RM

@dorsalstream.bsky.social

12083 Followers 635 Following

You know, for kids. Lapsed philosopher; higher ed guy. I think things and write stuff. (I do have a (creative nonfiction) newsletter at https://buttondown.com/dorsalstream thanks for asking.) https://www.roblinmeeks.com

Tray of various barbecue mainstays, including brisket, pulled pork, jalapeño sausage, pickles, mac n cheese, and collard greens.
Text exchange with my mother, with her starting the conversation: MOM: Happy Birthday to the best philosopher I know! ME: Thanks! Wait-how many philosophers do you know? MOM: ONE
Photo of the NYC skyline under a sky dirtied by the smoke from the California fires, and the sun appears as a perfectly round orange dot.
Photo of a large Trojan Horse prop in front of a movie theater with the words “THE ODYSSEY” in the window in the background as part of a red carpet event for the release of the new movie.
Photo of a green can of mangosteen in syrup by the company AROY-D, with a pleasant pic of an cut mangosteen.
Black & white pic of Godzilla bending down and interacting with children.
American military threats have the same diminishing power. If recent history has taught us anything, it's that when the United States decides to achieve a geopolitical aim by means of military force, you can make a pretty safe bet that aim will not be achieved. Against all odds in a war with the United States, Iran's corrupt and cruel regime has maintained its power and is now receiving sanctions relief. While the U.S. military invents whole new genres of defeat, the Gulf states, and their airports, have now learned during the Iran war exactly what an American security guarantee is worth.
Photo of a work by artist Glen Martin Taylor that consists of a cop and saucer where half is porcelain with painted flowers, and the other half is shaped barbed wire.
Photo of the 4 members of evanescent boy band 98 Degrees
Ancient Drake meme with the first pic (him motioning NO WAY) accompanying the text "Using the latest memes" The second pick (him pointing with his eyes closed expressing the vibe THAT'S THE STUFF) with the text "Using tired/worn signifiers out of comfort"
Ancient Drake meme with the first pic (him motioning NO WAY) accompanying the text "Doing 45 min of cardio at the gym" The second pick (him pointing with his eyes closed expressing the vibe THAT'S THE STUFF) with the text "Walking 45 min to get a viral cinnamon roll"
Crowd scene from the NYC Pride March today in which several people mill about in front of signs saying things such as “JESUS SAVES” and “REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL”. One person waves a pride flag in front of them.
Okay, so a dish drying mat that has a quite cute painting of a smiling corgi riding a smiling dolphin. These guys are having a super swell time just hanging out.
White bust of the ancient mathematician/philosopher Pythagoras. He was rumored to have a golden thigh, but no thigh is represented here.
Noticeably photoshopped image of mustard yellow curtains in a white room. The curtains have cartoon images of various science stuff printed on them, including test tubes, books, and a microscope.
Pic of a flag extended in the wind at the top of a flagpole. The flag has red cursive text at the top reading “Just Married”. In the center is a heart-shaped painting of two doves (I think) pulling on ribbons connected to two rings, surrounded by a garland of leaves and roses and red hearts.
Screenshot from an Amazon Haul page for a skirt purchasable for one American penny that includes the text mentioned in the post itself.
Photo of disturbingly cone headed tech bro Marc Andreessen wearing a blazer over a shiny button-down shirt. Andreessen recently contended that introspection/reflection is bad.
Photo of an advertisement for something called “The Longevity Bowl” by Chloë Crane-Leroux that shows a woman in a white flowy dress holding both a bowl with various ingredients with a basket of produce in soft focus in the background.
Photo of an instant coffee pack with the name “MAXPRESSO” (and the O is a coffee bean)
Photo of me from the back wearing a long-sleeve black shirt, with each of my kids visible over each shoulder also visible is my son’s left arm in a purple cast.
Just a photo of 2 delicious cinnamon rolls that I had to wait in line for but didn’t mind.
