Cheers to that! Even more motivation to write about that very question (not that I needed it). Best of luck to you!!!

Congrats Joanna!!!

"These new bohemians are responding to the failures of our technological society by embracing everything that has for too long been dismissed as antiquated and esoteric. They reach for whatever is artisanal, bespoke, recycled, vintage."

I’ve seen her (Martineau) interpreted as a rather rigid moralist. I’m not familiar enough with her work to know, but her interaction with Charlotte tracks with that.

Really enjoyed that…I should reread Villette. Also, Harriet Martineau was a tough one!

today is charlotte brontë’s birthday. in her honor, consider

A case can be made…of course he would probably deny it!

It's really good!

[on my second glass of wine] @atrubek.bsky.social I think what the world really needs is an Anna Jameson anthology or reader -- how many printings have there been of 'The Genius of John Ruskin' in the last 60 years?

Ruskin wrote beautifully about so many things, but he was such a blockhead about women.

Then the post WWII scholarly apparatus carried on the work for him – he’s the only 19th century art historian anyone reads now, yet in his time Jameson up was on the same shelf with him.

One of the many things this book does well is detail interactions between Jameson and Ruskin. Jameson influenced Ruskin, he used her as a source, and yet long after she was dead he dismissed and belittled her in his memoir.

Excellent and I agree that the analysis is fascinating!

@joannapocock.bsky.social have you seen this one?

Photo of the book Our Lady of Victorian Feminism by Kimberly VanEsveld Adams. The cover is modified from two sketches of the Madonna, themselves taken from examples of sacred art, by Anna Brownell Jameson, and I rather like it.

Me not knowing when to quit…

“How bright you are, my unlived day…”

Today marks 110 years since the birth of Romanian poet Magda Isanos, whose poetry I’ve read all my life, and had the honor of gathering and translating in 2021. I have not been to her gravesite in a couple of years but soon I will return and read her poems.

Fascinating thread that has me thinking (once again) about that porous boundary between fiction and nonfiction.

"She was gracious and yet fading, like an old statue in a garden, that symbolizes the weather through which it has endured, and is not so much the work of man as the work of wind and rain and the herd of the seasons, and though formed in man's image is a figure of doom."

—Djuna Barnes, "Nightwood"

bruiseSky, 2026

#photography #landscape #concept #horizon

Happy birthday!!!

Dream where I missed a meeting because I was attending a reenactment of the Eleusinian Mysteries in Italy. Bulletproof excuse, really.

arm your hearts and minds with mistrust, never let your critical resistance down.

-Mann, The Magic Mountain (tr. John Woods)

Obligatory repost whenever Portis and especially Masters of Atlantis appears in my feed. Love my reclusive weirdos.

Mountain and ocean obscured by fog

Obscuris vera involvens:
Truth is enveloped by obscurity

Virgil

Here again to say, after reading yet another half-baked fashion piece, that the trousers that Amelia Bloomer wore were not exposed underwear. Underwear began to be called "bloomers" much later. Thank you.

Am I going to side with the reclusive weirdo who prioritizes self expression over monetary reward? Why yes, yes I am, every time.

And maybe you can do all that on a good day but you are traveling and exhausted and having connection issues and they want answers NOW

Agree on both points and will be buying her latest on the next trip to the bookshop.

“…I don't want to be filmed looking like Spock.”

She takes such a bold stand against this ‘pivot to video’ madness that has infected everything, including, it seems, our most prestigious literary prizes.

“People get huffy about suicide (selfish to do it, help should be sought, seeking help is called threatning suicide); it’s true that it causes distress, so one tries to avoid it.” Etc

This Helen DeWitt story is insane on so many levels.