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Joshua Nomen-Mutatio
https://www.goodreads.com/joshuanomenmutatio
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“I knew I was in the vicinity of a serious lesson, if not about how to live life, then at least how to put some poetry into your craven retreat from it.”
― Home Land
― Home Land
“I happen to believe that the deepest value of fiction is that, in its very fictiveness, it is the one arena where we can, at least temporarily, take apart and refuse to compete within the terms that the rest of existence insists on. Market value may come to drive out all other human values, except, perhaps, in the country of invented currency, the completely barter-driven economy of the imagination. Fiction, when it remembers its innate priority over other human transactions, can deal not in price but in worth. And that seems to me an act filled with political potential, as well as with pleasure.”
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“Sometimes I worry, for myself, that I’ve stopped being amazed at certain things, or I’ve taken for granted a set of ideas about how the world works, what people are doing with each other or alone, all the fundamental relationships in the world. I worry that I start taking it for granted and stop feeling the intensity of it because of language. Language starts to shut down the strength and power and strangeness of what it means to be a person in the world.”
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“I have in my head things I may not have exactly seen, just as you who read this have me.”
― Lookout Cartridge
― Lookout Cartridge
“The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.”
― Essays
― Essays
The Extra Cool Group! (of people Michael is experimenting on)
— 163 members
— last activity Jan 27, 2026 07:27PM
*Note: This group, although it lives on in a sense, like a photograph, capturing a moment so people can look back later and go, "Oh, wow, you looked s ...more
Write, right, rites, reads
— 44 members
— last activity Jul 12, 2011 07:07PM
Discussions of authorship, attribution, social (networking) mores, authenticity, and sundry bookface complexities
this is kuert concrete
— 3 members
— last activity Aug 25, 2010 07:10AM
if you work, or have worked at kuert concrete (thats south bend indiana, kids), come join in discussions. we can hate on northeast underlayments or di ...more
Completists' Club
— 544 members
— last activity Mar 25, 2026 12:59PM
A group for those attempting to complete, or who have completed, the canons of their favourite writers. Share your canon-wide knowledge and opinion wi ...more
Things that make you chuckle
— 25 members
— last activity Dec 08, 2020 09:05AM
Funny quotes, lines from books you like, musings, bumper stickers, whatever makes you laugh. I would hope that we can keep this light-hearted. If anyt ...more
Joshua Nomen-Mutatio’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Joshua Nomen-Mutatio’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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