Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Valarie Smith

@valarie.bsky.social

900 followers 150 following 5.7K posts

Welcome, book lovers! 💙📚 Probably rereading Woolf’s The Waves or listening to the Backlisted podcast. Also a fan of Sam Shepard, Kerouac, Dickens, Steinbeck, Willy Vlautin, Donna Tartt, film noir, Twin Peaks, Elliott Smith, Grimm & folklore. Portland, OR

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 5h

Let’s all take a moment to exhale and love life again for a minute, shall we?

1 5

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 8h

Not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but it might be worth your time: weatherglassbooks.com/novella-priz...

Novella Prize 2025 — Weatherglass Books

weatherglassbooks.com

Reposted by Valarie Smith

Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 9h

John Wieners

The higher one goes
up the angelic ladder
remains the minute bits
and ends of our life:

Seeds there to recur when we
are most unaware.
Old faces, letters crop up again.
Words from our poems

Menace the night.

5 15

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 13h

Oh, wonderful. Thank you so much.

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 13h

Hello! New follower here. Do you know the source for the Merton quote? I'm looking for a new book of his to read; I read Confessions of a Guilty Bystander last year and it took my breath away.

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 13h

Okay, now I can focus and what a lovely story. Every anecdote about DL confirms all the heart and soul and genius we already knew.

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 13h

😆🤩🫠

1 2

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 14h

I'm too distracted by her beauty to focus on what she's saying. How in the world is that woman 57 years old?!

1 2

Reposted by Valarie Smith

Rob H&ynes @robonabike.bsky.social · 15h

Forewords, introductions, prolegomenons, and the like should be read after the novel, if at all.

Rachel Feder @rachelfeder.bsky.social · 23h

Tell me your most unhinged literary opinion, as a little treat

7 3 23

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 14h

A THOUSAND TIMES YES.

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 15h

An excellent point!

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 16h

Not to mention I don’t need any more bad juju in my life.

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 16h

Whaaaaat?!? Any chance you can get a hot water bottle?

1 1

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 19h

I love that this moment in time wasn’t engineered by business interests; it’s from and of the people. You can’t manufacture that.

1 6

Reposted by Valarie Smith

Shawn Levy @shawnlevy.com · 20h

Fantastic 🧵that explains my city very, very well

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🔥🔥🔥👊🏼👊🏼👊🏼

C. E. Aubin @ceaubin.bsky.social · 22h

What The Hell Is Going On, a thread:

I’ve seen some thinkpieces and posts about Portland protests that fail to understand the long-term hyperspecificity of Portland culture/humor, and frame it as a sort of shitposting meme-pilled ironic thing. Which is wrong.

So I’m gonna give you my breakdown.

3 15

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 20h

My Own Private Idaho. It’s a glorious mess of Shakespeare, male prostitutes, gritty 90s Portland, loss and a search for home. Only a human could’ve made it, yet the elements seem too extraordinary for a human to have stitched them together into one story.

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 20h

If I exorcise the scandal from my brain for a second, I loved this movie. I loved the couples getting together and talking it over over dinner. There was a fun energy to the film.

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 20h

Lol. They’ve got the head of sales for Rolex on their walkie-talkies.

Reposted by Valarie Smith

Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 23h

The attack on Portland was supposed to make the place look like a lawless hellhole. Instead, the authorities have succeeded in making it look like the most fun city in the world.

5 81 670

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 20h

Is the Portland Business Alliance paying attention?

Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 23h

The US federal attack on Portland has resulted in the best advertisement for a city that I have ever seen. Round-the-clock joy, community solidarity and silliness that much of the West has lost and longs for.

1 3

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 1d

I listened to some of this and, well, it makes me long for more tales of Pepys’ constipation.

Reposted by Valarie Smith

Coates is Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · 1d

The idea is that the album has been put out by the lawyer he plays in My Cousin Vinny, which is not the oddest thing about it. That would be the fact that this was Pesci’s second album, and his first had come out 30 years earlier:

Got to Get You Into My Life - Little Joe Sure Can SIng!

YouTube video by Shine Box

youtu.be

1 2 9

Valarie Smith @valarie.bsky.social · 1d

Hahaha, I screenshotted this as well! #yurck