Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Nellie Bly and the "stunt girl" reporters.
metro surge
tours merge
serge tumor
regret sumo
gut remorse
meteor's rug
trouser gem
"A sentence from hell:
'people in SF are putting multi-agent claudeswarms in charge of their lives, consulting chatbots before every decision, wireheading to a degree only sci-fi writers dared to imagine.' " via
Hedorah because it's the only Godzilla movie where someone had to be on drugs.
Monday, January 26, 2026
Very likely what really happened.
"Design is the world's prosody,
wreckage and dragonfly, bloom and boom,
its croon. I love you I'm not sure this helps
but it's written in crocus, the flaming halo
above the birdhouse, monkeys with droids"
—Dean Young, "Scribblers Everywhere" via
"manifest for a shipping container"
pilgrims setting out · in old snow
on the windings · of the wopwops
still night shadowed · sharing the one shroud
out of my dreams · rede from the other side
The narcissist's psychotic underlings:
expendable, like wadded fastfood wrappers.
Su Hui thread. (part paywalled)
"Greg Bovino sadly filling one steamer trunk after another with elaborate fashy overcoats, the teargas canisters he always has bouncing around on him like labubus, and dozens of "chest-belts." They will be shipped ahead of him as he prepares to return to his home, which is a men's size 10 boot." —@davidjroth.bsky.social
"Snow spirals outside its Swan Lake routine
Whenever I think of snow, I think of the Mallarmé poem about the swans that did not have foresight to migrate south, getting caught up in a frozen lake
When I think of swans, I think of Proust, who loved this Mallarmé poem and was also a swan trapped in ice"
—@poemakontsa.bsky.social
"Dunblane Cathedral
LOVE’s light lost the bleak night breathes a black breeze of loss.
The dread dawn dons dusk’s vale. 'Is death dead?' the bells
Ask across the mourning morn’s moors. The sound swells,
Proclaiming Mary’s anguish at the Child-God’s cross.
My horror walks in hermit’s weeds where children skipped,
My skull’s sick sky sinks shaken shocked beyond the leaves
Light lilting leaward as my grieving silence weaves
A wreath of white where once a tortured heaven wept.
Your quiet walls and choir stalls fall muffled muted,
As all around resound your bells whose concerts call
Only the broken to an altered altar’s gall,
Their proud pearl peels by palsied pain’s pall diluted..."
—Joseph Charles MacKenzie via (via FGR)
"Like Sauron they suffer from failure of imagination. The thing they cannot imagine is us."
white around the pool
in the antelucan murk
last night's ears ringing
I made miniature books of my OWN books or the latest book nook.
I gave Chat control of my life & all it did was print out GPS directions to the nearest bridge to jump off.
Sunday, January 25, 2026
I met Harvey [Pekar] once at a convention with my then-girlfriend. When asked what i did, i said i wrote poetry, & he answered, "The only job that pays worse than comics."
Overheard coming out of the concentration camps.
snarl, Polar Bear · purely nominal
defender of the free
crisply bodied · bodacious floe
delusional time's champion
in dreams begin · responsibilities
dream army, begin
we who are frozen watch you · freshen our feed
Polar Bear, snarl
till there's more & more · & more of us
shooting the helpers
in the snow, in the winter
as the cam'ras whirr
ev'ry day a full dumpster
of fragrant new bread, wasted
"A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.
But let’s be clear-eyed about where this leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable."
—Mark Carney via
"Fire and Sleet and Candlelight
For this you’ve striven
Daring, to fail:
Your sky is riven
Like a tearing veil.
For this, you’ve wasted
Wings of your youth;
Divined, and tasted
Bitter springs of truth.
From sand unslakèd
Twisted strong cords,
And wandered naked
Among trysted swords.
There’s a word unspoken,
A knot untied.
Whatever is broken
The earth may hide.
The road was jagged
Over sharp stones:
Your body’s too ragged
To cover your bones.
The wind scatters
Tears upon dust;
Your soul’s in tatters
Where the spears thrust.
Your race is ended—
See, it is run:
Nothing is mended
Under the sun.
Straight as an arrow
You fall to a sleep
Not too narrow
And not too deep."
—Elinor Wylie
"Though the journal was created for and by members of the expedition, readers back home were always a consideration. In early issues Shackleton notes that widespread production and distribution from the South Pole would be nearly impossible but implies that circulation among a public readership back home in England was a future goal. This goal was realized when Smith, Elder, and Company of London published a three-volume edition as an exact reproduction of the South Polar Times." —Callie Beattie via via @harryskeeler.bsky.social
So many have gone to order books it crashed the website.
