Margay, margay

A pretty ruthless title, for a painting of a mermaid in a bathtub having a chat with an angel. Hulda Guzmán at the Turner Contemporary.

Hagstone game is wild here

Told a joke about the Cyclops, no-one got it

I heard a joke about Procrustes but it was a bit of a stretch

Sincere surreal question: if someone says "the trickster was the first to fall, he contains faces", what do you reckon it refers to? Standard Christian war in heaven? 'Supernatural' fanfic? (To offer context and explain why I can't ask follow-ups, it was shouted at me by a man on a bus.)

William Brown, arrested 300 years ago yesterday, in London, for cruising. "I think there is no Crime in making what use I please of my own Body."

And did you lose this

Hey congrats didn't know there was a whole festival about you

I'm allergic to cats and dogs and just had a sad realisation about what would happen if I ever got to stroke a fox.

Fox, with shadow to demonstrate proximity

Paddled nervously in the lively sea today until I thought: you don't have to fear the waves if you're part of them. So I swam. Then got slapped up the shingle so fast that strangers checked I was ok. Love it when nature refuses to confirm the metaphors it elicited from you.

Last night a kind soul in the toilets was admiring my outfit and I asked if I was wearing too many accessories. They said "No, and Coco Chanel was a fascist". Happy London Pride.

Fear the heatwave, quite enjoy the swell and crumble of chocolate blooming.

Shell behind, wings drying, first flight to come.

As Pride Month ends, have some final books. My intent, I think, was to celebrate that decades of discussion precede the present moment. These books are from a tiny slice of time when I was foraging for a weltanschauung in the charity shops of Brighton. Always here, always changing. Happy Pride.

@simonguy.bsky.social Portal? 😬

You can use this next time you want to stroll away from a blazing row (which you started) on the internet.

50% off all ebooks until July 4th in dishonor of Amaz*n. Use code COMPOSITE at www.neonhemlock.com/ebooks.

Bit hot*

London heatwave anti-tip: I've been rising early to exercise so I can be immobile on my couch all day with a sense of smug achievement. Just realised the causality might work in the other direction, and I'm just wiping myself out every morning.

Tearing through this, possibly the earliest English detective novel - 1862/63 (neck and neck with the brilliant soapy Lady Audley's Secret). Composed of letters, news clippings, court statements, diaries.

your name is not down he is not letting you in

it's the long, lovely, northern summer solstice! 17 hours of daylight, light till 11pm. for those of you elsewhere, there's Sing For The Coming of the Longest Night, @krfabian.bsky.social's and my weird-ancient, poly-romantic solstice novella www.generalist.org.uk/iona/books-a...

Liked this ethical market but unsure about the slogan - if something "comes from a good place", isn't it usually gaspingly rude or flat-out cataclysmic?

City mushrooms, country mushrooms.

Intrigued to know that the model of trauma disrupting narrative memory formation has been disproved. It was such a gift to fiction! "Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." (You can make good stories from dodgy psych, thanks Freud, but should you?) (Prompted by @ifbookspod.bsky.social)

Last night, Venus

This truism from a lost property service has left me sadder than the loss of my specific item.

For some people, a story is like a mechanical clock: they can take it to pieces, dig into the workings, match the parts to the terminology, and then put it back together and it still works and they appreciate it better. For some people, a story is more like a blackbird.

Just discovered the Open University was described in its founding paper as a 'University of the Air', reeling with delight. (The phrase dropped into my mind a foiled cover and sprayed edge design, and the opening pan from a Steam Next Fest demo.) @openuniversity.bsky.social

they're calling it T Boy Wrestling

Garland at Bold Tendencies is absolutely triumphant. Like a processional ritual from an invented civilization, made me think of the Parthenon frieze. And then you end at sunset.

The eternal impulse to make a little guy. (Morph is plasticine, which is mostly gypsum and thus calcium, and Buddo is bone - shades of Adam's rib.)

Might stop using Google; AI search results are poor, and also it's being a snippy little brat.

Perennial offer: if you want to write to your MP but need some impetus or support, DM me - I can buy you cake if you're local, or nod sagely at you from Zoom.

Planets so bright and striking that they make you say "what the hell is that", as my companion did, last night in the park.

Dangerous visions of the fuchsia. Flower Makers Museum, Hastings.

Reposting because I genuinely like this one, and I think I was asleep the first time.

Well MY backrooms are lovely, guess I must have an unruffled psyche

"This is not the action of a tool, which asks you to learn how it feels in your hands, that hurts a little on first swing... It’s only when they are held by me that they might be capable of creation, a tool that is only ever an extension of the body."

A few hours remain for you to enjoy the trash! An ideal book if you've read too much AITA, seen every possible betrayal, and need scifi and fantasy to provide new barrels to scrape.

These are my pronouns! I'm not wedded to the words, but they should always be carved - with precision and willowy energy - in High Moor limestone. Practice with a friend, get it right. #PrideMonth

For Pride month, starting a day late, some books I own, with rambling reflections.

Londoners, watch it roll over you www.lightningmaps.org

I should say this is the most scuzzy, repellent thing I've ever written, and hopefully also funny.

Three days to back it! In honor of the cover illustration, have another bin beast.

Love a steep slope, love a rope swing, snapped and dangling.

I'd heard about this work of fungal theology, but I hadn't realised it was so relentlessly erotic. What if Jesus were a *sexy* mushroom? [citation needed]

Last chance to buy all kinds of haunting stuff, including Unspeakable and Unthinkable, two lavish queer gothic collections. (I'm Unspeakable: a romance between two guys, both obsessed with the apocalypse but with differing views on its desirability.)