elle

literature, books and coffee are what makes me keep going

[utopians]

Oh shittttt I forgot this was my one wild and precious life

[sawasawako]

anyway… if anyone is looking to improve their reading & writing skills, i highly recommend this article by celine nguyen, which analyses the opening paragraphs of good essays to understand how and why they work. focuses on nonfiction but could apply generally i think

[anthropoetics]

readings: essays & articles

reassuring ghosts and haunted houses

fish recorded singing dawn chorus on reefs just like birds

what people around the world dream about

poet and philosopher david whyte on anger, forgiveness, and what maturity really means

oranges are orange, salmon are salmon

how memories persist where bodies and even brains do not

the avant-garde musical legacy of the moomins

the weight of our living: on hope, fire escapes, and visible desperation

disturbed minds and disruptive bodies

what is better ー a happy life or a meaningful one?

after my dad died, i started sending him emails. months later, someone wrote me back

on the igbo art of storytelling

what the caves are trying to tell us

promethean beasts — how animal uses of fire help illuminate human pyrocognition

the art of loving and losing female friends

on memorizing poetry

the ecological imagination of hayao miyazaki

reading in the age of constant distraction

holly warburton illustrates tender moments of love and light

romancing the fig: what one fruit can tell us about love, life and human civilization

mystery and birds: 5 ways to practice poetry

can a plant remember? this one seems to — here's the evidence

why female cannibals frighten and fascinate

when you give a tree an email adress

fear not — horror movies build community and emotional resilience

[robertcapajpg]

some articles i enjoyed recently (faves are bolded) 

the genesis of blame, london review of books

the narcissism of queer influencer activists, gawker

there’s no moral imperative to be miserable, james greig

the cult of the imperfect, umberto eco

susanna clarke’s world of interiors, the new yorker

your camera roll contains a masterpiece, the new yorker

are you a baby? a litmus test, haley nahman on substack

prestige television and the moral life, article & podcast ep

how tv became respectable without getting better, current affairs

the cultural revisionism history, gawker

have we forgotten how to read critically?, dame magazine

found images, real life mag

nostalgia for nostalgia, real life mag

on internet & technology

google search is dying, dkb on substack

what lies beneath, real life mag

how the tiktok algorithm figures out your deepest desires, the wall street journal

the great offline, real life mag

nameless feeling, real life mag

i’m not there, real life mag

[mossyshadows]

hello!! what are some books you’ve read that have been stylistically unique? i’ve been looking for some good prose… (re. book ask #20 that you just answered) ☺️

hi ! obvi these are unique probably just to me but i liked their prose either way :-)

if on a winter's night a traveler and invisible cities by italo calvino tr. william weaver - frame stories.. framing devices... mise en abyme.. i just think it's so neat

the sundial by shirley jackson - the atmosphere she concocts in this w the dark comedic wit combined with increasing paranoia hell yeah, such a way with words <3

also the lovely house/a visit by shirley jackson, it's a short story i won't shut up about ever, it's so satisfying to reread and pick through how the ending makes so much sense... hiding in plain sight ! impeccable use of words in sentences actually

beloved by toni morrison - actually i haven't finished this one because i keep wanting to be in the best headspace possible to engage with the excellent prose (which ! i guess is a sign in itself)

the bloody chamber and other stories by angela carter - really gorgeous opulent decadent prose. descriptive in a purple prose kind of way but i mean that as a compliment !

the fifth season by nk jemisin - the different povs are done rly well, i need to read more works with second person pov properly (eye-ing up the raven tower by ann leckie for this... looking for recs also though)

mulberry and peach by hualing nieh tr. jane p wong. i found the writing rather dense but i can't deny its brilliance (and this is in translation!)

yes i talk about 5 books on repeat lol

[metamorphesque]

poems to read while having breakfast at the heartbreak hotel

I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief (Sonnet II) by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

I Am Not Yours by Sara Teasdale

[you fit into me] by Margaret Atwood

You by Carol Ann Duffy

Be Near Me by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Blessed be the spectacle by Lev St. Valentine

You Are Tired (I Think) by E.E. Cummings

Hope you're well. Please don't read this by Lev St. Valentine

To Say Dark Things by Ingeborg Bachmann

Lilichka by Vladimir Mayakovski

Love and Hate by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal

Sanctuary by Jean Valentine

the winter sun says fight by Peter Gizzi

The More Loving One by W. H. Auden

A Primer For The Small Weird Loves by Richard Siken

Dirty Valentine by Richard Siken

Morning by Frank O Hara

We Don't Know How To Say Goodbye by Anna Akhmatova

You'll Live, But I'll Not… by Anna Akhmatova

from “An Attempt at Jealousy” by Marina Tsvetaeva

The Last Toast by Anna Akhmatova

In Dream by Anna Akhmatova

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

Talking In Bed by Philip Larkin

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats

[arabdoll]

It’s a privilege to study, many women around the world are barred from this human right: to read, write and learn. Be grateful anytime your pen touches paper, or you are learning theorems developed by intelligent, hardworking men and women from ages ago.

It’s a pleasure and a privilege to learn. Not only is it a privilege to study, but you should be aiming and striving to take science, medicine, law, philosophy, art further than the marker we have reached. It’s a comforting thought to think, from your work generations of humanity down the line will benefit.

