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Michelle Bailat-Jones

@mbailatj.bsky.social
1K followers 634 following 864 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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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
sanctorium.bsky.social @sanctorium.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
I sleep and I unsleep. On the other side of me, beyond where I lie down, the silence of the house touches infinity. I hear time falling, drop by drop, and no falling drop is heard falling. Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 5h
From nautical twilight to civil twilight to daylight, beside the window with a cup of coffee and pages and a sharpened pencil. And then the rest of the day begins.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 18h
That's so lovely. Well, hopefully with the success of the Calculation of Volume this might be reissued at some point.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 21h
Oh wow, I didn't know she even had anything else in English. Will look for a copy.
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
Tapetenvogel @tapetenvogel.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Laternchen
Rispe mit Samen, an denen Regentropfen hängen
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Surprise in Switzerland last night
Screenshot from a weather report showing green and pink northern lights in a dark sky
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
kimdorman.bsky.social @kimdorman.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
(thanks to Anthony Opal)
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
kimdorman.bsky.social @kimdorman.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Kobayashi Issa (tr. Anthony Opal)
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Rain. Coffee in the garden w/ a leaky umbrella while the blind terrier patrols the lantern flowers and leggy tomatoes. The postwoman rolls up to the mailboxes on her electric scooter, waves, rolls away again. A crow lands in the dogwood. Swoops off to the roof ridge of the neighbor's barn.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
This morning Luzern has moderate puddling in depressions ❤️
Screenshot of a weather report showing red maple leaves with raindrops
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
Medusa’s Wink @medusaswink.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I would like to renew the proposition to name hurricanes after politicians who deny climate change
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I could have been clearer in my post. Just hate talking/writing about these loathsome people in power right now in US.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Oh no, I wasn't talking about the marvelous young protesters in France. My comment was about an awful bit of US news (the govt is planning to livestream an execution - it's abhorent).
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The Silvaplana photos are always beautiful, I can't help but think it's one person, in a competition with another location, that is also always beautiful and posts at same time.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
It's another sign of the worst of the worst. Every time you feel it can't get any worse it does.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Livestreaming. The corrupt children are delighting in their violent fantasies. It's appalling. I find it hard to fight the despair. One news item among hundreds.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The MeteoSuisse weather app invites people to post photos of their conditions. An infinite scroll of beauty, mystery, poetry from strangers all over the country.
Screenshot of a weather post of a silhouetted roofline in gray clouds. The description says: Wind, strong breeze (strong branches moving)Screenshot of a weather post of a gray sky filled with birds The description says: Cloudiness (overcast)
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Mild windstorm in the night. Bakery truck loading up in the dark across the street. The village librarian checks the book box before sunrise. On foot. Either taking or dropping books off.
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
l e a @leabysea.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
A person is silhouetted against large, sheer fabric panels.
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
Hans Balmes @hans596.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Overton on Berger’s letters: „At a moment like this, there seemed to be a value in letter-writing. Because it isn't going to be read immediately, the act of writing a letter reminds us that there will be a moment beyond this one. In an era of instaneity, it is a kind of promise, or an act of faith.“
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Lundi matin. View from the coffeecup. 6h56 blue. #イマソラ
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
Monica H Green @monicamedhist.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
So glad this speech is being circulated. There's more of it: "Turn what we know into what we do." news.un.org/en/story/202...
news.un.org
‘Turn what we know into what we do,’ Barbados PM Mottley urges world leaders at UN
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called on world leaders on Thursday to turn knowledge into action, reform international institutions and ensure that new technologies and global wealth benefit ever...
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
Tapetenvogel @tapetenvogel.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Gräser mit Wassertröpfchen vor Wiese und bunt belaubten Bäumen im Nebel
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
🌬Breeze @cool-summer-breeze.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is the Stolen Neighbors Quilt. Each of the 11,000 squares represents a person taken by ICE in Minnesota.
