Jake Casella Brookins
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casella.bsky.social
Jake Casella Brookins
@casella.bsky.social
2.5K followers 690 following 2.7K posts
Appalachian in the big city. Editor at Ancillary Review, host of A Meal of Thorns, bookseller, coffee pro, SF reviewer & scholar. He/him.
https://linktr.ee/jakecasellabrookins
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casella.bsky.social
Lauri Sinclair as Michelle Johnson in "Drop Dead Gorgeous" in a gray overcoat with a large white scarf, in front of a microphone, arm dramatically raised, about to reveal what Soylent Green is made of.
December 8, 2025 at 6:30 PM
casella.bsky.social
Have not been able to get this passage from @vajra.me out of my head:
How do we become inedible to the machine? The visual artists, our beloved cousins, have more tools to poison their data against the colonizers of AI, but what’s there for those of us who work with only words? How do we become inedible to the machine? How do we poison it? Here is my answer: the machine will shake your tree and peel your oranges, but it can only eat the rind, so fill your vesicles with strange juices. The machine cannot understand even the fundamental cells of storytelling (metaphor &c.) much less the more complex organs and frames that we grow to support our stories—the reverse walpolitical manoeuvre, for instance, as a political-ethical-narratological exoskeleton—so it can only approximate the flavedo, and perhaps an albedo may be suggested as an accidental byproduct of a reader’s pareidolia, but beyond that there is only a hollow. Become more than the rind of yourself, and you’ll have employment yet for the rest of your days.
December 7, 2025 at 12:51 AM
casella.bsky.social
Out on the town for the release party for @dr-bethany-jacobs.bsky.social's THIS BRUTAL MOON (@orbitbooks.bsky.social)
A cake with the covers of the Kingdom trilogy, and examples of the books themselves on the table above it.
December 5, 2025 at 11:16 PM
casella.bsky.social
the one Cute Book Thing I will endorse is our yearly bookmark-ornament tradition
A christmas tree with bookmarks from indie bookstores hung on red ribbons, including Drury Lane, Armchair, Bakka Phoenix, Ravenswood, Unabridged, Small World, and Pilsen Community. Also there is a beardy gnome with a red cap.
December 4, 2025 at 2:20 AM
casella.bsky.social
Few things better than ordering a book, forgetting you ordered it, and then when it shows up it's also bigger & prettier than expected. And signed!
The cover of "This Year, a Book of Days, 365 Songs Annotated" by John Darnielle. It's black with an intricate font in pale gold. The interior plate showing the author's signature in blue, and a full-page illustration of hazmat-ed figures in a cluttered house. I suspect they're here to get your Belgian things.
December 3, 2025 at 12:04 AM
casella.bsky.social
TV still of Lisa Frank, with a speech bubble so it looks like she's saying the quoted message. Frank is wearing a top with asymmetrical bright color patterns, has big gold earrings and pouffy hair, is smiling with wide eyes that have seen the future.
December 2, 2025 at 8:11 PM
casella.bsky.social
every star wars property for some reason
Guy holding up his hands: "I thought this was about politics." Guy with a knife: "It's about biological inheritance."
November 24, 2025 at 9:02 PM
casella.bsky.social
good name for an international detective tbh
A shopping bag that says Jamon Serrano.
November 23, 2025 at 3:15 PM
casella.bsky.social
Tom Hanks in BIG, wearing a very fun shirt/sweater combo, raising his hand with a question.
November 23, 2025 at 4:13 AM
casella.bsky.social
any excuse to remind you all that Renato Bialetti's earthly remains were buried in a moka pot. king
A priest in a white cassock & purple stole, with a large metal moka pot with the iconic Bialetti moustache man on it on a small table in front of him. There are a few mourners nearby; they're in some kind of lovely open-air church or cemetery building with arches, potted plants, a large crucifix, and a misty mountainside in the background.
