Zohar Jacobs

For the past 60 years, about 50% of NASA engineers have seemed to be named Steve. Never realized this phenomenon extended to other professions.

Peacehaven: Fire at East Sussex mosque probed as 'hate crime' Video appears to show two people in balaclavas at the mosque before a large blaze spreads.

Men in balaclavas set fire to a mosque in East Sussex last night. It's only appearing on the BBC's local coverage, rather than its main national headlines, despite coming just a week after the (also under-reported) firebombing of an asylum hotel in London last week
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Thinking abt how Tolkien was a fan of Mary Renault (his ex student BTW). And he wrote abt being "deeply engaged" with her work. It lives completely rent free in my mind. Like she almost exclusively wrote twinks from the ancient near east edging. This is like if GRRM was a huge fan of MXTX.

One thing you will never think after reading a great book or listening to a great album or seeing a great piece of art is, “I’m really glad this person remained cautious while they were making this and guarded against being perceived as weird.”

Screen cap of parodic version of William Blake's "The Tyger" that begins: Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright (Not sure if I spelled that right) What immortal hand or eye Could fashion such a stripy guy? What the hammer that hath hewn it Into such a chonky unit? Did who made the lamb make thee, Or an external franchisee?

In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:

What's great about writing, though, is that you can do things most readers would consider a mistake and then win major literary prizes.

CST: 'we utterly reject his message of hate and division. His so-called support for our community is not welcome or helpful'

That was 2021. I hope + anticipate similar sentiments in 2025

Utterly despicable.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you - and I will report back on the sleeper

Sympathy! I was meant to be on the Caledonian Sleeper to Aberdeen this evening. It has been cancelled but luckily I was also able to cancel my B&B without charge and I'll pick up the holiday in Inverness (also by sleeper, now on Sunday night).

Breaking news: major triumph against antisemitism as Jewish woman successfully purchases loaf of challah from M&S in time for Shabbat.

(Taking small joys where I can today.)

On the eve of the holiest day of the year for globalists, no less.

The reposts have been heartening too! But there's something about hearing from someone person-to-person.

Even a simple "I heard the news and am thinking of you tonight" would be enough, I'm sure.

Thank you so much for amplifying this.

If you have any Jewish friends, this would be an immensely meaningful thing to hear right now. Ideally as a personal message and not a social media repost.

Why are litfic/SFF crossovers usually marketed as litfic rather than as SFF? Wondering if it's because litfic is, ironically, considered more "commercial" than commercial genre in this context – in other words, publishers think more people will pick it up if it's on the litfic shelves?

The solution to the male loneliness epidemic is to normalise retreating to your library to produce a volume of digressive, idiosyncratic essays that remain an essential repository of humanist thought and skeptical inquiry 400+ years after your death.

Missed bisexual visibility day. Am no longer visible. Still audible, tangible, frangible and malleable, ineluctable, flammable and biodegradable, unspeakable, impressionable and comfortable.

🔵 ANNIVERSARY SALE 🔵

To celebrate eleven years since we published our first book, we are running a sale on our website until 11.59 p.m. BST on 30 September, with a 40 per cent discount across our website.

Use the code ‘ANNIVERSARY40’ at checkout: fitzcarraldoeditions.com

‘We’re exhausted – but not from doing too much’: can this woman help us survive the age of distraction? With three jobs, three children and a labradoodle, the behavioural scientist Zelana Montminy knows a lot about being pulled in all directions. What can her new book about finding focus teach the rest ...

"One of the hardest elements of her mental fitness regime has been 'building up my boredom tolerance, trying to let myself be idle without filling the gap.' She has had to start small – looking out of a window for five seconds, then trying to last a bit longer."

Seriously??? tinyurl.com/7thm597f

It’s quite do-able from a legal perspective. I don’t think dismissing Reform in this way is wise. Voters need to understand that this stuff can happen if they vote for it - and that it would be morally, socially, culturally, economically disastrous. So they shouldn’t vote for it.

small hours big time there is Saturn - south east - over that chimney later on - Jupiter appears, left of the barrows the arrival of Venus means morning is close and 200 geese appear - full voice, headed west

21/9/25 - nocturn

If you thought having finished a few novels meant you know how to write, having to compose an artist statement quickly disabuses you of that notion.

In Those Years Adrienne Rich In those years, people will say, we lost track of the meaning of we, of you we found ourselves reduced to I and the whole thing became silly, ironic, terrible: we were trying to live a personal life and yes, that was the only life we could bear witness to But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged into our personal weather They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove along the shore, through the rags of fog where we stood, saying I

All of that is an integral part of writing a novel in my opinion.

Striking how much the process of writing a novel is actually the process of turning yourself into a writer with the capacity and ability to write that novel.

Thread gives info on how to delete your account without agreeing to the ToS

"It is a sense of the inevitable boundedness of our lives, their finitude and fragility, the minuteness of our agency in the face of their contingency, that I worry is excluded by the current usage of the term “affirming” in conversations about art."