Everything is f***ed but at least we have three brand new metro stations opening in LA today ✨ #ridetheD

The Supreme Court is trying to *fast track* the elimination of Black Congresspeople in the upcoming midterms. Its destruction of the Voting Rights Act has devolved into a pure political power play for Republicans BY the Republicans on the Court. I explain in @thenation.com

This looks amazing and so helpful. An opportunity to make new communities using @blackskyweb.xyz’s Acorn system. I hope there’s a media studies person who will set one up 🎥 🎞️ 📺 💻 📱 📰 📚 🖼️ 📸

landscape <—> hunger :: mountain <—> Hulk

Happy birthday to experimental filmmaker Maya Deren, born in Ukraine on 29 April 1917. Interesting to watch your reputation growing half a century after your death.

Some partially good news here, also interesting to see the scientific use of photography to visualize the recovery timeline. "Rainforests Can Bounce Back Much Faster Than Thought, Researchers Say." Gift Link. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/c...

📅 Wednesday, April 22 ⏰ 12:00–1:00 pm PST 🎟️ FREE | Secure your spot now and be part of the conversation: filmpreserve.org/eve... 4/4

Here's some amazing Miles Brothers footage of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. Found at a flea market and restored in 2018 with a new score by Stephen Horne. I never get tired of watching these. Streaming now @sffilmpreserve.bsky.social. filmpreserve.org/restoration/...?

Please listen to my conversation about ARCHIVING THE PAST @ucpress.bsky.social with @alixbeeston.bsky.social on the @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social podcast! 🥳🥰 newbooksnetwork.com/archiving-th...

Obsessed with the doghouse duplex in Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice.

If Bluesky's got a hangover or whatever the least they can do is wheel in the TV cart and put on an episode of NOVA for us or something.

Congratulations! 🎉

The old media regime dominated by TV and newspapers has perished, and the social media "revolution" has demonstrated its inability to fill the void left behind...now is the time for serious folks to be imagining the shape of what might come next.

Woohoo, here's my essay with my fav co-author on 30,000 fellowship wins across the Guggenheim, Stanford CASBS, NAEd, National Humanities Center, RSF visiting scholar, and Harvard Radcliffe. Spoiler: it's the people working at prestigious universities www.publicbooks.org/who-gets-gug...

A GENTLE REMINDER: we are trying to eliminate fossil fuels because using them kills us. If fossil fuels were cheap (they're not) or reliable (they're SO NOT), it would still be urgent to get rid of them because their intended use destroys our life support systems.

Tapping my new favorite sign

California poppies #wildflowerhour

Ivy-leaved Toadflax, Dún Laoghaire. #wildflowerhour

Dandelion #wildflowerhour

The AI university of the future

Here’s a useful explainer of US Forest Service research, which is now being shuttered. ⬇️ The USFS was among the earliest government units to use motion pictures in the 1910s and 20s. I have a chapter about these films in my forthcoming book.

After yesterday's news that the US Forest Service is being dismantled (!), here's a real-time map of threatened public lands. morethanjustparks.com/threatened-p... Legacy media outlets (other than The Guardian which has good environmental news) are doing a bad job of covering this huge story.

Contrary to the stenographic, credulous accounts from our major newsrooms, the U.S. Forest Service is not being moved. It is being destroyed. morethanjustparks.substack.com/p/breaking-t...

FYI today's a great day to start reading this novel. It begins on April 1st — and it's widely considered Melville's most accessible and fun work after Clarel!

Early cinema was dominated by nonfiction.

This is hugely important and has barely been theorized, let alone contended with by political comms leaders (besides Mamdani staffers). YouTube is the world’s largest media company now. As of May 2025 YouTube had the largest viewership. As of this month it posted a larger revenue than Disney.

This is a great thread and good rejoinder and everyone should dig into all of it. But how is it that in all the excitement about the renewable energy transition there is mostly silence about the ecological crisis that underpins everything?

RIP Kluge. Got to meet him when he visited U Chicago in the 1990s. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ma...

Good historical overview in this article, from the roots of “fortress conservation” in the U.S. to the present moment of dwindling U.S. dominance in global conservation after USAID funding was cut. www.biographic.com/the-ghosts-o...

Hydrologist scientists *panicking* is a scary thought. I can't help but worry for all of the U.S. cities built in desert landscapes. Our federal govt may be useless or worse. Local govts seem to be in the pocket of big companies. People need to plan for how they/we will get thru this.

The goal now is just to discipline labor and crush any popular anticapitalist movement. They’ve achieved a level of wealth that makes profit and loss pure abstraction, now they’re just focused on social control. Fighting taxes isn’t about wealth, it’s about starving the state of resources

Here's a blog post on a film I'll be presenting at the Orphan Film Symposium at the Wexner Center next month. Produced and distributed by the USDA Motion Picture Service: A FOREST AXIOM (1929). #Orphans2026 @nontheatricalscms.bsky.social wp.nyu.edu/orphanfilm/2...

Every single thing named after Cesar Chavez should be renamed for Dolores Huerta

Political change requires collective action. But popular stories rely on protagonists, or the victim/villain/hero structure. We talk about this a lot in my film classes.

If today is the first you've heard about Paul Ehrlich, I assure you it's not. His POPULATION BOMB is ground zero for contemporary ecofascism, and it's the basis for my favorite episode of @ifbookspod.bsky.social www.buzzsprout.com/2040953/epis...

Sinners should’ve won best picture, but also, The Secret Agent was *right there*!

BET ON ORIGINAL IDEAS

you can count on one hand the number of powerful men in Hollywood who champion women artists like Ryan Coogler you could almost count them on NO hands

Omg shoutout to Barbara Hall! She is sorely missed. #oscars

An earlier version of tonight’s Oscars joke about “Ventura Crossroads” was made in 1957 in the film Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter. Screen size has long been a battlefield of competing media! It works today as a shorthand for the distortions of AI. youtu.be/Ss1hu2sWgkI

This weekend’s Wall St Journal

A widespread attack on desalination plants in the Middle East could cause a humanitarian crisis. The fossil-fuel-powered plants also contribute to further climate change in a region heavily impacted by a warming world.

YouTube is the world’s largest media company now. As of May 2025 YouTube had the largest viewership. As of this week it posted a larger revenue than Disney. This list ⬇️ is not very relevant, it only tracks broadcast (maybe cable too, it’s unclear), but those are much smaller, even combined

Varda was a master of cinema with under 90-minute running times. Documenteur and Daguerreotypes are two of my favorites of hers.

Live-blogging my online comedy traffic school with Erik Estrada 🚙

I’ve been wondering what Benjamin would make of the kids’ use of “aura” today

Anyone looking for and up-to-date measure of our changing climate, here you go 👇

The perfect headline doesn’t exi…

you've got a little over a week left

whether war, vaccines, or critical infrastructure there is contingent of the right that seems to believe that their security from the worst things that happen is some kind of metaphysical principle rather than the result of specific historical processes that could've gone otherwise and still could