I, too, am considering a career change. For... so many reasons. If you're an academic in the US and you've done this, I'd love to hear your story.

33 1/3 books are currently 30% off (not 33.33%, sadly). Pick up one or two (or 33), if you're so minded. For example: www.bloomsbury.com/us/john-cale...

University President: Good afternoon Class of 2026! Please put your hands together for this year’s graduation speaker, MOLOCH!!

The youths are making me proud. Normalize booing at anyone and everyone who tries to abduct you on their AI rocketship.

One delightful side-effect of reading Ian Penman's wonderful exploration of Erik Satie is that it's got me listening to all sorts of solo piano works from before/after/beyond Satie. Plink plink plinkity plink all day long here at Doyle Manor. It's quite nice. bookshop.org/p/books/erik...

I've been listening to The Necks a bunch lately because they have the kind of patience / allergy to efficiency / willingness to delay gratification that I (in particular) and we (as a society) need much more of. This album is 3 hours long! Hoorah!

I'm glad Sebald got two books on that list, even though they put them in the wrong order.

I am delighted to learn there is a band in the US called Fantastic Cat, whose three albums are called: The Very Best of Fantastic Cat (2022) Now That’s What I Call Fantastic Cat (2024) Cat Out of Hell (2026) They all wear cat masks, the silly bastards. PS. They are also excellent.

I'm thinking about going to see Steel Pulse this summer--a band that, I confess, I didn't realize was still out there doing it. Anyone seen them recently?

Going to see Bonnie Prince Billy tonight for the second time in six months. This is absolutely the life.

Just back from a scroll through LinkedIn and maybe I'm a cynic but there's no way those people are as excited about their quarterly reports and new certifications and presentations to half-empty Marriott ballrooms as they make out to be.

Just in time for summer, I have discovered that there is an entire corner of Wikipedia devoted to amusement park accidents. See, e.g., en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inciden...

Drafting syllabi for my fall classes, excited to see what ChatGPT thinks of all these texts I'm assigning.

Since the Hampshire College closing announcement, students have been expressing their feelings through chalking & tagging, and the administration has wisely refrained from removing those that, by virtue of materials or placement, violate campus policy. Also signs. A little 🧵

Philippe Halsman & Salvador Dali from Dali’s Mustache, a witty and often absurd verbal and photographic exchange between two friends from 1954. #SalvadorDali #BOTD

So much work that needs doing and all I have the energy for is lying in the dark listening to all of Scott Walker's albums in chronological order.

Anyone want some strawberries? We got a little carried away.

My campus is just in the process of switching over to Canvas. I bet the admin who made that decision are feeling pretty smart right about now.

Medieval art is boring…

A pretty good rule of thumb is to listen to every record Alabaster DePlume puts out asap.

Day Three #FiveAlive Introduce a newcomer to Scott Walker in 5 tracks.

One downside of the firehose of pop culture that defines our age--plus the shortness of shelf lives & attention spans--is that many gems get buried under whatever else appeared that day, year, & after. I've been sitting with this gem from 2021 & thought I'd go ahead and hold it up to the light here.

The Department of Education continues its march toward re-segregation, now by investigating Stanford for having a teacher education program for people of color, arguing it is discriminatory on the basis of race. The university has chosen to terminate the program.

May the Finnegan be with you.

Nice that Bandcamp Friday--when you can buy records and merch on Bandcamp and all the proceeds go to the creators--falls on May Day this year. I bought, for example, this. claudefontaine.bandcamp.com/album/la-mer

A bit of news that is probably, for the most part, positive: the teen is getting into Elliott Smith.

This album and this review are really good.

Periodic shout-out to the Anniversaries crew #Uwe

Final class of my 20th century Britain class tonight and I am going to introduce them to a historical phenomenon of which many are unaware: The Spice Girls.

In all honesty, more of us should be listening to Franco Battiato. youtu.be/jDNsi-HHYcI?...

Any AAUPniks on this site? I've just become president of my campus's chapter and I'm looking to make some friends.

I have followed the self-care gurus' advice and allowed myself to spend the weekend accomplishing absolutely nothing. It's made me anxious beyond belief.

Yesterday I stepped into a bar in a strip mall in a Nashville suburb and found dozens of people wearing red curly wigs and big glasses and colorful patterned kaftans. And that is how I learned that many people, for reasons that elude me, like to romp around dressed as Mrs Roper of Three's Company.

The teen had a birthday today.

Kids' birthday parties have become too elaborate, expensive, and structured. I remember when our parents would just drop us off at an unlifeguarded pool with a pile of BB guns and a cigarette vending machine within easy reach and come back for what remained of us several hours later.

They would have to go ahead and fire me.

This is great stuff from Maurice. I've been working on Asians and Africans in pre-1921 Ireland (there were many! ask me for details!) and haven't had a chance yet to dig around in the 1926 census, but what he says below about evidence of long-established immigrant communities is v enticing.

Every morning before I head out for my morning walk I check the UV index and the VU index.

Made a last-minute decision to catch the Robyn Hitchcock show down the street. If he can stay up past 9:30, I can, too.

Quickie cos late for band practice. Now Keshed has been out a bit and folk have read it, how many folk would be up for an online event/interview thing if i organised one? RT's appreciated, just testing the water for now 👀👀👀👀👀

For reasons, I'm thinking of publishing a novel serially via Substack. Do people do this? Would anyone read a heist story set on the English Channel just before WWI with a charming narrator and anarchists and suffragettes and smugglers etc? Serially, I mean--would they read it serially?

Did you guys know Elia Kazan wrote novels? Like, really pretty good novels?

For reasons, I'm thinking of publishing a novel serially via Substack. Do people do this? Would anyone read a heist story set on the English Channel just before WWI with a charming narrator and anarchists and suffragettes and smugglers etc? Serially, I mean--would they read it serially?

Reader friends, help a fella out -- I'm looking for examples of*assholes* in fiction. To be clear, not necessarily bad people or villains, but plain old assholes.

I'm about to become the president of my school's AAUP chapter. It was that or see it disappear from a combination of attrition, inertia, and faculty burnout/overwhelm/despair (I teach at a state school in the US South). I've never been president of anything: think I might build a triumphal arch.

Crisp, clean, and the vocals really pop - worth 2:33 of your time today.

I did not know it was International Hai- ku day til just now

There was a pretty major rock star in the audience of my kid's middle school concert last night (my kids go to an interesting school); the kids all knew it, but instead of crumbling (as I once did when a historian whose work I once cited was in the room where I had to read paper) they crushed it.

New fiction by me - in the Saturday Evening Post! It's about an old woman who spends her days tripping Nazis in the parks of Paris. www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2026/04/the-...

Just another Wednesday evening and I'm finding myself enchanted by this 1738 statue of Handel trying to work from home while daycare's closed. collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O34256/...