Dickens: *reaching for the “add character” button Me: woah, woah, slow down there, Chuck. We’ve got 18 characters in this scene already- Dickens: *pressing the button Me: ok. Ok. That was the LAST one though Dickens: *PRESS PRESS PRESS PRESS PRESS

The old Home Depot by Bloomingdale‘s kept their plants two floors down by escalator, adjacent to Bloomies menswear and the 6. Tended by an angelic woman named Hazel, they were all eerily hardy.

<Coughs in the history of piracy> It is an extremely recent phenomenon that most shipping no longer had to pay protection money to traverse the major straits. This was the opposite on an unforeseeable outcome, unfortunately.

Trying to think of a "new-ish" brand that I hate quite as much as Sezane.

Maybe the real job search was the friends I made along the way! (I am actually meeting some very nice people).

‘Len Deighton’s reputation was established as the creator of an anti-Bond, and it’s at least true that 007 wouldn’t be found messing around with eggs in the kitchen until Roger Moore whips a quiche out of the oven for Tanya Roberts.’ @moonjets.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Incredible horse at the Derby. What a win. Terrible outfits in the stands, no good hats, NBC coverage appalling as always.

Very curious about the rationale for "presumptively" vs. "presumably" here.

I am salty on this subject because I had an absolutely transcendent, life-changing experience reading A Tale of Two Cities as a high school sophomore. Reading is great! We should have been reading more!

All these people remind me of Julian Rivers in Angela Thirkell’s Pomfret Towers.

This is a step back from Helen's excellent thread, but I really think everyone should read the complete works of Roger Ebert. What a fine mind.

Les français aiment un peu de fromage espion.

I’ve decided this account is now mainly for posting quotes from Ian Fleming’s correspondence.

In 1677, Samuel Pepys wrote that the surest way to break the morale and loyalty of a sailor in the navy was to mess with their rations. Just thinking about this for no reason.

drinkin' mr. pibb out of the nautilus chalice

This book rocks so hard. If anyone needs a Good Book Weekend.

Table manners are good, actually.

The Financial Times is the best newspaper.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of on your preferred microblogging platform.

If you’re looking for a real rush, may I recommend reaching your e-book checkout limit at the public library?

NASA is honestly one of the greatest things humans have ever created, the stuff of math and dreams

At the end of The Martian, titular Martian goes to work for SpaceX!

Passover 2026 begins at evening on 1st April. Here's a family sitting around the Seder table in 14th century Barcelona with some special guests under the table. BL Oriental 2884; the 'Sister Haggadah'; 1325 CE-1374 CE; Barcelona; f.18r @blmedieval.bsky.social

I had a really bad driving instructor when I was learning-he would change radio stations just to mess with me. We were going past Riverside Church, and I said idly, “Tori Amos played here in 2002,” and he liked me from then on, because he worked security at that show and she blew his mind.

Twelfth Night is a brutal play. Seems obvious. But I like it.

The problem with this post (this is not David’s fault) is not that it made me feel old, it’s that the 1790s reference made me really mad that nobody has made an extremely high budget version of Mantel’s “A Place of Greater Safety”

"Hey, this literature isn't avant-garde at all!" I exclaim. But the crafty bourgeois realism bookseller has already disappeared in the crowd

Every time I’m in Union Square I think about how Tammany Hall, the seat of power for New York for decades, is now a Petco

"Relics" - Charles Wright

Fragrances to wear while reading Lucan's Civil War: open.substack.com/pub/lacachet...

The people out here calling Scrivener "intuitive" have a lot to answer for.

A gorgeous lady in Flatiron making a convincing case for the return of the tapestry coat this morning - she looked like a figure from a Fragonard painting hopped out of her gilded frame to take the dog for a walk.

Why Lacan Loved Harpo Marx A surprising encounter between high theory & Hollywood farce reshapes how we think about laughter & desire. By: Angelica Frey daily.jstor.org/why-lacan-lo... Humor & Comedy at PG: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/books... www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subje... #books #literature

This Chieftains album is wall-to-wall bangers. FORMATIVE.

RIP Len Deighton: “When I started writing I had rules. One was that violence must not solve the problem, and I cannot have the hero overcome violence with a counterweight of violence.” He also worked as an illustrator for six years, including a Penguin Iris Murdoch & a Deutsch Jack Kerouac

Len Deighton obituary: writer who redefined spy thrillers dies aged 97

Pharsalia goes so hard.

There's really nothing for a person's self esteem like taking your own digital passport photo.

Do I know anyone who worked in finance when Excel started to take off who can talk to me about what that was like?

Every time I leave the house I see the most beautifully stylish women, just going about their day teaching me new things about texture and layering. They do it for themselves.

"what do you mean bluesky is an echo chamber," I demand as I join the time war against the Ingalls family

Oh good gravy. Burke had thoughts on a lot of things, and they were mostly, at the end of the day, about boobs. Signed, an actual eighteenth-century scholar.

Oh okay, now they are offering 20% off. That's more like it.

I just got an email from a fragrance shop with the subject line "Women's Day is Closer Than You Think" and now I feel vaguely menaced.

People say A Dance To The Music Of Time has little relevance to the modern world but the saga of the Dubai Influencers is absolutely the kind of thing that would be happening offstage to some terrible minor character

Philly cheesesteak hamantaschen when

I feel like when you go to Philly, they should hand you a cheesesteak when you get off the plane, like they do with leis in Hawaii.