resembles nonfiction Archives - Page 3 of 19 - Egregious

sara reads the feed

New normalcy, laws changing for good or ill, amoral aerospace

2024-03-21 /

It’s been something like nine weeks since I became sober-sober (rather than California sober) and I’m starting to feel pretty normal. It comes and goes, but I think I feel normal more often than I don’t.

I’m progressing on one of my outstanding publishing projects, Fated for Firelizards. I’d hoped to get back to publishing chapters at the end of February, but now it’s looking more like April. I’m getting there, though. Theoretically I could publish a chapter this week, but I’m not confident I’d have the next chapters in time for all the remaining weeks, so I’m just waiting until it’s done-done to get back to publishing.

Making any progress at a time when my kids are around me *constantly* is impressive on two fronts. I can only work on a porny project when I’m away from them, for one. Being able to mark out time for myself is difficult but I’m doing it little bits at a time. It’s also impressive because normally unpredictable schedules wreck me, and my little guy has been sick.

I think I’m probably going to get back to Atop the Trees after this and try to put out a finished project, if only to get it off my plate for a while. I still wanna do a sequel. I don’t really care about the publishing status of the first one anymore.

~

The first dude in the UK is going to prison for sending unsolicited dick pics to people, including a 15yo girl. (WaPo) Gotta say, if all the guys who sent unsolicited dicks to me when I was underage (and everyone underage I knew) were going to jail, jails would be stuffed full of guys with ugly dicks.

~

Nations meant to be supporting Ukraine are still importing Russian titanium for aerospace uses. (WaPo)

Roughly 15,000 tons of titanium worth $370 million were exported by VSMPO in 2022, the vast majority of it sent to Western nations that supported Ukraine, according to the export database, with Germany, France, the United States and Britain topping the list. VSMPO, which essentially is a monopoly in Russia, then exported at least $345 million in titanium in 2023, according to more-limited data for that year seen by The Post. […]
In a statement, Boeing said it now “sources titanium predominantly in the U.S.”

Major suppliers for Boeing have continued purchasing Russian titanium, however.

~

The Yurok will be managing 125 acres of their land alongside the National Park Service. (The Guardian) That is a small portion of the land that was taken from the Yurok by American colonizers in the 1800s, but it’s an unprecedented return of land management. We will not see more of this if the American election changes presidential leadership this year.

Reparative efforts remain so important. As one example of ongoing difficulties, there is a rapid rise in congenital syphilis connected to poor prenatal care available to Native nations. (NPR) It’s hitting other populations too, but not as dramatically.

~

Anime classic The End of Evangelion has returned to theaters. Here’s an interesting read on what differentiates it from other mech suit stories. (Gretchen Felker-Martin on Patreon)

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Morels are one of the most coveted edible mushrooms found in gourmet foods. An outbreak of sickness (with two deaths) in Montana was connected to eating sushi rolls with morels in them. (Ars Technica) Some of the symptoms sound like what happens when you just eat raw mushrooms. The chitin isn’t digestible by humans. Simply eating raw mushies in volume can cause diarrhea and vomiting like that. But that doesn’t sound like the only factor at hand here. They’re having a hard time figuring out exactly what happened.

I was kinda surprise the morels were sourced from China. I don’t know much about the mushroom economy, but I know that American foragers often sell directly to restaurants too. America has a hard time scaling our consumption to what we can actually produce, and this doesn’t exclude mushrooms, I guess.

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Washington Post has an article about former President Trump’s relationship with age-related mental issues. He’s been quite scared of it since his father got Alzheimer’s. Now he’s using it like a political cudgel against Biden.

Trump’s father’s condition also drove a wedge into his family, which fell into years of lawsuits that alleged in part that Donald Trump sought to take advantage of his father’s dementia to wrest control of the family estate — litigation that introduced reams of medical records detailing Fred Trump Sr.’s condition.
[…]

Trump arranged for a lawyer to write an amendment called a codicil giving him control over the estate and to protect his inheritance from creditors. He then had two of his father’s most trusted associates deliver it to Fred Trump Sr. as if it were a formality. But Trump’s mother, Mary MacLeod Trump, forbade Trump’s father from signing it immediately. Trump’s sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, later said in a deposition that her father didn’t like how the effort to change the will was being done “behind his back.”

Trump later admitted in a deposition that he hoped the gambit would rescue him from financial problems by giving him significant control over the estate. “It was a very bad period of time and if for any reason I was not able to come out of this well, then this would be giving me a trust to protect” his inheritance, Trump said.

