velcro city tourist board

a blog by Paul Graham Raven

science fiction / social theory / climate futures / infrastructure / utopian narratology / sometimes cats

  • books read 2022

    Yep, it’s that time of year again. 103 books finished (of which 20 were graphic novels); dates indicate when I finished reading; one asterisk means a re-read, two asterisks a second re-read, three asterisks a many-times-re-reading; a zero indicates a book left unfinished. Graphic novels Maggie the Mechanic Jaime Hernandez 19 Jan * The Girl…

    [… read the whole post.]

    πŸ™œ
  • that was the year that was

    Navel-gazey reflective end-of-year stuff; feel free to skip! The Practice A(nother) year in notebooks… the thicker one is a kind of catch-all/commonplace book, and the two thin ones topmost are specifically work-focussed, but the rest are morning pages only, the dedicated medium of the Practice, of which this has been the fifth full year. The…

    [… read the whole post.]

    πŸ™œ
  • the true name of the sun

    Comfort-reading A Wizard of Earthsea. Of all the books I read in my childhood, only Le Guin’s have been so reliably enriched by time, experience and re-reading. She was a worker of the same true magic she wrote of.

    [… read the whole post.]

    πŸ™œ
  • not merely window-dressing

    Adam Tooze, an aside in an account of the unfolding Ghanian debt crisis: Narratives are not merely window-dressing. They matter, because they fuel optimism and sustain belief, which infuses the assessment of analysts and credit rating agencies. Narratives are amongst the tools with which capital allocators manage the uncertainty inherent in any investment, but which…

    [… read the whole post.]

    πŸ™œ
  • final phase

    Finally! Been a long time waiting for this to arrive, after assorted delays and mishaps. And it arrives within a few days of my hearing that Alexandra Pierce at Locus made particular mention of my piece herein (among a few others), and described it as “a powerful story on many levels”; not gonna quibble with…

    [… read the whole post.]

    πŸ™œ πŸ™œ πŸ™œ πŸ™œ

Who is Paul Graham Raven?

“… who, with raving lips uttering things mirthless, unbedizened, and unperfumed, reaches over a thousand years with [his] voice, thanks to the god in [him].”