Brendan O’Kane
@bokane.org
Scrutable Occidental, erstwhile 北漂, quondam translator, Ming/Qing fiction enjoyer, congenital Philadelphian, escaped academic, MLIS aspirant, 鏟屎官 (二等). Cynicism makes you an easy mark. Signal: @bokane.1644.
http://www.burninghou.se
http://www.burninghou.se
My brain randomly plays “Fatality, they hit him with the Liu Kang / Protect ya neck, shoulda listened to the Wu-Tang” at least two or three times a day now
There was approximately two seconds of veneration at gunpoint for Charlie Kirk from the MAGAs, which provoked a backlash so profound that I’m pretty sure Kirk’s visage will still be being used in AI slop twerking and fetish memes 20+ years from now
It is funny the extent to which Charlie Kirk has no legacy though, and that his death was basically career self destruction for Ezra Klein
January 12, 2026 at 1:52 AM
My brain randomly plays “Fatality, they hit him with the Liu Kang / Protect ya neck, shoulda listened to the Wu-Tang” at least two or three times a day now
Reposted by Brendan O’Kane
It’s here! It’s real! It exists!
Get your copy of Coal of Fire (new translations from the Hebrew Bible) today!
www.lulu.com/shop/atkinso...
Get your copy of Coal of Fire (new translations from the Hebrew Bible) today!
www.lulu.com/shop/atkinso...
November 21, 2025 at 9:58 PM
It’s here! It’s real! It exists!
Get your copy of Coal of Fire (new translations from the Hebrew Bible) today!
www.lulu.com/shop/atkinso...
Get your copy of Coal of Fire (new translations from the Hebrew Bible) today!
www.lulu.com/shop/atkinso...
@maddavenport.bsky.social’s new book just arrived!
January 10, 2026 at 5:55 PM
@maddavenport.bsky.social’s new book just arrived!
Reposted by Brendan O’Kane
Wang Shishen 汪士慎 (1686-1759), October 1728:
每餐先备买鱼钱，曾记携归小似拳，
一自爪牙动黠鼠，傍人安稳卧青氊。
I set money aside for fish before each meal.
She used to be no bigger than my hand --
Now with claw and tooth she routs the crafty rat,
And drowses by her humans on her mat.
每餐先备买鱼钱，曾记携归小似拳，
一自爪牙动黠鼠，傍人安稳卧青氊。
I set money aside for fish before each meal.
She used to be no bigger than my hand --
Now with claw and tooth she routs the crafty rat,
And drowses by her humans on her mat.
December 28, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Wang Shishen 汪士慎 (1686-1759), October 1728:
每餐先备买鱼钱，曾记携归小似拳，
一自爪牙动黠鼠，傍人安稳卧青氊。
I set money aside for fish before each meal.
She used to be no bigger than my hand --
Now with claw and tooth she routs the crafty rat,
And drowses by her humans on her mat.
每餐先备买鱼钱，曾记携归小似拳，
一自爪牙动黠鼠，傍人安稳卧青氊。
I set money aside for fish before each meal.
She used to be no bigger than my hand --
Now with claw and tooth she routs the crafty rat,
And drowses by her humans on her mat.
Reposted by Brendan O’Kane
Take my ten degrees of familial relation, please
Literary Chinese that goes hard, vol. one myriad:
文皇大聲曰：「汝安能遽死。即死，獨不顧九族乎？」孝孺曰：「便十族奈我何！」聲愈厲。
“Throw your life away if you want,” the Yongle Emperor roared, “but what about your family, and their families, to nine degrees of relation?”
Fang Xiaoru spat back: “Make it ten for all I care.”
文皇大聲曰：「汝安能遽死。即死，獨不顧九族乎？」孝孺曰：「便十族奈我何！」聲愈厲。
“Throw your life away if you want,” the Yongle Emperor roared, “but what about your family, and their families, to nine degrees of relation?”
Fang Xiaoru spat back: “Make it ten for all I care.”
January 9, 2026 at 1:42 PM
Take my ten degrees of familial relation, please
Reposted by Brendan O’Kane
Why then be fastened to the world?
