Haiku day

I write, erase, rewrite

Erase again, and then

A poppy blooms.

Katsushika Hokusai

💙📚 #poetry #haiku #haikuday

It's #BatAppreciationDay! Here's Plate 67 from Ernst Haeckel’s Art Forms of Nature (1904). Focusing mainly on marine animals, the bat is one of the only mammals to feature in the book: publicdomainreview.org/collection/ernst-haeckel... #bats #onthisday #otd

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

-G. Brooks

The Lord's Prayer in what is now known as Plains Indian Sign Language or Plains Sign Talk — a sign language that operated as a lingua franca between tribes across N. America. From Lewis Francis Hadley's Indian Sign Talk (1893). More in our latest post: publicdomainreview.org/collection/i...

Susan Schulten on the pioneering work of Emma Willard (1787–1870), a leading feminist educator whose innovative maps of time laid the groundwork for the charts and graphics of today: publicdomainreview.org/essay/emma-willard-maps-... #InternationalWomensDay #IWD2026

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Today is Gabriel García Márquez birthday. Have you actually conquered his "One Hundred Years of Solitude," or are you still lost in Macondo?
#booksky #books #writers #bookclub #book #marquez

Celebrate #WorldBookDay with a look at some of the most beautiful and unusual examples from the first 100 years of the “modern” book cover, since the rise of publishers' bindings circa 1820: publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-bo...

[Exit Murderer.]

Booke, booke,
Reade a booke,
Reade anothir booke,
Reade a large amounte of bookes -
Bookes are freakinge awesome

Women Writers and Nature: Inaugural Post!! Reading in Public published a post on Ko-fi

For March: A trip back to my first post, on women authors writing about nature, featuring Gene Stratton-Porter, whose books I've come to enjoy quite a bit! #booksky #womenauthors
ko-fi.com/Post/Women-W...

Water Spirits in Japanese Folklore Tales of nushi in ponds, lakes and rivers

After taking a break last month (and most of this month) I have finally published a new article about nushi, the spirits of ponds, lakes and rivers in #JapaneseFolklore. I've included several folktales, some yokai, and plenty of #JapaneseArt. I hope you enjoy it.
open.substack.com/pub/curiouso...

A large stone torii stands on the shore framing a view of Mt Fuji across the water. Several people are on the beach and a few boats can be seen on the water. There is a clear blue sky.

'Enoshima' from the series 'Thirty-six Views of Mt.Fuji' - Utagawa Hiroshige, 1858.
#ToriiTuesday #ukiyoe #JapaneseArt

How Japanese Masters Turn Sand Into Swords: The Art of Traditional Sword Making from Start to Finish We made sand think: this phrase is used from time to time to evoke the particular technological wonders of our age, especially since artificial intelligence seems to be back on the slate of possibilit...

How Japanese Masters Turn Sand Into Swords: The Art of Traditional Sword Making from Start to Finish

A full moon in the sky reflected on still water on which a boat with three people is passing. Reeds grow on the shore in the foreground.

'Moonlit Sea' - Koho, ca. 1930's.
#FullMoon #JapaneseArt

Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium: A Beautiful Digital Edition of the Poet’s Pressed Plants & Flowers Is Now Online So many writers have been gardeners and have written about gardens that it might be easier to make a list of those who didn’t. But even in this crowded company, Emily Dickinson stands out.

Emily Dickinson’s Herbarium: A Beautiful Digital Edition of the Poet’s Pressed Plants & Flowers Is Now Online

I undoubtedly have these all over my house.

What Pompeii Looked Like Hours Before Its Destruction: A Reconstruction However celebrated by historians, scrutinized by archaeologists, and descended-upon by tourists it may be, Pompeii is not exceptional — not even in the fate of having been buried in ash by Mount Vesuv...

What Pompeii Looked Like Hours Before Its Destruction: A Reconstruction

T. S. Eliot’s admiration of P. G. Wodehouse was said to be “just this side of idolatry”, Douglas Adams named him a “great genius” who “writes pure word music”. Read Wodehouse's Leave it to Psmith (1923) here: publicdomainreview.org/collections/leave-it-to-...

Winter Sport: How to Play Ice Hockey Reading in Public published a post on Ko-fi

Are you missing the Olympics already? Do you not care about the Olympics but just want to find out how they played ice hockey 100 years ago? Do you want to see a couple of stone-cold hotties? This post has all that and more!!

Lost their thighs???

A black-and-white photo of Metta Victor, clad in late 19th-century fashion, with a high collar, flowers at her throat, and a braided bun with crimpy curls on her forehead. She looks rather imposing.

...is that the mother and the heroine's father are much more defined characters than Nate Wolfe and the heroine herself. Anyway, here's Metta Victor: (3/3)

...the woman (the heroine's mother in a flashback), responds to a sudden turn in her relationship by just getting the hell out. Immediately. Not quite what I expected from a story written in the 1800s but maybe that's my prejudice showing. Also interesting... (2/3)

Crime Fiction Pioneer Metta Victor Reading in Public published a post on Ko-fi

A post from May about Metta Victor. I read one of her books recently (Nat Wolfe, link in the article), and while there was a lot about it that was very dated (casual racism against Native Americans, for sure), one of the plotlines was interesting in that... (1/3)

ko-fi.com/post/Crime-F...

The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead: A Guidebook for Surviving the Afterlife The saying 'You can't take it with you' may be a cliché to all of us here in the twenty-first century, but it would hardly have made sense to an ancient Egyptian.

The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead: A Guidebook for Surviving the Afterlife

Presidential Cookbooks for Presidents' Day Reading in Public published a post on Ko-fi

ko-fi.com/post/Preside... Exploration of The White House Cookbook and its adaptation, The Presidents' Cookbook. Lots of interesting recipes and scads of trivia!

A bird hangs upside down in the branch of a flowering cherry tree.

'Bird on Cherry Branch' - Utagawa Hiroshige.
#JapaneseArt #ukiyoe

Yf tech billionaires reallye reade their Tolkien thei wolde understande that it was the obsessive searche by Sauron for selfish immortalitye, individual power, vain conquest, hoarded wealth, and exploitation of othirs that above all else broughte disaster to Middle Earthe.

African American Poets Part I Reading in Public published a post on Ko-fi

ko-fi.com/post/African...
Not sure why the link didn't work in the original post...

Black History Month: Matthew Henson's Expedition to the Arctic Reading in Public published a post on Ko-fi

New Essay: Matthew Henson's Expedition to the North Pole. For Black History Month.

History likes to say Robert Peary was the first American to reach the North Pole--but was he really? (And was it the North Pole at all?)

African American Poets for Black History Month. #poetry #BlackHistoryMonth (from April 2025)

ko-fi.com/post/African-American-Po...