Well, I read the news
Jun. 9th, 2025 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyOr, anyway, I glanced at the headlines and oh fuck no. Can I just go back to bed, and somebody wake me when things improve?
conuly(no subject)
Jun. 8th, 2025 07:58 pmflemmingsLooks like the wildfire smoke got me, in spite of there being no air quality warning. Or else I've started having hours-long anxiety attacks. Went up to Loblaws, halfway there began feeling tight-chested and dizzy, couldn't breathe deeply, and didn't get much better inside. Now sinuses are swollen but I can kind of breathe. So much for laundromat, and now of course it's raining.
the rambling rose and all her beguiling promises
Jun. 8th, 2025 03:15 pmasakiyumeThis is the season when Rosa multiflora, the indomitable conqueror of roadsides and wastelands, the one who can render a pleasant meadow into an impassable, laceration-producing wall of arching, spreading, canes, puts out its flowers. Everywhere there are curtains and drifts of small, white-and-yellow blossoms, with a fragrance so intense that you breathe it in and begin to float. The whole rest of the year it's thorns and You Shall Not Pass, but right now it's Come To Me And Stay Awhile My Love.
"It's worth a little blood, isn't it? You can cede a little ground, can't you? To enjoy this moment with me now?" says the rambling rose.
"It's worth a little blood, isn't it? You can cede a little ground, can't you? To enjoy this moment with me now?" says the rambling rose.
Myths & Mythmakers
Jun. 8th, 2025 10:14 ammallorys_cameraThe immigration demonstrations in LA right now are not the first time the National Guard has been called in to quell a protest.
I'm thinking about the People's Park protests in Berkeley. The National Guard advanced on us with rifles drawn & then the helicopters descended. Was it the National Guard or the helicopters that dropped the tear gas canisters? I can't remember.
I do remember fleeing across campus, pushing the then-toddler Alicia in her stroller, tears & snot streaming down my face. Maybe this is the reason why Alicia grew up to be such a bitch: Exposure to tear gas addled her unmylinated brain!
Still, it's always news when the gub'mint uses military-style force against white people.
And, of course, the People's Park incident happened in 1969. Which is to say a trillion million years ago. I was only 17, or I would have known better than to bring a toddler to a political protest. On account of skipping all those years of school, I actually started at UC Berkeley when I was sixteen.
###
Sadly, I will not be around for the NYC pride parade because it is Lew & Ed's wedding reception weekend, so I will be in Edinboro, Pennsylvania.
I avoided all those Pride demonstrations when they were just about marketing.
But this year, Pride has a political dimension so it has regained its gravitas. I'll go to as many Pride demonstrations as I can stuff into my schedule.
Anyway.
The Pinebush Alien Fair did take place yesterday—rather stupidly because yesterday it poured relentlessly whereas today, the scheduled Rain Day, it's not only dry but pleasantly balmy.
I grabbed an umbrella and drove on up.
The chief joy of the Pinebush Alien Fair is its costumes. But very few people wanted to wear costumes in the rain. I'm sure this dog didn't:
But its mean humans made it dress up anyway.
There were a couple of good window displays:
But mostly, it was just yr typical tacky upstate New York small town craft fair. Disappointing!
###
I went home & spent the rest of the day Remunerating. Because those fuckin' MacArthur Foundation people keep forgetting to send me my genius grant money.
Went for a looooong tromp—five miles!—when it finally cleared up at sunset.
Watched The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem. (Excellent if you don't mind low production values.)
Abluted.
Slumbered.
And then at 3 in the morning, awakened with a bolt & decided to try and read myself back to sleep.
Grabbed the first book at hand from the stack on my night table—Tracy Dougherty's remarkable biography of Larry McMurtry.
Which is even more remarkable on second read:
Consciousness: the sense of self, the voice chattering at us in our heads, the apparent awareness of a presence, a spirit, a soul inside us, distinct from our bodies and the electrical firings in our brains. Scientists and philosophers fall all over themselves trying to explain, define, or locate consciousness. It is like searching for darkness with a flashlight...
