Sarah Burke Cahalan
@sarahbc.bsky.social
former/eternal librarian
…most of what I post here deletes after a few days ✨
header: Georges Dorignac, Joan of Arc Listening to the Voices
…most of what I post here deletes after a few days ✨
header: Georges Dorignac, Joan of Arc Listening to the Voices
Mary Azarian -core
📚 ❄️ 🌚 🪵
📚 ❄️ 🌚 🪵
I am from parts of Massachusetts where we'd get snowed in for a week every few winters, have to use oil-burning hurricane lamps, double up on long underwear, etc., so please listen when I tell you an important part of storm prep is to buy yourself a pie. ❄️ 🥧
January 23, 2026 at 1:08 AM
Mary Azarian -core
📚 ❄️ 🌚 🪵
📚 ❄️ 🌚 🪵
I am from parts of Massachusetts where we'd get snowed in for a week every few winters, have to use oil-burning hurricane lamps, double up on long underwear, etc., so please listen when I tell you an important part of storm prep is to buy yourself a pie. ❄️ 🥧
January 23, 2026 at 1:00 AM
I am from parts of Massachusetts where we'd get snowed in for a week every few winters, have to use oil-burning hurricane lamps, double up on long underwear, etc., so please listen when I tell you an important part of storm prep is to buy yourself a pie. ❄️ 🥧
My kids are curious lovebugs but not strategic masterminds 💕 (Red = my son)
January 22, 2026 at 10:51 PM
My kids are curious lovebugs but not strategic masterminds 💕 (Red = my son)
This is a good catalog/history/manifesto about Greenland, by Kristoffer Damgaard at Neatline Maps
neatlinemaps.com/wp-content/u...
neatlinemaps.com/wp-content/u...
January 22, 2026 at 8:24 PM
This is a good catalog/history/manifesto about Greenland, by Kristoffer Damgaard at Neatline Maps
neatlinemaps.com/wp-content/u...
neatlinemaps.com/wp-content/u...
Reposted by Sarah Burke Cahalan
And so we reach the end: “To be as full of mitzvot as a pomegranate is to look at our world and say, No, it does not stay as it is, No, the future is not yet written, Yes, we can repair the world, Yes, I will be there for you and for the children of our children's children's children.“ 5/6
January 20, 2026 at 2:24 PM
And so we reach the end: “To be as full of mitzvot as a pomegranate is to look at our world and say, No, it does not stay as it is, No, the future is not yet written, Yes, we can repair the world, Yes, I will be there for you and for the children of our children's children's children.“ 5/6
Reposted by Sarah Burke Cahalan
SNOWFALL (Anagrammed Lines)
Winter wails lavish frost:
Snowfall arrives, with its
faint silver. Slow wraiths
flow in salt rivers. What is
final swirls over its thaw.
Winter wails lavish frost:
Snowfall arrives, with its
faint silver. Slow wraiths
flow in salt rivers. What is
final swirls over its thaw.
January 22, 2026 at 10:25 AM
SNOWFALL (Anagrammed Lines)
Winter wails lavish frost:
Snowfall arrives, with its
faint silver. Slow wraiths
flow in salt rivers. What is
final swirls over its thaw.
Winter wails lavish frost:
Snowfall arrives, with its
faint silver. Slow wraiths
flow in salt rivers. What is
final swirls over its thaw.
such a powerful image, however mediated it's been by the artist, copyists, etc over the centuries 📚 📜 🔥
It's not an analogue but this image of European friars burning indigenous (Maya and Aztec I think) books and cultural objects (c. 1585) feels like one of the reference points for whatever is unfolding.
January 21, 2026 at 9:07 PM
such a powerful image, however mediated it's been by the artist, copyists, etc over the centuries 📚 📜 🔥
Weird fact about my house is sometimes I'll hear little exertion noises and think it's my mom crying again (grief!!) and then realize it's actually my kid playing Zelda. Link seems always to be catching his breath in a way that sounds like quiet crying... Anyway, be kind. 💕
January 20, 2026 at 7:42 PM
Weird fact about my house is sometimes I'll hear little exertion noises and think it's my mom crying again (grief!!) and then realize it's actually my kid playing Zelda. Link seems always to be catching his breath in a way that sounds like quiet crying... Anyway, be kind. 💕
These closeups are gorgeous, @jaymoschella.bsky.social ! Topography of the book should be a thing, in addition to archaeology of, etc.
Johannes Balbus' Catholicon -- an immense Latin grammar and dictionary. Printed in Mainz in 1460 by Gutenberg. BPL's copy is one of relatively few printed on vellum (animal skin). Taking some pics with my iphone(!), you can see collagen fibers, hand-applied pigments, and ink squash from the press.
