aldersprig | Reading

$radiantfracture: a gouache painting of a turkey vulture head on a blue background, painted by me (vulture)$

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DZrrI8eOLEe/

My somewhat clumsy transcription below.

Shafak begins with the kind of core ideas about the epic:

I always think about the epic of Gilgamesh when I feel a bit demoralized ... if we remember that before it was written down on clay tablets by scribes, it was transmitted via oral culture, again for centuries, grandmothers or grandfathers telling it to grandchildren. It is actually much much older than we know. And I mention this for two reasons. First of all, the epic is unlike anything we have read. I mean, if Trump were to read the epic he would call Gilgamesh a loser because he's not a typical hero. He doesn't achieve anything. It's a story about failure. Friendship. Going into other peoples' lands and taking their things. At the end of the epic, he comes back having achieved nothing, having failed in everything, and yet he's a kinder person. So it's about the possibility of change. It's about our fear of death. It's about questioning what are we doing in this world with such limited lives?

But this is the part that got to me:

But I like to think about the epic in a second way as well, because imagine: ever since this epic was told, and then written down, so many mighty empires have come and gone. So many strong men have come and gone. They have perished. And even the tallest architectural structures have crumbled into dust. But ... the poem, made of breath and made of words, has survived the tides of history, the genocides, the massacres, the warfare, the violence of history, and here we are ... thousands of years later, still remembering this poem and talking about it. To me, it shows that literature has a very gentle, very quiet, but amazing resilience to go beyond all the obstacles that are in front of it.

§rf§

cosmolinguist

I just listened to the Effectively Wild (a baseball podcast) episode about a handful of Giants players who refused to wear the rainbow version of their uniform cap for Pride Night, some of whom scrawled a Bible verse on their cap or gave inane comments to the press about how "this isn't about hating anyone, I'm just a Christian" (it says something about how very many queer Christians are in my circle now that despite not being one I was at first slightly baffled and then absolutely livid on their behalf -- when asked what he'd say to queer people about his gesture, this guy said they should read the Bible which...what?)

It does me some good to hear the Editor-in-Chief of FanGraphs, one of the go-to baseball sites, take a stand on this, saying that if these guys really feel that strongly they should just put themselves on the restricted list and lose a game's play, rather than making Pride Night all about them. (And that the league should just require this, rather than go through this same fuckery every year now.)

But rather than give them any more space in my brain (except to say that this read-the-Bible guy also said God has blessed him with many gifts, but one of them wasn't a good performance that night, or a win for his team!). Instead I'll talk about Spencer Strider, another pitcher for a different team.

Standing in front of a big screen with “PRIDE NIGHT” graphics and a script Braves sculpture, Strider enthusiastically represented both himself as a major league player and his organization as he reached out to our community. “We want everybody to feel included and a part of the community here,” he announced to the crowd of LGBTQ fans, “Baseball can be a part of that. That’s exciting and [we] definitely want to take this opportunity. So we appreciate you being here and go Braves!”

The writer of this article went on to say

Those are words that we expect to hear on Pride Night from someone wearing a Braves polo shirt with a title like “Vice President of Community Outreach.” And they would be perfectly fine coming from a source like that, albeit a tad perfunctory. When they come from a player in uniform who these same LGBTQ fans will be cheering during the game, they carry an extra sense of gravitas. Suddenly, the welcoming message becomes a moment that everyone in the building will remember from Pride Night 2026.

I was feeling pretty bleak as I walked to the gym and back listening to the podcast, feeling the weight of injustice pretty heavily in the wake of news that the DoJ would arrest the whole state of Minnesota if they could. And when I arrived at the gym I was immediately greeted by my old name, by someone I hadn't seen since I was in the WI, which felt a little weird -- she was nice, as she'd always been, but made no mention of me looking or sounding different which left me briefly wondering if I will ever feel like I have transitioned.

