Douglas Michael Massing

@michaelmassing.com

2402 Followers 4293 Following

Academic editor—impatient advocate eX: @T2DRemission—ADCES parapro cert—🌎's thinnest bimodal (science/humanities) pub📋. Queer hemidemi, political, old, tired. Late-diagnosed ADHD explains much. 2nd/3rd linktr.ee/D.Michael.Massing L.O.V.E. Chorus 2025/06/08

Screenshot of my Discord post: You'll have to pry the em dash from my cold, dead hands. I've had far too extensive discussions recently with a client, and a prospective client, about the conundrum of LLMs that are trained on academic writing, which they reproduce faithfully, such that they then flag original academic writing as having all the hallmarks of LLM generation.
Top and middle left: A noose made of celluloid film dangles in front of distant searchlights of the type used to publicize film premieres. Top and middle right – Deco style text: EVERYTHING YOU'VE HEARD IS TRUE! TIM ROBBINS GRETA SCACCHI FRED WARD WHOOPI GOLDBERG PETER GALLAGHER BRION JAMES A ROBERT ALTMAN FILM The Player Bottom: a reductively stylized Los Angeles and California coast, above further credits
movie posters for Heated Rivalry, the Russian musical Monte Cristo, The Grifters, and Some Like It Hot
Around a picture of a bunch of overwhelmingly if not exclusively white evangelical preachers, laying hands on Donald Trump and on each other, the text: SORRY, WHITE EVANGELICALS, GOD DID NOT SEND TRUMP TO SAVE YOU. HE SENT HIM TO TEST YOU - AND YOU FAILED. THIS IS OUR COUNTRY NOT YOUR CHURCH The final phrase is divided by an abstractly stylized American flag.
Poster for the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still, with the legend "FROM OUT OF SPACE....A WARNING AND AN ULTIMATUM!" The graphics of the film both represent and misrepresent it: On the right, the robot Gort's carrying a woman to the space ship has been mutated into a standard horror trope, with a generic and screaming slip-clad blonde substituted for the film's frightened but composed, and fully dressed, Patricia Neal. Center frame, a giant hand covers the northern hemisphere, presumably representing the forces behind Gort and Klamath.
screenshot: on the left, Google's LLM responds to the query "tahoe ruins split view" with speculation about picturesque old buildings near Lake Tahoe one might want to visit or photograph; on the right, source links for such sites
Slate-blue fabric shopping bag with white text: logo, name, and 1934 founding date of a local funeral home.
A chart from Apple Health gives the “Daily Average” of blood glucose as a range of 39 mg/dL.
Over a picture of Donald Trump, fists clenched and face contorted with rage, headlines describing how his antics might be reported anywhere else in the world. Main head: Embattled US Ruler Deploys Armed Troops Against Citizens Amid Mass Protests Against Regime's Kidnapping Spree Subhead: Military deployment comes one day after former oligarch ally and richest man on Earth alleges links to late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein
early morning sunlight streaming through trees
A small, finely detailed bronze sculpture in Center Memorial Park in Manchester, Connecticut: Two bears stand in a half embrace. From their relative stature and the expressions on their faces, they seem to be a parent comforting a distraught youngling.
Lipid panel values (cholesterol, triglycerides) dating back to January 2015, trending from dangerous to solidly within reference/target range. Details in post texts.
text from a mood logger, under the rubric: MOMENTARY EMOTIONS time stamp: 18:38 (about two-and-a-half hours ago) feelings: Angry, Embarrassed, Frustrated, Disgusted, Annoyed, Jealous, Lonely, Irritated, Disappointed, Discouraged, Sad, Stressed overall mood ratng: Very Unpleasant factors: Community, Friends, Identity, Hobbies, Money, Travel comment: When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose.
