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Nicholas Birns

@nicholasbirns.bsky.social

Academic, literary critic etc. teaching at NYU. Books from Cambridge UP, Bloomsbury, Broadview, Palgrave, U of South Carolina P, Sydney UP, Routledge. He/him

763 Posts1464 Follower2061 Folgt
The Nitrate Diva@nitratediva.bsky.social · 3d ago

My father would never forgive me if I didn't mention that Myrna Loy appears in arguably the finest episode of COLUMBO, Étude in Black. She's so formidable that son-in-law John Cassavetes commits murder rather than face her ire.

Myrna Loy wearing some kind of green sailor suit thing with a look of serene amusement as she instructs, "Now be a good by and vanish... quietly."
The New York Times@nytimes.com · 3d ago

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com “Hollywood has always been a town of dark rumors about the terrible, often abusive behavior,” Maureen Ryan writes. But there has long been “an entire system in place to keep the victims quiet and keep any revelations out of the public eye.”

Opinion | Jared Leto and Hollywood’s Open Secrets

Whispers can fester for years before anyone faces consequences. And the tactics celebrities use to escape scandal have completely changed.

nyti.ms

mattie lubchansky@mattielubchansky.com · last wk.

SIMPLICITY has been out for ONE YEAR today!!!! happy birthday to my little book :) we don't get paperbacks very often in the graphic novel world so it's tough to keep attention on something when it's no longer new, but i still think it's the best thing i've ever made. simplicitybook.xyz

luicus, the horrible little man from the book, looks at his phone instead of attending the nightly orgy-fight. idiot.
Militarnyi@militarnyi.com · last wk.

❗ An assault group of Colombian volunteers eliminated Russian forces in the inter-position sector of the front near Stepnohirsk in the Zaporizhzhia region. militarnyi.com/en/news/colo...

Colombian Volunteers Eliminated a Russian Position Near Stepnohirsk

An assault group of Colombian volunteers eliminated Russian forces in the inter-position sector of the front near Stepnohirsk in the Zaporizhzhia region.Fighters from the Tactical Group Revanche of th...

militarnyi.com

Dr Laura Fernández-González@laurafg.bsky.social · 3w ago

Sweat, blood and tears! I am delighted to announce our forthcoming book: Public Rituals in the Portuguese Empire, 1498–1822, which I've co-edited with António Camões Gouveia (Nova University-Lisbon) and Federico Palomo (Complutense University-Madrid). www.routledge.com/Public-Ritua...

Public Rituals in the Portuguese Empire, 1498–1822

Public Rituals charts the study of public rituals in the Portuguese Empire between 1498 and 1822 approximately, with a view to introducing both new and seasoned readers to the contexts, sources, probl...

routledge.com

Nicholas Birns@nicholasbirns.bsky.social · last wk.

The one thing I haven’t seen addressed about the Odyssey movie. It talks about the loss of literacy as something tragic, and a culture which does not have literacy as barbarian. but the power of the poems prob. comes from originally being oral. That’s why Phemias is a rapper…

Bruno Godinho@brunossgodinho.bsky.social · last wk.

Hey, #medievalsky. Does anyone have access to a print copy of An Index of Images in English Manuscripts from Chaucer to Henry VIII (British Library I, MSS Additional and Egerton)? I need to see if there's anything on Add. 10302. It's this one: www.brepols.net/products/IS-...

Brepols - The British Library, I: MSS Additional and Egerton

Brepols is an international academic publisher of works in the humanities, with a particular focus in history, archaeology, history of the arts, language and literature, and critical editions of histo...

brepols.net

Ed Zitron@edzitron.com · 2w ago

Joined the BBC to talk about hyperscalers' AI capex, the greater AI bubble, and how OpenAI is the Lehman Brothers of AI.

Steven Sheil@scsheil.bsky.social · 2w ago

Taking the opportunity to repost this story (from John Boorman’s book) about how shooting the last shot of Zardoz caused Sean Connery to fall into so fierce a rage it led to a man changing his identity

Zed eventually destroys the Vortex, giving the Immortals the gift of death. He survives with Charlotte Rampling and they have a child together. The final sequence is done in a single shot with a fixed camera. Sean and Charlotte are sitting side by side in a cave with the baby. The baby becomes a child, the child becomes a youth, gets up and leaves them without looking back; they get older, then become ancient, and finally just their skeletons remain, which eventually crumble to dust. Only then does the camera move. It tracks in to a handprint on the wall of the empty cave, like the cave painting of primitive man in Lescaux, suggesting that this future world could have been in the past, and that as that civilisation ended, ours began. This shot took an entire day to shoot. The actors had to be removed and make-up applied incrementally to add the years. Sean has a delicate skin and hates make-up. He had to endure it all day. He became more and more irascible. This was the last day of shooting. We had the wrap party that night. Sean had a golf tournament to go to the next day. I had to hold him until the morning for the laboratory report. The call came at 6 a.m. There was a fault in the film stock. It would have to be redone. Sean was apoplectic. He stormed and raged, but it had to be done. We reassembled with our hangovers and started again. A long day, hours of make-up, Sean smarting from his suffering skin. Finally it was done. The clapper-loader took the magazine from the camera to prepare1973: ZARDOZ it for the lab. A few minutes later he came to me, trembling and ashen-faced. He looked so devastated, I thought someone had been killed or that the Third World War had started. I was almost relieved when he admitted that he had opened the can by mistake and exposed the film to daylight. Sean would not believe me. "Is this your idea of a joke?' he fumed. Finally convinced he would have to do it for a third time, he erupted. It was a terrifying sight. He roared, he ran amok. He went after the clapper-loader. He tried to kill him. It took four strong men to subdue him. Twenty years later I was drinking coffee in Starbucks in Venice, California, when I was approached by a man with a familiar face. I couldn't place it. He reminded me that he was the clapper-loader who had exposed the film. He had fled the country immediately after this catastrophe, changed his identity, and was now a cameraman shooting commercials in LA. As we parted, he said, with an ironic smile, but also with a trace of fear, "Sean's not in town, is he?'
Reactor Magazine@reactorsff.bsky.social · 2w ago

If you've seen Zardoz, you already know it's a wild ride; it you haven't seen Zardoz, strap in: it's time to talk about the highs and lows of John Boorman's film, featuring false gods and failed utopias, and Sean Connery in thigh-high boots

PBS News@pbsnews.org · 3w ago

"Every organ is totally different. It's a bit like sort of speed dating," says Anna Lapwood . "You have to try and get to know the personality of the organ as quickly as possible and then figure out what that organ wants you to say with the music." https://to.pbs.org/3S3meEY

Musical phenom introduces an old instrument to new audiences

The pipe organ is typically associated with formal concert halls, church music and traditional works by Baroque composers like Bach. But one musician, Anna Lapwood, is broadening the instrument’s repu...

to.pbs.org

Wrap02@tigralady.bsky.social · 3w ago

"My whole life has been here," she told The Midwest Newsroom in a video call from the Chase County Detention Center. "All I know is America." No criminal record This not “the worst of the worst” Priorities of this Administration, DHS & ICE should be on the ”worst of the worst”

St. Louis Public Radio@stlpublicradio.bsky.social · 3w ago

A Missouri woman protected from deportation to Trinidad and Tobago remains in ICE detention as the government searches for another country to send her to. Alisa Ramdial Shahib’s case is part of a broader expansion of third-country removals affecting immigrants. From the Midwest Newsroom: