One fun thing about having a five-year term as chair is that you actually do need to start making plans for AY 2030-2031. 😅

The English department at Reed College—my department—is hiring a TT prof in post-45 US fiction and/or narrative. This position includes teaching in the interdisciplinary humanities program (mostly the freshman core course) as well as possibly contributing to upper level interdisciplinary programs.

Uh-oh turns out I'm an Emacs person.

My review of Ben Mangrum's fun book on comedy and computation is up.

I might now be the right age to develop an annoying interest in developing informed opinions about fountain pens.

poets apply!!!!

Lee Konstantinou@lkonstan.bsky.social · last mo.

UMD's Department of English is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor with a specialization in Poetry. Please spread the word. Best consideration date October 15, 2026. If you have any questions about the position, don't hesitate to reach out.

UMD's Department of English is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor with a specialization in Poetry. Please spread the word. Best consideration date October 15, 2026. If you have any questions about the position, don't hesitate to reach out.

UMD's Department of English is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor with a specialization in Poetry. Please spread the word. Best consideration date October 15, 2026. If you have any questions about the position, don't hesitate to reach out.

Nothing to worry about here.

I have been told that university administrators are shaped by their (sometimes perverse [ha ha]) incentives, but in practice I am finding much administrative labor is spent puzzling over the fact that no one is exactly sure what the incentives actually are.

Who knew there was so much writing on the rise of high-protein slop bowls.

Working on a reported piece, need to know. How long after a book deal happens is it posted on Publishers Marketplace? Is the date posted the date of the deal or the date of the posting?

I definitely feel safer now.

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters The plastic, non-lethal aircraft, which can smash windows and ram attackers will be at the ready at certain schools in Colorado, Florida and Georgia www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/...

A little too on the nose! 😂

Just found out about Telegonus. Oof.

*Bluey* would be much more realistic if Bluey and Bingo spent all day on the couch watching their in-world version of *Bluey* on their individual iPads.

Congratulations to Professor Barry Pearson on the release of “Classic Blues” from Smithsonian Folkways! This collection brings together legendary blues artists to celebrate the rich legacy and enduring influence of the blues. The collection also features extensive liner notes by Pearson.

Think I’m gonna have to write a work of autofiction about being trapped at Denver International Airport for seven hours with my family! 🫣

Narrator: It was not a real note.

The logline of my guaranteed-to-be-bestselling high-concept alternate history novel.

franciscOOoOo👻 varela fan club@paleopragmatist.bsky.social · 4mo ago

this one occasionally crosses my mind and every time it gets me just as good

I, too, have long lamented that modern physics departments have been dominated by pernicious relativists. Will the Provost finally hear my pleas?

You really must consider my sweeping conclusions very carefully. No, you don’t need to see any of the evidence I used to arrive at my sweeping conclusions. Also: You are a relativist.

Somehow I had missed—or repressed my knowledge of—the Peter David–Todd McFarlane ComicFest debate.

Never once questioned.

Since the dawn of time, the corrupt postmodernism youth of Athens have put Socrates to death, again and again. Oh wait, n/m. Onward!

Also, using Zotero takes 3x as long as typing them by hand because I’m constantly using new sources that have crappy/not-quite-right metadata.

Matthew Kirschenbaum@mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I am such a troglodyte, and it has nothing to do with AI. It has mostly to do with laziness, which I know is perverse, but I’ve never been able to be arsed to put all the time in up front, front loading my reference library. A secondary reason is I like the discipline of it. 🤷‍♂️

I never really believed in mimetic desire, but my 3yo is trying earnestly to convince me it really is at the root of all human motivation.

Sure, why not, instead of writing this essay why don’t I spend hours tweaking my CSS to make my markdown editor look exactly like a column of New Yorker type?

A party primer…

Am reminded that Bay Area summers are, fairly literally, bone-chilling.