Jun. 7th, 2025 03:21 pm
interesting links to fascinate people
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isisPaul Krugman talks with Ada Palmer about her new (nonfiction) book Inventing the Renaissance. I came at this from the Krugman side (he's a Nobel-winning economist who used to write for the NYT, and I subscribe to his substack) but I figured some of you would be interested from the Palmer side (I never got into Terra Ignota, though). I found it really interesting! I read the transcript, but there's a link to the video conversation as well.
Speaking of Nobelists, a v. v. srs study found that countries with greater per capita chocolate consumption produce more Nobel laureates - so eating chocolate makes you smarter, right? :-)
Speaking of Nobelists, a v. v. srs study found that countries with greater per capita chocolate consumption produce more Nobel laureates - so eating chocolate makes you smarter, right? :-)
Tags:
Jun. 7th, 2025 05:51 pm
May-December (Film Review)
selenakWhich I would have watched on the big screen if I could have, but a brief showing time and my tight schedule did not allow it. Anyway: this is the movie in which Natalie Portman plays a (tv) actress, Elizabeth, who wants to play Gracie (Julianne Moore) in a movie based on events taking place about two decades plus earlier than the film's setting, which is 2015. (Though the film itself premiered in 2023.) Said events consisted of Gracie, at age 36, having had a "relationship" with a thirteen years old boy, Joe ,whom she after some years in prison for statuary rape married; he's currently 36 (as is Elizabeth), the same age she was back then, and played by Charles Melton, who I osmosed before this movie was mostly famous for playing a jock type in Riverdale but who is absolutely stunning in this film (and should at least have gotten an Oscar nomination), which given he's working with Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman at their best, is truly saying something. There are also kids (the one Gracie was pregnant with when she got caught is now in college, and thn there are twins about to graduate), as well as Gracie's offspring from her earlier marriage, with her son Georgie being the same age as Joe. The movie is directed by Todd Haynes, and dives right into how incredibly messed up a story this is.
Now, if you start the film knot knowing what it's about, then the first few minutes might let you assume it's a black comedy about suburbia; Gracie, Joe and their children live in the proverbial idyllic white fenced area somewhere in South Carolina, with Gracie (who runs a small scale bakery) coming across as somewhat high strung but popular among her neighbours - and then Elizabeth arrives, only to find an anonymous package at the couple's front door which contains feces. There are some comedy beats throughout the remaining movie, but actually I would classify it as emotional horror. Gracie is still absolutely incapable of admitting she ever did anything wrong, and we get an early taste of her ability to manipulate and achieve emotional control when she comments on her daughter's choice of prom dress: "You're so brave to show your arms! I wouldn't have dared", with the result that of course the poor girl doesn't buy that dress but the one Gracie likes. Elizabeth isn't the film's heroine, either, though in the first half her investigation provides the audience bit by bit with the backstory from various povs via the characters Elizabeth talks to; the movie goes full throttle about what a disturbing and ruthlessly exploitative process an actor working on a role can be if that role isn't a fictional character but a real person. (BTW, of course Portman and Moore don't look much alike, but that only helps enhancing the sense of disquiet as Elizabeth adopts more and more of Gracie's mannerisms, with the scene where Gracie gives Elizabeth a makeover with her own makeup and lipstick being a showcase in point.)
Meanwhile, Joe starts out on a quiet background note when compared to the two women, and then the story shows more and more how messed up not just the start of his relationship with Gracie was but how messed up their present day relationship still is. More than one review described Joe as a thirteen years old still locked in the body of an adult man, and before watching the film I assumed this meant Joe would be characterized as a manchild, but no, that's not what was meant at all. If anything, he's the most reasonably and responsibly acting adult in this film. But emotionally, it becomes clear he's never had the chance to process what happened, not least because his entire life is still built around keeping Gracie happy. He became a father years and years before growing up, and the scene where due to his teenage son for the first time sharing pot with him his quiet and calm facade finally cracks and some of that repressed emotion breaks through is incredibly good and heartbreaking.
Incidentally: making a movie which deals with an adult grooming a kid without getting voyeuristic with a young actor sounds near impossible - but May-December by showing us the aftermath and the long term effect everything had on Joe decades later proves it can be done. At the same time, we do get a visual reminder of just how young he was when Elizabeth gets sent video clips of teenagers auditioning to play Joe. (The audition clips don't show more than them introducing themselves with their name and age.) Elizabeth looks appalled, and the audience might think it's because it hits her how young thirteen really is.... and then a few scenes later, she's on the phone with her producer and tells him these guys are just wrong because they don't look sexy enough. Which tells you something about Elizabeth.