if we win this This game is nuts ridiculous Don't tell me that you're going to start liking basketball oh i'm still more hype for world cup but this is insane OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD
Text exchange with my son, him starting i dont watch a lot of basketball is this a normal amount of 3s to be making It is not The Spurs are very hot
Tweet from 5/13/16 when twitter was still relatively okay Spanish: The his silent English: Many letters can be silent French: All letters are meaningless, every living thing is born without reason
Notify NYC Alert issued 06-08-2026 at 03:58 PM. Due to the NY Knicks Game at Madison Square Garden, only those who have a ticket to the game, a train ticket, are going to a business inside the area, have credentials, or have another authorized reason to be there will be allowed inside W 30th - W 35th Street between 6th - 8th Avenue in Manhattan. Mass transit customers should access Moynihan Station on the west side of 8th Avenue on 31st and 33rd streets, which will be outside of the secure area. Everyone entering the secure area will be screened, and you can only enter at these access points: West 32nd Street on the west side of 6th Avenue West 33rd Street on the west side of 6th Avenue Northeast corner of West 29th Street and 7th Avenue Northeast corner of West 30th Street and 8th Avenue Southeast corner of West 34th Street and 8th Avenue
Screenshot of a five-star Amazon review for a pen: Reviewed in the United States on April 20, 2026 Color: MulticolorStyle: Clear Barrel Verified Purchase For a girls’ weekend getaway to reconnect with our feminine balance, I brought pen and paper for the letters we were writing to our future selves. I chose a beautiful set of vintage paper and searched for the perfect felt-tip pens. They worked perfectly -smooth writing, no ink spills, and no flaws whatsoever. I’m confident they’ll perform just as well in six months. Great quality! I’ll definitely buy them again and recommend them. Plus, the colors were vibrant too. 6 people found this helpful
Photo taken from the back of me wearing a black shirt holding my daughter Q (age 3) and my son M (age 5), each visible over my shoulders. This candid photo was taken by my wife, an extraordinary photographer, one afternoon in a park.
Cartoon of 3 panels describing the experimental design: 1. is cartoon character at keyboard with text on a screen that reads: "Could you summarize the facts in Ever-Tite Roofing Corp. v Green?" 2. Shows cartoon person and cartoon robot responding to the prompt from 1 3. Shows sad cartoon person on the left and a happy cartoon robot smiling and lifting a trophy with a cartoon judge in the center.
Photo of doctoral academic regalia (dark blue with a gold center stripe) hanging from a bookshelf.
(The following is a text exchange with my son going first) the one from today Did you play lead guitar on that country song? i played every instrument except the drums which i programmed The guitar work is delicious yeah that solo at the end was fun and the songtrust ppl were in the room when i recorded it so i had to lock in
And what of progress? Well, I put it to you that The Known World is neither a progression nor a devolution from Macbeth, no more than the music of Stevie Wonder is a devolution from or an advance upon, say, the work of Beethoven. Unlike science and technology, art is not subject to the logic of growth or Moore's law. It won't definitely get smaller or faster or bigger and more lethal. It is produced in strong and weak economies alike, during war and peace. When it is good, as Forster notes, it will tend to outlast the human disorders that surround it, but it doesn't get any better or worse at doing that. The odds of making a piece of art that truly matters never really improve. And while we can certainly interpret Jones's portrait of black people as a progressive leap forward from Shakespeare's portrait of Othello, the gap between Macbeth and The Known World is still quite unlike the one between washing your clothes by hand in a stream and using a washing machine. The process of reading them both will require, from you, much the same human faculties. You'll have to imagine, think, and engage with a make-believe world, created by a stranger. An analogy for this is love. Is the love I feel for my children an advance upon or a devolution from the love a fourteenth-century woman felt for hers? Not all human experiences are subject to progress.
Photo of 7’5” Victor Wembanyama — showing off his 8’0” wingspan — being guarded by 6’4” Anthony Edwards
Maybe nostalgia is a species of the ideal, a dream of a last interior, where all the commotion of a life is finally rewarded with rest, drained of history. We were selling the memory of something, of hard work and industry, of necessity, of craft and artisanship—the mendacious idea that life was gathered with greater force and organized in superior ways in the past. People were hungry for the attributes of hardship, and our faux antiques replaced the real past with an emblematic one. Or something. I could never quite untwist the riddle completely. When you stood in the warehouse the eye was pleasantly bombarded by a vastness filled. But the inspiration for most of the furniture we sold came originally from hardscrabble times, times of scarcity and unrest and an economy based on need, not surplus, and certainly not this absurd superfluity, this crazy proliferation, where two hundred oak iceboxes, stacked to the ceiling on layers of card-board, would easily sell out on a Saturday afternoon.
A photo of the Regents of the University of Colorado. The photo itself is hard to describe. One guy (Frank McNulty) is wearing a cowboy hat and western-presenting blazer. Back row: Elliott Hood (D), At Large; Frank McNulty (R), District 4; Wanda James (D), District 1; Mark VanDriel (R), District 8; Ray Scott (R), District 3. Front row: Nolbert Chavez (D), District 7; Callie Rennison (D) Vice Chair, District 2; Ken Montera (R), Chair, District 5; Ilana Dubin Spiegel (D), District 6.
Photo of an Apple Watch face with two alerts: 1 from the Wall Street Journal that says “Is the secret to men’s longevity a great butt?” And a second that just says “Goal Achieved.”
"distracted boyfriend" meme with the man holding a woman's hand with the caption "summer's day" but looking lustily at another woman dressed in red with the caption "thee" (an clever illusion to Shakespeare's Sonnet 18)
View out another window with a yellow crane lifting something heavy to the top of another building in the neighborhood.
