I am returned!
Jun. 3rd, 2025 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olivermossI have successfully navigated my gorge adventure, just a bit more sunburned than I expected. I was dumb and should have sunscreened / worn my dorky UV-rated clothes more.
olivermoss
behind his eyes he says ‘i still exist’
Jun. 3rd, 2025 06:13 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
wwdn_feedThis thing has been happening to me since I built my first blog about 25 years ago, and you’d think that by now it would have stopped, but here we are.
The longer I go between posts, the more SUPER IMPORTANT the next post becomes. This is especially gross after I’ve been promoting something. I feel like I’ve bombarded the world with my promotional stuff, so I ought to give the world something to offset that.
…only when I sit down to do that, the part of me that creates those things is like, “Oh hell no. I’m on vacation.”
So I come in here, day after day, get to about this point in a post just like this one, and then I get frustrated, delete it, and go play video games.
I have to break that cycle, so here’s a little bit of a roundup to put something new here.
Yesterday, I finished building the LEGO Batmobile, which I started months ago. It has some adorable little details that were a lot of fun to discover, but holy shit was it tedious most of the time. It turns out that building vehicles, even one that I have been obsessed with since I was a little kid, is not something I enjoy.
I think I’m doing the Haunted House next.
If you’d told me a year ago that the Stanley Cup final in 2025 would be the same teams from 2024, I never would have believed you, and once again I am cheering for Florida because Edmonton is literally the only Canadian team I just can’t abide. Sorry, Oilers Nation, but fuck Corey Perry.1
Remember Trek Side of the Moon? It’s back, in T-shirt form.
I loved the movie, but am very late to the What We Do In The Shadows series party, so I’m only now getting into its third season. A couple nights ago, I watched an episode that takes them to Atlantic City. Nandor gets completely hooked on a Big Bang Theory slot machine, and is delighted to discover that there is a television series that is “faithful to the slot machine.”2
The thing is … because The Big Bang Theory canonically exists inside the What We Do In The Shadowsverse, that means I exist inside that universe. This feels like an achievement that should come with a badge, and it makes me stupidly happy.3
Late last week,I saw that Loretta Swit passed away. We worked together when I was a kid, and I remembered some things about her.
A friend of mine observed that we are slowly becoming the Elders, and that’s just really weird. I have been thinking about that, and it turns out there is a lot about that I’m not really ready to embrace, like accepting that people I love, who mean so much to me, are getting older (and elderly) with all that implies. It’s just … it’s really weird. At the same time, it feels really good and … gentle? … to embrace a position in life that allows me to be a kind, patient, supportive, and encouraging person in the world for anyone who needs it.
I’m thinking a lot about how I can talk about things from a place of experience, in a way that younger me would have been able to hear and internalize. I want to be a Helper so much, y’all.
I had a meeting with my team to discuss next steps on It’s Storytime. The audience is small but passionate, and growing steadily. I think we’ve found a way to make it break even, or slightly better, while the audience continues to grow. Thank you to everyone who is supporting the show on Patreon, to everyone who has liked and subscribed and whatnot. It looks like the audience is right around 20,000 listeners which seems like a lot to me, and something I feel really good about! But you know what’s crazy? In the podcast world, it’s tiny. Isn’t that nuts?
When I was walking Marlowe, I came across this weirdly bent spoon in the street, so I posted it in my Instagram stories with the caption “If anyone sees Yuri Gellar, tell him I found his spoon.”4
I think this is a pretty good joke.
I watched a fantastic film a couple nights ago, about the post-punk scene in West Berlin from 1979-1989, called B-Movie: Lust & Sound. It’s streaming all over the place, and if you like the same kind of music and aesthetics that I do, it’s probably worth your time.
I think that’s all for now. Have a good day, friends.
- Also, Florida sent 9 players to Four Nations, and Four Nations was the most exciting and satisfying hockey tournament I have ever seen. So there’s that.
