Ryan Cordell
@ryancordell.org
he/him—textual technologies enthusiast—Associate Professor at UIUC's School of Information Sciences & Department of English—co-director of the Viral Texts Project (viraltexts.org) & Director @skeuomorphpress.org —also https://theanxiousbench.bandcamp.com
Pinned
Ryan Cordell
@ryancordell.org
· Sep 5
Exhalation EP, by The Anxious Bench
3 track album
theanxiousbench.bandcamp.com
Late this summer I got to go into the studio with @pablohutch.bsky.social & our buddy Tim to record some tunes—and our EP is up today on Bandcamp!
I feel a little weird as a middle-aged dude asking folks to listen to my band—but I'm pretty proud of these songs & would love if y’all gave em a listen
I feel a little weird as a middle-aged dude asking folks to listen to my band—but I'm pretty proud of these songs & would love if y’all gave em a listen
I’ve been waiting to share until the ink was dry—but in <2 weeks I’ll be driving up to Iowa with our stalwart head of facilities to pick up 248† new metal & wood fonts for @skeuomorphpress.org — we’re buying the collection of a printer retiring at just 85 years old
†yes, you read that right—248
†yes, you read that right—248
February 9, 2026 at 10:55 PM
I’ve been waiting to share until the ink was dry—but in <2 weeks I’ll be driving up to Iowa with our stalwart head of facilities to pick up 248† new metal & wood fonts for @skeuomorphpress.org — we’re buying the collection of a printer retiring at just 85 years old
†yes, you read that right—248
†yes, you read that right—248
not gonna lie, felt a little smug when I had a colleague observe my teaching today & afterwards they asked, "how in the world to you get them to talk so much?"
When the answer of course is "it’s not that hard when you give them kickass old shit to look at during discussion"
When the answer of course is "it’s not that hard when you give them kickass old shit to look at during discussion"
February 9, 2026 at 9:09 PM
not gonna lie, felt a little smug when I had a colleague observe my teaching today & afterwards they asked, "how in the world to you get them to talk so much?"
When the answer of course is "it’s not that hard when you give them kickass old shit to look at during discussion"
When the answer of course is "it’s not that hard when you give them kickass old shit to look at during discussion"
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Our workshop with @blountben.bsky.social last week was a blast—we still can’t believe everyone made 3 books in just one two hour workshop!
Thanks to Ben Blount and everyone who came to the Making an Artist’s Book workshop at the Champaign-Urbana Community Fab Lab last week. We hope you had fun making your creations! ✂📃
February 9, 2026 at 5:57 PM
Our workshop with @blountben.bsky.social last week was a blast—we still can’t believe everyone made 3 books in just one two hour workshop!
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
I say this regularly. People use performative as a substitute for 'inauthentic' and we could all just say the words we mean to say. Erving Goffman helps us to understand that we perform all of the time in real life. Life itself is often a performance of self.
People have worn out "performative." We often perform things that are real, you know. Posting is a kind of performance of one's politics. Performative doesn't actually mean "fake" or "empty," it just gets deployed that way. We actually need performance. Case in point: last night's performance.
February 9, 2026 at 3:57 PM
I say this regularly. People use performative as a substitute for 'inauthentic' and we could all just say the words we mean to say. Erving Goffman helps us to understand that we perform all of the time in real life. Life itself is often a performance of self.
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
New internet sorts from Skylinr Type Foundry arrived, for all your URL/social media letterpress printing needs!
February 9, 2026 at 4:04 PM
New internet sorts from Skylinr Type Foundry arrived, for all your URL/social media letterpress printing needs!
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
It was such a pleasure to be a guest member of The Anxious Bench for the local Americana Happy Hour.
A clip from “Lucifer Matches” at the Rose Bowl this past Thursday, with new Anxious Bench band member Drew on mandolin, guest David on his custom cello-bass, & Michelle & Dan from the Foothill Rounders on vocals & fiddle
I like this configuration a lot—“The Anxious Foothills” has a nice ring to it
I like this configuration a lot—“The Anxious Foothills” has a nice ring to it
February 8, 2026 at 6:52 PM
It was such a pleasure to be a guest member of The Anxious Bench for the local Americana Happy Hour.
