Pelargoniums, Bicton Park
Jul. 22nd, 2025 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
puddleshark
There are several glasshouses at Bicton Park, and this one is dedicated mostly to pelargoniums...
( All the pelargoniums )
puddlesharkThere are several glasshouses at Bicton Park, and this one is dedicated mostly to pelargoniums...
( All the pelargoniums )
The minor playoff rule change that altered NHL history, including 4 Cup winners
Jul. 22nd, 2025 01:49 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
downgoesbrown_feedDuring the 1986 offseason, a very strange thing happened in the NHL: The league made a rule change that nobody got all that upset about.
That was rare, even back then, because fans like to complain about things. But this change was so simple, and so obviously the right decision, that there really wasn’t anything to complain about. Or so we thought.
The rule had to do with the playoff format, and the league’s ongoing attempts to have one that made sense. Since 1974, when the league added a fourth round to the playoff tournament, the first round had always been shorter than the others. Originally it had been a three-game preliminary round, later increasing to five games. In 1986, the league decided to expand the first round to seven games, the same as the others. And everyone went “Sure, that makes sense”. Maybe a few of us complained that the extra games would make the season longer. But the extra playoff hockey, and the extra revenue it would generate, was an easy sell. And so the change was made, and then nobody thought of it again.
Until today. Or in my case, until a few weeks ago, when a reader named Andrew asked a question: How much does hockey history change if the first round had stayed best-of-five?
The answer, as it turns out, is “a lot”. So today, we’re going to go back to that decision from nearly 40 years ago, and work our way through an alternate version of NHL history that could – fair warning – make some of you sad.
>> Read the full post at The Athletic
(Want to read this post on The Athletic for free? Sign up for a free trial.)
(no subject)
Jul. 22nd, 2025 11:44 amjhetleyBought a couple of extra bags of coffee on our foraging run. A lot of US coffee comes from Brazil. Donald the Deflector is promising 50% tariffs on Brazil if they don't let his dear buddy out of jail. Prosecuting people for attempting to overthrow the government is a subject close to his heart . . .
July Patreon Panel: The Care and Feeding of Creators
Jul. 22nd, 2025 11:11 amduckprintspress
Duck Prints Press is back with another of our convention-style panels. This month, we’ll be spending an hour talking about The Care and Feeding of Creators. Ask a creator why they create, and most will answer with some variation of “I can’t not create.” However, creating is labor intensive and mentally taxing, and often leaves us exhausted and drained. Creatives engaging in self-care behaviors is therefore essential, yet many of us struggle to be kind to ourselves, celebrate our successes, and forgive ourselves our failures. In this panel, we will discuss our own struggles with showing kindness to ourselves, how we motivate ourselves, how we nourish and encourage our creativity, how we celebrate our accomplishments, how we avoid burnout and deal with falling into creative slumps, and will perhaps touch on our views of “the tortured artist” as a persistent description of creators.
Panelists: Alex Bauer, Shea Sullivan, Rachael L. Young, and Dei Walker. Nina Waters will serve as moderator.
Date: Saturday, July 26th
Time: 5 p.m. Eastern (converter)
This panel is available live to all our Patreon backers at the $7/month level and higher. Backers can also view recordings of our past panels. Become a backer of the Duck Prints Press Patreon today!
Readercon: Take Your Novel to Work
Jul. 22nd, 2025 11:00 amkate_nepveuTake Your Novel to Work
In the genre of fanfic known as "take your fandom to work," favorite characters are placed in the author's work environment, often resulting in delightfully concrete and minute details about ecological field research or running a bodega or being a summer camp counselor. How do stories of everyday vocation enhance the experience of reading and writing fiction, and what works of speculative fiction take best advantage of the granular details of work life? What can bringing characters to work tell us about both the characters and the work itself?
