Saturday, May 30th 2026

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

In "A very pale White guy with a Phrygian cap" (May 23), I referred to my habit of clicking for randomly selected /x/ threads as a "sort of cleromancy" -- meaning divination by casting lots. It's not really proper divination as I practice it, though, since I generally just click without any question in mind.

This ...

3m (890 words)
Author iconMeeting The Masters
William Wildblood

I suppose Mozart is the greater composer but I often prefer Haydn. There is an innate goodness about his music and it appears there was about him too. Portraits show a kind looking man and reports about his life confirm this impression. He was widely regarded as a good and honourable person, and noted for his ...

2m (580 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

Is it true that everything changes, and yet everything stays the same?

It does seem to have a general truth, especially over the long term, and in one-direction - when the first "everything" is taken to mean the superficial aspects of daily life and things, which are always changing; but the second "everything" ...

2.5m (720 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

In "The ladybird, the six-legged spider, and the dandelion" (May 2025), I discuss this image from an English book for preschoolers:

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I noted that the black bug looks a lot like a spider but quoted some kids saying this about it:

"Is that one a spider?" asked one of the kids in Chinese.

"No," said ...

1m (340 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Last night I listened to a Zion Media video about the Mentinah Archives, a.k.a. Nemenhah Papers, which I guess would be classified as channeled Book of Mormon apocrypha. That made me think of the channeled Book of Mormon apocrypha my own circle is into -- Daymon Smith's Words books -- so I searched YouTube with ...

2.5m (680 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

In a comment on yesterday's "Julio-Claudian octopods and cats named Cat," I wrote:

I happen to be feeding a stray tom these days in addition to the permanent-resident felines. It is my practice to name everything, though, so the stray is called Timofey.

One of my own toms is called Scipio on account of his uncanny ...

2m (550 words)

Friday, May 29th 2026

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

I have always found "Fog on the Barrow Downs" the least satisfying chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring.

Over at my Notion Club Papers blog, I analyse the structural reasons why.

Author iconThe Notion Club Papers - an Inklings blog
Bruce Charlton

Since my earliest readings of The Lord of the Rings, I have felt that there is "something wrong" with the Barrow Wight episode in the chapter "Fog on the Barrow Downs" (FotBD).

At first, there was just my vague awareness "doesn't seem to work" as well as the rest of the book; that it fails to make an impact.

There ...

3m (850 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

The world provides choices.

We must choose - and we can personally choose; or else we can accept external (societal, institutional) choices.

That is to say: some things we choose to accept, others we choose to make a personal choice.

Therefore, we choose what to choose.

In some cases our situation provides a ...

Thursday, May 28th 2026

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Not only does Alfred Molina play both Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2 and an actual octopus in Remarkably Bright Creatures, but the names of the characters also sync. Doc Ock's real name is Otto Octavius, while the octopus in Creatures is called Marcellus. In Roman history, Octavius is the birth name of Caesar ...

Author iconFrancis Berger - Blog
Francis Berger

Courtesy of Austrian rap/rock/pop artist Bibiza, whose full name happens to be Franz Bibiza.

Crude, lewd, loud, and irritating; everything a song about my name should be.

Sorry. I'm feeling particularly lighthearted today.

​Lyrics below.

Yeah

In Amerika bin ich Frank, in Vienna bin ich Franz

In France ...

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

I see a very general problem; that is of people seeking generic experience, rather than particular and specific experience.

Consider the vast edifice of advice and aspiration for men concerning "marriage"; the question of the "how to get a girl" type - including all that "manosphere" stuff.

The problem is in the ...

3m (830 words)

Wednesday, May 27th 2026

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Three days ago, on May 24, I posted "Charlie Kirk, Ulysses, and twin flames," part of which deals with the They Might Be Giants song "My Evil Twin" and why I have interpreted it as being about Odysseus.

Today, fishing for new alt-Mormon content on YouTube, I was putting in various search prompts that I thought might ...

1.5m (390 words)
Author iconMeeting The Masters
William Wildblood

I've made another blog specifically for all the posts about my time in South India between 1980 and 1985 that come under the Indian Story label on this blog. It is called A Sojourn in South India and can be found here. So far I've just put a couple of posts up from this blog but I will gradually add more until they ...

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

Because spirit is primary: the material, the embodied, that which is perceived by the senses - is a kind of spirit.

Incarnation is indeed a developed form of the spirit - which is why the timeline of creation manifested as physical beings, such as ourselves.

And why the pre-mortal spirit of Jesus manifested as a ...

