We are so back, babes.

Fed chair being the beacon of morality and spine was not on my bingo card. Homie serving Atticus Finch moral clarity. Felt like his statement should have been filmed in black and white.

I can't describe how bad Minneapolis feels right now. My neighbors are pulling kids out of school. The public schools are offering remote learning until 2/12. We are having conversations in our alleys about how to protect ourselves. It feels like a military occupation with a blockade.

Had a check in with my friend/tutor in Isfahan scheduled, likely the internet is down with all the protests. Love 2026. No notes.

Yale Law School never beating the “they don’t teach law at Yale” allegations

Metal AF, from 1751 'Vida, maritirio, y beatificación del invicto proto-martir del Japón San Felipe de Jesus, patrón de México su patria, imperial corte de Nueva España en el Nuevo Mundo' printed in Mexico city. A biography of the San Felipe de Jesus, the first Mexican saint, martyred in Japan.

I have officially started a routine of sleeping for 20 minutes every lunch. And you know, it's magical. I think I may actually be on to something.

The woman killed by ICE today was a poet. She won the 2020 Academy of American Poets, University & College Poetry Prize at Old Dominion University. (And this is Renee from confirmed socials- a photo of a different woman with red lipstick is going around, but that was a classmate.) /

Fuck this fascist administration and everyone who helped put them in power.

Back at work this week and I wanted to share something that's actually a cool history post and not just, like, anti-imperialist rage. This is a Buddhist 'dharani' amulet found in a tomb at Chang'an (modern Xi'an) in northern China. It was *printed* (probably by monks) circa 650-670 CE.

Does anyone have a reference to a single peer-reviewed scientific article demonstrating the danger of gel nail polish (or nail polish) to rare books and manuscripts in their handling? There are many anecdotes, which I expect are misogynist and classist dog whistles.

Do you have an archive, collection, recent acquisition, or project on Japan worth showcasing in a short article? 🗾 NCC collaborates with institutions and scholars on “Japanese Studies Spotlight” features to introduce these important resources to the field!

On the first day back following the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro & first lady Cilia Flores, 6 Senate Democrats vote yea to confirm Keith Bass as an Assistant Secretary of Defense by a vote of 50-35.

Classes already back. The quarter system is brutal. Happy first day of winter quarter UC goons.

Now that my Hunagarian is getting into A2 (we are in month 2), I would say the most interesting thing is watching a brain without scaffolding. No cognates, just gut busting memorization. My brain keeps making false friends. Also started Hindi this week, for something a bit lighter.

Here I was thinking we'd make through the first week of the year before starting a war. Silly.

Congratulations LA.! We did full Old Testament this year. We got raining fire, Pharoah's troops (ICE), and world submerging floods.

Looks like I am finally moving from the Westside to mid city. Will be nice to be near people with interests aside from surfing.

Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵 Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...

Can I get three chapters in a readable form by Jan 5? No! Will I be disappointed that I failed? Yes! Happy holidays from the beginning of my final failures of 2025. May you and yours also find impossible self imposed expectations and epigenetic Protestant shame!

This book is interesting. While it no doubt furthers the case that print had a major impact during the Song dynasty(960 to 1279), when it was adopted by the state and state actors, a couple of areas were completely unexplored. For ex, not a single surviving material text is discussed.

Every time someone talks about movable type as more advanced, I want to blast my face off. It was just one of many reprographic modes, all of which were used according to the needs of users. If by more advanced, you mean invented later, fine... But we have half of the world of print who rejected it.

Someone donate a blockbook or blockbook fragment to UCLA. They are expensive and I promise I would use it all the time. You will be very happy, just like these little devils:

Our next exhibition, Beginnings, features the work of contemporary painter Harmonia Rosales in conversation with works from the manuscripts collection, considering the legacy of Creation stories—opens January 27th at the Getty Center @gettymuseum.bsky.social ! www.getty.edu/news/getty-p...

This is pretty wild ngl!

