Franklin Bruno
@humanfranklin.bsky.social
I used to do bandcamp Friday posts regularly, haven't for some time. But why not? Here's my cart: The Would-Be-Goods, Tears Before Bedtime - 1st studio album since 2008 by UK indiepop legend Jessica Griffin, whose songwriting transcends the genre. would-be-goods.bandcamp.com/album/tears-... (1/7)
Tears Before Bedtime, by Would-Be-Goods
14 track album
would-be-goods.bandcamp.com
February 6, 2026 at 9:51 PM
I used to do bandcamp Friday posts regularly, haven't for some time. But why not? Here's my cart: The Would-Be-Goods, Tears Before Bedtime - 1st studio album since 2008 by UK indiepop legend Jessica Griffin, whose songwriting transcends the genre. would-be-goods.bandcamp.com/album/tears-... (1/7)
I guess we all know about Daniel Blumberg's avant-garde connections and approach to soundtracks, but it was still a cool surprise to see Shelley Hirsch, Phil Minton, and UK drone violinist Billy Steiger, whom I heard opening for [Ahmed] last year, show up in the credits for The Testament of Ann Lee.
February 6, 2026 at 6:23 PM
I guess we all know about Daniel Blumberg's avant-garde connections and approach to soundtracks, but it was still a cool surprise to see Shelley Hirsch, Phil Minton, and UK drone violinist Billy Steiger, whom I heard opening for [Ahmed] last year, show up in the credits for The Testament of Ann Lee.
Lucrezia Calabró Visconti, Lee Lozano: In the Studio. Succinct survey of the NY painter, conceptualist, and (c. 1972) artworld "dropout," well-illustrated w/ her notebook pages. Big plus: presents the late work w/o overinterpreting it, leaving LL's negations troubling, as they should be. #readin26
February 1, 2026 at 3:22 PM
Lucrezia Calabró Visconti, Lee Lozano: In the Studio. Succinct survey of the NY painter, conceptualist, and (c. 1972) artworld "dropout," well-illustrated w/ her notebook pages. Big plus: presents the late work w/o overinterpreting it, leaving LL's negations troubling, as they should be. #readin26
Reposted by Franklin Bruno
I have long enjoyed writing to my literary heroes. No more so than as a romantic book-mad 20year-old, pre library employment. Muriel Spark was quick to recommend the library as a source for her further reading faves to save me 'dipping into my dole'. How I treasure this letter #libraries
January 28, 2026 at 8:10 PM
I have long enjoyed writing to my literary heroes. No more so than as a romantic book-mad 20year-old, pre library employment. Muriel Spark was quick to recommend the library as a source for her further reading faves to save me 'dipping into my dole'. How I treasure this letter #libraries
Muriel Spark, The Takeover. The goddess Diana infiltrates 1970s Italy (where Spark then lived), amid the Years of Lead. Recalls a few of her earliest novels, w/ capricious plotting and a large cast of eccentric swindlers. A bit aimless, but some of the writerly digressions are brilliant. #readin26.
January 27, 2026 at 8:08 PM
Muriel Spark, The Takeover. The goddess Diana infiltrates 1970s Italy (where Spark then lived), amid the Years of Lead. Recalls a few of her earliest novels, w/ capricious plotting and a large cast of eccentric swindlers. A bit aimless, but some of the writerly digressions are brilliant. #readin26.
I rarely post about the crises and injustices Trump and his lackeys have wrought. I'm unsure what it does, and dislike performing righteousness. But if anyone asks: I loathe these fascists, fear for their victims, and share the growing desperation to effectively resist and reverse these disasters.
January 24, 2026 at 5:30 PM
I rarely post about the crises and injustices Trump and his lackeys have wrought. I'm unsure what it does, and dislike performing righteousness. But if anyone asks: I loathe these fascists, fear for their victims, and share the growing desperation to effectively resist and reverse these disasters.
