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James Farson

@jamesfarson.bsky.social
89 followers 202 following 85 posts

Writer. Will try and post about my reading and other projects and then just tweet about Arsenal. He/him. Peterborough based and becoming increasingly obsessed with it. No AI, ever. Longer form thoughts here: ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com

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Reposted by James Farson
Andrew Male @andrewmale.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
#NowPlaying For darker nights.
PiL - Metal Box (Virgin, 1979)
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tempfolder @tempfoldr.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Ring me up when there's bard ai oh wait
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🎃 Matthew Jack-o'-lantern 🎃 @awalrusdarkly.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Once again thinking about Caravaggio (yes, the painter) and his inscribed sword that he would use in gang fights against rival art groups. "Without hope, without fear," holy shit, dude.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Just finished Alexander Baron's The Lowlife. What a fucking novel. It's loose, it's taut, it's exactly what it needs to be. Please reprint all the old London novels Iain Sinclair talks about. I need to read Camberton's Rain on the Pavements.
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Rose Schmits @roseschmits.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
We can read the equivocations mate here i circled em for you
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Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The fact that all the leading transphobes now also have beef with neurodivergence really tells you what they’re motivated by (clue: not feminism)
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Serpent's Tail @serpents-tail.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
#TheEndOfEverything by M. John Harrison is on the 2026 Booker Prize shortlist! We are absolutely delighted to see this magnificent novel on the shortlist. A huge congratulations to our wonderful author M. John Harrison 🐚 Discover more about the shortlist here: thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Give it Mike Harrison. The End of Everything has captured the feeling of the present moment the way nothing else has.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I am about halfway through Iain Sinclair’s Hackney, that Rose-Red Empire, and it had been a while since I read any Sinclair, so I had forgotten just how often he talks about French films. I'm totally lost.
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Neil Mackay @neilmackay.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Every single journalist in Britain should read this searing essay by Will Self
willself1.substack.com
Jason Arday: J'Accuse the British Media
After the death of Jason Arday, Will Self asks what happens when the media machine mistakes what interests the public for the public interest.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Pleased to finally announce... Abdication, the last Southern Reach novel! "There will come the days of the watcher, the drowned woman and the shadow of a man who keeps falling apart with each step, but first comes the moment the birds appear at night from the gaps between the stars, far from home."
Publishers Marketplace Deal Report, August 6, 2026:

Jeff Vandermeer's ABDICATION, the last novel in the Southern Reach series, in which an ornithologist exiled to a remote coast stumbles on a terrifying secret,  a self-proclaimed king pursues a mystery hidden in a strange weather station, and a man who can become a cormorant is tasked with a deadly mission through a future landscape transformed by Area X, for publication in October 2027, in a significant deal, to Jenna Johnson at Farrar, Straus, by Joseph Veltre at the Gersh Agency and Alex Kohner at Yorn Levine (world).
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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Half the planet is having a massive fight about how to correctly interpret an Ancient Greek poem but go ahead, close some more humanities departments.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Most typically English performance I've seen for a while. Play some good stuff and go a goal up, decide to try defend a 1-0 lead to the death for no good reason, the moment you go behind just start leathering it with no plan.
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Tits McGee @scientits.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
‘Say yes and never do it’ Mel Brooks knew how to deal with the studios
You have some wonderful stories of basically getting away with stuff at the studios.

I’d learned one very simple trick: say yes. Simply say yes. Like Joseph E. Levine, on “The Producers,” said, “The curly-haired guy—he’s funny looking. Fire him.” He wanted me to fire Gene Wilder. And I said, “Yes, he’s gone. I’m firing him.” I never did. But he forgot. After the screening of “Blazing Saddles,” the head of Warner Bros. threw me into the manager’s office, gave me a legal pad and a pencil, and gave me maybe twenty notes. He would have changed “Blazing Saddles” from a daring, funny, crazy picture to a stultified, dull, dusty old Western. He said, “No farting.” I said, “It’s out.”That’s probably the most famous scene in the movie, the campfire scene.

I know. He said, “You can’t punch a horse.” I said, “You’ll never see it again.” I kept saying, “You’re absolutely right. It’s out!” Then, when he left, I crumpled up all his notes, and I tossed it in the wastepaper basket. And John Calley, who was running [production at] Warner Bros. at the time, said, “Good filing.” That was the end of it. You say yes, and you never do it.

