gemcode

"Along the journey she discovers that her and her family were never actually slaves at all but the original royal family and the original slaves usurped the throne and took over due to constantly being oppressed and treated unfairly."

I really want to ask this person if they understand how the concepts of "slavery" and "royalty" work. This girl was definitely a slave because she was enslaved, you can be a slave and also be from a royal family since both these concepts are societal concepts, the word "usurp" suggests that this revolution was invalid and bad, and by the way, if she was born as part of the royal family she's probably lucky she wasn't killed, except that then the book would've been very short and grim, with no happy ending. Well, no happy ending for her, all the happy endings for the people who killed her family and secured their freedom.

(Somebody suggested this may be The Claidi Journals, which is what I was thinking.)

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psocoptera

Van Gogh and the End of Nature, Michael Lobel, 2024 art history/art criticism nonfiction. I don't read a lot of nonfiction - I don't even have a tag for it - but I had recently been to a show of the Roulin portraits at the MFA, and I had seen some of his stuff in Paris, and I heard about this book and thought it sounded interesting. And it was! I got to see lots of images of Van Gogh works I had never seen before and learn more about his historical/technological context and consider the relationship of industry and nature in his art in a whole new way. Good stuff. Possibly I should read more nonfiction.

psocoptera

Snake-Eater, T Kingfisher, 2025 fantasy novel. Similar to her horror - a woman, a life event, a house, family history, alarming events - but maybe tipped toward fantasy rather than horror, tonally. I continue to like this book and will read it as many times as she writes one; I particularly enjoyed this one because we got to spend time in the desert and it appealed to the little part of me that's always missing the West.

Spoilers: ( Read more... )

By coincidence, my next book is looking to be Motheater, which would have made a nice double-feature review, but it's long enough that I didn't want to wait to do this one until I finished it for fear of losing track of this one.

conuly

And our protagonist is taking a sojourn with his hot, wealthy boss to Kinky Fantasy Island, and wow, it really *is* a nice place - the hotel room has privacy glass!

The protagonist and the commenters are not as turned on by this as I am, but let me be clear: I'd absolutely fuck a dude if I had a chance to flip the switch on his privacy glass. Hell, I'd listen to him mansplain about privacy glass at me first.

(I'm strongly tempted to say so in a comment, but would that be a weird sort of comment to leave?)

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conuly

I'm sure their families are still grieving

Watch on YouTube

conuly

Democrats rebel after 8 senators cut a deal to end the shutdown without ACA funds

Bunch of weak-willed cowards.

conuly

She was inordinately pleased to have been born on the anniversary of the Armistice, not that it kept her country from being invaded again when she was a young woman.

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conuly

My pipe fix needs retooling. I'm not thrilled, but also not surprised. I need to start putting aside cash every week to get it repaired properly, but for now I'll buy more plumber's putty.

In other news, I have to do all of my laundry - boo! - and my new glasses are working nicely now that I'm used to them. I'm in the stage of owning glasses where I vow I'll be super careful not to let gunk build up between the frames and the lenses. We'll see how long that lasts! Wish me luck!

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( Read more... )

conuly

Crow school
is basic and
short as a rule—
just the rudiments
of quid pro crow
for most students.
Then each lives out
his unenlightened
span, adding his
bit of blight
to the collected
history of pushing out
the sweeter species;
briefly swaggering the
swagger of his
aggravating ancestors
down my street.
And every time
I like him
when we meet.

****

Link

psocoptera

Not one but two theatrical outings this weekend! The more-planned one was to go see the Arlekin Players (a Boston-based Russian-theater troupe of immigrants from former Soviet countries) do _The Dybbuk_ at the Vilna Shul (the last of the West End immigrant synagogues). I had seen The Dybbuk in jr high or high school (some internet research turned up a San Diego Repertory production in spring of 1993, which sounds right) but didn't remember much about it except that there was a possessed girl and an exorcism and that I thought I had maybe liked it. Enough to make me curious about seeing another version of it, and I'm glad I did - it was weird and sometimes confusing and hard to follow, but also very cool. The set was this multi-story scaffolding construction in the main synagogue space, and they did neat stuff with lightweight plastic sheeting as a set and prop element, and there was just a lot of richness in the text, a lot of potential for interpretation, depending on what you made of some of the more ambiguous parts.

