In which I read therefore I am

Aug. 27th, 2025 05:13 pm
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
Reading: 86 books to 27 Aug 2025 (and 5 dnfs).

81. Perspectives, by Laurent Binet (translated by Sam Taylor), 3.5/5.
A murder mystery novel set in Florence in the 1550s and using historical people as characters. I like the epistolary format and wide variety of correspondents. I especially enjoyed the conspiracy of idealistic artists against pragmatic politicians (and am not even miffed that the historians were all supporting the politicians). Also, Binet managed to pull off the only funny joke about the French military surrendering, and the person he chose to deliver it was the best possible choice.

82. The Passengers on the Hankyu Line, by Hiro Arikawa (translated by Allison Markin Powell), 3.5/5.
A Japanese, slice of life, composite novel or short story cycle that does exactly what it says in the title by introducing us to various railway passengers and their interactions.

Quote:
a person alone
without any kind of distraction
looking animated
is very conspicuous.
*

But none of the characters are alone for too long. Mostly a gentle and positive read, with multiple happy endings, although I didn't think the last two wrap-up stories in the suite were as good as the cycle they were concluding.

83. Accidental Darlings, by Crystal Jeans, 2025, historical lgbt novel, 4.5/5.

Lgb(t) historical-ish novel set in the interwar period, with a coming of age theme in a broadly found-family framework, and a style I can only describe as gothy Dickensian modernism in a surprisingly smooth medley without choppy changes of tone or key. The author is also particularly a Bronte fan. This novel was a serendipitous choice from the library because if I'd had an accurate description then I wouldn't've picked it: orphan, scary aunt, large dilapidated house, vicious servant, local bigots, ageing bright young things. I found it a compelling read with enjoyable moments and a well-earned fabulous ending, a smidgin of hope in a glassful of resilience. The in-jokes in the epilogue chapter boosted it overall from a 4 to a 4.5/5 because lmao (literally!).

Warnings: the dogs die (yes, two are murdered, but it's fair to add that humans also die through illness and accident), and emetophobes should avoid this (within the first 100 pages there's a child, a hemophobic twice, and a dog, and it doesn't stop there).

Quotes
- (I didn't know what kind of dog he was but he reminded me of an overgrown gerbil.)
[Me: corgi? Honestly, I need suggestions and opinions here, plz.]

Cut for one of the v words, y'know like vuvuzela. )
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/130: A Garter as a Lesser Gift — Aster Glenn Gray
He was not good; had never aspired to be good. He had only ever wanted to be a jolly good fellow, and to be too good, like Percy, destroyed all chance of ever being jolly. Percy would have pulled the covers up over his head before he ever let his host’s wife kiss him, let alone kissed his host. [loc. 621]

A refreshing and sweet novella, setting Gawain and the Green Knight in wartime Britain. The squadron drink at the Green Dragon, and one night a man in green appears...

Gawain chats to the Bertilaks about crime novels and the Blitz; kisses his hostess, and then his host; and returns (or is returned) to his squadron with a green armband, because he has 'been raised with a great belief in magic' and is disinclined to refuse a gift that confers protection. And when the Bertilaks come visiting (with a gift of wild boar, which hasn't been hunted in Britain for four centuries) he confronts them with his anger and grief that it was just a game...

A delightful read, which I wish I'd read at Christmas! The updated setting works very well, and Gawain is vulnerable, likeable and better at talking about his feelings than the original. But then, it is a different time.

tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/129: The Prey of Gods — Nicky Drayden
Now humankind is finally coming into its own, bending and stretching genes in the manner of gods. It was only a matter of time before they muddled their way into bending the exact right genes to reveal that they were gods. Those genes, gone dry and brittle from lack of use, are just begging for an open flame. [p. 61]

The setting is the Eastern Cape in 2064. Alphies (levitating robot assistants) have replaced smartphones; there's a new drug on the street, which seems to confer superpowers; and the roads and parks are overrun by hundreds of thousands of dik-diks.

