A tabby cat relaxing in front of a window, opening on to a snowy scene.

From this afternoon, Tiger's favorite spot in the sun.

A poor picture of a resting Clouded Yellow butterfly. Wretton, Norfolk 26/10/25.

Ridiculously poor phone pic, proper camera is in for repairs, but it's a record shot of a surprise butterfly patch tick this morning, Clouded Yellow, along the bank of the cut-off channel in Wretton, Norfolk @norfolkbutterflies.bsky.social

I'm not at all good at promotion, which is why I'm putting this out now: for MLA conference people, I will be hosting a virtual roundtable tomorrow, "How to Teach in Game Studies." Great panelists, it'll be enlightening.

mla.confex.com/mla/2026/mee...

Thank you so much man! Good to hear from you! How are things?

ICE Nazis in Chicago tried to kidnap a food delivery worker but my man was too fast for those slow bastards

Wednesday evening.

Completely agree. SharePoint is an _utter_ nightmare -- works maybe 20% of the time, & I can't believe my colleagues depend on it as much as they do.

I regret to report it's made the admin part of my work a lot easier. 😐

The Never Regret Trump FB account, and it appears they have now adopted the Cracker Barrel guy as their new avatar.

So, because of where I grew up (deep-red Texas) there are people in my Facebook orbit who share things from Trump fan accounts. And now they are taking up the cause of the Cracker Barrel guy, because they see removing him as a threat to Christian society. Even I don't know what's happening here.

Two of Our Greatest Filmmakers Stopped Making Movies Together. It Has Not Gone Well. The Coen brothers have been making movies separately for seven years. Only one has made anything good.

Lighten up, Francis. We saw it last night and Honey Don't is an enjoyable movie, dammit. 🙂

slate.com/culture/2025...

What It's Like To Be An International Affairs Graduate School Administrator in 2025 Not great, Bob.

Despite the subtitle @dandrezner.bsky.social gives a hopeful look at how Tufts (and I think many universities) are managing in the face of the Trump assault on higher education.
open.substack.com/pub/danieldr...

A white Siberian cat curled up next to a latte mug.

All fired up for a Friday. 🙂

It's very difficult as it is to keep track of people getting picked up and incarcerated by them now; they are truly being disappeared.

Very upsetting to say the least. And there _was_ an ominous flurry of activity around budgeting there about...two years ago...? It would have to be massive in ways I personally can't imagine.

West side story poster

Dr No poster with OO7 logo designed by Joe Caroff

For a Few Dollars More poster

A Hard Day’s Night

Graphic designer Joe Caroff passed away yesterday at age 103. Responsible for absolutely legendary posters and typefaces. www.printmag.com/daily-heller...

Well, UChicago has paused new PhD admissions in my department now, too. One of the flagship departments for anthropology in the US and worldwide.

This on top of hum, social thought, social work, and others. What happens to UChicago's brand--the so-called "life of the mind"--now?

Please forward to anyone you know who might be interested.

call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/08/...

One of my cherished professors (with whom I studied ancient Greek) earned two PhDs from Chicago in classics and philosophy. Much later, in doing some archival digging, I found his job rec letter from Hannan Arendt.
He's been gone 20 years now, & I'm glad he's not here for this. Shameful.

Upsetting. And, seems the dean here is playing to type as an Americanist by training. This will destroy philosophy and religious studies at the institution also.

you've gotta be fucking kidding me

A white and stripey ragdoll or Maine Coon cat getting pets in a lap.

It's been a long time since I taught Pointed Roofs also -- mainly I remember the protagonist, a teacher at a boarding school, fretting about her students graduating only to enter the marriage market; she notes the difference between her life and theirs. So I think very much worth a look too.

On Sinopessimism, or Junkies of Futility | Made in China Journal This essay is written precisely so that it could be dismissed. —Paul Mann (1991: 141)   Gary Gexi Zhang (2021) first coined the term ‘Sinopessimism’ as a speculative counterpart to Afropessimism, imag...

What is Sinopessimism? From lying flat to runology, Dino Ge Zhang explores a grassroots lexicon of disillusionment in China. Not just youth disengagement but a low theory of coping, refusing, and imagining alternatives amid economic and social pressures.

A ragdoll kitten napping on a white barstool.

Too hot to be outside in NTX today, everyone, please hydrate. 🙂

A tuxedo tabby napping in a sunbeam.

Fox naps pretty hard. 🙂

A white & black ragdoll kitten curled asleep on a circular drying mat.

To be clear, this is what actual antisemitism looks like.

www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...