Dimitry R (sky_and_sea)

There is a line in “The Rouse” by China Mieville: “I find myself speaking about my son’s death everywhere I go in this world”. -> Replace the words “my son’s death” with “the war” and that’s probably the most accurate description of how I’ve been living since Feb24 of 2022.

continuing with The Rouse and it is really good so far (~300 pages in). I like the style much better to a couple of his previous books. and the slow-burn dread of a classic ghost story is just such a perfect halloween thing, I never thought that would be possible with Mieville!

to those who complain it’s not “weird”/fantasy enough, you guys have not been paying attention to his works. he deliberately deconstructs genre after genre, and this book is actually the most Mieville book ever, at least as much as is Kraken or City & City or Railsea etc.

Another similarity is how he builds a 1200+ pages book around this horrible story about a mother who lost her son, and it’s only the first 100 pages that is the story itself while the rest titled “Epilogue”. And yeah, however long I will live I dont know, but this all just feels like an epilogue.

even as internet literally crumbles and collapses under attacks of millions of ai-agents, this fucking ghouls continue launching more and more tools that would make our lives worse and less secure. it is insane we cannot just shut all this shit down and lock them up.

*these

reuters.comRussia detains Japanese journalist on suspicion of spyingRussia's Federal Security Service said it detained a Japanese journalist accused of gathering information on Russia's ‌defence capabilities, news agencies reported on Tuesday.

well that’s really bad news. I see Agentstvo (Roman Badanin) connecting this with the news about Qilin-connected hacker in Osaka. @jamesdjbrown.bsky.social www.reuters.com/business/med...

@geographyofrobots.bsky.social

if you look at how things are going at the elon-network (twitter), half of the Japanese language accounts are “debating” whether the guy really is a spy and that journalists should not be gathering war-related info. this is nuts.

Dimitry R (sky_and_sea) reposted

geographyofrobots

NORCO is $5 on Steam until Thursday October 8th.

it is interesting that once again Russia got there first with their laws on taking away citizenship from “terrorists”. now such proposals are everywhere (there is a populist party in Japan advocating for 2-tier citizenship too). fasiscts do not want anyone to escape and find piece

Ian Dunt@iandunt.bsky.social

The chipping away at citizenship, which started with Shamima Begum, is utterly poisonous. Anytime now, Restore will support the removal of citizenship on the basis of race or religion.

14 Sept

this album means SO MUCH TO ME that I Iiterally was not able to listen to it for years until I got to a bit of a better state. still almost crying listening to it. I don’t know why but in 2012-13 when I was alone in Japan these songs by Bill Callahan helped me a lot.

11 Sept

I wrote a review for @weirdwalk.bsky.social book on Weird Walk and I think it is a start of my stonepunk phase. jokes aside, I was very happy to find it and I think more people need to know about the book and its message dimitryrakin.com/2026/09/11/b...

dimitryrakin.comWhat I learned after living in the UK for a month – DR

29 Aug

still trying to make sense of my last month that I spent in the UK. some magic definitely happened. my own past is a foreign country now. well, at least I know I am not tired of life. dimitryrakin.com/2026/08/29/w..

28 Aug

everything by m john harrison and jeff vandermeer. we’re drowning in weirdness and our reality is in a state of continuous never-ending collapse, yet there is love, light, wonder. life would be different for me without these books.

N.S. Dolkart is gathering signatures@nsdolkart.bsky.social

We talk a lot about books that were formative in our childhoods and young adulthoods, but we never actually stop forming ourselves, so what are some books that were formative in your post-college adulthood?

17 July

welp, somehow I need to read all these books in five days before I head off to London for the first time ever

12 July

wanted man in a detroit city wanted man in a san anton but there’s one place I’m not wanted, Lord, it’s a place that I call home

11 July

so like I was casually living through this day and then I suddenly remembered that Mark Lanegan died four years ago. fuck.

11 July

motherfucker I just saw another Mark suggested in the damn Apple Music - Mark Sandman’s Morphine. and he is dead too! and he was even younger!! man, life sucks.

11 July

if Nick Cave dies at some point, I’m gonna learn some necromancy and get him to rise again, because that’s it, I’m fed up, we cannot afford this shit happening anymore

japantimes.co.jpLDP to propose allowing warrantless communications interceptionThe initiative will be a major pillar of anti-espionage legislation that the administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi aims to enact soon.

10 July

I knew there was nothing good to be expected from the anti-spy law, but wiretapping witthout warrants was way beyond what I thought possible. Putin got these powers years into his dictatorship. this is nuts. www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/07...

Dimitry R (sky_and_sea) reposted

Kenny Logins

@kennylogins.bsky.social

5 July

Replying to @kennylogins.bsky.social

3 July

if I remember correctly, his words about it were “you have a pool to swim in it, not to understand it” (or smth similar - “the pool” is Viriconium obviously), and it changed the way I read books since I first encountered it

Dorian Dawes@doriandawes.bsky.social

Every once in a while I think about M. John Harrison changing details between the Viriconium books because he hated the idea of worldbuilding so much and refused a consistent setting that could be easy to categorize and I promise myself to get even weirder with it.

