Sheep Meadow in Central Park, now

At home making my way through all the weird corners of the MBV discography.

Got hold of some near-mint perfect copies of the Neal Adams run of the X-Men from the late '60s. Psychedelic art hits mainstream comics.

ChatGPT Made Me Do It #RAdminSky #1A #academicSky

From about a year ago, 'Dounana' by Siba & Monkyman: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdFl...

Had the honor of co-authoring this piece in @sciasculture.bsky.social on "Dictators of the Future: The Tech Oligarchy in Outer Space" w/ the brilliant @renny-hahamovitch.bsky.social , @rekapatriciagal.bsky.social and Ellie Armstrong. More ruminations on E__n M__k, Jeff Bezos, and their ilk.

My 15 minutes of nothing. I once played guitar with Lana Del Rey at a show in 2005 or 2006. I can't remember. She was a Fordham student. She was the lead singer of our band for that one gig. I tried to get her to be a history major (failed).

My 15 minutes of nothing. I once played guitar with Lana Del Rey at a show in 2005 or 2006. I can't remember. She was a Fordham student. She was the lead singer of our band for that one gig. I tried to get her to be a history major (failed).

The book that I edited 'Cosmic Fragments: Dislocation and Discontent in the Global Space Age' (2025) is on sale (a 40% discount!) by the University of Pittsburgh Press @upittpress.bsky.social. The discount code is 29INT40, and the landing page is here: upittpress.org/intersection....

The book that I edited 'Cosmic Fragments: Dislocation and Discontent in the Global Space Age' (2025) is on sale (a 40% discount!) by the University of Pittsburgh Press @upittpress.bsky.social. The discount code is 29INT40, and the landing page is here: upittpress.org/intersection....

Listening to My Bloody Valentine's "Isn't Anything" (w/ the additional 7" with the unbelievable "Instrumental B." That track is insane. www.youtube.com/watch?v=osCS...

I celebrate each and every detention release that I learn about.

Sad to learn of the passing of Gerry Conway, one of the giants of the comics world. He had an incalculable effect on my world w/ his storytelling in the 1970s in comics such as Spider-Man, Ms Marvel, & Fantastic Four, bringing fresh wit & creativity into comics 1/2 tinyurl.com/mpzz4cks

A reminder that you can join our online book talk with John Scanlan on The Idea of Waste: On the Limits of Human Life (Reaktion Books, 2025) tomorrow (Monday 27 Apr 2026), 4pm Central European time / 3pm in the UK / 10 am Eastern Info to join: newnatures.org/greenhouse/e...

Jessica Watkins was assigned the position of Commander on Crew-13 yesterday. Not only will she be the first #NASA astronaut to fly the Dragon capsule twice, but she will be the first woman of colour to command a space mission! (Photo by: Robert Markowitz)

It's the 59th anniversary of the death of Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, the first in-flight fatality of the Space Age. I recently got hold of the official Party report on the disaster which confirms what we knew before of the technical reasons for accident, a failure in the parachute system 1/n

Well, they've finally struck home. #ICE has detained my former #umich student, Yousif Azizi, a PhD student in public policy at Virginia Tech w/a valid visa. He was arrested while taking his children to school in Maryland. After multiple transfers, he is in a detention center in Arizona.

Putin signed a decree today renaming the FSB Academy in honor of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the creator of the Cheka, responsible for political terror after the 1917 revolution and a predecessor of the KGB & FSB. The decree hails Dzerzhinsky's "outstanding contribution to state security."

The journal Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (HSNS) is inviting short essays (800-1K words) revisiting "classic" works in the history of the natural sciences. These will be collected in a special issue planned for 2027. If you have an idea, please contact me. (I'm an associate editor)

Excellent piece by @torinmonahan.bsky.social on surveillance and censorship on campus post encampment, covering investigations, crowdsourced "complaint and syllabi-exposing systems" and more that make campuses less safe for most. www.merip.org/2026/04/cens...

'Texas A&M philosophy professor Martin Peterson is leaving the university after administrators told him in January that he couldn’t teach Plato’s Symposium in his philosophy class; they said the ancient Greek philosopher’s work violated the system’s restrictions on gender and sexuality content.' 1/3

How the Strokes ended their second Coachella set! #TheStrokes #Coachella

It says something about the skewed nature of discourse on higher ed that there's unending navel-gazing on the closure of Hampshire College but zero attention to dozens of other closed colleges. Most were lower-tier regional schools and not an elite college: www.bestcolleges.com/research/clo...

