A rare linkpost is sighted
Mar. 29th, 2025 06:00 pmI've been hoarding links over the past week — mainly via the same two sources, which are blogs of meaty-but-light-touch, longform criticism, pop cultural commentary, and book reviews — the kind of stuff that's what I most miss about the old-school, pre-social media internet, and which I was delighted to discover still exists, if not in quite the same volume or prevalence.
First up, two reviews specifically of Travis Baldree's Legends and Lattes and more broadly commenting on the 'cosy' SFF trend. I'm not sure I'd be quite so firm in my conclusions (sometimes, you just want to read gentle, low-stakes fiction, and that's okay), but I thought both made some interesting, and persuasive points. Review number one is by Liz Bourke, and review number two is by Wesley Osam.
Also by Osam, this post on extractive AI, and a review of Tone (Sofia Samatar and Kate Zambreno), which is another reminder that I really do need to read through Samatar's entire bibliography.
If any of you contributed to the Kyiv Independent's fundraiser for small local media outlets in Ukraine (in the wake of the US government's freezing of international aid; I posted about this a few months back), you might be interested to know the results of your contributions: there's an update on the Gofundme page outlining all the fantastic things the three organisations (in the frontline regions of Sumy, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv) have been able to achieve thanks to the donations.
I've also just really been appreciating Timothy Snyder's newsletter, which helps me continue to feel like I'm not losing my mind in this terrible, unmoored world, but I assume that anyone who vaguely shares my politics is already aware of it.
First up, two reviews specifically of Travis Baldree's Legends and Lattes and more broadly commenting on the 'cosy' SFF trend. I'm not sure I'd be quite so firm in my conclusions (sometimes, you just want to read gentle, low-stakes fiction, and that's okay), but I thought both made some interesting, and persuasive points. Review number one is by Liz Bourke, and review number two is by Wesley Osam.
Also by Osam, this post on extractive AI, and a review of Tone (Sofia Samatar and Kate Zambreno), which is another reminder that I really do need to read through Samatar's entire bibliography.
If any of you contributed to the Kyiv Independent's fundraiser for small local media outlets in Ukraine (in the wake of the US government's freezing of international aid; I posted about this a few months back), you might be interested to know the results of your contributions: there's an update on the Gofundme page outlining all the fantastic things the three organisations (in the frontline regions of Sumy, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv) have been able to achieve thanks to the donations.
I've also just really been appreciating Timothy Snyder's newsletter, which helps me continue to feel like I'm not losing my mind in this terrible, unmoored world, but I assume that anyone who vaguely shares my politics is already aware of it.
It would be accurate to say that this week was entirely ( politics ).
Other than all that, it's been a fairly standard weekend for me: gym-ing, swimming, cooking, yoga-ing, and reading. My legs and hips are still sore from yesterday's two hours in the gym, my upper body is completely relaxed from this morning's 1km swim, and I'm trying to decide whether I can fit in a walk in between this afternoon's various activities.
Matthias and I took out a discounted three-month subscription to MUBI (a film streaming platform), and are trying to make the most of it by getting through as many films hosted there in the next months. Last night we watched The Substance, the Oscar-nominated film starring Demi Moore as an ageing celebrity TV fitness instructor (à la Jane Fonda) who, at risk of being booted off her TV show and replaced by a younger model, signs up for a dubious experimental treatment which creates a better (younger, more flawlessly — uncannily — beautiful) version of herself. This is something of a devil's bargain, with predictably horrifying results, as the alter-ego slowly takes over her life in a grotesquely extractive way. The film's commentary on ageing and female beauty (and in particular the disposable way Hollywood treats all actresses over thirty) is about as subtle as a hammer to the head, but its real strength — as befits a story all about the surface of things — is in its visual storytelling, and how much it is able to say with set, costuming and make-up, rather than words. Be warned that the film involves visceral gore and body horror throughout, and it's a lot.
In terms of books, I managed a reread of a childhood favourite trilogy (The Plum-Rain Scroll, The Dragon Stone, and The Peony Lantern by Ruth Manley, a children's fantasy adventure quest series using Japanese mythology and folklore in a similar manner, and with a similar storytelling style, to Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain series' use of Welsh mythology), and, on the recommendation of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
vriddy, Godkiller, the first in an epic fantasy trilogy by Hannah Kaner. This novel is set in a world in which gods are tangible, numerous, and weird, with complicated relationships with the human beings who worship (or fear) them, and dangerous consequences when they are not appeased. Unequal bargains are part and parcel of life. Into this complicated situation step our heroes: a traumatised (female) mercenary, and a retired knight, who are forced into an uneasy alliance to protect a twelve-year-old orphaned artistocratic girl who has somehow become unbreakably bound to a god of white lies. All are harbouring secrets, and all of these are slowly revealed over the course of the book, which takes the form of a dangerous road trip across a continent scarred by previous years of civil war. I enjoyed this a lot, and will be collecting the sequel from the local public library as soon as the person who's borrowed it returns it!
I've now picked up Ada Palmer's Inventing the Renaissance: a massive, doorstopper of a book, but written in a chatty, inviting style that I would find patronising in some hands, but in Palmer's (having seen her speak in public, and knowing something of her pedagogical approach to the classes she teaches as an academic historian) feels authentic and genuine. If you want to get an idea of the style and content of the book, the most recent backlog of posts at her![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
exurbe_feed blog will give you a very good idea.
Looking at the time, I think I will be able to go on that walk after all, before returning home to a smokey cup of tea, slow-cooking Indonesian curry for dinner, and a very long, slow, anxiety-focused yoga session. A good, balanced weekend: at least within the four walls of my house (and the less said about the chaos outside, the better).
Other than all that, it's been a fairly standard weekend for me: gym-ing, swimming, cooking, yoga-ing, and reading. My legs and hips are still sore from yesterday's two hours in the gym, my upper body is completely relaxed from this morning's 1km swim, and I'm trying to decide whether I can fit in a walk in between this afternoon's various activities.
Matthias and I took out a discounted three-month subscription to MUBI (a film streaming platform), and are trying to make the most of it by getting through as many films hosted there in the next months. Last night we watched The Substance, the Oscar-nominated film starring Demi Moore as an ageing celebrity TV fitness instructor (à la Jane Fonda) who, at risk of being booted off her TV show and replaced by a younger model, signs up for a dubious experimental treatment which creates a better (younger, more flawlessly — uncannily — beautiful) version of herself. This is something of a devil's bargain, with predictably horrifying results, as the alter-ego slowly takes over her life in a grotesquely extractive way. The film's commentary on ageing and female beauty (and in particular the disposable way Hollywood treats all actresses over thirty) is about as subtle as a hammer to the head, but its real strength — as befits a story all about the surface of things — is in its visual storytelling, and how much it is able to say with set, costuming and make-up, rather than words. Be warned that the film involves visceral gore and body horror throughout, and it's a lot.
