26feb2024

ほら、皆さん！

いまは ウェブページ の四千。

Hey, everyone! Today's page is the 4000th one:)

Yes, I know it's arbitrary and kinda stupid, (especially since not all the pages are even live—I have no idea how many finished/accessible pages are on the site, but enough to make navigating it a pain—ごめん・sorry!)

また、日本へ行きて、日本語で 勉強　（べんきょう）します。

Web-logs were a new and exciting thing back in ’96 when I hand-coded the very earliest pages to this site (in HTML); and now they're outdated, a dying form a generation later; but I still enjoy this little online diary, and would like to take this opportunity to give thanks (感謝・かんしゃ) for all the inspiration, collaboration and help I've received over the years—to my friends, to the f2s, and especially the wizard (魔法使い：まほうつか/mahoutsikai is a word you learn pretty quickly if you watch a lot of fantasy anime [ たくさんの ファンタジー のアニメ見ている];) without whom this site wouldn't be possible (nor, in fact, my glass bead studio...)

It's been hard at times, but I'm deeply grateful.

And here's a page featuring some awesome socks by one of those dear friends・友達 ともだち。 Take care, everyone/みなさんは、行ってらっしゃい。。。

23feb2024

O hai, I'm sure I did something this week besides cat-sit (which mebbe accounts for 20 minutes a day) but darned if I can think what it was...

Oh! I know! I read Connie Willis’ latest, The Road to Roswell, which is one of her sfnal ‘screwball comedies’, of which Bellwether is probably still my fave, but this love letter to genre film and the quirky, eponymous UFO town is a delightful outing, just about a perfect comfort read.

Especially if you're familiar with the films cited—I'd say I've seen above 3/4 of the sf ones cited, and rather less than half of the westerns, but you'd actually be better off with that ratio reversed. While I was tremendously enjoying this lighthearted novel, I couldn't help comparing the tone to the Leckie which I'd just read: man, if you're looking for traditional 1950s flavoured sf, this is gonna be your jam—everyone's very white, very hetero-normative, the FBI is still on the ‘good guys’ side of the ledger, and humans can not only save themselves but the aliens too!

Plus, it's pretty funny:)

(Alas, the people complaining the loudest for that old-time SF seem to be sexist guys, and the hero of the day is very definitely a woman, whose very feminine behaviour is what saves the day.)

But it's a little odd to realize that—in some ways at least—my viewpoints have moved left of two of the best women SF authors of (roughly) my generation, Willis and Bujold, because I'm so slow to change and conservative by nature. I don't know that I could write the really ‘modern’ stuff, and I don't always appreciate it—the other book I read this week was Aliette de Bodard's novella The Tea Master and the Detective, a re-imagining of Arthur Conan Doyle's classic duo in which Watson was a wounded Ship-who-sang style starship whose medical skills were transmuted into a herbalist who created custom blends to help people cope with the unreality of ‘deep space’ and Holmes was a mysterious woman, both of whom lived in an Asian inspired backwater, and, much as I wanted to adore this take, I just couldn't.

One is that self-same conservatism: though I have more sympathy for people who self-medicate with various (often illicit) drugs than I did as a young person, I'm still uncomfortable with addiction (really, illness of any kind) and Bodard really leans into Holmes’ drug use (which a lot of modern authors have tended to downplay, and even Doyle backed away from over time) but the other was that the Holmes character seemed to have very little sensitivity to Watson's feelings, which are continuously hurt throughout this story in a way they just aren't in the best Watson-Holmes narratives. Holmes may be an autistic, vain-glorious prick of the first order, but he also really cares about Watson, who is clearly his closest friend. Granted, one gets the sense that this version will get to that point, but part of the canon is that Holmes can be very sensitive to other people's feelings when it suits him, and while he's often impatient with Watson, he never goes out of his way to ignore Watson's feelings.

I did like the Asian setting and the Vietnamese inspired names, which added a fresh perspective: (And wondered if my inability to parse that culture is why Watson gets upset so much—perhaps I was reading too much into the character's distress?) —Anyway, I'm hoping that if de Bodard returns to these characters, perhaps I'll like the later entries better, and even if not, this is certainly a worthwhile addition to the Holmes-Watson canon.

Oh, and since Hoopla was featuring Tezuka's (rather humourous) retelling of Faust, One Hundred Tales I read that. Evidently written as a one shot in 1971 what really struck me was a) the exaggerated humour and b) the absolutely gorgeous backgrounds. (Also the ending is a bit different from the original Faust, and honestly, I liked this version better;) In my opinion it still stands up, but is also a fascinating snapshot of what manga looked like half a century ago.

Oh, and here's a necklace I made 15 or 20 years ago.

15feb2024

So for a couple of days my computer didn't have the little login box, which meant I couldn't access the email I should be addressing, or the finances I should be entering, or much else, since the wizard was slaving (are we allowed to use that word for people who are not, in fact, enslaved, but just working hard?[1]) Working much harder than would be optimal, anyway, but, yanno, time pressures, which meant, not being instantly available to address my little tech hiccups.

So I decided to read the new Ann Leckie instead.

