@the_roamer@mastodonapp.uk
@the_roamer@mastodonapp.uk avatar

the_roamer

@[email protected]

University teacher, father, dog walker. A European in England. Posting on #UKpolitics, #covid, #pedagogy, #taoism, #literature, #photography. Kindness will prevail.

Many of my posts try to make sense of the way we interact here; often tagged as #MastodonCulture.

Occasional micro-observations on life with my #whippet are tagged as #whippet_moments.

Most of my comments come up in conversations. Please look at my "Posts and Replies" rather than "Posts".

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

CitizenWald, to bookstodon
@CitizenWald@historians.social avatar

Because I've been busy, I am late in celebrating the birthday of the great Laurence Sterne, born 24 Nov. 1713 in Clonmel,

Here, my copy of the posthumously published letters to the object of his literary-romantic devotion, Eliza Draper (2nd ed. 1775).

Modern readers find in what the editor said he saw in Eliza: “a mind so congenial with his own, so enlightened, so refined, and so tender"

@bookhistodons @bookstodon

the_roamer,
@the_roamer@mastodonapp.uk avatar

@CitizenWald @bookhistodons @bookstodon

Wow, is that the 1st edition?

Sterne is freedom. Uncontainable.

https://mastodonapp.uk/

duanetoops, to bookstodon
@duanetoops@mstdn.party avatar

This is the third time Samuel Johnson has come across my path recently. It's clear the universe is shaming me for having not read him.

https://booksthatmadeus.substack.com/p/you-can-never-be-wise-until-you-learn

@bookstodon

the_roamer,
@the_roamer@mastodonapp.uk avatar

@duanetoops @bookstodon

Great, loving essay on Samuel Johnson by Henry Oliver, thank you for the link.

Oliver is right, there isn't one special book that defines Johnson, each of his works somehow feels a little unremarkable in isolation. It's Johnson's tone, the reflective posture, that make him.

And Oliver callling Johnson the JS Bach of English prose is ingenious. Jup, Johnson is the Bach of English prose.

pc_bain, to bookstodon
@pc_bain@toot.wales avatar

Lovely first visit to Scrivener’s Bookshop in Buxton. Five floors, 40,000 second-hand books, now minus one or two. (Week-End Wodehouse for me.)

@bookstodon

the_roamer,
@the_roamer@mastodonapp.uk avatar

@pc_bain @bookstodon

Buxton and Wodehouse, yeah. There used to be a local bus No 18 that for some reason went all the way from Keele all through the Peak district up to Sheffield, wirhout change. Sometime we stopped at Bakewell, sometimes at Buxton. And Wodehouse is life. I posted a passage from Jeeves takes Charge a while ago; will post another. Arcadia.

happyborg, to random
@happyborg@fosstodon.org avatar

and culture is already threatened, by calls to operate like Meta in order to compete. 🤦‍♂️

Federation with is another means to degrade this vital culture, without which is worthless.

I'm tiring of pointing out the obvious because if people cannot see this now, I think they will wait until it is to late.

This is happening faster than I expected.

the_roamer,
@the_roamer@mastodonapp.uk avatar

@happyborg

Absolutely. Unfounded claims that Mastodon needs to "compete" with commercial networks, plus naive optimism regarding the impact of federation with Meta.

Underlying it all, a surprising lack of awareness of the fragile nature of the Fedi"s dialogical discussion culture.

Hence the superficiality of all variants of the "you can opt out" argument, which all fail to recognise that network culture is a public good. You can't preserve it in one part unless you preserve it in all parts.

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