So it was nice to come home and read about Spencer Strider and think about his thighs (that article also includes the sentence with thighs that belong on a Planet Fitness poster reminding members to “never skip leg decade” and a mustache that makes it look like he’s about to call timeout and ask his catcher “Can anybody find me somebody to love,” Strider already had a certain appeal for gay Braves fans).

javert posting in

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purplecat

The conference in Cyprus organised us a trip to the Paphos Archeological Park. This is an excavation of the old city, parts of which date back to prehistoric times, and there are definitely Greek bits but in the main it is a Roman city and it is famous for the mosaic floors.

( Picspam Ahoy! )

lea_hazel

Flamecraft: it sounded like it would be a cute town-builder game with adorable cartoonish dragons, and it is, but it's also a PvP deck-building game, and that's just not the style of gameplay I'm looking for. Played the tutorial, then one more round, which I lost. And uninstalled.

( Thoughts on 10 more demos I recently played )

linky posting in

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cosmolinguist

D and I got talking to one of my favorite transgym people after circuits tonight, and as regularly happens when the two of us talk to someone who hasn't known us long/well, I had the realization of just how nonsensical we must sound. With our shared brain and our running jokes (including the one about whose brain it is that we're sharing) and almost two decades of shared references, I really feel for people that we inflict ourselves upon.

Like just now, I nipped into the bathroom to grab some lotion while he's in the shower, and by the time I'd done it and left, we'd already established that a butt seen in the mirror is the worst kind of butt because that's ass-backwards, that Ass Backwards sounds like a comic book villain name, and he was saying "Condiment is such a good word anyway."

purplecat

White plastery footprints on a hall floor

The plasterer who was making good around the new windows left the most phenomenal mess throughout the ground floor of the house. In his defence he had tried to mop up. On the other hand, I'm not convinced he really knew his way around a mop and bucket and I'm mystified by the lack of dust sheets. Most of the ground floor was covered in a thin layer of plaster dust but thankfully we only have carpets on the upper floors so it wasn't trodden into anything difficult to clean. Some things had actual plaster stuck to them - most notably an attachment that came with our toaster for making toasted ciabatta sandwiches which now has plaster stuck to each corner. At least we never actually use it, so I can merely be mildly non-plussed - did he think it was some kind of plastering tool? A dustpan? who knows? It was stacked on top of the toaster some way from the site of actual plastering, so I don't think it was just random plaster splashes.

The plasterer returns tomorrow to tackle replastering of the pantry where a leak had completely ruined the old plaster.

I have invested in dust sheets.

UPDATE: Apparently the plasterer won't be here tomorrow...

lea_hazel

Turns out I've been slandering the indiesphere for no reason, because someone did see my vision and is making a game called Vampire Rancher in which a vampire builds a beautiful farm in order to attract humans to, uh, eat. Which is what I was missing from all the "cozy dark" vampy-witchy farming sims I've seen so far.

Next on my wishlist is a "witchy" village life sim that understands that the attraction of a witch PC is not the uwu aesthetic-core-punk vibes, but being a fuckin' crone, rather than a wet-behind-the-ears 16-22 year-old like every other damn game.

Also got a list of game demos I played that I'd like to write up, but right now, I'm gonna go make myself some lunch. I will say that the game that I'm most excited for this summer is Grave Seasons, followed by Mandrake, which doesn't have an official date, yet.

wyld_dandelyon

I have a friend who recently mentioned having trouble falling asleep. I came up with this method long ago, and have previously shared it verbally with various people, but he and I chat online, so I wrote It up. I told him, “I hope this works for you, but of course we are all different, and nothing works for everybody. “

And then I thought, I probably have other friends who are having trouble sleeping, and since I wrote it up, I should share it wider. So I hope you enjoy reading this, and if you are having trouble falling asleep, I hope it helps you.

And if you have a different method, I’d love to hear it.

Deirdre’s Meditation for Falling Asleep

The first step is to remember some day or days when you were very deep asleep and had to wake up. Pick a time where the process was slow, rather than the sudden adrenaline boost of an alarm or emergency. Remember it as clearly as you can, with all your senses. For me, it can feel like being all warm and safe, in a friendly, dark, quiet, restful state. Gravity is cradling me and I’m warm and comfortable. The call to wake is reaching me through a soft foggy darkness.

