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seventydys.bsky.social
David Hayden
@seventydys.bsky.social
3.6K followers 3.1K following 1.6K posts
the sea is completely written for me

https://www.transitbooks.org/books/darker
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Reposted by David Hayden
seventydys.bsky.social
"every act of destruction meets its response, sooner or later, in an act of creation"
Eduardo Galeano, 'Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent', tr Cedric Belfrage, 1978
In these lands we are not experiencing the primitive infancy of capitalism but its vicious senility. Underdevelopment isn't a stage of development, but its consequence. Latin America's underdevelopment arises from external development, and continues to feed it. A system made impotent by its function of international servitude, and moribund since birth, has feet of clay. It pretends to be destiny and would like to be thought eternal. All memory is subversive, because it is different, and likewise any program for the future. The zombie is made to eat without salt: salt is dangerous, it could awaken him. The system has its paradigm in the immutable society of ants. For that reason it accords ill with the history of humankind, because that is always changing.And because in the history of humankind every act of destruction meets its response, sooner or later, in an act of creation.
January 4, 2026 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by David Hayden
seventydys.bsky.social
My story 'Marrickville Light' online to read at HEAT journal of which Helen Garner wrote: ‘fabulous story. It gave me such a thrill that I had to read it again right away to try and see how the hell he did it - W O W !’ giramondopublishing.com/heat/archive...
David Hayden | Marrickville Light | HEAT Series 3 Number 4
Australian voices remind Kate of dead people. The people she loved as a child, who loved sun and ciggies. More than life itself, as it turned out. A large cup of syrupy black coffee was on the bench t...
giramondopublishing.com
June 17, 2025 at 12:27 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
"every act of destruction meets its response, sooner or later, in an act of creation"
Eduardo Galeano, 'Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent', tr Cedric Belfrage, 1978
In these lands we are not experiencing the primitive infancy of capitalism but its vicious senility. Underdevelopment isn't a stage of development, but its consequence. Latin America's underdevelopment arises from external development, and continues to feed it. A system made impotent by its function of international servitude, and moribund since birth, has feet of clay. It pretends to be destiny and would like to be thought eternal. All memory is subversive, because it is different, and likewise any program for the future. The zombie is made to eat without salt: salt is dangerous, it could awaken him. The system has its paradigm in the immutable society of ants. For that reason it accords ill with the history of humankind, because that is always changing.And because in the history of humankind every act of destruction meets its response, sooner or later, in an act of creation.
January 4, 2026 at 3:05 PM
Reposted by David Hayden
seventydys.bsky.social
What happens in the cinema without persons? Where there is a spectator there is no void. The machinery operates. Humanity has left the room, departed the world, the film unfurls, analogically or digitally, impossibly. There is no spectation, no hearing, no regard, no perception of the seat, the room, the others, the body. Duras's are the films for the cinema after time, after us (as might be the films of Michael Snow, and others). My thoughts are in the future without us, without me. These may as well be the work that I do with these films, my recollections of these films, placing them in the cinema that will never be, after time.
January 3, 2026 at 7:46 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
What happens in the cinema without persons? Where there is a spectator there is no void. The machinery operates. Humanity has left the room, departed the world, the film unfurls, analogically or digitally, impossibly. There is no spectation, no hearing, no regard, no perception of the seat, the room, the others, the body. Duras's are the films for the cinema after time, after us (as might be the films of Michael Snow, and others). My thoughts are in the future without us, without me. These may as well be the work that I do with these films, my recollections of these films, placing them in the cinema that will never be, after time.
January 3, 2026 at 7:46 PM
Reposted by David Hayden
seventydys.bsky.social
Keith Ridgway’s ‘Dooneen’ is an engrossing queer-in-all-ways thriller, an insurgent near-future haunting of our present, a vivid reimagining of Dublin, and a love and a loss story. Published @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social and @ndbooks.bsky.social June 2026.
The works of Keith Ridgway: Dooneen, A Shock, Hawthorn & Child, Animals, The Parts, Standard Time, Horses, The Long Falling
December 26, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Reposted by David Hayden
seventydys.bsky.social
The realm of all writing is the past. Writing is a practice that takes place in an unfolding present. Writing is a mediated form of touch. Everything that is touched turns to time. Writing about exteriors is always, at the same time, about the interior. Everything is lost as it is set down. The lost is ever present. The present presses through the forgotten and is as tangible, and as uncertain. History, the discipline, at its best, makes careful accommodations with the lost, and, with proper hesitancy, weighs and shapes the found to tell and explain the known. Fiction is the invented that can be true but cannot prove it. Only the reader can do that.
January 2, 2026 at 11:10 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
The realm of all writing is the past. Writing is a practice that takes place in an unfolding present. Writing is a mediated form of touch. Everything that is touched turns to time. Writing about exteriors is always, at the same time, about the interior. Everything is lost as it is set down. The lost is ever present. The present presses through the forgotten and is as tangible, and as uncertain. History, the discipline, at its best, makes careful accommodations with the lost, and, with proper hesitancy, weighs and shapes the found to tell and explain the known. Fiction is the invented that can be true but cannot prove it. Only the reader can do that.
January 2, 2026 at 11:10 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
On forgetting, writing, and reading in a long ago garden in Coolock.
necessaryfiction.com/researchnote...
Darker With The Lights On – Necessary Fiction
necessaryfiction.com
January 2, 2026 at 4:49 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
2026 is the first year in the last ten that's begun without any writing of mine scheduled for publication. Nothing to worry about, surely.
January 1, 2026 at 11:47 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
Norfolk sunset blue peach black boughs and house
January 1, 2026 at 4:09 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
come to me at midnight

