Cait Coker <<digital brat with an insect mind>>

Bwahahaha!! New books!!

New Tolkien Society publication – <em>Númenor, The Mighty and Frail</em> The Tolkien Society is pleased to announce that Númenor, the Mighty and Frail: Proceedings of The Tolkien Society Seminar 2023, the twenty-fifth book in the Peter Roe series, is now available to pre-o...

New Tolkien Society publication!

Releasing on 25 November, "Númenor, the Mighty and Frail" includes 10 articles relating to Númenor, and its legacy. Edited by @willsherwood.bsky.social and published by @lunapress.bsky.social, it's now available to pre-order. www.tolkiensociety.org/2025/10/new-...

We're settling in for @aelang.bsky.social's @scholarslab.bsky.social talk connecting literary studies w/explorations in 3D making to visualize, explore, inspire new approaches to interpreting & appreciating poetry. Lovely to see colleagues from the west coast & UK time zones! Livetweeting 🧵: +

I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections

I laughed so hard.

Ah googling shows the editor wants to retire. Well okay, no one else wanted the job?

What Was Best About the ‘Best American Poetry’?

It's always weird when series end. (NB no reason is given why the series is being retired.)

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943

Achievement unlocked: Covid vax!

YouTube video by TolkienGuide Richard Ovenden OBE talks Tolkien and The Bovadium Fragments

Good interview with @RichardOvenden on the upcoming release of the NEW #Tolkien book The Bovadium Fragments youtube.com/watch?v=IGuQ... @harpercollins.bsky.social

Also my Big Bro Bestie was the one that told me the new Taytay album has a song about Kelce's dick, which means he had to 1) read at least one review in order to find something to razz me about and 2) the thing he picked was dick. 🤷‍♀️🎶

Great pics of the writing tablets at the article!!!!!!!!!

piss off the racists, make the English kofte kebab from 1660

Global academic freedom group warns Trump is dismantling US higher education Report from Scholars at Risk counts some 40 attacks against academic freedom in the US in the first half of 2025

“We are witnessing an unprecedented situation – really as far as I can tell in history – where a global leader of education and research is voluntarily dismantling that which gave it an advantage.”

My advisor's comment on one of my diss chapters: "What were you thinking here?"

Me, rereading: "What WAS I thinking here?????????"

Record Store Day Announces Black Friday 2025 Releases Record Store Day, the music industry holiday in which artists release lots of exclusive vinyl in a bid to attract foot traffic to independent record stores, happens twice a year: once on a Saturday in...

Check out the list of releases for the Black Friday edition of @recordstoreday.bsky.social

Florida.

Last night I dreamed I was teaching a class on Fantasy and I was starting with The Velveteen Rabbit and I have no idea why dream!me wanted to hurt people like that.

COOL!! Also happy birthday!!!

The fanfiction written on a notes app that’s become a bestseller – with a seven-figure film deal SenLinYu’s debut started life as Harry Potter fanfiction. The Alchemised author shares why they were drawn to a war-torn love story, how a conservative upbringing shaped their writing, and the snobber...

A+ no notes on this interview on fic, from the salaciousness assumptions of smut to the derision aimed at works by women and LGBTQ+ writers.

Today marks the first day in public media’s history without federal funding. And we’re not going anywhere.

Listeners like you keep our mission alive. Protect one of the last places where America comes together to hear itself.

Stand with us today. Donate at this link: n.pr/46wamAj

Three Field Notes notebooks lined up to showcase floral designs.

A floral palate cleanser. My designs for Field Notes’ fall flowers edition, inspired by publishers bindings. Thanks, librarians!

A painting of Matteo Ricci lies on a table, encased in protective wrapping. Another painting is placed on a table behind it.

A scan of a painting depicting Xu Guangqi.

A scan of a painting depicting Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen 南懷仁).

A scan of a painting depicting Matteo Ricci (Li Madou 利瑪竇).

A number of paintings depicting Jesuit missionaries to Ming and Qing China, as well as Xu Guangqi 徐光啟, were returned to the Institute from the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore, where they had been on loan. The paintings were made at the T'ou-sè-wè 土山灣 orphanage in Shanghai before 1915.

This would be why I am such a strident critic of digitization as a substitute for actual archival preservation. My sixteenth century documents are far sturdier and likely to survive another 500 years than the detritus on the internet. And digitization is not democratization.

THANK YOU! I remember when the book came out and how hyped up it was and being SO ANGRY. I wanted 100% more about rare book cataloging and less of the daughter falling in love with whasface and all the other stuff I've forgotten.

INSTAFEELS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️

A 7x5 print sitting on wood type that says Made with Human Intelligence. Created with flourished ornaments and decorated 19th century type.

Made With Human Intelligence (and all 19th century type) 7x5” prints now available. #letterpress
www.starshaped.com/small-prints...

Livejournal emailed me to congratulate me on my (inactive) blog being 21 years old today and I am shooketh.

We demand a new Board of Directors at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum Our beloved printing museum faces an unprecedented situation. Board overreach has cancelled programming, rescinded residencies and cancelled exhibits of Black and LGBTQ+ artists, and silenced communit...

Some good printers created a site documenting Hamilton Wood Type Museum board's actions (wearehamfam.info) & linking to a petition (I signed!) calling for new governance that includes museum staff & community members (sign.moveon.org/petitions/we...). If you do letterpress, please consider signing: