"Sometimes the winning move really is as simple as not playing the game ... [the metaverse's] very emptiness is a human triumph of sorts, a reminder that we do still get to choose what shape the future will take. Collectively, we took a look at the metaverse, and with one voice we decided: not this"

Prime example of why ensuring the survival of investigative journalism should be a top priority. It is one thing to report the news, it is another entirely to help the public understand why things are happening. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxzQ...

Repost your getaway vehicle

Look at this gorgeous drawing by one the finest students I had the privilege of teaching. The energy and intrigue of Isabelle's drawings are only eclipsed by the unsettling drama and humour of her machine-beast sculptures.

This one's for SciFi-lovin' @edrybicki.bsky.social

@durotrigesdig.bsky.social asking for a friend

Bafana Bafana are still in it @kronopiok.substack.com!

My favourite version by far. Sorry Bob. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdb_...

Dear Europeans, it is currently gloriously cool in Cape Town with a light refreshing rain. And since it's technically 'winter' here, all fares are discounted.

Every morning the ravens and crows feast on the liver of metaphor

Dear U.K.: since you seem to enjoy trotting out 'hot podium guy' on a regular basis, why not just make him PM?

"that which occurs after a rather strange episode—when the hero rubs newly-forged iron on his buttocks and flies off. The designated audience spokesman asks, "Where you there?" to which the narrator answers, "Very Near."" R. P. Martin on the "Woi epic" of the Kpelle people of Liberia (2020, 55)

Absolute classic

High-quality restoration at great prices.

#BlueSkyArtShow #curve #curves

#BlueskyArtShow #Curve #curves

In the fist game, our SANGOMA didn't have a VISA. We are now back! 😅🇿🇦 #BafanaBafana #WorldCup #Fifa

To the three people on here who got their hands on my book: as promised, I've finally created a comprehensive video catalogue containing full colour images of the sculptures discussed in the book. It also shows where each is located within the exhibition: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHcS...

I tried to know my @postmonkey.bsky.social, but it never showed up, so now I enjoy my killifish instead 🫤

Don't capitulate to the short-sighted expectations of markets and critics, the artist's purpose is to dig a well for future generations. Art succeeds the moment it inspires more art.

@merchantshallyork.org they're playing your song!

The chairman of my local Malaprop Linguistics Group was absent from the last meeting, having caught an inflection.

Menelaus in the Iliad: the sad loser whose big brother has to fight his battles for him. Menelaus the Odyssey: not just the guy who made it home safe, and now has it all, he's discovered that being son-in-law to Zeus will earn him a blissful life after death in the Elysian Fields. Epic glow-up

Know exactly how this guy feels. I too have been suckered into becoming an agent for temperamental performing frogs.

Watching Bafana Bafana kicking a ball around in Mexico

@theotheralice.bsky.social is this fungi we should know about?

Calling all poets. Summon the Muses. The moment to gain eternal glory is upon us.

Eris getting ready to go and wreck a wedding, launch a high-stakes beauty contest, destroy a marriage, start a war, and inspire some really bad behaviour in everyone involved (all resulting in an epic or two).

Getting our excuses in early, just in case Mexico beats Bafana Bafana in today's World cup match. It's all the manager's fault!

Apollo bending back fighters like he's drawing his bow

"abandoning the positivists' search for a "real" Hesiod is crucial if we are to put poetics first. Then we might appreciate Hesiod as "a mask for many anonymous voices ... and explore the way in which the "autobiographical remarks of the poet" always serve a specific function" (Richard P. Martin)

Getting our excuses in early, just in case Mexico beats Bafana Bafana in today's World cup match. It's all the manager's fault!

"a would-be adviser's first problem: getting the hearer to listen." (Richard P. Martin)

Host Africa has launched South Africa's Ugliest Website 🇿🇦competition where people can nominate their favourite poorly designed website to win it a complete makeover. And in case anyone feels tempted to nominate mine: forget it you traitor! Only domains ending in .za qualify 😜 www.uglywebsites.co.za

It's not like @edzitron.com didn't warn them 😂

"Limited only by the previous experience of real audiences and the capability of performers, both didactic and myth make use of fictive audiences and tellers to explore the ethical alongside the metaphysical and cosmological, while locating all three in the ordinary." (Richard P. Martin, 2020, 240)

Query you may be able to help with @iacobuscaesar.bsky.social

AI does not actually think and has no capacity for comprehending context or meaning. It cannot replicate a human's social insight and judgement. That these managers trusted it enough to not even review what it had produced for this campaign shows an alarming degree of magical thinking on their part.

"why [do] we value effort, mastery and achievement in some areas of life, yet seem willing to abandon those same principles in others ... many people who dismiss the value of the creative process still care deeply about effort, mastery and authenticity somewhere else." @beccacaddy.bsky.social

😜

@edrybicki.bsky.social both your passions rolled into one

In the Iliad, the Muses ambush the singer Thamyris who'd been going around boasting that he was superior to them. They maimed (blinded) him, wiped his memory, and stripped him of his voice and technical skills. Maybe Meta should name their superficial facsimile of cognition 'Thamyris Dark' instead.

@theotheralice.bsky.social where's @wildobliquities.bsky.social when you need to share a duck pick?

Do any South Africans on here know anything about this project to map the S.A. arts sector? It looks like it may be very useful to practitioners, but registration requires your I.D. number, which, given the epidemic of scams, raises some red flags. vacsa.org/sector

The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) has been named the highest-ranked university in Africa in the 2026 Center for World University Rankings (CWUR). UCT's leadership can't be happy about this news at all.

If, like me, you live in a country that, in addition to insanely expensive import and shipping costs, imposes a value added tax on books, then you'll know the sheer thrill of finding a site where quality research on rare topics is made available to read for free. continuum.fas.harvard.edu/about/