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Reposted by Phillip Maciak

Cory Barker 🆗 @corybarker.bsky.social · 12h

I read this a few years ago! mubi.com/en/notebook/...

Cinema Year Zero: TikTok and the Grammar of Silent Film

The forms and formulations of the social-media juggernaut TikTok are rooted in the earliest of all films.

mubi.com

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 12h

Has anybody written about TikTok as silent cinema? Specifically the genre where an influencer or influencer couple acts out a scene w/ dialogue subtitles but no actual dialogue? On top of the early cinema editing toolkit — substitution splices, etc — seems like there's a performance style echo too.

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Luke O'Neil @lukeoneil47.bsky.social · 14h

Oh brother, Rand Paul reading from a Hell World article on the senate floor.

Jake Romm @jakeromm.bsky.social · 16h

Lmao

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Matt Zoller Seitz @mattzollerseitz.bsky.social · 16h

My next book will be a biography of Jack Nicholson, written as an epic story of the transformation of the movie industry and modern masculinity from the 1950s to the present, with Nicholson as the main character. The title: Leading Man.

New York Times bestselling author and film & TV critic at New York Magazine Matt Zoller Seitz's LEADING MAN, the definitive biography of Jack Nicholson, casting Nicholson as the complex main character in an era of American culture spanning six decades, while shining a light on the actor’s crucial role in shaping modern masculinity, both on and off the screen, based on new interviews and original reporting, to Amar Deol at Grand Central, in an exclusive submission, by Ethan Bassoff at WME.

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 16h

I feel like We Are Who We Are disappeared into the pandemic fog, but it's a fascinating series.

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 16h

Re-upping this just to say that what's happening now is not "you created a novel bureaucracy to police us, and now we're doing it to you." The right is retaliating against thought crimes within higher ed that they have either hysterically exaggerated or wholly imagined. This is not tit for tat.

Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · Feb 25

I know it's a right-wing, anti-DEI talking point, but do regular people think this? That DEI offices were auditing faculty syllabi and ordering them what to teach? Maybe I'm naive, but that level of detailed attention and oversight sounds far-fetched to me from any higher ed admin unit.

so, in the last four years:

1. a wise critique of DEI on campus was that a novel bureaucracy had been created within the college system, which represented neither the faculty nor the students, and it was starting to act like many faculty members' direct supervisor and telling them how and what to teach.

2. one thing that tech right strongly criticized about social media in the early 2020s was that their algorithms clearly had their finger on the scale to produce biased outcomes

and now, in the last four weeks:

1. we've got DOGE, essentially a little anti-bureaucracy bureaucracy, which is insisting on acting like every federal employee's boss (despite the objections of their senate-confirmed supervisors); and

2. there's mounting evidence that Musk has fixed Grok to avoid criticisms of him and the president

if you're on the right, and you don't quite consider this hypocrisy, then ok. but consider this: what's happening in govt/elonland right now could easily generate the exact same flavor of backlash that just brought you to power

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David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social · 1d

It's a testament to the Dodgers' industry-leading depth that when one of their accomplished-but-washed chud pitchers duffs a game out of reach they actually have another accomplished-but-washed chud with even worse politics to bring in to mop it up. Most teams don't even have one guy that odious.

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juliecharlie @juliecharlie.bsky.social · 1d

Went over to the Phillies instagram page to see what’s been going on and was greeted by these two images at the top of their feed

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 1d

It'd be a pretty funny bit if Dave Roberts sent Kershaw back out for the 9th.

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 1d

Fall break's over. Back to work teaching the Greatest Novel of All Time.

a worn paperback copy of Shirley Jackson's Haunting of Hill House with a blue sticker on it in front of a pillow made by my mom

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 1d

Finally naming the museum after the neighborhood it's in.

Sarah Archer @sarcher.bsky.social · 2d

NEW: the Philadelphia Museum of Art is now the Philadelphia Art Museum and it has a mythological-beast-forward new logo:

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Reposted by Phillip Maciak

Truman Chipotle @bravepixels.bsky.social · 1d

This logo rocks! Philadelphia FTW.

Sarah Archer @sarcher.bsky.social · 2d

NEW: the Philadelphia Museum of Art is now the Philadelphia Art Museum and it has a mythological-beast-forward new logo:

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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 1d

What we don't talk about enough is the dignity harm suffered by women who have to share the public sphere with guys who go around talking about our bodies like we're a public resource whose use and distribution they're qualified to determine.

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 2d

You mean like: check to see if you have any clues pertaining to the whereabouts of Amelia Earhart...on your desk?

