Tessera

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Tonight, I #amWatcging a 2019 #movie called The Booksellers. it’s definitely doing it for me on multiple levels. Great real life characters. Very cozy, just what I needed at 3 AM. And excellent for seeing stuff drift by the camera lens that I recognize. Right now they are covering The Strand.

Good morning! Happy Friday! I was stuck on what to write for this #PoemsAbout #ThriftStore. Fun fact, my mom owned a consignment shop, sort of an upscale thrift store, but I went in another direction. Thank you as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Poem:

The Way of Things

Raindrops bounce,
silver teardrop splatter
on pavement, ocean,
forest floor, evaporate

to form cloud castles
and horses in the air
glowing in borrowed light

recycled water, air
repurposed dreams
it seems

this tired planet
has seen it all before,

we’re living on a thrift store world,
cast offs from the stars,

reworked, remade,

still a little sparkle left.

Every once in a while the algorithm nails it I didn’t really know about the illustrator John Schoenherr But YouTube and Pete Beard have shown me the light youtu.be/uX8fsFXopqg?... #art #illustration

THE ART & ILLUSTRATION OF JOHN SCHOENHERR HD 1080p

Because my own primary fascination has always been with the illustrators of the early 20th century, John Schoenherr is yet another remarkable talent I was ignorant of until a few years back. And the…

youtu.be

Thinking of starting some kind of new writing or personal project with philosophy as a creative seed. But challenges are already coming to light (see thread below) #philosophy

The world is beautiful, but sometimes its digitization and globalization feels like an unforgivable impoverishment Seeking some kind of astral transcendence, we left our bodies behind, and now it turns out the higher plane is boring and alienating, and we have nothing left to go back to.

I think project management is incredibly important, given the number of failures and setbacks I’ve seen because nobody had ownership or a strong vision. But writing in the way that’s expected in project management is torturously hard for me.

Art as sanctuary: an experiment. A little constellation of ideas. Some things I’ve been thinking about. Let’s see if I can spin them out as a thread. (Who is out there? Are you receptive to this kind of signal?) #philosophy #aesthetics

Steadfast princess of leather and hardwood, many times tested, waiting just off the path — for she is stillness and shelter, for she is the watcher on the edge of the territory, for she is an invisible line that only the chosen can cross. miksimum.com/2026/07/17/g...

A drawing with watercolor toning, showing a woman from slightly below at a 3/4 angle. She has a muscular frame, and he hands are conspicuously balled into fists. Her hair is brown, and has a flower and a braid of leaves. Her eyes look past the viewer, off into the distance.

Over Your Domain So here you are, you and your architecture, rising up from the crest at the edge of your great frontier. miksimum.com/2026/07/05/o... #sketchbook #fantasyArt #painting #watercolor #illustration #traditionalArt #bskyArt

I’m sorry if you are a person who likes 4D cinema, but sometimes you’re going to get some unfiltered opinions on the Internet.

I’m just popping online to say, 4D cinema is the stupidest thing I have ever experienced. All the kids in my children’s movie hated it, and I hate it.

Is AI addiction a thing yet? Like, the compulsion to converse with something that perpetually mirrors, validates, and refactors your ideas through an essentially infinite body of knowledge? If not, it’s going to be, mark my words.

Fun new project lately: started a little YouTube channel where my kid (10) and I explain things to each other while playing video games. Lots of stuff about comic books and arcades in the first couple episodes. Feel free to check them out. youtube.com/@gamesplainers #videoGames #parenting

Jesse & Gillian, Gamesplaining

We are a 10-year old and her dad. We both like playing video games, and explaining things. We have a lot to learn from each other.

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At a concert at the Mann skyline in Philly — Young the Giant with Cold War Kids and Almost Monday (very fitting) So sort of the big-hearted, emo-adjacent wing of indie rock #LiveMusic #weekendPlans

ALL IS NOT WELL WITH THIS ONE miksimum.com/2026/06/11/a... #drawing #illustration #sketchbook #fantasyArt #bskyArt

Information is not really actual stuff, right? Information is just intricately-organized matter. I guess you could link it to intention, but even the thinking matter in our heads is also just stuff, organized spontaneously into information. Who talks about this?

SWORD OF UNSEALING "I call this my sword of unsealing, my releasing steel. With these edges, I can cut myself beautifully open and step into the breach." miksimum.com/2026/06/02/s... #sketchbook #fantasyArt #drawing #illustration #bskyArt

LassePartanenArt.bsky.social @lassepartanenart.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Make the call (or don’t, I guess) miksimum.com/2026/05/30/m... #drawing #sketchbook #art #illustration #bskyArt

A pencil, drawing in a sketchbook, showing a male figure flipping a coin and looking up at it with a neutral expression, with a shorter woman standing just behind him, also watching the coin in anticipation.

One last #mermay mermaid #art #sketchbook #fantasy

Banks in the shallows miksimum.com/2026/05/24/b... #drawing #illustration #sketchbook #landscape #art #bskyArt

A pencil drawing in a sketchbook, showing a landscape with a calm body of water. A bank sits on the left side in the foreground, with a single full tree and a tipped over rowboat. Another bank comes in from the right side in the middle ground, with a row of tall, sparse trees.

For a few days, I have been a bit obsessed with One Last Kiss, the song by Hikaru Utada, which is featured in the Evangelion Rebirth movies. It speaks love and sadness and the passing of time that can't really be said any other way. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uhh... #music #NeonGenesisEvangelion

宇多田ヒカル『One Last Kiss』

映画『シン・エヴァンゲリオン劇場版』に書下ろした新曲「One Last…

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I've been quite absent from the digital landscape for... maybe 3 weeks now? Maybe 6? I would like to find myself again, on several fronts. The Internet is not the only one, but I *do* really enjoy all you crazy people, so I'm going to try to include this place in my current refactoring.

Happy Mother’s Day (US) to all the moms out there, carrying your families through this landscape of shifting expectations and impossible stakes. And to the loving homes holding an absent mother in your hearts, cheers to you as well. #mothersDay

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 5mo ago

NAIAD You can’t step in the same river twice. Actually, there’s not really a river at all. The river is not so much an “object” as a process that can be touched. miksimum.com/2026/04/24/n... #drawing #sketchbook #bskyArt #illustration #philosophy

A drawing in a sketchbook using water soluble pencil, showing a female torso leaning back in a reclining position, arms outstretched. There is a loose sketchy vertical axis running past her around her head, going from the bottom to the top of the frame. This intersects with a swirling visual flourish approximately where her hair might be tossed.

Happy Tax Day, New York. We’re taxing the rich.

Feel like there's a lot going on for me right now. First of all, based on some chatter, I may need to move off zirk.us. Anybody have any suggestions for good, reliable, well-maintained Fedi instances? #Mastodon #Fediverse

zirkus

Literature, philosophy, film, music, culture, politics, history, architecture: join the circus of the arts and humanities! For readers, writers, academics or anyone wanting to follow the conversation.

zirk.us

Say "question everything" to your kid enough, they may become a scientist Say it too much, they may become a philosopher #philosophy #parenting