That’s great advice for life.

It is. Don’t fight them. Don’t waste your time struggling with them and trying to make sense to them. They’ll never understand.
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Kat Brown @katbrownwrites.com · 26/06/2026
Tesco is extending its Kids Eat Free scheme to 7 days a week over the summer, where children get a free meal with an adult purchase, but honestly, this detail about how small the adult purchase can be broke my heart.
The Café and The Coffee Shop in Tesco will be offering one free Kids Hot Meal Deal, Kids Breakfast or Kids Pick ‘n’ Mix deal with any full price adult purchase when they scan their Tesco Clubcard. **The adult purchase could be something as small as an apple costing just 65 pence.** And with no limit to the number of Kid’s meals you can redeem, families of all sizes can benefit too.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
M. John Harrison is a master, and he's at it again. My review of his his new novel, The End of Everything!
ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com
The Vibes are Off: Some Thoughts on The End of Everything by M. John Harrison
The End of Everything captures better than anything else I’ve read that sense of casual nihilism that seems to pervade public life at the moment
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vibe-free lifestyle and smiling apple purveyor @ellaguro.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
new blog post: notes from the underground ellaguro.blogspot.com/2026/06/note...
ellaguro.blogspot.com
notes from the underground
first and foremost, you can listen to my album "Saint Elizabeth" here: https://ellaguro.bandcamp.com/album/saint-elizabeth earlier this year...
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
I've been reading some slower, weirder books recently. I certainly enjoyed my time with Joseph Joubert's Notebooks! ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com/2026/06/13/t...
ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com
The World is a Drop of Air: Some Thoughts on The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert
Like Daedalus, I am forging myself wings. I construct them little by little, adding one feather each day. I think collections of aphorisms, epigrams, and maxims are the form for today. They are lik…
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
Another SF review up on the blog! ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com/2026/06/06/s...
ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com
Single-handed: Some Thoughts on Wasp by Eric Frank Russell
Wasp, by Eric Frank Russell, is a fantastic good time of a novel.
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Megaera Lorenz @megaeralwrites.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Fellow ghost story aficionados, I need your help. I read a short story years ago that I *believe* dates to the very early 20th c about a skeptic who goes to a seance and ends up being haunted by an invisible entity that feels like a hairless animal and has a musky smell. I can't find it anywhere.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
I am all there for Linux on the desktop, but you should know that I installed a media player the other day that *did not have a volume slider enabled by default*. I had to click through two separate options menus to enable one. Incredible software.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Project Gutenberg is so cool because you can be randomly browsing for something else and then find an old concordance going over every reference to a plant, garden, or flower, in the works of Shakespeare. www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2...
gutenberg.org
The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
Title: The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare
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five commas a pound, can't say fairer @commamonger.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
You can't make me.
YOU CAN’T MAKE ME

Alison Rae

Not your make-a-buck AI

or drive-a-truck AI,

spin-the-wheel-for-luck AI

or my-ideas-are-stuck AI,

your nip-and-tuck AI,

your draw-a-duck AI,

your animate-a-beloved-corpse-and-make-it-dance-like-a-puck AI,

not your workers-suck AI,

everyone’s-a-schmuck AI,

your run-amok AI

or turned-to-yuck AI,

your hucksters-gonna-huck AI,

gumming-up-our-gears-with-muck AI,

your world-coming-unstuck AI:

no. 

