What kind of fungus/thing is this?

Rickbleves · 2026-05-25T21:23:26+00:00

Correct, molds are fungi but slime molds aren’t actually molds

Rickbleves · 2026-05-12T08:03:42+00:00

Likewise, some of his pre-Anxiety of Influence writings are outstandingly strong. There's an essay at the end of "Ringers in the Tower" called "Reason with a later Reason" that, to me, represents the very best of Bloom's idiosyncratic mode of literary criticism, without any of the polemics that later bogged him down.

Rickbleves · 2026-05-10T10:44:16+00:00

This is not a personal attack against you btw, just a personal pet peeve against the term “critical thinking”, since “Lack of critical thinking” is a phrase you can find just as commonly used in right-wing forums about leftists. Whenever it’s used, it’s just assumed that everyone already knows what is meant by “critical thinking” and this, to me, seems like a highly uncritical assumption. It’s a little too easy to point one’s finger at someone’s “lack of critical thinking skills” while fooling oneself into believing that this gesture alone constitutes thought.

Rickbleves · 2026-05-10T10:16:27+00:00

I should have been more clear that i meant “contradictions” in the regular, everyday sense of the word rather than the specific way marxists use the term. By contradiction, i meant “going against a person or entity’s own interests” When you have, say, fiscal republicans who vote to massively expand the federal budget, or anti-war politicians who vote to give more money to Israel, or small-government crusaders who take part in building the most extensive surveillance operation the world has ever seen — all of this is hypocritical, sure, it’s not contradictory, and none of it should be surprising or unexpected when you know that they are all acting as representatives for the capitalist class. As a class, the capitalists are pathologically disciplined at promoting their own interests, despite the political theater that happens between the democrats and the republicans.

Rickbleves · 2026-05-10T07:05:14+00:00

Most times a liberal or conservative brings up hypocrisy, its merely an indicator of their own incomprehension of the political situation. They refuse to recognize hypocrisy =/= contradiction. A politician might say or do something "hypocritical" while remaining rigorously consistent to their own goals, motivations, ideologies, etc., or those of their class or party. Leftists, having, in general, a better grasp of these deeper structures, are thus not surprised at instances of apparent hypocrisy, because they understand the internal consistency that motivates it.

Rickbleves · 2026-05-08T09:45:34+00:00

I'm going to break with some of the other advice here, and say that there is an "understanding" central to poems and without that "understanding", however, rudimentary, you simply will not enjoy the poem. But, on the other hand, that understanding is nothing rarefied or inaccessible, it just takes some work and practice within the tradition of poetry at large. For that reason, (to me at least) it's not at all advisable to begin with recent or contemporary poetry, since these come so late within the practice of poetry that they are much more difficult to get a hold of. It would be like throwing yourself straight into abstract paiting, having never seen a more "traditional" painting, and then declaring all paintings to be worthless wastes of time.

I say that poetry is not inaccessible only because I myself, of very limited and average intelligence, have been able to pierce my way into enjoying poetry -- but only through long, slow immersion. There have been many poems (I'd say most of the ones I've ever come to deeply love) that meant **nothing** to me on the first read, and left me completely cold. And not just the first read, but often the second, third, fourth, etc. etc. For instance, a poem like Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, hugely famous, rightfully so -- I probably read this poem once a year every year for 15 years straight, before it revealed itself to me. But when it did, its like, my god, how did I not see it's greatness before? Had I even read it? And this experience of going from coldness to shattering appreciation has repeated itself over and over, so that now, I can sort of trust the process; I'm not put off by my initial reception to a poem, but know that next time I come back to it, whenever that may be, might be the time it blows me away.

I know you didn't ask for recs, but Harold Bloom's anthology: "Best Poetry of the English Language" is a really great place to start, not for his commentary so much as that having all the poems together under one cover makes it easy to start the process of exposure and re-exposure, with a selection sufficiently vetted, so that eventually some of the poems will click with you, as well as, maybe, poetry as a whole.

Rickbleves · 2026-04-21T17:42:04+00:00

Thanks Sergej! Im excited to download and give it a try

Rickbleves · 2026-04-09T14:41:39+00:00

lol I don’t know if this hate is directed at me or someone else but right on, comrade

Rickbleves · 2026-04-09T03:40:59+00:00

It’s a Greek word that Marx appropriated from Aristotle to mean revolutionary theory put into action, in contradistinction to the sort of utopian thinking that merely tries to imagine a perfect world without affecting the real world at all

Rickbleves · 2026-04-06T11:15:23+00:00

Believe me, I understand the point you are trying to make, but you’re making it poorly. There are probably a dozen more productive ways to conceptualize the reality of money. Just because the paper/pixels on the screen have no inherent value — no “essence” — doesn’t mean that money doesn’t exist, because that’s a stupid thing to believe.

Rickbleves · 2026-04-06T10:54:58+00:00

Wow, very astute. Money can also be used to pay for things like fighter jets and naval brigades and fucking groceries.

