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Jeff VanderMeer

@jeffvandermeer.bsky.social

67K followers 1.4K following 8.4K posts

NYT bestselling author of the Southern Reach series, including Absolution. Repped by Joe Veltre at Gersh. Gigs: The Tuesday Agency. he/him

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · Jul 12

Just a reminder: The tenth anniversary editions of the original Southern Reach trilogy are still out in the wild, selling well. NYT bestsellers and on a lot of best-of-decade or this century lists. With new intros by Karen Joy Fowler, NK Jemisin, and Helen MacDonald. Buy from you favorite indie.

Southern Reach covers with morphed boar, rabbit, and owl, art by Pablo Delcan.

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Reposted by Jeff VanderMeer

Spooky Boo @spookyboo.bsky.social · 11h

Sorry, not sorry, neighbors.

Multiple plastic skeletons bow down on the grass or kneel with their palms up towards their god - the 12’ plastic skeleton standing behind the fence line

Two plastic skeletons bow on their knees in the grass while one has a single knee down and his palms outstretched towards their god - the 12’ plastic skeleton standing behind the wood fence

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Reposted by Jeff VanderMeer

Olivia Portlander 🐙🧡🍋🐊🦋☂️ @sallyfisherprice.bsky.social · 5h

T-12 hours until we have apple butter.

7 pounds of sliced apples with sugar and spices.

Same as first photo but now all stirred together.

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 3h

I agree!

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 4h

This is taking literally a sentence that clearly is figurative and meant to express something about community.

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 4h

And by remind I mean also push back against the morally and ethically bsnkrupt narratives pushed by the administration.

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 4h

This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)

For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary.

Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from).

The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe.

Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky.

Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat?

This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight:
* Waste of public resources on military theatrics.
* Fraud in the name of “public safety.”
* Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect.

Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation.

Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here.

When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness.

Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy.

A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control.

Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard.

Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.

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Reposted by Jeff VanderMeer

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 11h

Look how cute these huddled cedar waxwings are on this bare branch tree. Cuddle puddles. 3/4

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Reposted by Jeff VanderMeer

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 11h

Your moment of calm today... a series of cedar waxwings in a silhouetted tree. 1/4

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 8h

thank you for your service

The Oregonian @oregonian.com · 18h

The couple in costumes said they wanted to bring joy to the protests and show that demonstrators are "fun loving people."

Unicorn bride marries Kenny from South Park at Portland ICE protest

The couple in costumes said they wanted to bring joy to the protests and show that demonstrators are "fun loving people."

www.oregonlive.com

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Reposted by Jeff VanderMeer

David Raffin @davidraffin.bsky.social · 9h

I took this downtown. No joke.
Amsterdam.

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 10h

in the fireplaces

Joshuagraham/DJJoshua @joshuagraha12.bsky.social · 10h

Where’s the fires?!

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 10h

(I don't know if most know that Amsterdam is a kid-friendly and safe city, with lots of family activities and initiatives.)

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 10h

Around Portland on a rain-tinged day. In some ways as close to a US Amsterdam as I've experienced. (Which means not ostentacious, great public transpo/ bicycle culture, walkable neighborhoods, abundant culture, great food scene, lots of public art and imagination, family friendly, etc.)

lovely downward flouncing red blossom with raindrops

downward plunging red pink blossom with phalanges like a cool ceiling light.

blue brontosaurus riding a yellow horse riding a bike

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Reposted by Jeff VanderMeer

Olivia Portlander 🐙🧡🍋🐊🦋☂️ @sallyfisherprice.bsky.social · 1d

Tonight in the garden.

A blujay holding an acorn in its beak, standing on some wood chips next to green plants.

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 11h

there's something there

lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 11h

there's something here

A normal-versus-normal matchup is what politics used to be — persuasion, messaging, negotiation, compromise. Behaving this way will lose against someone donning body armor while calling you an antifa domestic terrorist MS-13 gang member. And the guy in the body armor will always lose to the guy in the inflatable frog suit.

3x3 grid charting how aura farming, shitposting, and acting normal interact

Aura Farming Shitposting Acting Normal
Aura Farming Stronger aura farmer wins Shitposter wins Aura farmer wins
Shitposting Shitposter wins Society loses Acting normal wins
Acting Normal Aura farmer wins Acting normal wins We live in a society

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 11h

No adjusted light in these cedar waxwings photos. I like conveying what it was like to see them with little glints off their magnificence. What a wonderful flock to see. 4/4

several cedar waxwings on the branches of a fir tree

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 11h

Look how cute these huddled cedar waxwings are on this bare branch tree. Cuddle puddles. 3/4

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 11h

More detail as the cedar waxwings gather in the top of a tree against a cloudy sky. 2/4

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Reposted by Jeff VanderMeer

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 2d

My best backyard bird portraits from the past few months. 1/2

puffy headed lesser goldfinch on garden shed roof.

scrub jay with blue and white, with a nut in mouth, on the roof.

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 11h

Your moment of calm today... a series of cedar waxwings in a silhouetted tree. 1/4

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 14h

oh geez that's awfully kind. thanks.

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 14h

yeah, i have emails in to a couple

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 14h

Fair. I guess it seems impossible to accomplish anything re culling an animal that is so adaptable and prolific in its breeding.

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 14h

it's all very interesting!

Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 14h

um yeah and maybe winners shouldn't give speeches after but just give a thumbs up or something :(

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