iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

continuing this saga, I think I have some leads on the giver of the bible (I need to confirm via primary sources) but I've got another mystery - something written on the rear endpaper (under a note dated Jan 1942, on the Tomatin)

162

Reposted by Simone

I don't know Greek, but I know enough to think this isn't proper Greek - perhaps someone who has learnt Greek and been in the "not knowing enough Greek to be dangerous yet" stage might be able to shed some light on it?

032

032

162

which is, I think, the best way to read it in keeping with the spirit in which it was written - insofar as it was critical in its contemporary context it invites the reader to be just as critical in their reception of it

but that context is very important for interpretation, if you apply the same lens to A&H they were applying to their contemporary milieu, and from that angle their work can be read as much as a diagnosis of anthropology of religion as a work of anth of rel -

111

and not only was Bachofen nuts (and obviously an influence on other contemporaries like Margaret Murray) but the reception was the Kosmikers - so they're working within a sphere that is extremely underdeveloped and building on a fundamentally flawed scaffolding

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

this is extremely true, and it helps to read his correspondence - I'm only really up to speed with the religion side of things, and the stuff on that in DoE is clearly in the vein of Frazer, but the competition at the time was as much the reception history of Bachofen as it was Weber and Durkheim

111

Ok guys you don't have to pretend anymore woke two is just modernism again right? You can tell me If not that's ok that'll just be woke 3

Reposted by Simone

this is the kind of place that insufferable Church History nerds hang out right? I need to find who a historical figure was who would have known the wonderfully named Henry F Butts prior to his departure as a missionary from England to New Zealand in Dec 1841.

277

Reposted by Simone

for people in other timezones, any help with this would be great

022

for people in other timezones, any help with this would be great

022

that is something to go on at least - I'm going to email the Church archives here and see if they have any papers, like correspondence or journals or anything - there's nothing in any available catalogues but it's worth a shot - I'd need to confirm the connection for it to be solid

000

No idea, but Worcestershire is just to the south of Warwickshire

100

oh, and he died in NZ in 1886.

000

sailed to New Zealand with Bishop George Selwyn in Dec 1841. He was unmarried in England, but married the wife of a fellow missionary in New Zealand, and was also ordained here. I can't find much about his education or social circles in England. Here are the two inscriptions:

200

Butt was born in 1815, son of the Rev. John Marten Butt, vicar of Oddingley, Worcestershire. He was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons before taking on a religious life. He Joined the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, was catechized, and...

100

Where are my Anglicans when I need them, help me please

030

This person's name appears (in handwriting) to be something like Ed(ward) Tho(mas) Dewey or Davey and he inscribed a book to Butts in Oct. of that year, presumably as a parting gift. It would be wonderful to know who that person was.

330

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

277

people like facts about the text but not the text itself but in many ways that's not helped by a lot of public-facing scholars not having as good a grasp on literary stuff as people who study other literatures

030

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I've definitely noticed that people ostensibly interested in the bible and engaging with bible stuff online tend to want people to explain the bible to them almost as a surrogate for actually reading the texts, it's very weird

130

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Zukofsky is the greatest poet of the 20th C imo, but everyone cares more about The Waste Land and Auden and such

000

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I like Joyce and Kafka (and adore Woolf) but I'd agree on Eliot and Pound - honestly the "canon" of modernism skips a lot of the best, imo - Louis Zukofsky and Laura Riding especially - it's only poets who know them, in my experience Also Oppen, Niedecker, Bunting, Mina Loy, etc

100

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

I am the rare breed that loves the ethos of the Arts and Crafts movement but *also* loves Modernism, so I can understand both sides of the argument

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

ironically I just realised the poetry of this, since what I did in my younger years was basically Stephen losing his shit about Tennyson

000

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

I am an English major at heart and have ranted about how Eliot is terrible, and my father also majored in English and, while tipsy, made me rage and rage by saying that when it came down to brass tacks, Ulysses is a book about nothing, and thus the proverbial tale told by an idiot we are

230

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

oh the Academics from fields that doesn't involve assessing arts have discovered arts criticism

030

that's my second major, my first was English, focusing on modernism

100

if *i* were to direct the movie there'd me more weirdness on beaches and it would end in a monologue, while still retaining the setting, because I think that would be very funny while also being artful

have I seen it yet? no, of course not but guess my major

210

look, if there's anything to actually complain about regarding the Odyssey movie it has to be that it doesn't open with frying kidneys nor describe the sea as "scrotum-tightening"

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

I am hearing that on his deathbed Lindsay Graham received the light of Islam and unhesitatingly recited the Shahada. Even now he looks down on the Ummah from the gardens of Jannah. Truly there is no god but Allah, and Mohammad is his prophet!

070

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

maybe someone thinks that if you impoverish all the creatives you get a new generation of Dizzees, Skeptas and D Double Es without any investment

000

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

and between what is explicit and what is implicit (that a lot is implicit is something I've learned from a lot of ex-vangelical friends who didn't get the implication and suddenly found themselves ostracized one day)

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

I think there's probably a key distinction here between on one hand not having a systematic/systematized theology and on the other not having any theology at all

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

While some thought it was a weakness, it turns out Mullally is far better on the defence than many thought. No own goals for Westminster, playing smart and playing for the long game

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Congratulations to the Society of St Pious X for their victory over GAFCON in the "who will go full schismatic first" bracket

121

Confrontation | Tradition Online

I will have to read Here's the Soloveitchik, which I need to re-read, because it's ostensibly about this kind of thing but also about at least four other things at the same time traditiononline.org/confrontation/

traditiononline.org

It may be just me being old and frail but I think I agree but also that that confrontation can be polite in particular because of the basic fact that there isn't just a confrontation between those two axes, but also between different beliefs (see Rav Soloveitchik's relatedly-titled essay)

130

it's also just very obviously true Alistair Crowley was also like, always just protestant his whole deal is just platonic theosophy he just changed the names of things people need to get woke to this stuff

020

like, it's that, but militant anti-theism is culturally protestant like, look at it

330

I've been saying this for years!!!!!!

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

evangelical, in the sense of evangelising

120

(just felt there should be at least one of these here, carry on as normal)

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Hello Bluesky Marxist reply here to lambast the second half of this sentence while fixating on the word "idealism" in the first part, arguing that this is idealism because it's not just what Marx said, while ignoring empirical reality and ironically demonstrating the kind of idealism Marx excoriated

220

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

it's the logical next step after those underemployed graduates teaching their hyperniche specializations online since most universities cut the programmes they graduted from it's also like something out of one of the novels I was taught that walks a razor's edge between satire, farce and tragedy

Simone @simonebatyochai.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

you know what's crazy with how education is headed I can see the emergence of a market at some time in the future consisting of students paying overqualified and underemployed graduates to mark their essays because they want genuine feedback from a real person and their fees don't buy that anymore