Slnieckar
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slnieckar.bsky.social
Slnieckar
@slnieckar.bsky.social
260 followers 410 following 770 posts
Birds, books, and Bach.
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slnieckar.bsky.social
I finished nine books this month, four for my extended SFF/POC theme, eight by women or POC, a modest two in German, and one in Portuguese.

chinese-poems.com/blog/?p=2942
Cover of The River Has Roots, by Amal El-Mohtar.
November 30, 2025 at 7:46 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
I finished a modest eight books this month, five as part of my month’s topic of POC SF/F (plans went slightly agley). Seven by women/POC altogether, three in German, none finished in Portuguese (another fairly long one on the go).
chinese-poems.com/blog/?p=2938
Cover of Das gute Übel, by Samanta Schweblin: it's a Time War-esque blue and red hare motif.
November 1, 2025 at 7:44 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
I finished 11 books in September, 8 by women/POC, seven of those for my Black writers monthly topic, with three in German and one in Portuguese.

chinese-poems.com/blog/?p=2933
Covers of Black, Grenzenlos und unverschämt, and Jubel und Schmerz der Mandelkrähe.
September 30, 2025 at 7:19 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
Two peregrines illustrating the size of their absurd nest.

#birds #WildlifeBrandenburg
Two peregrine falcons sit on a pylon, at the base of a ridiculously large and chaotic nest built between the struts.
September 25, 2025 at 4:22 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
Possibly the only set in Germany? Thanks to @asterismbooks.bsky.social and @neglectedbooks.com.
The four volumes of the new edition of Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage, balanced precariously on a hand.
September 11, 2025 at 12:11 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
It's catching!
An ereader with the cover of Everything Will Swallow You, by Tom Cox.
September 11, 2025 at 9:48 AM
slnieckar.bsky.social
I finished 12(ish) books this month, 11 by women/POC, and 10 of those for #WITMonth. 5 in German, and one in Portuguese.

chinese-poems.com/blog/?p=2926
Covers of Love in the New Millennium, Im Spiegelsaal, and Pantopia.
August 31, 2025 at 3:22 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
Renewing #proofofcat
A black and white cat in disc mode, with her head tucked behind her paws.
August 27, 2025 at 4:56 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
I hear and obey!
The cover of The River Has Roots, plucked from the shelf by my grubby mitts.
August 16, 2025 at 1:19 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
Slowworm season is in full swing: this morning I encouraged one youngster and one pregnant female to leave the paths.

#WildlifeBrandenburg #reptiles
(I think) pregnant female slowworm making a triangle on a tarmac path. A skinny young slowworm on a dirt path.
August 14, 2025 at 10:08 AM
slnieckar.bsky.social
New golden oriole hasn't learned how to hide yet.

#birds #WildlifeBrandenburg
A juvenile golden oriole fully visible on a bare branch.
August 10, 2025 at 5:51 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
Camouflage fail.

#birds #WildlifeBrandenburg
A white-tailed eagle sits in a dead tree, with its wings hanging down louchely. It's largely the same colour as the tree.
August 9, 2025 at 2:21 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
Portrait of a kittiwake.

#birds
A kittiwake on the nest is gently preening her feathers; behind and below are an ungentle brick wall and bird spikes.
August 7, 2025 at 5:55 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
A baby shrike -- so sweet and innocent.

#WildlifeBrandenburg #birds
A young red-backed shrike stands on a dead branch, plotting a life of crime.
August 6, 2025 at 5:37 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
Modest #WITMonth stack -- probably more as audio/ebooks. I may hurl Can Xue out the window before I finish that one.
Book spines: Rombo, Love in the New Millennium, Pantopia, and Im Spiegelsaal.
August 1, 2025 at 8:50 AM
slnieckar.bsky.social
Helped this pregnant lady over the road (normally I never take such liberties).

#WildlifeBrandenburg
A female slow worm being gingerly held up in front of a wooded landscape.
July 31, 2025 at 7:59 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
I finished ten books this month, six for my slightly patronising month’s topic of “sound Americans”, five by women/POC, three in German, with one graphic novel. No Portuguese, because I’m working through a big one.

chinese-poems.com/blog/?p=2920
Covers of Jahr der Wunder and Paying the Land.
July 30, 2025 at 6:19 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
I finished ten books in June: eight for my poor excuse for a monthly theme (“finishing off books I’d already started”), six by women/non-binary/POC, one in Portuguese, and a measly one in German. That makes a nice round sixty for the first half of the year.

chinese-poems.com/blog/?p=2916
Covers of Proxi, Every Short Story 1951-2012, and Animal Joy.
June 26, 2025 at 7:31 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
Swallowtail caterpillar squatting on our fennel.

