David Lydon-Staley

@dlstaphilly.bsky.social

453 Followers 997 Following

Associate Prof. Annenberg School for Communication at Penn. Curiosity, time, brains, substance use, health comm, D&D, stories 🏳️‍🌈 he/him

A portrait of John W Tukey. He is posing in front of a chalk board making it look like sampled data is going in one ear and out the other, regularized.
The book cover for I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
Me standing beside Xinyi in the lobby of the Annenberg School for Communication building at Penn. Xinyi is holding a bouquet of flowers
The photo shows the cover of the book Release, a novel by Patrick Ness
The cover of the book A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
A sign hanging in a supermarket aisle that reads: why?
A photo of Hoover Dam
A bingo squad of TV Themes
Cacti in Cholla Cactus Garden in Joshua Tree National Park. The cacti have brownish stems and fuzzy green prickly tops. In the background there are blue skies
Painted rocks stacked on top of each other. The sun is peaking through behind the rocks. The sky is very blue
A photo of the book Saturday by Ian McEwan. Stacey, a fawn pug, is in the top right corner of the photo
The cover of the book Tomorrow, And Tomorrow, And Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.
Stacey, a fawn pug, walking outside with a leash. She’s looking up into the camera with big brown eyes
A photo of the book My Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed Newson
A picture of Edmund White’s The Loves of my Life. Stacey, a fawn pug, is next to the book looking warily at the camera
A picture of the book Small Rain by Garth Greenwell. Stacey, a pug and my dog, is laying beside the book.
Text from a Stonewall Sports email: “Yesterday, The National Park Service removed transgender and queer from the LGBTQ+ acronym on its page dedicated to our namesake, the Stonewall National Monument. We want to be very clear: Stonewall Sports will always remain proud to be an organization that serves and recognizes ALL people in the LGBTQIA+ community, regardless of what letter they might identify with. We will stand strong in the face of adversity, serving as a beacon of hope, community, and progress across the country. Our courageous elders rioted and protested for queer liberation at Stonewall in 1969, and we will continue in their footsteps as we fight to maintain and protect a safe home for each and every person within our community. Stonewall Sports proudly cheers on all transgender and intersex athletes within our league. We believe that all trans and queer people not only exist, but deeply matter. While people may try to erase members of our community, history has shown us time and time again that they will not succeed. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
A picture of me teaching a class. I have bags under my eyes and I staring ahead as if I am dead inside. The corners of my mouth are pulled down into a frown
A screenshot from a Popar Mechanics webpage discussing different ereaders. The Kindle Paperwhite is shown in the screenshot with a list of pros. The pros are “several color options”, “waterproof”, and “Bluetooth for audio-book connectivity”. The only con listed is “costs more for non-ad version”
A picture of the cover of The Sellout, a novel by Paul Beatty. Stacey, a fawn pug, is in the top right of the photo
A picture of Stacey the pug, a fawn pug, laying on a blue blanket
A picture of the book Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart beside Stacey, a fawn pug
Silhouettes of Two Men Standing in a Dark Room
The cover of the book The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. Stacey the Pug (my dog) is in the top left corner sniffing the book
Spotify wrapped listing my top 5 artists: 1) Luke Combs, 2) Winnetka Bowling League, 3) Counting Crows, 4) The 1975, 5) Fire swimmer. Also listed are my top songs 1) you found yours, 2) cowboy take me away, 3) pink pony club, 4) where the wild… , 5) the kind of love we make. There’s a picture of Luke Combs on the page and it shows 8,611 minutes listened
A text from my mother in law who is looking after my pug Stacey. The text reads: “Stacey just got on the table and gorges herself on bread for stuffing! Good thing she’s going home! Even better that it wasn’t the turkey. Little imp”
A picture of the first page of a working novel draft in a Microsoft Word Processor with the words: “THE ATLANTIC BETWEEN US by David Lydon-Staley”
A photo of the cover of The Great Believers, a novel by Rebecca Makkai
The picture shows a person taking a photo of towering apartments in Hong Kong with their cell phone
A pug wearing a harness looks forlornly at the camera while sitting on a black wicker chair with red cushions
A picture of a cropped PowerPoint slide that reads “Goffman in doing field work. Getting in: “you have to open yourself up to being snubbed. You have to stop making points to show how “smart assed” you are, and that is extremely difficult for graduate students (especially on the East Coast)”
A sign that says “Department of Media and Communication”
A portrait of Albert the monkey in a web. A spider is coming close to him. The monkey looks afraid
Photo of Albert the monkey animatronic as part of the Mystic Manor Hong Kong Disney ride. He’s on the bottom right, holding his right hand up and pointing at a painting that takes up most of the rest of the photos the photo has Chinese characters going down the left side and three panels across the top that look like stone carvings - it’s difficult to make out details because the photo is dark. In the center of the painting is a box with a shining gem on top of it
This is an image of white text against black background that reads: Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game, dubbed “the world’s greatest roleplaying game.” This course explores the history of D&D, uncovering how it became a global phenomenon. Students will investigate why people are drawn to the game, how it reflects and shapes popular culture, and the diverse communities that play it. We will delve into the game’s potential to be a therapeutic aid, its potential to foster creativity and collaboration, and controversies like moral panics over its influence on teens. Through discussion, analysis, and hands-on engagement, students will gain a deep understanding of the power of play and storytelling.
A photo of my view looking down through the bottom of a glass-bottom cable car