Ariel

@sycoraxpine

Reader, amateur beekeeper, theatregoer, prof, chicken enthusiast, perpetually novice aerialist, feeder of two cats and one small (human) dragon

3,718 Following1,125 Followers2,525 Posts

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Ariel@sycoraxpine· Jun 12

The hypocrisy and vacuity of these scholars (including a prominent ethicist) standing in judgement of the intellectual rigour of all of the humanities is completely maddening. Hiding their evidence! Relying on LLMs to do their research! Just completely dishonest. www.chronicle.com/article/insi...

Transcript of Chronicle of Higher Education interview with the authors of a shameful and harmful report on the degradation of the humanities by (leftist) ideology:

"Len Gutkin: One of the criticisms that you've gotten is that the report offers conclusions, but the bulk of the evidence is buried in the 'detailed internal reports' that were compiled but which haven't been published or released. Will they be published?

Appiah: The decision was made" [note the passive voice; really ethical diffusion of responsibility] "to allows the authors of those internal reports to decide whether or not to make them public. They were the basis of our deliberation. I will make mine, which is about literary criticism, public at some point, and I think others will. But on the whole, I think it was right to do it the way we have, because we need people to think about the main conclusions and the main arguemnts, which are in this document. We did a fair amount of research, including research using new artificial-intelligence methods to survey large bodies of text and see what was in them, and to identify themes and so on. My report will come with six appendices of such material, not produced by me but produced by the researchers that we were able to hire with the money that was given to us by the chancellors.

Wilentz: I do find a certain irony in this. People who rail against objectivity, say that there's no such thing as objectivity, suddenly want more evidence." [Imagine! People who say that a lot of takes that claim to be objective are, in fact, *not objective* are looking at our ideological claims disguised as inarguable truths and saying they are not, in fact, objective or evidential! (This one response by Wilentz gives the whole game away.)]

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Jun 6

New friend (only to be loved at a distance) in our garden (spotted by my 11yo)

Adolescent bunny camouflaging itself very skillfully as a giant mushroom, hidden in the leaves in our garden, probably abjectly terrified of us, which is why we took this picture and rapidly backed away.

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Oct 16

These reactions (I have them too -we have to be willing to examine them!) tell on the internalized conservatism and toxic individualism we are carrying around. We shame people who consistently practice our values in the long term, because they make us feel bad about our own choices/compromises.

Ta-Nehisi Coates asking Ezra Klein why he wrote an essay praising Charlie Kirk’s practice of politics, saying, “Was silence not an option?”

Why are we willing to say things that stigmatize and endanger people more vulnerable than us just to briefly relieve our own anxiety?

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Mar 28

At the Old Vic tonight. Would you believe that I have taught OEDIPUS dozens of times and never seen it staged?

Ariel,in a houndstooth respirator, beneath a neon sign reading “Dare, always dare” at the Old Vic Theatre

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Mar 18

Saint Patrick’s Day, London

A woman and a man dressed in green, traditional Irish clothing, their backs to us, walking down the road towards the Holland Park tube station, holding hands.

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Mar 17

#1 John Vasquez Mejias’s visually stunning THE PUERTO-RICAN WAR: A GRAPHIC HISTORY January 2025 #BooksIRead 💙📚👀

Two pages from Mejias’s THE PUERTO-RICAN WAR, in woodblock black and white images. A figure shows another how to use a gun: “You see this, this is the safety. You have to pull the slide and put the bullet in the chamber… so it’s clip, slide, aim… squeeze the trigger. Understand?” The second figure practices, saying “Slip, slide, safety, squeeze the trigger. Get dressed.”
Two figures walk down a hallway (“OK, let’s go,” says one.). Over images of them walking and descending some stairs, there are the words (an internal monologue?) “Clip, slide, safety, squeeze the trigger” repeated with urgency.

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Mar 4

I am begging Canadians not to use the hateful, xenophobic rhetoric of Trumpism to characterize an entire people because the hatefulness of Trumpism has made you rightfully angry. PLENTY OF AMERICANS are doing things to protest and resist. Nothing good comes from erasing that.