Tao Qian, trans. Arthur Sze
Tao Qian, trans. Arthur Sze
January 9, 2026 at 3:06 AM
Why then be fastened to the world?
Tao Qian, trans. Arthur Sze
Tao Qian, trans. Arthur Sze
if i am killed by agents of the state please do not allow amanda gorman to write a poem about it
January 9, 2026 at 8:46 AM
if i am killed by agents of the state please do not allow amanda gorman to write a poem about it
not trying to call anybody out but some people really need to remember that I don't know who needs to hear this
January 8, 2026 at 6:06 AM
not trying to call anybody out but some people really need to remember that I don't know who needs to hear this
confucius is extremely real sometimes. I like the bit (9.14) where he has a tantrum and says he's going to run away to live with the barbarians.
confucius be like this duke guy got six horses pulling his chariot instead of four we truly just live in the end times
January 8, 2026 at 2:27 AM
confucius is extremely real sometimes. I like the bit (9.14) where he has a tantrum and says he's going to run away to live with the barbarians.
Reposted by Brendan O’Kane
confucius be like this duke guy got six horses pulling his chariot instead of four we truly just live in the end times
January 6, 2026 at 8:24 PM
confucius be like this duke guy got six horses pulling his chariot instead of four we truly just live in the end times
Reposted by Brendan O’Kane
Renee Nicole Good and her family moved to Minnesota, the speaker says, to "sit out the Trump years."
January 8, 2026 at 1:49 AM
Renee Nicole Good and her family moved to Minnesota, the speaker says, to "sit out the Trump years."
I can't be the only person who periodically finds themselves singing the 草泥馬 song (to the tune of the Smurfs theme song)
American netizens are devising ingenious puns to avoid the country's pervasive online censorship.
Turns out Instagram will immediately delete your story if you attempt to write “Fuck ICE,” so that’s fun.
January 7, 2026 at 10:04 PM
I can't be the only person who periodically finds themselves singing the 草泥馬 song (to the tune of the Smurfs theme song)
"...When he had set about buying bedsteads, tables, chairs and what-not, it occurred to him to buy also a library. Whether he can read or not, I do not know, but some savage faculty for observation told him that most respectable and estimable people usually had a lot of books in their houses."
sidewaysstation.com/2018/04/10/f...
Flann O'Brien is as funny a writer as I have ever read and WAAMA is one of his funniest creations. Every bit as good as the racehorse of genius if you're a Man or Woman Without Qualities - do yourself a favour and begin your year with the Best of Myles if you can
Flann O'Brien is as funny a writer as I have ever read and WAAMA is one of his funniest creations. Every bit as good as the racehorse of genius if you're a Man or Woman Without Qualities - do yourself a favour and begin your year with the Best of Myles if you can
Flann O’Brien’s Book Handling Enterprise
Flann O’Brien was a pen name of Brian O’Nolan, an Irish author who is most famous for three novels, At Swim Two Birds, The Third Policeman and the Dalkey Archive. He also wrote a column for the Iri…
sidewaysstation.com
January 7, 2026 at 7:51 AM
"...When he had set about buying bedsteads, tables, chairs and what-not, it occurred to him to buy also a library. Whether he can read or not, I do not know, but some savage faculty for observation told him that most respectable and estimable people usually had a lot of books in their houses."
Reposted by Brendan O’Kane
Check out the crazy repairs on this cracked block from I literally can’t remember which dynasty - it’s part of the collection at @rarebookschool.bsky.social
January 7, 2026 at 12:17 AM
Check out the crazy repairs on this cracked block from I literally can’t remember which dynasty - it’s part of the collection at @rarebookschool.bsky.social
spent the day trying to make text reliably appear on a webpage
1) Woodblocks could be and often were repaired when they wore down - you'll see blocks where lines were chiseled out and replaced by re-carved lines. And 新刻, "newly cut," was a common way of advertising a new edition of a text.
2) Woodblocks are better than movable type. I will elaborate.
2) Woodblocks are better than movable type. I will elaborate.
