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unprovoked.net
Michael
@unprovoked.net
730 followers 190 following 1.9K posts
Married cat person, bureaucrat, union steward and board member, longtime listener. Previously: bookseller, roller derby official, machine operator, broadcaster, pizza guy, fry cook, and dog walker. Most of the time I just stare at the sky. #LNK #1U
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unprovoked.net
My public library gets it, and got it. @mskellymhayes.bsky.social @akpress.org #BookSky
A copy of the 2025 book Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis, edited by Kelly Hayes, being held in front of long library shelves extending into the distance. The cover illustration is of a silhouetted person standing waist deep in a lily pond, arms outstretched, and trailing their fingers across the water, creating ripples. The pond is surrounded by evergreen trees and in the background, a deep blue night sky is bejeweled with star constellations. The words "Read This" appear within the circle of a full moon presiding over the scene. Green lily pads circle the pond and are punctuated by an occasional red blossom. The very picture of restoration and hope.
November 14, 2025 at 11:49 PM
unprovoked.net
Wow, so we're back around to wire/cloth mother, huh?
Screenshot of a section from the Wikipedia article on American psychologist Harry Frederick Harlow, known for experiments involving maternal separation, dependency needs, and social isolation among rhesus monkeys. The passage reads, "Research with and caring for infant rhesus monkeys further inspired Harlow, and ultimately led to some of his best-known experiments: the use of surrogate mothers. Although Harlow, his students, contemporaries, and associates soon learned how to care for the physical needs of their infant monkeys, the nursery-reared infants remained very different from their mother-reared peers. Psychologically speaking, these infants were slightly strange: they were reclusive, had definite social deficits, and clung to their cloth diapers. At the same time in the reverse configuration, babies that had grown up with only a mother and no playmates showed signs of fear or aggressiveness."
November 14, 2025 at 8:37 PM
unprovoked.net
Your wish is granted.
The phrase "Ask for Janice" rendered in dark yellow text against a deep blue background. The graphic design style is based on New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's campaign materials. This image was created with a web form designed by Chung-chieh Shan, an Associate Professor (Computer Science) at Indiana University.
November 9, 2025 at 1:00 AM
unprovoked.net
Woke returns to my public library – not that it ever left. @judedoyle.bsky.social
A copy of the book DILF: Did I Leave Feminism? by Jude Ellison S. Doyle being held in front of a long set of bookshelves in a public library. The cover is colored with a gradient of trans pride colors (blue into pink) with the title rendered in an artistic 1970s-style lower-case font, highlighting the book's place as a timely and timeless classic.
November 7, 2025 at 1:55 PM
unprovoked.net
What a cute thing to rediscover on the day of my job promotion interview. "We hope to have a decision from HR in a couple weeks." I know this music.
Screenshot of a Facebook post from the Welcome to Night Vale podcast on September 12, 2025, that reads, "This meeting could have been an email. This email could have been a passing fancy. This job could have been a lifetime of wonder."
October 28, 2025 at 10:27 PM
unprovoked.net
Upstate side quest from two weeks ago – I brought flowers, agate, and a soapstone cat. Nothing in particular, just thinking about it today while drifting through this seasonal pivot. Winter I can handle. The last weeks of fall... well, they pass, and that's usually enough. It's fine. It'll be fine.
A rounded stone grave marker, surrounded by grass, that reads, "Maggie Estep, writer and friend, March 20, 1963 – February 12, 2014." The marker is adorned with small totems left by friends and fans: a tiny soapstone cat, a multicolored piece of agate, carved and polished stone hearts, and a small green statue of the Buddhist goddess Tara (a seated female figure with left hand raised). At one corner of the base of the headstone there is a hand-tied flower bouquet with a spray of orange, golden, and small purple blossoms.
October 26, 2025 at 9:26 PM
unprovoked.net
Charlie at A Novel Idea. #LNK
A smoke-gray cat with white feet sleeps in the top level of a carpeted cat tree. There are window reflections in the image. The picture was taken from the sidewalk outside a bookshop where the cat lives. Bookshelves are visible behind him, displaying puzzles and collections of poetry and critical essays.
October 24, 2025 at 7:02 PM
unprovoked.net
I saw @judedoyle.bsky.social at @astoriabookshop.bsky.social and all I got was my next great in-flight read.
A copy of the 2025 book DILF: Did I Leave Feminism? A Trans and/or Feminist Manifesto by Jude Ellison S. Doyle. The cover layout calls to mind mid-1970s futurist design, with the acronym DILF rendered in large white asymmetrical letters, and the subtitle and author name in plain black text. There is also a cover blurb from Julia Serano that reads, "A thoughtful and passionate book that speaks directly to our current moment." Serano is the author of Whipping Girl. The chosen color palette is a gradient of the trans pride flag colors, with a deep blue at lower left blending to a not-quite-bubblegum-pink at top right.
