some kind of gay boat festival

(I was fucking around on my phone for the last few hours, while Kaylee slept on her blanket. The second I got my laptop out, Kaylee came over and started to purr aggressively next to me. You can't be on my lap right now, baby.)

These are probably going to be brief, as my memory isn't that strong six months later.


Searching for Serafim: The Life and Legacy of Serafim "Joe" Fortes by Ruby Smith Díaz
(Local author, read before she gave a talk for Black History Month.)

Short biography and a poem about a Caribbean Black man working as a lifeguard in Vancouver, BC, in the early 20th century. The records of Serafim Fortes are pretty slight, and almost all from the perspective of white people—who treated him as a sort of mascot, and talked about how great he was despite his race—so Smith Díaz is mostly reading against the grain of the historical record, and speculating lot. I normally do not like history books that include this much speculation, however, Smith Díaz is very clear about when and why she's filling in ideas, and I think it works in this context. It introduced me to Marie-Claire Graham's concept of "speculative archiving" as a way of dealing with gaps in the record created by historical violence, which this book is more or less an example of. I appreciated that Smith Díaz did not shy away from or excuse records of Fortes behaving poorly. Very much worth a read as a local history, and as an example of navigating a fragmented and racist archive.


Everything Is Fine Here by Iryn Tushabe, narrated by Nneka Okoye
(Canada Reads Longlist, which I wish had been on the shortlist.)

A coming of age novel about a young woman in western Uganda, who discovers that her beloved older sister is a lesbian. One's reaction to that premise might be, "Oh no!" but this novel was not a tragedy about queer bashing, though the setting and my knowledge of Ugandan politics made it a tense read.

(I also felt that my ((at this point rather hazy)) knowledge of Ugandan geography, culture and food helped me a lot, including having been in the same places described in the book. There's a lot of cultural detail and non-English terms dropped in without explanation, so remembering what most things were saved me a lot of looking stuff up.)

But most of the novel is about a teenager trying to figure out both the world and herself, in a family with a lot of internal conflict and pressures. There's a few cases of sixteen-year-olds making poor choices, but for the most part the novel offers its characters a lot of grace. It's about discovering the world can be a lot bigger than you're told it is, and offering and receiving second chances. Really loved this one.


Witch King by Martha Wells, narrated by Eric Mok
(Reread before getting into the new one.)

I'm really glad I reread this, as I initially rushed through it to find out what happened, and as a result didn't remember several key plot points, which turned out to be essential to the second novel. There are a lot of moving parts!

Basically still love everyone in this band, and appreciate getting a novel about decentralising power, rather than building empires.


Queen Demon by Martha Wells, narrated by Eric Mok
Really enjoyed this one, also, though it ends in a more obvious cliffhanger than the first one, which stands more or less on its own.

Mostly just like the characters and enjoy spending time with them. It's again nice to see people struggling with the work of consensus building, interspersed with battle scenes, lol. I like Kai slowly coming out of his shell in the first timeline, and how much the characters have changed over the centuries between the flashbacks and present day. It really nicely both shows the long-range consequences, and builds up tension as the plots weave towards each other. Bit bummed out by some of the casualties along the way.

I hope we get the next one soon!

I'm annoyed that Taylor Swift and/or Travis Kelce invited notorious abuser Brad Pitt to their wedding.

Guess this is not the year we get to yeet that man from polite society, like his kids keep yeeting his last name.

Saw this trailer for Sense & Sensibility in front of Supergirl.

The less said about the hair the better, but I'm otherwise I'm actually stoked for this! The cast looks really fun, and we haven't had an S&S for a while, I think because it's the weakest of the books? The guy playing Edmond is Peter Pan from like twenty five years ago, having grown into his face.

Mostly newer music! Stoked about the new album, which is soooooooon.

La Fille mal gardée - Pas de ruban from Act I (Marianela Nuñez and Carlos Acosta).

