Silas Lapham
@silaslapham.bsky.social
Fulbrighter, American, African American, Southern literature. medium.com/@interminablerambling
[Opinions are my own]
[Opinions are my own]
Picked up Mariann Edgar Budde’s “How We Learn to be Brave” over the holidays, and started it today. It’s a good way to start off 2026.
January 2, 2026 at 4:35 PM
Picked up Mariann Edgar Budde’s “How We Learn to be Brave” over the holidays, and started it today. It’s a good way to start off 2026.
Just finished my list. I did 185 this year, constituting 45,500 pages. I started the year with Martin Rowson graphic adaptation of Karl Marx & Friedrich Engle’s “The Communist Manifesto” & ended it with Seth Wickersham “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback.” 1/
December 31, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Just finished my list. I did 185 this year, constituting 45,500 pages. I started the year with Martin Rowson graphic adaptation of Karl Marx & Friedrich Engle’s “The Communist Manifesto” & ended it with Seth Wickersham “American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback.” 1/
Reposted by Silas Lapham
I was thinking about what gifts people used to give to readers (besides gift editions of famous poets' work and illustrated histories of wars and such), and while I was thinking about it, somebody brought a book to the counter....
(1/10)
(1/10)
December 27, 2025 at 10:23 PM
I was thinking about what gifts people used to give to readers (besides gift editions of famous poets' work and illustrated histories of wars and such), and while I was thinking about it, somebody brought a book to the counter....
(1/10)
(1/10)
On the latest episode of This Ain’t It, @underapurplesky.bsky.social and I give a year end roundup of people getting into good trouble this year.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...
Good Trouble: A Year-End Reflection
Podcast Episode · This Ain't It · 12/26/2025 · 43m
podcasts.apple.com
December 26, 2025 at 1:15 PM
On the latest episode of This Ain’t It, @underapurplesky.bsky.social and I give a year end roundup of people getting into good trouble this year.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/g...
Mikaël’s Harlem, a fictionalized narrative about Stephanie St. Clair, explores the history of white supremacy in the United States, colonialism, sexism, and structural issues that impact Harlem and its citizens.
ijoca.blogspot.com/2025/12/grap...
ijoca.blogspot.com/2025/12/grap...
December 24, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Mikaël’s Harlem, a fictionalized narrative about Stephanie St. Clair, explores the history of white supremacy in the United States, colonialism, sexism, and structural issues that impact Harlem and its citizens.
ijoca.blogspot.com/2025/12/grap...
ijoca.blogspot.com/2025/12/grap...
I planned to take two weeks off for the Holidays, but since Clair Keegan's "Small Things Like These" is a holiday novella, I thought I'd go ahead and do one more post before the new year. @gvaughnjoy.bsky.social @americanstudier.bsky.social
interminablerambling.medium.com/how-do-we-lo...
interminablerambling.medium.com/how-do-we-lo...
How do we look at ourselves in the mirror?
As I’ve browsed the shelves in my library for the past few months, I’ve always seen Claire Keegan’s Foster nestled on top of a shelf, cover…
interminablerambling.medium.com
December 23, 2025 at 6:21 PM
I planned to take two weeks off for the Holidays, but since Clair Keegan's "Small Things Like These" is a holiday novella, I thought I'd go ahead and do one more post before the new year. @gvaughnjoy.bsky.social @americanstudier.bsky.social
interminablerambling.medium.com/how-do-we-lo...
interminablerambling.medium.com/how-do-we-lo...
Started this way back in January and finally finished it last week. Gotta say, reading these first fifty issues of GI Joe now, in 2025, is a reminder of how good they are.
December 23, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Started this way back in January and finally finished it last week. Gotta say, reading these first fifty issues of GI Joe now, in 2025, is a reminder of how good they are.
Reposted by Silas Lapham
People are rightly disgusted by this speech, but it’s a measure of fascism’s normalization that many see this as more of the awful same rather than what I think most of us who’ve been reporting this beat hear it as: a significant calculated escalation. Full alert stuff.
JD Vance gets the biggest applause of his speech so far when he says "by the grace of God we always will be a Christian nation"
December 21, 2025 at 9:57 PM
People are rightly disgusted by this speech, but it’s a measure of fascism’s normalization that many see this as more of the awful same rather than what I think most of us who’ve been reporting this beat hear it as: a significant calculated escalation. Full alert stuff.
Reposted by Silas Lapham
“At my school…you see this tremendous and terrifying impact on children and on families….A third grade boy…confided in his teacher. He said, ‘Well, I don't want to type in my lunch code….I don't want ICE to know where I am, or to know my family is.’”
How ICE raids are impacting classrooms
NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks to Seth Lavin, a Chicago school principal, about the impact on students and staff of ICE raids.
www.npr.org
December 21, 2025 at 2:26 PM
“At my school…you see this tremendous and terrifying impact on children and on families….A third grade boy…confided in his teacher. He said, ‘Well, I don't want to type in my lunch code….I don't want ICE to know where I am, or to know my family is.’”