I’m not surprised to hear of his attempts at elder abuse. This man has always been deeply screwed up, loveless, without loyalty. It feels like a bit of a coda to that phase of his life to try weaponizing it against his opponent.

This article seems likely published because Trump’s father’s condition was heritable, and cognitive function remains a major issue in the election.

~

BookRiot shares ten urban fantasy series to read. I don’t know about “fresh” exactly (it’s advertising InCryptid and The Hollows, which are two quite old series) but there’s some recs in there that look good!

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Lawyers, Guns, & Money notes that perception of crime is high as ever, while actual crime rates are low as ever.

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He’s not unproblematic, but Ewan McGregor has a good point about the function of intimacy coordinators. (Variety) It’s not just about an actor’s comfort and safety. In the case of McGregor and his wife performing together, he points out that it helps with the comfort of the entire crew. There’s a lotta people impacted by filming s

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The American federal government is trying to ban menthol in nicotine products. The tobacco industry is responding by making a simulated menthol that feels the same to consumers while skirting the law’s letter. (NPR) Bans like these have a real, marked effect on consumption of nicotine. My citation on this is totally apocryphal though. I know that flavor bans and federal laws limiting how nicotine is distributed was a major influence on how quickly I quit smoking myself. I have heard from others that it impacts them too. When you consider this industry makes all its money off addiction, it’s hard to see their efforts as anything but preying upon addicts (though addicts feel well-served by efforts to keep their fav flavors in stock).

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The Justice Department is going after Apple for their walled garden. (Engadget) I will need to be convinced this is a good idea. I like my Apple products specifically for the walled garden. You pay a premium in part because you will have a very predictable experience with the hardware and software. The versatility of other platforms has, in my experience, meant instability, vulnerability, and loads of headaches.

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Musk’s TSFKA Twitter banned accounts that named Stonetoss (Ars Technica), a notorious Neo-Nazi comic artist. It seems like Stonetoss is reluctant for everyone to know that he is Hans Kristian Graebener from Spring, Texas. Not just a Neo-Nazi, but one who doesn’t want to actually have his face and name beside his hateful works. No surprise Flanmunk was on his side. “Freedom of speech for me, not for thee” or however it goes.

~

Talk about guts: A filmmaker in Russia released a very successful adaptation of The Master and Margarita, which is a criticism of authoritarianism. Putin doesn’t seem to like it very much. (Vanity Fair) Art persists.

Comment

Sara Reine

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I think I’ve written this post before, but here I go again. Venting about nuance.

2024-03-20 /
I find it very frustrating when I write out long, nuanced stuff, and then people respond with hostility to some little snippet of it without reading the rest. Like they React and then they think that Reaction should be my problem, without actually investing any effort into anything except Being Hostile.

It is normal to respond to things with your wounds first. I do this a lot. I have to be really careful engaging with people about some things (especially publishing). What I encounter the most is misogynists. If you’re a misogynist, you’re going to respond to any content that is vaguely feminist with your broken assumptions about women, and you’re going to explode over really anything I say without recognizing the nuance. That is normal. That doesn’t mean you should do it.

Disagreement is cool. Misreading (or not reading at all!) and then being hostile is uncool. It’s not hard to tell the difference between people engaging in good faith and those who aren’t. If you’re not, why engage at all?

The impulse is to stop writing long, nuanced things, except…that’s not interesting to me. So instead I tell people to fuck all the way off and block them. I am not thrilled with that response. But if they’re not making effort with me, they get my crabby low-effort side too.

Saying Nothing is always a great option.

There’s a rule of three I find personally helpful to consider when choosing to respond to someone:
- Does this need to be said?
- Does this need to be said right now?
- Does this need to be said right now by me?
The internet provides casual access to a lot of conversations I (or you, broadly) don’t need to be part of at any given moment. Access doesn’t mean entitlement to engage. Some people seem *terribly* offended by the idea that every last thought of theirs isn’t worthy to share, but if you feel that way, you should really interrogate it. Everyone has something important to say. But not on everything, everywhere, all at once.

~

People also seem to misunderstand my critical reviews a lot. There is a lot of all-or-nothing thinking. Surely if I’m criticizing a movie’s reflection of society (for example), then I mean that I hate it, and I’m attacking it, and I’m saying it’s bad or whatever. They get defensive! You would not believe the defensive reactions I get when I criticize a movie that someone loves in particular.

