Stephen Saperstein Frug (stephenfrug.bsky.social)

The latest installment of my history of Retcons (inspired, of course, by my own story-cycle of the same title) is now up. It describes the single greatest retcon of all time—and it's less well-known but still significant sequel. Check it out! (Link in next tweet)

@ytwomba @MattPolProf Russel Kirk, The Conservative Mind

@MattPolProf What’s a good starting point for reading conservatives?

I'm very sympathetic to the argument that leftists should read more conservatives and would stress there wisdom and depth to find on the right. But as always that would resonate a lot more if the problem wasn't so much worse on the other end of the political spectrum.

@Johnny_Dash_ @daniel_dsj2110 Yes, sadly, unlike any other history book ever written, Taylor's 800-page opus is selective in the topics it covers. If only he'd been willing to make it a long book!

@StephenFrug @daniel_dsj2110 Charles Taylor is great at intellectual history if you’re willing to jump from *checks notes* Augustine to Descartes?

In your opinion, what is the best intellectual history book written since 2000.

@olivertraldi "Look at this ad from New Republic for Kids. Each month, a new classic will be delivered to our door. Paradise Regained, Martin Chuzzlewit or Herman Melville's twin classics, Omoo and Typee."" — Lisa Simpson comb.io/57OCfQ

Had an idea of making an "almost-Great Books" syllabus, which might include things like - The best expressions of worldviews which ended up losing - The second-best expressions of worldviews which ended up winning - Less-known works by canonical authors What would you put on it?

@DreadBlockrat @dpuellARK Tied with those. All in the stratosphere.

@dpuellARK I haven't read those so I'll take a look, but what about Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun series?

Objectively speaking, these are the best sci-fi and fantasy novels of the 20th century, respectively. *Sees Dune and LOTR bulls approach.* *Ducks.*

G.A. Cohen — the funniest philosopher ever to live — gives his best impression of his supervisor at Oxford, Gilbert Ryle.

@ReReadingWolfe Gene Wolfe day is three days from now

Happy Gene Wolfe Day

Verbing nouns and nouning verbs.

E.B. White sharing a list of slang terms that will have surely been forgotten by time.

“Why not have the reader re-read a sentence now and then? It won't hurt him.” Nabokov to his New Yorker editor.

You’re lying. All the public & private data shows that political violence in this country over the past 30-40 yrs comes primarily from the right. Even with an uptick from late 2025 of political violence from the left. You know you’re lying. But your job is to divide. Shame on u.

This famous quote from Fukiyama honestly explains Trumpism, national conservatism & all the rest as well as anything, I think

@TheLincoln @saintsoftness @Blarg08125613 If you're used to literary fiction, PEACE is an easier entry point. If you want something shorter, go for FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS (with an SF feel a bit more like Book of the New Sun, but in one volume). But most think NEW SUN is his masterpiece (although the other two are close)

@saintsoftness @Blarg08125613 He's not twee at all. Don't worry there. Although fwiw I might start with Peace or The Fifth Head of Cerberus

I needed some scifi or fantasy with prose that held up and hand long been recommended this. Is Gene Wolfe a neglected author outside genre circles? What does lit twit think? @TheLincoln ?

@ReReadingWolfe Hey, we know for a fact that he didn't play Monopoly EVEN ONCE. Hell, he never even learned the rules!

One of them was Monopoly

@GooglePlay I managed (not without difficulty) to resolve the issue. But you really ought to have *a* way to contact a person on your site. Not a list of pre-canned answers which might not fit someone's question. At the very least at the end of that list have a "none of the above" option.

@StephenFrug We understand your concern, Stephen. Could you tell us more about what's going on without revealing any personal information? We're here to help.

I have to say of all internet companies I have had lousy experiences at help desks with, so far @GooglePlay is the absolute worst. Complete, 100% THE PITTS. #Google #GoogleSucks

@GooglePlay I am having a customer service issue. When I try to use your online resources, I am given a bunch of options none of which are remotely close. The AI assistant was also useless. I need to contact a human being. How do I do that?

@John_Barach @ReReadingWolfe I think my favorite of the four is the French one

@John_Barach @ReReadingWolfe Disagree. I think both the foreign covers—the French and what is the other one, Spanish? Italian?—are both terrific, arguably better than the main US one