Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

LightNews

g.j.hilton

@hltn.bsky.social

880 followers 840 following 500 posts

historian of renaissance & em scenography: the material, manufacturers & manufacturing of spectacle - machines, entries, feasts, gardens (2025) msc bweh, edinburgh medical school whitby, n.yorks because: goth

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 19h

Many years ago I went to a lecture on Trans-Neptunian Objects by Br. Guy Consolmagno, S.J. in his capacity as Keeper of the Papal Meteorite Collection and - no, no, really, hear me out! - should the opportunity ever present, I truly cannot recommend it highly enough. Once-in-a-lifetime experience.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 1d

Strongly agree. Is there an argument that anything not actively fighting this trend colludes?

It's a tangle: impossible to comb it into drivers v effect - but if the net outcome is to ramify the unacceptability of fat bodies or entrench the association of fat with poverty then that's all downside.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 1d

I don't share your confidence that these drugs are separable from their toxic environment nor that they do not risk contributing to it.

Eg: For a couple of decades we've seen more diverse body shapes in advertising. Subjectively, it seems to me that the last couple of years have retrenched this.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 1d

Absolutely, and addressing those cases is a HUGE positive.

However, fallen creatures that we are, all this comes with complicating downsides.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 1d

Nobody is disputing this. But the availability of these drugs has negatives too, one of which is a risk of entrenching prejudice. People should be able to be whatever size they want to be - healthy or not without judgement or coercion.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 1d

Are we seeing any attrition of toxicity towards fat? Id suggest the opposite: diminishing diversity in visible / acceptable body shapes.

Nor am I by any means sure that society is better off for shaming people to into taking expensive medication to comply with an aesthetic expectation.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 1d

The most flawed thinking here isn't vilifying those subjects, it's misunderstanding the mechanics of success. Life is a zero sum game: My BA in English and subsequent serial humiliating failures have allowed a number of others to succeed disproportionately to their talents or willingness to work.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 2d

I'm a long haul monster fan!

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 2d

I'm only posting this reply gif because they didn't have a 'take both my kidneys and if necessary, the shirt of my back, house keys and first born' gif.

Very VERY bookmarked.

a cartoon character is holding a bunch of money and the words shut up and take are above him

ALT: a cartoon character is holding a bunch of money and the words shut up and take are above him

media.tenor.com

Reposted by g.j.hilton

Dr Liam Sims @liamsims.bsky.social · 2d

GASP

Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · 2d

GOOD NEWS !
"A team of musicologists has unearthed the printed score of a previously unknown Purcell song, as well as the original manuscript for various keyboard compositions."
#baroque #music
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

‘Almost unheard of’: experts find more music by English composer Henry Purcell

Printed score and keyboard manuscript by Purcell, who died in 1695, unearthed in Worcestershire and Norfolk

www.theguardian.com

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 2d

A new Many-Headed Monster post is always a 'drop whatever else you were doing' break-out-the-popcorn event but this is uh… a monster. A MONSTER.

(And this is why this blog has changed my life a couple of times over.)

Mark Hailwood @markhailwood.bsky.social · 2d

As you dig out your chunky knitwear from the back of the draw, I know you are wondering: 'How did people prepare for winter 400 years ago?'

Read today's post to find out (and whet your appetite for our new book The Experience of Work in Early Modern England)

manyheadedmonster.com/2025/10/07/t...

The Experience of Work in Early Modern England I: Winter is Coming

This post is part of a series that marks the publication of The Experience of Work in Early Modern England. The book is co-authored by monster head Mark Hailwood, along with Jane Whittle, Hannah Ro…

manyheadedmonster.com

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 3d

Serious talk: those rhymes on Ageism. When did you ever hear another lyric like that, Grammy judges? Nobody else can do this.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 3d

This concept art for @realgdt.bsky.social 's Frankenstein - and now, my home office - has been hiding in plain sight as part of a Hollywood Reporter preview of the 'Art of…' book. No artist credit unfortunately but Tamara Deverell production designer.

www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...

Rendering of Frankenstein's laboratory. A high roofed attic room filled with papers and the monster on a bed in the centre.

Spread from book featuring production photo of GdT dwarfed by an enormous set featuring a huge tiled well

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 3d

@madelinepotter.bsky.social you might enjoy 👆

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 3d

Seasonally appropriate BTS from Berton Pierce on the models (and sets) of Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula.

"… a skeleton ribcage skull head sitting on a throne. And yet it was to look like a castle. Like you've ever seen a castle like that."

m.youtube.com/watch?v=LCqw...

Model maker stands on the huge model of Castle Dracula

Castle Dracula as it appears on screen

View of ser

Another view of set, looking like a Breughel landscape

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 4d

You have almost certainly passed your last truly happy day on earth: Increasingly your days will be burdened with escalating duty, helplessness and grief. You may think you understand misery but the next thirty years will undoubtedly prove how blissfully innocent you in fact are.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 5d

If you're going to put together a programme like this, it's just polite to make it possible to block register for everything!

All killer, no filler. Back to back bangers from beginning to end.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 7d

WOW Kate Hawley stone cold knocked this out of the park, didn't she?

Is it too soon to start using phrases like 'for your consideration'?

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 8d

Hugely moving & inspiring to read favorite names on this roll of honour.

On the other hand, bitterly disappointing to note some conspicuous absences. One hopes they will bethink themselves and remember how poorly cowardice ages: history has not remembered those who kissed the HUAC ring kindly.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 8d

The key driver of voters deserting mainstream parties is that those parties give every appearance of being weathercocks, mere spreadsheets without principle, agenda or values beyond wanting to be in government. Voters want conviction politicians in whom they can believe. See: AOC, Mamdani etc.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 8d

Unable to decide if it is an astonishing coincidence that your music recommendations are, 100% reliably, absolute bangers or if it is absolutely obvious that of course they would be.

本当にありがとう

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 9d

Perhaps I mistook it for abandoned, perhaps I came to despise how effortlessly the author pushes at an idea and keeps pushing and pushing: in any case, somehow I forgot BLDGBLOG. In an overnighter tonight I remembered it and fell head & heels hook & line back in love. bldgblog.com/2022/01/molt...

From the linked article: "Hidden on the backs of famous paintings, in the beams of our attics, in the timbers of ancient homes, are galactic events, black stars, things more interesting than this world, burning, and I suppose depression is what happens when you no longer think it's possible to id such details. When they become inaccessible to you, or when you believe the world's supply of revelation has been permanently depleted."

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 9d

Well and truly seconded.

Pixels are only pixels: a million man-hours of pixel fondling can't create what a craftsperson can make in an hour with just canvas and 3x1 - space.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 9d

Point taken and agreed... moreover I'm with you on all points except: Yorkshire pudding is in fact the food of the gods, and licit INDEED PRESCRIBED under even the most austere and flagellating of penitences. Even in its impoverished vegan version, life is unredeemed suffering without it.

g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 9d

Jason Ardizzone-West's work may tbh not be my cup of tea but his process documentation is truly outstanding and fascinating.

www.jawstudiony.com/design-proce...

jesus christ superstar live . process — jason ardizzone-west | stage designer

www.jawstudiony.com