Went to Europe, saw some Art

The #TransitCat of the day is in a mural by Daniel Dewar & Grégory Gicquel at the Rokin metro station in Amsterdam.

Tonight! Yamamori Tengu, Strand St, Dublin 1. #FreePalestine

In response to Horses Graze by Gwendolyn Brooks @deborahrosereeves.bsky.social remarked on its similarity to The Piece of Wild Things by Wendell Berry Thank you 🙏 'I feel above me the day blind stars waiting with their light' #poetry #poemoftheday

Fri 11/21: join Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, @nicolechung.bsky.social, @ingridrojasc.bsky.social, @melissafebos.bsky.social, Robert Jones Jr., Denne Michele Norris, host @briangresko.bsky.social & me for 100 Days of Creative Resistance. We'll talk about staying creative in this terrible time. Free!

We are delighted to invite you to @booksupstairs.bsky.social on November 27th for our Issue 4 launch! Eoin Greally, Matty Kennedy, Sofie De Smyter, Emily Mc Gardle and Colm Lennon will be in conversation with editors Clare Healy and Sarah Sturzel. Free but booking is essential - see link in bio!

Virtual Book Launch Event: I will be in conversation with Ash Williams, a fellow contributor to "Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis," on Wednesday, November 19, at 6:00 p.m. CT. Thanks to @firestorm.coop for hosting. You can sign up here:

✨Some professional news ✨ I'm developing my own creative writing workshops called "Root & Reverie" and they will begin in January 2026. Early interest form is here: docs.google.com/forms/d/1w5D... There will be special incentives for early responders and general great news to come so stay tuned!

I'm at the point in this interminable head cold where I'm either gonna watch Melancholia or While You Were Sleeping

This came to mind too I don't know where it comes from Where to go when the rains come... youtu.be/u-LI_HrM1CM?...

What is your favourite song about the rain? youtu.be/Bib_yzcaTDw?...

Not counting classics like Middlemarch, Anna Karenina, Light in August etc my favourite 'brick reads' might be: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Chabon), The Book of Form and Emptiness (Ozeki), Sometimes a Great Notion (Kesey). Generally I'm a less is more gal but I'd re-read all of these.

Continuing with my reflection of horses, in Horses Graze by Gwendolyn Brooks there is a fierce contentment, an invitation into a moment of stillness, a longing for simplicity and peace. ‘that creature feet may press only on a few inches of earth at a time’ #poetry #poemoftheday

A threadful of love for Alice Wong ❤️

Boosting this for the not-up-ridiculously-early-on-a-Sunday crowd. Creatives! Can YOU donate an item to the #Creatives4Sudan auction? Could be signed books, original art, a phone call talking about how to get into your industry, or [insert your idea]. Funds going Emergency response rooms in Sudan.

web.archive.org/web/20241122... Alice Wong's Teen Vogue articles were archived before their removal, for anyone looking.

Alice Wong, Presente. Thank you for everything.

One way I have found to mourn someone is to set up a monthly sustaining donation to a mutual aid effort they cared about. If you can join me in honoring Alice Wong, @sfdirewolf.bsky.social with a sustaining donation today, please do. Thank you Alice, and I will not let the bastards grind me down.

I usually share a new Palestinian account every day but today I am going to do a thread of people I’ve already verified impacted by the recent flooding in Gaza. If you can help any of these families- many who lost everything again- please do. edition.cnn.com/2025/11/14/m...

In 2024, chemists from Holland’s University of Amsterdam figured out how Rembrandt embellished his most famous painting with golden details. I like what some people dedicate their working lives to. And I like that the project was called Operation Night Watch. www.artnews.com/art-news/new...

Visited Rembrandt’s beautiful home & studio this afternoon. Loved the tutorial/history lesson, recreating his colour palette using the materials and techniques of his time. Metal paint tubes (syringes, in fact) weren’t created for another 200ish years in 1840.

Rokin Metro station, Amsterdam on a cold and overcast Caturday

Lots of things came up in my conversation with Brandon Taylor at The Strand, including the importance of face-to-face encounters and the difference, for me, between art and politics. Free post, no paywall. Link in profile. garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/a-conversa...