Ken Schneyer (moderator), Marianna Martin PhD, Melissa Bobe, Sarah Pinsker
Ken, who writes short fiction, amended the title of the panel to "Take Your Story to Work." And asked the panelists to talk about their work in their introductions. Melissa: children's librarian Sarah: writing professor, have been many other things including camp counselor, working with horses, nonprofit administrator, SAT tutor, singer/songwriter Marianna: currently academic. formerly development executive for film and TV production, administrative assistant, film projectionist, IT, bartending training but not experience Sarah: bartending experience but no training! Ken: currently professor of humanities. previously IT project manager, ad hoc computer programmer, clerk typist, judicial clerk, lawyer in corporate law firm, dishwasher at deli, actor, director. several of those have found way into stories. asks: particularly good examples you've read, yours and/or not? Marianne: caveat did not read novel Discovery of Witches, but TV really got minutia of academia right. Stross, Laundry Files, vibe of working in IT. le Carré, sounds very plausible! (anyone interested in academia and/or Discovery of Witches must, must read this fic in which the author's note reads, "i'm not so much taking this fandom to work as i am meeting it next to the dumpster behind my workplace and engaging it in hand-to-hand combat for the honor of the field of human genetics" pachytene phase (9096 words) by magneticwave Summary: The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics is pleased to invite you to the annual Clarence Berrigan Lecture. This year’s speaker is Matthew Clairmont, DPhil, who is giving a talk entitled: “Interspecies compatibility, meiotic flexibility, and the end of the infertility myth: insights from the southern red muntjac.” Please join us after Dr. Clairmont’s talk for a reception in the McNeil Family atrium at 5pm. Refreshments will be provided!panel notes
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness, A Discovery of Witches (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Diana Bishop/Matthew Clairmont
Characters: Christopher "Chris" Roberts, Matthew Clairmont
Additional Tags: Epistolary
you don't need to know the fandom and it is hilarious)
Sarah: office vibes: Jeff Vandermeer, Authority (second one in trilogy that began with Annihilation); Several People Are Typing, Calvin Kasulke, someone gets uploaded into work Slack
Sarah cont'd: music: Randee Dawn's new one, The Only Song Worth Singing; really picky about those, good details about gritty. Elizabeth Hand, Wylding Hall
Melissa: read T. Kingfisher, A House with Good Bones, obsessed with research and entomology. own profession: Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, Bruce Coville (alas no dragons at their library), probably led to becoming librarian
Ken: moments where certain details ticked off
Sarah: curse of being immersed something, is when encountering books where author learned by research. some do well: Dick Francis, glassblowers and meteorologists, seems like got it, at least from outside those professions. it's things that don't think to research that grate. music, people can only picture what rock star is like, not what slugging through every day. also categories where if write thing, prepare to get letters: guns, horses (I'm the one writing the letters), sailing, U.S. Civil War (and if you've done primary source research, often letters you get are wrong)
Melissa: authors try to get librarians right because know we'll buy the book
Melissa cont'd: remembered work meant to mention: The Public, movie, Emilio Estevez, made after watching interactions at LA public library. only thing not believable: entire staff but one person were all men (so much laughter)
Marianna: try to condense rant of many years. authors are like: I went to school, I know what faculty do, I don't need to look that up. get overly focused on research (academic conduct thereof). nothing about hiring, tenure, career track, which is what academics mostly care about: I don't care how in love you are, you are not leaving MIT to follow your lover and teach at an Arizona community college.
Ken: bias toward academia in mainstream novels, so think lot is accurate there. re: law: people view procedure through mainstream TV, movies, think understand. part is that day to day of law work is exceptionally boring. sitting for 12 hours a day in a library (me, to myself: Ken is showing his age: I sit for 12 hours a day in front of Lexis => ). almost threw book across room: passage in Orson Scott Card novel, character obtains divorce AND the arrangement of bifurcated child custody WITHOUT spouse's knowledge (caveat, not set in US and in future, suppose could imagine, but)
Ken cont'd: flip around other way: examples of juicy details re: something otherwise unfamiliar, what did that do for you as a reader?
Marianna: le Carré, spoiler alert I'm definitely not a spy, not just telling you that to throw you off scent. made me want to write spy novels, so good at lot of details but not overwhelming with. particularly love when get book like Perfect Spy: how does this person spend their time on an average day? what is the macro running in the back of their head? everyday stuff that you might not think about.
(le Carré came up so much at the con and every time I have to google his name to remind myself of the capitalization and also copy the accented e)
Ken: and we know that he had experience in British intelligence. can you remember particular detail?
Marianna: how much time he spent with radio when holed up in safehouse, had code keys, sitting around waiting to hear message
Melissa: because in hotel, thinking about Kate Stayman-London's Fang Fiction—
—at this point, I very rudely interrupted to ask for a repeat of the title, which caused her to completely lose her train of thought. I apologized then and also after. wait until people are done talking to ask for repeats of titles, self!
anyway the publisher's page on Fang Fiction indicates that the main character is a hotel manager, and also it sounds fun.
Sarah: talking about a lot of jobs that do exist, but made think of jobs that don't but believe that do: Peter Beagle, I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons, about dragon exterminator, like mice in the walls. hates his job because loves dragons, makes reader believe in this guy who knows he has to do, emotions resonant. mild spoiler for early part: protagonist tries to save some, sneaks away as pets.
Ken: The Martian, the book. main character has master's in botany and engineering conveniently. remember being struck by the thought process. no idea what experience author has, not point: I do know enough about electrical circuits to know that you need to know what gauge of wire, so completely sold that character knew what talking about, and did make me feel like I was there.
Melissa: A Magical Girl Retires, Park Seolyeon, very short, characters are all working as magical girls of X or Y, get sent on jobs, very much feels like 9-5 in hilarious way
Ken: more completely imaginary jobs?
Marianna: Stross' Laundry Files. wonderful balance between grounding familiar IT work but for government agency dealing with paranormal stuff
Sarah: all those little jobs in Terry Pratchett novels, e.g., candle snuffer. looks at Melissa: the Librarian though
Melissa: look, we take all representation
Ken: even the witches, does mundane detail so well, yeah, a real witch has to do that, more of a human interaction than anything else
(me, to myself: also, research witches.)
Ken: 15 years ago, talking with Elizabeth Hand, who said how in Glimmering, included nitty-gritty details of boat building which made real effort to research, surprised by great number of positive responses to that part specifically, not necessarily by boat builders, people who just really enjoyed. readers in general, American in particular, love to know how stuff is done, procedural details
(me, to myself: which is the joke in the Field and Stream review of Lady's Chatterley's Lover)
Ken cont'd: is detail good in and of itself, or does it have to advance plot/character/theme to be worthwhile?