In terms of books, I managed a reread of a childhood favourite trilogy (The Plum-Rain Scroll, The Dragon Stone, and The Peony Lantern by Ruth Manley, a children's fantasy adventure quest series using Japanese mythology and folklore in a similar manner, and with a similar storytelling style, to Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain series' use of Welsh mythology), and, on the recommendation of
vriddy, Godkiller, the first in an epic fantasy trilogy by Hannah Kaner. This novel is set in a world in which gods are tangible, numerous, and weird, with complicated relationships with the human beings who worship (or fear) them, and dangerous consequences when they are not appeased. Unequal bargains are part and parcel of life. Into this complicated situation step our heroes: a traumatised (female) mercenary, and a retired knight, who are forced into an uneasy alliance to protect a twelve-year-old orphaned artistocratic girl who has somehow become unbreakably bound to a god of white lies. All are harbouring secrets, and all of these are slowly revealed over the course of the book, which takes the form of a dangerous road trip across a continent scarred by previous years of civil war. I enjoyed this a lot, and will be collecting the sequel from the local public library as soon as the person who's borrowed it returns it!I've now picked up Ada Palmer's Inventing the Renaissance: a massive, doorstopper of a book, but written in a chatty, inviting style that I would find patronising in some hands, but in Palmer's (having seen her speak in public, and knowing something of her pedagogical approach to the classes she teaches as an academic historian) feels authentic and genuine. If you want to get an idea of the style and content of the book, the most recent backlog of posts at her
exurbe_feed blog will give you a very good idea.Looking at the time, I think I will be able to go on that walk after all, before returning home to a smokey cup of tea, slow-cooking Indonesian curry for dinner, and a very long, slow, anxiety-focused yoga session. A good, balanced weekend: at least within the four walls of my house (and the less said about the chaos outside, the better).
Concrete political actions
Jan. 31st, 2025 06:07 pmI'm not doing a Friday open thread this week, as I've got too much going on over the weekend to be able to respond to a lot of comments.
Instead, I thought I'd gather together a bunch of calls to political action that I've seen over the past week or so. They cover a range of countries, and all include specific, tangible actions that you can take.
( Cut because this deals with politics )
Please consider this blanket permission to share this post widely, including off Dreamwidth if you use other platforms.
Instead, I thought I'd gather together a bunch of calls to political action that I've seen over the past week or so. They cover a range of countries, and all include specific, tangible actions that you can take.
( Cut because this deals with politics )
Please consider this blanket permission to share this post widely, including off Dreamwidth if you use other platforms.
More screaming into the void
Jan. 20th, 2025 06:02 pmI wasn't going to post about the brief banning of TikTok in the US, because I don't use TikTok, don't live in the United States, and see no situation that would cause either of these things to change.
But then the discourse and hot takes in response to the ban started rolling in, and they were, quite honestly, almost uniformly enraging — and to make matters worse, were inadvertently spreading unbelievably appalling misinformation — and I stewed in irritation for several days before giving in to the inevitable urge to vent.
I observed the vast majority of these inane reponses elsewhere online, although there were little pockets on Dreamwidth, but as always, my standard dislaimer applies: if you didn't perpetuate this behaviour, I'm not complaining about you.
( Cut because this strays into US politics territory )
But all this feels like shouting into the wind.
But then the discourse and hot takes in response to the ban started rolling in, and they were, quite honestly, almost uniformly enraging — and to make matters worse, were inadvertently spreading unbelievably appalling misinformation — and I stewed in irritation for several days before giving in to the inevitable urge to vent.
I observed the vast majority of these inane reponses elsewhere online, although there were little pockets on Dreamwidth, but as always, my standard dislaimer applies: if you didn't perpetuate this behaviour, I'm not complaining about you.
( Cut because this strays into US politics territory )
But all this feels like shouting into the wind.
Reassure the blades of green, green grass
Nov. 3rd, 2024 03:32 pmAnother Sunday afternoon, another cosy autumn weekend wrapping itself up. The clocks went back last Sunday, and it's absolutely striking to see the change in the quality of light, and the relative levels of light in the sky at specific times of day. When travelling in to work, Matthias and I leave the house at 6.50am to walk down to the train station, and for weeks this journey had been under inky dark blue skies — now it's silvery and clear in the mornings again, at least for now. In contrast, the light has well and truly left the sky by 5pm, and it's already pretty dim now, at 2.30.
Saturday began as always in the gym, moved on to the market (we had vague aspirations of trying the new cheese/wine/charcuterie shop on the high street, which opened yesterday, but the endless queue out the door put us off, and I will attempt to visit next week on one of my days working from home, when things are less chaotic), and then returned to our house, where I filled the fridge with all the vegetables we'd bought. I had the uncharacteristically spontaneous idea, around 5pm, to go for a little walk in the dying light, and stop for a drink in one of the pubs in town — the one that feels as if you're sitting in someone's living room, under a canopy of string lights — so Matthias and I headed out again. Our way was barred by the Bonfire Night event, which had cordoned off a large segment of the park next to the cathedral, so we cut our intended walk short and just headed straight to the pub, which was so crowded we had to sit on the stairs, while I nursed my glass of prosecco and fetched board games from the shelf behind me (which we were blocking) for other patrons when requested.
I enjoy fireworks, and enjoy watching them from public spaces, but I resent being made to pay £12 for the privilege of standing on a hill in a public park in November, and in any case the fireworks are mostly visible from our house, and I watched the whole display while cooking Saturday's dinner. It was the perfect night for it: clear and inky and still, and the colours of the fireworks were vivid against the wintry sky.
After dinner on Saturday, Matthias and I watched Love Lies Bleeding, the lesbian romance/revenge thriller starring Kristen Stewart at her vulnerable, prickly best as a gym employee in a small town near the US-Mexican border in 1989, dealing with the triple challenges of new love with a statuesque aspiring competitive body builder who's blown into town, her cross-border gun-smuggling father who seems to be running the town like his own little mafia empire, and her sister's refusal to leave her physically abusive husband. The whole thing has a dreamy, almost magical realist feel, a synth-y 1980s soundtrack, and a spare, precise script which communicates much in what is not said.
