the arctic says trans rights

Train delay: physical postures of weariness and dissolution

Imagine being a Russian troll assigned to Bluesky: “Comrade, today you will destabilize Western democracy by arguing with poets, policy nerds, and a raccoon avatar with tenure.”

Some of these people send me mail asking for money! They won’t get it from me

Anon reviewer told us to cite more of my work:

Gift article: how oppressive regimes offer “loyal losers” (who probably hate HATE meritocracies, blame DEI for their failures, etc.) their only possible route to success www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/w...

My hot take: at a time of rampant AI, federal efforts to suppress history, the slashing of funding for basic science, and attacks on climate research, "grade inflation" is far from the most pressing issue confronting academia.

Let's make billionaires pay their fair share and find out

Gift article: how oppressive regimes offer “loyal losers” (who probably hate HATE meritocracies, blame DEI for their failures, etc.) their only possible route to success www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/w...

Orson Welles: I worked with Grogu. Not in film you see but on the stage. Brilliant performer but a cruel disgusting wretch of a soul. Interviewer: Pourrions-nous parler de Citizen Kane à la place, s'il vous plaît ? Welles: yes he did sell out his friends to HUAC, I will never forgive him for that

kat with the truth

Tina Brown’s wrathfully precise contempt of the monarchy is a tonic to read tinabrown.substack.com/p/can-the-an...

New late-life ego ideal

Which unread novel from the Guardian list did you decide to start? Transit of Venus for me

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

Everyone loves this painting of a wicked dancer

Munich football prank www.nytimes.com/athletic/728...

Rainstorm Over the Sea -John Constable

People have already memory-holed how critical #TeslaTakeDown was. It was the earliest decentralized set of protests in the second term as early as Feb 2025 at a time when most people were shell-shocked and Dem leadership was cowering and capitulating. And it pushed Elon out of the WH.

“Oh so some fella with an Irish-sounding name has gone and desecrated The Odyssey, is that it? Homer’s own Odyssey? The absolute cheek. And tis the talk of the town, is that what I understand you to be saying to me? And people very upset altogether? Sure I never heard the like in all my born days.”

Sandstorm (Darude, 1999)

Today is the official publication day for the Arden 4 edition of Titus Andronicus that I edited with Ayanna Thompson. I'm told that the book has already been reprinted because it was set as the required text for an English lit exam in France!

Many people have a vested interest in pretending otherwise, but the US research university is globally dominant to an almost unbelievable degree. The typical state university is a football team stapled to a R&D lab with a budget bigger than the entire nation of Belgium.

Becoming mordantly interested in the UK Labour leadership struggle: casual opinions welcome

The Slopquincentennial.

There are stories from all over about universities' dismantling of the humanities. I have a small but dismaying data point from my university to contribute to the discourse. Harvard University now has NO assistant professors of English. That's how long it has been since we were allowed to hire.

the beauty of this website is that every morning you can wake up to a new bloody civil war with absolutely no indication whether it was incited by someone saying “silk boxers are mid” or “I believe you should be allowed to eat any dog under ten pounds”

Get yourself one of these tiny UPS trucks

If US wealth were spread equally over all households, the poorest 50% of households today would get *$1.2 million* richer on average. The next-poorest 40% of households would get $300k richer on average. Only the richest 10% of Americans would lose any wealth, at all. Calculations and data source:

Fun overview from Daniel Immerwahr in @newyorker.com of two nose-thumbing, revisionist accounts of the American Revolution. Lots of "I didn't know that!" moments, including this one, about Sultan Hyder Ali, the unsung hero of Yorktown. bit.ly/4eKp0IB

I teach where I teach and I have absolutely seen this effect. We still get outliers who can and do read three Willa Cather novels in two days but the median student-- who is just as bright, alert and interested as ever-- reads more slowly, and has read fewer books before they arrive at college.

Interesting article/thread quantifying something college professors have noticed strongly since the pandemic: Even many well-off students have trouble reading 😮‍💨 Those students still get in to good schools so their parents don’t see the deskilling

it's essentially a fascist vision rather than an imperial one, and I do think they're different in this regard; fascist conquest puts a much greater emphasis on the humiliation and subjugation of the conquered people as inferiors, and the libidinous pleasure to be derived from that for the core.

I hope you’ve all seen this job listing for a Humanities Leadership postdoc at Yale’s Whitney Humanities Center: deadline June 13 ✨ apply.interfolio.com/185526?fbcli...

Fighting over Bluesky and X is so funny. It's like two rival opera companies screaming at each other. Persuasion is done via short form video now, we're both retirement homes for uggos.

Not enough time to follow this up right now, but I’ve been mulling over the idea of sustainability. Specifically, what endures when you’re not around to keep it going. Interdependency, common goods, generational buy-in. I don’t know that I’ve managed it consistently, but I see the folks who have.

Sad situation 😮‍💨

'Dandelions,' was painted by the Danish artist Bertha Wegmann around 1910. It wasn't an arbitrary choice of a plant to paint: the dandelion was used to promote the women’s liberation movement in Scandinavia because of its capacity for uncontrolled, strong-willed growth.

politicians & press alike insist we can never tell anti-immigrant voters they're wrong—but they are, & we should! my latest for @liberalcurrents.com www.liberalcurrents.com/respecting-r...

Still a brutal time for caffeine addicts like me—coffee prices are up 18% over the last year and 56% since 2020

How the students are feeling That’s the cow that escaped and chased students on campus, and a tornado for good measure

Lorry gets stuck in hole it was sent to fix in Somerset

Dickens: *reaching for the “add character” button Me: woah, woah, slow down there, Chuck. We’ve got 18 characters in this scene already- Dickens: *pressing the button Me: ok. Ok. That was the LAST one though Dickens: *PRESS PRESS PRESS PRESS PRESS

Love this! www.notus.org/perspectives... (The suggestions from the 15 other WaPo veterans fall well short of the moment.)

the problem of evil is one of the biggest political questions in fantasy and many other popular genres. the two fantasists who best handle this, I think, are Ursula K. Le Guin and Hayao Miyazaki.

Some of you are worried for me, and that just means you don’t know how many times I’ve read Clarissa.

The Eisbachwelle surf-wave in Munich re-opened today after being closed for 1 year— she was probably the best 🌊

Hilarious red flag for a restaurant in Germany: they’re allowed to take down bad Google reviews for defamation but then have to post this sign

Nice coverage in The Atlantic “The country’s commitment to the humanities has been affirmed in court, and I love that.” (Me)