Just finished the bio of Deng Xiaoping by the recently departed Ezra Vogel. Really fascinating book for anyone interested in the foundation of Modern China. I'd argue Deng was the most important statesman in the world from 1950-2000. Many lessons for India. A few takeaways (1/n)

We expect transformative leaders to be grand architects w/ a modernization vision. They should know what changes are crucial. In actuality, most have no clear agenda. Reforms - esp econ. ones - are messy, contradictory, beset by unorthodox ideas mixed in w/ many good ideas (2/n)

Deng & his Communist Party had a nebulous philosophy of "trial by error" & "do what works." Deng's early years as ruling premier were noteworthy for debacles like an economic retrenchment & abrupt cancellation of foreign contracts to husband scarce forex reserves (3/n)

Deng believed in the "population bomb" myth and enacted the 1-Child Law which could hurt China's long-run growth prospects. Deng also quixotically spent much of his country's resources trying to become a petro-state to match Saudi Arabia during the '70s (4/n).

Even Deng's good ideas like special economic zones (SEZs) were rife with problems and accusations of poor implementation. SEZs led to shortages, graft, inflation. Communist leaders demanded an SEZ moratorium and Deng would periodically accede to such demands (5/n)

Ok. Here goes.

I track all my books at https://t.co/WLPKFEPoYK. I am going to go through the list and talk about the books I read in 2020 that struck me. Hopefully this won’t be 55 tweets long.

The first book I read in 2020 was this book about punk rock I think recommended by @dansinker

I love books about music and especially music that I enjoy. I learned a lot reading this book and it introduced me to a number of bands. Was fun.

I will read anything by Ken Liu. This collections is wonderful. The story “The Paper Menagerie” broke my heart. I loved it so so much.

A friend recommended Infinite Detail and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I often think about the techno utopian world that we have build and what will happen in the future. This book details a very bizarre and weird future building on a lot of those ideals.

I loved reading this book. I didn’t really know anything about Jessica Simpson before - but really enjoyed her autobiography. Who knew!

Now that the year is actually at the end and I have seen almost all the movies (haha not even close), I will list my favorites in no particular order in a thread no one will care about but me. But first, @letterboxd says there are 22,519 films released in the 2020s. Yikes. 1/?

#1 @MinariMovie by @A24 which is genuinely a movie I have thought about regularly since I saw it in January. Wider release in 2021 and do not sleep on this one. Gorgeous Korean American Arkansas farmer story of building a new future and generational gap. 😍🥰

#2 @nomadlandfilm by Chloe Zhao which is a sweeping hybrid film of the new American west and the death of the American dream. @Criterion needs to go ahead and collect. 3/?

#3 @americanutopia by Spike Lee brought us the reminder of music, theater, audiences, joy at a time when we needed it most. Oh David Byrne. Thank you.

#4 David Attenborough's A Life on Our Planet reminds us that Earth is a gorgeous place we are screwing up pretty royally. Cinematography alone worth a watch.

happy new year, all. i’ve barely had time to absorb new music or artists in 2020, because mostly i’ve been listening with ash, and all he wants is the Grease soundtrack over and over (and over. and over). but here’s a little list of my top ten. ready?

1. Fiona Apple - Fetch The Bolt Cutters
In Three Words: homespun percussive truth-bangers
For Fans Of: feminism, confessional lyrics
Note: not background listening

2. Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher
In Three Words: scream of consciousness
For Fans Of: kimya dawson, courtney barnett
Note: kills you softly

3. Laura Jane Grace - Stay Alive
In Three Words: laura spills survival
For Fans of: against me, punk, confessional songwriting
Note: listen to our podcast dammit

4. Reb Fountain - Reb Fountain
In Three Words: soft dark-soul dive
For Fans of: kathleen edwards, mazzy star
Note: she’s a new kiwi friend. and i just found out red is my COUSIN.

How about a New Year's Eve thread about Gordon Parks & the photo world's deeply entrenched culture of white supremacy? Ok? Let's go.

We celebrate Gordon Parks as one of the most significant photographers of the 20th century. Rightfully so. His photos were more than exquisite aesthetic objects. They also profoundly shaped the way that white people saw & understood poverty & race. BUT...

But we rarely talk about *why* Parks was able to achieve so much in the photo world.

The answer is simple & clear: He -- alone among Black photographers of his & earlier generations -- received the same kind of mentoring & opportunities that as promising white photographers.

During most of photography's history, the single most important predictor of mainstream professional success was the possession of a white skin.

My wife and I led a very successful Zoom party for New Year's Eve. I thought I'd share details and tips in case it helps others. We had about 15 squares worth of people on the screen. The two main activities were charades and singing songs related to time. 1/14

An issue we were worried about was tech support during the event, since not everybody was familiar with all Zoom features. We were planning to use a breakout room or two in case people got bored with an activity and wanted to talk, but never needed it. 2/

To aid in tech support, we used BOTH a laptop (with external monitor) & a separate iPad. That way, I could ensure that my instructions on what to tap worked, see what the others were seeing, etc. The iPad had audio off & we shared a good external mike connected to the laptop. 3/

Since I needed to work closely with the laptop, I had to sit right in front. The second device let my wife also sit right in front of a camera. The external mike cut down on room echoes since she was closer to it than the laptop's mike and made our voices equal. 4/

