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07/17/2025

The work of Karel Martens is untouchable. Or, let’s rephrase that – it’s actually ultra-touchable (as in: tactile, physical, material):
www.instagram.com/p/DMFiCFFqsCT/
It’s a practice (or indeed, praxis) in which making becomes thinking, and thinking becomes making. (In that sense, it brings to mind the way Régis Debray once described “the professional typographer” as “the prime example of the working intellectual and the intellectual worker”). Seeing all of Karel’s work together, in the flesh, for the first time (in the current KM retrospective ‘Unbound’, taking place at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, running until October 26, 2025) is an electrifying experience – invoking the lost spirits of Dutch social-democratic structuralism, of stubborn materialism, but above all, radiating the pure joy of making. So do visit this exhibition – we strongly recommend it!

06/13/2025

02/07/2025

Amazon’s Kindle Vella is shutting down. Why? Doesn't anybody want to read “Drag Racing Werewolf” or “Hot Vampire Next Door”?

Amazon’s Kindle Vella , a platform for serialized storytelling, is winding down its service this month, after only a few years of existence. Despite its promise to revolutionize the reading experience with bite-sized episodes unlocked via tokens, Vella has failed. Why?

12/20/2024

Every story has both show and tell to it. The good ones are more show than tell, but so much depends on how they're told. Here's a video essay, an editorial take: Star Wars is told as a fairy tale, and it's time for a remix.

If you liked this one, come watch our The Acolyte review: https://youtu.be/wggR45TOH1AIf you want to support us further: https://www.patreon.com/BeghastChapt...

06/08/2024

When it comes to photo restoration, it looks like AI isn't ready for prime-time. It's an interesting concept, though, and this sarcastic video makes me want to watch a good-quaility restoration of Hitchcock's "Vertigo." I didn't know that the film has colors that couldn't be shown until recently.

A belated review of Cameron's 4k filmography, arriving dead last but for the very firstest of first world problems.Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.co...

04/06/2024

This joke never gets old.

03/30/2024

Art is a verb. Writing is art. Reading brings the writing to life.

Image of Verb List from MoMA.org The artist Richard Serra died yesterday at 85. His sculptures combined the monumental with the intimate, pieces that overwhelm and envelop but are often the only on…

03/29/2024

It's a sad day for small, independent presses and publishers, and for writers and readers as well. Small Press Distribution (SPD) is closing its doors.

From the announcement:

For more than five decades, SPD has distributed books for hundreds of independent literary publishers, allowing thousands of writers to bring diverse, experimental, and disruptive literature to audiences across the globe. SPD’s impact on the literary world over the past 55 years is hard to overstate. Against all odds, a tiny distribution service in the back of Berkeley’s Serendipity Books grew to help authors attain some of the literary world’s crowning achievements. SPD-distributed authors won multiple National Book Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, MacArthur “Genius” Grants, PEN Awards, Lambda Literary Awards–nearly 100 awards since 2019 alone.

Unfortunately, these accolades were no match for the challenges of a rapidly changing book industry and funding environment.

Small Press Distribution (SPD) is a non-profit literary arts organization located in Berkeley, California. As their name indicates, the core of their mission is to act as an umbrella distributor and marketer for hundreds of smaller literary publishers. SPD's primary mission is to get the books of th...

03/26/2024

Might have called the owls a hootenanny.

Language is an instrument of great precision and poignancy — our best tool for telling each other what the world is and what we are, for conveying the blueness of blue and the wonder of being…

03/23/2024

Beetlejuice 2 had better be good. Don't touch a classic unless you can promise something good. But does that really happen anymore?

First look at Jenna Ortega and Winona Ryder as Astrid and Lydia Deetz in ‘BEETLEJUICE 2’.

03/23/2024

It's a rainy Saturday morning. The cat is snoring. I'm looking at typewriter designs.

Hundreds of typewriter users worldwide will be very familiar with the designs of German Karl Clauss Dietel, probably without realising the p...

01/07/2024

📚 Whether you're a tech enthusiast, a literary aficionado, or someone who enjoys the fusion of modern and post-modern concepts, this post is for you. Let's reminisce together and get inspired for what the future holds!

👉 Check out the full post here:

As we embark on a new year, let’s take a look at 2023 and what happened where tech meets text.