Ecce Sigum

Immanentize the Empathy

Author: John Winkelman

Weekly Round-up, July 18, 2026

John Winkelman
The morning sun, framed by leafy branches, seen through a thick haze of smoke.

This past week another heat dome covered the Midwest. This time the humidity levels were lower than the previous heat dome a couple of weeks ago, which made the heat more bearable. Unfortunately, at the same time, Michigan was covered in a thick blanket of smoke from wildfires in Minnesota and central Canada. In an odd twist, the smoke in the air made the heat inside our house a little more tolerable, as there was slightly less direct sunlight heating things up.

Reading

I finished Laura Robson’s Human Capital and pulled Ibram X. Kendi’s Chain of Ideas from the shelf. I might dive in this weekend or I might read some genre fiction. Probably the fiction. My brain is mush right now.

Writing

This past week was my first back at work after an extended break, so all of my available brain power went to writing, reviewing, and debugging JavaScript. Thus not much left for creative work. The heat and smoke didn’t help things.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Music, Artificial Intelligence
Setting: Ship
Genre: Science Fiction

Listening

The Samples, “Little Silver Ring”, from their album The Last Drag. I first heard this song when I worked at CyberNet back in 1999, and it has stuck with me for these past 27 years. I am posting this in honor of a beautiful wedding Z and I attended yesterday, where we ran into an old friend and coworker I hadn’t seen in well over a decade. It was a good day.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, July 11, 2026

John Winkelman
Purple Coneflower blossom

Today is the penultimate day of my three-week vacation. Three weeks was the most time I have had off, consecutively, in a decade. And it was also nowhere near enough time off. I need to retire. Or something.

I made a to-do list for my time off, which included about 30 items. I completed about 10 of them. Nowhere near as much as I had hoped to finish, but better than expected. I was sick for a couple of days, and the heat dome during the week of July 4 made outdoor work near impossible.

I also took some naps. They were wonderful. Highly recommended.

I have many little side projects. Once upon a time, one of those projects was creating games and visual toys in Flash. Flash is no longer with us, but I still have all of my source code and my compiled .swf files. When looking for a way to play those old files, I discovered Ruffle, a tool which is available as a browser plugin or as a standalone desktop application. I downloaded the app version and pointed it at one of my old SWF files, and it worked perfectly!

Seeing this, I felt motivated to translate one of the simpler experiments, a procedural flower generator, from ActionScript to JavaScript. Click here to see it in action. Below is an example of the output.

A procedurally-generated flower pattern on a black background.

Reading

I spent the week bouncing between several books – Human Capital, which I have mentioned in the past several entries. Also Evan Connell’s Notes from a Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel, a collection of writing from The Evergreen Review, and various and sundry other works scattered around the internet.

Writing

While I didn’t write much in the past week, I did sit down with one of my manuscripts and figure out the timeline of events, rationalizing everything so events happened in the proper order and peoples’ ages added up appropriately across the years. I also gave the manuscript a cursory edit in the form of occasional scribbles in the margins. I am glad to have my head back in that space again.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Dreams, Disease
Setting: Wilderness
Genre: Steampunk

Listening

Bonnie Tyler, “Lost in France,” from her 1977 debut album The World Starts Tonight. Tyler passed away three days ago, on July 8.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, July 4, 2026

John Winkelman

Happy fourth day of July, to those who celebrate. As this post goes live I am probably sitting in my house, hunkered down with a book and attempting to avoid all the loud noises. And the heat.

Reading

Finally some quiet time to read! I picked up and completed Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s The City of Mists, a collection of short fiction set in the Barcelona of his Cemetery of Forgotten Books series. Now I am back in the middle of Laura Robson’s Human Capital. Still good. Still infuriating.

Writing

I submitted a couple of poems to the Grand River Poetry Collective anthology. We will see if they are accepted…

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Precursors, Relic
Setting: Battlefield
Genre: Western

Interesting Links

June 2026 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

Vacation time is reading time, and as this posts I am in the middle of the longest break from work I have had since 2016, when I traveled via Amtrak to Vancouver. No traveling this time. Just reading and writing. And adding to my library, while it is still legal to purchase books.

Acquisitions

Books I acquired in the month of June 2026
Books I acquired in the month of June 2026
  1. Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View (Verso Books) [2026.06.06]
  2. Thomas Piketty, A Brief History of Equality [2026.06.06]
  3. Natasha Stagg, Grand Rapids (Semoitext(e)) [2026.06.06]
  4. Ibram X. Kendi, Chain of Ideas [2026.06.07]
  5. Roger Zelazny, Warren Lapine (editor), On Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy (Positronic Publications) [2026.06.10]
  6. Voices 2026 [2026.06.13]
  7. Catherine Liu, Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional Managerial Class (University of Minnesota Press) [2026.06.26]
  8. Erin R. Hodges, The Casanova Killer (So It Is Written) [2026.06.28]
  9. Marissa Malson, The Not So Average Life of Average Jane (Just a Good Book Publishing) [2026.06.28]
  10. Jana Chantel, Surviving Red [2026.06.28]
  11. Caitlin Horrocks, The Vexations [2026.06.28]
  12. Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch (Autonomedia) [2026.06.29]

