Hester Blum
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hesterblum.bsky.social
Hester Blum
@hesterblum.bsky.social
3.4K followers 1.7K following 720 posts
A patched professor in Queen Nature’s granite-founded College. Polar humanities, C19, oceanic studies. Ask me about Moby-Dick. I teach environmental and nineteenth-century American literature at WashU. Protect trans kids. She/her. hesterblum.com
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hesterblum.bsky.social
Aurora visible in the middle of Chicago
A pink purple aurora with a baseline of faint green visible in the middle of Chicago despite light pollution
November 12, 2025 at 3:34 AM
hesterblum.bsky.social
St Louis says NO KINGS in thunder (and lightning)
STL NO KINGS in front of the Gateway Arch STL NO KINGS , Amphiba: amphibians against facism Antifa cavalry riding a pink and blue hippo DT as Marie Antoinette: “no health care for you but a ballroom for the queen”
October 18, 2025 at 8:45 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
Yesssssss @sunsetandecho.bsky.social !!
Sarah Mesle’s brilliant new book Reasons & Feelings: writing for the humanities now, with a bright red-pink cover featuring a tattoo-style arrow, saying hello to my tattoo of a Temple toggle harpoon head
September 27, 2025 at 11:17 AM
hesterblum.bsky.social
If only the non-Lego Endurance were so well cradled
The fully-constructed Lego Endurance, elaborately packed by excellent movers and ungrammatically labeled
August 21, 2025 at 2:19 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
We are about to move, I finally opened the bottle of hard cider made from apples from Arrowhead, Melville's farm. It was dry and lovely and I drank it amid the packed-up broken pieces of marble that top Melville's commode, which I was even more wonderfully given a few years ago.
The wooden surface of a c19 commode, missing its marble topping, with joinery and screw visible. yr correspondent with a glass of cider sitting on the floor of an old, garishly painted house surrounded by packed-up bits of art and broken marble and a leather couch not yet packed My spouse pouring out a green bottle of cider made from Herman Melville's apple trees, with the cap labeled "A" for Arrowhead
August 20, 2025 at 3:36 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
Happy birthday HM
Bananas paragraph from Herman Melville's Mardi: "And here, in this impenetrable retreat, centrally slumbered the universe-rounded, zodiac-belted, horizon-zoned, sea-girt, reef-sashed, mountain-locked, arbor-nested, royalty-girdled, arm-clasped, self-hugged, indivisible Donjalolo, absolute monarch of Juam:—the husk-inhusked meat in a nut; the innermost spark in a ruby; the juice-nested seed in a goldenrinded orange; the red royal stone in an effeminate peach; the insphered sphere of spheres."
August 1, 2025 at 2:20 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
Can’t teach about gender or queer books in schools, can be “100% cool and 0% awkward”
A bus advertising “true girl” which promises to bring “moms and daughters closer to God and to each other,” in teal and pink lettering At the back of the same bus, in red white and blue lettering, the boys version which is called “born to be brave, a one night father son adventure” Close up on the profound cringe of the line “100% cool 0% awkward”
June 28, 2025 at 3:50 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
Hello!
Middle-age mom of a trans teen wearing a T-shirt that says “you will have to go through me“ in pink blue and white lettering
June 21, 2025 at 7:21 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
Mystic
The Mystic River in heavy evening fog
June 18, 2025 at 2:53 AM
hesterblum.bsky.social
Oceanic Melville conference two ways
Packed ornate gorgeous hall Long Island Sound in a fresh breeze
June 16, 2025 at 11:08 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
Melville conference! Look at that embossed notebook! @melville-society.bsky.social
A conference program on my lap along with an ocean-blue notebook embossed with a whale and the words OCEANIC MELVILLE
June 16, 2025 at 2:15 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
State College PA
A No Kings protest sign that says “JD Vance puts his cast-iron skillet in the dishwasher“
June 14, 2025 at 7:58 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
State College PA says NO KINGS
Protest signs including “elect a rapist expect to get fucked” Protest signs including “Trump always cucks out” Crowd in State College Pennsylvania, including someone covered in target bags Protest signs including big grotesque Trump yelling the capital that says King Kong
June 14, 2025 at 6:41 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
Rallying for the rally; dress for the job you want
Yr middle-aged correspondent in glasses wearing a black T-shirt with trans colored lettering that says “you will have to go through me”
June 14, 2025 at 2:12 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
You may not like it but this is what 2 high agency males look like
OLO NEPTUNE, THE GREAT BLACK SEA LION, THE MONARCH OF THE OCEAN The only Animal of the kind ever captured alive. BARNUM'S MUSEUM, NEW YORK.
