family movie night last night was Shane Black adapting Richard Stark's Parker novels in a new Prime flick called Play Dirty. coincidentally, I very recently binged the entire Parker series. thoughts: Black is such a good fit for Donald Westlake that I was surprised he hadn't adapted him before. 1/

deeply impressed by the volume this flock of house sparrows in my backyard is achieving. they just have a lot to say, all at once, very loudly! (I also enjoy that they don't give a shit about me, less than 20 feet away and clearly visible. or the dogs, for that matter.)

SteelyKid and Argos both enjoy it when Argos visits

I know it's hard to get across certain things in ballet because you don't have words [*] nevertheless it is really something to see an adaptation of The Great Gatsby in which class is simply ... not present [*] except the book's first and last lines in voiceover

oh no I got called on during the first of the New Bedford Whaling Museum's sessions for the Moby-Dick book club they warned us that we might be but I still wasn't really expecting it and hope I didn't ramble too much anyway it was interesting, come join for the next two!

my morning laugh, anyway

so yes last night I read The Great Gatsby for the very first time! and then paused, thought, reread it. many of you like this book! and I would sincerely like to know what you enjoy about it. (I do NOT want to know why you didn't like it or for you to argue with/criticize people answering me!)

really, Nick Carraway, do tell me more

I realize this will make sense to like two of you but: how cool!!

hat tip to @failbettergames.com on this one! their newsletter is fun, you should check it out: sendy.failbettergames.com/sendy/subscr... (sorry for the horrible link)

#cluesbysam is Guess Who as a logic puzzle, and today is the first day I didn't make any mistakes at all, which is satisfying. (Sometimes I just ... get "innocent" and "criminal" mixed up in my head? they are not natural opposites to me.) 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩 Less than 7 minutes cluesbysam.com

@swingingstorm.bsky.social this re: Hadestown popped out of my Tumblr queue and reminded me of our discussion! www.tumblr.com/theriverbeyo...

it looks so fuzzy!

Do you know the REM song "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville"? Here's a fabulous article by Ingrid Schorr, the woman who inspired it, about how history gets made. www.hilobrow.com/2011/09/23/r... (via @orzelc.bsky.social , who I used to visit in Rockville every weekend)

I forgot the Hugos were last night!! congratulations to @rebeccafraimow.bsky.social @emilytesh.net @abigailnussbaum.bsky.social @dianapho.bsky.social !!!!! locusmag.com/2025/08/hugo...

some quantum physics for your morning!

halfway through Media Club Plus's episode about THE SIXTH SENSE and I can confirm that, as @amtebbel.bsky.social suspected, Kids These Days (*) do indeed think that "I see dead people" is a Kendrick original (*) that is, SteelyKid and the Pip, who are 17 and 13

it looked really startlingly realistic from down the block!

as someone who basically writes for a living: this is extremely true. (h/t @orzelc.bsky.social )

such comical-looking birds

so I've bought a new phone, which FedEx received on Thursday 7/24 in Illinois. It landed in New York (my state) on 7/25 to arrive by 7/27. Its tracking info next updated on Tuesday 7/29 from ... Arizona. you might think that since it was already late, FedEx might send it along quickly. 1/?

it's a lovely sunny day that's not, for a change, too hot, with a bit of a breeze, and so all's right with the world if you're a pupper

hey Internet--whenever I have to deal with a Phillips-head screw, I always have better results with a flat head screwdriver than a Phillips. am I missing some great advantage in not learning to use a Phillips properly?

I regret to say that something about the way their heads are aligned, and possibly also the blurry branch in the foreground, gives me the impression that they are some kind of three-eyed cryptid. But Chad did get out of there alive, so it can't be too bad ... right?

turns out that between 11 and 13, children change a lot?!?!

a story from @epbirdsall.bsky.social and it's in an anthology called Murderfish?!? sign me up!

me to @orzelc.bsky.social : "How did you do this?!" Chad, looking at me like I'm the one who's weird here: "Carefully."

my digital FOMO is so bad that, because sometimes newsletters just don't arrive in my inbox--they're not in spam, other installments make it just fine, shruggie--I'm thinking of adding them in my RSS reader. (this ridiculousness courtesy of a child beating me to the shower on an in-office day)

_and_ a spreadsheet of blogs and newsletters!!! bsky.app/profile/case...

if you're looking for more SFF review venues post-Readercon, check out the thread starting with this reply!

