@sibyllacumae.bsky.social
rare bookseller, renaissance platonist, memory worker, kitchen gardener. now based in philly.
newsletter: https://twohalfsheets.substack.com
newsletter: https://twohalfsheets.substack.com
Choosing a gift for the four-year-old niece I am meeting for the first time tomorrow, I was overwhelmed by the picture book options and how so many seem to have thinly disguised lame morals like “learn to share” and “regulate your toddler emotions”
November 26, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Choosing a gift for the four-year-old niece I am meeting for the first time tomorrow, I was overwhelmed by the picture book options and how so many seem to have thinly disguised lame morals like “learn to share” and “regulate your toddler emotions”
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Today's theme is - not actually cards, but weird enough to merit sharing. First up - the cover of Farmer's Wife. What did he do? Is he still thankful? Is she thankful that she doesn't have to put up with him at Thanksgiving dinner? So many questions. #thanksgiving #farmlife #stocks
November 26, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Today's theme is - not actually cards, but weird enough to merit sharing. First up - the cover of Farmer's Wife. What did he do? Is he still thankful? Is she thankful that she doesn't have to put up with him at Thanksgiving dinner? So many questions. #thanksgiving #farmlife #stocks
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Moorland-Spingarn Research Center's Christina Vortia on Dorothy Porter and Black children's books
www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-n...
www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-n...
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center's Christina Vortia on Dorothy Porter and Black children's books
Our Bright Young Librarians series continues today with Christina Vortia, Chief Librarian at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University in Washington DC.What is your role at your insti...
www.finebooksmagazine.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center's Christina Vortia on Dorothy Porter and Black children's books
www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-n...
www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-n...
If Da Pope excommunicates Vance I will convert to Catholicism
Pope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’
Even God Is Worried About ChatGPT
Pope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’
www.vulture.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:41 PM
If Da Pope excommunicates Vance I will convert to Catholicism
How many books is unreasonable to take on a cross-country Thanksgiving trip? 4? Unfortunately I’m 2/3 through a 700p. book which I’m going to carry and probably finish on the plane…
November 26, 2025 at 3:03 PM
How many books is unreasonable to take on a cross-country Thanksgiving trip? 4? Unfortunately I’m 2/3 through a 700p. book which I’m going to carry and probably finish on the plane…
On a more cheerful note, I’ve been frantically banging out an illustrated list with a spooky occult theme just in time for Christmas 😅 look out early next month!
November 26, 2025 at 2:14 PM
On a more cheerful note, I’ve been frantically banging out an illustrated list with a spooky occult theme just in time for Christmas 😅 look out early next month!
Restraining myself from posting on ex-libris about ViaLibri’s “AI research tool” that their “ceo” claims to be building with listing data. Not worth the fight this Thanksgiving Eve, and I suspect people’s responses would disappoint me.
November 26, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Restraining myself from posting on ex-libris about ViaLibri’s “AI research tool” that their “ceo” claims to be building with listing data. Not worth the fight this Thanksgiving Eve, and I suspect people’s responses would disappoint me.
Reposted
Nice case of a fake '1584 Viterbo' edition, undoubtedly printed in Paris in the 1620s.
The give away ?
The coat of arms of Marie de Medici engraved on the title page with the royal crown of France...
#bookhistory
The give away ?
The coat of arms of Marie de Medici engraved on the title page with the royal crown of France...
#bookhistory
November 25, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Nice case of a fake '1584 Viterbo' edition, undoubtedly printed in Paris in the 1620s.
The give away ?
The coat of arms of Marie de Medici engraved on the title page with the royal crown of France...
#bookhistory
The give away ?
The coat of arms of Marie de Medici engraved on the title page with the royal crown of France...
#bookhistory
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Our books are inherently non-commercial, art objects. I talk about this a lot in bookshop circles but, people don't hesitate to support dance, visual art, and other modes of artistic expression that are totally nonprofit but culturally valued. Why do people not apply that to books and literature?
