Joel Clarkson

Now this is an LLM I can get on board with!

It’s amazing until you find yourself eternally at the cliff edge of book two because at this point we’re never going to get Doors of Stone

This is perfect

Astonishing and captivating. Loved it from start to finish.

This post is like shot and chaser, all in one. 😂

Looks fab! Major congrats!

I mean, Ratzinger’s main man Augustine is both the variation on the theme and the antidote to this, right?

Matthew Shadle beat me to it, but Ratzinger emphasises the intrinsic human desire to transcend one’s self, and how the Cross opens that possibility by means of self-giving grace which transforms self-destruction into transfiguration and communion. Which is simply to say that innate desire matters!

This whole album is about divesting from the shiny promises of technocracy toward endless self-realisation and instead embracing the limits of human life - the joys and complications of love, the pain of age and death, the restorative beauty of nature. A sleeper, and one of the best of the 2010s.

I am now just into Lake of the Long Sun (after finishing Nightside). As with New Sun, I am enthralled and yet constantly frustrated by the realisation that some ruse is happening under my nose and I just can’t quite hack it.

Which is why the Clone Wars animated series is so fantastic. The first season and a half was kidsy but then went deep on character and world development. It achieved the heights toward which the prequels gestured. The final season is a masterpiece.

I am now nearing the end of Citadel of the Autarch. We must discuss New Sun whenever we next chat. Should I press on to the Urth of the New Sun?

Do I espy another WordleBot connoisseur?

Wordle 1,285 2/6*

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One of these days!

Ekstasis Curated | December Edition Collection for your Christmas reflections

Grateful to be included in the December edition of ‘Ekstasis Curated,’ a regular feature of Ekstasis Magazine’s Substack. Hope you’ll give it a look!

I’m getting behind on these, but you’ll note that it doesn’t say 20 CONSECUTIVE days.

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge

9/20

Brilliant. Thank you!

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this one! What collection is this from?

Haha—have you seen her newest, The Wood in Midwinter? It’s surprisingly short! I read it in one sitting. Was actually astonished when I realised I had reached the end.

Very much agree!

I liked it! I think it equally has to do with the sense that the world is suffused with meaning that exceeds the mere ‘givenness’ of things. Again, it’s been probably a decade since I last read it, so I should probably revisit it sometime!

(There’s more I could say, but not without revealing spoilers to unassuming passersby!)

Interesting! It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but my takeaway was actually more about how the main character’s perspective has been opened up (and opens us up) to a grander vista about the nature of the world that remains compelling even as we become aware of the incidentals of his story.

‘The Sabbath,’ by Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge

8/20

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.
#BookSky
#Books
#BookChallenge

7/20

So the moral of the story is I need to give BG3 a go (as soon as the prices drops just a little bit more)

Yeah, I mean perhaps the worst offenders on the FPS front are the Uncharted games, where Nathan Drake, our charming protagonist, mows down literally thousands of opponents in the course of the story.

Per old school Bethesda and BioWare, I see what you mean. Yeah… to be honest, as a gamer I’ve certainly changed. Perhaps I should give BG3 a go and see what I think. What about Hideo Kojima? Death Stranding is in the running for my favourite game of the last decade.

I’ve not really played other Bethesda games tbh, but if you mean Elder Scrolls Online, I never thought that was meant to be in the chronological canon as such. Sort of a side project doing something completely different.

I’ve got to imagine Bethesda will go all in on massive world, amazing graphics, extensive storytelling. That’s the elder scrolls experience, and it’s ostensibly why it’s taking them over a decade to release.