this is a helpful skill for everybody! if you're reading humanities research: - read the intro - read the conclusion - identify the author's argument, what evidence they're using to support it, and why they think it matters - skim headers and topic sentences it's a word find, not a novel

@fritzmehner.bsky.social · 3d ago

If you don't mind me asking: how do you do academic speed reading? You mentioned it in your blogpost on doing a phd and I was certainly not taught how to during my undergrad time.

Hey, is this picture interesting-weird or exploitive-weird? And does it look like the skull is on the same plane as the elephants? Those early 20c newspaper reproductions of photographs always look fake to me.

I have work to do but UMass is even giving us punt p0rn

Except for the last year of my phd coursework when we were unranked and beat Kentucky

Rodger Sherman@rodger.bsky.social · 3d ago

Rutgers invented college football in 1869 and has spent the last 160 years regretting the decision

Post-first grownup tap class euphoria!

If you know me you know I don’t do signing lines. So it says something that I made an exception for Ms. Steinem the 2nd time I heard her speak in 2014 (the 1st I was an undergrad sitting on a stone windowsill “working” the event ) But I want to tell you about this 2nd photo: something GS saw at AU.

Boz Bochner@bozbochner.bsky.social · 3d ago

Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/u... I had such respect and admiration for her. I read all her books...If you can get your hands on a copy of The Beach Book, you won't be sorry.

“Bad news for publisher HarperCollins: The book-buying subset of MrBeast fans appears to be vanishingly small. Two people close to the project say The Most Dangerous Games is on track to be a historic bomb…”

Man I love the freaking Waste Land. Seriously, what a kickass poem. I can't wait to talk about it with my grad class on Thursday.

Having a salad for lunch for the first time in forever, will let you all know how it goes.

4, the two he mentions +Markiplier and the guy who's in the T-Mobile commercials. But I think this must be for a certain generation, right, because there are so few video game streamers.

Joseph Fink, we're going to win@planetoffinks.bsky.social · 6d ago

I'm at 2 out of 25, it's just Ms Rachel and the guy centrists Dems have lost their minds about

Thinking this will be a useful gif.

Ugh, I think my problem is I feel like anyone who's going to read this chapter will know about Topsy getting electrocuted at Luna Park so it feels like I shouldn't have to go through that part of the story, even though it's pretty freaking important.

Countess of Monte Fisto@slstalter.bsky.social · last wk.

Fitting horses and elephants into this chapter is *hard*.

Jennifer Nelson’s entry to this year’s Minnesota State Fair crop art

The Jack of Kingfield@thejackofkingfield.bsky.social · last wk.

The world’s leading crop art website did a feature on resistance crop art this year: www.cropart.com/Resist.pdf

Fitting horses and elephants into this chapter is *hard*.

Love to my fellow Rocky Horror weirdos.

High school Michael Stipe

Rocky Horror at the Varsity Theater Late 70s Michael Stipe & Vladimir Noskov

YouTube video by paul Piccione

youtube.com

they both looked incredible in a garter belt and corset

if i’ve ever been inclined to patriotism it was because my country produced people like dolly parton. as a history, as an ethos, as a system america is a horror; but wild weeds still grow in its cracks, and make it better than it is

@radiolab.bsky.social did that entire fantastic podcast, for anyone who didn't already indulge. I imagine I'll re-listen ... radiolab.org/podcast/radi...

Radiolab Presents: Dolly Parton's America

We enter the Dollyverse.

radiolab.org

Dude, if I had a spare scholarly life right now, I would absolutely pitch a book about how the early 20c version of the culture wars in the US (high/middle/lowbrow discourse, roughly) is so tied up in anxieties about the point of higher ed. Stupidly relevant.

Countess of Monte Fisto@slstalter.bsky.social · 2w ago

"Indeed there is nothing so tragic and so ominous as the familiar saying that college is the happiest time of one's life." Van Wyck Brooks in 1915

"Indeed there is nothing so tragic and so ominous as the familiar saying that college is the happiest time of one's life." Van Wyck Brooks in 1915

Oh right, I need to go vote for the mayoral candidate whose signs say "Let's do this together" over the challenger whose slogan is "Citizens First."

Does anyone know what happened to the library (esp. the rare books collection) of Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, AL when the school shut down in 2024? I'm trying to trace a broadside that was listed as held by them in the National Union Catalog. Thanks! #bookhistory #GLAM 🗃️

It's the 87th anniversary of the day they demolished the New York Hippodrome. Here's something I wrote about it a few years back: www.gothamcenter.org/blog/hippodr...

"Cash for the hogshead, cask, and demijohn" *might* be my favorite single line in American musical theater.

Zipped right through it in less than a day. So good, a lot more going on than in Blade Runner, closer to Ray Bradbury than I anticipated, but you can still see so much contemporary work coming out of this. Can't wait to read more!

Countess of Monte Fisto@slstalter.bsky.social · 3w ago

Finally reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and really enjoying it. Other PKD that should be top of my list? Stuff to avoid?

Finally reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and really enjoying it. Other PKD that should be top of my list? Stuff to avoid?

At the gate at JFK. Me: who is blasting music? Wife: Tracy Morgan Looks up. It is Tracy Morgan.