January 6, 2026 at 11:55 PM
spent the day trying to make text reliably appear on a webpage
Story Time about characters based on their modern components is always a load of what's left over after "rice" 米 from the "fields" 田 gets "shared" 共 around the table
Arnaud out here still thinking it's cool to post cringe-ass "Crisis = Danger +Opportunity" folk vibeslation...
January 6, 2026 at 11:03 AM
Story Time about characters based on their modern components is always a load of what's left over after "rice" 米 from the "fields" 田 gets "shared" 共 around the table
Reposted by Brendan O’Kane
I think about this post probably five times a week now.
One of the things you learn when you study the literature of dynastic collapse is that there is (slaps hood) *so much* collapse in a dynasty.
we all thought Twitter’s collapse would be swift and sudden like the fall of the Roman Empire but instead it’s been a steady, irreversible decay like the fall of the Roman Empire
January 6, 2026 at 3:58 AM
I think about this post probably five times a week now.
This is such a cool thread
(2-part aside)
1. The history of juggling on the internet is neat! I hate to be techno-deterministic, but some of it is techno-determined.
When toss jugglers started talking online in the 80s, they needed a non-graphic way to describe juggling. They picked up on a mathy notation called "siteswap."
1. The history of juggling on the internet is neat! I hate to be techno-deterministic, but some of it is techno-determined.
When toss jugglers started talking online in the 80s, they needed a non-graphic way to describe juggling. They picked up on a mathy notation called "siteswap."
January 6, 2026 at 3:21 AM
This is such a cool thread
This is sort of Bryan Johnson’s thing, to be fair
January 5, 2026 at 8:19 PM
This is sort of Bryan Johnson’s thing, to be fair
RED (2010) is good dumb fun but it did not succeed in making me believe that Bruce WIllis was familiar with the Harvard-Yenching library classification system
#FilmSky, a quick question; what is the pettiest thing you have had to be annoyed at a film? I ask because I am watching The Gift from 2000, and the main character does divination with Zener Cards, which are not the same thing as Tarot at all. Why go for a more boring looking option?
January 4, 2026 at 10:09 PM
RED (2010) is good dumb fun but it did not succeed in making me believe that Bruce WIllis was familiar with the Harvard-Yenching library classification system
Apparently the version of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" on the Fantasia score was originally recorded by a Hollywood orchestra, not the Philadelphia Orchestra (though still conducted by Stokowski). Hadn't known that!
January 4, 2026 at 9:51 PM
Apparently the version of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" on the Fantasia score was originally recorded by a Hollywood orchestra, not the Philadelphia Orchestra (though still conducted by Stokowski). Hadn't known that!
Watching the Philadelphia Orchestra perform selections from “Fantasia.” Actually sounds better than the original since we’re not in the Academy of Music.
January 4, 2026 at 7:59 PM
Watching the Philadelphia Orchestra perform selections from “Fantasia.” Actually sounds better than the original since we’re not in the Academy of Music.
Reposted by Brendan O’Kane
I actually think comparing James McMurtry's Bush songs to his Trump songs is really interesting; his Bush-era music is furious and strident, crackling with incandescent rage at the people who've stolen our country. His new political songs are just sad and broken, mourning what we've decided to do.
One of the dumbest complaints I have about the two Trump admins is the lack of the punk music response from the Bush administration
We got Great Art* from the Bush era at least!
*24, Toby Keith, latter day Dennis Miller
*24, Toby Keith, latter day Dennis Miller
January 3, 2026 at 10:01 PM
I actually think comparing James McMurtry's Bush songs to his Trump songs is really interesting; his Bush-era music is furious and strident, crackling with incandescent rage at the people who've stolen our country. His new political songs are just sad and broken, mourning what we've decided to do.
caught a mouse under the stove this morning and now they’re just hanging out in case it happens again
January 3, 2026 at 7:40 PM
caught a mouse under the stove this morning and now they’re just hanging out in case it happens again
i love and agree with you all, but being unable to tell the difference between "rein in" and "reign in" is part of how we got here
January 3, 2026 at 7:12 PM
i love and agree with you all, but being unable to tell the difference between "rein in" and "reign in" is part of how we got here