Matthew King
@cincinnatusc.bsky.social
I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
by the false azure in the windowpane
birdsandbeesandblooms.com
by the false azure in the windowpane
birdsandbeesandblooms.com
Leonard Cohen reading Al Purdy's "Necropsy of Love"--great illustration of why "free verse" at the top of AP's wiki article makes me itch--if you don't get it on the page you sure do in LC's reading, metrical through & through, bulk of it straight-up IP
borealisrecords.bandcamp.com/track/necrop...
borealisrecords.bandcamp.com/track/necrop...
Necropsy Of Love, by Leonard Cohen
from the album The Al Purdy Songbook
borealisrecords.bandcamp.com
November 17, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Leonard Cohen reading Al Purdy's "Necropsy of Love"--great illustration of why "free verse" at the top of AP's wiki article makes me itch--if you don't get it on the page you sure do in LC's reading, metrical through & through, bulk of it straight-up IP
borealisrecords.bandcamp.com/track/necrop...
borealisrecords.bandcamp.com/track/necrop...
The market is not going to solve "the housing crisis", exhibit A: prices go down, construction stops
Why hundreds of empty Toronto condo lots are stuck in limbo — attracting the anger of their neighbours
Why hundreds of empty Toronto condo lots are stuck in limbo — attracting the anger of their neighbours
They may one day be home to towering condos, but for now, they are unkempt empty lots that attract pests and garbage — and the anger of nearby neighbours.
www.thestar.com
November 17, 2025 at 4:11 PM
The market is not going to solve "the housing crisis", exhibit A: prices go down, construction stops
Pic of the week: Sinuous Duck
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/16/s...
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/16/s...
Sinuous Duck
Sinuous Duck: photo of mallard taken at Kingston, Ontario. Copyright Matthew King. E-mail birdsandbeesandblooms@gmail.com to inquire concerning use or purchase.
birdsandbeesandblooms.com
November 16, 2025 at 11:43 PM
Pic of the week: Sinuous Duck
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/16/s...
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/16/s...
The thing I think about these occasional "what's with the boomer ellipses" things is that when I first got online in the mid-90s the ellipsis was the preferred and often almost the only punctuation used everywhere...
‘I’ve always accepted my mother’s overuse of ellipses as an idiosyncrasy of an elderly texter. But she doesn’t reserve the ‘. . .’ for ominous messages.’
Madeline Cash on texting, technology and misunderstandings.
granta.com/connecting-t...
Madeline Cash on texting, technology and misunderstandings.
granta.com/connecting-t...
Connecting the Dots | Madeline Cash | Granta
‘There’s an extensive online discourse on the Baby Boomer generation’s penchant for ellipses. “OK . . .” “Thanks . . .” “See you next week . . .”’
granta.com
November 12, 2025 at 6:55 PM
The thing I think about these occasional "what's with the boomer ellipses" things is that when I first got online in the mid-90s the ellipsis was the preferred and often almost the only punctuation used everywhere...
Happy Should I Have Tried Harder to Spot Auroras through Possible Breaks in the Clouds Morning
November 12, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Happy Should I Have Tried Harder to Spot Auroras through Possible Breaks in the Clouds Morning
Watching some American television here as I do not normally do and I would have to say my favourite possible side effect so far is parasitical infections
November 10, 2025 at 11:56 PM
Watching some American television here as I do not normally do and I would have to say my favourite possible side effect so far is parasitical infections
No that's Dukakis. Caucus is the name of the delusion where you think someone has been replaced with an impostor.
No that’s Bacchus. Caucus was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988.
No that’s crocus. Caucus is the Roman god of getting drunk and having orgies.
November 10, 2025 at 4:02 PM
No that's Dukakis. Caucus is the name of the delusion where you think someone has been replaced with an impostor.
Pic of the week: Swans and Clouds
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/09/s...
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/09/s...
Swans and Clouds
Swans and Clouds: photo of tundra swans taken at Kingston, Ontario. Copyright Matthew King. E-mail birdsandbeesandblooms@gmail.com to inquire concerning use or purchase.
birdsandbeesandblooms.com
November 10, 2025 at 2:47 AM
Pic of the week: Swans and Clouds
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/09/s...
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/09/s...
