It's very apt that we've all left Twitter and come to Bluesky over Christmas considering the lyric "gone away is the blue bird".

my Dad turned on PBS for the news and it’s Werner Herzog talking about the Pieta and it is the funniest programming imaginable for Christmas Eve

In 2019 I made the conscious decision to read novels by women and nb folks only (exception: studies). It's been great. In 2016 I'll be narrowing my scope slightly and read more outside my established comfort zones. It'll be great too.

Brilliant! Here we go... All for a good cause. #centrepoint #DuvetKnowItsChristmas

Went to get myself a nice bottle of absinthe for the holiday, came home only to find the Mari Lwyd leaning against my door and smoking a cigarette. Which was pretty weird, given the whole "skeletal horse" thing but whatever. She asked me, "Do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?"

That’s right, once again your Christmas present is me, you’re welcome

I like being an uncle for the holidays because: Mom and dad are responsible, and will discipline you. Grandpa and Grandma are indulgent, and will coddle you. But the uncle... the uncle is unpredictable. The niece and nephew cannot know what the uncle will do, because the soul of the uncle is CHAOS

A bit of quiet joy for you. The big night for us Danes.

My Christmas read will be Solvej Balle's On The Calculation of Volume - sadly not in the original Danish as my local library obviously only stocks the translation. On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) by Solvej Balle | Faber share.google/7uEU4ozn5DRS...

Fun fact: Katharine Brighs, one of the creators of the Myers-Briggs personality test, wrote gay RPF about Carl Jung Source: The Personality Brokers by Merve Emre

Mince pie and a Bailey's coffee as I wrap presents. Tomorrow's Yule Night for me. 🎄

Poststructuralist writing is often unfairly criticised for lacking clarity, but have these people even seen some of these perfume adverts?

Made a tiny Christmas tree out of fossils: the stars are crinoid ossicles, the trunk dinosaur bone & the branches are sharks’ teeth 🎄🦴

Are matching tote bags the Xennial version of a couple's matching tracksuits?

Calling Knit Picks experts. I have found 10 balls of WOTA in "Firecracker Heather" in my stash. As that won't be enough for a sweater I'm thinking stripes. Either bold pink or groovy orange. Looking on Rav yields no clue as to shades. So, KP fans, which shades should I look at?

look at how little effort it takes for someone on the conservative grievance circuit to destroy a life millions of college kids have half assed an assignment at the last minute, you eat the F and move on but the effort to push trans people out of public life will use whatever it can get

I am back on my bullshit again.

Lewtrenchard Manor #Devon Such wonderful skill displayed in producing this beautiful tile-like floor made of upright slates. Once home of Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould hymn writer, folklore & folk song collector & lover of #Dartmoor. #TilesOnTuesday

Spain's version of ice hockey drama.

Writing about Dada. Listening to Rite of Spring. #BasicModernistBitch #BestLife

I had someone quizzing me about private ownership of train lines in 1980s Denmark today, so I hope your day was as full of wonder and futile Google searches as mine!

Mary and Joseph praying over Jesus in the manger, or TWO T. REXES FIGHTING OVER A TABLE SAW? Once seen, cannot be unseen.

I feel once again compelled to emphasis the digitizing in the literal scanning sense is fairly unimportant if it is not accompanied with metadata providing context for discovery. Both humans and AI will make things up when they don't know what they are looking at.

I’m reminded of watching two old ladies ask a teenage goth for directions and she politely told them and when she was out of earshot one lady said “You know where you are with a goth”

Umbrellas are basically unsuited to life in Scotland and utterly futile

A Christmas miracle in Wellington New Zealand. Rare takahē pair thought to be infertile are now devoted parents. Unexpected arrival is a boon for birdlife; the country's population of takahē is only 500 but growing. Exciting news from Zealandia! www.visitzealandia.com/member-news/...

Choose 20 paintings that have stayed with you or influenced you — one painting a day (or thereabouts) for 20 days, no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just paintings . 1. Giacomo Balla, 1912, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, oil on canvas, 89.8 x 109.8 cm, Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Happy 21st December evening everyone. May the Great Veiled Bear pass over you house tonight and not present you with one of his cursed Christmas cookies.

This hangs in my local art gallery - Kelvingrove in Glasgow - and it is so *perfect* for Winter Solstice. Great choice, Chris.

I'm preaching to the choir here, but I read articles to find what's not being said and where I need to keep digging. And that's something a generated summary cannot provide.

May have gone overboard with size of Christmas tree but regret nothing.

HO!

Destabilising knowledge production. I can see how that would be a feature, not a bug, for some folk.

Two types of historians too, yeah? One has the archive build their argument, the other forces the archive to support what they came in there thinking.

Oh hell YES. I've long maintained that based on the result of ink recipes, the word "azraq" couldn't mean "blue" in early Arabic texts but seems instead to be yellowish. Now I have textual proof: "Take red arsenic [realgar] or if you wish, azraq"—no such thing as blue arsenic, this means yellow!

Blesséd Yule to everyone. May what you seek to leave behind you slip into the great darkness, and may what you wish to bring with you blossom in the sun’s returning light. Hold fast. The light will return.

I found a reference to a REALLY exciting academic book and spent 15 minutes trying to find a copy. No, not an AI hallucination. A book I already own and is on the shelf behind me.

And one cheats oneself, as a human being, if one has respect only for the style of high culture - Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp

Another excellent thread by @moudhy.bsky.social. Tired of always using the same old idioms? Go pick some new ones, out of this wonderful collection of ancient Mesopotamian sayings:

It's bizarre to see well-meaning explanations of Scandi Yule traditions from people whose great-great-grandcousin once worked on a Swedish farm. And you cannot do a quote-rebuttal because they've turned quite/replies off. WELL.

An artist was deeded a decommissioned Stonewall Jackson statue from Charlottesville, took it apart, and reconstituted it as art. On display in Los Angeles.

not so coincidentally, this is also how you can get good at your art: by leaning into what you like & are good at, instead of insisting you should be just like somebody else. instead of cheating with tools that do it for you.

I was talking to @carriem.co.uk about this earlier this week. She said sage things about how our brains like to glom on to negative can-nots and forget about positive can-dos. I recommend having Carrie in your life.

I once got a compliment on my dress from another woman and my response was simply, “Thanks. It has pockets!” and she said, “Isn’t it sad how little it takes to please us?” and that comment has lived rent fucking free in my head ever since.

Niche skeet: that can of ginger ale had been in that goddamn fridge for weeks. "Is it cold enough" "oh I just happened to have all the sandwich ingredients on hand no big deal" COME ON.

not that the present economic picture is rosy, but i do think that popular culture — and specifically nostalgia bait television — is a big part of the reason that our public memory of the 1970s, 1980s and even 1990s seems to miss the real economic pain that marked each of those decades.

Just saw someone ask if they can use fired ceramic tiles that they found in an attic or if there is a use-by date on ceramics. Oh my god.

GLASSES BACK ON

Today's random album was (long pause) Pink Floyd's The Wall. My English teacher had us analysing the lyrics when I was 15, made us listen to the album, and watch the film. Don't be that teacher. Anyway, I'm pressing play and will regret revisiting my school years.

This goes out to all the Belgians out there.