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g.j.hilton

@hltn.bsky.social
1.3K followers 1K following 1.5K posts

historian of scenography interests: the spaces & material of spectacle (intermezzi, machines, festivals, feasts, fireworks), how & by whom they were made. magnificence… from below. before I was ill: choreographer, production designer, theatrical engineer

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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Much relieved that www.theschoolforscandal.com/collections/... sold this before I was forced to purchase It.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
❤️ The very sign I’ve been pleading with people not to make me tap for years! There is an intricate, altogether neglected history of performance there for the having that is way cooler than anyone has ever cared to discover. Wooden ‘O’? Yes, but who made the casques and how was the cramming done?
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Unboxing day! Over a decade in the making, NECESSARY INVENTIONS: ROGER BACON, THE MIDDLE AGES, AND THE MAKING OF MODERN SCIENCE (PENN Press) is a material object. Thank you to everyone who helped along the way. For sale on October 20. @pennpress.bsky.social
Photo of a box filled with multiple copies of the book. The cover is ochre, and has different images of Bacon, from manuscripts and printed books.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A decisive argument for studying the humanities is to ensure you don't end up some sort of flatlander who thinks only 'marketable skills' are worth learning.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Yesterday, the magnificently deranged Krampus Run folk paraded John Barleycorn through town. Ask me again why I love Whitby so much. Video by Michael Tomlinson, who i hope won’t mind my reposting it from www.instagram.com/p/Ddwugwpoaph/ marwood87.wixsite.com/michaeltomli...
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
You know a book pitch has done a proper number on you when you reach the end sick with anxiety in case it doesn’t live up to expectations and sicker with anxiety in case it does. I am positively panting to read this. press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
press.uchicago.edu
Operatic Infrastructures
An exploration of the fundamental relationship between opera and urban modernity in three iconic cities: London, Paris, and New York.At the end of the nineteenth century, London, Paris, and New York w...
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
‘The red and gold disease’ ❤️💛 (from Jean Cocteau’s autobiography, La Difficulté d’Etre.)
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Only Monday and it‘s already been quite a week for triumphal arch news…
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Armpit-deep in the literature on the ephemeral structure built for the Royal Fireworks in St James‘ Park 27/04/1748 - music by Handel etc - and um… why is nobody talking about the fact that the printed plans (both 1749, same publisher) DISAGREE FUNDAMENTALLY on the decor & disposition of the pyro?
Halfpenny, William, Parr, R., Brindley, J., Jolliff 

via  https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/collections/v/object-101762/a-plan-and-elevation-of-the-royal-fire-works-as-it-was-performd-in-st-jamess-park-april-the-27-1749-on-account-of-the-general-peace-signed-at-aix-la-chappelle-octr-7-1748/William Parr, but reading the caption, also published by Halfpenny & Brindley. What?

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_Y-8-82
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
One way and another, I owe Dumitrescu the most mountainous of debts and her pointer here to Joe Moran notches yet another entry into that ledger: “A sentence is not about self-expression but about editing your thoughts into a partly feigned fluency, building a ladder of words up to a better self.”
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
“[he] defiled more innocent paper than ever did Laxative Physicke” Some hapless, ill-advised contributor to a 1615 collection of ’characters’ had evidently taken a pop at the acting profession, provoking this riposte from one of Overbury’s ghost authors (tempting to imagine it was John Webster).
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
"une connaissance aussi aveugle que dans le corps à corps amoureux" Doubtless I’m indulging in all sorts of unhelpful national stereotypes but it feels like Anglophone scholarship can't really pull off this sort of writing and I wish, because I do kind of love it. (de Certeau, if you’re wondering)
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BCP Minus Context @bcpminuscontext.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
What help is there for us?
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andy™ @andylevy.net · 08/09/2026
werner herzog on AI filmmaking (from here www.indiewire.com/features/int...)
Q: A couple years ago at IDFA, I saw this movie "About a Hero," which is this partly Al-generated hybrid documentary that tries to recreate the atmosphere of your films.

