🔥🖤 https://music.apple.com/us/album/sittin-on-top-of-the-world/1689695573?i=1689695574

#bookstr Great book: https://www.ndbooks.com/book/lucky-breaks/

*protocols — *clients —

Guilty Confession:

I deleted my Twitter account, but I still check out my favorite “book people” via a browser because many of my favs are lit professors and/or critics — and they may never migrate to other platforms — if they take away this option— 💀

I saw my son attend college classes during Covid—- not sure if professors get “tech”

PD.

*Bardo (borrow)

#lunchtime read

I’ve read Lincoln in the Baro & this interview makes me excited to read “Thursday” —another George Saunders story.

Your story “Thursday” involves a kind of (unwanted) mind meld between two strangers, in which one man experiences the memories of the other (who has died). The two men have very different personalities and histories. I’m guessing that the challenge of writing the story was also the pleasure of writing it: finding a credible way to blend the two voices while keeping them distinct. How did you do it?

GS: “Yes, you’re right about that; that aspect was both challenging and enjoyable….

But, if I’m thinking more as a critic, the benefit of this move might be that, on some level, the juxtaposition of those minds reminds us of a bigger truth; namely, that “a human community” is really just a bunch of highly subjective thought-streams, generated by clumps of flesh inside the heads of a group of bodies, bodies that are blundering around, each convinced that his or her thought-stream is the one and only authoritative, objective thought-stream.” George Saunders on the Nature of Mind https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/george-saunders-06-12-23

Lots of colorful blocks in the universe at this moment. What could it mean?!

Morning #poem by Alicia Suskin Ostriker

“A wall is a symbol of safety that never works, it didn't keep the Mongols out,

it tightens the fear inside you like a buckle.”

from “Are You My Cousin” #WaitingForLight

Thank you — very important.

GN— spending time reading the new edition of essays (On Women) by Susan Sontag tonight.

“Sontag’s beauty and celebrity were, in the minds of her detractors, proof that her feminism was flawed, since it made her unable to relate to the woman on the street. Edited by Sontag’s son, David Rieff, with an introduction by the author and literary critic Merve Emre, On Women highlights Sontag’s thoughts on womanhood and feminist discourse by gathering her journalism and interviews on the subject in one place.

All seven pieces here were published in the 70s, when second-wave feminism was at its height in the US. The feminist poet Adrienne Rich said Sontag’s writings on women were “more of an intellectual exercise than the expression of a felt reality”, yet, as this collection illustrates, Sontag’s frustration at female oppression was real and her privilege was no impediment to her ability to empathise with, and rage at, the broader experience of women.” https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/on-women-by-susan-sontag-review-boldly-provocative-feminist-essays-2379188

When I was on Mastodon— the instance I joined allowed me to choose when to reveal or hide an image. For example, if I was enjoying a cocktail & shared a pic— a social norm encouraged was to put a hashtag such as booze & cover the image to respect those who were struggling with alcoholism.

Easy, I thought.

But then— every time I posted— I asked myself— should I cover & place a hash tag.

Another example, “I better cover my books”— and it felt diminishing after awhile to cover what brings me joy.

Or if I dressed up for a night on the town & felt like sharing a pic— “I better cover

to avoid ‘the ones’ (but that also felt strange).

No one made you cover images— but it became an internal battle for me—

I liked the choice— not criticizing— but for someone like me— it became “a thing”

I like on Damus it’s either/or— but for other users images.

🖤💛 #Pittsburgh https://nostr.build/av/368cdc88d992832ec7e0937294e1bf428a8fee6b48b1ac40029b933bff8aed5e.mov

https://lexcovato.com/ #PittsburghArtsFestival

Heading to the Pittsburgh Arts Festival! ☀️ Fountain Pic first! https://nostr.build/av/f23ed1b472e96a341c8097b19dec5e28d4874b2b4ba124a7ed1fdeb6af888148.mov

Brunch with the boys at Ritual House Downtown #Pittsburgh! 😋😋☕️🍹🥓

Alice Keeler is also working on Bluesky for educators…

This should be interesting— one of my favorite ED Tech educators — her husband is an English teacher & they are writing a book. https://alicekeeler.com/2023/06/01/the-ai-english-teacher/

https://music.apple.com/us/album/free-mind/1532252592?i=1532252603

https://nostr.build/av/2c1a79c0613a58a40100e00b67126b64c282c11f7dc499fc9dcd9184268b5b90.mov

Always enjoy rereading books about or written by Leonora Carrington in the summer… “In Carrington’s creation story, the butt of the joke is her true origins, an incurably repressive Anglo-Irish upbringing, which she fled in 1937. She settled first in France, and then, when the Nazis descended, Madrid, New York, and Mexico City, where she spent the rest of her life. She never again saw her father, a Lancashire mill owner who, in her twenties, had her committed to a mental institution. “Of the two, I was far more afraid of my father than I was of Hitler,” she claimed. She seldom visited her mother, an able, sympathetic woman, more mesmerized by the whirligig of the London scene than by art or literature.” How Leonora Carrington Feminized Surrealism https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/28/how-leonora-carrington-feminized-surrealism