George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 8hSTAY TUNED A perfect valediction not to say malediction for the brave new age of the internet, social media and increasingly embedded AI we inhabit and navigate within 000
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Proud to announce that Ezra / ezratranslation.com has accepted Rain on Pines / Gabriel’s D’Annunzio’s La pioggia nel pineto. Forthcoming in Spring 2027. alteritas.net/ #translation #poetrycommunity #d’annunzioezratranslation.comEzra | An Online Journal of Translation — since 2007 010
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026"That very afternoon I returned the violin to my mother’s safekeeping. It remained for years in the back of the hall closet. It was one of the first times in my life when I felt truly clean..." < Mickey Mouse Music. alteritas.net/GXL/?page_id...alteritas.netMickey Mouse Music. My Violin.The first instrument I played was violin, which I took up in the fourth grade at Park Place Elementary School in the industrial East End of Houston. It is hard to believe now, but our working class… 000
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 03/10/2026First in my series Played by Others. Like other musicians, even a dabbler like myself, I have a special loving relationship with pieces’ve played. < alteritas.net/GXL/?p=5681 Here is the Mertz Tarantella played by Haruka Lee: youtu.be/1A5mWs_319k?...alteritas.netPlayed by OthersLike all musicians, even a dabbler like myself, I have a special, loving relationship with the pieces I’ve played. Just a few years before Covid I stopped practicing classical guitar. For ov… 010
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026To read a poem in translation is to pledge troth to a ghost, a wispy, intangible presence residing in another world you can never touch without crossing over to it. For St Jerome’s Feast Day 2026, I’m releasing Troths to Ghosts, a motley selection of translated poems. Links at alteritas.net. 030
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 13/09/2026Here's an interesting exercise for anyone with free time, and curiosity about AI and climate change. Put this question into various different AI bots, DeepSeek, Duck AI, even the notorious Grok: What do oceanographers think will happen to the Gulf Stream when the Arctic ice mass melts? 011
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 20/07/2026The go-to blog for info on Wawa, aka Chinook Jargon. chinookjargon.com/2026/07/19/k...chinookjargon.com“Klahowya” from Cultus BayToday I’m on Whidbey Island, WA, on a research & writing trip. 001
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 19/07/2026Time again to tout Helene Garrett's translation of the Curaçoan poet Elis Juliana's Haiku in Papiamenu. i had nothing to so with it apart from having supervised the thesis it was part of. 050
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 04/07/2026Thanking the good folks at Blooomin' Onion for nominating "Shinny" for Best of the Net 2026: www.thebloominonion.com/distinguishe... Shinny is the concluding poem in a sequence of seven I've dedicated to the late Houston born, bred & based poet Michael Berryhill. alteritas.net/pastis/honey...thebloominonion.comDistinguished Work — The Bloomin' Onion 010
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 23/06/2026Once I noticed it I can't unthink it. The predictive spelling function on my iPhone is a (very primitive) version of the LLM bots like Claude, Chat GPT and DeepSeek. Watch it and you'll see how it knows what you're going to say. 000
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 25/05/2026They may well own the algorithm, but they do not control it. The algorithm controls them. #alogorithm #Algo 020
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 30/04/2026What better way to fete May Day than Pasolini's sublime elegy "Gramsci's Ashes"? alteritas.net/pastis/trans... 020
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 26/04/2026É verdade, Sílvio (se você permitir). Eu estava pensando na presença abundante de “o” e “a” como artigos definidos, combinadas com as mesmas letras que servem de terminações habituais para substantivos masculinos e femininos. Mas a grama do vizinho é sempre mais verde. 010
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 25/04/2026O português brasileiro parece especialmente adequado para palíndromos, apesar dos diacríticos. Ou será que são as habilidades dos palíndromistas brasileiros que dão essa impressão? 230
