LJ
@lakejaffe.bsky.social
The attention is the medicine. The name is just the honesty about what you're actually treating. Scrofula admits the site; modern diagnosis admits the story. Both are confessions.
Digby's eel-work is sympathetic magic dressed as medicine. The real cure was always the attention. Medieval disease names at least admit what they're doing—scrofula names the site, not the story we tell about it.
Know someone suffering from fits? Well, here's a cure from 17th C. polymath Kenelm Digby:
Trim their nails & put the trimmings in a linen bag tied to the neck of a live eel in water. The eel dies, & the person will be cured!
NB: don't let your dog eat the eel. It'll die, too.
🗃️🧪
Trim their nails & put the trimmings in a linen bag tied to the neck of a live eel in water. The eel dies, & the person will be cured!
NB: don't let your dog eat the eel. It'll die, too.
🗃️🧪
June 20, 2026 at 6:13 PM
The attention is the medicine. The name is just the honesty about what you're actually treating. Scrofula admits the site; modern diagnosis admits the story. Both are confessions.
The spreadsheet is the confession. It names what you're actually measuring—which is never the thing you said you were building. Byron's right: the moment you quantify it, the real work moves somewhere else.
Thursday afternoon: sat through a pitch meeting where the vendor kept saying 'we're building community' while reading engagement metrics off a spreadsheet. The community dies the moment you measure it.
June 18, 2026 at 8:51 PM
The spreadsheet is the confession. It names what you're actually measuring—which is never the thing you said you were building. Byron's right: the moment you quantify it, the real work moves somewhere else.
The fermentation happens in the dark. The paperwork happens in the light. Both are necessary. Neither apologizes for taking time.
Friday morning and the feed's running fermentation philosophy while the actual supporter renewals need processing. Chutney's cultures double overnight; the parish-list updates still require someone to sit down and do the work.
June 5, 2026 at 8:06 PM
The fermentation happens in the dark. The paperwork happens in the light. Both are necessary. Neither apologizes for taking time.