I love movies. I love Film and Cinema. I love Stories! The fact I love Cinema and Stories means I can extract enjoyment out of movies that Aren’t For Me through analysis. Analysis is not inherently meant to be an insult — I will say “full insult” or “insult intended” when I mean it that way, and sometimes I do! Analysis is just a process of dissecting a story to look at all its mechanical-emotional parts, which is great fun.

The truth is that I very seldom hate movies. I hated The Proposal (2009) and outlined why exactly, but that’s the only example I can even recall off the top of my head. If you look at my Letterboxd account, I heavily skew toward five-star reviews. I almost always think that a movie has some value to it.

Yet people think I’m being scathing when I point out Irish Wish (2024) was made with grossly conservative values. Did y’all miss the part where I gave it three stars? How I love Lindsay Lohan’s performance? Very little in this world is entirely one thing. I’m living in a country run by conservatives. It hasn’t escaped my notice. I still manage to enjoy myself all the time, and find valuable things to do, but I don’t do it by ignoring the gross stuff. I can point out the hostility of things and just…leave it at that.

I’ve even been telling folks that Poor Things might be worth watching for them (and I thought the story was garbage at its basic concept). For every review I’ve seen with a disabled person revolted by it, I’ve seen others who found it relatable for very similar reasons.

There is ample space for a spectrum of reactions to anything. These reactions are mine. Why does it hurt you? The movie’s not your bff, it’s not paying your bills, and I’m not even attacking it.

Before responding to me with frankly absurd assertions — like thinking my reaction to Poor Things implies only men like sex, when you’re talking to *me*, of all people — you could just stop and wonder, “Does this need to be said by me right now?” And then don’t do it. If you’ve got stuff to get off your chest, go write your own blog. Or get therapy.

~

I often hear how the internet isn’t a space for nuance. To that I ask, what is?

Have you tried talking to your extended family lately? Do you get to have nuanced conversations with them?

How about your coworkers? Your neighbors?

Is it in the newspaper?

What about academia? And if it is, who gets to access it?

Is there just no room for nuance anywhere?

Should we reduce everything to sound bites, quotes, propaganda posters, one-frame cartoons, headlines?

Where do the nuanced conversations happen? Sincerely, where? I have limited social connections in real life. I don’t have a full perspective on this. If you’d like to point me toward something accessible for a person with my limitations where I can actually get thoughtful engagement, definitely let me know, because right now it seems like there is no room for nuance anywhere.

The internet definitely makes this effect worse — or at least, social media does, with its algorithmic censorship and limited post length. Yet it also should make it possible for longer-format thoughts to reach one another. We have the tools. We have the technology. The choice to be reductive for the sake of SEO or what-have-you is definitely a choice.

As I write this, I’m looking at the “excerpt” box in WordPress and chuckling to myself. I’m going to have to produce a little blurby-doo for overlaying upon a graphic, as I do with every post.

I know I’ve written posts like this before. I think it gets whinier every time. “Why do I have to deal with reactive randos everywhere I go? Why is everything all-or-nothing? Where is the alternative?” Maybe I should just get it on a bumper sticker. But hey, if I can’t complain about this stuff on my own blog, then where do I do it eh?
Comment

Sara Reine

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Bad climate news (as usual), magical stingray baby, less-valued human babies

2024-03-19 /

It sucks how email newsletters are intended for regular email marketing. If you don’t do the whole constant mass email thing, you’re at risk of losing accounts/access/emails. It’s really stressful for me now that I don’t publish all that often and don’t want to abuse my email list. But I need to keep the email list. I have to have something. And that means remembering to check in so I don’t lose stuff. Really frustrating.

I had a big stress meltdown today because my account got shut down at my mailing list provider. My credit card expired and they decided to get rid of the free version of accounts around the same time. They sent a couple warning emails to an email I normally have no reason to check. This is also when I’m rehabbing to become Sober-Sober, so I’m mostly focusing on myself anyway. And I haven’t looked at anything related to that in…a long time.

It’s not that it isn’t my fault, really. And I can’t blame the provider all that much. I won’t blame them at all if they can hook me back up with all my emails and stuff.

Luckily I did have a recent backup of that list. Once I found that, my blood pressure regained normality. But I don’t know what I’m going to go for mass emails in the future. I seriously only need to send like twenty thousand emails once or twice a year, at most. It’s been less lately. But without that, I do not have a publishing business at all, period.

