RIP the magnificent French baritone, Robert Massard. I have written of my adoration of him here before so I won't say much now but I urge you to listen to him today if you are not familiar with him, or even if you are! www.francebleu.fr/infos/societ...

“Winter coming. Like the last heroic soldier Of a defeated army, you’ll stay at your post, Head bared to the first snow flake. Till a neighbour comes to yell at you, You’re crazier than the weather, Charlie. “ 📚 Charles Simic, Against Winter #BookWormSat #poetry #winter

This looks like (and feels like) the dance floor at a really amazing party.

So, yesterday was a rather challenging Christmas, due to an elder's death early in the morning, and I couldn't get back here in a timely manner, but I want to wish all my dear mutuals a belated Merry Christmas and best wishes for the rest of the season. I feel privileged to know all of you.

Criticizing Bari Weiss is not necessarily misogyny. Thinking women cannot handle true criticism and we must shield them from it is always misogyny.

You can help 95-year-old Broadway legend Nat Horne stay in his home by donating here: patch.com/new-york/har...

Not going to do the full 1856 lit thing since I have a ridiculously early probate court hearing tomorrow (the final legal bit to do with my father's estate, I hope) but I'll nominate Eduard Mörike's charming 'Mozart auf der Reise nach Prag'.

I don’t mean to sound extreme, but I don’t think we should have torture camps for people with criminal records either.

Finished reading Issac Fellman's 'Notes From a Regicide' last night and now I'm feeling a bit lost. It wasn't a "perfect" book but it was so immersive and intense and deeply loveable that I feel sad letting it go and am not sure what I could pick up to read that could possibly take its place.

You will be visited by 3 spirits.

None of this is “good faith political debate,” and it’s not a coincidence that all these outlets are suddenly interested in the same “discussion” at the same time. Treating women’s humanity like a thought exercise makes it that much easier to legislate away

The very question “Has Feminism Been Harmful to Women” presupposes that women don’t know what is good for themselves objectively. I don’t need a roundtable to debate and let me know what’s best for my gender, but thanks anyway.

'Tenure: eight months. I've had wigs that lasted longer than that'. Don't mess with Cher, my girl.

‘The approach of Christmas brings harassment and dread to many excellent people.’ ~ The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson, Mark Twain. #BookWormSat 🖼️ Antoni Piotrowski, 1916.

Have started the Christmas baking. Not really all that into this year as there is a LOT going on (father's estate to be settled, mother's increasing dementia, and partner's dad's full-blown dementia - oh joy!) But I have a new recipe for Fernet Branca cookies to try out! Should be interesting.

Feeling kind of blah, a bit down. Remembered I bought some Recchiuti chocolate bars for myself when making a holiday order and stashed them in the office desk drawer. Just had a bit of the dark milk and semi-sweet bars. Ambrosia. I expect I'll have sweet dreams later tonight.

Brodalisques. I quite like that. I think Sylvia Sleigh might have enjoyed these.

coming soon: an anthology of Hungarian women's poetry, to be published by Seagull Books in January Under a Pannonian Sky: Ten Women Poets from Hungary, ed. by Ottilie Mulzet

You would think someone would whisper 'the Belgian Congo' to the authorities and that would be that.

Psst! Madrigal core. it's the next big thing. 😆

remember when some of y'all were welcoming her to the resistance ... please, next time she mildly criticizes trump, please remember she's still the enemy, trying to hurt my family specifically. and they aren't gonna stop with minors.

Postcards from Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

wow that was stupid but i guess at least he didn’t declare war with venezuela

Happy Beethoven's birthday to all who celebrate.

I don't think they would admit it, but a lot of people legitimately believe that posting their political takes is activism. So they take these statements as "your political activism is useless" and sorry, but it is. Posting on Bluesky is fun. Usually. It's not going to change the world.

An incredible, insightful book (and one of our favourite covers!): "Intersex Figures in Modern Japanese Literature and Art" explores how artists used non-heteronormative bodies and sexualities to resist authoritative dicta. 🗾 @conditionedsoul.bsky.social @uofmpress.bsky.social bit.ly/48c2H9W

Lisa Tuttle offers her “'best of the best of 2025'”—the books that I’d want on the list if I were a judge for The Clarke Award or World Fantasy or similar. aqueductpress.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-...

Watched the latest Spy X Family episodes and I am sooo tempted to change my user name to Double Starlight Anya Chan. 😜

My December Rancho Gordo shipment included a batch of crimson popping corn. I bought a Whirley Pop aluminum corn popper. Big mistake. My partner has fallen down the rabbit hole of home popcorn popping and is now wildly ordering weird solid oils and special salts. I don't even LIKE popcorn! Argh!

I understand that a lot of folks have been misled by fear-mongering and powerful regressive voices but it’s still astonishing to me that so many have fallen for the idea that oppressively policing other people’s gender identity and expression could in any way be part of an enlightened future.

I'm sorry to say that I expected this

Yeah, I'm trying not to be the "why are you shocked" guy but this has been who Chomsky is for a very very long time.

Hey, guys, for 2026 can we try STOP TURNING THINGS INTO MUSICALS?!?!?!?!

Oblomov, c'est moi.

Reading Elvia Wilk's 'Death by Landscape' right now. It's really a remarkable book, both as literary criticism (how have I not read Lessing's 'The Memoirs of a Survivor' yet?!?) and a meditation on the natural world, the Anthropocene, climate change, Covid 19, and much other related stuff.

Are any of my classical music/opera friends going to see the new production of Offenbach's Robinson Crusoé at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées? I'm listening to the only recording I can readily find (on Opera Rara and in English, unfortunately) and it's a wonderful score. The TCE cast should be ideal.

This is the Modest Proposal of our age. www.colincornaby.me/2025/08/in-t...

my great-grandparents arrived in the UK in the 1890s with nothing. they sold pickles from the front room window, took in laundry, worked as tailors. their children were nurses, teachers, salesmen. their grandchildren were professors, designers, opticians, doctors, magistrates, entrepreneurs.

À la fenêtre recélant Le santal vieux qui se dédore De sa viole étincelant Jadis avec flûte ou mandore, Est la Sainte pâle, étalant Le livre vieux qui se déplie Du Magnificat ruisselant Jadis selon vêpre et complie : (1/2)

Went to a major wine tasting tonight, the first I've been to in about 5 years. Delighted to spend time with a very young couple (22-23ish) who looked like Timothée Chalamet and young Cher and were so sweet and interested in anything I could tell them about wine.

‘If only the idiots had taken me into their confidence this story would have had a very different ending.’ ‘To use the majesty of law for revenging any petty act of private spite is to make a public confession of weakness, cowardice and an ignoble spirit.’ ~ Graves, I, Claudius. #BookWormSat

All the Dorothies are on sale during @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social's sitewide sale for the next (checks watch) 36 hours! 📚🎁 Go: www.nyrb.com/collections/...

**NEW POST** This week on women composers and "marketability", and why the idea that there's no market for women composers is nonsense. If somebody says this, what they actually mean is THEY don't know enough about the music to know how to market it. leahbroad.substack.com/p/but-theres...

Seven Stories is a GREAT source for holiday shopping! So many good and right on books. Take advantage of this sale

This thread is simply amazing, please share

If you see this, post an anime you love. I'd seen a fair few anime series before Haibane Renmei but this was the first to genuinely move me. It remains the only one to make me cry buckets of tears.

I just love this. I love everything about it but I suspect it may not work for some people (mostly those not brought up culturally "German/Austrian" one way or another). It's not exactly "vulgar" (Boesch is too great an artist for that) but it borders on it. www.col-legno.com/en/shop/2048...

Editors have a really hard job, and the good ones can make something unreadable readable, and the great ones can make something unreadable into something good. But they're basically invisible, until someone tries to write without one.