24 June

does anyone know a good website or smth to see anouncemets for literary talks, public readings, open lectures etc by authors and writers in the uk? I am going there in august and I would absolutely HATE to miss Alan Moore’s public talk or something like this. calling on communal knowledge of bluesky

24 June

I already found there would be M John Harrison talk at Edinburgh book festival, so that’s great, but I am sure there must be more, and google in its current format presents exactly zero ways to find about it

19 June

Khruangbin became the ultimate “upscale and a bit exotic hotel lobby music”, I cannot count just how many times I heard it in Mandarin, Aman, Four Seasons etc

18 June

the bastards are at it again!! The Real McKenzies show once again that punk is not dead with their new album

18 June

kaja kallas and steven pinker on the list. this is just ridiculous.

maia arson crimew 🏴@crimew.gay

Here are all 113 alleged members we were able to successfully extract. This data can also be verified via versions of the site captured by the Wayback Machine, even if it doesn't properly render the website.

meduza.ioВ аэропорту Еревана по запросу России задержан математик Михаил Вербицкий — MeduzaМатематика Михаила Вербицкого задержали в аэропорту Еревана, сообщают писатель Роман Лейбов и телеканал «Дождь».

this is fucking nuts. russian mathematician and one of the oldest putin regime protester misha verbitsky was arrested in armenia. if he is deported to russia, he will never see daylight again. chances are he will de freed in armenia, but this is disgusting. meduza.io/news/2026/06...

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like literally I know personally at least three people who committed suicide because there was nowhere else for them to go. I cannot say I dont have same thoughts too sometimes, but I am lucky to have a more stable situation and I have family who rely on me. this is still very very hard.

anyway, please spread the word about Verbitsky, I think there is decent possibility to get him out

putin protesters were deported from the us right into fucking jail back in russia. they are deported from kazahkstan, from kyrgystan, from belarus of course. they are denied asylum in finland and poland. so many people I know ended their own lifes because of this.

bbc.comCelebrated British artist David Hockney dies aged 88The painter's style was one of the most recognisable in the modern era.

12 June

oh no. I only learned about him maybe 3-4 years ago. and we were fortunate to be able to visit a really good exhibition here in tokyo a couple of years ago. his art was nothing short of revolutionary. www.bbc.com/news/live/c4...

23 May

so I wanted to look up some Tokyo history on JapanThis website only to find out that the person behind the website died two years ago. this sucks so fucking much, I did not know him personally, but I saw from his twitter he struggled during covid and hope things were going better for him.

23 May

apart from this being a personal tragedy the website is now inaccessible and so everything is LOST. this is a bloody tragedy by itself because it was one of the beat sources of Japanese history and especially Tokyo history in the internet. not just in English, but including Japanese sources.

23 May

does anyone know if there is any way to restore the contents, maybe internet archive has them or someone saved them earlier? perhaps @gaiaslastlaugh.bsky.social (I am just assuming you may know smth through Unseen Japan)

17 May

re-watching “the cook, the thief, his wife and her lover” and once again I cannot understand why we are even having any conversations about ultra-right thugs that are running our lives, like this has been in plain view 40 years ago, almost beyond satire, yet here we are, still drowning in that shit

17 May

and I think there is something more specific about the situation we got ourselves in than just “the rich and poweful are always some horrible people that are corrupted by power” etc. ultimately, I guess it is the sheer apocaliptic potential we are dealing with here.

17 May

anyways, the music in his films is always what brings it to 11/10 for me. at least we have that.

m.youtube.comスパイチャンネル　〜山田敏弘〜スパイに精通している国際ジャーナリスト山田敏弘がスパイに取材をした裏話・実話・国際情勢の裏など今まさに起こっている事実問題を詳しく話します。毎週火木土19時公開予定スパイジャーナリスト山田敏弘講談社、ロイター通信社、ニューズウィーク日本版、MIT（マサチューセッツ工科大学）フルブライト・フェローを経てフリーのジャーナリストに。 Welcome to TOSH spy channel ...

13 May

@jamesdjbrown.bsky.social curious if you know this youtube channel, James? seems to be an ex-journalist from Reuters who is “exposing” information about spies in Japan, fraud, etc. looks a bit sketchy and sensationalist. probably useful for your studies anyway! m.youtube.com/@spychannel_...

13 May

not the worst part about AI by a long run, but dealing with tourists who use chatgpt to double-check makes my job as a guide so much more difficult. “the thing you mentioned does not exist in Japan. - but chatgpt told me!! - ………..” god give me strength

7 May

can you be too hyped for a book? I don’t think so and I am MASSIVELY hyped for this book

Robert Macfarlane@robgmacfarlane.bsky.social

Hello—The Book of Birds by me & the artist Jackie Morris is published…today A re-imagining of the field guide/bird book for our age of wonder & loss, from Avocet to Yellowhammer. Jackie has painted over 300 original artworks for it; I’ve tried to let language soar, glide & plunge. For the birds!

25 Apr

my head canon is that “once in a lifetime” by talking heads is a stream of consciousness meditation by an upper-mid class guy who is washing his car in a backyard where “water flowing under ground” is all these puddles and streams you get when you are washing away the shampoo from the car

25 Apr

and it’s like saturday or sunday afternoon, he probably had a few beers, the sun is shining and he looks at his house, the car, the water flowing and the highway in the background and then he just stops and thinks… my god, what have I done?!

Mia Tsai says buy her books

25 Apr

“same as it ever was” really elevates it to a profound magnanimous acceptance of the eternal existential dread in the face of vanity and alienation we all are living with and somehow makes it all better

Dimitry R (sky_and_sea) reposted

@itsamia.bsky.social

21 Apr

fuck sam altman forever for taking away the last places where we could engage in good faith: the creative arts, which should be a testament to human ingenuity. i am so mad that everything i read or listen to or admire is now tainted with doubt. do you understand? he is a thief of joy and i HATE HIM