Despite how good this film is - with script, acting and cinematography all outstanding - , I'm not surprised it wasn't a box office success (while getting deservedly criticial praise.) It's hardly a subject lending itself to relaxation, and despite its three leads all being very attractive people, any sexual activity is basically the opposite of fanservice - like I said, it's an emotional horror show. Not something I'll rewatch any time soon, though I am glad I watched it once, and am full of admiration for what it achieves.
Now, if you start the film knot knowing what it's about, then the first few minutes might let you assume it's a black comedy about suburbia; Gracie, Joe and their children live in the proverbial idyllic white fenced area somewhere in South Carolina, with Gracie (who runs a small scale bakery) coming across as somewhat high strung but popular among her neighbours - and then Elizabeth arrives, only to find an anonymous package at the couple's front door which contains feces. There are some comedy beats throughout the remaining movie, but actually I would classify it as emotional horror. Gracie is still absolutely incapable of admitting she ever did anything wrong, and we get an early taste of her ability to manipulate and achieve emotional control when she comments on her daughter's choice of prom dress: "You're so brave to show your arms! I wouldn't have dared", with the result that of course the poor girl doesn't buy that dress but the one Gracie likes. Elizabeth isn't the film's heroine, either, though in the first half her investigation provides the audience bit by bit with the backstory from various povs via the characters Elizabeth talks to; the movie goes full throttle about what a disturbing and ruthlessly exploitative process an actor working on a role can be if that role isn't a fictional character but a real person. (BTW, of course Portman and Moore don't look much alike, but that only helps enhancing the sense of disquiet as Elizabeth adopts more and more of Gracie's mannerisms, with the scene where Gracie gives Elizabeth a makeover with her own makeup and lipstick being a showcase in point.)
Meanwhile, Joe starts out on a quiet background note when compared to the two women, and then the story shows more and more how messed up not just the start of his relationship with Gracie was but how messed up their present day relationship still is. More than one review described Joe as a thirteen years old still locked in the body of an adult man, and before watching the film I assumed this meant Joe would be characterized as a manchild, but no, that's not what was meant at all. If anything, he's the most reasonably and responsibly acting adult in this film. But emotionally, it becomes clear he's never had the chance to process what happened, not least because his entire life is still built around keeping Gracie happy. He became a father years and years before growing up, and the scene where due to his teenage son for the first time sharing pot with him his quiet and calm facade finally cracks and some of that repressed emotion breaks through is incredibly good and heartbreaking.
Incidentally: making a movie which deals with an adult grooming a kid without getting voyeuristic with a young actor sounds near impossible - but May-December by showing us the aftermath and the long term effect everything had on Joe decades later proves it can be done. At the same time, we do get a visual reminder of just how young he was when Elizabeth gets sent video clips of teenagers auditioning to play Joe. (The audition clips don't show more than them introducing themselves with their name and age.) Elizabeth looks appalled, and the audience might think it's because it hits her how young thirteen really is.... and then a few scenes later, she's on the phone with her producer and tells him these guys are just wrong because they don't look sexy enough. Which tells you something about Elizabeth.
Despite how good this film is - with script, acting and cinematography all outstanding - , I'm not surprised it wasn't a box office success (while getting deservedly criticial praise.) It's hardly a subject lending itself to relaxation, and despite its three leads all being very attractive people, any sexual activity is basically the opposite of fanservice - like I said, it's an emotional horror show. Not something I'll rewatch any time soon, though I am glad I watched it once, and am full of admiration for what it achieves.
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Jun. 7th, 2025 02:56 pm
Monthly Magical Girl Media: April - May
sonofgodzillaSometimes I avoid watching magical girl shows because I know I'll have to write one of these entries if I do.
( Kimi to Idol Precure )
( Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Wizard & Fourze: Movie War Ultimatum )
I read a lot of books these past few months. I'm working my way through the Fushigi Comedy series as a whole, but I'm mostly watching the "robot comedy" shows, so apologies for the lack of variety in this month's post.
( Kimi to Idol Precure )
( Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider Wizard & Fourze: Movie War Ultimatum )
I read a lot of books these past few months. I'm working my way through the Fushigi Comedy series as a whole, but I'm mostly watching the "robot comedy" shows, so apologies for the lack of variety in this month's post.
