Jason

@unsettlement.bsky.social

205 Followers 183 Following

Recovering Academic. Looking for virtuous signal in a world of vicious noise.

Closeup of a hand with finger brushing the overhanging umbel (flower cluster) of a potted hoya. The flowers are pink-white, with dark crimson centres holding globules of dark crimson nectar, a few drops of which dot the finger.
Headline from “The Citizen” reads “Ramaphosa Responds to Trump, says SA has ‘not confiscated any land’.” Accompanied by picture of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in front of South African flag.
In the foreground, a pair of flat white coffee in cappuccino cups and saucers on a wooden counter, with a French press of recently frothed milk behind them.
In low light, a Bialetti moka pot and milk frothing pitcher sit side by side on top of a metal camp cooking plate on a butane cannister gas stove. A thermometer in the milk pitcher is about 5 degrees short of a printed green zone marking 60-70 degrees C.
Screenshot of opening chapters menu from the Audible edition of Cameron Reed’s “The Fortunate Fall.” It begins with “Opening Credits” and then lists the first six chapters under Section 1 “Virtual or Immediate Touch,” but does not list an introduction by Jo Walton to the 2024 edition.
Somewhat scuff-cornered cover of “I, Lucifer” by Glen Duncan. Against an all red background, the central image is the silhouette of a man walking away. Below him, as though reflected by mirrored surface or cast as a shadow, his inverted silhouette has horns, a barbed tail, and a shaggier outline. The author name and title “I, Lucifer” bisect the silhouettes in a font whose dotted I’s (even the uppercase is dotted) resemble morning stars. Along the top is a tagline: “Finally, the other side of the story.” Along the bottom, the blurb excerpt by Stella Duffy reads “Lucifer is charming and sexy and very very funny. Glen Duncan knows way too much and says it far too well. I fear for his soul.”
Square cover indicating an audiobook cover. Cover image is of a looks up through the stalks of a corn field to a sky distorted into pink, purple, and green waves. This blurring and distortion of the mage suggests the effect of stretched videotape. Title reads “Universal Harvester” “A Novel” by John Darnielle. Smaller type reads “Author of Wolf in White Van” and “Read by the Author.”
Photograph of the slightly worn cover of Ian McDonald’s “Desolation Road.” The cover art by Mark Harrison features a man in a white shirt leaning on a tree on a hill in an oasis, all offset to the left of the foreground to frame the view downhill. In the middle distance a mess with windows carved into it and various antennae attached overlooks green farmland and train tracks with passing train below, and beyond Martian dunes and mesas, and a pair of round moons in the pink daytime sky. The cover text also states that this is a Signature Special Edition with new foreword by the author, and that it is by the author of “King of Morning, Queen of Day.”
Text from article on Booker prize winners. Highlighted bit reads “The fact that Samantha Harvey’s Orbital is an intergalactic story set on a space station, for instance…”
Screenshot of 4 ebook covers in a 2x2 grid. Titles are: “Wrong: how media, politics, and identity drive our appetite for Misinformation” by Danagal Goldthwaite Young; “Fearing Together: Ethics for Insecurity” by Ami Harbin; “Grandstanding: the use and abuse of moral talk” by Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke; and “Fighting Misinformation: Digital Media Literacy [Great Courses Guidebook]” by Tara Susman-Peña, Mehri Druckman and Nina Oduro.
List of Audible titles in personal library, column marked “Finished”, with covers and author names. From top to bottom, they are: “Hum” by Helen Phillips, “Wrong” by Dannagal Goldthwaite Young, and “Nothing is True and Everything is Possible” by Peter Pomerantsev.
Three, increasingly shorter, ristretto espresso shots.