June 6, 2025 at 8:31 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
Good mail day
Four books on a wood table: A wilder time by William Glassey, Theory of water by leann Betasamosake Simpson, orbital by Samantha Harvey, and Salamina by Rockwell Kent
June 2, 2025 at 6:30 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
New summer tees
Two black T-shirts recently purchased in Nuuk: 1 says “Greenland is not for sale!” In large block letters; the second, on the right, shows the outline of Greenland and a small Greenlandic flag atop a UPS barcode with the words “not for sale“ below the barcode
May 28, 2025 at 11:58 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
Fridtjof Nansen, winner of the Nobel Prize in serving face
Fridtjof Nansen looking amazing Fridtjof Nansen looking like a badass Fridtjof Nansen being extra Fridtjof Nansen searing the camera lens
May 26, 2025 at 8:56 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
Some manifestly sentient and bergs hanging around the Nuuk shoreline
Iceberg washed ashore in Nuuk, Greenland, with holes and crevices resembling a distorted angry face Iceberg washed ashore in Nuuk, Greenland, improbably carved into baroque appendages Iceberg washed ashore in Nuuk, Greenland, whose crevices and holes look like an angry tiny eyed monster Iceberg washed ashore in Nuuk, Greenland, narrowly split in two and impossibly blue
May 26, 2025 at 8:28 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
I'm missing my 30th college reunion for this bullshit
View from the Ilulissat Hotel overlooking Disko Bay, Greenland, in which dozens of icebergs have turned a deep, startling blue in the changing midnight sun. in the foreground are some buildings, including Zion's Church and the Ilulissat hospital. The mountains of Disko Island are faintly visible in the background.
May 23, 2025 at 9:43 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
With the right attitude anything can be a whale
I'm wearing a blue parka and looking smug while sipping coffee in front of a ragged iceberg several hundred feet high in the icefjord at Disko Bay, Greenland Sea ice and a large, smooth berg that looks like a sperm whale in the icefjord at Disko Bay, Greenland An immense, smooth iceberg with one shear broken-off face in the icefjord at Disko Bay, Greenland I'm in a blue parka grinning/clowning with a piece of glacial ice ("black ice" for how its clearness appears in the water) shaped like a whale in the icefjord at Disko Bay, Greenland
May 23, 2025 at 1:26 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
This one too!
Logo of the Ilulissat Icefjord Center, with a graphic of a roughly calving iceberg and its thinly striated reflection underwater
May 19, 2025 at 8:06 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
I’m in Ilulissat in Greenland, where there is a UNESCO World Heritage icefjord as well as the best graphic design designers I’ve ever seen
Logo for a labor union showing a fist rising into an iceberg from the sea Logo for Inuk Adventure outfitter showing an iceberg, the Greenlandic flag, and three figures either in triumph or extreme peril, unclear Logo for a fishing outfit showing a beluga intersecting with a wave and the Greenlandic flag Stylize logo of two polar bears and a Northstar
May 19, 2025 at 7:58 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
The airplane I will accept as a bribe
A photo of S. A. Andree’s hot airballoon from his doomed North Pole expedition
May 14, 2025 at 7:43 PM
hesterblum.bsky.social
The average American has fewer than 3 friends
Dan Dority and Al Swearengen from HBO‘s Deadwood, glowering murderously over the balcony of the gem saloon
May 2, 2025 at 2:22 AM