I was curious who the "professor at an elite Canadian university" might be, so as I do occasionally when I'm looking for something very specific I ventured into the swamp of google search and... this is the low-key wildest stew of bullplop I've seen the google bot come up with yet:
November 7, 2025 at 4:12 PM
I was curious who the "professor at an elite Canadian university" might be, so as I do occasionally when I'm looking for something very specific I ventured into the swamp of google search and... this is the low-key wildest stew of bullplop I've seen the google bot come up with yet:
This, from Nabokov's Pnin (which I'm taking another slog at; I might've titled this little book By the Way: Detours from Excursions (it begins after all on the wrong train)), reminds me of a thing that happened in a Merleau-Ponty seminar with my eventual PhD supervisor, which I think of often:
November 6, 2025 at 1:41 AM
This, from Nabokov's Pnin (which I'm taking another slog at; I might've titled this little book By the Way: Detours from Excursions (it begins after all on the wrong train)), reminds me of a thing that happened in a Merleau-Ponty seminar with my eventual PhD supervisor, which I think of often:
Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but tariffs on exports of your seafood products
Graham Platner, the working-class U.S. Senate candidate from Maine, is someone who might inspire the aunt who sends you Trump-as-modern-Hitler memes and also the cousin who listens to “Chapo Trap House,” Jay Caspian Kang writes. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/ETudCv
What Explains Graham Platner’s Popularity?
The U.S. Senate candidate from Maine seems like the embodiment of the dirtbag left. But there’s another way to understand his appeal.
newyorkermag.visitlink.me
November 5, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but tariffs on exports of your seafood products
I dunno how widely shared among poets a dirty secret this is that I'm saying out loud here but just once it'd be nice, when I come across something in a poem by someone else that's strikingly similar to something in one of mine, to not find that they'd published theirs first
November 5, 2025 at 10:31 PM
I dunno how widely shared among poets a dirty secret this is that I'm saying out loud here but just once it'd be nice, when I come across something in a poem by someone else that's strikingly similar to something in one of mine, to not find that they'd published theirs first
I guess serious people who aren't part of the Thielverse are expected not to take Yarvin's elves/dark elves/hobbits thing seriously but I think (bracket the Tolkien stuff if it helps) it actually explains why people (like Krugman here, from his substack today) keep missing the mark on this stuff:
November 4, 2025 at 5:00 PM
I guess serious people who aren't part of the Thielverse are expected not to take Yarvin's elves/dark elves/hobbits thing seriously but I think (bracket the Tolkien stuff if it helps) it actually explains why people (like Krugman here, from his substack today) keep missing the mark on this stuff:
Pic of the week: Sideways Woodpecker
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/03/s...
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/03/s...
Sideways Woodpecker
Sideways Woodpecker: photo of pileated woodpecker taken near Marmora, Ontario. Copyright Matthew King. E-mail birdsandbeesandblooms@gmail.com to inquire concerning use or purchase.
birdsandbeesandblooms.com
November 4, 2025 at 3:44 AM
Pic of the week: Sideways Woodpecker
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/03/s...
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/11/03/s...
That Game is never not gonna be painful but on World Series championships over the fullness of time I always think: the Mariners were the team of 2001, everyone knows it, even though the Yankees won the World Series that year
And then I remember the Yankees didn't win the World Series that year
And then I remember the Yankees didn't win the World Series that year
November 3, 2025 at 2:30 PM
That Game is never not gonna be painful but on World Series championships over the fullness of time I always think: the Mariners were the team of 2001, everyone knows it, even though the Yankees won the World Series that year
And then I remember the Yankees didn't win the World Series that year
And then I remember the Yankees didn't win the World Series that year
Some new nonsense by me in the delightfully deranged dadakuku!
A new verse from returning contributor Matthew King:
lll[I]ll
[take]lll[it]
ll[back]lll
— Matthew King
lll[I]ll
[take]lll[it]
ll[back]lll
— Matthew King
…
lll[I]ll[take]lll[it]ll[back]lll — Matthew King
dadakuku.com
November 3, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Some new nonsense by me in the delightfully deranged dadakuku!
One of the things I'll always remember about this Jays team is when @rick-glid.bsky.social and I went to a pub in Peterborough and caught the tail-end of yet another Bowden Francis near-no-hitter. Yeah, that was 2024, and Bowden Francis became a disappeared person this year, and that was this team.