Thomas A. Clark, Thrum. Scottish poet rooted in the local landscape, as one says; kindred to Ian Hamilton Finlay in botanical nominalism, and implicit politics: "a sustainable/ economy/is to pay/attention." Terse, at 3-12 lines/page; but at 102 pp., the effect isn't minimalist: it adds up. #readin26
January 24, 2026 at 3:34 AM
Thomas A. Clark, Thrum. Scottish poet rooted in the local landscape, as one says; kindred to Ian Hamilton Finlay in botanical nominalism, and implicit politics: "a sustainable/ economy/is to pay/attention." Terse, at 3-12 lines/page; but at 102 pp., the effect isn't minimalist: it adds up. #readin26
Reposted by Franklin Bruno
They like cops so much that all we’re getting is cops. No roads, no bridges, no school funding, no culture money, just a bouquet of different types of cops
January 22, 2026 at 9:56 PM
They like cops so much that all we’re getting is cops. No roads, no bridges, no school funding, no culture money, just a bouquet of different types of cops
Rob Mazurek, Flitting Splits Reverb Adage. Poems/opera lyrics (+ visual art repros) by Chicago trumpeter/improviser, in the incantatory lineage of jazz-adjacent poetry from Sun Ra to S. Dalachinsky. Heavy on process-conveying gerunds, but I dig his futurist invocation of "The Astropocene." #readin26
January 22, 2026 at 3:37 PM
Rob Mazurek, Flitting Splits Reverb Adage. Poems/opera lyrics (+ visual art repros) by Chicago trumpeter/improviser, in the incantatory lineage of jazz-adjacent poetry from Sun Ra to S. Dalachinsky. Heavy on process-conveying gerunds, but I dig his futurist invocation of "The Astropocene." #readin26
Jean Frémon, The Paradoxes of Robert Ryman, trans. Brian Evenson. Texts by RR's friend & French gallerist, moving from formal description to a last visit during the painter's "not himself" ebbing in the 2010s. Touching, but don't look for critical distance: RR is taken at his gnomic word. #readin26
January 22, 2026 at 3:20 PM
Jean Frémon, The Paradoxes of Robert Ryman, trans. Brian Evenson. Texts by RR's friend & French gallerist, moving from formal description to a last visit during the painter's "not himself" ebbing in the 2010s. Touching, but don't look for critical distance: RR is taken at his gnomic word. #readin26
big cities <---> tiny hotel rooms
January 22, 2026 at 10:19 AM
big cities <---> tiny hotel rooms
Would like to inform New Yorkers that The Human Hearts are playing our first show of this misbegotten year Fri. 1/30 at Gold Sounds (44 Wilson, Bushwick), at a record release show for our friends Sotto Voce, a deft, post-rock (but actually rocking) power trio I like a lot. Come on by.
January 18, 2026 at 7:11 PM
Would like to inform New Yorkers that The Human Hearts are playing our first show of this misbegotten year Fri. 1/30 at Gold Sounds (44 Wilson, Bushwick), at a record release show for our friends Sotto Voce, a deft, post-rock (but actually rocking) power trio I like a lot. Come on by.
Afrizal Malna, Document Shredding Museum, trans. Daniel Owen. I know zip about Indonesian lit, but the concerns & technique are cosmopolitan, w/ a distinctive use of verbal repetition to the point of near-abstraction. Last third is weaker, but there's a genuine poetic strangeness here. #readin26
January 18, 2026 at 5:33 PM
Afrizal Malna, Document Shredding Museum, trans. Daniel Owen. I know zip about Indonesian lit, but the concerns & technique are cosmopolitan, w/ a distinctive use of verbal repetition to the point of near-abstraction. Last third is weaker, but there's a genuine poetic strangeness here. #readin26
Muriel Spark, The Abbess of Crewe. Watergate in a convent, w/ buggings, break-ins, stand-ins for Haldeman, Dean, et al, & Kissinger. The title character is a version of Nixon, but also of Jean Brodie. 13 books in, I read Spark more for prose technique than her often baffling moral sense. #readin26
January 11, 2026 at 9:34 PM
Muriel Spark, The Abbess of Crewe. Watergate in a convent, w/ buggings, break-ins, stand-ins for Haldeman, Dean, et al, & Kissinger. The title character is a version of Nixon, but also of Jean Brodie. 13 books in, I read Spark more for prose technique than her often baffling moral sense. #readin26
Anne Garréta, Not One Day (trans. Emma Ramadan). A queer Oulipean Scheherazade devotes 12 "nights" of writing to as many lovers or near-misses; a postface undercuts the entire conceit. Very French; would pair well w/ A Lover's Discourse. "How we love to exaggerate the power of desire." #readin26
January 10, 2026 at 8:32 PM
