This surly king by Bada Shanren 八大山人 (aka Zhu Da 朱耷, 1626-1705) remains the best ever to do it

Mods are asleep, post blobby Qing dynasty cats

Saw someone asking the Chinese for "oh lawd he comin" -- I propose 駕到嘞 but am open to suggestions

Will Stancil is the Omelas child of text-based social media

My own take on keju increasingly is that it motivated elites to acquire the reading and writing skills required by a bureaucracy that relied on documents, and selected ones who were really good at it, but our findings that many officials left office soon after appointment leads me to think... 3/5

Infinity Migrants from the Third World is the title of a 1950s sci-fi slasher flick produced by the John Birch Society

The Drum and Bell Towers seen from Beihai Park in a snowy Beijing day c.1930s

And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, roams the vitrified surface of the Earth under a red Sun that no longer sets. He reckons time in mountain ranges now, not Christmases.  “God Bless Us,” he observes. “Almost Every One.”

still my favorite christmas post

Merry Christmas, Mr. President!!

Yojimbo is a Christmas movie

New book! I have written a book, called Syntax: A cognitive approach, published by MIT Press. This is open access; MIT Press will post a link soon, but until then, the book is available on my website: tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...

As the most seasoned Canada watchers have always said: the American mind thinks in quarters; the Canadian mind thinks in winters

people are clowning on this, but the Canadian mind is cunning, pitiless, steeped in boreal perfidy

Robert Putnam, _Bowling Alone_: "

Thinking about watching Gremlins 2 tonight but worried we will be unable to follow it, not having seen Gremlins 1

Not, of all possible incarnations, the worst

@louisevans.bsky.social saw your conversation with @theophite.bsky.social about the emergence of print under the Song vs in Europe. My impression (deep breath):

Congratulations to our respected colleague Bari Weiss on finally becoming a real journalist.

(googling 'Island of Inchkeith') huh, three one-star ratings but nobody wrote a review

What up everybody it’s Mr Beast and they said this experiment was forbidden but we’re about to find out which of these babies can speak the original language imparted by God to Adam and Eve so smash that like button and don’t forget to subscribe

In which the late-Ming literary failson Zhang Dai has his transcendent moment of snowy solitude spoiled by tourists:

Typically lovely from @bokane.org. Also: nerd.

the man continues to be ximen qing from Jin Ping Mei, a character so devoid of virtues and unbound by social relationships as to be only barely human. (he dies when he overdoses on an aphrodesiac and nuts so hard he turns inside out.)

NEW: Yuanxin Zheng, the 6-year-old boy from Queens whose separation from his father drew outrage in New York City, has been deported to China with his dad. With @haleaziz.bsky.social Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/n...

A leaked video of the secret court-martial of Xu Qinxian, the Chinese general who refused an order to crush the Tiananmen protests in 1989, sheds new light on the tensions among China’s military leaders as Deng Xiaoping ordered a crackdown that would kill hundreds www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/w...

I don’t believe Brooks did anything untoward, to be clear; I think he was sincerely impressed by the number of research assistants Epstein employed.

David Brooks is in the Epstein dump and I just surprised a porch pirate on his way to steal my cats’ litter bags, the day just keeps getting better

and another thing: count me out. please dont put in the newspaper that i got counted in.

DAVID BROOKS IS IN THE NEW EPSTEIN PHOTO DUMP lolol ASSIGN THAT SHIT IN YOUR YALE CLASS ON HUMILITY

A second Early 2000s has hit the Millennials

Classical Chinese for Winning Arguments: “One may dream of the feast and wake to weeping, or dream of lamentation and rise at dawn for the hunt. Dreamers never know they are dreaming; some may even dream of interpreting dreams, and only after waking do they know it all for a dream. (1/2)

Anecdotal evidence that the indefinite "pause" on adjudication of immigration benefits for countries on the travel ban has been expanded to include the 20 countries added yesterday. On reddit, a user posted that their naturalization oath ceremony — the final step to becoming a citizen — was halted.

I enjoy this for so many other reasons, but "it’s only our own barbarous language that has to choose" is such a succinct mood about not just translating into but writing in english

When is the last time a hunger strike had its intended effect? My impression is that Thatcher effectively killed hunger striking as a tactic.

There is no question how potentially deadly this is. "[Qesser Zuhrah] is one of two prisoners, along with Amy Gardiner-Gibson, also at Bronzefield, who have been refusing food for 46 days – the same amount of time as Martin Hurson when he became the sixth of 10 IRA hunger strikers to die in 1982."

"...the only reflections in the lake were a slash of causeway, a dot of pavilion, a mustard seed of a boat and the two or three specks of ourselves aboard it."

i enjoyed this introduction to river snow so much that i vainly made an attempt at freely adapting it (or corrupting it) to suit my own taste although I don’t have any classical chinese. thank you for sharing this!

Learned a lot from this and the linked pieces

The latest issue of JAOS has been published, #145.4 (2025). This will be the last one under the old name. Starting next year, the journal will appear under its new name, JASPA: Journal of the American Society for Premodern Asia. lockwoodonlinejournals.com/index.php/ja... @aspa1842.bsky.social 1/

"...the only reflections in the lake were a slash of causeway, a dot of pavilion, a mustard seed of a boat and the two or three specks of ourselves aboard it."

New Stories from a Burning House post: You can skip the part about Liu Zongyuan if you like, but do read the translation of Zhang Dai's "Snow at the Heart of the Lake" 湖心亭看雪.

New post: After a long digression about Liu Zongyuan, I quote Zhang Dai on how people really should have a fixation or two.

"Well, he's all right, so far." "Oh, thank god. So the president will recover?" "Oh no, I meant his politics. That guy's gonezo."

Thank you to everyone who has shared this. The hearing is over for today. DHS has filed a motion to pretermit (end Guan's asylum application in the US) and have him sent to Uganda, where he'd be at risk of being sent to China. The hearing to decide that will be held 12 January.

麼麼噠

"Friedberg visited Rhode Island Hospital on Saturday night, where she said she spoke with her teaching assistant, who had traveled there to support several of their injured students." Wow, the TA was present at the shooting and then went with students in the class to hospital to support.

real innsmouth kids remember the refreshing taste of Glabrous Pop