“WandaVanIsle‬ ‪@wandavanisle.bsky.social‬
·
6h
Reply to GraceCallahan
Fuck off Grace. Your president is threatening to take over our country for various unfounded reasons and all of you are blaming someone for not doing something and none of you are doing a fucking thing. And now you live in a fascist dictatorship.
Own it. No one is coming to save you“

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Mar 4

Anyway, lest you think I am anything but filled with rage and dread and pro-Canadian fervoUr about the consequences of Trump’s Canada policy, I am not. We drove across the border and back home to NS with great relief. This was the last thing we saw before leaving Maine. (CW: racist emblem)

A truck with a Maine license plate reading “RD NCK” and a racist Confederate flag that a Trump supporter once told me didn’t signify racism, but simply “Southern pride.” Sure, the Southern pride of people from Maine. (And New Brunswick, Canada, and many other places I’ve encountered it outside the South.)

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Mar 3

It’s scary watching Trump’s fascism feed this sort of prejudice in Canada. I know plenty of Americans who actively oppose the threats of annexation, tariffs, insults, everything. We don’t have to speak in the absolutes of “none” and “all of you” that amount to bigotry, xenophobia, erasure.

‪Kara Fagan 🇨🇦‬ ‪@fagankara.bsky.social‬
·
58m
We have lost faith in you, America. All of you. You are thinking about poutine while we are preparing for war and Dems remain silent.

Justin Wallace‬ ‪@justingwallace.bsky.social‬
·
53m
Can't really blame you for that one. I've lost almost all faith in my own electoral system as well. I'm working towards good within my own community and doing what I can to support the protests / marches happening here in my home city, but if that's insufficient for you, I get it.

‪Kara Fagan 🇨🇦‬ ‪@fagankara.bsky.social‬
·
48m
I absolutely applaud any Americans who are fighting for your country. I simply remind you that none of you are actively opposing the annexation of your neighbour, or the eventual war that would result

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Feb 17

We're in my hometown of Washington, DC, and I've developed a sudden hunger to read Hett's THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY: HITLER'S RISE TO POWER AND THE DOWNFALL OF THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC. I'll leave you to discern why.

Text from Benjamin Carter Hett's THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY, reading: "The question of how this could happen takes on a special, agonizing force against the background out of which Hitler and Nazism grew: the Germany of Weimar. Here, surely, was some kind of apex of human civilization. The 1919 constitution of the Weimar Republic created a state-of-the-art modern democracy, with a scrupulously just proportional electoral system and protection for individual rights and freedoms, expressly including the equality of men and women. Social and political activists found, with considerable success, for even more. Germany had the world's most prominent gay rights movement. It was home to an active feminist movement that, having just won the vote, was moving on to abortion rights. Campaigns against the death penalty had been so successful in Germany that, in practice, the ax was never used. At the beginning of the Republic, workers had won the eight-hour day with full pay. Jews from Poland and Russia were drawn to Germany's tolerance and openness" (7).

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Jan 8

Behold the tiny candle we have wrought with our entire year’s harvest of beeswax! (No judgment on the dirty glass of the candle holder. One task per sabbatical day, max.)

A humblingly small candle hand-made from our entire year’s harvest of beeswax, in a shockingly dirty glass candleholder. The apogee of house-pride and nadir of -shame.

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Dec 14

“I’m quite the prize myself.”

A floofy black cat named Yetling standing on a mantle next to an Emmy and a statuette of Atlas holding up a magnifying glass instead of the sky or globe.

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Dec 7

Finally finished Eliza Haywood’s LOVE IN EXCESS (in which a poor gallant is besieged by the effect his own attractions have on every woman he encounters) last night, so now I’m on to Sir Walter Scott’s IVANHOE, which opens with a mini linguistics lesson and a convo between a jester and a swineherd.

A excerpt from the opening of Sir Walter Scott’s IVANHOE: “‘The curse of St. Withold upon these infernal porkers!’ said the swineherd, after blowing his horn obstreperously, to collect together the scattered herd of swine…’”

I know they’re not pigs, but I’ll be referring to my cats as “you infernal porkers” at every mealtime henceforth.

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Dec 1

💙📚👀

Graphic from StoryGraph outlining my stats from November 2024:
13 Books Read (though it was actually 12 - they are counting a book i started but didn’t finish)
4218 pages
Average rating: 3.39
Highest rated: GRACELING, THE GOLDEN COMPASS, and THE BOOK OF THREE.
Pie charts showing I read mostly fiction in print, and a bar chart that Fantasy was my most read genre.

Finally, a graph showing my pages read over the course of the month, which indicates a lull at mid-month.

