Ivan Kreilkamp

Love the coney “glizzy gap” at this Cincinnati skatepark

The Four Horsemen of the Bropocalypse: Power and Culture Under a Tech Oligarchy Conference in Bloomington, IN, March 25-27 Submissions due December 1. Please circulate!

I wrote about "The Green World of Jonathan Lethem’s Bloomington, Indiana" (& about Brian Eno, Northrop Frye, and Shakespearean comedy)-- and got a quote from the gracious author himself about the summer he spent in Bloomington in the late 1970s

“During the second term of Trump’s Robin Hood regime, the net worth of the top 0.1 percent has grown 6,800 times faster on average per household than for those in the bottom half”

This is excellent — “I’ve come to realize that business schools don’t just reflect our economic system — they actively manufacture its priorities and normalize its harms” — and also n.b. the great Ed Steed illustration

I showed my Thomas Mann pencil to someone working on a first dissertation chapter, and they seemed to appreciate the sentiment

This has to be up there in the category of great novels focused on unlikeable, toxic protagonists (Angel Deverell, an Edwardian-era author, maybe loosely based on Ouida or Marie Corelli). It's a really interesting novelist's portrayal of a novelist as deluded fantasist @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social

Oh man. Seeing this last night to a nearly full house with live score provided by ten thousand lakes was a peak IU Cinema experience for me. Mephisto is Emil Jannings is F.W. Murnau: the deceitful illusionist, the liar, the one who dazzles & tricks the amazed viewer

Might steal this for my next test —> “on the other hand, what poetic excellencies will keep it alive forever?”

lol great line (“countless otherwise smart people who publicly accepted the story without question, like baby birds yearning for a worm”)

I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.

Really sad story of the final days of great singer-songwriter Todd Snider (I'm not watching the police videos though...) (gift link)

There's a really moving passage towards the end of @adellewaldman.bsky.social's *Help Wanted* about why the novel's big-box-store workers never get together outside of work. No one has space or $, no one's schedules match, etc. Powerfully sums up the materialist substrate of social life

Wow this (Nobel to Navi Pillay) was *really* triggering for them

Many congratulations to Anne Carson for the well-deserved Nobel Prize! This is also great news for Translation, Classics, Poetry, the breaking of generic and disciplinary boundaries, and the fact that you don't have to fit a pre-existing mould to have a brilliant, successful career.

Ratboys now unquestionably rule as the best Notre Dame-associated band ever- easily surpassing Umphrey’s McGee & Sweep the Leg Johnny @ratboysband.bsky.social

It’s always instructive to look back at the first dozen or so Nobel winners in Literature. Who will be the next Eucken or Echegaray?

This story is heartbreaking & enraging

Interesting October campaign surprise from Trump... an open invitation to an adversary to destroy two of the largest cities in the U.S.

Is “I can go potty” next?

I am proud of what Josh and I accomplished in this essay, which took deep reporting and data gathering, and which ultimately runs to a hearty 7000+ words to explain what's really going on with Jewish American and Israeli books in US publishing as PEN America and the ADL run cover for genocide

Arguably the Minnesota Gophers are the dark-horse winners of this imbroglio

They saw/ did things differently in Slate Classic days

😱

Want to read about me embarrassing myself? The Victorian Studies blog's got you covered! Come for the admission of total incompetence, stay for the open-access full article! 😱🫠😅 iupress.org/connect/blog... @victstudies.bsky.social

Beano #1100, August 17, 1963

I find most NYT Vows columns boring, but I make an exception for those featuring an unexplained breakup that turns out to be due to the male international supermodel member of the couple having been recruited into a millenarian cult

Beano #2239, June 15, 1985

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this is a lesbian picnic, sir

I am super excited for this! -sequel to to the 5+ hour part 1 which is amazing

Dolly to Barbara Walters: “Show business is a moneymaking joke, and I’ve just always liked telling jokes”

This (in @thedriftmag.com) is great- “Ethnic cleansing ordered with a lazy smirk; questions about human rights deflected with a mute shrug. The stultifying quality of the videos doesn’t just reflect the callousness of the politics — it is that callousness, distilled and refined”

Cp @marlonjames.bsky.social in new NYT profile: “I don’t go to novels to be safe. I go to novels to be titillated, to be scared, to be educated, to be frightened — honestly, to be appalled”

“We need novels that live in an amoral universe” (Ottessa Moshfegh in @bookforum.bsky.social)

Well I guess we settled that one

T.J. Clark on the Chauvet cave paintings is amazing 🤯

Alert for Thackeray fans-- this novel (the Simp, by @roshansethi.bsky.social) is sharp and amusing, and contains a "Vanity Fair" subtext throughout; it's the protagonist's favorite book, and he spends a lot of time brooding over whether he's more of a Becky Sharp or an Amelia Sedley

This Weeks Editorial Cartoon: Men Overly Bored https://theonion.com/men-overly-bored/

“You’re right, NYC. I’ve got to do better. Safety first”

wow I had no idea about the existence of this world of boutique cat litters that are described like high-end olive oils ("Pea Husk" & ""Paco and Pepper Olive Pit")

“Is this book worth dying for?” 😆

It’s weird that this passes for common sense, when it actually makes no sense at all. “Perfectly natural that households earning $160,000 would hate the idea of taxing billionaires”

“In neighborhoods where ppl make $150,000 or more, there were cases where the moderate candidates won by 2 to 1. If the progressive left stand for anything, it’s to take on the billionaires, and it makes sense that high-income voters would be hesitant to embrace those candidates.”

The left has come up with this weird formula for winning elections: “crafting positions that appeal to voters.” How do they pull this off??!

“But instead of flying out aboard that older jet, Mr. Trump was taken by a food cart that had been fitted to the belly of the plane”- I’m picturing something like this?