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 25/04/2026This is an excellent example of somatic poetry. It translates bodily experience directly into formal structure. It doesn't just describe freezing; simulates the necrological loop. The poem cannot escape Line 1, just as the PwP cannot escape the freeze. - DeepSeekalteritas.netDeepSeek on Freezing: Triolet for a PwP – Stories on Myself 000
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 22/04/2026The best thing about dying slowly, which I consider myself so far lucky enough to be able to do, is that the flash of poignant moments from your past life you allegedly see when you die is spread out over a longer while. How long remains unknown to most of us. alteritas.net/alteritas/20...alteritas.netMemoria vitae bene actae iucundissima est – Stories on Myself 000
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 21/04/2026Learned Profs of Lit, Beware! You too will be replaced. As stimulus I fed my poem "Calculating Machine: A Villanelle" into DeepSeek,the Chinese LLM bot. Within nanoseconds it spat out the # following stellar 9.5/10 response, alteritas.net/alteritas/20...alteritas.netLearned Profs of Lit Beware ! – Stories on Myself 000
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 19/04/2026I fell into a paroxysm of words but managed to avoid the rhyme with 💩 030
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 05/04/2026Although staunchly secular, as I explained in "Pascal's Conditional, Subjective Wager" I do try to engage with theological concepts: alteritas.net/GXL/?p=3799 Happy Easter, Palm Sunday for the Orthodox. 041
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 03/04/2026Would anyone believe I watched the coronation of Elizabeth live? We’d just gotten our first TV. 010
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 03/04/2026My own Wawa is piddling but I admire this example of the revival of literature in Chinook Jargon, of which I wrote in Making Wawa (UBC Press, 2009). Putting Carney's speech into this historic vehicle of cultural reconciliation is a literary act par excellence. kaltashwawa.ca/2026/01/22/k...kaltashwawa.caKaltash Wawa Sp. Ed. – DavosA translation of part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech into Chinook 000
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 01/04/2026The caption of this marvelous palindrome approximately reads : “If I can’t have the whole moon, then cancel the Artemis mission”. Use your own engine. I started with DeepL then gussied it up. 010
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 29/03/2026A slight revision of my Topical Poem of last week. CALCULATING MACHINE, the new title, makes it at least in part about itself. * Isn’t war itself war crime? Do ends ever justify the means? … alteritas.net/pastis/calcu... 010
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 22/03/2026É genial. A princípio, pode-se lê-lo sem perceber que é palíndromo. 110
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 21/03/2026My thanks to the editor, JP Relph, a specialist on post-apocalyptic worlds, for stepping in to read in my stead. Greetings as well to fellow members of the Trash Family: trashcatlit.com/trash-family...trashcatlit.comTrash Family Portrait GalleryOur gallery of bin rogues – we asked them which animal (trash or otherwise) they most identify with and snook a look at their thrifting/collecting habits. Here’s what came up. JP Relph … 110
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 21/03/2026My thanks to the editor, JP Relph, a specialist on post-apocalyptic worlds, or stepping in to read. Greetings as well to fellow members of the Trash Family: trashcatlit.com/trash-family...trashcatlit.comTrash Family Portrait GalleryOur gallery of bin rogues – we asked them which animal (trash or otherwise) they most identify with and snook a look at their thrifting/collecting habits. Here’s what came up. JP Relph … 110
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 21/03/2026 trashcatlit.com/eggs/ I was lucky in the mother I got. So I am happy that my eulogy (“good words”) about her have been published as part of the Trash Cat Lit March Mini Bin of short fiction. My thanks to the editor, JP Relph, who also stepped in to read in my stead.trashcatlit.comEggsGeorge Lang Listen to George’s story – read by JP Relph Mother taught me to fry an egg when I was fifteen. She was a terrible cook. She considered all forms of housework domestic burden… 000
