Out today!

The Phillies need a Porter Martone

They’ll somehow manage to do all of the above.

#PHIvsCHC

Support these data centers: SCHOOLS, LIBRARIES, BOOKSTORES

Happy National Library Week! 💙📚

There was a problem at Michigan Radio this morning and they were playing classical music instead of the news when I woke up. I had the same thought, wondering if it was a Swan Lake-USSR collapsing kind of situation.

My job is great—and I watched someone give an incredible job talk yesterday and realized, once again, that I am just not cut out for teaching. It's simply not my skill. Happy to be where I am instead of forcing a square peg in a round hole for 3+ decades.

My parents' house in Philadelphia has horsehair plaster walls (A NIGHTMARE to deal with), so I sent today's newsletter to my mother. She's never found any shoes during renovations, though!

#CFP Female Networks of Knowledge: Natural History between Private and Public Spaces (Vienna, November 19-20, 2026), due May 30.

Conference explores how women shaped scientific knowledge via networks that crossed the domestic, social, and institutional from early modern to 19th c. #envhist #histstm

Living the Data: Positionality as Ambivalence - Association for Asian Studies By Ei Thin Zar, 2025-2026 Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellow Born into a Karen Muslim community in Kawkareik, Karen state, Burma, my work as a researcher and teacher/activist is grounded in a context shaped by the reality of a community enduring 70 years of civil war. After recent mass displacement prompted by the 2021 coup, members of […]

At #AsiaNow, Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellow Ei Thin Zar reflects on her experience as "a researcher from a researched community," carrying out her academic work "while navigating precarious legal status, material insecurity, and heavy community obligations related to conflict and trauma"

Weekly Wanderings: April 19, 2026 The Full Wizard of Oz I woke up at 1:30am last Wednesday morning to a sound I’d never heard before. It was loud and piercing—fire alarm?, I wondered groggily—but distant, definitely coming from out…

Tornado in Ann Arbor—plus stories on working as an independent scholar in China, the cute-ification of Lu Xun, an election in Hungary, researching slavery at Harvard, preserving the Casbah of Algiers, and living amid constant conflict in Myanmar. AND MORE.

Not even the goose was interested in watching the Phillies self-destruct ... again.

Flyers have to stop taking dumb penalties. I know it’s Pittsburgh and it’s fun to be aggressive against the Penguins, but let’s see some discipline.

#PHIvsPIT

I just got my electronic copy, too! Looking forward to reading it 😁

Not me! I cower before those things in my sensible mid-sized hatchback.

"progress"

Weekly Wanderings: April 19, 2026 The Full Wizard of Oz I woke up at 1:30am last Wednesday morning to a sound I’d never heard before. It was loud and piercing—fire alarm?, I wondered groggily—but distant, definitely coming from out…

Tornado in Ann Arbor—plus stories on working as an independent scholar in China, the cute-ification of Lu Xun, an election in Hungary, researching slavery at Harvard, preserving the Casbah of Algiers, and living amid constant conflict in Myanmar. AND MORE.

FCCC STATEMENT ON RECENT ATTACKS ON PRESS FREEDOM IN CHINA | Foreign Correspondents' Club of China Member Login

"A worrying number of incidents have been noted in recent months, including temporary detention, visa revocation, and a growing pattern of intimidation directed at interview partners and journalists themselves, alongside the denial of access to official events."

A picture of a rather dilapidated copy of "The picture of Dorian Gray" There is visible water damage to the cover and the plastic cover is yellowing. Obviously, not evident from the picture but there is a truly foul musty smell emanating from it!

Last week, a gentleman returned this rather dilapidated copy of this famous book to us after 50 years. He had found it in his attic!
Presumably this means there is a pristine copy somewhere in our libraries....

Weekly Wanderings: April 19, 2026 The Full Wizard of Oz I woke up at 1:30am last Wednesday morning to a sound I’d never heard before. It was loud and piercing—fire alarm?, I wondered groggily—but distant, definitely coming from outside my house. After a minute, my sleep-addled brain connected the dots and I understood: tornado sirens. The tornado sirens are going off. That can’t be good.

Weekly Wanderings: April 19, 2026

The Full Wizard of Oz I woke up at 1:30am last Wednesday morning to a sound I’d never heard before. It was loud and piercing—fire alarm?, I wondered groggily—but distant, definitely coming from outside my house. After a minute, my sleep-addled brain connected the…

I'm in Michigan.

WRONG, THIS IS JUST WRONG

I almost didn't even turn on the #Phillies radio broadcast (no Peacock subscription) because they've been SO BAD lately, but luckily I tuned in just in time for the Schwarbomb.

#PHIvsATL

My BFF and I are planning a watch party/drinking game for this one.

The 16 Percent Ceiling: a rule only Xi can break PropagandaScope has new findings

I measured every People's Daily front page for the last 17 months, to the pixel. A single article has not exceeded 16% of the page in that window — unless the subject is Xi Jinping.
open.substack.com/pub/soyonbo/...

Two hooded figures with lamps approach a moonlit, isolated cottage. A woman answers the door. We have come for the child, says the hooded figure So soon? she asks It is time, says the hooded figure. The woman is distraught. We should never have got him a library card! What is done cannot be undone, says the hooded figure We couldn’t see the harm! We just wanted him to enjoy reading! For most, it ends there, says the hooded figure, turning away and walking into the wilderness Oh lord, What have I done! says the woman, the child walks past her and out into the darkness with them. Do not cry mother. I am a writer now.

my latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com

Flyers take Game 1 3-2. They've stolen home ice advantage and lead the series 1-0.

“This is great penalty killing” isn’t a sentence often uttered about the Flyers.

#PHIvsPIT

Amid a large crowd of people in the Xfinity Mobile Arena, Gritty the Flyers mascot stands and looks at the photographer

#GoFlyers
#PHIvsPIT
#BattleOfPennsylvania

Flyers didn't score but hard not to be happy about the first 20 minutes. Pretty excellent all around. Came with the juice. The jam.