Found this on YouTube a bit ago, and have watched it one million times. It's genuinely the cutest thing.

(Still low-key on my ballet bullshit, by which I mostly mean watching random clips on youtube. I have some whole ones saved to watch when I have time to sit for a couple hours.)

(I think this is the only icon I have with a baby.)

(This probably should be a fic, but I don't have the brain space to write fic right now.)

Preamble

Firstly, this isn't vague-blogging or subtweeting or whatever, and I'm not intending to tell any specific person they're wrong on the Internet. It's something that I've been thinking about since I saw FF:FS last year.

I'm further not telling anyone they should like the film if they didn't, or that they're bad for not wanting to watch a Disney movie prominently featuring pregnancy and parenthood. I'm sympathetic to having had enough of that genre and/or have been burned by it too many times. Totally fair! If you don't like plots with babies, you won't like this movie. There is definitely a baby!

I do, however, intend this to be something of a rebuttal to the "I don't like that the only female character was just a mom" line of criticism, which I've run into since the trailer. I also want to explain why I think that framing Sue's role as primarily a mother is reductive, and ignores some of the more interesting things the film was doing with her character.

( This will be long, and will spoil the entire movie )

Re a conversation I'm having in comments with trepkos.

I think I've mentioned before that growing up without TV reception, I really only saw shows when I was visiting Grandma or one of my cousins, and therefore my knowledge of Star Trek was largely based on the novels, and the very rare episode I caught while in town, or that someone had on VHS (mostly TNG, which was airing at the time).

I relied on the secondhand knowledge provided by the novels, which would refer back to canon events in an entirely muddled way that made it difficult to know what had happened. I was therefore delighted to discover that James Blish had written narrative versions of all the Original Series episodes.

"Great!" I thought, "Now I can get all the details straight, and understand the references in the novels."

I forget how I figured it out, maybe one of the novels contradicted the Blish versions, or maybe it was in one of the other reference books (we had, at one point, the nitpicker's guides and the encyclopedia). But I worked out that Blish was not only changing details, but sometimes changing the entire endings of episodes! Shock! Betrayal! Horror! Imagine the most outraged 9-10 year old you've ever seen!

(In retrospect, I'm wondering if Blish was writing them from memory? Or possibly shooting scripts? Does anyone know? Knowledge of this must exist.)

However, I was actually kind of disappointed when I finally saw "Amok Time," because I low-key liked some of Blish's made-up details? Well, not most of them, but there's a beat in the ending that I fully imprinted on, and that isn't in the original episode. And I know this is blasphemy, because the original ending is fully iconic, with Spock smiling and almost hugging Kirk before he remembers he's not supposed to have feelings. However, hear me out. I went and found the Blish version on Archive.org (they're all there, if you want to delight in corny 1970s renderings of 1960s camp), and it goes thusly:

[Kirk] came gradually back to consciousness in the Sickbay.* McCoy was bending over him. Nearby was Spock, his hands over his face. His shoulders were shaking.

Nurse Christine† came into his field of view, and turning Spock towards the Captain, gently pulled his hands away from his face. Kirk smiled weakly, and spoke in a faint but cheerful voice.

"Mr. Spock—I never thought I'd see the day..."

"Captain!" Spock stared down at him, absolutely dazed with astonishment.‡ Then, obviously realizing what his face and voice were revealing, he looked away.

I know it's not a masterpiece of literary genius,‡ but it does hit the niche trope of "emotionally more open character comes upon emotionally closed character secretly having a good cry, and that leads to banging revelations of true feelings." Which I could read a hundred thousand versions of and never tire of wanting more, and I have indeed included in at least a couple of my own fic. I'm not sure if this is the first time I ran into it, but it might have been? If so, Thank you, Mr. Blish!

Anyway, hi. I'm actually doing reading for history. Of 12th-century nuns, not mid-20th-century pop culture.

---

* Definite article in the original?

