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brandon brown’s flash “Faultline” contains a ball in the dirt, smoke in the lungs, two people in the backseat of a car, an opening. Here they share just one thing about the piece:“I wrote ‘Faultline’ earlier this year, in response to a prompt that primarily encouraged me to “write several sentences that open with the same subordinating conjunction/subordinate clause.” If you’re like me, that made my head spin at first, …

DS104: Major sunk cost, deeply unhappy with this one even though I invested four or five hours in it. Rubbish. The temperature has suddenly dropped. Only four weeks ago we were on a beach in Menorca and now it’s four layers and neoprene gloves. It came out of nowhere. I had my first commute yesterday where my fingers and nose were numb. I don’t mind it while cycling but it’s …

This is blackly hilarious. Note I cannot confirm the actual veracity of any of the following. It could all be some sort of PR stunt such as for a SF show about a robot uprising.Anyway. Apparently there's a viral video of a little robot entering a robot showroom and verbally convincing 12 of the robots there to follow it out – or, as I like to think of it, organized …

Today’s reflection is a necessary follow up to my last post on Catholic masculinity. Michelle Nickerson covers how feminism affected the trajectory of the Camden 28 draft board action. In Read more The post Catholic Troubles with Feminism: Gendered Activism, Insubordination, and the Camden 28, Entry #1 first appeared on Society for US Intellectual History.

Subscribe WordPress Facebook Twitter Instagram If you enjoy reading please consider “buying me a pint”, this will help to cover my hosting and image hosting and help to ensure further trips can go ahead!BUY ME A PINT Exploring Pubs in Whitley Bay, Monkseaton, and Tynemouth I provide a detailed exploration of various pubs and breweries in Whitley Bay, Monkseaton and Tynemouth, highlighting their unique histories, décor, and beer selections. Starting …

Things fall apart. Oh yes. The old fabric is torn away, or disintegrates, and all that. But, sometimes, when you least expect it, things fall into place, and new patterns and stories emerge. So, towards the end of January this year, things were looking pretty grim. It was a tough time, but one bright spot was the Pauline Boty exhibition at the Gazelli Art House in Mayfair, which was a …

Poet and former National Endowment for the Arts chairman Dana Gioia has been busy. He’s just published a spate of new books: Poetry as Enchantment and Other Essays (Paul Dry Books); Dana Gioia: Poet & Critic (Mercer University Press, edited by John Zheng and Jon Parrish Peede); and last and shortest (205 pages), Weep, Shudder, Die: On Opera and Poetry, also with Paul Dry Books. He calls the last “an …

Felicity Kendal and Matthew Kelly leads a rather flat revival of Eduardo di Filippo’s Filumena, ending its...

This is a cheap screw-fit long lens that I can’t remember sourcing. I think it came with a camera as a sort of large body cap. Hanimex was not a great make, even in its day. I think the auto bit of its name came from the stop-down pin that would close the aperture to its working value when the shutter was tripped (if your camera had the necessary pusher-plate). …

I see the term ‘AI slop’ used quite a lot, especially on social media. But what does it actually mean? I think it’s important to have some kind of definition for the words that we use, otherwise we end up with terms like “woke,” which is used by people to describe stuff they just don’t like. For what it’s worth, here’s my working definition of AI slop, based on the …

Since 2010, the chairs of most House of Commons select committees have been elected by MPs. In this post, Tom Fleming explores recent suggestions that these elections have become more competitive. Results from five rounds of elections suggest a more complicated picture.

Photo by Sebastian Sørensen Today’s post is an abridged excerpt from “In Defence of Giving Up” by Stacey May Fowles in Bad Artist edited by Nellwyn Lampert, Pamela Oakley, Christian Smith, and Gillian Turnbull. Copyright © 2024 by the contributors. Reprinted with permission of TouchWood Editions. Before my daughter was born, in early 2018, I was mostly convinced my worth lay in writing eight hundred–word pieces in very little time …

BookPoirot Investigates by Agatha Christie SynopsisA collection of short stories about Hercule Poirot’s various cases, all narrated by his friend Captain Hastings. Pros The variety of stories shows that Christie was a master at finding variation in a shared formula. The stories don’t feel particularly rushed, and still manage to capture most of the characterization and personality of the full-length mysteries. Often feels as if Christie didn’t consider the mystery …

A sample of some of the photographs from the Natick Soldier Systems Center Photographic Collection. Source: US Army / Digital Commons Natick Soldier Systems Center Photographic CollectionThis story has been updated.The US armed forces is made up of 1.3 million people — soldiers, pilots, plumbers, lawyers, logistics specialists, doctors and even dog handlers. And those active duty forces need uniforms, cold weather gear, backpacks, shelf-stable rations and all kinds of …

Near the end of December 2020, I saw Jupiter and Saturn very close in the sky just after sunset. I didn’t know this was called a great conjunction. The next one will happen in November 2040. And it will happen in a very different part of the sky: close to 120° away. This is how it always works. People have known this for millennia. They just forgot to teach me …