Here’s the 1965 Grade 12 reading list for Mater Christi HS (now St John’s Prep) in Astoria, Queens. It’s fascinating to think of the literary “canon” and its mutations/permutations over time…
j alfred postrock
@seriouslyreadmore.bsky.social
books and sad songs. illustration? look I don’t know trying to keep sports nonsense relegated to @kingdometurf.bsky.social
Shifting into fall mode (only listening to playlists with titles like “Moody Post-Punk,” “80s Indie Pop w/ Sweaters On,” “Sad Bastards/Mournful Chamber Pop,” and “Heartache Jazz”).
Caroline Blackwood deserves so much more attention. And not just because her parents were an Earl and a Guinness heiress, and her husbands were painter Lucian Freud, composer Israel Citkowitz, and poet Robert Lowell. She also wrote some goddamn great books.
Radz Pandit@radzpandit.bsky.social · 4d ago""There's a crippled gentleman at the door. And he wants to see you!" Mrs Murphy came slamming into her employer's bedroom with this excited announcement and Mrs Blunt gave a little shiver of astonishment." Starting the #NYRBWomen26 book for September. CORRIGAN by Caroline Blackwood.
this is the first major advance in the field of dunkology in decades
CJ Fogler@cjzero.bsky.social · 2w agoJordan Southerland won the dunk of the contest by combining a 6 foot high jump with a dunk 🤯
The Library is devastated to learn of the passing of Dolly Parton, a music legend and titan of children's literacy. Her Imagination Library program has earned multiple Library Literacy Awards and, in 2018, she visited us to donate its 100 millionth book to our collection and host a story time. 🦋❤️
When your wife drinks half a can of seltzer and then just leaves it somewhere
JAV Titles@jav.scd.lol · 2w agoThe Momentary Desires of the Wife #48
Dems could choose this moment to make the case that education is for creating free people
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w agoBASH: One of the things that's happening is there's a push to start students down a trade school track as early as elementary school. Is that too early? LINDA McMAHON: I don't think so BASH: But elementary school? McMAHON: I think you can have some introduction of skilled trades in elementary
Best songs about songwriting 2. Purple Mountains - Snow is Falling In Manhattan Influenced by Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space Berman constructs a song as “a room in time” where the listener is the invited guest and the song itself is both gift and sanctuary. youtu.be/50227UHWULg?...
Snow is Falling in Manhattan
YouTube video by Purple Mountains - Topic
youtu.be
It feels like industry is waiting for universities to come up with ideas about how they can use Ai and all I can think is: it is not my job to make your business more profitable.
In 1999, the LA Times asked 36 writers, from Susan Sontag to Elmore Leonard, to share their neglected classics of the century, books they loved but which failed to find the readers they deserved. You can read their responses here: neglectedbooks.com/?...
Padgett Powell on Ivan Turgenev and the "detumescent intellectual", temporarily out from behind the paywall at @bookpostusa.bsky.social in honor of Donald Rayfield's new translation of Turgenev's Smoke, which has plenty of detumescent patriots in it.
Review: Padgett Powell on Ivan Turgenev
Re attending to one’s intellectual fundament
books.substack.com
brb getting this tattooed on me immediately
Daniel Bellingradt@dbellingradt.bsky.social · 2w agoIt's Wednesday, my dudes. Also A.T.D.S.S.T.S. in your face
you knew this would happen as soon as we allowed them to have knife guns
The weirdest thing to me about treating books as a resource for words is that it presumes if your computer learns enough words, it will learn ideas, but the apparatus to distinguish one idea from another is not based on statistical probability, it is based on culture and time.
404 Media@404media.co · 3w agoSCOOP: 404 Media placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it. What did we find? It ended up at an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books. Yes. This is literally the logo outside the Amazon warehouse door. Read now:
The chief barrier between students and learning to write is not the existence of AI, but the overwhelming presence of a transactional system of schooling. This was the problem before AI. We have to center this problem, not AI, whatever its capacities. biblioracle.substack.com/p/addressing...
Addressing the Transactional Model of School
We need to attack thoughtless ChatGPT use from the demand side.
biblioracle.substack.com
I adored Tove Jansson's FAIR PLAY, a wonderful, profound collection of vignettes on art and creativity, friendship and love. Translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal, this is my first #WITMonth review: readersretreat2017.wordpress.com/2026/08/15/f...
Fair Play – Tove Jansson (tr. Thomas Teal)
Fair Play by Tove Jansson is a wonderful, deceptively simple yet profound novella about creativity and art, friendship and love.
readersretreat2017.wordpress.com
Maybe my most anticipated album of the year so far… ffo irreverent Canadians, power pop, slacker pop, a well-timed “Woo!” etc. via @krecs.bsky.social music.apple.com/us/album/blo...
Blowin' Up by Kiwi jr. on Apple Music
Album · 2026 · 10 Songs
music.apple.com
Fantastic new indie-pop that feels instantly classic from @slumberlandrecords.com music.apple.com/us/album/was...
Was It Always This Way by Real Numbers on Apple Music
Album · 2026 · 10 Songs
music.apple.com
yeah man "woke 1" sucked ass. I "woke 1" morning from uneasy dreams to find myself transformed into a giant insect
One of the very few books I’ve read in one sitting. Such a beautiful, loving partnership, displayed so simply and clearly.
Radz Pandit@radzpandit.bsky.social · 4w agoAlso, starting FAIR PLAY today for #WITMonth. Translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal.
An absolutely incredible novel.
JacquiWine@jacquiwine.bsky.social · 4w agoEasily one of the best books I’ve read this year. I loved the incisive prose, the subtle foreshadowing, the flashes of dark humour, the caustic pen portraits, the circular structure, the sense that everything was fated to happen from the outset. Just superb! jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/08/04/t...
Three of the most unpleasant looking mutants you've ever seen in your life: You wouldn't want a doctor in charge, would you?
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last mo.JD Vance: "We don't want the next administration, whoever -- god forbid you're gonna have President El-Sayed in three years ... "