Brendan O’Kane
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bokane.org
Brendan O’Kane
@bokane.org
6.5K followers 3.4K following 13K posts
Scrutable Occidental, erstwhile 北漂, quondam translator, Ming and Qing fiction enjoyer, congenital Philadelphian. Shitposty sinology. Cynicism makes you an easy mark. Signal: @bokane.1644.

http://www.burninghou.se
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Nano Banana / Gemini really is amazing -- I gave it a cameraphone image from 2009 and had it upscale, change perspective, and remove the trash can.
You just straight-up couldn't do this in Photoshop, no matter how good you are.
Cameraphone image, taken in (apparently) 2009 at a weird angle, somewhere around Jiaodaokou in Beijing: a fading slogan on a hutong wall reads 灭资兴无, "eliminate the capitalists and boost the proletariat." Featuring muddy colors, sensor noise, and a trash can next to the lamp-post in front of the 灭. A much clearer, sharper image of the same slogan as viewed from the front, without the trashcan. Even things like the parallax on the slightly open window seem to be rendered correctly here -- it might have been possible to do some of this in Photoshop, but not most of it, and not at this quality.
November 25, 2025 at 7:11 PM
bokane.org
Pierogi and beans
Pierogi, a compact cream cat with grey Batman cowl and pink nose, snoozes on an office chair, front and rear paws splayed out so as to maximally display his beanz
November 25, 2025 at 2:29 AM
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dramatic caturday
looking upwards at gyoza, a good-natured goof of a ginger cat who due to an accident of angle and reddish reflected light looks like a model worker depicted in inspiring socialist realist fashion
November 22, 2025 at 8:52 PM
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best not to think too hard about what 覺後禪 might mean in this context
the opening verse of 肉蒲團 The Carnal Prayer Mat (which has the alternative title of 覺後禪, which it is extremely tempting to translate as Post-Nut Enlightenment): 黑髮難留，朱顏易變，人生不比青松。名消利息，一派落花風。悔殺少年不樂，風流院，放逐衰翁。王孫輩，聽歌金縷，及早戀芳藥。世間真樂地，算來算去，還數房中。不比榮華境，歡始愁終。得趣朝朝，燕酣眠處，怕響晨鐘。睜眼看，乾坤覆載，一幅大春宮。 Patrick Hanan's translation: Raven hair so quickly gray, Ruddy cheeks soon past. Man's unlike the ageless pine— His fame and fortune, e'er in flux, Gone in the flower-destroying blast. How sad if youth is deprived of joy! (From the courts of love the old are cast.) So once you hear the siren song, Young masters, Rush to enjoy the flowers' throng. True paradise on earth, All things considered well, Is found in bedroom bliss. Unlike the realm of fame and glory, Here joy begins and troubles cease. Each day is spent in slippered ease, each night In drunken slumber till the morning bell. So open your eyes, take this to heart: All the world's A vast erotic work of art.
November 22, 2025 at 6:00 PM
bokane.org
GOD TRIPPED FETTERMAN LEMON GLORY CAKES