Jun. 7th, 2025 03:50 pm
Some of these are downers and others not
oursinActually, I can't find that the article by Molly-Jong Fast in today's Guardian Saturday is currently online, alas - clearly she had a sad and distressing childhood, even if I was tempted, and probably not the only one to be so tempted, to murmur, apologies to P Larkin, 'they zipless fuck you up...', the abrupt dismissal of her nanny, her only secure attachment figure, when Erica J suddenly remarried (again) was particularly harsh, I thought. No wonder she had problems.
And really, even if she does make a point of how relatively privileged she was, that doesn't actually ameliorate how badly she was treated.
Only the other day there was an obituary of the psychoanalyst Joy Schaverien, who wrote Boarding School Syndrome: The Psychological Trauma of the “Privileged” Child.
***
Another rather traumatic parenting story, though this is down to the hospitals: BBC News is now aware of five cases of babies swapped by mistake in maternity wards from the late 1940s to the 1960s. Lawyers say they expect more people to come forward driven by the increase in cheap genetic testing.:
[V]ery gradually, more babies were delivered in hospital, where newborns were typically removed for periods to be cared for in nurseries.
"The baby would be taken away between feeds so that the mother could rest, and the baby could be watched by either a nursery nurse or midwife," says Terri Coates, a retired lecturer in midwifery, and former clinical adviser on BBC series Call The Midwife.
"It may sound paternalistic, but midwives believed they were looking after mums and babies incredibly well."
It was common for new mothers to be kept in hospital for between five and seven days, far longer than today.
To identify newborns in the nursery, a card would be tied to the end of the cot with the baby's name, mother's name, the date and time of birth, and the baby's weight.
"Where cots rather than babies were labelled, accidents could easily happen"
Plus, this was the era of the baby boom, one imagines maternity wards may have been a bit swamped....
***
A different sort of misattribution: The furniture fraud who hoodwinked the Palace of Versailles:
[T]his assortment of royal chairs would become embroiled in a national scandal that would rock the French antiques world, bringing the trade into disrepute.
The reason? The chairs were in fact all fakes.
The scandal saw one of France's leading antiques experts, Georges "Bill" Pallot, and award-winning cabinetmaker, Bruno Desnoues, put on trial on charges of fraud and money laundering following a nine-year investigation.
....
Speaking in court in March, Mr Pallot said the scheme started as a "joke" with Mr Desnoues in 2007 to see if they could replicate an armchair they were already working on restoring, that once belonged to Madame du Barry.
Masters of their crafts, they managed the feat, convincing other experts that it was a chair from the period.
***
I am really given a little hope for an anti-Mybug tendency among the masculine persuasion: A Man writes in 'the issue is not whether men are being published, but whether they are reading – and being supported to develop emotional lives that fiction can help foster'
While Geoff Dyer in The Books of [His] Life goes in hard with Beatrix Potter as early memory, Elizabeth Taylor as late-life discovery, and Rosamond Lehmann's The Weather in the Streets as
One of those perennially bubbling-under modern classics – too good for the Championship, unable to sustain a place in the Premier league – which turns out to be way better than some of the canonical stalwarts permanently installed in the top flight.
Okay, I mark him down a bit for the macho ' I don’t go to books for comfort', but still, not bad for a bloke, eh.
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Jun. 7th, 2025 06:12 am
It's morphogenesis
sovayFor the seventy-first yahrzeit of Alan Turing, I have been listening to selections from the galaxy-brained fusion of Michael Vegas Mussmann and Payton Millet's Alan Turing and the Queen of the Night (2025) as well as the glitterqueer mad science of Kele Fleming's "Turing Test" (2024). Every year I discover new art in his memory, like Frank Duffy's A lion for Alan Turing (2023). Lately I treasure it like spite. The best would be countries doing better by their queer and trans living than their honored and unnecessary dead.
Jun. 6th, 2025 10:37 pm
Finally, time to write the book on you
sovayAs it turns out, what goes on with my hand is that it's going to have arthritis, but with any luck on the same glacial timeline as the kind that runs in my family, and in the meantime I have been referred back to OT. Maybe there will be more paraffin.