Sarah: love granular detail and think is a danger of too much, either "I've suffered for my research and so must you", or because genuinely love the subject—haven't written horse novel because of risk get too in weeds. new novella Haunt Sweet Home, protagonist is working at reality show as production assistant (PA), very bottom of ladder. got lots of feedback from ex-PAs, used to live from someone who was a set dresser got some flavor from her. the things sometimes skip between big plot moments, are what make the job and character pop, so that when get to plot, believe in fully rounded character and ability/inability to do thing
Ken: remember in your A Song for a New Day, early on, step by step to get into venue and set up, played really real to me, felt like there and put me on her side
Sarah: makes it really hard to read those in public readings, not most dynamic
Marianna: just crystallized, what really sells me on details being necessary, is when feels like answering question already had, or didn't know needed until got. joy of discovery for reader, not only having fun but just learned something. can get away with a lot
Melissa: always comes back to how well written. joke never want to represent someone going to toilet, but that's first story in Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, really works. as writer, always worry that losing audience when writing library
Ken: been moments where you as reader has been lost?
Melissa: hard to lose me, find a lot of things interesting
Sarah: if I do one good thing this con, it's getting people to go read Molly Gloss, in particular The Hearts of Horses, horse trainer novel; sequel of sorts, Falling from Horses, Hollywood stuntman. details ARE the story. not SFF, basically Westerns. nobody does it better than her.
Ken: granular details about occupations as tool of worldbuilding. thinking about economy of language, classic example "the door dilated"
(me, to myself, once again: can I tell you about The Fortunate Fall????)
Melissa: Evil, CBS series, investigating Catholic Church, which everyone gets wrong (never heard priests complain, think happy to have people talking about). does get details wrong of church, but climbing and motherhood details were really interesting and well done (in the same character)
Sarah: from writer's perspective, stuff make sure to show to beta reader, especially someone who knows field really well if not your area, or if your area, to someone who doesn't know
Marianna: one of best pieces of advice ever seen, if in situation where danger of infodump but exposition needs to happen: get two characters having intense emotions, maybe even conflict, about information. can get away with so much more and also tell readers about stakes
Ken: decades ago, reading SFF story about lawyer, remember character bemoaning that his pleading-generating software was so outdated and running so slowly; opened up entire world of, what does law practice look like when there's genuinely good AI that can generate pleadings. no big commentary on that in the story, just one little detail
Sarah: going back to annoys: music related: describing music in way that music critic would. stories that do music right, talk about emotions of playing, hearing. Lewis Shiner always gets right, also LaShawn M. Wanak
Ken: reminds of TV show M*A*S*H. there are lots of doctors shows, almost always have consultant on set to ask questions of. one for M*A*S*H said, usually actors ask how to hold this instrument, they always asked how would it feel. showed in series
Ken: asks Marianna about mundane occupations in fantastical setting
Marianna: always fascinated by genre as magnifier, makes things bigger. only way to do that is to ground in mundane in one way or another. PhD dissertation about Whedon in Buffy would have outrageous situations but mundane jobs like bartending at demon bar, or inverse, to really push contrast
Ken: reminded of very short story, 15 years ago, "Accounting for Dragons" by Eric James Stone, very tongue in cheek, also satire. when look at fantastical through lens of mundane, casts light both ways
Melissa: ongoing manga, Kowloon Generic Romance, about realtors: feels very grounded but in a fictional city where things shift and disappear
(me, to myself: is manga particularly good at this? or do I just happen to hear about examples there?)
audience: reality is stranger than fiction. experience is that weird shit happens more often in real life than is written out. sparks some of my best ideas. any of that that forms heart of why you write?
Sarah: hard thing is that because so much stranger, sometimes don't read as true; wife works for liquor board, her stories are so weird (snakes falling out of ceiling onto fire marshal who was trying to figure out what rustling noise was), haven't found way to make fiction
audience: Snow Crash opening: the Deliverator was speculation, but sheer terror and anxiety is all of our delivery services now
Marianna: genre wonderful tool for laundering these things
In the rush to get notes out, I haven't been saying, "this panel was great," but if I didn't say something, they were. however, it's worth saying, and it's true: this panel was great.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4
+1 (thumbs-up, I see you, etc.)?
Peridium (2017) · Alluvium (2018)
Jul. 22nd, 2025 10:57 ampauraqueI am very interested to play Powerhoof's new game The Drifter, but I'm really trying not to buy any more games until I play some of the ones I have already bought, so I played... two of Powerhoof's old free games? Wait, I think I messed this up.
These are both horror point-and-clicks, and they're both game jam entries so they're short, less than an hour each.
Peridium
( A researcher is trapped on an Antarctic base where something has gone horrifically wrong. )
Alluvium
( A plane crash survivor keeps talking about the things 'we' had to do to survive... yet he seems to be the only one around. )
Though I think both of these games are worth playing if you like horror, I wouldn't recommend playing them back-to-back in an evening like I did, because I was still thinking about Peridium while I was playing Alluvium, and I kept looking for similarities and got really distracted. So, play them, but not like that. Or maybe play the commercial games you have purchased that are languishing in your Steam library. Do as I say, not as I do.
These are both horror point-and-clicks, and they're both game jam entries so they're short, less than an hour each.