“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
—W. Somerset Maugham via @houseofbast777.bsky.social
Zimmer frame not frozen
On into the tear gas
Because that’s what you do
They think they can have the flag & the hill
And no one will stop them
Words Left by Humanity in the Ruins.
Now we know what Stephen Miller looks like without his mask.
“To the Ones Coming After” (N Grieg: Til Ungdommen)
Hard-pressed by enemies
Walk in your times
Bloodstained the storm of this
Deal with its real terms
Maybe you anguished ask
Stark in the open
How can I meet the fight
What is my weapon
Take this: defend yourself
Using the sword,
Trust in our only life
—Strongest when shared
Gather tomorrow’s seeds
Anywhere found
Whether you live to reap,
Furrow the ground
Fact’ries of armaments
Roll out the bombs
Death’s quiet diligence
Yields to our psalms
War is contempt for life
Peace is in making
Show them your teeth tonight
Something hard breaking
Cherish what’s beautiful
Now or from lapsed days
Seek out the farthest star
Get it to disclose
Plants uninhabited
Constellations rare
Out of your bravest leaps
Give them new air
Humans aren’t servants first
Earth isn’t stingy
If not enough is left
Someone has snatched it
Swarm them! Injustice now
Has to be shattered
Sunshine & bread & love,
Nothing else matters
Armies & border walls
No longer mustered
Learn with respect for life
Peace can be mastered
Those who in loving arms
Bear what is precious
Will not release to drop,
Never turn vicious
Let’s make this solemn vow
Hand in hand promised
Now it begins, one world
All of us flourish
Each of us nurturing
Share of the light
Part of the future born
Shorn of our harsh blight
"Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of being done" —@mobydickatsea.bsky.social
Death Squads Execute Second Dissident.
"It feels morally bankrupt to be sitting here translating Rilke or reading about the Tokugawa shogunate as good people die in the streets trying to fight fascism. There is no daily thing which feels adequate now. I am at a loss." —@saintsoftness.bsky.social
still & white & very cold
no fight cracking the smooth skin
not much brighter's noon
baboon in a narrowing cell
ice covers ilka song
whether expressed or prudent held
honeyed strains of watching
still & white & not long king
i say not long king
Saturday, January 24, 2026
"BLIZZARD
the soft economy of ghosts;
on the couch,
we note the sensuousness of the phenomenon,
whose cosmos of cotton ensconces
coffeehouses, townhouses, towns:
the gusty monotony of the tempest,
then the monotone hush of footsteps on snow"
—@lukebradford.bsky.social
"Every novel in the past five years has the same ending: all the characters turn out to be aspects of the same person, who is in turn a sliver of the subconsciousness of a cosmic mollusk.
ENOUGH.
Not every novel needs the gestalt cosmic mollusk ending. I'm sick of the obligatory dreamslimetrail."
—@charliejane.bsky.social
Animation of King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) quad.
"tired of the news being snuff films" —@ieatkillerbe.es
"realm of slenderman"
the pavement's turned to solid white
the mercury's at twenty
i cease domscrolling as it's late
& still feel somewhat guilty
which call to arms appeals, this cusp
when surely something's needed?
dyspeptic leisure claws the hasp—
an old protester's jaded
but nothing like this night now storms
the hearts of many changing
& we shall see more suasive psalms
than mine on ice impinging
Some interesting collaborative pieces.
"Spring terror
Snowdrops revert to merely green
when snow subverts their herald’s role,
but thaw restores their callous poise
and sets in train an ebbing tide
which gathers speed like pressured steam
as each successive flower unfolds
and every longer day destroys
more of the darkness where we hide.
It quietly starts, and then it swells,
this growing distance from the shore –
and as my toes lose contact with
dissolving sand and broken shells,
I want to ask, beneath the roar,
has winter no more cold to give?"
—@philvernon.bsky.social
"...Expiring in the frore and foggy air." --Shelley,
The Revolt of Islam, Canto IX. xxv.
Do anagrams count in the meme wars?
"We have a madman in the White House."
"While waxing parquet decks, Suez sailors vomit jauntily abaft." —anonymous pangram (here & elsewhere)
"Baudelaire: Meditation
Be good, my Sorrow: hush now: settle down.
You sighed for dusk, and now it comes: look there!
A denser atmosphere obscures the town,
To some restoring peace, to others care.
While the lewd multitude, like hungry beasts,
By pleasure scourged (no thug so fierce as he!)
Go forth to seek remorse among their feasts—
Come, take my hand; escape from them with me.
From balconies of sky, around us yet,
Lean the dead years in fashions that have ceased.
Out of the depth of waters smiles Regret.
The sun sinks moribund beneath an arch,
And like a long shroud rustling from the East,
Hark, Love, the gentle Night is on the march."
—tr Roy Campbell via
Friday, January 23, 2026
First known female street artist from Afghanistan.