We asked everybody to rename themselves to be the names of who we were seeing (e.g., "Joe and Jane Smith" instead of "JSmith iPad"). That required tech support for most people. (It's different on iPad and laptop.) We introduced everybody, telling how we met them. 5/

Looking for reading material to help you stay comfy & warm on this frigid January day? Well, it’s easy as another #ScholarSunday morning thread of public scholarly work from the last week! #twitterstorians

Great @benbarber96 interview of @AngieMaxwell1 for @facingsouth on countering the “Long Southern

& an equally vital @FAIRmediawatch interview w/@KeriLeighMerrit on the Lost

& one more excellent interview, @nhannahjones w/@VelshiMSNBC on Mike Pompeo’s departing attacks on multicultural

wrote a couple wonderful pieces this week. This one for @madebyhistory on Warnock’s victory & Black

You might see an 'essay' going around today about 'the value of knowledge'. I'm not linking it, but I've taken out a few paragraphs that need to be reckoned with. 1/?

From the very first sentence, this person attacks Nikole Hannah Jones and the #1619Project in a typically conservative fashion, no doubt to get the conservative heads to go 'hear, hear!!'. He then says she 'claims' her expertise & essentially says to her 'stay in your lane'. 2/x

Ridiculous assertion aside, Considering this author is someone that routinely criticizes his education program for doing things like setting tasks of making 'BLM bracelets', but then heralds it in his bio, one must wonder how he reckons w/his own lack of expertise. 3/x

He then criticizes Gloria Ladson Billings, another Black woman for pointing out something that is literally true (have you not seen curricula that tell teachers to enact the slave trade? Or that propagate the thanksgiving myth?) 4/x

but does nothing to reckon with the the history of this country, the (failure) to teach Black children, the changes that DO need to be made in curriculum to ensure both rigor and windows and mirrors. 5/x

Reasons not to do it

1/ Merry Christmas everyone! I'm a very odd and eccentric person, so after some Yuletide joy and wine drinking, my thoughts turn to what archaeologists of the future might make of my remains if I were to die in a sudden disaster, like the Vesuvius eruption.
(Quick disclaimer...

2/ I'm not an archaeologist - just someone who takes a keen amateur interest in these things)
After, let's say, a thousand years, and without very particular conditions of preservation that are unlikely in this climate, it's likely that all skin, gristle and textiles would have

3/ rotted into nothingness.
So, what's left?
My bones.
Presuming they're in a decent state of preservation, archaeologists would be able to tell from my brow ridges and gracile bones that I was probably a natal woman.
The eruption of my wisdom teeth and the condition of my

4/ pelvis would indicate I was 30-50 years old at time of death and had had at least one child.
Analysis of bones would indicate I had a land based diet, lived in N. Europe and was well-nourished. Lack of joint wear and tear shows I had undertaken no strenuous physical labour.

5/ What else would be left of me... most likely the sparkly beads on my clothes - both on the collar of my dress and my cardigan. They're made of gum/plastic - made to imitate gems, but very cheap. In the far future, finds like this would be plentiful. Archaeologists would likely

What a year 2020 has been...

Earthquakes
Tsunamis
Cyclones
Floods
Volcanic eruptions
Massive forest fires
Unprecedented pandemic
Economic crisis
Social disharmony
Terrorist attacks
Armed conflicts and hostilities

A truly abysmal year, but thankfully, we survived...

We have also been spared much worse eventualities (so far), such as:
Solar storm
Nuclear war
Asteroid impact
Blazar

This has made me realise that our humble existence is an underappreciated facility.

This year seems to be a massive experiment in social engineering.

While coping with a sudden disruption in commercial activity leading to a brief spell of global socialism, we saw hijacked, outsourced and sponsored protests fuelled by social divisions and insecurities.

Personally, I experienced a complete collapse of my reward mechanism throughout this year, resulting in low motivation levels for prolonged periods. I couldn't even find the motivation to post much on social media.

It made me realise the incompetence of reward-oriented work.

Happiness (being home after 5 years) was in stark contrast of sorrow (loss of friends and family), effectively flattening any emotional upheaval.

From the yogic perspective (सुख-दुःखे समे कृत्वा), this was certainly an educational year but was devoid of satisfaction.

THREAD: 1) Hollywood Celebrities and the "Elites" (of DC & the Media) tell you it's an oppressive system because they not only preside over that system of YOUR oppression, they financially benefit from that illusion as they cash the check from their owner.

Joyce's great story, "The Dead" takes place today 6 January, feast of the Epiphany. I look forward to discussing it this evening @IrlEmbRome. An endlessly rich story for our times, it turns the comforting Christmas tale of new life into a meditation on death, memory, loss. Thread

It corrects or seems to correct some of the bleakness of the earlier stories. Joyce wrote that he had "been unnecessarily harsh" in not reproducing any Dublin's "ingenuous insularity and its hospitality. The latter 'virtue' so far as I can see does not exist elsewhere in Europe".

It offers a wonderful evocation of hospitality and a luscious description of the laden Christmas table "A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table and at the other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin ...

Joyce wrote this extraordinarily mature story when he was just 25 years of age. Part of its inspiration came from a tough Christmas he and Nora spent in Rome in 1906. Christmas dinner, he complained, was just an uninspiring plate of pasta.

The Dead is also a fitting story for #NollaignamBan as Gabriel is made aware of his failure to see and properly hear the three women who challenge him: Lily, the caretaker's daughter, Miss Ivors, and of course his wife, Gretta.