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My favorite character in Das Rheingold, and some of my favorite music!

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One of the things I appreciate so much about our mayor is the bread-and-roses approach he's bringing. It's the combination of pragmatic reforms (pothole filling, rent freezes, child care) with a deep understanding that everyone needs the arts in their lives in some way. And that feels so rare.

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Between this and the opera tickets giveaway, I'm so delighted.

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Can't come soon enough. This week has been exhausting.

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Happily brainstorming UK travel plans around #QueerBibliography in late August/early September 2027. How many operas can I see and how many special collections can I visit in one trip?

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Sarah Pyke @sarahpyke.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Extremely excited to share the CFP for the ✨fifth✨ annual #QueerBibliography conference! bit.ly/QB2027CfP When? 2-4 September 2027 Where? Manchester, UK & online Theme: TAKING STOCK Deadline for abstracts: 29 January 2027 Decisions: by 12 March 2027 Submit here: forms.gle/WGjXKA1d6gWm...

Queer Bibliography
Taking Stock
Manchester, UK and online
2-4 September 2027

Call for Proposals

Since the inaugural 2023 conference, queer bibliography has grown from an interesting concept to a burgeoning field. Our 2027 theme, Taking Stock, marks the fifth annual conference and is a chance to pause and reflect on genealogies of the field, the present state of queer bibliographical enquiry, and our senses of the future. How might we trace queer histories of queer bibliography? How can we imagine critical futures for bibliographical enquiry within and beyond its traditional academic locations? Where do we find ourselves and our work?

Stock also has meaning in bibliography. While “stock” originally referred to a tree trunk or plant stem, and figuratively to the source of a line of descent or even a human torso, it later began to connote an aggregate of goods—in the context of bookmaking, one might own a stock of paper or pasteboard. Towards the mid-nineteenth century, “paper stock” began to connote the raw material of paper itself. “Stock” might refer to the inventories of booksellers, the process of beginning and curating an institutional or personal collection, and the supply and material characteristics of paper. From the raw materials of books to the origins and shapes of personal, commercial, and institutional collections, how does "stock" participate in the production, articulation, and study of queer textuality and textual communities? What is queer about materiality, the ecology of books, and the processes of making and engaging with (collections of) physical textual objects?

We invite participants to engage in stock-taking or reflect on
bibliographical stock, broadly defined. We welcome meta, theoretical, and historiographical work that takes stock of queer bibliography, and we
welcome proposals that relate to “stock” in bibliography, book history, and reception studies.

This three-day hybrid conference will be hosted at the John Rylands
Library, part of the University of Manchester, and online on 2–4 September 2027. The conference will feature two days of panels, conversation, and discussion on 2 and 3 September and will be followed by an optional workshop on 4 September. Conference programming may also include evening receptions, tours of Manchester libraries (including Chetham’s Library, the oldest public library in England), and collection viewings at the Rylands.

The conference welcomes participants from a diverse range of fields and
career stages, including: book arts practitioners, activists, postgraduates,
early career researchers, independent scholars, librarians, archivists, and
booksellers, both in person and via video conference. As in past years, the goal of the broadly articulated theme of “taking stock” is to bring people in and to shape conversation, not to exclude or limit. All submissions that engage with the intertwined relationship between queerness and bibliography are encouraged.

Participants will be invited to submit a 2000-word pre-circulated paper,
before presenting in panels of 10-minute papers. We also welcome
alternative contributions, such as workshops, roundtables, or self-organised seminars and creative presentations, with a pre-circulated submission that provides a grounding for the conference contribution.

Contributors should submit an abstract of 200–300 words, along with a
short bio, by 29 January 2027:

https:/ /forms.gle/WGjXKA1d6gWmtfjZ8

Prospective speakers will be informed of the outcome by 12th March. Pre-circulated papers will be collected and shared in mid-July.

Any questions should be directed to: queerbibliography@gmail.com

http://queerbibliography.org

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

OK, I really needed this. (Turn the sound up.)

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Father Mapple would've loved this pulpit. 🐋

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Who else is already exhausted and it's only the middle of the week.

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Tech industry is laser focused on solving the problem of humans enjoying each other’s company bsky.app/profile/down...

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Reposted by Amanda Watson

Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Everyone employed at a postsecondary institution (& esp deans of students) should read Kate Manne's powerful essay: "Cease to be a place where sexual assault is often subject to less punishment than protesting and plagiarism. ... become a place where our sons are not initiated into rape culture."

