Walter Mason

What do children’s stories, hymn-writing, and a quietly radical spiritual imagination have in common? Eleanor Farjeon. I’ll be exploring her life and ideas in a talk this Sunday at the Sydney Unitarian Church - and I would love to see you there @ThangNgo

#thicktrunktuesday Pan amidst the Lilac trees. According to folklore, if you cut down a lilac tree, the other trees in the vicinity refuse to flower the following year.

The problem is that RFK Jr. appears incapable of separating addiction from legitimate pain care. Everything gets filtered through the lens of his personal history with heroin addiction and the destruction it caused in his own life. And that matters, because when someone primarily associates opioids with ruin, dependency, and societal collapse, they’re far less likely to see the bedridden EDS patient, the failed back surgery patient, the cancer survivor, or the person whose entire quality of life depends on stable pain control. Patients recognized this from the beginning. That’s why so many people in the chronic pain community were sounding the alarm long before this clip resurfaced. The undertone was always there. This clip just made it impossible to ignore.

In the past week, I’ve done three book club events. One in person, in a pub, all men over 50. One online for a UK club. One online for an Ohio library bookclub, but they were in person at the other end. So reading isn’t a dying art. For some, it’s not just escapism but a social lifeline. Join a bookclub today and make your life better.

My kind of shelves… (Image: Alyssa Salmond)

LITERATURE SEMINAR SERIES #FairytaleTuesday Join me for a FREE online talk on 20 May at 1.30 ‘The Luck of the Ningyō: Japanese human-fish Yokai and the rise of the fake museum #mermaid’ All welcome - booking via Ticket Press below

Art Deco made emerald swoon.

This is an octopus gargoyle, The Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

Dear Algorithm, Please send this Florentine door knocker to anyone who enjoys: History Mystery Astrology Art Architecture The Renaissance Craftsmanship Doors Travel Adventure

“Those who read own the world; those who immerse themselves in the internet or watch too much television lose it...Our civilization is suffering profound wounds because of the wholesale abandonment of reading by contemporary society.” –Werner Herzog

Spotted in the NYC subway. “Zero screen time.” An iPod Shuffle ad in 2026. When we built the iPod, the goal was the technology disappeared and you could have your music wherever you were. 1,000 songs in your pocket. Now we’re living through a moment where people are actively looking for ways to disconnect from the infinite feed, algos, and constant notifications. That doesn’t mean technology is bad. It means the best technology understands when to step back. Not every problem needs another screen, another menu, or another layer of complexity. Constraints create freedom (read: @DavidEpstein new book Inside the Box). And often removing features creates a better product than adding them. The future of technology shouldn’t just be more engagement. It should help us be more human.

The statue of Lucifer inside Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, London.

'Toxic positivity' and 'magical thinking' are media terms used by social scientists and legacy journalists to demean virtually any effort that working people use to exceed accepted channels of betterment. In our era of coarseness, these shibboleths exist largely as gatekeeping rhetoric. mitchhorowitz.substack.com/p/question-aut…

I love having a local bookshop that specializes in the classics. My latest purchase from @ParsifalBooks

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Hermann Hesse’s 'Narcissus and Goldmund' is turning out to be the most enjoyable read since I read Thomas Mann's 'The Magic Mountain' in the summer of 2019.

Under a crescent moon, two cats fraternize on the rooftop. Below them is the shadow of two people conversing behind the translucent sliding screen. The marginal text comments that “there’s no difference between high love and low love” (Japanese postcard, 1908)

I've signed another contract with Dorling Kindersley to work on yet another fascinating book - watch this space 👀📚