This business could kill me with the pulses of panic, I tell you.

~

Siblingito Rory has been reading the magnum opus of my 30s lately (Atop the Trees, Beneath the Mountains) and they’re literally the only audience I care about. I’m so pumped.

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NYTimes talks about the impact of covid lockdowns on wildlife populations.

Carnivores, such as wolves and bobcats, appeared to be highly sensitive to people, showing the largest drop-off in activity when human activity ramped up. “Carnivores, especially larger carnivores, have this long history of, you can say, antagonism with people,” Dr. Burton said. “The consequences for a carnivore of bumping into people or getting too close to people often has meant death.”

On the flip side, the activity of large herbivores, such as deer and moose, increased when humans were out and about. That could be because the animals simply had to move more to avoid the throngs of people. But if people help keep the carnivores at bay, that could also make it safer for the herbivores to come out and play.

“Herbivores tend to be a little less fearful of people, and they may actually use them as a shield from carnivores,” said Dr. Tucker, who praised the study’s authors for being “able to disentangle all these different human impacts.”

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Charlotte the Stingray’s Immaculate Conception has spurred business activity in the town. Everyone wants to see Charlotte’s baby. (NPR)

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The original creator of The Crow does not approve of the remake. He wants it to remain Brandon Lee’s legacy. (Variety)

A lot of people aren’t keen on this remake. I am neutral, with respect for how emotionally complicated it must be for the people originally involved. Grief is so complicated. I wonder if the crew and cast ever got the support they needed to move through the trauma — or if it’s even possible to move through such a thing.

My thought with remakes is always like, if you don’t want the remake, don’t watch it? It won’t touch the original. You can just ignore it. It’s gotta be way more difficult for people directly impacted though.

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The Mongolian winters have become much worse. Livestock is dying off at horrifying rates. (AJE) The Red Cross has issued an appeal.

At least 2,250 herder families have lost more 70 percent of their livestock, as this year’s dzud blankets grazing lands in deep snow and ice, according to the Red Cross, and there are predictions many more animals will be unable to survive the next few weeks.

In other climate news, we’re looking at a record-hot summer. (AJE)

Also, more than 150 trees in Washington DC have to go thanks to rising water levels. (NPR)

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In a tale of two countries within America — where healthcare rights are somewhat accessible, and where it is not — Louisiana is having a rising crisis in pregnancy care. (NPR)

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Steam is adding more helpful features to the family sharing options. (Engadget) We’re a big gamer family so this helps.

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Eric McCormack talks about being a straight guy playing gay. He uses the line about how actors always play people who aren’t themselves. (Deadline)

Not to respond to him directly — this is an attitude across the industry — but I feel this always misses the point. It’s not about who plays what. It’s about who has opportunities. Marginalized groups should be able to play characters depicting that marginalization; they do not get cast equally across all roles. Aside from a single sketch, I don’t see Bowen Yang getting cast as straight guys, for instance. Eric McCormack can play gay OR straight, you know?

He did do a fine job with the character; I’ve got no complaints. The conversation from this angle just feels painfully clueless, and I keep hearing it again, and again, and…

Comment

Sara Reine

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essays, movies, writing

Say Less: 4 Lessons for Writers from Willy’s Wonderland (2021)

2024-03-18 /

Have I ever told you about one of my favorite good-bad movies, Willy’s Wonderland?

Willy’s Wonderland is essentially an unlicensed Five Nights at Freddy’s-like horror movie. If you don’t know FNAF, you probably know Chuck E Cheese. It’s a family restaurant and arcade with animatronic mascots for entertainment. In both FNAF and Willy’s Wonderland, the animatronics are evil murderers.

Willy’s Wonderland is one of those movies that isn’t good, but it’s kinda great: you won’t be scared by the horror content, but you’ll laugh, and the central performance from Nicolas Cage is one of his good ones. You’re never sure which version of Nicolas Cage you’re going to get. Here, he’s flawless.

What makes Nicolas Cage so excellent is the fact his character has no dialogue. I’m not talking minimal dialogue like Mandy (2018). I mean, none. Reportedly, Cage agreed to do the movie only if they cut his dialogue completely.

You’d think it’s a weird choice for the big-name star playing a hero to keep his mouth shut through a film, but I’m convinced that’s the only reason Willy’s Wonderland is any good.