“I have felt largely posthumous since [my open-heart] operation,” McMurtry said. “My old psyche, or old self, was shattered—now it whirls around me in fragments … The heart-lung machine allows for biologic survival, but my own feeling is that the person, as opposed to the body, dies anyway … For a certain period of time one is technically alive but in another, powerful sense, dead. Then one is jump-started back into life, but the Faustian Bargain has been made: you’re there, but not as yourself. That self, that personality, lies back beyond the time when you were on the pump. That gap, in my case at least, has proven unclosable.”
I have heard that from several other open-heart surgery survivors, too.
And sometimes you can just look at people like Bill Clinton who've had the surgery & know that's what happened to them.
###
Larry McMurtry wrote one perfect novel—The Last Picture Show—and several flawed novels I have deep affection for—Lonesome Dove, Moving On.
And a whole lot of dreck.
It occurs to me that McMurtry's biographer Tracy Dougherty is a much better writer than McMurtry ever was.
What gave McMurtry the edge, I suppose, was that he was actively elegizing a dying mythology (i.e. the American West.)
Humans revere their mythmakers.
I'm thinking about the People's Park protests in Berkeley. The National Guard advanced on us with rifles drawn & then the helicopters descended. Was it the National Guard or the helicopters that dropped the tear gas canisters? I can't remember.
I do remember fleeing across campus, pushing the then-toddler Alicia in her stroller, tears & snot streaming down my face. Maybe this is the reason why Alicia grew up to be such a bitch: Exposure to tear gas addled her unmylinated brain!
Still, it's always news when the gub'mint uses military-style force against white people.
And, of course, the People's Park incident happened in 1969. Which is to say a trillion million years ago. I was only 17, or I would have known better than to bring a toddler to a political protest. On account of skipping all those years of school, I actually started at UC Berkeley when I was sixteen.
###
Sadly, I will not be around for the NYC pride parade because it is Lew & Ed's wedding reception weekend, so I will be in Edinboro, Pennsylvania.
I avoided all those Pride demonstrations when they were just about marketing.
But this year, Pride has a political dimension so it has regained its gravitas. I'll go to as many Pride demonstrations as I can stuff into my schedule.
Anyway.
The Pinebush Alien Fair did take place yesterday—rather stupidly because yesterday it poured relentlessly whereas today, the scheduled Rain Day, it's not only dry but pleasantly balmy.
I grabbed an umbrella and drove on up.
The chief joy of the Pinebush Alien Fair is its costumes. But very few people wanted to wear costumes in the rain. I'm sure this dog didn't:
But its mean humans made it dress up anyway.
There were a couple of good window displays:
But mostly, it was just yr typical tacky upstate New York small town craft fair. Disappointing!
###
I went home & spent the rest of the day Remunerating. Because those fuckin' MacArthur Foundation people keep forgetting to send me my genius grant money.
Went for a looooong tromp—five miles!—when it finally cleared up at sunset.
Watched The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem. (Excellent if you don't mind low production values.)
Abluted.
Slumbered.
And then at 3 in the morning, awakened with a bolt & decided to try and read myself back to sleep.
Grabbed the first book at hand from the stack on my night table—Tracy Dougherty's remarkable biography of Larry McMurtry.
Which is even more remarkable on second read:
Consciousness: the sense of self, the voice chattering at us in our heads, the apparent awareness of a presence, a spirit, a soul inside us, distinct from our bodies and the electrical firings in our brains. Scientists and philosophers fall all over themselves trying to explain, define, or locate consciousness. It is like searching for darkness with a flashlight...
“I have felt largely posthumous since [my open-heart] operation,” McMurtry said. “My old psyche, or old self, was shattered—now it whirls around me in fragments … The heart-lung machine allows for biologic survival, but my own feeling is that the person, as opposed to the body, dies anyway … For a certain period of time one is technically alive but in another, powerful sense, dead. Then one is jump-started back into life, but the Faustian Bargain has been made: you’re there, but not as yourself. That self, that personality, lies back beyond the time when you were on the pump. That gap, in my case at least, has proven unclosable.”