Street Art, night-walk Amersfoort 🇳🇱

A fun thing about travelling in Europe that I didn’t anticipate: Little Free Libraries guiding my next read. On a medieval street in Amersfoort 🇳🇱 tonight, I nabbed a copy of The Snow Queen by Michael Cunningham & An American Marriage by Tayari Jones. Will drop off Katabasis before I leave. #BookSky

Last but not least, the striking memoir I DELIVER PARCELS IN BEIJING by Hu Anyan, (tr. Jack Hargreaves), published by Astra House, features "stories from the different jobs...as well as accounts he’s heard of colleagues’ misfortune" : bookshop.org/p/books/i-de...

Did you miss Tobias Carroll's Watchlist? It's full of great recommendations of books in translation that you should read this fall. Keep scrolling for more information about each book on the list: wordswithoutborders.org/read/article... tobiascarroll.bsky.social

Friends— here it is. Updated & expanded thanks to the space afforded to me in the @therumpus.net & the guidance of the brilliant @roxanegay.bsky.social’s edits. The win centers Muslims humanity — but what does that mean in a country that rejects that? therumpus.net/2025/11/05/z...

Here's another bit of conventional wisdom Zohran completely blew away: His speech was at well above a 10th-grade level. It was complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references. You don't have to condescend to voters with baby talk! Part of re-establishing norms is speaking like an adult.

good morning specifically to the FBI agent who introduced Mamdani’s dad to Marx

TRANS RIGHTS ARE A WINNING POLITICAL ISSUE Every single centrist claiming we must all compromise our bodily autonomy for their personal comfort is a traitor to American democracy & rational human decency. They have no place in a modern Democratic Party, toss them out. Total liberation for all.

“The symbolism of the moment is hard to beat. At a time when Trump is not just demonising immigrants, but harassing them and sending masked goons to kidnap them from the street, America’s greatest city – and Trump’s hometown – has elected a Muslim immigrant to run it.”

Another world IS possible

I don’t believe in an afterlife, at least not one that will mete out meaningful justice. So now that Cheney is dead having never faced accountability in this world, my mind grasps for something honest to hold onto, and Baldwin is the only thing that feels truthful & real, but it’s also not enough.

“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.” - James Baldwin

Update

‘Selfie’, a poem by Eric McHenry, from our October / November issue. Order the latest issue here: thelondonmagazine.org/product/curr...

I am so upset. Last week Time Magazine solicited a piece from me on Zohran Mamdani & anti-Muslim hate. I pitched a framing re the dehumanization of Muslims & how Mamdani’s inclusive, socialist campaign in its content resists that. They agreed. I wrote the piece. 1/

Cover reveal day for Palestine -1: Stories from the Eve of the Nakba by Comma Press! I have a story in this one. It launches November 13th. Pre-orders are open at the link below: commapress.co.uk/books/palest...

Shaggy mane deliquescing #fungifriends #nature #timelapse #macro #sandmarc

Spotted a Shaggy Mane, also known as Lawyer’s Wig, also known as Kristeva’s Abject, on a rainy day ramble in Denmark

Starting tomorrow: Online Solidarity Sessions with the IPSC 🇵🇸 Preregister here: www.ipsc.ie/event/online... #SpéirGorm #SpéirGhorm #SaoirseDonPhalaistín

"Liam Cunningham, star of PALESTINE 36, will be giving a special intro to the film this Sunday Nov 2nd at 18:00 in the Light House Cinema as part of Palestine Cinema Days 🇵🇸 Get tickets 👉 tinyurl.com/3ez4x5ex #palestine36 " Via ~ Wildcard Distribution

Happy first day of Native American Heritage Month! Natives that lost SNAP or need food, post on this thread and will boost. Allies, Natives once fed the settlers and lost everything, open your hearts and wallets this month to return the favor. Also, check #SettlerSaturday.

“In spite of all the challenges we face, there remains within the Irish people a profound and unyielding commitment to seeing beyond the self to seeing the ‘other’ as friend.” - President Michael D Higgins at his final garden party. He and Sabina have hosted up to 20,000 people each year.

Cá bhfuil Wally?

This government should be so ashamed of themselves for letting this happen. They have ignored the seriousness of the situation, tip-toed around fascist threats and intimidation, and even fed into the narrative that immigration is the problem. How they sleep at night, I will never know.

Thirty days to write 100 words. Simple!!! Hope lots of you will consider sending in entries 👇

“I work on her.” #BookWormSat #TodaysPoem

Pigs are highly intelligent, social and fun-loving. What we do to them is profoundly wrong - and it’s also killing our planet which will wreak havoc on our own lives. Leave animals the fuck alone, it’s not that complicated. my.uplift.ie/petitions/ba...