3.5m (980 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Last night, Laeth sent me an epub of his latest novel, Powerless. I haven't started reading it yet, but I know in a general way what it's about. In the author's May 5 post "about a shift," he explained that it was inspired by a day last year when "the power went out for the entire iberian peninsula for ten hours" -- ...

Tuesday, May 26th 2026

Author iconTaking the Book of Mormon seriously
Wm Jas Tychonievich

In my last post, I argue that "Alma introduced baptism to the Nephites" -- meaning the actual practice of baptism; clearly they were aware of the concept of baptism prior to Alma, but I think I've made a pretty strong case that the Nephites at Zarahemla at least did not practice baptism before Alma and did not ...

3m (900 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

I had a very strange dream that I was directing a film adaptation of one of P. G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster stories, and one of the actresses was our own Debbie (much younger than her current age), who was playing the role of Madeline Bassett.

In the books, Madeline is known for her excessive sentimentality, ...

Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

A while back, there was a very enjoyable musical style called electro swing; which led to a style of solo dancing (mainly for men) which is just about the most enjoyable I have ever seen.

As an intro, with snippets of the style; there was a German TV advert

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featuring the dancer JustSomeMotion. ...

1.5m (390 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Yesterday, after some persistent prodding from the sync fairies, I started reading the novel Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt.

Today, an employee told me she was a little tired because she had been up late last night watching a movie.

"What movie? Was it good?"

"It was amazing. It's about an ...

Monday, May 25th 2026

Author iconFrancis Berger - Blog
Francis Berger

I suppose it’s only natural for those with rightist principles to harbor optimism for the so-called “right wing” of the political spectrum. I have held such optimism myself in the past, but recent experience with such matters has taught me that the whole right-left political divide that is the ...

3m (930 words)
Author iconMeeting The Masters
William Wildblood

On a hilltop in the Indian state of Karnataka about 100 miles due west of Bangalore there stands a 57 foot high monolithic statue of a naked man in deep meditation. He stands upright in an almost military posture with half-closed eyes and a slight smile on his lips. Carved from a single white granite boulder, this ...

7.5m (2,300 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

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Inspired by reading the inspiring tale of the 1650 Newcastle Witch Trials - a covertly-funded Tech start-up company have harnessed the burgeoning wonder that is AI, to develop a solar-powered, computerized, retractable witch-pricker.

Primitive mechanical witch-prickers have, of course, been ...

1m (340 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

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The above beautiful pool is at Holystone in Coquetdale, Northumberland; and the legend has it that three thousand Northumbrians were baptized there by St Paulinus (died 644AD), following Edwin their King's conversion to Christianity.

However accurate to historical fact, this legend makes it ...

1.5m (460 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

In yesterday's post "Octopods with bright and dark eyes, and Mithrandir," I posted this image, in which a baby playing the role of Gandalf confronts not a Balrog but a kitty.

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Gandalf had entered the sync stream because of the similarity of his other name Mithrandir to Mithras, and I also posted ...

Sunday, May 24th 2026

Author iconFrancis Berger - Blog
Francis Berger

Present-day politics strikes me as a nauseating rendition of Let’s Make a Deal, the droll American game show hosted by Monty Hall in the sixties and seventies.

The few headlines I do encounter tend to center on pushing for endless deals, courtesy of the Dealmaker President, who even wrote a book about the ...

Author iconFrancis Berger - Blog
Francis Berger

Dr. Charlton recently wrote an incisive piece about the harm and danger inherent in all systems, which acutely reminded me of my own aversion to systems from a spiritual perspective.

The dilemma of most systems is that they are innately necessary to our survival in this world. Yet this necessity also ensures that ...

Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

This morning I was out in a rural area I had never been to before and stopped at a local cafe for breakfast. The background music there was unfamiliar and caught my attention. At first I kind of liked the style, but as I paid more attention it quickly became clear that it was all "AI"-generated. I tracked down the ...

3.5m (1,000 words)
Author iconFrom the Narrow Desert
Wm Jas Tychonievich

Random /x/ threads are still working for me, so I'm going to keep pumping that well.

Today I got a 2014 "Chaos Magick General" thread, which, unsurprisingly, had a form of the Star of Chaos as the lead image:

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In the center of the Star is a skull. The right side is white with a black eye socket, ...

2.5m (680 words)
Author iconBruce Charlton's Notions
Bruce Charlton

I just stumbled across a post of mine from 2018 on the (now stale) subject of Jordan Peterson; in which I described him as an Antichrist figure.

The idea of an Antichrist is not really of any general and public use for discernment, because of the mass and institutional breakdown in truthful consensus.

Nonetheless ...

2.5m (820 words)