Jason Mittell
@jmittell
Media studies professor at Middlebury College; video essayist & author of videographic book on Breaking Bad; author of written books on TV, narrative theory, etc.; journal manager of @intransition.bsky.social . [he/him]
Tonight @themountaingoats.bsky.social brought it hard to Vermont! Beyond the tremendous musicianship, my favorite thing is how much John Darnielle projects total joy & delight that it is his job to sing songs about drug-addled actors, shipwrecks, and bitter divorces to adoring crowds!
Most years, Lake Street Dive plays two sold-out shows at Shelburne Museum, always a highlight of Vermont summers. Tonight’s concert was phenomenal, just a huge party with top tier musicians!!
Every once in a while I have a moment where I ask myself "do I really live here?", even though I've been in Vermont for 25 years! Today we attended a great daytime concert by Kathleen Parks Band at Knoll Farm in Waitsfield, where this was the tremendous view as we listened to the music:
High score for me this morning! hankgreen.com/smush · Aug 9 1194 pts · PERFECT 💯 · 34-day streak
Fabulous night seeing Sylvan Esso playing at Burlington Waterfront Park! They’ve expanded to a six-piece, which works well for most songs, but definitely a different vibe than a duo. Highlight was crowd demanding an encore for 10 minutes - and us getting “Funeral Singers” to end the night!
After playing hundreds of games of Wingspan & all its expansions, tonight we inaugurated Wingspan Pocket! A faster, smaller version that feels cleverly similar but different from the original. Looking forward to playing many more times - bravo @elizhargrave.bsky.social @stonemaiergames.com!!
Saw a spectacular show by @thebeths.bsky.social tonight in Burlington VT! After this show, The Beths have officially become my favorite contemporary rock band, just firing on all cylinders in terms of songwriting, musicianship and live energy. See them if you can!
I noticed this on the copyright page of Alison Bechdel's newest book. I wonder both if you need to be a superstar to get that added, and if such an explicit statement actually makes a difference to AI companies.
No cheating; your last saved picture of a celebrity is your therapist. (So crazy that it might just work...)
The #1 movie when you were 10 years old is how your 2026 is going to go. (If only...)
Over the past month in numerous European countries, I've noticed this maddening trend: stores have taken "Black Friday" from the USA, detached it from Thanksgiving and made it a slogan for all big pre-holiday sales. Hence Black Week and Black Month, leading to gross displays like this:
Convinced that this instrument was made for the Nigel Tufnel of 19th century Milan:
I’m a gray-haired, upper-middle-aged, arguably-esteemed professor and father of adult children. And yet, walking down a street in Berlin, I instantly become a 12-year-old boy:
Had a wonderful time today in Berlin at the Serial Encounters symposium in honor of @fkelleter.bsky.social ! I talked about his contributions to theories of seriality and influence on my own work - but I did make a slide for the hypothetical paper I wish I'd given!
At Cemetery du Père-Lachaise in Paris today, I checked out Pierre Bourdieu's final habitus. Everyone at Père-Lachaise belongs to the elite, but among the thousands of graves there, he's clearly exhibiting middling cultural and economic capital.
Something you don't expect to see wondering around Trondheim, Norway: a record store & label named after a Gen X icon of US weirdness!
Seeing Lucy Dacus at Shelburne Museum, where there is the lowest concentration of fellow old straight guys than any concert I’ve ever been to in Vermont!
So much to be horrified by in this story, but I was stopped short by imagining the fatal damage that could be done by using AI in the course "Know Your Recreational Drugs."
I feel like we've reached the point that we just need to reboot the web and recreate the bespoke online era of the late-90s, where we at least knew that a human had put in the work to write and do basic fact-checking on whatever we read, rather than automated bullshit like this:
Could there be anything more on-brand than the second search result for "Microsoft Teams" being this?