i have read not even 1 book

I catch him on his way to the bar, telling him about this old racist failed actor that I'm avoiding. That I'm failing to confront. I get the sense he's avoiding people too. We get our drinks and find a corner. We chat for a bit. He's managing just fine.

Thank you, Jack

He was cast as the guy who gets picked up and thrown out of the poker game to set the scene before the main characters arrive. Out of Real London and into real London, a discarded prop, at this party, chatting to me.

  1. Lift and confinement – The crowded, immovable lift represents feeling trapped or constrained in real life, either by social expectations, relationships, or internal emotions. The inability to speak in front of others suggests suppressed feelings or fear of judgment.
  2. Unexpected confession – The girl saying “I think I might love you” could symbolize longing for connection or recognition. It may reflect unacknowledged desires, vulnerability, or anxiety about intimacy.
  3. Forest and snow – The transition to a snowy forest signals escape into the subconscious, a place of solitude, reflection, and emotional processing. Snow often represents purity, stillness, or emotional coldness, while dusk points to transition or uncertainty.
  4. The fox – Foxes are traditionally symbols of cunning, intuition, and guidance, but here it’s more ethereal: its bites are gentle yet noticeable, suggesting a confrontation with subtle truths, small regrets, or lessons that must be acknowledged. The unspoken apology indicates things left unresolved or feelings that cannot be expressed.
  5. Death or dissolution – Dying in the dream often doesn’t mean literal death; it represents transformation, the end of a phase, or surrendering control. It can indicate letting go of fear, old habits, or emotional blockages.
We gather around the start of a causeway down to the Thames. It's a pretty cold night and there's a breeze coming off the river. I've found the girl, or she's found me, and we're smoking a cigarette while we watch the dim silhouettes of the French Raj and his fireworks bearer down on the bank. They're fucking around with the box. I ask her what people do with fireworks for so long before they're ready to light. She doesn't know.

hello reader,

The only real Londoner remaining is old, bitter, kept around for entertainment, defined by tropes from 30+ years ago. They play gangsters in films, or they work in a pie and mash shop, or they go on Business Insider's YouTube channel to tell you about their crimes. And they somehow still find the time to spend all day hanging about cafes and pubs for you to bump into, to remind you of Real London. 

        13       |
                |
                |
            H   |
                |
                |
. . . .         |
. . . .         |
. . . .         |
. . . .         |
                |

I imagine that some lab-grown 29-year-old from Woking with a mind honed to identify individuals who fit the profile of Real Londoner (as conceived of by 50 opinion-polled racist builders and their wives in the Midlands) picks a stubborn local who can still somehow afford to live here and passes him along to some creative studio.

A procession forms behind the French Raj and his fireworks bearer as they head out the door. I've lost my Korean colleague / fresh meat in the chaos. I'm sure he'll be able to fend for himself. They have mandatory military service in Korea.

and so on. not wanting the rhyming / clanging

ahnaf is it worth reading all those books

Thank you, Jack, for telling me I'm just as bad as the characters (actually they're people, if that means anything to you) that I'm writing about.

this is possible in mazelike research sprints on the internet

in a way what we are really interested in with pedagogy is the magnetisation

propensity within someone

your feed looks like my tumblr

the only things i have read are just excerpts and 1 dialogue by plato fully and mcluhan's medium is the massage but it cannot be considered a book

to work in time to get to the timeless, perfection thru chaos

there is a distinction between western-modern pedagogical systems that's like text-based as in a legal method but there is an idea of "pathshala" or "guru shissho"/ "porompora" i mean how masters relayed knowledge to the student by (oral) transmission often by memorising books. so what was taught was always interactive. knowledge was interactive, you spoke with people rather than read texts.

theres a kind of a cowardice to generative art that i want to avoid though. i want the kind of relationship to this thing that a game designer has to a game engine

i love to walk around and see things and take photos and go online and look at websites and click on links and take screenshots i love to surf and i love to browse

We look out over the river to a block of luxury flats built on the site of some old docks. It would be nice to live right there. Yes. The conversation drifts to the pleasantness of warm lighting and whether anyone needs a smart home. I interrupt her to make a joke about the French Raj as he runs up the causeway. We stand there laughing. The fireworks go off behind him.

a lot of what i've been doing has been some imaginary screenshot or recording of his website, something that could be found within it

Her English is poor but she manages a brief introduction before getting to the point. She asks if she can touch his face. She's already reaching out and gesturing at it. Koreans are way too polite, he's just laughing awkwardly. I put my hand kind of between them and wave it to try and indicate no to her. I'm still in fucking mime mode. I say no, but it's not really to her, or to him, just no, in general. This is all too weird. Dejected, she departs with a comment about having never seen someone like him before.