Matt Seybold

@mattseybold.bsky.social

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Resident Scholar @ Center For Mark Twain Studies | Host, The American Vandal Podcast | Prof of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies + Director of Media Studies @ Elmira College | Lit & Econ

“The Guy Fieri of English Professors. But fatter.”

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This is really hard for me to talk about, but it’s the reason why I’ve waded into this discourse, so I’m going to put it out there & thereafter I’ll have nothing more to say on the subject. In his early 80s, my grandfather started showing early signs of Alzheimer’s… 1/13

Not endorsing (yet), just saving to download later.

I find the literature studying the economic effects of narratives so fascinating. This new working paper shows that narratives explained 1/5 of the output variance during the Great Recession! www.nber.org/papers/w32602 #EconSky #MonitoringEconomics

Before the debate, before the interview, before the campaign trail gaffes, roughly 13% of registered Democrats in deep blue New York took time out of their days to submit an empty ballot because they were ALREADY so disappointed with the Biden candidacy.

Seems like a good time to say that the next season of American Vandal, “A Tale of Today: The Gilded Age,” will prominently feature HBCUs as the vanguard of the fight for education. Morehouse has long been in the crosshairs of Vista Partners, the world’s leading EdTech investor.

Morehouse to be the first university to use virtual AI teaching assistantswww.axios.com The Atlanta HBCU will have AI teaching assistants this fall.

The reason for Biden to step aside is not the polls. He’s right about that. They probably are wrong. The reason for him to step aside is cognition decline. And same for Trump, of course. They both need rest, routine, regular caretaking, & locks on the gun cabinet. They are not well.

Got a reservation for 4:30 PM at his favorite restaurant. His grand-nephew was the waiter. We were in & out in 45 minutes. They kept the Cadillac out front. Pop-pop still spilled his soup, tried to tip with coupons, & told the hostess he “runs the world.”

There. Have. Been. Worse. Interviews. I. Guess.

Virality on Twitter is always the same, even since before Musk: Hours 1-12: This is fun. People are interested in talking about this thing. Hours 12-24: People will say some silly stuff to strangers on the internet. Hours 24+: Nothing but randos calling each other pedophiles in my mentions.

This thread has achieved that stage of vitality on Twitter where randos lecture me about Mark Twain fACtS.

Mark Twain hated the Fourth of July. He was often invited to speak at Independence Day festivities. His audiences assumed that his reliably unpatriotic remarks were tongue-in-cheek jests. But he meant that shit. 1/9

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Matt Seybold

The “founding fathers” had lots of terrible ideas, such as racism, genocide, and patriarchy, but also some good ones, like the idea that the unchecked power of a king is bad. This Fourth of July it is worth noting that we threw out the latter in order to preserve what is left of the former.

Disney based the animatronic Mark Twain who hosts EPCOT's American Adventure on what the CIA had hoped Hal Holbrook would become before he was "radicalized" by the Civil Rights Movement. Isn’t automation grand??? Happy Fourth of July!

“It was a rare glimpse inside the mind of a plutocrat, openly acknowledging the implicit promise which he believed post-Fordist America had made to him, that his accumulation would wholly insulate him from public opprobrium, material loss, or the unwelcome consideration of other lives.”

One class HAS demonstrated tremendous solidarity since 2014.

The Donald Sterling Revenge Decadetheamericanvandal.substack.com On "Clipped" and "US v. Trump"

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Matt Seybold

The state can make us more prone to care for one another and collaborate—or more inclined to compete for seemingly scarce resources, more mistrustful and afraid. @lhh.bsky.social and @astra.bsky.social on on what a "solidarity state" could look like:

For a Solidarity State - Boston Reviewwww.bostonreview.net The state structures society. It can make us more prone to care for one another.

Everything in Gavin Newsom’s life has been building towards squandering this opportunity.

Everything that happens in House of Cards is now legal.

Not quite everything sucks.

"Because Twain was so fixated on the verisimilitude of the voice & character of Mary Ann Cord, the published version has been rightly treated as foremost about her, but Livy Clemens suggests that in Cord’s original telling, the focus might have been very different."

“Work An’ Buy Yo’ Freedom”: The Story of Henry Washington’s Promise To His Mothermarktwainstudies.com It has been 150 years since Mary Ann Cord recounted the story of her separation from and reunion with her exceptional son.

Mark Twain praises the ingeniousness of the U.S. system of government. While Twain has a cynical, Hobbesian view of human nature, he does not think most people feel the allure of political power. Those who do are narcissists, hedonists, sadists, softheads, & monomaniacs... 1/

Totally reveled in this “Professing Criticism in The Antipodes” forum edited by Christian Gelder & Joseph Steinberg for Australian Humanities Review. Really great work by all involved.

Introduction: Professing Criticism in the Antipodes – AHRaustralianhumanitiesreview.org

Feel like a good cry?

The “they lie, we don’t” campaign is very effective, but only if you stop lying.

When you deny things that are true (Biden’s age is showing) just because that truth gives comfort to your political opponents, you provide tremendous cover for all the things they say that aren’t true.

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Matt Seybold

On this day, 150 years ago, Mary Ann Cord told the story of her early life, conditions of enslavement, separation from her children at a human auction in 1852, & miraculous reunion with her youngest son, Henry, to a rapt audience on the porch at Quarry Farm in Elmira. 1/7

With all this besmirching of alley cats, I can’t help myself: “If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.” - Mark Twain

Everybody who has cared for a person with Alzheimer’s or other conditions of gradual cognitive decline knows these men need rest. They need routine. They need simple pleasures. They need family. They can no longer self-reflect. Their keys must be taken away. Anything else is cruel.

This is the final installment of the Saw franchise.

"When others drink, I like to help." - Mark Twain