Xander Lenc

@xlenc

Carceral geographer, California apologist, valued customer. Read @oaklandreviewofbooks.org

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Xander Lenc@xlenc· 27d

Finishing up the forematter on this dissertation draft.

A page in a word processor, page 4. At the center, ot says In Loving Memory of Charlie Kirk.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· 28d

There is no justification for dissertation format requirements like this!

Do not count or number the title page or the copyright page. All other pages must have numbers. DO NOT SKIP PAGE ” 1 “.
The remaining preliminary pages may include a table of contents, a dedication, a list of figures, tables, symbols, illustrations, or photographs, a preface, your introduction, acknowledgments, and curriculum vitae. You must number these preliminary pages using lower case Roman numerals beginning with the number “i” and continue in sequence to the end of the preliminary pages (i, ii, iii, iv, v, etc.).
Your abstract must have Arabic numeral page numbers. Start numbering your abstract with the number “1” and continue in sequence (1, 2, 3, etc.)
The main body of your text and your references also use Arabic numerals. Start the numbering of the main body with the number “1” and continue in sequence (1, 2, 3, etc.), numbering consecutively throughout the rest of the text, including illustrative materials, bibliography, and appendices.
Yes! The first page of your abstract and the first page of your main text both start with ‘1’

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jul 12

I'm cutting RFK Jr. off at the pass. If I'm going to get explosive diarrhea it's gonna be because of MY stupid decisions, not the government's!

A bag of sugar free gummi worms from trader Joe's. It is bright yellow with pink borders and text.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jul 9

Apparently Mallard Fillmore is still getting published and it still sucks shit.

A long single panel comic. A man with a goatee sits at a bar next to the hideous duck man. The man dahs "it's not FAIR that Elon Musk gets to be a trillionaire and I don't... Just because he was privileged with more work ethic, focus, persistence and risk tolerance than me."

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jul 5

The final issue of Absolute Martian Manhunter by @denizcamp.bsky.social and @javierrodriguez.bsky.social was one of the most beautiful and satisfying comics I have ever read. People are going to be talking about this run decades from now.

The cover of Absolute Martian Manhunter 13. A woman cradles an unconscious man covered in bandages, a green Martian emits a beam of red light from his single eye, a haunted looking child stares back menacingly at the viewer.

A page of full color comics, rainbow smoke billowing around. Flashes of a couple fighting about parenting responsibilities across time, a man floating through the abyss of memory, abstract emotions represented through shapes and forms.

A full page or color comics, showing a microscopic moment of conception, development in the womb, the cutting of an umbilical chord, and a child playing with cups. Narration shows that someone is experiencing their own husband's upbringing through his eyes in fast forward. The face of thr martian appears throughout.

A full page of color comics. A man kneels, red light emitting from his forehead. MARTIAN VISOOJ ON ON ON ON, FULL CONSCIOUSNESS UPGRADE ANTI-LIFE DEGENERATION HALTED. a woman next to him says "john???" Behind her, a blue demon taunts them. "Every moment, every drifting mote," reads a caption, every tragedy," reads the caption "born again in perpetual grace."

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jul 4

This is how much has changed in ONE YEAR. I do not think this trend is going to end soon. Even if you don't think (like I do) that wrapping yourself in the flag is inherently a concession to the right, the fact is that patriotic symbols have lost a lot of their symbolic power in the United States.

Demographic Shifts in U.S. Adults' Pride in Being an American. How proud are you to be an American — extremely proud, very proud, moderately proud, only a little proud, or not at all proud?
% Extremely proud.

All listed demographics have lost pride, with women, people 35-54, people of color, and non-college graduates losing the most.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jul 1

The article's argument is that Emeryville is dropping faster because it has more condos, which buyers have soured on because of soaring HOA fees. And the HOA fees are rising in large part because of the mounting price of housing insurance.

A chart of median monthly HOA dues for condos by metro area, june to august 2024. SF, San Jose, and Oakland are among the highest, higher event than Seattle or Washington.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jul 1

Some jaw-dropping numbers here. www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...