"ESCAPE
When foxes eat the last gold grape,
And the last white antelope is killed,
I shall stop fighting and escape
Into a little house I'll build.
But first I'll shrink to fairy size,
With a whisper no one understands,
Making blind moons of all your eyes,
And muddy roads of all your hands.
And you may grope for me in vain
In hollows under the mangrove root,
Or where, in apple-scented rain,
The silver wasp-nests hang like fruit."
—Elinor Wylie
"Genre is a filtering technology." (via Mefi)
"Seeing a bunch of normal ass midwestern moms and dads marching in -20 degrees knowing they might be tear gassed or worse really drives home what a cowardly lot of people the pundit class is" —@brendelbored.bsky.social
Angel at the End of the World.
We are all finding out just what we have to offer.
"The turtle laughed. The lizards laughed. The snake laughed. The field mouse laughed, and Frog laughed." —@frogandtoadbot.bsky.social
"white gathers"
when our fares give out
the tower gets finished
the levee buckles
our dreams receive sanction
the question held fast
to the goal it's bound
this variety
of despair makes us trip
on tears so sanguine
hist'ry a shelter left
the only one left
out of tumults sanguine
this long crazy trip
—utmost variety
or torture crag bound—
the waters shuffle fast
till we dare sanction
new straitjacket buckles
the reign is finished
no more treats to give out
hotel overlook,
& its games overlook
"Ripple
What gravity takes away pulls
And what it can't see puts
In camarillas—they lie still
There objurgations compress
To combine and create,
Uncontained, the warm effluviums
In certain types the calyx has fallen
Prior to edge they dropped
Making fulgurate the air around
Ripples (brushlike) they become
Pure in tone, extended
To point (seeing ends)
Where the paraclete sleeps
In rooms outside there is
The thick peace of songed sleep
But we, the cataleptics,
Must venture out alone with our clean
Into what seems a source: the without"
—Ovid Neal III
A star named Hedorah. More about "Mothra". Wikipedia is on it.
"We seem to us (the real Us!) to be reading our Amenti in the sixth sealed chapter of the going forth by black." —Finnegans Wake
"Lispector:
'Everything could be fiercely summed up in never emitting a first scream—a first scream unleashes all the others, the first scream at birth unleashes a life, if I screamed I would awaken thousands of screaming beings who would loose upon the rooftops a chorus of screams and horror.
If I screamed I would unleash the existence—the existence of what? the existence of the world. With reverence I feared the existence of the world for me.'
(The Passion According to G.H., trans. Idra Novey)"
—@yoonkim.bsky.social
pouring down vacuum · periscope up
nothing to see in the streets
slats of dark · the clock's slated
route & we all go
on this foul ferry · through the four walls
& call it arrival
"I hope he's kept away from young women..."
erodes roster · ruthless the sweep
shower sprinkle · shape tremulous
brown paper towels catch
weathers the thorn · theory of imbeciles
a done deal · not to dwell on
why must all these things · ever transpire
the full trash can · in the houses of the holy
"Nothing says 'board of peace' like having two founding members not show up to the signing ceremony because they would be arrested at the airport for war crimes." —@maryh58.bsky.social
Thursday, January 22, 2026
Trump administration orders slavery exhibit removed from Independence National Historic Park.
"I truly don’t be seeing discourse but I keep seeing memes and best I can tell from memes white people countries all tryin to prove who is the least bad and post colonial countries are confused why they think any of them would win that contest" —@sailorctaustin.bsky.social
floating lanterns loosed
lest thesterness furnish
all papers in order
ebbs solitude's clutter
pirouettes the oil well
wheels' syzygy trudges
i come writing rain checks
robed jealously dustpan
Electronic music by a neuroscientist who was influenced by Debussy, Messiaen, and Bill Evans.
"THE EAGLE AND THE MOLE
Avoid the reeking herd,
Shun the polluted flock,
Live like that stoic bird,
The eagle of the rock.
The huddled warmth of crowds
Begets and fosters hate;
He keeps, above the clouds,
His cliff inviolate.
When flocks are folded warm,
And herds to shelter run,
He sails above the storm,
He stares into the sun.
If in the eagle's track
Your sinews cannot leap,
Avoid the lathered pack,
Turn from the steaming sheep.
If you would keep your soul
From spotted sight or sound,
Live like the velvet mole;
Go burrow underground.
And there hold intercourse
With roots of trees and stones,
With rivers at their source,
And disembodied bones."
—Elinor Wylie
Robert E Howard, Grettir the Outlaw, and the origins of two-fisted Weird Fiction.
"Democratic leaders need to fear being branded as collaborators more than they fear being called soft on crime" —@brandonfriedman.bsky.social
