#curations

[stamenpistil]

1920s lamé boots by kingston.chadwick.vintage on instagram

[longreads]

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

In the first Longreads Top 5 of 2026:

—January begins (The Atlantic) 

—Finding beauty (The Believer) 

 —Powerful blues (Oxford American) 

—Toxic water (Orion) 

—Begonia baton (The Observer) 

Become a Longreads member if you aren’t already, to receive our Top 5 in your inbox on Fridays, plus some additional member perks we're cooking up for 2026.

[approaching-the-scrungularity]

A Sigil to Etch Something in One's Memory

Place on a dream journal or pillow to encourage remembering your dreams.

Place in front of planner or atop to-do lists to remember them clearly

Set mind-palaces with these as inscriptions to keep locations clear and visible during innerworldly travel

Visualize or trace during lectures or when receiving instructions to keep them.

[lebuc]

curations

* end to end i lay all my curations

tracing a pathway back through life;

with love, lust & luxe we lap the training pool.

laughing, toweling off emerging refreshed,

i skirt lamentation surfside, slide into wardrobe

approach the stage to say my lines:

"end to end i lay all my curations..." * 9/21 - lebuc - curations

[stamenpistil]

Nina Hartmann. Declassified UFO Proof (Floating Bag) (Out of Frame), 2023

[approaching-the-scrungularity]

From the Curator's own collection: a tin of things that once dreamt of being coins: bottle caps, faded pins, wooden nickels, and other non-currency. Someone will come to find them when the Curator goes out storytelling again. Hopefully they trade a lovely secret for them. The tin is decorated with Gnome-arrows on sigil paper.

[approaching-the-scrungularity]

Entry #006: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

A book of poetry composed by a Persian astronomer in 1120 C.E. It contains Khayyam's musings on time, death, and the hapless struggle to live a moral life with the knowledge that one day, you will be nothing, and forgotten. Funnily, over 800 years later, we remember him for it. Our Scholar has a favorite stanza, number 71:

The moving hand, which writes, and having writ Moves on! not all your piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line Nor all your tears wash out a word of it

On a related note, one of our list of adopted grandmothers owns a bookstore in Idaho known as the Rubaiyat. A local artist has painted the sign, depicting an enormous red dragon with a pince-nez, atop her hoarded pile of books-- my grandmother in her ideal form. The name of the shop is from Khayyam's work; she tells a story that she would write letters with her mother, long ago, containing verses in the same meter as the Rubaiyat, and receive them back with red-pen corrections. This book is a keystone of my spirit, and I have curated this bit of my soul for you, reader. Enjoy.