Michelle Bailat-Jones
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mbailatj.bsky.social
Michelle Bailat-Jones
@mbailatj.bsky.social
950 followers 580 following 730 posts
novelist/translator/reader, here for the sharpened pencils, books & writing talk, for all things language and foliage, for all the shiny things & shadows. (Eng, Fr, 日本語, Ital) Rep'd by Simon Trewin.
www.michellebailatjones.com
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Garden morning. A half-hour of cold, winter sun. The pumpkin leaves, like curled paper now, hang from the homemade summer trellis that will collapse as soon as we get snow.
A dry pumpkin leaf, lit by sun.
December 20, 2025 at 9:10 AM
mbailatj.bsky.social
Recent loot
Book stack: Tokarczuk, House of Day House of Night; Gospodinov, Death of the Gardener; Sanz, My Clicle and other massive misalignments; Ackerman, A natural history of the senses; Colanzi, You glow in the dark; Hilje, Slanting towards the sea; Ball, Volume II; Knapp, the Names
December 13, 2025 at 5:23 PM
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Everyone at the station can see their breath, everyone keeps their hands in their pockets, the man who lives beside the station is whistling in his garden, whistling and crunching his boots across the frost.
View of train tracks, mountains in the distance.
December 6, 2025 at 11:50 AM
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Dawn walks in the very quiet
Streetlamp lighting up late autumn leaves
December 5, 2025 at 7:50 AM
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Spot the swan in this 1953 untitled Laure Pigeon? And her face is always somewhere, too
A pen drawing with interconnected shapes and lines.
December 4, 2025 at 6:50 AM
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7am view from the coffee cup: nautical twilight and quite spindley, -1° but the rain has stopped
Silhouette of a barn and tree at twlight
December 2, 2025 at 6:13 AM
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Window gazing, last night's long walk around a city
Window of a café restaurant, a person is silhouetted at a desk or piano.
November 29, 2025 at 10:01 AM
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Intrepid train buddy (or sleepy, as is usually the case)
Photo, black terrier wearing a sweater, asleep)
November 26, 2025 at 4:24 PM
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Today's company on the fainting couch
Book with a red cover and a drawing of several faces. Book title: Woman, Idle by Laura Vogt, tr. By Caroline Waight. Published by Heloise Press
November 22, 2025 at 11:37 AM
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Quite/quiet wintery ce matin
Black and white photo of a tree and building in a snowy village
November 21, 2025 at 9:57 AM
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More texture....
new entry for the catalogue of tiny pleasing things
Close up of sage leaves with frost beads melting in the morning sun
November 16, 2025 at 9:17 AM
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Bookish goodness on my walk to a bakery yesterday
Book exchange box in metal with the word "book" in many different languages on the side.
November 16, 2025 at 9:05 AM
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Wisteria, coffee cup, silence, book
A window looking onto a Wisteria vine
November 15, 2025 at 9:49 AM
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The autumn Friday morning quiets are about to start, Orangina is practicing
Corner of a book room with cat on a chaise longue in front of red bookshelves and a book-covered armchair
August 29, 2025 at 5:41 AM
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Today was 2200 meters high, included marmots and a very bright blue lake.
Photo of an alpine lake and the hillsides around it under a cloudy sky. In the distance is a small glacier visible at the top of a mountain.
August 10, 2025 at 7:27 PM
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Not only is Hilton Al's personal history "The Story Part" beautiful and thoughtful and moving, it is a perfect illustration of why we should never ever give creative writing to a statistical-word-order-machine. Language is our tool for explaining thought and wonder; we should fight to keep it ours.
Excerpt reads: I do remember how taken I was by his mind, which didn't so much impose order on things as see order that was already there. Raised in Connecticut in a Catholic household, he had faith-and perhaps that faith would extend to me beyond this moment of possibility? Let me tell you more about this moment, and moments that preceded it, because they all live together: First, you are standing by yourself in the world, and it's fine. Then you blink and find yourself sitting in the palm of someone's hand. That person peers down at you with the look of a connoisseur gazing at a curiosity, until suddenly a shy surprise fills you both and alters the world as you know it. This might be too much to put on one meeting, but it's all true.
July 29, 2025 at 7:04 AM
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Went to a small Dorothea Lange exhibit tonight; nothing felt historical, but instead felt now and always.
1939 photo by Dorothea Lange of a man (unemployed lumber man) and woman (his wife) in Oregon, working as migrant bean pickers. The man has his social security number tattooed on his arm. Photo by Dorothea Lange of a gas station, a sign reads, "This is your country, don't let the big men take it away from you."
July 28, 2025 at 7:19 PM
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Folded and busy for today's entry for the catalogue of wingtips
Photo of a young seagull on the edge of the water, buildings in the background across the water
July 21, 2025 at 9:02 AM
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Bisous, with basil and petunias
A building with a grafitti word "bisous" and a window ledge with basil and pink petunias.
July 20, 2025 at 11:32 AM
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En plein vitesse
Photo prise d'une voiture de train, vue sur un lac et les montagnes, la photo est un peu floue / Photo of a lake and mountains, taken through the window of a train carriage
July 18, 2025 at 12:21 PM
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délicate, for the catalogue of small brights
Close up photo of leaves and pea plant tendrils, wrapped around twine
July 4, 2025 at 4:20 AM
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Sous l'ombre, la petite terrasse au coin du jardin
Photo: Les petits pavés d'une terrasse et la queue d'un chat. Small stones of a garden terrace, the tip of a cat's tail.
July 2, 2025 at 6:42 PM
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Texxxxxxturrrrre...
entries from the catalogue of shadows, catalogue of tiny pleasing things
Two square black and white photos on a piece of vieille rose textured fabric. Left photo shows a staircase inside a courtyard (traboule, Lyon), right photo shows the top of an escalator and the station clock with birds in Zurich HB.
July 2, 2025 at 6:15 AM
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Sheltering from today's heat on a wall. Carries clouds in its wings. Today's entry for the #catalogueofwingtips
A cream-colored moth on a white wall. The month's wings have brown, lace-like patterns.
June 28, 2025 at 7:36 AM
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The first dahlia of the year is perfect #smallbrights
Photo of a peach-colored dahlia
June 27, 2025 at 5:35 AM