Anthony
@timesflow.bsky.social
Rootless cosmopolitan | Reading wildly | 'Obscure enough to be left in the sweetest of solitudes.' — De Quincey
https://timesflowstemmed.com
https://timesflowstemmed.com
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Anthony
@timesflow.bsky.social
· Dec 27
‘Habitually to dream magnificently, a man must have a constitutional determination to reverie.’ — Thomas De Quincey, ‘Suspiria de Profundis
Reposted by Anthony
“I intend to keep nattering on about books, authors and our imperiled literary culture.” Ron Charles on being laid off as book critic at the Washington Post.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com/home/post/p-...
I’ve Been Laid Off. I’m Not Done.
After 20 years at The Washington Post, I’m suddenly on my own — and still writing about books.
substack.com
February 5, 2026 at 3:35 AM
“I intend to keep nattering on about books, authors and our imperiled literary culture.” Ron Charles on being laid off as book critic at the Washington Post.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com/home/post/p-...
Reposted by Anthony
Pierre Joris extolled Giordano Bruno’s mind for how Bruno “saw through” the dominant myths of his day, including the one that placed Earth at the center of the cosmos.
In Joris' words:
In Joris' words:
February 5, 2026 at 4:35 AM
Pierre Joris extolled Giordano Bruno’s mind for how Bruno “saw through” the dominant myths of his day, including the one that placed Earth at the center of the cosmos.
In Joris' words:
In Joris' words:
Roger Ebert, shortly before his death, “I sometimes think that we have seen a great civilisation destroyed in our lifetimes.”
February 5, 2026 at 5:27 AM
Roger Ebert, shortly before his death, “I sometimes think that we have seen a great civilisation destroyed in our lifetimes.”
John Carey’s Useful Vandalism
I instinctively recoil from the central argument of John Carey’s What Good Are the Arts? though I’m not sure I should. His position is deliberately deflationary. Art is whatever anyone says it is. There is no objective standard of taste. Kant and Hegel were…
I instinctively recoil from the central argument of John Carey’s What Good Are the Arts? though I’m not sure I should. His position is deliberately deflationary. Art is whatever anyone says it is. There is no objective standard of taste. Kant and Hegel were…
John Carey’s Useful Vandalism
I instinctively recoil from the central argument of John Carey’s What Good Are the Arts? though I’m not sure I should. His position is deliberately deflationary. Art is whatever anyone says it is. There is no objective standard of taste. Kant and Hegel were mystifiers, and the reverence we attach to great art serves the interests of a cultural priesthood. A work of art is a work of art if it’s a work of art for you.
timesflowstemmed.com
February 4, 2026 at 6:54 AM
John Carey’s Useful Vandalism
I instinctively recoil from the central argument of John Carey’s What Good Are the Arts? though I’m not sure I should. His position is deliberately deflationary. Art is whatever anyone says it is. There is no objective standard of taste. Kant and Hegel were…
I instinctively recoil from the central argument of John Carey’s What Good Are the Arts? though I’m not sure I should. His position is deliberately deflationary. Art is whatever anyone says it is. There is no objective standard of taste. Kant and Hegel were…
Reposted by Anthony
Saturday but it feels like Sunday. Erik Satie said his “Medusa” was his most autobiographical work. 🙃 Cheers to that, says my coffee.
January 31, 2026 at 4:18 PM
Saturday but it feels like Sunday. Erik Satie said his “Medusa” was his most autobiographical work. 🙃 Cheers to that, says my coffee.
Reposted by Anthony
Alice Oswald in the key of k.
February 1, 2026 at 4:05 AM
Alice Oswald in the key of k.
Hardy's God Who Cannot Explain Himself: timesflowstemmed.com/2026/01/31/h...
Hardy’s God Who Cannot Explain Himself
Thomas Hardy’s New Year’s Eve stages a confrontation between humanity and God that manages to be bleaker than atheism. The speaker quotes Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, …
timesflowstemmed.com
January 31, 2026 at 10:45 AM
Hardy's God Who Cannot Explain Himself: timesflowstemmed.com/2026/01/31/h...
Mistaking syntax for vocabulary.
January 31, 2026 at 8:51 AM
Mistaking syntax for vocabulary.
