Michael Sylvan Robinson

Such a terrible representative- we’re eager for change here in the Bay Ridge part of the current district

ViewFromHere: Bay Ridge Brooklyn blizzard 2026 so far ❄️🙏🧙‍♂️

Marking Eight Years 💔

Highly recommend the deeply researched, evocative and epic historical fiction trilogy by Madison Smartt Bell - exquisite writing and haunting exploration of characters across the landscape of Haiti’s revolution

I joined the Art Against Empire podcast sharing my work with Gays Against Guns and the art of remembrance 🙏❤️ ~ Sylvan

Paul 🌈❤️⭐️👏

“Everybody Showed Up”: Stunning Crowds at Minnesota Day of Strike and Shutdown Against ICE Extreme cold didn't stop the shutdown on Friday as some 100 faith leaders were arrested, residents stayed home from work, and an estimated 50,000 or more marched through downtown Minneapolis.

I'm not one for false optimism. But what I witnessed today in Minneapolis was tremendous, both in scale and exuberance. It was a stunning answer to the federal assault on Minnesota, a show of solidarity that gives us something to hold on to during times that are unforgiving.

We don’t want Greenland.
We want healthcare.

“…that bracing for the worst did not make the inevitable any less painful. In the future, historians will struggle to describe that feeling, particular to this Trump era, of being prepared for the bad, crazy, and disruptive things that he would do, and yet also totally, utterly shocked by them.”

“No matter how low one’s expectations were for 2025, the most striking thing about the year when Donald Trump became President again is how much worse it turned out to be.”

Donald Trump’s Golden Age of Awful A damage assessment of the President’s first year back in the White House.

www.newyorker.com/news/letter-...

A great (and timely) lengthy exploration of all things emperor (including downfalls) in Emperor of Rome. Discussed not chronological but in chapters grouped by different categories very effectively - with Beard’s trademark wit and abundance of historical narratives it is fascinating read!

How to ADHD by Jessica McCabe, brings her experience, research, and strategies towards living with ADHD strengths and challenges. This book was sooooo helpful; I saw my own struggles, avoidance patterns, and attention behaviors illuminated in her shared anecdotes and easy to read formatting.

Hocking’s A Field Guide to the Subterranean travels great distances as he wrestles with a secretive past, the trauma and panic attacks, and later integration. Hocking is careful and caring in his recounting of sexual abuse and the unfolding healing and recovery of self again.

Schulman’s Let the Record Show is filled with familiar figures and friends, vivid memories of those pivotal, transformative years. So many different experiences are highlighted, honored, and provide such inspiring histories for facing the challenges of this very present.

I found such deep connection and resonance with the beautiful, haunting journey across the sites of Scotland that Allyson Shaw writes about with such reverence in Ashes and Stone: A Journey Through Scotland in Search of Women Hunted as Witches

In Tendler’s Men Have Called Her Crazy the unsparing examinations of her own struggles are so compelling, both specific to her own history but also common with other women in recovery - the men in her life and the impact of those relationships both trauma and addiction.

Claire Dederer’s Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma revisits the work of artists after we’ve learned about the terribleness of them personally.

What I Read in 2025:

ViewFromHere: major snowstorm, very cold, bringing a lot of snow our way. We’re staying cosy, fire in the fireplace, wondering how much snow we’ll wake to tomorrow morning 🌬️❄️🙏🧙‍♂️

The Americans Who Saw All This Coming—but Were Ignored and Maligned Call them the Cassandras: the people—mostly not white and male—who smelled the fascism all over Trump from jump street. Why were they “alarmists,” and how did “anti-alarmism” become cool?

“Cassandras are not reasoning on the basis of fear; rather, their reasoning has led to a conclusion that is frightening… being a clear, critical thinker is the first of the things that make someone more likely to have ‘got it’ early—and it’s how Cassandras often understand themselves.”

Love this winter wonderland hike with you 🙏❤️

Marking 13 years 💔 December 14, 2012

She hears regularly from this constituent - calls to the office and at protests in front of her local office. She’s just so terrible, worst representative I’ve ever had

Thank you, glad to hear his experience 🙏❤️

I’m healing, resting, regaining strength - so grateful for the messages, calls, and caring support Joseph and I have received during this challenging experience 🫀🙏❤️ ~ Sylvan

I’ll be continuing recovery and healing at home, already engaged with cardio rehab plan, away from work probably a month or so but hoping a little gentle sewing in a comfy chair will soon help keep me mending body and spirit.

I had no symptoms till Sept and then thought it was heartburn; October brought tests to show severe silent blockage. A week ago today I had triple bypass surgery; heart is good shape, just fixing some of the plumbing is what my cardiologist shared.

It is really incredible that one can be home and kinda up and about a week after super skilled humans cut into your rib cage and respliced some plumbing around your heart! 🫀🙏❤️

“…I have thought hard about that view of autocracy as fundamentally a fake, sham, a distorting mirror. It has helped me to understand ancient Roman political culture better - and has opened my own eyes to the politics of the modern world too.” ~ Mary Beard