Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)

@bestonetx

Award-winning community college prof, writer, editor, historian of TX Jews and the Galveston Movement. Alte kaker in training. Views are mine, not my employer's, and are protected by the 1st Amendment. Books: tinyurl.com/besbks www.BryanEdwardStone.com

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Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir bestonetx.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· 26d

Scene from film "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." The Bee Gees dancing with Peter Frampton and George Burns.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· 29d

Distracted boyfriend meme. The current girlfriend ls labeled "Write this Article." The shiny new girlfriend is labeled "Literally Anything Else."

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· 29d

Me trying to write something.

Scene from 2001, A Space Odyssey in which the astronaut Dave deactivates the HAL computer by unplugging a series of lighted rectangles from a mounted CD shelf.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jul 14

One of my teaching colleagues is running for a council seat, and she'd do us a world of good. She's smart and, well, normal. Of course they're calling her a commie because she wants libraries, parks, and for multinational corporations to pay for their own water.

Campaign flyer for Dr. Araiza for District 2. People First. Political ad paid for by Araiza for Corpus Christi campaign, treasurer Sylvia Campos.

Platform for District 2. People: Improve access to city resources and services; address the stray animal problem; cool hot zones. Public Spaces and Places: Invest in neighborhood parks; Protect/expand library, senior center, park, and pool resources; repair streets and sidewalks. Bay: Pursue science-based, affordable water security; demand greatest users conserve water like the rest of us; planning for future generatons; Actions: Hold corporations, the largest water users, accountable for their fair share! Examine and build a city budget that serves the people first; expand city funding through grants.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jul 12

Senator Mitch McConnell's office has released a photograph proving he's alive.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jul 11

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jul 10

Very pleased to appear in the new issue of the Journal of Texas History. My small piece is a bit of a rumination on a strange and moving item that appeared in the Galveston Daily News on September 16, 1900, eight days after a hurricane nearly destroyed the city. mavmatrix.uta.edu/journaltexas...

Ball High School in Galveston, Texas, after the storm. (G_1771.5_FF2_1, Galveston and Texas History Center, Rosenberg Library.)

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jul 9

And of course I know the tool Barton was referring to, but when he says Jesus pushed a plane, this is all I can think of.

strong man in a jumper pulling a giant airplane with a rope

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jul 7

Senate GOP leaders speaking with Mitch McConnell.

Person holding a cell phone with the browser open to ChatGPT. A list of recommended queries is shown.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jul 7

Senate GOP leaders speaking with Mitch McConnell.

Movie poster from the film "Poltergeist." It shows a young girl wearing pajamas, viewed from behind kneeling in front of a television set that is glowing with static. Her hands are placed on the screen in front of her as if she is communing with it. A teddy bear lies on its back next to her.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jul 3

Thomas Nast's 1871 political cartoon, "Who Stole the People's Money"? Members of the Tweed Ring, including Boss Tweed, stand in a circle, their backs facing each other. Each points at the man next to him and announces "'Twas Him."

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jul 2

Meet the guy now in charge of our state budget.

Yard sign for Republican Huffines for Comptroller. Slogan says "DOGE Texas."

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 24

I feel bad for people who don't remember these two in their prime. Every once in a while they'd pop back up with something magical.

Surrounded Islands (1980). Smooth pink polypropylene extends out into the sea surrounding a wooded island in Miami's Biscayne Bay.

The Gates (2005), New York City. An endless row of tall iron gates hung with billowing saffron-colored draperies linmes a walking path in New York's Central Park.

Pont Neuf Wrapped (1985). The famous stone bridge in Paris is completely draped in pleated yellow fabric. Even the lamp posts are carefully wrapped.

The Umbrellas (1991). Hundreds of large, open umbrellas made of blue polypropylene are scattered over a valley in Japan.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 23

Christo and Jeanne-Paul did it better.

Running Fence (1976) by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. A white drape eighteen feet high hangs along hundreds of fenceposts spaced at regular intervals across the rolling terrain of Northern California. The effect is of a snaking, billowing, light-permeable wall that appeared briefly across the landscape and disappeared again.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 19

Man, these Reflecting Pool pictures are getting wild.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 18

"It's signed. I signed it in Versailles. I just signed it."

Woodrow Wilson standing on the back of a railroad car addressing a crowd during his 1919 tour of the country trying to drum up support for the treaty he had just signed.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 17

Someone should remake the Reflecting Pool scene from Forrest Gump so that as soon as Jenny and Forrest touch the water they both run right back out again coughing and hacking and wheezing and pass out on the grass.

