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Bertolt Ottoman

@trampolinechaplin.bsky.social
95 followers 75 following 611 posts

Escaped internment in the 20th century. Poet, historian, bookseller, father, Texican.

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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
Unserious click-bait journalism at its finest: "Six months into his term, the Trump administration is veering toward what some say could be a constitutional crisis."
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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
“Maybe light is a / pre-existing condition for love, an auspice of longing” — Alina Stefanescu (@alinaetc.bsky.social‬) . . . This poem appeared in Couplet Poetry, 2021. Shared here with deep gratitude.
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Truly wild, but I'm so old that John Entwhistle's body of work is now cooler than Daltrey and Townsend's combined. Weird.
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Ok, it's true, this happened on my watch.
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
A Lotto Carpet (Turkey, c 1600). Carpets displaying this striking design of stylized vegetal arabesques in yellow on a red background are often called "Lottos," after a famous altarpiece by the Italian Renaissance painter Lorenzo Lotto that depicts a similar textile.
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Alina Stefanescu @alinaetc.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
The usual collage of traces. www.alinastefanescuwriter.com/blog/2025/5/...
alinastefanescuwriter.com
"The dialectic of the heart" ... and art. — alina Ştefănescu
Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, but because it wishes to be art. The not-knowing is crucial to art, is what permits art to be made. Without the scanning process engendered by n...
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The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 16/05/2025
“Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Scenes from a Marriage,’ from 1973, is the greatest artistic exploration of the vicissitudes of marital loneliness,” Agnes Callard wrote, in 2021.
nyer.cm
The Problem of Marital Loneliness
The new “Scenes from a Marriage,” on HBO, avoids the dark questions that Ingmar Bergman confronted in the original.
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
Is there more free speech at Bari Weiss' University of Austin? No, decidedly less. And quite an ideological litmus test. Plus: if you're critical of anything Benjamin Netanyahu is doing, they'll be all in favor of kidnapping you and stashing you in a concentration camp somewhere.
quillette.com
Is the University Of Austin Betraying Its Founding Principles?
Created as a haven for free thinkers, UATX was the last place where I’d expected to encounter ideological litmus tests.
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George Smiley @mc2020.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
#FuckCrypto and the criminal oligarch nag it rode in on. It's a vehicle for crime and an egregious waste of electricity, consumption of which we must conserve, not massively increase for another fucking casino. Earth bats last. We don't have the luxury of such idiocies anymore. #MoneyAintBroke
coindesk.com
U.S. Crypto Market Structure Bill Unveiled by House Lawmakers
As a successor to the so-called FIT21 bill in the last session, the committee chairs in the House have released a discussion draft of a market structure bill.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 13/05/2025
Murphy: "There's no guarantee that we are gonna have a free and fair election in 2026. He's trying to rig our democracy, to destroy dissent, to cripple the opposition, so that even if his approval ratings are in the 30s next year, there isn't the ability for his opposition to muster a real campaign"
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” - Audre Lorde
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
When the Guggenheim introduced Hilma af Klint to New York in a blazing 2018-19 retrospective, it scooped sublime canvases out of obscurity and laid them out like freshly polished gems. They were big, abstract and geometrical, yet they also celebrated recognisable organic forms.
ft.com
Hilma af Klint at MoMA — artist who blended botany and mystery
Her portraits of flowers, on show in New York, are accompanied by symbols whose meanings remain an enigma
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
Francisco Collantes, Saint Onuphrius (Madrid, c 1645) The 5th cen St Onuphrius was a Persian who withdrew as a hermit to the desert of Thebes, where a raven miraculously brought his daily ration of food. At his feet, a crown and scepter allude to his royal origins as he was the son of a Persian king
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Pulitzer Season has begun. This is great local journalism.
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Sharon 🪳🌹 @sharonk.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
god it's so good
More MAGACath whining
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Danielle Froom 🏳️‍🌈 @danifroom.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
JERRY: they're all coping about the pope GEORGE: because the pope is woke? JERRY: because the pope is woke GEORGE: so... it's pope cope? JERRY: it's woke pope cope, George, woke pope cope!
