Seven months in and we're already entering our Show Trial Era. Impressive.

nice little interview of King Gizzard, incredible news in there - all their albums have a Name your own price policy. that's equally bold and logical considering they removed their discography from Spotify earlier this year

Do short story collections sell better now than they used to, now that everyone's attention span is so short? Is this something publishers are eager to put out? I ask as a man clutching a collection of thematically linked stories that I would very much like to see published.

Wondering if I can get the president to zoom into my Resisting Fascism class this week...

I see ChatGPT is now going out of its way to make it easier for students to cheat with it. Not great.

Was kept awake last night thinking of the various ways the crackdown on dissent could come for me in my role as a university professor, woke up and realized I stupidly wasn't a member of the AAUP. Fixed that.

For my class on resisting fascism and I'm researching stories of resisters from Europe and elsewhere (mostly 1930s-40s). Hans & Sophie Scholl, Carlo Roselli, Louis Aragon, Hanka Sawicka, Lucie Aubrac, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade... an endless list. Can recommend this as a way to stave off the gloom.

Today my campus organized, as it always does, a public reading of the constitution. Students, faculty, admin, and staff lined up to read a portion into a mic on a small stage outside. For the first time I remember, there were heavily armed/armored cops (incl K-9 teams) present to secure the area.

If you, like me, are feeling just the slightest bit that you need to be reminded that freedom and joy can exist even in dark times, you could do worse than spend half an hour with this impossibly cool gem from South Africa c.1973.

If you, like me, are feeling just the slightest bit that you need to be reminded that freedom and joy can exist even in dark times, you could do worse than spend half an hour with this impossibly cool gem from South Africa c.1973.

New @backlisted.bsky.social episode! The Eye of the Beholder by Marc Behm, with David Quantick, Una McCormack, Nicky Birch and me. www.backlisted.fm/episodes/248...

Disgusted myself today by saying Rembrandt's portraits of merchants and businessmen were like 17th-century versions of LinkedIn profiles.

In this time of uncertainty it's important to remember that Pulp put out a new album a few months ago and it's really good.

Update: she's not a ghost. But the story is done, praise be.

Strangely bereft upon hearing Melvyn Bragg is leaving In Our Time.

Just remembered this song for no reason. youtu.be/9dU-17ojNWA?...

This tenth commandment is printed in large capitals.

Happy Labor Day🧑‍🏭

Just thinking of George Saunders’ “Love Letter” for absolutely no reason at all

Polish poster for KING KONG ESCAPES (1967)

If this were the 1960s, KPop Demon Hunters would be appearing on Ed Sullivan and the entire culture would be grappling with its implications. As it is, if you're not in middle school or close to someone who is, you may be wholly ignorant of this phenomenon. Not sure which is better, frankly.

Planning out lectures for my Resisting Fascism class, carving out an important chunk of time to talk about the Swing Kids.

The aesthetic dimensions of fascism aren't incidental but central to its power and appeal.

Shared tables with Jack White and his crew at a Laura Marling show at a small club in Nashville circa 2009.

Students report some of their other profs are designing their courses using ChatGPT--and it shows. Feeling a bit dizzy from the death spiral, tbh.

Day 1 of classes. Pleased to report that the majority of my students appear to have heard of Bob Dylan.

Classes start tomorrow. Think I might pull an all-nighter.

Spent the weekend learning about the "topos" (moles) of the Spanish Civil War: republicans (leftists, "reds," antifascists) who went into hiding at the end of the war and didn't come out until Franco declared a general amnesty in 1969. I feel like their stories should be better known outside Spain.

Some of you know that one of my current (nonacademic) projects is a cycle of short stories about minor-but-star-adjacent (and real!) figures in old Hollywood. Pleased to say I've started what should be the last story of the bunch. It's about Errol Flynn's stand-in and a woman who is maybe a ghost.

A bit mystified to see them reissuing the Beatles Anthology. Didn't that, like, just come out?

Deleted Instagram after one too many instances of being spied on. I went to hear an author talk about his new book on Wednesday, and on Thursday the app was suggesting I follow that author (his was the first name on the list, never before suggested, no mutuals, no other explanation possible). Hmph.

In honor of Count Basie's birthday (1904), let me share what are easily some of the best 43.5 minutes of music in the 20th century. I can't tell you how many times I've had this playing in our house and I always pinch myself at the extraordinary caliber of musicians and musicianship.

There are a few bands that can make me nostalgic for a place and time I've never known. Galaxie 500 is one of them. I knew Dec 13 1988, but I was 11 and decorating a tree in the sunken living room of my suburban Oklahoma home. CBGB might as well have been Mars galaxie500.bandcamp.com/album/cbgb-1...

This album is indeed one of the greats. rockersinternational.bandcamp.com/album/east-o...

While we're talking Paxton, here's what he wrote in Jan 2021. www.newsweek.com/robert-paxto...

For no particular reason, here's Robert O Paxton's list of 9 "governing passions" that typically underpin movements. (From his Anatomy of Fascism [2004], p.41) 1. A sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions

There's a story that Terry & Julie in "Waterloo Sunset" are Terence Stamp & Julie Christie, who were filming Far from the Madding Crowd when Ray Davies wrote the song. TS said his brother Chris (then manager of the Who) told him that's what Ray told him. Ray denied it in his memoir, naturally.

This is such welcome news. I used to make regular pilgrimages to Archer City, when the town square was basically one big book emporium, and was quietly devastated when McMurtry died and the place closed. Thrilled to see it getting a second life.

A short essay about solo travel as a woman and the power that can come from invisibility. Thank you to British Vogue for going with this one… www.vogue.co.uk/article/grey... #solotravel #women #invisibility #BritishVogue #greyhound #simonedebeauvoir

Went for a walk without headphones on, let my mind wander, and managed to solve a work-related conundrum that's been bedeviling me for weeks and weeks. Moral of the story: find a job that presents you with easier conundrums so you don't have to go out walking all the time.

Reading this and, like the album, it’s 🔥🔥 @markdoyle.bsky.social

Deeply annoyed to find myself in the position of asking ChatGPT to help me design ChatGPT-proof writing assignments.

I'm not sure you can call most state universities (which often receive just 25%-30% of their funding from the state) as substantially government entities, but what do I know?

Oh, and public libraries while we still have them.

This documentary full of interviews with ordinary Americans who volunteered to fight fascism in Spain ought to be on a permanent loop in every school and theater and town hall and public park and streaming service in the country. youtu.be/f_G_JkaTlBU?...

Bandcamp link (with two streaming tracks) here: paris1942.bandcamp.com/album/paris-...

Roaring into the fall semester like

ONCE IN A HOUSE ON FIRE, a memoir of a working class Manchester childhood in the 70s and 80s, was a literary sensation. Then author Andrea Ashworth dropped out of sight. For @manchestermill.bsky.social I found out why. manchestermill.co.uk/andrea-ashwo...

There were quite a few Black people born in Ireland who lived in the USA in the late-19th and early 20th centuries (there were even more in Ireland, of course). Here's one:

El Greco. A bit too pro-Habsburg for a few years there.