Zohar Jacobs 🕎

I think that must have been in one of the Gnostic Gospels.

Now wondering how agents and publishers would react to the pitch, "Bleak House but make it fantasy."

Less a Hellenized Jew than a Judaized Hellene, I wonder how I ought to feel about the complexities of Hanukkah. But I am strongly in favor of candles.

If you can spare the time, this is worth reading in one sitting. Trust.

Truth Coming Out of Her Well to Shame Mankind

Cyber Monday is here and deals are going fast! These deals are diaphanous. They are receding even as we speak, becoming mere memories of deals, prices longed for but lost, hints at what could have been had for less. A golden slant of sun through window falls on an empty countertop. Act now.

At last! An independent longitudinal qualitative study getting to heart of why artists do what they do and how, identifying barriers & brakes & how ACE’s institutions favouring policies >2010 impacted + conditions for artists’ emotional, environmental & economic resilience. DM for pre pub copy.😊

Santa knows when you're sleeping and he knows when you're awake.

Judah Maccabee knows if you've been assimilating into the surrounding culture and he is NOT going to be okay with it

Getting actively tired of being asked where I'm from. I've been here since I was a teenager, twenty-five years now – and I know I'll never sound like a local, but do you have to remind me?

"Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the grounds of the college, and the play began in natural light. But as it developed, and as it became time for Ariel to say his farewell to the world of The Tempest, the evening had started to close in and there was some artificial lighting coming on. And as Ariel uttered his last speech, he turned and he ran across the grass, and he got to the edge of the lake and he just kept running across the top of the water — the producer having thoughtfully provided a kind of walkway an inch beneath the water. And you could see and you could hear the plish, plash as he ran away from you across the top of the lake, until the gloom enveloped him and he disappeared from your view. And as he did so, from the further shore, a firework rocket was ignited, and it went whoosh into the air, and high up there it burst into lots of sparks, and all the sparks went out, and he had gone. "When you look up the stage directions, it says, 'Exit Ariel.”

Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.

I heard there was a secret verse
That David used to make AI worse
But you don't really want to pub that, do ya

It always staggers me that there are snowy places that don't have sidewalk plows.

I’ve seen a worrying number of readers angry when a book is not exactly what they expected, which is a way to trap yourself permanently.

So hard to depict the launch of a Space Shuttle in a literary novel without the tone going all techno-geek. Focus on the subjective experience of the protagonist, yes, but you also can't assume that the reader remembers what it was like.

On July 19, 2013, you waved at Saturn. The Cassini spacecraft was there to snap a photo of not only us, but the Saturn system. Here's Cassini's view of Enceladus within Saturn's E ring on that day. (Enceladus is actually forming Saturn's E ring. More details can be found here: Tiny Icy Moon 'Feeds' Giant Saturn Ring) These images were taken on July 19, 2013 and received on Earth July 20, 2013. The camera was pointing toward SATURN-ERING at approximately 742,417 miles (1,194,805 kilometers) away, and the images were taken using the CL1, RED, BL1 and GRN filters. Credit: NASA / JPL / SSI / composite by Val Klavans

Enceladus in the E Ring - From Val Klavans (valklavans.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/fpHjw2

Well this is quite genuinely disturbing

I think so! Took about 3 minutes with some parcel tape.

New winter cheer concept.

I think this is an underrated source of the extent to which Bluesky is in a false consensus about public AI hatred. If you are a power user on a microblogging site you are basically by definition not going to see the "take the effort out of reading and writing" machine as being useful

It doesn't seem unreasonable but I really don't want to have to carry around a recent bank statement to visit museums.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

what resembles the grave but isn't Always falling into a hole, then saying "ok, this is not your grave, get out of this hole," getting out of the hole which is not the grave, falling into a hole again, saying "ok, this is also not your grave, get out of this hole," getting out of that hole, falling into another one; sometimes falling into a hole within a hole, or many holes within holes, getting out of them one after the other, then falling again, saying "this is not your grave, get out of the hole"; sometimes being pushed, saying "you can not push me into this hole, it is not my grave," and getting out defiantly, then falling into a hole again without any pushing; sometimes falling into a set of holes whose structures are predictable, ideological, and long dug, often falling into this set of structural and impersonal holes; sometimes falling into holes with other people, with other people, saying "this is not our mass grave, get out of this hole," all together getting out of the hole together, hands and legs and arms and human ladders of each other to get out of the hole that is not the mass grave but that will only be gotten out of together; sometimes the willful-falling into a hole which is not the grave because it is easier than not falling into a hole really, but then once in it, realizing it is not the grave, getting out of the hole eventually; sometimes falling into a hole and languishing there for days, weeks, months, years, because while not the grave very difficult, still, to climb out of and you know after this hole there's just another and another; sometimes surveying the landscape of holes and wishing for a high quality final hole; sometimes thinking of who has fallen into holes which are not graves but might be better if they were; sometimes too ardently contemplating the final hole while trying to avoid the provisional ones; sometimes dutifully falling and getting out, with perfect fortitude, saying "look at the skill and spirit with which I rise from…

Slept dreaming of, woke up thinking about the extraordinary What Resembles the Grave but Isn’t by Anne Boyer

That is a thing of beauty. Respect.

Book post! Work by poet friends
@kitfryatt.bsky.social and @pairedaeza.bsky.social

Came across this again by Ruth Lepson … must look for more of her work.

Your yearly reminder that “holiday” celebrations that only include Christian traditions are not, in fact, inclusive even if you don’t use the word Christmas, so tbh I’d rather you just say it’s Christmas.

Dear All Have you seen Prof Biscuit recently? Professor Biscuit is roaming Main Building or more likely, is asleep somewhere cosy. Have you seen him recently? If so, could he be persuaded to be returned to the Bursary, please?

They're also responsible for one of the best emails I've ever received, when the college office sent out a plea for sightings of Professor Biscuit while conveniently forgetting to mention that he was a cat...(I won't comment on how often a similar email might have gone out about human Professors...)

against casting tape fiction first-person narration and interiority

This one is also very good and I believe Brandon Taylor is writing a craft book for people who are coming to writing as TV/film viewers.
blgtylr.substack.com/p/against-ca...

Up with Eriks! (Especially those of you who value great prose.)

Gold embossed Russian text on blue book cover. Text reads (approximately): Ephemerides of Minor Planets for 1994.

Today’s random find in the #ASPLibrary: a Russian book of Ephemerides of Minor Planets for 1994. 🔭