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Tony Pennino

@beatnikprof.bsky.social

1.1K followers 1.2K following 2.7K posts

Associate Professor of Literature at Stevens Institute of Technology, which means I’ve taught everything from Spaceships to Shakespeare. I wrote a book on 1980s British subversive theatre. Am writing one on James Baldwin. Fulbright Scholar. Playwright.

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Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · Jun 4

“If a thing loves, it is infinite.”
― William Blake

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Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 36m

“You mean I’m no longer the worst Attorney General in history?”
John Mitchell (probably)

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 1h

“He asked Ribbentrop if he knew what a ‘yes-man’ was. Yes, said Ribbentrop, in German it means ‘a man who obeys orders and is obedient and loyal’. Unwittingly he had produced an epitaph for Nazi officialdom.”
― Ann Tusa, The Nuremberg Trial

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 12h

Tonight’s show: the opera of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. If you’re in the NYC metro area, try and go see it.

Playbill for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 1d

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”
Hannah Arendt

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 1d

How naive I was that November day in 2008 thinking we had turned a corner to start making a better nation.

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 1d

“Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders…”
Carl Sandburg

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 1d

What’s going on in Chicago breaks my heart.

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 2d

“There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.”
― James Baldwin

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 2d

I’m betting Clover would make a fine drummer in a metal band.

Reposted by Tony Pennino

Mark Hamill @markhamillofficial.bsky.social · 2d

Same.

#AlsoTiredOfWaitingForTheEPSTEIN_Files

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Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 2d

What is the point of coming to class if…
1.) you have your laptop open,
2.) you are texting on your phone, AND
3.) you have your headphones on?????
#AcademicSky

a red circle with the letter f written inside of it

Alt: a red circle with the letter f written inside of it

media.tenor.com

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 3d

This week in teaching. #FilmSky #Academia

DVDs for Wings of Desire and A Ghost Story

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 3d

Lord Banastre Tarleton called. He wants his talking point back.

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 3d

In 1958, the French decided their system of government - The Fourth Republic - no longer worked and replaced it with The Fifth Republic. It is possible to recognize what does not work, make the necessary changes, not trigger societal collapse or civil war, and move to a better future.

Reposted by Tony Pennino

Jonathan W. Gray @elmcitytree.blacksky.app · 3d

James Baldwin to Angela Davis in 1970, discussing white Americans:

Or, to put it another way, as long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness— for so long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps-they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves to what they will think of-and justify—as a racial war. They will never, so long as their whiteness puts so sinister a distance between themselves and their own experience and the experience of others, feel themselves sufficiently human, sufficiently worthwhile, to become responsible for themselves, their leaders, their country, their children, or their fate. They will perish (as we once put it in our black church) in their sins—that is, in their delusions. And this is happening, needless to say, already, all around us.

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Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 3d

Why do so many on the Tory/Reform UK side want to be like us? How does the burning dumpster fire of my country not dissuade them?

a blue dumpster is floating in a flooded area near a sign that says narrows ramp

Alt: a blue dumpster is floating in a flooded area near a sign that says narrows ramp

media.tenor.com

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Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 4d

I’ve been offered a ton of money to do a comedy set for the Emperor on the Death Star 2.0.

a row of stormtroopers are lined up in a row with the words ha ha ha ha on the bottom

Alt: a row of stormtroopers are lined up in a row with the words ha ha ha ha on the bottom

media.tenor.com

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 4d

“Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.” #ShakespeareSunday

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 4d

“Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, we will help. Only if we help, we shall be saved.”
― Jane Goodall

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Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 4d

“We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man's support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 4d

Wine tasting today.

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 5d

Went to a blues club last night with a former student and had an absolute blast. Live music will cure what ails you.

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 5d

R2DToast

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 5d

Tonight’s venue. #MusicSky

Tony Pennino @beatnikprof.bsky.social · 5d

I hate the Gen Z stare. #academia