torkell | Network

At one of the households we canvassed yesterday, the couple who own the place had taken out their lawn & put in a huge garden. Very impressive! They did all the excavation work themselves. Not by hand—they bought a mini-tractor—but they didn't hire anybody.

I spent 20 minutes talking to the guy. He grew up in Ohio, right outside Cinncinnati. Spent a lot of time working in agriculture before he came east.

"Why'd you come to New York?" I asked him.

"I followed the jobs. When I finally went to college, I became a graphic designer. There aren't any jobs for graphic designers around Cinncinnati. If you go up to northern Ohio where the jobs are, you might as well be in any souless suburban area, and there are souless suburban areas that pay graphic designers a lot better than Columbus.

"Besides. Upstate New York & some parts of New England are the last bastion of the family farm in the United States. The midwest is all agri-business, soybeans & corn."

###

We cased a road called Garrison Drive.

"Is it called 'Garrison' because there was a family called 'Garrison'?" I wondered out loud. "Or did they actually house soldiers here in some 17th or 18th century Indian skirmish?"

Adrienne didn't know what I was talking about.

###

I am thinking Adrienne is going to lose this election. But Joey, the Dem she is coordinating her campaign with, is gonna win. Adrienne is running for the Ulster County Legislature, Joey is running for the Town of Shawanagunk Council.

Partly, Joey is gonna win because he's in his 40s and projects 10 years younger, but partly he's gonna win because he's not a Jewish liberal. Jewish liberalism just isn't selling anymore—not because of anti-semitism per se but because it is associated with an old, tired way of doing things.

Adrienne's opponent doesn't seem to be mounting any kind of campaign at all, but he is an X-cop, and he did tell The Daily Freeman he would offer voters a 15% property tax refund—which is obviously impossible: While it's true Ulster County right now has a cash surplus, it is also true that we are at the beginning of what is promising to be a loooooong federal government shutdown; New York State will not be able to funnel federal money into county coffers, and in three months, there will be ice and snow on the roads that will need to be removed. Something's gotta pay for that.

"Voters really go for that tax-cutting stuff," I told Adrienne. "You should figure out a way to work it into your stump speech. Like maybe say you are staunchly pro-business because if there are more businesses in Shawangunk, it will lower the property tax burden on individual home owners."

And Adrienne did indeed use this schtick on the next five people we talked to.

See, this is why I like local politics. You can have an immediate effect.

###

Other than that, I Remunerated away & felt disheartened because I just can't gear myself up enough to do all the work I need to do.

Also, I saw this video, which moved me immeasurably for whatever mysterious reason:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1320606452767574

nanila

I spent my birthday on my own in Maui after the conference I attended there, and I had a brilliant time.*

My birthday treat to myself was a boat trip to Molokini crater to snorkel with the fishes, and to Turtle Town off Wailea Point to swim with the sea turtles. I got really lucky with the weather, and Cap'n Doug sailed us around the far side of Molokini so we could see the sea bird nesting sites. Then we pulled into the harbour and we were allowed to jump in the water. I don't have a waterproof camera and I also don't feel too secure snorkeling without a boogie board in hand, so I've no photos of that. But the visibility was incredible, like I remember from Hanauma Bay as a kid. I saw a tube fish and a giant parrot fish. I followed her around for a bit, listening to her chomp the coral and seeing her make sand. I saw wrasse and tangs, sea urchins and crabs, and of course the legendary Humuhumunukunukuapua'a, from whom Eldest gets her moniker. It's colourful, pugnacious, and territorial. Mmhmm.

[Approach to Molokini crater.]

[Seabird nesting sites round the back of Molokini.]

Turtle Town offered excellent fish viewing in the water as well, although to be honest it was much better watching the turtles from the boat as the view was clearer and they got quite close to the bow, where you're not allowed to snorkel.

[Sea turtle next to the tour boat.]

There were lots of older retired couples on the boat - because who else can afford $200+ plus tips for a five hour boat trip - and I could see them looking sidelong at me until finally when we were eating lunch someone sidled up to me and after some desultory introductions, asked if I was scared to travel alone. Hahaha. Nope! Very happy by myself, tyvm.

I pootled back to the hotel in the convertible Mustang** I’d hired with the top down, although “pootled” doesn’t feel like quite the right word for travelling in an absurdly ostentatious car. I had a shower to get all the sand off, liberally slathered on the after-sun, and got dressed again. I had a couple of chats with family and friends. I got myself a cold drink at the 808 market and wandered down to watch my last Maui sunset on this trip.