My parents as an unnecessary gift for taking care of the plants while they were out of town—mostly watering a lot of things in pots and digging the black swallow-wort out of the irises—gave me Eddie Muller's Dark City Dames: The Women Who Defined Film Noir (2001/2025), which not only fits the theme of this year's Noir City: Boston, but contains such useful gems as:
One of the most common, if wrong-headed, criticisms of film noir is that it relegates women to simplistic archetypes, making them Pollyannas or femmes fatales, drippy good girls or sinister sexpots. People who believe this nonsense have never seen a noir starring Ella Raines.
Ella Raines is indeed all that and a drum solo on top, but she is not a unique occurrence and I can only hope that people who have not been paying attention to Karen Burroughs Hannsberry or Imogen Sara Smith will listen to the Czar of Noir when he writes about its complicated women, because I am never going to have the platform to get this fact through people's heads and I am never going to let up on it, either.
Anyway, I learned a new vocabulary word.
My parents as an unnecessary gift for taking care of the plants while they were out of town—mostly watering a lot of things in pots and digging the black swallow-wort out of the irises—gave me Eddie Muller's Dark City Dames: The Women Who Defined Film Noir (2001/2025), which not only fits the theme of this year's Noir City: Boston, but contains such useful gems as:
One of the most common, if wrong-headed, criticisms of film noir is that it relegates women to simplistic archetypes, making them Pollyannas or femmes fatales, drippy good girls or sinister sexpots. People who believe this nonsense have never seen a noir starring Ella Raines.
Ella Raines is indeed all that and a drum solo on top, but she is not a unique occurrence and I can only hope that people who have not been paying attention to Karen Burroughs Hannsberry or Imogen Sara Smith will listen to the Czar of Noir when he writes about its complicated women, because I am never going to have the platform to get this fact through people's heads and I am never going to let up on it, either.
Anyway, I learned a new vocabulary word.
Jun. 7th, 2025 11:30 am
Roast Lamb à la Nagi + Leftovers Thereof
highlyeccentricLast Sunday I had lamb, but had to go get more ingredients before I could make Nagi's slow-roasted middle eastern lamb shoulder. I ended up running too late to make it in a slow-cooker, and still short a few items, so I had-hocked it a few ways. The leftovers turned out amazing though, kept going all week.
( Spiced Lamb Shoulder )
Nagi serves hers with lemon herb couscous. I (being gluten-intolerant) recommend basmati rice, cooked with at least half the liquid being stock. You may wish to add sultanas to the rice.
Recommended toppings:
( Yoghurt sauce )
( Ful Medames )
Serve: Lamb on a bed of rice, with roast vegetables and the two dip/sauces.
Leftovers 1: Same thing, minus the yoghurt if you're taking it to work to reheat. If carrying it in a container to reheat, do include an orange wedge, and a dash of extra water, to infuse with the rice.
Leftovers 2: Ful Medames on celery sticks, as a component of Girl Dinner / Picky Tea.
Leftovers 3:
( Lamb and Feta Pizza )
Leftovers 3b: Leftover pizza.
Leftovers 4, which I made at the same time as the pizza:
( Spiced vegetable and bean soup )
Leftovers 4b: soup. Mix yoghurt sauce through if you're taking it in a container to work.
Leftovers 5: Wraps/soft tacos/thingy with fuul medames and lamb. If you have leftover mushroom / zucchini from the pizza, toss that in here. Add avocado if you have any.
Leftovers 6: at this point just "uses for ful medames", but ful medames mixed with Jack M's banana chili ketchup makes a good spread base for breakfast burrito.
This has been: a week of lamb and things that go with lamb.
( Spiced Lamb Shoulder )
Nagi serves hers with lemon herb couscous. I (being gluten-intolerant) recommend basmati rice, cooked with at least half the liquid being stock. You may wish to add sultanas to the rice.
Recommended toppings:
( Yoghurt sauce )
( Ful Medames )
Serve: Lamb on a bed of rice, with roast vegetables and the two dip/sauces.
Leftovers 1: Same thing, minus the yoghurt if you're taking it to work to reheat. If carrying it in a container to reheat, do include an orange wedge, and a dash of extra water, to infuse with the rice.
Leftovers 2: Ful Medames on celery sticks, as a component of Girl Dinner / Picky Tea.
Leftovers 3:
( Lamb and Feta Pizza )
Leftovers 3b: Leftover pizza.
Leftovers 4, which I made at the same time as the pizza:
( Spiced vegetable and bean soup )
Leftovers 4b: soup. Mix yoghurt sauce through if you're taking it in a container to work.
