Latest addition to the collection of crime writing read by Walter Benjamin: - Gaston Leroux, Perfume of the Lady in Black

This is my regular reminder to everyone that jstor is open to the general public now; a free account there will give you access to 100 papers a year.

😲😥🫡

“The story of IHOP was all about internationalism, but not the generic kind. it was like IKEA—Scandinavian. It was the International House of Pancakes, and it was international because, you know, there were various syrups of the world there.” www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...

OK! OK! Nobody panic! Or better yet, EVERYBODY PANIC so at least we're all on the same page. Your Name Here has a publisher: @dalkeyarchive.bsky.social Your Name Here has a release date. (September 23) Your Name Here has a cover! Now all Your Name Here needs is your preorder!

Two more ordered for the Walter Benjamin commemorative crime writing collection: - Alfred Döblin, Two Women and a Poisoning (Text Books, 2021) - Hans Aufricht-Ruda, The Case for the Defendant (Little, Brown, 1929)

My new hobby is to collect every detective novel read by Walter Benjamin - in English translation if there is one. Some are pretty obscure …

My book is alive! Just in time for the revolution, as I expected it would be when I began my research [gulp] ten years ago.

Unpacking some old books and found my trashed copy of the Chicago Manual of Style (5th ed., 1917) that once belonged to Franz Boas.

this 1996 commercial for claritin sent me into flight or flight. an absolute psycho directed this

Renata Adler on Hannah Arendt in the new Granta - didn’t know there was any connection between the two! granta.com/this-very-co...

On the back of an old bookmark featuring Curious George, I found a vaguely useful explanation of the logic behind the Dewey Decimal system - had no idea that it was so … Hegelian?

One of the more amazing AI hallucinations I have seen

Pure genius! By @ellecordova.bsky.social

Proofs! And a nominal pub date in June? Sneak peeks at the ToC for those who just can't wait.

“It must be hard to be March, one of those adolescent months people patiently wait for the year to outgrow.” (line from James Schuyler's diary, March 10, 1971)

The Spontaneity of Freedom research project at UCL's Philosophy Department will be hosing a workshop in London this 4 & 5 July. A call for abstracts is available here: spontaneousfreedom.net/opportunities/. Deadline 1 April.

#economics #centralbanks A new #book “Our Money” – Monetary Policy as if Democracy Matters by Leah Downey @stjohnscam Febr 2025 @princetonupress.bsky.social press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

I started a Substack that is only kind of promoting a book. Please check it out if you're interested in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte! brumaireland.substack.com?r=49u0ze&utm...

As of five minutes ago, I'm the proud owner of 18brumaire.com. For now it just links to my forthcoming dissertation book, but I'm open to suggestions. (I might start a blog. Or a memecoin ...)

Andy Rabinbach was an extraordinary scholar, teacher, and mentor. And a wonderful Mensch. As Jürgen Kaube puts it in this well-informed and sensitive obituary: "Jede Zeile von ihm war informativ."

Loved this @stephenvaisey.com explanation of research on how moral and political beliefs change over the decades Are the changes due to individual people changing their minds? Or to older people dying and being replaced by young people with different opinions?

“There are only two types of people who make the mistake of writing a book: non-writers, who don’t know any better; and writers, who can never be happy and therefore must always seek out pain in order to feel alive.” I am both of those things!

My favorite Christmas Eve fact is that the earliest known reference to the Feast of the Seven Fishes is from 1983.

A lovely obituary for Bill Labov in the Inquirer.

😞 but - hope these find a good home!

Freud hatte 5 Schwestern. Allerdings schreibt er auf 6000 Seiten 300x über Väter, 250x über Mütter, 50x über Brüder – aber nur ein einzige Mal etwas über die Beziehung zwischen Schwestern. Interview von @leasusemichel.bsky.social mit Psychoanalytikerin Anita Neunkirchner über die "Schwesternlücke".

"I have never read a text that was more complex and fascinating in its rendering of historical actuality and change." Adam Tooze on Vasily Grossman's Stalingrad and Life and Fate. adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-...

“Baldwin … kept a photo of John Singer Sargent’s portrait of Henry James (signed by Sargent and James), which had been sent to him as fan mail by William James’s grandson (!).” open.substack.com/pub/eliflife...

My book is real!! Can't believe it. Filled with so much gratitude.

As a Helen,

On why Silicon Valley turned right, and the problems with the Andreessen-Smith-Yglesias "pounded progressive ally" thesis www.programmablemutter.com/p/why-did-si...

Broke down and donated $25 to @nplusonemag.bsky.social for the chance to do Bookmatch before it ends tomorrow and I am fated to live another year not knowing my true self.

In his By the Book interview this week, Billy Collins says he began copying other primates and peeling bananas from the bottom. I tried this for a while, and I have to say, the chimps are wrong on this one.

1. The conventional explanation for food deserts—that these places are too poor or too rural to generate enough spending on groceries, or too Black to overcome racist corporate redlining — fail to grapple with a key fact: food deserts didn’t used to exist. My new piece in The Atlantic.

New words learned at the amazing Peabody Museum: ceratopsian, glyptodont, thagomizer … Also, I just learned that a slapstick is an actual stick that makes a slap sound.

And one of the most incredible new words that I have learned in a while, from Meaney’s review. Ibbur. (used by Adorno to describe Asja Lacis)

Is this word really new to me? Not sure. But fritinancy.substack.com/p/word-of-th...

oh no not _criticism_

“But while embracing the rhetoric of economic populism would be a good start, tweaks to language are not enough. Our definition of ‘ground game’ must evolve as well …” A fresh and interesting line of criticism by @astra.bsky.social

Emmanuel Macron annonce l'entrée au Panthéon de l'historien et résistant Marc Bloch, fusillé par la Gestapo en 1944. L'annonce est intervenue lors du discours du président pour commémorer le 80e anniversaire de la libération de Strasbourg. www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/deba...

Two new words for me this morning: DARVO, demisexual.

In the middle of Star 111 and truly amazed so far - And a new to me word from this piece! “… fontanelle, describing the not-yet-solid soft spot on the head of an infant …”

Foiled again by the curiosity gap. (It’s RAWLS 🤦‍♂️)

I didn't know that I lived on the street of the great Pauli Murray. A newly erected historical landmark.

What is the technical term for the annoying practice of omitting information from a headline? (“This House Democrat Keeps Winning …” “Nobody is Worried About My Country’s Elections …” to take two examples at random) And is it new to the click age or something older that has just metastasized?

Democracy is great for your Christmas stockings!

It was an honor to do a deep dive on the great Ahmad Jamal for the 50th anniversary of his expansive and oft-sampled _Jamal Plays Jamal_. I'm thankful for this lively dialogue with Angélika Beener @kulturedchild.bsky.social on her Milestones podcast hosted by WBGO. www.wbgo.org/podcast/mile...

Just blanked on the difference between “principle” and “principal” (sorry, up since 3 AM) and could only remember that the head of the school is your PAL, which didn’t help at all.