Peridium
( A researcher is trapped on an Antarctic base where something has gone horrifically wrong. )
Alluvium
( A plane crash survivor keeps talking about the things 'we' had to do to survive... yet he seems to be the only one around. )
Though I think both of these games are worth playing if you like horror, I wouldn't recommend playing them back-to-back in an evening like I did, because I was still thinking about Peridium while I was playing Alluvium, and I kept looking for similarities and got really distracted. So, play them, but not like that. Or maybe play the commercial games you have purchased that are languishing in your Steam library. Do as I say, not as I do.
apotropaic
Jul. 22nd, 2025 07:37 amprettygoodwordapotropaic (ap-uh-truh-PAY-ik) - adj., intended to ward off evil.
I like the cadence of this, the way it lilts off the tongue. Apotropaic things include gestures to avert the evil eye and horseshoes fixed over a doorway, not to mention uses of crucifixes. Taken in 1883 from Ancient Greek apotrópaios (the Ancient Greeks used apotropaic things like decorations of paired eyes and gorgon heads), from apotrepein, to ward off, from apó-, away + trepein, to turn.
---L.
I like the cadence of this, the way it lilts off the tongue. Apotropaic things include gestures to avert the evil eye and horseshoes fixed over a doorway, not to mention uses of crucifixes. Taken in 1883 from Ancient Greek apotrópaios (the Ancient Greeks used apotropaic things like decorations of paired eyes and gorgon heads), from apotrepein, to ward off, from apó-, away + trepein, to turn.
---L.
Book Review: The Whispering Mountain
Jul. 22nd, 2025 10:19 amosprey_archerlittlerhymes and I polished off our romp through Joan Aiken’s Wolves sequence with The Whispering Mountain, a side story to the main series focusing on Owen Hughes, son of the captain of the ship which takes Dido home to England (with incidental stops along the way to restore a reincarnated Arthur to his throne, etc.). When The Whispering Mountain takes place, Captain Hughes is still lost at sea dealing with the etc. Meanwhile, his son Owen is living unhappily with his grandfather, who manages a museum in a small village in Wales. Said museum has just come into possession of the legendary golden Harp of Teirtu, which is coveted by the local lord Malyn, a wicked man who owns a vast collection of golden objects.
When Owen’s grandfather refuses to hand over the harp, Malyn sends a couple of thieves to steal it. They not only steal the harp, but kidnap Owen, and frame him for the theft in the process.
And we’re off! We gallop through a typical Aikenian melange of fierce wild animals (boars, wolves, a couple of tiger snakes), also a fiercely loyal pet falcon named Hawc who likes to ride around on the head of his owner Arabis, Arabis’s poet-father who is too absorbed in writing an epic poem of King Arthur to quite notice the Plot swirling all around him, and of course Prince Davie.
“We’re finally meeting Prince Davie!” I crowed, because we never did manage to catch up with him in Is Underground before his tragic death. But no, this is a different Prince Davie: Davie Jamie Charlie Needie Geordie Harry Dick Tudor-Stuart, known in The Cuckoo Tree as King Dick, the father of the Prince Davie of Is Underground, who will remain forever a golden shadow.
We also meet a bunch of small furry people who live under the Whispering Mountain, who I believe are drawn from the same substrate as Sutcliff’s Little Dark People: the theory that Britain’s fairies are in fact memories of an older race that was driven underground by successive waves of invasion.
Except Aiken being Aiken, she takes this in a wildly new direction: the little dark people are not the original Britons at all, but were in fact kidnapped by the Romans from their original homeland for their gold-working skills. After the Romans left Britain, the goldworkers hid under the mountains for two thousand years, becoming small and furry as a result of environmental pressures, making beautiful golden objects (including, for instance, harps), and longing for their warm sunny homeland.
Do they make it back to their warm sunny homeland? Of course they’re on their way by the end of the book. This is Aiken! The good are rewarded, the bad are punished, and sometimes one of the good ones dies too just to add a bit of spice to the proceedings.
And here, for now, we come to the end of the Aikens. She wrote many, many more, and we may swing back around someday to read some of them, but right now we are on to our next adventure: a reread of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.
Epstein Dreams
Jul. 22nd, 2025 09:24 ammallorys_cameraWhen I think of Jeffrey Epstein, I think about dreams.
The dreams are disintegrating around the edges, like picture cards in an album no one even suspected was in that moldy basement, and they belong to girls who grow up invisible, neglected, and ignored, but who one day discover they have a minor super-power: They're pretty.
Not pretty enough, not connected enough, to commoditize their good looks in any real way.
But pretty enough to believe that they might with just the tiniest bit of good luck or encouragement.
One day in the mall food court, they'll lock eyes with a man. The man will approach their table, hand them a gilt-edged business card. You're so pretty! Ever think about becoming a... model?
Or the man will find them at Starbucks. On the beach. At an arcade. At a bowling alley. On the 7 subway platform heading back to Queens. (It's easier for the man to find them when the girls live in a big city.)
###
It would be nice to think the Epstein files will topple the Trump presidency, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to see anything in the tea leaves: There's too much churn.
He'll be out in a year, of that I'm still convinced.
His handlers have finally come clean about Trump's chronic venous insufficiency, but they neglected to include the part about how chronic venous insufficiency is linked to vascular dementia. Not that you really need to know about that link. Trump's insane behavior when his handlers loosen the leash is evidence enough.