November 2, 2025 at 10:03 AM
One of the things I'll always remember about this Jays team is when @rick-glid.bsky.social and I went to a pub in Peterborough and caught the tail-end of yet another Bowden Francis near-no-hitter. Yeah, that was 2024, and Bowden Francis became a disappeared person this year, and that was this team.
If I were that Senate candidate I would simply have added a circle and a 6 to the tattoo, positioned myself as a fan of old school neofolk, and insisted that the band is misunderstood, they are antifascists and actually beloved in Israel (wait)
November 1, 2025 at 6:23 PM
If I were that Senate candidate I would simply have added a circle and a 6 to the tattoo, positioned myself as a fan of old school neofolk, and insisted that the band is misunderstood, they are antifascists and actually beloved in Israel (wait)
Just so no one has to go to another site to find out whether they're alone in thinking the airbnb logo looks like a nose, let me put down here: the airbnb logo looks like a nose
October 30, 2025 at 6:45 AM
Just so no one has to go to another site to find out whether they're alone in thinking the airbnb logo looks like a nose, let me put down here: the airbnb logo looks like a nose
I keep seeing "can you believe it" about the Jays and it makes me think of what dream-Clara writes on the blackboard when the Doctor is trapped in the confession dial: how are you going to WIN? The question isn't are you, the question is how.
October 29, 2025 at 9:57 PM
I keep seeing "can you believe it" about the Jays and it makes me think of what dream-Clara writes on the blackboard when the Doctor is trapped in the confession dial: how are you going to WIN? The question isn't are you, the question is how.
Pic of the week: Loon Spray
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/10/29/l...
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/10/29/l...
Loon Spray
Loon Spray. Photo taken on Wollaston Lake, Ontario. Copyright Matthew King. E-mail birdsandbeesandblooms@gmail.com to inquire concerning use or purchase.
birdsandbeesandblooms.com
October 29, 2025 at 6:16 AM
Pic of the week: Loon Spray
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/10/29/l...
birdsandbeesandblooms.com/2025/10/29/l...
Considered conceding a point to the pitch clock here, decided nah
Game 3 on Monday night lasted 399 minutes, which is the 2nd longest World Series game in our database.
October 28, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Considered conceding a point to the pitch clock here, decided nah
mindfulness practise
take an intentional walk
Shohei Ohtani
I drink through a Straw
at-bat—you’d not be bunting
Addison Barger
Alejandro Kirk
in the eighteenth your homer
is yesterday’s news
take an intentional walk
Shohei Ohtani
I drink through a Straw
at-bat—you’d not be bunting
Addison Barger
Alejandro Kirk
in the eighteenth your homer
is yesterday’s news
October 28, 2025 at 3:42 PM
mindfulness practise
take an intentional walk
Shohei Ohtani
I drink through a Straw
at-bat—you’d not be bunting
Addison Barger
Alejandro Kirk
in the eighteenth your homer
is yesterday’s news
take an intentional walk
Shohei Ohtani
I drink through a Straw
at-bat—you’d not be bunting
Addison Barger
Alejandro Kirk
in the eighteenth your homer
is yesterday’s news
Today's Paris Review poem of the day: so much going on that I didn't notice until the last line that it's an abecedarian, which I gotta say is a heckuva feat (even given that I was reading it in my e-mail on my phone with line breaks messed up, probably a necessary condition but still) to pull off
October 26, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Today's Paris Review poem of the day: so much going on that I didn't notice until the last line that it's an abecedarian, which I gotta say is a heckuva feat (even given that I was reading it in my e-mail on my phone with line breaks messed up, probably a necessary condition but still) to pull off
For the word-collecting poets: took a while, because nothing about "drug-eluting stents" seems interested in what that word "eluting" is doing, but apparently elution is the same as leaching except a substance is leached from throughout some stuff while it's eluted only from its surface
New drug-eluting balloon may be as safe and effective as conventional metal stents for repeat percutaneous coronary interventions
www.eurekalert.org/news-release...
www.eurekalert.org/news-release...
New drug-eluting balloon may be as safe and effective as conventional metal stents for repeat percutaneous coronary interventions
Trial led by Mount Sinai researcher could lead to safer and easier treatment for patients with coronary in-stent restenosis
www.eurekalert.org
October 26, 2025 at 6:20 PM
For the word-collecting poets: took a while, because nothing about "drug-eluting stents" seems interested in what that word "eluting" is doing, but apparently elution is the same as leaching except a substance is leached from throughout some stuff while it's eluted only from its surface