James Schuyler, ‘Empathy and New Year‘
Empathy and New Year A notion like that of empathy inspires great distrust in us, because it-connotes a further dose of irrationalism and mysticism. LÉVI-STRAUSS Whitman took the cars all the way from Camden and when he got here or rather there, said, "Quit quoting," and took the next back, through the Jersey meadows which were that then. But what if it is all "Maya, illusion?" I doubt it, though. Men are not so inventive. Or few are. Not knowing a name for something proves nothing. Right now it isn't raining, snowing, sleeting, slushing, yet it is doing something. As a matter of fact it is raining snow. Snow from cold clouds that melts as it strikes. To look out a window is to sense wet feet. Now to infuse the garage with a subjective state and can't make it seem to even if it is a little like What the Dentist Saw a dark gullet with gleams and red. "You come to me at midnight" and say, "I can smell that after Christmas letdown coming like a hound." And clarify, "I can smell it just like a hound does." So it came. It's a shame expectations are so often to be counted on. New Year is nearly here and who, knowing himself, would endanger his desires resolving them in a formula? After a while even a wish flashing by as a thought provokes a knock on wood so often a little dish-like place worn in this desk just holds a lucky stone inherited from an unlucky man. Nineteen-sixty-eight: what a lovely name to give a year. Even better than the dogs': Wert ("... bird thou never...") and Woofy. Personally I am going to call the New Year, Mutt. Flattering it will get you nowhere. Awake at four and heard a snowplow not rumble-a huge beast at its chow and wondered is it 1968 or 1969? for a bit. 1968 had such a familiar sound. Got coffee and started reading Darwin: so modest, so innocent, so pleased at the surprise that he should grow up to be him. How grand to begin a new year with a new writer you really love. A snow shovel scrapes: it's twelve hours later and the sun that came so late is almost gone: a few pink minutes and yet the days get longer. Coming from the movies last night snow had fallen in almost still air and lay on all, so all twigs were emboldened to make big disclosures. It felt warm, warm that is for cold the way it does when snow falls without wind. "A snow picture," you said, under the clung-to elms, "worth painting." I said, "The weather operator said, "Turning tomorrow to bitter cold.' " "Then the wind will veer round to the north and blow all of it down." Maybe I thought it will get cold some other way. You as usual were right. It did and has. Night and snow and the threads of life for once seen as they are, in ropes like roots.
December 31, 2025 at 8:37 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
my proportions

Virginia Woolf, Diary, last entry for 1930
Virginia Woolf Diary Tuesday 30 December What it wants is presumably unity; but it is I think rather good (I am talking to myself over the fire about The Waves). Suppose I could run all the scenes together more? - by rhythm, chiefly. So as to avoid those cuts; so as to make the blood run like a torrent from end to end - I dont want the waste that the breaks give; I want to avoid chapters; that indeed is my achievement, if any here: a saturated, unchopped, completeness; changes of scene, of mood, of person, done without spilling a drop. Now if it cd. be worked over with heat & currency thats all it wants. And I am getting my blood up. (temp. 99) But all the same I went to Lewes, & the Keynes's came to tea; & having got astride my saddle the whole world falls into shape; it is this writing that gives me my proportions.
December 31, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by David Hayden
seventydys.bsky.social
My short essay on Bruno Schulz’s Cinnamon Shops @grantamag.bsky.social granta.com/best-book-of...
GRANTA Best Book of 1934: Bruno Schulz's Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) David Hayden David Hayden on why Bruno Schulz's Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) is the best book of 1934.
December 30, 2025 at 7:35 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
My short essay on Bruno Schulz’s Cinnamon Shops @grantamag.bsky.social granta.com/best-book-of...
GRANTA Best Book of 1934: Bruno Schulz's Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) David Hayden David Hayden on why Bruno Schulz's Cinnamon Shops (Sklepy cynamonowe) is the best book of 1934.
December 30, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Reposted by David Hayden
seventydys.bsky.social
The life of the word resides in the fact that it tenses and strains to produce a thousand associations, like the quartered body of the snake of legend, whose separate pieces sought each other in the dark.