︎ - I love how this show keeps surprising me like this. The first time, it was throwing the bone off the roof in the werewolf fight. I never saw it coming, and it just killed me. ︎
- I also exist inside Tommy Westphal’s snow globe, but that doesn’t feel as exclusive. They’ll let anybody into that thing. They let me in there! ︎
- If you get this reference, that means it’s time to schedule a colonoscopy, if you haven’t already. And make sure you’re getting enough vitamin D, because our aging bodies need it. ︎
Young People Read Old Nebula Finalists: Mikal's Songbird by Orson Scott Card
Jun. 3rd, 2025 02:25 pmjames_davis_nicoll
In an uncommon turn for famed author Card, he presents a very special boy in very difficult circumstances faced with great responsibility. What will the Young People make of it?
Young People Read Old Nebula Finalists: Mikal's Songbird by Orson Scott Card
Ever since I met you, honey, I just want to get laid
Jun. 3rd, 2025 02:20 pmsovayIt improves my mood considerably that I can listen to the Drive's "Jerkin'" (1977) because not only is the song itself a brilliant example of stupid rock, the band existed for a grand total of seven months during which it managed to release one un-radio-playable single, manufacture a scandal, blow an important gig, and implode in a puff of 20/20 hindsight, which sounds like a none more punk biography to me. Any myriad of such one-not-exactly-hit wonders would have bubbled through any scene with a critical exposure to Patti Smith or the Sex Pistols—in this case it was Dundee's—but this one left enough traces that I can, thanks to one of the better functions of the internet, experience all six and a half minutes of their total musical record and read for myself their history according to their lead singer, who really should feel proud that so much pleasure can be transferred through a song about masturbation. It has a two-guitar solo! DIY that slide! The persistence of thrown-at-the-wall weirdness makes me feel better about the world. On that note, because I had recent occasion to, as it were, drag it out, Lou Rand Hogan's The Gay Cookbook (1965).
L’importance du cod.
Jun. 3rd, 2025 06:15 pmlanguagehat_feedI’ve been on a Jacques Rivette kick recently — he’s one of those directors of whom I can say he’s a favorite only with the important proviso that when his movies are to my taste I like them a lot, but when they’re not (e.g., 1976’s Noroît) I have no desire to see them again. (Contrast with Godard, whose movies I’m eternally interested in experiencing even when I don’t like them very much.) So far my favorites are Paris nous appartient (1961, his first), L’Amour fou (1969), and Céline et Julie vont en bateau (1974); I’m likely to add Le Pont du Nord (1981) and La Belle Noiseuse (1991) to the list, but I’ve only seen them once each and can’t be sure. I’m currently watching La Bande des quatre (1989), and I think it too will wind up on the approved list, since it’s got the kind of lively acting and productive life/theater interaction that make his movies work. But I keep having to pause to investigate things vital to appreciating the movie, like Marivaux’s La double inconstance, the play the student actresses in the movie are studying/rehearsing, and just now I had to look up “La prière d’Esther” from Racine’s play Esther (used as an audition piece by a prospective student) and found myself at this page, which is very helpful in explicating the passage. But I ran into a stumbling block here (bold added):
L’alexandrin a des césures qu’il faut faire apparaître : la césure lyrique après « perfide », qui met en valeur l’argument adversatif (après tant de miracles) qui suit, l’arrêt après « anéantir » qui (outre sa rime avec le perfide du vers au-dessus) permet de bien faire apparaître l’importance du cod « la foi de tes oracles » ; et après « aux mortels » : même chose , mise en valeur du complément, la venue du Messie promise, le messie défini par les deux relatives : une promesse et une attente.
What was this “cod” that was so important? It doesn’t even look like a French word! But I let it go for the moment and continued reading, soon getting to this:
Les deux derniers vers sont très beaux avec l’antithèse vains ornements / cendre, le parallélisme « je préfère/ n’ai de goût » et le chiasme : « A ces vains ornements » en tête avant son verbe et « aux pleursv» après son verbe (mais les deux cod se retrouvent chacun à l’hémistiche et ne s’en opposent que mieux), avec la succession de monosyllabes du dernier vers : une pauvreté un dénuement, qui s’oppose aux « ornements » qui en fait sont la réelle pauvreté (« vains ») , les allitérations (G/K) et enfin ce « que tu me vois » : Esther prend Dieu à témoin de sa contrition.