A 4-pointed blue star signals Google's AI Overview over the text: To convert a men's shoe size from the US to the UK, you can [highlighted] add 1 to the US size to get the UK size. [end highlight] For example, a US men's size 13 is a UK men's size 12.
close up of me in a tux with a wing-tip collar and a red bow tie, wearing purple femme glasses and a focused/prim expression, sporting an artfully disheveled mop of (in this lighting) gray-blond hair, atop close-trimmed sides, in a style a friend called post-punk; behind me, a backstage dressing room
A map of St. Joseph, Missouri, with its breaded tenderloin sandwich venues highlighted, and a callout for Pappy’s Grill and Pub.
Close-up of an old white guy with a genial, tolerant expression, wearing a turquoise beanie, large-lensed rimless glasses, an open black leather jacket, and a button-down shirt in pale earthy colors, open at the throat. I am outside, and have a mask tucked under my chin. Over my right shoulder, in the middle distance, is a tracery of bare branches against a white sky that rises to a dull conventional blue.
MENORAH © Lillian S. Robinson You’ve got to be on the side of the Maccabees: Isn’t that what it means to be Jewish— Even if the Maccabees aren’t the Jews Anymore? Your son, says the Israeli- imports salesman (though it’s just a Menorah I’m buying, not some high-tech arsenal) Your son doesn’t have your memories. (Ghetto accent flicks this poem at me across a counter he’s covering with newsprint to protect the glass from candelabrum- scratches.) My son has never hear Amen at the end of rote blessings and imagined it was “our men” (their victory and safe return) we prayed for. He didn’t grow up in that overheated apartment, orange bank of candles reflecting in a window streaked with child-breath. That’s a San Francisco pagoda rising, incongruous, across the boulevard. He’s never watched the lengthening of rust and icicle on a back-neighbor’s fire escape for signs of the slow passage of seasons. Surely He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Divine Insomniac works overtime, in fact, preparing Chanukah-gold for His elect: the cluster bombs unfrozen (as thick branches, after an ice-storm open up a rigid, lethal flower, cold petal by petal) and the Palestinians’ new departure is called an exodus. I buy my son a bathrobe at Sears, [continued next image]
Photo from the New York Times: Foreground, a patch of dry cracked earth; background, scrubby, grassy growth, punctuated by stone walls. The Times caption: “A member of the Afghan Local Police, a militia organization formed to fight the Taliban, outside the unit's hilltop base in 2012 in Taloga, Kunduz Province, Afghanistan.” The male figure in the photo is dressed in a white shirt, loose white pants, and sandals, with a dark-patterned shawl-like garment draped loosely over his shoulders. He sits on a metal-frame chair with a missing back. He leans and gazes offscreen right. He has lifted his bare left foot to the chair seat, and seems to be holding, perhaps massaging, it. There is no weapon in view. Headline: Behind Afghanistan's Fall, U.S.-Backed Militias Worse Than the Taliban Teaser text: Trump blamed Biden. Biden blamed the Afghan military. Our investigation found that the U.S. unwittingly laid the groundwork for the Taliban's victory long ago.
Screenshot from Apple health: Under a monthly consumption graph and the heading “About Dietary Sugar”, a rather bland and generic discussion of sugar and its role in the human body is followed by the sentence quoted.
Photo, POV: the backseat of an empty bus.
Close-up of a smiling white guy with a recently mowed, gray-white beard. I am looking directly at the camera with an expression that I hope is warm and friendly. I am wearing a pink T-shirt and a pair of cuff-style earbuds. Although indoors, in a mid 20th-century-decorated living room, I am wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat with a pinch-front crown and a wide, brightly colored band with an abstract, vaguely floral pattern. It is a new hat. I am showing it off. I am hoping you will like it.
