Most of you know I was trained as a medievalist, and my friend and colleague Sara McDougall, the coordinator of the CUNY Advanced Certificate in Medieval Studies, doesn't really do social media, so Plin and I want to remind you that this is a great option! www.gc.cuny.edu/medieval-stu...

I’m in the current issue of the CRB with “Difficult Epigrams”— on an obsidian mirror, Technics turntables, Glenn Gould, the Cumaen Sybil, Tycho Brahe’s nose, espaliered gardens, and the love of intractable things. Get it here: clereviewofbooks.com/product/vol-...

Tonight on Substack: some thoughts on always returning ad fontes in my life, and three fun translations of epigrams by Martial. open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...

Tonight on Substack: some thoughts on always returning ad fontes in my life, and three fun translations of epigrams by Martial. open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...

New on my Substack: Hölderlin Redux-- another translation and a rejoinder to the right wing capture of the German Romantics and their neoclasscisms open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...

In which you get a fresh little Hölderlin translation, a personal challenge to up your classical language skills, *and* delicious bacon-wrapped chestnuts fired at the RETVRN-o-philes. What more does one need for a good-time Saturday night?

New on my Substack: Hölderlin Redux-- another translation and a rejoinder to the right wing capture of the German Romantics and their neoclasscisms open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...

Plin update— officially 3.4 lbs at the vet!

A review-essay about a new production of Peter Weiss’ Hölderlin and my new translation in English of Brod und Wein VII in my latest Substack post here: open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...

A review-essay about a new production of Peter Weiss’ Hölderlin and my new translation in English of Brod und Wein VII in my latest Substack post here: open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...

Since it’s print only and Plin was feeling extra participatory, here’s what my piece looks like in The Toe Rage Decadence issue (order here thetoerag.com) Other great contributors to this issue include @kukukadoo and Phillipa Snow.

New on my Substack (Cloud Studies)— a review-essay on a new set of contemporary classical ballet collaborations at Counterpointe 13, and the value of difficulty and classical lineages made new in an inattentive world. open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...

The Perch:

Big Stretch!

I have always been an Iliad person, but reading Pavese’s Leucothea Dialogues has made me softer toward Odysseus again, made the many turnings shift a corner. It’s funny how Homeric commentary still works that way for readers after millennia…

Home from the vet where she was dubbed an angel by the techs at 2.35 pounds. Just in case, Plin will now be getting extra nutritional supplementation since she is so tiny— but she may just be a small kitty!

A new Substack, on various recent loves, including Manet roses, Wyatt sonnets, Golden Peaches of Samarkand, and Japanese High Femme Makeup, with shouts to Hannah Smart and @drewdaniel.bsky.social Read it here: open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...

Tonight’s diversion from Archipelago, @archipelagobooks.bsky.social , a Pavese that’s not a novel about fascism but something strange, deeply antiquarian, whimsical. Exactly what I needed. I just order their back catalogue blind because they have such good taste and make beautiful books.

Entering her long-legged phase as she grows. Now taking bets for her weight at the vet on Friday. She was 1.9 pounds on February 14.

A new Substack, on various recent loves, including Manet roses, Wyatt sonnets, Golden Peaches of Samarkand, and Japanese High Femme Makeup, with shouts to Hannah Smart and @drewdaniel.bsky.social Read it here: open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...

Snippets of MoMA with the undergrads today:

Sometimes you suddenly remember why a poem you’ve seen a hundred times is good again, why a thing is “a classic” as it just snaps backs into its natural place of awe in the world. Now I want to spent the rest of the week reading Wyatt again; noli me tangere for Wyatt’s, I am!

This is tomorrow and I’ll be reading a corona of sonnets on ends of empire, Tang and Song Dynastic influences, museum vitrines, melancholy antiquarianism, and yes, Pliny the kitten.

Love, actually.

LGBT History Month is February in the UK, and I’m thrilled to see We The Parasites featured by its British publisher, @bhousepress.bsky.social!

Lap crashout. She is “sleeping” while I’m back with Monte Cristo, pausing for pets and to promise her I would break her out of any prison and avenge her in eternity. I know this is basically a Plin fan account now, but can you blame me?

Some stray thoughts on writing on Substack, capital, 19thC French feuilleton culture, and a sonnet on the internet in the age of new anxiety: open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...

Plin size comparison of the night— lip balm tube, still a miniature loaf no matter how many times a day I’m feeding her!

Some stray thoughts on writing on Substack, capital, 19thC French feuilleton culture, and a sonnet on the internet in the age of new anxiety: open.substack.com/pub/avmarrac...

The Count of Monte Cristo is indeed so exciting and fun that she cannot stop writhing around my lap alternately purring and pouncing as I read. I have already accused her of Royalist, Bonapartist, and Toy Mouse sympathies, to no avail!

During a snowstorm, the rule is you can read anything you want but it can’t be related to your current work, it must be solely for indulgence and pleasure:

Honestly, I just love her so much. She has instantly become a huge joy in my life and home.

Pliny is now five of her Loebs tall (I am reading to her at night but uh, right now she prefers watching Olympics!):

I got some work done but it’s hard when you’re being observed by the boss:

In case you wanted to know what color Plin’s beans are, the answer is every color

Somehow I am snuggling instead of doing the fifteen things around the house that need doing:

I thought we were done for the night but she was too cute:

My new set of epigrams (Decadence Obsédé) on Huysmans, Nijinsky, Ovidian moments, rot, and perfume is currently in print in The Toe Rag, Issue 8. Buy it here or in US stockists: thetoerag.com/buy

Accidental self portrait when trying to photograph the wooden back of an altarpiece panel. These are always the best pictures of oneself somehow…

In other marvelous unfinished things, you can still see the grain of this 16thC Netherlandish Arrival to Bethlehem and the lines where the paint would go in.

In some ways, an unfinished Rubens triumphs over a complete one; the provisionality of the sketch frees up something daring in his figuration I love.

Another Plin size comparison:

She genuinely loves TV and watches it with real attention! I hope I’m not raising my kitten with too much screen time?

Pliny, human with unkempt hair for scale:

I just want to take a second from my unbridled new kitten joy to mourn Michael Silverblatt, a book person’s book person and a critic’s critic. RIP.

This feels like a great time to mention that I’ll be writing a piece on the historical Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Kitten, natural history as form, new love, and excitement about knowing the world for the Public Domain review. Her other nine Loeb volumes are in the mail!

Hello from an exploratory/crazy morning for Pliny the Kitten! A few innocent pens were summarily dispatched off the desk and the neon mouse remains popular.

New on Substack — an essay on Richie Hofmann’s The Bronze Arms, and the questions BDSM asks in a classical lyrical tradition.

There will be a point when my life outside of Pliny the Kitten is in posts again, but tonight is not that night. She won a fight with some boots and then slept it off on the sofa this evening.

We’re watching Pairs Skating at the Olympics— this better not be as traumatizing as the men’s event falls! She is too young!