The Return

A rather ordinary butterfly, mostly black with a couple of pale blue spots, lands opposite me on the table in a park where I sit reading. He, she, it—how can you tell—just rests there looking at me. The strange thing is, I know this butterfly, for over the course of three days last summer, at the same table, it came to keep me company. By the third day, I had a weird feeling that this insect knew me and, perhaps, intended to communicate something. I addressed a couple of questions his, her, its way but . . . nothing, at least as far as I could tell. Then, it disappeared. I thought it must have died, or been eaten by a bird. How long do butterflies live anyway? But that’s the question, because the same butterfly is back. I’m sure of it. I am not dreaming, and I sure as hell am not Chaung Tzu. For just a moment last year I wondered whether I was being visited by the spirit of someone I knew. But now . . . ? Suddenly the butterfly wiggles its antennae and flies away. I can’t help feeling I’m going somewhere.

lost in thought
a dandelion seed
in the wind

--Robert Witmer
Tokyo, Japan

drifting sands, Issue 29
drifting sands content is copyrighted by its creator(s).

The Power of Unspoken Words: How to Write Subtext in Fiction

[From KMW: I’m taking a quick sabbatical this week. I’ll be back next Monday with a post/podcast about “The Disillusionment Arc in Storytelling: A Powerful Tool for Character Growth.” Until then, I hope you enjoy this short post on the important topic of how to write subtext in fiction!] One of the…
https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/how-to-write-subtext-in-fiction/

#Prose #showdonttell #subtext
@indieauthors

From: blenderdumbass . org

People often point out various grammatical errors in texts people write. As if having better attention to words makes the argument presented more or less valid. So I suppose I'm gonna rant about this.

Read or listen: https://blenderdumbass.org/articles/stupid_correct_english

Paint and Prose

Paint and Prose. #12/52#project2025 #art #prose #husbandandwife

http://itsjamesd.com/2025/03/21/paint-and-prose-3/

Veracity

https://write.as/zolo/veracity

Paint and Prose

Paint and Prose. #11/52project2025 #art #prose #husbandandwife

http://itsjamesd.com/2025/03/13/paint-and-prose-2/

Vaguely searching for Lorca

We walked along the dusty track, from shade to shade of the ancient olive trees that grew along the route. The summer’s afternoon heat drapes the landscape in shimmering gauze; the buzz of the insects in the dry grass fields surrounding us punctuated by the sound of an old truck making its way up the other side of the valley. Two old men, vaguely searching for an old stone cabin that the villagers had said once belonged to Lorca, his retreat for writing when he lived nearby. Two old men, not really caring whether we found it or not, stop to share a drink of water and a moment of easy intimacy under the Spanish sun.

Poets’ dreams drift
under the Spanish sun
cicadas singing

--Patrick Stephens, France

cattails, 110, April 2023
All rights reserved by the respective authors & artists.

I walk around town
Remembering the past sites
So many changes
#haiku

Yesterday, I headed into the Byward Market and kept seeing the previous businesses and buildings as memories over the new ones.
It was bittersweet.
It inspired me.
#prose
#creativity
Photo is one I took from the Weston hotel a few years ago showing the chateau Laurier , parliament hill and the conference centre all aglow.
#photography
#creativity #artByTavalonia

Anyone using self-hosted #Prose for #XMPP?

Everything draped in midnight gray, such luminous imagery shaped by metallic horizons that permeate these northern skies #poetry #poem #prose #writing

Rhyme Time: King & Guillotine.

i am sometimes tongue-tied when looking for words to describe the qualities of a piece that caused us to accept it… we look for all of these qualities, and more: innovation, experimentation, the personal, self-exploration, a challenge, daring, bold, revolutionary, inspiring, wit, literary references, co-optation, i could go on and on…

Consecrated by Use by Adrienne Pine is…

gorgeously simple and superlative #prose

https://www.existotherwise.com/consecrated-by-use/

Just finished a major revision of Throwing Out Love Notes after I found more journals from the late 90s-early 00s, my Dennis Miller phase with quips about the likes of Bush, Clinton, Mcveigh, etc. Enough pages for a couple weeks worth of bathroom reads.
#journal #journalism #memoir #blog #prose #poetry #socialcommentary #observationalhumor #author

https://books2read.com/u/3yJYGZ

a lil' #FlashProse from this week

#AmWriting #prose

https://www.heyraeh.ca/dirt-and-machine-oil/

@djb (Daniel J. Bernstein) tooted about a new blog post[1] he published. It's here:
https://blog.cr.yp.to/20250118-flight.html

It's interesting. He's a #mathematician and software guy that in more recent years has been known mostly for his work in #cryptography, #theoretical and #practical. You're probably using his #Curve25519 every day in your #communications.

I'm not a mathematician (by a long shot), but it's written in a pretty accessible manner - it's not #formulae and #turgid academic #prose.

The central point he's getting at, by my possibly-mistaken understanding of it, is that current "common sense" about when attacks against pre-quantum cryptography like #RSA (and therefore when post-quantum cryptography becomes critical) are badly mistaken - based on bad assumptions about how attacks work, how they're implemented, and on badly #extrapolating from those bad assumptions using logic that doesn't actually represent the way attacks are developed and become practical.

TL;DR is something along the lines of "#quantum cryptographic attacks against RSA will be practical sooner than most people think, and you should be deploying quantum-resistant cryptography now, not later".

It's worth reading if you're at all interested in #crypto and #security stuff.

He also mentions a project he's involved in that has been discussed separately, transparent post-quantum tunnelling for unmodified #server and #client #software. Link in post.

[1] Written more like a conference presentation, FWIW.

"The braid over my left shoulder filigreed with frost. Inside my mitten, water collected at my fingertips. Ravens flew dark against the sky." —Jessie Kindig for Orion Magazine

https://longreads.com/2025/01/15/object-relations/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social