CNN @cnn.com · 2d

The Trump administration has ordered FBI employees in Washington, DC, to immediately search their workstations and digital media for any records pertaining to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, a law enforcement source told CNN.

FBI employees ordered to immediately search for records related to Amelia Earhart, source says | CNN Politics

The Trump administration has ordered FBI employees in Washington, DC, to immediately search their workstations and digital media for any records pertaining to the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, a la...

www.cnn.com

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 2d

No amount of compliance is enough. No concessions are sufficient. Valid critiques can be made of our institutions, but these people are not making such critiques. This is what they want to do, and they're going to keep doing it.
www.firstalert4.com/2025/10/04/c...

Conservative non-profit calls on DOJ to look into WashU med school

A conservative non-profit is asking the DOJ to look into Washington University’s medical school.

www.firstalert4.com

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Niko Stratis @nikostratis.com · 11d

There is a playlist of every song mentioned in the book, you can listen to it via 🍎 🎶

music.apple.com/ca/playlist/...

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Adam Weinstein @adamweinstein.bsky.social · 2d

Camus, Kierkegaard, Charles Schulz

Molly Knight @mollyknight.bsky.social · 2d

Hey Phillies fans-

Who so you read for info on your team? Thanks.

I read all the mainstream writers but what about the under-the-radar all-knowing fans?

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 2d

I'm sitting on a pilot script, here, that's filled with empty Yuengling bottles. How much is it worth to you if we could change those to Stateside Vodka Soda cans?

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 2d

That's really my question. Like, it's absolutely in the script as local color, so does HBO send Rita's a bill? Or were there drafts where his daughter works at Primo Hoagies or Wawa, and HBO set up a bidding war?

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 2d

Is Rita's paying for water ice product placement in TASK?

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 2d

Graham Platner is going to serve up this news clip with a side of horseradish and cocktail sauce.

(Because he's an oyster guy.)

(Who's running against Susan Collins.)

Burgess Everett @burgessev.bsky.social · 2d

One of Sen. Collins idea to break logjam: Dems give votes to reopen government with a “commitment” to negotiate on ACA premium tax credits. She says it’s not entirely clear what Democrats think of this

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James Poniewozik @poniewozik.bsky.social · 2d

One thing about the current moment is that a lot of people who would probably call you hysterical if you said you didn't believe there would be a 2028 election are acting the way they might if they didn't believe there was going to be a 2028 election

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 2d

Do CBS News executives understand that MAGA will not be in power forever? I genuinely think this is lost on a lot of people. They've gotten scammed by bad actors into believing Trump's 2024 win represented something seismic and even permanent. I predict they'll look back on this as a serious error.

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 2d

CBS News current president Tom Cibroski praised Weiss on the call, saying "Bari's energy and passion is infectious and you will feel it, big time." He also added that the Free Press and CBS News "are going to learn a lot from each other...that's what this is all about."

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 2d

Hey Melvillains — my friend Rachel has a sizzling new essay on Melvillainy in J19 — get on board!

Rachel Banner @ishmaelcallme.bsky.social · 2d

I joke that it took me twenty years to figure out how to get this off my chest about Herman Melville, starting from my first encounter as an undergrad in 2005. But it kind of did. So thrilled that this essay has a home at J19: Project MUSE - Melville's Idea of a Wife muse.jhu.edu/article/970112

Project MUSE - Melville's Idea of a Wife

muse.jhu.edu

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 2d

If people have ideas about reforming higher ed in this country — especially around academic labor issues — then terrific! But Linda MacMahon doesn't have ideas about how to reform higher education any more than our pest control guy has ideas about how to reform the squirrel community in our attic.

I am purposefully “belittling” a “conservative idea.” Or maybe I am not. I’m not really sure what the legal threshold of “belittling” is, and while I have a pretty good idea which ideas should be considered “conservative” (I studied American conservatism in graduate school with one of the premier historians of the subject), I am pretty sure McMahon does not.

So let’s run this “belittlement” experiment: The policies and goals of the “compact” McMahon proposed to nine university presidents is silly. It’s written by a team of people who have no idea how higher education is run or funded. It’s a petty effort at federal, centralized control of a collection of private and state-run institutions.

OK. So that’s belittlement, almost certainly.

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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 2d

There's a vague, "well, higher ed *could* use some reform, right?" sentiment I see creeping much further left than you'd imagine in response to Trump's attacks on colleges. @sivav.bsky.social does a great job unpacking the unseriousness of his "COMPACT" here:
newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

newrepublic.com

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