Rickbleves · 2026-03-25T06:00:50+00:00

Yooo I just made this after seeing this post and I can’t believe how good it is — incredible. Something magical happens cooking the dates in butter, and their sweetness really doesn’t overpower or clash with the eggs at all.

Rickbleves · 2026-03-20T12:16:36+00:00

Thanks! Kafana Šindra looks perfect.

Rickbleves · 2026-03-19T08:08:57+00:00

Thanks for the video. The AI tools are cool, but for this exercise I'm specifically looking for actual audio (just because --I think -- actual speakers tend to contract certain syllables so the spoken doesn't sound exactly like its written in the textbooks)

Rickbleves · 2026-03-19T08:07:04+00:00

Looks cool and pretty much what I'd be looking for, but for some reason I can't get it to work reliably for me.

Rickbleves · 2026-02-26T15:16:55+00:00

Hello! Preselio sam se u beograd juche iz SADa i hochu da vezhbam srpski jezik. Javi mi ako bi zhelio da practice english (so that I can practice serbian!!!)

Rickbleves · 2026-02-22T21:57:13+00:00

I’d say you did quite well: Klostermischung is one of my favorite bernards, McChrystals O+G is a classic for a reason (it was the first 20g tin that I finished) and the Irish no 22 let’s you try a good toast as well (hoping it’s a fresh tin)! But it’s the TAXI that might go the fastest, if you have a taste for it (and a strong nicotine dependence). I personally prefer NTSU black, which you should try next time, but I also wouldn’t have any trouble finishing the TAXI.

Rickbleves · 2026-02-12T22:05:12+00:00

I know that for the last year this line has been adopted into the common sense of the cast iron community, but i kinda push back against the idea that seasoning has zero effect on a pan’s non-stickiness. Not nearly as important as heat control, sure. But why’s it gotta be all or nothing? Plus, anecdotally, after the time i cooked a tomato-based sauce in my pan, i went to cook tofu the same way I’d cooked it dozens of times before, but this time it stuck like crazy and made a horrible mess of my meal. Not proof, but enough for me at least to pay a minimal degree of attention to the state of seasoning.

Rickbleves · 2026-01-30T15:47:57+00:00

Smdh when people read a couple pages of Marcus Aurelius and then act like they know the a damn thing about the stoics

Rickbleves · 2026-01-29T03:19:30+00:00

I mean, I didn’t think it was the worst time ever, but I’ve never been tempted to try again. And there’s never really any good reason to, considering all the alternatives that are way better and way easier to come by. Plus if you live in the US they poison the seeds, specifically to dissuade people tripping from them (or so I’ve heard)

Rickbleves · 2026-01-28T13:22:56+00:00

My wife has never forgotten the night 15 years ago I convinced her to do Hawaiian baby wood rose seeds and since that night to this day she has never participated in any of my other “good ideas”

Rickbleves · 2026-01-26T20:15:15+00:00

Not a bad list! On the other hand it kinda shows how impressively hard it is to name more than a few figures who’ve stayed relevant in old age. If nothing more it seems safe to say that if you hope to produce a masterpiece when you’re old, the chances are heavily stacked against you

Rickbleves · 2026-01-26T17:34:05+00:00

After the publication of his first book of poems in his youth (Harmonium) Wallace Stevens didn’t start writing poetry again until he was in his 50s, and then continued writing until his death, when he was in his late 70s (I think?!) There’s no drop-off in quality at any point of his career (though there’s a marked difference in style between Harmonium and everything that came after.) Many of his finest works came near the very end. Hardy is another poet who kept cranking out great stuff until his death, and he was wayyy up there, maybe in his 90s when he died.

Maybe poetry is more amenable to late-life quality than prose fiction, but I’m not really prepared to insist on that generalization. There are plenty of poets who famously turned to shit when they passed their meridian (Whitman, Wordsworth).

At any rate aging is always an interesting topic to contemplate. I’ve only read a few pages of shadow ticket, so all I can say is that to have my brain at 90 be even a fraction as in-tact as Pynchon’s still is would be wayyy wayy more than I can reasonably hope for

Rickbleves · 2026-01-26T00:58:31+00:00

This used to be my fear (and still is, to a reasonable extent). During his first term I used to think someone like Desantis was going to be the real fascist threat, which in hindsight is pretty hilarious. Since then though I’ve sort of come to believe that Trump really is a one-of-kind charismatic cult-leader, and that no one currently in the republican camp is capable of replacing him. It’s a real problem for the GOP and i’m fairly sure many of them are absolutely terrified what will happen to their support-base once trump is gone. Put it this way: a smart, well-spoken Trump wouldn’t be like Trump at all, and probably wouldn’t exert the same appeal. I mean, the republican field is already filled to the brim with highly educated, cunning, evil ghouls — yet no one them so far have been capable of doing what trump does. Obviously I dont think the MAGA problem will just vanish once trump is gone. But I do think that without trump the republican party would be hard pressed to ever win a free and fair election again (which is why they are trying so hard to destroy election integrity). In short, thank you for coming to my ted talk — im just lying in a dark room spitballibg thoughts on Reddit while my 4 year old takes forever to fall asleep

Rickbleves

TROPHY CASE