But you probably experience sleep and waking differently than I do, and knowing your own process of transition between waking and sleep is the key to this meditation. So just take a little time to remember what it was like for you be still mostly asleep, and then how it felt as you slowly woke up. Remember those sensations, feelings, textures, whatever your experience has been, as clearly as you can. Remember, also, the sequence of whatever happens as you wake up slowly.

Once you have that memory or those memories clear in your mind, the next step is to relax. Do anything you have to do at night (like take meds) if you haven’t already done so. Get comfortable in your bed. Set the lights and sounds of your room appropriately.

Be aware of your intention. Know that the goal is to allow yourself fall asleep, to allow this particular meditation to be a temporary guide. That may be very different from other meditations you have done, where the goal is to relax but not fall asleep, to consciously focus instead of letting that focus gently go for a while. So set that intention in your mind in whatever way works best for you. Say it aloud if that will help. Know that if you lose track of this meditation and fall into sleep, that is a complete success.

Once you’re comfortable, take those feelings and experiences you remembered, and do your best to be inside the memory. Make them as real as possible in your mind—but do it backwards. If you felt like you were climbing, let yourself drift downward instead. If you became aware of the sensations of your covers or your pajamas, imagine letting those sensations fade. And so on.

This isn’t a meditation where you follow someone else’s words. Only you have experienced the metaphorical lands between your sleep state and your waking state. So take what you learned from remembering your own experience, and let yourself do it backwards, traveling not from deep sleep to wakefulness, but from wakefulness to sleep. You are gently guiding yourself, until you don’t need a guide any more because all you have to do is let it happen. And when you get to that point, let it happen.

Current Location: One's own bed
Current Music: If you want it

ranunculus

I went to Napa this weekend to judge and had a good time. Chena had a much better time. Donald and I were camping with my friend Christy. Christy has a new puppy, a 4 month old Anatolian Shepherd / Lab / Mastiff named Hope. At my April event she was half Chena's size. Now she is a lanky, awkward ball of white fluff and is only a few pounds lighter than Chena. Hope and Chena had a wonderful time playing together.
This morning Hope started chewing on a tattered remnant of a chew stick. She abandoned it, Chena picked it up. Hope wanted it back. Christy, who was monitoring the situation, got Hope a new chew. Hope took it politely but thought it was much more fun to try to get the old stick back... Chena groweled halfheartedly at her a couple of times and then ignored the puppy who sat down on Chena's butt. A few minutes later this was the view:( Pics )

celli

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cosmolinguist

Tomorrow we're meeting a dog we night dogsit while her human is away in a couple weeks.

It's someone from queer club whose dogsitter fell through at the last minute. Xena the dog is a yorkie/jack russell/Brussels griffon mix, so a shaggy adorable little dog and we're assured she's cuddly and easy to look after.

I'm excited to meet her.

purplecat

Black and White publicity photo of Peter Davison dressed as the fifth Doctor riding a bicycle over a canal in Amsterdam. He is waving his hat in one hand and looking at the camera.

cosmolinguist

I never did get used to the noise that the extractor fan in the bathroom makes.

But the other day, something went wrong with it so now it makes the most horrible sound, a loud high-pitched squeal. The others started describing it as "like there's a tortured soul trapped there." It makes me laugh but it is true.

Both of them have forgotten and had the startling experience of turning on the light...often first thing in the morning, which seems extra unfair! (D really made himself jump with this when he got up early last Saturday morning, poor lad.) I haven't avoided it out of any skill or smarts of mine, it's just that I never turn on the light this time of year.

I said for a while that I should put some tape over the light switch to help remind us, stop this from happening. But I only got around to it early this afternoon. Which is lucky, because only then did I realize that our cleaner was about to come over, and he -- very naturally! -- turns on the lights in the rooms he's cleaning. And he actually starts with the upstairs bathroom, so I did it almost in the nick of time!