Leftovers 5: Wraps/soft tacos/thingy with fuul medames and lamb. If you have leftover mushroom / zucchini from the pizza, toss that in here. Add avocado if you have any.
Leftovers 6: at this point just "uses for ful medames", but ful medames mixed with Jack M's banana chili ketchup makes a good spread base for breakfast burrito.
This has been: a week of lamb and things that go with lamb.
Jun. 6th, 2025 08:18 pm
(no subject)
skygiantsA while back, lirazel posted about a bad book about an interesting topic -- Conspiracy Theories About Lemuria -- which apparently got most of its information from a scholarly text called The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories by Sumathi Ramaswamy.
Great! I said. I bet the library has that book, I'll read it instead of the bad one! which now I have done.
For those unfamiliar, for a while the idea of sunken land-bridges joining various existing landmasses was very popular in 19th century geology; Lemuria got its name because it was supposed to explain why there are lemurs in Madagascar and India but not anywhere else. Various other land-bridges were also theorized but Lemuria's the only one that got famous thanks to the catchy name getting picked up by various weird occultists (most notably Helena Blavatasky) and incorporated into their variably incomprehensible Theories of Human Origins, Past Paradises, Etc.
As is not unexpected, this book is a much more dense, scholarly, and theory-driven tome than the bad pop history thatlirazel read. What was unexpected for me is that the author's scholarly interests focus on a.) cartography and b.) Tamil language and cultural politics, and so what she's most interested in doing is tracing how the concept of a Lemurian continent went from being an outdated geographic supposition to a weird Western occult fringe belief to an extremely mainstream, government-supported historical narrative in Tamil-speaking polities, where Lost Lemuria has become associated with the legendary drowned Tamil homeland of Tamilnāṭu and thus the premise for a claim that not only is the Lemurian continent the source of human origins but that specifically the Tamil language is the source language for humanity.
Not the book I expected to be reading! but I'm not at all mad about how things turned out! the prose is so dry that it was definite work to wade through but the rewards were real; the author has another whole book about Tamil language politics and part of me knows I am not really theory-brained enough for it at this time but the other part is tempted.
Also I did as well come out with a few snippets of the Weird Nonsense that I thought I was going in for! My favorite anecdote involves a woman named Gertrude Norris Meeker who wrote to the U.S. government in the 1950s claiming to be the Governor-General of Atlantis and Lemuria, ascertaining her sovereign right to this nonexistent territory, to which the State Department's Special Advisor on Geography had to write back like "we do not think that is true; this place does not exist." Eventually Gertrude Meeker got a congressman involved who also nobly wrote to the government on behalf of his constituent: "Mrs. Meeker understands that by renouncing her citizenship she could become Queen of these islands, but as a citizen she can rule as governor-general. [...] She states that she is getting ready to do some leasing for development work on some of these islands." And again the State Department was patiently like "we do not think that is true, as this place does not exist." Subsequently they seem to have developed a "Lemuria and Atlantis are not real" form letter which I hope and trust is still being used today.
lirazel posted about a bad book about an interesting topic -- Conspiracy Theories About Lemuria -- which apparently got most of its information from a scholarly text called The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories by Sumathi Ramaswamy. Great! I said. I bet the library has that book, I'll read it instead of the bad one! which now I have done.
For those unfamiliar, for a while the idea of sunken land-bridges joining various existing landmasses was very popular in 19th century geology; Lemuria got its name because it was supposed to explain why there are lemurs in Madagascar and India but not anywhere else. Various other land-bridges were also theorized but Lemuria's the only one that got famous thanks to the catchy name getting picked up by various weird occultists (most notably Helena Blavatasky) and incorporated into their variably incomprehensible Theories of Human Origins, Past Paradises, Etc.
As is not unexpected, this book is a much more dense, scholarly, and theory-driven tome than the bad pop history that
lirazel read. What was unexpected for me is that the author's scholarly interests focus on a.) cartography and b.) Tamil language and cultural politics, and so what she's most interested in doing is tracing how the concept of a Lemurian continent went from being an outdated geographic supposition to a weird Western occult fringe belief to an extremely mainstream, government-supported historical narrative in Tamil-speaking polities, where Lost Lemuria has become associated with the legendary drowned Tamil homeland of Tamilnāṭu and thus the premise for a claim that not only is the Lemurian continent the source of human origins but that specifically the Tamil language is the source language for humanity.Not the book I expected to be reading! but I'm not at all mad about how things turned out! the prose is so dry that it was definite work to wade through but the rewards were real; the author has another whole book about Tamil language politics and part of me knows I am not really theory-brained enough for it at this time but the other part is tempted.
