adaptation of Don Quixote, lost the rights to it.
• Alex Primiani brought all Pittsburghers some rough news: you can’t work for the Post-Gazette if you get angry about human rights abuses. Anger about human rights abuses has no place in… political cartooning?
• Susan Rella sang the praises of the world’s coolest nine-year-old.
• Simon Reichley checked out this year’s fresh VIDA Count. (The quick version: aaaagh!)

Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin’s 1922 portrait of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, born 129 years ago today.

As ever, there were some stories we just didn’t get to this week:

• The Boston Globe has suspended reporter Kevin Cullen without pay for three months, following revelations that he made up facts in comments he made about the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. Although those fabrications did not appear in the Globe, publisher John W. Henry and editor Brian McGrory wrote in a statement,  “These were serious violations for any journalist and for The Globe, which relies on its journalists to adhere to the same high standards of ethics and accuracy when appearing on other platforms.”
• And speaking of the news we’re getting in this country: information villains Sinclair Media have forced their affiliates to air a segment asserting that “while some of the concern [over government concentration camps for immigrant kids] is real, a lot of it is politically driven by the liberals in politics and the media” — which cannot but be described as “fucking evil.” Apparently Sinclair stands for Suck-ass Ignominious Nazi-Coddlers Legitimizing Anti-human Ideology for Reactionaries.
• Even old Stephen Colbert, not a particularly depressing dude, was joshing this week about the improbability that history books will outlast the Trump era. Fiddle-dee-dee.
• Authorities in Hong Kong have pulled tem books with LGBT content from public view in the territory’s libraries, including seven books that an official review found to be “neutral without promoting homosexual or single-sex marriage.” Raymond Chan Chi-chuen, the only out lawmaker in Hong Kong, commented on Facebook, “The books were put in closed stacks because of complaints, it [the department] is afraid of getting into trouble. If the content of the books are neutral, why still decide to put them in closed stacks?
• Even bookstores sales are down!

And finally — it is Saturday, and there has perhaps never in history been a Saturday in starker need of a good cartoon. Given the mood so many of us are in, it feels like something preposterous may be in order. And hey, just the thing:

Rest up, get in the streets, stand by your neighbors, and we’ll see you right back here Monday morning.