A clip from “Lucifer Matches” at the Rose Bowl this past Thursday, with new Anxious Bench band member Drew on mandolin, guest David on his custom cello-bass, & Michelle & Dan from the Foothill Rounders on vocals & fiddle
I like this configuration a lot—“The Anxious Foothills” has a nice ring to it
I like this configuration a lot—“The Anxious Foothills” has a nice ring to it
February 8, 2026 at 3:29 PM
A clip from “Lucifer Matches” at the Rose Bowl this past Thursday, with new Anxious Bench band member Drew on mandolin, guest David on his custom cello-bass, & Michelle & Dan from the Foothill Rounders on vocals & fiddle
I like this configuration a lot—“The Anxious Foothills” has a nice ring to it
I like this configuration a lot—“The Anxious Foothills” has a nice ring to it
Judging from TV commercials, America’s economy in 2026 is 50% sports betting, 10% betting on the literal news, 20% erectile dysfunction pills, & 20% weight loss injections
Love this for us all
Love this for us all
February 7, 2026 at 11:17 PM
Judging from TV commercials, America’s economy in 2026 is 50% sports betting, 10% betting on the literal news, 20% erectile dysfunction pills, & 20% weight loss injections
Love this for us all
Love this for us all
The students in BookLab this semester are so delightfully nerdy there were audible gasps & oooohs when we explained how the Hinman Collator in @illinoisrbml.bsky.social works. This is the level of geekiness I aspire to find in every class
February 6, 2026 at 8:53 PM
The students in BookLab this semester are so delightfully nerdy there were audible gasps & oooohs when we explained how the Hinman Collator in @illinoisrbml.bsky.social works. This is the level of geekiness I aspire to find in every class
there are few things more humbling than having a 14-year-old child
I find it absolutely hilarious that Little J (who's 14 and not so little) has taken to referring to @ryancordell.org research as 'dad's little essays.'
February 6, 2026 at 4:04 PM
there are few things more humbling than having a 14-year-old child
Oh man—after a few tough rejections, kiddo got into his reach school—one of the best theater tech programs in the area—but it’s a liberal arts college & man it’s going to be a real question if we can afford it
We have twins both heading to college next year so it’s all doubled
We have twins both heading to college next year so it’s all doubled
February 6, 2026 at 2:17 PM
Oh man—after a few tough rejections, kiddo got into his reach school—one of the best theater tech programs in the area—but it’s a liberal arts college & man it’s going to be a real question if we can afford it
We have twins both heading to college next year so it’s all doubled
We have twins both heading to college next year so it’s all doubled
Well that was a blast
February 6, 2026 at 4:25 AM
Well that was a blast
Last week my band played a set on our local radio WEFT 90.1—they kindly sent us all the tracks, several of which we haven’t recorded yet. I put some of them up on Bandcamp—pay what you want—I’m particularly thrilled to have "Lucifer Matches" up—it’s a song for anyone feeling melancholy about winter
Live at WEFT, by The Anxious Bench
5 track album
theanxiousbench.bandcamp.com
February 5, 2026 at 3:58 AM
Last week my band played a set on our local radio WEFT 90.1—they kindly sent us all the tracks, several of which we haven’t recorded yet. I put some of them up on Bandcamp—pay what you want—I’m particularly thrilled to have "Lucifer Matches" up—it’s a song for anyone feeling melancholy about winter
Two things:
1. I find it fascinating that Meta is branding its "AI work partner" as "Manus," with an icon I would describe as a snappy manicule—skeuomorph much?
2. I cannot read/see this without thinking of "Manos: the Hands of Fate" aka everyone’s favorite bad movie/MST3K episode
1. I find it fascinating that Meta is branding its "AI work partner" as "Manus," with an icon I would describe as a snappy manicule—skeuomorph much?
