Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 26/07/2026Biden was no great president, but doing jack shit wasn't one of his problems. The American Rescue Plan, Infrastructure Act, IRA, Veterans Health Act, pardoning all pot convictions, leaving Afghanistan—all of those were good achievements. Trump's reversed a lot. Here's the positive case for Biden: 11182
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 04/05/2026Today’s a pretty good day to try for Queen Bee. Only 111 points total. 000
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 21/04/2026Today’s a good day to go for Queen Bee in the NYT Bee. Only 18 words total. 010
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 07/04/2026If they ever make a movie of Astronaut Christina Koch, I think that @carriecoon.bsky.social would be a natural for the role. 100
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 06/04/2026Headline writer at NYT apparently not a native speaker of English—should be either "Farther From Earth" or "The Farthest From Earth". (Screenshot from NYT newsletter; a native speaker has since corrected the grammar on the actual NYT site.) Congrats to the astronauts regardless! 010
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 25/03/2026No expert here, but as Ascoli's independent existence was confirmed on Annunciation Day, Emidius might be pointing that connection out to Gabriel. Also, as Ascoli had been suffering hardship at the time of the painting, he might be asking for a bit of help. www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/ca... 211
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 21/02/2026Van B clearly liked that upside down foreshortened screaming pose, as he used it in another painting from the same year, Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan, now in the Rijksmuseum. Hard to watch, but not quite as purely horrific as Marsyas's fate. 100
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 21/02/2026Another van B I've seen in the flesh (so to speak) & adore is the creepy Apollo Flaying Marsyas in Houston. The scientific fascination of Apollo's gaze as he skins Marsyas alive will never not appall me. Love van B's posing poor Marsyas upside down & foreshortened. His scream's practically audible. 110
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 21/02/2026This painting, The Concert—whose home at the Detroit Institute of Arts I used to live near—is what first drew my attention to van Baburen & via him to other members of the Utrecht Caravaggisti, like Gerrit van Honthorst & Hendrik ter Brugghen. They're probably my fave Europainting cohort. 100
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 09/09/2025Epstein b'day book entry that most amazed me? 2 "tit prints" from Annie Sprinkle—"specially commissioned" by … Henry Rosovsky (!), econ prof & longtime Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at—& sometime interim president of—Harvard U (& later a longtime Harvard Corporation member). HR knew AS?! 040
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 06/09/2025The prime function of social media: shameless bragging. 010
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 17/06/2025"Thank you for your attention to this matter!" is a really weird way to end a tweet threatening murder. 020
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 31/05/2025This nearly identical trompe-l'oeil is by Filippo Abbiati, ca. 1690. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fi... How did he come to make such an extremely close copy of Vaillant's painting? 000
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 16/05/2025He's naming it after John Belushi's crazy drunk character in Animal House, Bluto Blutarsky. 010
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 07/05/2025LOVE this! But I gotta say that what makes M-D one of my fave novels is precisely its excurses, cetological & otherwise. For me, what's magical isn't the plot (peg-leg pursues white whale) but how Ishmael's mind transfigures whatever it brushes against—whales & whaling, sure, but other stuff too! 020
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 29/04/2025MacKenzie Scott Tuttle really is the kindest person. Weird, though, that she forgot to capitalize the "K" in her first name! 000
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 10/04/2025Love that you cite Daisy's "whispered enthusiastically" (odd combo)! Love that she follows it with "It's about the butler's nose." Gatsby contains so many deliciously surreal conversations & descriptions (women balloon, curtains whip, pictures groan, underwear snakes, banners tut-tut). Happy GG day! 010
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 22/03/2025Excellent description of the tech fascism now aiming to swallow the US. The GOP is "a host organism for the parasite of tech fascism," for sure, but Dems are infected too. A meaty installment of Edsall's usual roundup of academic/expert commentary. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/18/o... 292
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 21/03/2025This is extremely upsetting. Despite the fact that the state provided no actual evidence of harm suffered by cis people because of the presence of trans people in bathrooms, the court basically said the harm was just sort of obvious common sense. Awful. www.erininthemorning.com/p/9th-circui... 010
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 10/02/2025Just typed the words "Gulf of Mexico" into the Google Maps search bar. It returned this exact page. We live in the stupidest timeline.😡 Thanks, Trump voters! 010
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Instagram is now hiding the search results for #democrat but not for #republican. That’s totally bonkers. 010
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 20/01/2025Follow Listifications.app & it alerts you when someone adds your account to a list. I'm on various block lists for being a furry, a porn bot, & a Zionist. If you can find anything in my feed suggesting I'm any of those things, you have better eyes than I. Truth on this site is suffering a bit. 240
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 12/01/2025I'm certainly no expert, but I wonder if Ribera had seen van Baburen's version from the previous decade. I don't know of other treatments where Marsyas is so upended & foreshortened. Plus Apollo's serene concentration seems similar. 120
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 10/12/2024Alice Marwick describes the demise of mainstream media & the rise of youth influencer culture. Billionaires certainly won’t fund media that calls for their curtailment www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/the-... 020
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 23/11/2024Allowing landscape view would also make this silly squishing to the right of deep threaded comments much more palatable. Flip the phone sideways, & suddenly the right hand text would be wider & easier to read. Why is this feature not available here, as it is on X & Threads? 000
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 18/11/2024Absolutely. The reflexive reversal of victim & bully is a key move. Reminds me of this lovely joke from the underrated show Peacemaker, spoken by the title character, a jingoistic moronic douchebag. 110
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 13/11/2024Can't stop laughing at cabinet picks, each less qualified than the last. Rubio at least is an actual senator with experience on the foreign relations com, so SecState isn't completely nuts. But Hegseth for Defense! Thuggish Gaetz for AG! Too many words for a skeet, so here's a screen shot instead: 000
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 28/07/2024There are 2 main style guides that dominate published work in the US—the AP Stylebook (followed largely by newspapers) & The Chicago Manual (followed largely by academic & trade book publishers). Your textbook follows AP style. Chicago disagrees, & FWIW so does Strunk & White's Elements of Style. 010
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 28/07/2024The terrible copy editing at @nytimes.com is depressing. Here, "has" should be "have," because the antecedent of its subject ("that") is "media platforms," plural, not "one." 😢https://nytimes.com/2024/07/28/us/politics/far-right-miracle-cure-medbed.html 010
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 05/01/2024Biden wants to make direct filing of tax returns effortless & free for those with low income & easy returns. Eliminate tax preparers. Republicans & tax prep companies naturally oppose it, sounding like lunatics. WTF? Free NYT piece: www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/y... 012
Mika Cooper @mikacooper.bsky.social · 06/09/2023In a recent Vlog Brothers video @hankgreen.bsky.social postulated that, with his surprising new beard growth, he might look like "a nerdy Jason Statham," & I'm totally here for it (plus I laughed so hard my Apple watch remarked sarcastically about it). youtu.be/PCYKpj56Ss8?... 000
![An image of a handwritten note: "Dear Jeffrey, For the man who has almost everything—but never enough of these! Sent with best wishes for your 50th birthday. As ever," [blurry signature, but maybe "H"?]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:mhqaheimotlz2ucyzljd2cb4/bafkreiej4yat3epxpj62ejrywlyoigpssnk4wxhe766djq2va534ep45ma)