I got changed into a nice dress and spoke to the family before hopping in the car again to take myself to dinner: Isana in Kihei. I ingested a heroic quantity of nigiri (choice bits pictured below) and part of a silly cocktail (because driving, and that thing was strong).

( Sushi under the cut because raw fish isn't everyone's cup of tea )

I plucked up the courage to ask my waiter a very odd question. I explained to him that I’d grown up in Hawai’i, and I had happy memories of eating something we called “stinky pickle sushi” which you obviously cannot put on a menu in a nice restaurant. After he’d finished guffawing, I explained that it was pickled daikon radish in a maki roll. He said he would go ask the chef if he knew about this.

Two minutes later, he returned, placed a small black dish in front of me, and said, “Yes, chef is from Japan, he knows this ingredient. Is this it?” I popped the bright yellow rectangle into my mouth and clapped my hands with joy. The waiter returned to place my stinky pickle nori roll order. And that, my friends, was my final brave birthday treat to myself: procuring a sushi roll I have not tasted for over twenty years.

[Behold: stinky pickle maki]

* Sorry, family! We would have had a brilliant time together, too. But this conference happens during the school year, and so I was on my own. I love you guys. I also love time to myself.
** I actually wanted to hire the Mazda Miata but they didn’t have any, and also the hire car person said my giant battered old Briggs & Riley suitcase would not have fit in the boot anyway.

THE END.

greenwoodside

This is my first attempt at Crowdfunding. I wish it were for something fluffy and daft like a Guiness World Record attempt at creating the largest ever vegetable samosa, but that will have to wait since a long-time fandom friend needs help.

My Tumblr post

The appeal itself including a slideshow of Kat's recent project, a vest embroidered with all manner of fantastic sea-life. (Importantly: there's an octopus).

Please help if you can either by giving or sharing. Signal boosts matter.

In RL news, I am redecorating/renovating the house I bought last month. I want to do a long post about the books I've been reading and listening to, and the TV I've been flaking out to late in the evening (Slow Horses! Foundation Season 2! Murderbot!), but I have a score of tins of paint waiting for me, and they are cruel mistresses.

ETA: World's Largest Samosa

Current Location: cymru
Current Music: The Tree Song

nanila

[HELLO I AM COMET AND I AM TOO CLOSE]

Do you ever wonder if the way you see things visually aren't how other people see them?

Frequently. My partner and I sometimes have very different perceptions of certain colours (and no, he’s not red-green colour-blind).
What kind of sounds are the most annoying?

Sounds I didn’t choose to hear, ha. Seriously, though, I quite often put my noise-cancelling headphones on with nothing coming through them, just to block out background sound.
When walking through a store, do you shop with your hands by touching/feeling the texture of things?

I *want* to do that all the time. I’m very sensitive to touch. I restrain myself most of the time unless it seems like it is OK (like in a clothing shop). I suspect I’d get thrown out of places if I went round running my hands over veg, freshly baked goods or pick-n-mix for example.
If you could only smell three scents for the rest of your life, what would they be?

My cats’ fur when they come in from outside on a cold day. Black Opium by YSL. My partner’s armpits. I am not joking.
What sorts of things do you savor when eating them?

Everything! I love food so much. I especially love very cold fruit juices on a hot day or with a sore throat, the velvety texture of a good chocolate mousse, and the salty satisfaction of slurping ramen noodles.

( Last week's FF )

mallorys_camera

Two interesting news stories stand out from this morning's disastrous barrage of current events:

• Trump is considering passing along a $2,000 tariff dividend to potential voters: This is both good news & bad news. Good because it suggests that there will at least be an election; bad because Americans are just dumb enough to sell themselves cheap for two grand, which means Trump or his surrogate will be reelected.

• 28% of Americans report that they have had some sort of romantic relationship with an AI. This puts Spike Jonez right up there with Jules Verne 'cause Jonez predicted this in the ever-so-brilliant movie Her.

###

Else? I spent yesterday plugging away at Remuneration & lambasting myself because I'm not a lean, green, statistics-analysis machine that can churn out 7,000 words a day instead of a mere 2,000.

I also have seven chapters of dense, illogical tax law mocking me.

Plus all those routine activities of daily life: brushing my teeth, washing my hair, placating the kiskas, cleaning the kiskas' litter box, exercising, cooking lentils, oatmeal, & salmon, eating lentils, oatmeal & salmon...

And, oh yeah—I'm writing a novel.

At least the All lentils, oatmeal, & salmon, all of the time! diet is cheaper than my previous grocery runs.

A few social things planned. That I won't enjoy 'cause I'm so freaked about the amount of work I have to accomplish.

