Nick Admussen
@nadmussen.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Chinese literature at Cornell, poet, translator. My current project is "On Stricture: Chinese Poetry and American Culture." More (incl links to open-access research) at nickadmussen.com.
3. The Epstein party is in and of the very rich. His lying, posturing, manipulation, and the thinness of his grift are common in-group values and the rewards of successful grifting are seen as evidence of special excellence. Wexner, Dubin, Prince Andrew, Clinton, Trump, they all LIKED this guy.
September 22, 2025 at 4:07 AM
3. The Epstein party is in and of the very rich. His lying, posturing, manipulation, and the thinness of his grift are common in-group values and the rewards of successful grifting are seen as evidence of special excellence. Wexner, Dubin, Prince Andrew, Clinton, Trump, they all LIKED this guy.
2b. Rubio, Romney, Vance, and many other Republicans may hate Trump, but they make up a key part of the Epstein Party because they consent to be owned. Perhaps they think it will be temporary. Maybe they’re afraid. But their willingness to eat shit and smile makes them Epstein Party members.
September 22, 2025 at 4:07 AM
2b. Rubio, Romney, Vance, and many other Republicans may hate Trump, but they make up a key part of the Epstein Party because they consent to be owned. Perhaps they think it will be temporary. Maybe they’re afraid. But their willingness to eat shit and smile makes them Epstein Party members.
1. Ownership, to the Epstein Party, is domination and raw power; it explicitly includes the ownership of people, and can be enforced by money, fear, social pressure, or force. The more you own, the better you are: in the Party, ownership made Epstein seem cool and smart, which he wasn’t.
September 22, 2025 at 4:07 AM
1. Ownership, to the Epstein Party, is domination and raw power; it explicitly includes the ownership of people, and can be enforced by money, fear, social pressure, or force. The more you own, the better you are: in the Party, ownership made Epstein seem cool and smart, which he wasn’t.
Really like both the @catherineweiss.bsky.social poems in the new DIAGRAM magazine (@eldiagram.bsky.social), one pasted below, the other is called "The Multitool" and you can read it here: thediagram.com/25_2/weiss.h...
July 5, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Really like both the @catherineweiss.bsky.social poems in the new DIAGRAM magazine (@eldiagram.bsky.social), one pasted below, the other is called "The Multitool" and you can read it here: thediagram.com/25_2/weiss.h...
Poetry + art: Liu Xiaobo, _June Fourth Elegies_, tr. Jeff Yang www.graywolfpress.org/books/june-f...; Ai Weiwei, "A Study of Perspective": www.moma.org/collection/w...; Bei Dao, _Sidetracks_, tr. Jeff Yang: www.ndbooks.com/book/sidetra...; from Gao Xingjian's "Calling for a New Renaissance," below
June 4, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Poetry + art: Liu Xiaobo, _June Fourth Elegies_, tr. Jeff Yang www.graywolfpress.org/books/june-f...; Ai Weiwei, "A Study of Perspective": www.moma.org/collection/w...; Bei Dao, _Sidetracks_, tr. Jeff Yang: www.ndbooks.com/book/sidetra...; from Gao Xingjian's "Calling for a New Renaissance," below
Now available open access: _Lyrical Experiments in Sinophone Verse_, ed. Justyna Jaguscik, Joanna Krenz, and Andrea Riemenschnitter. Lots of pathbreaking research into Chinese poetry written by workers, women, computers, Hong Kongers, and others on the edge. library.oapen.org/handle/20.50...
April 28, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Now available open access: _Lyrical Experiments in Sinophone Verse_, ed. Justyna Jaguscik, Joanna Krenz, and Andrea Riemenschnitter. Lots of pathbreaking research into Chinese poetry written by workers, women, computers, Hong Kongers, and others on the edge. library.oapen.org/handle/20.50...
One of the things that really worries me about ChatGPT is that it'll end the era of absolutely bonkers spam mail. I am 10000% more likely to get my computer infected with whatever's coming tomorrow than I am to sign up for Packback.
April 22, 2025 at 11:31 AM
One of the things that really worries me about ChatGPT is that it'll end the era of absolutely bonkers spam mail. I am 10000% more likely to get my computer infected with whatever's coming tomorrow than I am to sign up for Packback.
