Dr Andrew McInnes

@drbeard79

Hopeless Romanticist, childless cat dad, and coffee addict (he/him) Solving real word problems

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Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· 28d

Sometimes I would like to be whoever it is the Facebook algorithm thinks I am 🐈‍⬛🖤👜

An advert for an Abodi handbag featuring a woman in red lying down clutching a black bag surrounded by black cats against et a green background apparently in Transylvania

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· 28d

I for one welcome our new campus geese overlords

A literal flock of geese on the lawn outside our swanky library building

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· 28d

Monet eat your heart out

The silhouette of my hands and phone taking a photo of a raised pond of water lillies with pops of yellow and the water mostly covered with green lily leaves

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· 28d

This skeet helped me to FINALLY remember the correct search terms (Bysshe please Mary Shelley cartoon) to get back to this image I had utterly lost

A cartoon of Mary Shelley holding a quill pen surrounded by stars Ruth the tag line Bysshe, please

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· 28d

The cherry cannolo (even a couple days past its best) is a thing of beauty and a joy forever! Bring back the original Neapolitan of vanilla, pistachio, and cherry is what I say!

Three cannoli in a box from the weekends gingerbread festival

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 12

Little Robin barbecue chef

A little Robin fledgling (to the right) fascinated by our BBQ (left)

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 12

3 Festivals in a Week has been *A LOT* of fun! Bradford Lit Fest on Monday and Wednesday, the Northern YA Lit Fest on Saturday, and Ormskirk Gingerbread Festival today 🖤🖤🖤

A mural in Bradford reading

BREATHE
BREATHE
BREATHE

In black red grey brown and turquoise

Traditional pistachio and cherry cannoli - like the original Neapolitan!

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 9

Gosh, Project Hail Mary is *long* and sentimental BUT it did make me laugh and cry and shout ‘wake up and save the rock dog, you useless schmuck!’ at Ryan Gosling. It’s about climate change, right?

The star of Project Hail Mary, a dog / crab alien who looks like an articulated rock

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 8

I also LOVE the poem with the title in it but that has to be worked towards as a reward! Here is an abstract poem (also love a play with academic conventions!) as a little treat instead:

Abstract: ‘Young Widowhood and its Manifestations'

This poem will examine the ways in which the young widow becomes a shapeshifter. By day, she is required to maintain the perfect display of mourning (controlled, composed, adhering to jet-black convention to appease the onlookers pressing their moon-faces to the windows).
Yet by night, she finds herself transformed into a being that is fearful and chaotic, possessing an energy comparable to a poltergeist hurling cups onto the floor (these are, of course, the best cups, never used, saved for a time that didn't arrive).

I will explore how the young widow inevitably comes to experience a series of hauntings borne from this fragmentation of identity. From regrets buried so deeply that their disembodied whispers can only be picked up by the most sensitive recording equipment, to the appearance on the landing of unborn ghost children, the young widow is stalked by the replayed memories and unfulfilled hopes that saturate the walls of her house. This supernatural turmoil ironically takes place even as she herself gropes desperately in the darkness for the illusive spectre of the spouse who left her behind.
63

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 8

This is the Mary Shelley poem that made me gasp in @catherineredford.bsky.social’s The Way the Water Held Me

Mary Shelley loses it with her reader you think it's because I gave the monster a voice
because I buried it in the centre like guilt
*because I centred it*

because I was left alone on the beach
like a survivor
my corpus waterlogged and bloated ink

diluted to the point of illegibility
ineligibility
you think it's a good thing to
*survive*
that's because you've never had to live

beyond survival

all that's left is his
heart is a lump of meat
that only half loved me

no choice but to operate instruments splayed like ribs as I
join us like twins
it's alright for him
he's anaesthetised
(while my screams are trapped in specimen jars)
60

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 8

Bradford is beautiful - and deprived - and trying really hard! 2/6

Inside Bradford’s Waterstones - like a church to books - not pictured: scaffolding for urgent repairs shutting off the poetry section

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 8

There were 340 students !!! who were very keen to play my surely soon to be commissioned quiz show Goth or Not?

