It's telling that it's never the (sane) literature scholars doing it, too. Once you get deep into lit analysis, the required attention to narrative structure and inherent human perceptual filter makes it clear that doing it to real life invites the delusion that real life is story-shaped.

William B. Fuckley@opinionhaver.bsky.social · 20h ago

that current affairs article is what people are talking about when they say that there's a kind of left wing commentary that's essentially attempting literary analysis on real life

Very much in favor of destroying the character of my neighborhood (the guy who keeps parallel parking a cybertruck in the fire lane.)

Reconstructionist@unavaleable.bsky.social · 4d ago

i propose a modest remedy: anyone who ever invokes the phrase "destroy the character of neighborhoods" or equivalent should be launched into the ocean by a trebuchet

In the quest for an ethnonym for euroamericans, it is very funny to me that they just keep running headlong into the institutional white supremacy wall with the terminology. Like, all of the choices sound like branded credit card tiers with perks and the perks are racism.

open all borders. stop having them be closed 🇺🇦🇱🇹🇵🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿@dov.bsky.social · 4d ago

"Heritage American" is obviously not a thing, unless you're very keen to invent ANOTHER term for Native Americans.

"A person who is armed is equivalent to a person aiming a gun at you" is the kind of opinion held by either: 1. someone who has never actually had a gun aimed at them 2. a cop who has definitely shot a civilian

It's great for the humanities (esp. adaptation studies) that folks are getting into the Odyssey and that the discourse is no longer just right-wing chuds trying to claim Classical Civ as their personal fiefdom like Penelope's rapacious suitors, but like, the source material is a very vague old poem.

Matt Pearce@mattdpearce.com · 7d ago

I need Christopher Nolan to keep adapting towering works of literature as a sort of Keynesian stimulus for literary culture.

If we try hard enough, we can turn The Red Wheelbarrow into a five part epic directed by Peter Jackson.

Jon Danziger@danziger.bsky.social · last wk.

IN A WORLD WHERE TWO ROADS DIVERGE ONE CHOICE CAN MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE

To be fair, in most East Coast cities, this would get your group called suburbanites (derogatory) or tourists and possibly lead to a passerby Doing the Thing (pointedly colliding with the outermost member of the group and then saying "I'm walking here!" etc.)

ellie lockhart (she/they)@eleanor.lockhart.contact · 2w ago

I do not understand people who think they’re entitled to take up 100# of the sidewalk and not move for people walking the opposite direction when there is literally nowhere to go, just because they’re engrossed in a group conversation. It’s so intensely disrespectful and it seems to be everybody

no but seriously.

Feminism with YIMBY Characteristics

Much hay has been made about the effects of our housing crisis on economic inequality, racial segregation, and climate catastrophe. Today I want to approach the question of housing from a feminist per...

liberalcurrents.com

Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈@maxdubler.com · 2w ago

Liberating queer kids from their unaccepting families has always been central to my YIMBY advocacy. It’s why I am so angry that San Francisco has refused to meaningfully grow its housing stock since the seventies.

Twenty-first century aphorisms that need to exist, #2290: Do not take life advice from something you can unplug.

Fun fact: that Starbucks (if I'm determining the location correctly from clues) is in the middle of what I call The Worst Interchange In Road History so I hope this guy pulled into the wrong turn lane after fleeing and ended up trapped in the nightmare Walmart parking lot maze across the street.

𝐉𝐞𝐫𝐢 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐭 🩷@jastuart68.bsky.social · 2w ago

Watching ICE agents literally run away from a Mount Laurel Starbucks without their coffee because the neighborhood completely rejected them is pure gold. South Jersey will make you unwelcome every single time you show your faces.

Lawyer-Brained Guys: we have to protect the norms! Gurri et al., correctly (as usual): the norms exist to protect the Republic and the norms aren't even here anymore.

Liberal Currents@liberalcurrents.com · 2w ago

"I had only one reaction to the panelists and their cheerleaders: these gutless losers will never win. If they have their way, we will, at best, remain in this crisis for a generation longer, and at worst we will simply lose the war." www.liberalcurrents.com/tit-for-tat-...

Yes.