I won a lottery — 2nd best job in my field that year — in a very bad year in a lifetime of bad & worsening years. Back then 30ish jobs I could contort myself into being eligible for, because of generalist jobs. It being 08-09 meant most didn’t hire ANYONE that year. It’s only gotten more brutal.

I got sick in November and had to stay home for a few days. I amused myself by starting Hungarian. Today I had a 30 minute conversation in Hungarian. I am socially very weird and have a hard time dating in LA. I am old enough to understand that correlation is sometimes causation.

As part of a field where we still regularly work with scrolls, let me dispell your technological relativism and assure you: they are an utter pain in the ass. Text only scrolls such. Handscrolls with images are tons of fun, but still a pain in the ass.

One thing about doing Chinese bibliography. I can say something about an edition and try to amend cataloging etc., but it doesn't count unless I find a bibliographer in China to repeat exactly what I said. 'Foreigner' is an ontological handicap that prevents participation in some fields.

Survey: is it just LA, or is there a national cold thing that last 3+ weeks and is neither covid or the flu? Everyone out here has been sick for Nov and Dec.

Some news: UCLA CMRS is taking over Manuscripta (www.brepols.net/series/mss), and I am going to be the general editor. The new blurb is below. To wit, the journal is going to now focus on GLOBAL premodern manuscripts. Still, I am going to keep the focus. This is your nerd shit: codicology, single ms

An antiquarian catalog starting with a scale and explaining that measurement standards have changed in the last 1500 years. He, however, is using the Qing standards which you can see from the opening image (for when they change someday). Each antiquarian object is given with its dimensions.

Sorry I did this. Been under a lot of stress lately.

Today's conference precedings were in that heady mix of Sino-English-Franko-Japanese, aka a bunch of Sinologists who read everything and speak each other's languages in weird ways.

Gave myself a challenge to see how much Hungarian I can learn in 45 days. I have to report, all things about its difficulties are overblown. The only real issue is the absence of loan words makes vocabulary a bit tougher. But because Ferenc Kazinczy was smart, vocab works well once you get stems.

My siblings in book history, thank you for your work. But especially my German friends, please write shorter books. (Also I am so excited for this)

Perhaps it was being here for a memorial conference, but the fried clams I just ate were a Madeleine. I can now say I have cried in a legal seafoods...

Great turnout in honor of the man, myth, and legend, Peter Gregory (1945-2025).

This Boston weather is exactly why I live permanently in LA.

I absolutely do not belong in such august company. 班门弄斧

Poly future faking is telling each other you'll have soup delivered when the other is sick. That's basically our version of marriage.

FYI: BEFORE YOU PLAN OR ANNOUNCE AN EVENT IN COLLABORATION WITH SPECIAL COLLECTIONS... Contact special collections with important questions like, "Hey want to do this?" "Is this something we can do?" "Are you interested in collaborating?"

Oops, to the part of a project where my secondary literature is in Japanese academic journals that exist in a single copy, locked in a vault, guarded by traps. Time for a different project.

3-year postdoc with CODICUM project for a medievalist placed in Odense, Denmark! Special focus on Latin, palaeography & Dominican text and book history 📖😍🕵️ tinyurl.com/yrt4x8y3

I have been convinced to go to a sports bar tonight. The end is nigh. But these Ohtani touchdowns are supposed to be something.

Stamping vs printing: I've been staring at medieval Arabic block prints for a bit, and trying to determine from visual analysis if we are dealing with stamps or rubbed prints. Ex one looks stamped, due to the ink squeeze on the edges. 2 looks more like a rubbed print, given the evenness. Thoughts?

Cherokee? Thinking Cherokee.

The thing I did not miss about being a sinologist are the wechat messages. But now my phone is exploding because of the Breslauer prize and please kill me.

My favorite part of life is its predictability. Like how I will keep making the exact same mistakes, proclaim "never again!," and do the same thing a mere few weeks later.

In other words, AI news is just like US broadcast news?