It's some kind of commentary on humanity that voters in the current holder of the title Most Powerful Nation on the Planet were expected to choose between two ancient, doddering old men with dementia at the beginning of the last election cycle.
I'm beginning to suspect they'll use a health emergency to oust Trump.
But I dunno. It might be Epstein.
###
In other news, Icky and one of the spawn showed up here off-schedule in the middle of the night a couple of days ago, and scared the living be-Jesus out of me.
When I told him he really needed to tell me when he was coming up here because to a woman alone in a rural house, unexpected sounds of occupancy are truly terrifying, he muttered, "Sure, yeah, okay," and immediately deflected: Why did the propane tank run out after only 10 days? Make sure you are installing the propane tank correctly.
Happily, Icky & the Spawn left early the next morning. It was the older spawn, and I wondered whether Icky was carting him off to college in some kind of macho road trip fantasy. The older spawn is going to the University of Utah, an odd choice for a New York kid. "He likes to ski," I was told.
Of course, the older spawn won't last a year at the University of Utah. Released from parental vigilance, he will play video games 24 hours a day, howling while he does so, 'cause that's what he does now (and his parents don't seem to get that this is aberrant behavior for an 18-year-old.) He will sell all his Adderall to buy a PlayStation 5. I don't think I've ever seen a kid so ill-prepared to live on his own.
###
And yesterday, I was walking down Main Street in Middletown. Mission: Talk Tranquili-Tea owners into letting us rent out their space for Brian-Palooza. I had just come from the gym and was dressed in leggings and a red tee.
I heard honking—
A guy in a car who leaned over and called out over the rolled-down passenger window, "Wanna ride?"
Wanna ride is guy-in-a-car-ese for Say, will you blow me for 50 bucks???
Wow.
I am 73 years old. And still having to deal with this kind of shit.
The dreams are disintegrating around the edges, like picture cards in an album no one even suspected was in that moldy basement, and they belong to girls who grow up invisible, neglected, and ignored, but who one day discover they have a minor super-power: They're pretty.
Not pretty enough, not connected enough, to commoditize their good looks in any real way.
But pretty enough to believe that they might with just the tiniest bit of good luck or encouragement.
One day in the mall food court, they'll lock eyes with a man. The man will approach their table, hand them a gilt-edged business card. You're so pretty! Ever think about becoming a... model?
Or the man will find them at Starbucks. On the beach. At an arcade. At a bowling alley. On the 7 subway platform heading back to Queens. (It's easier for the man to find them when the girls live in a big city.)
###
It would be nice to think the Epstein files will topple the Trump presidency, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to see anything in the tea leaves: There's too much churn.
He'll be out in a year, of that I'm still convinced.
His handlers have finally come clean about Trump's chronic venous insufficiency, but they neglected to include the part about how chronic venous insufficiency is linked to vascular dementia. Not that you really need to know about that link. Trump's insane behavior when his handlers loosen the leash is evidence enough.
It's some kind of commentary on humanity that voters in the current holder of the title Most Powerful Nation on the Planet were expected to choose between two ancient, doddering old men with dementia at the beginning of the last election cycle.
I'm beginning to suspect they'll use a health emergency to oust Trump.
But I dunno. It might be Epstein.
###
In other news, Icky and one of the spawn showed up here off-schedule in the middle of the night a couple of days ago, and scared the living be-Jesus out of me.
When I told him he really needed to tell me when he was coming up here because to a woman alone in a rural house, unexpected sounds of occupancy are truly terrifying, he muttered, "Sure, yeah, okay," and immediately deflected: Why did the propane tank run out after only 10 days? Make sure you are installing the propane tank correctly.
Happily, Icky & the Spawn left early the next morning. It was the older spawn, and I wondered whether Icky was carting him off to college in some kind of macho road trip fantasy. The older spawn is going to the University of Utah, an odd choice for a New York kid. "He likes to ski," I was told.
Of course, the older spawn won't last a year at the University of Utah. Released from parental vigilance, he will play video games 24 hours a day, howling while he does so, 'cause that's what he does now (and his parents don't seem to get that this is aberrant behavior for an 18-year-old.) He will sell all his Adderall to buy a PlayStation 5. I don't think I've ever seen a kid so ill-prepared to live on his own.
###
And yesterday, I was walking down Main Street in Middletown. Mission: Talk Tranquili-Tea owners into letting us rent out their space for Brian-Palooza. I had just come from the gym and was dressed in leggings and a red tee.
I heard honking—
A guy in a car who leaned over and called out over the rolled-down passenger window, "Wanna ride?"
Wanna ride is guy-in-a-car-ese for Say, will you blow me for 50 bucks???
Wow.
I am 73 years old. And still having to deal with this kind of shit.
POO
Jul. 22nd, 2025 09:09 amsabotabby The news in general is pretty awful so I hope you can enjoy this little story from Toronto. Our transit system, the TTC, has been getting progressively more awful in the almost 30 years I've lived here. Whenever you need to travel by TTC, you have to give yourself an extra 30 minutes to an hour just in case it breaks down. Despite this reduction in service, fares continue to increase well beyond what an ordinary working class person can afford. This in turn forces more people to rely on personal vehicles, fuelling far-right politics.
