A photograph of autumn clouds from the collection of P.J. Cohen.
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Louise Bogan, writing to Morton D. Zabel, August 22, 1937. Via Letters of Note.
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Emanuele Cavalli, "Solitario," 1936.
Austrian Essex Glass pendant depicting a bolete, circa 1890. Sourced by Will Martindale, Classical Gem Hunter, for J.W. Anderson.
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Stained glass by Abraham van Linge, c.1633, in a Georgian window at Lydiard Park, photographed by Caro/@soniclb.
Stained glass by Abraham van Linge, c.1633, in a Georgian window at Lydiard Park, photographed by Caro/@soniclb.
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Still from "One Battle After Another."
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For sale: A former British prep school filled with 150,000 second-hand books "meticulously sorted into subject areas, from naval history to 19th-century literature, architecture to zoology ..." Includes a garden with "philosophical follies, such as doorknobs surreally attached to tree trunks" and a "modern version of the Tantalus myth ... a table and chairs in the middle of a pond, overhung with an unreachable fruit bowl." (Found thanks to Jess.)
Related: antilibrary (noun): A collection of books that are owned but have not yet been read.
"I’m a Thing Finder," said Pippi. "The whole world is full of things and somebody has to look for them. And that’s just what a Thing Finder does."
"What kind of things?" asked Annika.
"Oh, all kinds," said Pippi. ‘Lumps of gold, ostrich feathers, candy snapcrackers, little tiny screws, and things like that."Tommy and Annika thought it sounded as if it would be fun and wanted very much to be Thing Finders, too.
"We shall see what we shall see," said Pippi. "One always finds something."
Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking.
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INTERVIEWER: I’m trying to imagine you writing here at your desk. I’m picturing a huge tower of books from obscure libraries that you’re collaging from as you go—you know, some ancient Greek texts about ant colonies in India or whatever—and a complex system for taking notes on all the source materials … Is that how it is?
WEINBERGER: Not exactly. I tend to do most of the research before I start. That can take months. And I’ve never kept a notebook or taken notes, because I can’t read my own handwriting. When I have to write little to-do lists, I do it in block letters.
INTERVIEWER: So where do you keep the research?
WEINBERGER: It’s all here.
INTERVIEWER: Are you pointing to your giant cranium?
WEINBERGER: No, no, I’m pointing to the books on the shelves, which are incredibly OCD-organized ... As I write, I’m trying to remember where I’ve read something, so there is a chance that I’ll lose something forever ...
Srikanth Reddy, "Eliot Weinberger, The Art of the Essay No. 4," The Paris Review, Issue 253, Fall 2025.
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We continue to know more and more about modern society, but we find the centers of political initiative less and less accessible. This generates a personal malady that is particularly acute in the intellectual who has labored under the illusion that his thinking makes a difference. In the world of today the more his knowledge of affairs grows, the less effective the impact of his thinking seems to become. Since he grows more frustrated as his knowledge increases, it seems that knowledge leads to powerlessness. He feels helpless in the fundamental sense that he cannot control what he is able to foresee. This is not only true of the consequences of his own attempts to act; it is true of the acts of powerful men whom he observes.Such frustration arises, of course, only in the man who feels compelled to act. The “detached spectator” does not know his helplessness because he never tries to surmount it. But the political man is always aware that while events are not in his hands he must bear their consequences. He finds it increasingly difficult even to express himself. If he states public issues as he sees them, he cannot take seriously the slogans and confusions used by parties with a chance to win power. He therefore feels politically irrelevant. Yet if he approaches public issues “realistically,” that is, in terms of the major parties, he has already so compromised their very statement that he is not able to sustain an enthusiasm for political action and thought.The political failure of nerve has a personal counterpart in the development of a tragic sense of life. This sense of tragedy may be experienced as a personal discovery and a personal burden, but it is also a reflex of objective circumstances. It arises from the fact that at the centers of public decision there are powerful men who do not themselves suffer the violent results of their own decisions.
C. Wright Mills, “The Powerless People: The Social Role of the Intellectual,” Politics, 1944. Found thanks to an essay in N+1: "Large Language Muddle: It's OK to be a Luddite!"
Hamilton Nolan, "Shift Change at the Wheel Reinvention Factory," How Things Work, 10/16/2025.
"Trump is racing against time, trying to consolidate power before his unpopularity renders his coalition too small to accomplish much."
John Ganz, "This Is It: Obedience and Support are the Same." Unpopular Front, 9/18/2025.
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Mass movements sound dramatic. But they are not built dramatically. They are built through many, many mundane actions. Talking to people. Making a list. Knocking on doors. Planning a meeting. Going to the meeting. Setting up for the meeting. Participating in the meeting. Cleaning up after the meeting. Planning the next meeting. On and on. You get to go hurl rocks at the barricades sometimes, yes, but you can’t just do that part, and not do the meetings. This is why the real heroes of mass movements are… the masses. Not the guy who gets in the spotlight to announce his unique plan to save us all—all the people who actually do all the stuff.
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[O]bservers have been far too credulous of [broliagarch] libertarian self-narratives. Their actual behavior suggests fealty to a patronage market, not a free one, as they attempt to translate their proximity to President Trump into lucrative defense and surveillance contracts. These entrepreneurial parasites need a state they can feed on.
Suzanne Schneider, "From the Cesspool to the Mainstream," The New York Review, 10/23/2025.
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I recognize the situation is growing quite frightening, but it is also important to keep in mind that fear is a weapon. Fear is a force multiplier. If you strike terror into people’s hearts, they will obey, far beyond their actual exposure to danger. And the modern dictatorship does not need to rely on bloodcurdling terror of torture and death so much as the fear of nuisance, the fear of trouble, the fear of harassment. ... Even if your personal circumstances make it difficult for you, where and when you can, do not obey. Find ways to be intransigent; a pain in the ass.
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Joe Macleod + Tom Scocca, "Mr. Wrong: Congress' Day Off," Indignity Vol. 5, No. 84, 10/16/2025.
Seriously, this is giving me blood pressure, I can’t take it. If only there could be some sort of great spontaneous gathering, in cities all across this great land of ours, citizens, exercising their right to the Freedom of Assembly, and Freedom of Speech, people who are mad as hell and not gonna take it any more! Maybe on a weekend?
Joe Macleod + Tom Scocca, "Mr. Wrong: Congress' Day Off," Indignity Vol. 5, No. 84, 10/16/2025.
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