2. I cannot read/see this without thinking of "Manos: the Hands of Fate" aka everyone’s favorite bad movie/MST3K episode
February 4, 2026 at 7:41 PM
Two things:
1. I find it fascinating that Meta is branding its "AI work partner" as "Manus," with an icon I would describe as a snappy manicule—skeuomorph much?
2. I cannot read/see this without thinking of "Manos: the Hands of Fate" aka everyone’s favorite bad movie/MST3K episode
1. I find it fascinating that Meta is branding its "AI work partner" as "Manus," with an icon I would describe as a snappy manicule—skeuomorph much?
2. I cannot read/see this without thinking of "Manos: the Hands of Fate" aka everyone’s favorite bad movie/MST3K episode
Apparently I use Claude Code to build all the little apps I’ve wish for but never had the bandwidth to make—today it’s an "Out of Sorts" calculator for letterpress—paste or type the text you want to typeset & it shows how many of each character you’ll need in your case outofsorts.skeuomorphpress.org
February 3, 2026 at 5:31 PM
Apparently I use Claude Code to build all the little apps I’ve wish for but never had the bandwidth to make—today it’s an "Out of Sorts" calculator for letterpress—paste or type the text you want to typeset & it shows how many of each character you’ll need in your case outofsorts.skeuomorphpress.org
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
This is a good thread and better way of getting at what I was trying to tease out the other day re: “vibe coding”
There are a shifting set of crucial judgments implicit in the process that will require strong foundations in the actual skills and theory of code and STS to use effectively
There are a shifting set of crucial judgments implicit in the process that will require strong foundations in the actual skills and theory of code and STS to use effectively
yes, that’s a great definition of what I meant by "low stakes programming"—you need an application to make data collection simpler for your small research team? Great! You’re building a system for the whole country’s tax records? Maybe not.
Learning to discern those will be a key skill
Learning to discern those will be a key skill
February 3, 2026 at 3:27 PM
This is a good thread and better way of getting at what I was trying to tease out the other day re: “vibe coding”
There are a shifting set of crucial judgments implicit in the process that will require strong foundations in the actual skills and theory of code and STS to use effectively
There are a shifting set of crucial judgments implicit in the process that will require strong foundations in the actual skills and theory of code and STS to use effectively
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
This post from @ryancordell.org got me curious to try out Claude Code, so I am trying it out now. Using it to try to recreate the Virginia Woolf project from my dissertation project. Will share notes and thoughts here as I go.
Claude Code is blowing my mind—the 1st thing I’ve seen amid the AI hype that feels truly transformative
One example—we’ve been doing genre classification work & I had the thought "it’d be nice to have a web application that lets users tag newspaper texts"—literal minutes later it exists & works
One example—we’ve been doing genre classification work & I had the thought "it’d be nice to have a web application that lets users tag newspaper texts"—literal minutes later it exists & works
February 3, 2026 at 3:03 PM
This post from @ryancordell.org got me curious to try out Claude Code, so I am trying it out now. Using it to try to recreate the Virginia Woolf project from my dissertation project. Will share notes and thoughts here as I go.
I put @literaturegeek.bsky.social’s remix of Beatrice Ward’s “This Is a Printing Office” in the frame @skeuomorphpress.org that held a version of Ward’s original. That print is behind the new one, & its shadow is *just* visible through the paper—it was an accident but I’ve decided it’s good this way
February 2, 2026 at 4:18 PM
I put @literaturegeek.bsky.social’s remix of Beatrice Ward’s “This Is a Printing Office” in the frame @skeuomorphpress.org that held a version of Ward’s original. That print is behind the new one, & its shadow is *just* visible through the paper—it was an accident but I’ve decided it’s good this way
This is such an important detail in this story—the cowardice of this response to criticism is so telling—we’re going to make a big tough controversial image to own the libs but then claim total ignorance the minute someone says something
"There is no labeling in the graphic, and there are no identifying features... this graphic does not glorify nor valorize any incident because it lacks any reasonable connection," the college Republicans who posted this graphic said in a statement. dailyillini.com/news-stories...