Today began in the crisp, early morning, as I walked to the pool in a world completely absent of any other people. I was in and out fairly efficiently, back home for crepes, pottering around, and finalising plans for dinner. Around midday, Matthias and I headed out again, walking along the river, then up to the market, where we picked up pizza from one of the food trucks, and ate it in the courtyard garden of our favourite cafe/bar. It wasn't quite warm enough for me to be outside, but in my coat and my big, bulky blanket of a scarf, it was manageable. We returned home before I could freeze to my seat, clutching takeaway coffee and handmade Christmas pudding fudge, which I've been sipping and nibbling on as I write this post.
This week, my reading has been mainly all Timothy Snyder: an On Tyranny and On Freedom double-header. The former is his essay-length polemic, written during the Trump presidency, a sort of survival guide (for people as individuals, and for the institutions and norms of democratic countries) for authoritarianism, the latter is in essence a 350-page case (with personal anecdotes, analogies from history and our current times, and an accessible overview of the works of various theorists and philosophers) for Snyder's own values (i.e. liberalism, the rule of law, a robust and free press, a strong civil society with robust horizontal organisation, and a strong, well-funded social democratic state with the cradle-to-grave wellbeing of its citizens taken seriously). I read Snyder's writing (both book-length, and the shorter pieces on his Substack) for comfort and affirmation; it makes me feel less alone, as if someone else sees the world as I see it, and properly recognises the seriousness of the threats to our shared values. As always, though, the scale of what he's up against: oligarchic authoritarian populism fueled by appeals to people's worst emotions feels so overwhelmingly strong against the calm, deliberate statement of facts that forms the core of Snyder's response.
Apart from earnest essays on totalitarianism and democracy, I also read Babylonia (Constanza Casati), a historical fiction novel about the real-world female Assyrian ruler, Semiramis (Sammuramat). When I tell you that Casati's previous book was a retelling of the story of Clytemnestra, you can probably slot Babylonia into the appropriate niche: a 'feminist reclamation' of a controversial female figure, with a focus on the misogynistic obstacles she had to overcome. There's court intrigue and a love triangle, Game of Thrones-level violence designed to provoke a strong emotional response, and a relentless emphasis on the brutality of the characters' world, and the damage they do to themselves and each other in trying to survive it. It does involve one of my favourite character arcs ever — that of a person who was made to feel vulnerable and afraid, and reacts to that by remaking the world in order to never feel fear again, destroying themselves in the process — but I am ambivalent about the book's purported feminism. It's another one of those stories where its female protagonist's even action is justified, and where the author tries to sand down any sharp edges and shies away from moral greyness.
( US politics note )
This post opened with discussion of the changing light, and now the light has almost left the sky in the half-hour or so since I began writing. Winter is well and truly waiting in the wings.
Saturday began as always in the gym, moved on to the market (we had vague aspirations of trying the new cheese/wine/charcuterie shop on the high street, which opened yesterday, but the endless queue out the door put us off, and I will attempt to visit next week on one of my days working from home, when things are less chaotic), and then returned to our house, where I filled the fridge with all the vegetables we'd bought. I had the uncharacteristically spontaneous idea, around 5pm, to go for a little walk in the dying light, and stop for a drink in one of the pubs in town — the one that feels as if you're sitting in someone's living room, under a canopy of string lights — so Matthias and I headed out again. Our way was barred by the Bonfire Night event, which had cordoned off a large segment of the park next to the cathedral, so we cut our intended walk short and just headed straight to the pub, which was so crowded we had to sit on the stairs, while I nursed my glass of prosecco and fetched board games from the shelf behind me (which we were blocking) for other patrons when requested.
I enjoy fireworks, and enjoy watching them from public spaces, but I resent being made to pay £12 for the privilege of standing on a hill in a public park in November, and in any case the fireworks are mostly visible from our house, and I watched the whole display while cooking Saturday's dinner. It was the perfect night for it: clear and inky and still, and the colours of the fireworks were vivid against the wintry sky.
After dinner on Saturday, Matthias and I watched Love Lies Bleeding, the lesbian romance/revenge thriller starring Kristen Stewart at her vulnerable, prickly best as a gym employee in a small town near the US-Mexican border in 1989, dealing with the triple challenges of new love with a statuesque aspiring competitive body builder who's blown into town, her cross-border gun-smuggling father who seems to be running the town like his own little mafia empire, and her sister's refusal to leave her physically abusive husband. The whole thing has a dreamy, almost magical realist feel, a synth-y 1980s soundtrack, and a spare, precise script which communicates much in what is not said.
Today began in the crisp, early morning, as I walked to the pool in a world completely absent of any other people. I was in and out fairly efficiently, back home for crepes, pottering around, and finalising plans for dinner. Around midday, Matthias and I headed out again, walking along the river, then up to the market, where we picked up pizza from one of the food trucks, and ate it in the courtyard garden of our favourite cafe/bar. It wasn't quite warm enough for me to be outside, but in my coat and my big, bulky blanket of a scarf, it was manageable. We returned home before I could freeze to my seat, clutching takeaway coffee and handmade Christmas pudding fudge, which I've been sipping and nibbling on as I write this post.
This week, my reading has been mainly all Timothy Snyder: an On Tyranny and On Freedom double-header. The former is his essay-length polemic, written during the Trump presidency, a sort of survival guide (for people as individuals, and for the institutions and norms of democratic countries) for authoritarianism, the latter is in essence a 350-page case (with personal anecdotes, analogies from history and our current times, and an accessible overview of the works of various theorists and philosophers) for Snyder's own values (i.e. liberalism, the rule of law, a robust and free press, a strong civil society with robust horizontal organisation, and a strong, well-funded social democratic state with the cradle-to-grave wellbeing of its citizens taken seriously). I read Snyder's writing (both book-length, and the shorter pieces on his Substack) for comfort and affirmation; it makes me feel less alone, as if someone else sees the world as I see it, and properly recognises the seriousness of the threats to our shared values. As always, though, the scale of what he's up against: oligarchic authoritarian populism fueled by appeals to people's worst emotions feels so overwhelmingly strong against the calm, deliberate statement of facts that forms the core of Snyder's response.
