JUANITA MARQUEZ: This [nam shubs] doesn't work on me. It sort of did, for a while, but there are ways to fight it. HIRO PROTAGONIST: Why? Why doesn't it work on you? J: I've spent the last several years hanging around with Jesuits...Your brain has an immune system, just like your body. #SnowCrash

Martha Root. Not related. But damn.

>Some immaterial pattern of energy, throwing off a spray of radiation like the wake of a racing speedboat, had leaped from the face of the Moon, and was heading out toward the stars.

And for a brief moment, Gordo Cooper became the greatest pilot anyone had ever seen.

1463 S.R. Faramir Took marries Goldilocks, daughter of Samwise.

About 5 miles back I had a brush w/the CHP. Not stopped or pulled over: nothing routine. I always drive properly. A bit fast, perhaps, but always with consummate skill & a natural feel for the road that even cops recognize. No cop was ever born who isn't a sucker for a finely-executed hi-speed >

Doug Shaftoe says overestimating the intelligence of the enemy is, if anything, more dangerous than underestimating it. He, Tom Howard & Jackie Woo are up the hill guarding the roadhead w/assault rifles. Tom's been positively strutting. All of his fantasies are coming true in this little tableau.

LIEBNIZ: Churchill is now Earl of Marlborough, Duchess d'Arcachon is now also the Duchess of Qwghlm. SOPHIE: Arcachon-Qwghlm…yes…we've heard of her.🤔Does she have a Christian name? L: Eliza S: Children? Other than—unless I'm mistaken—that energetic little bastard who is following my banker around.

The president of Venezuela and his wife have abducted the United States.

Mamdani has only been Mayor for a day & criminals are already fleeing New York

What happened down here? It's the wind have changed. Clouds roll in from the north & it start to rain. The river busted thru clear dwn to Plaquemine: 6 feet of water in the streets of Evangeline. River rose all day & it rose all night. Some people got lost in the flood. Some people got away alright.

My next door neighbor just got us fucked up on high end sparking wine and rum and we came back and watched ep 1 of PLURIBUS and now LOOK at the moon it’s in the top of the sky and I’m cool with what’s happening. And this is my scene and it’s freaking me out.

Europe, What news from 2026?

MINERVA DROPPED ANCHOR below the burning mountain of Griga in the Marian Islands. The Shaftoe boys & a squad of Filipino sailors went ashore & established a watch-post there, w/in sight of Minerva. For 2 days they flew a single flag, which meant "We are here, & still alive." >

GW Leibniz, President Berlin Academy Berlin, Prussia To Mr Daniel Waterhouse, Chancellor Massachusetts Bay Institute of Technologickal Arts Newtowne, Massachusetts Bay Colony Dear Daniel, The appearance of your letter on the doorstop of my Academy brought unlooked-for cheer to an otherwise frosty>

After eliminating all the videos that I liked because of edgy cinematography or great music: When this came out in 1982 (I was 18) I wanted to find a place like that club in my city. I did, and I went there a lot, until it became a filming location for a Tom Cruise movie!

May 1700, off Kyushu: After exchanging various signals, Minerva & the Dutch vessel fell in alongside each other. This was when they lost their Alchemist. When it came clear that they were about to lose their Adult Supervision, Jack felt panic under his feet like a swell pressing up on the hull. >

Good ideas are just there all of a sudden, like angels in the Bible. You cannot ignore them just because they are ridiculous. #cryptonomicon

Back at the piece on misreading Stephenson--adding in a section on 'Fall' and expanding the part on 'Anathem.' Thinking more broadly on where to send it out again--maybe the American Scholar? We'll see. It's like my brain works well when plied w/ the right drugs. Better living through chemistry.

Let's make the thread a place of silent reflection from now on.

The Ring was found again, by a wayfarer, fleeing into the depths of the earth from the pursuit of the Orcs & passed into a far distant country, even to the land of the Periannath, held of small account by Elves & Men. Neither Sauron nor any of the Wise save Mithrandir had given thought to them.