January 19, 2026 at 8:25 PM
These closeups are gorgeous, @jaymoschella.bsky.social ! Topography of the book should be a thing, in addition to archaeology of, etc.
13 years ago a bunch of medical professionals kept me and the baby inside of me from dying! This sure felt like a medical miracle at the time and I'm so grateful we are both around to look at clouds and share puns and read books 💕 Kids are great and childbirth is dangerous xo
January 19, 2026 at 1:12 PM
13 years ago a bunch of medical professionals kept me and the baby inside of me from dying! This sure felt like a medical miracle at the time and I'm so grateful we are both around to look at clouds and share puns and read books 💕 Kids are great and childbirth is dangerous xo
Reposted by Sarah Burke Cahalan
It's #smallpoemsunday 🎉 @tomsnarsky.bsky.social
(This poem is so close to a quotation attributed to David Wheeler I can't take full credit for much but the title 🤖 ✨)
(This poem is so close to a quotation attributed to David Wheeler I can't take full credit for much but the title 🤖 ✨)
January 18, 2026 at 2:49 PM
It's #smallpoemsunday 🎉 @tomsnarsky.bsky.social
(This poem is so close to a quotation attributed to David Wheeler I can't take full credit for much but the title 🤖 ✨)
(This poem is so close to a quotation attributed to David Wheeler I can't take full credit for much but the title 🤖 ✨)
Moby Dick is about a lot of things but I'm repeatedly taken aback by how much it's about books. 🐋 📚 🌊
“He published his manitesto, whereby he set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and vicar-general of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with which he declared these things…” oh wow, Ishmael, can you IMAGINE what kind of crazy person would be like this? 🐋
January 18, 2026 at 7:06 PM
Moby Dick is about a lot of things but I'm repeatedly taken aback by how much it's about books. 🐋 📚 🌊
Reposted by Sarah Burke Cahalan
“Ye sentinels of sleep, It is in vain ye keep
Your drowsy watch before the Ivory Gate;
Though closed the portal seems,
The airy feet of dreams
Ye cannot thus in walls incarcerate.”
Middle of the night insomnia post
Your drowsy watch before the Ivory Gate;
Though closed the portal seems,
The airy feet of dreams
Ye cannot thus in walls incarcerate.”
Middle of the night insomnia post
January 18, 2026 at 8:40 AM
“Ye sentinels of sleep, It is in vain ye keep
Your drowsy watch before the Ivory Gate;
Though closed the portal seems,
The airy feet of dreams
Ye cannot thus in walls incarcerate.”
Middle of the night insomnia post
Your drowsy watch before the Ivory Gate;
Though closed the portal seems,
The airy feet of dreams
Ye cannot thus in walls incarcerate.”
Middle of the night insomnia post
It's #smallpoemsunday 🎉 @tomsnarsky.bsky.social
(This poem is so close to a quotation attributed to David Wheeler I can't take full credit for much but the title 🤖 ✨)
(This poem is so close to a quotation attributed to David Wheeler I can't take full credit for much but the title 🤖 ✨)
January 18, 2026 at 2:49 PM
It's #smallpoemsunday 🎉 @tomsnarsky.bsky.social
(This poem is so close to a quotation attributed to David Wheeler I can't take full credit for much but the title 🤖 ✨)
(This poem is so close to a quotation attributed to David Wheeler I can't take full credit for much but the title 🤖 ✨)
psa don't do this without some basic mussel education; I don't want to be responsible for anyone eating a bad mussel because that will RUIN YOUR WEEK
He grew up one town over from my dad! Eating mussels gathered from the mudflats in Brewster & Dennis, MA.
January 17, 2026 at 3:25 PM
psa don't do this without some basic mussel education; I don't want to be responsible for anyone eating a bad mussel because that will RUIN YOUR WEEK
I try not to spend much time at Dayton's fancy grocery store due to 💵 concerns but sometimes I buy fish there because 1) good fish and 2) one of the mongers makes me think of my dad. 🎣 🐟
January 17, 2026 at 3:09 PM
I try not to spend much time at Dayton's fancy grocery store due to 💵 concerns but sometimes I buy fish there because 1) good fish and 2) one of the mongers makes me think of my dad. 🎣 🐟
Reposted by Sarah Burke Cahalan
January 17, St. Anthony of Egypt
Anthony with his pig in one of the many beautiful Art Mails by the fondly remembered Tomie dePaola
tomiesblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/vint...
