Walking in Circles by Chris Fojas
digital chapbook and companion zine
poetry chapbook and companion zine
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
noise dept.
$LAYYYTER

Kiana Khansmith

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
will byers stan first human second
i don't do bad sauce passes

PR's Tumblrdome
Keni
Jules of Nature
Misplaced Lens Cap

⁂
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Sweet Seals For You, Always
Sade Olutola
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
RMH
Three Goblin Art
Show & Tell

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@purolibro
Walking in Circles by Chris Fojas
digital chapbook and companion zine
poetry chapbook and companion zine
what about blorbhov from my complicated russian novel though
blorbeaux from my nilihist french plays
blorbón from my weird latin american magical realist novels
blorbug from my kafkaesque short stories
von blorbow from my german sturm und drang novel
Don Blorbo from my opera
błórbżo from my polish poetry
blorbocles from my ancient greek epics
Mr. Blorby from my Jane Austen novels
Blorbio from my early modern plays
Assembling some more from the notes:
And the kicker:
useless rosetta stone
any user from another app seeking to come on Tumblr should have to read that first, in order to prepare them for the horrors
It’s not a Discworld joke unless you read it, don’t parse it as a joke, and then carry on with your life for ten years until someone stops you to say something like “It’s a pavlovian response because the dog ate a pavlova” and you scream Terry’s name with enough indignant rage you hope it rattles the pillars of the multiverse so wherever his soul is he’ll hear it.
#i don’t think this is what pterry meant by ‘a man’s not dead while his name is still spoken’
I absolutely think it is
I read Jingo for the first time when I was 13.
I’m 33 now, and I still discover a new joke every time I reread it.
Terry was a comedic genius
#shoutout to the one in Soul Music about the leopard that got thrown out of the circus because it couldn't hear the ringmaster#it was several months after my second or third time reading the book that I clocked it was a Deaf Leopard (via @morkaischosen)
god DAMMIT
When I was informed that “Vetinari” is a pun on “Medici”. That pun was so painful I couldn’t even see it.
...are you FUCKING KIDDING ME.
*starts thunderously knocking on the doors of heaven*
get out here Terry I just wanna talk
Twurp’s Peerage made me throw a book (gently) at a wall.
In the UK, the book of the peerage is called Burke’s Peerage. Burke sounds like berk, which means a silly/annoying person. So Terry took ‘twerp’, another word for a silly or annoying person, and replaced the e with u.
The Book of Silly and Annoying People, based on the real thing with a pun on the name thrown in for good measure.
OMG I FUCKING *KNEW* VETINARI WAS A JOKE ON FUCKONG SOMETHING I JUST COULDNT GRASP IT. I THOUGHT IT WAS A REFERENCE TO WIND SOMEHOW
I am not a talented punster so I was today old when I realised about Vetinari.
guys it's fucking close to water
Latinclass ca. 9th grade: the text we had to translate contained the words trans means "on the other side of" or in german it can be translated to "über/ hinüber". Also silvas; silvanis means "the forest" or in german "der Wald".
Trans silvas very simply translated into german would be über den Wald
Trans silvas -> Transsilvanien -> Überwald
My latin teacher gave me a very weird look as I suddenly facepalmed myself and groaned quietly.
The Venturi and Selachii feud is what killed me when I got it.
The Venturi Effect is a scientific term referring to the acceleration of a liquid through a narrow tube (like a jet).
Selachii is a classification of sharks. (I discovered this when my stepson got really into sharks)
... fucking HELL Terry.
In Carpe Jugulum, Count Magpyr boasts of having helped write the Malleus Maleficarum, along with the Torquus Simiae Maleficarum, the Auriga Clavium Maleficarum, and in fact the entire Arca Instrumentorum.
The Malleus Maleficarum is a very real, very nasty and absolutely batshit insane book from late 15th-century Germany, basically laying out the procedure for catching, torturing, and executing witches. Its title translates to The Hammer of Witches. The other titles are Pratchett's inventions.
Malleus = "hammer" Torquus Simiae = "monkey wrench" Auriga Clavium = "bucket of nails" Arca Instrumentorum = "box of tools"
Monstrous Regiment is named for a pamphlet written by extremely shouty Calvinist and one of the leaders of the new Church of Scotland, John Knox, in the 16th century against all the women getting into positions of power in politics at the time (Liz I, Mary Queen of Scots etc). The document itself is titled "The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment of Women".
In a book about an overbearing and baffling and misogynist God and the heroes being a ragtag regiment of literal women and monsters, I punched the air on that one. The layers of pun are built up like a millefeuille.
(Also, if you read some of the stuff in the actual tract, you can see where Pterry got some of Nuggan's laws, although proceed with caution because it's a vitriolic piece of work)
