Tom Powell

@tompowell.bsky.social

128

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Former philosophy professor and attorney, nascent historian. Chapel Hill, Oxford, Edinburgh, Charlottesville. Would very much like to live in a P. G. Wodehouse novel if that can be arranged.

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I am also a former philosophy professor and my greatest hits include: “People have never been one bit more stupid than they are right now.”

Hi, I’m a recovering lawyer! My greatest hits include “no, the First Amendment does not allow you to say anything anywhere to anybody and expect no consequences.”

The first lilies just bloomed, joining the lupine in wishing all a very fine May morning!

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Tom Powell

🗃️Seeking reccs for scholars working on HISTORY of: paleodiets, paleo fantasies the "back to living like Neanderthals for health" and noble savage fantasies c. 1970 onwards - thinking #envhist or #histmed #histSTM but maybe also in other sub-disciplines?

This may be the best post and replies ever.

I know these oceanographers are smarter than me - I know that - but what is the issue with measuring it with a big ol anvil tied to the end of a very long rope

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"It's more of a comment than a ques-" "No"

The irony could hardly be more pointed: a month ago I posted a Doonesbury cartoon mocking Florida’s public school censorship law, noting that Gannett was going to some lengths not to publish this cartoon. Now the cartoon has been deleted from my post. Leaving my original post up to make the point.

Gannett does not want us to see this Doonesbury strip. Oh, oops.

✊

Just your average academic here, raking in the dough.

I second Dr. Walters. Please borrow my book from most any large library. I love my publisher, but the book is simply too expensive. #TeamLibrary

Please, go to the library and borrow any of my books. "Shaligram Pilgrimage in the Nepal Himalayas" is far too expensive. So borrow it or get chapters for free on my Academia page. And borrow "The Way By" too. It's a rollicking fantasy novel about five women and an evil unicorn. Get a comfy chair.

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Last week the students in my introd. "literary forms" class were asked to write verse replies to Marlowe's "Passionate Shepherd to his Love." I'm pleased to tell you that 1 contrived to write his on John Ashbery's typewriter (available to the students every Valentine's Day). Shared w/ permission:

Gannett does not want us to see this Doonesbury strip. Oh, oops.

“universities .. should .. regard themselves as the jealous custodians of personal and spiritual spontaneity (and) guard against contributing to the increase of officialism and snobbery and insincerity as against a pestilence .. make it plain that what they live for is to help men’s souls.” W. James

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Philip Glass tells one of my favorite artist stories—when he was still working a day jobs as a plumber, he was installing a dishwasher and the client turned out to be art critic Robert Hughes, who blurted, “You’re Philip Glass the composer!” Glass answered, “Right now, I’m Philip Glass the plumber”

Helping change the sheets ….

The garrison sleeps in the citadel With the ghosts and the ancient stones High on the parapet A Scottish piper stands alone And high on the wind The highland drums begin to roll And something from the past just comes And stares into my soul

Io Saturnalia!

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Tom Powell

Happy Jane Austen's Birthday, Bluesky friends.

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Tom Powell

James Baldwin wrote the best reason for studying the humanities that I know of. I use it in my classes and it applies as readily to taking English lit as it does to studying History.

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Tom Powell

Vonnegut knew

Obsessive? Me?

My Spotify Wrapped says that my favorite artist is William Byrd (top 0.05%, no less), followed by the great and under-appreciated Scots folk-rock musician Al Stewart. Spotify didn’t quite say “You’re effing weird” but they were clearly thinking it. Rock on.

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Tom Powell

I won't tell people if I win the lottery, but there may be signs...

I truly hate to miss this!

Blueskyvers who are in the Boston area, pls consider attending a meeting of Harvard's Novel Theory seminar on Weds., Dec. 6th at 6 pm--featuring the wonderful chronicler of Latin American fiction Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra (Penn State). Details below mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/event/festiv...

The Festivals are the Real Novels: The Latin American Writer on the World-Literary Circuitmahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu NOVEL THEORY SPEAKER: Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra, Pennsylvania State University

I think I really really need to do this.

✍🏻 WRITING RETREAT KLAXON ✍🏻 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Looking for some structured writing time in central Scotland? 📅 Free from 6th to 8th (or 9th!) December? ⭐ Please reskeet + circulate widely!

Today I learned that in 1848 the young composer Bedřich Smetana was a freedom fighter who manned the barricades on the Charles River bridge, fighting against the Austrian forces who put down the Czech revolt against Hapsburg rule. The waters of the Vltava — die Moldau — flowed beneath his feet.

“You can be in a million dollar bus, but after 3 days, it's a bus." Stephen Stills

Daylight Savings Time: I plan to run for Congress with my entire platform consisting of the proposal that in addition to “falling back” in the fall we also “fall back” in the spring. Two extra hours of sleep every year instead of one. Political contributions gladly accepted.

1804. Juxtapose: The death of Kant, author of Was ist Aufklärung?, a celebration of the Enlightenment, followed by Napoleon crowning himself Emperor and Beethoven then disgustedly erasing Bonaparte’s name from the title page of the Eroica Symphony, saying “he is just a rascal like all the others.”

TIL that neither Pelé nor Maradona ever received the Ballon d’Or, because before 1995 the greatest prize in football was only awarded to European nationals.

Excited that my friend Lisa’s book on W. E. B. Du Bois is available for preorder today. It is going to be a fascinating read! www.umasspress.com/978162534793...

Unveiling the Color Linewww.umasspress.com In The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois brilliantly details the African American experience. Yet the renowned sociologist was also an astute chronicler...