Alexander R. Phillips
@arphillips.bsky.social
Assistant professor of English at Ashoka University, read: rogue Germanist in India. Author: "Ecology and German Realism." Literature, ecocriticism, environmental humanities, C19. I cycle, I make beer, I think about books for money.
Stell Dir vor, Du gibst ca. 1300.- Euro für Eintritt + Anreise aus und bekommst dafür billigen KI-Slop auf die Augen geschmiert. Jeder einzelne Buhruf war echt hart gerechtfertigt.
Alexander R. Phillips@arphillips.bsky.social · 21h agoThe Bayreuth Wagner festival joins the roster of artists who somehow think the prediction machine can produce something meaningful. How can Wagner + AI be anything but masochism? www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...
The Bayreuth Wagner festival joins the roster of artists who somehow think the prediction machine can produce something meaningful. How can Wagner + AI be anything but masochism? www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...
Ring Cycle review – AI staging dispenses with drama to create banal bric-a-brac
For the festival’s 150th anniversary, the creative team have turned to AI to generate visuals reflecting Wagner’s tetralogy’s past, present – and future. The hyperactive result is a dismal, mindless m...
theguardian.com
Working on my syllabus for my seminar on Romanticism's cultural legacies. Kant to the usual suspects to "Caligari" to "Alien." The darkest class I've ever taught. #LitWiss
Without downloading new pics, what is it like dating you?
Evan Torner@guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 3d agoWithout downloading new pics what it is like dating you?
Emily Wilson's review of the film adaptation of "The Odyssey" sums up why I refuse to watch another Christopher Nolan movie. "Interstellar" made me want to throw things. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Emily Wilson · An Uncomplicated Man
As they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Christopher Nolan has read at least the first line of my...
lrb.co.uk
#UKtoGermany2026, Km. 264: Stonehenge and environs. Don't just admire the stones, wander the area, explore the barrows, stop by Woodhenge and Durrington Walls. Knowing that the greater area has been a special place for most of the Holocene makes one feel small.
I needed to see a doctor, and because I'm in the UK I paid no money for the consultation. As a USian, I'm on the brink of tears. It's one thing to know social safety nets are possible, it's another to realize you don't have to choose between a bill and toughing it out.
Turning him into a spider was the biggest favor the writers could have done to this character.
popular character@samwiselastname.bsky.social · 4w ago
Oh, if only AI slop would give us a golden era of the good ol' polemic.
🌈 Hailey Piper 🌈@haileypiperfights.bsky.social · last mo.One thing you as a writer can do to distinguish yourself as human? Be divisive. Slop is sycophantic; it grovels & apologizes as it tries to give you what you want at all times. You're not a sniveling slop bot. You're an artist. So stop trying to tell readers what they want to hear. Give them art.
Ah, mortal! then, be heedful; for so, in all this din of the great world’s loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be overheard afar.
#UKCycleTour2026, Km 2351: Nottingham. An obsession with the Robin Hood legend when I was five might have been an early milestone in the formation of my class consciousness.
#UKCycleTour2026: While you were in a heatwave, I was cold and wet in the Scottish Highlands. But for that the pictures are all the more dramatic.
Good morning to all my colleagues in STEM who scoff at teaching writing (or teaching in general, for that matter).
Matthew Garrett@mjg59.eicar-test-file.zip · last mo.The prevalence of LLM written blog posts on technical subjects is a staggering indictment on our failure to reach people in technical fields how to write
I like reading too, but using incel slang kinda ruins the whole thing. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
Booksmaxxing: how reading became sexy
‘Reading is having a moment,’ according to Tinder. But do its users actually appreciate books, or just talk about them to get dates?
theguardian.com
#UKCycleTour2026: Somerleyton, last of my Sebald "Rings of Saturn" stops. The next tour of the manor isn't until Tuesday, so I can't report on the quails. Hope they're doing better than in August 1992.
#UKCycleTour2026, km 256: Lowestoft. More Sebald "Rings of Saturn" tourism. Sebald slathers on the melancholy, and pointing out that some of these places are more pleasant than he makes out is cheap. But can report that Lowestoft in 2026 accords with his description in the novel.
#UKCycleTour2026, km 199: More Sebald Rings of Saturn, the bridge over the Blyth. Sebald connects this bridge to the history of European destabilization of China in the 19th century. The contemporary footbridge replaced the one built for the railway that maybe was meant for the Chinese emperor.
#UKCycletour2026, km 188, der Sog der Leere. More WG Sebald "Rings of Saturn" tourism to #Dunwich. Dunwich was an important medieval trading port up to 1286, when a catastrophic storm closed the harbor. Over centuries the city was washed to sea by erosion.
#UKCycleTour2026, km. 155: The WG Sebald "Rings of Saturn" portion begins with Orford. The National Trust runs a ferry over twice a week, but timing didn't work for me. Sebald paid a guy off to take him, but the island is a sensitive bird habitat, so I'll content myself with this view.