I’m on pace to read 185 books this year. Here are some of my favorites. What books have impacted you this year?
interminablerambling.medium.com/what-did-i-r...
interminablerambling.medium.com/what-did-i-r...
What Did I Read in 2025?
For the past few years, I have set various reading goals for myself. I initially did this to keep myself on a schedule with reading because…
interminablerambling.medium.com
December 21, 2025 at 2:11 PM
I’m on pace to read 185 books this year. Here are some of my favorites. What books have impacted you this year?
interminablerambling.medium.com/what-did-i-r...
interminablerambling.medium.com/what-did-i-r...
Reposted by Silas Lapham
legitimately love this guy.
It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans.
🧵 1 of 9
🧵 1 of 9
December 21, 2025 at 12:19 PM
legitimately love this guy.
Reposted by Silas Lapham
This week on This Ain’t It, @underapurplesky.bsky.social and I talk about healthcare.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
Is Health Care a Right or a Privilege?
Podcast Episode · This Ain't It · 12/19/2025 · 53m
podcasts.apple.com
December 19, 2025 at 2:30 PM
This week on This Ain’t It, @underapurplesky.bsky.social and I talk about healthcare.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
This week on This Ain’t It, @underapurplesky.bsky.social and I talk about healthcare.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
Is Health Care a Right or a Privilege?
Podcast Episode · This Ain't It · 12/19/2025 · 53m
podcasts.apple.com
December 19, 2025 at 2:30 PM
This week on This Ain’t It, @underapurplesky.bsky.social and I talk about healthcare.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
“Everything Burns”: Facades and Identity in S.A. Cosby’s “King of Ashes”
Last year, I read three of S.A. Cosby’s novels (I still need to read Blacktop Wasteland), and I was instantly hooked. When I heard about his latest book, King of Ashes, I knew I had to pick up a copy and read it right away.…
Last year, I read three of S.A. Cosby’s novels (I still need to read Blacktop Wasteland), and I was instantly hooked. When I heard about his latest book, King of Ashes, I knew I had to pick up a copy and read it right away.…
“Everything Burns”: Facades and Identity in S.A. Cosby’s “King of Ashes”
Last year, I read three of S.A. Cosby’s novels (I still need to read Blacktop Wasteland), and I was instantly hooked. When I heard about his latest book, King of Ashes, I knew I had to pick up a copy and read it right away. Like My Darkest Prayer, Razorblade Tears, and All the Sinners Bleed…
interminablerambling.com
December 18, 2025 at 2:00 PM
“Everything Burns”: Facades and Identity in S.A. Cosby’s “King of Ashes”
Last year, I read three of S.A. Cosby’s novels (I still need to read Blacktop Wasteland), and I was instantly hooked. When I heard about his latest book, King of Ashes, I knew I had to pick up a copy and read it right away.…
Last year, I read three of S.A. Cosby’s novels (I still need to read Blacktop Wasteland), and I was instantly hooked. When I heard about his latest book, King of Ashes, I knew I had to pick up a copy and read it right away.…
Reposted by Silas Lapham
Recently, I read Kailua Yu’s “Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty” and there’s a lot here. One thing that really stood out was her discussion of the fetishization of Asian women in music.
interminablerambling.medium.com/music-and-th...
interminablerambling.medium.com/music-and-th...
Music and the Fetishization of Asian Women in Kaila Yu’s “Fetishized”
Music and the Fetishization of Asian Women in Kaila Yu’s “Fetishized” My wife, through her job, occasionally has the opportunity to go on press trips and write about them. Sometimes she does …
interminablerambling.medium.com
December 17, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Recently, I read Kailua Yu’s “Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty” and there’s a lot here. One thing that really stood out was her discussion of the fetishization of Asian women in music.
interminablerambling.medium.com/music-and-th...
interminablerambling.medium.com/music-and-th...
Recently, I read Kailua Yu’s “Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty” and there’s a lot here. One thing that really stood out was her discussion of the fetishization of Asian women in music.
interminablerambling.medium.com/music-and-th...
interminablerambling.medium.com/music-and-th...
Music and the Fetishization of Asian Women in Kaila Yu’s “Fetishized”
Music and the Fetishization of Asian Women in Kaila Yu’s “Fetishized” My wife, through her job, occasionally has the opportunity to go on press trips and write about them. Sometimes she does …
interminablerambling.medium.com
December 17, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Recently, I read Kailua Yu’s “Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty” and there’s a lot here. One thing that really stood out was her discussion of the fetishization of Asian women in music.
interminablerambling.medium.com/music-and-th...
interminablerambling.medium.com/music-and-th...