We also decided somewhat spontaneously to go to the Manual Cinema's _The 4th Witch_ at Arts Emerson (at the Paramount Center). Manual Cinema do "live animation" by moving scenery and shadow puppets on overhead projectors, combined with live actors acting in silhouette, and the whole thing combined in-camera and projected, along with live music and sound effects in the manner of an old silent movie. Very cool as a concept, and in the skill of their execution, people being very, very precise together. The story was a sort of riff on Macbeth and had some great imagery; the plot confused me at a few points, but not in an experience-ruining way or anything.

rachelmanija

Poll #33823

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 128

View Respondents

Which of these books would you most like to see reviewed?

View Answers

Red Rising, by Pierce Brown. SF dystopia much beloved by many dudes.
18 (14.1%)

Lone Women, by Victor LaValle. Fantastic cross-genre western/historical/horror/fantasy.
32 (25.0%)

The Lout of Count's Family, by Yu Ryeo-Han. Korean isekai novel.
21 (16.4%)

The Haar, by David Sodergren. Cozy/gory/sweet horror about an old Scottish woman and a sea monster.
27 (21.1%)

The Everlasting, by Alix Harrow. Very unusual Arthurian AU time-travel fantasy.
58 (45.3%)

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones. Fantastic historical horror about a Blackfeet vampire.
38 (29.7%)

Best of all Worlds, by Kenneth Oppel. Another absolutely terrible children's survival book, what the hell.
21 (16.4%)

The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker. Coming of age at the end of the world; Ray Bradbury vibes but girl-centric.
24 (18.8%)

Surviving the Extremes, by Kenneth Kamler. A doctor for people in extreme climates/situations analyzes their effects on the body.
33 (25.8%)

When the Angels Left the Old Country, by Sacha Lamb. A Jewish demon and angel leave the old country; excellent voice, very Jewish.
52 (40.6%)

An Immense World, by Ed Yong. Outstanding nonfiction about how animals sense the world.
44 (34.4%)

Combat Surgeon: On Iwo Jima with the 27th Marines, by James Vedder. What it says on the box.
15 (11.7%)

Slewfoot, by Brom. Illustrated historical dark fantasy set in early American colonization.
9 (7.0%)

Animals, by Geoff Ryman. Animal zombie horror, at once deeply sad and utterly bonkers.
22 (17.2%)

Anyone read any of these?

psocoptera

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses, Malka Older, 2025 sf novel, third in the Mossa and Pleiti trilogy. I liked this better than the second one and Malka Older is so cool but I'm just not that into this series. Pleiti as a narrator annoys me, the whole running gag about how snobby the Classicists are when the Modernists are the only people doing anything interesting annoys me, the Mossa/Pleiti ship isn't doing much for me. I liked the little bits of worldbuilding about social activities and sports and the constructed hill, but really-this-time I'm not reading book four.

rachelmanija

This is such a fun, unique book. The opening grabs you immediately: Uketsu shows an architect friend the floor plan of a house that his friends are considering buying. The architect spots a number of odd elements that aren't just bad planning, but suggest a very carefully planned and bizarre MURDER HOUSE!

The floor plan of that house and two more come into play repeatedly as Uketsu and his friend investigate, unraveling a truly weird and sometimes spooky mystery via a series of interviews. This book breaks all sorts of rules - it's entirely told rather than shown, a lot of it is exposition, the author appears as a character, and that's not even mentioning the very large role that floor plans play - and I could not put it down.

Is the solution to the mystery absolutely nuts? Sure. Is the book a whole lot of fun to read? Absolutely. Will I recommend it to my customers? You bet!

Translated from the Japanese by Jim Rion, who has a nice afterword about translating it.

Apparently Uketsu is a Japanese YouTuber who only appears wearing a mask, like Chuck Tingle if his thing was drawings and creepy mysteries rather than horror and getting pounded in the butt. I can't wait to read Uketsu's other book, Strange Pictures.

siderea

YES YES YES.

