Helen Pinsent

@heleninwords

PhD Candidate, Dalhousie - American Gothic - Mobility Studies - we are here and it is now

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Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· 10h

Seeing a lot of much-deserved love for TC’s most famous roles, but let’s not overlook his brilliant Dr Poole in the vastly underrated Oscar.

Tim Curry, as Dr Poole in Oscar, with his conducting wand in his mouth.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Jun 14

Homer and Marge attending a Reading Digest convention. Sign reads “Brevity is . . . wit.”

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Mar 30

Arrived home to find this beauty waiting for me! Thanks to the editors and to @uniwalespress.bsky.social for making my first scholarly publication experience so rewarding. @dal-english.bsky.social @igagoths.bsky.social

Photo of the edited collection Urban Legends and the Cultural Geography of Horror, whose cover features a darkened alleyway with lots of stairs.

First page of the table of contents, showing my chapter “‘The Family Business’: Mobility and Patriarchy in the CW’s Supernatural” in the #5 slot. They even spelled my name right!

My wee bio: “Helen Pinsent is a PhD candidate at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her research areas include American literature, popular culture, Gothic fiction, and mobility studies. Her dissertation focuses on connections between automobility and the American dream in American Gothic fiction after the Second World War.”

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Feb 16

If it’s any consolation, my sister thought this sunset tree shot Angie sent the grad students was full of birds:

Snowy tree branches in front of a red sky. The snow is clustered on the twigs in a way that kind of looks like small birds.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Jan 28

This Friday! It promises to be very nearly scholarly.

Black and white graphic poster for a talk I’m giving called “There [Should] Be Blood: Genre, Ethics, and Good Death in Contemporary Horror Television”

Friday, 30 Jan, 3:45pm in Dal’s McCain building, room 1198

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Oct 22

MSVU @msvuhalifax.bsky.social Part-time educators are striking to fight for fair treatment. Solidarity! @cupe3912.bsky.social

A CUPE 3912 infographic featuring clip-art images of an enthusiastic crown and a megaphone. The text reads: Solidarity. I stand with MSVU Part-Time Academics. MSVU give them a fair deal now!

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Oct 18

Spent time this week talking to fellow @cupe3912.bsky.social members, faculty, and students, prepping for a possible strike as early as Tuesday. We’d rather teach, but if we have to fight for the attention and respect we deserve, we’ll damn well bring it. #EducationNotExploitation #PrecarityIsPoison

Multi-coloured chalk drawing on a grey sidewalk, reading “precarity is poison” and flanked by a bubbling beaker and a skull ‘n’ crossbones.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Oct 8

Plus,

Screenshot of a post from King’s Co-op Bookstore showing an article about a postal worker’s being shot by an Amazon driver. The post caption reads, “King’s Co-op Bookstore: Won’t Shoot You in the Face”

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Sep 18

My phone distorts the web page banner in a way that’s oddly appropriate.

The name of the conference is broken up to read Gothic Selves/Artificia L Others

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Jul 20

It worked!

Excerpt from a Wikipedia article:
The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys independently and at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text, including the complete works of William Shakespeare.[a] More precisely, under the assumption of independence and randomness of each keystroke, the monkey would almost surely type every possible finite text an infinite number of times. The theorem can be generalized to state that any infinite sequence of independent events whose probabilities are uniformly bounded below by a positive number will almost surely have infinitely many occurrences.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Jul 19

The band under purple lights during the song “Severed”

The full band, gathered at the front of the stage to play “The Mariner’s Revenge Song”

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Jul 2

Precariously perched @halifaxexaminer.ca ad on the #159 this morning! #HalifaxExaminer #Halisky

Bus ad for the Halifax Examiner has come loose at the top but bravely holds on in pursuit of its mission

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· May 25

I mean, the man did just die. Maybe she’s grieving.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Apr 26

This is what happens when your tax refund comes in the same week as #IndieBookstoreDay. Synergy. @kingsbookstore.bsky.social

A King’s Co-op Bookstore tote bag (for free!) alongside copies of George Saunders’s collections Tenth of December and Civilwarland in Bad Decline and David Huebert’s collection Peninsula Sinking