MELT ICE THEN EAT CHILAQUILES

TRUMP PARDONS JUDAS TRIPLE SHROOM FRITTATA
Menu from Sam’s Morning Glory (a finer diner) at 10th and Fitzwater: THIS AIN'T IHOP BREAKFAST PLATTER 2 Pancakes (2 French toast) 2 eggs, bacon or sausage 18. Add cheese 1. Add potatoes 3. Add Biscuit 2 MAXWELL IS WORSE THAN EPSTEIN BLUEBERRY WAFFLE Our made-from-scratch waffle batter lovingly infused with blueberries, topped with fresh blueberries. 17. GOD TRIPPED FETTERMAN LEMON GLORY CAKES Our very own pancake batter (no Bisquick here!) delicately Flavored with lemon and topped with a blueberry compote - Served with vanilla whipped cream 17. PRESIDENT SHAPIRO 2028 SAUSAGE GRAVY AND EGGS Sausage gravy recipe that dates back to a grandma in Texas, served over one of our buttermilk biscuits (the gravy not the grandma)- comes with two eggs & potatoes or grits. 18. MELT ICE THEN EAT CHILAQUILES Fresh corn tortillas made into crispy homemade chips, smoothed with our own red salsa, topped with two eggs any way you would like, and crowned with homemade avocado sour cream and queso fresco. Served with potatoes or grits 18. INFLATION IS A HOAX CREME BRULLEE FRENCH TOAST Challah bread baked with berries and cream cheese, cut it into individual servings, grilled like traditional French toast and served with whipped cream 18. TRUMP PARDONS JUDAS TRIPLE SHROOM FRITTATA A frittata stuffed full of cremini, white button, and shiitake mushrooms, then topped off with Brie cheese - served with your choice of potatoes or grits and a biscuit - 18. WE THE PEOPLE MEANS ALL OF US!!
November 15, 2025 at 5:41 PM
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Relate further for us, said Conán. It is true that I will not, said Finn.
November 14, 2025 at 9:47 PM
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(from At Swim-Two-Birds, by Flann O'Brien) I will relate, said Finn. Till a man has accomplished twelve books of poetry, the same is not taken for want of poetry but is forced away. No man is taken till a black hole is hollowed in the world to the depth of his two oxters and he put into it to gaze from it with his lonely head and nothing to him but his shield and a stick of hazel. Then must nine warriors fly their spears at him, one with the other and together. If he be spear-holed past his shield, or spear-killed, he is not taken for want of shield-skill. No man is taken till he is run by warriors through the woods of Erin with his hair bunched-loose about him for bough-tangle and briar-twitch. Should branches disturb his hair or pull it forth like sheep-wool on a hawthorn, he is not taken but is caught and gashed. Weapon-quivering hand or twig-crackling foot at full run, neither is taken. Neck-high sticks he must pass by vaulting, knee-high sticks by stooping. With the eyelids to him stitched to the fringe of his eye-bags, he must be run by Finn's people through the bogs and the marsh-swamps of Erin with two odor- ous prickle-backed hogs ham-tied and asleep in the seat of his hempen drawers. If he sink beneath a peat-swamp or lose a hog, he is not accepted by Finn's people. For five days he must sit on the brow of a cold hill with twelve-pointed stag-antlers hidden in his seat, without food or music or chessmen. If he cry out or eat grass-stalks or desist from the constant recital of sweet poetry and melodious Irish, he is not taken but is wounded. When pursued by a host, he must stick a spear in the world and hide behind it and vanish in its narrow shelter or he is not taken for want of sorcery. Likewise he must hide beneath a twig, or behind a dried leaf, or under a red stone, or vanish at full speed into the seat of his hempen drawers without changing his course or abating his pace or angering the men of Erin. Two young fosterlings he must carry under the armpits to his jacket through the whole of Erin, and six arm-bearing warriors in his seat together. If he be delivered of a warrior or a blue spear, he is not taken. One hundred head of cattle he must accommodate with wisdom about his person when walking all Erin, the half about his armpits and the half about his trews, his mouth never halting from the discoursing of sweet poetry. One thousand rams he must sequester about his trunks with no offence to the men of Erin, or he is unknown to Finn. He must swiftly milk a fat cow and carry milk-pail and cow for twenty years in the seat of his drawers. When pursued in a chariot by the men of Erin he must dismount, place horse and chariot in the slack of his seat and hide behind his spear, the same being stuck upright in Erin. Unless he accomplishes these feats, he is not wanted of Finn. But if he do them all and be skilful, he is of Finn's people.
November 14, 2025 at 9:45 PM
bokane.org
suspicious nyam
After several days of me feeding her, playing with her, cleaning her litterbox, attempting to purchase her affection with treats, &c., a feral little grey cat licks her paw non-nonchalantly — chalantly? — while attempting to turn me to stone out of the corner of her eye.
November 12, 2025 at 2:04 AM
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pov: you are on probation
a grey cat crouching on a kitchen floor pins you (a Stranger) with a wary look. the kibbles you fed her proved edible — apPARently — but you read way too much into that appreciative hiss and tried going in for friendly skritches, which was Fresh, and now you are trapped out on the thin, brittle ice of her regard.
November 8, 2025 at 6:11 PM
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good job everybody, night night
Gyoza, a ginger cat who has never heard of Andrew Cuomo, rests his head on my foot, preparing to drowse oh lawd he drowsin
November 5, 2025 at 3:52 AM
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still one of my favorite opening paragraphs
From John Crowley's 'The Solitudes': The Prologue in Heaven There were angels in the glass, two four six many of them, each one shuffling into his place in line like an alderman at the Lord Mayor's show. None was dressed in white; some wore fillets or wreaths of flowers and green leaves in their loose hair; all their eyes were strangely gay. They kept pressing in by one and two, always room for more, they linked arms or clasped their hands behind them, they looked out smiling at the two mortals who looked in at them. All their names began with A. —See! said one of the two men. Listen! -I see nothing, said the other, the elder of them, who had often spent fruitless hours alone before this very showstone, fruitless though he prepared himself with long prayer and intense concentration: I see nothing. I hear nothing. -Annael. And Annachor. And Anilos. And Agobel, said the younger man. God keep us and protect us from every harm.
November 4, 2025 at 4:27 PM
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i love drama
Screenshot of Pleco, probably a decade old at this point, with entries for the lexeme 豺 chái. The ABC Chinese-English Dictionary says "n. (zoo) - jackal." The Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese, which came out afterwards, has "dhole, Asian wild dog (Cuon alpinus); n.b. not a 'jackal'"
October 21, 2025 at 4:23 AM
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Not, of all possible incarnations, the worst.
Gyoza, a ginger boy with white cravat and socks, lazes on a footstool, regarding the camera with good-natured bewilderment
October 19, 2025 at 6:37 AM
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Go Birds Fuck ICE
October 18, 2025 at 5:30 PM
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from the article: The Frog is the best thing to happen to American politics all year, but the fact that politics has devolved into Posting is ultimately a bad thing. As you can see in the grid of outcomes, the majority of the time, people are simply posting at each other instead of engaging with reality or solving collective action problems. The question of who wins or who loses in Triangle Posting Politics is divorced from material conditions, justice, or the common good.
October 11, 2025 at 6:46 PM
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pierogi agrees
pierogi (innocent)
October 5, 2025 at 2:59 PM
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some born good / some not even trying
Gyoza, a sweet ginger cat with white socks, looks down from on top of the record player with an air of friendly curiosity. He would love to hear all about whatever it is. Pierogi, an absence of virtue shaped like a small white cat with grey-brown Batman cowl, glowers from the armchair.
October 5, 2025 at 2:47 PM
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John DeFrancis:
page 1 of John DeFrancis' "In the Footsteps of Genghis Khan": We dodged warring armies by stealing twelve hundred miles down the bandit-infested Yellow River on an inflated sheepskin raft. You can't do that anymore. You can't repeat our thousand-mile camel trek across the Gobi Desert in the footsteps of Genghis Khan. You can't sit at a camel-dung campfire in the very heart of that huge desert and listen to a Mongol narrate how the Great Khan was castrated by a captured Tangut beauty he tried to take to bed. Neither can you visit the oasis, then one of the most remote places in the world, where we met a Mongol princess descended from survivors of the most horrendous mass migration in human history. Nor can you barge into the preserve of a churlish Muslim warlord and become a prisoner in his fortress town. There's lots more we did then that you can't do anymore, for a variety of reasons. For one thing, many areas of China that challenged the adventuresome in the good old bad old days were declared off-limits more than a half-century ago. Since then, the barriers have been removed (though sometimes replaced) in most of the country, including even Tibet, but not in the heart of the Gobi Desert, not in sensitive border areas, which have become even more inaccessible today than they were then. In recent years quite a few tourists have gotten to the fringes of that forbidden expanse. I have joined them, in my mind's eye, like a starveling out of Dickens gazing hollow-eyed into a bakeshop window. But even though the view from the outside is now obscured, it is still possible, for a discerning eye, to make out something of the veiled interior.
September 29, 2025 at 3:56 PM
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搬興廢東生玉兔，
識榮枯西墜金烏。