Nick Brumfield@nickjbrumfield.bsky.social · 3w ago

Count Binface must be shitting his pants rn at the remote prospect he might actually win like imagine you created this novelty character for some good satire and then reality is surreal enough that you may actually be required to govern

I just got an ad for a "tactical rosary" and in addition to having SEVERAL questions for my ad algorithm about why it thinks I want that, I have to say: if you need the tactical rosary I think maybe your tactical situation has gone poorly

Reminder: Canada is basically a continent-sized boreal forest with about 40mil people living around the edges. And burned bits of that boreal forest are trapped by a heat dome, leading to light ash-snow in...New Jersey.

I love any opportunity to talk about Star Wars, but it’s even better when I get to talk about Star Wars and fairy tales. Many thanks to Reactor for helping me bring this essay into being! 💛🗡️🐋

Reactor Magazine@reactorsff.bsky.social · 3w ago

In order to understand Star Wars, we must be conscious of the ways in which it utilizes (and sometimes transcends) all of its many genres." @alwaysfern.bsky.social on finding the proper framework for appreciating individual Star Wars stories, from A New Hope to Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew

The only things Appalachian about this menu are that it's full of corn and deeply haunted by status anxiety.

madeline odent@oldenoughtosay.com · 4w ago

Are the Americans awake yet? Okay so a restaurant just opened in London called ‘Appalachia’ and this is their ‘June’ menu; discuss

Having gone to a very STEM college for undergrad as one of the few humanities students, my first thought was "is this an organic chem class, an economics class, or a fundamentals of mech eng 100-level?" My first assumption was "tough course, bad design" but actually this is just rampant cheating.

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 4w ago

absolutely insane story, and yeah, just looking at this chart... with the exception of maybe two people, this entire class was cheating like motherfuckers

I've known and worked with and gotten arrested alongside ACTUAL tough union guys and their response to hearing about a sexual assault isn't "oh cool my kind of guy" It's "what's his address I'm going to pay him a little visit"

Happy “liberal arts professor helps save the Union” day to all who celebrate

why are we acting like the Gabbard being in a weirdo cult is breaking news, people were talking nonstop about it back when she was pretending to be Democrat

So it looks like they just found the academic equivalent of the character Armitage from Neuromancer.

Crystal Fleming クリスタル@alwaystheself.bsky.social · 2mo ago

.. and impose ever-increasing mechanisms of social control. He didn't answer that question. In fact, he was not able to answer most questions colleagues asked in the Q&A. Someone asked him about Heidegger since he talked at length about phenomenology. He had no response. Did he need to ask Claude?

We should convert the hypothetical Trump Triumphal Arch into a COVID memorial and collectively forget the original plan. Leave it as one of those weird factoids like the different brick materials in the Washington Monument.

Will Stancil@whstancil.bsky.social · 2mo ago

YOU HAVE TO TEAR DOWN THE SYMBOLS OF THE REGIME, SO THAT FUTURE REGIMES KNOW THAT THEIR ABUSES WILL BE IN VAIN

Wrong on 31+ axes of opinion-having and demonstrating a clear food-related skill issue. I would simply perish.

Nied@nied.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Mexican food is bad because you can't pair it with wine" is such an insane take on so many different axes.

Also, given this guy's t-shirt: go birds

Raj Patel@rajio.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Posting this for a specific audience here.

Automated Systems Guessing Slightly Wrong, Entry 2,059: Was prompted to "transfer all my files" from my .edu work email because I'm "graduating soon." (I happened to submit a book draft during finals week and now my email thinks I'm finishing a degree instead of, you know, publishing as faculty.)

Having interacted with elephants before, if this is legit: Nobody in that hall, or on the custodial staff, is prepared for the force, volume, and smell of an elephant taking a leak.

Robert Downen@robertdownen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The Texas GOP just brought an elephant into the convention hall and it apparently pissed all over the place

Hegseth really is one of those schlocky made-for-tv military speeches that, one night, wished it was a real boy. It just turns out that when you turn that cornball content into a guy, the guy is insanely racist.

Tom Nichols@radiofreetom.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I agree, and one of the good things about The Atlantic is that these two articles are side by side, not mutually exclusive.

the internet has given millions of keyboards to millions of monkeys and while we may not have produced shakespeare we have written some of the hardest lines ever conceived in an effort to be funny online

At this point, any Western politician who doesn't view right wing ethnonationalism as a coordinated international terrorism network supporting domestic insurgencies is setting their own house on fire.

SPACE LIBBING OUT SIMULATOR i recognize that i could play as something other than united nations of earth i just don’t know why i would