How many brilliant women were in the shadows of amazing feats of science and technology and life changing patents? Contribute while you can. If you pour into knowledge - it will pour back into you.

[nightmaredarlings-deactivated20]

Let's lock in ladies.

[citrusstudies]

March 2025

Trying to find time to get some work done during a busy conference weekend. I love visiting local cafes while traveling, plus it magically make me productive haha.

[fictionalaffection]

day by day

[metamorphesque]

💌 poems for the month of love 💌

Having a Coke with You by Frank O’Hara

The Quiet World by Jeffrey McDaniel

Wait For Me by Konstantin Simonov (tr. by Mike Munford)

A Kiss on the Forehead by Marina Tsvetaeva

Love by Joseph Brodsky

Your Unripe Love by Paruyr Sevak (from “Anthology of Armenian poetry")

Love poem by Tishani Doshi 

Maybe Under Some Other Sky by Willie Perdomo

Warming Her Pearls by Carol Ann Duffy

Ich finde dich (I find you) by Rainer Maria Rilke

Where does such tenderness come from? by Marina Tsvetaeva

I Loved You by Alexander Pushkin

Like a Small Café, That’s Love by Mahmoud Darwish (translated by Mohammad Shaheen)

Our Story by William Stafford

The Kiss by Sara Teasdale

[metamorphesque]

from Valentine's Day Love Sonnets to C. S. Lewis by Joy Davidman

You are the light of the world by Husik Ara

If you're leaving… by Paruyr Sevak

You by Paruyr Sevak

One of Those Kisses by Viggo Mortensen

Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagore

and Love said... by Husik Ara

Love by Paruyr Sevak

Impossible by Mher Arshakyan

I shall come to you by Vahan Teryan

Tenderer than tender by Osip Mandelstam

On Loving by Forough Farrokhzad

Time of love by Claribel Alegria

Love by Bob Hico

[anthropoetics]

readings: essays & articles

reassuring ghosts and haunted houses

fish recorded singing dawn chorus on reefs just like birds

what people around the world dream about

poet and philosopher david whyte on anger, forgiveness, and what maturity really means

oranges are orange, salmon are salmon

how memories persist where bodies and even brains do not

the avant-garde musical legacy of the moomins

the weight of our living: on hope, fire escapes, and visible desperation

disturbed minds and disruptive bodies

what is better ー a happy life or a meaningful one?

after my dad died, i started sending him emails. months later, someone wrote me back

on the igbo art of storytelling

what the caves are trying to tell us

promethean beasts — how animal uses of fire help illuminate human pyrocognition

the art of loving and losing female friends

on memorizing poetry

the ecological imagination of hayao miyazaki

reading in the age of constant distraction

holly warburton illustrates tender moments of love and light

romancing the fig: what one fruit can tell us about love, life and human civilization

mystery and birds: 5 ways to practice poetry

can a plant remember? this one seems to — here's the evidence

why female cannibals frighten and fascinate

when you give a tree an email adress

fear not — horror movies build community and emotional resilience

[thecornercoffeeshop]

Ancient libraries make me happy

[reemillustrated]

snoopy reading conversations with friends

[reemillustrated]

snoopy reads the brothers karamazov!

[louisegluckpdf]

reading nabokov is maddening because his writing is so playful and evocative and effortless and english isn't even his first language. he's doing things in a second language most people could spend their lives trying and failing to replicate in their first language. makes me feel like this

[louisegluckpdf]

"my very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when i was three" like come ON how did you write the funniest sentence ever by adding a two word parenthetical. leave something for the rest of us

[meret118]

MS Word is Using You to Train AI

How to turn off AI-scraping from your Word documents

Microsoft Office, like many companies in recent months, has slyly turned on an “opt-out” feature that scrapes your Word and Excel documents to train its internal AI systems. This setting is turned on by default, and you have to manually uncheck a box in order to opt out.

If you are a writer who uses MS Word to write any proprietary content (blog posts, novels, or any work you intend to protect with copyright and/or sell), you’re going to want to turn this feature off immediately.How to Turn off Word’s AI Access To Your Content

I won’t beat around the bush. Microsoft Office doesn’t make it easy to opt out of this new AI privacy agreement, as the feature is hidden through a series of popup menus in your settings:On a Windows computer, follow these steps to turn off “Connected Experiences”:

File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options > Privacy Settings > Optional Connected Experiences > Uncheck box: “Turn on optional connected experiences”

[cara-delaney-author]

Gonna yell about it again...

If you do not absolutely need Word (for work or school or a functionality that exists literally nowhere else), just stop using it.

For a 1:1 Word replacement, I'd always recommend LibreOffice. There's also a version of OpenOffice still around, though it updates at a slower pace.

If you're a fiction writer and would like to switch to a dedicated novel writing software, the free options tend to be a bit limited. However, there is SmartEdit Writer, which looks a lit like a slimmed-down Scrivener (which is pretty much the writing app, but has a one-time cost).

Most people don't need Word. It's just what's familiar. And even there, LibreOffice is very similar in design. It will also generally read your Word docs out of the box. The switch really isn't hard, I promise.

[fixyourwritinghabits]

By all means, yell as much as you want.

[somerabbitholes]

started reading, ended up drawing