The song of Lúthien before Mandos was the most fair that ever in words was woven, and the song most sorrowful that ever the world shall hear. Unchanged, imperishable, it is sung still in Valinor beyond the hearing of the world, and listening the Valar are grieved. For Lúthien wove 2 themes of words>

Gene Wolfe once said that being an only child whose parents are dead is like being the sole survivor of drowned Atlantis. There was a whole civilization there, an entire continent, but it's gone. And you alone remember. That's my story too. [Father died when he was 6, his mother, 18] -William Gibson

Shorts, [Cayce] thinks, drawing abreast of this trio, are somehow always wrong in London. Pattern Recognition Blue Ant trilogy

Mirror-world. The plugs on appliances are huge, triple-pronged, for a species of current that only powers electric chairs, in America. Cars are reversed, inside; phone handsets have a different weight, a different balance; the covers of paperbacks look like Australian money. _ Pattern Recognition

FLYNNE: Luke 4:5 still across the street? NETHERTON: I think so, but Ossian’s exploring buying them out. F: Buying a church?” N: You may already own several. — The Peripheral

LEIBNIZ: Young sir, when I spied your Turkish sword, I took you for a Janissary, but your knowledge of the lands to the West proves otherwise—even if your East London accent hadn't already given you away. ELIZA [aside]: He's up to something. JACK: So are we, lass—it's not a crime. —Baroque Cycle

JASON: It's okay. Listen― BRANDON: I want you to know I'm not a complete braincase, OK? I understand that It's just a TV show. There is no ship, there is no Beryllium Sphere, no digital conveyor. I mean, obviously it's all just a― J: It's real Brandon. It's all real. B: I knew it. I KNEW IT!

Eliza was not, of course, a professional harpooneer, but she had the womanly knack of aiming for the heart, and so the weapon came at Jack straight as Truth....But she’d already turned her back on him and was walking away, not even caring whether she had hit him or not. _Baroque Cycle

To those who observe it 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

Merry Christmas

Christmas dinner is a bit light this year, but we have butter!

The official bird of the Canary Islands is going to disappoint you.

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them

Christmas 1944 "What child is this, Who laid to rest, On Mary's lap is sleeping?" The Filipinos sing that & other songs in English, Spanish & Latin all evening long. At 1st, Lt Mori's guards get itchy trigger fingers. Goto Dengo explains to them that it is a religious thing, a peaceful celebration.

This pretty much sums it up.

1st Lt Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College. They were not love letters, but Lt Cross was hoping, so he kept them folded in plastic at the bottom of his rucksack. The things they carried were largely determined > #TheThingsTheyCarried Tim O'Brien

LORD GY: Crivvens! What have foostit been the heidhoose? GEN THROWLEY: Brilliant, that is a pardigmatic specimen. It is this, my lord: you do not speak English. GY: Concerning ma accent? TH: It is NOT an accent. This is my Point, my lord. #SystemOfTheWorld Neal Stephenson

TR: You and I gotta talk pigs later. Got a real problem on my Cotulla property! RUFUS: Not for long! TR: Oh. Yes. You and me. R: Yes sir! TR: We gonna take care of it! R: I got the means!” TR: I got a chopper! [His wife was dragging him off]

Angry fat man on the radio, Wants to keep his taxes way down low, Says there oughta be a law, Angriest man you ever saw. —The Bottle Rockets, Welfare Music

He comes awake from a dream of metal voices, down the vaulted concourses of some European airport, distant figures glimpsed in mute rituals of departure. Darkness. The hiss of climate-control. The touch of cotton sheets. His telephone beneath the pillow. > #VirtualLight by William Gibson #MexicoCity

From 2021. My tribute to the ultimate WFH warrior. #GreyAsgardens

MRS ROOT2702: Maybe we better not throw a frisbee in the house?

I couldn’t help seeing the restaurant as the Hundreders did: Ambiguous conversation w/unseen serving-wench Bags of hot-grease-scented food hurtling in thru the window Attempting to eat while lurching down a highway Volumes of messy litter A smell that outstayed its welcome #Anathem #DriveThru

RAZ: You figured out that the world was old? YUL: I spent years on rafts going down those rivers. The whole way, there’s rocks strewn along the banks. Rocks the size of houses that fell off the canyon walls, higher up. Just looking down one of those canyons, you can see it happens all the time. >

FRAA OROLO: Your point is well reasoned. But don’t be too dismissive of the poles. Many things converge there. RAZ: Like what? Lines of longitude? ARSIBALT: Migratory birds? JESRY: Compass needles? BARB: Polar orbits! A telescope aimed north would have a high probability of detecting— #Anathem

Six weeks after I joined the Edharian order, I became hopelessly stuck on a problem that one of Orolo’s knee-huggers had set for me as a way of letting me know that I didn’t really understand what it meant for two hypersurfaces to be tangent. #Anathem