Luke > Recent Status Updates

We don't want to smell like a dead horse arum. But we do want to smell like jasmine, which has a distinct fecal odor beneath the top notes of cloying sweetness. At very low levels, at levels that reach into childhood, at the level of the unconscious mind, at a level that defines our kinship with the rest of the world, urinary and fecal smells are commonly added to our best perfume.

I'm liking the book, but in such a manner that I impulsively confirmed that the typeface that is treating my attention span so gently is Adobe Garamond. Wondering now how many books teetered on the wrong edge of my dislike due to not having the sense to go with that particular font.

...and then, cresting a little hill, we came upon the bosom of Olondria, undulant and dazed with light.

For thirty-nine days they journeyed, and on the final day they surrounded Eressëa at sunset and camped that night at Túna. The next day at midmorning the world was broken.

"A book," says Vandos of Ur-Amakir, "is a fortress, a palace of weeping, the key to a desert, a river that has no bridge, a garden of spears."

Every time I see someone hating on trans folks on here, I think about the teenage trans activists who released 6,000 crickets on a transphobic conference a couple of days ago and contemplate how I could translate that into online action.

Many congratulations to Han Kang, winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize for Lit! Woo hoo!

GRAmazon kills notifications and still chokes the traffic through the desktop feed as compared to the mobile app that they can hotbox amidst endless of unblockable ads. I do hope I live long enough to witness it all burn it to the ground, but until then, I'm glad to be a public librarian amidst all this gutless tripe.

Not a fan of getting the news through the transphobic rag that is the NYTimes, but the fact that more than 5% of US high schoolers today are some form of trans or gender questioning is life affirming.

'"Fat" and "thin" are make-believe categories the way "gay" and straight" are. They were brought into existence for no other reason than to control people.' I have my doubts as to whether the author's going to be able to adequately contextualize that loaded comparison in the next 90 pages.

Would it kill the author to assume the reader remembers accrued context for more than ten pages for two measley seconds?

The air overhead was packed solid with noise that did not move.

Anything that would lose appeal if [it] didn't lead to the acquisition or maintenance of a thin(ner) body is a diet.

Bit sickeningly liberal for my tastes, and I mean the "thinks being endorsed by Dick Cheney is a good thing" kind of liberal.

The past seventeen pages could stand up for themselves as an excellent short story. We'll see if the quality sustains itself in longform.

RIP Maggie Smith.

Folks who are in their early 20s and are violently 'worried' about what the 'teens' are reading are some of the funniest people on the Internet. Who died and made you the Catholic Church?

There are many authors who have written about the people and problems of Appalachia and similar environments who don't have eugenicists for pen-pals and mentors. [(J.D. Vance is not one of them.)]

Can't wait till the GR app is 75% ad space and 25% widget that authors use to dox reviewers they don't like.

Coal miners, centered in political rhetoric as the face of the forgotten white working class, earn an average salary of $60,000 to $90,00 a year. It is more accurate to describe coal mining as a blue-collar profession that commands a middle-class salary, a rarity in our present moment and certainly an employment sector that is shrinking beyond hope.

A purgative for the Vance effluvia (with far shorter a holds queue).

Sometimes, self care is purchasing the sequel to a queer erotica book already on the shelves at work because you know the patrons are too cowardly to request it themselves.

Would prefer it if Massie didn't try to "logic" his way through antisemitism kthx.

Oh great, now books are being combined with their sequels. And good luck filtering reviews without getting ad spam shoved down your throat. I don't know how the people without adblock live.

Glad to see my friend request question continues to weed out the clowns.

Unexpectedly queer, which is always a delight. Would be enjoying this even without such, but it just makes the thing all the more human, y'know?

You lashed for release, like a migrant eel in November.
You needed the sea.

This is the kind of book my too-moneyed Europhile patrons would be going for if they were half the temporarily unappreciated artists they think they are.

And, even though they sincerely claim to hold [male and female] as equal, parents simultaneously devalue the feminine and limit boys' access to it.

Those bats had their eyes open. Unlike us, /
They knew how, and when, to detach themselves /
From the love that moves the sun and the other stars.