#WildlifeBrandenburg
An orange, black, and white caterpillar on a stalk of fennel is lit in the evening sun.
June 20, 2025 at 6:13 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
The osprey _knows_.

#birds #WildlifeBrandenburg
An osprey has slightly turned in flight in order to glare straight into your soul.
June 7, 2025 at 6:30 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
A good predator day today: hornet robberfly (I think), and a peregrine reminding us not to get too close.

#WildlifeBrandenburg #birds
A hornet robberfly predating a beetle on a stalk of (possibly) wheat. A peregrine falcon with wings spread out wide and beak open mid-yell.
June 1, 2025 at 6:22 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
Learning about non-Duchenne laughter; from Animal Joy -- Nuar Alsadir.
Communication (Nice to see you!) is the primary objective driving non-Duchenne laughter, indicating to others how they should interpret interactions and the role they should play in the social script at hand. In a study, neurobiologist Robert Provine discovered that most laughter is unrelated to the content of what is being said. His team went out into the world, observed over a thousand instances of laughter, and found that, rather than laughing after jokes, "people laugh more often after such innocuous lines as 'I'll see you guys later' or 'Are you sure?!'" In fact, he found, only 10 to 20 percent of pre-laugh comments were remotely funny: "Most laughter did not follow anything resembling a joke, storytelling, or other formal attempt at humor." Some typical statements leading to laughter were "I hope we all do well," "It was nice meeting you too," and "I think I'm done."
May 31, 2025 at 5:29 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
I finished 11 books this month: nine for my theme of the month (non-fiction), and seven by women/POC, three in German, and one in Portuguese.

chinese-poems.com/blog/?p=2910
Covers of What is Mine, The Use of Photography, Das Neutrum, and Eine Arbeiterin.
May 31, 2025 at 5:15 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
#AContinuation25

More subversion of the tyranny of questions, from Nuar Alsadir's Animal Joy.
Refusal to take your position in an established order disrupts the power structure of that order. The repeated objection of Herman Melville's character Bartleby when he's asked to perform a task by his employer ("I would prefer not to"), for example, or American football player Marshawn Lynch's repetition of the same nonanswer ("I'm thankful") to reporters' tedious postgame questions are, as Orwell says of jokes, tiny revolutions. Lynch, fed up with reporters' questions, at first refused to answer them. Yet because he was contractually obliged to attend press conferences -- and faced a $50,000 fine if he did not -- Lynch showed up and repeated an answer that had nothing to do with the question asked ("Thanks for asking," "I'm here so I won't get fined"). He fulfilled his contractual agreement without giving reporters what they wanted from him. Tennis player Naomi Osaka announced on social media that to protect her mental health, she would not participate in press conferences for the 2021 French Open and was willing to accept the fines. When the French Open not only fined her but threatened her with expulsion, she shocked the athletic establishment by withdrawing from the tournament. "If the organisations think that they can just keep saying, 'Do press or you're gonna be fined," Osaka posted on her social media accounts, "and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are the centerpiece of their cooperation [sic] then I just gotta laugh." This laughter, like the kind Orwell describes, expresses resistance -- it says that she, like the actor cast as the dead body, refuses the role. Had Bartleby said no to his boss's requests, or had Lynch or Osaka refused to stand before the press while remaining in the game, they would have played a recognizable role (rebel) and maintained the social order (because once they've got you violent, then they know how to handle you). However, by responding in asyntactic ways -- in poetry? -- they broke agreed-upon codes and defamiliarized the social script before them. Lynch freed himself to speak on his own terms, nonverbally, through the game itself ("I'm just about that action"); Osaka stepped off the stage into her own script; while Bartleby, in preferring not to do whatever was asked of him, "den[ied]" his employer's "authority." To refuse to play the part that is expected of you is to resist transferring power to whoever is invested in your taking up that role.
May 26, 2025 at 7:15 PM
slnieckar.bsky.social
Disconcertingly, the same stock photos feature in the English textbook I regularly teach from. :)
Pictures of a young family on an English textbook teaching family vocabulary.
May 25, 2025 at 6:47 PM