The Pitt needs more yinzer accents

Congratulations to our Book Award finalists!!

Flashback Friday! THE AMBROSE J. AND VIVIAN T. SEAGRAVE MUSEUM OF 20th CENTURY AMERICAN ART, “a #novel of ideas whose appeal goes far beyond its target audience—be it literary readers skeptical of yet another postmodern yarn...(1/2)

Moby Dick themed Taylor Swift tribute band “Starbuck’s Lovers”

Early April

Detroit/SE Michigan friends:

Love this—a collection of descriptions of (imaginary) discarded texts. My fav is the Markson biography. “Borgesian panache” indeed

Matthaei Tuesday

Yo Philly come on out to the launch party for @barrelhouse.bsky.social print issue 25 next week, 3/19/25 at Tattooed Mom!

Matthaei Tuesday

If you’re a professor in a classroom today & you don’t mention this, I believe you’re doing your students a profound disservice. This is targeted 1st at international students, but it’s deliberately broad enough to lay groundwork for a scene Trump & Hegseth have fantasized: troops on campus.

Revisiting this old friend—I first read around 2003 maybe?—to teach tonight to my MA students—still great!

Awesome—fascinating how much we still don’t know, depressing what’s happening to science right now. Still, highly recommend.

“The US of AI,” public draft of a talk given yesterday at Princeton. drive.google.com/file/d/1O2qk...

Every Tuesday this semester, I come to write at Matthaei

"Diane, 11:30 am, February twenty-fourth. Entering town of Twin Peaks. Five miles south of the Canadian border, twelve miles west of the state line. Never seen so many trees in my life."

Excellent (and needed) career-spanning critical analysis of the great Walter de Maria’s work

“MaYbe shE’s goiNg to be in TroUble nOw” Maybe he can learn to read. The Constitution would be a good place to start

Kennedy, who has no medical or science degree, has voiced skepticism about major vaccines for years. He has also endorsed fringe conspiracy theories, and backed those views again in his confirmation hearings last month. 🙃⤵️

Robert Glick’s brilliant review of Ray Levy’s School at Big Other bigother.com/2025/02/12/i...

Not going to AWP this year (Excited for Baltimore next year!) but just got word that my workshop with @timhorvath.bsky.social got accepted at the Centre for Sensory Studies "Uncommon Senses V" conference in May. See you in Montreal??

Reread this for class; still great

I dunno, here’s the Glob

This is how you do it. Thank you, @tupelopress.bsky.social!!!

Is the seemingly serious uptick in public speakerphone use—phone calls, zoom meetings—because of Trump? I can’t go anywhere without noise cancellation.

Not sure about this one—baffling, unreadable, Joycean language anti-adventure? A lost classic that should remain lost? Both delightful and aggravating? Anybody?

In the year 2000, when we are all just mouths and stomachs plugged precariously into iPhones, we will be grateful for the feature that displays a picture of the current weather (today, fog) on the lock screen

Origin story for gen X's love of expensive coffee?

Teaching this again, as much as it can be taught—a favorite that one probably shouldn’t think too hard about, but so fun to reread

"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see, one chants out between two worlds, fire walk with me."

Costco's unionized workers vote to authorize nationwide strike The company was rightly praised for standing firm on the importance of DEI, but how it bargains with/treats its unionized workers is important too

Listened to this one, a fascinating nest of beefs and art world intrigue centered around the twisted market of post-Warhol Warhols. (Support @librofm.bsky.social!)

At this point, no academic, no journalist, no writer, no artist, none of them should be on X. We've long tipped past the point of cruel optimism about what good can happen there. Now you're just part of the problem if you're on X.

Stuff I'm tired of thinking about: AI, Billionaires, Content generally, Social Media, the Enrollment Cliff. I'm sure there's more.

John Baldessari, What Is Painting, 1966-68 https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1135585

Q: How did he die? A: He put too many “good boys” in his Goldralian Retreivaperd, who then smothered him.

Chris Marker/La Jetée (1962 "photo roman")

The Hundred Headless Woman/Max Ernst (collage novel 1929)

Kex by Eduardo Paolozzi (collage "novel" 1966)

Love this weird little book recommended by Pedro Ponce; would pair well with The Invention of Morel

Finally finished listening to this beast--an amazing history, though I found myself most engaged when listening Lee Krasner and Elaine de Kooning's stories (also--coincidentally?--my favorite painters of the five)

Here are some great albums from 2024: Mary Halvorson/Cloudward Full of Hell/Coagulated Bliss Alice Coltrane/The Carnegie Hall Concert (Live) Matthew Shipp/New Concepts in Piano Trio Jazz Blood Incantation/Absolute Elsewhere Jeff Parker ETA IVtet/The Way Out of Easy

Let's do Polio next!

"Police-made crack"