A pale, faintly glowing blue-white disc sits under the heading DAILY MOOD, and over a list of the components of that mood: Amused, Annoyed, Ashamed, Disappointed, Discouraged, Drained, Embarrassed, Frustrated, Guilty, Indifferent, Irritated, Lonely, Overwhelmed, Relieved, Scared, Stressed, Worried. The amusement comes from recognizing that the remaining elements add up to the overall rating of (returning to the text): A Neutral Day. I identified the factors in generating those feelings as Tasks, Work, Friends, Self-Care, Health, Community. Also amusingly, under the heading MOMENTARY EMOTIONS it reads: No Entries
An accordion arrangement of (apparently) 13 8-foot by 4-foot sheets of hand-painted and hand-lettered plywood depicts, according to the title panel, CHRISTMAS IN MANY LANDS. The fourth set of paired panels depicts a Santa Claus dressed in a US-flag-based costume, white stars on blue above the waist and flowing red and white stripes below. Text reads as follows: U.S.A. CIVIL WAR As war raged in the 1860s, Santa was as popular in the North as Gen. Grant and as popular in the South as Gen. Lee. One can only speculate if the South would have won if Santa had worn the Rebel gray. The remaining 5 pairs of panels are transcribed for context. Each features an approximately life-size portrait and descriptive text. The last two panel pairs are devoted to St. Nicholas. BABOUSKA RUSSIA Babouska fed and sheltered the Three Wise Men but was too busy to join them in seeking the Christ Child. Since then, she searches for him in every house she visits, leaving sweets and small gifts behind. ST LUCIA SWEDEN St Lucia, Lady of Light, brought food to Sweden during a famine. She wore a wreath of candles to light her way. Each year, Lucia returns with her basket of gifts to share with those she encounters. HOTEIOFHO JAPAN Hoteiofho, the gift bearer in Japan, travels around looking for good children. He has eyes in the back of his head so he can tell if they behave after he passes. If you are good you get a gift. ST. NICHOLAS EUROPE Usually, his beard had been pictured as dark. It did not change to white until 1300 AD. He was visualized as a presence with a long white beard, riding a horse in the sky. The ability to fly took hold and remains today. MEDIEVAL ASIA MINOR Surviving a shipwreck, Nicholas gave thanks to God for his safety and was rewarded by being made Bishop of Myra (Turkey). He was a kind and caring Bishop who helped the needy and sick. Many tales are told of his good deeds. Photo cropped for legibility from the original by John Bachman, via Facebook.
A broiler drip pan full of packaged bread stuffing augmented with chopped chicken breast, onion, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, and apple, whole baby-form carrots, and turkey gravy.
My naked left shoulder, sporting a black ovalish transmitter for a continuous glucose monitor, attached by a white adhesive patch. A Band-Aid underneath the transmitter covers the incision from insertion of the CGM sensor. The mirror behind me back lights my back hair. More hair is visible on my chest.
Aluminum coin with an Art Deco 1926 at its center, below a more conventionally lettered “May 12”. Curving around the coin at the top: “Air Mail”; at the bottom: “St. Joseph, MO”. In tiny letters at the edge: top, “Pollock and Creviston”, my grandfather’s brother’s jewelry business; bottom, the initials WGP for my grandfather, William Grover Pollock.
From this morning’s email, a German text translated by DeepL as: We would like to ask you to send us photos of the mold in your bedroom. Preferably a photo of the whole wall and then close-ups of the mold. Thank you very much. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
Close-up of The Princess Bride’s Miracle Max, as portrayed by Billy Crystal through heavy aging prosthetics, answering the door. He is not pleased to have visitors.
As described, the room being a kitchen and the microwave being half-unpacked on the floor, looking enormous.
