Matthew Spencer
@unpaginated.bsky.social
đ€ 589
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Writer, translator, general semantic drudge.
https://paradisealmanc.substack.com/
Time well spent!
add a skeleton here at some point
6 days ago
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For the Almanac, I wrote about reading Ulysses over Christmas break in the Austrian Alps, arguing with people over whether I actually read it or not, and the strangeness of having that argument on the site of a mass shooting:
www.paradise-almanac.net/p/ulysses-in...
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Ulysses in the Alps, Ulysses in Seattle
On bickering about a book on the site of a mass shooting
https://www.paradise-almanac.net/p/ulysses-in-the-alps-ulysses-in-seattle
15 days ago
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In honor of Saint Luciaâs Day, here is my translation of âAn Unexpected Reunionâ by Johann Peter Hebel, which Ernst Bloch (and maybe Franz Kafka too) regarded as the most beautiful story ever written:
www.paradise-almanac.net/p/an-unexpec...
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An Unexpected Reunion by Johann Peter Hebel
âWhat the earth has returned to me, it will not withhold a second time.â
https://www.paradise-almanac.net/p/an-unexpected-reunion-by-johann-peter
26 days ago
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Matthew Spencer
Paradise Editions
27 days ago
We have copies of The Parson in Jubilee by Jean Paul, trans.
@unpaginated.bsky.social
(the person writing this post) up for sale at Paradise HQ. Grab a copy!
paradiseeditions.net/products/the...
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Matthew Spencer
jesse
30 days ago
(Jewish lit theory guy seeing a Christmas tree for the first time) wow. Dickensian
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30 days ago
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Matthew Spencer
colorscolor
about 1 month ago
Frowning at the great apparatus
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Even if a reader knows that copyediting errors are the fault of the publisher, I still think a good share of the blame, unconsciously at least, gets transferred to the author. It's their name on the cover, after all.
about 1 month ago
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"One climbs all stairsâeven clandestine onesâfaster than the snail staircase of merit." My translation of The Parson in Jubilee: An Appendix by Jean Paul is available now through Empyrean Editions:
asterismbooks.com/product/the-...
about 1 month ago
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From the EPA Documerica series
about 1 month ago
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about 2 months ago
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You've been visited by the STRAWBERRY OF PROSPERITY.
add a skeleton here at some point
about 2 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
lily smelku
about 2 months 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
about 2 months ago
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âI knew what they were feeling, because I felt it tooâsomething swelling within, something that had to be art because art was the last chance they would ever get.â From Backwardness (Letters and Notebooks 1973-2023) by Garielle Lutz
about 2 months ago
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Henry James is underrated as a comic writer
2 months 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
2 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Shelley Frisch
2 months ago
RIP to a dear friend and eminent scholar, David Bellos.
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Another view of the Kleist cover:
2 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Eric Williams
2 months ago
goddamn but if
@paradiseeditions.bsky.social
hasn't knocked it out of the park again
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Matthew Spencer
Paradise Editions
3 months 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: Âż?-Âż?
3 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein
3 months 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 TaleâŠ
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":
3 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
XamĂŁ indie do catimbĂł-jurema
3 months ago
Meowfeggio 528hz Healing Frequencies âšïžđ
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Late hibiscus and plastic litter in the canal:
3 months 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
3 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein
3 months 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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Matthew Spencer
Eric Williams
3 months 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: âFar Belowâ 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 Halloweâen season, after all, and b) it seems like weâre in another round of âsociaâŠ
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
3 months 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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Matthew Spencer
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 AbendblÀtter
https://www.paradise-almanac.net/p/on-the-marionette-theater-by-heinrich
3 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Paradise Editions
3 months 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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3 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
sakajun
3 months ago
æ»ă«ăăăăăżăŠăăč
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david c. porter (NTTN)
3 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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Matthew Spencer
Eric Williams
3 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 AbendblÀtter, 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:
3 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
3 months ago
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âEach portion of matter may be conceived as a garden, and as pond full of fish.â Leibniz, quoted in Deleuzeâs The Fold
4 months ago
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For the Almanac, I wrote about Lafcadio Hearn and the value of publishing a âbadâ 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
4 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Sir Tom
4 months ago
Eines Morgens riechst du den Herbst. Es ist noch nicht kalt; es ist nicht windig: es hat sich eigentlich gar nichts geĂ€ndert â und doch alles. Kurt Tucholsky
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Eric Williams
4 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
4 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
4 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:
4 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Gnomon Chronicles
4 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."
4 months ago
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Matthew Spencer
Gnomon Chronicles
4 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.
4 months ago
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