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Guy Gavriel Kay

@guygavrielkay.bsky.social
14K followers 207 following 6.3K posts

Author, punster, baseball fan, whisky lover, cocktail maker. Limericks happen here. Written on the Dark now released in paperback, Canada, U.S., U.K. Print, ebook, audiobook.

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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 11h
Every so often I try a dash of lemon bitters in a martini here and each time I think ‘that IS bright’ and then I think ‘is that my need/wish in a martini?’ And … it probably isn’t. Orange bitters (old school) and two cocktail olives, c’est moi. (Do I *need* to say gin?)
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 12h
My younger of two brothers is scanning old (very old) slides. Would you have a drink and discuss poetry with this beard?
GGK, significantly younger and significantly bearded.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 16h
Unforgettable masterpiece.
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Dean Frey @dean.bsky.social · 17h
Remembering Wallace Stevens on his birthday 🎂 📷 Walter Sanders for Life Magazine, 1950 The caption read: "Poet and Vice President of Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co., Wallace Stevens." "The imperfect is our paradise."
Stevens walks out from between the columns of his impressive insurance company building, hands behind his back. He turns to the camera & smiles.
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The Editorial Board @editorialboard.bsky.social · 22h
1. Let's not say goodbye to Eric Schmitt just yet. His story is about more than a power-mad senator falling on his face. It's part of a larger story about the Republicans defending the leader of an insurrection against the United States.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 18h
An intense, unsettling, very well done profile of a writer I much admire. Complicates my dislike of reflexively reading back from art to biography. (‘Who in your life inspired the character of Hortense? Huh? Huh?’) But some writers’ work tacks very closely to these autobiographical elements, clues.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 20h
A profoundly disturbing story keeps adding layers of bad.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Tonight’s Cleveland-Pittsburgh NFL game, which I declined to watch, features two of the most unlikeable quarterbacks imaginable. Cannot readily think of a more unpleasant oppositional pairing.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The Chicago White Sox, with their eternal battlecry, Deus vult, are surely the story of MLB right now? They have the TRUE Big Papi going for them.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Point well made. Applies in very large and in small ways. Consider what happens to you and that ‘spice of life’ every time you have to wonder if an image or clip online that is fun, funny, cute, compelling … is AI, not a real kid, dog, athlete, whatever. If you can’t trust it.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Their late film called, in English, ‘Life and Nothing But’ falls into the (rare) category of being both accessible and profound. It is also romantic, and funny, and touching. Recommended, as you might guess.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Strong, acute. Worth reading and thinking about.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Sorry about the Cubs, not sorry about the Astros, exceedingly happy about the last two nights in Yankee Stadium.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Sir Fred Hoyle, an astrophysicist by training and profession, wrote an sf novel in the mid-‘60s called *October the First is Too Late* I read it when it came out and I think of it on this day every damned year.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
That was, as we say in the parlance, fucking awful third base coaching by Yankees, wow.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
That last strikeout in Atlanta-Philly is all anyone should need to be a fan of the ABS challenge rule. Trying to imagine Phillies season ending today if that’s still a ball and winning runs then score.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
[A] museum was a bulwark against amnesia. It’s job was to fight the destruction of memory. —Charlotte Higgins, *Ukrainian Lessons*
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
His utter incoherence elicits a certain (high) level of schadenfraud!
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
As a maker of martinis, Connections in NYT Puzzles annoyed me greatly. Just saying.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
“Let’s say there’s a world or time line I exist in where A.I. has been subject to regulation. It is ethical. It has no footprint environmentally,” the novelist Jeff VanderMeer, a prominent critic of A.I., told me over the phone. “With those guardrails in place, would I read an A.I. book? All I can say is no. And the reason is, in part, because I want to read something coming from a particular mind.” Using A.I., he said, “feels like a betrayal of the whole point of why you’re a writer.”
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
David, I am *shook* by your brother’s take! And even so, Schmitt is wilder. As someone said, he beclowned himself.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Beclown works just fine here. It is, in fact, hilarious. From a clown.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Students are brave to be doing this.
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David Schraub @schraubd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Which DuPont Cirlce is your favorite? I personally like DuPont Circle. Though I admit it that, as a Marylander, I was always jealous that only Arlington got an Arlington National Cemetery, so it's nice to now have one of our own.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
He is right to say it is not worth arguing AND also right to say that any revenue (which is not, yes, real) would be revenue for a Democratic Congress as to being spent. The miserable thing is there are people who believe him, or just don’t CARE about the untruths.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