Which I better get started on pronto.

asakiyume

A couple of weekends ago was the B'town fair. I didn't get to see the parade, but I did seize some time to go to the exhibit hall and the 4-H tent. The theme for the fair this year was "Shake, Cattle, and Roll" (lots of good entrants for the brochure cover contest...), and inside the hall was this poster with cow** facts:

(You can click through to see it bigger)

These are amazing! Cows only sleep three hours a day? They are great swimmers and can swim for miles? I had no idea ...

Though ... it gives me a wicked desire to make up other cow facts that aren't true at all. After all, if a kid's display is going to have me believe that cows can swim for miles and steer with their tails, what else might be true?

--I have perfect night vision
--I have a kind of moo I use only with my calves. It's called the lullaby moo
--If the circumstances are right, I can live to be 80–90 years old

I mean, why not? Any fake cow facts you'd care to add?

**Isn't it weird that in English, we don't have a common, nongendered, singular word to use for this type of animal? We have "cattle," which can be either sex, but that's plural. But all our other words are gendered: "Cow" does not include bulls or steers (castrated bulls), which as terms in turn exclude cows. And "heifer" is a young cow, "typically one who hasn't had a calf."

yourlibrarian posting in

common_nature

Our trip had ended in San Francisco because I was there to attend the memorial of a friend's mother. The cemetery was a beautiful place.

( Read more... )

asakiyume

Thanks to

osprey_archer's Newbery project, I got out The ~~Flying~~ Winged Girl of Knossos (thanks for catching that

light_of_summer!) originally published in 1933 and reissued in 2017 by Betsy Bird, who's served on the Newbery Committee, reviewed books for Kirkus, blogs about children's literature, and has in fact written her own middle grade novel (Long Road to the Circus --I haven't read it).

It's easy to see why Betsy Bird and

osprey_archer loved this story: it's great fun and excellently told. I loved it too. The author (Allena Best, writing under the pseudonym Erick Berry) was entranced with ancient Minoan culture, and that love shines through on every page. And in Inas, the daughter of Daidalos (she's genderswapped Icarus for Inas), she's got a great heroine. Who dives skillfully for sponges? Inas does! Who is the best bull vaulter? Inas is! Whose hang glider experiment leads to realization that flying into the wind works better than flying with it? Again, Inas!

The authorial voice is definitely not contemporary, but it's lively and fresh. Every now and then there's something about people's races or features that's winceworthy, but mainly the 1930s-ness of it wasn't intrusive in a negative way.

Tangentially, I loved this description of archaeologists, from the author's introduction: "Then in our own time came the archaeologists, those magicians who build authentic history out of lowly potsherds." Magician archaeologists.

I also read a hilarious short story about the foiling of a racist: "Supply and Demand," by

f0rrest. Why yes, his user name is my IRL last name, but we are not related in any way. We stumbled upon each other quite by chance.

In "Supply and Demand" a pushy racist is hoisted by his own petard, his petard in this case being his successful participation in capitalism: he ends up supporting and promoting what he despises. I loved the hapless narrator (a young employee at a big-box home goods store) and the digs at retail training scripts. I will also offer a content warning, though, because the racist dude says alllllll the negative things you can think to say about "those people," as he calls them. There are no slurs, and he never specifies exactly who comprises "those people," but you may not feel like imbibing his nonsense, even if it's to see him taken down. His vituperations are pretty hilarious though, e.g, his rant about the historical Santa Claus (and later, his praise of Santa Claus as a hard worker up there at the North Pole).

Anyway, if you want to see a racist taken down in an unusual way, give it a try. It's about 7,000 words.

nanila

Watch on YouTube

I took some liberties with the dates in this 1SE video so I could put in more footage from Maui. There are also a lot of cats. Not all of them are our cats. No one tell Astro and Comet.

bleodswean

This is very long. 3300 words. It is the story of September. The story of my daughter's cardiac ablation. If there are signs and omens in the universe, then this week's prompt is one of them. For me.

( Read more... )

larryhammer

For Poetry Monday:

Down, Wanton, Down!, Robert Graves

Down, wanton, down! Have you no shame
That at the whisper of Love’s name,
Or Beauty’s, presto! up you raise
Your angry head and stand at gaze?

Poor Bombard-captain, sworn to reach
The ravelin and effect a breach—
Indifferent what you storm or why,
So be that in the breach you die!

Love may be blind, but Love at least
Knows what is man and what mere beast;
Or Beauty wayward, but requires
More delicacy from her squires.