Read more... )
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
Mascots: while I was on holiday in Conwy I found a rare sixteenth century reference to the mascot genus Gritty, best known for the endemic North American species Gritty philadelphus, adopted as genius of the Philadelphia Flyers. The Gritty I saw, probably a representation of the endangered Welsh species Gritty gwyneddii, was depicted in plasterwork or pargetting in several rooms at Plas Mawr, notably in a dated overmantel* completed in 1580. There were several other heraldic emblems such as the ever popular severed Englishman's head motif. Also, why are red stockings such a thing? Answers on a postcard c/o Dr Freud....

* Note: an overmantel goes over a mantelpiece, while an overmantle goes over clothes.

Gritty gwyneddii in pargetting, 1580, at Plas Mawr in Conwy

Plastered and nsfw )
denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

I'll start with the tl;dr summary to make sure everyone sees it and then explain further: As of September 1, we will temporarily be forced to block access to Dreamwidth from all IP addresses that geolocate to Mississippi for legal reasons. This block will need to continue until we either win the legal case entirely, or the district court issues another injunction preventing Mississippi from enforcing their social media age verification and parental consent law against us.

Mississippi residents, we are so, so sorry. We really don't want to do this, but the legal fight we and Netchoice have been fighting for you had a temporary setback last week. We genuinely and honestly believe that we're going to win it in the end, but the Fifth Circuit appellate court said that the district judge was wrong to issue the preliminary injunction back in June that would have maintained the status quo and prevented the state from enforcing the law requiring any social media website (which is very broadly defined, and which we definitely qualify as) to deanonymize and age-verify all users and obtain parental permission from the parent of anyone under 18 who wants to open an account.

Netchoice took that appellate ruling up to the Supreme Court, who declined to overrule the Fifth Circuit with no explanation -- except for Justice Kavanaugh agreeing that we are likely to win the fight in the end, but saying that it's no big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime.

Needless to say, it's a big deal to let the state enforce the law in the meantime. The Mississippi law is a breathtaking state overreach: it forces us to verify the identity and age of every person who accesses Dreamwidth from the state of Mississippi and determine who's under the age of 18 by collecting identity documents, to save that highly personal and sensitive information, and then to obtain a permission slip from those users' parents to allow them to finish creating an account. It also forces us to change our moderation policies and stop anyone under 18 from accessing a wide variety of legal and beneficial speech because the state of Mississippi doesn't like it -- which, given the way Dreamwidth works, would mean blocking people from talking about those things at all. (And if you think you know exactly what kind of content the state of Mississippi doesn't like, you're absolutely right.)

Needless to say, we don't want to do that, either. Even if we wanted to, though, we can't: the resources it would take for us to build the systems that would let us do it are well beyond our capacity. You can read the sworn declaration I provided to the court for some examples of how unworkable these requirements are in practice. (That isn't even everything! The lawyers gave me a page limit!)

Unfortunately, the penalties for failing to comply with the Mississippi law are incredibly steep: fines of $10,000 per user from Mississippi who we don't have identity documents verifying age for, per incident -- which means every time someone from Mississippi loaded Dreamwidth, we'd potentially owe Mississippi $10,000. Even a single $10,000 fine would be rough for us, but the per-user, per-incident nature of the actual fine structure is an existential threat. And because we're part of the organization suing Mississippi over it, and were explicitly named in the now-overturned preliminary injunction, we think the risk of the state deciding to engage in retaliatory prosecution while the full legal challenge continues to work its way through the courts is a lot higher than we're comfortable with. Mississippi has been itching to issue those fines for a while, and while normally we wouldn't worry much because we're a small and obscure site, the fact that we've been yelling at them in court about the law being unconstitutional means the chance of them lumping us in with the big social media giants and trying to fine us is just too high for us to want to risk it. (The excellent lawyers we've been working with are Netchoice's lawyers, not ours!)