With this background on mind, what did the TTC do with their paltry budget this year? Improve vehicles so that they don't stop working when they get wet? Fix the signal issues they have multiple times a day? Reduce the fare to match the reduced service?
Nah, this is Toronto. They rebranded the fare inspectors, which shall henceforth be known as...
...drumroll...
Provincial Offences Officers!
I swear I saw like 3 people post about this before I clicked the link and realized it wasn't parody. Anyway. People reacted exactly how you'd expect, and the TTC's response, rather than saying "oopsie!" (or "poopsie!") was to chide its own customer base for being so childish.
Personally I think POO is a lateral move from what most people I know call them, which is "fare pig," and probably that money could have been better spent on almost literally anything else.
With this background on mind, what did the TTC do with their paltry budget this year? Improve vehicles so that they don't stop working when they get wet? Fix the signal issues they have multiple times a day? Reduce the fare to match the reduced service?
Nah, this is Toronto. They rebranded the fare inspectors, which shall henceforth be known as...
...drumroll...
Provincial Offences Officers!
I swear I saw like 3 people post about this before I clicked the link and realized it wasn't parody. Anyway. People reacted exactly how you'd expect, and the TTC's response, rather than saying "oopsie!" (or "poopsie!") was to chide its own customer base for being so childish.
Personally I think POO is a lateral move from what most people I know call them, which is "fare pig," and probably that money could have been better spent on almost literally anything else.
Tarnsman of Gor (Gor, volume 1) by John Norman
Jul. 22nd, 2025 08:59 amjames_davis_nicoll
In this ERB pastiche, unremarkable academic Tarl Cabot reinvents himself as a man of action on the counter-Earth, Gor. There's much less BDSM than the series' reputation would lead one to expect.
Tarnsman of Gor (Gor, volume 1) by John Norman
Photos!
Jul. 22nd, 2025 08:42 amspikedluvI took some photos the other day. Most were of the pumpkin patch. (Pip has planted pumpkins of which he says that family can take some, but no one else, because they’re for the deer, lol!)
Wide view; with bonus Ti!
( 8 more back here )
Wide view; with bonus Ti!
( 8 more back here )
voter registration shenanigans
Jul. 22nd, 2025 08:22 amgingicat posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thisfinecrewThe three registered voters in our household each got a folded postcard from our local Board of Elections in a small Massachusetts city. On the outside, one side has the name and address; on the other side, it has a voter confirmation form. On the *inside*, there's the following:
"Dear Voter:
Our records show that you have not answered the annual street listing (census) as required by law (Massachusettes General Law Ch. 51 S. 4). Therefore, your name will be designated as "inactive" on the voting list.
If you have not moved or if you have moved to a new address in the City of Medford, please return the attached postage-paid postcard and you will be restored immediately to active voter status.
If you have moved to another City/Town or State, complete, sign and return the attached postage-paid postcard and your name will be removed from the voter list in Medford. You must register to vote in your new City/Town. You may use a mail-in form or online at www.registertovotema.com to register in Massachusetts .
If you do not return the attached postcard, your name will be removed from the voting list if you do not vote in at least one of the next two federal elections or take other action that would reinstate you as an active voter. (per M. G. L. Ch. 51 S. 37A)"
N.B. - I returned our city census and we have all voted in the last three elections.
So yeah, voter suppression exists even in this very blue state, and they're probably hoping people will ignore this reminder in a local elections year. Check your mail! And you can find out how to check your voter registration in another state at vote.org.
"Dear Voter:
Our records show that you have not answered the annual street listing (census) as required by law (Massachusettes General Law Ch. 51 S. 4). Therefore, your name will be designated as "inactive" on the voting list.
If you have not moved or if you have moved to a new address in the City of Medford, please return the attached postage-paid postcard and you will be restored immediately to active voter status.
If you have moved to another City/Town or State, complete, sign and return the attached postage-paid postcard and your name will be removed from the voter list in Medford. You must register to vote in your new City/Town. You may use a mail-in form or online at www.registertovotema.com to register in Massachusetts .
If you do not return the attached postcard, your name will be removed from the voting list if you do not vote in at least one of the next two federal elections or take other action that would reinstate you as an active voter. (per M. G. L. Ch. 51 S. 37A)"
N.B. - I returned our city census and we have all voted in the last three elections.
So yeah, voter suppression exists even in this very blue state, and they're probably hoping people will ignore this reminder in a local elections year. Check your mail! And you can find out how to check your voter registration in another state at vote.org.
The Big Idea: Kate Heartfield
Jul. 22nd, 2025 11:31 amscalziwhatever_feed
For her novel The Tapestry of Time, author Kate Heartfield took a real moment in time, involving a real object, and gave it just a little twist, threading a needle between fantasy and reality. What time? What object? Read on!
KATE HEARTFIELD:
On July 14, 1944, the New Yorker ran a brilliant cover to celebrate the Allied invasion of Normandy almost six weeks before. The design, by Rea S. Irvin, was an homage to the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry, which chronicled Duke William of Normandy’s conquest of England.
It seemed fitting. Bayeux was the first town liberated, and where the exiled leader of the Free French Forces, Charles de Gaulle, chose to make his first speech after the invasion, on June 14.
But when he made that speech in Bayeux, the tapestry wasn’t there. In fact, even a month later when the New Yorker ran that cover, very few people on Earth knew where the tapestry was.