Actively Ignoring and Unknown Ignorance of Fascism in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has been on my to be read list for a while now, and recently, I finally pulled it down from the shelf and read it. From the opening sentence, when Offred tells us,…
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has been on my to be read list for a while now, and recently, I finally pulled it down from the shelf and read it. From the opening sentence, when Offred tells us,…
Actively Ignoring and Unknown Ignorance of Fascism in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has been on my to be read list for a while now, and recently, I finally pulled it down from the shelf and read it. From the opening sentence, when Offred tells us, “We slept in what had once been the gymnasium,” to Professor James Darcy Pieixoto’s keynote speech at the Twelfth Symposium on Gileadean Studies, I remained whooly invested in Atwood’s dystopian novel.
interminablerambling.com
December 16, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Actively Ignoring and Unknown Ignorance of Fascism in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has been on my to be read list for a while now, and recently, I finally pulled it down from the shelf and read it. From the opening sentence, when Offred tells us,…
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has been on my to be read list for a while now, and recently, I finally pulled it down from the shelf and read it. From the opening sentence, when Offred tells us,…
Reading through the original GI Joe and this from the Soft Master on guns in issue #32.
December 14, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Reading through the original GI Joe and this from the Soft Master on guns in issue #32.
Reposted by Silas Lapham
Not a “good guy with a gun” — a brave soul who *took* a gun from a murdering fool who may imagine *he’s* the “good guy with a gun,” and then the real hero did not use it for more killing but *put the gun down.* Let’s put the fucking guns down. Every last idiot bang bang stick in the world.
Extraordinary courage from Ahmed al Ahmed, a Muslim, 43-year-old father of two, who bravely risked his life to save his neighbors celebrating Hanukkah.
Praying for his full & speedy recovery.
And so deeply inspired by his example.
Praying for his full & speedy recovery.
And so deeply inspired by his example.
WATCH: Bystander disarms active shooter at Bondi Beach in Sydney
December 14, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Not a “good guy with a gun” — a brave soul who *took* a gun from a murdering fool who may imagine *he’s* the “good guy with a gun,” and then the real hero did not use it for more killing but *put the gun down.* Let’s put the fucking guns down. Every last idiot bang bang stick in the world.
1995 was a great year for music with releases from Hum, MXPX, Team Dresch, Alice In Chains, Foo Fighters, and many more!
interminablerambling.medium.com/some-of-the-...
interminablerambling.medium.com/some-of-the-...
Some of the Most Influential Albums from 1995! Part II
I vividly remember being at church one night in 1995, probably a Wednesday, and seeing a poster on the wall with Christian music artists…
interminablerambling.medium.com
December 14, 2025 at 2:04 PM
1995 was a great year for music with releases from Hum, MXPX, Team Dresch, Alice In Chains, Foo Fighters, and many more!
interminablerambling.medium.com/some-of-the-...
interminablerambling.medium.com/some-of-the-...
Reposted by Silas Lapham
Great & smart that we live in a country where we require vaccines for dogs & not for people.
December 13, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Great & smart that we live in a country where we require vaccines for dogs & not for people.
Today is Lillian Smith’s 128th birthday! If you’ve never heard of her, you need to. Here is a piece I did a couple of years back for @bittersouth.bsky.social
bittersoutherner.com/southern-per...
bittersoutherner.com/southern-per...
Frank Yerby and Lillian Smith: Challenging the Myths of Whiteness — THE BITTER SOUTHERNER
A closer look at two overlooked Georgia writers who challenged the psychic poison of white supremacy.
bittersoutherner.com
December 12, 2025 at 10:29 PM
Today is Lillian Smith’s 128th birthday! If you’ve never heard of her, you need to. Here is a piece I did a couple of years back for @bittersouth.bsky.social
bittersoutherner.com/southern-per...
bittersoutherner.com/southern-per...
In the latest episode of “This Ain’t It,” @underapurplesky.bsky.social & I finally talk about immigration & Christianity, specifically about rhetoric like this from Andrew Clyde.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
December 12, 2025 at 2:17 PM
In the latest episode of “This Ain’t It,” @underapurplesky.bsky.social & I finally talk about immigration & Christianity, specifically about rhetoric like this from Andrew Clyde.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
Reposted by Silas Lapham
& I wrote about Lillian Smith here, inspired by my connection to her through @silaslapham.bsky.social:
www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/11/cons...
www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/11/cons...
Considering History: How Lillian E. Smith Modeled a Southern Alternative to White Supremacy | The Saturday Evening Post
White, Southern, and patrician, Lillian Smith used her summer camp to educate multiple generations of young women in opposition to white supremacy and wrote groundbreaking books that were praised by M...
www.saturdayeveningpost.com
December 12, 2025 at 1:20 PM
& I wrote about Lillian Smith here, inspired by my connection to her through @silaslapham.bsky.social:
www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/11/cons...
www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/11/cons...