All of this means we've made the extremely painful decision that our only possible option for the time being is to block Mississippi IP addresses from accessing Dreamwidth, until we win the case. (And I repeat: I am absolutely incredibly confident we'll win the case. And apparently Justice Kavanaugh agrees!) I repeat: I am so, so sorry. This is the last thing we wanted to do, and I've been fighting my ass off for the last three years to prevent it. But, as everyone who follows the legal system knows, the Fifth Circuit is gonna do what it's gonna do, whether or not what they want to do has any relationship to the actual law.

We don't collect geolocation information ourselves, and we have no idea which of our users are residents of Mississippi. (We also don't want to know that, unless you choose to tell us.) Because of that, and because access to highly accurate geolocation databases is extremely expensive, our only option is to use our network provider's geolocation-based blocking to prevent connections from IP addresses they identify as being from Mississippi from even reaching Dreamwidth in the first place. I have no idea how accurate their geolocation is, and it's possible that some people not in Mississippi might also be affected by this block. (The inaccuracy of geolocation is only, like, the 27th most important reason on the list of "why this law is practically impossible for any site to comply with, much less a tiny site like us".)

If your IP address is identified as coming from Mississippi, beginning on September 1, you'll see a shorter, simpler version of this message and be unable to proceed to the site itself. If you would otherwise be affected, but you have a VPN or proxy service that masks your IP address and changes where your connection appears to come from, you won't get the block message, and you can keep using Dreamwidth the way you usually would.

On a completely unrelated note while I have you all here, have I mentioned lately that I really like ProtonVPN's service, privacy practices, and pricing? They also have a free tier available that, although limited to one device, has no ads or data caps and doesn't log your activity, unlike most of the free VPN services out there. VPNs are an excellent privacy and security tool that every user of the internet should be familiar with! We aren't affiliated with Proton and we don't get any kickbacks if you sign up with them, but I'm a satisfied customer and I wanted to take this chance to let you know that.

Again, we're so incredibly sorry to have to make this announcement, and I personally promise you that I will continue to fight this law, and all of the others like it that various states are passing, with every inch of the New Jersey-bred stubborn fightiness you've come to know and love over the last 16 years. The instant we think it's less legally risky for us to allow connections from Mississippi IP addresses, we'll undo the block and let you know.

spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
My current reading is incidentally on point, lol:

82. [...] taking in the recommendation of a woman with whom she'd just had such a candid exchange in the span of a single stop on the train, she nodded, and said, 'I think I will do just that.'

83. I came down to find her spooning mould out of the jam, her hair tied up tighter than ever.

[eighty-something.] She can't believe there's a product labeled "wild Chilean baby pears." How superlatively exotic. She can't believe how tender and naked and raw the little pear bodies seem. She can't believe there are so many jars - rows and rows of jars, their storage the same as their display. How museum-like it seems: each jar a group of individuals dated and labeled as one type, then preserved in fluid.

Out and about:
- Perused two art exhibitions.
- Urban nature walk with friends.

Habitat:
- Left fossils on benches and play equipment during school holidays.
- Glass and batteries (including taped lithium) to recycling points.
- Propped succulents freecycled.
- Gave the spiraea its annual haircut.
- That one species of plant which gives me mild contact dermatitis was growing through along the cracks in the main garden path, and competing with my beloved creeping thyme, but I remembered to weed it out just before I had a bath to minimise my reaction. Also removed half a dozen sycamore and ash tree saplings that had eluded me earlier this year.
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
1. Have you ever stayed in a hostel? If so, where? Did you like it? If you haven't stayed in a hostel, would you?

Yes, stayed in many YHA youth hostels in women's dorms when I was younger. Some better than others in facilities or location but all excellent in price. I stopped because the people using them changed and I was no longer safe as a solo traveller. I was unlucky to be booked into a large dorm in the Lake District with the remainder of the dorm filled by one group of white middle-class women who decided to harass me. As it was my last night, and a Bank Holiday weekend so I knew there wouldn't be any alternative accommodation available nearby, I ignored them and went to bed early. I was subsequently "accidentally" kicked and trodden on several times. In the morning they got up early so I pretended I was asleep until they'd gone down to breakfast, then packed up to leave and have breakfast elsewhere. By the time I got downstairs they'd complained to the hostel warden and everyone else about me (don't know what lies they made-up) so everyone glared at me while the young warden, who was clearly relieved I was leaving and he wouldn't have to sort out a dispute, escorted me to the door. I'll emphasise that was my one and only negative experience in years of using many YHA hostels and was balanced out by many positive experiences, temporary friendships, safety in the companionship of other women travellers, and helpful wardens.