Apart from earnest essays on totalitarianism and democracy, I also read Babylonia (Constanza Casati), a historical fiction novel about the real-world female Assyrian ruler, Semiramis (Sammuramat). When I tell you that Casati's previous book was a retelling of the story of Clytemnestra, you can probably slot Babylonia into the appropriate niche: a 'feminist reclamation' of a controversial female figure, with a focus on the misogynistic obstacles she had to overcome. There's court intrigue and a love triangle, Game of Thrones-level violence designed to provoke a strong emotional response, and a relentless emphasis on the brutality of the characters' world, and the damage they do to themselves and each other in trying to survive it. It does involve one of my favourite character arcs ever — that of a person who was made to feel vulnerable and afraid, and reacts to that by remaking the world in order to never feel fear again, destroying themselves in the process — but I am ambivalent about the book's purported feminism. It's another one of those stories where its female protagonist's even action is justified, and where the author tries to sand down any sharp edges and shies away from moral greyness.
( US politics note )
This post opened with discussion of the changing light, and now the light has almost left the sky in the half-hour or so since I began writing. Winter is well and truly waiting in the wings.
It's been a long and difficult week, for various reasons, and I figured that since I need a boost of optimism, others might appreciate it as well. It's with that need to feel motivated and uplifted that I bring you this week's prompt:
Tell me about concrete actions you have taken today (or at least recently) that will have a tangibly good effect on other people's lives.
This could be at the level of an individual stranger, or your friends, family and colleagues, or bigger — actions to help your community, fellow citizens of your country, or people on the other side of the world. No action is too big or too small to be counted here: it simply needs to have been undertaken with the aim to make at least one other person's life better.
( Three concrete actions, undertaken today )
I will remind any citizens of the United States among my Dreamwidth circle of the existence of the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thisfinecrew comm, whose sole purpose is to encourage these specific types of small scale, concrete actions in the US political context.
Tell me about concrete actions you have taken today (or at least recently) that will have a tangibly good effect on other people's lives.
This could be at the level of an individual stranger, or your friends, family and colleagues, or bigger — actions to help your community, fellow citizens of your country, or people on the other side of the world. No action is too big or too small to be counted here: it simply needs to have been undertaken with the aim to make at least one other person's life better.
( Three concrete actions, undertaken today )
I will remind any citizens of the United States among my Dreamwidth circle of the existence of the
thisfinecrew comm, whose sole purpose is to encourage these specific types of small scale, concrete actions in the US political context.Do not despair in advance
Jul. 16th, 2024 01:35 pmThe title of this post is taken from the comments under a photo by ![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png)
rblemberg, in which Lemberg documents their letterpress project — a quote from Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny. (I strongly recommend Snyder's own writing in this regard: clear-eyed and realistic about the dangers posed by various fascist authoritarians around the world, practical in its suggestions to resist it.) Preemptive despair has been causing me increasing frustration over the past months and years, and in some ways my own shifts in political thinking have been in direct reaction to these frustrations — sparked as well by numerous global examples of people (as individuals and grassroots communities) with far less agency than I reacting to far worse situations than the political turmoil of flawed democracies with determined, persistent concrete action. It was this, more than anything, that convinced me that the antidote to despair (preemptive or otherwise) is action, no matter how small and no matter how many doubts one may privately be harbouring about its effectiveness. Look with clear eyes at the situation, recognise the limits of your own power, and then ask yourself: okay, but what can I do next?
(I also think it's a good idea to look beyond the borders of one's own country of residence, because it reinforces the fact that there is a continuum of difficulty when it comes to overcoming the threat posed by authoritarianism, and the easiest way to do it is at the ballot box, after which point it becomes increasingly dangerous and difficult.)
I'm fortunate to live in a country that has experienced something of a reprieve, but that doesn't mean we in Britain can just sit back and let the grown-ups take over. Voting every three-five years at an election is like the minimum 'rent' we pay for the privilege to live in a democracy, but democracy is like a muscle, which should be exercised more regularly than that with ongoing political engagement.thissterlingcrew is a good Dreamwidth comm to gather resources and outline specific concrete actions which citizens and/or residents of the UK can undertake in response to political developments in that country. Although we now have a Labour government, the comm will remain active, as this government is a starting point, and will no doubt need to be pushed in the right direction on many occasions.
thisfinecrew is the US politics sister comm to the above. I particularly appreciated this recent post there by petra, 'Things to do other than vote,' which takes a realistic and concrete approach to the risks currently facing the US, and offers practical suggestions in the face of those risks.
I have numerous posts about Russia's ongoing fullscale invasion of Ukraine, most with their own practical suggestions of concrete ways to help Ukraine survive and fight back until the victory. This is the most recent one.
On a smaller, and less global political scale, the recent allegations of rape and sexual coercion against Neil Gaiman (summarised in recent posts bysnickfic here and muccamukk here and here) have left many people here on Dreamwidth and the wider fandom community appalled and outraged. One practical direction in which people may wish to channel their anger is by donating to any of the New Zealand-based non-profits providing resources for survivors of sexual assault gathered by chestnut_pod.
Please feel free to list in the comments any suggested concrete actions in relation to the political situation in your own country, or in response to other enraging or upsetting events. Do not despair in advance, and remember that the antidote to despair is action.
rblemberg, in which Lemberg documents their letterpress project — a quote from Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny. (I strongly recommend Snyder's own writing in this regard: clear-eyed and realistic about the dangers posed by various fascist authoritarians around the world, practical in its suggestions to resist it.) Preemptive despair has been causing me increasing frustration over the past months and years, and in some ways my own shifts in political thinking have been in direct reaction to these frustrations — sparked as well by numerous global examples of people (as individuals and grassroots communities) with far less agency than I reacting to far worse situations than the political turmoil of flawed democracies with determined, persistent concrete action. It was this, more than anything, that convinced me that the antidote to despair (preemptive or otherwise) is action, no matter how small and no matter how many doubts one may privately be harbouring about its effectiveness. Look with clear eyes at the situation, recognise the limits of your own power, and then ask yourself: okay, but what can I do next? (I also think it's a good idea to look beyond the borders of one's own country of residence, because it reinforces the fact that there is a continuum of difficulty when it comes to overcoming the threat posed by authoritarianism, and the easiest way to do it is at the ballot box, after which point it becomes increasingly dangerous and difficult.)
