Erik Kennedy
@erikkennedy.com
Poet behind beloved classics like 'Sick Power Trip' (2025) and 'Another Beautiful Day Indoors' (2022), @thwupbooks.bsky.social. Leading voice of millennial vegan socialist cat-fancying indie pop kids. 📍 Ōtautahi Christchurch http://www.erikkennedy.com
Sometimes poetry has no interest in being enjoyable. Sometimes it sets out to capture rage or despair. This gut-wrenching poem by Gwen Harwood is one such example...
Today, August 4, 2026, is the setting of Ray Bradbury’s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains” about a fully automated house continuing on after the family who lived there and the world around it died in a nuclear blast.
Imagine spending your days translating your fascist father's rambling lifework into Italian, a language in which no one will read it, and which comes from a proud country that strung up the tyrant he celebrated. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/b...
Mary de Rachewiltz, Ezra Pound’s Daughter and Defender, Dies at 101
Sent away as a baby, she remained loyal to her famous father, translating his poetry while fighting to distinguish his literary legacy from his fascist politics.
nytimes.com
I've seen job adverts for AI jobs saying don't use AI for your application...?
More on that book, from @thebookseller.com www.thebookseller.com/news/it-was-...
Literary agents react to major crime book deal that collapsed over suspected AI use
Literary agents have spoken with The Bookseller following news that a crime novel sold in a 14-way auction in the US for $2.4m was withdrawn by its primary agent on Friday (31st July) due to suspected...
thebookseller.com
This Saturday!! The August issue of takahē will be live, featuring special guests Rebecca Hawkes, Caoimhe McKeogh and Ann Palmer, plus Tara Black, Pip Goldsbury, and Vashti Johnstone (who’s behind this lush cover art) 🖤
In the days following the meeting, headlines began to appear in newspapers around the world. "Lights All Askew in the Heavens," read the New York Times. "Stars Not Where They Seemed or Were Calculated to be, but Nobody Need Worry."
Jailbird chic: behold the "convict-stripes" podium outfit for the Australian Olympic team at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck – declared the ugliest uniform of the games and *the* hot property souvenir item. (An unmistakable Ronald McDonald flavour here, too.) 🗃️
@ladyhorrors.bsky.social on the Southern absence in national arts funding
If you don’t look you can’t see, or, the consequences of Southern invisibility in national arts funding
Erin Harrington on the lack of South Island investment in Creative New Zealand’s Arts Organisations and Groups (AOG) funding round, including the news that South Island organisations collecti…
flatcityfieldnotes.com
I always pause whatever I’m doing to read @lkardos.bsky.social’s work.
HAD@havehashad.com · 5d ago"That I’ll recognize you in the coffee shop after all these years, that you’ll see my long scraggly mop and pierced nose as the bell chimes over the door knowing it’s me, and you’ll stand from the loveseat and open your arms..." 🔥 👀 from Lauren Kardos https://www.havehashad.com/mcqgx
'Despite being opposed to the legislation philosophically, Labour voted it through the House.' Lol, classic Labour. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
English to become official language of NZ alongside Te Reo Māori and sign language
English will join Te Reo Māori and sign language as an official language of New Zealand, after the English Language Bill passed its third and final reading at Parliament.
rnz.co.nz
Bertie Wooster once said, 'Life is full of sadness.' Man, it is. thespinoff.co.nz/books/29-07-...
‘I feel bereft’: Farewell to Dunedin’s beloved University Book Shop
'It was the centre of my life, even when I wasn't employed there.' Tributes from former staff, writers and customers.
thespinoff.co.nz
breaking: Wikimedia Foundation says it will not voluntarily recognize its workers union, instead insisting on an election held under Trump's NLRB. Wiki Foundation execs dodged this question at its massive conference last week. www.404media.co/wikimedia-wa...
Wikimedia Waits Until After Its Massive Conference to Say It Won’t Voluntarily Recognize Union
A supermajority of Wikimedia Foundation workers say they have signed union cards, but the foundation is insisting on an election.
404media.co
A letter from the mother of Alex Pretti, six months after he was murdered by ICE.
some wonderful weekend reading and listening nzpoetryshelf.com/2026/07/24/p...
Poetry Shelf celebrates Te Pūrere The Exodus with ten readings
Te Pūrere The ExodusTe Paenga Kōrero ā Ngā Kaitito Toi o AotearoaThe Anthology of Expatriate New Zealand Poetseds Vaughan Rapatahana and John GallasCold Hub Press, 2026 We lost count of the number …
nzpoetryshelf.com
Too many people underestimate how quickly the American leadership could talk itself into operations to seize islands in the Gulf currently controlled by Iran.
Did you know that in a lot of US cities, an office worker's car gets more space than they do? Or that the turning radius of a 200mph train is 1625 times that of a 25mph bike? I interviewed the authors of a new book about geometry in urban transport systems for @forbes.com 🧪⚛️
Why Your City Feels Built For Cars, Not People
A new book posits that physical space, rather than policy, is the primary constraint for urban transport. I speak to the authors to learn more.
forbes.com
I believe Bryan Johnson actually is going to make some major medical breakthrough, but it will be because he invented a new way to die that nobody ever considered
In the interview he insists that store bought tomatoes are better than homegrown. Think about that, the wealthiest man in human history and everyone who has *ever* eaten a fresh homegrown tomato has experienced a joy he is utterly incapable of even imagining. This guy is so fucking pathetic
hammancheez@hammancheez.bsky.social · 2w agoDon't put in your interview that im mad that people hate me im not mad and im not still bitter about getting booed on stage with dave chapelle that definitely did not start my downward spiral
There's a reason Elon Musk rarely does interviews with real news outlets.
Elon Musk Melts Down Over Perfectly Normal Questions in Wild New Interview
"Maybe some people do loathe me. And that's probably true. I don't care," said Musk.
gizmodo.com
Good news everyone! We're now using the correct term for the phenomena that we're doing fuck all to stop!
Historian friend was reading a civil war era letter in an archive, the letter said “In this envelope I include my smallpox scabs” and sure enough there they were. Had to call CDC for a hazmat team.
to my mind this is way funnier if you don't know about all the nobody business
sky@iamspacegirl.bsky.social · 2w agoFinally dug up my favorite Odyssey tweet ever