PowerPoint slides reading Goth or Not? With an image of Bela Lugosi as Dracula with a slide confirming Goth!

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 8

Bought @catherineredford.bsky.social’s book of poems after gasping at a Mary Shelley one PLUS bonus postcard @bradfordlitfest.bsky.social

The Way the Water Held Me featuring a flock of white geese against a watery background and 4 scenes of Bradford on a postcard from the Waterstones in the Festival Hub

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 8

Heading back to @bradfordlitfest.bsky.social to talk about Gothic Futures with some school students who - if they’re anything like Monday’s cohort - are frighteningly clever 🖤

A finger puppet bat in front of a Burscough Bridge sign in the sunshine

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 7

Me on Mary Shelley @bradfordlitfest.bsky.social Photo 1: This is how you can read Frankenstein’s monster as an incel… Photo 2: So, Del Toro wimps out in his Frankenstein adaptation by having the monster only kill some unnamed Danish sailors rather than the woman & child he kills in the book…

Me on stage gesturing at a long quotation from Frankenstein ending with what I called the t-shirt-able quote: Beware for I am fearless and therefore powerful

Me ranting about the Del Toro Frankenstein inspired by the great film poster of Jacob Elordi carrying MIA Goth in a wedding dress with the tag line Let us be monsters together

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 7

This slide, which I placed under the ‘Mary Shelley is our contemporary’ umbrella, went hard (complimentary) in Bradford, leading to great questions about Byron and orientalism and (I hope!) an invite to next year’s @bradfordlitfest.bsky.social to talk about it more!

Islamophobe?
• Many of Mary Shelley's novels contain anti-Muslim sentiment
• In Frankenstein, Safie (with whom the monster learns to read, secretly) is a Christian refugee from Islamic oppression
• In The Last Man, the plague that wipes out humanity comes out of the East after a disastrous crusade
• Perkin Warbeck fights in the Crusades, saved from dying in battle by another Christian convert woman
• Racism? Or commentary on otherness and the possibility of solidarity?

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 7

Well, I heartily dis-recommend waking up, looking at this ironing board / academic jacket combo, and having a visual hallucination that a tall man has entered your hotel room in the dark

An ironing board and iron hooked to a hotel coat rack from which a jacket is hanging - somehow my just awake brain superimposed the two making it look like someone was moving from the hotel room door around the corner towards my bed

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 6

Selfie at @bradfordlitfest.bsky.social before talking about Mary Shelley as a… ✅ Goth Queen ✅ Mother of Science Fiction ✅ Queer Ally And ✅ Contemporary

Me micced up in my Disco Lights & Trans Rights Mermaids Pride t-Shirt and academic jacket with a Bradford Lit Fest scheeen behind me

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 6

Bradford Lit Fest is super fun!

The Festival hub in front of the town hall with banners etc - zoomed out like the children do with moody clouds as background

My trainers below a BLF Festival Hub sign on the pavement

A different BLF pavement sign looking like a book opening and a sun rising

The One Bum Cinema Club hit and sign - it shows a cycle of short films for 1 viewer

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 6

I am in this!

Banner - orange with a man dressed in orange dancing -for Bradford Lit Fest now I’m in Bradford!

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 6

I’m also presenting on the Bradford Literature Festival’s Education Programme on the Brontës today (and Shelley again on Wednesday) educationprogramme.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/... So have dressed appropriately!

A tweed jacket with a red Brontë Scholar shield-shaped badge

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 5

Conspiracists

Hazel our calico kitten sitting on a chest of drawers in front of some miniature terracotta warriors above Wilbur our black cat lying on the bed looking at me - they look like they are plotting something!

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 4

Today is a very important anniversary: Hazel’s 2nd birthday! 🇺🇸

Our calico kitten Hazel sitting on a window ledge in the sunshine

Dr Andrew McInnes@drbeard79· Jul 3

The second volume of Die, Split the Party, sees Charlotte Brontë as Goth Queen join in Goth Jumanji, retelling the story of Angria and Gondal as role playing games turned real (and imagining Charlotte burn Emily’s 2nd novel and lots of Gondal stuff) in an issue called ‘Self-Insert’ 🖤