Also I did as well come out with a few snippets of the Weird Nonsense that I thought I was going in for! My favorite anecdote involves a woman named Gertrude Norris Meeker who wrote to the U.S. government in the 1950s claiming to be the Governor-General of Atlantis and Lemuria, ascertaining her sovereign right to this nonexistent territory, to which the State Department's Special Advisor on Geography had to write back like "we do not think that is true; this place does not exist." Eventually Gertrude Meeker got a congressman involved who also nobly wrote to the government on behalf of his constituent: "Mrs. Meeker understands that by renouncing her citizenship she could become Queen of these islands, but as a citizen she can rule as governor-general. [...] She states that she is getting ready to do some leasing for development work on some of these islands." And again the State Department was patiently like "we do not think that is true, as this place does not exist." Subsequently they seem to have developed a "Lemuria and Atlantis are not real" form letter which I hope and trust is still being used today.
Jun. 6th, 2025 03:36 pm
The Cost of Being Uncompromising and of Unbalanced Compromise
unspeakablehorrorI want to be more effective in my activism, but there's definitely a sense I have that effectiveness in one area seems to invariably come at the cost of effectiveness in other areas, and that it is very, very difficult to strike the right balance. And maybe striking the right balance is not even possible, and we are always tasked with choosing between things that are unbalanced and unsatisfactory, because we live in an inherently unbalanced world.
To give an example, I have had to learn to be a less uncompromising person in order to be a social person, because to be too uncompromising is to isolate oneself, thus making it impossible to coordinate one's actions with others.
At the same time, I have observed ample demonstrations of the cost of compromising with one's ethics for this purpose, where one compromises and compromises with others to be more socially connected and thus more effective, but by doing this, effectively compromises themselves out of any worthwhile ethics, thus making themselves less effective in accomplishing their goals.
Thus their actions cannot effectively bring about any worthwhile goal, because they either no longer hold any worthwhile ethics, or believe that their willingness to compromise will convince others to adopt their more worthwhile stances. When rather, a willingness to compromise, a willingness to wait, can be used to compromise away those ethics, to forestall them, forever.
And I do not bring this up merely to express negativity for the sake of it, but because this is something I think is important to think about, because perhaps through that thought we can identify ways to avoid some of the pitfalls in these thorny choices.
To give an example, I have had to learn to be a less uncompromising person in order to be a social person, because to be too uncompromising is to isolate oneself, thus making it impossible to coordinate one's actions with others.
At the same time, I have observed ample demonstrations of the cost of compromising with one's ethics for this purpose, where one compromises and compromises with others to be more socially connected and thus more effective, but by doing this, effectively compromises themselves out of any worthwhile ethics, thus making themselves less effective in accomplishing their goals.
Thus their actions cannot effectively bring about any worthwhile goal, because they either no longer hold any worthwhile ethics, or believe that their willingness to compromise will convince others to adopt their more worthwhile stances. When rather, a willingness to compromise, a willingness to wait, can be used to compromise away those ethics, to forestall them, forever.
And I do not bring this up merely to express negativity for the sake of it, but because this is something I think is important to think about, because perhaps through that thought we can identify ways to avoid some of the pitfalls in these thorny choices.
Tags:
Jun. 5th, 2025 09:34 pm
Let me just go outside and-
dorchadasCanadian wildfires once again:
If you can't read Japanese, that's 154 on the AQI scale, which is moderate pollution (中程度の汚染), which is not good. I haven't been outside since Wednesday and don't plan to go out unless I have, though Laila is getting pretty annoyed about not being able to go outside.
It's supposed to last for the next couple days. Hopefully that's all--two years ago we lost most of the summer to Canadian wildfires. Hopefully our neighbors to the north can get the fires contained soon and not too much damage is done.
If you can't read Japanese, that's 154 on the AQI scale, which is moderate pollution (中程度の汚染), which is not good. I haven't been outside since Wednesday and don't plan to go out unless I have, though Laila is getting pretty annoyed about not being able to go outside.
It's supposed to last for the next couple days. Hopefully that's all--two years ago we lost most of the summer to Canadian wildfires. Hopefully our neighbors to the north can get the fires contained soon and not too much damage is done.