Anthony with his pig in one of the many beautiful Art Mails by the fondly remembered Tomie dePaola
tomiesblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/vint...
January 17, 2026 at 12:00 PM
January 17, St. Anthony of Egypt
Anthony with his pig in one of the many beautiful Art Mails by the fondly remembered Tomie dePaola
tomiesblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/vint...
Anthony with his pig in one of the many beautiful Art Mails by the fondly remembered Tomie dePaola
tomiesblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/vint...
Beverly Cleary wrote animals so well. Ribsy is as well-developed a character as Henry.
The neighborhood dog culture captured in the Ribsy and Henry Huggins books is so foreign now, too! (Leash laws are probably a good thing, but still. Ribsy goes everywhere!)
I reread Ramona and Beezus. Beatrice (aged 9) walks several blocks to the rec center and leaves Ramona (4) outside at the sand pile for an hour during her class. Unattended!
January 17, 2026 at 1:44 AM
Beverly Cleary wrote animals so well. Ribsy is as well-developed a character as Henry.
"We don't want to interact with the whales physically. We want to avoid them." "We're stewards of the sea." 🙏 - Maine lobstermen
Typically, North Atlantic right whales spend their winters feeding in Cape Cod Bay, or in their calving grounds in the Southeast. But recently, they've been more unpredictable and only the whales know where they'll show up next.
If the right whales return this winter, southern Maine lobstermen have a plan
Last week, a group of Maine lobstermen worked out a plan for how they would respond to an aggregation of endangered North Atlantic right whales in federal waters. In January 2025, an unusually large n...
www.mainepublic.org
January 16, 2026 at 4:02 PM
"We don't want to interact with the whales physically. We want to avoid them." "We're stewards of the sea." 🙏 - Maine lobstermen
The neighborhood dog culture captured in the Ribsy and Henry Huggins books is so foreign now, too! (Leash laws are probably a good thing, but still. Ribsy goes everywhere!)
I reread Ramona and Beezus. Beatrice (aged 9) walks several blocks to the rec center and leaves Ramona (4) outside at the sand pile for an hour during her class. Unattended!
January 16, 2026 at 3:46 PM
The neighborhood dog culture captured in the Ribsy and Henry Huggins books is so foreign now, too! (Leash laws are probably a good thing, but still. Ribsy goes everywhere!)
This is huge. I'm so grateful that we now live in a neighborhood where neighbors don't call the police on kids playing outside.
An underrated factor in "why don't people in wealthy societies have more kids" is changing societal norms that now expect even older kids to be chaperoned by an adult any time they are in public, and to be chauffeured by a parent as their only means of transportation
Older generations spent a lot less time parenting. Millennial dads spend nearly as much time parenting as Boomer moms did. Millennial and Gen X moms way more.
via The Economist
via The Economist
January 16, 2026 at 3:44 PM
This is huge. I'm so grateful that we now live in a neighborhood where neighbors don't call the police on kids playing outside.
I don’t think they are on Bluesky but I’ll link to the workshop below… look at this oceanic textile woven into a snail shell!🐚 🐌 🪡 🌊
www.theinterwoveninstitute.org
www.theinterwoveninstitute.org
January 16, 2026 at 2:51 AM
I don’t think they are on Bluesky but I’ll link to the workshop below… look at this oceanic textile woven into a snail shell!🐚 🐌 🪡 🌊
www.theinterwoveninstitute.org
www.theinterwoveninstitute.org
Reposted by Sarah Burke Cahalan
Sea anemones and jellyfish don’t have brains, but the way their neurons behave during sleep shows some surprising similarities to humans
Scientists Catch Jellyfish and Sea Anemones Behaving in Surprisingly Human Ways
Sea anemones and jellyfish don’t have brains, but the way their neurons behave during sleep shows some surprising similarities to humans
www.scientificamerican.com
January 14, 2026 at 10:10 PM
Sea anemones and jellyfish don’t have brains, but the way their neurons behave during sleep shows some surprising similarities to humans
This is so bleak
NEW: In January 2024, a man purchased Meta's newly AI-infused smart glasses.
He went on to experience a devastating break with reality that played out across Meta platforms — with Meta AI as his companion, entertaining and affirming his worsening delusional beliefs.
futurism.com/artificial-i...
He went on to experience a devastating break with reality that played out across Meta platforms — with Meta AI as his companion, entertaining and affirming his worsening delusional beliefs.
futurism.com/artificial-i...
January 16, 2026 at 2:04 AM
This is so bleak
HOLY FAMILY DRAMA
January 15, 2026 at 8:46 PM
HOLY FAMILY DRAMA