Keep reading essays and books by East Asian Studies scholars with voluminous publication records where they straight up admit that Chinese or Classical Chinese still gives them problems after all these years, and it's like... maybe study more, then? Read more, speak less, publish even less still.

Has anyone ever formally argued that measuring academic merit by the quantity of articles produced per year has led scholars to "economize" on their reading time by prioritizing short stories and poems over the novel form, which they don't have time to read at all, and especially not comparatively?

Americans would be hotter (viz., more physically attractive) were they to take the notion of "UV light" even a little bit seriously

Having *chaotic thoughts.* "You can do anything. ANYTHING. You can make up your own words. Every single sentence can have a made-up word. Nothing, strictly speaking, has to make sense at all! Nothing matters, except how it sounds and feels!" [maniacal laughter]

Kevin@kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · 4d ago

Been doing a little creative work, obsessively writing and rewriting because I want to "find my voice," or whatever. Trying neither "to show" nor "to tell," but rather accomplish a special third thing ("insinuate poetically"?)

😂 no I genuinely thought they were doing twelve-degree chess racism, that makes a LOT more sense lol

🧵 of lots of great Qianfu 潛伏 (2008) pictures I've tweeted out over the last year or so

Kevin@kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · last wk.

Should point out, it doesn't *have* to be bad, it's more that you'll run out of stuff that is good pretty quickly. Qianfu 潛伏 (2008) is arguably the best Chinese TV show in modern Mandarin Chinese. Uniquely, it's actually a great show that rises to the level of art:

Been doing a little creative work, obsessively writing and rewriting because I want to "find my voice," or whatever. Trying neither "to show" nor "to tell," but rather accomplish a special third thing ("insinuate poetically"?)

when a professor logs on here to invoke a transhistorical notion of "the professor," making citing Willa Cather (whose university was almost free), you are basically guaranteed that their university cost $5000/year in 1980 ($15,000 if adjusted for inflation) and costs over $100,000/year today

can't help but laugh at professors desperate to transform the university into a guild craft they can hand down to their children sorry, the "real elite" like it the way it is (viz., access mostly according to race and wealth); prof children can attend the public universities their department scorns

They really don't get all the implications of "80% of all tenured faculty get PhDs from 20% of universities and 1 in 8 come from just 5 universities" along with similar numbers for the undergrad to grad step.

who up reading Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe

one of my more galactic-level takes is that it should be illegal to have kids in TV shows or movies it always feels a bit exploitative/ creepy, and not infrequently is suggestive of a writer who has found a "cheat code" for evoking emotion in the absence of insight or ability

can't help but laugh at professors desperate to transform the university into a guild craft they can hand down to their children sorry, the "real elite" like it the way it is (viz., access mostly according to race and wealth); prof children can attend the public universities their department scorns

One of the gravest sins the university ever committed — which is saying a lot — is conceiving of literature, writing, and poetry as "separate fields of study"

okay, I'm converted — mocha pot is the best coffee preparation method

"That Moore has a doctorate but seemingly never procured stable employment in the university might paradoxically have actually enabled him to produce such an expansive and holistic, and much-needed work, one with no clear parallel or substitute at the moment of writing." 💅

Late July Reflections: Recent Readings Completed and In-progress | kmichaelwilson

I’m still in the process of reading through The Tale of Jin, Yun, and Qiao 金雲翹傳 (17th. C.), which is slowing me down a bit, partly because I

patreon.com

there's a certain kind of "left pessimism" that learns a few quasi-economic first-principle-seeming concepts ("falling rate of profit," "Baumol's cost disease") to bolster a worldview that's actually just a refraction of their individual depression and not anything approaching rigorous "analysis"

been studying geometry, so that if I ever write a novel, it'll be as transgressive as mathematically possible

"That Moore has a doctorate but seemingly never procured stable employment in the university might paradoxically have actually enabled him to produce such an expansive and holistic, and much-needed work, one with no clear parallel or substitute at the moment of writing." 💅

Late July Reflections: Recent Readings Completed and In-progress | kmichaelwilson

I’m still in the process of reading through The Tale of Jin, Yun, and Qiao 金雲翹傳 (17th. C.), which is slowing me down a bit, partly because I

patreon.com

some of what I'm reading, late July edition: The Tale of Jin, Yun, and Qiao 金雲翹傳 (17th. C.) Zhang Henshui's A Fate in Tears and Laughter 啼笑因緣 (1930) Steven Moore's The Novel: An Alternate History: From Beginnings to 1600 (2010)

Late July Reflections: Recent Readings Completed and In-progress | kmichaelwilson

I’m still in the process of reading through The Tale of Jin, Yun, and Qiao 金雲翹傳 (17th. C.), which is slowing me down a bit, partly because I

patreon.com

Okay I haven't seen Heated Rivalry (not sure I'm gonna) but this, this essay, this says so much of everything I've been thinking and dreaming about since the 00s. The 80s/90s slash theorising and queer theorising that shaped my brain & heart has escaped containment in the form of a hockey romance!

Heated Rivalry and the Art of Anti-Dystopia

Joy in the present makes joy in the future seem plausible.

jenka.substack.com

Trains are phallic in a romantic way; cars are phallic in an unromantic way

some of what I'm reading, late July edition: The Tale of Jin, Yun, and Qiao 金雲翹傳 (17th. C.) Zhang Henshui's A Fate in Tears and Laughter 啼笑因緣 (1930) Steven Moore's The Novel: An Alternate History: From Beginnings to 1600 (2010)

Late July Reflections: Recent Readings Completed and In-progress | kmichaelwilson

I’m still in the process of reading through The Tale of Jin, Yun, and Qiao 金雲翹傳 (17th. C.), which is slowing me down a bit, partly because I

patreon.com

This guy writes about fighting Nazis, while exemplifying the psychological roots of fascism and the carceral state. As artists and intellectuals, I think we should categorically deny that the term "theft" should apply to the lossless distribution of our intellectual works:

Trains are phallic in a romantic way; cars are phallic in an unromantic way

finally, some quality posting not about the Odyssey! 😉

Kevin@kmichaelwilson.bsky.social · last wk.

"The robust affirmation of life and its pleasures in the Satyricon at a time when a growing cult was using another crucified man to condemn life and its pleasures is one of the most appealing features of the novel. [1/2]

choosing to interpret this as Elsie's learning the truth of non-identity and becoming an immortal en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_...

"The robust affirmation of life and its pleasures in the Satyricon at a time when a growing cult was using another crucified man to condemn life and its pleasures is one of the most appealing features of the novel. [1/2]

You're welcome, also, to regard an aesthetic disagreement between a big-name movie producer and a tenured Ivy-league professor as essentially intra-elite squabbling that ultimately has little to do with meaningful art or a democratic society (or with you personally, if you make less than 6 figures)

The Tale of Jin, Yun, and Qiao 金雲翹傳 (17th. C.) is slowing me down a bit, partly because I'm enjoying the classical Chinese and sort of luxuriating in it, but partly because it's so bleak, I find I can't read more than a little at a time