This week I ordered the wrong rare book for a class, and loaded a reel of microfilm upside down and had to reroll the entire thing by hand (while helping a student). We weren't meant to try to go on living our lives with this much impending doom.
Pat Ireland Nixon was a SATX dr who wrote a lot of history books, was even president of the THA: archives.trinity.edu/pat-ireland-...
"Novels are all so full of nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except The Monk."
To have Thorpe say that novels are all trash except for "The Monk"? Austen could not have depicted his character better than this one line. I'm obsessed.
I've been working on reading/rereading Jane Austen's works this year, and how has no one ever mentioned to me how utterly hilarious Northanger Abbey is?
Apparently this is becoming a necessary weekly PSA. If you don’t want to read, write, and think, that’s fine. But then you have no business being a scholar. Especially if you’re TT/tenured, and especially in the humanities, if you can’t be bothered to do these things, you need to get out now.
It was decommissioned in '96 I think? I was definitely in middle school when we went. I still have the Rivereast clipping somewhere.
A more interesting question to me: what is the weirdest field trip your school ever took you on?
In middle school, we toured the recently decommissioned Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. Like walked through the whole structure maybe a year after they turned it off? Lots of Alex Mack jokes.
Eli Whitney Museum, Mark Twain House, and Nature's Classroom.
Somehow never did Gillette Castle on a field trip even though I grew up in the neighboring town. Did you have to dress up in colonial costumes for Sturbridge Village, or was that a special tradition at just my school?
At this point, I'm fairly confident our photography prof continues to request Baltz's "San Quentin Point" portfolio for his classes because of how much I dislike it. It's photos of trash! www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks...
Sometimes I get ideas that make me wish I taught semester-long classes. Reskeeting for the morning crowd.
Next time somebody tries to get me to justify the existence of the humanities, I’ll just point out how for the past two Super Bowls we’ve all jumped online and engaged in collective semiotics and hermeneutics of the half-time show as text.
Bad Bunny halftime show
2026, Together we are America: immigration and cultural identity
Beyoncé halftime show
2013, Who run the world? Beyoncé and 21st century feminism
Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake Super Bowl halftime show
2004, wardrobe malfunctions and purity culture
U2 Super Bowl halftime show
2002, performative patriotism post 9/11
Kendrick Lamar Super Bowl halftime show
2025, race relations in the Trump era
“Football Night in America: Social History via Halftime Shows” — a syllabus.
The Library of Congress name authority file has it as “Tyler, the Creator, 1991-“. Their standard rule is to format the authority file “lastname, firstname” fwiw.
It is 34 degrees with a wintry mix today in Dilley.
The cognitive dissonance of constantly reading that I need to spend some time mastering generative AI while not knowing a single person in my industry who uses it to do good work 🤙
I loaned Joe Montana a screwdriver to assemble his daughter’s futon when moving her into her freshman dorm.
It’s actually a real thing! Studies have found a correlation between “roaming entropy” and improved mood.
Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel, Disney Animated or Pixar.
Pope Leo XIV told students not to use artificial intelligence for homework, saying that AI ‘won’t stand in authentic wonder before the beauty of God’s creation.’
"The Archival Intern will evaluate Polar’s historical materials and design a complete archival program" !?!?!
My kids use this National Geographic bug catching kit every single weekend: www.michaels.com/product/nati...
There is absolutely nothing "intern" about this job description. And yet, they will have no shortage of applicants.
My PCP’s AI scribe charted that I have lymphoma (I don’t). Getting it fixed was such a huge hassle that I have considered just changing physicians.
We did a snowy gingerbread man last year