Margery Brews of Norfolk, in the year of our Lord 1477, writes to her “right well-beloved valentine.”
Today I’ve been going around singing R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” in the voice of Comic Book Guy. You’re welcome.
Two quotations on two visions of “human survival.”
I wrote about true crime and the rise of the detective story.
Further adventures in analog: Currently listening to John Coltrane, Ballads, on vinyl. β«
Our son Wes in the Tate Gallery London, summer 1996. Taken (by Teri, I’m almost sure) with our beloved Nikon FE-2, which we still have, though it’s in need of repair. Maybe we should’ve stuck with that camera all these years. That print is small … I wonder if I can find the negative …

Here’s the amazing Robin Sloan thinking patiently and carefully through the fundamental question about AI: Is it okay? It’s perfect that Robin is doing this in a blog post β the first of several, perhaps β because this kind of open-ended thinking is what blogs are best suited for.
I wrote a post for my BMAC supporters on why I won’t be making a pivot to political writing, and what I’ll be doing instead.
I wrote about why the detective story becomes popular when it does β or one reason anyway: another will come in another post.
John Ruskin, from Unto This Last:
No human actions ever were intended by the Maker of men to be guided by balances of expediency, but by balances of justice. He has therefore rendered all endeavours to determine expediency futile for evermore. No man ever knew, or can know, what will be the ultimate result to himself, or to others, of any given line of conduct. But every man may know, and most of us do know, what is a just and unjust act.
This Nick Carr post is closely related to two essays of mine (one of which he quotes): “Something Happened By Us” and “Some Enchanted Evening.” As I write in the first essay, “Any freedom from what torments us begins with a proper demonology. Later we may proceed to exorcism.”
My massive essay on Thomas Pynchon covers the same territory, as it should, since Pynchon is our greatest demonologist.
In the end, [Milosz’s] The Captive Mind also speaks to those left on the other side of the curtain, warning them against letting the tension of their political reality replace their own internal tensionβacknowledging their captive times but maintaining the inner life that animates their loves, fears, and fantasies. MiΕosz cautions the artists and writers living under repressive regimes not to let the outer pressure determine their inner core. The times may be captive, but the thinking has to remain free.

Ancient writers at their desks. Even back then some people knew how to apply ass to chair.
My dear friend Wesley Hill has written a lovely brief book about Easter.