I have heard that from several other open-heart surgery survivors, too.
And sometimes you can just look at people like Bill Clinton who've had the surgery & know that's what happened to them.
###
Larry McMurtry wrote one perfect novel—The Last Picture Show—and several flawed novels I have deep affection for—Lonesome Dove, Moving On.
And a whole lot of dreck.
It occurs to me that McMurtry's biographer Tracy Dougherty is a much better writer than McMurtry ever was.
What gave McMurtry the edge, I suppose, was that he was actively elegizing a dying mythology (i.e. the American West.)
Humans revere their mythmakers.
(no subject)
Jun. 7th, 2025 08:45 pmflemmingsI thought they might have cancelled Open Tuning because of the air quality, but no, they seem to have had fewer venues this year. And next door was mercifully not one of them, so hurray.
Ventured out in the early evening to the laundromat with socks and underwear, which I normally do at home, but maybe should wash in hot water once every year or so. Laundromat was blissfully empty save for a woman clearly doing a week's worth of family laundry. Alas, one reason it was empty may have been that the coin machine was out of change, and all I had was four toonies and 1.25 in the coins the machines do take. Inflation being as it is, they should make a washing machine that takes toonies, but that day is not yet. So I put my clothes back in their hamper, came home, and washed them in the basement as always. Shall hope the underwear on the basement lines doesn't mold, and shall stick the rest of it on the outside lines tomorrow.
Ventured out in the early evening to the laundromat with socks and underwear, which I normally do at home, but maybe should wash in hot water once every year or so. Laundromat was blissfully empty save for a woman clearly doing a week's worth of family laundry. Alas, one reason it was empty may have been that the coin machine was out of change, and all I had was four toonies and 1.25 in the coins the machines do take. Inflation being as it is, they should make a washing machine that takes toonies, but that day is not yet. So I put my clothes back in their hamper, came home, and washed them in the basement as always. Shall hope the underwear on the basement lines doesn't mold, and shall stick the rest of it on the outside lines tomorrow.
It's happening!!!
Jun. 7th, 2025 05:19 pmbleodsweanIdol is back and it's WHEEL OF CHAOS time! I'm in and I really encourage all of you to give it a whirl, too! It's fun, truly! And even when it's not, you're writing and isn't that what we're here to do?
therealljidol | The Wheel of Chaos Sign Up
JFC what is it about Greeks?
Jun. 8th, 2025 08:49 amconulyA shocking number of people will blithely tell us all about the book they read, in English, on an English-language subreddit, and never tell us that they didn't read it in English. I can only catch so many of them - if they don't say "English isn't my first language" or make any obvious foreign language errors then I'll never know. (Some of them say "I read this in my own language" and then don't tell us what that language was.)
Most of these people, if prompted, will tell you what language they read it in. Three times now, I've had to ask twice because they refused to answer the question in a useful way, and every time that person has been Greek.
I thought it was a little funny the second time, but three times is the start of a worrying pattern, especially as it's not at all the most popular not-English language posted there. Maybe there's something going badly wrong with their school system?
(And, sidenote, even if you're certain it was translated from English you still ought to tell us the language it was written in. At least in theory this can help us weed out false positives, although I may be expecting too much of fellow commenters to that subreddit.)
***************
( Read more... )
Most of these people, if prompted, will tell you what language they read it in. Three times now, I've had to ask twice because they refused to answer the question in a useful way, and every time that person has been Greek.
I thought it was a little funny the second time, but three times is the start of a worrying pattern, especially as it's not at all the most popular not-English language posted there. Maybe there's something going badly wrong with their school system?
(And, sidenote, even if you're certain it was translated from English you still ought to tell us the language it was written in. At least in theory this can help us weed out false positives, although I may be expecting too much of fellow commenters to that subreddit.)
