Mark Doyle
@markdoyle.bsky.social
Historian & writer. Britain, Ireland, empire, music. Latest book is on John Cale's Paris 1919 for 33 1/3. Next: histories of African people/music in Ireland. “Pipe-sucking radical”-Mail on Sunday. Views here are my own, not my employer's.
Pinned
Mark Doyle
@markdoyle.bsky.social
· Oct 19
This is an essay I wrote about music and grief and sunsets and water and grief and brothers and grief. It’d mean a hell of a lot if you set aside a little time to read it.
The Consolations of Waterloo Sunsets
mcblogs.montgomerycollege.edu/potomacrevie...
The Consolations of Waterloo Sunsets
mcblogs.montgomerycollege.edu/potomacrevie...
Reposted by Mark Doyle
As ever, when sport is underway, we turn to the expertise of Sportfolio for that peak period in the 1890s when moustaches and sporting endeavour combined
London skaters Hiam & Syers struck a pose in 1896, "despite...our climate" & the routine absence of snow
mrc-describe.epexio.com/records/CTC/...
London skaters Hiam & Syers struck a pose in 1896, "despite...our climate" & the routine absence of snow
mrc-describe.epexio.com/records/CTC/...
February 10, 2026 at 1:45 PM
As ever, when sport is underway, we turn to the expertise of Sportfolio for that peak period in the 1890s when moustaches and sporting endeavour combined
London skaters Hiam & Syers struck a pose in 1896, "despite...our climate" & the routine absence of snow
mrc-describe.epexio.com/records/CTC/...
London skaters Hiam & Syers struck a pose in 1896, "despite...our climate" & the routine absence of snow
mrc-describe.epexio.com/records/CTC/...
Reposted by Mark Doyle
Tom Alter was a tenured professor at Texas State University until September 2025 when he was fired after a pressure campaign led by a right-wing agitator who had secretly recorded and edited comments he made at an online socialist conference.
Listen to his story.
Listen to his story.
February 2, 2026 at 7:03 PM
Tom Alter was a tenured professor at Texas State University until September 2025 when he was fired after a pressure campaign led by a right-wing agitator who had secretly recorded and edited comments he made at an online socialist conference.
Listen to his story.
Listen to his story.
Critic's Pick: '33 1/3' Author Panel
6:30 p.m. Feb. 11 at The Bookshop
www.nashvillescene.com
February 9, 2026 at 7:59 PM
So you're telling me there weren't any good bunnies available to perform at halftime?
February 8, 2026 at 8:53 PM
So you're telling me there weren't any good bunnies available to perform at halftime?
Anybody seen Dry Cleaning (the band, not the genre of laundry service) in concert? They're coming to Nashville and I'm considering it...
February 7, 2026 at 5:29 PM
Anybody seen Dry Cleaning (the band, not the genre of laundry service) in concert? They're coming to Nashville and I'm considering it...
This is deeply troubling. OK is probably not the only domino that's gonna fall.
Tenure Eliminated at Oklahoma Colleges
Regional and community colleges professors will no longer receive tenure; research university faculty are spared, with some exceptions. https://bit.ly/4tlEtUq
#EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd
Regional and community colleges professors will no longer receive tenure; research university faculty are spared, with some exceptions. https://bit.ly/4tlEtUq
#EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd
February 6, 2026 at 3:12 AM
This is deeply troubling. OK is probably not the only domino that's gonna fall.
Another day of incremental progress on half-a-dozen projects. There's a Paul Durcan poem called A Snail in My Prime - that's me.
February 5, 2026 at 1:20 AM
Another day of incremental progress on half-a-dozen projects. There's a Paul Durcan poem called A Snail in My Prime - that's me.
People calling 9-1-1 on ICE. ICE calling 9-1-1 on people. This is such a depressing and important picture of what's happening under our noses. www.thisamericanlife.org/880/what-is-...
What Is Your Emergency? - This American Life
911 calls unlike any we’ve heard before, and other stories about immigration agents sweeping through America.
www.thisamericanlife.org
February 3, 2026 at 12:56 AM
People calling 9-1-1 on ICE. ICE calling 9-1-1 on people. This is such a depressing and important picture of what's happening under our noses. www.thisamericanlife.org/880/what-is-...
Fun to see the right blaming the widespread & ongoing power outages in Nashville on DEI workshops at the power company. If they had spent more time preparing for heavy rainfall followed by freakishly low temperatures instead of having DEI workshops, we wouldn't be in this situation, etc.
January 30, 2026 at 6:51 PM
Fun to see the right blaming the widespread & ongoing power outages in Nashville on DEI workshops at the power company. If they had spent more time preparing for heavy rainfall followed by freakishly low temperatures instead of having DEI workshops, we wouldn't be in this situation, etc.
Proud of my local bookshop (thebookshopnashville.com) who, despite losing two days to the ice storm this week, are closing tomorrow for the anti-ICE strike. (And also educating people about Amaz*n's complicity with ICE's goonery.)
The Bookshop
thebookshopnashville.com
January 29, 2026 at 10:35 PM
Proud of my local bookshop (thebookshopnashville.com) who, despite losing two days to the ice storm this week, are closing tomorrow for the anti-ICE strike. (And also educating people about Amaz*n's complicity with ICE's goonery.)
I've been told by a few people that bought this album in 1973 that my book about it did not ruin the album for them. www.bloomsbury.com/us/john-cale...