I'm fortunate to live in a country that has experienced something of a reprieve, but that doesn't mean we in Britain can just sit back and let the grown-ups take over. Voting every three-five years at an election is like the minimum 'rent' we pay for the privilege to live in a democracy, but democracy is like a muscle, which should be exercised more regularly than that with ongoing political engagement.
thissterlingcrew is a good Dreamwidth comm to gather resources and outline specific concrete actions which citizens and/or residents of the UK can undertake in response to political developments in that country. Although we now have a Labour government, the comm will remain active, as this government is a starting point, and will no doubt need to be pushed in the right direction on many occasions.thisfinecrew is the US politics sister comm to the above. I particularly appreciated this recent post there by petra, 'Things to do other than vote,' which takes a realistic and concrete approach to the risks currently facing the US, and offers practical suggestions in the face of those risks. I have numerous posts about Russia's ongoing fullscale invasion of Ukraine, most with their own practical suggestions of concrete ways to help Ukraine survive and fight back until the victory. This is the most recent one.
On a smaller, and less global political scale, the recent allegations of rape and sexual coercion against Neil Gaiman (summarised in recent posts by
snickfic here and muccamukk here and here) have left many people here on Dreamwidth and the wider fandom community appalled and outraged. One practical direction in which people may wish to channel their anger is by donating to any of the New Zealand-based non-profits providing resources for survivors of sexual assault gathered by chestnut_pod.Please feel free to list in the comments any suggested concrete actions in relation to the political situation in your own country, or in response to other enraging or upsetting events. Do not despair in advance, and remember that the antidote to despair is action.
Nothing is ever just one thing
Jun. 2nd, 2024 04:11 pmToday's post is a bit of a blissed-out sunny mish-mash. It's been a lazy weekend, almost like taking a deep breath before the frantic business I'm anticipating (for various reasons) for the next couple of weeks.
Yesterday I met Matthias at the market after my two hours of classes at the gym, picked up the final things we needed, then headed home, gulped down lunch, and headed out immediately again for the little outdoor fair outside the cathedral (which was raising money for the boys' choir). It was the usual mix of food trucks and craft stalls — although the draw for us (and the thing which brought us out of the house again, despite the grey skies and gusty winds) was the chance to buy champagne and little bowls of strawberries and cream, which we consumed on a park bench and tried not to be blown away. We might have lingered longer (or walked to the other side of town where two friends of ours were holding their annual plant sale in their garden), but the weather drove us home. I slowly cooked Burmese food for dinner, and then we tucked ourselves into the armchairs in the living room, where I read Leigh Bardugo's latest book (The Familiar, of which more later) in a single sitting.
Today, we woke naturally at about 5.30am due to the sunshine, and dozed on and off until it was time for me to walk to the gym for my 8am swim, which genuinely felt like swimming through liquid sunlight. I spent the morning after my return from the pool picking away at myrarepairexchange assignment, which finally unlocked for me after many weeks of difficulty.
But the weather was too nice for us to remain sequestered indoors, so out we went again for food truck food from the market (Tibetan for me, Greek for Matthias), sitting under the trees in the courtyard garden of our beloved favourite bar/cafe. When we arrived, the place was empty, and after about ten minutes, every table was taken — such is the characteristic behaviour of British people when the sun finally deigns to shine.
Now I'm trawling through Dreamwidth, and trying to decide whether I should go out again for gelato or stay in the house — I suspect the gelato will win! I've been gathering Dreamwidth links like a magpie, and will share them with you:
Viavriddy: the Japanese Film Festival Online in which 'a variety of 23 films will be delivered during the first two weeks, followed by two TV drama series for the subsequent two weeks. These will be streamed for free with subtitles in up to 16 languages, available in up to 27 countries/regions.' I imagine this may be of interest to some in my circle.
Some steps to take to ensure any eligible British voters in your life have the requisite ID and voter registration required by the deadlines to vote in the upcoming 4th July general elction, viathissterlingcrew. There are particular concerns about younger voters, so do pass these details on to any 18-24-year-olds you know.
Staying with politics (in this case US), this Timothy Snyder essay really resonated with me, as his commentary and analysis generally does. Voting, for me (and treating elections seriously), is like the bare minimum tax we pay for the enormous unearned good fortune of being citizens of (albeit flawed) democracies.
On a lighter note, I just went on a downloading spree from these gorgeous batches of icons frominsomniatic (here) and svgurl (here); perhaps you'll see something you like too.
And then I took a bunch of photos of all the fruit trees in our garden.
And finally, on to reading, and Bardugo's wonderful The Familiar. This is a standalone adult fantasy novel set in Spain during the early years of the Inquisition, and its focus is on the paranoid, terrifying antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-any-non-normative-Catholic-Christianity atmosphere of the era. Its protagonist, Luzia, is a young Jewish conversa, born into a family which for several generations has maintained its Jewish identity in secret, following religious and cultural practices as best as they can while removed from the Jewish community so necessary for those practices to find full expression. In addition to this dangerous heritage, Luzia is able to perform magic (in a stroke of genius, the mechanism for doing so is Ladino refranes or proverbs, and the act of speaking, and language as a kind of cultural and personal magic, are at the centre of the novel), which brings her to the attention of Madrid's aristocratic elite. This fame brings Luzia (and those around her) nothing but grief, and the novel as a portrait of the constant anxiety sparked by attracting the notice of the powerful is a brilliant, stressful piece of writing.
The Familiar really does feel at last like Bardugo's novel of the heart: my reactions to her previous fiction range from adoration to being left cold, but all have felt to me to have been written to the market, hitting on a winning trend at exactly the right moment in exactly the right way. She has, of course, been incredibly successful while doing so, and I would assume wrote with some degree of affection for this previous output — but The Familiar definitely feels like the first of her books that was written not to satisfy a specific trend in genre fiction, but solely for Bardugo's own need. The soul sings stories to us, and some of us are lucky enough to be able to give those stories voice, and sing back.
Yesterday I met Matthias at the market after my two hours of classes at the gym, picked up the final things we needed, then headed home, gulped down lunch, and headed out immediately again for the little outdoor fair outside the cathedral (which was raising money for the boys' choir). It was the usual mix of food trucks and craft stalls — although the draw for us (and the thing which brought us out of the house again, despite the grey skies and gusty winds) was the chance to buy champagne and little bowls of strawberries and cream, which we consumed on a park bench and tried not to be blown away. We might have lingered longer (or walked to the other side of town where two friends of ours were holding their annual plant sale in their garden), but the weather drove us home. I slowly cooked Burmese food for dinner, and then we tucked ourselves into the armchairs in the living room, where I read Leigh Bardugo's latest book (The Familiar, of which more later) in a single sitting.
