Rachel Hunt

[this part of the poem is written in the shape of a Christmas tree]: “I wrote a poem in the shape of a Christmas tree, but then forgot to water it only a few days later” [The following portion is written with the words positioned haphazardly underneath the part of the poem that is in the shape of a Christmas tree:] “There were words all over the carpet”

Brian Bilston, "Word Needles." 🎄

For the past few days I’ve been reading I Gave Her a Name by @rachelhunt.bsky.social. Her musings on the nature of a female god are incredibly powerful to me.

I hope to raise my kids to be ambitious—not to think about war, missiles, rockets. Every day, I see a fear in their eyes that I can’t do much about. It’s very painful. If you have kids, you know how horrible it is not to be able to comfort them, to ensure they are alright, to make them hope for anything beyond living one more day. We want to live freely like other people—to grow scientifically and economically, to walk in the street without fearing bombardments, to make plans. We want to be able to learn, think, grow, travel, dream—to feel like we are really human. Not to think only about meeting our basic needs. This is what life has always been about for us, and now—I want the world to know—we are being eradicated en masse. This is not what life should look like.

Two weeks ago, Jewish Currents interviewed three doctors in Gaza to show the world the direness of their situation. The story was just updated to reflect one of the doctors was killed by an airstrike in his own home, making this quote even more gutting. jewishcurrents.org/we-have-lost...

Powerful. In Brooklyn, activists from the Illuminator collective projected the names of all 4,000+ children killed in Gaza and Israel so far.

okay, well can AI do THIS??

*cries in the corner*

It’s a little hedgehog kitchen timer!! He’s brown with a pale pink face and a little nose and I’m holding him up

I am sorry about everything in the world that’s happening so so much, but also look at this little hedgehog kitchen timer I got at the thrift store

Imagine reading all the reports of autopilot Teslas running over kids, Elon unplugging giant servers at Twitter just to see what happens, and the huge mortality rate of primates who were test subjects for Neuralink, and thinking, "yeah, this is the guy who I trust to put a chip in my brain."

I lived in New York so long, I kind of expected everything to be open, always, in every other big city. But places like San Francisco and London, things actually… Close?

A prayer for every person in the arts who has adapted their natural night-owl rhythm to drag themselves to an early morning day job in a school. We need this light so badly

Y'all. Jon got me one of the viral twinkling TikTok christmas trees, and be warned--its NOT warm white. It's BRIGHT PURE WHITE, and that's not for me. We boxed that baby back up and hope that its new owner really really loves it.

I’ve decided that winter darkness is for mystery, not dread, and I’m going to treat my SAD with films and books and anything else that evokes a vibe of universal mystery, the deepest magic, a holy sort of unknowing and acceptance. What you got for me, internet?

Have y'all been following this thing where for 20 years they stopped teaching phonics in American schools due to some sketchy research, and now lots of kids straight-up can't read?

Parents, are you in pitchfork and torch mode?

Forced myself to work on just one thing all day. No toggling back and forth between emails, grading, projects, etc. Felt amazing, like I imagine lumberjacks or deep sea fishermen must feel.

I find this legitimately inspiring and also I didn’t do this before the internet, either

I am convinced people are going to look back on films and TV of the early 21st century and be astonished at the high heels.

“why some people be mad at me sometimes”

by Lucille Clifton

they ask me to remember
but they want me to remember
their memories
and i keep on remembering
mine.

I just heard about a gathering with the marvelous poet/essayist Ross Gay that a toddler interrupted first by asking, “What is chaos?” and then by intermittently shouting the word “chaos!” It’s hard to imagine anything more wonderful!

My notes:

💯

My very favorite show to grade to was Survivor. Like the perfect balance between repetition & uniqueness.

At this moment, I'm at IU's academic conference on Taylor Swift. My favorite panel was on Taylor's anxiety/relationship to memory & time, but my overall favorite part is hearing people take a woman's words & art seriously.

Omg

When I later learned there were LOTS of existing seasons it all made way more sense.

The whole plot is so silly. The main characters seem like they're trying to be as handsome/suave/clever/beautiful as Mad Men characters & never quite pull it off. I never recognize the music. & still. I watch.

Do you have any shows that you know in your heart are not that good, but you still just want to keep watching? Mine currently is Suits, which Netflix had been aggressively advertising to me for a long time, & which I somehow did not initially realize was not a new show bc of said advertising.

Happy anniversary to my greatest career achievement.

The best part of Halloween was finishing a read aloud of The Graveyard Book with my daughter, on the most appropriate day.

I have a friend who teaches middle school social studies. She doesn’t let her students use “freedom” without saying freedom OF/TO/etc. In this case, a gun is giving 1 man freedom to terrorize 150,000 ppl, who have freedom to leave their houses & risk getting turned into smoothies by a man with a gun

Halloween reminder: the word Grimoire (book of magic) comes from the Old French word grammaire, or grammar. The word "spell," like a magical incantation, comes from the Germanic "spel" which means "storytelling."

English professors don't need costumes. We are all witches.