There it was again, and this time the plural turned out to be cod! What was going on? Some googling took me here: “Qu’est-ce qu’un COD ? Complément d’objet direct : Un complément d’objet direct est un mot ou groupe de mots qui vient compléter l’action du sujet dans une phrase.” It would have been helpful if the author of the Esther’s-prayer page (which could use proofreading, e.g. “à al familiarité”) had used capital letters to make it clear it was an acronym, but at least I now knew it was a direct object, and now so do you. But my question for French speakers is this: would you know automatically what was meant by “l’importance du cod,” or would you have had to look it up? And (while I’m at it) do you pronounce it like code or say the letters separately?
runpunkrunMiserable teenage lesbian makes bad dating (and life) choices while her best friend looks miserable about it: A Graphic Novel.
I didn't love all the bad choices and self-induced misery, but I did enjoy how effortlessly queer this is, and the ebb and flow of the friend group. I also loved how on target the fortune teller's advice was, but that Freddy was just too deep in her own bullshit to understand it. The greyscale art is modern and expressive, with a lot of movement and delightful pink highlights. A good read, and the ending improves on the beginning.
Also the cover is just so good.
Contains: infidelity; unplanned pregnancy; abortion.
I didn't love all the bad choices and self-induced misery, but I did enjoy how effortlessly queer this is, and the ebb and flow of the friend group. I also loved how on target the fortune teller's advice was, but that Freddy was just too deep in her own bullshit to understand it. The greyscale art is modern and expressive, with a lot of movement and delightful pink highlights. A good read, and the ending improves on the beginning.
Also the cover is just so good.
Contains: infidelity; unplanned pregnancy; abortion.
FAKE: Keeping Fit [Challenge 452: Ripple]
Jun. 3rd, 2025 06:46 pmbadly_knitted posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
drabble_zoneTitle: Keeping Fit
Fandom: FAKE
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ryo, Dee.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 452: Ripple.
Setting: After Like Like Love.
Summary: Dee and Ryo are both into keeping fit.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
A/N: Double drabble.
Keeping Fit
Check in Day 3!
Jun. 3rd, 2025 01:20 pmomens posting in writethisfanficHow's it going?
Hope everyone finds a minute to write something today, or has an excellent break if not :D
Poll #33194 Writing!
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 1
Did you write today?
Hope everyone finds a minute to write something today, or has an excellent break if not :D
Fannish 50 S3 Post 27: LET THE RUN JIN RECS BEGIN!!
Jun. 3rd, 2025 12:11 pmglitteryvOne of BTS' most popular variety shows is called Run BTS. After airing 156 episodes, the show (which anyone can watch for free ninety-nine via this playlist on BTS' official YouTube channel) went on hiatus due to the start of Enlistment Era, i.e. Chapter 2.
Given how well he knows ARMYs, Jin decided to launch a spin-off version titled Run Jin. Across 36 episodes, Jin gets in all types of shenanigans. I'm not going to go thru every eps, just some of my faves.
Gonna start with "Squid Jin-Game"--a take on Squid Game. This time with no gore or death, but plenty of HELLA LULZY moments. The standout in these two episodes is Dongpyo, a 22-y.o. idol who was in X1 and Mirae. He's since gone solo. I love his dynamic with Jin.
Given how well he knows ARMYs, Jin decided to launch a spin-off version titled Run Jin. Across 36 episodes, Jin gets in all types of shenanigans. I'm not going to go thru every eps, just some of my faves.
Gonna start with "Squid Jin-Game"--a take on Squid Game. This time with no gore or death, but plenty of HELLA LULZY moments. The standout in these two episodes is Dongpyo, a 22-y.o. idol who was in X1 and Mirae. He's since gone solo. I love his dynamic with Jin.
Vaguely connected things
Jun. 3rd, 2025 04:54 pmoursinWomen's higher education in London dates from the late 1840s, with the foundation of Bedford College by the Unitarian benefactor, Elisabeth Jesser Reid. Bedford was initially a teaching institution independent of the University of London, which was itself an examining institution, established in 1836. Over the next three decades, London University examinations were available only to male students.
Demands for women to sit examinations (and receive degrees) increased in the 1860s. After initial resistance a compromise was reached.
In August 1868 the University announced that female students aged 17 or over would be admitted to the University to sit a new kind of assessment: the 'General Examination for Women'.
