In love with Pierre-Emmanuel Lyet’s “Christmas Avenue” New Yorker cover

Figured I should pause and share a little #Christmas #greeting. Merry Christmas, all.🌟🎄🕯️I didn't put up lights this year, but you can imagine it! May the New Year bring peace, kindness, and good cheer! (Oh, and that's my houseplant, Frances, smiling back at you!)

Christmas eve is here, and so are the Garden State Mastodons. Imagine this creature roaming around #NewJersey today in commuter holiday traffic into #NYC!

"She's making a list, she's checking it twice, gonna find out who's..." Hmm, wait... that's a final-year PhD's Week of December 21st To-Do list, not an Xmas list. 😅🫠 So much for winter solstice rest. The the power of "I will" is real.

It can take time to turn people into conservationists, but it can be done with perseverance #Conservation #Restoration #EndangeredSpecies #NaturalHistory therevelator.org/piping-plove...

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

Winter light this afternoon, New Haven Green. Soft blur, to soothe, for these troubled times.

Thinking of all those under lockdown at Brown; those who lost their friends and loved ones, and those students injured; the students shaken from the trauma; and the students who are experiencing gun violence disrupting their lives again. Just terrible. 😞 www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...

An energetic #flower to carry you thru the #wintersolstice and onward, to spring.

Proud to say, my former PhD student Jack Bouchard, now at Rutgers University, has published an outstanding new work in Atlantic history: *Terra Nova: Food, Water, and Work in an Early Atlantic World*, with Yale University Press. Congratulations, Jack! yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

Disparu il y a quarante ans, Fernand Braudel a profondément marqué les sciences sociales en forgeant des concepts durables pour penser le capitalisme. Son œuvre continue d'éclairer les mutations de l'économie, ses rythmes, ses espaces et ses rapports de force.

Going to have to go see this one, as it's right around the corner in #Hartford...

Ooof, my listening age is 78. I think Vivaldi is throwing off the average! Can't just be all the 60's music on my wakeup playlist Surely not! 🤣 #spotifywrapped

Record-breaking 75-year-old mother #bird prepares to nest. Wisdom has been laying #eggs since the Eisenhower Administration. #Albatross #WorldsOldestBreedingBird #Bird Link for more info, #photos & video: www.popsci.com/environment/...

Full moon skies 🌝

Took a half day off today to frolic in the snow. Not complaining! #snow #Catskills #mountaintime

Recent sidewalk encounters: An errant stove. An ice box. It just so happens I’m writing about both things currently in my dissertation… Yes, you heard it right: stoves and ice! 🧊 Both important understudied topics in 19th century American #envhist and #energyhistory 🔥

@svenbeckert.bsky.social’s new global history of capitalism — looks great👇 www.penguin.co.uk/books/295668...

"This sets off a feedback loop, in which the cold, fresh water released by that melt interacts with the warm, salty water to intensify the spinning of the underwater storm, causing even more melting" #Antarctica

What a “road diet” and renovating for safe, pedestrian and cyclist friendly streets looks like… with Willie Wright’s “Right on for Darkness”’ as soundtrack 😀🎶🎸 #roaddiet #safestreets #NewHaven #righton

Grey Heron #canonwildlifephotography #wildlifephotography #wildlife #naturephotography #nature #photography #birds #naturelovers #birdsofinstagram #birdphotography #animals #travel #bird #photooftheday #natgeo #birdwatching

🚨🌳🌎 “A ‘Forest COP’ with no commitment on forests is a very bad joke.” — Juan Carlos Monterrey Gómez

Oh so you don’t want generative AI? Nice inbox you got there be a shame if something was to happen to it (cracks knuckles)

Straight up evil is correct. And losing the automatic separating of your inbox into primary, promotions, social, and forums is infuriating.

CFP: The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife 2026: Futurecasting, Futurekeeping: New Englanders Imagine Worlds to Come. June 26–27, Deerfield, Massachusetts. dublin-seminar.org/2026-call-fo...

Final fall blooms in #NewHaven this week. Found this calendula in my writing break round-the-block walk thriving in a stone and concrete microclimate 🍃🍂🌨️ 11.21.25 #fall #flowers

Very good to see progress on this important project, which is designed to link dense suburban New Jersey cities.

Well, you'd have to wait a while for delivery, but you can preorder my book at 40% off with free domestic shipping with promo code WINTER25! #TransformingNight 🌃🌌💡 #LightPollution #ArtificialLight #ALAN #Night #Darkness #LightJustice uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...

