Hyper-violent episode on the @chicagocta.bsky.social Purple line to Howard street. Psychotic-seeming guy apparently unprovoked attack on a woman in the car led to a stampede to the next car down. It was like an awful dream. I was swept along. A few guys subdued the psychotic. Blood everywhere.

Would you accept a small monthly payment in exchange for allowing short commercial breaks during your nightly dreams?

Three people this morning in my Metra carriage reading physical material (7am) #ReadingOnTrain

If LLMs end up facilitating a cognitive enhancement of humanity in general it will be counter to the design intentions of its architects. There's a lot at stake and the battle is going to be an uphill one. College profs could play a crucial role. Anyway blah blah

Writers: what's your aspiration for an advance on your next book? Aspirational but realistic. What, if everything lines up, do you think you can get?

Sage and perennial advice by Evelyn Waugh's dad about the evils of masturbation... Think of cricket instead. Ignore at the peril of a soft brain

Not what he's saying but whatever

Please Holy God let my check from Anthropic AI be larger than my check from Meta. (AI was trained in tiny part with 22 of my essays, research papers and one of my books.

Really resent masquerades of reasonableness by Supreme Court Justices when narrating decisions supporting radical agendas. Smartish people are the worst for justifying biases with plausible seeming bullshit. Anyway enjoy Amy Coney Barrett's new memoir.

My first career choice was as a monk so, as an academic, my sense that my industry is collapsing is possibly less than it might have been.

I dreamed I was having a nightmare but in my dream was another me reminding myself that I was only having a nightmare. The multiple levels of recursion was the only nightmare the remained

Anyone else still irritated by Evanston Library's decision to jettison membership of the Digital Library of Illinois. The selection is very limited now.

In this short film, Mykhailo Bogdanov explores ‘avoesis,’ a term coined by ecologist Liam Heneghan @dublinsoil.bsky.social, as a means of tuning into the thoughts that percolate when goals and distractions are absent. This video is a part of our ‘Go Slow’ week on Psyche

Give this a read (or listen): emergencemagazine.org/essay/is-pad...

I'm surprised I'm not invited to give more talks cos I can really fucking talk. Also I don't want to give talks. I'm an old man leave me alone

Me talking about Beckett for some reason: plainreading.libsyn.com/beckett-biog...

Don't hesitate to be the first purchaser in this month of May of my novel Through Pleated Light. a.co/d/41UlU9Z. Or, by all means drop an Amazon or Goodreads review

If by early 60s you're not living life as if you were already dead and buried then, I don't think, you'll extract the marrow from your decking years. Play dead young...

I'm post-Catholic these days but I greatly appreciated Pope Francis as a pastoral carer. But if I was pope - apparently the odds are now against me - my highest priority would have been to rid the Church of child abuse. Has this happened? Did it happen under the recent papacy. If no, then it failed.

When God reviews my case and sees how consistently I've attended to my editorial duties she'll say: you may deserve to go to hell but you've suffered enough boyo

It's exceedingly unlikely that I'll be able to listen to myself but if me bloviating about Sam Beckett is your cuppa tea (and why not?) try this: plainreading.libsyn.com/beckett-biog...

My fitness tip: don't weigh yourself unless you're expecting good news

Now that our family income is about to be slashed by Elon fucking Musk I have to improvise to make more dough. Dylan Thomas comes to mind when he wrote: "I wish I could sell my body to a rich widow...but it is fat now it trembles a little”.

Reading Ronald Hayman's biography of Thomas Man on the beach. What a fucking weirdo. I hate him; I love him.

Sure, technology is great, but have you ever read a poem?

There better be a Kerrygold butter and chocolate digestive exemption in these tariffs or I swear to God....

Please enjoy this graph (it's taken since 7 am to finalize the data based on critical engagement with Patrick White). Interest in White has not completely fallen off the cliff apparently. (Essay in progress)

I'vevreached the "Dear Lord, let me outlive my enemies" stage of life

My homage to St Patrick, that biocidal lunatic 3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily...

End of a very elaborate search and rescue quest for this 3B pencil that got lost in the deep caverns of my jacket pocket last year.

I am once again in my St Patrick's Day lonely place of wishing they left that poor river alone. Green dye. C'mon lads just go to mass/church, have a quiet pint of stout and go home. Happy St Patrick's Day.

Schumer, Durban, et al. buying Teslas: "This is no time to be undercutting hard working Americans." Great job one and all.

It's hard to imagine democrats coming back from @schumer.senate.gov 's complicity in this budget.

If you own, or work at, an independent bookshop I am curious how you support independent book writers?

Thesis: A vast amount of money has been spent robbing us of our attention, eroding the fabric of education, obscuring motivations (even from ourselves), hiding the impacts of our actions, and creating a world that seems less tangible, less testable, and where the status quo seems unopposable...

Don't be gaslit by clowns. It takes, I'm finding, a little mental fortitude: but Trump, Musk, Vance, and Rubio are tiny parts of people greatly blown up. They are not whole ethical human beings.

At some point JD Vance will be deserted behind enemy lines. No amount of honied words will save him.

A stick in both hands, mud up to the waist, new red coat caked in muck. Sorry, not sorry. #Childhoodclassic #GrandadLife

Recorded a podcast episode today with Katy Scrogin (Plain Reading) which ended up being me just talking about Sam Beckett for 90 mins. Out in April.

Audiobooks count as reading. Audiobooks don't count as reading. Who fucking cares? Listen to them (I do) or don't listen to them - it should only matter to you.

What's a good collective term for all the Musk and Trump lickspittles out there slobbering across the internet?

The version of Christianity that many people practice relies upon the New Testament not actually meaning what it undeniably means. Same, unsurprisingly, with the US constitution apparently.

Tomorrow I'm working at home for the sole reason of having little cups of tea during the day with my wife.

'Let's grow old together." Accomplished! Now what?

To be a writer is to always be writing your first ever piece.

My young friends: the sort of writing you want to do never earned anyone much more than a crust.

The new DEI: deny everyone's inclusion

I've always insufficiency appreciated Van's Into the Music album

I love libraries as much as the next guy but why dear God is every third post on this site promoting libraries like they are a new smoothie recipe?

If there's one piece of advice I'd like to impart to the youth it's this: read biographies and memoirs.