ETA: But if I'd grown up in a time and place where everybody had cameras in their pockets and immediate access to harassment via online posting then I probably wouldn't have risked hostel dorms, just for the record.
 
2. What is your favourite airport that you've been to? Why? 

Airports? No, thank you! Railway stations provide an endless variety of fabulousness though: architectural delights, public art, trains (most recently one with Paddington Bear on the side), and that atmosphere of humans in purposeful motion (outside depressing commuter hours, obv). Don't recall any notably good bus stations.
 
3. What is the best museum you have visited on vacation?

Recently? Plas Mawr. But I love almost all museums, especially the small quirky local ones about a single subject or obviously mostly run by one dedicated soul. The most unexpectedly good museum was the Cumberland Pencil Museum, now the Derwent Pencil Museum, that I was dragged to by friends. The best Big Day Out was the Black Country Living Museum. And my childhood fave was the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, which in those days was basically a bunch of slightly random old farm buildings I enjoyed playing in with my family (also my introduction to the concept of the garderobe, lol).
 
4. Have you ever made friends while traveling whom you keep in touch with on a regular basis?

Pre-internet I met an Aussie woman in a Youth Hostel in England who was my holiday BFF for a couple of days and we kept in touch by letter when she went to live in Sweden. Then she came over to London for a few days so we went to the theatre together to see the Rocky Horror Show, lol. Then she joined a Christian commune and we lost touch.
And a couple of lesbians from Yorkshire invited me to stay with them after I rescued them from a spider in the YHA hostel in Boscastle.
But best of all are the BFFs for a day: people you meet and share perfect hours with then never see again. My first ever cup of Lapsang Souchong was a gift from an older solo traveller from New Zealand who had camped near my home village as a Girl Guide and was the only person I've met away from there who knew where it was. Or even random strangers who poke their noses into my life to share their local knowledge with a passing visitor, such as the White Van Man in central London who stopped and crossed three lanes of traffic to tell me the bus stop I was waiting at was in a temporary diversion and I needed to walk around the corner to a different stop.

5. Have you ever had a conversation with a seatmate on a plane?

No, but on trains and buses, yes. Especially, to repeat myself, kind people sharing their local knowledge with a passing visitor. Cardiff commuter woman saved me several minutes of potential frustration by explaining the layout of Cardiff Central Station and where the back exit is. And on a train I once reassured a man leading a group walk he had prepared using a map and google earth that there was indeed an extremely unlikely set of stairs where he needed them to be and his group wouldn't have to detour a long way around.
The most recent was on my way back from North Wales when a woman carrying a balloon animal sat next to me, and I eventually asked her if she'd twisted it herself as I'd only ever seen them made by street entertainers at the seaside, and she explained that her party were travelling home from the seaside where they'd acquired the pale pink quadruped of dubious species.

6. Et vous?
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
Emboldened by drinking Iron Tusk (the Oort Cloud Mariner was off), and feeling metal as a sidequence, I have unwisely decided to share my thoughts on the tendency to handmaidenly self-sacrifice: if you see me walking down the street, try not to cry each time we meet, just scroll on by....

Warning for oblique mention of suicide by self-sacrifice.

I was thinking about places we tour as spectators, as differentiated from times and places we might choose to live in.

Which in turn led me to wonder about fandom, and how much human behaviour has or hasn't been modified by the wider availability of (more-or-less accurate) information through mass media.