( Read more... )
Ya Gotta Buy What Ya Gotta Buy
Jun. 7th, 2025 10:01 ammallorys_cameraOh, this is sad! 😢
The Pine Bush UFO Fair & parade is scheduled for today, and it is raining.
In the mid-1980s, Pine Bush, New York, was the UFO Capital of the Western World. Hundreds of reports described a V-shaped craft adorned with colored lights that hovered slowly and silently in the sky, a sighting that became known as "the Westchester Boomerang" 'cause I guess it was sighted in Westchester County, too.
Of course, Pine Bush is relatively near what was, in the mid-80s, a military base, Stewart Airfield.
I remain agnostic on the subject of UFOs.
And will probably toddle off to Pine Bush anyway in a few minutes 'cause short drive.
###
Meanwhile, despite the humid, hot, sticky weather of the past few days, I have been trying to hold off on AC because AC is terrible for the environment (energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions 'cause refrigerants.)
So, yesterday I bought myself a portable DREO fan, which I gotta say, is just amazing 'cause it keeps me cool even when the Patrizia-torium is a sauna.
DREO is made in China, which I don't like. I've been boycotting goods made in China since forever for a reason nobody really cares about anymore: Tibet.
But sometimes ya gotta buy what ya gotta buy.
The Pine Bush UFO Fair & parade is scheduled for today, and it is raining.
In the mid-1980s, Pine Bush, New York, was the UFO Capital of the Western World. Hundreds of reports described a V-shaped craft adorned with colored lights that hovered slowly and silently in the sky, a sighting that became known as "the Westchester Boomerang" 'cause I guess it was sighted in Westchester County, too.
Of course, Pine Bush is relatively near what was, in the mid-80s, a military base, Stewart Airfield.
I remain agnostic on the subject of UFOs.
And will probably toddle off to Pine Bush anyway in a few minutes 'cause short drive.
###
Meanwhile, despite the humid, hot, sticky weather of the past few days, I have been trying to hold off on AC because AC is terrible for the environment (energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions 'cause refrigerants.)
So, yesterday I bought myself a portable DREO fan, which I gotta say, is just amazing 'cause it keeps me cool even when the Patrizia-torium is a sauna.
DREO is made in China, which I don't like. I've been boycotting goods made in China since forever for a reason nobody really cares about anymore: Tibet.
But sometimes ya gotta buy what ya gotta buy.
(no subject)
Jun. 6th, 2025 07:07 pmflemmingsThe air quality alert continues but today didn't rain, so I went out to the library for a hold and to Sushi on Bloor for their lunch special. Which may help the current wanhope induced by mug, isolation, and (waves hand) All That.
Returned two of my books, one unread, and debated returning The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door as well. I never read The Secret History-- I think I quit after three pages-- but this is giving me serious Secret History With Magic vibes. I suppose I could look at reviews but if it turns out not to be that, I shall be annoyed at myself. The trouble is that my experience of Parry is that she never surprises: you know where things are going and they go there. But of course she may have changed: as Chakraborty, whose City of Brass was such a downer that I had to abandon it half-way if that, has apparently just come out with a swashbuckling Muslim pirate tale-- which was the hold I picked up today.
Though all I want to (re)read is Murderbot, Brust, and Ancillary Sword.
Meanwhile I need to get to the laundromat some time, and out of the house tomorrow, because it's Open Tuning again, when people who can't sing demonstrate that fact, mic'd and amped to the max.
Returned two of my books, one unread, and debated returning The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door as well. I never read The Secret History-- I think I quit after three pages-- but this is giving me serious Secret History With Magic vibes. I suppose I could look at reviews but if it turns out not to be that, I shall be annoyed at myself. The trouble is that my experience of Parry is that she never surprises: you know where things are going and they go there. But of course she may have changed: as Chakraborty, whose City of Brass was such a downer that I had to abandon it half-way if that, has apparently just come out with a swashbuckling Muslim pirate tale-- which was the hold I picked up today.
