Enough ink has been spilt on this topic. Possibly even real blood. I'm so uninterested in 'discourse' on the subject. On any subject. But I've got stuff to say. Traditionally I would put myself much more on the pantsing end of the spectrum. Though I recognise one person's planning is another person's pantsing because these things mean different things to different people. We all have to do what we have to do. I believe in trying all different approaches and keeping the bits that work for me.…
The Boxcar Children The Mystery Cruise by Gertrude Chandler Warner, 1992. Mr. Alden takes his grandchildren on their first cruise to the Caribbean! The Alden kids are excited to go because there are a lot of interesting things to do on the cruise ship. However, they begin to notice some strange things happening happening on the ship and some odd people among the passengers and crew. The first person they meet is Max, a history professor who shares their table at dinner. The Aldens can tell that…
The final season of The Bear was simply beautiful, and a welcome return to form.
Augustine, Confessions 10.8.15 (tr. R.S. Pine Coffin): Yet men go out and gaze in astonishment at high mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad reaches of rivers, the ocean that encircles the world, or the stars in their courses. But they pay no attention to themselves. et eunt homines mirari alta montium et ingentes fluctus maris et latissimos lapsus fluminum et oceani ambitum et gyros siderum, et relinquunt se ipsos. James J. O'Donnell ad loc. (vol. 3, p. 180):
Back in January, I released my first original visual novel, Little White Lies, in conjunction with Victor V. Gurbo. In this post, I announce my second visual novel, Under the Alien Sky, which you can download for free from Itch.io (https://itch.io/naferrell/under-the-alien-sky/). Early scene from Under the Alien Sky. There are references to a certain short essay I once wrote about and the al|together festivals. Like Little White Lies before it, I was inspired to undertake Under the Alien Sky as…
Hello, This is a movie I saw in Cuba when I was around 7-8 years old. The title they gave it there was “The Dangerous Blonde”, so it was very hard for me to find it once here in US. The title is “Death Smiles on the murderer”. The death mask haunted me for many years. The whole atmosphere is tenebrous and funereal. The actress looks “not completely alive” (although not a zombie either) when she is in her normal condition making her appearance very ominous in any form. Thank you, Wendy The post…
Watson v. Holmes launches a 12-issue series with plenty of horror intrigue. It’s written by Jon Santana (story co-written with Rafael Santana), illustrated by Jordan Rodriguez, and published by Iron Age Comics. I hadn’t heard of them before, but they apparently publish via crowdfunding. Which is where I found an excellent summary of the series premise. In short, Sherlock Holmes is presumed dead after Reichenbach. Watson has a daughter, Scarlett, who’s been framed for the murder of her fiancee…
Read the full post at - What the actual science says about “brain rot” I love the channel Howtown on YouTube. They do an excellent job wading through academic research on trendy topics. This piece on “Brain Rot” is especially apt for the 2020s. I also dropped the transcript into Claude to produce the following summary. Summary This is a video transcript from Howtown exploring whether short-form video platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts actually cause “brain rot” –…
Colossal Art Nothing more. Nothing less.
Like with the first book in the series, the cover design is wonderful. The cover design and illustration is by Olivia McGiff. Table of ContentsWhy Moonlight Murder?The BookConcluding Thoughts Why Moonlight Murder? I was originally planning on reading Moonlight Murder right after I read the wonderful Leave and Come Back but I was waylaid by the atrocity that goes by the name of Yesteryear. I very much enjoyed Detective Aunty and I very much wanted to return to the series and its world soon.…
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This week's bookshelf is my original First Second shelf, and, indeed, most of the books here are from the publisher. On the furthest left are the bigger format books, like Aaron Renier's The Unsinkable Walker Bean, a couple of George O'Connor's Olympian books, a couple of Lewis Trondheim and Fabrice Parme's Tiny Tyrant books and, turned sideways to better fit the shelf but thus hiding their spines, the first of James Sturm and company's Adventures in Cartooning books and Gene Luen Yang's Prime…
Day 2 of the Minnesota Yacht Club (the morning after)🎵🎸🎹
I’ve always found masks fascinating. To me, they seemed like cheat codes that let you become someone or even something else. The first mask I recall is from my school days. Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, the last game in the Sands of Time trilogy, had just come out. The game’s story revolves around darkness unleashed inside the protagonist, the Prince. The darkness transformed him into the Dark Prince. To me, this new personality represented freedom to express suppressed anger and anxiety.…
Ten Pens, but Make it Seven (via A Gathering of Curiosities). I’ve enjoyed reading these posts, and the pens people choose really give you a sense of what forms the core of their collection and interest in pens. Ten Fountain Pens (via Olive Octopus Ink). If Lisa keeps publishing photos of that Manyo “Nuts” pen I will have to get my own or steal hers. How To Use Notebooks in 2026 (The Best System) (via Cal Newport). Do you keep single-purpose notebooks? Or do you have one notebook that contains…