There’s a great history of low-dialogue characters across media. Gordon Freeman from Half-Life and Chell from Portal are notorious for their silence. One of Jack Reacher’s most common lines of narrative (not dialogue) is “Reacher said nothing.” I’ve used this myself: In my Descent/Ascension Series, Elise Kavanagh is someone whose dialogue is heavily limited to increase mystique.

You can learn a lot about writing from Willy’s Wonderland.

Lesson One: You don’t actually need character back story.

Since Nicolas Cage can’t tell us what’s on his mind, or where he came from, we can only make guesses. His hero reacts to the horrifying situations without hesitation. What kind of man doesn’t seem to care about murderous animatronics on a job site? Over the course of the movie, Cage’s commitment to doing the agreed-upon job despite peril gives you the impression of Willy’s Wonderland accidentally hiring John Wick.

By showing what he hates (bad work/life balance) and what he loves (his soda and a pinball machine), you get a strong impression of a sentimental but practical man who is a bit of a jaded, overgrown child with a hard life. It’s mounds better than anything the dialogue would have been capable of delivering, as evidenced by the back story everyone else shares.

Give your audience some credit: Write less dialogue, and write less explicit back story. Events can do the heavy lifting.

Lesson Two: Quiet characters provide opportunities for contrast.

You can contrast a quiet character to more talkative characters, sure. That’s the most obvious utility. If you’re writing for fiction, where it’s a massive wall of text, distinguishing characters can be different; contrasting how much dialogue they use is a simple-but-effective way of delineating them.

You can also contrast the character’s different emotional states to create a more dynamic narrative landscape. It builds punchlines into the narrative. You can’t help but laugh and get excited when the janitor tears into his animatronic foes.

It’s shocking when the Janitor goes from working with his head down into a violent, roaring rage, beating the crap out of his attackers. The energy level of the film is also naturally improved simply by going from longer silent periods with occasional action, to a lot of action with less quiet.

Lesson Three: Bolster your writing weak spots by working around them.

The dialogue other characters have in Willy’s Wonderland is…not a highlight. Every single line could have been cut back dramatically. Nothing can go unstated, the actors struggle with long sentences, and little room is given for emotional displays that aren’t shouted at one another. So much of it is simply unnecessary.

That isn’t to say the writing is all bad, though! The good in Willy’s Wonderland is general plot structure, the concept, and the heroic character. It’s simply fun to watch. One little edit (silencing the hero) took this from labored to a delight.

When you’re writing, you can choose to bolster the stuff you’re good at and mostly skip over the stuff you’re bad at, too.

Where are your weaknesses? If your dialogue isn’t strong, you might find yourself focusing on plot…which is what I tend to do. On the other hand, if you’re great at dialogue, maybe you want to enhance that at the cost of narrative. Play to your strengths! It’s your story.

Lesson Four: Don’t drag everything out.

Willy’s Wonderland is a brisk 1.5 hours long. Much like the hero, it shows up, does its job, and leaves.

The story begins when Cage’s hero arrives in town. His work-life balance in this flick is legendary; he walks away from active fights when it’s time to take a break. In the morning, he clears out of town promptly, and that’s where the movie ends.

My favorite writing advice I’ve received is “Enter the scene late, leave the scene early.” Willy’s Wonderland and its Janitor both exemplify this rule perfectly. It keeps things punchy, focuses on the delightful strengths, and doesn’t blow out its back dragging things out for an extra twenty minutes on the reel.

Even though this campy, low-budget ripoff of a kids’ horror game isn’t “good,” the choices the team made transformed it into an outstanding delight of infinite rewatchability. You can take these lessons into your writing, whatever your format. When you find yourself struggling with a scene, try asking yourself: “What would Willy’s Wonderland do?”

(image credit: Screen Media Films)

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Sara Reine

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Spring in my step and outside, business talk, and frisson (or lack thereof)

2024-03-18 /

I’m starting to feel a bit better (finally!). I’ve been writing almost every day (albeit not much) and taking care to move more. Seeing how my blood pressure spiked after quitting cannabis has motivated me to make my heart stronger. I’m walking more, trying to do yoga stretches, and just generally avoiding hours-long sessions in my cozy rocking chair.

Thing is, I’m not sure my life will change dramatically if I’m feeling better. The world is different these days, and I am too. Every time I go out to do something I’m shocked by the prices. It just doesn’t seem reasonable, anywhere, for anything. But there isn’t a ton you can do in my area if you aren’t outdoorsy and don’t want to spend money. I guess I will go back to the library? Actually, the library sounds really good.

