disastrid | Reading

When I picture the rhythm of the year I tend to picture Not Bloody Much in the cold months and a fair bit more for the rest. This is because I hate the cold and am generally inclined to hibernate. Once again, the value of doing these lists is that I can actually scroll through them and see that, really, this is just a picture in my head and not actually reality, but, in 2024... ( the picture actually was the reality. )

Current Music: YT Call of Cthulhu playthrough

sabotabby

Here's a series from a week or two ago that you really should check out: It Could Happen Here's "Darién Gap: One Year Later." It's four parts and I recommend listening to the whole thing, as it's some truly brilliant reporting, but if you are like me, the one that will stand out the most is the second episode, "To Be Called By No Name." It begins with a song written in 1948, Woody Guthrie's "Deportees (Plane Crash At Los Gatos)" that has horrifying resonance now, nearly 80 years later. From that jumping off point, James discusses the media coverage of the manufactured migrant crisis.

The four part series focuses on two migrants in particular, Primrose and her daughter Kim, from Zimbabwe. Primrose's family opposed the regime there and her father was disappeared; she and her daughter fled a deadly situation to try to claim refugee status in the US. The plight of migrants from African countries is even less discussed than those from Latin America or the Middle East; in detailing Primrose's story, James makes her visible, a heroic protagonist facing impossible odds, someone who lodges in your heart and stays there. It's great storytelling as well as great journalism. He refuses the objectivity of the mainstream reporters, who just don't bother to talk to migrants, let alone give voice to their names and stories.

Even posting about this tears me up. I know a lot of you reading this are doing your best to fight ICE but I want to beat every one of those bastards to death with my bare hands and by the end of this series, you will too.

tetsab

So the thing I really noticed about doing the 2022 is that I'm not so sure how much of all of what was there was truly nice. There were a couple of months that hardly seemed to have anything 'nice' at all and somehow I started drifting these from 'nice life-y' to just 'things I do outside of work'. I'm going to keep that pattern up for the for the next 3 of these (i.e. until I'm actually caught up) for ease of comparison ( and then re-evaluate what I want to actually capture )
Alright, that was absolutely Not As Bad as 2022 -- much better balance of the 'remote' not-work-work and actual Nice Things To Do.

sabotabby

Just finished: You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson. I never had the privilege of seeing Gibson perform, other than on YouTube, so this is as close as I'm ever going to get. They really were a brilliant poet. Some of the poems lose a bit in print—they tend towards the storytelling and autobiographical, and that reads much less powerfully on the page than in speech—but this is a fairly minor critique. Gibson writes powerfully about queerness, gender, disability, and the climate crisis, and their furious energy is made all the more poignant by their premature death earlier this year.

Currently reading: Censorship & Information Control: From Printing Press to Internet by Ada Palmer. This is an exhibit based on a course that Palmer taught and it just makes me wish I could take the course. I'm screenshotting bits to text to people. Her central argument is that the total state censorship we see depicted in 1984 is the exception rather than the norm; more often censorship is incomplete, self-enforced, or carried out by non-state entities like the church or marketplace. This is obviously important when we talk about issues like free speech, which tends to be very narrowly defined when most of the threats to it have traditionally not come directly from the government (I mean, present-day US excepted, but it took a lot of informal censorship to get to that point).

The bit about fig leafs, complete with illustrations, is particularly good, as is the bit on Pierre Bayle, who hid his radical ideas in the footnotes to his Historical and Critical Dictionary in lengthy footnotes that he knew no one would read.

You can get this for free if you want to read it btw.

tetsab

Turns out this is still a useful thing to do 'cause if you'd asked me if I was doing much Post-Covid I would have said that I was doing Nigh on Bugger All. Annnnnd yet, even on a quick review, I see This Is So Not True. Turns out it would take until mid-2023 before I pretty much totally burned out on all things Community Engagement. In my mind I was very Community Engaged before Covid and Not So Much after but with all these non-work remote meetings to note in this post... ( boy howdy is this ever not the case. )

Producing alla that actually made me queasy (my stomach legit turned when I opened July in my calendar and I had to step away for a break). I'm not sorry I'd step back from a whole lot of it once work started getting crazy in 2023!

Current Music: Clock DVA - 4 Hours

the_siobhan

There's a store on Queen Street that has a sign out front that says "Ice-cream fixes everything."

Yesterday I walked past a bistro on my way to the gf's place that said "Wine fixes everything".

I am prepared to review their respective arguments, especially if said arguments are made via wine and ice cream.

***

Note that I said "walked" in that story, because I am WALKING again, no cane required. My physiotherapist is fucking magic. I'm still on a bit of a leash so I don't overdo it, but the gf's condo is a 25 minute walk from my house and not only did I walk there, I walked home after and my foot felt fine this morning.

Plans to set the entire world on fire may be temporarily placed on hold as a result.

***

Got my boosters last week. Spent most of my spare time for the next three days sleeping. My immune system calmed down eventually but the first day at work was kinda rough.

***

My dad is doing much better and his wife decided he doesn't need the hospital bed since it's a rental. She was planning to buy him a regular bed, but since I still have the Old Man's old bed frame in my storage locker I offered that one. My sister has a pickup truck, so the two of us hauled it over and set it up.

We're both encouraging her to look into moving to a condo but she's not really receptive to the idea. Thing is, she's also running out of the ability to take care of the place, especially since she's doing it alone and taking care of my dad at the same time. She already hires people to deal with the yard.

***

Still waiting on engineer.

***

( cut for the endless gauntlet of house shit )

***

I have the overwhelming desire to put together a playlist for my family's Xmas dinner. This desire was sparked by hearing Laibach's version of Jesus Christ Superstar on Twitch tonight.

C'mon, it would be hilarious.

sabotabby

There are a few hours left in Bandcamp Friday. Instead of using Spotify, why not buy some music there? Coincidentally Grace Petrie has a new EP out.

sabotabby

There has been another round of great podcasts this week, but this is not an unbiased blog, and thus check out The Fiction Lab's "The Intersection Between Activism & Fiction with Rachel A. Rosen" and hear all about how fiction and real life activism inform each other, the challenges of telling political stories, and how to make your political stories (and activism) a little less on-the-nose.

sabotabby

Just finished: The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Couldn't put this one down, which is why I'm tired this morning. It's dark academia meets gothic with three rather compelling heroines who've been cursed by witches. Like most gothics, it's more about the atmosphere than the mystery, though I did really enjoy ( spoilers ). And I loved all three characters, which, in true SMG style, are very driven, to the point of alienating most of the people in their lives, and very lifelike.

I am glad I was warned for ( another spoiler )

Oh it's also super adorable to see the "ancient department heads" at Stoneridge College. This is best not spoiled.

Currently reading: Nothing, but I have a hold that should be coming in soon at the library so it's time to read all my short books.

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19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

Halfway from coal, halfway to diamond

A story in the worst way

Reading

More like I imagined: the 2024 'Nice Life-y Things' Post

podcast friday

Continuing to question 'Nice': the 2023 'Nice Life-y Things' Post

Reading Wednesday

Can I even remember?: the 2022 'Nice Life-y Things' Post

you choose such a backward time

Bandcamp Friday

podcast friday

Reading Wednesday

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December 2010

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