Calvin Trillin, in the introduction to 40 Years of Chez Panisse: The Power of Gathering, by Alice Waters:Although I tend to prefer eating in the upstairs café at Chez Panisse rather than in the formal dining room downstairs, I find it comforting knowing the latter exists. For fifteen years, starting in the late sixties, I spent my time traveling to a different town every three weeks for *New Yorker* assignments, and my strategy for finding a decent meal was to ask a local motel clerk for the…
Title: Olenka Author: Budi Darma Publisher: Penguin Random House Pages: 320 In Bloomington, Indiana, Fanton Drummond’s life changes when he encounters Olenka Danton in an elevator. Infatuated at first sight, Fanton begins to see Olenka everywhere, from bus stops and parks to the imagined settings of his mind’s eye. Soon they begin an affair, and Fanton steps deeper into Olenka’s mysterious world. But one day, Olenka vanishes. Fanton’s subsequent search for Olenka becomes an existential journey…
Read the full post at - Where Do the Children Play? via eli Stark-Elster The biggest misconception about American childhood -> https://unpublishablepapers.substack.com/p/where-do-the-children-play I was generally skeptical of the 2020’s handwringing about children and technology – not because I disagree about children interacting with the world via technology, but because the media & too many parents focused on the symptoms rather than the cause. We’re all doing the “stop it and go away” form…
@font-face {font-family:"Cambria Math"; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face {font-family:Garamond; panose-1:2 2 4 4 3 3 1 1 8 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable;
When we were kids, my generation was dutifully warned about the evils of substance abuse. We were warned of complete strangers wandering oh-so-purposely into our paths with the sole intent of giving out free dope so as to perpetuate life-altering addiction among our crop. Far be it from me to discourage those who discourage drug and alcohol abuse, but I’ll also be the first to chime in and say, “Hey, Mr.
Imaginary Numbers (1954) by Yves Tanguy. • “In all his writing, Ballard seems to embrace the opposed extremes of pulp genre conventions on the one hand and avant-garde experimentation on the other, while entirely rejecting the norms of conventional literary fiction that lie between these two extremes.” Steven Shaviro reviewing The Illuminated Man: Life, Death and the Worlds of JG Ballard by Christopher Priest and Nina Allan. • The Naturalist’s Library: A complete digital edition of William…
"A great deal of feminist theory and literature has nevertheless assumed that there is a 'doer' behind the deed. Without an agent, it is argued, there can be no agency and hence no potential to initiate a transformation of relations of domination within society.'" (Gender Trouble) The feminist problems which, at least, on the level of theory, torment me the most, always come down to the question of free-will. It was when I wrote the blog Performative women that I confronted the issue of…
Ilya RepinPart 1, Part 2Home stretch, let’s go.The BalrogHow did I skip the Balrog? Absolutely shameful.Anyway: dig too deep and you’ll find a guardian of the underworld, so I’ll roll with Ox-Head and or Horse-Face from Chinese folk religion because honestly if there’s a giant horse-headed monster wrecking your day who looks like this, yeah I’m going freak the fuck out a bit.Q: Who was fucking around with the underworld enough to bring these guys to earth?Q: Is anything going screwy in the…
Once I imagined a novel in which everything seen throughout the day by a single person is reported in detail. I was a teenager in my first job and began by using company paper to describe the scrub on the slopes beside a motorway as seen from a car. I never got any further.No doubt the idea was prompted by a chance encounter late one night with Remembrance of Things Past and a lasting intrigue with its elaborate and apparently excessive descriptions combined with an apparent lack of a story. I…
Today’s new short fic zine release, The Currie Mountain Repository, is the first entry in a series called “The Tales of the Voyageur”. The series is an environmental science fiction adventure, focusing on locations throughout the province of New Brunswick in a future which hopefully never comes to pass - one in which infrastructural collapse and anthropogenic ecological disaster has dramatically reorganized life, but in which there is hope to be found in the actions of humans and the societies…
Finished reading: The Perfect Divorce by Jeneva Rose 📚 I don’t like most of the characters in the book. I’m reading in order to see if and when they get what’s coming to them. Sometimes, I yell at them to think. For some reason, they can’t hear me.
by John Boston John W. Campbell, editor of Analog, died a few days ago, while watching professional wrestling on TV—a quintessentially American death, except that it was Mexican wrestling. I never met the man, but he strongly affected my life, and the life of every maniacal SF reader. John W. Campbell (unattributed) Campbell’s place in … Continue reading [July 18, 1971] The Tragedy of John W. Campbell (1910-1971) → The post [July 18, 1971] The Tragedy of John W. Campbell (1910-1971) appeared…
Just finished reading Fiona Marchbank’s Ladies of the Knight, it was so good.
Sherlock Roach and the Case of the Crunchy Crumb is billed as a chapter book, but it’s a comic. And an adorable one! It’s written by Joe McGee and illustrated by Jannie Ho. Sherlock Roach and his partner Dr. Wormston live at 221B Bedbug Street and solve crimes for the insects that live in Bugopolis. Lucille the Ladybug wants them to find out who stole her delicious crunchy crumb. Dr. Wormston, true to his character, is outraged on her behalf. [...]