A: The intention of this young filmmaker was never to remake any [of my films], but making something in the spirit. And I immediately said, "You will fail. It is such a stupid idea. It's phenomenally, abysmally stupid. I will not take part in it." He wanted me to explain things and have my voice in it.
I said, "You are alone. There's such a thing as free speech, which I respect. So go ahead and fail." And it is a failure, period.
It's so standardized that Al can step in because there's not real storytelling. It's mimicry of something that has happened before. And I welcome Al to replace all the idiots who are into nothing but repeating, repeating, repeating until it's ad nauseam.
When it's ad nauseam, please, please, please let Al step in and do the job.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
LLMs are a whole-population-level Sokal affair. Are sufficiently plausible configurations of language equivalent to thought? The premise is arsebackward. What’s interesting about thought at all is that it is difficult for humans to do, so it’s remarkable & moving when people are brave enough to try
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
LLMs are a whole-population-level Sokal affair. Are sufficiently plausible configurations of language equivalent to thought? The premise is arsebackward. What’s interesting about thought at all is that it is difficult for humans to do, so it’s remarkable & moving when people are brave enough to try
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Greene, Robert, 1558?-1592. The Scottish Historie of Iames the Fourth, Slaine at Flodden Entermixed with a Pleasant Comedie, Presented by Oboram King of Fayeries: As it Hath Bene Sundrie Times Publikely Plaide. Written by Robert Greene, Maister of Arts 1598. www.proquest.com/books/scotti....
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
ME: Fortunately I don’t have the gene which makes a person susceptible to movie memorabilia… THE INTERNET: uk.propstoreauction.com/view-auction... Apparently I was only £8,500 away from experiencing authentic emotional completeness.
uk.propstoreauction.com
THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997) - Zorg's (Gary Oldman) Animatronic Picasso Creature - Current price: £8500
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Breaking eyes & heart trying to read detail that just isn’t there in this 1569 drawing of Alfonso II d’Este‘s wildly spectacular naumachia, L'Isola Beata. At the climax, the island sank beneath the water of the city moat. I have SO MANY QUESTIONS Ferrara, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, Classe I, 814
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
There’s a Rocque London map (1746) for sale. WITH THE 8 SHEET DETAIL VIEW - first to come to market this century. With Forum Auctions on 24/11 at an estimate of £30-50k which is comic lowballing if ever I saw it. www.forumauctions.co.uk/bidding/1200... Once again, I am regretting my life choices.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
‘How in a Chamber you may see Hunting, Battles of Enemies, and other delusions’ Giambattista della Porta, Magia Naturalis ‘Natural Magick in XX books by John Baptist Porta’ (1668) archive.org/details/natu...
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
“Night-time apparition for terrifying spectators" - the first recorded magic lantern Johannes (Giovanni) de Fontana, Bellicorum instrumentorum liber, 1420. f. 70r daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0001/bsb...
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Stephen Conlon - London Bridge, 1590 Via www.countrylife.co.uk/architecture...
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
"The names of all the certaine officers, and souldiers of the selected bands in the parishes… of the Towne of Dover in the Counte of Kente" (August 1599). With Forum Auctions, 24.09.26 Est: £600 - 800 www.forumauctions.co.uk/bidding/1200...
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Rosemary Griggs @ragriggsauthor.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
In around 1563 William Shakespeare’s father, John, supervised whitewashing over the 15th century wall paintings in the Guild Chapel, Stratford on Avon. Careful restoration now gives us glimpses of extraordinary details. #wallpaintingswednesday
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Two events, both well-trodden in scholarship But connected by a coincidence so wild you couldn't invent it & having scoured 400 years‘ historiography, I can find no trace anybody noticed this previously. What do I do now? Does anywhere publish single-fact papers?! Journal of Unlikely Coincidences?
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Victoria Haddock @vickyhaddock.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
American filmmaker Tim Burton was born #OnThisDay in 1958. Colleen Atwood was Oscar nominated for her designs for Burton's Sleepy Hollow (1999), including this yellow brocade dress with black scrollwork worn by Miranda Richardson as Lady Van Tassel. Sold via ScreenUsed. #film #costume
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Michael Pearce @michaelpearce.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Costantini de' Servi, noted for his squeaky winch in the staging of The Somerset Masque, December 1613, did some other interesting stuff (news to me): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costant...
'Bildnis des Costantinvs de Servi, Digitaler Portrait Index: https://www.portraitindex.de/documents/obj/33900400
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
From: The order and solemnitie of the creation of the High and mightie Prince Henrie, eldest sonne to our sacred soueraigne, Prince of VVales, Duke of Cornewall, Earle of Chester, &c. As it was celebrated in the Parliament House, on Munday the fourth of Iunne last past. Together with the ceremonies of the Knights of the Bath, and other matters of speciall regard, incident to the same. Whereunto is annexed the royall maske, presented by the Queene and her ladies, on Wednesday at night following (1610)
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