For example, many human cultures used to indulge in the supposedly voluntary mass sacrifice of young people at the death and burial of a cultural idol. Not only a loving partner, whose motive might be more understandable to us, but also multiple handmaidens (of any sex/gender). And I'm sitting here idly wondering if such spectacular "high status" (i.e. resource-hoarding) funerals were still de rigueur in our contemporary global cross-culture then how many young women would want to sacrifice themselves as a public display of grief at the death of a mass media idol or in the belief they'd accompany him to an enticing afterlife (as historically it was usually hims - or perhaps we have achieved equality of exploitation)? Would being one amongst hundreds or thousands of ghostly handmaidens, instead of a select few, encourage or discourage potential victims of self-sacrifice? Would their families and societies encourage or discourage them from joining the ghostly horde / hoard?

What about young warriors sacrificing themselves en masse at the funerals of their dead idols? As far as I know there isn't even a fashion for mass sacrificing virtual gaming characters to honour a fallen leader....

When did humanity change its mind about this previously widespread fashion for terminal self-sacrifice and why? Or is it merely better disguised now as millions willingly throw their lives onto the pyres of billionaires? I dunno, but I am interested in whether a fashion for young people to mass sacrifice themselves for a dead idol could ever return.

Today's Adventures

Aug. 15th, 2025 09:31 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] flaneurs
Today we went out to Mattoon, Illinois in search of evening farmer's markets.

Read more... )
spiralsheep: Sheep wearing an eyepatch (Default)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
- Art, or whatever: Still loving the GIANT mechanical bull named Ozzy (lol) taking up almost the whole concourse at Birmingham New Street railway station. When I passed he had purple eyes and was swinging his mighty head from side to side. Non sequitur: I recall the last Ozzy I saw at New St was a tram, lol.
Ozzy: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/7555438

- Lexicophilia: I love the marketing slogan for the Wolverhampton Canalside development: "Bostin ay it".

- There's no pleasing some people: there was a baby boy about a year old on the bus and he said, "Mama!", which we were told by his excited mother was his first word. The passengers reacted by applauding and cheering and waving their arms in the air (ltjdc). The little boy stared at us in horror for a minute or two then burst out crying and yelling in protest. He'll probably never speak again after being traumatised by our loving encouragement, lol.

- There's gno place like gnHome: I noticed a corner plot garden in suburban Llandudno with the road sign feet actually inside the boundary wall and the homeowner had taken the opportunity to surround the sign with an army of unusually large but otherwise traditional garden gnomes. Fantastic.

- What goes around comes around: I found a £1 coin on the pavement and later paid a boy's 75p bus fare because his mum claimed she didn't have any money (although she did have four massive market bags of what appeared to be shopping). The bus driver probably wished I hadn't as she then tried to stay on the bus beyond the end of the route. And, yes, she kept the 25p change and neither she nor her son offered me a word of thanks (not that I require any).
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/128: A Memoir of my Former Self — Hilary Mantel
You can control and censor a child’s reading, but you can’t control her interpretations; no one can guess how a message that to adults seems banal or ridiculous or outmoded will alter itself and evolve inside the darkness of a child’s heart. [loc. 5001]

A selection of Mantel's short non-fiction, ranging from book reviews (originally published in the New York Review of Books) and film reviews (originally published in the Spectator), through articles about writing and reading, to a delightful review of perfumes and a piece about stationery. ('...comrades, the hard-spined notebook is death to free thought. Pocket-size or desk-size, it drives the narrative in one direction, one only, and its relentless linearity oppresses you, so you seal off your narrative options early.' [loc. 5349]... I, with my plethora of discbound notebooks, wholeheartedly agree.) 

Read more... )
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/127: The Haunting of Hill House — Shirley Jackson
“I could say,” Eleanor put in, smiling, “‘All three of you are in my imagination; none of this is real.’”
“If I thought you could really believe that,” the doctor said gravely, “I would turn you out of Hill House this morning. You would be venturing far too close to the state of mind which would welcome the perils of Hill House with a kind of sisterly embrace.” [loc. 1870]

Reread, for comparison to A Haunting on the Hill: my original review from 2016 is here.

Read more... )

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