October 15, 2025 at 1:53 AM
unprovoked.net
Doing some homework for this weekend. #NowReading
A paperback copy of Samuel Beckett's 1952 play Waiting for Godot, with the subtitle A Tragicomedy in Two Acts. The cover image is a black-and-white photograph of a man alone on stage, wearing loose and vaguely shabby clothes (shoes, slacks, jacket, bowler hat), with arms outstretched to either side. He is facing away from the viewer, entreating... an audience? God? Creation itself? There is also a cover blurb from critic Clive Barnes that reads, "One of the true masterpieces of the century."
October 8, 2025 at 1:26 PM
unprovoked.net
Grasshopper takeover. #LNK #FieldNote
A grasshopper (dark green, black, and tan-white) crouches, its forelegs slightly stretched forward and its antennae extended, on the dusty silver roof of a car. The tops of other nearby cars are visible behind, and in the background, out of focus, is a house next to some trees. The grasshopper is more of a passenger than an occupying force.
October 5, 2025 at 2:01 AM
unprovoked.net
Spooky season: go. (Mike Hampton drew @sindeetones.bsky.social and me as zombies at WonderCon 2010.) #NewProfilePic
A black-and-white head-and-shoulders illustration of a woman and man in zombified form: disheveled hair, dirty and torn clothes, open mouths with rent flesh, bent and broken eyeglasses, bulging eyes, jagged teeth, smell lines, and flies swirling around. And we're obviously in love!
October 2, 2025 at 10:51 PM
unprovoked.net
I've seen this before but it was a true delight to get one in my convention packet this morning.
A spiral-bound handbook titled "AFL-CIO Frontline Solidarity: A Mass Deportation Fight-Back Toolkit for Union Activists and Organizers." The cover art features an illustration of a person holding a bullhorn and shouting into the microphone.
September 26, 2025 at 2:50 PM
unprovoked.net
Tomorrow: go time.
Screenshot of a U.S. Open tennis box score showing 23rd-ranked Naomi Osaka (Japan) paired against 3rd-ranked Coco Gauff (USA). The match takes place Sunday, August 31, 2025, court and start time to be determined.
August 30, 2025 at 9:55 PM
unprovoked.net
A couple years ago, we had our front yard replanted with native prairie flora, including Black-eyed Susans. Last month I saw this one growing out of the sidewalk a couple doors over. Anyhow, this has been another installment of Crying in Coffee Shops Over a Jude Doyle Newsletter. (Read it and weep.)
A Black-eyed Susan flower, with a narrow green stem and vivid golden-yellow petals radiating from a dark central cone, grows from the loose seam of a sidewalk in the city. Behind the flower can be seen a pebbled gray street with a single white dash separating two traffic lanes.
August 30, 2025 at 6:22 PM
unprovoked.net
Related reading: Raphael, acrylic on canvas, by Megan McCollister. On display at Meadowlark Coffee. #LNK
Raphael, acrylic on canvas, by Megan McCollister, an artist based in Lincoln, Nebraska. The painting is perhaps a biblically accurate depiction of the generally non-canon archangel, represented here by a thick black circle set against an orange- and red-tinged background of implied flames, through which can be seen various abstract mystical symbols in gray. Surrounding the circle are black arcs, all bending toward and away from the circle in non-uniform directions, and adorned with symbols painted in white: concentric circles, short lines, arcs, and dots distributed in repeating patterns along their lengths. The work is mounted on a plain gray wall. There is a small label card with the title, medium, artist name, and sale price ($100).
August 29, 2025 at 2:35 PM
unprovoked.net
Happy Be Not Afraid Day to those who celebrate – and you should celebrate. The art card by Riley at Rainbow Comics isn't connected to the series, but as a totem it amplified our veneration. These kids love @judedoyle.bsky.social. That's how I know they're all right. #NCBD #LNK @boom-studios.com
A copy of issue number three of the limited comic book series Be Not Afraid, written by Jude Ellison S. Doyle, illustrated by Lisandro Estherren, colored by Francesco Segala, and lettered by Simon Bowland. The cover is a uniform blood red, with a simple church house drawn in the background. In the foreground is a detached marquee, half stuck in the ground, that reads, "BE NOT AFRAID HE IS HE IS HE IS HERE." The book title, artistic team, and publisher mark (Boom! Studios) are printed across the top. Next to the comic book is an art card featuring a vaguely avian angelic being with six eyes and wings with tips that seem to be enveloped in, or fade into shadow, or fire, or perhaps both. The wings are crossed and the being wears a bright golden circlet around its neck.