Here’s to the beauty of pink-hued sunsets after a dreary day…closing research tabs…reading 19th-c, weather diaries, and meeting a major writing deadline (still in process…!) Going to be some late nights upcoming. Wish me luck.

Wild. We always say on the podcast that owning a car is required for effective full enfranchisement in most places of the USA because we are such a car-dependent society, but this is...next level. They say it like it's disqualifying for office.

CFP: Environments and Societies at the Crossroads: Socio-Environmental Justice in Europe and the Americas in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Workshop at UC Berkeley www.ghi-dc.org/events/event...

...And just as I read about an entire 🧊 #ice warehouse getting struck by ⚡lightning and as I write about 19th c. #climatechange there's lightning & thunder, in November ⛈️ Favorite convo. today: talking with an Italian library security staff about how ice is so...American. Dickens thought so, too.

This month I feature @placesjournal.bsky.social, @urbanhistorya.bsky.social, @charlotte-leib.bsky.social, @ginastar.bsky.social, @miskoaki.bsky.social, and more! #envhist

Austrian impressionist painter Olga Wisinger-Florian, Falling Leaves (1899) #womensart #Autumn

A last burst of color from the past week. Now all the leaves are brown, it's cold and cloudy and misty. #Photography #SeattleWashington #SeattleAutumn #OurNeighborhood #Autumn

I was super happy to read and edit this entry in @urbanhistorya.bsky.social’s #MetropolitanConsumption theme for November. One of my favorite pieces we’ve published.

I’m bummed I can’t see the Aurora here in New Haven like my NY & northern CT neighbors, So I’m taking solace peering into 1841/42 weather diaries for the chapter I’m writing—where, indeed: mid-Atlantic-area observers occasionally spotted the Northern Lights 🌌 Pawling, NY earlier this evening:

Surrounded by snow flurries and sound #firstfreeze #NewHaven #Carillonneurs #bells #soundon

Wondrous red, yellow, blue hues on the New Haven Green 📸 this morning

The special issue of Eighteenth Century Studies on Coasts is now out - glad to be part of it with some thoughts about coasts and gardens in c18 Ireland #BlueHumanities #CoastalHistory #CoastalStudies 🌊 muse.jhu.edu/issue/55889

#Frog stocks! One of the many ways speculators tried to "improve" the value & productivity of #NJ #Meadowlands in the 19th c I have this one filed under "frog capitalist" in my research notes 💭🐸💰 ...An 1860s attempt to make the #Meadows yield more #frogs before pollution in the 1880s killed them.

Where are we on housing policy this election evening? —NIMBY NJ Gubernatorial candidate loses decisively. —Mamdani, promising to pause rent increase & develop 200k affordable units, wins NYC decisively. —All pro-housing referendums in NYC likely passed. —Housing funding passed in Columbus & Denver.

Charlotte's transport referendum has won. 1% sales tax increase is expected to generate $19 billion/20 years, funding: —Transit (40%): Red Line commuter rail, Silver Line light rail, Gold Line extension, Blue Line extension —Road projects (40%) —Bus improvements, creating frequent bus network (20%)

All the good passwords must’ve been stolen by the British Museum

As I prepare to submit my #diss this year, I'm starting a thread with photos of the many #bird species that are denizens of my #research site, the #NJMeadowlands. Follow along to learn your #birds with me, And get to know this astounding ecology near #NewarkAirport ! #BergenCounty #HackensackRiver

William R. Derrick - "The Plaza" (c.1907)

Timely essay for this eve of Daylight Savings by Indigenous #envhum scholar Rachelle Wilson Tollemar @uwmadison.bsky.social On how manipulating #time (and #light) got settler societies out of sync.

A spooky sidewalk riddle 👻 🍃: 🕸️🕷️☁️ 🕊️🐛🦅 ——/——/——/——/——/—— Two types of fall fiber— One fatal, the other forgiving— Forbid the former, and more creatures would keep living.

Thanks @urbanhistorya.bsky.social for the opportunity to write, about #birds #envhist #urbanhist and #light! 🐧 🐦 🐤 🕯️ 💡 ⚡️

The #bees 🐝 have gone but the Dahlia blooms are still on! I’ve been passing this sidewalk plant nearly daily in #NewHaven since July. With the night chill now, and recent new #moon 🌙, I’m relishing what’s left. Still brilliant 😍 #fall #flowers