#4 of 2026. Slight, but cute. A perfectly serviceable book for a cold day under the electric blankie with a big cup of tea and some gâteau au yaourt. #booksky

This book made me appreciate Mary Todd. From a wealthy family, she stuck to her guns to marry Abe b/c she saw greatness in him. Her brothers served in the Confederacy, but her support for the Union never wavered. Yet all we know about her is her shopping?? Mary, we've done you wrong. #booksky

Another thrilling thrift store book haul. $17. Less than one movie ticket. Less than one month of netflix. Nothing like that dopamine hit as each book dropped into my basket at the Yaphank Savers.... #booksky

I feel like I should write a book where there's basically one white male character who has zero inner monologue and serves only as the object of female desire in a political allegory justice for phuong lol #thequietamerican #grahamgreene #booksky

Memento mori #artsky #vangogh

Book #1 of 2026! A fun one. I hate reprints that serve as ads for some TV or movie adaptation, but this was $2 in the "fire sale" pile. Rare that an author can do so many things: non-fiction military history, police procedural, memoir. RIP Caleb Carr. #booksky

yesterday, @zoedarme.bsky.social and i took a whack at painting edvard munch's "soloppgang i åsgårdstrand" (1893). here are our results, zoe's first #artsky #edvardmunch

Sunrise in Åsgårdstrand #artsky

Annual book roundup! Loved, Liked, "It's Just Ok," and Hated ... See link below 👇 docs.google.com/document/d/1... #booksky #2025

Last book of 2025, #38. What a way to end another fabulous book year! #booksky

#37 of 2025 Perfect family Xmas read, to be quite honest. If you're feeling the pressure of performative domestic bliss, read this book to remind you of all the ways that's actually torturous and demented. Ho ho ho from Shirley Jackson! #booksky

#36 of 2025 Maybe sam altman shd read this book #neuromancer #booksky

#35 of 2025 Old school close reading. Quite impressive that this has been written by someone outside of an English department. He turns his book on the double meaning of "fair" which ties an aesthetic value to a legal one. A thousand times more fair by Kenji Yoshino #booksky

Seafood tower bookmark #artsky

#36 of 2025. Definitely worth the hype. Remarkable achievement for a debut novel. #booksky #martyr #kavehakbat

Why is Carl from Up playing backgammon with Glenn Gould? I don't know; it's just what happened. What can I say? #artsky

I miscounted! This is book #33 of 2025! 600 pages in less than 48 hours. This was my Thanksgiving read, and I'm so thankful for the absolute KILLER year I'm having with sci-fi and fantasy. Jonathan Strange, Piranesi, the Three Body Problem series, The City and the City, and now this. #booksky

#31 Do you abhor nuance and complexity? Do you prefer preachy didacticism and repetitiveness? Then boy do I have a book for you. I've been led astray by popular fiction and booktok before (still salty over demon copperhead). But this one hit a new low! #booksky #rfkuang #babel #ihatedthisbook

Book proportion / perspective is all wrong but still I like how the skull came out. Vanitas vanitatum #artsky

After third movement marathon of barber's violin concerto (always a banger), Augustin Hadelich just did an encore, his arrangement of Orange Blossom Special $22 rush ticket I ♥️ NY www.instagram.com/reel/C9qHmAV... #nyphil

the conqueror worm #artsky #booksky

manuscripts don't burn #booksky #artsky

Book #30 of 2025 Squeaked out a quick read of hamnet before it gets hollywood'ed and I'm not able to picture anything in my head but Paul Mescal with a hoop earring #booksky #hamnet

Book #29 of 2025 I usually love a book about books but this one was your average chick lit (but Korean). At least it's a "finish inone sitting" book. Led astray once again by r/suggestmeabook, drats! #booksky #welcometothehyunamdongbookshop

That feeling when you can't get the cat's eyes quite right and just throw in the towel & stick googley eyes on them. Sorry, Nate. Sorry, Rose. #artsky #catsky

Happy Halloween, nerds

Great quote: Most people who like BJJ really like BJJ, but most people who enjoy running only “kind of” like it. So if you are optimizing for “engagement,” videos about BJJ is a stronger signal...than videos about running! This has nothing to do with content; it is all about co-viewership patterns

A little late to this party, but I love a self-publishing success story. Fun cotton candy book. #28 of 2025 #booksky #dungeoncrawlercarl

The no 2 pencil #artsky www.npr.org/sections/ed/...