A chart from 1924 illustrates a dozen “bobbed”—cropped/short, with most styles falling above the line of the chin, at around the line of the mouth—hair styles for women, under the heading “If You Must Do It Show This to Your Barber” left to right, top to bottom: Shingle, or Ina Claire Bob Boyish Bob Marcel, or Water Waved Shingle Horizontal Tapered Bob French Side Part Bob Horizontal Clubbed Bob Flapper Bob Permanently Waved Bob Girlish Bob French Center Part Bob Dutch Cut Center Part Bob Courtesy of the American Hairdresser, official organ of the National Hairdressers' Association, Copyright, 1924 via https://glamourdaze.com/2013/07/1920s-hairstyles-12-classic-bob-cuts.html
Close up of me, deadpan, in my half eccentrically organized, half chaotic room, wearing a name-badge style pin on a nondescript top, reading : what am I supposed to be? 
Captain Hook, with a seductive expression, his hand and hook at the throat of an apprehensive Wendy. Publicity still from the 2003 live-action Peter Pan.
Ad copy touting a “Farmhouse” Electric Fireplace TV Stand that “fits TVs up to 55 inches” and has sliding doors and adjustable shelves. “The fireplace can be used with or without heat.” “Farmhouse“ seems to refer to the styling of the table-height box, which is painted white with cast-iron hardware, and features decorative detail that is probably meant to suggest that it’s structural. I grew up in farm country, and this does not strike me as anything practical enough to be given room in a farmhouse. The sliding doors at either end, when slid, would cover the fake fireplace. Although sold as a TV “stand“, the pictured TV does not stand on it but hangs from the wall behind it.
Screenshot from a mood log. Feelings listed: “Annoyed, Disappointed, Discouraged, Drained, Embarrassed, Frustrated and 13 more” appear under my assigned rating of “A Neutral Day”. top left: “State of Mind”, the name of Apple’s mood log, with a tiny abstracted profile of a human head in a bloodless cross section showing the brain top right: date bottom right: circular, targetish, vaguely heatmapish neutrality indicator in a pale bluish teal
“The Death of Arthur”: In a romantic painting by John Garrick (1862), a half-kneeling Sir Griflet (a.k.a. Girflet, Jaufré) half turns from tending to a dying King Arthur to observe an approaching ghostly boat with a dragon prow and a translucent sail.
In my inbox, 3 adjacent promo/teasers: The New York Times Well: Bad days, good vibrators, and eye strain... NYT Wirecutter The very best vibrators - Plus: What's hot at Wirecutter NYT CookingThe Veggie: Sweet potato and tofu, fall's hot couple -
Three-quarter profile close-up of Carolyn Jones as Morticia Addams, smiling offscreen over a tankard of some bubbling brew. The black-and-white production still has been colorized, mostly with restraint; Jones's skin has the faintest blush under a deathly pallor. In contrast, a deep, vaguely metallic red colors her closed, slightly upturned lips—which, taken with her brightly open eyes and tilted head, seem to convey a cryptic amiability that barely masks condescension and amusement. Out of frame above her head, the text: JUST BECAUSE I'M SMILING DOESN'T MEAN I LIKE YOU Below frame: I MIGHT BE PICTURING YOU ON FIRE
Schematic map showing the shape of my house and its fronting street, and the presence of a delivery car in our driveway, with precision as described. The map includes a button to a disclaimer from 🍏Maps Legal. The screenshot is time stamped 13:13. The vendor message by which I invoked the map is spelled out below: Order on the way Estimated arrival - 13:12 [Status progress bar:] Placed Preparing On the way Delivered [response button] Contact driver
Promotional photographic simulation from the TV series The Incredible Hulk: Dr. David Banner's eyes turn greenish-white as he transforms in four left-to-right stages into the Hulk.
promotional copy from the Hartford Courant Don't Miss [picture of Ludacris in concert] Who is playing at the 2024 Big E? Here are some of the can't miss concerts There are three key music stages at The Big E in Springfield, Massachusetts this year, with bands ranging from local Connecticut acts to legends like Chubby Checker, Public Enemy and Ludacris.
First of two screens showing the controls, features, bells, and whistles of my phone. The only telephony-related item is a setting for cellular service as a connection type.