† Nurse Does Not Have a Last Name!?

‡ Look. The thing about being nine is you don't notice when the prose is Not Very Good.

So it turns out the reward for having submitted a research paper in a (more or less) timely fashion is having to turn around and work on the next paper. So I'm def not procrastinating from that! Look! There's a nun!

I had an open tab with the outlines for book reviews for like a month, then finally managed to overwrite the saved draft with something else. Which is no loss as it was just the titles and a preamble about how far behind I am. I hope that once school is out after the 22nd, I'll be able to catch up with the handful of books I read in the last six months!

Anyway! Fun meme from regshoe:

General Questions

This week I'm reading: Just finished The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar, and currently rereading The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older.
My favourite book of all time is: Oh jeez. Prooooobably The Lord of the Rings? It's certainly the book that's meant the most to me, but I admit that I've listened to the BBC radio play from the 1980s more than I've read it in recent years. I keep thinking that I should reread, then not getting around to it.
My current favourite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months): Persuasion by Jane Austen, hands down.
The last book I bought was: Companions on the Road by Tanith Lee, which I haven't read yet.
The first book I bought with my own money: Too long ago to remember. Probably a used Star Trek novel?
The first book I received as a gift: My brother and I used to get a lot of those slim hardcover Eyewitness science books, so that seems likely. Or a used Star Trek novel.
The last book I received as a gift was: It's bad that I'm fully blanking on this. People don't give me many books, because I gave so many away last time I moved, and I may move again soon.
The last book I borrowed from the library: The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit.
The book physically closest to me right now: Pageboy by Elliot Page, which Nenya has been not reading for about six months now.
Do you read bookfic, and if so what is your favourite bookshop fic? I assume we're not counting fandoms with canonical bookstores, such as GO? In the case of AUs, I can't think of one (and don't seem to have one bookmarked), but I don't object to them in theory. I did want to write a Band of Brothers AU where Dick starts a queer bookstore post war. I do read fic about book fandoms though, and hope to look at my TBR tab once school's over.

This or That

(watch me be bad at binary choices)
Physical book or e-book: E-book. So portable!
Used or new: Used. The shops are more fun.
Fiction or non-fiction: Both.
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: Park!
Paperback or hardcover: Paperback, but only the mass market/pocket book style, not clunky trade paperbacks.
Romance or Crime: Romance! (but it can have crime in it, if it wants)

Yes or No

(see above)
Stream of consciousness? Only by Laurence Sterne.
Poetry? Yes.
Memoirs? Yes.
Philosophy? Only theology.
Thrillers? No.
Chronicles? Like... travel books? The chronicles of Narnia? No to the former, yes to the latter.
Dialogue heavy? Usually not.

Code: <h3>General Questions</h3><b>This week I'm reading:</b> <b>My favourite book of all time is:</b> <b>My current favourite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months):</b> <b>The last book I bought was:</b> <b>The first book I bought with my own money:</b> <b>The first book I received as a gift:</b> <b>The last book I received as a gift was:</b> <b>The last book I borrowed from the library:</b> <b>The book physically closest to me right now:</b> <b>Do you read bookfic, and if so what is your favourite bookshop fic?</b> <h3>This or That</h3> <b>Physical book or e-book:</b> <b>Used or new:</b> <b>Fiction or non-fiction:</b> <b>Read at a coffee shop or at the park:</b> <b>Paperback or hardcover:</b> <b>Romance or Crime:</b> <h3>Yes or No</h3> <b>Stream of consciousness?</b> <b>Poetry?</b> <b>Memoirs?</b> <b>Philosophy?</b> <b>Thrillers?</b> <b>Chronicles?</b> <b>Dialogue heavy?</b>

They re-wilded the beaver family yesterday. I hope they all do well and the mama finds a new mate. I knew it would be soon. They'd gotten so big, and were spending so much time outside.

I know it's good they're in the wild, but I really miss watching them. I wish there was a recoding.