This book is remarkable (and I don't even like cats). Book #28 of '25. Caleb Carr's cat memoir. A must read for anybody who prefers furry, domesticated quadrupeds over bipedal primates. #booksky

#27 of 2025, Gogol's Dead Souls This book would be funny if I didn't think we were living under the tyranny of a thousand petty Chichikovs right now. #booksky

Another great Sunday painting nite w @melvinpena.bsky.social !

So apparently I'm really bad at painting some fairly basic trees.

Pardon me, would you happen to have any Grey Poupon?

It's obnoxious to read everything as commentary on our current political moment (and this was written years ago, set in an alt-Balkans). But I can't NOT think of the divide b/t maga & not-maga, and how we end up policing that boundary ourselves through fear, myth, and violence. #booksky #mieville

This book feels like an extended, 846 page chuckle. It's if Thackeray were from Yorkshire and wrote fantasy. It's a stay-up-until-1-am-to-read-the-last-200-pages kind of book. #jonathanstrange #booksky

Today's big post-kayak activity, squeezed in between two naps. YT tutorial here: m.youtube.com/watch?v=V-CD... Easy, 30 min. Stop scrolling. Make some art. Make anything. #artsky

Reminder that Edith "HBIC" Wharton was a contemporary of Saussure: "In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic reality, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs." This line absolutely SLAPS. #booksky

I wonder if Whitehead had in mind The Invisible Man when he wrote this book. The brutality and spectacle of the Griff chapters seem so familiar, but without the caustic humor present with Ellison. Good book, but hard to recommend - as it's unsparingly bleak. #booksky #thenickelboys

Fun beach read! However, the idea that "every human being has a basic instinct to help another human out" hasn't seemed to age well, and this book's only ~15 years old. IRL there'd be an anti-science "let mark watney die" faction on x dot com clamoring for NASA to be defunded. #booksky

I read The Satanic Verses earlier this year, and the throughline is obvious. While Rushdie's is a middling novel, what it shares with its predecessor is a reaffirmation that state-sponsored terror and censorship is ultimately a fool's errand. "Manuscripts don't burn." #booksky #bulgakov

No painting content this week because I stupidly tried crochet on Sunday instead thinking, "how hard could it be?" Well, folks, it's ... a lot of counting, manual dexterity, and patience, and I'm not good at those things.

My kestrel turned out a wee chubbier than expected but, like me, he binged on too much potato salad and Nathan's hot dogs this weekend.

Fun beach read! Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr. It's a book about books & libraries & the people who love them. H/t to Ms Christopher, Armstrong Elementary's librarian, who shoved a lot of great reads into my hands while instilling a deep fear of putting my feet up on furniture. #booksky

Imagine Interstellar but a book, written by a Chinese Christopher Nolan who's 10 times trippier and more imaginative. Truly a wild ride. #bigliu #deathsend #threebodyproblem #booksky

My 45-minute Maynard Dixon :) #artsky

Everything looks so much better with a bit of tape to finish the edges of a mini painting. Thanks for the tip, @melvinpena.bsky.social! #artsky

Juneteenth! I've tried twice but DNF both times. I don't know why. I love an American picaresque ... Huck Finn, Augie March, etc. This is the year! 2025 Juneteenth is going to be me, Ralph, and a sunny spot in the yard. #booksky

My OKR for the #nokings protest was to increase the # of new yorkers googling the term [posse comitatus] IYKYK

Cannery Row is a love letter to a lumpenproletariat that couldn't exist today, thanks to meth and fentanyl. Steinbeck gives the wastrels, whores, and Chinese grocers such depth of character and dignity, even in the 5 or 6 pages afforded each vignette. Remarkable book. #steinbeck #booksky