Tell me, my witless, whose one boast
Could be your staunchness at the post,
When were you made a man of parts
To think fine and profess the arts?

Will many-gifted Beauty come
Bowing to your bald rule of thumb,
Or Love swear loyalty to your crown?
Be gone, have done! Down, wanton, down!

Graves (1895-1985) was a poet, novelist, and eccentric mythographer. This is from his collection Poems 1930-1933.

---L.

Subject quote from Forever, CHVRCHES.

nanila

[Epic god-light over the Pacific]

I returned to the UK last Thursday evening. I went to work and had a hectic day on Friday, greeting the returning students and my tutees. This weekend we got the suitcase turned around and at midday today, the bloke left for Uganda. At some point our kids will remember what it's like regularly having two parents at home, but apparently that is not this year.

I have to give three presentations tomorrow, one of which is a two-hour lecture, so I shall leave this photo here and go do some deep breathing.

weird posting in

common_nature

Found on an industrial estate in middle England

(click for bigger/better quality)

yourlibrarian posting in

common_nature

From earlier this summer, a view of a local hawk.

( Read more... )

asakiyume

What a breathtaking book Saint Death’s Daughter is. Truly magnificent in all respects: its exciting, imaginative story, its absorbing, immersive worldbuilding, its soaring writing, and its sharp, compassionate observations about human nature. I loved it completely.

It’s been a long time since I walked into a book and lost myself so entirely in it, so much so that I wanted to bring pieces of it back with me into this world. Can we have sothaín meditations, please? Can we have these twelve gods? … But just certain select pieces! Because the other thing about the world of Saint Death’s Daughter is that it’s cheerfully vicious and merciless—not always and everywhere by any means—but plenty enough. Take the fact that our protagonist, Miscellaneous (Lanie) Stones, comes from a family of assassins and torturers. And there are similar people in high places throughout the story. But the folks Lanie’s drawn to are nothing like that at all. We’re more than our family history, and we can make different choices—that’s the grounding hum that vibrates through the story. Lanie sets herself to make amends for the harm her family’s done: tries, fails, and tries again, all while growing into a powerful necromancer with a deep devotion to Doédenna, Saint Death.

( There's so much! This is just scratching the surface )

So those are some of my reasons for loving Saint Death’s Daughter. It’s doing so much that it’s impossible to cover it all in a review. Lanie eventually learns to speak with more than one voice at once, with a surface voice and a deeper one (kind of like throat singing, where you sing more than one note at the same time, only Lanie’s deeper voice isn’t audible in the usual way of things). The novel is like this too: it’s speaking in a surface voice and in many other voices as well. It’s broadcasting on many frequencies; you can hear many, many things.

larryhammer

Short shameful confession: It is oddly satisfying to fill in the middle number of the middle square of a sudoku.

---L.

Subject quote from The Chain, Fleetwood Mac.

larryhammer

For Poetry Monday, some self-indulgence. Cut for length:

Cathedral Close, Larry Hammer

Too close, and you see nothing—old
pale limestone, quarried
with smoothness rocks forget
and fleck to worn grains, weather-worried
and rough to hold
against your palm. And yet

( too far, you see too little )

First drafted in my mid-twenties after hiking through slot gorges in Canyonlands National Park, based on memories of growing up a 10 minute walk from the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, and revised over the next decade (after a visit to confirm details).

---L.

Subject quote from Best Guess, Lucy Dacus.

bleodswean

For three days he had scoured the forest, seeking the cottage. He had been told that’s where she resided and his need of her satisfied once he found her. Directions had been both vague and specific and the scrap of paper with the scribbled map which at first had seemed so straightforward a way was now crumpled and wearing thin and read more akin to a map drawn by a madman than the woman he had paid to sketch it out for him.

He had met that woman in a darkened corner of a pub in a nearby village, a place he had never frequented before and couldn’t find again when he tried to return to ask more questions. His palm still itched where she had fished the silver out of it. His first sight of her had his pulse racing, comely and he had thoughts of seduction. But she paid him no mind in matters of lust and when she excused herself and never returned, she had appeared quite ugly to him.

All of this had taken place over the past nine days, starting the night of the moon high in the night sky and waxing gibbous. Soon the moon would hang low and full as though it could be plucked out of its heavens like an unearthly fruit.

His grudge was a piece of fruit grown mealy, kept too long.

The grudge he’d kept with him for over half a year, through the winter, spring and summer. He had harvested it the autumn before when she’d married another.

He loathed both of them, but it was for her he most especially wished injury.

And he would have it done, not by his hand because he couldn’t risk harm to his reputation and during his more honest moments he could admit that he was frightened of her husband.