if you would like to read all of my @readercon.org panel reports, without backreading my posts here, you can find them at kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/tag/cons:+re... please feel free to comment--no login needed, though I would appreciate if you signed your comment with some kind of name/handle.

final!!! panel report from Readercon: Book Club: The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed, with me and Marianna Martin. plus a bunch of other stuff about the book, too kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1107061.html

panel report from Readercon: The Next Great Gatsby? with me, @ellenkushner.bsky.social , R.W.W. Greene, Len Schiff kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1106923.html

in response, @coffeeandink.bsky.social recommends TWO new-ish venues entirely devoted to review and long-form critique of speculative fiction: ancillaryreviewofbooks.org @ancillaryreview.bsky.social www.speculativeinsight.com @speculativeinsight.bsky.social which I will check out forthwith!

panel report from Readercon: Take Your Novel/Story to Work, with @kenschneyer.bsky.social , Marianna Martin, @abookbumble.bsky.social , @sarahpinsker.bsky.social (with bonus fic rec from me) kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1106476.html

I like to think it's up in a corner about to pounce.

oh no I've just realized that "Charlie my pupper, Charlie my dog" scans to "How Long?" from Hadestown, and I'm going to be spending all day trying to come up with more lyrics. (we earlier found that "Charlie is a good pupper" scans to "Sheena is a punk rocker," but that's all you need for that one)

would you like to know about the poem that contains "one of the filthiest expressions ever written in Latin"? and how it's a poetic manifesto? of course you would.

panel report from Readercon: The Endless Appetite for Fanfiction, with me, @duckprintspress.com , @victoriajanssen.bsky.social , Laura Antoniou kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1106364.html

panel report from Readercon: Un-Kafkaesque Bureaucracies, with J.M. Sidorova, @lrb.bsky.social , @nameshiv.bsky.social , Steven Popkes, @victoriajanssen.bsky.social kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1106163.html

panel report from Readercon: Let's Do the Time Loop Again, with @ajablokov.bsky.social , Andrea Kriz, Andrea Martinez Corbin, @robotleblanc.bsky.social , @englelaird.bsky.social , @daviddegraff.bsky.social , @johnchu.bsky.social kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1105701.html

panel report from Readercon: The Molotov Cocktail Approach to Plotting Stories, with @caitlinrozakis.bsky.social , Charles Allison, Robert V.S. Redick, @shariannlewitt.bsky.social , @swingingstorm.bsky.social kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1105556.html

panel report from Readercon: The Allure of Orpheus and Eurydice, with me, @constancefay.bsky.social , Greer Gilman, @tomdoyle.bsky.social , @swingingstorm.bsky.social kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1105173.html

panel report from Readercon: The Joys (and Perils?) of Reading Deeply, with @barb.bsky.social @gregoryawilson.com @larkmorganlu.bsky.social @rebeccafraimow.bsky.social kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1104927.html

panel report from Readercon: "Nice Review You've Got There...", with Andrea Martinez Corbin, @gregoryawilson.com , Ian Muneshwar, Michael Dirda, @sachalamb.bsky.social kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1104839.html

panel report from Readercon: Tragic Endings and the Catharsis of a Bad Time, with Delia Sherman, @emnays.bsky.social , @sfencyclopedia.bsky.social (John Clute), @shariannlewitt.bsky.social , @tomdoyle.bsky.social kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1104566.html

panel report from Readercon: Empire and Complicity with @ajablokov.bsky.social @englelaird.bsky.social @constancefay.bsky.social , Tom Greene, and me (jumping off an @emilytesh.net comment!) kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1104146.html

report from Readercon: All Stories Are Really About _____, with @sfencyclopedia.bsky.social (John Clute), @karenheuler.bsky.social , LJ Cohen, @sbfeldman.bsky.social , @wbjwilliams.bsky.social kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1103986.html

panel report from Readercon: Coherency in Storytelling, with me, @kenschneyer.bsky.social @richardbutner.com @wbjwilliams.bsky.social my notes for this one are almost non-existent, so please chime in and also just discuss with me! kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1103779.html

panel report from Readercon: The Body (of Work) Keeps the Score: Writing as Therapy, with @barb.bsky.social @abookbumble.bsky.social @nsdolkart.bsky.social @scottedelman.bsky.social @swingingstorm.bsky.social kate-nepveu.dreamwidth.org/1103569.html