Where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms that gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives while from the dimlit halls of other places forms that never were and never could be writhe for the impatience of the few who never saw what could have been. In the black water with the sun shining at midnight, those fruit shall come ripe and in the darkness of that which is golden shall split open to reveal the revelation of the fatal softness in the earth. The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand the mind beyond what any man can bear, but whether it decays under the earth or above on green fields, or out to sea or in the very air, all shall come to revelation, and to revel, in the knowledge of the strangling fruit—and the hand of the sinner shall rejoice, for there is no sin in shadow or in light that the seeds of the dead cannot forgive. And there shall be in the planting in the shadows a grace and a mercy from which shall blossom dark flowers, and their teeth shall devour and sustain and herald the passing of an age. That which dies shall still know life in death for all that decays is not forgotten and reanimated it shall walk the world in the bliss of not-knowing. And then there shall be a fire that knows the naming of you, and in the presence of the strangling fruit, its dark flame shall acquire every part of you that remains.

Test

Patrick O'Brian QOTD:

‘Oh yes, sir,’ said Smith. ‘It was our chief killer. The young officers looked to it for promotion. They called it the black vomit, or sometimes yellow jack.’
17-The Commodore, ch.9, paragraph 9

I like this one because it gives a reason why Paul Giamatti, his son, would have wanted to make a show entirely about conspiracies. (Lodge 49, the most underrated show of all time)

In solidarity I have written my name in Sharpie on a tattered, faded Infowars sticker attached to the back of a stop sign.

‘My hands have now regained the moderate ability they possessed before I was captured,’ observed Maturin, ‘but his have gone on to a point I never thought he could reach: his hands and his mind. I am amazed. In his own way he is the secret man of the world; but I wish his music were happier.’ 17-The Commodore, ch.3, paragraph 109

Trying something new. Which it's the Patrick O'Brian Quote of the Day:

(you're them in this scenario. This Scornario.)

I'm like Martin Scorsese. I do one post for them, one post for me.

Big-Time Nonfiction Author: I’m on this cruise ship to call out our revealed preference for simulated, sanitized experiences.
(Cruise ship commences blockade-running the Strait of Hormuz)
BTNA: nevertheless,,

That plot point is unfairly maligned. That said… bsky.app/profile/mist...

This is like that time Superman became president

Any fan’s of the original 1995 movie Shazam ?

(somebody do this for my August, 2020 book, please)

a low current level of layoffs is not mutually exclusive from a general, pervasive sense that a once-in-history scythe is about to pass through the entire economy 💀

DNA makes protein, k?
but protein now makes DNA
like Jeff Goldblum likes to say
life uh uh uh finds a way

funny how this only adds to the overwhelming feeling that I Simply Do Not Understand What's Going On

I think they should just do a patreon model!

don't tell him

bluesky I give up, I will pay you five dollars a month if that's what you need to continue functioning

to be clear, my thesis, which I admittedly spent about 30 seconds thinking about before posting, is that as long as you have 30-40% of people on each side who are pissed at the other side, the outcome of elections shouldn't move the needle too much since there will always be an angry out-party.

I keep wondering if part of the answer is that everyone now understands that you can express dissatisfaction with the party in power by saying the economy sucks, and negative polarization is driving people—maybe *different* people, year to year—to do that in their survey responses.

One thing happening here is Mamdani is leaving no room for interpretation. Part of what, say, Hannity et al. do is they take some anodyne bit of Dem policy and twist and expand it until it sounds scary for their listeners. But with this kinda aggro vid Mamdani is taking the wind out of their sails.

my new whatever-this-is name is Avuncular

man bsky is not working today huh?

Why are their names all adjectives

Meta has been taking the bulk of the heat for this but if I were Ray-ban (or its vertically integrated parent company) I’d start worrying about brand damage too.

Kind of interested in the bird one tbh

Inertia waits

A picture of sculptures of foxes disguised as monks, one from Japan and one from Denmark. Below, someone responds “it was a global problem”

Maybe it’s just because we’ve been reading Redwall at home, but this got me

heartening to see a Thomas Pynchon character do so well for himself

She provided the following data about the three No Kings protests: “At No Kings 1 (June 14, 2025) the median age was 36, at No Kings 2 (Oct. 18, 2025) the median age was 44, and at No Kings 3 (March 28, 2026) it was 48. Clearly, it’s getting older.”

This Edsall piece argues as if No Kings has a youth motivation problem, but these data points suggest to me that this movement is succeeding in capturing older voters. (Which is to say the most valuable age demographic of voters.) I really don't see the problem here.

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/o...