He last saw her on market day the month before and she was gone heavy with child. And that decided it for him. He would do her harm.

It was no easy task to find the witch. The search occupied his every waking hour and most of those asleep, dark dreams filled with blood and the sound of breaking bones. He could feel something turning inside of him, bowing his shoulders and creaking his spine and yet he pressed on. In corners of foul-smelling public houses, in alleys so narrow one had to enter sideways, behind trees ancient and hollowed and scratched with symbols that made his eyes narrow. But he would have what he would have and gathering information led him to the woman who drew the map.

Finally, he stumbled upon the place. Down twisted pathways, over a poisoned creek, beneath a split hanging tree, past the shadows of night animals stilled by his passing by, he smelled the woodsmoke and spied the candle guttering on the sill. He knocked and the door swung open. A hunched figure in a chair rocking beside a massive hearth with soup cauldron bubbling.

Come closer, the ragged voice instructed him, and he drew closer. Leaving the door open to the sounds of creatures hunting and the hunted crying out.

Terrible things took place. She pricked him and he bled. She bid him drink and he vomited. His head swam but his heart stayed the course, and he made his case as though she were the magistrate.

When they were done, it’s done, she told him. In the corner, rose a shadow, up and out of the dirt floor, curling out of a pile of fetid matter, spine straightening, shoulders settling, head rising. A thing that seemed to shudder and tremble but not from fear but because it was fear.

What’s that, he asked, his voice a strangled whisper.

That’s your desire.

Not my desire!

No? she asked him, cocking her head the way a bird of prey will do.

I have no desire that is embodied so. This horrid creature. He was flailing. You’ve called it forth.

Payment of your own blood and bile would suggest otherwise, my boy. You asked of me to spell a weapon, to cast it out into the world, its target a girl, we let it loose together. You and me. She lowered herself into the rocking chair pulling a briar wood pipe out of the pocket of her skirt, leaning forward to light it with a punk from the fire. She blew out two streams of gray smoke from her nostrils and looked up at him. Your desire manifested, became corporeal.

No! He said putting both hands out in front of him. Why does it approach me? The timber of his voice rising, shrill.

It’s ready to accompany you, my son.

I’m not your son, you wicked hag.

You weren’t born of my body, but you are now my child, child. Go from here and never return, ungrateful man. She bent her body away from him, toward the flickering light of the fire and in that illumination she looked different.

He blanched. Then turned and made quickly for the door, slamming it closed behind him, panting on the stone stoop. Above him, the moon was rising full. He began to run down the cobbled path, through the opened gate, into the menacing woods, behind him he could hear the beating of leathered wings.

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Thomas

Beware the Jabberwock...

May 2025

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Page Summary

mallorys_camera - Through the Dark of Burning Morn
nanila - Birthday in Maui
greenwoodside - My friend Kat
nanila - The Friday Five on a Friday x2
mallorys_camera - Overwhelmed
asakiyume - Cow facts
yourlibrarian in common_nature - San Francisco Area
asakiyume - Wednesday reading
nanila - 1SE for September 2025
bleodswean - The Real LJ Idol - Wheel of Chaos - Wk 11 - Tiger Team
larryhammer - “i will always think i’m right/ but i always regret the night/ i told you i’d hate you ’til forever”
nanila - Maui sunset
weird in common_nature - Shaggy Mane mushroom
yourlibrarian in common_nature - Birds, At Home and Not
asakiyume - Saint Death's Daughter
larryhammer - “i can still hear you saying / you would never break the chain / chain keep us together”
larryhammer - “here is the church here is the steeple / you were looking for saints but you only found people”
bleodswean - The Real LJ Idol - Wheel of Chaos - Wk 10 - Intrigant

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Page generated Oct. 5th, 2025 06:08 am

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

All mimsy were the borogoves

Network

Through the Dark of Burning Morn

Birthday in Maui

My friend Kat

The Friday Five on a Friday x2

Overwhelmed

Cow facts

San Francisco Area

Wednesday reading

1SE for September 2025

The Real LJ Idol - Wheel of Chaos - Wk 11 - Tiger Team

“i will always think i’m right/ but i always regret the night/ i told you i’d hate you ’til forever”

Maui sunset

Shaggy Mane mushroom

Birds, At Home and Not

Saint Death's Daughter

“i can still hear you saying / you would never break the chain / chain keep us together”

“here is the church here is the steeple / you were looking for saints but you only found people”

The Real LJ Idol - Wheel of Chaos - Wk 10 - Intrigant

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May 2025

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