C and I rejoined our local library. It took five minutes, was all done online and feels like a sensible thing to do. I grew up in libraries, pretty much. They were where my love of SF and fantasy was kindled and fuelled, the need to read which has helped define my inner life given a sanctuary and launchpad. Reading will be getting a swanky new library this year as part of a big overhaul of our civic centre, so it felt like a good time to show a bit of support. Apps like Libby and CloudLibrary mean you can fill your boots with magazines and all the e-reading your little heart desires without even leaving the house. And all, let me stress, for free. Libraries are an essential public resource which deserve to be venerated, celebrated and above all, used. Snag yourself a card today. You’ll be glad you did.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway. A little bit fantasy, a little bit SF, a little bit hard-boiled, a whole lot of fun. In an enclave of an un-named city, detective Cal Sounder is pointed at a murder. The victim, a university professor who is also a member of a very exclusive club—recipients of a drug called Titanium-7, which turns the donor into an effectively immortal giant. This starts off as a twisty genre satire before plunging gleefully into the weird. Not as gibberingly deranged as the works of Jeffs Noon or Vandermeer, but a fun ride nevertheless.
Rob is watching…
The Muppet Show. And it’s as joyful, anarchic and hilarious as ever. The theatre is still beautifully tatty, the backstage chaos as riotous as you remember. Disney, pay attention. Get a full series of this up as soon as you can. It has had nothing but love on the socials and for sheer entertainment value and laffs-per-minute beats just about everything else out there. Let’s get Muppetational!
Rob is listening…
To Alistair Frulish’s The Sentance, a drug-wild fable told in one sentance, using only words of a single syllable. A mad stylistic exercise but the approach makes complete sense in context. Read by Daniel Copeland, it’s incredibly immersive.
Rob is eating…
Spicy soup and Dr. Pepper pork, the result of a quiet weekend noodling in the kitchen. The soup base is roasted roots—squash, carrots, parsnips, sweet potato—cooked down in chicken stock and coconut milk with some leeks and a knuckle of green curry paste, hot enough to bring on the sweats and a runny nose.
The pork, shoulder, rubbed in Old Bay and a proprietary pig-friendly blend, went in the pressure cooker for an hour in a bath of root beer, a pasilla chilli, cumin, coriander and garlic powder. When tender, the pork was rested, shredded, and returned to the sauce which I cooked down to a sticky, sloppy coating.
Both meals were sweet, spicy and totally comforting. They lasted for a couple of dinners apiece, so all in all a howling success.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
Someone came up with a drawing of my perfect room. I just need someone else to make it a reality. The one danger—I’d retreat into it and never come back out again.
I’m starting off with a big fat Ninth Art Alert, but it’s a goodie. An interview with Robert Crumb’s biographer Dan Nadel, digging into the life and times of cartooning’s favourite pervert. How has he survived in the great cleansing wave of cancel culture? Well, probably by being more aware of his flaws and harder on himself than anyone else could possibly be.
Lori Baker is the World Tetris Champion, and became so without really realising or, as it seems in this great article by her husband Billy in the Boston Globe, trying that hard.
I remain resolutely anti-AI in my work and practices. That does not mean I’m unwilling to listen to well-presented arguments in machine-learning’s favour. Eric Drass, better known as art prankster Shardcore, has been using the tools for over a decade and understands both the up and the downsides. This is worth a read, whatever your opinion on the technology.
More Ninth Art, not sorry, you knew the risks when you walked in. Joe Quesada gives a masterclass on how the artist can guide or misdirect the reader’s eye, to give a clear sense of the push-pull of action in any given page—or even frame. This is pretty head-spinning stuff.
Meanwhile, Alan Moore has walked away from comics to finally embrace his final form as author. His latest novel, The Great When, is a picaresque fantasy based around a hidden London behind the one we know. Justin Prim walks in Moore’s footsteps to try and find a way in.
A Walking Tour Of The Great When
A nice long thread refuting the claim from whiny basement-dwellers that Star Trek has ‘become too woke.’ This is of course is part of the ongoing attempt to reframe that word negatively, while also conveniently forgetting how progressive Trek has been since the beginning. Sorry, not falling for it. Have I mentioned how much I’m enjoying Starfleet Academy?
Protest can take many forms. Getting out on the streets, supporting your neighbours, speaking up against obvious and blatant tyranny. Sometimes, as Pal Kim points out, it can simply be a rather fetching red hat. If I have any knitters (apart from Kim, of course) in The Readership, rejoice, she even passes on the pattern!
Locus has just released its 2025 recommended reading list and boy howdy, it’s a big one. It looks like most of the short fiction is available online, so go ahead and dig in. It’s going to be a wet and windy weekend, so getting some quality SF and fantasy under your belt seems like a good use of time.
One final burst of Ninth Art, which proves once again that Comics Does It Best. That’s edutainment. And I’ll admit, I openly gasped when I realised what was going on.
In summary…
This mad blast from French-Canadian lunatics Angine de Poitrine popped up on my feed yesterday and seems to be brightening a lot of people’s lives. It is a testament to the power of practice. Put in enough hours and you can achieve any goal, even if said target is to play slippery, muscular microtonal funk while dressed as a Dada-Cubist nightmare. Play loud, naturally.
See you in seven, fellow travellers.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 
Thanks for my Saturday morning delivery 😊
Quick typo check
“Get a full serious of this up as soon as you can. ”
Kxx
You’re welcome! Thanks for the spell-check, that’s fixed.