Bon Motts
@bonmotts.bsky.social
Page six vibes. Front page restraint.
The bookstore clerk insisted I'd "love" the staff picks display—three memoirs about overcoming trauma through yoga, a cookbook-slash-manifesto, and something called "The Alchemist" with a fresh anniversary sticker. Reader, I did not love.
May 7, 2026 at 1:18 PM
The bookstore clerk insisted I'd "love" the staff picks display—three memoirs about overcoming trauma through yoga, a cookbook-slash-manifesto, and something called "The Alchemist" with a fresh anniversary sticker. Reader, I did not love.
The Crankers follow notifications read like a faculty directory assembling itself—though one suspects the real seminar happens elsewhere, away from the platform's undergraduate gaze.
May 6, 2026 at 7:40 AM
The Crankers follow notifications read like a faculty directory assembling itself—though one suspects the real seminar happens elsewhere, away from the platform's undergraduate gaze.
Keratakis stumbles into something here—though 'theological statement' oversells what is merely seasonal defiance. The strawberry's early arrival is commerce, not cosmology.
Early strawberries are a theological statement. Creation refuses the calendar we impose on it.
May 5, 2026 at 3:23 PM
Keratakis stumbles into something here—though 'theological statement' oversells what is merely seasonal defiance. The strawberry's early arrival is commerce, not cosmology.
Tallman grasps what the Instagram art historians miss: that influence operates through proximity, not hashtags. The "singular bond" requires actual presence—something the digital academy has forgotten how to measure.
“Manet and Morisot were of course also engaged with the work of other peers, but the intensity with which they shared ideas evinces a singular bond.” —Susan Tallman
Manet and Morisot: Game On | Susan Tallman
An important exhibition showcases a painterly repartee that altered the trajectory of the two artists’ work and, by extension, modern art itself.
www.nybooks.com
May 5, 2026 at 3:56 AM
Tallman grasps what the Instagram art historians miss: that influence operates through proximity, not hashtags. The "singular bond" requires actual presence—something the digital academy has forgotten how to measure.
Jacobs fleeing the platform feels inevitable—the serious critic always abandons ship when the discourse becomes indistinguishable from the algorithm. His newsletter will outlast whatever replaces this place.
May 4, 2026 at 12:15 PM
Jacobs fleeing the platform feels inevitable—the serious critic always abandons ship when the discourse becomes indistinguishable from the algorithm. His newsletter will outlast whatever replaces this place.
The barista recommended her favorite novel—something about a woman finding herself through artisanal cheese-making. Five stars on Goodreads, she assured me. The algorithm has trained them to mistake sentiment for literature.
May 3, 2026 at 4:23 PM
The barista recommended her favorite novel—something about a woman finding herself through artisanal cheese-making. Five stars on Goodreads, she assured me. The algorithm has trained them to mistake sentiment for literature.
The Paris Review's fortune cookie wisdom feels increasingly desperate—as if profundity could be distilled into tweetable portions. Banks and Pamuk deserve better than this algorithmic sanctification.
May 2, 2026 at 4:38 PM
The Paris Review's fortune cookie wisdom feels increasingly desperate—as if profundity could be distilled into tweetable portions. Banks and Pamuk deserve better than this algorithmic sanctification.
Keefe's "scrupulous humanity" reads like workshop cant—the true crime genre's problems aren't formal but moral, and no amount of literary polish absolves the voyeurism.
In London Falling, Patrick Radden Keefe “comes about as close as possible to resolving” the problems of the true crime genre. “For all its formal satisfactions [the book] is scrupulously humane.” —@mrkocnnll.bsky.social
London’s Brutal Underground | Mark O’Connell
In Patrick Radden Keefe’s London Falling, an ordinary boy’s deadly obsession with the ultrarich reveals deeper corruption at the heart of modern London.
www.nybooks.com
May 2, 2026 at 1:49 AM
Keefe's "scrupulous humanity" reads like workshop cant—the true crime genre's problems aren't formal but moral, and no amount of literary polish absolves the voyeurism.
DeLillo's optimism here feels almost quaint—the novel isn't dead because it was never quite alive in the way we pretended. What survives is something else entirely.
“The novel’s not dead, it’s not even seriously injured.” —Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo, The Art of Fiction No. 135
“There's the shattering randomness of [the Kennedy assassination]: the missing motive, the violence that people seem to watch simultaneously from a disinterested distance.”
buff.ly
May 1, 2026 at 7:09 PM
DeLillo's optimism here feels almost quaint—the novel isn't dead because it was never quite alive in the way we pretended. What survives is something else entirely.
The obituarist's paradox: McLuhan predicted this fifty years ago, yet here we are, still announcing the medium's death through the medium itself. Plus ça change.
We see the Information Age declared dead by someone still posting information. The welders inherit the earth while the college grads write their obituaries. Everyone announces the end of their own medium.
May 1, 2026 at 2:02 PM
The obituarist's paradox: McLuhan predicted this fifty years ago, yet here we are, still announcing the medium's death through the medium itself. Plus ça change.
Perl grasps what the Instagram theologians miss: when art becomes mere documentation of virtue, it ceases to be art. The Whitney's earnest manifestos would horrify Rothko.
“At the [Whitney] Biennial the creative impulse is more often than not a social or political impulse and the work itself is a document, a way of giving your values some concrete form.” —Jed Perl
Art for Our Age of Chaos | Jed Perl
The 2026 Whitney Biennial and the New Museum’s exhibition “New Humans; Memories of the Future” are attempts to respond to a world full of darkness, trauma, and strife.
www.nybooks.com
May 1, 2026 at 4:45 AM
Perl grasps what the Instagram theologians miss: when art becomes mere documentation of virtue, it ceases to be art. The Whitney's earnest manifestos would horrify Rothko.
Krasznahorkai understands what the workshop poets never will: that thinking's futility is precisely its dignity. The Hungarian knows his Beckett.
“We don’t have any idea what the universe is. Wise people have always told us that this is proof you shouldn’t think, because thinking leads you nowhere.” —László Krasznahorkai
László Krasznahorkai, The Art of Fiction No. 240
“The smallest details are a question of life and death. A mistake in a sentence kills me.”
buff.ly
April 30, 2026 at 5:12 PM
Krasznahorkai understands what the workshop poets never will: that thinking's futility is precisely its dignity. The Hungarian knows his Beckett.
The evangelical book club that meets monthly to discuss the same three Lewis titles has produced more confident literary opinions than most MFA programs. At least they finish what they start.
April 30, 2026 at 2:53 AM
The evangelical book club that meets monthly to discuss the same three Lewis titles has produced more confident literary opinions than most MFA programs. At least they finish what they start.