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Apr 9

That, or

Tom Waits in Seven Psychopaths, wearing an ill-fitting dark suit and holding a white rabbit.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Mar 12

From nearer the end:

The silence purred at them as Wonce talked. They avoided one another’s faces, for fear of what they might see mirrored there. Each man thought: one of the others is bound to say something soon, some protest, and then I’ll murmur agreement, not actually *say* anything, I’m not as stupid as that, but definitely murmur very firmly, so that the others will be in no doubt that I thoroughly disapprove, because at a time like this it behaves all decent men to nearly stand up and be almost heard…
But no-one said anything. The cowards, each man thought.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Mar 12

Prompted to reread Terry Pratchett’s Guards! Guards! this afternoon. Can’t imagine why.

Excerpt from the novel:
But incompetents with possibilities, nevertheless. Let the other societies take the skilled, the hopefuls, the ambitious, the self-confident. He’d take the whining resentful ones, the ones with a bellyful of spite and bile, the ones who knew they could make it big if only they’d been given the chance. Give him the ones in which the floods of venom and vindictiveness were damned up behind thin walls of ineptitude and lowgrade paranoia.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Mar 4

A propos of nothing very much, this scene in Hot Fuzz is some of the best comedy of the last 25 years.

Sgt Nick Angel (Simon Pegg, right) talks to his ex-girlfriend (Cate Blanchett, left), who faces away from him. She is wearing the full white, disposable coveralls of a Met forensics tech, and there’s a spray of blood on the wall behind Angel.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Feb 7

Do I get extra points for it also being a Canadian flavour?

Miss Vickie’s chips in All Dressed Up flavour

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Feb 6

Seeing all these fabulous options in a row was like a little vacation from impotent despair.

Three posts about small acts of passive resistance:
1) from Jorts (and Jean): I sincerely don’t know why people aren’t physically stopping those dorks. Move shit. Lock doors. Lose the keys. Everyone switch seats. Turn off all the lights. Switch the signs on the elevator lobby. Make the settings all silly. Use a different language. Wear costumes. Fill rooms with balloons
2) from Alexia Mandia Ainsworth (quote skeeting the third): During the Vietnam war, my grandfather was a "conscientious objector" and misfiled copious amounts of paperwork at his government job. They didn't notice for months. Misfile! Object! Don't give in!
3) from Andrea Kaston Tange: Switch the default font of every document to dingbats. Put chewed gum on keyboards & spill soup on monitors. Loosen screws on chair legs. Turn down thermostats to 54 & then smash the dials. Unplug monitors & destroy input connectors. Pretend you don't understand every single order they give you.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Jan 24

If you see this post, quote it with a bridge from your gallery.

A screenshot of an old tweet of mine that reads, “I’m not saying I’ll never get married, I’m just holding out for someone who loves me as much as my Google Home loves pictures of bridges.” The Made by Google account replied, “You deserve that!”

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Jan 7

Cover image for Their Dogs Came with Them, a novel by Helena Maria Viramontes

Image: A rundown, graffitied corner shop on a deserted street. A stray-looking dog passes in front of the shop door.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Dec 23

Name a non-LOTR character that could resist the One Ring.

Lilo Pelekai (of Lilo & Stitch fame) giving a gentle smile.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Nov 19

Name a show you’re positive no one remembers but you.

Poster for the one-season series Battle Creek. A disheveled Dean Winters stands next to a clean-cut Josh Duhamel. A bullet passes through Winters’s disposable coffee cup and narrowly misses Duhamel’s slightly higher ceramic teacup.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Nov 11

Me and a co-presenter, Kala Hirtle, at my 1st Hal-Con over the weekend. I talked about FROM and the American dream, and I didn’t cry once! Not pictured: @juliamwright.bsky.social (also a presenter) and moderator @jazzlamhazzlam.bsky.social, who both had to dash. Thanks, all, for a great time!

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Nov 7

Introduce yourself with One book 📚 One movie 🎥 One album 💿 One tv show 📺 True for today, at least

Shirley Jackson - We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Nov 7

What’s your sign?

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Sep 13

A quiet, beautiful coming of age film in which the person coming of age happens to be 27years old.

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Sep 9

This one next?

Helen Pinsent@heleninwords· Aug 15