In the 18th century, a chamber in the ruins of the White Monastery at Sohag in Egypt contained piles of loose leaves of a vast and ancient Coptic library. In previous posts I have noted how the first to learn of the existence of this material was Cardinal Stefano Borgia, secretary of the Papal missionary organisation, the Propaganda Fidei. In 1781 he published a Coptic text containing two miracles of the obscure Coptic saint Colluthus from some pages sent to him by a Franciscan missionary in…
I used to get images from Brian Leno of his recent autograph purchases. I still do, but I used to, too. Yep, it’s Autograph Hound Saturday once again — this time featuring John Hancocks and holographic scribblings from writer John Metcalfe (for our purposes, horror writer John Metcalfe, The Smoking Leg, etc) and that legendary literary boozehound John Gawsworth, promoter of M. P. Shel, Arthur Machen, and others. Brian sent these pics back in 2024. Kind of blurry, but good enough to get the idea…
Doctor Fate, Vol. 1 TP #1TP Release: May 20, 2025 Creators WriterJ.M. DeMatteisArtistShawn McManus | Keith GiffenCover ArtistKeith Giffen | Kent WilliamsCover PencillerKeith Giffen | Kent WilliamsCover InkerDave Hunt When I was a kid, I liked Dr. Fate from the first time I saw him. Which I believe was in a DC Blue Ribbon Digest featuring the Flash and some of his friends, but I can’t say for certain. I just thought his odd mix of styles looked cool, what with the girdle, the collared cape, and…
Finished reading: The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan 📚 Finished up this series with the kiddo. On to the next!
Well, my impulse purchase of Damien Wilkins's Max Gate turned out to be a good one. Since I last mentioned it, I have finished reading it (at my usual snail's pace), and found it thoroughly enjoyable (apart from a few jarring anachronisms – 'Okay', 'in denial', 'basically'). It's actually the second Thomas Hardy-related novel I've read, the other being Howard Jacobson's scabrous Peeping Tom, the narrator of which is obsessed by Hardy, whom he regards as a 'prurient little Victorian ratbag' – a…
♠ Step 1: buy a physical book — via Amazon, bookstores, classifieds marketplaces (e.g. Craigslist in the US, Kijiji in Canada, Kleinanzeigen in Germany). Bonus points for used copies. This should take up to a week. Step 2: read the goddamn book. This is arguably the hardest part, albeit the most exciting one. As Alex Kotliarskyi puts it (emphasis mine): The 80/20 rule says that 80% value come from 20% effort. What if we apply the 80/20 rule to the first 80%? So 80% of 80% of value come from 20%…
A micropoem If pieces of youbroke pieces of me, and you failed toacknowledge my pain,I will be a different MEto YOU; one you’ve never seenAnd will NEVER seeagain.
Galactic Mutant Animals What Works Well? What Works…Less Well? Opportunities What’s Adaptable? Six Years Hence: Manuel, the Magnificent Mechanical Man Coming Attractions This week, our Free Culture Book Club reads the third quarter of Galactic Mutant Animals. To give this series some sense of organization, check out some basic facts without much in the way of context. Full Title: Galactic Mutant Animals Location: https://www.deviantart.com/guiea/gallery/85120580/gma Released: 1993 License: CC…
The Sopranos 1999–2007, David Chase My rating: Loved it! What an incredible show! And to think it was made when nothing else on TV even came close. It’s easy to see how it inspired all the best shows that came after. It’s a slow burn that really pays off over and over. And the ending is a masterpiece. 10/10 gabagools.
Tiffany Aching is almost sixteen and is now a respected witch across the Chalk. She is taken aback when the death of a local dignitary seems to spark off a burst of hatred and fear towards witches. Her investigation reveals the return of an ancient force of evil, which unleashes bigotry and invective even from mild-mannered people, even from Tiffany's oldest friends and allies. Fortunately the Nac Mac Feegle are unaffected, and with their help Tiffany sets about restoring her reputation.I Shall…
I'm pretty sure this book is a psyop designed to demoralise a generation of starry-eyed dreamers. It is obviously written by the same people who told us not to land on Europa. A malignant energy designed to limit the scope of human ambition and thwart our plans to colonise the universe. The problem is, I can't find fault with any of their logic. The Weinersmiths make a compelling case that space is much harder than any of the propagandists are willing to admit. Even if it were faster, safer,…
"Try to Remember that South African Man"
All Systems Red is the first Novella in the Murderbot series. It came at the recommendation of my brother and, after picking up a beautiful set of the books at comic con, I finally had the chance to dive in. This is a very straightforward novella, but a couple of things really stood out for me. One is the similarities to Alien in its hints at a wider world - we don't see a whole lot of this universe, and, in the grand scheme, there isn't a huge amount of plot development here but I really felt…
IntroductionQuote... today I find it an impossible book — badly written, clumsy and embarrassing, its images frenzied and confused,... but a book which, as its impact has shown and continues to show, has a strange knack of seeking out its fellow-revellers and enticing them on to new secret paths and dancing-places. - Nietzsche (talking about this book). Notes🔥 Taking another break from the history book list to read The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche. 🔥 Nietzsche was born near Leipzig,…
Margaret Laurence was born one hundred years ago today. Is recognition appropriate in a blog devoted to Canada's forgotten, neglected, and suppressed writing? I'd say so. Laurence was popular and celebrated in her day and remains so today, yet she was also a lightning rod for censors.Leading the charge was Reverend Sam Buick of Peterborough's Dublin Street Pentecostal Church, who considered The Diviners blasphemous, adulterous, and profane. Did his ire have something to do with his similarity…
↳ “But is it, is it like the old Playboy magazine? You have essays there by the modern-day equivalent of Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Junior?” Justice Samuel Alito, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton (2025). I’ve been reading a lot of Playboy recently. For the articles. This is not a joke, although it used to be one.