November 24, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Our books are inherently non-commercial, art objects. I talk about this a lot in bookshop circles but, people don't hesitate to support dance, visual art, and other modes of artistic expression that are totally nonprofit but culturally valued. Why do people not apply that to books and literature?
Also, the idea that the proposed exercise is necessary to teach students that LLMs aren’t “primary sources” is baffling to me. There seems to be something very wrong with the teaching about what a primary source is if that’s the case.
These assignments encourage people to become DIY detectives, exacerbating a boom in conspiracy theories. The “permission structure of doubt” normalises suspicion as a default setting and suggests that another algorithm (like Google’s search) can discover the truth.
By @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social:
By @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social:
AI-Generated Images Are Spreading Paranoia and Misinformation. Can Art Historians Help?
An art historian argues that provenance research—rather than connoisseurship—is our best tool for authentication.
www.artnews.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Also, the idea that the proposed exercise is necessary to teach students that LLMs aren’t “primary sources” is baffling to me. There seems to be something very wrong with the teaching about what a primary source is if that’s the case.
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This is not the way, and @cnygren.bsky.social and I lay out in detail why it isn’t in this essay here. static1.squarespace.com/static/55577...
November 24, 2025 at 1:16 PM
This is not the way, and @cnygren.bsky.social and I lay out in detail why it isn’t in this essay here. static1.squarespace.com/static/55577...
Please watch Swan Song
Oh, man. One of cinema's most reliable weirdos, and I mean that in a highly complimentary fashion. RIP.
variety.com/2025/film/ne...
variety.com/2025/film/ne...
Udo Kier, German Actor Who Appeared in ‘My Own Private Idaho,’ ‘Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein,’ Dies at 81
Udo Kier, a German actor who collaborated with everyone from Andy Warhol to Lars von Trier to Madonna, died on Sunday morning. He was 81.
variety.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Please watch Swan Song
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How is it that college administrators get paid high salaries to come up with such dumb ideas, over & over again...? Is there someone who will pay me for dumb ideas? If you really want I can come up with plenty (and even some good ones as well) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/n...
November 23, 2025 at 7:54 PM
How is it that college administrators get paid high salaries to come up with such dumb ideas, over & over again...? Is there someone who will pay me for dumb ideas? If you really want I can come up with plenty (and even some good ones as well) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/n...
Reposted
I wish more reporting on this made the point that novelists won't be displaced by LLMs suddenly producing literature instead of story mulch, but because decision makers focused only on the bottom line, who don't understand what makes a good book, will be persuaded story mulch has got 'good enough'.
New research by @mctd.bsky.social shows the impact of generative AI on authors in the UK. They found over a third of novelists report their income has already been negatively impacted by AI and 85% expect their future income will be negatively impacted.
www.mctd.ac.uk/impact-of-ge...
www.mctd.ac.uk/impact-of-ge...
Impact of Generative AI on the Novel
A report examining how literary creatives being affected by GenAI and what measures they want see implemented by the government to protect the UK’s literary scene.
www.mctd.ac.uk
November 20, 2025 at 11:05 PM
I wish more reporting on this made the point that novelists won't be displaced by LLMs suddenly producing literature instead of story mulch, but because decision makers focused only on the bottom line, who don't understand what makes a good book, will be persuaded story mulch has got 'good enough'.
Reposted
Reading Luther, but drawing a big X through his face so everyone will know I'm against it.
Dominican #censorship
Fun fact: in the Bibliotheca Casanatense, book theft didn’t just get you in trouble—it got you excommunicated on the spot. (At least that’s the warning that was hung up at the library)
#earlymodern #bookhistory
Fun fact: in the Bibliotheca Casanatense, book theft didn’t just get you in trouble—it got you excommunicated on the spot. (At least that’s the warning that was hung up at the library)
#earlymodern #bookhistory
November 22, 2025 at 5:45 AM
Reading Luther, but drawing a big X through his face so everyone will know I'm against it.