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Nov 26

We have the loveliest libraries in Halifax. Went to mark papers in the endless sky facing Citadel Hill, thanks to the gravity-defying top floor of the Halifax Central Library.

@SycoraxPine floating above Downtown Halifax in the cantilevered glass top floor of the Halifax Central Library.

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Nov 17

It is really enjoyable to be on the emotional rollercoaster of this novel with the previous marginalian, undoubtedly a student.

My marginal conversation with the previous reader of my copy of LOVE IN EXCESS, in which we agree that the hero D’elmont has a lot of nerve with this shit.

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Nov 17

The hero (the odious D’elmont, who makes the rakes of the Restoration stage look like tender feminists) has me so enraged that my marginal notes have gone from exclaiming “My good dude, no” to telling the previous reader “this is not *almost*a r*pe scene - it just *is* one” … 💙📚👀

The cover of the Broadview edition of LOVE IN EXCESS, edited by David Oakleaf, with a picture of a woman in an 1860s dress, her hair unbound, looking at her own image in a mirror.

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Nov 17

I’m reading, very slowly, Eliza Haywood’s 1719-20 novel LOVE IN EXCESS, and not only am I engaged in a constant marginalia-dialogue with the last person to write in this book - a stranger - but my own notes are taking on the air of social media posts and reactions. + 💙📚👀

The frontispiece for the first edition of LOVE IN EXCESS; OR THE FATAL ENQUIRY, published in 1719.

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Nov 15

This BOOK OF THREE passage in which the Fair Folk justify not getting involved *yet* in the fight against cruelty and evil is a WHOLE post-election mood. [Stage whisper: Fellow white voters, *we’re* the Fair Folk here.] 💙📚👀

Excerpt from Lloyd Alexander’s THE BOOK OF THREE that reads: “‘For an Assistant Pig-Keeper,’ said Eiddileg, ‘you’re reasonably eloquent. But the Fair Folk will worry about Arawn when the time comes.’ ‘The time has come,’ Taran said. ‘I can only hope it has not passed.’ ‘I don’t think you know what’s going on above ground,’ Eilonwy suddenly exclaimed. ‘You talk about charm and beauty and sacrificing yourself to make things pleasant for people. I don’t believe you care a bit for that. You’re too conceit and stubborn and selfish…’ ‘Conceited!’ shouted Eiddileg, his eyes popping. ‘Selfish! You won’t find anyone more open-hearted and generous. How dare you say that? What do you want, my life’s blood?’ With that, he tore off his cloak and threw it in the air, pulled the rings from his fingers and tossed them in every direction. ‘Go ahead! Take it all! Leave me ruined! What else do you want - my whole kingdom?’”

Ariel@sycoraxpine· Nov 15

I’ve been reading THE BOOK OF THREE (1964) with my daughter for the first time since I was a child and declared myself weepingly in love with one of the characters. Do I remember which character? Reader, I do not! #Eilonwy4eva 💙📚👀

Text from Lloyd Alexander’s THE BOOK OF THREE, reading: “Eilonwy put her hands on her hips. Her eyes flashed. ‘I don’t like being called “a girl” and “this girl” as if I didn’t have a name at all. It’s like having your head put in a sack. If you’ve made your decision, I’ve made my own. I don’t see how you’re going to stop me. If you’ she hurried on, pointing at the bard, ‘try to conduct me to my mean, stupid kinsmen - and they’re hardly related to me in the first place - that harp will be in pieces around your ears!’ Fflewddur blinked and clutched his harp protectively, while Eilonwy went on. ‘And if a certain Assistant Pig-Keeper - I won’t even mention his name - thinks otherwise, he’ll be even more mistaken!’”

Ariel@sycoraxpine· May 20

I’ve been staying at Rudyard Kipling’s house in Vermont this week, weirdly. At one of the local bookstores, I couldn’t resist this tiny 1826 volume of Robbie Burns for $7.50. It’s smaller than my hand. 💙📚

Small antiquarian volume of Robert Burns’s poetry held in my hand (with terrible chipped nail polish)

“The Poetical Works of Robert Burns” opened to its frontispiece, printed in New York in 1826, with a image of a woman titled “The Sacred Vow”

Ariel@sycoraxpine· May 11

I am sick in Rudyard Kipling’s bedroom (?!?!) in Vermont, but my partner went auroramad last night, and I am reaping the photographic benefits.