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
sanctorium.bsky.social @sanctorium.bsky.social · 26/08/2025
The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into autumn - the crickets spread the rumour of sadness and change. E. B. White, Charlotte's Web
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
Christina Tudor-Sideri @dreamsofbeing.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Marguerite Duras on nighttime reading: “The darkness around you adds greatly to the absolute passion that develops between you and the book.”
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Last night while teen at volleyball, I sat on the lake listening to Wendell Berry's book The Peace of Wild Things & knitted while watching swallows/bats. Exquisite - maybe cliché - quiet moment, with modern touches: my phone flashlight to see my hands, earbuds for the sound. Strange world.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
In general, I agree, but as an unashamed eavesdropper it can also lead to interesting discoveries and fantastic people-observing
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Looking forward to it.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Bookstore visit yesterday to buy a gift card for someone. I don't know how these got in my bag.
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
sanctorium.bsky.social @sanctorium.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Sundays are for reading
Photograph Monochrome 

stone seat under curve of branches
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Nautical twilight toward civil dawn over the village. Dimanche matin. 音もなく
Black silhouette of a roofline, blue twilight sky
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
The first charting of synaesthetic visualisations, plate 4 from Francis Galton's Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development (1883). More on the site: publicdomainreview.org/collection/s…
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Been listening to an audio book of Oliver reading 40 of her poems. Her voice is quiet and even unsteady. Except, which surprised me, on her poem "When death comes" which she reads almost ferociously.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The poem is very awe and wonder, deceptively simple like most of Oliver's work, until the end: "...or have you too turned from this world-- or have you too gone crazy for power for things?"
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Mary Oliver's poem "The Sun" makes me think of the ladies at church when I was young: benign seeming, white-haired, always smiling and saying encouraging, positive statements until out of the blue they would lacerate you with a sharp, almost cruel observation.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It was not easy to hear the instructor, they were so loud. Not relaxing yoga but very amusing
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The hilarious teens in my life signed us all up for "duck yoga" yesterday. On a farm, outside the city. Humans on yoga mats. Surrounded by ducks. It was fun and funny, but my other thought is that people are craving nature and this is how duck yoga exists. Or that city people are a bit naive.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Last evening forest&field run after a day of too many people: swallows in acrobatics, a young cow with extremely furry ears that ran alongside me for the length of a pasture, silence but for insects alongside the river. Fast feet in the (6th?) heatwave evening.
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
Toula Drimonis @mtltoula.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
American poet, novelist and environmentalist Wendell Berry has passed away. “Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Outlines and spheres of light for tonight's lake run entry for the catalogue of twilights (Raphy Buttet's A fleur d'eau sculpture)
A square of metal frames a statue of a boat and fisherman
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
After Octavian @afteroctavian.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Slipping in under the wire, I wanted to record my best reads for #WITMonth. I read a total of 12 books that qualified but a surprising number were subpar and I can't recommend them. There are a few I can recommend whole-heartedly, though, and I've added their covers below.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Outlines and spheres of light for tonight's lake run entry for the catalogue of twilights (Raphy Buttet's A fleur d'eau sculpture)
A square of metal frames a statue of a boat and fisherman
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Lake is being slightly ocean-y tonight. High waves, whirling birds.
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Reposted by Michelle Bailat-Jones
Tapetenvogel @tapetenvogel.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
This from a year ago. The books are still stacked on that chair. Different books, but still...
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Counted 23 cormorants on an 8k run: flying, diving, drying their wings and four in their (my favorite) umbrella state. Two patrolled a pier beside a few unhappy anglers.
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
The hinges of the day are blue
Full moon behind clouds, over rooftopsA blue lake, mountains in the background, a buoy and a sailboat on the water
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Michelle Bailat-Jones @mbailatj.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
This morning's details on my way to a lake run: Café, small street. Five men. No one speaking French. Reading tabloids. A huge Bernese mountain dog pads in from an alley, jumps onto the lap of one man. It's like they're hugging. Only one other man seems to notice.
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