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Ercelik v. Hyde
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Jack Hopkins-The Original @therealjackhopkins.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
The Psychology of Blind Loyalty: How Psychology Explains the Unwavering Support for Donald Trump www.jackhopkinsnow.com
open.substack.com
The Psychology of Blind Loyalty: How Psychology Explains the Unwavering Support for Donald Trump
The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #321
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TommasinaResist⚜️🦋🐈‍⬛ @tommasinaresist.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Brilliant. "I Never Thought the Leopards Would Eat My Face." Just everyone else's face. Oh dear.🐆 #USDemocracy #Voices4Victory
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Yea, she seized on the anti-Establishment angle without seeing that The Dude's libertarian daimon was moderated by the Dude's non-violent nature as well as by his highly-developed bullshit detector. Obviously, Ashli Babbit was not an English major.
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Ossoff better have pepper spray if he debates her in person.
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Peter Sagal @petersagal.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
You really want to scare those thugs? Re-open Shawshank.
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
LIST OF LAW FIRMS THAT BENT THE KNEE (or THE WILLINGLY EXTORTED): Kirkland & Ellis A&O Shearman Simpson,Thacher & Bartlett Latham & Watkins Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft Paul Weiss Milbank Wilkie, Farr & Gallager
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Van Badham @vanbadham.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
Canada, we’re with you! TRUMPISM IS REPUDIATED IN AUSTRALIA! #auspol
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
And also if you call them weird.
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
I wrote about watching Werner Herzog as a child and as an adult. bitter-meteoroid-729.notion.site/Enthusiasms-...
bitter-meteoroid-729.notion.site
Enthusiasms: Jeff Sharlet on Werner Herzog | Notion
I picked up an old New Yorker with an article about a pair of archaeologists who were attempting to settle the question of whether the Donner Party had, in fact, really cannibalized itself, but when I...
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
🤣😂🤣
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Guilty🕷Abroad @jjgass.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
I think Drew Ensign broke Judge Wilkinson
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Ok, Not on my bingo card: Al Gore firing up the moral fight against American fascism by referencing Jurgen Habermas and Theodor Adorno. DAMN!
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Kate Ross @kateross.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
🧵 Don’t “Hegsmith” your group chat. If you are new to protesting, a dissident or active it’s important to check your digital hygiene/opsec regularly. Check out this thread of comprehensive tools. First up Signal settings.
SETTINGS TO (BETTER) SECURE YOUR SIGNAL
Signal is not impermeable- at the end of the day, do not send anything you wouldn't want read back to you in court. Have in person conversations with your phones put away instead. If a comrade gets got with their phone unlocked, your messages will be visible to the kops (or other bad actors). Always remove comrades from chats if they enter custody. if you're in a group chat with a bunch of people you don't know, assume it is not secure. Beyond using your judgement, here are some helpful settings to best maintain the integrity of your signal messages.
• Accounts > registration lock: on
• Chats › generate link previews: off
• Chats › share contacts w/OS: off
• Notifications > show > no name or content ! super important !
• Privacy > disappearing messages: set default time period
• Privacy > hide screen in App Switcher: on
• Privacy > screen lock: on + screen timeout: short (disable biometrics)
• Privacy > advanced: always relay calls: on
• Incognito keyboard: on (android only)
Phone setting > 6 digit password (minimum)
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 23/04/2025
Thinking about the destruction of the NEH: the right is happy for people to study texts and ideas as long as the outcomes of that study is predetermined. This is why the right-wing loves and funds civic leadership institutes on college campuses devoted to the study of 'fundamental' texts and ideas.
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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Ahem stancilculture.substack.com/p/crisis-is-...
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Rue Sparks (They/Them) @ruesparks.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
In the Odyssey, Zeus proclaims “Ah how shameless—the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes, but they themselves, with their own reckless ways, compound their pain beyond their proper share.” This is where the Hubris Project begins. #indieauthor
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
"It's the Constitution, stupid."
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Today:
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Emily Carter @emilycurates.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
What you're seeing are wet microbursts—intense downdrafts from thunderstorms that slam rain into the ground, creating those stunning lobes. Like a reverse explosion from the sky. Captured in Perth, #Australia
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David Atkins @davidoatkins.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Trump's tariffs aren't just economics: they're a cultural purge designed to destroy white collar & knowledge work, deskill the country, force men into blue collar jobs & women to marry MAGA men, and render us all unable to resist fascism. My latest: washingtonmonthly.com/2025/04/08/t...
washingtonmonthly.com
Trump's Tariffs Aren't Economics. They're a Cultural Purge | Washington Monthly
Trump's blunderbuss tariff policies are a declaration of war on the half of America that didn’t vote for him.