Bruno Schulz, ‘The Mythologization of Reality’, tr Bates
www.brunoschulz.org/mythologizat...
BRUNO SCHULZ
www.brunoschulz.org
February 15, 2025 at 2:32 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
I have sighed

Charles Reznikoff, ‘Kaddish’
I In her last sickness, my mother took my hand in hers tightly: for the first time I knew how calloused a hand it was, and how soft was mine. II Day after day you vomit the green sap of your life and, wiping your lips with a paper napkin, smile at me; and I smile back. But, sometimes, as I talk calmly to others I find that I have sighed- irrelevantly.
December 29, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Reposted by David Hayden
seventydys.bsky.social
3 really strong first short story collections from Irish writers pub. this year:
Liadan Ní Chuinn, Every One Still Here @stingingfly.bsky.social & @grantabooks.bsky.social
Dave Tynan, We Used to Dance Here @grantabooks.bsky.social
Shane Tivenan, To Avenge a Dead Glacier @lilliputpress.bsky.social
Liadan Ní Chuinn, Every One Still Here @stingingfly.bsky.social & @grantabooks.bsky.social Dave Tynan, We Used to Dance Here @grantabooks.bsky.social Shane Tivenan, To Avenge a Dead Glacier @lilliputpress.bsky.social
June 24, 2025 at 12:12 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
Some favourite strange tales and ghost stories. Shelved elsewhere the great ones by Elizabeth Bowen, Dickens, Henry James and Edith Wharton.
Aickman, Benson, Bierce, Blackwood, Calvino, Carter, Chesterton, Collier, Conan Doyle, Fremlin, EJ Howard, LP Hartley, Hofmann, WW Jacobs, MR James, Le Fanu, Machen, Nesbit, Tarchetti, Villiers de l’Isle Adam
December 28, 2025 at 12:27 PM
Reposted by David Hayden
seventydys.bsky.social
at the window

Joe Brainard, one of ‘30 One-Liners’
WINTER More time is spent at the window.
September 16, 2025 at 10:42 AM
seventydys.bsky.social
Keith Ridgway’s ‘Dooneen’ is an engrossing queer-in-all-ways thriller, an insurgent near-future haunting of our present, a vivid reimagining of Dublin, and a love and a loss story. Published @fitzcarraldoeds.bsky.social and @ndbooks.bsky.social June 2026.
The works of Keith Ridgway: Dooneen, A Shock, Hawthorn & Child, Animals, The Parts, Standard Time, Horses, The Long Falling
December 26, 2025 at 3:12 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
Finding Dorothy Ashby’s Rubáíyát the perfect Christmas cooking companion.
Cover of the rubáíyát of Dorothy Ashby arranged and conducted by Richard Evans
December 24, 2025 at 4:34 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
By loving

James Merrill, ‘Christmas Tree’
CHRISTMAS TREE * To be Brought down at last From the cold sighing mountain Where I and the others Had been fed, looked after, kept still, Meant, I knew — of course 1 knew — That it would be only a matter of weeks, Warmhat there was mochinanomto do 1, made much of me, The point from the start was to keep my spirits up. I could assent to that. For honestly, It did help to be wound in jewels, to send Their colors flashing forth from vents in the deep Fragrant sables that cloaked me head to foot. Over me then they wove a spell of shining-Purple and silver chains, eavesdripping tinsel, Amulets, milagros: software of silver, A heart, a little girl, a Model T, Two staring eyes. Then angels, trumpets, BUD and BEA (The children's names) in clownlike capitals, Somewhere a music box whose tiny song Played and replayed I ended before long By loving. And in shadow behind me, a primitive IV To keep the show going. Yes, yes, what lay ahead Was clear: the stripping, the cold street, my chemicals Plowed back into the Earth for lives to come- No doubt a blessing, a harvest, but one that doesn't bear, Now or ever, dwelling upon. To have grown so thin. Needles and bone. The little boy's hands meeting About my spine. The mother's voice: Holding up wonderfully! No dread. No bitterness. The end beginning. Today's Dusk room aglow For the last time With candlelight. Faces love-lit, Gifts underfoot. Still to be so poised, so Receptive. Still to recall, to praise.
December 24, 2025 at 12:13 AM
seventydys.bsky.social
Out of fashion they may be but I like these short stories by Daniel Corkery and the drama of these wood engraving illustrations by Elizabeth Rivers. This fine Devin-Adair edition bought in Ave. Victor Hugo bookstore in Boston in 1993.
By DANIEL* CORKERY THE WAGER AND OTHER STORIES ILLUSTRATED WITH WOOD ENGRAVINGS ELIZABETH RIVERS wood engraving illustration by Elizabeth Rivers wood engraving illustration by Elizabeth Rivers wood engraving illustration by Elizabeth Rivers
December 23, 2025 at 1:14 PM
seventydys.bsky.social
start away

John Clare, ‘Winter Walk’
The holly bush, a sober lump of green, Shines through the leafless shrubs all brown and grey, And smiles at winter be it eer so keen With all the leafy luxury of May. And O it is delicious, when the day In winter's loaded garment keenly blows And turns her back on sudden falling snows, To go where gravel pathways creep between Arches of evergreen that scarce let through A single feather of the driving storm; And in the bitterest day that ever blew The walk will find some places still and warm Where dead leaves rustle sweet and give alarm To little birds that flirt and start away. John Clare
December 22, 2025 at 10:12 AM