RM
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dorsalstream.bsky.social
RM
@dorsalstream.bsky.social
12K followers 590 following 6.1K posts
You know, for kids.

Lapsed philosopher. I do have a (creative nonfiction) newsletter thanks for asking: http://howtotalk.substack.com.
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dorsalstream.bsky.social
“We are the stories we tell ourselves. We are what we say we are. What am I? I’m not sure I want to know anymore and I’m not supposed to say that. I’m tired of telling this story.”

Richard Siken’s new poetry collection is so compelling, heart-clutching.
VENTRILOQUIST There was a man. He wasn't a man, he was a suit, a terrible suit. A piece of cloth caught on a tree branch. He fluttered in the wind like a bird. Cold wind, terrible. There was a hand moving, a jaw pretending to speak. I stopped. I did, I quit trying. I threw my voice against the wall like a can of beans. To cause a distraction. I promised I would tell the truth—what's the point of rebuilding yourself with contaminated parts?—so I told the truch. I went back and forth, trying to figure it out. It's true, I like to invent things. Can you call it lying? Sure, call it lying. Call it lying lying lying. We are the stories we tell ourselves. We are what we say we are. What am IP I'm not sure I want to know anymore and I'm not supposed to say that. I'm tired of telling this story. Let's put on a show. TIl throw my voice and populate the landscape. Let me invent an imaginary friend so I can talk to myself, or at least take the ghost of my missing friends and pretend that they're still here. Hey buddy, you're gonna be fine. We're not going anywhere. Let me say it in the third person, talking about myself: He was strong and brave and bonest. We can make believe it's true. My pain is eight. That's math. That's counting. My pain is eight, says the dummy. That's algebra. A substitution, switching bodies. My pain is actually zero, says the dummy. I can't feel my body. There is no story without a body, there is only theory. The dummy and the voice. I split in half. Division. The sky is angry, the ghost is cold. The suitcase is afraid of being left behind. Take what you can't say and put it into someone's mouth. Every last mile of it. Get used to talking with your hands and the cover story writes itself. All magic is distraction, a misdirection. The performative self: it flutters in the wind. I would like it if, for Just a couple days, everyone would pretend that they still love me.
November 22, 2025 at 4:51 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
I’d love to attach this Diane Seuss poem to ChatGPT like a block of C4, light its fuse, and walk away in slow motion.
Sometimes I can't feel it, what some call beauty. I can see it, I swear, the conifers and fat bees, ferns like church fans and then the sea, its flatness as if pressed by stones like witches were, the dark sand ridged by tides, strewn with body parts, claws, the stranded mesoglea of the moon jellyfish, transparent blob, brainless, enlightened in its clarity. I stand there, I walk the shore at low tide, the sky fearless, not open to me, just open, there it is, the wind, cold, surf's boom drowning out thought, I can photograph it, I can name it beautiful, but feel it, I don't know that I am feeling it, when I drown in it, maybe then.
November 21, 2025 at 1:23 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
Bleak.
From the Wall Street Journal: Kopp and her husband Bill, an HVAC technician, earn a combined $115,000 a year. They often sit in the dark with only strings of LED lights on to save on electric costs. She is considering painting rocks to send to friends as Christmas gifts. Their biggest vacation this year, a road trip to Maine, was mostly covered by cash back from a shopping-rewards program.
November 21, 2025 at 12:32 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
It's Thursday night, and please enjoy this short video of Madden Novogratz on vocals (remember that name) and my son on guitar doing a cover that you will probably recognize.
November 21, 2025 at 1:15 AM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
No single work has shaped my thinking about philosophy itself more than Stanley Cavell's collection "Must We Mean What We Say?" and particularly the essay "Ending the Waiting Game: A Reading of Beckett's Endgame."
November 20, 2025 at 9:07 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
Someone needs to arrest this for impersonating an officer
November 20, 2025 at 12:47 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
I say group chat, but their connection is more like this.
Drawing of a woman and man talking to each other via a "tin can phone," which is two tin cans connected by a string. This particular drawing is "Le téléphone, le microphone et le phonographe" (1880, 3rd edition), by Théodose du Moncel (1821-1884).
November 14, 2025 at 12:47 AM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
New cursed elixir just dropped at work.
A bowl of Keurig coffee cups that are from Cinnabon and are classic cinnamon roll flavor.
November 11, 2025 at 5:11 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
Sorry it’s all the talk about affordability
I’d buy that for a dollar
November 9, 2025 at 12:06 AM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
November 8, 2025 at 9:43 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
We just get to go see him (the guitarist on the left) do stuff like this. How great is that?
November 8, 2025 at 1:57 AM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
After all these years, I’m still not impervious to this sight.
November 6, 2025 at 5:10 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
NYC real estate brokers have already sprung into action (lol, lmao even)
A screenshot of an email from Compass, a New York Real Estate broker, that says: Leaving so soon? Did you wake up this morning with a strong urge to flee New York City? Let us introduce you to the very best realtors from Palm Beach, Greenwich, Dallas and beyond.
November 5, 2025 at 7:43 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
November 5, 2025 at 12:54 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
Richard Siken’s new poetry collection I DO KNOW SOME THINGS is so very good.