What? SIXTY big ones?? You nailed him, Ken baby!
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
With friends like that who needs critics?
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It would be nice to be able to just laugh. (Mockery can be useful, yes.)
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Oh. Of course they’re back! Are the caravans in the room with you now, MAGA campaign managers?
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
There’s something to be said for how most of the political spectrum can unite around hounding some lesbians over niche drama in their spaces but huge segments of society are silent about pervasive campus rape impacting a huge population of primarily youngwomen
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juliedevereaux.bsky.social @juliedevereaux.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
That mindset is still so entrenched in society, along with “what was she wearing” & “she shouldn’t have put herself in that situation”, completely removing responsibility for men’s behavior.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Helene.
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jkavanagh.bsky.social @jkavanagh.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
“It cannot be this weak and writhled shrimp should strike such terror to his enemies.” “Henry VI, Part 1”
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I get this too, even from a few smart friends. (I have so far chosen to see it as a blindspot, caused by different things, not a refutation of their general smartness.)
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I won this in 2009. It is a lovely memory. (I did not win this in 2009. I am being silly. It happens. The ongoing worry here is that people will not realize this. Hence a joke-wounding parenthetical now.)
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Yes. In college I wrote a Lightfoot-style song lyric that included: And the season that began last April Has ended in September rain… I THOUGHT back then it was about a summer romance and in a way I still think so, but considering it now, half a century later, the romance was with daily baseball.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
‘Paul McCartney’s ex-fiancée Jane Asher gives verdict on Beatles biopics: “I won’t watch”’ Ditto, Jane Asher, ditto.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I’m still waiting for ‘Choosin’ Iowa’ at the library. Apparently a solid read!
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Stake, mallet, garlic, silver…
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
For oldtimers of baseball: Don Mattingly tried his best one-off Gene Mauch imitation and… it worked about as well as that nightmare last few games worked, back when.
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Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The major platforms—Facebook, YouTube, and X—are all refusing to show the trailer for the upcoming documentary that eviscerates the ridiculous pest Elon Musk. So I guess we have to do our part to make sure it is seen. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY_8...
youtube.com
Musk | Official Trailer | Bleecker Street
YouTube video by Musk
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
England-Spain this afternoon was really entertaining and REALLY sloppy. England vg with possession but truly careless with the ball, and so many breakaways allowed. Spain spurning SO many chances. 3-2 Spain is fair result, though if Kane converts his PK to 3-1 I do think England wins this one.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Made another Leap Year cocktail from the Savoy, for science, to see if it enters the rotation. Instinct is I’ll make for guests but not routinely for myself over ‘the usuals.’ Part of cocktail hour for me is process, the making, and another part is comfort, and that’s shaping one’s favourites.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Gosh! Who could have predicted THAT??
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
‘Art means artillery. Until the war is over, the best conceptual artists in Ukraine are the army.’ — Diana Berg, Ukrainian art world activist, displaced from Donetsk in 2014, and then from Mariupol in 2022. (There is tragedy in this truth, too.)
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I will not apologize for extensively quoting from Charlotte Higgins’s book on Ukraine now: In that country the question ‘Are you ok?’ is now answered often by a + sign only, as internet and phones are erratic, and time is frequently very short.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
‘No metaphors work against a man with a machine gun.’ —Halyna Kruk, a Ukrainian poet, 2022. This is why the lovely idea that words are stronger than swords (or guns) does not apply in the midst of vicious invasion. It MAY work in the long term. But not for someone facing the machine guns.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
‘Theatre … is a way of containing rage and grief. [this is Charlotte Higgins summarizing Anne Carson again] It puts some shape around ugly, amorphous emotions that might otherwise overwhelm you.’ I think this is a truth, and also applies to other art forms. It is one function of art.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Charlotte Higgins in *Ukrainian Lessons* has now twice cited Teju Cole’s idea that disaster is already here, just not ‘evenly distributed’ and the more one thinks about this, the more grimly true it feels. Can say ‘this has always been true’ but ‘disaster‘ on the scale meant (global) is a big word.
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Guy Gavriel Kay @guygavrielkay.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Very much worth reading if you don’t known about Petrov. This is the day we celebrate and honour him, and properly feel gratitude, and other things. Relying on tech in wartime can be deeply perilous. sammatey.substack.com/p/happy-stan...
sammatey.substack.com
Happy Stanislav Petrov Day
Take five minutes to not destroy civilization
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