Back from an eight day driving and hiking jaunt due south to the borderlands, all of it under clear skies and a spectacular super moon. Trip reading was George R. Stewart’s 1949 FIRE in which wilderness conservation vies with the economic logic of extraction.
November 11, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Back from an eight day driving and hiking jaunt due south to the borderlands, all of it under clear skies and a spectacular super moon. Trip reading was George R. Stewart’s 1949 FIRE in which wilderness conservation vies with the economic logic of extraction.
West Texas Ramble (11/6/2025). Hiking under the supermoon in the Davis Mountains; late evening at the Indian Lodge; browsing Donald Judd at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa
November 6, 2025 at 6:28 PM
West Texas Ramble (11/6/2025). Hiking under the supermoon in the Davis Mountains; late evening at the Indian Lodge; browsing Donald Judd at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa
Wake-up view. Marathon TX
November 6, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Wake-up view. Marathon TX
Currently showing is George Marshall’s THE GAZEBO (1960) with Glenn Ford, Debbie Reynolds, and Carl Reiner
October 26, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Currently showing is George Marshall’s THE GAZEBO (1960) with Glenn Ford, Debbie Reynolds, and Carl Reiner
Reading this week has been THE LOST VALLEY, a collection of Algernon Blackwood’s supernatural moral tales in a rather battered 1910 edition.
September 13, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reading this week has been THE LOST VALLEY, a collection of Algernon Blackwood’s supernatural moral tales in a rather battered 1910 edition.
Competed long term project of reading Thomas Hardy’s fourteen Wessex novels, at a pace of basically one a year. Very rewarding, especially The Woodlanders, Tess, The Mayor of Casterbridge, A Pair of Blue Eyes, Under the Greenwood Tree, Far from the Madding Crowd, and A Laodicean.
July 28, 2025 at 3:33 PM
Competed long term project of reading Thomas Hardy’s fourteen Wessex novels, at a pace of basically one a year. Very rewarding, especially The Woodlanders, Tess, The Mayor of Casterbridge, A Pair of Blue Eyes, Under the Greenwood Tree, Far from the Madding Crowd, and A Laodicean.
Did someone say “looking like there’s been an earthquake” (this from our great library consolidation project of 2012)
July 15, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Did someone say “looking like there’s been an earthquake” (this from our great library consolidation project of 2012)
The New French was the heart of the old Warehouse District
July 11, 2025 at 8:43 PM
The New French was the heart of the old Warehouse District
Highlight of the week was seeing the Mekons unpack their four decades of punk folk anarchy here in Minneapolis on the first stop of their summer tour.
July 11, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Highlight of the week was seeing the Mekons unpack their four decades of punk folk anarchy here in Minneapolis on the first stop of their summer tour.
The book I've been thinking about every day:
July 1, 2025 at 5:30 PM
The book I've been thinking about every day:
Sedately overcast, lukewarm city morning reading Caroline Blackwood’s rapier sharp THE STEPDAUGHTER (1976), a cruelly funny interior monologue of a abandoned wife socially entrapped in an upper story Manhattan apartment with two uninspiring children and a standoffish au pair.
June 28, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Sedately overcast, lukewarm city morning reading Caroline Blackwood’s rapier sharp THE STEPDAUGHTER (1976), a cruelly funny interior monologue of a abandoned wife socially entrapped in an upper story Manhattan apartment with two uninspiring children and a standoffish au pair.
Really excited to see this advance copy of Deleuze’s 1981 seminars ON PAINTING. This is a very different Deleuze — lively, a bit informal, but no less challenging or perceptive. Out from @uminnpress.bsky.social and shipping to bookstores and libraries this week.
June 24, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Really excited to see this advance copy of Deleuze’s 1981 seminars ON PAINTING. This is a very different Deleuze — lively, a bit informal, but no less challenging or perceptive. Out from @uminnpress.bsky.social and shipping to bookstores and libraries this week.
Poster for this weekend’s Grandma’s Marathon up in Duluth MN (near the Canadian border).
Very 2025.
Very 2025.
June 21, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Poster for this weekend’s Grandma’s Marathon up in Duluth MN (near the Canadian border).
Very 2025.
Very 2025.
Today’s apocalyptic book mail . . .