Photo of an NYC neighborhood dense with buildings that includes a cherry-picker truck with an absurdly long arm extended at t least 15 stories high
A bird, possibly a red tailed hawk or maybe a feathered dog
Common drawing of the philosophical trolley problem, with a trolley running down the tracks, a person with their hand on a lever that can switch between a track with 5 people laying on it or a track with just 1 person
Photo of a brown wooden sign with white lettering that reads “Science Building”
Label for grapes that reads sweetums Sweet Nectar Red Seedless Grapes Sweeter & Yummier
Shot from the 1983 Eddie Murphy star vehicle “Trading Places.” In this scene, Mortimer Duke (played by iconic actor Don Ameche) gives his brother Randolph Duke (Ralph Bellamy) the single dollar he wagered that nature was more powerful than nurture. Mortimer admitted that he lost the bet after destroying the life of star employee Louis Winthorpe III (a delightfully precise then unhinged Dan Akroyd) and elevating once homeless Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy). Winthrope and Valentine use the Duke’s greed and commitment to cheating/insider trading to give them a satisfying comeuppance.
Photo of bright pink azaleas taken in Central Park NYC
Everything Good Between Men and Women has been written in mud and butter and barbecue sauce. The walls and the floors used to be gorgeous. The socks off-white and a near match. The quince with fire blight but we get two pints of jelly in the end. Long walks strengthen the back. You with a fever blister and myself with a sty. Eyes have we and we are forever prey to each other's teeth. The torrents go over us. Thunder has not harmed anyone we know. The river coursing through us is dirty and deep. The left hand protects the rhythm. Watch your head. No fires should be unattended. Especially when wind. Each receives a free Swiss Army knife. The first few tongues are clearly preparatory. The impression made by yours I carry to my grave. It is just so sad so creepy so beautiful. Bless it. We have so little time to learn, so much... The river courses dirty and deep. Cover the lettuce. Call it a night. O soul. Flow on. Instead. By C.D. Wright
Photo of billboard that says “IF YO’RE IN PAIN, YOU NEED LAW. 800 PAIN LAW”
Things I need to eat when I get home Essabagel bec Muglai Indian (aloo gobi and chicken tikka) Xians spinach dumplings Cold brew from variety Pork bun from mei lei wah Chicken pho Sweetgreen Onigiri Sushi Spice tuna poke bowl Levain pb choc cookie Real kombucha Pad Thai Madame vo lemongrass chicken Like lowkey some mac n cheese Korean fried chicken??? Tonight dough ice cream Bbq pulled pork Welch's fruit snacks Thai green curry Korean banchan
Pangolins are not aggressive animals; between dusk and day they have the not unchain-like machine-like form and frictionless creep of a thing made graceful by adversities, con- versities. To explain grace requires a curious hand. If that which is at all were not forever, why would those who graced the spires with animals and gathered there to rest, on cold luxurious low stone seats - a monk and monk and monk - between the thus ingenious roof supports, have slaved to confuse grace with a kindly manner, time in which to pay a debt, the cure for sins, a gracetul use of what are yet approved stone mullions branching out across the perpendiculars?
Wikipedia page for the song Disco Duck by Rick Dees, showing it was released on September 4, 1976
Musical entertainer William Joel smiling coyly as he entertains a crowd with his trademark piano artistry.
TELESCOPE By Louise Glück There is a moment after you move your eye away when you forget where you are because you've been living, it seems, somewhere else, in the silence of the night sky. You've stopped being here in the world. You're in a different place, a place where human life has no meaning. You're not a creature in a body. You exist as the stars exist, participating in their stillness, their immensity. Then you're in the world again. At night, on a cold hill, taking the telescope apart. You realize afterward not that the image is false but the relation is false. You see again how far away each thing is from every other thing.
It was an extraordinarily human moment. Humanity feels a little more tangible when surrounded by nothing but machines and darkness; Wiseman's is a soft beating heart in a big black void that has carried everything, even its grief, farther than any heart has ever been. And now when he and his daughters look up to the Moon, he'll be able to point to Carroll Wiseman's memorial. When we explore, we bring our humanity with us, and leave it wherever we go.
THEN By Jorie Graham March 16, 2026 Then the full moon rose & filled the windows and I put my arm around you as you slept & I slept alongside you for a while. All around us the world. And in it us neither large nor small. This is the poem where the moonlight will whiten everything & I Will let go of the world as it was
Screenshot from Yahoo Finance with the headline "Jamie Dimon offers solution for American Dream 'on life support'" with a still of a video underneath.
Graphic from the New York Times overlaying Middle Eastern Countries (Iran, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Oman) on top of the US map to provide scale of the current war (which is absolutely a war and also a stupid and tragic war of choice).
VII who knows if the moon's a balloon, coming out of a keen city in the sky—filled with pretty people? (and if you and i should get into it,if they should take me and take you into their balloon, why then we'd go up higher with all the pretty people than houses and steeples and clouds: go sailing away and away sailing into a keen city which nobody's ever visited, where always it's Spring)and everyone's in love and flowers pick themselves