Though all I want to (re)read is Murderbot, Brust, and Ancillary Sword.
Meanwhile I need to get to the laundromat some time, and out of the house tomorrow, because it's Open Tuning again, when people who can't sing demonstrate that fact, mic'd and amped to the max.
friday
Jun. 6th, 2025 01:34 pmsummersgate
Dorothy. Painted the watercolor parts of this yesterday afternoon while sitting by the chicken coop watching the chicks. A storm was approaching, thunder getting closer, till I finally packed it up and just as I got to the back door the rain started to pelt down. Finished it later with metallic markers.
Ocular Migraine. I had a weird night last night. I woke up around 3 and went to the bathroom - took my phone with me. But it was like I couldn't see the center of my vision to read correctly. All blurry. At the time I thought, oh no, maybe my retina is detaching! So I went out to the kitchen and looked at the Amsler Grid on the fridge to see what that would look like. It was then I realized it was just the usual ocular migraine vision effects I've had before so I quit worrying and went back to bed. The weird shimmering vision usually passes in about 15 to 20 minutes. I was really tired this morning and after chores went back to bed and slept till 10. So a slow start to the day. Dave took Andy in the truck somewhere but I was glad to just stay home and putter.
Musk 💔BREAKS UP💔 with Trump
Jun. 6th, 2025 09:24 ammallorys_cameraHow pleased am I this morning by my Cassandra-like proficiency at prophecy?
Very, very!
Long before the election, I predicted that if Trump won—to be honest, I didn't know that he would win, so! IF—he would last no more than 18 months in office. I wasn't sure if he'd die in office or be 25th-Amendmented, but I was (am!) positive he'd be out.
Vance is the far better technocrat's ventriloquist dummy, & make no mistake, it's the technocrats' world. We just have the misfortune to breathe oxygen in it.
Vance is a lot more dangerous than Trump because he's not insane & brings a converso's zeal to stamping out individual freedom, that true Yeatsian passionate intensity. Vance should be able to push out the diameter of that widening gyre by several miles.
###
All this takes place against a backdrop of technological revolution.
For example: Consider the plausibility that the reason the now-Trump/soon-Vance administration is so willing to cut funds for scientific research is because the technocrats are convinced AI will soon surpass and supplant human researchers in most fields of inquiry, rendering human researchers both superfluous and politically inconvenient.
###
Anyway, the political theater yesterday was pretty entertaining. Puleeze let Trump & X-Best Buddy stay at loggerheads! I wanna hear more about the effects ketamine has had on Musk's bladder! I wanna hear more about Trump's fixation on pert nipples! (And I mean, who isn't fixated on pert nipples?)
###
Apart from following the world's biggest geopolitical bromance break-up in more-or-less real time, I got more of the New Paltz garden weeded:
I'm up to about half. After I'm done, I'll rototill. I think someone had an ornamental flower garden here at one time because I've found so many outcroppings of iris rhizomes.
It is a lot of work. And by 9:30 a.m. yesterday, it was 80° F, so I had to knock off.
I got a fair amount of Remuneration done after that, but of course, it's never enough. I don't understand why I can't knock off 4,000 words in a single writing session. The fact that I can't seems like a singular failure of will.
I talked to various people by phone & text, and no one in person. I am isolated here!
And I started watching The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, which I like a lot: a saga about a Sephardic family from the time of the Ottoman Empire to the end of the British mandate in Palestine. Such an interesting time in history! The production values are laughable, but the writing and acting is very fine: It stars Akiva, my BF from Shtisel!
More of the same scheduled for today except I'm gonna go to the gym rather than pull weeds.
Very, very!
Long before the election, I predicted that if Trump won—to be honest, I didn't know that he would win, so! IF—he would last no more than 18 months in office. I wasn't sure if he'd die in office or be 25th-Amendmented, but I was (am!) positive he'd be out.