February 2, 2026 at 3:34 PM
This is such an important detail in this story—the cowardice of this response to criticism is so telling—we’re going to make a big tough controversial image to own the libs but then claim total ignorance the minute someone says something
Last night I remembered a simple interface I’ve long thought would be a fun way into Viral Texts data—but it’s something always on the back burner because it’s never quite urgent enough to devote time
After < an hour iterating with CC, here’s a barebones version of "On This Day in Viral History"
After < an hour iterating with CC, here’s a barebones version of "On This Day in Viral History"
February 2, 2026 at 2:54 PM
Last night I remembered a simple interface I’ve long thought would be a fun way into Viral Texts data—but it’s something always on the back burner because it’s never quite urgent enough to devote time
After < an hour iterating with CC, here’s a barebones version of "On This Day in Viral History"
After < an hour iterating with CC, here’s a barebones version of "On This Day in Viral History"
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Folks of all ages make it in to warmly print together @ SLab despite iced-in cars. Thanks @josefbeery.bsky.social for teaching empowering printing to UVA & local community!
+Ty @ryancordell.org for historical newspaper masthead scan: a press can be "the tyrants foe the peoples friend" if used well
+Ty @ryancordell.org for historical newspaper masthead scan: a press can be "the tyrants foe the peoples friend" if used well
MULTIFACTOR COMMUNICATION Very successful workshop with the University of Virginia community printing handmade woodtype, handset metal type, and photopolymer on BookBeetle Presses!
February 2, 2026 at 11:57 AM
Folks of all ages make it in to warmly print together @ SLab despite iced-in cars. Thanks @josefbeery.bsky.social for teaching empowering printing to UVA & local community!
+Ty @ryancordell.org for historical newspaper masthead scan: a press can be "the tyrants foe the peoples friend" if used well
+Ty @ryancordell.org for historical newspaper masthead scan: a press can be "the tyrants foe the peoples friend" if used well
In case you were wondering, yes, the horrors persist even at "blue state" universities
University of Illinois college republicans advocate for executing protesters as “traitors” with art that takes a disturbing killing and makes it even more extreme.
dailyillini.com/news-stories...
dailyillini.com/news-stories...
‘Fell the enemies:’ Illini Republicans support ICE amid killings - The Daily Illini
In a post that included a graphic of a presumed officer holding a gun to someone's head, Illini Republicans stated that they “stand with ICE."
dailyillini.com
February 2, 2026 at 5:02 AM
In case you were wondering, yes, the horrors persist even at "blue state" universities
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
the government is gassing our children.
Right passed the park now and a little girl maybe 5 years old got out of the car. She's saying "oww" and coughing, an older woman with her rushed her inside
February 2, 2026 at 3:48 AM
the government is gassing our children.
We have a new climbing gym in CU & after a few visits I noticed I am not having colorblindness-related route confusion. Today I thanked the manager for never setting blue & purple next to each other & she said 1. They don’t buy purple or red holds & 2. Use a colorblind simulator when setting routes
February 1, 2026 at 8:40 PM
We have a new climbing gym in CU & after a few visits I noticed I am not having colorblindness-related route confusion. Today I thanked the manager for never setting blue & purple next to each other & she said 1. They don’t buy purple or red holds & 2. Use a colorblind simulator when setting routes
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Yes. These guys think they are comic book supervillains. They are not comic book supervillains.
What is happening in Minneapolis stands in contrast to the idea of Trumpism’s irresistible power.
It should be a reminder: Being lawless, immoral, and violent does not make the Trumpists omnipotent. Obscuring that distinction is an act of defeatism that only serves the regime.
It should be a reminder: Being lawless, immoral, and violent does not make the Trumpists omnipotent. Obscuring that distinction is an act of defeatism that only serves the regime.
January 31, 2026 at 5:10 PM
Yes. These guys think they are comic book supervillains. They are not comic book supervillains.