Reading

Books

Books I read in the month of June 2026.
Books I read in the month of June 2026.
  1. R. R. Tavárez, Drag Queen Preacher [2026.06.08]
  2. Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber [2026.06.10]
  3. Voices 2026 [2026.06.13]
  4. Roger Zelazny, The Guns of Avalon [2026.06.18]
  5. Roger Zelazny, Sign of the Unicorn [2026.06.20]
  6. Roger Zelazny, The Hand of Oberon [2026.06.22]
  7. Roger Zelazny, The Courts of Chaos [2026.06.24]
  8. Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The City of Mist [2026.06.29]

Short Prose

  1. Kameron Hurley, “Worms” (Patreon post) [2026.06.01]
  2. Kameron Hurley, “Your Mother’s Tomb” (Patreon post) [2026.06.01]
  3. Kameron Hurley, “For She Does Not Want” (Patreon post) [2026.06.01]
  4. Dotson Rader, “Up Against the Wall!”, The Evergreen Review Reader 1967 – 1973 [2026.06.02]
  5. Kenzaburō Ōe, “Aghwee the Sky Monster”, The Evergreen Review Reader 1967 – 1973 [2026.06.09]
  6. Abdullah Schleifer, “Al Fatah Speaks: A Conversation with ‘Abu Amar'”, The Evergreen Review Reader 1967 – 1973 [2026.06.12]
  7. Kim Philby, “My Silent War”, The Evergreen Review Reader 1967 – 1973 [2026.06.18]

Weekly Round-up, June 27, 2026

John Winkelman
A pair of fake eyelashes, arranged to look like an eye, on a metal railing overlooking the Grand River.

After a week of vacation, I am ready for retirement. Even though sidelined by a migraine for two days, this has been the most pleasant, relaxing week I have enjoyed since the Christmas holidays. I have written, I have read, I have slept. I have had quiet time.

And I have two more weeks of vacation before I return to work.

With time to reflect, I realize that I feel a deep, profound resentment for the personal time I lost while working long hours for six months. And more than that, I resent the mental and emotional energy wasted on work when it could have been put to much better use in the afore-mentioned reading, writing, and relaxing.

Reading

My comfort read for the past month has been the first five book of The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. I haven’t read them in probably 20 years. They are good, but not his best work. But even mid-grade Zelazny is better than most other works out there.

Writing

I have printout of a couple of two-score poems and I am actively editing several of them. I submitted two to a new anthology being produced by the Grand River Poetry Collective. Another half-dozen might eventually be good enough to send to other venues.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Colonization, Music
Setting: Subterranean
Genre: Magic Realism

Weekly Round-up, June 20, 2026

John Winkelman
Monarch caterpillar on a milkweed blossom.

As this post goes live, I am on my second day of a 24-day break from work. This is my first meaningful time off since the Christmas holidays. My work computer is shut down. My work phone is turned off. I will have no contact with my employer until 9 am on Monday, July 13.

What will I do with all of this down-time? Mostly nothing. When not consciously doing nothing (which is not the same as not doing anything), I have a big stack of books to read, and manuscripts to edit, and errands to run, and chores to complete. And naps to take.

Reading

I finished Zelazny’s The Guns of Avalon and am now well into The Sign of the Unicorn. I have not read these stories in decades. They hold up well, though now that I have read a large portion of Zelazny’s short fiction, I recognize that Amber is not among his strongest works. If I had to make a criticism, it would be that the setting is often more interesting than the characters.

Writing

Now that I have some space in my head I am working on the timeline for Neighbors,my manuscript about, well, some terrible neighbors. Once that is solidified I can go through and rearrange events to match dates, smooth out the time skips, and then settle into a serious edit.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Undead, Music
Setting: Academia
Genre: Noir

Listening

George Harrison, “Got My Mind Set On You,” from his 1987 album Cloud Nine. This song was on heavy rotation at the end of my first semester at Grand Valley State University (Grand Valley State College at the time). I will forever associate it with dorm life. So why did I post it here, today? Because it was playing in my dentist’s office while I was getting my teeth cleaned.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, June 13, 2026

John Winkelman

Another crazy busy week. Not much to report at this time. I am writing and editing like a fiend against a looming deadline for an anthology. Will I make it? We will see…

Reading

Human Capital is still making me want to burn everything to the ground.

Writing

Not much new writing, but reviewing a couple of dozen poems and editing the ones which are editable. The ones which need to be re-written will have to wait for my time off.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Economics, Apocalypse
Setting: Ocean
Genre: Steampunk

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, June 6, 2026

John Winkelman
Poe, trying to escape her captivity.

