Matthew Spencer
@unpaginated.bsky.social
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📥 378
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Writer, translator, general semantic drudge.
https://paradisealmanc.substack.com/
You've been visited by the STRAWBERRY OF PROSPERITY.
add a skeleton here at some point
about 2 hours ago
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Matthew Spencer
lily smelku
about 5 hours ago
really awesome Herman Miller desk I found on FB Marketplace lol
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For the Almanac, I wrote about calendars and my interactions with the kinds of animals that appear in calendars:
paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/on-calenders
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On Calenders
Sculpting time with pictures of cute animals
https://paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/on-calenders
3 days ago
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“I knew what they were feeling, because I felt it too—something swelling within, something that had to be art because art was the last chance they would ever get.” From Backwardness (Letters and Notebooks 1973-2023) by Garielle Lutz
7 days ago
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Moby Dick
13 days ago
strange subterranean commotions
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Henry James is underrated as a comic writer
13 days ago
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For the Almanac, I write about so-called Quaker marriages and a Pennsylvania town named after an athlete who never lived in or even visited it. (I'm married now.)
paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/self-offic...
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Self-Officiation
On getting married in a very Pennsylvanian way in a very Pennsylvanian town
https://paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/self-officiation
17 days ago
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Matthew Spencer
Shelley Frisch
22 days ago
RIP to a dear friend and eminent scholar, David Bellos.
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Another view of the Kleist cover:
20 days ago
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Eric Williams
20 days ago
goddamn but if
@paradiseeditions.bsky.social
hasn't knocked it out of the park again
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Matthew Spencer
Paradise Editions
26 days ago
Out Now: Some Essays by Heinrich von Kleist (trans.
@unpaginated.bsky.social
) Published in rapid succession during the last year of Kleist's life, these brief but challenging essays present the finest distillation of his philosophical thought:
paradiseeditions.net/products/som...
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Enjoying Spanish Wikipedia's formatting of unknown birth and death dates: ¿?-¿?
28 days ago
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Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein
about 1 month ago
Underappreciated deeper cut of the day. In case you're ever curious what Lovecraft wrote about Hemingway, the ground they both stomped over, and when they almost could have met.
deepcuts.blog/2025/04/30/h...
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Harsh Sentences: H. P. Lovecraft v. Ernest Hemingway
It is just possible that Ernest Hemingway knew the name H. P. Lovecraft. Though they moved in very different literary circles and Hemingway was not known to have ever picked up a copy of Weird Tale…
https://deepcuts.blog/2025/04/30/harsh-sentences-h-p-lovecraft-v-ernest-hemingway/
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Layouts in progress for a new pamphlet of Kleist translations. I'm having a lot of fun with colored type, and it felt appropriate to have fancy OpenType script for "On the Marionette Theater":
about 1 month ago
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Matthew Spencer
Avó chinesa muito católica
about 1 month ago
Meowfeggio 528hz Healing Frequencies ✨️🌌
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Late hibiscus and plastic litter in the canal:
about 1 month ago
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For the Almanac, I write about autumn fruits, chronic disease, and unfortunately named bands:
paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/paradise-d...
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Paradise Digest (Early Mid-October)
What I've been reading and listening to, what I've been ingesting these past few weeks.
https://paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/paradise-digest-early-mid-october
about 1 month ago
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Matthew Spencer
Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein
about 1 month ago
Good book, great introductory essay on the use of translations in classic WEIRD TALES.
add a skeleton here at some point
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Eric Williams
about 1 month ago
lunch time has produced another hastily written and totally unedited musings about classic weird fic over on the blog! this time, i go on and on about Robert Barbour Johnson's "Far Below," from Weird Tales 1939! read it, why don't ya?
geoliminal.com/2025/10/06/a...
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ACAB Includes Strained Pulp #37: “Far Below” by Robert Barbour Johnson, Weird Tales v 34 n 1, 1939
Trying to do these little free writing essay/dissections a bit more frequently because a) it is Hallowe’en season, after all, and b) it seems like we’re in another round of “socia…
https://geoliminal.com/2025/10/06/acab-includes-strained-pulp-37-far-below-by-robert-barbour-johnson-weird-tales-v-34-n-1-1939/
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Matthew Spencer
Joachim Boaz
about 1 month ago
Karl Kofoed's interior art for D. D. Storm's "Mud/Aurora" in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (November 1981)
#scifi
#sciencefiction
#art
#artist
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You can read "On the Marionette Theater" a short philosophical dialog in which Kleist radically challenges our commonsense notions of human volition, over at Paradise Almanac:
www.paradise-almanac.net/p/on-the-mar...
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On the Marionette Theater by Heinrich von Kleist
A translation from the Berliner Abendblätter
https://www.paradise-almanac.net/p/on-the-marionette-theater-by-heinrich
about 2 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Paradise Editions
about 1 month ago
For spooky season, we're offering 25% off of Night Fears, our anthology of weird fiction in translation, edited by
@geoliminal.bsky.social
:
paradiseeditions.net/products/nig...
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Night Fears: Weird Tales in Translation
With its unique blend of fantasy, horror, and science fiction, Weird Tales was the quintessential pulp magazine of the early 20th century. While classic American writers like H.P. Lovecraft and Robert...
https://paradiseeditions.net/products/night-fears-weird-tales-in-translation
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about 1 month ago
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Matthew Spencer
sakajun
about 1 month ago
死にゆくミノタウロス
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david c. porter (NTTN)
about 2 months ago
now in Garden Scenery, a story about a memory, burning away
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Door Opening, Burning Away
A story about a memory.
https://gardenscenery.net/p/door-opening-burning-away
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Eric Williams
about 2 months ago
go read this immediately:
add a skeleton here at some point
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On this day in 1810, Heinrich von Kleist published the first issue of the Berliner Abendblätter, the first daily newspaper in the city. Though it only lasted until March the following year, many of Kleist's best known writings appeared in its pages:
about 2 months ago
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A fascinating lecture on what is probably the first séance held in North America:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV7n...
