All the Empty Rooms is devastating. I cannot imagine what it is to watch this as a parent, especially a parent who has lost a child in a school shooting. www.alltheemptyrooms.com

Grand Theft Hamlet was different than I expected, but I really enjoyed it. Other than Eddington, the only movie I have seen so far that gets at some of the feelings of pandemic-time. www.rottentomatoes.com/m/grand_thef...

Listers (documentary, youtube only) was so fun, I highly recommend. shifter.media/adventure-th...

Why the past tense?

Libby is promoting Dr Attia's book to me ... bad algorithm, no cookies.

I am in an airport lounge and I just watched an American guy tuck seven cans of soda into his bag, on his way out.

My resolution for my birthday is to stop saying "fuck" in all three languages, for this year.

Starting to get some hints that 2026 will not be easier than 2025.

The problem with books is that I like to read them in one sitting and in my current life this is disruptive. Still very curious if I could stop reading books for a year, and what impact this would have on my life.

4pm espresso, regardless of how incredibly good it was, may not have been the wisest choice for this non-caffeine drinker. House is very clean. Books have been read.

The majority of my friends hold dual citizenship (or more) with the US. This is going to get weird.

Finally getting to Wayne Pilgrim. I was wary considering I live with Wayne Poet, but so far, perhaps the most beautiful of Macfarlane's prose, and the question of language overlap everything in my life, and my thesis.

Reading other people's PhDs makes me realize I am making this much harder on myself than necessary.

If you could go back in time and start from there anew, what year would you choose? Me, 2008.

I would like to return to the usual Florent for xmas dinner. Usually averse to time travel, I may be willing for this.

I never fail to be surprised by how bad the criterion channel interface is. Why is this?

Having read all the books I need for my phd thesis and deep in writing mode, I have finally returned to reading books for pleasure. Four in this past week. The first Godwin holding space while I awaited my turn for the new Godwin. All excellent.

Even my teabag is about my phd thesis. Everywhere, everything, reminding me to work work work finish finish finish. (Three more months to go.)

Thanksgiving poetry?

Co-star continues to be Very Weird.

More about this here: akathesia.com/2025/11/26/a...

I've made it 7 out of 52 weeks without buying a book and so far it has been way easier than expected.

This feels like peak Texas, but it is probably far from peak. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Today's thesis writing adventure seems to be clock-checking until it is champagne-o'clock.

How are we 25 years into the 21st century?

I strangely seem to think a lot more people are dead than are. Gleick isn't even that old! I am glad he is still with us and writing. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

"Once, there was a raging fight over whether salt was a taste or a flavor. “It literally ended with people shouting ‘Fuck you’ at each other and storming out," (which is it?) www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Considering channelling Churchill to finish my thesis. billbowkett.medium.com/following-wi...

I went and saw Peter Hujar's Day and now I have a hankering to ask everyone I know to explain their yesterday to me, in detail. www.nybooks.com/online/2025/...

I need more Remedios Varo in my life. Both her works and to better embrace the Varo-city in me.

From the Paris Review, A Visit with Patrick Leigh Fermor, whose writing I've read for decades and is one of those authors whose books I gift quite often. I recently re-read him as I traveled through Vienna and Prague, and much of what was, still is.

‘For Greeks of a certain vintage, to be a seer was, specifically, to see (and think) ahead in time. Blindness – either of the occipital lobe, or in the dark of the adyton/cave – may not have been a prerequisite for oracular vision, but it didn't hurt.’ wchambliss.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/n...

I think Wayne has described some of my early experiences better than I have. But then, he has more freedom to do so. wchambliss.wordpress.com/2025/09/28/w...

Titling a book Shamanism, given Mircea Elide's tome - still discussed, argued about, controversial, is such a questionable choice. Why would one do that? Even if one were to write a new and exceptional work, it feels rather hubristic to take on that title.

Just realized the Ransom Center in Austin holds the Magnum Photo archives. 920 boxes, 200,000 prints, 3,097.77 linear feet. Gelatin silver prints. Too bad I didn't finish writing the PhD before I discovered this.

Don't update to the new Duolingo app. Absolutely unusable with animations and they've removed the ability to turn them off.

Great thread. My work is on languages of place, not the langauges of the humans of said place, and in particular on how we re-learn to listen and understand, and Jay tugs on a lot of these threads.

@panoptic.bsky.social missing apocalypse club

Remedios Varo. Tailleur pour dames. 1957.

Oh no. I have just discovered Questo e altro....Wonderful time suck. m.youtube.com/watch?v=bAzA...

"We’re watching the imposition of a global concentration camp network." www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Do you think my life would be fundamentally better if I dressed like Renee Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair?

Going through old presences, and this one, this one I still adore. medium.com/@ekbarbaross...

Reading Bakker's books, and this is so fun. I would like a prosthetic to hear beyond the human spectrum. www.ted.com/talks/karen_...

Now I have relocated to watch fox (by tree) and somehow forgot to pack a book. Not helping me get through that massive stack.

The stack of books on my immediate 'read me' pile keeps growing faster than I am currently reading.

I've read bits and pieces of this and it is so good. Looking forward to starting at the beginning and reading the whole thing. I read Underland in the Arctic, the sole book I took on a long kayaking expedition. Perhaps I need a good river trip to read this one on-inspiration in many directions.

So, I actually did ‘do my own research’ about fluoride in the drinking water. It took me a number of years of full-time work to address one specific question. I got a null result. I also got a paper in the Journal of Dental Research (null results are important in public health!). And a PhD.

Catching up on excellent books I had not read. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Zora Neale Hurston.