Fuck AI.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
I've been thinking again about what it means to be trying to create things in an era where a machine can just do it for you. New post here: ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com/2026/04/04/i...
ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com
I Hate Almost Everything That I See
If you were getting AI to compose music for you, would it ever put a belch in the second verse?
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Disco Elysium Quotes @discoelysiumbot.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
KIM KITSURAGI - “You need to get your shit together.” YOU - “But I don't wanna get my shit together!” KIM KITSURAGI - “Then the world will turn away from you, and leave you behind.”
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Disco Elysium Quotes @discoelysiumbot.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
0.000% of Communism has been built. Evil child-murdering billionaires still rule the world with a shit-eating grin. All he has managed to do is make himself *sad*. He is starting to suspect Kras Mazov *fucked him over* personally with his socio-economic theory.
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Adam Sharp @adamcsharp.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
A Lithuanian equivalent to “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” is nemokamas sūris tik pelėkautuose. It means “the only free cheese is in a mousetrap”
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Elana Levin @levin.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
really tired of conversations about how we need to get people to spend more time offline that don't acknowledge that one of the reasons people ARE online is their access needs aren't being met in physical spaces. This is especially true for queer people and disabled people.
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Eddie Clark @dreddieclark.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Dan Simmons died. Weird feelings about this. On the one hand Hyperion was a defining reading experience for me & absolutely holds up & the first half of his career was incredibly strong. On the other his personal politics were horrid & eventually infected his work to its obvious detriment.
arstechnica.com
Hyperion author Dan Simmons dies from stroke at 77
I went into Hyperion blind, decades ago, knowing almost nothing about it. I was never the same.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
Just had another acceptance. That's three so far this year!
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 31/01/2026
Thank you for sharing! (Rebecca's novelette is so unique and arresting and I still haven't stopped thinking about it. I am cringing at how dismissive my "walking simulator" comment looks out of context but I meant it genuinely.)
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
A friend of mine has been putting together some really excellent zines recently. I am lucky enough to have a couple pieces in Under Their Paw but her work on Ragin' has been stellar, as well. Check it out and order a copy through her insta! www.instagram.com/reel/DS3S26T...
Two zines resting on a hardwood table. One has a picture of s woman on the front and the title Ragin'. The other has a picture of a cat snd the text, Under Their Paw: A Cat Zine/Love Letter to Feline Friends
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
Seems a bit silly to be tinkering with poetry subs with everything else going on today but I've got three sent and few more in the pipeline and I am feeling pretty good about it.
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Jay Hulme @jayhulmepoet.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
I say this often but it bears repeating: if you make your money from creating art then you NEED to find an art or craft where you just do it for fun and don't try to be perfect or make any money from it, and when anyone tells you to monetise it you say 'No', because otherwise your soul will die.
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jourdain searles @judysquirrels.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
online has ruined the beautiful circumstances that created JINGLE ALL THE WAY
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Jess, Girl Kisser, Kitty Petter, Shadowheart Wifer 💖🌈 @jessieboo.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
repost if trans people should have dr pepper
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
I do love a good catastrophe novel! ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com/2025/12/07/w...
ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com
Why Say Many Word When Few Word Do Trick: Rebecca Gransden’s Figures Crossing the Field Towards the Group
Beginning your novel with the word “And” is very brave, and committing to only using words of a single syllable throughout, with the exception of dialogue, is braver still. Gransden pulls it off to…
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
Oh man :( Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead blew my mind when I was an undergraduate.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
I got asked the other day how I manage tasks and time. I felt a bit simple just saying, "I make lists"... but it's the truth. ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/m...
ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com
Make a List
There are a couple of things I do when I make lists that I think are useful or interesting elements of practice that I’ve developed over the past few years of doing it, and I wanted to share …
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Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein @deepcuts.blog · 21/02/2025
Someone asked: "So... public domain cosmic horrors that aren't Lovecraft. What do we got?" The tradition that gave us Lovecraft & co. is rich and deeply weird. While they aren't all cosmic horror, they all informed it. So. 1 like = 1 public domain weird story that isn't by H. P. Lovecraft.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
In case you missed it yesterday: I wrote a short essay about the visceral reaction I experience every time someone suggests I just get AI to do it
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com/2025/10/12/i...
ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com
I Don’t Want to Use AI
I don’t wanna Every time someone tells me to just get AI to do it, I want to scream.  If AI was just an ocean-boiling plagiarism machine, I wouldn’t want to use it, but it’s not just that.&nbs…
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
Yesterday I read a Clark Ashton Smith story that was about an evil wizard who forsakes humanity and spends all his time hanging out with machines he has programmed to agree with him.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
I quite enjoyed reading a travel book for a change! And learned a bit about taking notes as a practice.
ifearthosebigwords.wordpress.com
Look Closely, Listen Hard, Write Everything Down; How to Take Notes, with Paul Theroux
I was reading In Patagonia towards the end of last year and can recollect almost none of it – perfectly drawn anecdote after anecdote apparently slid straight off my smooth brain.
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James Farson @jamesfarson.bsky.social · 05/09/2025
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