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.”

Posts Replies Media

There’s actually a theory that perfectly explains what’s happening. Indeed, recognizes this as the mundane functioning of capital accumulation.

Setting aside the “best,” I’ve been thinking about the “of.” As in, what books have informed my conception of the 21st-century as a periodization? Not just the happenstance of the date they were published, but how they capture or comment upon the epoch. 1/5

These are works of demonic prophecy. Written before 9/11, before smartphones & social media, before global meltdown, etc. But they just absolutely 🎯🎯🎯 2/5

I’ve read a lot of “global recession” fiction. Other genres/mediums have done better historicizing/periodizing this event. But these are very good. Greenwell’s “Decent People” chapter should be on every activist reading list. 3/5

Wouldn’t it be nice if necrocapital & mass incarceration were not the defining economic processes of the current millennia? Alas… 4/5

Bonus: Two more novels I’ve read only recently which are also doing explicit (& expert) periodizing. Not done with Taylor yet, but I bet it’s gonna stick with me. END

lol

The Real #1 🤫

the mundane proceedings of your average author society

When I say, "everything is Twain Studies," this is what I mean.

"Best books" of the century, when the century is only a quarter over? NYT is not the first to be tempted by such folly. Librarian Asa Don Dickinson compiled an eerily similar "Top 100" based on "consensus of expert opinion" in 1925.

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

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.”

Not quite everything sucks.

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

Among them was Mark Twain, who thereafter attempted to translate Cord's performance to print. His "True Story" was published in Nov. 1874. It was Twain's first entry in @theatlantic.bsky.social, his first publication with "no humor," & the most the magazine had ever paid an author. 2/7

To Twain, to his editor, W.D. Howells, & to literary historians, "A True Story" is about Cord's voice, about rendering her dialect precisely so that it produces pathos. But Twain's wife, Livy, recognizes the story is, to Cord, actually about her son, Henry Washington. 3/7

Henry, who, at 6, while being ripped from Cord's arms, promised to escape enslavement & to find his mother again. And who, by age 19, had accomplished exactly that. 4/7

Henry emancipated himself in 1858 & fled to Elmira, where he became an apprentice barber. When the Emancipation Proclamation made them eligible for military service, a group of Black Elmirans walked 400 miles to Boston to join the first Black regiment. This was Henry's chance. 5/7

Henry "ransacked the whole South hunting for" his mother. He found her cooking for Gen. Burnside at his headquarters in New Bern, NC. They returned to Elmira together. Henry became Twain's barber, eventually opening his own shop. Mary Ann became cook at Quarry Farm. 6/7

12.5 Billion of those images were created with Stable Diffusion in 2023, which uses 1.6 gC02 per image. So, Taylor Swift flying her plane around the world 164 times creates about the same emissions as the most popular AI image generator in its FIRST full year of operation.

Little Nikki masturbates in the hotel lobby, but will only grind in her castle with her devices & a signed consent form. Why science, why?

40 years ago today, Purple Rain was released, AND Michel Foucault died. In this essay I will

Going viral on X.

“Only after the speculative collapse does the truth emerge. What was thought to be unusual acuity turns out to be only a fortuitous & unfortunate association with the assets…The rule will often here be reiterated: financial genius comes before the fall.” - JK Galbraith

Great time of year to be in Upstate seeing literary icons! Nice work SUNY-Oneonta & Hartwick College!

Reply to

Patrick Fessenbecker

Strange, unnecessary, & also false.

Reply to

Matt Seybold

"Rather than consent to the infringement of the most insignificant or seemingly unimportant of human rights, let races be swept from the face of the earth - let nations be dismembered - let dynasties be dethroned - let laws, governments, religions & reputations be cast out & trodden under feet" 2/4

If you don't know James Redpath, it is probably easiest to describe him as the first publicist in the US. He had a few clients you've heard of: John Brown, Fred Douglass, Mark Twain. He was at Bleeding Kansas, Sherman's March, the first Memorial Day; his life was nutz. 3/4

If your interest is piqued, check out these podcast episodes.