Let fortune change, for good or ill;
The Jade Hare of the moon will still
Rise nightly from the east.
Whoever lost, whoever won,
It will not in the least
Detain the westering Gold Bird of the sun.

(Yuan dynasty lyric; anon., I think, that I was reminded of at the Met.)
Left-hand knob of Daoist ritual vessel: the Jade Hare Right-hand knob: the Gold Bird. 清 銅星斗紋天一山人丹壺 Daoist ritual vessel Qing dynasty (1644-1911), 17th-18th century Copper alloy Saint Louis Art Museum
September 28, 2025 at 9:11 PM
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“They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more. Hats and posters are available in the lobby!”
yr. correspondent, in a ‘Waiting for Godot’ baseball cap
September 28, 2025 at 1:34 PM
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nah, just above shoulder-level
old form of the phonophore in question
September 27, 2025 at 2:54 PM
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Well, here at the 葫蘆堂 in South Philadelphia, overlooking Passyunk Avenue, we’ve got free-flowing Red Bull and opinionated local cats
Gyoza sleeps off an intense morning workshop session Pierogi goes to the buffet
September 26, 2025 at 3:05 PM
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gardening
September 23, 2025 at 1:55 PM
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A photograph of a jigsaw puzzle based on the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten. “50,000 Kanji Characters,” says the box. Underneath, the headline: ‘AUTISM ANNOUNCEMENT’
September 22, 2025 at 10:13 PM
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bedtime
Pierogi, a white cat with patches of dark fur like a cow, who is looking kind of heavy from this angle, I’ll just say it, sleeps longly on a folding mattress. Next to him is Gyoza, a ginger cat in more of a croissant posture, also sleeping. They are almost nestled, not quite spooning, like closing quotation marks.
September 21, 2025 at 6:26 AM