For some time recently I contemplated writing a biography of M. R. James — and I’m now glad I didn’t commit because here’s a new one. Adam Roberts has a review coming soon in the TLS.
A decade or more ago there was a robust ecosystem of libraries and museums sharing items from their collections on the open web, but now they’re all on Instagram and other walled gardens. I think that’s wholly inconsistent with their institutional missions. I hope they come back some day.
Wonderful photo by Wendi Poole of Steuart Pincombe, whose music did so much to enhance this retreat.
This explanation of why my Big Blog is called The Homebound Symphony is also a good overview of what I’m trying to do in all my online writing.
me irl rn
My old internet friend Erin Kissane and I probably have some significant disagreements about electoral politics, but there’s a deeper politics of how human beings communicate with one another about which we are in real agreement. I love the work on our common life she’s been doing ever since the Covid Tracking Project — a great example, by the way, of how anarchic practices can achieve things impossible for our formal political order. Nowadays she’s thinking about clouds and atmospheres‚ literally and metaphorically, and I am tracking carefully.
See also Ruskin on the open skies and on cloud beauty.