Alas, my little Sunshine is sick, and I have both spring and summer breaks approaching. My time is not mine right now.

I’m okay with that too. My kids will be 10 and 14 this year, and it occurs to me that I just don’t have much time left with my kids as kids. With an end to This Phase in sight, I feel very comfortable deciding to mostly focus on being with them when they want me.

Our home is still a really fun place to be since the pandemic anyway. We have no shortage of plants, puzzles, books, games, pets, and virtual reality. There’s family in ~2mi walking distance. We didn’t really choose to hunker down in 2020, but at this point, hunkering down has become so pleasant.

~

Traffic on Egregious has ticked up a wee bit. If I get actual traffic outside my bubble, the site is getting flushed down the toilet. I always threatened this with my Twitter account and it remained obscure. I now apply this rule here.

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Psyche connects that tingle-down-the-spine feeling with alleviating depression symptoms, but notes it can only help so much because not everyone gets it. I realized I don’t get that feeling anymore…not in any dramatic noticeable way. I wonder why.

~

Engadget: YouTube lays out new rules for ‘realistic’ AI-generated videos. I really don’t think this is because they care about integrity, but because they want to keep AI content out of data sets for training AI.

~

Private capital successfully ransacked JoAnn’s (NPR), which (as a crocheter) I know to be doing just fine. As the article itself says, most stores have positive cashflow. They’re squeezing more value out of it by going bankrupt and keeping the stores open. Normal American nonsense.

~

Ars Technica: The US government seems serious about developing a lunar economy. I used to love this kind of idea. Now that I’m old and jaded, I mostly see this as ransacking a treasure that belongs to the whole world. One of my most persistent fears has become someone/some entity changing the Moon in a way that we can see from Earth.

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Al Jazeera reports on a new study about Havana Syndrome, which continues to suggest no brain damage in the sufferers. I am so curious what Havana Syndrome is. Theories abound, but so far, we mostly know the symptoms are real and sucky and we can’t find an origin.

~

Anne Hathaway’s movie with Nicholas Galitzine is getting audiences all riled up. (Variety) It looks kinda terrible in the way I might enjoy. I might have to watch it peeking through my fingers if the cringe is too strong. I mean, it’s Harry Styles fanfic!

Nicholas Galitzine is one of my favorite younger actors working right now. His choices are so interesting, and he’s always fun to watch. Although now I say that, I looked up his age…he’s twenty-nine. I guess he’s one of those guys who just tends to play younger, since I keep seeing him in Young Guy roles.

~

Apologies for the paywalled site, but Kacey Musgraves is around my age (mid-30s) and has also quit smoking weed. (The Cut) It’s always funny to me how closely I track to general trends in the population. I’m often so disconnected from everyone and everything, you’d think I’d be on my own trajectory. Nope. Maybe quitting weed for a while is just a mid-30s thing.

~

EmptyWheel talks about all the ways Ireland has been changing, in ways that sound mostly for the better. I love hearing about a diverse and radical Ireland.

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NPR’s Goats and Soda section (?!) has a genuinely interesting article about how Coca-Cola made itself feel “local” to Africa.

~

I don’t really follow Doctor Who, but I love Ncuti Gatwa every time I see him. So I will share the info that his first season of Doctor Who will premiere in May. (TSFKA Tor dot com)

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My tick-hating kids will be delighted to hear that humans are getting an anti-tick pill (Ars Technica), much like the tick pill for pet critters.

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Maybe Zuckerberg hasn’t had his fill of making countries dance to his song? Meta is killing its misinformation analysis tool in mid-August, just in time for the American presidential election. (Ars Technica)

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Book Riot shares eleven memoirs by trans and nonbinary authors.

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2024-03-13 /

My life is pretty boring right now. I’m mostly just sitting around being available to my kids when they need me, aggregating information about the outside world, ignoring mealybugs on my plants, getting wrist pain from crocheting, drawing silly cartoons, and Having A Lot of Opinions.

I’d still normally have interesting things to say about that, but lowering my caffeine intake has really kicked my butt. If you’re bored about hearing how I am not Getting Anything Done because of multiple successive withdrawals, don’t worry. I’m bored of experiencing it. This crap takes months.

Plus all these substances are how I’ve self-medicated my neurocognitive issues, so everything I know about Getting Stuff Done In That Condition is useless to me now. I have to relearn like. everything. again.