Tags:
Jun. 6th, 2025 02:35 pm
sapphic summer thoughts
sapphicsunshowerok so as i mentioned earlier this year i'm not planning on running Sapphic Summer anymore. if anyone else would like to pick up the mantle, feel free to use the banners and whatever you want from the past years' posts.
i WAS thinking however of doing a shorter, less mod hands-on spin on the event and wondered if the general femslash public had any thoughts on it it sounds like a viable way to ?? run the event i guess ksjnkfnsdf
basically i was imagining a two week event where the format is similar: i would post some starter threads and people would reply with their fills + three new prompts BUT i would not compile posts containing lists of all the prompts and fills. i would have a Fills Thread much like in other events and everyone would just have to go looking through everyone's comments to look at prompts
with how stacked the threads tend to get though (for example) it might be too much of a pain to navigate without the separate compiled prompt list. the solution to that i guess would be to have everyone make new comments with their fill + new prompts instead of replying to the original comment of the prompt they've filled...i am simply thinking out loud at this point
anyway please let me know if you have any thoughts!! if you think it'd work, if you think it'd be an absolute Mess etc etc also if anyone decides to run the actual factual Sapphic Summer event in it's original form i will simply not do this but if not i thought this would be a good way to keep its spirit alive
i WAS thinking however of doing a shorter, less mod hands-on spin on the event and wondered if the general femslash public had any thoughts on it it sounds like a viable way to ?? run the event i guess ksjnkfnsdf
basically i was imagining a two week event where the format is similar: i would post some starter threads and people would reply with their fills + three new prompts BUT i would not compile posts containing lists of all the prompts and fills. i would have a Fills Thread much like in other events and everyone would just have to go looking through everyone's comments to look at prompts
with how stacked the threads tend to get though (for example) it might be too much of a pain to navigate without the separate compiled prompt list. the solution to that i guess would be to have everyone make new comments with their fill + new prompts instead of replying to the original comment of the prompt they've filled...i am simply thinking out loud at this point
anyway please let me know if you have any thoughts!! if you think it'd work, if you think it'd be an absolute Mess etc etc also if anyone decides to run the actual factual Sapphic Summer event in it's original form i will simply not do this but if not i thought this would be a good way to keep its spirit alive
Tags:
Jun. 6th, 2025 07:07 pm
Nostalgic Music Party!
oursinAfter a few distinctly less than summery days, today has been quite sunny.
Okay, I think I've had some of these before.... maybe.
Summer Nights
The downside: Summertime Blues:
Not sure if Summer Wine is for drinking then, or made then, with sinister summer herbs:
Obligatory Lovin' Spoonful
Kinks chilling on a Lazy Sunny Afternoon:
Carole King another one wanting it to be over:
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Jun. 6th, 2025 02:12 pm
High in the Clean Blue Air - Chapter Thirty
starsprayFandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Maglor, Elrond, Maedhros, various others
Warnings: References to torture and trauma
Summary: Maglor keeps a promise, and comes to Valinor, only to find the ghosts he thought he'd left behind are alive and waiting for him.
Note: This fic is a sequel to Clear Pebbles of the Rain, which is itself a sequel to Unhappy Into Woe.
Prologue / Previous Chapter
Rating: T
Characters: Maglor, Elrond, Maedhros, various others
Warnings: References to torture and trauma
Summary: Maglor keeps a promise, and comes to Valinor, only to find the ghosts he thought he'd left behind are alive and waiting for him.
Note: This fic is a sequel to Clear Pebbles of the Rain, which is itself a sequel to Unhappy Into Woe.
Prologue / Previous Chapter
( Read more... )
Jun. 6th, 2025 09:03 am
>_>
anghraineSo I'm sorting through my many, many notes for the K/S femslash AU jotted down in email drafts and elaborate notes on chronological outlines and grumpy additions to passages where I'm like "actually it needs to happen differently, more like blahblah, especially if I want my version to correspond with this conceptual detail from TOS I really like..."
Between moving across the city, asthma problems, a death in the family, looking for work, etc etc, some notes are hyper-organized and others are all jumbled together with no rhyme or reason. So it can be silly and fun in its own way to impose some kind of order when it's like:
( Read more... )
Between moving across the city, asthma problems, a death in the family, looking for work, etc etc, some notes are hyper-organized and others are all jumbled together with no rhyme or reason. So it can be silly and fun in its own way to impose some kind of order when it's like:
( Read more... )