Phone screen showing a world clock with times for New York, UTC, London, Stockholm, Jerusalem, Nairobi, Abu Dhabi, and Astana. Astana is the capital of Kazakhstan.
Movie still: Tommy Kirk, staring offscreen into a mirror, transfixed by his initial transformation into the titular shaggy dog of the 1959 Disney release.
A freight train in Reno, mostly on the distant side or covered in the shadow of a broad overpass. From lower middle frame to the right, we see the end of what may be a small livestock car, then an oil tank car and an open top-loader car—this last being my conveyance of choice. It is covered in graffiti, which does not obscure its yellow-painted livery: Golden West Service. The largest and most legible of the graffiti is the word NAKED (with the A inverted).
Close-up of my face, cropped from a “wild“ (accidental) bathroom selfie: White guy with a scruffy beard and white-gray hair in a more or less conventional cut with an overhanging forelock. I am looking down at something offscreen left. The angle and the lighting accentuate my cheekbones. At lower right is a looming (because closer to the camera) comb and a swath of a finger that is holding the phone.
In a 1963 photo, the men who made up the board of Desilu Productions sit around a long table furnished with water pitchers, ashtrays, and microphones. At center, wearing glasses and looking over one of the stack of documents provided each member, sits their Chairwoman, Lucille Ball.
collage featuring The Ramones, Debbie Harry of Blondie and John Lydon of the Sex Pistols Headlines/byline: Punk Turns 50: How a Music Revolution Also Impacted Fashion, Movies and More A half-century ago, a sonic boom hit our culture—and we haven’t been the same since By Craig Rosen, AARP Lede: There is no official start date for punk rock. No congress of spiky-haired musicians, adorned with safety pins, met to declare a revolution. But a strong, sneering case can be made that this form of rock—borrowing heavily from the genre’s roots while injecting it with rocket fuel—started 50 years ago in, of all places, a country music bar. [CBGB—standing for “country, bluegrass, blues”—opened in Manhattan’s Bowery] in 1973. But by ’74, the stage of this struggling club had opened up to rock acts and was soon populated by brash young musicians who sought an outlet for their rebellious music. The Ramones, considered the godfathers of punk, played their first CBGB gig in August of that year.
Photo: A glass door reflects a mid-20th-century commercial building across the street. On the door itself are the words: No Mean Girls Allowed CO Beauty Bar
publicity still: Tom Welling as Clark Kent in the crucifixion hazing scene from the pilot of Smallville.
Extreme close-up of my ear and cheek as background to a bare upper arm with a drugstore-branded bandaid.
Close-up of a smiling white guy with a recently mowed, gray-white beard. I am looking directly at the camera with an expression that I hope is warm and friendly. I am wearing a pink T-shirt and a pair of cuff-style earbuds. Although indoors, in a mid 20th-century-decorated living room, I am wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat with a pinch-front crown and a wide, brightly colored band with an abstract, vaguely floral pattern. It is a new hat. I am showing it off. I am hoping you will like it.
My alarms for the morning have me waking at 7:30, eating by eight, grooming by nine, dressing by 9:45, and out the door by 10:05.
Worn and tattered photographic print poster. Heading: “…scher Arbeiter-Bildungs-Verein [Workers Educational Association] Neuchâtel, 1883”. The first word is presumably Deutscher (German). At center, a vignette of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, surrounded by cameo portraits of the members. Second from the right in the top row is my great-grandfather.
Background: a lush wall of hanging vines, laden with purple and white flowers, angles away from the camera. Left foreground to right mid-ground: a varied array of large potted plants. Frame right: a red phallic shape, approaching a meter in length, dangles at about a 45° angle from a sling chair mostly obscured by the potted foliage.
“Confused math lady meme“: four panels of close-ups of Brazilian actor Renata Sorrah, eyes intensely scanning a series of mathematical figures.
close-up of a prescription rap sheet highlighting its instruction to pronounce Doxazosin as doks AY zoe sin