Ecce Sigum

Immanentize the Empathy

Author: John Winkelman

Weekly Round-up, September 12, 2026

John Winkelman

As I noted in my previous post, last week was chaotic. Four days of travel turned into five days of travel capped by a 12-hour layover in Charlotte, which meant about 36 hours without sleep. Fortunately for me this coincided with the Labor Day weekend which meant an extra day of down-time, which was really a day of catching up on neglected chores and errands.

My partner, Zyra, has spent the past few months planning the Kultura Celebration 2026 here in Grand Rapids, at Fountain Street Church. As this post goes live the celebration will be entering its last hour, with the MexiCuba Duo providing live music, and the Journee leading a poetry workshop. Between food, dance, spoken word, panels, and music, I expect it will be a superb event.

Reading

My work projects are winding down which means I am only working 40 hours a week, which leaves me with a little reading time for the first time this year. Well, outside of three weeks of vacation back in July. So I’m reading.

I am slowly catching up on John Scalzi’s oeuvre, with The Kaiju Preservation Society while stuck in the Charlotte International Airport and Starter Villain while crashed out on the couch on Labor Day. Now I have a pile of new poetry books thanks to a book release event for the Grand River Poetry Collective this past Thursday – GF Korreck’s The Pope’s Astronomer, Lamont Arrington’s The My Heart Blues, and Japanese Garden by Nellie DeVries.

Writing

Recently I wrote down scraps and bits of a few poems which, if I apply myself, might end up in the time capsule project led by Grand Rapids Poet Laureate Christine Stephens Krieger. The prompt is “Hello, Future!” and the poem is meant to be read in 2076 when the time capsule is opened. What do you say to someone in 2076? I don’t even know anyone who lives there right now.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Revenge, Cyborgs
Setting: Subterranean
Genre: Folk Tale

Listening

The Soulbenders, “Hey Joe”. I knew the guitarist, Jeff Boughner, back in the 1990s and 2000s. We worked together at Schuler Books.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, September 5, 2026

John Winkelman
The view from the plane window on leaving Orlando.

As I write this, the time is just after midnight on September 5. I am in Concourse D of the Charlotte International Airport in North Carolina.

I am on the way home from a three-day work training session in Orlando, Florida. My first flight was delayed two hours due to severe storms around Orlando, which meant I missed my connection. The next available flight back home is at 9:30 this morning, which means I will arrive in Grand Rapids at around 11:15 am.

This means, counting from when the first plane was first scheduled for takeoff, my trip home will take around 18 hours.

Back in 1994 I travelled to Russia as part of my degree. The flight from Grand Rapids to St. Petersburg was around 18 hours.

While at the conference one of my directors informed me that I would be rolled off of my current project at the end of the month, which is also the end of the fiscal year in the corporate world. This coincides with my secondary project coming to a close, also at the end of the month.

So I might take an extra few days off in October. And a couple of weeks on the bench would be nice.

Reading

For reading material during my trip I brought Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systems, which is engaging and informative. Many of the concepts in the first part of the book are familiar to me, but put together in a way which unlocks possibilities and implications which are new to me. It was a good pairing.

For the flight home I downloaded and read Terry Pratchett’s Interesting Times, one of the few Discworld books which I had not yet read. Fun, funny, unexpectedly deep, and very much a good book to read when stranded in an airport.

[Update, 14:13] After I finished the Pratchett I immediately downloaded and read John Scalzi’s Kaiju Preservation Society. I finished it just before the plane touched down in Grand Rapids. Scalzi described it as “pop music,” which tracks, as it was fun and engaging and clever, but like most of his tunes (to belabor the metaphor), the lyrics are worth paying attention to.

Writing

Due to work stress and travel disruption, I have, for the first time in months, written nothing at all. Not even journal entries.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Addiction, Reincarnation
Setting: Subterranean
Genre: War

Listening

Brand X, “Nuclear Burn” from their 1976 album Unorthodox Behavior. That’s Phil Collins on the drums. Damn!