Today, we woke naturally at about 5.30am due to the sunshine, and dozed on and off until it was time for me to walk to the gym for my 8am swim, which genuinely felt like swimming through liquid sunlight. I spent the morning after my return from the pool picking away at my
rarepairexchange assignment, which finally unlocked for me after many weeks of difficulty. But the weather was too nice for us to remain sequestered indoors, so out we went again for food truck food from the market (Tibetan for me, Greek for Matthias), sitting under the trees in the courtyard garden of our beloved favourite bar/cafe. When we arrived, the place was empty, and after about ten minutes, every table was taken — such is the characteristic behaviour of British people when the sun finally deigns to shine.
Now I'm trawling through Dreamwidth, and trying to decide whether I should go out again for gelato or stay in the house — I suspect the gelato will win! I've been gathering Dreamwidth links like a magpie, and will share them with you:
Via
vriddy: the Japanese Film Festival Online in which 'a variety of 23 films will be delivered during the first two weeks, followed by two TV drama series for the subsequent two weeks. These will be streamed for free with subtitles in up to 16 languages, available in up to 27 countries/regions.' I imagine this may be of interest to some in my circle. Some steps to take to ensure any eligible British voters in your life have the requisite ID and voter registration required by the deadlines to vote in the upcoming 4th July general elction, via
thissterlingcrew. There are particular concerns about younger voters, so do pass these details on to any 18-24-year-olds you know. Staying with politics (in this case US), this Timothy Snyder essay really resonated with me, as his commentary and analysis generally does. Voting, for me (and treating elections seriously), is like the bare minimum tax we pay for the enormous unearned good fortune of being citizens of (albeit flawed) democracies.
On a lighter note, I just went on a downloading spree from these gorgeous batches of icons from
insomniatic (here) and svgurl (here); perhaps you'll see something you like too.And then I took a bunch of photos of all the fruit trees in our garden.
And finally, on to reading, and Bardugo's wonderful The Familiar. This is a standalone adult fantasy novel set in Spain during the early years of the Inquisition, and its focus is on the paranoid, terrifying antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-any-non-normative-Catholic-Christianity atmosphere of the era. Its protagonist, Luzia, is a young Jewish conversa, born into a family which for several generations has maintained its Jewish identity in secret, following religious and cultural practices as best as they can while removed from the Jewish community so necessary for those practices to find full expression. In addition to this dangerous heritage, Luzia is able to perform magic (in a stroke of genius, the mechanism for doing so is Ladino refranes or proverbs, and the act of speaking, and language as a kind of cultural and personal magic, are at the centre of the novel), which brings her to the attention of Madrid's aristocratic elite. This fame brings Luzia (and those around her) nothing but grief, and the novel as a portrait of the constant anxiety sparked by attracting the notice of the powerful is a brilliant, stressful piece of writing.
The Familiar really does feel at last like Bardugo's novel of the heart: my reactions to her previous fiction range from adoration to being left cold, but all have felt to me to have been written to the market, hitting on a winning trend at exactly the right moment in exactly the right way. She has, of course, been incredibly successful while doing so, and I would assume wrote with some degree of affection for this previous output — but The Familiar definitely feels like the first of her books that was written not to satisfy a specific trend in genre fiction, but solely for Bardugo's own need. The soul sings stories to us, and some of us are lucky enough to be able to give those stories voice, and sing back.
The only possible reaction is weariness
Sep. 28th, 2021 04:50 pmAs many of you know, although I am a librarian now, I used to be in academia. Before moving into librarianship, I did a PhD in medieval Irish literature, and was, during that time, pretty firmly ensconced in Celtic Studies academia — a multidisciplinary field that covers languages, history, literature and material culture, ranging in time from prehistory to the contemporary era.
We get a lot of cranks contacting us — people convinced they have evidence for a real, historical King Arthur, neopagans who think there is extensive evidence for pre-Christian 'Celtic' religious beliefs and practices documented in medieval literary texts (which is a whole other story, but suffice it to say the evidence is thin), Cornish nationalists who want to coopt us in their language revival debates, and so on. Most of the time, it causes a bit of grumbling and sighing, but it's relatively harmless, we do our best to gently correct these people's misapprehensions, and they wander off.
Unfortunately, there's also the far right.
( Cut for discussion of far-right nationalism )
We get a lot of cranks contacting us — people convinced they have evidence for a real, historical King Arthur, neopagans who think there is extensive evidence for pre-Christian 'Celtic' religious beliefs and practices documented in medieval literary texts (which is a whole other story, but suffice it to say the evidence is thin), Cornish nationalists who want to coopt us in their language revival debates, and so on. Most of the time, it causes a bit of grumbling and sighing, but it's relatively harmless, we do our best to gently correct these people's misapprehensions, and they wander off.
Unfortunately, there's also the far right.
( Cut for discussion of far-right nationalism )
Head in the sand, feet in the clay
Sep. 11th, 2021 07:03 pmIt always takes me a lot of words to get to the point. If you want two songs which each say, in five minutes, what it took several thousand words for me to say in my previous post, here you go.
The US version:
Lyrics.
The UK version:
Lyrics.
It is fairly obvious to me what Calexico in the first song, and Massive Attack in the second song are saying, but I am very happy to clarify if it's unclear.
Also, the notion that no one made viable protest music after the 1970s is patently absurd, and anyone who makes such a claim has not been paying attention.
The US version:
Lyrics.
The UK version:
Lyrics.
It is fairly obvious to me what Calexico in the first song, and Massive Attack in the second song are saying, but I am very happy to clarify if it's unclear.
Also, the notion that no one made viable protest music after the 1970s is patently absurd, and anyone who makes such a claim has not been paying attention.
Cut for discussion of the situation in Afghanistan, as well as practical suggestions about what to do to help.
( Template for letter to elected representatives )
Please feel free to share this, and to use and adapt as required.
( Template for letter to elected representatives )
Please feel free to share this, and to use and adapt as required.
'Legitimate concerns'
Nov. 8th, 2020 09:39 amThere is a strand in popular media in the US which I first noticed when I was a teenager: a repeated narrative that characters whose parents, spouse, or other family members abused or neglected them had a moral obligation to immediately forgive them the instant the abusive/neglectful person attempted to reconcile. Often, this takes the form of the friends and family of the abused person insisting that this is the moral, healing, and compassionate thing to do, and to refuse forgiveness means a lack of 'closure,' and demonstrates a poisonous, corrosive bitterness. Such narratives reinforce the notion that a refusal to forgive is more damaging to the abused person than the abusive or neglectful behaviour they experienced.