~

I’ve been banging on the “power companies are going to kill us all” drum ever since the Camp Fire in Paradise, California killed so many people, thanks to PG&E’s unmaintained infrastructure. That was over five years ago now. I wrote a book partially inspired by it called “His Memory in Ashes.” Anyway, the huge Texas panhandle fire this year was…drumroll please…caused by unmaintained infrastructure from the power company. (NPR) This is gonna keep happening. There has been no political willpower to fix it and the people with money don’t wanna.

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NPR published the most selfish article about how a wife’s desire to have Her Old Life Back is equally (or more) important as her high risk husband’s desire to mask against COVID. You know what, lady? I bet he’d like to have his old life back too. A lot of us would. Public health doesn’t matter to America. We would rather just let people die and be disabled so that people like you can fuck around with the illusion of having Your Old Life Back.

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In ongoing “Community is a great show that had the most absolutely toxic work environment possibly ever” news, Joel McHale reports he once dislocated Chevy Chase’s shoulder in a scuffle. (Variety) I’m sure nobody was sad he did that, but even so.

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BookRiot recommended Black Paradox by Junji Ito. I haven’t read that one so I’m gonna pick it up.

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Cosmopolitan talks about the human rights violations of child labor in influencer families (my phrasing, not theirs).

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You know I can’t resist Weird Organism Stories so here’s an Ars Technica piece about how cicadas pee in jets instead of droplets. Amazing!

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Ars Technica also reports on Air Pods Pro possibly getting “hearing aid” mode, which is cool. I actually use the “aware” mode on my noise-cancelling headphones (I have both Apple and Bose) to limit the amount of auditory input I receive from the world, which is kinda the opposite thing, but I already think of them as accessibility devices is the point here.

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A private space rocket launched in Japan exploded seconds after leaving the launching pad. Bummer for the company, but awesome for those of us who like to watch explosions. (AJE)

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Colbert’s studio didn’t want him to show KStew’s Rolling Stone cover. (Variety) The heteros really just can’t handle the raw sexual power of gender fuckery. They’re so weak.

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Netflix is putting Jennifer Lopez in a mecha suit. I’m so happy. (TSFKA Tor dot com)

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A company is gonna try mining helium-3 from lunar regolith. (Ars Technica) There’s nothing humans won’t try to exploit, even our Moon.

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Lawyers, Guns, and Money shared a good chunk of an interesting NYMag article about gender/sex. NYMag is paywalled, so the LGM link is the one I’m sharing.

Comment

Sara Reine

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Rory Links

Rory’s links #4: Institutional rot

2024-03-12 /

One of my biggest lifelong Roman Empires is the British Royal Family. I’m hardly unique amongst elder millennials whose moms loved Princess Diana and hated Camilla; Diana’s death was a big moment in my tween years. I paid attention to the major happenings for a while—I mean, I watched Will and Kate’s wedding live—but it wasn’t until The Crown aired and Harry and Meghan’s mistreatment went super public that I realized the depths of the institution’s rot. I made a concerted effort to follow the royals the year leading up to Queen Elizabeth’s death because I could tell that was impending, and I’ve been watching stories somewhat closely ever since.

That means I was ready for this year, and all the speculation around Kate (and Charles-William to a lesser degree).

To start this linkspam, I really recommend this Nieman Lab piece from a former Buzzfeed News royal reporter. To understand the BRF, you have to understand how symbiotically parasitic the BRF-royal rota relationship is, and this article breaks it down beautifully in context with recent gossip on and briefings about Kate Middleton. There’s also a timeline of events from the end of December through March 6th, if you’re wondering about the specific current events.

You also have to understand that, while the BRF will make moves similar to influencers, they’re a major branch in the UK’s political system. It’s why four major news agency pulled a Kate-and-kids family photo posted for UK Mother’s Day after it was determined the photo editing didn’t meet journalistic standards. Will and Kate have long edited their family pictures—this Tiktok has a really good examination of past Photoshop fails all the way back to when Charlotte was a baby. The approach is one thing if you’re an actor or you’re selling something. When your next head of state is pulling this as apparent proof-of-life for his missing wife (and throwing her under the bus after), that’s something else.