***
Sexism in science: 7 women whose trailblazing work shattered stereotypes. Yeah, we note that this was over 100 years since the ladies sitting the University of London exams, and passing.
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A couple of recent contributions from Campop about employment issues in the past:
Who was self-employed in the past?:
It is often assumed that industrial Britain, with its large factories and mines employing thousands of people, left little space for individuals running their own businesses. But not everyone was employed as a worker for others. Some exercised a level of agency operating on their own as business proprietors, even if they were also often very constrained.
Over most of the second half of the 19th century as industrialisation accelerated, the self-employed remained a significant proportion of the population – about 15 percent of the total economically active. It was only in the mid-20th century that the proportion plummeted to around eight percent.
and
Home Duties in the 1921 Census:
What women in ‘home duties’ were precisely engaged in still remains a mystery, reflecting the regular obstruction of women’s everyday activity from the record across history. For some, surely ‘home duties’ reflected hard physical labour (particularly in washing), as well as hours of childcare exceeding the length of the factory day. For others, particularly the aspirational bourgeois, the activities of “home duties” involved little actual housework. 5.1 percent of wives in home duties had servants to assist them, a rate which doubled for clerks’ wives to 11.7 percent. For them, household “work” involved little physical action. Though this may have given some of these women the opportunity to spend their hours in cultural activities or socialising, for others it possibly reflected crushing boredom.
Though I wonder to what extent these women were doing something, more informally, that would be invisible to the census and formal measures generally that contributed to the household economy - I'm thinking of the neighbour in my childhood who cut hair at home - ads in interwar women's mags for various money-making home-based schemes - writers one has heard whose sales were a significant factor in the overall family income - etc
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And on informal contributions, Beyond Formal and Informal: Giving Back Political Agency to Female Diplomats in Early Nineteenth Century Europe:
[H]istorians such as Jeroen Duindam show that there were never explicitly separate spheres for men and women when working for the state in the early nineteenth-century. Drawing a line separating ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ diplomats in the early nineteenth-century, simply based on their gender alone, does not do these women justice.
***
And I am very happy to see this receiving recognition, though how far has something which got reprinted after 30 years be considered languishing in obscurity, huh? as opposed to having created a persistent fanbase: A Matter of Oaths – Helen Wright.
Ghost Post!
Jun. 3rd, 2025 12:05 pmomensIt's funny, because I feel like I'm spamming about Ghost ALL THE TIME, but I looked thru my dw to figure out the last photos I posted of her so that I wouldn't repeat pics again and it turns out the last Ghost Post was in February. 🫠
SO! Ghost backlog! With bonus green yard transformation, lol.
March: ( the dead time )
April: ( last snow, first green )
May: ( fully and abruptly GREEN )
SO! Ghost backlog! With bonus green yard transformation, lol.
March: ( the dead time )
April: ( last snow, first green )
May: ( fully and abruptly GREEN )
Tae Kwon "DO'H"
Jun. 3rd, 2025 01:00 pmcakewrecks_feedApproach, students.
You have come to me asking that I be your guide along this tale of Wreckage, but first I should mention that little Kyle here is taking Tae Kwon Do:
I should also probably stop calling him "little" Kyle.
After all, he could be earning his "Black Blet:"
(Presumably by doing step aerobics.)
Or, he might look like this:
(And wouldn't that be a boot to the head?)
Or - OR - he might know 6-year-old Mercedes here:
And, shoot, that's one little pistol I aim to avoid.
(I hear she's got a hair-trigger temper.)
Thanks to Heather H., Heather D., Liz M., and Kelsey E., for today's round of bullet points.Now, let us rejoin the mind to the body and meditate upon this wisdom.
Nyaa nyaa!
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And because I believe we should all celebrate our accomplishments:
I Got Out Of Bed Today Tee
More colors and styles at the link!
*****
And from my other blog, Epbot:
TV Talk: On the Sly
Jun. 3rd, 2025 09:23 amyourlibrarian posting in tv_talk
Do you regularly watch any shows you wouldn't like to admit to other people? If so, no need to specify what the show(s) is, but what makes you reluctant to have that known? And if you don't, have you encountered this with anyone else?