Pic of the week: Hoverfly Wings with Aster Flowers birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/09/29/h...

Given the droughtiness of the summer this song hasn't had much opportunity to get into my head this year but after last week's rain it has sprung to life along with the bees (is this the best Rheostatics song, not necessarily, but it is the one with by far the most bees) youtu.be/1X2xPoRp6kY?...

This thread reminds me of the time I was fishing at night, pulled in what I thought was some sort of vegetation, and when I put the light on it found it was A BAT. This is the middle of the night in a fairly remote location so there is no calling the pros to deal with it...

Funny thing about Stewart Brand: pretty much whenever I see his name I mix him up with Russell Brand. You might say he has a Brand-recognition problem

Grateful to @jamespenha.bsky.social for running my "Incendiary Song" at @newversenews.bsky.social today newversenews.blogspot.com/2025/09/ince...

What's he shooting over there? With that street light in his yard What's he shooting over there? I'll tell you one thing, he's not shooting paintballs with the children What's he shooting over there?

"Law-and-order" vs rule of law is the domestic equivalent of "rules-based international order" vs international law

There's a bunch of (positive!) stuff I might come back to say about this poem by @justinkarcher.bsky.social in relation to haiku and haibun but for the moment I'll just say I really like this one

Not that it makes much difference in the world but it is at least a balm to my aching brain that the Wiki article is very clear about this off the top

Pic of the week: Honey Bee in Cosmos Flower birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/09/22/h...

It'd be a pretty wild mic drop on 1989 Fukuyama--who said China was falling imminently but the Soviet Union might take years--if Chinese Communism ends up the only world-historical player left standing against fascism If you're gonna be wrong about everything why not be wrong about every last bit

TBH this is @rick-glid.bsky.social's cat (@rick-glid.bsky.social's profile pic suggests it *is* @rick-glid.bsky.social) and I hat^H^H ^H have a complicated relationship with him but he does the damnedest things, like changes the shape of his skull at will and inflates his eyeballs out of his face

Today me to 2-days-ago me: hmm I think this quote post is the most-liked post we've made on here 2-days-ago me: omg we won the Rattle poetry prize Today me: hahaha lol um no ...oh look we posted something about Lenin for some reason and accidentally posted it three times 2-days ago me: you're fired

"Left adventurism" is a term I learned way back when as certain activists defended themselves against possibly phantom accusations of it, dunno if I ever looked at the seminal Lenin piece but anyway wouldn't have been so interested at the time that it's meant in the sense of adventitious roots

I think many might be surprised to find such a clear and direct piece of rhetoric, appealing to putatively common liberal principles of justice, written by Judith Butler

Our cat was designed by Alex Colville

Pic of the week: Great Egret Tongue birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/09/14/g...

Saw someone somewhere objecting to some homicide being referred to as an "assassination" and so of course I had to look up the etymology and it turns out strictly speaking an assassination is killing your enemies in a hashish-induced frenzy

Am I crazy or would this whole riduculous problem not be pretty much solved by posting a speed limit of 15-20 km/h less than the fastest you actually want people to go and setting the cameras to give people tickets at 15-20 km/h above what's posted? (Can't it be both? It's almost certainly both)

When I was a kid we thought George Foster might've been the last guy who'd've ever hit 50. Ever, it turns out, is a long time, and a lot can happen in it, a lot more and a lot faster than you might think. Now George Foster & Cecil Fielder are just a couple of guys who had a couple of nice years once

Pic of the week: Ruffle-Winged Heron birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/09/07/r...

People just going about their lives on here like the Jays didn't just drop a tight one to the Yankees, smdh

I like Giancarlo Stanton because he looks like a light breeze might knock him over and shatter him into a million pieces but also he could tear you limb from limb with a glance of his muscular eyeballs

Roost rings and waterspouts! Many strong points to be made that this is the best time of year

Other proposed name changes: Federal Bureau of ARRESTS Department of JAIL AND EXECUTION Department of AMERICA FIRST Department of TARIFFS Department of COAL AND OIL Department of MEN

That thing happened to me recently where you're thinking something and you're distracted and then you've still got the words in your head but you've forgotten what they were about and it struck me that this is what AI "thinking" is like, except...

Saw Barry Lyndon in Kingston last night, pondering its preemptive commentary on its own criticism: "emotionally distant"? For all their artifice and misdirection these people are constantly, obviously bursting out of their skin, membranes, eyeballs. What more intimate than a Kubrick sideways glance

One of my favourites at the National Gallery

Pic of the week: Heron Fishing birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/09/01/h...

In which an obstinate young groundhog provides disconfirming evidence for my hypothesis that maybe this cat head thing actually works

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 31: from Leaving Howe Island by Sadiqa de Meijer (@sadiqademeijer.bsky.social), "These People"

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 30: from Midway by Kayla Czaga, "Thirteen Years"

Nice sonnet, and I like the bio blurb, which addresses something I think about all the time

Thinking about why this is a particularly American problem helps to not just moralize or psychologize about it: in a competitive knowledge economy it pays (literally and figuratively) not just for you to be right but for your (actual/potential) competitors, especially "industry leaders", to be wrong

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 29: from American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes, "American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin"

One positive to take away from this Blue Jays loss is that Davis Schneider is gonna keep on dancing at the Pink Pony Club

It gives me some odd pleasure when my book stacks organically merge like this

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 28: from Wellwater by Karen Solie, "Smoke"

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 27: from the @ghostcitypress.bsky.social microchap Rowhouse Song by Danielle McMahon (@dehm000.bsky.social), "gianna, gianna"

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 26: from the book of smaller by rob mclennan (@robmclennan.bsky.social), "My father, at seventy-six"

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 25: from Soi-même by Victoria Spires (@victoriaspires.bsky.social), "Brain as radula"

Pic of the week: Dove with a Twist birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/08/25/d...

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 24: from Ballast by Karen Houle, "Logic"

Ah, how many have rooted for the Red Sox purely out of spite and landed safely on the Blue Jays

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 23: from Track & Trace by Zachariah Wells, "Water Works"

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 22: from Eric Kocher's @rattlepoetry.bsky.social chapbook Sky Mall, "Seeing Whales"

Every time I see something about this stuff I think of all the people way back when who loved to tell you that whatever you were talking about wasn't *fascism* because fascism by definition requires corporatism

I wonder how many people have acquired the nickname Alice because they meant to say they were alive and their phones guessed wrong My phone has no idea whether I'm alive but it's pretty sure I'm Alice

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 21: from J-T Kelly's (@j-tkelly.bsky.social) above/ground press (@robmclennan.bsky.social) chapbook More of How to Read the Bible, "Big Day"

Sealey Challenge 2025, Day 20: from Yusuf Saadi's @vallummag.bsky.social chapbook Sonnets on a Night Without Love, "flowers on europa"