Dr Abigail Boucher

Cover for Fahrenheit 451, showing a very shiny full-face fireman's helmet, reflecting the image of a burning book

Loads of people guessed correctly! Our next very banned (and, ironically, often burned) book is Ray Bradbury's 1953 dystopia about the perils of anti-intellectualism, 'Fahrenheit 451'.

Tune in on 13 August for a lot of histrionics about technology!

Meet the Gen Zers who have sworn off AI — and ask their friends to do the same Some Gen Zers are firmly rejecting AI tools in their daily lives. We talked to four people, ages 23-27, who explained why they won't touch the tech.

🫡

baby needs pasta grocery store sign

rolling up to the Olive Garden like

Enough time has passed.

We need to all finally admit that, while he looked very hot doing so, Stanley Tucci makes the worst fucking cocktails I have ever tasted.

Oh, that was a season 3 surprise

It is so wonderfully ... something that it becomes weekly therapy. I love it, I cannot live without it

My greatest, most therapeutic experience is hate-watching 'And Just Like That'.
I thought I had plumbed the depths and gotten everything I could get from this.
Until out of nowhere
Carrie Bradshaw
started to write
shitty neo-Victorian fiction
*pterodactyl scream*

ATTENTION ALL PERVS: our 69th episode, covering John Cleland's 1749 erotic novel 'Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure' (AKA 'Fanny Hill'), is out now!

Expect strapping footmen, polite applause during orgies, and plenty of red-hot turtlebilling!

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/e...

Join us on Wednesday for our episode on John Cleland's seminal (heh) erotic work, 'Fanny Hill' (1748).
In addition to lots of strange euphemisms for body parts, be prepared to learn about some bizarre sex acts, like (the maybe less dirty than originally thought) 'turtlebilling'.

(Leading him to the Sphinx) Yeah, it’s like a trivia night

In our 14 years together, my husband has listed me in his phone as:

-Me Little Muppet
-Right Little Bitchington
-Satan's Niece
-My Good Lady-Wife
-Useless Bit o' Raspberry

I just called him and saw the name 'Bitch Pudding' come up, for reasons I cannot fathom. It's how we keep the magic alive.

Whenever someone—and it’s usually an agèd, agèd man—asks where all the great writers are today, I usually think two things. First, it’s a sign they don’t read much contemporary work: they don’t know who the important writers are now, and they mistake their knowledge gap for a gap in the real world.

A fun poll for literature people and fans of the show! Which texts do you want us to cover in Season 7?

We'll be focusing on lighter, campier, more fun texts after this gruelling season on banned books.

Illustrated image of a woman reading a book and sexily biting her fingernail. Oooer! Steamy!

Time to guess the clue to our next episode!
We're labelling our run of summer episodes: 'Hot, Hotter, and Hottest'.
Our next episode (Hotter) covers an erotic text that is also a literary classic and a very, very banned book.
What are we reading?

(it is NOT 'Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life')

At no point in this study did I use AI. This includes the literature review, logical organization, writing, analysis, and proofreading. I do not cite any studies that use AI, to the extent that it is possible to know.

Yesterday I used this "AI -Free Statement" in a conference talk for the first time. Still trying to figure out the exact language.

Feel free to borrow, modify, etc.

katie @katefeetie put a fried egg on my croque monsieur to make it a croque madame and now jk rowling is outside my house yelling

This is THE tweet of all time

Have discovered this Black-owned, independent bookstore in Petersburg, VA, that focuses on uplifting diverse voices and fostering community engagement. They have a robust online bookstore as well. Please share and help to get the word out! resistbooksellers.com

Hey Academia.edu, I didn't want or give permission for this! What is WRONG with you, you predatory, unethical ghouls?

The only other time I have deleted a profile this quickly was when Duolingo fired all their staff for AI.

If a colleague had the reliability rate of an LLM, they would be fired. If ordinary* software did, it would be uninstalled.

LLMs require the chat format, because chat makes us party to the conversation. We insert the meaning ourselves - and hold it to a different standard. It's the mirror effect.

A WhatsApp chat screen showing a picture of people in Sweden dancing around a Midsummer maypole, followed by a conversation saying: ME: Odds of you being selected the flower queen or whatever? Or [Redacted Name] ending up in the bear suit? Redacted Swedish Friend: Low but never zero

Twice a year (Midsummer and Gävle Goat season), my Swedish friends keep me on a RAZOR'S EDGE

Seriously! I don't know why it's so hard to just keep your eyes to yourself in a changing room. If I see a bit of skin in my periphery, I look away.
I don't stare at people who are trying to change, because I'm not a FUCKIN' WEIRDO.

People really underestimate the effect of "making fascists' jobs miserable and tedious" at a mass scale, especially when those fascists are in it for the excitement and feeling of power.

Everything you can do to slow down ICE's ethnic cleansing pogrom will save lives.

If you make it so it takes 12 goons to do a 6-goon job, you're saving lives. Every minute they spend in location 1 is a minute they can't spend in location 2.

Every squad they deploy to your city saves another city.

I am once again pitching my romantic comedy:

- two academics start dating
- discover they are each other's terrible reviewer
- hijinks ensue

Working title: Love is Double-Blind

Cover of Streetcar showing a still from the film, in which a shirtless Marlon Brandon has just made you horny

Cover of Streetcar with an illustrated half-naked Stanley calls 'Hey Stella' up to Eunice's apartment.

Slightly surreal and colour saturated cover of Streetcar, showing a sexed-up Blanche in a negligee brushing her hair behind a curtain, while men play poker a few feet away. It's all very 'Yoo hoo, boys!'

Extremely '60s Mondrian-style colour squares with the words 'A Streetcar Named Desire' over the top. A production directed by Chris Coleman.

Happy Pride, everyone! Today we look at Tennessee Williams's slutty 1947 play, 'A Streetcar Named Desire'.
We talk po'boys, suffer through a massive recording equipment failure, and Daniel reveals himself to be both the podcast's Brando AND a thriving gay man. 🌈
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

TOMORROW: We cover the first installment in Tennessee Williams' highly popular Historic Tramways of New Orleans Extended Theatrical Universe™: 'A Streetcar Named Desire' (1947).

FEAT: the bleeping out of the word 'tosser'.

Tune in!

That's funny. I'll give that a lil likey-like.

Another one! Sophronius Stocking Landt (businessman, 1870s)

Fabulous C19th name I found doing research:

Euclid J. Bourgeois (Wisconsin lumber camp cook, 1889)

My dad very confidently misremembers the names of things from my childhood.
Apparently the Ninja Turtles are name Mario, Luigi, Donatello, and Arrevaderci.
The Little Mermaid is called 'Ariana & the Sea Dragon'.
American Girls are Diane (Felicity), Gertie (Kit), Rose (Samantha), and Tricia (Molly).