Conversations on Science, Culture and Time
God’s Ghostwriters
[…] I already have more unread books than anyone with a full-time job and mild internet addiction should reasonably own, but one can never have too many sources of postponed enlightenment. I was, in truth, fishing for something: a sentence, a spark. What I found instead was a little white-covered paperback titled God’s Ghostwriters. […]
The book’s cover had prepared me with its parade of deadpan endorsements: “Very interesting” (The Tablet) and “A revelation” (Irish Independent), which together read less like literary criticism and more like a Vatican press release.
How to spot AI-written text
I would like to address the recent slander circulating on social media, in editorial Slack channels, and in the margins of otherwise decent Substack newsletters. Specifically, the baseless, libelous accusation that my usage is a telltale sign of artificial intelligence.
Listen here, my good bitch.
Disclaimer: I’ve Been Accused of Borges
The Watchman stories, I am told, carry the faint whiff of Borges. Some readers have even gone so far as to suggest plagiarism; that my labyrinths of memory, forgotten manuscripts, and ambiguous merchants are merely reheated Argentine leftovers. To which I must reply: guilty… but only by accident. […] I knew of him, mostly through Umberto Eco (my literary idol) […] But - to my chagrin and utter embarrassment - I had never opened his pages. Not once.
[…] And since ignorance is no excuse, I now set myself the task of reading Borges at last. At least then, when the next accusation arrives, I can respond with footnotes. Only there’s a catch: try doing that in Romanian. It is, frankly, a nightmare.
Emergence Explained with David Krakauer
Every now and then, a podcast comes along that doesn’t just pass the time, it rearranges how you think about it. One such episode, from Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk, features David Krakauer, president of the Santa Fe Institute, talking about emergence, complexity, intelligence, and whether life is just problem-solving matter doing its best in a chaotic universe.
Trying On Time in Munich
There’s something about the Germans and time. Not just the usual jokes about punctual trains (which, let’s be honest, in recent years are often late enough to feel oddly comforting to the rest of us), but a deeper fascination. Wander around Nuremberg and you’ll find the old ateliers where horology was once half craft, half wizardry — the kind of places where an apprentice probably spent three years learning how to polish a screw. I’ve written about that before, so if you’re inclined towards dusty manuscripts and ticking mechanisms, there’s a link somewhere in the archives.
This trip, though, wasn’t about the past. It was about the present — or rather, about resisting the future. Specifically, the very shiny and very dangerous future that lurks along Maximilianstraße in Munich. A place where every shopfront seems to size you up and murmur, “Step inside, sir, we have just the thing to ruin your financial stability.”
On the Noble Art of Doing Absolutely Nothing
"We decided, in the interest of our health, to do absolutely nothing. Nothing, that is, in the scientific sense — a deliberate, studied absence of action. The most strenuous activity undertaken was the lifting of a pint glass, and even then we agreed that such exertions should be kept to the bare minimum."
Of course, there are moments when life interrupts even the most meticulously scheduled idleness — such as my recent, meteoric visit to Munich. […] It was also, in no small part, about meeting and reconnecting with wonderful people whom I had not seen in quite some time — the sort of encounters that remind you that geography may keep you apart, but a good beer and an unhurried conversation will stitch the years back together in an instant.
[…]
What I can say for now is that the trip contained all the classic elements of an Alpine interlude. We also took the unholy H1 trail to the Heimgartenhütte — a “difficult” route marked in black, which in Bavarian terms translates roughly to: If you slip, it’s a helicopter ride, but do enjoy the view.
The Hanseatic Cask: On Commerce, Confusion, and a Porter Best Left Buried
It is a curious fact that the Hanseatic Charter of 1356 bears a faint watermark, not of ink or wax, but of aged gruit. No one dares explain why the parchment smells faintly of smoked barley and myrrh.
According to the marginalia of one particularly nervous monastic scribe, the events leading to the formation of the League began not with diplomacy or merchant acumen, but with the unexpected arrival of a weathered barrel — mislabelled, unsealed, and entirely out of place.
The barrel in question, retrieved from the hold of a Danish supply vessel anchored in Lübeck harbour, bore no name beyond a fading tag: “Monastic – Not for Lay Consumption – Property of P.” Naturally, the dockhands opened it within the hour.
