J. Frank Dobie himself occasionally found reason to look on rattlers with a more reflective eye: “I addressed him thus: ‘Fellow citizen …  I prefer being in your company to being in that of the governor of the state of Texas.’”

1. Canada leaning hard into our “we’re not Americans” schtick. 2. The replies from Americans to this post provide evidentiary support to this post.

This northern shrike has spent most of the afternoon hunting in our front yard. The finches and sparrows, usually plentiful, knew what was up and made themselves scarce. So far it’s caught a vole and left its half-eaten, disemboweled corpse outside our bedroom window. (Standard shrike behaviour.)

I am tremendously fond of this weird little book and you should grab it. (Rights are reverting to the Gorodischer estate; I’d be shocked if they didn’t put it back in print again at some point. Still.)

“A man in his sixties from Norfolk”—that sounds like the first line of a limerick.

In today’s newsletter: Is a slow performance of Schubert’s impromptus bad or merely wrong? And what do a John Wayne western and the Star Wars special editions have in common? buttondown.com/jonathancrow...

How words are sometimes hard (at least for me), how some resort to AI when they don’t want to do the art, and how a 65-year-old movie seems awfully pertinent all of a sudden. Plus links. All in my latest newsletter: buttondown.com/jonathancrow...

Seeing a lot more mourning doves this winter. At noon today we had more than a dozen of them on our driveway, front yard and street.

The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Adventures in geriatric snake care, and confronting some assumptions common to many hobbies. Plus the usual collection of interesting links. All in my latest newsletter: buttondown.com/jonathancrow...

Sites I’ve tried to visit so far that are affected by the Cloudflare outage: Bookshop, Daring Fireball, JetPens, Kottke, Lightspeed Magazine, MetaFilter, Reactor, Uncanny Magazine.

Extract from my new book in the Guardian today! www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...

A blue jay foraging in the mess below the bird feeder.

Last year our cactus had a single flower. This year it has ... more. Spending the summer outside seems to have agreed with it.

The chickadees were swarming the feeder today.

When it’s warm and wet, we get frogs—even in October. Yesterday we heard at least one spring peeper calling, and this morning we were surprised by this good-sized gray treefrog on our bedroom window. Not the greatest picture, but the best I could manage with my phone in the pre-dawn darkness.

Most people who encounter an adult red-bellied snake think it’s a baby snake. No, that’s an adult; it’s just a really small species. THIS is a baby red-bellied snake: flic.kr/p/2rjBmTz (Photo: SBC Wildlife Photography)

A few horse photos taken at the Shawville Fair on Labour Day weekend.

We had a skunk visitor this morning.

How interesting: a tiny toad.

Is baby.

New garden project just dropped.

‘Turning information into something physical’ Houghton exhibit looks at how punched cards — invented 300 years ago to streamline weaving — led to modern computing 📚📜 share.google/N9w6cwKSajku...

I wrote a post about visiting the last stamp store in Chicago and living a life that’s fun, but worthless. I really like this one, hope you do too. dansinker.com/posts/202…

That must have taken some doing.

Wrote a thing about one of my enduring fascinations: the life and times of Harlan Ellison thecommasplice.com/harlan-agoni...

If you own a Brother printer, it’s time to update its firmware to patch some security vulnerabilities. Details: www.rapid7.com/blog/post/mu... support.brother.com/g/b/faqend.a...

I’m not sure, but I think this hummingbird might have been sticking his tongue out to catch raindrops.

A lot of goldfinches around here lately.

Female evening grosbeak

He’s moved from obstruction to participation.

Rose-breasted grosbeak

It’s one thing for squirrels to turn up at the bird feeder, but this is starting to get out of hand.

One of two pileated woodpeckers that have been just shredding this stump in our back yard over the past two days.

Our yard over the past two days: northern flickers picking grubs out of the front lawn, pileated woodpeckers just shredding a stump in the back, a yellow-bellied sapsucker drilling into a maple tree, purple finches swarming the feeder, phoebes darting from tree branches to hunt.

Another issue of my newsletter is en route to subscribers. Topics include the pieces I’m playing at the music festival tomorrow, dealing with stage fright, and the implications of Pierre Poilievre’s dating history. Plus links. buttondown.com/jonathancrow...

Snow squirrel.

Another newsletter winging its way to subscribers’ inboxes tonight. In this one I discuss economics of (map) blogging, and confirm my participation in an upcoming local music festival. buttondown.com/jonathancrow...

When I worked in the correspondence unit at Health Canada back in 2007-09, around 1/3 of all incoming mail was complaints about the provincial health system. Mostly from Ontario. We had a canned response telling them (politely) to go bug (er, share their concerns) with the provincial minister.

Newsletter time again! In which I talk about the new website, Justin Trudeau’s political skills gaps, and more. buttondown.com/jonathancrow...

Two cats, one lap.

Just uploaded the new version of my personal website: jonathancrowe.net. This iteration is a return to basics: it abandons blogging in favour of fast-loading, cruft-free static HTML pages, with minimal JavaScript and no embedded external media or resources. It’s only 15 MB! [1/4]

Bookshelf cat returns.

Curl.

So you know how in Babylon 5 due to Shadow influence the Centauri start pointless wars with all their neighbours and end up isolated and friendless, and Londo is denied his booze because he’s controlled by a Keeper on his neck that falls asleep when exposed to alcohol? Anyway, Trump doesn’t drink.

A menacing blep.

I think I should at least explore options for moving my web hosting out of the U.S. (not that what I do is essential or couldn’t be shut down, but still). Ideally to Canada, but I’d also consider the EU. Not sure I trust what I’ve been finding via web search results. Any recommendations?

This never happens.

Another newsletter issue is now winging its way to subscribers’ inboxes. Featuring keyboards in all their tactile glory and the Gulf of Whatever-It’s-Called-Now. buttondown.com/jonathancrow...

So. The first of the week's essays: Paul Kincaid on "Harlan Ellison's" The Last Dangerous Visions. This capacious piece on @straczynski.bsky.social's anthology has been trailed for months by @jonathanstrahan.bsky.social and @garykwolfe.bsky.social. We've held onto it for a special because it is.