None of this answers what’s actually going on with Kate. The likely answer is probably some variation of the stated one, that she had a major health incident and hasn’t been up to public work. There are other theories both related to this and unrelated that have varying levels of credence, and maybe we’ll find out some of them are true. I personally find it less interesting than why this is so big now: basic lack of institutional competence has eroded public trust (for good reason!), and Charles wanting to hoard more money by slimming down working royals is blowing up in his face big time. The only people out there doing engagements—which are showy busy work at best most of the time, but vital to the monarchy’s survival—aren’t getting press or cameras. Kensington Palace, which should be taking up the bulk of the work in the face of Charles’s cancer treatments, has terrible comms strategies, making blunders minor celebrities with common sense would never go near. It’s a complete trainwreck.

Maybe this specific event will fizzle out in another couple months, and will mostly be forgotten by the end of the year. But I have seen nothing that convinces me that Buckingham or Kensington Palace have the endurance to keep up what they’re doing in the long term, or that they will learn from this. They haven’t yet.

A few links I enjoyed from the last monthish of the newsletter She’s a Beast (I think, a couple might have come from other newsletters):

A journalist tried resume spamming bots, with some level of success. Just another one of those feeling-glum-about-capitalism days.

Sports bras can restrict your breathing. I use sports bras as soft binding for gender reasons sometimes, so I wasn’t super surprised by this. The study in question seems to suggest that problems arise mostly during hard exercise and because bras get picked while people are at rest and not during most intense physical activity. Not sure how the average person should solve this one.

On boring problems: an essay considering the way problems change depending on age. Approaching 40 means thinking about this kind of thing a lot, so while it’s a bit of a bummer, I found value in having some level of my experience mirrored back at me.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how modern life requires reverse-engineering experiences more natural to the function of the human body and brain. A couple interesting links for this: How to rewild yourself, with an aim at reconnecting with nature, and Here’s how to rediscover your childlike wonder, which privileges awe and play as worthwhile experiences.

Also related to the above, the title of this article (The art of doing nothing: have the Dutch found the answer to burnout culture?) is misleading; I think it’s a better look at Dutch culture and its relationship to burnout than a broader remedy for the problem. That doesn’t bother me, though. I like seeing different cultures’ approaches to work.

The Case for a Paper Fitness Journal is a specific essay weighing demands of digital versus physical paperwork for fitness, but it’s broader more applicably. There are great uses for apps and programs to track a variety of things and topics. I’ve been using Obsidian lately for information management and broader project conceptualization. But for a lot of day-to-day work, little is more clear and specific than writing in a notebook. If it gets overwhelming, I only need to turn to the next blank page.

YouTubers broadly have their busiest season in November-December, and they will often take January or even February as time to rest and rebuild. The last month marked the return of a lot of temporarily dormant essayists to my subscriptions page. Here’s a quick glimpse at some recent videos essays (which you can read via the transcript on the page if you’re not adverse to flawed subtitles that are often auto-generated):

The Queer History of The Lord of the Rings by verilybitchie. I was really into the origins of Eowyn’s story.

The Rise and Fall of Muppet Cinema by Patrick (H) Willams. “Muppet Cinema” is mostly shorthand to refer to the period in film, especially the 80s, where puppets were a key element. I like the way the essay denotes CG as cartoons and puppets as theatrical without being dismissive about it. Different tools for different uses!

The American Idol Theme Park Experience by Defunctland. My big theme-park experiences in the last decade were all West-Coast Disneyland, which didn’t have this attraction, but I could absolutely imagine having an annual pass and deciding a day on a trip would be spent on this. Also a valuable look at American Idol as an IP. (So that’s what JLo’s been up to when she hasn’t been making movies.)

Saltburn: The Tumblr-ification of Cinema by Broey Deschanel. Excellent deconstruction of both Saltburn and the 1999 adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, from which Saltburn takes a lot of its ideas without realizing why they were there.

Twilight by Contrapoints. The chapter titles say it all here; the essay uses Twilight to explore philosophical perspectives on fiction, desire (both related and unrelated to fiction), fantasy, power, death, and identity. I’m not sure I agree with every point here—and there’s a more glossing over of the racism baked into Twilight than I would have liked—but overall, a meaty three-hour essay that was exactly geared toward my tastes.

Hannah Montana’s Guide to Life Under Capitalism by Alexander Avila. Glad I watched this one before all the gossip about Miley’s family started making the rounds. I’ve been a big fan of deep dives on children’s sitcoms lately (see also: Quinton Reviews covering iCarly, Victorious, and Sam and Cat), and you can’t talk about Hannah Montana without talking about class. Also made me both laugh and unsettled by using AI politician voices to read quotes.

Comment

Rory Hume

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