Rudolf Schlichter (German, 1890-1955). “Portrait of the journalist Egon Erwin Kisch” (1927). H/t @adamtooze.bsky.social My God, the set and costume designers of Babylon Berlin really did nail the look and feel of urban Weimar.

Goodnight, Park.

Marylebone a la nuit, one last stroll.

One moment of beauty snatched from the hellscape of LVMH Parade. Uh, I mean, Kensington High Street.

Spare ribs and dear friends.

Night stroll around Marylebone and Edgeware Rd.

Is being American enough to qualify? Asking for a friend.

Friends: old and new. Also the trio of devils who somehow persuaded me to buy a shockingly nice, and shockingly spendy, linen jacket at Oliver Spencer.

Out and about in Bloomsbury, including the inaugural Lamb's Conduit Waiters' Race.

More railway stations: Marylebone, loveliest, least altered and most overlooked of London's great termini, and Russell Square on the Tube, an art nouveau classic. Lynn is giving me side eye for more station facade pictures. Reader, she married me anyway.

Lynn is re-reading Pattern Recognition. I'm wearing a pair of well-worn Buzz chinos. As one does when you're back in Gibson's London. @greatdismal.bsky.social

And a bit more Grand Canal. Still life with bench.

Out and about in Marylebone, Bayswater and the Grand Canal.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Paddington Train Shed. As a onetome history of technology major, this is one of the industrial cathedrals of my secular religion.

The first night I ever spent in London was behind one of these stucco porticos in Lancaster Gate, Christmas 1986. It was stuffy and dusty and caught somewhere between Fawlty Towers and Margaret Thatcher. Now, apparently, being refitted as luxe condos.

London skyline.

Coots! And cootlings!

When I first saw Paddington Basin in 1984 it was all stygian old warehouses, basically a good place to be murdered in a Le Carre novel. Now it's all steel and glass, except for this lone survivor.

London called. I came.

This is another very thoughtful reflection on the military parade, focusing more on the perspective of the troops involved. Col. Urban (ret.) is a veteran (I am not) and brings a soldier and a scholar's persective.

Former United Railway and Electric (Baltimore Md) trolley line, now a trail at North Point State Park.

Welcome to folks who followed me lately from the parade thread. Fair warning -- this account is mostly just sporadic pretty park pictures and nerdy CCC history.

Some thoughts about the military parade in my hometown of Washington DC today -- specifically, the route. Military parades in DC are quite rare. But when they happen, they have always begun, symbolically and geographically, at the Capitol and moved outward. 1/

Gloomy gusty evening at North Point State Park.

Terrestrial snail, tentatively an eastern whitelip. Seen while rangering around at North Point State Battlefield yesterday.

Frank Bruni's shout out to Maria McKee in his newsletter this week reminded me how much I adore this album: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is...

10 miles-- six of which were straight along my trail network. Spent the rest of June and July chainsawing.

Now that's a provenance: Jane Birkin's Birkin -- THE Birkin--goes under the hammer at Sotheby's. amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/06/...

the Inhuman League

Urban and front country park rangering today is much more challenging that it was even a mere 10 years ago. Rangers are often tasked to try to resolve difficult situations, driven by large social forces, that manifest suddenly in specific parks and places. www.abc10.com/article/news...

This is a great thread on the inner experience of depression, and how hard but imperative it is to overcome self-isolation.

She came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge... www.bbc.com/news/article...

YES. all of this. So well said, Talia. @swordsjew.bsky.social

When I visited USS Nautilus in New London the logbook open on the control room plotting table reading "Lat 90 degrees, Long indeterminate" gave me goosebumps.

From our colleagues in Wisconsin: "Many park structures built by the CCC ... still stand but need to be shored up. Heavily traveled... trails often need upkeep. Another example is the cost of removing trees decimated by emerald ash borers over the past several years." www.wpr.org/news/loved-u...

Maryland rolls out mandatory reservation system for two state parks.

Happy 40th birthday to New Order's "The Perfect Kiss." youtu.be/l_12gjuysec?...

It's still a romantic job, and you've gotta be at least a bit of a romantic to put up with it. flatheadbeacon.com/2025/05/11/r...

.

Out and about at Wrightsville Beach NC

Make your own metaphor.

Beach break. 4 days hiding from the madness.

That is an amazing story -- history really is a palimsest. I am the temporary custodian of a CCC lumber jacket that was taken back into inventory and later reissued to an internee at Granada. I'll be arranging for it to go there permanently in due dourse.

That's not trash, mam. That's a Cultural and Historical Resource.

I've seen them twice, once on Trail Ridge Road in Rocky and once way up Mt Audubon in Indian Peaks Wilderness.

On this day in 1933 President Roosevelt signed Public Law 73-5 which provided the relief of unemployment through the performance of useful public work -- the birth legislation creating the Civilian Conservation Corps. Happy 92nd birthday CCC!

Epic thread, this.

every college, corporate, and nonprofit president right now

RIP Kevin Drum, a good soul and great practitioner of truly independent public thought and opinion. Say hi to Inkblot and give him a scratchy for me, good sir.

Meanwhile, in the WaPo newsroom, "“Text will no longer be a default and length no more a measure of quality." Okay. Buh bye. Lemme know how that works out for you.