Graph titled "Change in typical home values among selected Bay Area cities from May 2019. Among all homes types." Values have dropped significantly in SF, Oakland, and especially Emeryville since their peak in 2022. Palo Alto is down as well but not nearly as much.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jul 1

edited dril tweet from 201, the edits indicated here in brackets:
"im not [queer]! im not [queer]!!", i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a [Republican]

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jun 24

I keep a bioactive terrarium for my geckos, and one of my favorite things about it is that mushrooms pop up when I run the waterfall for the first time in a while. The mushrooms die after a day, and are eaten by springtails and isopods that crawl into the substrate, die, and are eaten by the fungi.

A portrait formatted photo of a terrarium floor. The substrate is dark and wet. Dozens of white little mushrooms are popping up everywhere. We see a live plant in the back, some branches, and a half coconut shell with a little door cut out of it.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jun 21

Relatedly, this is one of my least favorite statistics in the whole world:

Screenshot from Transparent California, which lists the salaries of state employees. Jared Diamond was paid $451,450 (plus $77,199 in benefits) from the University of California in 2021.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jun 19

What feels worse than agreeing with James Carville? Agreeing with James Carville and Trump at the same time.

"You know, they call it a memorandum of understanding. It’s actually an instrument of surrender. We started a war and we surrendered. Let’s be very clear about that. And let’s give Trump credit where credit’s due. He did what Lyndon Johnson did not do in do in Vietnam — just get out. He didn’t do what Bush and even Obama did in Afghanistan — just get out. You understand? I think the best thing Biden ever did was just leave Afghanistan, and I’ll give Trump credit. He saw this thing was going the wrong way, and he just quit and got out, and then sometimes you gotta do that.”

— James Carville, on NewsNation.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jun 14

Oakland as the center of the Western Hemisphere, from the back cover of a 1912 pamphlet from the Oakland Chamber of Commerce and Sunset Magazine.

Large shadowed text at the top in gold: OAKLAND CALIFORNIA. At the center, a map showing Oakland's links to Honolulu, Alaska, Santiago, LIma, Auckland, Manila, Hong Kong, Yokohama, the British Isles, the Mediterranean, and more. On the left, a train engine. On the left, a large steamship.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jun 14

Rare photograph of Mitch McConnell's parents before the war.

An illustration by Mike Rayhawk entitled "Tales of Arcana: Slime Cube." Two gross looking cubes covered in bubbling mucous, one blueish purple and one a lemon-lime shade, with human body parts visible through the translucent substance.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jun 14

Merriam-Webster is a sports website for people who don't watch sports.

Screenshot from Merriam-Webster's top lookups right now. In first place : "knickerbocker."

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jun 4

"Garcia believes the “primary driver” of these abnormally high failing rates is due to a “vast increase in academic dishonesty” due to students’ usage of large language models..." www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...

"Percentage of students receiving F’s in spring 2024, spring 2025 and spring 2026 as compared to typical D and F percentages under electrical engineering and computer sciences department grading guidelines." A bar chart shows a sudden leap in the rate of failure across three CS classes, most dramatically in CS10, which went from around 7% in Spring 2025 (which is typical) to 35.3% in Spring 2026.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Jun 1

tfw the president stops taking his SSRIs :(

CNBC headline: Trump tells CNBC 'I don't care' if Iran negotiations are over.

Trump: 'I don't care about the midterms'

'I don't care about it': Trump says it doesn't matter to him if Epstein files are released.

Trump: 'I don't care about polling' showing Iran strikes unpopular.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· May 24

I've been reading old comics from the 1930s, and the best surprise so far is that Superman/Clark Kent originally worked as a reporter in... Cleveland, Ohio.

An old four color comic except, with two panels. on the right, a caption: Later that evening, clark kent mails a package. An office scene, with a man in a vest at the counter asking "Where to?" Clark Kent, holding a package, says "The evening news, cleveland, Ohio." The second panel has a caption: "The evening-News Prints a Picture-Scoop..." We see a copy of the paper, with the headline AMAZING WAR PICTURES!! and a sketchy photo of two generals conferring.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· May 17

Bill Cassidy's career may be over, but at least he was a Republican with integrity who bravely stood up to Trump by *checks notes* uh, giving him everything him he wanted.