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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 08/04/2025
NEW: The Supreme Court took 6 months to decide immunity, but just 6 days to effectively strip the rest of us of due process. My latest: www.muellershewrote.com/p/the-corrup...
muellershewrote.com
The Corrupt Supreme Court Strikes Again
The Supreme Court took 6 months to decide immunity, but just 6 days to effectively strip the rest of us of due process.
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WIRED @wired.com · 08/04/2025
Crossing into the United States has become increasingly dangerous for digital privacy, not only for non-citizens but for Americans as well. Here are a few steps you can take to minimize the risk of Customs and Border Protection accessing your data:
wired.com
How to Enter the US With Your Digital Privacy Intact
Crossing into the United States has become increasingly dangerous for digital privacy. Here are a few steps you can take to minimize the risk of Customs and Border Protection accessing your data.
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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Maddow tries to shake Jeffries into meeting the moment: "Policy doesn't feel like the main convo…we are in the middle of a Ketamine-fueled autocratic power grab rendering Congress irrelevant, making the rule of law an afterthought if not a joke”: Full: www.instagram.com/reel/DGe93bq...
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Maca Iglesias @rotterdamvvg.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Must-see thread👀 Where are the Democrats and what are they doing about the dismantling of the USAID? They are fighting back against the ultra rich taking over our institutions and country. Please repost so others can see their passion & fire! U.S. Senator @chrismurphy.bsky.social (D-CT) 👇🏻 1/3
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JJ in DC @jjindc.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
A Spoon is Better Than a Fork This was sent to all EEOC employees. Hit “Reply All,” y’all‼️
To: ANDREA LUCAS
Mon 2/3/2025 756 AM
Cc: ADMINISTRATIVE JUDGES; +29 others Good morning, Andrea. Apparently no one in leadership is willing to ring the alarm bells so it falls upon one of us to do it. The tactics you are employing and actions you have taken in lock step with this new administration are illegal and unconstitutional. You are not fit to be our chair much less hold a license to practice law. I will not participate in attempts to target private citizens and colleagues through the recent illegal executive orders. I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States, and the Commission serves the people of the United States. If you want to continue following the illegal and unethical orders of our president and the
unelected leader of "doge" that's on you. As I said in the email I sent to my colleagues yesterday (which was mysteriously deleted not only from their inboxes, but from my sent box), I know I take a great personal risk in sending out this message. But, at the end of the day, my actions align with what the EEOC was charged with doing under the law. I will not compromise my ethics and my duty to
uphold the law. I will not cower to bullying and intimidation. If upon reflection, you feel like now would be a good time to take a vacation and resign from your position, please 'reply all' to this email and put "I'd Like to Occupy Mars!" in the subject line. We will take this as
notification that you are resigning your position as acting chair.
P.S. Happy Black History Month!
Sincerely,
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Ron Deibert @rondeibert.bsky.social · 04/01/2025
Exciting that @criterion.bsky.social has a curated list of “Surveillance” related films! Their list, which includes THX1130, Citizen Four, The Conversation, The Anderson Tapes, & others inspired me to post a 🧵 with my own surveillance-related film picks www.criterionchannel.com/surveillance...
criterionchannel.com
Surveillance Cinema - The Criterion Channel
In a world where anyone might, at any moment, be spied on, who can you trust? It’s a fear that cinema, with its inherently voyeuristic nature, taps into with particular potency. Exploring concerns aro...
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Megan Abbott @meganabbott.bsky.social · 28/12/2024
In honor of his birthday, the extraordinary last paragraph of Charles Portis's TRUE GRIT:
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 24/12/2024
It's Almost Christmas
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
Induction song for Sisyphus gotta be Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone."
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Bertolt Ottoman @trampolinechaplin.bsky.social · 21/12/2024
What the actual hell. Suddenly Republicans don't want the debt ceiling eliminated? MAGA is being played, duped, and disrespected. They are going to tax-cut the billionaires again, just like they did in 2017. Wake up people.
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