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sibyllacumae.bsky.social
@sibyllacumae.bsky.social
1.3K followers 580 following 1.7K posts
rare bookseller, renaissance platonist, memory worker, kitchen gardener. now based in philly.
newsletter: https://twohalfsheets.substack.com
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Reposted
benwurgaft.bsky.social
Garum sorbet. Gaulish wine sorbet. A little Ithakan olive oil sorbet. Just a few of the Sorbets Virgilianae.
December 19, 2025 at 12:14 PM
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mcculloughp.bsky.social
And in sermon mode: 'The eye of the Lord upon mee, makes midnight noone, and S. Lucies day S. Barnabies; It makes Capricorne Cancer, and the Winters the Summers Solstice . . . and turnes the jealousie of the sad soule into infallibility.' (Sermon on Ps. 32.8)
wokestudies.bsky.social Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · 5h
Since she enjoys her long night's festival,
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight is.
---John Donne, A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day
December 19, 2025 at 10:13 AM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
Agnes Blannbekin is famous for her foreskin vision, but her other visions are also pretty wild. She had a few of a giant talking lamb with human flesh(???) and a human face. Sometimes it also appeared to her very tiny sitting on the paten.
sibyllacumae.bsky.social sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 22h
The book I’m cataloging now has everything: A beguine who has visions of eating Christ’s foreskin, anonymous confessor-scribes, lost (and found) manuscripts, censorship, battles over who gets to be head librarian, a guy named Pez, banned books being seized from the publisher…
December 18, 2025 at 9:38 PM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
The book I’m cataloging now has everything: A beguine who has visions of eating Christ’s foreskin, anonymous confessor-scribes, lost (and found) manuscripts, censorship, battles over who gets to be head librarian, a guy named Pez, banned books being seized from the publisher…
December 18, 2025 at 4:05 PM
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memps2.bsky.social
This is such a good #HerBook read on the formidable Bathsua Makin. Showcasing her in a different light by the discovery of books attributed to her, it also touches on the female influence on children via book gifts, a subject I’ve been tipping away at via findings from our website!
December 18, 2025 at 7:44 AM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
I’ve been in Macbeth and seen it dozens of times, but the production I saw earlier this month was the first time it occurred to me how funny it is that Macbeth is sort of a bro-y idiot who defaults to violence, yet he constantly drops incredibly eloquent banger observations on his inner life.
December 18, 2025 at 1:26 PM
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enniusredloeb.bsky.social
As we approach the Winter Solstice, here's what Stonehenge looked like in the 16th century.
#WinterSolstice
BL Add MS 28330; Lucas De Heere, Corte Beschryvinghe van Engheland, Schotland, ende Irland; 1573 CE-1575 CE; England (London); f.36r
December 17, 2025 at 10:23 PM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
I’m begging everyone to read Hoffmann’s Der Sandmann
michaelhobbes.bsky.social Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 1d
If we are banning cell phones for kids we need to be talking about banning chatbots for boomers
www.persuasion.community/p/my-chatgpt...
December 17, 2025 at 6:06 PM
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benjaminharnett.com
People who have never had an original thought in their whole lives: “I bet this computer can come up with original thoughts.”
December 17, 2025 at 1:32 PM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
In 2016, my partner worked for the department of Atmospheric Science at a major university. The morning after Trump’s election, people were crying in the hallways. I still can’t believe we elected him again and it’s still going on but even worse.
usatoday.com USA TODAY @usatoday.com · 2d
Exclusive: The Trump administration is moving to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, according to a senior White House official, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado
The Trump administration is breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.
bit.ly
December 17, 2025 at 2:31 AM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
Had the strange experience of cataloging a biography of Cato the Younger today that’s all about how he was the ideal senator. But to be honest it seems like he really sucked at it!
December 17, 2025 at 12:02 AM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
Love living in the city of my hero. I need a naked Ben Franklin Christmas ornament.
lrb.co.uk London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 2d
‘Every morning, he would strip naked, throw open the windows and pass half an hour reading or writing in the nude, before dossing down refreshed for another hour or so, sometimes answering the door in the buff to startled postmen.’

Ferdinand Mount on Benjamin Franklin: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Ferdinand Mount · His Very Variousness: Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments
Benjamin Franklin was a total immerser; he bathed in the cold morning breeze, just as he plunged into the freezing...
www.lrb.co.uk
December 16, 2025 at 5:30 PM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
If you don’t know, Jason and I write this (aspirationally) monthly newsletter which is about our thoughts and also our feeeeeelings about rare books and bibliography. You might enjoy! If you like that sort of thing.
jasonwdean.com Jason W. Dean @jasonwdean.com · 2d
The new issue of Half Sheets is out - really enjoyed @sibyllacumae.bsky.social 's book and utopian thoughts in this issue! Read here, share, and subscribe if you haven't already - it's free! 📜 #bookhistory #booksky #libsky #rarebooks open.substack.com/pub/twohalfs...