I am now 57.0027 years old, and let me tell you, I feel every one of those thousandths of a year.

Dozens of people reached out yesterday to wish me a happy birthday, including many I hadn’t heard from in a very long time. It was a good way to end the week.

It was another busy work week, though less stressful than most of the past weeks. I only had to work on one project, and I was able to complete the things I needed to complete.

But enough about work. I am counting down the days until my long summer break, which starts on June 19. Grand Rapids LitFest starts the following Monday, and my calendar of Grand Rapids literary events is completely full for almost the entire time I will be off of work.

Reading

I am well into both Drag Queen Preacher and Human Capital, and enjoying both quite a lot. Taking college-style notes for Human Capital has helped me a lot, and I think I will repeat this exercise with other non-fiction books. What’s the point of reading such works if I don’t remember them a week later?

Writing

The Grand River Poetry Collective is publishing an anthology this summer. Final call for poems is June 30, so I am reviewing and editing, and maybe, just maybe, I will have something ready to go before the deadline.

One of my projects for my time off will be to do a deep edit on an old manuscript. I have chosen Neighbors, my project from November 2018. Already I have several significant edits lined up. With a little luck, I will have a genuine draft ready for review by the end of the year.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Possession, Super Powers
Setting: Lost City
Genre: Science Fiction

Listening

Blood, Sweat & Tears, “Spinning Wheel,” from their 1968 album Blood, Sweat & Tears. “Spinning Wheel” charted in the top 20 during the week I was born. It’s a damn good song!

Interesting Links

  • “Alfred McCoy, A World Without America?” (Alfred McCoy, Tom’s Dispatch)
  • The Global Justice Project – “The Global Justice Project attempts to set out a new vision for global progress in the 21st century: grounding human development and equality in planetary habitability. It explores the conditions under which the world could move toward this horizon and traces an economically and ecologically consistent transition path from 2026 to 2100.”

57, or 19 x 3

John Winkelman

Here I am, a level 57 human being, waiting for all of the skills and powers I just unlocked to manifest in my life.

Recently I have felt a nostalgia, or a specifically-focused deja vu, centered around the late spring and early summer of 1991. I am not sure what caused this echo from 35 years ago to return to my awareness. There was nothing special about that summer. I turned 22, was single, working for a moving company, living with a few friends/fraternity brothers in the Campus West apartments just west of Grand Valley State University. I joined Master Lee’s school in January of 1991 and so regularly made the drive to East Grand Rapids to train.

I was broke, and at loose ends, and had my whole future ahead of me. Kind of the opposite of my life now. Except for the future part. We always have our whole future ahead of us.

Maybe it’s the feeling of being unstuck from the flow of history thanks to (gestures at everything). That’s what most of being young felt like, back in 1991.

Anyway, I hope the two or three of you who read this blog have a wonderful day. Thanks for stopping by!

May 2026 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

As you can tell by the lists below, May was not such a good month for reading. Work took up most of my available free time, and all of my available brain cycles.

Acquisitions

Books I acquired in the month of May, 2026.
Books I acquired in the month of May, 2026.
  1. Peninsula Poets, Spring 2026 [2026.05.08] – After more than a year, I remembered to renew my membership to the Poetry Society of Michigan. Which means I get these collections again. They are wonderful!
  2. The Fifth Season: Roleplaying in the Stillness (Green Ronin Publishing) [2026.05.20] – After suffering an unbelievable number of setbacks thanks to COVID supply chain disruptions and Trump’s petulant flailing around on the world stage, the book has finally arrived, and it is absolutely gorgeous!

Reading List

Books

Books I read in the month of May, 2026.
Books I read in the month of May, 2026.
  1. Allen Ginsberg, Kaddish and Other Poems, 1958 – 1960 [2026.05.05]
  2. Peninsula Poets, Spring 2026 [2026.05.14]
  3. Arthur Sze, Transient Worlds: On Translating Poetry [2026.05.16]

Short Prose

  1. Tom Stoppard, “The Story”, The Evergreen Review Reader 1967 – 1973 [2026.05.06]
  2. John Lahr, “Sex and Politics: An Interview with Vilgot Sjöman“, The Evergreen Review Reader 1967 – 1973 [2026.05.18]
  3. Jack Kerouac, “The Murder of Swineburne”, The Evergreen Review Reader 1967 – 1973 [2026.05.21]
  4. Eugène Ionesco, “Fragments of a Journal”, The Evergreen Review Reader 1967 – 1973 [2026.05.21]
  5. Michael Reck, “A Conversation Between Ezra Pound and Allen Ginsberg”, The Evergreen Review Reader 1967 – 1973 [2026.05.25]
  6. John Schultz, “Pigs, Prague, Chicago, Other Democrats, and the Sleeper in the Park”, The Evergreen Review Reader 1967 – 1973 [2026.05.26]
  7. Robert L. Terrell, “Tea Party”, The Evergreen Review Reader 1967 – 1973 [2026.05.29]