Interesting Links

August 2026 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

Another hectic month has come and gone, will less time for reading than I would have liked. But what I read was pretty good.

Acquisitions

  1. Ibtisam Azem (Sinan Antoon, translator), The Sleep Thief (And Other Stories) [2026.08.18]
  2. Karishma Jobanputra, The Body of the Thing (And Other Stories) [2026.08.18]
  3. Shawn Speakman (editor), Unavowed: New Tales by Masters of Fantasy (Grim Oak Press) [2026.08.18]

Reading List

Books

  1. Colleen Alles, Luminescence in Season [2026.08.05]
  2. Derek Künsken, The Quantum Magician [2026.08.16]
  3. Natasha Stagg, Grand Rapids [2026.08.20]
  4. Yuri Herrera, Season of the Swamp [2026.08.27]

Weekly Round-up, August 29, 2026

John Winkelman
A bumblebee drying itself on the side of my garage after a sudden downpour.

Well this was certainly a hell of a week. Dolly Parton and Tim Curry, gone on consecutive days. Then Peter Cullen not long after. Three wonderful people with amazing voices.

Reading

I just finished reading Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera. It takes place in antebellum New Orleans, and has a lot to say about American society of the time, including the lives and tribulations of slaves and immigrants. Reading it soon after finishing Human Capital put my mind in a particular place, and I am adding a lot of content to the notebook for one of my novels-in-progress

When looking back through old reading lists I realized I read Season of the Swamp last year around this time, but I don’t remember a single thing about it. This time it stuck.

Writing

The creative juices are trickling like treacle. I have rough drafts of a couple of poems intended for a time capsule project, due at the beginning of October. Any momentum I had at the beginning of July has ended and the remaining inertia is just enough to occasionally jot down a line or two in the middle of long journal entries about how I don’t have enough time to write. So it goes.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Economics, Aliens
Setting: Ocean
Genre: Magic Realism

Listening

“A Fifth of Beethoven”, by Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band, from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. I heard it recently while picking up a couple of slices at Martha’s Pizza. Now it’s in your head too.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, August 22, 2026

John Winkelman
A seagull atop a lamp post, lit by orange evening sunlight, against a blue-gray sky.

…then again, being a reverse centaur can be a pretty groovy gig, as long as the PMC is fully invested in AI. Which they are. My coding skills are atrophying but my prompting skills are improving, which puts me in a perfect position to be a mid-level manager. I can Disrupt Things.

And every time anyone has ever said they wanted to disrupt things, what they really meant is that they wanted to insert themselves into an already-working process in order to siphon off some money and make the process worse for everyone. See, for instance, the entire gig economy. And also every technology which falls under the umbrella of AI [SIC].

Reading

After finishing Derek Künsken’s The Quantum Magician, I picked up and completed Grand Rapids by Natasha Stagg. This was an interesting book. I had been aware of it for a while, as it was published by Semiotext(e), a publisher of which I am a big fan. A couple of months ago I was wandering through local bookstore Books & Mortar and found the book on one of their recommended reading shelves. Stagg lived in Grand Rapids for a number of years, and she name-drops a number of familiar places and events.

Now I am reading Season of the Swamp by Yuri Herrera, published by And Other Stories. I am about a third of the way through and loving every page!

Writing

I have been playing around with some simple writing prompts and vaguely poetic lines, but can’t focus on anything long enough for something concrete to emerge. I blame capitalism. And LLMs. Which is really the same thing.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Spiritual Beings, Possession
Setting: Virtual Reality
Genre: Science Fiction

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, August 15 2026

John Winkelman
A monarch butterfly resting on a milkweed plant.

As a fully-committed reverse-centaur, when the LLMs are starved, my stomach growls. That is all my life is any more, within the boundaries of work.

Outside of work I spend my time recovering from work. So it goes.

Reading

At random I pulled Derek Künsken‘s The Quantum Magician from the shelf a couple of weeks ago. It is quite good! Quantum Magician is an Oceans Eleven-style caper, set several hundred years in the future and starring a cast of heavily modified humans and the occasional AI. Recommended.