There had been a research center about Hong Kong at U of Toronto since 1994, serving the wave of immigrants from Hong Kong to Canada. In 2008, though, the current library was inaugurated, attracting Maria Lau 劉麗芝, the former librarian of the City University of Hong Kong.
April 4, 2025 at 1:28 PM
There had been a research center about Hong Kong at U of Toronto since 1994, serving the wave of immigrants from Hong Kong to Canada. In 2008, though, the current library was inaugurated, attracting Maria Lau 劉麗芝, the former librarian of the City University of Hong Kong.
I went to a good conference last week on translation and the Sinophone hosted by @chrissonghk.bsky.social, feat. @myetcetera.bsky.social, @ciwasaki.bsky.social and a lot of other folks. But I want to talk about one of the venues, the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library 利銘澤典宬, short thread:
April 4, 2025 at 1:28 PM
I went to a good conference last week on translation and the Sinophone hosted by @chrissonghk.bsky.social, feat. @myetcetera.bsky.social, @ciwasaki.bsky.social and a lot of other folks. But I want to talk about one of the venues, the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library 利銘澤典宬, short thread:
Received this in the mail this morning, as if the marketers knew that my lecture this afternoon is on the post-socialist spiritual void of 1980s China. Grinding to growing indeed.
March 5, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Received this in the mail this morning, as if the marketers knew that my lecture this afternoon is on the post-socialist spiritual void of 1980s China. Grinding to growing indeed.
(winces, hears parental voice from many years ago)
"Are you getting ANOTHER knife dirty?"
It's almost like a haptic apology for using silverware. I have never repurposed a peanut-butter-covered knife, and I do the dishes here, so it's not like I expect anyone else to put it in the dishwasher.
"Are you getting ANOTHER knife dirty?"
It's almost like a haptic apology for using silverware. I have never repurposed a peanut-butter-covered knife, and I do the dishes here, so it's not like I expect anyone else to put it in the dishwasher.
February 6, 2025 at 8:29 PM
(winces, hears parental voice from many years ago)
"Are you getting ANOTHER knife dirty?"
It's almost like a haptic apology for using silverware. I have never repurposed a peanut-butter-covered knife, and I do the dishes here, so it's not like I expect anyone else to put it in the dishwasher.
"Are you getting ANOTHER knife dirty?"
It's almost like a haptic apology for using silverware. I have never repurposed a peanut-butter-covered knife, and I do the dishes here, so it's not like I expect anyone else to put it in the dishwasher.
V. lucky to have been able to translate Zhang Zao poems with fellow Cornellian Yanting-Leah Li, because they are absolute. bangers. "In the Mirror" and "Drifting," from the brand-new _A Century of Modern Chinese Poetry_. The book is here: uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...
January 27, 2025 at 5:31 PM
V. lucky to have been able to translate Zhang Zao poems with fellow Cornellian Yanting-Leah Li, because they are absolute. bangers. "In the Mirror" and "Drifting," from the brand-new _A Century of Modern Chinese Poetry_. The book is here: uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...
The Taiwanese poet Ling Yü 零⾬ has won the 2025 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. Here's her poem "Names Vanished from the Map," tr. Andrea Lingenfelter: www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poe.... Here's four poems tr. Fiona Sze-Lorrain: theoffendingadam.com/author/lingyu/ incl. the one below:
January 9, 2025 at 3:15 PM
The Taiwanese poet Ling Yü 零⾬ has won the 2025 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. Here's her poem "Names Vanished from the Map," tr. Andrea Lingenfelter: www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poe.... Here's four poems tr. Fiona Sze-Lorrain: theoffendingadam.com/author/lingyu/ incl. the one below:
The only winner is Google Translate. Makes a legitimate attempt to do anything you ask of it, takes risks, isn't afraid to be weird, and comes to surprising revelations, like "people generally prefer their older male cousins to their mothers." (the cousin translation is wrong, btw).
January 9, 2025 at 2:55 PM
The only winner is Google Translate. Makes a legitimate attempt to do anything you ask of it, takes risks, isn't afraid to be weird, and comes to surprising revelations, like "people generally prefer their older male cousins to their mothers." (the cousin translation is wrong, btw).
