How is she so cute?

Ramona knows what to do with an afternoon off. I mostly followed her example despite my best intentions. She needed a lap!

I am having the worst reading slump. I haven’t read a book in a couple of months and haven’t even listened to an audiobook that isn’t something I read before. It’s a vicious brain-rot cycle.

If you have never heard Yasmin Williams, let this story inspire you to listen. Acadia is a wonderful album that always makes me happy.

On the one hand, sure, Jan. On the other, bring it on, I'm so tired. Rapture, AI apocalypse, just get it done.

My friend and I did our monthly supper club where we cook and eat together last night. This is gochujang glazed eggplant (from her CSA). Doubled the sauce and added baked tofu cubes. Yum.

The Booker shortlist seems . . . predictable this year? Kind of disappointing no debuts or surprises made it. That doesn't make these bad books/choices, but none of these are books I wouldn't otherwise have heard of and none of them seem "weird."

The first reading today was from Jeremiah and yeah, a jeremiad seems timely. My people are in a mess too.

This fucker is daily proof that even if liberal college professors *could* brainwash you with Marxism and critical race theory 🙄 it’s nothing a stint in finance won’t fix! Sorry Haverford.

No shade on any particular person, but one thing I still find weird after 30 years in Canada is that a party leader doesn't have to hold elective office (or even have any experience as an elected official). Is there poli sci research on this?

Why did you ever let anyone convince you that your fridge needs a screen and a wifi connection?

I just realized that I put Truth and Reconciliation Day in both my M/W course outline (holidays are Mondays, right?) and my T/Th course outline. At least I don't have to figure out how to drop a planned Tuesday class that doesn't actually meet, but how did I not notice?

Cooler rainy weather is encouraging someone to be more of a lap cat.

Why is it always 3am when your dying smoke alarm decides to start randomly beeping? And why the one on the vaulted bedroom ceiling so I have to poke the shut up button with a broom handle?

American political scientists are conferencing here so I just got to have brunch and a walk with Sunita (whom some of you will remember from Twitter and book blogging days). Meeting online friends IRL remains great!

Rounding off summer right

I go to YouTube to grab the link for a video I want to add to my class and get an ad for an AI writing tool to “empower” my students. Listen I accept that AI is here and can be useful but it is being rammed down our throats with no thought for anything but $$$$.

Evening ferry sky.

Here we go again.

I am going to be spending the long weekend finishing syllabi and ferrying (literally) my kid to their final year of university, but this afternoon I watched Thursday Murder Club with my reading group and that was fun. We had great snacks, too.

I guess I am going to have to order my Hobonichi refill from the source rather than from JetPens this year. Are tariffs going to kill JetPens? NOW I am mad. (I live in Canada, I was already mad).

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything near and far right now, but I stopped in a bookstore on my way home and found a used copy of Diane Seuss’s Modern Poetry so that didn’t suck.

I didn’t expect authoritarianism to be so tacky, stupid and embarrassing, but if I think about things I have read and seen from other countries, I guess I should have.

This is excellent reporting and a good reminder (to me, and maybe to you?) to pay attention to what’s happening close to home. Where we might be able to do something.

Damn it, the orcas missed their chance!

Part of “slavery wasn’t so bad” is racism and part is ignorance but I do wonder how much is people growing up in abusive families (by sime accounts including the president) where you learned not to talk about it and your suffering was minimized.

It’s their year. Watch out, billionaires.

If I put the cherries in the fridge we forget to eat them, but if I put them on the counter this happens.

When I’m feeling grim and cynical about my job, the cure is always a) talking to students, or b) talking to colleagues (all departments) about teaching. I am still scrambling to be ready Sept. 2 but now I feel much more excited about it.

"We have plenty of time to litigate how woke the professoriate is, as long as universities exist as independent entities. But as soon as they don't, there's no question of woke. There's simply the authoritarian determines what you do," says @biblioracle.bsky.social. newrepublic.com/article/1990...

There's lots of bad news from universities these days, but the Chicago news feels personal to me. My mom was a Classics grad student there, and I remember going to Classics Teas as a little kid. And for readers, Barbara Mertz (Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters) had a Chicago Egyptology PhD.

@jackiebarbosa.bsky.social Have you heard about this? A friend's daughter is currently doing her Classics PhD there.

They were all annoying and deeply inadequate humans, but I didn’t want to kill them. Okay, maybe a little.

I decided it was time to reboot my literature class this year. The syllabus I'm just about done with includes only 3 short stories I have taught before. (Probably some repeat poems, too; that list is TBD). Late October Liz already hates me.

It was orangey-peachy day at the farmer’s market: sun gold cherry tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, and these dahlias. (Also a bag of greens and some lemon basil that didn’t fit the theme).

I also really love how now when I go to Office365, instead of seeing my apps right away I get a big Copilot home screen asking if I want help (no, no I do not) and have to click extra times to get to my fucking email or files.

Possibly Ramona woke me up early this morning just so she could later lure me into taking an afternoon nap with her.

Today, we’re thrilled to share that the new host of The Slowdown is @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social! The Slowdown will return with new episodes on August 18th. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for our free email newsletter at slowdownshow.org 📸: @cowtownchad.bsky.social

Oh.

There’s the obvious racism, and then there’s the clear implication that it’s wrong for “inner city” people to have an option (the welfare state, such as it is) besides working with a bad back or dying.

Interested in the discussion around this piece/person and wondering how gender plays into it. These kids who are too special to follow the rules are almost always BOYS, it seems. “Gifted” girls must still be socialized to care for/about others.

Amy Sherald’s cover for this week’s issue, “Trans Forming Liberty,” is a portrait of the trans model and performance artist Arewà Basit. When the National Portrait Gallery seemed hesitant to display it, Sherald cancelled her exhibition there. nyer.cm/XFwJ6ZH

I really hate that we’ve created a “wellness” news hole that needs to be filled. Let me enjoy peach and tomato season in peace without having to read headlines about “how healthy are they really?” Put that energy into reporting on the dismantling of medical research or something!

It is infuriating that survivors have to come out and tell their stories all over again because Maxwell’s crimes are being reframed to excuse a potential pardon. I so admire their courage and it’s so unfair to them.

Emeraude is my mom in the 70s getting ready to go out in the evening. I thought she was sooooo glamorous. (I don’t think she has worn scent since).

David Byrne came to my band’s show at a gay bar in Bed-Stuy and sang This Must Be The Place with us and I still haven’t processed it

I aspire to live to a time when I never see a headline about the POTUS that includes the phrase “lashing out.”

Ramona thinks fruit flies are worthy prey so that is the next 6 weeks sorted. (There is a fly in the trap I made and she is mesmerized).