Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 21/09/2026On Saturday I went on a tour of this giant water pipe that they are building along the Potomac River to keep sewage from getting in. It’s 100 feet underground and about 20 feet wide. They are using this huge borer tool named Emily to drill the tunnel. It was really cool! #dc #potomac 030
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 15/08/2026Something that went across my desk today: an inscribed copy of Helen Keller’s 1929 autobiography, Midstream. I had never seen her handwriting before this. #helenkeller @LibraryCongress #rarebooks #disabilitystudies 1157
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 18/07/2026I live in DC- the National Guard are standing around bored, usually friendly and chatty if you nod or say hello. They don’t talk politics. Now ICE and arrests at the reflecting pool by US Marshals are a different story- they need to leave ASAP. 200
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 08/07/2026Looking through the Almanac Collection here at Library of Congress, I stumbled upon this, printed in Kingston, Jamaica in 1782 (only 1 other copy). There are several annotations, including this one about a business deal in Charleston, S.Carolina in 1783. #rarebooks #bookhistory #almanacs #Jamaica 090
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 07/07/2026Something that crossed my desk today, Bickerstaff’s Boston Almanack (1783). #rarebooks #bookhistory #americana #histsci #astronomy #almanacs 070
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 04/07/2026In my apartment in DC near the Capitol Mall, and I think I’ve just experienced about five sonic booms from military jets overhead in the past 20 minutes … 001
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 04/07/2026Barry and I just spent the week in Chapel Hill NC visiting friends who are retiring there. We liked it, and it checks a lot of our retirement boxes: liberal university town, good food, international airport (RDU), etc. Photos are: on the UNC campus and me at the CH Arts Center … 030
Reposted by Michael NThe Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 03/07/2026Michael J. North takes a look at one of the most important books in the history of veterinary medicine — Markham’s Masterpiece — a seminal 17th-century work on the care of horses. publicdomainreview.org/essay/markha… 0475
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 29/06/2026Who would have thought I’d see another Great Blue Heron?! This one in the York River at Yorktown, Virginia. #greatblueheron #yorktown #birds #birding #heron 010
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 22/06/2026I walked to the now infamous Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial yesterday. Yes, it’s full of very thick algae- so much that I couldn’t see any sign of the blue paint. There were 12 employees of the Nation Park Service with vacuums sucking up the goo. 041
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 19/06/2026Pricey, but I suggest Annabelle at Florida and R where Nora’s used to be 100
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 13/06/2026Partly because cars last so much longer than they used to. Our car is 20 years old and has never really broken down. 000
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 04/06/2026This thing is going to be blown up the day he leaves office. 010
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 04/06/2026I didn’t ever know that nose gear Could retract. Go figure. 000
Reposted by Michael NThe New Yorker @newyorker.com · 04/06/2026Today’s Daily Cartoon, by Elisabeth McNair. 1478
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 24/05/2026I saw this beautiful Great Blue Heron on the Potomac River today just outside Georgetown. I got fairly close, and I’d say it was three or four feet tall, with beautiful plumage. Very rare in this area. #greatblueheron 010
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 22/05/2026Because Apple isn’t already making enough money from us all 000
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 18/05/2026A Secret History by Donna Tartt (not recommended) and The Anglo-Saxons by Marc Morris 000
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 30/04/2026When recipes have ten or twelve ingredients, they are not easy to make during the work week. 000
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 12/04/2026A bittersweet evening as we go to the Kennedy Center for what could be the last time, or at least for a long while. 000
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 11/04/2026If you don’t get access to it by the end of the weekend, let me know. I’m very interested myself! 110
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 28/03/2026Thank you for finally outing Willa and trashing the prudish doubters. As a queer reader, it’s plain as day that she was a lesbian! 000
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 07/03/2026A great week in Palm Springs with friends and beautiful weather 120
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 13/02/2026I stopped using Academia a while ago because I didn’t want to pay, yet they had the nerve to ask to verify if I was the author of various engineering articles by someone with the same name; in other words they wanted to charge me AND wanted me to help improve their data for free. 010
Reposted by Michael NThe New Yorker @newyorker.com · 10/02/2026Becca Rothfeld, a former critic at the Washington Post, on the death of the paper’s books section. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/zmzLbNnewyorkermag.visitlink.meThe End of Books Coverage at the Washington Post Becca Rothfeld, a former critic at the Washington Post, on the death of the paper’s books section. 411840
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 04/02/2026Something that went past my desk this morning: Paolo Morosini’s De Aerterna temporalique (Padua, 1473) lccn.loc.gov/2014659086 @LibraryCongress #incunabula 093
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 01/02/2026So in the UK there is no such thing as testifying before Parliament? US congress can’t interview everyone in those emails, and Mandelson is more answerable to Brits than the US, where nobody has heard of him. 100
Michael N @belgrade18.bsky.social · 25/01/2026Walking in a winter wonderland in Washington, DC today! 140
