I can't remember whose memoir said it, but Motown Records existed because of the Detroit public school system and their commitment to musical arts through the 70s.

I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland. And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.

Today (2026-Feb-18) is Anthestēriṓn 1, νουμηνίᾳ Ἀνθεστηριῶνος, day 238 of 384 in the year 2025/2026.

499 BC: Ionians: Hey Sparta, we hear you guys are wArRiOrs. Wanna help us with a war? Sparta: Maybe. Is is close by? Like three day march? Ionians: Across the sea. Here's a map. Sparta: WHOA! Sorry, we're not really into *expeditionary warfare.* Athens: FUCK YEAH. GET SOME GET SOME.

please enjoy these classic Moon Tweets™

"humanity is made distinct, mostly, by its love of making little guys."

The Historians: Stop taking the Melian Dialogue out of context. We don't have time to keep writing responses to correct your misreadings The Pundits: PUNDITS VIBE WHAT THEY WILL, HISTORIANS WRITE WHAT THEY MUST

A methods section you don't get to write anymore "Once poets had been selected, the most complete and recent available edition of their poetic works was obtained. Fifty random samples were taken by drawing fifty page numbers from a table of random numbers" (Martindale 1994)

🏺 The Lenaia (Λήναια) may have continued today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenaia

Today (2026-Feb-08) is Gamēliṓn 21, δεκάτῃ ὑστέρᾳ Γαμηλιῶνος, day 228 of 384 in the year 2025/2026.

🏺 The Lenaia (Λήναια) may have continued today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenaia

Today (2026-Feb-07) is Gamēliṓn 20, δεκάτῃ προτέρᾳ Γαμηλιῶνος, day 227 of 384 in the year 2025/2026.

🏺 The Lenaia (Λήναια) probably continued until at least today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenaia

Today (2026-Feb-06) is Gamēliṓn 19, ἐνάτῃ ἐπὶ δέκα Γαμηλιῶνος, day 226 of 384 in the year 2025/2026.

It feels like it's been impossible to get people outside of higher ed to understand that eliminating staff/programs/majors is primarily an ideological project, whatever claims are made about finances. What's happened at the Post is what's been happening in higher ed for ages.

🏺 The Lenaia (Λήναια) continued today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenaia

Today (2026-Feb-03) is Gamēliṓn 16, ἕκτῃ ἐπὶ δέκα Γαμηλιῶνος, day 223 of 384 in the year 2025/2026.

🏺 The Lenaia (Λήναια) continued today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenaia

Today (2026-Feb-01) is Gamēliṓn 14, τετράδι ἐπὶ δέκα Γαμηλιῶνος, day 221 of 384 in the year 2025/2026.

🏺 The Lenaia (Λήναια) continued today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenaia

Today (2026-Jan-31) is Gamēliṓn 13, τρίτῃ ἐπὶ δέκα Γαμηλιῶνος, day 220 of 384 in the year 2025/2026.

🏺 The Lenaia (Λήναια), a festival in honor of Dionysos including competitions for tragedies and comedies probably began today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenaia

Today (2026-Jan-30) is Gamēliṓn 12, δωδεκάτῃ Γαμηλιῶνος, day 219 of 384 in the year 2025/2026.

As an older tech person, it's legit heartwarming watching the TikTok generation discover why we all hate Oracle.

the "medieval people didn't know how to draw animals" crowd has been real quiet ever since john siferwas dropped the Perfect Woodcock

Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out. As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class. Here's what happened:

Retaining the aorist passive imperative is hard core!

the plague of athens and its consequences

Someone should come up with musical sub-genre to call "psychopomp"

Today (2026-Jan-19) is Gamēliṓn 1, νουμηνίᾳ Γαμηλιῶνος, day 208 of 384 in the year 2025/2026.

“The researchers suspect it once contained an ointment used for pain relief, because the woman’s skeleton shows signs of lesions and joint inflammation” I disagree. This looks exactly like a dice 🎲 box that you hold game pieces and dice in. As a Roman historian: I don’t think it’s ointments. 1/2

In less than 2 years (September 9, 2027) the the atomic bombing of Hiroshima will be as far in the past as Hiroshima is from the Battle of Gettysburg

RT this with your home river. Behold the mighty Rivanna

Curious A) Why an AI legal services startup (Legora) needs an SUV and B) Why it would be parked in the middle of Brooklyn blocking a fire hydrant. I mean, even an *AI* legal company should know that's against the law

I've been mostly offline today and I saw Erik Von Daniken died. He was a virulent racist and bigot and a convicted felon, and his alien archaeology "theories" did incalculable harm to the field of archaeology. Those are his legacies.

"Relax, Jonesy. You sold me"

Of course the better approach would be pushing class sizes down by increasing the number of tenure lines, particularly in cheap fields (history!) and guiding students towards them via gen eds, but that cuts against the ideology of most higher ed. leadership, so it won't happen.

@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social, could you please establish an official NYC Mayor account on Bluesky and post everything your office is currently posting on X over here? And please remove all city accounts from X, which has become a CSAM creation and distribution site? No money for Musk, ever, please.

This little moss is amazing. The name of the place is awful. The Wikipedia article about it is a roller coaster of better and worse. Above a town called Leek? So cute! So British! They call the whole rock formation "Roaches Grit"? Yes. 0/10 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roa...

So troubling that there was a Gumby/Crocodile Dundee crossover

What a cool and useful idea!

Sweet. I knew of I looked there would be people talking about the Omnichord

When I was, like, fifteen, I went to a Young Writers Workshop at UVA, and one of the teachers was Cornelius Eady, who just read a poem at the @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social inauguration

A message for you all to carry through the year

Happy 12th of Second Posideiṓn to all who celebrate

In honor of the first year of congestion pricing, remembering that time when the DOT needed a word worse than gridlock and Sam Schwartz went with "syzygy" (NYTimes, Dec. 15 1989)

Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in as NYC's first Muslim mayor on a Qur'an from the personal collection of the great Afro-Boricua intellectual Arturo Schomburg—as well as Qur'ans owned by Mamdani's grandparents. www.nypl.org/press/schomb...

Oh hey, NYPL posted a video of my Rise of the Zombie Bugs talk with @paulacroxson.bsky.social at SNFL's 7 Stories Up! It was a fun evening with loads of great questions, big thanks to everyone at the library who made this happen and to everyone who came out to show some zombie love 🧟‍♀️🫀

If I was working the NYT end of year death list, I would write this one up so HARD. Rest in Power Cecilia Giménez, creator of Beast Jesus. www.euronews.com/culture/2025...

#AI is awful part eleventy million. I wanted to confirm that I remembered hearing that Ian Tattersall had a rule about being able to tell whether fossil skulls were different species at fifty paces. Searches for "ian tattersall" and "fifty paces" wasn't turning anything up...