One of the canonical, oft-repeated anecdotes of my marriage is that one time, years ago, my wife and I were at the cheesemonger’s when the radio began playing Belle & Sebastian. I said “Oh, I haven’t heard this song in ages!”
Disgusted, she asked “What is it, Sublime?”
“What? No!”
“Whatever, it sucks and you like it!”
In that spirit, I present you some of the best single posts from the website which sucks and which we nevertheless like, Twitter:
- The Torment Nexus.
- Ted Cruz looks like a commedia dell’arte character…
- Defeat the baby.
- Wet the drys, dry the wets…
- Elliot Gould & Grover photographer.
- Do not feed the coyotes.
- Hot air balloons.
- Human Nigel.
- The traditional means of resolving devil-related problems in these parts.
And these longer threads that make me laugh until I cry:
- The one about pretending to not be high while serving drinks to the President of Ireland.
- The one about the brother-in-law who accidentally ordered a literal ton of rice.
- The one about ordering crickets to feed to your lizard.
- The one about ordering praying mantises as pest control.
Twitter is dying, and new platforms struggle to be born. Now is the time of Elon and his muskrats.
Vocabulary
This week I have picked up a book called Shadow & Claw, recommended by internet acquaintances who describe it as the great American sci-fi/fantasy epic. The New Yorker describes author Gene Wolfe as a “difficult genius” and relates that he’s been called the Melville of sci-fi by no less than Ursula K. LeGuin. I can see why.
The book has clearly been written to compete with Tolkien, not with elves and such, but with an enormous, carefully imagined world and a backstory so vast as to be incomprehensible even to the protagonists. Most importantly, the prose style asserts (perhaps too much) that the genre is worthy of literary respect. Wolfe stretches for antique words in a way that shouldn’t work, but somehow does: a man is strangled with a lambrequin rather than a simple garotte; peasants step aside for armigers rather than minor nobility; cavalry ride destriers to meet carracks arriving at the shore; an officer leads a lochus of peltasts; a weary traveler leans upon a paterissa. I haven’t had to guess at meanings or open a dictionary so frequently since I was a tween tearing through the grownup sci-fi/fantasy section at my hometown library. Trying to make sense of unfamiliar words in almost-familiar contexts manages to create a a sort of unheimlich sensation, the familiar tropes of a genre rendered once more uncanny… when it’s not just a colossal pain in the ass.
Joy
This cat is two sauces long.
AI-generated packages for different regionally popular candies.
Cat or underwear model?
The hazards of having a retriever at Halloween.
Rather longer but well worth your time, this absolutely scathing article about the state of the UK Conservative Party.
Secretly Ironic 
