Unsolicited opinion no 324: If anyone decides to make a movie about Ursula von der Leyen, I absolutely think that Kate Dickie should play her.

Alison Holt, contemporary textile artist who creates machine and hand embroidered artworks #WomensArt

This summer we went looking for my mother's birthplace. Please enjoy the power of the rushing river where my grandmother's family came from, up in the far north.

Now that the book's been out for over a month, I'm re-posting this great review by @hawkwinglb.bsky.social of Queen Demon, for people who have had time to read the book and like really deep smart dives: locusmag.com/review/queen...

Reading about ayahuasca therapy in the newspaper and then I go out and have a beer and listen to some live music with friends and, honestly? That's all the mind-altering I need. #livemusic #feelinggood

Today I went to change the tires on my bike to winter tires, buy some more tea, I got the influenza vaccine shot and I picked up some books at my local indie bookshop. Now, I'm going home to make applesauce, knit mittens and read. I'm all set @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social

Annie Soudain is a contemporary UK artist and printmaker inspired by nature #WomensArt

I finally watched the latest #TheFantasticFour movie and while I was relieved to see that baby CGI has advanced since Reneesmee's days frankly I found the most unbelievable thing about the plot was how Sue Storm wasn't nursing the new baby 24/7. That was what nearly killed ME.

I always found brass orchestras vaguely threatening.

Being from the UK and a member of the late part of Generation X means having to live with the fact that every photo from your childhood resembles a still from a cultishly acclaimed but commercially disappointing folk horror film. ESPECIALLY IF THEY ACTUALLY ARE: www.tom-cox.com/some-photos-...

"Whenever someone died my brain whispered: you can write about this. You can transform loss to words and replace those who died with sentences. In a way we all do this: we experience loss and we tell stories. We tell stories and then we die. The best case scenario is that time kills us 1/

Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back! Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary. Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest! #MundaneHalloween

You laugh, but as a man, I live in a drainpipe near a public park, eat garbage out of trashcans, never clean myself, abandon my offspring once they are old enough to hunt, eat the aged and weak members of the tribe, don't understand what money is, (again) live in a drainpipe, and don't have a car.

You can find your local food bank here! www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-lo...

For the past year I've been doing focused reading on medieval literature, English history, the folklore of Scotland and Wales, and I can't express how just learning things changes a person. It will make you more interesting. You will fall in love with this world.

I think we under-estimate how many people are miserable because they have no enthusiasms, no hobbies, because they gave up reading and quit learning when school ended. It's shocking how much studying a beloved subject elevates your mood. It will transform your life.

Also, please notice the love letter it has left you on a nearby tree!

i really resent the continued assertion that there’s so much anger on both sides, as if the causes of the anger are equally legitimate. we’re angry because masked maniacs are violently snatching our family and neighbors off the street, and they’re angry because we’re calling them out for it.

Tomorrow. D.C. The National Mall. Sunup to sundown.

Post a witch

Jane Austen's 250th birthday is coming up in December and I hope you'll celebrate by taking a turn about the room, acquiring a passion for dead leaves & closet shelves, and taking a fancy to the last person you could ever be prevailed upon to marry.

"When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment." On this day in 1963, JFK's magnificent Amherst speech on power and art: www.themarginalian.org/2015/05/01/j...

Annemarie Petri, contemporary award-winning Dutch printmaker, known for her steampunk cityscapes #WomensArt

I hope someday we defeat fascism and in the far future, No Kings Day is celebrated as a federal holiday, and little children leave out dance mixtapes and cookies for the Resistance Frog, who leaves pocket Constitutions in their shoes.

Contemporary printmaker Alexandra Buckle #WomensArt

Like my childhood..

I recently took part in an art workshop for high school kids and a 16yo guy made the most beautiful painting, a light like a dandelion, shining in darkness, spreading its seeds like sparks. I told him to take it home, he said "Nah, my dad will get angry and ask if this shit is what we do in school."

I know it’s just a building but this makes me feel sick. I have so much rage and absolutely nowhere to put it.

Take it from us -- an organization that closely studies all the horrific ways people can die from common household items -- have the jelly donut.

Son2, home for the weekend, wanted to watch something "not depressing" so I put on #Shrinking . DH declined to watch and went to bed. Our peals of laughter made him come back out to say "I know it can't be THAT funny, you're just messing with me!" Which seemed very #Shrinking

the whole article could have just been ten pages of “Brilliant Things Eleanor O’Brien Said,” and some gold was left on the cutting room floor, but this is such a banger of a closer and it’s so very much the theme of today

it is far better to be in a country with a mass visible protest movement than one without it

No Kings. Yes Kittens.

heartbroken to learn the pope sympathizes with the poor. how can i continue to believe in god

[Exit King.]

I don't think any amount of "red meat diet" will help the manly men who one day complain about the emotionality of women, then turn around and send a bunch of passive-aggressive e-mails when mildly criticised. I'm over using giraffe language to calm their feelings, I need rhinoceros language 🙄

Dinosaur skeletons are in the eye of the beholder?

Let me add some of my favourite images on my phone as additional food for thought:

The crime the girl commits is not to boast of her skills.

Polls show that the political divide between women and men grows: women vote more for the parties on the left/green side and men for conservative parties. Now, a survey shows that choking during sex is increasing, and causes brain damage in women. Are conservative men trying to make women dumber? 😶

Aren't country lanes brilliant? www.tom-cox.com/once-upon-a-...

1200+ reported/documented rapes by ice agents over 7 years from obama to first year of trump btw

I see the UK has now made the plot of Some Like It Hot illegal.

Georgia O'Keeffe, Lake George Reflection, 1921 #WomensArt

Johnny Storm's A Brewing Via TextsFromSuperheroes.com

"State Terror: A brief guide for Americans" Revisiting a piece I wrote in April 2025 "In the history of state terror, the escape from law into coercion takes three forms... the leader principle; the state of exception; and the zone of statelessness." snyder.substack.com/p/state-terror

Thinking about the way (white) fans of The Murderbot Diaries missed the fact that it’s a slave narrative until @marthawells.com started saying, “IT’S A SLAVE NARRATIVE” in interviews.