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Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 1h

Don't underestimate Episcopalians. When they get off the fence, you know things have gotten serious

Holly Anderson 🍇 @hollyanderson.bsky.social · 2h

you fucked around and now the Episcopalians are doing memes. are you happy now. are you

Screenshot of a Facebook post featuring three of the Portland protesters wearing inflatable frog costumes with the following text:

Episcopalians on Facebook
Elizabeth Rose Elrod • 22h •
Exodus 8:2-6
"But if you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs...
The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your officials."

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Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 1d

Who knew that Browning's dramatic monologue "Andrea del Sarto captures both the Trump family and the current turmoil betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/a-browning-p...

A Browning Poem and MAGA America | Better Living through Beowulf

Browning's poem "Andrea del Sarto" is about an artist who settles for mediocrity over greatness--which is what the U.S is doing at the moment.

betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com

Reposted by Robin Bates

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t think a long book is even primarily about plot, or character, or any of the patterned information on its pages. A long book is practicing over time a way of being in the world. Reading even a very good summary is not the same as giving over some portion of your own life to that practice.

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Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 2d

If we see Miller as a Wormtongue pouring poison into a demented ruler's ear, we can also think of America as Théoden rising from his torpor and calling upon his troops to assemble--say, this coming Saturday for the No King's Day marches betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/oct-18-arise...

Oct. 18: Arise, Now, Arise | Better Living through Beowulf

White House advisor and resident fascist Stephen Miller has been playing Wormtongue to old and demented Trump.

betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com

Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 5d

The subtext becomes text

Overdue Podcast @overduepod.bsky.social · 5d

He doesn't mind!!

The final page of Frankenstein with a hand-written addendum saying that Frankenstein's monster doesn't mind being called Frankenstein.

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Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 6d

You're teaching all these works in your Time Travel course?

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 6d

HG Wells: having cracked the mysteries of time, the time traveler sets out to—

Heinlein: have sex with himself to give birth to herself

Wells: what the-

William Morris: let him talk. What do themselves think about wallpaper??

Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 7d

Wonderful quote! So true

Matthew Dowd @matthewjdowd.bsky.social · 7d

happy bday English writer Blake Morrison, b.1950.

“You can possess a book without really owning it, though. Beyond ownership in a commercial or legal sense, there’s ownership of an emotional or metaphysical kind - when a book speaks so powerfully to us that we feel it’s ours exclusively:...

Reposted by Robin Bates

Septimus Brown @septimusbrown.com · 7d

"It is an old prerogative of kings to govern everything but their passions."

—The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

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Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 8d

Ooh, an Orwell allusion!

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 8d

But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved his mandatory Compliance Training online tutorial.

Reposted by Robin Bates

Joe Stieb @joestieb.bsky.social · 9d

"Let us, however, never forget that this country belongs to us even more than to those who lynch, disenfranchise, and segregate."

W.E.B. DuBois.

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Reposted by Robin Bates

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 9d

The Babe Ruth of calling her shot on coming back from the dead

Becky @beckygracelea.bsky.social · 10d

She hath risen.

“Mary Shelley has released a new title!”

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Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 9d

Why I think MAGA keeps censoring Stephen King (he depicts America's predilection for violence, which they would prefer to keep hidden) betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/stephen-king...

Stephen King Understands MAGA | Better Living through Beowulf

Stephen King is the most banned author in America at the moment. It may be because he depicts America's dark side so vividly.

betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com

Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 9d

Funny how a Commonwealth Government claiming to espouse republican values would have problems with an author who championed free will

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 9d

Fun historical fact is that John Milton essentially served as the content moderator for the Commonwealth Government, but let so much freaky stuff get translated into English that they quietly retired him from the position.

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Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 9d

This make's the article's point: following the insult, he gets a 6 hour monologue

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 9d

unhand me, grey-beard loon!

CNBC @cnbc.com · 9d

To shut down rude behavior instantly, try a simple yet powerful five-word response.

Reposted by Robin Bates

Septimus Brown @septimusbrown.com · 10d

"Books—the generous friends who met me without suspicion—the merciful masters who never used me ill!"

—from Armadale by Wilkie Collins

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Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 11d

Whenever I think of those longer gravitational pulls, our nation's history of slavery--and every new immigrant group encountering (and some buying into) this caste system-- comes to mind

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 11d

Something I find useful is considering our present moment as happening within a set of densely nested or even intersecting timelines, some going back centuries and some cycling every 24 hours. When the patterns of a short cycle don’t make any sense, it’s often the gravitational pull of a longer one.

Reposted by Robin Bates

Ann Powers @annkpowers.bsky.social · 11d

This is the truest thing I’ve read on the Internet in a while

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 11d

My take, which I’ve banged on about before, concerning the state of young people reading these days is that reading is a rhythm. It’s like a mix of slow breathing and being pleasurably bored. We need to bring back spaces and times where our young people can breath and think and get lost in a world.

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Reposted by Robin Bates

Rae Radford @raeradford.bsky.social · 12d

#BookSky

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Reposted by Robin Bates

Rae Radford @raeradford.bsky.social · 12d

#BookSky

🤗

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Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 14d

It's always worth remembering this quote

Leta McCollough Seletzky @letaseletzky.com · 14d

“If you can only be tall because somebody is on their knees, then you have a serious problem.”

—Toni Morrison

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Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 14d

To borrow from Wilde, they "only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first."

Robin Bates @beowulfbates.bsky.social · 14d

And then you sucked until your lips were sore

Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 14d

Oh, these? Ya, organic and GMO free, I bought them from goblin men and they’re delicious.

Reposted by Robin Bates

Joseph Fasano @josephfasano.bsky.social · 14d

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Reposted by Robin Bates

Writing for Wellbeing @writeforwellbeing.bsky.social · 15d

He who does not read, at 70 years will have lived only one life, his own! He who reads, will have lived 5000 years: He was there when Cain killed Abel, when Renzo married Lucia, when Leopardi admired infinity... Because “Reading is backward immortality”.
-Umberto Eco
writingforwellbeing.co.uk
#books

Umberto Eco with many shelves of his collection of books

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Reposted by Robin Bates

Ray E. Boomhower @rboomhower.bsky.social · 16d

“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through it will blow up everything in its way.”
Emile Zola, who died on this day in 1902

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