Naming Villages and Other Crimes
~ The Curious Case of Transylvania’s Sâmbătas and Suspicions ~
It was said - though by whom, no one precisely recalled - that Transylvania had more village disputes per square kilometre than vineyards per Saxon capita. […]
Take Sâmbăta (en. Saturday), for instance. No, not that Sâmbăta. The other one. Or the other other one. If you were a travelling merchant in the mid-15th century and someone asked, "Are you heading through Sâmbăta?" your first instinct would be to feign a nosebleed and disappear into the woods at a suspiciously athletic trot. You see, there was Sâmbăta in Bihor, the modest one with no ambition beyond a decent Saturday market and a goat that could hum Gregorian chants […] Then, as your ox-cart trundled southeast through the Carpathians, you'd reach the tangled web of Sâmbăta de Sus and Sâmbăta de Jos - Upper and Lower Sâmbăta, respectively - divided not by geography but by the theological schism over whether Saint Andrew had ever worn sandals.
From Ashes to Altars: How Geneva’s Fires Fed Transylvania’s Faith
What started as a harmless dive into watchmaking somehow spiralled into a tale of Calvinist bans, pocket watches smuggling vanity past piety, and a Spaniard who managed to irritate both Geneva and the Inquisition — before his ideas found refuge in Transylvania. All because I wanted to know why the JLC Reverso flips. Grab a coffee (or a pocket watch) and join me on a paper-fuelled journey through horology, heresy, unintended consequences — and the sheer joy of research.
How to Lose Friends and Identify Warblers
Prompted by a short piece in The New Yorker titled Your Slow Descent into Bird Watching, I felt compelled, perhaps even morally obliged, to offer my own account of how an entirely reasonable human can spiral, with almost comic dignity, into the feathery madness of this so-called hobby.
It all started with a blackbird.
Why Is It Always Miercurea?
You’ve probably noticed it too. (I certainly did while scouting bike trails.) Drive anywhere in Transylvania for more than twenty‑four minutes and you will be greeted by misty hills, the distant clank of cow bells, and, without fail, a road sign proudly announcing yet another Miercurea‑Something: Miercurea Sibiului. Miercurea Ciuc. Miercurea Nirajului. It’s like someone at the medieval naming committee fell asleep on a Wednesday and never recovered. Even the cows have started to ask, “Darling, which Miercurea are we chewing our cud in today?” And yet, no Vinerea de Jos. No Lunea Mare. Just poor, underrepresented weekdays waiting for their turn on the map.
What happened then? How, exactly, did Wednesday corner the Transylvanian branding department while Friday was sent out to pasture like an over‑taxed ox? Let's unpack this.
Fewer Visions, More Malt: A Letter from Brother Cadfael
Shrewsbury Abbey Feast of St. Benedict, in the Year of Our Lord 1264
Brother Percival,
Peace and (tentative) good health be upon you.
Your most recent delivery — a curious flagon bearing no seal but reeking faintly of yarrow and unconfessed sin — arrived two nights past. It was found by Brother Jerome outside the apothecary, nestled inexplicably in a wheelbarrow of turnips.
A Wright Turn at the Edge of the Universe
Back in 1742, an Englishman named Thomas Wright drew a picture of the universe. It was not a map in the modern sense. It did not rely on telescopic observation, nor did it pretend to scientific certainty. It was a vision — the kind that arrives when candlelight flickers too close to a celestial globe, and the mind, unbound by modern rigour, drifts into orbit.
Wright imagined that the stars formed a luminous shell around us, that our own solar system sat nestled among millions, spiralling gently around a central divine force. It was, in many ways, a mistake. But it was also something else: a mistake made with extraordinary beauty.
And like all beautiful errors, it became a stepping stone.
The Sound of Tiny Wings in the Alps
We offer the perfect accommodation for every need – now even for the tiniest of travelers! With “Bees & Friends”, we’re welcoming bees, butterflies, insects and hedgehogs with their own charming little homes, nestled right next to our hotels. It’s Swiss hospitality at its most adorable – and proof that when we say “everyone’s welcome”, we really mean it.
The Final Lantern
The Watchman moved through the town at a pace that didn’t disturb the mist. The hour was late, but not entirely still — distant shutters clicked in the wind, and somewhere a bell had lost count of the hour and was tolling vaguely in protest. He passed beneath it without looking up. Lantern by lantern, he paused, reached for the wick, and gently extinguished it with a practiced motion that felt older than his hands.
The dog walked beside him — a border collie, black and white, eyes bright with a memory the man no longer had. He carried no lead, needed no instruction. He simply walked where he walked, stopped where he stopped. Once, he barked at a familiar alley, but the Watchman only frowned and moved on.
He didn’t know the town’s name. He didn’t know his own. But he knew which lanterns to put out.