January 29, 2026 at 10:07 PM
I've been told by a few people that bought this album in 1973 that my book about it did not ruin the album for them. www.bloomsbury.com/us/john-cale...
Say what you will about the Anglo-Irish gentry, they did have a talent for names. Today I came across Middleton Westrena Biddulph of Rathrobin, Mountbolus, and his brother Assheton of Moneyguyneen House, Kinnitty.
January 28, 2026 at 5:03 PM
Say what you will about the Anglo-Irish gentry, they did have a talent for names. Today I came across Middleton Westrena Biddulph of Rathrobin, Mountbolus, and his brother Assheton of Moneyguyneen House, Kinnitty.
Reposted by Mark Doyle
Thank you so much to the @catapultbooks.bsky.social team!
🙏🙏🙏
🙏🙏🙏
Congratulations to @joannapocock.bsky.social for being named a @bookcritics.bsky.social Award finalist for her memoir GREYHOUND! 👏 📚
Check out the full list: buff.ly/89i3wHV
Check out the full list: buff.ly/89i3wHV
January 26, 2026 at 8:50 PM
Thank you so much to the @catapultbooks.bsky.social team!
🙏🙏🙏
🙏🙏🙏
Nashville is coated in a thick sheet of ice. Tree branches are booming as they break and crash and rip down power lines. More rain is falling before a big temperature drop that will, it seems, keep us below freezing for a week. Really shoddy behavior all around, 0/10, would not recommend.
January 25, 2026 at 3:48 PM
Nashville is coated in a thick sheet of ice. Tree branches are booming as they break and crash and rip down power lines. More rain is falling before a big temperature drop that will, it seems, keep us below freezing for a week. Really shoddy behavior all around, 0/10, would not recommend.
You know when you're in a restaurant playing really loud music and everyone gets louder and louder as they try to be heard over the music and other conversations? It's a sort of noise arms race. That's what the internet feels like all the time.
January 22, 2026 at 7:59 PM
You know when you're in a restaurant playing really loud music and everyone gets louder and louder as they try to be heard over the music and other conversations? It's a sort of noise arms race. That's what the internet feels like all the time.
A young Leonard Cohen once said his ideal audience consisted of "inner-directed adolescents, lovers in all degrees of anguish, disappointed Platonists, pornography-peepers, hair-handed monks and Popists, French-Canadian intellectuals, unpublished writers, curious musicians, etc."
January 22, 2026 at 2:16 AM
A young Leonard Cohen once said his ideal audience consisted of "inner-directed adolescents, lovers in all degrees of anguish, disappointed Platonists, pornography-peepers, hair-handed monks and Popists, French-Canadian intellectuals, unpublished writers, curious musicians, etc."
It's just an endless grotesque dance of cruel cunning and rank stupidity with these people, isn't it? It's dizzying and confusing and wrongfooting--you don't know where to aim your blow.
January 21, 2026 at 9:55 PM
It's just an endless grotesque dance of cruel cunning and rank stupidity with these people, isn't it? It's dizzying and confusing and wrongfooting--you don't know where to aim your blow.
In 1944, after trying and failing to come up with a comprehensive definition of fascist, he finally just settled on bully.
January 21, 2026 at 11:42 AM
In 1944, after trying and failing to come up with a comprehensive definition of fascist, he finally just settled on bully.
He's laying the groundwork to make his birthday a federal holiday, isn't he?
January 19, 2026 at 3:16 PM
He's laying the groundwork to make his birthday a federal holiday, isn't he?
Today a project I've been grasping and stumbling through for six (6) years finally started to come clear. If I manage my time and resources wisely, if the creek don't rise and the levee holds, if people still read and books still exist, it might be a book before the decade is out.
January 18, 2026 at 7:13 PM
Today a project I've been grasping and stumbling through for six (6) years finally started to come clear. If I manage my time and resources wisely, if the creek don't rise and the levee holds, if people still read and books still exist, it might be a book before the decade is out.
Reposted by Mark Doyle
For some reason I'd explored Bob Weir's solo and side projects much. I'm all over Ace (the 1972 solo album) at the moment - where else should I look?
January 17, 2026 at 12:29 PM
For some reason I'd explored Bob Weir's solo and side projects much. I'm all over Ace (the 1972 solo album) at the moment - where else should I look?
The Information by Martin Amis. The guy was deeply flawed but there's a joy and freedom to his prose (even when he's being very dark) that I'm quite envious of.
January 17, 2026 at 9:17 PM
The Information by Martin Amis. The guy was deeply flawed but there's a joy and freedom to his prose (even when he's being very dark) that I'm quite envious of.
I had a really nice email this morning from someone who had read and appreciated a book of mine. A rich detailed knowledgable email that made me feel quite good about the book and the world in general.
January 17, 2026 at 5:22 PM
I had a really nice email this morning from someone who had read and appreciated a book of mine. A rich detailed knowledgable email that made me feel quite good about the book and the world in general.
For some reason I'd explored Bob Weir's solo and side projects much. I'm all over Ace (the 1972 solo album) at the moment - where else should I look?
January 17, 2026 at 12:29 PM
For some reason I'd explored Bob Weir's solo and side projects much. I'm all over Ace (the 1972 solo album) at the moment - where else should I look?
I know it's not exactly the Nobel Prize, but I know a guy down the street who has three Grammies (I live in Nashville) and I'm thinking about asking him for one.
January 16, 2026 at 10:43 PM
I know it's not exactly the Nobel Prize, but I know a guy down the street who has three Grammies (I live in Nashville) and I'm thinking about asking him for one.