Writing

As mentioned last week, the River City Poetry Collective and the Grand Rapids Poet Laureate have put out a call for submissions for a time capsule project. Grand Rapids poets are invited to contribute a poem to be placed in a time capsule which will be opened fifty years from now, in the year 2076. I am playing around with some ideas. A letter to future Grand Rapids. A letter to future me. An offer to open lines of communication, because causality is bunk. The deadline is in a few weeks, which is plenty of time to procrastinate until the very last minute.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Artificial Intelligence, Cyborgs
Setting: Virtual Reality
Genre: Utopian

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, August 8, 2026

John Winkelman
Our ginger girl Pepper, enjoying a lazy afternoon on the bed.

Thanks to work stress and high levels of heat and humidity at night what sleep I manage has been of low quality. I feel hung over and did nothing to earn that feeling.

Already we are well into August. even ten years ago I would have enjoyed all of the heat and humidity because I would be out at the lake several days a week. Now that I am in my late fifties that is no longer quite so attractive. Now I just want some peace and quiet, and maybe a nap.

Reading

Earlier this week I finished Colleen Alles’ latest book of poetry Luminescence in Season. Colleen is a friend and reading her work is always a joyful experience.

Writing

The Grand River Poetry Collective has issued a Call for Submissions for a time capsule project. I have a couple of first drafts in my journal, and more bubbling around in my head. The poems will go into a vault, to be unsealed in 2076. I might still be around, though I will be very old. Full details at the GRPC website.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Robots, Espionage
Setting: Mountains
Genre: Weird Fiction

Listening

Ray Bradbury‘s short story “There Will Come Soft Rains,” read by Burgess Meredith. The story takes place on August 4, 2026.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, August 1, 2026

John Winkelman
The altar for our Sifu Day celebration on August 1, 2026.

Today our martial arts class held our annual Sifu Day celebration. We call it Sifu Day. It is more widely known as Guan Yu‘s birthday, which is traditionally on the 24th day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, which for 2026 falls on August 6. According to Sifu Lee, it is okay to celebrate such holidays early, but you don’t want to celebrate them late. So this year we celebrated on the Saturday immediately before the official date, which was today.

This was our first Sifu Day celebration without Master Lee, who passed away in early September of last year. We said a few words, had a moment of silence, then demonstrated several of the tai chi and kung fu forms which Sifu had taught us over the past forty-plus years. Two of Sifu’s children (who are in their sixties) attended the ceremony and thanked us for keeping the school going through the difficult period of the past eleven months.

Sifu Day is also the anniversary of Sigong Chiu, Chuk Kai’s passing on Sifu Day 1991, at the age of 91. Master Lee was also 91 when he left us, so there is something to be said for the regular practice of tai chi and kung fu.

Afterwards, our head instructor Rick invited the other instructors to his house to burn the offerings of lucky money and incense. We bowed to the altar, had a moment of silence, then each said something about what we most admired about Sifu. Then we burned the lucky money, bowed again, and drove to Pho Soc Trang for lunch with several of our students and family and friends.

To say today was bittersweet is to overly simplify a great many complex emotions. Master Lee was our teacher, but he was also our friend, confidant, leader, father figure, and an example to which we all aspire. He was kind, generous, funny, and patient. And an unparalleled martial artist. And one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet.

I miss him. Every day.

We will keep Master Lee’s class going for as long as we have students to teach. And in the absence of students, we will sue that time to improve our own practice. Just as Sifu did.

Reading

I finished Robert Jackson Bennett’s City of Stairs, which was quite good. Will probably pick up book 2 before the end of the month.

Writing

Yesterday I filled in the last page of a journal I started on January 1 of this year. This was the 44th volume I have filled in the 33 years since I started keeping a regular journal back in 1993. One day I will transcribe these words for posterity, assuming I can still read my own handwriting a decade from now. As with most of the previous journals, The last thing I wrote on the last page was a poem. It might eventually be a good poem. Right now it needs a lot of work.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Music, Evolution
Setting: Academia
Genre: Procedural

Listening

Dread Zeppelin singing “Black Dog”.