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

This (from the MIT faculty newsletter) is brilliant, and has me thinking a lot about the uses of satire in the current state of higher ed.

fnl.mit.edu

How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Campus Surveillance – MIT Faculty Newsletter

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Jessica Price @delafina777.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The only men that any of us should be trusting are men who have decentered men: That is, stopped treating men’s approval and validation as more valuable than women’s, and especially as more valuable than women’s safety and trust. And yes, doing that has costs. Women pay them either way.

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

(also any going-to-the-opera bag MUST have room for all the usual essentials plus small binoculars, the playbill, extra tissues if it's a sad one, maybe a sandwich and/or small thermos if it's going to be a long evening, etc. Tiny evening clutches are useless for the purpose.)

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

In my own case I'm looking for: tote-bag-esque size/shape; big enough for a notebook or small laptop but not bulky; nice enough to go from work to the opera or a concert. But also somewhat androgynous-looking, because it turns out I have a lot of gendered baggage (ha) around purses and handbags.

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Bookmarking this thread as I'm on a similar quest!

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Leigh Walton @leighwalton.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Glad we're excited about opera today because MusicDrama.net has updated again! It's the the most lesbian opera ever written by two straight men about a himbo twink and a middle-aged princess… a show about a breakup that sounds like the end of the world… Strauss & Hofmannsthal's DER ROSENKAVALIER!

musicdrama.net

Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier

The Basics Der Rosenkavalier [The Rose-Knight]Music by Richard Strauss Words by Hugo von Hofmannsthal Language: German Premiere date: January 26, 1911 [Image: Cover design by Frank Parisi for the 1…

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Oh man, how was the Greenwood preview?

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

For a few minutes there the light was the strangest, most magical orange-pink, and I could see a bit of the rainbow from my windows. (No photos because my phone wouldn't do it justice.)

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Moonstruck is my personal fave, but there's also the one scene I actually liked in HANNIBAL (2001):

youtu.be

Hannibal 2001 "Vide cor Meum" scene

YouTube video by skyhawk747

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This has made my entire day, maybe my entire week. Opera for the people! Performing arts as part of a city's quality of life! Getting people who've never seen an opera interested in it! I couldn't possibly love this more.

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Amanda Watson @amndw2.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

[emerging wild-eyed from a screening at BAM and stopping people like the Ancient Mariner outside the church:] Every academic of my acquaintance needs to go see CHRONOVISOR immediately. Run don't walk. Like RIGHT NOW, so we can talk about it.

youtu.be

CHRONOVISOR | Official Trailer

YouTube video by Grasshopper Film

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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH

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Sorry I missed you! Was going to try to find you afterward but there's always too much chaos as everyone's leaving.

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I won't spoil how they stage Macbeth's eventual demise but it felt highly Jacobean-period-appropriate.

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This is somehow the third Met production I've seen in the past year with staged pregnancy/childbirth (the others were I Puritani and Tristan und Isolde). It's the only one where that choice actually made sense, even though the libretto leaves out Lady M's reference to having had a child.

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Quick impressions: Davidsen and Kelsey both great; witches effectively uncanny; loved the eruption of greenery when Birnam Wood appears at the end. Louisa Proske's director's note mentions her long history with and fascination with Macbeth the play, which I could see all over this production.

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Verdi said “Only three witches? Not nearly enough witches. We need an entire chorus of them. MOAR WITCHES.”

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Obligatory operagoing photos — enjoying it a lot!

Program for MACBETH at the Metropolitan Opera with the stage in the background.

Self-portrait in a fancy floral blazer with one of the Met’s chandeliers behind me.

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It’s Macbeth time! I’m glad I dressed up a bit.

The Metropolitan Opera House under a cloudy sky with people milling around and a big banner for this season’s production of Verdi’s MACBETH.

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Who else in NYC-area OperaSky is going to see Macbeth at the Met tonight? (Side question: are there superstitions about this opera similar to the superstitions about the Scottish play in the theater world? I've always wondered.)

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Ouch! I always remember this tweet from the former bird site:

Tweet from C.M. Galdre (@CMGaldre):

Wild bee: just getting snack
Me: no prob bee

Mason bee: just make house
Me: build a way b

Honey bee: jus sampling the lavenders
Me: you know I got an assortment

Bumble bee: hey *bonk* I jus *bonk* I h
Me: *holds flower still*

Wasp: I'LL SEE U IN HELL
Me: U TELL THEM WHO SENT U

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It's no longer in my apartment, at least! But yeah, not the way I wanted to celebrate "finally open the windows" weather.

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