Some books I bought today.

We bad.

A testament to wasted time— unposted political polemics in my notes app.

Oh this looks dope.

Saturday morning stack 📚

For May Day: William Morris! Socialism! Work! Technology! Check out my confessional review of the 1890 utopian novel News From Nowhere. open.substack.com/pub/williame...

Check out my latest newsletter! It features a review of Ward Moore’s 1953 “What if South won the Civil War?” science fiction novel Bring the Jubilee and a collection of my little thoughts on alt history generally. open.substack.com/pub/williame...

My review of Robert Silverberg’s New Wave novel Downward to the Earth covers white guilt as a historically constituted phenomenon, Heart of Darkness, and the book as a negative example of how not to explore colonialism in science fiction. open.substack.com/pub/williame...

Check out my latest newsletter! It features a review of Ward Moore’s 1953 “What if South won the Civil War?” science fiction novel Bring the Jubilee and a collection of my little thoughts on alt history generally. open.substack.com/pub/williame...

Melting my mind with social media this morning.

I uh also really like Puff Daddy’s Godzilla music video but will not be posting links to Sean Combs-related things at this time.

As with last skeet, file this one under music video movie tie-ins that were better than the movie they tied into. I forgot Stevie Wonder had a cameo in this. The original cut of this had an action scene in the middle of it. This cut without it is better. youtu.be/_zXKtfKnfT8?...

I can’t tell if this music video is better than it has any right to be or if I just feel nostalgic about Val Kilmer and Jim Carrey running around in the back aground. The Batmobile etc. antics are really something. youtu.be/hDd2G_V1rzc?...

Love the title of this book by Edgar Wallace. I am hoping it is as breezy as the other stuff I’ve read by him.

Doing research for two blogposts and one article this morning, meaning reading three different novels. Feels good to be honest.

Feelin’ like I need boat shoes to complete this fit.

ICYMI: the limited print run of this beauty is now a fond memory BUT if you missed it, this epub version's still available kyr-1066.itch.io/as-the-shore...

Lol I can’t imagine anything more off brand and decadent than a 2015 Folio Society edition of News From Nowhere going for >$300. The book should be attractive. But it should also be at a useful and readable price.

The last passage in tonight’s Moby-Dick audiobook listen before the timer cut out was Captain Ahab saying, “I won’t smoke dirty pipes like Stubb but I like cigars[.]” /1

Woke up from a nice little nap. I would like to watch the new Andor but I’d also like to work on projects and spend time with my non-Star Wars-watching girlfriend. Am I weird for reacting to the demands of a new TV show I want to watch by questioning whether I have time?

Perfect writer’s workspace tbh.

My review of Robert Silverberg’s New Wave novel Downward to the Earth covers white guilt as a historically constituted phenomenon, Heart of Darkness, and the book as a negative example of how not to explore colonialism in science fiction. open.substack.com/pub/williame...

In today’s newsletter, I tackle Roger Zelazny’s New Wave novel This Immortal which shared the 1966 Hugo with Dune. I use Dune as a point of comparison, especially contrasting the perspective from which the two novels take on the colonizer-colonized relationship open.substack.com/pub/williame...

Current read: News From Nowhere by William Morris, perhaps the most humane vision for society I’ve encountered. Moving.

Sort of all over the place and scatterbrained which I feel entitled to be on a Sunday morning. Finally landed on some short stories by Richard Brautigan from this collection my friend got me for my birthday. Short and playful enough to hold my attention.

🧵

Lord. Finished reading a novel I’ve been commissioned to review and it totally broke me. I’ll have to remember that serious novels about animals give me serious feelings.

New story from Issue #12 is coming next week, but in the meantime read Kay Vaindal's honestly kind of batshit "The Void Bites", wherein a weirdly detached, slightly unhinged narrator decides to get 'void treatment' from a sketchy corporation to 'reset their molecular system'.

Tfw you are a swamp mutant arising from your lagoon. (Image from 1964 Doctor Who episode “The Expedition.”)

Me and these cats are in a similar state of stupor but only one of us is trying to finish a Substack post about Robert Silverberg’s Downward to the Earth.

Frat boy neighbors having a party involving heavy bass that is vibrating the bedroom during my nap time. Fellas it is Thursday afternoon.

Two library book sales + cleaning out my mom’s office + hanging out with a fellow local pop-up bookseller + a visit to local bookshop.

Earlier tonight I read some in Victor Rousseau’s dystopian novel The Messiah of the Cylinder and had huevos con chorizo for dinner. Then I took a nap and had a dream. In it, I took a nap and had a dream about a dystopian novel and there was a song about eggs and meat. 😮😴‼️🍳🍖

Root canal really wiped me out today. (Image from 1964 Doctor Who episode “The Ambush.”)

Worried that I somehow lost the thread or this Edgar Wallace audiobook in the 36 hours between my first and second listening sessions. There’s three guys who assassinate bad people the law won’t touch and maybe they’re Spanish. I’m not sure their names etc.

I’m sure someone is giving a lecture on “Whitey On The Moon” in the era of exploded Palestinian children and Katy Perry spending 11 min near space youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?...

Got the second half of a root canal this morning. Afterwards, I was moving like a snail through an ARC until it felt too much like a tiny knife was lodged in my gums to do much of anything so I succumbed to napping. Now I will take 800 mg of ibuprofen and hope for the best.

Me hiding out from organizing our completed tax forms to put in the mail while I watch Star Trek TOS.

Da life uv luxury.

That Kentucky now sells bourbon-themed scratch offs is kind of a self-parody of the direction our public finance strategy seems headed in—a population of alcoholic gamblers carrying our school children and public contractors on their less-than-sturdy backs.

Meg, a mental health therapist, has got me watching Yellowjackets with her. She is taking notes on the show and using it to discuss trauma with her clients.

I am sad to report there was a little bottleneck in my self-appointed labors creating just enough time for me to fall asleep after watching Doctor Who. Whoop.

Taking a little break from my self-appointed labors to watch Doctor Who.

Thinking about the time my friend saw Noam Chomsky speak and someone tried to gotcha him for driving a Lexus and Chomsky was like I don’t think the world would be a better place if I didn’t drive a Lexus.

Saw someone try to invoke ‘hypocritical Marxist who wears Nikes’ as a familiar archetype. I think I am the only Marxist I know who wears Nikes and that’s because I’m stuck in the 90s and unfamiliar with other brands. Would it be more Marxist to wear another brand?

It may be inflammatory to call them social fascists but I would for sure count anyone aligned with them out of a 21st century Popular Front configuration.

In the shower I galaxy-brained myself into the position that the Abundance people represent something like a ‘social fascist’ pole of attraction in the liberal camp given their lack of daylight with Musk’s economic policy and their willingness to scapegoat “the groups.”

Monday morning! Listening to an Edgar Wallace novel for an article I might write.

I want to stay up late watching Doctor Who but a group of Daleks has surrounded me and is forcing me to go to bed.

Spent like 45 minutes adding 1980s sword and sorcery movies etc. to my watchlists on various streaming platforms before abruptly putting on Doctor Who.