August 28, 2025 at 2:18 AM
unprovoked.net
Maron nailed it.
Transcript of a portion of comedian Marc Maron's 2013 special Thinky Pain: "I spend a lot of time in hotels. I do. It's just part of the job. It's just part of my life. And I don't mind it. I got nothing to complain about. I mean, I got to wake up early sometimes to enter a morning zoo format. I have to get up to do morning zoo radio. [grumbles] As many of you know, in every great city or lesser city in this country there's a morning zoo situation happening, and comics sometimes have to enter that situation and play along to sell tickets. Now, as many of you know, a morning zoo format, traditionally there is a main guy, a laughing guy, and a baffled and shocked woman. That's the classic setup, give or take the woman or the laughing guy. If I were to do an impression of that, there was just sounds, it would be, 'Bah. Bah-bah-bah. Bah-bah-bah.' [laughing hysterically] 'Oh, fellas.' So I have to deal with that."
August 19, 2025 at 5:48 PM
unprovoked.net
Love to pick up a preorder and check out my library hold on the same day. (When they purchase a title that you requested, you get first dibs on it.) @mattielubchansky.com
Two copies of the graphic novel Simplicity (2025). They are identical except for a library barcode label on the book on the right. The cover image depicts an illustration of a person who is upside down and appears to be falling or is being pulled by glowing flower vines. At the top of the drawing, two hands reach down. The title text reads, "In the Land of Simplicity. A Novel." The credit is "Mattie Lubchansky, author of Boys Weekend" and there is a blurb that says, "Mattie Lubchansky is a genius," from Kristen Arnett, New York Times bestselling author of the books Mostly Dead Things and With Teeth.
August 16, 2025 at 10:57 AM
unprovoked.net
Drive-Away Dolls (2024), Close to You (2023), Omni Loop (2024), and Love Hurts (2025). Interesting week. #LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched
Screenshot of the Recent Activity tab within the Letterboxd mobile app showing poster images for the films Drive-Away Dolls (a basic 1990s car parked under a roadside diner sign in the desert), Close to You (actor Elliot Page, a white man with close-cropped hair, staring out a window), Omni Loop (actors Ayo Edebiri, a Black woman, and Mary-Louise Parker, a white woman, reflected into infinity), and finally, Love Hurts (Vietnamese-born actor Ke Huy Quan).
July 25, 2025 at 2:50 PM
unprovoked.net
Screenshot of a post ("toot") from the Mastodon social media platform that reads, "Nonbinary people should get a tax break for not using publicly funded gender." The author's handle is @theynege@beige.party
July 14, 2025 at 5:29 PM
unprovoked.net
Ever since we read it in high school and yeah, I play both parts in my head.
A screenshot of two lines of dialogue from Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, in which Rosencrantz says, "I want to go home," and Guildenstern answers, "Don't let them confuse you."
July 10, 2025 at 10:39 PM
unprovoked.net
Mandy is the free square and I was a nerd for Raising Arizona for years. Part of me wants to say Leaving Las Vegas, but as introspective self-destruction goes, it's this and it's not even close.
Mary Burke (played by Patricia Arquette, a white woman with dark hair styled in an a-line bob, wearing a black zip-up sweatshirt over a white collared shirt) and Frank Pierce (played by Nicolas Cage, a white man with dark hair parted to one side, wearing a paramedic's white button-down shirt and a stethoscope draped around his neck) stand outside a hospital emergency room in Martin Scorsese's 1999 film Bringing Out the Dead. They both have grave expressions and are observing some action happening out of frame.
July 8, 2025 at 11:30 PM
unprovoked.net
"...it's been a number of years since Har Mar Superstar played in Omaha." Why do you suppose that is?
"Sexual assault accusations" written in blue text on a white background.
June 20, 2025 at 7:00 PM
unprovoked.net
One for @pronounced-ing.bsky.social's files.
At the No Kings Day protest, a smiling demonstrator holds a sign with an elaborate caricature of Donald Trump wearing a crown, under which is the legend, "So faux-king tired!" rendered in block capital letters.
June 14, 2025 at 6:08 PM
unprovoked.net
This one hit close to work. #LNK #NoKings
A person on a city street corner holds a simple protest sign that reads, "If there's money for a parade, there's money for Medicaid." So say we all.
June 14, 2025 at 4:22 PM