Robbie Moore

@robbiemoore

Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Tasmania. "Hotel Modernity: Corporate Space in Literature and Film" from Edinburgh UP. He/him.

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Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· 3d

Debussy is literally crack for Mme. Verdurin

From La Prisonnière (trans. Moncrieff): "the Mistress, while pretending not to have heard anything, and preserving in her fine eyes, shadowed by the habit of listening to Debussy more than they would have been by that of sniffing cocaine, the extenuated expression that they derived from musical intoxication alone, revolved nevertheless behind her splendid brow, inflated by all those quartets and the headaches that were their consequence, thoughts which were not exclusively polyphonic, and unable to contain herself any longer, unable to postpone the injection for another instant, flung herself upon the speakers, drew them apart, and said ..."

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· 3d

How to spot a villain in Proust: when they think Debussy is bad

From Sodom et Gomorrhe (trans. Moncrieff): "even in the presence of the narrowest of provincial ladies she could not remain for five minutes without feeling the need to confess them. When a noble dame of Avranches, who would have been incapable of distinguishing between Mozart and Wagner, said in Mme. de Cambremer's hearing: "We saw nothing of any interest while we were in Paris, we went once to the Opéra-Comique, they were doing Pelléas et Mélisande, it's dreadful stuff," Mme. de Cambremer not only boiled with rage but felt obliged to exclaim: "Not at all, it's a little gem," and to 'argue the point.' It was perhaps a Combray habit which she had picked up from my grandmother's sisters, who called it 'fighting in the good cause,' and loved the dinner-parties at which they knew all through the week that they would have to defend their idols against the Philistines."

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· 4d

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· 6d

The stuff in here about Musk’s apartheid South Africa as a fortified technofascist enclave is illuminating and horrible

Front cover of MUSKISM: A Guide for the Perplexed by Quinn Slobodian & Ben Tarnoff

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· 7d

Coleridge imagining British imperialism as a cloud of pestilence (from "Fears In Solitude. Written In April, 1798, During The Alarm Of An Invasion")

Even now, perchance, and in his native isle:
Carnage and groans beneath this blessed sun!
We have offended, oh! my countrymen!
We have offended very grievously,
And been most tyrannous. From east to west
A groan of accusation pierces Heaven!
The wretched plead against us; multitudes
Countless and vehement, the sons of God,
Our brethren! Like a cloud that travels on,
Steamed up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence,
Even so, my countrymen! have we gone forth
And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs,
And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint
With slow perdition murders the whole man,
His body and his soul!

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· 7d

In this version, Marcel gets huge

A cheap ebook edition of Proust, which they've called "Cities of Plain", by Musaicum Books. Featuring a painting of a nude hunk (overlaid with an MS Paint pixelated effect)

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· 13d

Complementing my cat in Old English

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· 14d

Altered headline: Penelope can't stop the suitors. Scrap the shroud for Laertes and embrace Mediterranean life.

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· 16d

The Odyssey (c.8th-7thC BCE)

The dog from Futurama waiting patiently for its owner to come home

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Jul 14

[to the tune of Farewell Transmission] wine dark bluuuuuues

Headline: Christopher Nolan couldn't escape 'despair'. So he made 'The Odyssey.'

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Jul 7

Started as a joke, now I’m doing the reading

Cover of Matt King’s A History of Goblins

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Jul 5

It’s weird that “krautrock” is still called “krautrock”

The term "krautrock" was popularised by British music journalists as a pejorative umbrella-label for the diverse German scene, 18) and although many such artists disliked the term, it subsequently fell into standard usage.

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Jun 26

Got giddy at the record store

Alabaster DePlume - Come With Fierce Grace
Valerie June - Under Cover
Caetano Veloso - Caetano Veloso

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Jun 25

I want to be the guy who describes the music in the subtitles

Subtitle for a scene in a tv show that says "dark, inexorable music"

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Jun 23

What's the theory equivalent of vibe coding

Freud writes: "Why hats and cloaks are used in the same way (ie. as sexual symbols), is certainly difficult to divine, but their symbolic meaning is certainly unquestionable." Later, in his New Introductory Lectures (5), Freud was able to add some explanatory details regarding the symbolism of cloaks, but was still, apparently, unable to cast further light on the symbolism of hats.

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Jun 11

"Say the line, Bart" meme, in which the younger Simpson is cajoled into repeating his TV catchphrase for his classmates, who cheer. But this time Bart is Marc Augé and his catchphrase is "That's a non-place". It's a witty piece of contemporary commentary.

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Jun 10

Finally got some reading glasses in my 40s

Homer Simpson in bed with his endearing little reading glasses

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Jun 9

Handing someone a copy of Moby-Dick hidden in my big overcoat

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Jun 2

ngram showing the rise of the word "liminal" since 1950 and some wild speculations about why that might be

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· May 26

Sonny Rollins has left us at 95. Can you believe how hard this album cover goes

LP of Sonny Rollins’ Way Out West (1957) with Rollins in full cowboy regalia out in the badlands

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· May 22

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· May 15

Dracula (1897)

Mighty Boosh: “I knew I should have gone for the Gothic three-way”

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· May 10

Rachel Maddow pointing to her catchphrase "watch what they do, not what they say"

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· May 7

A Bayesian analysis concludes that Lucy in Dracula likely had Type A blood. Thank you, Science! imj.ie/bayesian-ana...

IMJ
Bayesian Analysis Of Blood Transfusion In
Dracula
M O'Connor, N Dunbar
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon,
USA

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· May 6

Love how Darwin in the final sentence of his second last book is like "btw plants have brains". Lived for the drama.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the tip of the radicle thus endowed, and having the power of directing the movements of the adjoining parts, acts like the brain of one of the lower animals; the brain being seated within the anterior end of the body, receiving impressions from the sense-organs, and directing the several movements.

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Apr 26

Ah … ?

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Apr 20

I found it: the nastiest historical slang for sexual intercourse

† figurative and in figurative context. to hit the master-vein (slang): to make a sexual conquest. Obsolete.

1592
My faire daughter was hit on the master vaine and gotten with childe.
R. Greene, Disputation Conny-catcher

1614
I know a lad Can hit the maister-vaine.
W. Browne, Shepheards Pipe ii.

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Apr 11

Seeing some red flags in this Marcus Clarke portrait (1866)

Sepia portrait from 1866. Gentleman lounging side-saddle on a chair with knee-high boots, cane, cravat, cocked hat.

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Apr 2

Sometimes I think about the way he says “salad cream”

Beaky 70s leisurewear Joffrey child being sassy to John Cleese

Robbie Moore@robbiemoore· Apr 2

Smartest guys in the room