My #sundaysentence this week is from Deborah Levy and her new book of essays: "It has always been very clear to me that people who wear shoes without socks are destined to become my friends and lovers."

me and Baby Lou and Foundation, a fine friday

Where the separate divisions of ANTIFA landed on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944:

Be not afraid.

The great Dorothy Allison provides my #sundaysentence for this week, from Bastard Out of Carolina: "Nevil never wasted words when he could grunt, or a grunt when he could move his hands." And runner-up sentence: "Say the wrong thing and she'll take the shine off your teeth."

two paths, the narrow & the deep new hope, pa 2:12pm

it's been like five hundred years since the last big Christian heresy and schism. something needs to be done about that. the children yearn for heresy

I'm still proud of this piece, "[the narrative toilet]," which I made for a collaborative poetry collection written with Nathan Moore. McSweeney's even featured it on their site.

This from @ianleslie.bsky.social is fantastic; thoughtful, nuanced. My #sundaysentence concerns inhabiting (vs copying) American songs: "John was showing Paul that you could make it your own rather than pretending to be someone you were not; that you could get it wrong in a way that felt right."

hanging with Athelstan & Tom Holland on a monday, as one does

Please, people — this is a dignified train car

Okay, Roger Clarke's book Ghosts (largely concerned with the British variety) is a new favorite. Today's #sundaysentence, a quote from another ghost writer on people's desire to believe: "People don't want the debunk, they want the bunk."

new hope, pa saturday 7:35pm

How did America lose its democracy? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.

These lies are like their father that begets them, gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brain’d guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch⁠—

“There are said to be a couple of phantom bears in London.” What??!!? How do I arrange an introduction???

My #sundaysentence today from NYT, about composers' directional notes: "The most famous example is Satie, whose performance indications skirt the boundary between mysticism and Dada: 'Light as an egg,' & 'Like a nightingale with a toothache.'" (I want to put how-to-read-me notes in my books...)

mori point trail pacifica ca 11am

san francisco bay wednesday 8pm

Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee thither⁠

This always turns up on best horror lists. It got past me as a kid, but I finally read it. Horrible. Really. Just bad. It did cough up a #sundaysentence, though: "I began to learn that anger, hate, & fear are all 1 button awaiting the touch of a single finger to set them blazing toward destruction."

Watched but never ever read GameOfThrones, & this summer of so-much-shit-going-on felt like the time to give it a go. Here's my #sundaysentence for the week, paired with this fabulous picture of a young GRRM (that shirt!): "It is hard to take orders from a man you laughed at in your cups."

Female bartenders have this uncanny knack for seeming like they’ve lived ten lives before lunch. Honestly, if the world were run by female bartenders, there’d be fewer wars, better stories, and everyone would be hydrated.

RFK JR Announces He Will Just Go Door-To-Door Killing People To Save Time

My #sundaysentence this week from Bob Geldof in the NYT, on how singing isn't enough, music is a call to arms but nothing changes unless you act on it: "What I've learned is that it is no use walking around singing 'We Shall Overcome,' because you won't."

I am not bound to please thee with my answers.

My #sundaysentence from NYT; jazz drummer Joe Farnsworth explains the musician concept of The Big Room: "A state of disciplined freedom where, once the music commences, all that stuff you learned, you throw out the window & now you're in a room where you can design it, you can do anything you want."

Bob visits from time to time. He stands in the same place each time. He makes no moves. He says nothing. He asks for nothing. Eventually he leaves. I like Bob.

Drove by an establishment in France called ‘Pain and Snacking’, which also happens to be my writing process.

Nothing grabbed me for a #sundaysentence this week, so instead i submit for your enjoyment this picture of Baby Lou and Elvis

My ex fatherinlaw Walter Murray passed away a few months ago, a man i remained very fond of, with a shared love of books and records. My daughter @medievalmarginalia.com came over from London this week to clean his house, and tonight brought me these to remember him by.

Flags are flying half-mast at my house today... www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/b...

this is the way

My #sundaysentence this week is from Barbara Demick: "[For a North Korean,] listening to South Korean television was like looking in the mirror for the first time in your life and realizing you were unattractive."

Give me some music; music, moody food Of us that trade in love.

I truly enjoyed OV's 1st novel, but this one, he completely lost control about 1/3 of the way in & never got it back. Still, a #sundaysentence: "The towns are so small you could light a cigarette as you drive in and be someplace else before you blow your 1st drag out the window."

my summer starts here

When your neighbor on the left is being dragged away by masked men and your neighbor on the right can't get an X-ray for their child, be sure to quickly explain that "both parties are the same" and whatnot.

Sunday night in Cape May and we do what we do

My #sundaysentence for this week is from Model Home by @riverssolomon.bsky.social "Maybe my mother is God, and that's why nothing I do pleases her." (That was the opening sentence, too; well played.)

O thou well skill’d in curses, stay awhile, And teach me how to curse mine enemies!

Writers, if you have a minute--forgive yourself. Everybody else is also welcome to try.

Back to Rick Atkinson again this week for my #sundaysentence, and Ben Franklin's last voyage across the pond to Europe: "Franklin concurred with Samuel Johnson that ship travel was like being in jail without the comforts of jail."

"I asked ChatGPT" "I asked Grok" ok well I asked Gandalf and he said he has not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm

Sweet smoke of rhetoric!

I wish I liked anything as much as Republican presidents love destabilizing the Middle East for absolutely no reason

cape may island cove monday 8:02am

When birthday and father’s day intersect, all the quiet dreams come true

My #sundaysentence for this week, from Rick Atkinson: "Here again was an ancient, squalid secret: war was an enchantment, a sorcery, a seductive spectacle like no other, beguiling the eye and gorging the senses." Followed by: "They looked because they could not look away."