June 17, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Today’s apocalyptic book mail . . .
Reading this week has been Ann Marks’ psychobiography of the reclusive “photographer nanny” Vivian Maier, VIVIAN MAIER DEVELOPED — an often gawkish and naive account, irritatingly pathologizing in places, but well-intentioned, intrepidly researched, and, finally, inspiring.
June 13, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reading this week has been Ann Marks’ psychobiography of the reclusive “photographer nanny” Vivian Maier, VIVIAN MAIER DEVELOPED — an often gawkish and naive account, irritatingly pathologizing in places, but well-intentioned, intrepidly researched, and, finally, inspiring.
Oddly, no. Review copy sent to me at Spec. in 1977 that I’ve been moving around the country for a half century. I guess I could forward tweets rather than sending the requested two tear sheets.
June 8, 2025 at 3:03 PM
Oddly, no. Review copy sent to me at Spec. in 1977 that I’ve been moving around the country for a half century. I guess I could forward tweets rather than sending the requested two tear sheets.
"At best, we were fourth (fifth?) wave cyberpunk, living in the future that the cyberpunks got wrong." Lots of crackling, and smart, stray voltage in this Big Echo interview with Brendan Byrne (BrendanCByrne.bsky.com), whose first book is coming out this week www.bigecho.org/brendan-byrn...
May 30, 2025 at 6:34 PM
"At best, we were fourth (fifth?) wave cyberpunk, living in the future that the cyberpunks got wrong." Lots of crackling, and smart, stray voltage in this Big Echo interview with Brendan Byrne (BrendanCByrne.bsky.com), whose first book is coming out this week www.bigecho.org/brendan-byrn...
And Marx himself makes an appearance in Zola’s “Money”
May 28, 2025 at 3:37 AM
And Marx himself makes an appearance in Zola’s “Money”
Pretty much all of Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series, but especially “The Ladies Paradise,” which traces the rise of consumer culture, and “The Kill,” which depicts the brutality of real estate speculation.
May 28, 2025 at 3:33 AM
Pretty much all of Zola’s Rougon-Macquart series, but especially “The Ladies Paradise,” which traces the rise of consumer culture, and “The Kill,” which depicts the brutality of real estate speculation.
Target Center On Fire for Game 5 (Minneapolis MN 5/14/2025)
May 15, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Target Center On Fire for Game 5 (Minneapolis MN 5/14/2025)
For flood, I'm torn between the alluringly languid catastrophe of Isak Dinesen's "The Deluge at Norderney" (the first story in her "Seven Gothic Tales") and the William Faulkner's one-thing-after-another comedic novella "The Old Man" (second part of "The Wild Palms")
May 14, 2025 at 9:33 PM
For flood, I'm torn between the alluringly languid catastrophe of Isak Dinesen's "The Deluge at Norderney" (the first story in her "Seven Gothic Tales") and the William Faulkner's one-thing-after-another comedic novella "The Old Man" (second part of "The Wild Palms")
William Harrison Ainsworth's wonderfully lurid (and quite memorable) "Old Saint Paul's" (1841) is subtitled "A Tale of the Plague and the Fire" and covers two of the categories at once. He admits to having borrowed substantially from Defoe for the plague part.
May 14, 2025 at 8:43 PM
William Harrison Ainsworth's wonderfully lurid (and quite memorable) "Old Saint Paul's" (1841) is subtitled "A Tale of the Plague and the Fire" and covers two of the categories at once. He admits to having borrowed substantially from Defoe for the plague part.
Waking in a run down Beverly Hills hotel, formerly the mansion of Lillian Gish
May 2, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Waking in a run down Beverly Hills hotel, formerly the mansion of Lillian Gish
André Gide’s wickedly pagan “The Vatican Cellars” (a.k.a., ”Lafcadio’s Adventures”)
April 22, 2025 at 1:43 AM
André Gide’s wickedly pagan “The Vatican Cellars” (a.k.a., ”Lafcadio’s Adventures”)
Well, one thing the tariffs did achieve is eliminating the visual clutter of all those Temu ads from U.S. social media feeds
April 15, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Well, one thing the tariffs did achieve is eliminating the visual clutter of all those Temu ads from U.S. social media feeds