The tapestry (actually a kind of embroidery, but everyone calls it a tapestry) is massive: about 70 metres long. It was made sometime around 1070 C.E. and is basically a long comic strip, missing its final panels. When the Second World War began, it was put into a storage cellar in Bayeux.
Like many fascists, the Nazis were obsessed with trying to fit historical facts into their twisted narrative. Heinrich Himmler and many of his gang of archaeologists, historians and occultists saw the Bayeux Tapestry as a Germanic artifact showing the glorious past and future of their master race (because Duke William had Norse ancestry). Groups of Nazi officers and scholars started “inspecting” the tapestry (and at least one cut a piece off). Himmler was renovating a castle in Germany (using the forced labour of prisoners from two concentration camps) and stuffing it with looted medieval artifacts, to serve as the centre of the SS cult. In another timeline, that could have been the fate of the Bayeux Tapestry.
We often talk these days about the importance of putting grit in the gears of fascism, about the weaponization of paperwork. That’s what kept the Bayeux Tapestry in France, although some of the people putting grit in the gears were from other branches of the fascist project who just didn’t share Himmler’s particular brand of weird. In 1941, one of those branches managed to get the tapestry moved (in a truck running on an engine converted to charcoal because of the lack of gasoline) to a more remote storage facility, the Château de Sourches, where it stayed until 1944.
There, it would be safer against bombing – and also, not coincidentally, less subject to gangs of Nazi historians, amateur and otherwise, wielding scissors.
With the tide turning against Germany in 1944, Himmler decided he’d been stymied by bureaucracy long enough. He hatched a secret operation to take the tapestry first to Paris, and then to Berlin. They did manage to move the tapestry (in extremely hazardous conditions) to the Louvre, a few weeks after D-Day. But by the time Himmler managed to send two SS men to retrieve it in August, the people of Paris had risen up and liberated the city before the Allies got there. The Nazi commander of the city had to tell Himmler’s goons that the Resistance had just taken the Louvre, where the tapestry was being stored; they were welcome to try to get it.
(My main source for this part of the story is The Bayeux Tapestry: The Life Story of a Masterpiece by Carola Hicks, which is great.)
The story of the tapestry’s movements in the summer of 1944 is the inspiration and framework for my novel The Tapestry of Time, which is about four clairvoyant sisters racing against the Nazis to prevent them from using it for their nefarious ends. Think Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, except the tapestry instead of the ark, and instead of an American professor, the protagonist is an English lesbian who works at the Louvre.
I wove clairvoyance into the story because I was interested in exploring how we learn things about our past and dream about our future – and how fascism would like us to believe that we know things about our past, and can dream about our future. I often use fantastical elements to literalize metaphors and help us see the past in new ways, and this one helped me raise questions about how we can trust information, and the manipulation of gut feelings. Also, it was fun.
It was fascinating doing the research into the training given to the saboteurs and spies who helped the Resistance (which informed the Nazi-punching, and Nazi-shooting and Nazi-stabbing, in this novel). I will admit that when it came to learning what I needed to know about Nazi institutions and individuals, I sometimes found it draining to do the research about an evil that is still so fresh, and unfortunately so familiar. But these are stories we have to keep telling, because fascism will never stop trying to abuse history for its own ends.
This summer, I’m travelling to Dunkirk, to stand on the beach where my grandfather survived the strafing and bombing from German planes overhead. I’ll go to the beaches where the Allied forces landed four years later. I’ll go to Bayeux, where the tapestry survives, and is about to go out of public view for a couple of years of renovations (and a loan to the British Museum). If there’s a lesson I take from the many near-misses in the long history of the Bayeux Tapestry, it’s that small acts of courage or even just stubbornness, with a little luck, can change the future. My novel is my small offering of thanks to those who went before us and one way, I hope, to keep their stories alive.
The Tapestry of Time: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Powell’s|Bookshop
Kate Heartfield: Website|Bluesky|Instagram
Read an excerpt here.
The Day in Spikedluv (Monday, July 21)
Jul. 22nd, 2025 07:55 amspikedluvI can’t believe we’re this close to the end of July already!
I hit Walmart and CVS (for mom’s potassium) while I was downtown and got in a walk around the park. I threw a load of laundry in the washer and hand-washed dishes before I headed downtown and hand-washed more dishes when I got home. I also went for another short walk with Pip and the dogs before lunch and cut up chicken for said dogs.
I visited mom after lunch and stayed until my usual time of 3pm. I stopped at Stewart’s for milk and gas on the way home. Coming home meant yet more hand-washing of dishes, tossing the laundry in the dryer and folding it, later tossing another load in the washer, scooping kitty litter, and shaving.
The other day mom suggested that I take a day off to get things done and it put a thought in my head. So today I called and scheduled a massage for tomorrow (aka, today!). It was sudden, but my thought was that I might need to spend more time with mom on Thursday, after her port procedure, and next Tuesday (my usual massage day) would probably be out because it's the day after chemo.)
I started the next Duncan Kincaid book.
Temps started out at 61(F) and reached 76.1.
Mom Update:
Mom was doing okay. ( more back here )
I hit Walmart and CVS (for mom’s potassium) while I was downtown and got in a walk around the park. I threw a load of laundry in the washer and hand-washed dishes before I headed downtown and hand-washed more dishes when I got home. I also went for another short walk with Pip and the dogs before lunch and cut up chicken for said dogs.