A scorecard of Bill Cassidy's voting record. It shows that he voted to confirm Trump's nominees 97% of the time, with 36 yes votes, zero no votes, and one abstention or failure to vote.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· May 17

Am I the last person on earth to learn about this picture of Walter Benjamin in Ibiza because lmaooooo

A black and whtie photograph. In the foreground there is a hunky shirtless man in jeans and a cowboy hat staring at the camera. Behind him is a contemplative and fully dressed Walter Benjamin on a beach chair!

Xander Lenc@xlenc· May 16

I'm pleasantly surprised they let me get away with this one. This is what will appear on the screen above the stage when I accept my diploma on Wednesday.

Xander Lenc, Ph.D.
Science and Tech Studies DE
Terra Carcer: Landscape Drift, Racialization, and the Ecology of the American Prison
Dissertation Chair: Jake Kosek

Abolish ICE.
Free Palestine.
Drop Every oil executive into a volcano.

An image on the right of me, Xander, a white guy with short brown hair, a blue denim jacket, and a squiggly design on my shirt taken from a Sol Lewitt painting.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· May 16

A brawl in Japan's parliamentiary chambers. Men in suits and a single woman scramble to stop a man from speaking into a microphone. The caption says WOULD

Xander Lenc@xlenc· May 16

Let's get spooky.

A similar slide with light blue highlights. The bubble now reads "What is the object of analysis?" Beside a clipart map icon, it reads Location, with "Fixity" and "Movement" circulating beside it. Below, a knife and Violence, with Solidity and Fluidity circulating. Below, a pentagram and Ritual, beside Death and Resurrection circulating.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· May 16

Feeling pretty pleased with this slide from my exit talk.

A powerpoint slide. On the left, a bubble reads "What is the scale of analysis?" There is an edited version of the Shield of the Trinity. At the center is Landscape, which is equivalent to the outer hubs, which are not correspondingly equivalent to one another. The outer hubs read "Representation," "Perception," and "Ding an sich (thing-unto-itself)".

Xander Lenc@xlenc· May 16

A wise wizard sits upon a stone throne, pondering his azure orb. A filthy Hobbit movie hater glowers in the background, jealous of the wizard's refined but unpretentious taste in cinema.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· May 15

Reddit is the last good social media platform, I will die on this hill. Nowhere else can you witness stuff like this on such a regular basis.

A reddit post from r/InvertPets from two days ago. The caption says "cat caught a mouse at some point last night and left it on my floor. Figured I wouldn't let it go to waste and threw it in my bug tank, and... Well...."
The image shows a foggy close-up of a terrarium, with a cluster of roaches and isopods visible through the fog.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· May 13

A fun fact about the Brazillian flag is that the stars are modeled after the starscape over Rio on the morning of November 15, 1889, when the Republic was founded. Each star represents a different federal state/district, sized in proportion to their population.

The official outline schematics of the Brazilian flag, black and white.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· May 13

We chose ORB as our acronym for a reason.

A grand and powerful wizard sitting upon a dignified throne gazing into their glowing sky blue orb as a nasty little hobbit glares jealously from around a corner.

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Apr 28

Okay I pulled up the actual interview and it's both better and worse than I remembered.

Jeff Jetton: I ordered you the turkey on marble rye from the deli downstairs. Is this a thing of habit?

Noam Chomsky: For about the past twenty years or so.

Jeff Jetton: That exact order, huh?

Noam Chomsky: It used to be a bagel and American cheese.

Jeff Jetton: Why isn’t it called “the Chomsky”?

Noam Chomsky: [laughs]

Jeff Jetton: How long have you worked here at M.I.T.?

Noam Chomsky: Since ’55.

Jeff Jetton: And you can’t even get a sandwich named after you? Where’s the respect?

Noam Chomsky: [laughs]

Jeff Jetton: Are you a foodie?

Noam Chomsky: Am I a…? Meaning?

Xander Lenc@xlenc· Apr 24

I went to the Felix Gonzalez-Torres exhibit at my city's art museum and I caught this man blatantly stealing and even EATING the art on display! Shoplifting in museums is out of control, please do something @police!