the heat in the professional sphere about the jason arday case is only 15% about the plagiarism and 85% about lying to journalists (which is a fun and honorable pastime for which we should have given him a medal)

Because I think there's something to learn from reading even bad books, I am now 20% of the way through Dungeon Crawler Carl, and you know what? I still don't get it. It's awful. I don't believe these books have been edited.

Yankee Papist@yankeepapist.bsky.social · 2w ago

I understand Brandon Sanderson fans, although I am not of their tribe; I do not understand Dungeon Crawler Carl-heads

I didn't party as a kid/teen/twenty-something. Bet you couldn't have guessed that about me.

if people still write novels in a year or two, bishop barron would make a very funny minor character in a novel

Your Excellency, you’re a bishop of a midsize diocese in Minnesota.

Pooh: you, a brain donor moron, not reading Fenimore Cooper because AI is spoonfeeding it to you Tuxedo Pooh: me, cultured genius, not reading Fenimore Cooper because Twain cooked him thoroughly a century and a half ago

Matt Pearce@mattdpearce.com · 2w ago

I’m learning that the people who gamified paragraphs are having trouble reading books. www.axios.com/2026/08/11/r...

I understand Brandon Sanderson fans, although I am not of their tribe; I do not understand Dungeon Crawler Carl-heads

This was a highly sophisticated "Dungeon Crawler Carl" joke fyi

Yankee Papist@yankeepapist.bsky.social · 2w ago

I 'ardly know 'er Carl!

I 'ardly know 'er Carl!

Then he fires a laser at him and blows him up

I don't think the valence of any sneering about the "faculty lounge" I've ever heard has had the connotation of wealth and luxury more like "a room full of tedious, impractical, pompous, and out-of-touch eggheads fond of autoölfaction of flatulence"

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 2w ago

Sneering about the "faculty lounge" is deeply funny. Most departments don't have one, but if they do, it's like a wall of mailboxes, a coffee maker and maybe a mini-fridge. You're basically sneering about the break room on The Office. "Oooh, look who has a *vending* machine! Excuse me, m'lord!"

Started two historical series that I've been meaning to try recently Bernard Cornwell SUCKS Patrick O'Brien writes masterpieces

Having finally read the thing entire, I don't get what the big deal was here (aside from the tedious Gen X things about wanting more sex scenes) It's a review of a movie, and reviews of movies are boring unless they're vitriolic pans. What did you want her to write?

Yankee Papist@yankeepapist.bsky.social · 4w ago

I'm glad we all agree that Emily Wilson is annoying now, welcome to all the new haters

I'm sick to death of the unrealistic beauty standards foisted on us by TV, which is why Ross Douthat joining sixty minutes is so important

These people are simply not Americans. This is not how a free man behaves. These people are willing slaves to a man who would sell them out in an instant and spit on their wives and children if he thought he could make a buck from it. Disgusting, vile people, barely worthy to be called human.

I'm glad we all agree that Emily Wilson is annoying now, welcome to all the new haters

Find yourself someone who loves you as much as the city of Somerville, Massachusetts loves closing multiple major crosstown arteries during heavy commuting hours

So I spoke; but he answered me straightway saying, "Wackadoo, radiant Odysseus!"

We're not even getting any good satiric verse out of this imperial decline this sucks

the brown university AI scandal from a few weeks back has two groups of reactions that are engineered to drive me crazy There's a combination of AI-boosters and tender-headed Student Life types both, from their own priors, asking whether using chatgpt during your exam is "really cheating"

if I had a nickel for every expert in the first Origenist controversy working in my university fundraising office I would have two nickels, not a lot, weird twice, etc

We have to go back

Boston Cambridge Somerville Providence ...East Providence?

Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · last mo.

QUESTION: What are your FIVE favourite cities anywhere in the world? Bonus points for persuasive explanations why your choices are “right.” Mine (in no order) are: Paris Barcelona New York Montreal Vancouver

Do you think they call it the "Classical Learning Test" because the nearest analogue to what they're actually pretending to test for is "liberal education" but if they called it that they couldn't get buy in from rich right wing cranks and fake universities

writing a book is always an arrogant thing to do, but writing a book and then reading the audiobook yourself borders on insanity

Not a Mainer, not my business, but they should try running someone you want to have a beer with

Started reading the diaries of John Quincy Adams in earnest yesterday and they are a source of great joy, marred only by the fact that the library of America editor is evidently ignorant of Greek. ("αλληλομς"? Really?)

Having a country singer at the Boston pops feels like a betrayal

Look, who amongst us doesn't feel alienated by modernity? but learning decent latin, buying and reading old hard copy media, and getting into fountain or dip pens is a much less spiritually corrosive way to express it than attending boring liturgies led by schismatics

a thing I wonder about with the right wingers (a distinction without a nafka minna for sure) is what percentage of them mainly hate immigrants, gay people, etc in se and what percentage of them mainly hate educated urban liberals and want to spite them by attacking everything they seem to stand for