“The daily routine of most adults is so heavy and artificial that we are closed off to much of the world. We have to do this in order to get our work done. I think one purpose of art is to get us out of those routines. When we hear music or poetry or stories, the world opens up again. We’re drawn in — or out — and the windows of our perception are cleansed, as William Blake said. The same thing can happen when we’re around young children or adults who have unlearned those habits of shutting the world out.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin
Is it bad that I feel slightly bad that I keep coming to the library to use its quietness and its desk space and its pleasant atmosphere for writing but I never check out books?
Why would you feel bad? You’re using the library for one of its intended purposes. The desks, WiFi, space etc are LITERALLY there for you to do exactly what you’re doing AND each time you go in you add to the foot traffic numbers that prove hey people are coming in to use our stuff mr. government so keep funding us.
Confirmed by another public librarian. One of the stats we track is "WiFi usages"
That is, we track number of sessions/devices using it over time.
The library is not about snooping on what you're doing with that WiFi. Libraries respect privacy.
We literally have a door counter at my library. Congratulations, you just added to our statistics.
I think it's a bit sad that with more and more public spaces vanishing, people are feeling bad about not "buying" stuff to "earn" their time at a library.
A library is like a park, you're allowed to just. Exist in it.
I check out books every 4 weeks, when the learning period from my current books is up, but I go much more frequently with my kid to just sit there and read to them, and that's okay. In my school days, we'd go and do our research for presentations there, just reading, never checking out.
A library is a space to just exist.
So a year or so ago, we added some new desklets at our library, in areas where we noticed that people gravitated to but didn't have the right furnishing to use them in the way they wanted to.
The first few weeks of having the new furniture were absolutely filled with excited librarians whispering to each other, "Look! Someone's using the desklet in the back corner!" and "casually" walking by to enjoy the sight like wildlife researchers who had successfully baited a particularly elusive rare bird. Nobody cared if those people checked anything out or not. There was a need! We saw the need! We filled the need! Hooray!
WE PUT THE THING THERE TO BE USED. USE THE THING.
And you literally pay for the thing! You pay taxes! I’m sure they would want you there regardless and I understand you feel like you have to pay for rent but you very much did already pay for it, that was a thing that happened!
I’ve just realised that my favourite thing about the detective/murder mystery genre, beyond the puzzle elements and ‘who dunnits’, is the lovely big found family my favourite franchises always end up establishing.
Whether it’s Detective Conan, Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick, whatever, it’s having THE GANG with you that makes the experience so wonderful. Whether it’s the hapless policemen, a bumbling assistant, or the idiot who’s always getting into trouble, no matter what you have a hardy group of tried and tested friends and pals who you KNOW are always safe. They are never the murderers (with some brilliant exceptions), they will always make you laugh, they will always help out in some way, and they are ALWAYS on your side, helping you uncover the truth and still being your FRIEND and PAL every step of the way.
Robin Hobb is an amazing fantasy writer if anyone wishes to read fantasy that doesn’t have romance at the forefront. I love her style of storytelling, writing a bunch of different POVs from completely different people in different places and tying them all together. I’m just almost finished with Dragon Keeper and let me tell you Robin Hobb is NOT a coward
best game of fuck marry kill
New Releases
Spring is almost here (though it feels like it for us on the West Coast) which means all the spring reads are starting to drop. We have a variety of books this week, all which look like fun reads.
Click below to find your next read.
"but you have to keep living!!" how about you let me live in peace without questioning my mask all the time? how about you let people live instead of alter their existence or stop it completely by letting deadly viruses spread?
as always when i need to vent, it turned into a perzine. it took me forever to make this one because it's digital so of course the opportunity to edit, edit, edit, doubt what i'm saying and how i'm saying it, was too tempting. but i'm throwing it into the world it's a blog post but in zine form (blog posts are actually zine contents put online to me and it's very 2026 to phrase it as if the analog was the one copying the digital ik ik)
a zine about covid, masking, and live since 2020
free digital copy here you can download to read or print it: https://ko-fi.com/s/edb5bc7958
read in browser: https://starkittyzines.itch.io/but-you-have-to-keep-living-zine (doesn't work great on smartphones)
get a physical copy here: https://ko-fi.com/s/a463c85c78
Genuinely, one of the measures that's stopped book banning the most when districts implement it, is having the would-be banners fill out a form that demonstrates if they've read the book or not. Like where they have the summarize the plot and characters and do a mini book report and give a review. It stops them in their tracks. This is why in my high school, every time someone wanted to ban a book it ended up going nowhere. There was one where a conservative student wanted to ban the manga "Legal Drug" for having a marijuana leaf on the cover, then got the form that required them to actually read and either balked, or read it and realized it was not pro-drug at all. (The other one that reduces book bans even further is "requiring the would-be banner to be affiliated with this actual school in some way, either by being a student, faculty/staff or a parent of a child at the school" because the vast majority of bans are "activists" with no affiliation with the school who just travel around trying to do this in districts all over the U.S. IIRC a few years ago someone crunched the numbers and just 51 parents were responsible for all the book bans that year nationally. 51! In a country with 50 states, with over 300 million people total!)
Genuinely, one of the measures that's stopped book banning the most when districts implement it, is having the would-be banners fill out a form that demonstrates if they've read the book or not. Like where they have the summarize the plot and characters and do a mini book report and give a review. It stops them in their tracks. This is why in my high school, every time someone wanted to ban a book it ended up going nowhere. There was one where a conservative student wanted to ban the manga "Legal Drug" for having a marijuana leaf on the cover, then got the form that required them to actually read and either balked, or read it and realized it was not pro-drug at all. (The other one that reduces book bans even further is "requiring the would-be banner to be affiliated with this actual school in some way, either by being a student, faculty/staff or a parent of a child at the school" because the vast majority of bans are "activists" with no affiliation with the school who just travel around trying to do this in districts all over the U.S. IIRC a few years ago someone crunched the numbers and just 51 parents were responsible for all the book bans that year nationally. 51! In a country with 50 states, with over 300 million people total!)
"I didn’t say she was beautiful.” “All women are beautiful,” said Istvhan, dismissing this. “It is the job of their lovers to make them feel that way if they do not already.”
Paladin's Grace, T Kingfisher
how well known is it in the wider culture RN that there's a whole trilogy of sequels to His Dark Materials?
was talking to a friend about HDM a while back and realised they had no idea the sequel trilogy existed & it's struck me that i feel like i never see anyone talking about them outside of the circle of die hard HDM fans. are they passing people by or are people just not very interested? im curioius!
Wait what now?? Hdm changed my brain chemistry as a teen there's more+???
they're around 600 pages a piece too
in fan circles the trilogy has been Hotly Anticipated since uhh i think around 2006-7? originally it was gonna be just 1 further book called The Book of Dust but evidently it grew legs
Well I'll be fucked, that's amazing
kissing, short comic, december 2025
There really really ought to be a book about how the staple crops of different civilizations shape and influence those civilizations, and I really want to read it.
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (three are alcohol, three have caffeine) are not quite that, but may still be of interest?
I read Salt back in the day and it's so so good, second the rec. I have heard of 6 Glasses and not read it but I am sure I would probably love it. Gotta see if the library has it. Thank you!
Gonna throw Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert in the ring here! You'll never see the modern world the same way again.
A Short History Of The World According To Sheep by Sally Coulthard blew my mind. So many things are tied to wool and sheep and weaving and so many words and phrases are tied to wool, people have no idea.
Example words which come from textiles/weaving, if not specifically wool (go look them up!): subtle, shoddy, tabby, Brazil, rocket, twit, warped, going batty, on tenterhooks, text...
I'll throw in a rec for Pickled, Potted, and Canned by Sue Shephard - a very interesting look at food preservation and how the availability of different types of food preservation shaped cultures and cuisines.
Sweetness and Power is this but for the topic of sugar
The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past might also be up your alley. It's about "forgotten" foods and staples. They talk about different types of wheat, sauces, veggies, etc and a little about the cultures from whence they come
Also: Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser. One of my favourite books.
DO I HAVE A SERIES FOR YOU. University of California Press has a gift for you and it is a 80+ book series on food studies. There are even some that are open access (legally free), but the rest are in libraries.
I also highly recommend Frostbite by Nicola Twilley. It’s about the impact refrigeration has had/is having on food preservation and culture, globally. It was one of my favorite books of this last year.
Also, The Rice Theory of Culture https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=orpc By Thomas Talhelm
Consider the Fork isn’t about food itself exactly but all about cooking technology and how it changed how and what we eat