Spotify recommendations: Spotify is an idiot and has never listened to music in its entire life. My most recent auto-generated playlist looks like this: one part ambient, one part movie soundtrack, one part kick-through-the-walls party music. Don't get me started on the automatically generated DJ.
January 9, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Spotify recommendations: Spotify is an idiot and has never listened to music in its entire life. My most recent auto-generated playlist looks like this: one part ambient, one part movie soundtrack, one part kick-through-the-walls party music. Don't get me started on the automatically generated DJ.
Reviews of the personalities of AI/AI adjacent services I interact with, a 🧵. Losers first: ChatGPT, which is fussy, mealymouthed, and fake-authoritative, even though it is constantly wrong. It has terminal both-sidesism and if you ask a question it doesn't like, gives you a little pisspot lecture.
January 9, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Reviews of the personalities of AI/AI adjacent services I interact with, a 🧵. Losers first: ChatGPT, which is fussy, mealymouthed, and fake-authoritative, even though it is constantly wrong. It has terminal both-sidesism and if you ask a question it doesn't like, gives you a little pisspot lecture.
Also, I finally found my spiritual community here, but they are unfortunately minifigs.
December 20, 2024 at 1:35 PM
Also, I finally found my spiritual community here, but they are unfortunately minifigs.
An inadvertent meme from a 烧饼 wrapper, which I believe to mean "Just because I am wrong does not mean you have permission to educate me."
December 20, 2024 at 1:35 PM
An inadvertent meme from a 烧饼 wrapper, which I believe to mean "Just because I am wrong does not mean you have permission to educate me."
Little Taiwan things: my building superintendent admonishing construction workers not to overload the elevator in elegant calligraphy and four-character meter (老久电梯 不胜负荷 请勿超载！)
December 20, 2024 at 1:35 PM
Little Taiwan things: my building superintendent admonishing construction workers not to overload the elevator in elegant calligraphy and four-character meter (老久电梯 不胜负荷 请勿超载！)
I'm so proud for him (although we've never met!) as well as all the translators and scholars who support him, esp. Maghiel van Crevel. Mu Cao is a truth-teller and a voice of great value. I'll leave you with his picture and this poem, tr. @jenniferfeeley.bsky.social: pen.org/two-poems-mu...
December 5, 2024 at 2:01 PM
I'm so proud for him (although we've never met!) as well as all the translators and scholars who support him, esp. Maghiel van Crevel. Mu Cao is a truth-teller and a voice of great value. I'll leave you with his picture and this poem, tr. @jenniferfeeley.bsky.social: pen.org/two-poems-mu...
Warm congratulations to Mu Cao 墓草 , a groundbreaking, dynamic, and immensely talented poet who has today won a Prince Klaus Impact Award. I first encountered Mu Cao when the translator Scott E. Myers sent me the following searing poem to publish in Epiphany Magazine:
December 5, 2024 at 1:41 PM
Warm congratulations to Mu Cao 墓草 , a groundbreaking, dynamic, and immensely talented poet who has today won a Prince Klaus Impact Award. I first encountered Mu Cao when the translator Scott E. Myers sent me the following searing poem to publish in Epiphany Magazine:
Little Taiwan discovery #1: a few weeks ago, they switched over some of the kid vending machines (the outdoor ones that are eye level to toddlers) to sell fresh edible slimes. So you can add this alongside stinky and bitter in the expanded Taiwanese food universe.
November 25, 2024 at 1:22 AM
Little Taiwan discovery #1: a few weeks ago, they switched over some of the kid vending machines (the outdoor ones that are eye level to toddlers) to sell fresh edible slimes. So you can add this alongside stinky and bitter in the expanded Taiwanese food universe.
My favorite sign on the National Taiwan University campus. There’s “I love birds, I hope cars don’t hit them” and then there’s “I love birds, I wish they were big enough to even the score.”
November 17, 2024 at 1:41 AM
My favorite sign on the National Taiwan University campus. There’s “I love birds, I hope cars don’t hit them” and then there’s “I love birds, I wish they were big enough to even the score.”