On Utopia(s)
or cults by another name?
open.substack.com
December 16, 2025 at 3:22 PM
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ehkopin.bsky.social
I think books are cool
December 12, 2025 at 1:39 PM
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emilynussbaum.bsky.social
Virginia Heffernan wrote this shortly after the 2016 election and it still holds true
THIS is what makes my head spin: The president is not a moral figure in any idiom, any land, any culture, any subculture. I'm not talking about the liberal enlightenment that would make him want the country to take care of the poor and sick. I mean he has no Republican values either. He has no honor among thieves, no cosa nostra loyalty, no Southern code against cheating or lying, none of the openness of New York, rectitude of Boston, expressiveness and kindness of California, no evangelical family values, no Protestant work ethic. No Catholic moral seriousness, no sense of contrition or gratitude. No Jewish moral and intellectual precision, sense of history. He doesn't care about the life of the mind OR the life of the senses. He is not mandarin, not committed to inquiry or justice, not hospitable. He is not proper. He is not a bon vivant who loves to eat, drink, laugh. There's nothing he would die for - not American values, obviously, but not the land of Russia or his wife or young son. He has some hollow success creeds from Norman Vincent Peale, but Peale was obsessed with fair-dealing and a Presbyterian pastor; Trump has no fairness or piety. He's not sentimental; no affection for dogs or babies. No love for mothers, "the common man"" veterans. He has no sense of military valor, and is openly a coward about war. He would have sorely lacked the pagan beauty and capacity to fight required in ancient Greece. He doesn't care about his wife or wives; he is a philanderer but he's not a romantic hero with great love for women and sex. He commands loyalty and labor from his children not because he loves them, even; he seems almost to hate them — and if one of them slipped it would be terrifying. He does no philanthropy. He doesn't - in a more secular key - even seem to have a sense of his enlightened self-interest enough to shake Angela Merkel's hand. Doesn't even affect a love for the arts, like most rich New Yorkers. He doesn't live and die by aesthetics and health practices like some fascists; he's very ugly and barely mammalian. Am I missing an obscure moral system to which he so much as nods? Also are there other people, living or dead, like him?
December 16, 2025 at 4:21 AM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
I just want to SEE one of the pamphlets printed by the Anabaptists at the Siege of Munster. Have wasted much time looking into this today for no practical reason. None are even digitized!
December 16, 2025 at 12:09 AM
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wittywebhandle.bsky.social
The only correct 'of the Year' decision I've seen so far
merriam-webster.com Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 4d
Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.
December 15, 2025 at 4:54 PM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
Thinking about approaching my upstairs neighbors about going in together on a backyard barrel sauna.
December 13, 2025 at 1:03 PM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
And our latest print catalog arrived today! Bruce McKittrick Rare Books Catalog 75 🤗
December 12, 2025 at 7:39 PM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
I’m tired and hungover and cold, but I made it back to my desk and I’ve got new Aldine Greek to collate 🤤
December 12, 2025 at 4:31 PM
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chapps.bsky.social
Such a beautiful polychrome terracotta group of two female figures sitting on a couch, leaning towards one another as if to share a secret. The older woman clasps her bare breast. They are thought to be Demeter and her daughter Persephone, but the identification is unsure. 🏺 1/ #ancientbluesky

📸 me
Terracotta group of two female figures sitting on a couch with elaborately turned legs, thick cushions, and draped with brightly painted textiles. They lean towards one another as if to share a secret, and the older woman on the right, with her himation pulled over her head, places a hand over her bared breast. The younger woman on the left raises her right hand over her breast under her own himation, mirroring her companion; on her left hand, we can see a large ring with a circular bezel. Each woman wears thick-soled sandals, and the older woman's sole is painted dark red. We see remains of the white slip - the base coat over which pigments would have been applied - as well as the bright remains of blue on the couch's drapery, and vibrant rose madder pigment on the younger woman's himation (cloak) and the cushions of the couch, red on the sole of the older woman's sandal and the younger woman's chiton (tunic), and a pale pink on the flesh of both women. Hellenistic, circa 100 BCE. Made in Myrina (Turkey), Asia Minor, where it was said to be found. Terracotta with pigments. British Museum (1885,0316.1)
December 12, 2025 at 3:45 AM
sibyllacumae.bsky.social
I know it’s objectively not that bad, but being outside right now is so heinous. I want to just roll over onto the side of the road and give up on life. Is this seasonal depressing 🦋
December 11, 2025 at 7:10 PM
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phileil.bsky.social
Can't say I ever expected to see a "That Font was No Angel" headline. But here we are.
A New York Times headline that reads: "Calibri’s Run-In With Rubio Wasn’t Its First Controversy."
December 11, 2025 at 11:56 AM
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theonion.com
This Weeks Onion Magazine:
The Top 100 Most Influential People, Locked In Our Oubliette. Not So Influential Now, Are You?
December 11, 2025 at 4:00 PM
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williamcavert.bsky.social
Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time?
Oh so it actually was the kings? Cool, question answered, thanks.
December 11, 2025 at 3:11 PM