November 18, 2025 at 12:46 AM
casella.bsky.social
Rainn Wilson & Terry Chen as Rolling Stone editors in "Almost Famous" saying "Dark, lively!" and "It gets better."
November 17, 2025 at 3:38 PM
casella.bsky.social
Gimli from the meme: Never thought I'd be fighting for the same aesthetic theory as the pope.
November 15, 2025 at 4:53 PM
casella.bsky.social
Saying the "don't let me become a biopic or a terrible warning" prayer
A person starts to tip over a tiny domino labelled "taking some dayquill so i don't sniffle on the podcast." The big domino is ominously unlabelled.
November 14, 2025 at 7:50 PM
casella.bsky.social
Definitely inspired us last year, plan to repeat
A person reading in one of two adirondack chairs on a dock on a lake.
November 14, 2025 at 7:29 PM
casella.bsky.social
An engraved image of scribe Jean Mielot surrounded by hand-written documents & cabinets, with a speech bubble.
November 13, 2025 at 4:34 PM
casella.bsky.social
moonrise
A cloudy night sky with hills on the horizon. There are a handful of artificial lights and a few stars visible. A nearly full moon is coming over the hills, mostly hidden by dark clouds
November 11, 2025 at 4:40 PM
casella.bsky.social
have some dusk
Just post-sunset, looking west at a csky with backlit clouds and a cell tower against it. Two clock towers on a church, their faces lit, are on the skyline, and the dim foreground, through a chainlink fence, is scrubby trees and piles of rubble.
November 5, 2025 at 12:06 AM
casella.bsky.social
Don't remember how much I paid for this one (<$5); astonishing how often it turns out the scratch awl is useful—cleaning up threads, poking at some scale or rust or whatnot in a fitting, pilot holes etc.
A scratch awl—a flattened-bulb-shaped, reddish wooden handle, and then basically it's a big sturdy needle.
November 2, 2025 at 11:30 PM
casella.bsky.social
don't know the right metaphor for this article being topped by an ad for paramilitary spree-killer hardware
A screenshot of the article showing an ad for a red-dot rifle scope, with a white guy enthusiastically firing a souped-up assault rifle.
November 2, 2025 at 6:50 PM
casella.bsky.social
Kombucha meme: a woman looking like "ugh, no" at "Impostor Syndrome" and like "oh, enticing, say more" at "Infiltration Success."
November 2, 2025 at 5:03 PM
casella.bsky.social
Mona-Lisa Saperstein and her father from Parks and Rec, edited to be Frankenstein and Guillermo del Toro. Frankenstein says "I have done nothing wrong, ever, in my life." GDT says "I know and I love you." Frankenstein holds hand out and says "Wolverine healing factor please!"
November 1, 2025 at 1:38 PM
casella.bsky.social
Mr. McMahon reaction meme. Somewhat interested: Academic researchers at an alien planet. Really interested: non-human POV. Mouth-open astonishment: the aliens have complicated biology. Red, glowing, screaming: their biology affects their society.
October 29, 2025 at 9:04 PM
casella.bsky.social
went to catch the sunset off the breakwater yesterday and spotted a mink doing the same thing
The sun setting behind trees on the Canadian side of Lake Erie. Gulls are hanging out on rocks by the water. (Some geese, cormorants, and mallards possibly in the mix.) A mink, a stout weasel-like critter, dark brown with a white throat, stands on their hind legs among the rocks, looking back at the camera.
October 29, 2025 at 5:56 PM
casella.bsky.social
on the one hand I welcome even the Zola-pilled counter-currents, but on the other
Condescending Wonka meme: Gene Wilder in a brown tophat and purple suit, leaning his head on his hand and saying "So you can comprehend and represent reality, you say".
October 27, 2025 at 8:24 PM
casella.bsky.social
Why am I (also) like this
Domino meme: little one sez "reading is fun", big one sez "so many emails and checklists I can no longer comprehend fun."
October 26, 2025 at 8:46 PM