This in an English diary of 1824, disapproving of Parisian glitz: “gingerbread equipage“. Knew that ‘équipage’ was horse and carriage, but truly delighted to learn that ‘gingerbread’ as an adjective (since the c17th!) meant superficially attractive, flashy, tawdry, insubstantial and over-decorated.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
The headgear is fully a vibe. Where, as the poet mused, did you get that hat? Where did you get that tile? Isn't it a nobby one and just the proper style? What is it? What’s the textile? Was everybody wearing whatever this is in #earlymodern London or was Pett extremely à la mode? #skystorians 🗃️
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I am training GANs - generative adversarial networks - to generate plausible adjacency graphs of early modern field systems. “How’s it going, Hilton?” “Glad” you asked. It’s <cough> early days. Like, I hope.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
“Long Acre, Charing Cross, Drury Lane” Mouthing melancholy formulae of incantation like some Aldi-own-label Iain Sinclair as I draw places Im too ill ever to visit again into a map of Jacobean London. My map illustrates [a thing nobody has noticed since the 1610s] and yes I do like doing history.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Please can you people just STOP writing brilliant, fascinating books I urgently need to devour. Bloody liberty of it, honestly.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Stockpiling problematic c19th antiquarian anthologies of primary sources which may be (toss a coin) either (a) sole recorded survival of a pivotal otherwise lost detail or (b) pure fabrication. One - from the delightful Orcadian Bookshop - came with this 😍 bookmark Cc @kirkwalltailors.bsky.social
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Gilliam’s Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus is not a good film. Waits, Garfield, Plummer throw themselves into it heroically but it might even be a bad film. But Dave Warren’s wagon isn't just my favorite production design ever, it might be my favorite ANYTHING ever. www.gilliamdreams.com/parnwarr.htm
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Saturday night, early twentysomething me would surely have agreed, is time for Riming Raggamuffin Rascallity. Puuuuull-up! Wheel an come again!
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Disney Patent Reveals New Elevation Change Illusion for Theme Park Attractions blogmickey.com/2026/08/disn...
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
🎺 🎺 🎺 ANNOUNCING: SelectedHighlights 🎺 🎺 🎺 SelectedHighlights is a LaTeX package that applies coloured tags - eg to highlight syntax, themes, etc - to running copy, revealing text structure. github.com/gjhilton/Sel... (Beta release - please try it out & feed back!)
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Somehow I had not previously had the privilege and pleasure of buying from @treadwells-books.bsky.social but WILL YOU LOOK at the evident love lavished on my copy of @hookland.bsky.social Fragments! Then again it figures that they of all shops would understand that books are power objects.
A small black covered book exquisitely wrapped in semiopaque pink tissue, sealed with a sticker with engraved logo, and with a bookmark tucked into the wrapping with the same logo.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
I have just sent an IMPORTANT and SCARY email to which I have many hopes pinned. Please give me a bag of sweeties as a reward for being a brave lad.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
For cautious, measured reportage of c17th theatre, free of bias or sensationalism always ask: what would William Prynne do? These would be the perfectly sensible chapters according to his Histrio-Mastix (1632) #prynnespiration
- Ale-houses/Tavernes
- Beare-gardens
- Brothel-houses/Stewes
- Church-yards
- Churches
- Court/Palaces
- Courtyards
- Dancing-schooles
- Horse-faires
- Innes of Court
- Market places
- May-poles
- Priuate houses
- Schooles
- Towne-halls
- VniversitiesOur hero.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Colossal fan of Terry Dresbach‘s costume design work since Carnivàle. On Zuckverse sorry but don’t miss her 😍 moodboards for S2 of Outlander. Hell yes to the distinction she draws that mood boards are for mood (ie only) because she has reference books for accuracy www.instagram.com/p/Dbzo3djjWmb/
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Under the daily attrition of sifting paper after paper, over time one begins to drift out of calibration. Then THIS happens and you‘re forcibly, painfully, thrillingly, reminded what proper oldskool erudition can do when deployed with acuity & imagination as force multipliers. Home. ****ing. Run.
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
One infers tone of voice in Edward VI’s weirdo diary at one’s peril but this seems significantly more casual an occasion for a naumachia than the usual total of 8 between 1487-1612 would imply. London did everything on the Thames. I’d lay money they happened much more frequently than now attested.
Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth, ed. John Gough Nichols (2 vols, London: J.B. Nichols and Sons, 1857), vol. 2, p. 279
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Dr Anna Clark @drannaclark.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
The idea of universal architecture: Vincenzo Scamozzi, influential Renaissance architect, died #OTD 1616; completed Palladio’s Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza in 1585, with celebrated trompe-l’oeil scenery, the oldest surviving stage set. UNESCO World Heritage Site
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Samuel Pepys @samuelpepys.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Into a puppet play in Lincolnes Inn Fields, where there was the story of Holofernes, and other clockwork, well done.
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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 05/08/2026
"The best thing for being sad is to learn something. This is the only thing that never fails." I swear I'm going to memorize this quote (and possibly also reread The Once and Future King)
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g.j.hilton @hltn.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Woah. *************. *******-****. Yes.
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