The Owl of Minerva

27jun2024

Michael Stipe Is Writing His Next Act. Slowly. – nice profile of an impressive artist. Simple clean style that cuts to the content.

Devin Kelly’s Ordinary Plots: Meditations on Poems + Verse has been a revelation. Case in point Najwan Darwish’s “On the Third Day”, Mary Oliver’s “Some Questions You Might Ask”, Tariq Alarabi’s “Carob Tree” and so many more. There is a refined elegance to these posts that reflect on, but never dissects, poems from all over.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, in AB. Clarifying, crisp and packs a punch 4.5/5

17jun2024

The Serpentine Band, by Congyun ‘Mu Ming’ Gu. A beautifully written 18,500 words long novella that dances. 5/5

Tabula Rasa: Volume 1 by John McPhee, in AB. Free flowing, but not sure to where. Not for me. 3/5

chatGPT20.txt, Donald Knuth on his experemintation with chatGPT.

my theory of fucks. The theory goes like so: you are born with so many fucks to give. However many you’ve got is all there is (…) But I realize now that if you can give a fuck then you must also be able to receive. And that’s the key.

This is one of my answers to the question of, why give a fuck about work? Why love your work? (…) And my answer is: don’t. Don’t give a fuck about your work. Give all your fucks to the living.

(…) But if you give a fuck about the living, about all your living kin in all the kingdoms, they will give a fuck right back.
— Mandy Brown

12jun2024

They tried to bury me, they didn’t realise I was a seed.
— Sinéad O’Connor

Nothing Compares, great documentary on Sinéad O’Connor.

Pedro Páramo, by Juan Rulfo in a new translation by Douglas J. Weatherford. “What exactly do you understand?”. Mastery of the form. 5/5.

In The Stacks (Maisie’s Tune), short story by Robin Sloan. Well told 3.5/5

The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt: A Tyranny of Truth, by Ken Krimstein. Beautifully narrated and drawn graphic biography. 4/5.

Copyright © 2021–2024