The Unweaving
The frost deepened with every step. Trees wore it like lace, and the very air began to hum — not with life, but with memory. This was Oracle ground now, and the world knew better than to misbehave under her gaze. Ambrose had met her once before. Not officially. Not under Guild sanction. It was decades ago, during the Warden Schism, when entire villages vanished and no one could decide whether to classify it as sabotage or an atmospheric phenomenon. He’d found his way into the Oracle’s threshold by accident — or perhaps by invitation poorly disguised as coincidence. They'd argued, naturally. Not with shouting, but with precision. She questioned a choice he had made involving a tethered soul and a corrupted clocktower. He, in turn, accused her of confusing detachment with wisdom.
She hadn’t raised her voice. She hadn’t needed to. Every word she spoke seemed to arrive already proven. Ambrose had walked out of that meeting with a headache, an unsettled ego, and the distinct impression that she hadn’t disliked him — merely catalogued him. Like a particularly verbose contradiction in a dusty footnote. He hadn’t planned on ever seeing her again. But somewhere, in a quiet and professionally inconvenient corner of his mind, he’d always wondered how the next conversation might go.
Splinters of Regret
The vial fell — a crystalline sigh rather than a crash — and for the space of a heartbeat nothing moved. But then a lavender mist boiled outward, curling across the floorboards like seawater meeting sand. The hanging lamps dimmed to guttering embers; every glass surface in the shop reflected a different, earlier moment, as though time itself were trying on alternate histories. Miles felt the Warden‑sigil on his palm ignite. The scent of marshfire and peat overwhelmed him — Tarnwood, again, with its chorus of half‑born shadows. He braced against the shelf, muttering a grounding charm through clenched teeth.
Tobias stumbled back, thread‑sense reeling under a storm of unmoored memories. Crimson strands winked in and out of being overhead, ready to snag on anything solid. He flicked his fingers and silver filaments leapt from his spool, weaving themselves into a hurried lattice that tried — vainly — to coax order from the chaos.
De la parazit la ciumă – o meditație caustică
În 1980, Michel Serres scria despre parazit – nu cel de pe cîmpul cu oi, căpușa, păduchele, purecele, ci acela care strică liniștea, încurcă ordinea, dar care, paradoxal, dă naștere la viață. În teoria lui, parazitul e zgomotul care obligă la reconfigurare, bătaia în țeavă care face sistemul să repare caloriferul. O figură mică, enervantă, dar esențială. Un intrus care tulbură apele, forțînd sistemele să se adapteze. Practic, un zgomot care creează muzică nouă.
[…]
În viziunea lui Serres, parazitul e un agent de transformare. El se bagă în seamă, întrerupe, mănîncă gratis fără să dea nimic înapoi, dar tocmai prin prezența lui forțează sistemele să se regîndească. Asta nu-l face simpatic, dar îl face util. Fără zgomot, nu ne-am mai reajusta; fără deranj, nu ne-am mai trezi. Parazitul lui Serres nu e neapărat distructiv. El nu demolează casa, ci mai degrabă sună interfonul la 3 dimineața pînă cobori să vezi ce naiba se întîmplă. (noi jucam Ghost Recon în rețea și suduiam, trezind vecinii – dar asta e altă poveste.) E un semnal de alarmă. Un element care aduce complexitate într-un sistem prea liniștit cu sine.
Notes from the Orchard
Not long ago, over one of those conversations that happen when neither party is truly sober enough to stop themselves, a friend asked me: "Why the apple? Why buy a book about apples?" Fair question, I suppose. There I was, proudly brandishing The Apple: A Delicious Story by Sally Coulthard — a book which, at first glance, sounds like something your retired uncle might write after one too many pints and an unfortunate fall from a ladder during apple-picking season.
But here’s the thing: imagine you're sitting in a pub, slightly tipsy, perhaps nursing a cider that's just dry enough to make your gums reconsider their existence. And all of a sudden, you start thinking about apples. Not metaphorical apples, nor the ones with half-eaten logos. Just apples — real, crisp, slightly tart, countryside-grown, juice-down-your-wrist apples.
Conversation starter? Perhaps not. Conversation ender? Almost certainly. But I thrive in such absurdities. It's a calling.
The Yarrow Brew of 1263 – Found Parchment
Translated from a parchment found behind the apothecary wall, sealed with wax and inexplicably covered in honey.
Inventory Entry – Brew Log
Date: Feast of Saint Gall, 1263
Brewer: Brother Percival (unsupervised)
Purpose: "To invigorate the brethren ahead of winter. Also, curiosity."
Ingredients:
Yarrow (generous handful) – "stimulates the mind, allegedly"
Wild nettle – "for body and penance"
Heather flowers – "smells nice, Sister Magdalen approves"
Barley malt – "basic decency"
Small amount of wormwood – "just a whisper"
Fermentation via spontaneous prayer (see note)