SciShow did a collab with Tom Lum and ESOTERICA and delivered a deep dive into the history of the relationship of chemistry and alchemy and the politicization of the distinction between the two: "In Defense of Alchemy" (2025 Oct 17).

I cannot tell you how much I loved this and what a happy surprise this was. It ties into a whole bunch of other things I passionately want to tell you about that have to do with epistemology, science, and politics (and early music) but I didn't expect to be able to tie chemistry/alchemy in to it because I had neither the chops nor the time to do so. But now, some one else has done this valuable work and tied it all up with a bow for me. I'm thrilled.

Please enjoy: 45 transfiguring minutes about the history of alchemy and chemistry and what you were probably told about it and how it is wrong.

Watch on YouTube

siderea

I have been dealing with some health stuff. I recently got a somewhat heavy medical diagnosis. It's nothing life-threatening, and of yet I have only had the mildest of symptoms, and seem to be responding well to treatment, but it's a bummer. My new specialist seems to be fantastic, so that's good.

Meanwhile, I have also finally started having a medical problem I've been anticipating ever since my back went wonky three years ago: my wrists have finally started crapping out. Because I cannot tolerate sitting for long, I have been using my laptop on a rig that holds it over me on my bed. But this means I haven't been using my ergonomic keyboard because it's not compatible with this rig. I'm honestly surprised it's taken this long for my wrists to burst into flames again, but HTML and other coding has always been harder on my arms than simple text, and the research and writing I've been doing on Latin American geopolitics has been a lot of that. And while I can use dictation for text*, it's useless for HTML or anything that involves a lot of cut-and-paste. Consequently, I've gotten really behind on all my writing, both here and my clinical notes.

So I ordered a NocFree split wireless keyboard in hopes that it will be gentler on my arms. It arrived last night, and I have been relearning how to touch type, only with my arms at my side and absolutely not being able to see the keyboard.

You would not believe how long it took me to type this, but it's all slowly coming back. Also, I feel the need to share: I'm doing this in emacs. Which feels like a bit of a high wire act, because errors involving meta keys could, I dunno, reformat my hard drive or crash the electrical grid.

Here's hoping I get the hang of this before I break the backspace key from overuse or accidentally launch a preemptive nuclear strike on Russia.

* If, you know, I don't too dearly value my sanity.

conuly

Except I think that my pupil distance was 56 instead of 55, and also the bridge seems a bit flimsy. That, I don't like, but it may be my amorphous anxiety talking.

In other news, Moonpie has completely scratched and licked up her nipples and now they're bleeding and infected, and apparently the vet prefers to do a blood test at this age, but as the blood test is $400 we declined. (E asked if I thought they judged us for that, lol, sweetie, I always think everybody judges me for everything, but that's not a rational mindset, so no, upon reflection I don't think that. We're hardly the only family to make petcare decisions based on affordability, and even if they do judge us, great, they can pay for this bloodwork themselves.) Also, NYC now mandates a new vaccine for cats and dogs. They can mandate what they like, but they can't make people follow that law. However, after the vet explained that this disease spreads pretty easily and now is spreading to humans, in whom it can cause kidney and/or liver failure, I decided, reluctantly, to make vaxxing the cats a priority. Which means full vet appointments for each one and new rabies shots as well. It's not going to be a quick process, is what I'm saying. (And we still need to replace those water heaters before they break!)

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conuly

It was a penny more than the old ones, so there's that. (But I paid for super expedited shipping, so actually it's like $40 more.)

They're green. I'm not so sure about this, but there will be NO MORE TAKE-BACKS. I triple checked that they weren't safety glasses with the things on the side, which would've been great if I was in a field where I needed those but, as it is, was unwearable, and they're the exact same measurement as my old glasses, I checked that as well.

conuly

I liked it, but that was because I liked laughing at how stupidly oblivious the protagonist was to his not-rival's extraordinarily obvious crush on him. And also because I like most things I read.

But then, here I was, 20 minutes from the finish line, our two dudes are about to finally resolve all their deep-seated personal issues that have kept them apart - and my coworkers start a loud conversation right next to me and they will not shut up. I did, eventually, have to ask them to please stop for half an hour so I could finish my book.