By the time he turned up, I was back at my computer but it's near the front door so I could hear V catching up with him -- how's your son, don't bother cleaning the cooker because I took it apart and scrubbed it last night... I didn't hear it all but got the gist -- and I said "and the light switch!" and they told him "oh! yeah" and the next phrase I clearly heard was "it sounds like a tortured soul..."

purplecat

A hish stone wall, slightly curbed. Before it is a collection of thin upright stones, another wall and slow thin stones set in the earth marking what look like room boundaries and a hearth.

Broch of Gurness, Orkney

ranunculus

This is the first hot day of the summer. Until now the temps have been below 100F and the humidity low. This morning we started with more than 50% humidity (don't laugh, that's a lot here). Currently it has cooled off to 102F but the humidity has plunged to 12%. It's not bad outside! That said I raced around yesterday and this morning getting shade cloth up over the garden. Temps over about 100F tend to damage fruit. Here is one of the apple trees with such a heavy load that the fruit has almost zero shade from leaves in the afternoon. This pic was taken in the morning. Because I am heavily pruning the tomato plants they also have a lot of unprotected fruit.

The solar install is toddling along. I have the first set of panel racks just about level.

I've ordered 3ft long, screw style anchors for it. This item is yet another reason not to like Shop Solar as a retail outlet. They said they would add them to the order, then didn't do it. I've ordered them from Global Ace Solar in Sparks Nevada. The sales person there was super careful to make sure I got exactly what I needed, including contacting the factory about a question, even though they were screaming busy. I got a text at 8:30pm from the guy who was working overtime to deal with the volume. I believe they sell a kit that is similar to the one I bought. We can't mount the panels until the system is firmly attached to the ground. Here are the panels strapped down to the pallet with my red ratchet strap.

The rest of the rack is waiting for me to level out the feet. I also need one more base rack. I would have had enough racks if they were all in a row, but I chose to break them up into two sections so they would fit the available space better.

Of course, since I'm halfway through this project Mr Redin, a local solar contractor and the father of one of my horse pasture tenants, called me today to set up an appointment. I called him a couple of months ago. I'm meeting him on Monday to plan the next stage of this project.
Right around the corner from the second solar rack the cows and their calves are lying in the shade, in the breeze, chewing their cud. It is incredibly noisy around here, especially in the early morning. Lots of calling back and forth as the cows move around. I always forget the sheer amount of noise that a bunch of cows and calves make. One cow this year doesn't so much bellow, as sound like a rutting elk wheezing away. I love it.
Off to judge in Napa this weekend.

celli

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wispfox

I know about trash pandas (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trash_panda) - raccoons in the USA - and bin chooks (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bin_chicken) - white ibis in Australia. What other animals have nicknames based on their propensity for consuming our trash?

lea_hazel

Could not understand why I was so tired in mid-afternoon, even though all I did today so far is 1) shower and wash my hair, and 2) bake banana muffins.

Then I remembered that I was coming out of almost two months of not being able to get a continuous night's sleep, while also being in pain every day. So, there's that.

lumiosecity posting in

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purplecat

Reading I'm still reading Frazer Hines' Evil of the Daleks but I also started reading Modern Control Systems because I really need to know more about Control Systems particularly since, via a convoluted set of circumstances, I've inherited a PhD student who has papers full of phrases like "Lyapanov Equations" and I wouldn't know a Lyapanov equation if it introduced itself in the street. I am currently stuck on the first equation in the book which describes a spring damper system. I do not understand this equation and I've been returning to it and intervals for three days and have consulted wikipedia. I think I need a more basic "modelling physical systems using differential equations" book before I move on to control systems.

Listening Starship Alexandria in which Adrian Tchaikovsky and Emma Newman (two authors I have not read, but intend to) review books and films that I often haven't read. In this case Piranesi which sounds interesting but not so much so that I think it will earn a place on the to read pile.