I visited mom after lunch and stayed until my usual time of 3pm. I stopped at Stewart’s for milk and gas on the way home. Coming home meant yet more hand-washing of dishes, tossing the laundry in the dryer and folding it, later tossing another load in the washer, scooping kitty litter, and shaving.
The other day mom suggested that I take a day off to get things done and it put a thought in my head. So today I called and scheduled a massage for tomorrow (aka, today!). It was sudden, but my thought was that I might need to spend more time with mom on Thursday, after her port procedure, and next Tuesday (my usual massage day) would probably be out because it's the day after chemo.)
I started the next Duncan Kincaid book.
Temps started out at 61(F) and reached 76.1.
Mom Update:
Mom was doing okay. ( more back here )
Probably Not the Best Choice
Jul. 22nd, 2025 10:51 amscifirenegadeTurns out watching Sex in Chains after my country is being even more overt with its patting the fashos on the back wasn't a good idea.
I had a heart attack, as the film is endorsed by the German League of Human Rights, which is fine, they're a peace organisation. But the name is very similar to Friedrich Radszuweit's Bund für Menschenrecht (literally Human Rights League). I could go on a rant as to why that fasho arsehole should go and eat shit, but I'll leave it.
The title cards are gorgeous! Honestly the whole film is a looker, very in line with the great late-stage silent German productions. The camera moves freely, zooms in and out, pans left and right. Extreme close-ups are plenty and ethereal. Equally ethereal is the use of superposition.
It's an Aufklärungsfilm! Yeah, we really do need some prison reform. Although the biggest struggle we see the inmates going through is blue balls (this is me trying to be funny with a serious topic). At least we have intimate visits now, but there's still a long way to go.
The queer themes are subtle, and only appear at the second half, but oh, my heart. It's all very sweet (bittersweet really). I too will declare my love to my crush by writing our names in a circle. If I had a crush. When Alfred (that's von Twardowski, Franz is the main character and he's played by Dieterle) leaves prison, his (boy)friend from outside suggests he blackmails Franz. Loved Alfred's reaction of "dude, wtf!" and then he left.
The longing and sensuality (and the lack thereof) are very well represented here.
Wilhelm "William" Dieterle directed and starred in this. He made plenty of biopics in America during the 1930s, plus that 30s The Hunchback of Notre Dame film that seems lovely. He also played Marquis Posa in Carlos und Elisabeth and the main guy in Waxworks, making him the tallest person Conrad Veidt has shared a screen with. Sorry, again, but I had to do it. H.H. von Twardowski was a surprise, and I wonder if his casting was a lucky accident, or was on purpose. He's great at playing sweet men, isn't he? Shame is career during WW2 pivoted to those roles. Ya know, the ones every German/Austrian actor plays. (If von Twardowski was born today, he would've been Polish.)
"Oh, the acring is over the top!" It wouldn't be a German film if it wasn't. And there are some nice, quiet moments too. "The ending is too extreme!" It's a German film. Somebody has to die in a dramaric fashion.
I liked it. But I had to cheer myself up with some silliness.
I had a heart attack, as the film is endorsed by the German League of Human Rights, which is fine, they're a peace organisation. But the name is very similar to Friedrich Radszuweit's Bund für Menschenrecht (literally Human Rights League). I could go on a rant as to why that fasho arsehole should go and eat shit, but I'll leave it.
The title cards are gorgeous! Honestly the whole film is a looker, very in line with the great late-stage silent German productions. The camera moves freely, zooms in and out, pans left and right. Extreme close-ups are plenty and ethereal. Equally ethereal is the use of superposition.
It's an Aufklärungsfilm! Yeah, we really do need some prison reform. Although the biggest struggle we see the inmates going through is blue balls (this is me trying to be funny with a serious topic). At least we have intimate visits now, but there's still a long way to go.
The queer themes are subtle, and only appear at the second half, but oh, my heart. It's all very sweet (bittersweet really). I too will declare my love to my crush by writing our names in a circle. If I had a crush. When Alfred (that's von Twardowski, Franz is the main character and he's played by Dieterle) leaves prison, his (boy)friend from outside suggests he blackmails Franz. Loved Alfred's reaction of "dude, wtf!" and then he left.
The longing and sensuality (and the lack thereof) are very well represented here.
Wilhelm "William" Dieterle directed and starred in this. He made plenty of biopics in America during the 1930s, plus that 30s The Hunchback of Notre Dame film that seems lovely. He also played Marquis Posa in Carlos und Elisabeth and the main guy in Waxworks, making him the tallest person Conrad Veidt has shared a screen with. Sorry, again, but I had to do it. H.H. von Twardowski was a surprise, and I wonder if his casting was a lucky accident, or was on purpose. He's great at playing sweet men, isn't he? Shame is career during WW2 pivoted to those roles. Ya know, the ones every German/Austrian actor plays. (If von Twardowski was born today, he would've been Polish.)
"Oh, the acring is over the top!" It wouldn't be a German film if it wasn't. And there are some nice, quiet moments too. "The ending is too extreme!" It's a German film. Somebody has to die in a dramaric fashion.
I liked it. But I had to cheer myself up with some silliness.
