Patrick Fessenbecker
pfessenbecker.bsky.social
Patrick Fessenbecker
@pfessenbecker.bsky.social
Teaching writing and ethics to engineers, writing a book on George Eliot.
Great news! We built the bold self-determining country from the famous poem, ”self determination is a myth built on top of randomness.”
December 7, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Randall Thompson does incredible work in the arrangement of “you come, too“ in that piece. the poem gives him almost nothing to work with and it’s a choral masterpiece.
December 7, 2025 at 5:19 PM
To the extent she is a figure celebrated in the humanities, with the power to distribute resources within it—and she is—I’d have to disagree.
December 6, 2025 at 2:22 PM
The moment when i should have known that the humanities are too ridiculous to survive was at the Cornell summer camp when an academic introduced herself and—since I didn't know her name—explained, quote, "I'm a big deal."
December 6, 2025 at 4:21 AM
Yeah that’s probably the right ranking,

But I’m busy thinking about how to administer the ten hours younger pill to an embryo and thus answer experimentally whether persons exist in the mind of God before conception.
December 5, 2025 at 6:53 PM
I cannot believe anyone is choosing any non-toaster option.
December 5, 2025 at 6:47 PM
In the same way it was possible for proponents of the British Empire to say look, Gordon is a nutcase, let’s think a bit before getting into Khartoum, it ought to be possible for the kind of person who thinks invading Syria is a good idea to say that the Gaza occupation is failing.
December 5, 2025 at 5:31 PM
I’m not the person to work this out precisely, but I think one downside of postcolonial politics is that we’ve lost the vocabulary for recognizing and criticizing different forms of imperial malfeasance. The Israeli occupation is bad by even, like, Victorian standards.
December 5, 2025 at 5:24 PM
I think part of the change here is a change in what it means to believe something or be a "true believer" at all. All the major beliefs on the right are held loosely, one adapts whatever's necessary to justify one's impulses and, more importantly, Beat the Left.
December 5, 2025 at 3:28 PM
Someone's probably written this paper already, but I bet there's an interesting cultural history to write here: I suspect we have Punching Satans because action movies are our current tool for comprehending evil.
December 5, 2025 at 3:07 PM
I think it's always been this way, the trouble with an omnipotent/omniscient deity is that fighting It makes no sense. The battle scenes in Paradise Lost are similarly strange, Milton gets reduced to making gunpowder puns. Theologically Lucifer can only show his power by fighting someone else.
December 5, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Here's what I'm going with, roast me in the comments

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRBs...
Das Blutgericht
YouTube video by Leipziger Folksession Band - Topic
www.youtube.com
December 5, 2025 at 2:50 PM
I am going to have to hire someone to run you all off these terrible puns, what the French call a
.
.
.
Raniere
December 5, 2025 at 12:12 AM
jesus christ
December 4, 2025 at 7:49 PM
[getting to the sex cultist portion of the audition]

So this is going to be awkward, but
how open are you to getting a tattoo
and participating in tattoo-related activities?
December 4, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Reposted by Patrick Fessenbecker
Corollary: buying just one more new planner will definitely make you more organized from now on
December 4, 2025 at 2:54 PM