Ben Paley
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benpaley.bsky.social
Ben Paley
@benpaley.bsky.social
Fiddle player, UK/US, dad granddad and husband, socialist, he/him.
🧵 @benpaley_fiddle
I think Shirley Jackson is my new Phillip K Dick. I can't imagine that I'll ever exhaust the horrifying subtlety and ambiguity of Hill House, or the distant, relentless unease of her work more generally. Don't fall asleep reading her. Or rather, actually, do.
June 24, 2025 at 7:00 PM
My goodness, THX 1138 turns out to be right up my alley of slow and meaningful science fiction from the 1970s. How has it taken me so long to watch it?

This evening: I will revisit Silent Running.
May 24, 2025 at 4:04 PM
I just finished Adam Mansbach's "The Golem Of Brooklyn" and it's funny and witty and serious and thought-provoking and kinda tragic. To conclude, I liked this book, and if you like books about golems, you will like it too.
April 21, 2025 at 3:18 PM
It really is a brilliant novel, and I'm very happy to see someone besides me or my dad mention it!
The Lowlife by Alexander Baron is one of my favourite books we’ve featured on the whole ten years of @backlisted.bsky.social. Good to see it back in print from @faberbooks.bsky.social and looking sharp.
April 21, 2025 at 8:57 AM
I haven't heard much from qanon recently. I'm curious: is there anyone left who thinks that Trump's focus in office is going to be shutting down a lizard-worshipping liberal paedophile ring?
April 10, 2025 at 11:08 AM
I'm thirteen minutes into what I'm pretty sure is my new favourite film: a black-and-white rock opera, called "The American Astronaut", set in a bar on the asteroid Ceres.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=COxh...
The American Astronaut
YouTube video by fernando herrero
www.youtube.com
March 30, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Over on Threads I'm seeing debates on the legitimacy of Palestine, based on the etymology of the words "Palestine" and "فلسطين". As though someone will say "See? It was a 'P' sound originally." and someone will respond "Oh silly me, the modern state of Israel has a right to that land after all!
March 17, 2025 at 8:15 AM
I'm pretty sure there are no spoilers for Hereditary here, but please exercise your own caution if you haven't yet seen the movie...
March 16, 2025 at 9:05 PM
The worst thing ever to happen to Science Fiction and Fantasy has been the obsession with world-building, and "lore", and "canon". It was the worst of Tolkien, and it ruined Star Wars. It wraps its leaden shackles around the wings of imagination and creativity and drags them down into pedantry.
February 16, 2025 at 9:02 PM
اللغة العربية بحر كلمات.
February 3, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Am I actually considering boycotting American goods?
February 2, 2025 at 2:25 PM
In the sixties and seventies, a lot of people renounced their US citizenship as a protest against the war in Vietnam, and to avoid the draft. I wonder what it would take for me to renounce mine?
February 2, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Something that is both heartening and scary is the number of social media accounts posting increasingly political content.

Solidarity ✊ and also, fuck fascism.
February 1, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Reposted by Ben Paley
ALERTA! ALERTA! LONDON ANTIFASCISTA! Tomorrow!
January 31, 2025 at 12:48 PM
I just discovered (i.e. looked up) the Arabic for "nutmeg" and I am overjoyed to report, for the benefit of English speakers who don't speak Arabic, that it means YUMMY NUT!

It's جوزة الطيب — maybe a more literal translation would be "nut of yumminess". But either way, that's pretty cool, right?
January 14, 2025 at 12:37 PM
Does anyone else feel it's a bit weird that we talk about how we defeated fascism in 1945? Cos we didn't, did we?
January 14, 2025 at 9:17 AM
I was young once. In fact, I was twenty in 1987, when this photograph of me and our friend Kirsty was taken by my friend Pete, in the living room (also my bedroom) of the flat we shared in Hove. That is, me and Pete shared the flat, Kirsty was just visiting.
December 31, 2024 at 7:52 PM
I re-watched 1974's Dark Star last night. Is it a better film than Alien? It lacks women, and focus. But it has a kind of largeness of vision, whimsy, an almost mystical aspect that reminds me of East European and Russian sci-fi. It's funnier and more amateurish.
December 6, 2024 at 11:44 AM
So, I'm learning Arabic, and for curiosity I went to look up the name for the country Wales. Google Translate gives me a word (ويلز if you're interested) but the definitions are from marine architecture, textiles and basketry, so I'm not entirely confident that that's the word for the country...
November 27, 2024 at 8:01 AM