A book that I missed: Atomic Tunes: The Cold War in American and British Popular Music (which includes sections on folk, punk, new wave, etc.) iupress.org/978025305618...

New Boards of Canada: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bgh...

America is losing a talented researcher today. Rümeysa Öztürk, whose abduction by masked men prompted a search and her eventual release by ICE, has returned to Turkey. She wants to resume a career without "state-imposed violence and hostility." www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/17/m...

A first look: My take on the history of criminal justice and the procuracy under (and after) Stalin The Disciplined Dictatorship: The Soviet Procuracy from Stalin to Khrushchev, 1938—1956 forthcoming with Oxford University Press Expected September 2026. More soon.

As a New Yorker, I support this policy 100%.

I'll be discussing this crazy book on April 28 at 6pm @thegraduatecenter.bsky.social as part of the launch of Peter Hitchcock's new book Seriality and Social Change. The event is open to the public, the next post will include registration info. 1/2

In this interview with the Kyiv Independent, renowned Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy discusses why there’s no question that Russia has always been an empire, why Russia is more fixated on destroying Ukraine than any other country, and more.

I'm reading a book on Chris Claremont (helpfully titled 'Chris Claremont') and there's a striking quote from the great writer Grant Morrison suggesting that Claremont was the Spielberg of comics. Which, when you think about it, is not a bad comparison. #comics #x-men #marvel

Inside the Whipple Concentration Camp Credit: 50501 Minnesota

Easy to become an alcoholic when every week is like Dr Strangelove

I've been really struggling to write about space while living through the ICE occupation in Minneapolis this winter. I was shocked to find myself thinking, "Who cares about sending people to the moon?" That feeling is more historically resonant than I thought. 🧪🔭 www.sciencenews.org/article/moon...

Threatening the destruction of "a whole civilization" is just explicitly a threat of genocide. Even if it is just a bargaining tactic, even if it is just bluster, it is a threat of genocide. Everyone who has furthered, and continues to further, the aims of this regime is morally culpable.

Christina Koch is one woman in a crew of four. Only 13% at most of space crew have been women. Women's participation in space industry is on average 20% globally. Why? Patriarchy and misogyny. #ArtemisII #WomenInSTEM 🧪

Love this.

Watch this amazing documentary 'Life Unearthed' hosted by the brilliant @arielwaldman.com . It really is a fascinating take on the Earth's ecosystem at multiple scales from the smallest to the biggest. I guarantee it will surprise you. Ep 1 already out.

Cover of the Sep 1969 issue of Soviet journal Ogonek. Photo taken by Zond-8 spacecraft as it circled the Moon. Quote from Lenin: "All the wonders of technology...will become the property of the people, and from now on, human intelligence and genius will never be turned into a means of violence."

Undoubtedly, if Hegseth had the authority, he would have removed two of the four astronauts from the NASA Artemis crew.

Speaking of the Moon, this is out soon. Edited by @anaklimchy.bsky.social (and includes an essay by me). mitpress.mit.edu/978026255386...

Our European Service Module solar arrays in orbit🌞 With these solar wings extended, Europe is now powering Artemis II ⚡

Not all of it is from NASA: worth pointing out that the part of the Orion spaceship that supplies electricity, propulsion, thermal control, air and water, is the European Service Module (ESM), designed and built by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Nice visualization of the projected trajectory of Artemis II. Very different from the Apollo missions, all of which actually entered orbit around the Moon. Artemis II, on the other hand, will be circumlunar, i.e., slingshot around the Moon and return to Earth. youtube.com/shorts/vQPif...

Shirt for the day. #thereplacements #replacements #themats #mats

Upcoming book of essays: 'Backlash: The Global Rise of the Radical Right' edited by Don Kalb and Walden Bello: www.plutobooks.com/product/back...

A top job for someone - Associate Professor of History, University of Toronto: looking for an economic historian of the Soviet Union and successor states

57 of my fellow students were arrested, academically disciplined, and barred from campus 2 weeks before finals. And then the visas of some of those students were quietly revoked. And then the DEI office was killed. And then we watched our mentors’ grants evaporate over “woke”.