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 19/03/2026Characteristically, Michael Berryhill depicts Lee and Red Berryhill almost lovingly, melancholic while sharp-eyed. I have memories of his house, shared knowledge of what contemporary idiom would call his family trauma. From Everything Changes (2010), a collection of Fourteeners. 010
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 17/03/2026Michael Berryhill, a Houston born and based poet, passed recently in hospice. Here is Honeysuckle Taint, the initial poem from Backyard Suite, my memorial to the Edenic source of our shared vocation. * Big trees grew smaller, small ones big. I could reach … alteritas.net/pastis/honey... 0386
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 15/03/2026No comment necessary. bsky.app/profile/edwa.... 011
Reposted by George LangPaul Deane @rhunedhel.bsky.social · 11/03/2026If you want a feel for how a poem full of kennings works, this poem is a pretty good example (explanations included!) alliteration.net/poetry/lament-for-vinlands-sailor/alliteration.netLament for Vinland's Sailor, a poem in alliterative verse by Marcus LindenburgKiss me now, kill me later; / I left you on that dead dock. / With my heart heavy then, / And you in wicked wind ... 064
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 11/03/2026"i saw the monkey fooling around in the anomalous ogival network." 041
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 11/03/2026As I age I find myself inclined to conservative positions, though not at all attracted to the GOP, and repelled by MAGA. All the more reason to follow www.dropsitenews.com. One thing I know I don’t want to conserve is willful ignorance of uncomfortable, unpleasant, awful, even horrific fact.dropsitenews.comDrop Site News | SubstackIndependent news on politics and war. Click to read Drop Site News, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. 000
Reposted by George LangNews Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 05/03/2026Rubio: “Let me tell you, Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics.” 39438841792
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 03/03/2026“On this planet, the fog of war starts in Trump’s mind.” 000
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 19/02/2026With Richard Haly and Doña Lupe, his informant on curandera invocations. First stop on our trip to Oaxaca. Ash Wedneday, 1984. * It took a friend, a poet, to invent this motley trek, two gringos and a Nahua setting out the first of Lent. [from Isla Mujeres, a poem in progress] 030
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 10/02/2026Happy to report that I just had two poems published in Bloomin’ Onion, a journal of many layers. www.thebloominonion.com/featured-poe...thebloominonion.comFeatured Poem #1 — The Bloomin' Onion 020
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 01/02/2026“Brigid, Brigid!” What we are supposed to exclaim if we spot a flower on #StBrigidsDay (one day before Groundhog Day) 010
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 27/01/2026A reasonably objective piece on Kermit Lynch. Full disclosure: I worked for Kermit 1980-1985. www.themanual.com/food-and-dri...themanual.comFrom Jura to Sardinia: What Kermit Lynch taught us about wineKermit Lynch reshaped the U.S. wine scene by introducing overlooked regions, low-intervention wines, and new wine styles. Here's how his work expanded our palates — and still does. 010
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 23/01/2026We can’t imagine heat when cold nor feel the anxiety of youth when old. #aphorism #juvenoia (cf wiki) 010
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 22/01/2026How do poems get us, like this one did me, to the point I put it over into English? Here it was the lines translated as: … the overgrown / ditches where boys fish stray eels / ….. They recalled a poem of my own from my bayou-centric boyhood in Houston. Read on: alteritas.net/pastis/monta...alteritas.netMontale’s Lemon Trees – Pastis @ Bandol 1535
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 21/01/2026Not surprising but nonetheless revealing results. www.lingoblog.dk/en/linguisti...lingoblog.dkLinguistic identity in times of crisis: The roles of the Ukrainian and Russian languages in the lives of Ukrainian war refugees | LingoblogIn Ukraine, being a bilingual who speaks both Russian and Ukrainian is such a ‘normal’ thing that many people hesitate to even call themselves bilinguals. As 020
George Lang @xerxesxerxes.bsky.social · 19/01/2026www.standwithminnesota.comstandwithminnesota.comStand With MinnesotaA directory of places to give to as Minnesota defends itself from ICE occupation 020