Benicio del Toro up first at @nyfcc.bsky.social awards. And here’s my booklet essay, for his Best Supporting Actor win.

of joy, of art!

every seat in a movie theater should have an "I have to pee" button and if enough people press it they should be able to pause the movie

Had my first drum lesson in like 15 years and it was so fun 😭 learned a few afro-cuban beats. what a perfect start to the year

My two moods of the year. Happy end of 2025!!

my latest for LA Review of Books!! I feel like "storytelling" was everywhere (at least pre-pandemic)... and suddenly it disappeared! I wondered whether narrative is now driven more by character or mood rather than plot-- and what all that means.

Thus redacted Zarathustra

From IMDb: “After being unemployed for several years, a man devises a unique plan to secure a new job: eliminate his competition.”

I was interviewed on freelancing while keeping up with teaching + research, what it was like learning how to pitch, and what I find refreshing + rewarding about freelancing! A cool series that I was grateful to partake in. open.substack.com/pub/howimake...

when someone tells me not to use em dashes because AI uses em dashes

Coming up: Could you reliably narrate the story of your life? Ray & @profjoshlandy.bsky.social tell tales with Helena de Bres from @wellesley.edu, author of "Philosophy in the First Person" – Sunday 11 am on KALW 91.7 FM in San Francisco & www.kalw.org/show/philoso.... #PhilSky #narrative #meaning

Toki Pona is a tiny invented language with only 120-140 words-- and the cutest script ever! I wrote for Psyche's new Notes for Self series about metaphor in Toki Pona. When every word is meant to stretch, what happens to the literal-figurative distinction? psyche.co/notes-to-sel...

Heard about the Louvre jewel heist and my first thought was “finally, some good old fashioned normal crime”

The University of Arizona rejects the compact and instead submits a Statement of Principles to the Department of Education: president.arizona.edu/sites/defaul...

The speaker is just amazing. Raising interesting questions, answering them in a prima facie reasonable way, looking at how this answer is historically determined and then taking a fresh look at things through a Daoist angle.

Excited to have @thisishannahkim.bsky.social at our next Global Philosophy Series talk. This is a hybrid event; Zoom details are available in the link.

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

The real generational divide is people who refuse to watch a video if it could be an article versus people who refuse to read an article if it could be a video

Wow, One Battle After Another was phenomenal. Incredible pacing, great soundtrack, A+ acting from everyone, timely issues. Just great storytelling all around. Go see it in theaters while it's playing!!

Linguistics

Wow, what a stunning poem

Just got to Purdue for the Modern Fiction Studies ~Cultural AI~ conference! Excited to present a new paper, coauthored w/ @aaronrhanlon.com, that LLM outputs constitute a new genre we're calling stochascript & learn what others are working on. Also excited about this super cute PPT template 🤓

-oid is a great suffix. asteroid = looks like a star factoid = looks like a fact android = looks like a guy

This is a good heuristic for when you should and shouldn’t take academics seriously when they try to intervene in debates outside their specialty. Do they have respect for the problem?

Interesting article on Aztec moral philosophy. Life on the slippery Earth: Aztec moral philosophy has profound differences from the Greek tradition, not least its acceptance that nobody is perfect. aeon.co/essays/aztec...

Feeling the same about this book!! Laura Goode opened up the non-academic publishing world for me & we're so lucky that this book, which is based on the class she taught, now exists 💫

22 new papers up at @philimprint.bsky.social, including papers by @thisishannahkim.bsky.social, @catsaintcroix.bsky.social, @wiglet1981.bsky.social & @jweisber.bsky.social, @dellsen.bsky.social, @bartstreumer.bsky.social, and @aworsnip.bsky.social. journals.publishing.umich.edu/phimp/

12 years ago, a friend brought a poem to my birthday party & it was love at first read. Wrote a paper about it in grad school & its descendent just came out with my favorite open access journal 🥹 If you're not familiar w/ Eliot's Four Quartets, read it now!! (Burnt Norton is the first quartet)

That's how you can tell human authors from AI. AI will put in some em dashes, then apologise and take them out when told off. Human authors will climb the filing cabinet, hissing, and defend their right to em dashes with a loaded stapler.

August arrives in the dark we are not even asleep and it is here how can it be so late all at once -WS Merwin, Nocturne II from The Shadow of Sirius #everynightapoem

I'll be live on Daniel Muñoz's substack this Friday at 2pm ET! We'll talk about the connection between music and philosophy, stories, North Korean philosophy, and whatever else that comes up (... Alex R's D at conferences? 👀) Learn more + submit Qs here! bigifftrue.substack.com/p/aesthetics...

Gearing up for Fall 2025 courses? Perhaps AAPT Studies in Pedagogy can help. We have over two volumes of open-access articles--and annotated bibliographies for teaching writing and teaching in hostile contexts: philosophyteachers.org/open-access-...

i believe that at 18 every american should be entered into a draft, not for military service, but for one year of mandatory retail or restaurant work

Opened my tofu and... it was just milky liquid the whole container?? *Too* silken-- I suppose. Wondering what kind of metaphor this'd be

Not every day you meet the iconic comedian behind the world's most famous joke

The word "deadline" originated in Confederate prison camps where guards were allowed to shoot any POW who crossed a line around the perimeter. www.mentalfloss.com/article/5019...

Academics don’t finish projects, we just lose the energy to keep doubting them

Didn't think I'd ever have a favorite motion sickness bag but here we are (I didn't need it!)

Excited to move into my new apartment in Chicago!! Will be here for the next 14 months for my sabbatical. I'll also see if I can get away with reading emails once a week-- got the hoodie ready and everything 😤

the modern information environment

Main character energy is OUT, this summer we’re bringing NPC energy. We’re posted up at the bar dropping lore and suggesting side quests. We’re leaning casually near a locked door and saying “I don’t think you have the key for that” when someone tries the handle. We’re staring at a tree.

Just wanted to share this wonderful news: The Lebowitz Prize went to aesthetics for the first time in its history. Congratulations to @domlopes.bsky.social and Samantha! I can't wait to see what they do together! www.pbk.org/2025-lebowit...

The world needs more of this and less of most other things

ketchup on a hot dog now a “deadly sin”

A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope

The conclave is now longer than Conclave

#MusicSky #MayTheFourth