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Fall Lecture Series - September 18, 2025 Session
YouTube video by Ephrata Cloister
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV7nRvIJUm8
about 2 months ago
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“Each portion of matter may be conceived as a garden, and as pond full of fish.” Leibniz, quoted in Deleuze’s The Fold
about 2 months ago
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For the Almanac, I wrote about Lafcadio Hearn and the value of publishing a “bad” translation:
open.substack.com/pub/paradise...
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Why Publish a Bad Translation?
Because it's better than having no translation at all
https://open.substack.com/pub/paradisealmanc/p/why-publish-a-bad-translation?r=12vqw&utm_medium=ios
about 2 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Sir Tom
about 2 months ago
Eines Morgens riechst du den Herbst. Es ist noch nicht kalt; es ist nicht windig: es hat sich eigentlich gar nichts geändert – und doch alles. Kurt Tucholsky
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Eric Williams
2 months ago
really want to encourage people to read about the care, thought, and hard work Matthew puts into making Paradise Edition books such lovely things
add a skeleton here at some point
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Matthew Spencer
For the Almanac, I wrote about charming cicada folklore from Japan and the difficulties of typesetting haiku:
www.paradise-almanac.net/p/how-can-yo...
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How can you read a haiku?
On the difficulties of typesetting small poetic forms from other languages
https://www.paradise-almanac.net/p/how-can-you-read-a-haiku
2 months ago
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For the Almanac, I wrote about charming cicada folklore from Japan and the difficulties of typesetting haiku:
www.paradise-almanac.net/p/how-can-yo...
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How can you read a haiku?
On the difficulties of typesetting small poetic forms from other languages
https://www.paradise-almanac.net/p/how-can-you-read-a-haiku
2 months ago
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Proofs for The Parson in Jubilee have been approved, and the world will have another book by Jean Paul in English, my translation, in a few months:
2 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Gnomon Chronicles
2 months ago
"Freight Will Continue To Drag Itself Across The Patient Earth" is an
#anagram
of "Teleological Transporter: Weightiest Traffic, Handiest Hunt"
add a skeleton here at some point
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A sentence quoted in an otherwise bland book about personal finance: "Freight will continue to drag itself across the patient earth."
2 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Gnomon Chronicles
2 months ago
#anagrams
add a skeleton here at some point
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No entry for Paradise Almanac today. I'm working on a longer investigation into a paid "AI" translation service and will have that available for everyone to read next week. I think it'll be worth the wait.
2 months ago
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A heist movie about 18th-century highwaymen robbing a pineapple shipment
2 months ago
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For the Almanac, I wrote about the baroque symbolism of native wildflowers:
www.paradise-almanac.net/p/scourged-a...
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Scourged and Sweet
On the baroque symbolism of native wildflowers
https://www.paradise-almanac.net/p/scourged-and-sweet
3 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
For the Almanac, I write about Lafcadio Hearn and typographical symbol known as the dinkus:
paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/the-beauti...
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The Beautiful Dinkus
Some undisciplined thoughts about personal health, Lafcadio Hearn, and obscure typographical marks
https://paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/the-beautiful-dinkus
3 months ago
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He had seen strange stones burning, Long ago, in the fires of thought...
3 months ago
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For the Almanac, I write about Lafcadio Hearn and typographical symbol known as the dinkus:
paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/the-beauti...
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The Beautiful Dinkus
Some undisciplined thoughts about personal health, Lafcadio Hearn, and obscure typographical marks
https://paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/the-beautiful-dinkus
3 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
For the Almanac, I write about watching Michael Mann movies (and trying to read William T. Vollmann) while passing a kidney stone:
paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/emergency-...
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Emergency Books, Emergency Movies
Sometimes it's alright to just schlep things around like a big security blanket.
https://paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/emergency-books-emergency-movies
3 months ago
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For the Almanac, I write about watching Michael Mann movies (and trying to read William T. Vollmann) while passing a kidney stone:
paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/emergency-...
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Emergency Books, Emergency Movies
Sometimes it's alright to just schlep things around like a big security blanket.
https://paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/emergency-books-emergency-movies
3 months ago
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New acquisitions in Germanistik:
3 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Paradise Editions
3 months ago
Reprint in progress: Shadowings by Lafcadio Hearn, an excellent collection from 1900, featuring studies of Japanese legends and linguistics as well as more personal, Gothic and Symbolist-inspired narratives. An odd duck in Hearn's catalog but all the stronger for it.
@addisonzeller.bsky.social
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For the Almanac, I continue a series of weird fiction short stories set in and around historical Philadelphia (1682-1976):
paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/strange-ta...
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Strange Tales from the Ancient Capital: Biloquism, or a Spurious Footnote to Early American Literature (1793)
From an ongoing series of historical weird fiction
https://paradisealmanc.substack.com/p/strange-tales-from-the-ancient-capital-f6c
4 months ago
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Reprint in progress, a massive historical gothic adventure novel by Charles Maturin, set during the Albigensian Crusade, complete with werewolves (!) and some great epigraphs. "A gentle knight came pricking o'er the plain."
4 months ago
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