“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.” James Baldwin

> @covie93.bsky.social

"The Peace President." [Cartoon by Benjamin Slyngstad]

“Most times we treat Black history as separate from American history.” In an all new @nancybooklustpearl.bsky.social interview, journalist Howard Bryant challenges that separation in his book "Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America." Full show: youtu.be/hbZDaltE9BE?...

As a red diaper baby & a fan of both Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson, this was the perfect read for me, and I was thrilled to interview Howard. PS- all his books are great

I think the Nobel Prize for Peace should go to the people of Minnesota in recognition of their struggle against fascism

A Brian Bilston poem that made me smile: The Day We Argued About Roman Numerals Even now in my mind, that row remains VIVID – I tried to stay CIVIL but you ended up LIVID.

I’ve always highly recommended all of @grantginder.bsky.social’s novels, and I think his newest, So Old, So Young, about a group of friends over 20 years, is terrific. ✔️it out today.

Another for the refrigerator door...

This quote from The Iliad (Wilson, trans.) sounded familiar-"he called his horses, saying to them,/Now Swiftfoot, Blondie, Flame, and godlike Sparkle," - it reminded me of the lines in Clement Moore's Night Before Christmas & it turns out that Moore taught Greek Lit so he'd be familiar with Homer.

Three Muppets in the Fountain

Muppet without a Cause

No idea where I found out about James Wolff’s trilogy of spy novels, but here’s a big thank you to whoever told me about them, because they’re great, some of the best spy fiction I’ve read in ages. Can’t wait for his new one later this month-

One of my favorite tombstones at Washelli Cemetery here in Seattle

“Never enough courage”

Photo + poem are wonderful.

From “Faint Music, an amazing poem by Robert Hass I had the idea that the world’s so full of pain it must sometimes make a kind of singing. And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps— First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing.

What unprepossessing letters in today’s spelling bee. They don’t have a lot to say for themselves

Best sign on my morning walk. (No snow, sleet, or ice, thank goodness, but quite cold for Seattle- 24 degrees)

Please share. 💔

Done & dusted (all 3): forgot to post these. While I was working on these I listened to some Dick Francis mysteries. Loved the stories (which I read before) but wasn’t fond of any of the readers and, sad to say, finally gave up on them.

This always makes me smile, which is an excellent thing during these parlous days

Best sign from morning walk -

Someone asked me recently if there could be a perfect novel: I'm not sure any two people could come up with the defining characteristics of one, but here are two that immediately came to mind: William Maxwell's So Long, See You Tomorrow and Ian McEwan's Atonement

If only

Have always loved reading about the Mitfords, and thoroughly enjoyed talking to Mimi Pond (who, incidentally, wrote the first Simpsons episode)

"Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living." Dr. Seuss

What’s wrong with Joe Burrow? Check out The Ringer NFL show for 12/17. @sheilkapadia.bsky.social and @billygil.bsky.social discuss their theories. Very enlightening. 😀

“I am a real minimalist, because I don’t do very much. I know some minimalists who call themselves minimalist but they do loads of minimalism. That is cheating.” - Robert Wyatt

Here's "A Great Poem" by mid-20th century poet Gavin Ewart. A Great Poem This is a great poem. How I suffer! How I suffer! How I suffer! This is a great poem. Full of true emotion.

Done & dusted. “Springtime in Paris,” another 1000-piecer from @galison.bsky.social. Great fun: all those teeny tiny boats! I listened to John Lanchester’s terrific novel Capital. Highly recommend puzzle and novel

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function," from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s essay "The Crack-Up,” although I’ve never thought it sounded Fitzgeraldish

Collective nouns, anyone? No one does it better than Bilston: “An enjambment of poets.”

Goethe

Just finished listening to John Lanchester’s terrific novel Capital, read by Colin Mace, which describes a cross-section of Londoners leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. By now the characters feel like old friends.

This is the poem I used as an epigraph to my novel George & Lizzie. I am ever-grateful to Terence Winch for writing it and so happy that I read it long before either George or Lizzie came into existence.

“It has always been evening and now you know” Perfect

Good one

Howard Norman's 2024 novel Come to the Window has everything his novels are known for-lovely writing, quirky characters and plots, and satisfying endings. This is now my favorite of his, probably recency bias, since his 1994 novel, The Bird Artist, is just about perfect.

“And as for you, you could be anyone Who’s done, who’s said, the things you’ve said and done.” What an amazing poem: Poem without Metaphors by Matthew Buckley Smith

Done & dusted. “Garden Party,” another great 1000-piecer from @eeboo.com - I love doing these colorful puzzles on these rainy, grey (and grayer) November days

"Someday I'll wake and hardly think of you; You'll be some abstract diety, a myth-- Say Daphne, if you knew her as a tree." Oh, I really love this poem so much

"Not everything that happens // is a learning experience. Maybe nothing is." I do love this John Ciardi poem, which I read long ago in the New Yorker (I can tell by the typeface.)

Done & dusted. “The World of Oscar Wilde.” Challenging 1000-piecer from Laurence King, w/huge amount of info on Wilde’s life and work both incorporated in the puzzle as well as in additional material. I listened to John Lanchester’s novel Capital while I was working on the puzzle

I’ve loved Susan Straight’s books ever since I read her novel “I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots” way back in 1992. Can’t believe I never interviewed her before this.

"It is possible that things will not get better than they are now, or have been known to be" - Robyn Sarah "Riveted"

40 years ago today the world was introduced to a small boy and his best friend. Happy birthday Calvin & Hobbes.

Selling books is undoubtedly awesome, but there's something truly special about people borrowing your book from the library.

Who remembers Nancy Drew’s father’s name ? What about the name of their housekeeper?