Vance is the far better technocrat's ventriloquist dummy, & make no mistake, it's the technocrats' world. We just have the misfortune to breathe oxygen in it.
Vance is a lot more dangerous than Trump because he's not insane & brings a converso's zeal to stamping out individual freedom, that true Yeatsian passionate intensity. Vance should be able to push out the diameter of that widening gyre by several miles.
###
All this takes place against a backdrop of technological revolution.
For example: Consider the plausibility that the reason the now-Trump/soon-Vance administration is so willing to cut funds for scientific research is because the technocrats are convinced AI will soon surpass and supplant human researchers in most fields of inquiry, rendering human researchers both superfluous and politically inconvenient.
###
Anyway, the political theater yesterday was pretty entertaining. Puleeze let Trump & X-Best Buddy stay at loggerheads! I wanna hear more about the effects ketamine has had on Musk's bladder! I wanna hear more about Trump's fixation on pert nipples! (And I mean, who isn't fixated on pert nipples?)
###
Apart from following the world's biggest geopolitical bromance break-up in more-or-less real time, I got more of the New Paltz garden weeded:
I'm up to about half. After I'm done, I'll rototill. I think someone had an ornamental flower garden here at one time because I've found so many outcroppings of iris rhizomes.
It is a lot of work. And by 9:30 a.m. yesterday, it was 80° F, so I had to knock off.
I got a fair amount of Remuneration done after that, but of course, it's never enough. I don't understand why I can't knock off 4,000 words in a single writing session. The fact that I can't seems like a singular failure of will.
I talked to various people by phone & text, and no one in person. I am isolated here!
And I started watching The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, which I like a lot: a saga about a Sephardic family from the time of the Ottoman Empire to the end of the British mandate in Palestine. Such an interesting time in history! The production values are laughable, but the writing and acting is very fine: It stars Akiva, my BF from Shtisel!
More of the same scheduled for today except I'm gonna go to the gym rather than pull weeds.
Slow & Steady
Jun. 5th, 2025 07:20 ammallorys_cameraA breeze came up yesterday morning & the sky was blue again by noon. And I stopped feeling that air hunger thing—so it really was my lungs not anxiety.
Also, the moon is not full, so that blood-red orb I saw hovering in the West—a very strange position for the moon now that I think about it—was actually the sun setting.
I have a shitload of stuff to do and as per usual, very little interest in doing any of it.
But first I must scamper off to the New Paltz garden to put in a couple of hours of weeding before the temps rise to heat stroke levels.
Slow & steady. Slow & steady. Slow & steady.
Also, the moon is not full, so that blood-red orb I saw hovering in the West—a very strange position for the moon now that I think about it—was actually the sun setting.
I have a shitload of stuff to do and as per usual, very little interest in doing any of it.
But first I must scamper off to the New Paltz garden to put in a couple of hours of weeding before the temps rise to heat stroke levels.
Slow & steady. Slow & steady. Slow & steady.
wednesday
Jun. 4th, 2025 09:28 pmsummersgateVolunteered at the hospital today. After I got done laminating some photos in the office I was involved in activity hour. We went outside and blew bubbles in the enclosed courtyard. It's been a while since I blew bubbles - probably since the grandkids were little. Played with a couple basketballs and some things called boomwhackers. The activity director put a summertime playlist on the speaker. It was hot. Not as pleasant as sitting outdoors could have been if we had been sitting under a tree in the shade instead. After I was done there I used the cafeteria coupon they gave me ($8) and had lunch. I sat with an older lady visitor who was sitting alone. I asked who she was visiting. He husband needs dialysis but he has dementia and is fighting it. He doesn't know her most of the time. It's hard. She doesn't know if he'll make it. I'm not usually a person who would invite myself to sit with someone I don't know but I'm glad I did. I feel like I did more good today as a volunteer in having lunch with her than I did in 3 hours on the behavioral health ward.