Watching I am still snowed under by marking, so still nothing.

mdehners posting in

gardening

Everything is planted with the exception of 2 last minute orders; a Good King Henry and (3rd times the charm;>) Yacon starts. Harvested 2 of my Créole Garlic cultivars(last one next week I think) and the last of the Mulberries on the tree I planted this Spring.
Got a single large green 'Red Brandywine' Tomato growing and a couple small ones. Actually have a dwarf Comfrey cultivar dying. The Bocking 14 and the species forms from seed are doing fine. My other green manure is a species Tithonia but all but one of the cuttings have died.
Lots of flowers, bees and butterflies with the exception of Monarchs,which I've seen none this yr. Only a couple Hummers as well....not our usual numbers though the last few yrs have been down.
My "Not My Cat", Jack is AWOL this morning. I'll worry if he's not back by Friday(not that I could do anything about him. He's someone's outdoor cat). My "Jack Tolerant" stray, Fluff had no problem eating for two;>....
Cheers,
Pat

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Lenoir City(Nevermore;>!)
Current Music: Spiral Dance Radio

cosmolinguist

It's probably not good that I'm now sad that Adrian Chiles doesn't know how much I would love to talk to him about baseball, is it.

He's *also| a fan of a low-budget team that no one wants to go see that isn't that good but weirdly kind of is sometimes!

(Being me, I had also noticed how weird it is that Brits use a lot of language from baseball without seeming to know why they say that.)

yellowrosess posting in

iconic

Stock (Summer vibes/flowers, coffee, reading, pearls)

yr28

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celli

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javert posting in

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cosmolinguist

Things I wanted to get done today that I didn't do:

write that review of the gender-affirming sex toy for a sex blog
apply for that job

ranunculus

The solar project is plodding along. We have the inside unit installed, with the refrigerant lines through the wall and outside. Figured out the rack mounts, mostly. The next big thing will be to secure the racks so they can't be blown away. Solar panels are just big sails in the wind! The pad for the outside unit has been re-constructed to be a bit closer to the lines coming out of the house. I have identified breakers to provide "shore power" but new electrical will be the last thing we do.
Weedwhacked the last of the yard (in a super steep area where the regular mower can't go), plus two more short fence lines. The fences are both for Firefly's benefit. One of those two fences will solve a longstanding problem with power distribution . Can't imagine why I didn't think of it long ago. Basically electric fence tape is fabulous stuff, good visibility and pretty darn tough. However the wires in it are teeny, tiny and they eventually break, rust out or burn up. Yes they do burn if the wire gets stretched. In almost all my fences there is both wire and tape. The tape is only for visibility, the wire does the real work. Around the house I've thrown up tape fences "temporarily". They have now been "temporary" for some years. Many of them are starting to fail, by which I mean that they have stopped actually conducting electricity all the way to the end of the fence. Today's solution will build a slightly more permanent fence -with- wire and tape that should help with this problem.

celli

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cosmolinguist

I woke up early today and quickly spiraled into despair about how it was raining again, about how it was still gray, and about how it was actually cold enough that I should have grabbed long trousers or maybe a hoodie when I got dressed (but I didn't think of this in time and then got too busy at work so just stayed slightly uncomfortable).

But, to my surprise (if only because I hadn't looked carefully enough at the weather forecast, it brightened up into an afternoon of vivid blue sky and fluffy white clouds. Eventually the clouds disappeared, leaving just the perfect sky.

It's ridiculous how much this helped my mood.

It was all I could do to make myself go to circuits instead of just riding my bike or sitting outside. But I'm glad I did: there were only four of us there. And I'm glad of the endorphins.

purplecat

A glass door looking out onto a garden where scaffolding is visible. Plaster around the door is missing.

This is one of our new windows. Actually, as is probably obvious, this one is a door onto the garden. Plasterer failed to turn up today. Apparently he had had a fight with his missus. I'm not convinced I could get away with that as an excuse for failing to turn up to work.

lea_hazel

Some good news, for a change: I made it to the rheumatologist and he, in addition to referring me to some extra tests, immediately gave me something for my knee which should work within "hours to days", according to him.

It might be the defeated exhaustion speaking, but I feel like it's already a little bit better.

cosmolinguist

Thanks for all the good wishes yesterday.

I was in bed by 9:30 -- by which time D was already asleep, several hours earlier than usual for him! It made for a nice cozy night though.