Interesting Links

July 2026 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

July was a pretty good month for acquiring books, but not so great for reading them. As has been pointed out by people more eloquent than myself, collecting and reading are two separate pursuits, and the best we can hope for is that the rate of both stays roughly in sync.

Acquisitions

Books I acquired in July 2026
Books I acquired in July 2026
  1. Arthur Sze, Noh Anothai, Wendy Call, Oyku Tekten, Kola Tubosun (editors), Best Literary Translations 2026 (Deep Vellum) [2026.07.01]
  2. Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems [2026.07.01]
  3. Henry Farrell, Abraham Newman, Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy [2026.07.01]
  4. John Ralston Saul, Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West [2026.07.01]
  5. Colleen Alles, Luminescence in Season (Meadowlark Press) [2026.07.09]
  6. Eric Greinke, One Candle [2026.07.09]
  7. Ivan Turgenev (Avril Pyman, translator), Fathers and Children [2026.07.10]
  8. Hugh Howey, Wool [2026.07.27]
  9. Jorge Luis Borges, Poems of the Night [2026.07.27]

Reading

Books I read in July 2026
Books I read in July 2026

Books

  1. Catherine Liu, Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class [2026.07.02]
  2. Laura Robson, Human Capital [2026.07.12]
  3. Matt Dinniman, Dungeon Crawler Carl [2026.07.21]
  4. Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs [2026.07.30]

Short Prose

  1. Kameron Hurley, “Bone Fete” (Patreon post) [2026.07.02]
  2. Tobias Buckell, “The Elephant’s Song” (Patreon post) [2026.07.02]

Weekly Round-up, July 25, 2026

John Winkelman
A grapevine beetle (Pelidnota punctata) on a wild grape leaf.

Two weeks after returning from my three-week break, and I feel like I need another three-week break. Or a three-decade break. I feel like somehow the pace of my job has, over the past year, slipped into Red Queen Syndrome territory, where I continually need to run faster and faster just to stay in place. Once upon a time I was interested in going for a promotion, since I am still at the same level at which I was hired in twelve years ago. But given the amount of work and level of responsibility I have now, and understanding that those levels would increase significantly were I to jump to the next level, there is no way in hell that the money or other benefits would be worth the effort. I would need at least a 100% raise, guarantee of not less than 10% raises a year in addition to any raises based on actual merit, and a guarantee of annual bonuses equal to not less than 10% of my salary, after the raises. And since capitalism is feudalism with the serial numbers filed off, any extra labor value is always funneled to the top, and then mere crumbs occasionally flicked back down to the people who do the actual work.

Reading

I decided to take a brief break from all of the heavy nonfiction and picked up Matt Dinniman‘s Dungeon Crawler Carl, which was the exact opposite, and exactly what I needed. It was fun, light, engaging, and though not the most well-written of books, I can see why it is so popular.

Now I am about a quarter of the way through Robert Jackson Bennett‘s City of Stairs, which is very good, and giving me a couple of ideas for some of my own unfinished work.

When I have the emotional fortitude I pick up Ibram X. Kendi‘s Chain of Ideas, an exploration of the origin of the white supremacist Great Replacement theory, which has been espoused by conservative white Christians and members of the Epstein class (but I repeat myself) like Charlie Kirk, Tucker Carlson, JD Vance, Matt Gaetz, and Donald Trump.

Writing

Much to my surprise, when treating myself to an hour at a cafe yesterday morning, I re-wrote the opening scene of my unfinished novel Cacophonous. Rather than typing, I wrote it by hand, in my journal.

I quite enjoyed the experience! I felt much more connected to the words on the page than in the previous iteration of the story, which I wrote during NaNoWriMo about five years ago.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Environment, Dreams
Setting: Labyrinth
Genre: Procedural

Listening

Kirsty MacColl, “England 2, Colombia 0”, from her 1999 album Tropical Brainstorm. With the 2026 World Cup recently concluded, this song has been bouncing around in my head.

Interesting Links