Take, for example, “Hearsay”
HEARSAY They say that I was born in February, in a hospital in Midtown, while it snowed. It is legend. There are photographs. They say the blue bathing suit with the little green frogs was my favorite. They say that those are my mother's sunglasses, pointing at a naked boy wearing nothing else, in a Polaroid, laughing. My first birthday and the big stuffed dog I remember that dog but I don't remember getting that dog. It seems like I always had that dog. She would sleep in bed with me—endlessly vigilant, black plastic eyes flashing hallway light if anyone opened the bedroom door—along with a real cat named Good-For-Nothing Layabout Cat. That's you, they say, pointing at a photograph—a little boy at his first rodeo, in a baby-blue cowboy outfit with suede fringe, standing awkwardly and squinting into the sun—but they aren't pointing at a photograph, they are pointing at a story, how this and that and something something. What does it take to own the myth? Why build a self from this? It makes me uncomfortable, my story—part insight, part anecdote-started by unreliable people at cross-purposes. And which photographs didn't get saved? And which photographs didn't get taken? I never figured out who named the cat but everyone took
November 4, 2025 at 1:34 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
Go ahead and morally shame SNAP users for buying soda, but I suppose using your FSA/HSA benefits on luxury sunscreen is morally okay.
Advertisement from luxury sunscreen maker Supergoop! to use health-savings-accounts funds to buy sunscreen.
November 2, 2025 at 6:01 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
Voted for Godzilla as a write in
October 31, 2025 at 6:54 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
Perfect day to catch some fall rays
Skeleton made of found vegetation laid out on the ground like a sunbather.
October 31, 2025 at 4:11 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
A truly fine specimen. I’m also a fan of/terrified by the ghost bat, a huge Australian bat that eats other vertebrates.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_bat
Photo of a ghost bat
October 30, 2025 at 12:06 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
Good morning to all but especially to the dog on the train this morning with the lovely spooky neckerchief.
Photo of a dog on the NYC subway wearing a neckerchief decorated with pumpkins and skeletons (and also wearing little booties).
October 28, 2025 at 12:57 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
Insurance claim most foul
Screenshot from Smithsonian Magazine: Car Backs Up Into Home Where Shakespeare's Daughter Lived, Causing Serious Damage Hall's Croft, once the residence of Susanna Shakespeare, is now in stable condition as experts assess the repairs that will be required Christian Thorsberg - Correspondent October 27, 2025 10:33
October 27, 2025 at 5:44 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
Couples costume (Gen X Edition)
Matthew Broderick in the movie War Games The WOPR tactical computer from the movie War Games
October 27, 2025 at 3:03 AM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
"Friends" is a beloved American sitcom that aired from 1994 to 2004, following six young adults—Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe—living in New York City. The show explores their friendships, romances, careers, and personal growth over ten seasons.
The painting Death of Socrates (French: La Mort de Socrate), oil on canvas, by French painter Jacques-Louis David in 1787. Description of the composition from Wikipedia: In the painting, an elderly Socrates is dressed in a white robe and sits upright on a bed, one hand extended over a cup, the other gesturing in the air; he is still teaching. He is surrounded by his friends of varying ages, most showing emotional distress, unlike Socrates, who remains calm. The young man handing him the cup looks the other way, with his face in his free hand. Crito listens intently to his teacher's words while clutching his knee. An elderly man, Plato, sits at the end of the bed, slumped over and looking in his lap. To the left, other men are seen through an arch set in the background wall. On the stairway in the background, Socrates' wife Xanthippe, who had been dismissed earlier by her husband, takes a wistful glance backward at the scene.
October 23, 2025 at 12:16 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
Basically my attitude to facing the present moment.
A screenshot of a passage from Moby Dick that reads, “I try all things; I achieve what I can.”
October 22, 2025 at 1:35 PM
dorsalstream.bsky.social
This passage is even worse. Again, we start out with expressing (facts about the world) but ends with what Republican leaders *say* about the protests. Not only are no Democrats quoted, the event could not plausibly be understood as expressing hatred of America.

The Times does this everywhere.
The No Kings protests followed another mass demonstration in June, when an estimated five million people participated in some 2,000 protests nationwide. The event on Saturday was organized by national and local groups and well-known progressive coalitions, including Indivisible, 50501 and MoveOn. Republican leaders denounced the protests, blaming them for prolonging the government shutdown and calling the event the "hate America rally."
October 19, 2025 at 5:26 PM