So I just learned about the existence of the TV show Moonlighting
November 21, 2025 at 9:13 PM
So I just learned about the existence of the TV show Moonlighting
Reposted
In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:
October 2, 2025 at 3:17 PM
In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:
Just took a call from a dad wanting to buy a book as Christmas present for teen Latinist son 😭😭😭🥹🥹🥹🥹
November 20, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Just took a call from a dad wanting to buy a book as Christmas present for teen Latinist son 😭😭😭🥹🥹🥹🥹
One of my problems is that I don’t really want to do scholarship, I just want to write in a historically informed way about my feelings about Plato. And I’m not sure there is really an audience or venue for this.
November 20, 2025 at 4:23 PM
One of my problems is that I don’t really want to do scholarship, I just want to write in a historically informed way about my feelings about Plato. And I’m not sure there is really an audience or venue for this.
Reposted
saturation with Tolkien spinoffs has somehow not prepared our culture for the arrival of dark lords bearing a gift that everyone becomes convinced they can wield to accomplish great things but just makes them dependent and start whispering about preciouses if you suggest just throwing it away
November 19, 2025 at 11:16 AM
saturation with Tolkien spinoffs has somehow not prepared our culture for the arrival of dark lords bearing a gift that everyone becomes convinced they can wield to accomplish great things but just makes them dependent and start whispering about preciouses if you suggest just throwing it away
As a child I watched some TV show (unsolved mysteries?) about Spontaneous Human Combustion and was extremely concerned about it for many years after
Good to see the kids’ section of our local bookstore still carries the classics.
November 18, 2025 at 4:20 PM
As a child I watched some TV show (unsolved mysteries?) about Spontaneous Human Combustion and was extremely concerned about it for many years after
Working with the chief curator on the catalog for The Edible Monument, our editor queried a line about a festival “celebrating the King’s return to health” & I was put on the case. Turns out it was the anal fistula surgery recovery festival—a detail which did NOT make it into the final text.
We begin today with a content warning: this dispatch from history is not for the faint-hearted. However, if you wish, do please join me for the tale of the Sun King’s anal fistula and the three-hour operation performed on it without anaesthetic on this day in 1686... 🧵
November 18, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Working with the chief curator on the catalog for The Edible Monument, our editor queried a line about a festival “celebrating the King’s return to health” & I was put on the case. Turns out it was the anal fistula surgery recovery festival—a detail which did NOT make it into the final text.
Reposted
test the plausibility of this for yourself: ask "what sort of efforts would fully counteract the sociological effects of a system where people routinely sold their own children into labor camps?" and see how different your answer is from "years of open terrorism in defense of retrenching apartheid"
The south was a chattel slave empire until the 1860s and a de facto ethnic authoritarian state for the following century, which is well in living memory. I don't think we need to pretend that that hasn't left a distinctive cultural mark.
November 17, 2025 at 9:39 PM
test the plausibility of this for yourself: ask "what sort of efforts would fully counteract the sociological effects of a system where people routinely sold their own children into labor camps?" and see how different your answer is from "years of open terrorism in defense of retrenching apartheid"
There are things I want to say about the Summers situation, but when I open my mouth, only screaming comes out. Thankful for the words of others when mine fail.
November 17, 2025 at 6:04 PM
There are things I want to say about the Summers situation, but when I open my mouth, only screaming comes out. Thankful for the words of others when mine fail.
Reposted
Pleased to announce the Wheatley Census is ready for 1.0 public release! As detailed a census as possible (right now) of the first six editions - those printed in the 18th century - of Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, is available here: www.wheatleycensus.org.
Wheatley Census
www.wheatleycensus.org
November 17, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Pleased to announce the Wheatley Census is ready for 1.0 public release! As detailed a census as possible (right now) of the first six editions - those printed in the 18th century - of Phillis Wheatley’s Poems on Various Subjects, is available here: www.wheatleycensus.org.