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Phil Gentry

@pmgentry.bsky.social

2.1K followers 510 following 1.6K posts

musicologist at the University of Delaware, citizen of West Philly. http://instagram.com/philipmgentry Current projects: -250 Years of History and Performance in Philadelphia -Anti-Communist Blacklisting in the Music Industry, 1945–1960

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 20h

Just wish I could have seen young Robert Redford on Broadway playing a professional music critic. www.inquirer.com/arts/robert-...

Years before he was the Sundance Kid, Robert Redford played an Inquirer music critic at Walnut Street Theatre

Very early on in his career, Redford starred in the Broadway play "Sunday in New York." It played Philly before it played New York.

www.inquirer.com

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 1d

I think this was a @ryangodfrey.com observation, credit where credit is due.

Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 1d

well I assume it’s to try and fend off PhArt Museum, but that’s going to be tough.

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 1d

I think I could do without the name change, but yes, otherwise it’s all reasonably sensible!

Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t envy the PMA, which inhabits the built environment of an art scene that was famously snobbish and hierarchical even by the standards of its day, but…

Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 1d

🥴🥴🥴🥴

Stephanie Farr @farfarraway.bsky.social · 1d

Now we know why the Rocky statue remains atop the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is now calling itself the Philadelphia Art Museum or "PhAM."

I have THOUGHTS but I also have a deadline to meet on another story (😭) so I'd love to hear yours. 1/2

www.inquirer.com/arts/philade...

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 1d

To be fair she does have resting sad face at all times

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 2d

Came back from dropping off child at school and realized I had leashed the dog up and forgot to take her with us.

Forlorn dog all leashed up with nowhere to go.

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Reposted by Phil Gentry

Brent Cebul @brentcebul.bsky.social · 2d

A blistering piece by Penn historian Ben Nathans on the dangers of Trumps’s Faustian compact www.thedp.com/article/2025... Benjamin Nathans | Autonomy or obedience | The Daily Pennsylvanian

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 2d

I think there are enough UD faculty on here that it's worth circulating? On Oct 22, UD's Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center is hosting a virtual grant showcase, with past grantees presenting, and I'll answer questions about next year's CFP. events.udel.edu/event/ihrc-g...

IHRC Grant Showcase & CFP Info Session

events.udel.edu

Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 2d

West Philly, our beloved indoor cat “London” is MIA, and might have gotten out on the 4700 block of Baltimore—please let me know if you see a fluffy gray cat who looks way too soft for the street life.

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 3d

lol, Facebook memory from 2010 😭

Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 3d

This is good, and makes me think of how indebted the album is to an AI aesthetic. Not an actual LLM (although who knows) but a shared aesthetic of filling space with endless circular memes from an aggressive imitation of first person perspective, with the occasional hallucination.

Kelsey McKinney @mckinneykelsey.bsky.social · 3d

i wrote about The Life of a Showgirl

Defector @defector.com · 3d

No good art comes from greed: defector.com/taylor-swift...

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 3d

Always so interesting how insanely invested they are in the Ivy League, they would never send their own children to liberty or Ave Maria or wherever.

Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 3d

Probably should also add to the diagnosis that certain universities places elites park and invest a huge amount of capital, both literal and cultural, and they are worried about their returns!

Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 3d

And seems important that all three, Buckley, Kirk, and Weiss (and many more, I skipped over the 90s “canon” and anti-PC activists) broadened their work into much broader campaigns implicated all of society, but you can always sense that core status anxiety that started it all.

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 3d

Quickie diagnosis is that attacking professors is a strategy that connects elite desire for children to reproduce their class status with the anxiety that education will turn their children against them, all couched in faux-populist anti-intellectualism.

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 3d

Very different kinds of conservative activists, but worth noting that William Buckley, Charlie Kirk, and Bari Weiss all started their careers by advocating for professors to be fired for speech they disagreed with. Such a through line of the post-war right in the US.

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 4d

Nice musicological take on Charlie Kirk’s memorial service and revivalism, by Chase Castle: www.aprilonline.org/for-want-of-...

For Want of Revival: Charlie Kirk’s Memorial Sparks Another Awakening

Music historian Chase Castle places Charlie Kirk’s memorial within American revival history.

www.aprilonline.org

Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 5d

Basically, have to say that I think Laura Snapes (unsurprisingly) got it very right. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

Taylor Swift’s Charli xcx hit job misses the point – and underscores her tedious obsession with conflict | Laura Snapes

Sixteen months after Charli used Brat to air her anxieties about Swift, the US star’s graceless response is a missed opportunity for growth – and betrays her vengeful side

www.theguardian.com

Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 5d

Which goes with the theme of the album not showing much self-reflexivity in her own role as the most powerful artist in the world. Both “Cancelled” and “Actually Romantic” really rubbed me the wrong way in that regard.

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 5d

In all seriousness, one thing I learned from watching the movie is that Taylor didn’t really understand what a “showgirl” is; she seemed to think it is an enduring archetype for women who make a living on display (e.g. her) but missing the crucial part that showgirls are nameless and powerless.

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Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 5d

That was precisely the vibe I got as well.

Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 5d

So much for authorial intent, smdh

Phil Gentry @pmgentry.bsky.social · 5d

“Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?”

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