The Poetry Decider

They think a great deal of their position; don't let one of them ever persuade you he doesn't, for if you were to proceed on that basis you'd be pulled up very short." a character in Henry James' The Portrait of A Lady, describing the "radicalism" of the upper classes.

How did I forget that there’s a character in Moby Dick named Dr Snothead who is a professor at the College of Santa Claus. wtf.

When did "revealed" become the go to replacement for "said"?

Naomi Wolf is getting a lot of reactions to that tweet.But forgive me, if my primary one is irritation that someone who identifies as an "English major" is promulgating the myth that they're scientifically illiterate.

pro tip: to transfer a file quickly between computers just copy the file you want, disconnect your mouse, plug it into the other pc and paste

david bowie, david byrne, david lynch, david sylvian, david gilmour, david cronenberg. you need to be davidmaxxing as the kids say (they don't say that)

I don't watch porn.

Absolutely not

Hairy Balls

" What's your most radical book take?" " I did not enjoy reading Great Gatsby in high school! I said what I said."

One of the funniest things on here is how often,when there's a call for unpopular opinions, people express with great feelings of rebellion opinions that are pretty friggin' commonplace.

If I'm honest I think throwing a book across the room because something happened in it that you didn't like is extremely childish

Don’t compliment me on my English like I’ve just balanced a spoon on my nose. I’ve spoken it long enough to forget which language my thoughts arrive in first. You hear fluency and think effort. I hear your surprise and feel it shrink me, like I’ve been made simpler just for fitting inside your sentence. You say it kindly— I know you do. But it lands like I’ve done something impressive for someone like me. I want to ask you how many languages you dream in. What it costs to leave a word behind because it doesn’t exist here. I have walked the moors with Jane Eyre, held Hamlet’s doubt like it was my own, stood beside Pip watching him mistake shame for ambition, sat with Bukowski in rooms that smelled like endings— but that’s not the point. Have you been called to your feet by Petőfi? Asked to stay good until the very end by Jókai? Fallen asleep to Kodály in your mother’s voice? Have you known Radnóti writing through the dark in the lager, because he could neither live nor die without her? Have you ever had a language that holds you differently in your mouth? There are versions of me you will never meet because they don’t exist in English. So don’t smile at me like I’ve done something clever. Listen— to what I’m actually saying.

@MadHatterMommy So you don't like waffles?

People here love taking all things out of context.

Read a 300 page novel and drank 10 tins of Diet Coke yesterday. Winning 😎

A lot of what people call "human nature" is just behavior conditioned under capitalism. There are other ways to live!

nobody is doing it like tubi, it’s literally horror film central AND it’s free.

One of the weirdest genres of tweets on here is people describing making the mildest attempt to accomplish something, failing, declaring it "impossible " and then saying that people who say they have accomplished it are lying.

a very nebulous concept of ‘privilege’ replacing class politics has done a number on everyone’s brains

There is no one more confident in their worldview than someone who has never left their hometown.

To quote If Books Could Kill, his 2000s books showed the difference between the fact checking standards of the New Yorker, which are legendarily high, and the fact checking standards of the publishing industry, which are non-existent