Looking down at the Golden Gate Bridge from the top of Twin Peaks. The orange color of the two towers is visible against the green background of the Marin County hills.
Golden Gate Bridge
San Francisco, CA
This woman, US citizen living in Skokie, was detained at Ohare yesterday, taken to Broadview, then transferred to a detention facility in Wisconsin, now released. We know all this not because of DHS, who repeatedly denied that they even had her, but because her phone was pinging in those locations.
The cover of a Hachette edition of La Vie mode d’emploi by Georges Perec. It features a 19th century colored drawing depicting “five floors of Parisian life” drawn as if we could look through the outside walls into the rooms of a building.
Cover of the verbs Mundi edition of Life A User’s Manual, written by Georges Perec and translated by David Bellos. It features the cross-section of a building showing the original room locations only through the different paint colors on the remaining end wall.
Text from Life A User’s Manual, written by Georges Perec and translated by David Bellos.
Yes, it could begin this way, right here, just like that, in a rather slow and ponderous way, in this neutral place that belongs to all and to none, where people pass by almost without seeing each other, where the life of the building regularly and distantly resounds.
- Georges Perec
#botd
“Je cherche en même temps l’éternel et l’éphémère!”
[I seek at once the eternal and the ephemeral.]
— Georges Perec, Les Revenentes (1972)
Later used as the epigraph to the last chapter of *Life: A User’s Manual* (1978):
“Winston Churchill did intervene in Iran and we are living with the consequences of that today”
@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
The asymmetry of the value placed on human life is so striking. Israel has a goal to recover 40-year-old remains; to do so, it invades a sovereign country, and the lives of 26 Lebanese are an afterthought. Their names not even worth printing in the New York Times.
A monochrome ‘spot the mistake’ scene featuring a postman cycling along a lane besides a half timbered thatched cottage
An observation test for your inner 8-year-old.
Can you spot 12 deliberate mistakes?
From Treasure magazine, 1965
Official answers coming soon
(Even if you don’t reply, could you please ‘like’ or share this one?)
And now your music's playing
And the writing's on the wall
And all the dreams you painted
Can be seen by one and all
Now you've got them thinking
And the future's just begun
For you sowed the seeds of freedom
In your daughters and your sons
youtu.be/HhsmsDLYca0?...
Solid blue sky with a wisp of white cloud.
Wintry showers (of photons)
San Francisco, CA
What does your conscience say? — ‘You should become the person you are'. Friedrich Nietzsche caramel with pink accent rose against a black background
thoughts on stephen miller’s rant about “human rights” youtu.be/3RJ_TWtFcMk?...
Informative short clip on the UK's 20th century imperial meddling in Iran.
Summer Isles
What we see here is Donald Trump, acting as he always does, as a global chaos generator.
The further we stand away from that, the better off we will be.
Well said @georgemonbiot.bsky.social 👏
#bbcqt #IranWar
At once impeccably cool and aggressively unfashionable, Joe Jackson’s Steppin’ Out is four minutes of nightmare disco and nightclub jitters which paves the way from ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ to the Magnetic Fields. Detours through Motown and Freud. A perfect single. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJwt...
I continue to be gobsmacked at 1) how common this formulation is 2) how antisemitic and generally bigoted it is 3) and how for all the talk of anti-semitism this is never cited as an example even though it’s quite literally the original incarnation.
l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle
- Dante, Paradiso canto 33
The final line of the Divine Comedy
my alone feels so good, i’ll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude - warsan shire red-orange singular poppy against a black background
Spanish PM Sánchez responds to Trump:
"Spain is against this disaster... Govts are here to improve people's lives... It is absolutely unacceptable that those leaders who are unable to fulfill that mission use the smoke of war to hide their failure, and in the process, fill the pockets of a few."
1. A short thread on a Bluesky phenomenon that might be described as "They are a dead-eyed cultist who must be cast out lest the heresy take root!" OP has blocked me for mocking them - I'd usually obscure their name but since they themselves were quote-dunking to demand someone else be blocked ...
We can’t clean up Washington without restoring integrity to the Supreme Court.
That’s why I believe we should expand the Supreme Court to 13 justices. And then, institute term limits.
Because an appointment to the Supreme Court shouldn’t mean a lifetime lack of accountability.
Cover of the Verso edition of Will and Testament, written by Vigdis Hjorth and translated by Charlotte Barslund. It features the painting Fisherman’s Cottage by Harald Sohlberg. This shows a white cottage in a bright clearing behind some trees. A sliver of sea is visible in the distance, with some hills beyond it. Above is a pale blue sky.
I couldn't stand being at home constantly checking my emails, I dressed up warmly, put the article about Elfriede Jelinek into my bag and walked seven kilometres to the watchmaker who fitted my watch with a new battery.
- Vigdis Hjorth, Will and Testament
Tr: Charlotte Barslund
From the archive for Olivia Manning #BornOnThisDay in 1908, my thoughts on THE DANGER TREE, book 1 of the magnificent LEVANT TRILOGY.
Inspired by Manning's personal experiences, it's an absorbing, richly rewarding novel with an immersive sense of place! 💙📚
jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2026/01/18/t...
Prominent conservative attorney Jonathan Mitchell wants to build a national abortion ban through California. His client is a convicted abuser of women.
multi-hued poppy in shades of pink, ochre, & white seemingly painted on the petals
Skeletons
- Inflatable Boy Clams
When Trump came to power, he ripped up the peace deal that Obama had made, and used the uncertainty he created as an excuse to bomb Iran, insisting he had ended the problem he had created once and for all, except now he's bombing them again to solve the problem he created and previously solved?
Photo of the east side of San Francisco and the San Francisco Bay from the top of Twin Peaks. The cloud level was slightly below the top so the image is partially obscured by a damp mist. The Bay is only barely visible.
Base of the clouds
San Francisco, CA
White flower and yellow spadix of a single Calla Lily. Its green leaves form the background.
Cala Lilly
San Francisco, CA