Anne Garréta, Not One Day (trans. Emma Ramadan). A queer Oulipean Scheherazade devotes 12 "nights" of writing to as many lovers or near-misses; a postface undercuts the entire conceit. Very French; would pair well w/ A Lover's Discourse. "How we love to exaggerate the power of desire." #readin26
John Wilkinson, Wood Circle. 2021 collection of mostly 1-page poems. Begins in pastoral, broadly lyric mode, but moves onto a cruise ship (he hates it), w/ brief documentary gestures at refugee crises. The syntax breathes more than what I'd read of him; more pumice than Prynnian granite. #readin26
January 9, 2026 at 9:05 PM
John Wilkinson, Wood Circle. 2021 collection of mostly 1-page poems. Begins in pastoral, broadly lyric mode, but moves onto a cruise ship (he hates it), w/ brief documentary gestures at refugee crises. The syntax breathes more than what I'd read of him; more pumice than Prynnian granite. #readin26
Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism. Polemic against subjectivism, expressionism, the first person, & "presence"; "theory" is the answer. Some insightful readings, but the brush is broad, and the High Verso prose draws the worst lessons from Jameson and Clover. #readin26
January 9, 2026 at 8:40 PM
Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism. Polemic against subjectivism, expressionism, the first person, & "presence"; "theory" is the answer. Some insightful readings, but the brush is broad, and the High Verso prose draws the worst lessons from Jameson and Clover. #readin26
This mf'ing might makes right, law of the jungle, FAFO shit, domestically and internationally, has been a strand in our country's make-up since before its founding, and may also be our ruin. I hope more of us can resist it when we're facing it head on, whatever the consequences.
January 8, 2026 at 2:55 PM
This mf'ing might makes right, law of the jungle, FAFO shit, domestically and internationally, has been a strand in our country's make-up since before its founding, and may also be our ruin. I hope more of us can resist it when we're facing it head on, whatever the consequences.
"The deer in the parks of the great are demure domestic cattle, fat as London alderman." Marvelous sentence, deep in the "Primitive Accumulation" chapter of Capital (v. 1, Fowkes translation) - it's almost lyrical, taken out of context.
December 27, 2025 at 3:19 PM
"The deer in the parks of the great are demure domestic cattle, fat as London alderman." Marvelous sentence, deep in the "Primitive Accumulation" chapter of Capital (v. 1, Fowkes translation) - it's almost lyrical, taken out of context.
Reposted by Franklin Bruno
THE YETI SPEAKS (whose two halves use the same letters, in the same order):
December 9, 2025 at 7:19 AM
THE YETI SPEAKS (whose two halves use the same letters, in the same order):
Weren't Thick Pigeon available?
Went to a great rock show at the local park. I saw Geese, Swans and Ducks Deluxe, all supported by Pond
December 3, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Weren't Thick Pigeon available?
I used to hear something similar about indie record distribution. If one person asks if a store has a record, they'll say no and ignore it; second person, they'll say no but remember; third person, they'll try to order it; if the distributor doesn't carry the label, and -one- store asks, etc. etc.
I once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.
I see some book piracy discourse, and, to make a positive argument in favor of buying books, your marginal ability to influence what books get published and support the careers of writers you like is massive compared to most other forms of media.
November 27, 2025 at 3:02 AM
I used to hear something similar about indie record distribution. If one person asks if a store has a record, they'll say no and ignore it; second person, they'll say no but remember; third person, they'll try to order it; if the distributor doesn't carry the label, and -one- store asks, etc. etc.
You know how some people are disgusted by the word "moist" - something about the combination of meaning, sound, and the way it feels in the mouth? That's how I feel about "morsel."
November 24, 2025 at 4:05 PM
You know how some people are disgusted by the word "moist" - something about the combination of meaning, sound, and the way it feels in the mouth? That's how I feel about "morsel."
Reposted by Franklin Bruno
thought I lost my book but it was. in my hand
November 16, 2025 at 1:30 AM
thought I lost my book but it was. in my hand
I read three (short) Muriel Spark novels this week. What a weird writer. I had no idea.
October 30, 2025 at 7:02 PM
I read three (short) Muriel Spark novels this week. What a weird writer. I had no idea.