I most often see this trope presented in media aimed at women, or at teenagers, but it's also there in the sorts of action films which assume a mainly adult male audience. Usually in the latter it takes the form of the manly, tortured antihero reconnecting with an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend (and sometimes their kids) in the wake of an apocalyptic catastrophe, or a smaller-scale violent threat. The woman will be aggrieved at some kind of past neglect (usually presented along the lines of the hero being so obsessed with the demands of his — dangerous, important, manly — job that he was a neglectful husband/partner/father). Again, by the end of the film she will be expected to be reconciled with the neglectful hero, and have come around to a recognition that his work was so, so important that of course it was unreasonable to have expected him to be a present, active partner.
Whether it's abuse or neglect, this kind of weaponised forgiveness seeps into everything. We're seeing it now with the calls for those of us celebrating a Biden/Harris victory to be empathetic and compassionate to those on the opposing sides. Somehow, this always seems to be what's demanded of those of us on the left of centre. When we lose an election or referendum, there are immediate calls to listen to the 'legitimate concerns' of frightened racists, and an expectation that we will bend over backwards to accommodate and legitimise their ideology. On the rare occasions when we win, we're told not to antagonise them by celebrating too happily, and commentators try to draw an equivalence between the disappointment they're feeling, and the sheer, bone-chilling terror we felt when they won.
When the Brexit result was announced, Brexiteers beat up a Polish man in the street, and started screaming abuse at people of colour and/or people they heard speaking English with non-native-speaking accents in supermarkets. One of them gleefully told a friend of mine (who worked in a customer facing role and thus couldn't talk back) that she would have to 'leave now'.
When the US election result was announced yesterday, people started dancing in the streets, partied with postal workers driving by in their vans, and shouted with joyful relief from their apartment windows.
I have been told to empathise and coddle the feelings of people whose first response to their victories is to terrorise and hurt others. I've been told I just need to try harder to understand their 'legitimate concerns'. I've been told this for years, until I'm drowning in the icy water of these calls for forgiveness. I think, instead, that it is high time that my political opponents get asked to do the work of understanding my concerns, and feeling a scrap of the collosal amount of empathy that I'm constantly asked to feel for them.
I most often see this trope presented in media aimed at women, or at teenagers, but it's also there in the sorts of action films which assume a mainly adult male audience. Usually in the latter it takes the form of the manly, tortured antihero reconnecting with an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend (and sometimes their kids) in the wake of an apocalyptic catastrophe, or a smaller-scale violent threat. The woman will be aggrieved at some kind of past neglect (usually presented along the lines of the hero being so obsessed with the demands of his — dangerous, important, manly — job that he was a neglectful husband/partner/father). Again, by the end of the film she will be expected to be reconciled with the neglectful hero, and have come around to a recognition that his work was so, so important that of course it was unreasonable to have expected him to be a present, active partner.
Whether it's abuse or neglect, this kind of weaponised forgiveness seeps into everything. We're seeing it now with the calls for those of us celebrating a Biden/Harris victory to be empathetic and compassionate to those on the opposing sides. Somehow, this always seems to be what's demanded of those of us on the left of centre. When we lose an election or referendum, there are immediate calls to listen to the 'legitimate concerns' of frightened racists, and an expectation that we will bend over backwards to accommodate and legitimise their ideology. On the rare occasions when we win, we're told not to antagonise them by celebrating too happily, and commentators try to draw an equivalence between the disappointment they're feeling, and the sheer, bone-chilling terror we felt when they won.
When the Brexit result was announced, Brexiteers beat up a Polish man in the street, and started screaming abuse at people of colour and/or people they heard speaking English with non-native-speaking accents in supermarkets. One of them gleefully told a friend of mine (who worked in a customer facing role and thus couldn't talk back) that she would have to 'leave now'.
When the US election result was announced yesterday, people started dancing in the streets, partied with postal workers driving by in their vans, and shouted with joyful relief from their apartment windows.
I have been told to empathise and coddle the feelings of people whose first response to their victories is to terrorise and hurt others. I've been told I just need to try harder to understand their 'legitimate concerns'. I've been told this for years, until I'm drowning in the icy water of these calls for forgiveness. I think, instead, that it is high time that my political opponents get asked to do the work of understanding my concerns, and feeling a scrap of the collosal amount of empathy that I'm constantly asked to feel for them.
Dance for life
Nov. 8th, 2020 09:03 amThis morning's mood is very much repeatedly watching a video of my friend ![[twitter.com profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/e0caa790ec10/-/twitter.com/favicon.ico)
BrittanySchorn's little two-year-old daughter on Facebook:
BrittanySchorn: Who's the Vice-President?
Daughter: Kam-ee-a! Kam-ee-a!
Meanwhile, another friend, based in Ohio but originally from Pittsburgh, said he had to pull over while driving and just cry with sheer relief at the thought that his pregnant wife's as-yet-unborn baby wasn't going to come into the world in Trump presidency.
My mother texted me to say that she and my sister were going out for celebratory drinks (in Australia it's Sunday night right now).
I just can't stop retweeting videos of Americans in big cities singing and dancing. I feel like we've stepped back from the edge of a cliff.
Daughter: Kam-ee-a! Kam-ee-a!
Meanwhile, another friend, based in Ohio but originally from Pittsburgh, said he had to pull over while driving and just cry with sheer relief at the thought that his pregnant wife's as-yet-unborn baby wasn't going to come into the world in Trump presidency.
My mother texted me to say that she and my sister were going out for celebratory drinks (in Australia it's Sunday night right now).
I just can't stop retweeting videos of Americans in big cities singing and dancing. I feel like we've stepped back from the edge of a cliff.
I need to retire my US politics tag...
Nov. 7th, 2020 07:19 pm... as it's no longer correct.
In any case, if you want to feel delirious joy, my Twitter feedronnidolorosa is currently wall-to-wall retweets of videos of Americans in large cities dancing, singing, screaming, banging pans, and shouting with joy and relief.
People talk about cities as if they are these cold, unfriendly hellscapes of isolation and alienation, but they're not, they're not! They're full of warmth, and life, and exuberant humanity, and community spirit, and I am a city dweller to my bones (even if I live in what feels to me a tiny, semi-rural town), and I love the beautiful, chaotic mess that is urban living.
In any case, if you want to feel delirious joy, my Twitter feed
People talk about cities as if they are these cold, unfriendly hellscapes of isolation and alienation, but they're not, they're not! They're full of warmth, and life, and exuberant humanity, and community spirit, and I am a city dweller to my bones (even if I live in what feels to me a tiny, semi-rural town), and I love the beautiful, chaotic mess that is urban living.
