With alt text so everybody can read it 'cause you need housing whether or not your vision's impaired. Link: www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...

Art, visualizing what is beyond words, since 40,000 BCE.

Well that was a big earthquake

'The Art of Manga' follows Paul McCartney snapshot show at the de Young Museum. They've given up, haven't they?

I'm beginning to think "I got fired in 2025" is going to be a resume badge of honor in the future. Susan Monarez, Matthew Dowd, Stephen Colbert, professors, K-12 teachers, federal workers, and yes, even Jimmy Kimmel. Do your job, get laid off. Grift, rise to the top.

This is why nobody wants to work anymore. Carpet has fleas. Teacher's request to remove carpet ignored. Teacher removes carpet. District fires teacher.

As Judith and Holofernes Cindy Sherman, Untitled #228, from the History Portraits series, 1990, chromogenic color print, 208.4 x 122 cm. NYC, MOMA.

I love reading Italian descriptions of paintings. Today: "viso humido," a 'humid or moist face,' referring to a heroine lit by torch light in a night scene. Fascinating. Could not get away with that in English.

I lost my dream job. For doing journalism. For fighting for people to able to express themselves. In America.

In order to delete your account without first agreeing to these terms you have to 1) login on desktop or desktop mode on the phone. 2) Click privacy policy (and not "agree") 3) click the profile icon and scroll down & click delete account. I had to do this cycle twice before it let me fully delete

Built in the 13th century. So that mosque stood for 800 years with every sort of person from every place and every religion in the world passing through Gaza century after century, only for it to be blown up by some shithead loser sitting behind a computer that we probably paid for.

Jesus Christ.

Viruses have lifelong wily consequences. The more we look, the more we find. Why FAFO with Covid?

Originally attributed to Dosso Dossi; catalogued by the Beni Cultural here:

New-to-me portrait by Lavinia Fontana c. 1593. A Black woman?! Apologies for the photo of a book illustration but it’s the only one I can find. Mentioned in 1989 Cantaro catalogue with no discussion of race. At the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. Wow!

History is inquiry into the past, not worship of it.

“Real patriotic education means that just as our founders loved and honored America, so we should honor them,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a PragerU video introducing the project. This is Christian religious language btw. Indoctrination, coming to a K-12 near you. [gift link]

A man in Washington, DC, plays the Imperial March from Star Wars while following patrolling soldiers. One of the soldiers threatens to call the police.

The Dept. of Education has pulled funding for programs in 8 states that support students with both hearing and vision loss. A staffer at one program says he was told the Trump admin. took issue with 2 words on the grant application: “transition" and “privilege": www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Tracking 'fourth Thursday in November' is a lot to ask of people outside the US, but the number of UK lectures occurring online during US Thanksgiving is really something. Otoh, who wouldn't rather learn about conspiracies as a form of political action in the 16th century instead of family drama?

De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est — ad absudum

There are so many unforgivable actions of capitulation being taken by the institutions most well-positioned to stand up to Trump’s authoritarianism if they wished to do so. A must-read from @samtlevin.bsky.social:

The mortgage fraud claim against Lisa Cook is false, per documents obtained by Reuters. Bill Pulte's accusation, the sole pretext Trump used to fire her from the Fed, was that she claimed two homes as primary residence. These docs show she did not. www.reuters.com/world/us/fed...

Reminder that you can donate to abortion funds and many of them desperately need the cash to help people.

Right on. Music made by humans should be visualized by art made by humans. [gift link]

Gustav Klimt, Judith I, 1901, oil and gold on canvas 84 x 42cm. Vienna, Belvedere.

UC Berkeley has given the Trump administration the names of 160 students, faculty, and staff as part of an investigation into antisemitism on campus. One of them is Judith Butler. www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

These sparkle under museum lights at the de Young in San Francisco. Votive objects in the shape of people holding offerings, 550-850 CE. Maya. Obsidian.

For fear of a person of color having an education, destroy education for everyone. For people not in higher ed, this is bad. This is really bad. [gift link]

There is an amazing class on religion, gender, history, and art criticism in this one statue.

I want to get down to LA to see the Ken Gonzales-Day show at USC's Fisher Museum

It’s impressive the Rose B Simpson (Santa Clara Pueblo) low riders fit inside the de Young museum’s interior courtyard but jamming them against the wall perversely makes them look small.

"Performing at the Kennedy Center under its current leadership would not be a neutral act; it would lend legitimacy to a government now acting to repress the freedom of thought and expression." A message to @sfballet.bsky.social [gift link]

Hi from a laid off tenured professor in program that was growing. It's not just coming; it's here. Swords up now.

"education itself is rebranded as retrieval, not the creation and evaluation of knowledge" [gift link]

Many congratulations to the new San José Museum of Art director who has quite a legacy to follow

The de Young hired Native American experts to reimagine their Indigenous America permanent galleries. Cue Miranda Priestly voice: groundbreaking. But really, it's actually ground breaking (even if it shouldn't be).

THANK GOD UNIVERSITIES ARE DISSOLVING RELIGION DEPARTMENTS BECAUSE WHY THE FUCK WOULD ANYONE NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS IS DOING. BOY THIS IS GREAT!

Interviewing people at 7am on a Sunday. Am I doing freelancing wrong?

I hope I never, ever cross paths with Elizabeth Gilbert.

There is, as of right now, no coverage of this protest on the WaPo website or in their @washingtonpost.com feed. So, if you (you reading this) want people to SEE this protest, you must share it.

And California has free state park passes you can borrow! The program has been extended through 2026. The Discover & Go programs has free museum tickets! Libraries are proof we can have nice things.

Amazingly enough I am on this list *multiple times* because of scholarly articles I coauthored. You should really check and see if you’re on it too.

Adrian Saxe, Eggplant, 1982. Porcelain @deyoungmuseum.bsky.social San Francisco

A plea as the city of San Francisco moves to spend millions destroying art rather than preserving it [gift link]

David Ellison, nepo baby son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, wrecks CBS.

CNN picked up an article from the Journal of Medieval History and reported its findings ... like a climate change or health science article!

Incidentally this is about a verbatim replication of the conversation my spouse had with his conservative homeschooling sister. She avowed facts are unknowable, information is unfindable, we cannot know anything. It's not an age of disinformation; it's an age of no information.

I had to double-check it was the SF Symphony's website. @joshuakosman.bsky.social's blunt words — "the Symphony's extraordinarily drab and timorous 2025-26 season" — did not overstate.

Super! Alt text: Amy Sherald painting of two Black men in vaguely sailor-ish attire. One dips the other in a deeply romantic kiss against a plain blue background. Intimacy and love foregrounded.