![IMG_20250604_173154164[1].jpg](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/egg_shell/1265782/5382613/5382613_original.jpg "IMG_20250604_173154164[1].jpg")
Got home took a little nap and then took my art bag down to the creek to sit in the shade and paint. Now that is relaxing and nice. I wish I could share that kind of experience with the psych patients. Though the gnats are out now. I don't like gnats in my face but I can live with it, especially since they don't bite - they just bother.
![IMG_20250604_180153786_HDR[1].jpg](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/egg_shell/1265782/5382659/5382659_original.jpg "IMG_20250604_180153786_HDR[1].jpg")
My view.
Art-a day Bubbles.
Got home took a little nap and then took my art bag down to the creek to sit in the shade and paint. Now that is relaxing and nice. I wish I could share that kind of experience with the psych patients. Though the gnats are out now. I don't like gnats in my face but I can live with it, especially since they don't bite - they just bother.
My view.
Art-a day Bubbles.
(no subject)
Jun. 4th, 2025 07:42 pmflemmingsPossibly the air quality, possibly the heat, possibly the mug, possibly vaccine fallout still after nine days, but I felt lousy most of today. Physio helped a bit, as did eating lightly, but will be happy when that cold front comes through tonight. Did get two heavy bags of garden waste out for tomorrow and must get the green bin stuff too, but I hold off on that because it's nicely frozen in the freezer and will melt outside in the warmth.
Nice thing today was passing Loblaws café area on way home and seeing, through the window, a guy reading an honest-to-god paperback book which was an honest-to-god Penguin Classic edition of Plato. Couldn't make out the title but I think it was the Meno and the Protagoras.
Finished The Path of Thorns, The Lord of Castle Black, and various Murderbot. Am on The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, Sethra Lavode, and desultorily Shadows of Athens. Will probably buy Fugitive Telemetry because Murderbot suits my mood just now.
Nice thing today was passing Loblaws café area on way home and seeing, through the window, a guy reading an honest-to-god paperback book which was an honest-to-god Penguin Classic edition of Plato. Couldn't make out the title but I think it was the Meno and the Protagoras.
Finished The Path of Thorns, The Lord of Castle Black, and various Murderbot. Am on The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door, Sethra Lavode, and desultorily Shadows of Athens. Will probably buy Fugitive Telemetry because Murderbot suits my mood just now.
Wednesday Writing Prompt - Folklore & Dark Fairy Tales
Jun. 4th, 2025 02:35 pmearthspirits posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
the_scent_of_lilacs
Folklore and the original fairy tale sources could be very dark, many with true horror elements.
There's nothing sweet or innocent about these old stories.
Every Wednesday, we'll post a folklore, fairy tale, or literary quote to jumpstart your vampiric muse.
Please post your Dracula / Nosferatu inspired fic as a stand-alone in the community, and use the header below (or similar). And please put your story behind a cut.
Title:
Fandom:
Characters:
Word Count:
Rating:
Warnings / Triggers:
Why Are Your Poems So Dark? by Linda Pastan
Jun. 4th, 2025 02:12 pmconulyIsn't the moon dark too,
most of the time?
And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished
without the dark stain
of alphabets?
When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.
Instead he invented
ebony and crows
and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.
Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"
Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.
*****
Link
most of the time?
And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished
without the dark stain
of alphabets?
When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.
Instead he invented
ebony and crows
and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.
Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"
Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.
Link
driveway art: song sparrow
Jun. 4th, 2025 01:57 pmasakiyumeWe have some sunny days, and I finished the job I was working on, so I drew a song sparrow. The song sparrow is found throughout most of North America, "continuous from the Aleutians to the eastern United States," says Cornell Ornithology. They're small everywhere bird with a lovely song. Both their song and their plumage varies across the continent.
Scientific name "Melospiza melodia." You can hear samples of their songs here. (The ones around here sound most like the fourth recording down.)
Scientific name "Melospiza melodia." You can hear samples of their songs here. (The ones around here sound most like the fourth recording down.)