'That was what it was always for—?' said Sulien, his voice roughened and thick. 'That's what we were for, to do that for him?'
'Una had dropped with a shudder into Varius' arms, resting there with her eyes shut, as if she'd just crawled out of freezing water. She reached for Sulien's shoulder, and whispered, 'It's over now.'
'I could have killed him and not even hesitated,' Sulien said. 'This is worse.'
'No,' cried Maralah bitterly, 'no, it's far better than he deserves.'
'It was already there,' said Una, slowly. 'You could see that, couldn't you? He was doing it to himself. All we did was ... finish it.'
'Rome will be safe,' said Makaria, though her face looked pinched and paled. 'The war will end. Remember that, if it's difficult to bear.
Sulien nodded and muttered unevenly. 'Let's get away from him.'
— Sophia McDougall, Savage City
For context, this is the moment in a dystopian, alternate history trilogy in which a ragtag resistance army of abuse-surviving women, people who escaped from slavery, people of colour, and other dispossessed people defeat a crazed racist, rapist emperor (whose only experience with leadership prior to illegitimately taking power was to run one Olympic Games) who started a global war as a form of distraction, and has an arsenal of terrifying weapons.
Lest you think the metaphor is a bit heavy-handed, this book was published in 2011!
Well, it has been A Week. I made the preemptive decision some time ago that I would refrain from going online from the point when I went to bed on Tuesday night (UK time) until when I felt in the right frame of mind to deal with the news coming out of the US. That meant no social media, no news websites, and, above all, no hysterical, frenzied, real-time speculation about the election result until the outcome was fairly close to certain.
As a result, instead of feeling like a gibbering wreck for the past few days, I have felt completely serene. I've read three books. I've cooked slow, warming food. I've gone running out in the fens, and done yoga every day. And, best of all, I went out walking at dawn in the eerie mist. Everything was still, and cold, and starkly beautiful, with cows looming out of the fog.
And so, my question to you all, for this week's open thread prompt, is as follows: how do you keep yourself calm? What activities help you maintain a sense of equilibrium? What soothes you?
As a result, instead of feeling like a gibbering wreck for the past few days, I have felt completely serene. I've read three books. I've cooked slow, warming food. I've gone running out in the fens, and done yoga every day. And, best of all, I went out walking at dawn in the eerie mist. Everything was still, and cold, and starkly beautiful, with cows looming out of the fog.
And so, my question to you all, for this week's open thread prompt, is as follows: how do you keep yourself calm? What activities help you maintain a sense of equilibrium? What soothes you?
I swore to myself that I had hardened my heart against a lifetime of caring, hopefully, about the results of elections, and yet I opened Instagram, of all places, this morning to a wave of anxiety that's ensconced itself behind my ribs and refused to leave. I resent that I resemble this Guardian opinion piece by a fellow Australian.
I had made plans for tomorrow — more preemptive heart-hardening — to avoid the internet entirely, not just the blue hellsite that is Twitter. I was going to buy the next Benjamin January book and just wallow in a cone of silence until the internet had screamed itself out, whatever the result (or, more likely, whatever state of inconclusiveness things are in 24 hours after polls close). I spent so much time preparing for the aftermath that I forgot to prepare for this dreadful sense of unease that now creeps up on me on any kind of election day, in multiple countries, like a bucket of icy water. (That's my secret. I'm always anxious.)
Thankfully, I've got a rather tedious task ahead for most of today at work: running searches for a systematic review, which at least involves repetive, focused activities that should last several hours. I'll stick on a Tiësto live set and hope that the noise drowns out the noisy clutter in my own head. It should work as something of a bandaid solution, at least for a little while.
I'm sending hope to all of you, across oceans.
I had made plans for tomorrow — more preemptive heart-hardening — to avoid the internet entirely, not just the blue hellsite that is Twitter. I was going to buy the next Benjamin January book and just wallow in a cone of silence until the internet had screamed itself out, whatever the result (or, more likely, whatever state of inconclusiveness things are in 24 hours after polls close). I spent so much time preparing for the aftermath that I forgot to prepare for this dreadful sense of unease that now creeps up on me on any kind of election day, in multiple countries, like a bucket of icy water. (That's my secret. I'm always anxious.)
Thankfully, I've got a rather tedious task ahead for most of today at work: running searches for a systematic review, which at least involves repetive, focused activities that should last several hours. I'll stick on a Tiësto live set and hope that the noise drowns out the noisy clutter in my own head. It should work as something of a bandaid solution, at least for a little while.
I'm sending hope to all of you, across oceans.
Democracy sausage for all
Oct. 31st, 2020 05:20 pmVarious links relating to Australian politics (or, more specifically, the Australian electoral system) have come into my orbit in the past couple of days, so I thought I'd gather them in one place, because they touch on things I've been chatting with people here about in the past couple of weeks. (lirazel and kore, in various comment threads, if I recall correctly.)
( Politics and voting systems behind the cut )
lirazel and kore, in various comment threads, if I recall correctly.)( Politics and voting systems behind the cut )
I know it's not Friday, and I know my current open thread is still ticking along, but I think we could do with another one, for reasons that will hopefully soon become apparent.
My practice of doing these open threads was very much inspired by the newsletter of author Amal El-Mohtar, who does a similar thing every week. Because of the time difference (she lives in Canada, so posts at a time which is normally very early Saturday morning for me), I tend to wake up to her newsletters every weekend.
This week's edition asks a question which I found helpful, and restorative, from a mental health perspective, and so I ask it here, again, for anyone who wants to respond:
Tell me about something you want to build or have built this week. Stitches, or baking, or tightening a screw, or writing a letter, or cleaning — something of any size that felt, to you, like building, or solving.
( Cut for my answer which speaks of US politics )
If you feel you have an answer to this question, and it's one you feel like sharing, please do so.
My practice of doing these open threads was very much inspired by the newsletter of author Amal El-Mohtar, who does a similar thing every week. Because of the time difference (she lives in Canada, so posts at a time which is normally very early Saturday morning for me), I tend to wake up to her newsletters every weekend.
This week's edition asks a question which I found helpful, and restorative, from a mental health perspective, and so I ask it here, again, for anyone who wants to respond:
Tell me about something you want to build or have built this week. Stitches, or baking, or tightening a screw, or writing a letter, or cleaning — something of any size that felt, to you, like building, or solving.
( Cut for my answer which speaks of US politics )
If you feel you have an answer to this question, and it's one you feel like sharing, please do so.
