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Evan Nicoll-Johnson

@evnj.bsky.social

847 followers 1.8K following 109 posts

Narrative, manuscript culture, environment & literature in early medieval China (3rd-8th centuries, or something)

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Evan Nicoll-Johnson @evnj.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

I think Spielberg saw this tweet and it bothered him so much he had to make Disclosure Day

Screenshot of the famous tweet that says "Me and my friends would've killed E.T. with hammers I can tell you that much"

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Evan Nicoll-Johnson @evnj.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

They're just like me.... (From excellent 2015 article by Sheng Yang on movitations for compiling zhiguai collections in the Qing dynasty)

Table displaying possible motivations for compiling accounts of anomalies (志怪) in the Qing dynasty, "Career Setback or exam failure, poverty, life setback, emotional misery, bad health, longing for literary fame, penchant for the six dynasties" (From Sheng Yang 盛洋 “The Revival of Zhiguai 志怪 Storywriting in the Qing Dynasty: In Search for Its Reasons” Monumenta Serica 63, no. 2 (2015): 295–326.)

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Evan Nicoll-Johnson @evnj.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

...is there a short explanation of why both of these forms of 過 exist and seem to be displayed randomly, esp. when the simplified form is just 过?

Character 過 with top component of 咼 written with one stroke extending from the left side to the center and then down

Character 過 with top component of 咼 written with one stroke extending from the center to the right side, and another stroke extending from the center down

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Evan Nicoll-Johnson @evnj.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

David Lynch as John Ford in the Fabelmans, in the scene where he explains that when the horizon's in the middle it's boring as shit

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Evan Nicoll-Johnson @evnj.bsky.social · 07/11/2024

Photograph of a beautiful black and white cat sitting in a chair at the dining table like a person.

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Evan Nicoll-Johnson @evnj.bsky.social · 12/04/2024

My best guess is this is Liu Tanzhi 劉坦之. He is quoted in Ding Fubao's annotations, where he makes the connection to the term as used in Huainanzi. I don't know where Ding is getting Liu's comments, though, since I don't have the full Ding ed, only Wang Shumin's 王叔岷陶淵明詩箋證稿, see screenshot

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Evan Nicoll-Johnson @evnj.bsky.social · 04/04/2024

Here are the relevant pages from 陶靖節詩箋! It looks like the provided characters are mǎngláng 莽䍚, yǎngmǎng 泱漭, and tǎngmǎng 儻莽.

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Evan Nicoll-Johnson @evnj.bsky.social · 17/01/2024

Enjoying these 14th century illustrations of the Chu ci's 'Nine Songs', by Zhang Wo 張渥, imitating the Song dynasty painter Li Gonglin 李公麟 (d. 1106). This one depicts the "Martyrs of the Realm" 國殤.

Chinese painting of several armed soldiers exiting a forest. From the Guo shang 國殤 section of the Jiu ge tu 九歌圖 of Zhang Wo 張渥, after Li Gonglin 李公麟. Cleveland museum of art.

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