I slept until about 7 this morning, and as resentful as I am about losing my weekend to this, it was nice that I could just take it easy, lie in bed (which I normally never do) and read and drink water and be very gentle with myself before actually getting up somewhere between 9 and 10.

And it was a quiet day, but not a bad one. Drizzly weather kept me mostly indoors but I caught up on some stuff I'd wanted to do: laundry, changed my bedsheets, answered some emails...

I made dinner, and talked to my parents afterward -- pretty painlessly this week, luckily.

I'm in danger of revenge bedtime procrastination because I don't feel like I got a break this weekend, and because I'm having the usual low-mood migraine-hangover. But I've done my bedtime rituals and I'm hoping I do get to sleep: tomorrow morning I get to investigate all the emails and stuff that I missed while I was sick Friday afternoon, and I really hope my work laptop is behaving with the USB docking station because it wasn't working for either power or data on Friday morning... Plenty of problems for Monday-morning Erik.

magnavox_23 posting in

iconic

28 Doctor Who icons from 12x09 Ascension of the Cybermen

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$radiantfracture: Small painting of Penguin book (Books post)$

radiantfracture

I have to leave the house sometime. I sent myself downtown to pick up more black ink and paper for loon prints. On impulse, I leapt onto the #6 bus instead of the homeward vessel and rode out along Quadra through a sudden pelting rainstorm. Riding the bus suits my habitual (and currently intensified) feelings of displacement and liminality.

I got out at Royal Oak Shopping Centre, a disorientingly centreless mass of self-spawning plazas.

The attraction of the Royal Oak is the Smart Bookshop, a longstanding proper old-fashioned used bookstore. In the literature section, this unassuming black hardcover caught my eye:

I opened Mörder Guss Reims: The Gustave Leberwurst Manuscript (1981) to a random page and found a curiously over-annotated poem in German. I only glanced at the German, and I could not make sense of it, but the ratio of annotation to poem had a real Pale Fire shimmer. Sincere? In-? Either way, desirable.

I thought: yes, this is clearly the book I came in here for. I paid my $5 and left with it tucked into my bag.

I did not work out the trick, because I did not try sounding out the cod German. (Try it!)

Just now I web-searched and found out what sort of artefact this is. It is a remarkably poker-faced object in both design and presentation. However, the copyright page gives the game away:

Macaronic literature! Facetiae!

I do think this John Hulme must be a Nabokov fan. I have not yet been able to find out anything about him online, except that this seems to have been his Own Particular Genre. (I do not think he can be the contemporary author/director of the same name, since he would have had to publish this book at the age of 12.)

§rf§

ranunculus

Yellow squash producing tons of squash already. Am digging big holes in the garden paths to find the water pipe so I can T into it for a new faucet plus a automatic water valve box in the front of the garden. Pipe is 20+ inches deep. Ug. ( Cut for Pics )

cosmolinguist

I had to go to London on Thursday and it was so horrible that I've had a migraine ever since lol

I really thought that "calling" in sick yesterday afternoon and going right to bed where I fell asleep for another five hours, and then sleeping another seven or eight at night like usual, had dealt with the worst of it. But no, I've been very up-and-down today too: I went to transgym, but couldn't stay awake after. I walked the neighbors' dog, with D, but have been flopping around on the couch ever since. I took dinner out of the freezer and put it in the oven but then the stabby headache came back.

I can't read/listen/concentrate (I've sort of read my reading page here, but not properly). It's very boring.

purplecat

Photo of Sarah's face smiling. Season 12 hair.

sathari

... that I have ever read about, not just US politics, or politics in general, but arguably about the entire future of humanity:

Dr Stacey Patton: "You Can't Raise Children to Obey and Expect Them to Defend Democracy"

I have been trying to put together a post on this for, literally, years now, and having a failure more of nerve than anything, so I am completely overwhelmed and downright grateful to hear someone with standing and a following get there before me. And, as you may have guessed, I have a bunch of "yes-and" concurring opinions about it, but I'll let you all go read hers instead of talking over her.

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