Bruce Catton, Never Call Retreat (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1965), p. 306 (note omitted): Mostly, the critics centered their fire on Jefferson Davis, taking the traditional American view that if anything goes wrong the President must be at fault. As a member of the intimate circle surrounding that wan perfectionist, Vice-President Alexander Stephens, who criticized Mr. Davis with a sad but tireless persistence, [Howell] Cobb knew all about that kind of talk; but as the new year…
Sex, drugs, booze and ultra-violence. Slavery, torture and murder. Monsters and gods delay the hero on his way home for 10 years. They would have got home a lot sooner if they didn’t stop to bathe/weep/sacrifice/feast every five minutes. Still, an amazing yarn, much easier to read than I anticipated, exciting, gripping even esp. when he finally gets home to kick some suitor ass. I’m hardly unschooled in beatings or in having things thrown at me. – Odysseus I enjoyed when that guy got drunk and…
How to Kill a Languageby Sophia Smith GalerGenres: History, Non-fiction, Science Pages: 272 Rating: Synopsis: As Sophia Smith Galer’s Nonna lay dying, she realised it wasn’t just a beloved grandmother she was losing – it was the language she spoke, too. From Northern Italy, she spoke a dialët that Sophia, like so many children and grandchildren of migrants, can understand but can’t speak. With the death of the language, Sophia would lose a culture, a history, an inheritance – a whole world.…
Wildfire smoke in Niagara region, St. Catharines, ON, 15 July 2026 (photo from Wikimedia) 19 July 2026 As I wrote on Friday 17 July, wildfire smoke has been plaguing the northeastern U.S. and the Great Lakes region in the U.S. and Canada. The photo at top shows the worst day in the Niagara Falls area as seen in St. Catharines on Wednesday 15 July. Pittsburgh’s worst day was Friday the 17th, shown in the video below. Wildfire smoke in Pittsburgh on 17 July 2026, video embedded from WTAE-TV…
Thank you to editor Steliana Cristina Voicu for selecting my haiku for Enchanted Garden: Issue 16! Source
Not only do you get to enjoy 5 recent dgp titles chosen randomly for you and get a sampling of the work we publish at a great discounted price, but each blind book box also comes with bookmarks, postcards, prints, stickers and more. You also get a fun DGP tote when you sign up!Since 2004, the annual dgp series, has been devoted to publishing innovative writing by women authors in delectable handmade editions, as well as exploring the intersection of writing and the visual/book arts. Proceeds…
The Park Square Theatre summer mystery is back, and it's a good one! Summery mystery plays have been a tradition at Park Square for decades, with a few years off for various reasons. This year they're premiering a brand new mystery play by prolific local playwright and screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher, an expert at the form. The title of the play - The Butler Did It - tells us that this play is not a whodunnit, but rather a "howcatchem," in which the fun is not in trying to solve the mystery, but…
I feel like this book’s curse is that it is trying to be Romantasy when it really isn’t. It’s an epilogue for the villain, after a trilogy that followed the main couple and an additional book for another side character pair. But, as other reviewers have noted, it’s extremely underbaked as far as creating much chemistry or plausible connection between the leads. This is a real pity because it has moments of doing what it wants to accomplish, telling a whimsical and cozy story about a morally…
Utopia for Realists is Rutger Bregman's look at what utopia could be like if we started to dream again. Early on he claims that the real crisis today isn't hunger or poverty, but that we lack the imagination to come up with a new vision for utopia in our fantastic world, and then fight for it1. Then he tries to give us a push so that we start to fight for a new utopia by showing us where our world does still have faults. From pushing to basic income, to housing first policies, to blaming…
A lovely novella and the 2022 debut by francophone Swiss author Fanny Desarzens (1993). I read the German translation, titled Berghütte (mountain cabin), Galel (the name of one of the characters) is the French title. Three men, with few words between them, share a deep friendship which unfolds every summer against the backdrop of the mountains. Their winter lives in the valleys down below are not worth a mention, even though they know where the others live and work during these months. Only up…
From a year ago today: “The men who live in my memory”
★★★★: Perfectly paced. Great performances all around. Lots of cute moments. Some truly dangerous pranks. Where are the adults at the camp?? FYI: My reviews are scored out of 4. Also, thanks for subscribing to my RSS feed and supporting the indie web!
July 16, 2026Hello friends! I keep trying to write a post and it keeps not happening this week, so I’m going to pivot. I’m going to share some questions I’ve been pondering. Maybe these will spark something interesting for you - or maybe you’ll just enjoy today’s photos. I’d love to hear from you if you care to share your thoughts on the questions too!Dew drop sparklesI’m always looking for those shimmers on the dragonfly wings that only show when the light it hits the wing just right. (widow…
Julie Lueken: ‘Forgiveness” (repositioned) Golgori was our god, and for as long as we could recall, we had been under his dominion. He was a proud god, a commanding god, and for millennia, we had lived each day under his guiding word. As we woke, he would write us his instructions into the sky above, and we would rise and work faithful to the night following his every sentence. Day by day, we rose and slept, breathed and died, worked and worked by his word. Each century went by the same as the…