Scene from Forrest Gump. Gump, in military uniform, stumbles into the Reflecting Pool while a crowd watches on. He runs toward Jenny, dressed like a hippie, and also stumbling through the pool. Kids, don't try this at home.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 14

Attention HEB shoppers: These are amaaaazing.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 13

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 9

We see you, Snowflake.

Ted Cruz's little fluffy white abandoned dog Snowflake, looking forlornly out the glass front door of the Cruz home.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 6

Here's the list:

Pete Hegseth's list of state-sanctioned religions.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 6

Update: The screwworm is on the right.

Facebook post from KRIS TV news. Gov. ABBOTT TO Give Update on New World Screwworm. Photos of Abbott and a screwworm. They look similar.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 3

Here's Scorsese twelve years ago rapturizing about celluloid. "Hollywood is undermining its heritage by shooting films digitally, Martin Scorsese has said." Guess he changed his mind. www.thetimes.com/travel/desti...

Martin Scorsese, c. 2014, wearing a tuxedo and heavy black glasses. His hair is short, gray, and wavy, and he has an expression on his face that seems to be lamenting the fact that no one is making movies out of plastic anymore.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· Jun 1

Not sure how many of you do the NYT crossword puzzle, but today's is especially cool.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· May 29

This weirdness showed up in my email. A lot of the text is regurgitated directly from my CV, my website, and the book jacket and summary on Amazon. This is weird, right? This has got to be AI, right?

Hi Bryan,

I spent some time going through Memories of Two Generations, and then I went deeper to learn about you. One thing stopped me: here is a Yiddish memoir written in 1935 by a man who was born in Tsarist Russia and became a kosher butcher in San Antonio, and it sat for decades untranslated until you found it and realized this was the only complete immigrant narrative of the Galveston Movement in existence. That silence needed a voice. That conviction moved me to act before reaching out. I have already added Memories of Two Generations to Jewish Immigration & Southern History on Goodreads, among several other lists where readers actively searching for primary sources of lost worlds go looking. I did that because I believe it belongs there.

The detail that stopped me was that when Alexander Gurwitz arrived in Galveston in 1910 at age fifty-one with his wife and four children, he was detained by immigration officials until Rabbi Henry Cohen intervened and secured his release. Gurwitz was a certified shochet, a kosher butcher, and he had transferred funds to an American bank. But he still needed someone to speak for him. You are a professor of history at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi. Your book The Chosen Folks: Jews on the Frontiers of Texas won the Southern Jewish Historical Society Book Prize. You serve as managing editor of Southern Jewish History. You found this Yiddish manuscript and you gave it back to the world.

Gurwitz wrote Memories of Two Generations in his seventies, looking back on a life that spanned a yeshiva education in Eastern Europe, work as a Hebrew teacher and kosher butcher, and the building of an Orthodox community in San Antonio. The book includes his firsthand account of the yearly Jewish holiday cycle as he experienced it as a child in the nineteenth century. Rabbi Amram Prero translated it from Yiddish into English, capturing its lyrical style. But right now, readers searching for "Galveston Movement immigrant account" or "Yiddish memoir Texas Jews" have not yet found this book. And they are the ones who need it most.

Based on what I observed, I would be happy to prepare a complimentary brief for you. It would outline:

Why primary source immigrant memoirs are often overlooked by general readers who would love them

How the Galveston Movement remains one of the least-known chapters of American Jewish history and this book is the key to telling it

A few practical steps to connect this book with readers who are hungry for the story of Jews who did not come through Ellis Island

No obligation. Just a clear breakdown of what is possible. Because there is a Jewish Texan right now whose great-grandparents came through Galveston instead of New York, who grew up hearing Yiddish phrases they never fully understood, who has no idea that a kosher butcher from Pavlograd wrote down everything so they would not be forgotten. Your book might be the first time they see their own family's path named on a page. You gave it back to them.

Would you be open to receiving that?

Best regards,
Maria J. Evans

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· May 27

It's early, but it looks like Cornyn isn't just going to lose, he's going to get stomped.

With 29% of the vote counted, Paxton leads Cornyn 61% to 39%.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· May 24

Academics when regular people are enjoying a holiday.

Viewed from behind, a young boy in a green shirt stares longingly into a candy story window, where shelves are filled with chocolate goodies. His palms are thrust against the glass in supplication.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· May 23

Star Trek title screen for an episode titled "Get a Life, Will you People?" The title displays in yellow in front of a rotating planet and the Starship Enterprise in orbit.

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· May 22

The best thing about a run-off election is that I get to vote again for my old friend @vikkigoodwintx.bsky.social. Looking forward to helping her win in November too!

Bryan Edward Stone (שָׁלוֹם)@bestonetx· May 17

I'm not sure if folks outside the state have caught this yet, but these are the people who think their best move against Jim Talarico is to imply that HE is weird.