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Ben Wurgaft

@benwurgaft.bsky.social

2K followers 690 following 3.9K posts

writer, historian, appetite! there is a humanistic equivalent to innumeracy besides "illiteracy." https://benwurgaft.org/

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Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · May 18

I have a new cool guy thing I do which is, when I see a driver weaving across lanes of highway traffic, I say "whoa check out Anni Albers over there."

a weaving in blue and red by the great artist Anni Albers, in which contrasting thread weaves in and out not unlike a poorly driven car moving across highway lanes.

Reposted by Ben Wurgaft

Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 1h

Exactly. A contract binds both parties. "Assurances" from this administration are always revocable. You don't keep your lunch money through negotiation.

Ryan Enos @ryanenos.bsky.social · 1h

Nothing shows the dangerous tendency to normalize authoritarianism like the New York Times coverage of the extortion of Harvard. One could read this article and think it is about a free agent inking a contract with the Yankees. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/u...

Harvard Seeks Assurances as Talks Restart in Washington

www.nytimes.com

Reposted by Ben Wurgaft

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 12h

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 9h

And none more interested in classic sauces than rouxsseau

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 10h

No philosopher of the Italian Enlightenment was more interested in cardamom buns than Giambatista Fica.

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 10h

i laughed!

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 14h

These are the underexplored problems of gentrification

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 1d

Yes, that’s a prime day, but a Prine day is when you make me an Angel who flies from Montgomery.

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 1d

Like you don’t want to appear to be currying favor or something

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 1d

Totally

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 1d

It’s a-me, eki-ben

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 1d

Understory is lsonmuch this, but they seem nice

Reposted by Ben Wurgaft

William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 2d

If someone drops out of your grad school cohort you have to talk about them like they died. If they drop out to go to law school you talk about them like they killed someone.

Reposted by Ben Wurgaft

Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 2d

One of the more incredible stories out of LA this year has been how a taco review blog became the best on-the-ground coverage of ICE raids in the city.

They do a dispatch every day, follow-up on the kidnapped people (which almost no media outlet has done), and fact-check government claims.

Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 2d

@lataco.bsky.social first began as a blog documenting local Mexican cuisine. Now, it’s an essential reporting powerhouse to the city as Trump’s mass deportation plot unfolds.

Check out the latest from our friends at Reveal: tinyurl.com/4cm2bsdr

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 4d

Few know Oscar Wilde’s recipe for tempura’d vegetables, but it remains loved by the cognoscent: “the salad of breading kale.”

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 5d

I am so glad I understand none of that sentence.

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 5d

"legally disputed" is a funny term for the NYT to choose regarding a government killing foreign civilians.

"We picked up several bags of locally milled cornmeal from a shelf on the store and left without paying in a legally disputed fashion."

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 6d

in the history of education, they sometimes speak of the distinction between an official curriculum and the "extracurriculum" that many of the students understand to be what really matters for "getting ahead." This is a crass version of that.

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 6d

I've mostly taught at institutions that do a lot of elite class reproduction, and as Ryan says, this requires at least a measure of legitimacy - some tacit agreement between the students and the professors that the work matters. Once you de-legitimate yourself, you're done.

Ryan Boyd @ryanboyd.bsky.social · 7d

I don't know how university leaders expect to sustain their institutions *even as class-reproduction machines* if they sell out to a dictator and crush their own core workers. Like, you have to put oil in the engine. You have to put gasoline in the car.

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 7d

Naan-lieux > non-lieux!

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 7d

Ha! I do think it’s interesting that a dominant corporate aesthetic - what Kyle Chayka called “AirBnB” - involves minimal skill.

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 8d

so sorry, and hope you feel better very soon. It is absolutely still a threat.

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 8d

Congrats again!

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 8d

When Odysseus immediately suspected the witch, that was a pure case of Circe La Femme.

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 8d

I mean desexualizing Cohen is a kind of crime, but I steal for my art all the time.

Ben Wurgaft @benwurgaft.bsky.social · 8d

I remember you well/in the dark James Turrell/I bumped into your face and your feet/then smacked my head/as the light came on red/and then I could see the concrete.