Making Light – Making Light

Every time I start thinking the NYTimes is getting hip to the internet, they blow it. Their piece on the omnipresence of images of Obama on the web started promisingly enough. Then I hit this paragraph: Market interest has also helped small-time artists like Dan Lacey, of tiny Elko, Minn., a self-described disillusioned conservative who [...]

This time next year, we'll bring back the Greek, Old Church Slavonic, three kinds of Swedish, Haitian, Icelandic, and Quenya....

This time next year, we'll bring back the Greek, Old Church Slavonic, three kinds of Swedish, Haitian, Icelandic, and Quenya. Right now, they don't render. They will, in the Making Light to come. Just a little longer. It's dark, but the dark never lasts. We'll see you in 2024, in a world where commenting works, [...]

As I said earlier today on both Twitter and Facebook, I've done just about everything I can to get this...

As I said earlier today on both Twitter and Facebook, I've done just about everything I can to get this site going again. Unfortunately, this doesn't include getting the comment system to actually work. And the kludges I've added to Making Light's ancient Movable Type templates in order to prod the site back to life [...]

The door creaks softly as I push it wide. It's not complaining, really, just surprised That anyone would come. I,...

The door creaks softly as I push it wide. It's not complaining, really, just surprised That anyone would come. I, mesmerized, Breathe deeply, lift my chin, and step inside. The house is still ineffably itself. The places where we talked, or laughed, or wept, Abide (albeit cobwebbed and unswept). And written there atop the mantle-shelf: [...]

Hello! Today, Patrick surprised no one more than himself by resurrecting the Making Light front page, archives, and CSS. He...

We're working on bringing this place back. We miss the fluorosphere, and many of its regulars have emphatically said the...

Ignore it....

Hello! Today, Patrick surprised no one more than himself by resurrecting the Making Light front page, archives, and CSS. He was deep in it for 6+ hours. Comments worked for a while, then stopped, which is not terribly surprising; but old ML is readable. If you're having trouble loading something you know is here/there, amend [...]

We're working on bringing this place back. We miss the fluorosphere, and many of its regulars have emphatically said the same to us. For most of the last couple of years Making Light has existed in a dimly lit half-life. The CSS didn't load, and the front page didn't load, but if you happened to [...]

Someone elseweb crossed a couple of wires and mentioned Robert Frost when they meant Robert Burns. And I got that...

Someone elseweb crossed a couple of wires and mentioned Robert Frost when they meant Robert Burns. And I got that awful itch in my brain that I get sometimes. So first this happened: For though yer land an' mine Are neighbors near, an' a' that: We split the apple frae the pine A Wall's a [...]

Well, that took a couple of hours, but I think I got all of the spam from the past few...

Well, that took a couple of hours, but I think I got all of the spam from the past few weeks. If anyone posted a long stream-of-consciousness-style Joyce parody about Tumblr, dating sites, and hormone supplements, it probably got deleted too.

For Teresa and me, March 1 has long been the anniversary of the day we moved to New York City,...

For Teresa and me, March 1 has long been the anniversary of the day we moved to New York City, back in 1984. This year, it was also the first anniversary of the announcement of the first known case of COVID-19 in New York City. With any luck, we'll live to mark future March 1sts [...]

Blacow* speaks of four players: the Wargamer, the Power-Gamer, the Role-Player, and the Story-Teller. The Wargamer, what does he say?...

Reading about all the people venturing that maybe it would be better to stop the social distancing and reopen the...

So now the rest of the world is discovering virtual communities. I'm feeling very hipster; we were doing it before...

I largely gave up political blogging after November 8, 2016, when it became obvious that I have no idea what...

Just posted to Slate, by Isaac Butler: The Disappearance of John M. Ford. Key takeaway to Making Light readers who...

I should be explaining what's been going on in the British Parliament, with links and explanations. Unfortunately I can't, because...

Nobody reads this blog any more. But do read Kieran Healy.A fundamental lesson of Sociology is that, in the course...

The year 222 BCE saw the Roman Emperor Elagabalus assassinated by the Praetorian Guard, to be replaced by Alexander Severus,...

It's been a long time since I've posted a new entry to this community, and I know the comments on...

Pretty sure we’ve all heard Tom Lehrer’s “Lobachevsky,” right? A song about plagiarism where all the bits of melody are...

Here’s something I put up on Facebook (originally as a reply to someone else’s thing) in March that I should...

Our buzzer goes off. About 8 PM. We're not expecting anyone. I go downstairs. "Police," announce the two guys outside...

As it says in Ecclesiastes, of the making of books there is no end. And Seneca is (dubiously) said to...

“Monster Mash,” “Crocodile Rock,” and “Jailhouse Rock” are all real songs about other, fictional songs that share the same titles...

I believe it is traditional to apologize when one hasn't been blogging for a while, and I am indeed sorry....

I’ve been asked to start up a new open thread. I don’t have anything funny or interesting queued up to...

I've realized that the reason I no longer write blog posts about politics is that events taught me that I...

It's been a time. One evening in mid-November, Teresa tried to say something to me, and it came out as...

As I best understand it, the machine we're hosted on abruptly melted down; Hosting Matters scrambled to migrate the sites...

Overheard: "You think he's cool because he's a dwarf? Or because you read about him online?" Discuss....

I have a chiming clock in the house. It was originally my maternal grandmother's, and my mother very kindly gave...

NYC primary elections are coming up next Tuesday, and there’s actually some interesting action going on in the normally dull...

From a post by Logan Rimel, parish administrator at University Lutheran Chapel of Berkeley, Caifornia. I outsourced the sin of...

Liberalism can't defeat white supremacy. Only direct action can....

Iron Circus Comics (Spike Trotman’s company) has just announced its next anthology project: FTL, Y’all. Imagine what would happen if...

No, English isn't uniquely vibrant or mighty or adaptable. But it really is weirder than pretty much every other language....

I love the faces in Byzantine mosaics. I used to make my own Mac icons back in the 1990s, when...

Allow me to observe that bluegrass musicians will cover anything....

This is a thread I wrote on Twitter, because sometimes it's easier to write about big subjects on very small...

This is just to say that my recent essay collection, Making Conversation, is eligible for Best Related Work. Forgive me....

Long ago in Internet time, the well-known tech writer and programmer Dori Smith, a sometime reader hereabouts, did Making Light...

What is your name? What is your quest? What is your favorite color? Wait, give me some time to think....