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psocoptera

When We Were Real, Daryl Gregory, 2025 sf novel. Comedy-drama about an alternate world otherwise like our own that has been informed, several years prior to the start of the novel, that they are a simulation; the novel tells the story of a group of people taking a bus tour of physics-denying Impossibles that show ways that the simulation has been or can be manipulated. Gregory takes a goofier tone than someone like Greg Egan might (although there is also very much some big violence in the climax) - this is closer to John Scalzi, although not so page-turny. Gregory's character work felt a little pre-fab - there's a computational neuroscientist/programmer who is "trying to cure Alzheimer's, autism, schizophrenia" in the way that movie scientists are all-purpose science things experts, a Marvel comics writer aging dudebro (on the one hand, it's weird for me to read things like "the craft of writing comics... bored the shit out of most wives and girlfriends" when for me the world of comics mostly *is* "wives and girlfriends" (some with wives or girlfriends themselves) and on the other hand I'm sure I would also be bored if I had to listen to this dude talk), an indecisive rabbi, teens who are dumb and annoying and dangerous. But there's a neat little thought experiment about the chance to take a break in a pocket universe, and while I might wish he had thought a little more deeply or clearly about subjectivity and narrative and entertainment, it was enough of a conclusion/punchline for the weight of the book.

Harmattan Season, Tochi Onyebuchi, 2025 noir-fantasy novel. I didn't give this the fairest possible shake as I kind of lost track of its due date and ended up skimming heavily past a certain point, but I had been struggling with it before then. Sometimes I enjoy it when authors don't explain and define and just expect you to pick it up and figure it out, or, you know, are writing for an audience who is not you and you get to enter into their context-of-assumptions for a bit, but, man, I don't know, where are we, when are we, what should I be picturing this place is like, what do all these words mean, what's going on, what am I hoping for or anticipating here, how should I be feeling about this, I need *something*. Was that whole bit where the street kid was describing a possible heist a satire or spoof or were we supposed to take that seriously. Possibly if someone made a movie of it and had to visually specify the place and time and give us music and lighting mood clues I would be like oh this is an amazing story actually? (And I feel like it would make a really good movie? Sending this wish out into the world...)

siderea

Americans, as I hope you know, on Nov 1st, the Federal government, being shut down, did not transmit the money to the states to pay for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka SNAP, aka "Food Stamps". In many states, SNAP money is supposed to hit recipients' EBT cards on the first of the month. It didn't. There is in the SNAP budget funds to cover emergencies, but Trump said he would not release it; lawsuits ensued, and as of right now, partial payments are going to be or have been made.

I commend the following video to you. It's longish - 26 minutes – but worth your time.

2025 Nov 1: Hank Green [

hankschannel on YT]: "This Shutdown is Different"

Hank Green, of vlogbrothers fame, invites Jeannie Hunter, Tennessee regional director of the Society of St. Andrew (aka EndHunger.org), on to his personal chanenel explain how the US's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka SNAP, aka "Food Stamps", actually works.

Hunter turns out to be a great interview subject and the resultant conversation was fascinating. I highly recommend it - not just to understand what's at stake in the goverment shutdown, but for your own simple enjoyment of learning how things actually work, and also so you can more eloquently advocate for this system.

Watch on YouTube

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gemcode

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Page generated Nov. 15th, 2025 11:02 pm

Reading

This is such a weird framing

Van Gogh and the End of Nature

Snake-Eater

So I was reading a particular sort of original fic at Ao3

It's apparently been 50 years

What is this crap!?

Today is my grandmother's birthday

Brr! Suddenly got cold!

Felix Crow by Kay Ryan

Weird Theatre Weekend

Book Poll

The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses

Strange Houses, by Uketsu

In Defense of Alchemy [sci/chem, hist]

Update, Or: J? Where the hell is the j? [me, heath]

Well, I like them well enough

Well, I've picked out a new set of frames

I used the election to read In Other Lands

books

SNAP [curr ev, US]

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May 2023

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