Week 16: Ostrich Fern, Martin Heidegger, Douglas Houghton Campbell Last Quarter Moon; 21 Days to Second Cross-Quarter Day (May 1)

I didn’t write about Victorian pteridomania (missed opportunity), but I did discuss the metaphysics of ferns.

#philosophy #nature #ecology

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Week 15: Dutch Crocus, Guillaume Barth, William Herbert Waning Gibbous Moon; 28 Days to Second Cross-Quarter Day (May 1)

Crocuses - beautiful mutants connecting lives and cultures across three continents and three millennia.

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A fitting Marianne Moore poem for today:

archive.org/details/bwb_...

#poetry #war #modernism

A bowl of linguine and muhammara, topped with nutritional yeast.

Muhammara pasta—okay, I see you.

Week 14: Nimbostratus praecipitatio, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jenny Odell 86 Days to Summer Solstice

Have you ever seen an edition of the International Cloud Atlas? They are beautiful.

Week 14: Nimbostratus praecipitatio, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jenny Odell

#ecology #nature #poetry #nonfiction #seasons #spring

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Week 13: Paper Birch, Robert Frost, Gifford Pinchot Vernal Equinox

We need to understand nature to understand culture—and vice versa.

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Week 12: Sugar Maple, Annika Hansteen-Izora, Walter H. Crockett 7 Days to Vernal Equinox

Maple time is potent magic.

Read all about it: open.substack.com/pub/laurenti...

Week 11: American Robin, Emily Dickinson, Robert Ridgway 14 Days to Vernal Equinox

“Last week were the first morning bird songs that I have noticed…”

Second installment of my curated seasonal readings in #botany, #ornithology, #poetry, #philosophy, #ecology, #gardening, etc.

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Week 10: Witch Hazel, Friedrich Nietzsche, William Hamilton Gibson 21 Day Until Vernal Equinox

Try on my new series of curated readings from botany and philosophy, including this week:

In which I recognize the Nietzschan qualities of Witch Hazel:

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Which kind of avant-garde are you? A Narrative Poll

Which kind of avant-garde are you? A narrative poll:

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Sometimes it’s less a dark night of the soul and more of an extended dusk. Pairs nicely with the perpetual twilight of reason.

Hadley students push to make asparagus the official state vegetable The idea sprouted from a group of third grade students at Hadley Elementary School who learned about the importance of the vegetable and invited lawmakers and local officials to advocate for statewide...

Should asparagus be recognized as the “state vegetable” of Massachusetts? www.wbur.org/news/2026/01...

An Obituary for Farmers’ Almanac It is possible to stop a wound from hemorrhaging by applying a mixture of water and the oil that collects in a tobacco pipe stem. The highest peak in “Indian Territory” is

“[I]n ancient Babylon, astronomers used almanacs to list which activities were favorable or not for every day of the year. “Farewell to the Farmers’ Almanac means another nail in the coffin of slow media, the memory of an un-optimized life buried with it.”

studyhall.xyz/free-newslet...

Kennedy Flips Food Pyramid to Emphasize Red Meat and Whole Milk

“Kennedy had criticized previous guidelines as being influenced by food industries, but 5 of the 10 current scientific experts disclosed recent financial relationships with beef, dairy/pork industries, or food, infant formula, supplement or pharmaceutical companies.” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/w...

I’ve suspected this for a while, but the web is goimg to cash in on the zine aesthetic (image per Canva’s design trends). But will the process and backend also match zine ethics?

Wikipedia never fails to amaze me:

It’s the twenty-first century! Where are all the Marxist self-help guides?

Discover Your Species-Being

The Alienation Journal

Hegemony: A 12-Week Wellness Journey

Imagine the profits…

Mina Loy, "Virgins Plus Curtains Minus Dots" (1914)

The other direction will have to be even more unstructured, semi-autonomous circulation of inventory in an ostensibly non-commercial environment, like an unchained Apple Store meets anarchist “really free market”—the ultimate neoliberal synthesis of the creative consumer personality.

A prediction: if/when people get tired of the shoppy shop aesthetic, one new direction for retail will be empty, light-drenched interiors where visitors choose curated selections of cultural objects from a single-page, typed menu and are brought their goods in a basket for contemplative inspection.

Just an observation: Many people today envision their personal utopia as a sort of familiar-exotic “shoppy shop” little boutique market/cafe where they can peruse cute, tasteful goods and “come together as a community” in non-burdensome, semi-creative interactions.

Ballerina Farm Goes Full Wellness Brand | Culture Study Get more from Culture Study on Patreon

“Which is a very roundabout way of saying that farmers don’t need athletic hydration optimization — unless they’re not actually farmers.”

TFW you take a break from the book you’re currently obsessed with to think about what you’re going to read next.

Part of what made early blogging and web content fun is that it was part of the “informal” economy—which involved many risks and vulnerabilities but also allowed, and/or required, a lot of creativity.

The male-parent-fish genealogy is potent.

San Francisco sues nation's top food manufacturers over ultraprocessed foods The city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit against some top food manufacturers on Tuesday, arguing that ultraprocessed food from the likes of Coca-Cola and Nestle are responsible for a health crisis.

Seems like a nice idea: www.npr.org/2025/12/03/g...

Excavating old poetry blogs -- this one's nice, from 03/17/2011.

Why are social media platforms based on engagement? I thought the whole point of the internet was to post weird things that no one will understand unless they’re in on whatever subcultural niche I am currently investigating. We need idiosyncratic, pretentious taste, not algorithmic averages.

Bioregioning South East Ireland Food Manifesto YouTube video by Commonland

"We want to become good ancestors."

A lovely FOOD MANIFESTO for the Waterford bioregion in southeastern Ireland: www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1C2...

Why are social media platforms based on engagement?I thought the whole point of the internet was to post weird things that no one will understand unless they’re in on whatever subcultural niche I am currently investigating. We need idiosyncratic, pretentious taste, not algorithmic averages.