I've been piling these up since early April? I think most of them are still topical.

Tech Issues:
Archive of Our Own: Spambot Comments on AO3.
News post with a good summary of all the kinds of spambot comments showing up lately, and what to do if you get one. Slightly depressing, but also helpful.

404 Media: A 'Self-Doxing' Rave Helps Trans People Stay Safe Online.
I got a laugh out of deciding to run this on Trans Day of Visibility. Good for them. (ETA: Some resources in the comments, for anyone who wants to look into/clean up their information online.)

ZD Net: Your Kindle's not obsolete, it just needs a jailbreak - and I'll show you how it's done.
I have not tried this, just saw it going around for older Kindles which Amazon is no longer supporting (to the point where they'll stop operating).

The Tyee: How Companies Hijack AI Chatbots.
The title is a bit click baity, but I was interested in this new and exciting way of polluting the information ecosystem! What if you fed deliberately bad information into LLMs so that chatbots would advertise for you?


Canadian Politics:
Trans Canada Tour.
We’re on a mission to rekindle hope, rebuild Canada’s queer movement, and change hearts and minds across the country.
This may be coming to a town near you? If it's not, and you're a queer organiser, maybe it could be. I've been low-key trying to see if anyone here is interested, but no luck so far.

The Tyee: RCMP Seeks to Quash Discrimination Ruling by Human Rights Tribunal.
The RCMP's constant insistence that they definitely plan to do better in the future, but they're not going to tell us how, or let anyone investigate them. I'm sure that will work better this time!

The Narwhal: Malfunctioning Canadian LNG terminal burned more gas than estimated 2024 global record.
Oh look. It's clean energy!

CBC: 'Monumental': B.C. attorney general, advocates hail Supreme Court ruling on intimate partner violence.
I'm really glad this went through, and sorry that lady had to fight for so long to get relief.


Video Essays:
tongue-in-cheek-books: Shrapnel: Ambient Homophobia and the F-Slur in MM Romance (39 minutes).
A very gentle explanation to people who didn't grow up with normative homophobia in male spaces, about how the damage done by anti-queer language isn't always done by one bad person directing slurs at our hero. I thought it was a really clear example of something I've been poking at for a while. He uses hockey romances in his examples, but makes it clear he's not trying to attack the authors or the fans.

ophie-dokie: Sabrina Carpenter's Gender Theater, The Male Gaze, and You (46 minutes).
The discourse continues. I really liked the section about "I Kissed a Girl" and assuming people's sexuality. I remember a lot more problems from people accusing women of being "performative" than I do "performative" people being an actual problem. But mileage may have varied.

Schmowd3r: PI Investigates the Neil Gaiman Substack Situation (3 hours and 46 minutes).
I appreciated this as a breakdown of what's in the substack, which is such a Gish gallop that it's difficult to get through. I had somehow missed the experimental "jazz" for example. I also appreciate how he didn't include a lot of the graphic details about the assaults, which made it a bit easier to listen to than a lot of recaps of the situation. (This video has unfortunately started drama with another YouTuber. *sighs*)


Cute Things:
sixbeforelunch: fandom hugs.
Icons from various Stargate, Star Trek and DC properties. Extremely cute.

OnIcePerspectives: Starr Andrews reprises "Whip My Hair" by Willow Smith (Video: 3 minutes).
It's really fun to see this again!

Emily Fairfax, Ph.D: Beavers and Wildfire.
Includes a stop-motion video and several diagrams explaining how beaver habitat protects vegetation from wildfires, and also charts!

CowlitzIndianTribe: Cowlitz Beaver Kit Cam Live.
Live stream of a mother beaver and her four kits. I think they're going to be rewilded in the next couple weeks, so worth checking out while it's still running. Scroll back a bit and find a time when she comes back into the lodge: the kits make the cutest noises. Also, she sometimes just grabs one of the kits, pins it down and licks it for a while.