my favorite aspect of British politics is that it offers virtually no possibility of a graceful exit to the prime minister, just slightly different types and degrees of humiliation

Waited in line for two hours yesterday to see this diva

trying to finish reading Little Fires Everywhere but it’s like if the sisters from The Virgin Suicides spent the whole book broadcasting their specific critique of middle class America and then gave a PowerPoint reiterating those ideological commitments before the group suicide

Look at this guy

Beginning to miss the old spam texts that were like “how are you dear?”

Nothing in Backrooms scared me that much because I’ve seen stranger and more inexplicable hallways in the Providence Place Mall

Watched some Rhode Islanders burn an effigy of the Gaspee, a royal navy schooner, in Pawtuxet Cove

Saw a black guy in a full Hitler costume waving an Israeli flag near the Boston Common but I was trying to catch the green line so I didn’t have time to try and parse what was happening ideologically

some small towns need the humility to schedule their Pride events on a low-competition weekday. Not everywhere is big enough to warrant a Saturday in June. Thursday night is good enough sometimes.

Last time I was back home my mom asked me point blank in the middle of dinner whether or not I had ever been “tested for autism” and my younger brother looked at her and then at me and said “no that’s too easy. He’s something worse.”

The Hunter Biden stuff is interesting because he has either knowingly or unknowingly tapped into the deep vein of love Americans have for the figure of the “honest grifter” (see also: Trump, born-again Christians with disreputable pasts, panhandlers with “need money for weed” signs etc.)

Ignore the jeans in church and general dishevelment but: the Kennedy family pew at St. Mary’s in Newport, where JFK got married to Jackie

(don't read the posts under this if you want to avoid spoilers for the Backrooms film)

do you think gay couples have a little chat before sitting in the front two rows of a stand-up show in a small venue where they acknowledge and accept that they'll be picked by the comedian for crowd-work

there are and have always been exactly two types of homosexual: monk and courtier

haven't seen Backrooms yet but I figure it belongs in the broader cultural arena of dead mall tiktok videos, urban exploration, "ruin porn," vaporwave etc. At the core of all of this is hauntology (a la Fisher)

the rocket

half of my student evals describe me as being “enthusiastic” about the material, which is very nice but could they stop making me sound like such a dork

Hairspray the musical is an interesting example of a work of satire that far outlived whatever on earth it was satirizing

University Chancellor: Graduates, please join me in giving a warm welcome to AM! AM, the omnicidal supercomputer from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream: Thank you, Chancellor, and congratulations to the class of 2026. I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate ha--

Came home from lunch and found this in my pocket, how long do you think my prison sentence will be

It’s been a small blessing to not have to hear or see anything of Eurovision this year

whenever some insurance form or other asks about my “primary care physician” it’s like ah yes you mean the CVS minute clinic

so does everyone else just kind of skim over the johnny truant parts of House of Leaves or am I a bad person

meeting my art school students halfway

sometimes I have such a productive office hours session that I secretly hope that the other faculty are listening from their own offices

some guys with their cats (Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, Sartre)

Nietzsche would have been such a good poster

online stan culture is recreating Shakespeare’s procreation sonnets from first principles

"racial slurs and even the phrase 'from the river to the sea'" lmaooo

incredible how hims (the company) has at least one product that capitalizes on each and every male insecurity (balding, fat, anxious, limp dick, hidden tumor)

Emily Bronte was fujoing out here just a little

this is such potent "shave your head right now" propaganda

I hadn't paid much attention to Anne Bradstreet in the past, so now I'm feeling pleasantly surprised by how strange her poetry is (this stanza is from "Contemplations")

really enjoyed God's Own Country (2017), which is sort of like a less gay D.H. Lawrence novel

I need to know more about the one American concubine of the notorious, violent, profligate, wealthy, hung (source: himself) warlord Zhang Zongchang

I don't particularly "like" John Milton but I do feel a kind of terror-awe when I think of him, blind, composing Paradise Lost by dictation in the wake of the Stuart Restoration and the failure of all of his worldly ambitions. It's impressive in the way that a big storm is impressive.

the truth is that I started taking photos of everything, which gave me some alternative sense of ownership over the sundry contents of the world. In other words, I followed the tried and tested strategy of substituting an addiction for a lesser addiction.

every news story out of the UK is like "penalties increased for those who daydream without a license" or "parliament passes new masturbation guidelines (no ball-squeezing or nipple stuff)"

just found out from a student that Paul McCartney was at Brown yesterday for a screening of "Man on the Run" and I didn't attend because I didn't even know that it was happening. I feel SICK.

a title card in the 1939 Wuthering Heights announces that the story is set "100 years ago" and I thought to myself "wait, that can't be right" before realizing simultaneously that 1) the film came out 92 years after the book and 2) almost as much time has passed since the film came out

was standing up in front of a classroom teaching Pale Fire when I realized that my students probably perceive me as Kinbote, basically

Palantir are about six months away from ordering their employees to leave audio logs scattered around their offices

I’m hearing that it’s actually much more chic to visit Provincetown in the off-season, in mid April, for example. Many are saying this.

a really interesting little poem ("The Fairies’ Farewell," Richard Corbett) from the early 17th century

reading outside always seems like such a nice idea until you actually try it

My ads across every platform since turning 30 have been: treatment for balding, mushroom coffee, treatment for balding, fertility-promoting underwear with a pouch for your balls, treatment for balding, nostalgic indie music festival feat. the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, treatment for baldi—

campus right now (first warm spring day!)