Steve Himmer

I want to learn to love the poisonous dust, the unbreathable air, the freezing cold with nothing to freeze—the planet as its whole self

In other news, it’s Thadingyut in Myanmar, and for those who want a cute insight into Burmese traditional culture, this game is adorable. nibban-zay.vercel.app My students shared it with me last week.

Writing? Walking? Writing about walking? That's the stuff.

The only way we'll ever get to the bottom of this is to release a lion, a snake, a bear and a giraffe in the White House to see what happens.

The eagerly awaited FOULNESS by @henninghampress.bsky.social has arrived, and it is an absolutely beauty of a book. I'm excited to explore the marshland in its pages here in view of my own local marsh.

Writers! Feel overwhelmed by research? Want to turn reporting into art but you're either drowning in pdfs or losing track of what you've learned? I'm offering my class, From Research to Draft, next month. jaimegreen.net/classes

No, *you* just "refilled" a fountain pen cartridge that turned out to be a bottomless dummy but at least had the dumb luck to do it over a stainless steel sink.

If you're at the Boston Book Festival tomorrow, come say hello at the @emersonsoarts.bsky.social table where I will be throughout the afternoon.

I’m sorry to have to be the bad guy here but we need to recognize that we live in a compressed air thrusters world now. If you’re not finding ways to teach the critical use of compressed air thrusters in your classroom, you’re setting your students up to fail when you could be setting them up to fly

Attn science writers, journalists, essayists, nature writers: You can (and should!) nominate your own work for The Best American Science and Nature Writing! (Editors et al, you're welcome to nominate, too.) Everything you need to know is here: jaimegreen.net/basn

This coming Saturday will be International Repair Day, and there is much to be done

I just overheard someone use the glorious idiom, “But you know, like, nothing beats a dead horse.”

Tonight (6 PM) in Fishtown at Lot 49 Books-- the first stop of @adamoprice.bsky.social's tour for his excellent new book OBJECTS OF DESIRE. I promise to be a good host (he's also reading at Rutgers Camden tomorrow night, if you can't make this)

Here we go again

I was just thinking about the first human being to stretch a string of some kind across a piece of wood then drag a sort of bow across it, and how the sound must have changed their world and made them so happy

My other hat sharing news about my other other hat. Stop by if you're at the festival next Saturday.

In some countries they use technology to make life better for people

The MeteoSuisse weather app invites people to post photos of their conditions. An infinite scroll of beauty, mystery, poetry from strangers all over the country.

Hmmm. Unless I’m forgetting something, the only river cruise in George Eliot’s work does not go well.

I'm reminded of Patrick Kavanagh's account of "adversarial poetry" qtd by Lawrence J. Taylor in his essay "Paddy's Pig: Irony and Self-Irony in Irish Culture" (in this book: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...).

So I've got some big news. All my ramblings and ravings about urban hiking and how it can change our lives are going to become a book! I'm in Pittsburgh now, doing field research for Chapter 2, and I can't wait to share this with you all in 2028. (Also, I might be visiting your city soon.)

I found it!

Mondays can be a bit shocking

Very welcome news of a new travel book forthcoming from @nickhuntscrutiny.bsky.social

A *huge* thank you to anyone who found our Walking City Trails special project drive through here! Thanks to you, here’s what’s coming: ✅Signs on all 3 trails ✅Signage in trailside businesses ✅Claimable finisher patches for all 3 trails and more! www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-ac...

Going for a musical walk in the woods this afternoon and that's a hard thing to beat

Bad timing for me but BROTHER OF THE MORE FAMOUS JACK is a very good novel and I would have liked to hear this @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social conversation next week

This hed is complete journalistic malpractice. Cool science story? Yes! Story that has anything to do with aliens? NO! Headline that misleads the reader because radio waves are the main way we look for intelligent aliens on other worlds? Exactly.

Big congratulations to @emersonsoarts.bsky.social MFA alum @kithaggard.bsky.social, whose novel RUSHLIGHTS is forthcoming next year in multiple regions. www.instagram.com/p/Dd3ox79DjUh/

Starting the day with Maura Shawn Scanlin's RULE OF THREE, alongside the only family member who shares my love of fiddle tunes maurashawnscanlin.bandcamp.com/album/rule-o...

Good to see the bears out there celebrating Backpack's big win

Fat Bear final today — bring it home, Backpack!

These are delightful, and also an always welcome reminder to revisit the postage stamp paintings of Donald Evans hyperallergic.com/a-travelogue...

Tomorrow!

Voting has opened and the Fat Bear Week server is struggling under the weight of the world's love, which gives me some hope.

Happy Fat Bear Eve to all

I call this meeting to order

Congratulations to @emersonsoarts.bsky.social MFA alum @kenanorhan.bsky.social, whose novel The Renovation (@fsgbooks.bsky.social) is on the @nationalbook.bsky.social fiction longlist.

I don't know what you were doing at 6am but I was merging three related spreadsheets drawn from different sources in different formats into a single comprehensive efficient record and now I am going to admin so hard oh god please send help what have I become

Enjoyed this new-to-me essay by @jonathangibbs.bsky.social about semicolons the other and will be discussing it with my students.

If sports were played more literally pickleball would be funnier than handball or football.

Played this tune with some folks last night and can't get it out of my head this morning. No choice but to skip work, I guess.

I have my mandolin in my office today for evening plans, which raises an important professional question: Is it time for an afternoon music break? Of course it is.

After receiving this glorious supermarket circular of literature from South Dakota Review, how could I not subscribe?

It is indeed a beautiful and excellent book (I have had notes toward write about it for quite a while now and will eventually make them coherent).

I don't care how many people try to convince me otherwise. This sneaker company logo is a person smoking as they stare into the sky, deep in the midst of an existential crisis and quite possibly French.

While the onions fry, figure what supper will be.