I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

the most important thing to remember when you see eugenicists who don’t believe that autistic people should exist rambling about “the autism epidemic” is not that they’re wrong about the “cause” (although they are absolutely wrong about it); it’s that they are eugenicists

Where are my volvelle fans at? Click through if you dare for the full (not-quite-)feature-length Apian volvelle explainer. #volvelles #rarebooks #GLAM 📚

excited to spend my day frantically getting caught up on work so that i won't be behind two days from now while also singing the shul choir pieces over and over in my head. l'shanah tovah, my friends!

For your Friday cheer, this zine from @janineveazue.bsky.social has taught me that I would, indeed, wear these booty shorts

🚨HOLY FUCKING SHIT @pennpress.bsky.social HAS A 50% OFF BACK TO SCHOOL SALE ON A TERRIFIC COLLECTION OF PB TITLES 🚨 Now til 9/30. Don't sleep on it poindexters! www.pennpress.org/back-to-scho...

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, September 19, 1984, Former U. S. President Gerald Ford was stuck in an elevator in the Van Pelt Library at UPenn. Was there a medieval manuscript stuck in the elevator with him? Probably not, but we can dream. #medievalsky

Rare books people! Following some lively & productive discussion at the @livesandletters.bsky.social conference last week, I have a question: how would you describe inscriptions like these?

again, it is an especially great time to support & buy books from the wonderful team at @loyaltybooks.bsky.social: loyaltybookstores.com

every covid shot still feels like a goddamn miracle

Super hard figuring out how to find the energy to flirt with the hot woman who lives in your neighborhood in this state of the world

Oh for fuck’s sake — “beef” is something you have with a peer or colleague. When someone in elected office demands your comedy show be pulled because they don’t like your political opinions, the term for that is “censorship.”

The Tikvah Fund, now getting millions of dollars in US govt money to create a parallel Jewish Studies academic infrastructure, is often described as pro-Israel, but that isn't going far enough. They're pro-Netanyahu, explicitly pro-judicial coup. They have an agenda that half of Israeli Jews reject.

Just an everlasting supply of dipshits in the world.

If 14yos can be tried as adults, then 14yos should be able to vote.

Despicable. If their 14 year-old got into trouble, it would be all, "He's a good kid. Promising athlete/student. Don't hurt his future/scholarship chances. Boys will be boys." If you wouldn't do the same for someone else's kid, you're a bad person. Shameful vote aligning with the fascist regime.

We don't know what's going to happen so might as well fight for better. That's really my basic political orientation.

New poll finds that, by almost a three-to-one margin, American Jews believe Trump uses allegations of antisemitism as an "excuse" to cut university funding, rather than "truly cares about protecting Jewish students." (drive.google.com/file/d/1sjIV...)

Almost like this isn't really about what we want at all: www.latimes.com/california/s...

I am also very grateful to learn from this accounting at this moment

I am in the middle of reading this right now: it’s good for Elul and it’s good for anyone looking to think deeply about what it means to make amends (even if you’re not Jewish!)

I have made the questionable decision to get stoned and listen to Audra McDonald read Emily Wilson’s Iliad

If anyone remembers what movie I realized this afternoon would be a perfect rewatch for these days please let me know because wow do I not and wow do I need to escape my brain for a bit

A moment of true joy in a hard hard world. Huge mazel tov to Kadin and to Kentucky!!

It doesn’t get this bad without an opposition party this weak.

I don't really have words for this. You can't just blow up ships full of Brown people and then say they were terrorist drug traffickers. That's not actually a justification for it.

Introducing COYOTE: A worker-owned Bay Area media collective. Our stories will be public for the first two weeks. Read ‘em and subscribe! www.coyotemedia.org

This is utterly ridiculous. Karen wrote multiple threads over the last few days condemning gun violence and political violence. She wrote one post about Kirk directly and that was only quoting him. She’s an opinion writer. She did her job.

Firing a Black woman for quoting Kirk’s horrific statements about Black women is insane. It seems the Washington Post would rather perform politeness (and demand that the people Kirk harmed do it too) that tell the truth: karenattiah.substack.com/p/the-washin...

Instead of being online I was off getting my updated covid vax!! Highly recommend, 13/10, will be doing again

This piece about a woman named Sarah was written by another woman named Sara and edited by a third woman named Sarah. Please read it and enjoy!

If I have any credibility with you from 20 years of reporting on rightwing & fascist movements, please listen when I beg you not to celebrate Charlie Kirk getting shot. Leave aside morality: this isn’t a match in dry grass, it’s a torch. We do not want what this could ignite & we would not win.

#Rochester embracing its activist history. The Douglasses & Harriet Tubman would be proud.

Were you excited when you thought we knew what the First Folio print run was? Think again!

I need to write something and the best way for me to be in the right frame of mind is to not have access to my computer or phone but also I have horrible handwriting and so obviously I should buy a typewriter right?

Please spread the word—The Scholars’ Workshop in Early African American Print at AAS Jan. 12-15, 2026. A writing workshop and intro to archives for junior scholars working on the dissertation or first book. Fully funded. Apply by Oct. 15 2025. PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD

All right, putting it out into the world… if anyone back in Australia has hot tips on a job for a museum studies professor who loves teaching and public programs and has leadership and strategic thinking skills, I’d love to hear them. Holding on here, but longing to be back in Oz.

Hear me out…what if instead of freaking out that we aren't producing enough babies, we cared about keeping the existing children alive?

The epidemiologist sent an article and said we’re cooked The climatologist sent an article and said we’re cooked The academic sent an article and said we’re cooked The activist sent an article and said we aren’t cooked we’re being cooked, so we had better get out of this pot.

DC and environs: Amy Coney Barrett will be speaking at the National Book Festival on Saturday. Do with that information what you will.

this new CMOS18 thing of capitalizing after a colon when it's a complete sentence is really doing my head in (so many things are doing my head in that I'm allowing myself to complain about the most trivial one)

"No bookstore that PW has reached out to has been as adversely impacted as @loyaltybooks.bsky.social, which specializes in diverse and intersectional literature ... Sales are down 65% since August 11." you can shop at Loyalty at loyaltybookstores.com or through Bookshop bookshop.org/shop/loyalty

Ok, yes, sure, my body is a gift from G-d. We are all made in the image of the divine. So maybe let’s take care of our bodies and each other in appreciation!!

How long is it going to be until other countries won’t want to let USians visit because we’re disease-ridden plague carriers? (Gift link)

More: - Tiffany Aching, Pratchett - Prydain, Alexander (great as a pre-LOTR series imo) - Dark Is Rising, Cooper - His Dark Materials (hits real hard for weirdo smart kids) - Graceling, Cashore (I mistakenly read them in order 1-3-2 and actually might recommend that) - Queen’s Thief, Turner

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Next time you hear someone talking about how the current government is erasing history or distorting our culture, remind them that we paved the way with streets of STEM-only funding. When we change this story, and we will, we will do it by making an actual commitment to investing in the humanities.

Erasing and distorting history benefits MAGA, but it is not a new project. The US has chosen not to invest in history, culture, and education for decades. We did so on purpose because people across the political spectrum think an informed populace is bad for the economy.

Sign of the times: Came across a D.C. home bearing an upside-down city flag, indicating distress, and the sailing flag associated with man overboard.

This is one of the reasons I’m so grateful for @51st.news! We all deserve to be able to access local news that is driven by actually local media.