"Dying as of self-laughter; whereat I / Would raise my voice in song.”
January 30, 2026 at 5:37 AM
"Dying as of self-laughter; whereat I / Would raise my voice in song.”
The De Quincey-Effect: timesflowstemmed.com/2026/01/30/t...
The De Quincey-Effect
The De Quincey-effect: weeks with his prose labyrinths have changed what I presently want from sentences. They can spiral, digress, layer philosophical depth without flattening into irony. Thomas H…
timesflowstemmed.com
January 30, 2026 at 5:29 AM
The De Quincey-Effect: timesflowstemmed.com/2026/01/30/t...
Writers who believed language could hold genuine complexity without reducing it to surface cleverness: feeling a pull towards Henry James‘s ‘The Golden Bowl’. The De Quincey-effect. Thomas Hardy shows you how much emotional weight a short poem can bear when every word is exactly right.
January 30, 2026 at 5:18 AM
Writers who believed language could hold genuine complexity without reducing it to surface cleverness: feeling a pull towards Henry James‘s ‘The Golden Bowl’. The De Quincey-effect. Thomas Hardy shows you how much emotional weight a short poem can bear when every word is exactly right.
Reposted by Anthony
O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
- Shakespeare sonnet 76
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
- Shakespeare sonnet 76
January 30, 2026 at 1:48 AM
O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
- Shakespeare sonnet 76
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love still telling what is told.
- Shakespeare sonnet 76
Reposted by Anthony
In case any poets needed some Dan Beachy-Quick tonight...
"When the eye loses the ability to see an object for the fact of its very nearness, then the imagination must alter the lens. A poem may bring us what we see in it just such a way."
"When the eye loses the ability to see an object for the fact of its very nearness, then the imagination must alter the lens. A poem may bring us what we see in it just such a way."
January 30, 2026 at 4:25 AM
In case any poets needed some Dan Beachy-Quick tonight...
"When the eye loses the ability to see an object for the fact of its very nearness, then the imagination must alter the lens. A poem may bring us what we see in it just such a way."
"When the eye loses the ability to see an object for the fact of its very nearness, then the imagination must alter the lens. A poem may bring us what we see in it just such a way."
—"The Earth, sayest thou? The Human race?
By Me created? Sad its lot?
Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:
Such world I fashioned not.'—
Thomas Hardy, ‘God-Forgotten’
By Me created? Sad its lot?
Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:
Such world I fashioned not.'—
Thomas Hardy, ‘God-Forgotten’
January 29, 2026 at 6:14 AM
—"The Earth, sayest thou? The Human race?
By Me created? Sad its lot?
Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:
Such world I fashioned not.'—
Thomas Hardy, ‘God-Forgotten’
By Me created? Sad its lot?
Nay: I have no remembrance of such place:
Such world I fashioned not.'—
Thomas Hardy, ‘God-Forgotten’
Reposted by Anthony
It is publication today for Late Heaney I am told, although I imagine it’ll be a while before I see it between ice storms and the broad Atlantic. I thought I’d share a few thoughts about it, as it’s a different kind of book for me in form and style.
global.oup.com/academic/pro...
global.oup.com/academic/pro...
January 26, 2026 at 2:00 PM
It is publication today for Late Heaney I am told, although I imagine it’ll be a while before I see it between ice storms and the broad Atlantic. I thought I’d share a few thoughts about it, as it’s a different kind of book for me in form and style.
global.oup.com/academic/pro...
global.oup.com/academic/pro...
Back to commuting and it dawns on me that within, what, ten years, reading serious literature will be like playing the harpsichord: a minority pursuit, respected by some, incomprehensible to most. Or worse, archaic, like Latin or handwritten letters.
January 27, 2026 at 5:49 PM
Back to commuting and it dawns on me that within, what, ten years, reading serious literature will be like playing the harpsichord: a minority pursuit, respected by some, incomprehensible to most. Or worse, archaic, like Latin or handwritten letters.
Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
On which lost the more by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have the strength to die
Thomas Hardy, ‘Neutral Tones’
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
On which lost the more by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have the strength to die
Thomas Hardy, ‘Neutral Tones’
January 25, 2026 at 6:48 PM
Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
On which lost the more by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have the strength to die
Thomas Hardy, ‘Neutral Tones’
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
On which lost the more by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have the strength to die
Thomas Hardy, ‘Neutral Tones’
Reposted by Anthony
"dark night --
the first snowflakes
hit my neck" Issa Kobayashi
(image: Shotei Takahashi)
the first snowflakes
hit my neck" Issa Kobayashi
(image: Shotei Takahashi)
January 25, 2026 at 6:44 AM
"dark night --
the first snowflakes
hit my neck" Issa Kobayashi
(image: Shotei Takahashi)
the first snowflakes
hit my neck" Issa Kobayashi
(image: Shotei Takahashi)
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew,
And I was unaware.
Thomas Hardy, ‘The Darkling Thrush’
And I was unaware.
Thomas Hardy, ‘The Darkling Thrush’
January 25, 2026 at 7:22 AM
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew,
And I was unaware.
Thomas Hardy, ‘The Darkling Thrush’
And I was unaware.
Thomas Hardy, ‘The Darkling Thrush’
'Milton is credited with coining more new words even than Shakespeare (630 to Shakespeare's 229), and "freaked" is one of them, denoting the untidy-looking black blotch on a pansy's petals.'
John Carey, 'A Little History of Poetry'
John Carey, 'A Little History of Poetry'
January 24, 2026 at 8:52 AM
'Milton is credited with coining more new words even than Shakespeare (630 to Shakespeare's 229), and "freaked" is one of them, denoting the untidy-looking black blotch on a pansy's petals.'
John Carey, 'A Little History of Poetry'
John Carey, 'A Little History of Poetry'
Reposted by Anthony
@publisherswkly.bsky.social You refer to Judith Hermann's novel as a "deeply affecting English-language debut". This will be news to those who read translations of 'Alice' 15 years ago, not to speak of 'Summerhouse, Later', and 'Letti Park'. www.publishersweekly.com/9780374619510
We Would Have Told Each Other Everything by Judith Hermann
In this deeply affecting English-language debut, German writer Hermann reflects on the connections between art and experience, d...
www.publishersweekly.com
January 23, 2026 at 5:06 PM
@publisherswkly.bsky.social You refer to Judith Hermann's novel as a "deeply affecting English-language debut". This will be news to those who read translations of 'Alice' 15 years ago, not to speak of 'Summerhouse, Later', and 'Letti Park'. www.publishersweekly.com/9780374619510
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes.
Robert Herrick
Wonderful ‘liquefaction’.
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes.
Robert Herrick
Wonderful ‘liquefaction’.
January 24, 2026 at 6:49 AM
Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes.
Robert Herrick
Wonderful ‘liquefaction’.
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes.
Robert Herrick
Wonderful ‘liquefaction’.
Reposted by Anthony
So good luck came, and on my roof did light
Like noiseless snow, or as the dew of night:
Not all at once, but gently, as the trees
Are, by the sunbeams, tickled by degrees.
—Robert Herrick, 'The Coming of Good Luck'
Like noiseless snow, or as the dew of night:
Not all at once, but gently, as the trees
Are, by the sunbeams, tickled by degrees.
—Robert Herrick, 'The Coming of Good Luck'
January 16, 2026 at 6:17 PM
So good luck came, and on my roof did light
Like noiseless snow, or as the dew of night:
Not all at once, but gently, as the trees
Are, by the sunbeams, tickled by degrees.
—Robert Herrick, 'The Coming of Good Luck'
Like noiseless snow, or as the dew of night:
Not all at once, but gently, as the trees
Are, by the sunbeams, tickled by degrees.
—Robert Herrick, 'The Coming of Good Luck'
Reposted by Anthony
Valéry:
“As a bird alights, I had to fall asleep.”
“As a bird alights, I had to fall asleep.”
January 24, 2026 at 6:41 AM
Valéry:
“As a bird alights, I had to fall asleep.”
“As a bird alights, I had to fall asleep.”
Reposted by Anthony
I may have traveled too far into winter.
—Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume
—Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume
January 23, 2026 at 12:10 AM
I may have traveled too far into winter.
—Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume
—Solvej Balle, On the Calculation of Volume