We always do anonymous Chair evaluations this time of year. This year is my last so the evaluation doesn’t have any concrete impact. Of course, people could use this opportunity to write something nice. But that’s not how humans function.

Still, one person did bother to do the evaluation and wrote that I’m kind, patient and that my research is what justifies the existence of the department and the university. I’m shocked to have one well-wisher after six years in this role. It’s one more than I expected.

Yes, I’m very curious who it is but, again, knowing people, I’m certain it’s somebody for whom I never did any favors.

The cat is actually pretty smart. She always meows ferociously before jumping on my bed. It took her no time to figure out that I get lost deep inside my inner world and it’s not a good idea to make sudden moves around me. Or it is if you enjoy watching me freak out completely. Which the cat doesn’t because she’s not large.

I saw a lot of negative social media posts about this novel in the days before it was published. It’s weird to hate on a book that hasn’t even been published yet. How do you know it will be bad? There was a writeup about Transcription in some MSM outlet but you can’t believe what some talentless hack tells you about a work of fiction.

I read Transcription immediately after its release, and it’s a brilliant novel. It’s about a 90-year-old art critic Thomas. He’s a first-rate intellectual from Germany. He remembers Hitler, and his horror of Hitlerism and everything associated with it is such that Thomas brings up the next generation of men, like his son and his student, to be pathetic, pussy-whipped cucks. Thomas himself is plenty manly but he deprives younger men of their manliness because masculinity might lead to Hitler.

This is a metaphor for the entire Western civilization that has driven itself into such a state of shame and guilt over Hitler that it’s destroying itself. Is this an important subject to write about? I’d say it most certainly is.

The Amazon blurb for Transcription doesn’t mention any of it and makes the novel sound like some obscure navel-gazing exercise in pretentiousness. But it’s not like that at all. The voices of the two cucked men, Thomas’s son and student, are brilliantly rendered. The spectacle of utter disempowerment of very liberal men is on full view. They are constantly manipulated by women in the most pathetic ways. One of them has his second-grader daughter run circles around him because he just can’t act like a father and get a grip on himself. I haven’t seen a more bitter, honest depiction of how liberal parents turn their children into little neurotics.

If you want a fictional illustration of the theory of feminization, this novel is for you. It’s beautifully written. Yes, there a few paragraphs where Thomas speaks in a very abstract way that might be boring to read but just plough through them and you’ll be rewarded with pure novelistic gold.

I wrote about Lerner’s earlier novel The Topeka School before. I said that he was a talented writer but didn’t know how to create a coherent plot. I expressed a hope that, as he matured, he’d figure out how to link his beautiful vignettes into a meaningful story. My instincts were correct. Lerner has grown enormously as a writer, and Transcription is on a whole new level. People should stop bitching and start celebrating that we have such a talented author who is talking about things that matter in a novel that is a true work of art.

I don’t have time to read on paper right now because it’s the end of the academic year and of my term as Chair. So I listened on Audible. And they found the perfect voice actor with a feminized voice to render the cucked male characters. People, it’s so good. It’s “shoot it straight into my veins” type of good. It’s ecstatic, it’s a tour de force, it’s what literature should be. And it’s short with only 144 pages.

If you read it, please come back to discuss. We have a new literary genius in America. Life is good.

What men don’t understand about the mental load pic.twitter.com/93bj2ORGTF

— BlackSword (@Blacksword011) April 5, 2026

What this woman narrates about “mental load” is the perfect counterpoint to my toilet paper holders. She should be so happy that there are all these different types of milk and stuff. It’s such a wonderful thing to live in abundance and be able to choose all these great products for your family. She complains that thinking about milk occupies her thoughts too much but what would she be thinking about instead?

There is an incredible number of sources of joy in regular daily life. Doing things for your family, replenishing the supplies of beans or coffee, it’s so great because it means you have a family. You have people who need you. Instead of bitching and moaning and feeling sorry for herself, she could be in paroxysms of happiness. Everybody is alive, healthy, and eager to drink their milk.

These attitudes should not be encouraged. There should be a social taboo against whining about grocery lists. It’s undignified and unnecessary.

When we first moved into our house, N was very stressed out by the move and the idea of buying a house in general. I went out and bought two toilet paper stands like this one:

I was so happy, clutching the toilet paper stands to myself that N’s stress immediately lifted. The toilet paper stands were the height of luxury to me. I came from a place where not only didn’t they exist but the idea of having a reliable supply of toilet paper to put into them was exotic.

“It’s a pity,” N said, “that one day you’ll get used to having these toilet paper stands and they’ll no longer give you so much joy.”

But that didn’t happen. I still feel profound contentment every time I add toilet paper rolls to the stands. A peaceful feeling of completion comes over me.

if anyone’s wondering what the undergrad classes are like these days pic.twitter.com/k4KlhLffE3

— leah (@leahetc_) April 7, 2026

OK but it’s not “these days” and not undergrad classes. It’s all gatherings of people including faculty meetings. When I was an undergraduate student 26 years ago, many of the classes were me and the professor yelling at each other to the amusement of everybody else. Today, Curriculum Council meetings are me and an administrator yelling at each other with everybody else scrolling their phones.

A message my daughter wrote for me:

Of course, as soon as I gave my interview, the war with Iran was won, making my interview outdated before it had a chance to come out.

It’s great news otherwise. Let’s celebrate. Yay to us.

I told my mother about the Iran interview for Azerbaijan. Her reaction was, “Why did they interview you? Is it because you are blonde? And they are into blonde women?”

If my father were alive, his reaction would be, “of course, they wanted to interview you. You are the most brilliant person ever. I’d be shocked if they didn’t want to interview you.”

I rarely saw my mother during my formative years from birth to age five, and here’s the result.

I was interviewed for a radio station in Baku, Azerbaijan. About the war in Iran. How I suddenly became an expert on Iran is a mystery but it clearly pays off to be banned as a foreign agent in Russia.

It turns out that in Azerbaijan they really love Israel. Really, really love Israel. I had no idea.