Leckie is best known for her stunning Ancillary trilogy; I also enjoyed Provenance, set in the same universe (though it is a stand-alone, with a different culture and characters); her latest, Translation State, again features new cultures outside the Radch (though some of the minor characters are from this Empire) and differs, a bit, from the prior two in that the story is told from three roughly equal viewpoints: that of a dependent sent out on a nothing-burger quest to get hir out of the way so that hir grandmaman's new heir can consolidate power; of a neurodivergent loner (adopted and reared by a trio of mom, if not female, identified parents) looking for a community; and a human-Presgar hybrid who very much wants to avoid being subsumed by an older, powerful progenitor and in fact finds the whole idea of transforming (heh) in an adult terrifying and repulsive.

It is a tribute to Leckie's skill that two of the characters, while entirely sympathetic, nevertheless have absolutely horrifying personal desires, and I really wondered, for the first quarter or so of the book, how the author was gonna pull all this together. While recapturing the uniqueness of Breq's viewpoint in the Ancillary trilogy is likely impossible, the alien-human hybrid characters certainly made a memorable impression. (Also, for Murderbot fans, there is a delightful homage;)

All of Leckie's stories in the Radch universe play with gender; this one, I would say so more even than most, as there are at least 5, (two of which I failed to distinguish very well—possibly because there was no particular need to do so, just as is often the case in the real world) and it is—or at least was for me—a scathing commentary on the rigid close-mindedness of gender binary folks in its very assumptions, that ultimately resolve the initially troubling desires that were horrifying me earlier in the book.

(I should note, the character who feels gender the most strongly is the male character, who doesn't at all appreciate the Radch default to feminine pronouns;)

Mild spoilers.

What this book did most for me was to introduce characters who made me, as a mostly passing not “very” trans nor “very” neurodivergent person feel seen, and I can only imagine how validating it must be for those who don't pass to encounter such viewpoints; it's not the first book to include such characters, but it is one in which all these traits, like the alien, inscrutable Presgar, simply are. —Rather than exceptions for whom special accommodations must be made in the ‘mainstream’. That's where we are now, and it's certainly better than being utterly rejected; but so much better to accept, the same we accept that some folks have brown eyes, and others, blue.

And some, a mix.

In a similar way I appreciated the matter-of-fact way in which one character's horribly dysfunctional family dynamic (that nevertheless includes some measure of love and care) is acknowledged. That the Radch ambassador couldn't care less about the genocidal, internecine squabbles between Hipiki and Phen peoples because she's entirely focused on keeping the god-powerful Presgar from (literally) tearing humanity apart says something about our own geopolitics and history of colonialism, without at all being overt: you can certainly read this novel as a rip-roaring space opera in which three people are trying to find their place, to find friends and family who love and appreciate them, and treat the varying genders as interesting markers of their assorted (alien) cultures, icing, if you will, like the differing kinds of beverages each society offers as a matter of course.

Or, as I did, as both a harsh indictment on our own society's flaws, and hope for a future that, while still deeply imperfect, nonetheless is better.

Recommended.

Oh, and I have a page of pitcher plant pix I made a decade plus ago. Enjoy.

---

(1)See, I'm guessing most folks wouldn't care too much about this metaphor, but mebbe some would, and it's really not that big a deal to get a sense of whether this usage is on its way out. I'm way more invested in the guilt-by-homophonic-association ‘niggardly’, which sucks, but there you go, it has an unfortunate similarity to a slur, despite having a completely different etymology, but the fact is, human brains do associate physiologically similar sounding words; no matter how much you try to explain, that link forms naturally cuzza of the way our brains are wired. C'est la vie.

12feb2024

Yeah, after the little basement interruption, it was back to reno. Seem to be over the hump on that, but here's a sketch on which to attach a buncha linkies...with luck, I'll have some more pages this week, but if not, then next.

First up (& most fascinating to me, anyway) this cool old video on plastering from the 1950s? that very much aligns with my book (also from the same era, which I purchased because I thought I was gonna learn how to repair the authentic wood-lath-and-plaster walls of our century old house—ha!):

• from the Gypsum Association archives, lathing and plastering—our old house had some of that transitional wall board, the 2x4 stuff with holes in it to form keys with plaster; also coved (curved upper walls) ceiling—and this was a post WWII starter home.
• How to clean crusted paintbrushes using hot vinegar —I'd just as soon not use the petroleum based solvents found in ‘brush cleaner’, so this looks worth a try (though honestly, I cheated and bought a new cut-in brush, since my old one dated back to at least a decade ago, and yes, it made the job significantly easier: not so much in terms of putting the paint where I wanted it—that's more a matter of skill—but retaining the paint instead of dripping it so much. Despite pre-wetting and cleaning it immediately, however, there's still streaks of paint dried on it, so I think this tip is gonna be useful.)
• Why our solar system is flat Ever wondered why all the planets rotate around the sun in basically a plane (Saturn's rings are another example). Well, here you go:) Plus, there's a bonus explanation about that ‘fake’ force, ‘centrifugal motion’.
• Speaking of Saturn, its moon Mimas evidently has a liquid ocean
• a former? republican? politico thinks Biden is not only a good president, but a great one. Dunno that I agree with that, but it's nice to have the administration's successes laid out. Seems like we mostly hear about the failures, and that can be kind of a downer.
• The House of Dance and Feathers has an online gallery of their elaborately beaded Crewe (NOLA mardi gras) costumes which to my eyes have something of the woodland style in their organic, curvilinear designs.
• Appendices (the organic kind) have evidently independently evolved multiple times, which tells you right there they're serving a useful purpose (possibly repopulating the gut biome, as, frex, after a bout of antibiotics; makes sense to me, anyway.
• Facial expressions do not reveal emotions as clearly as we think they do, or IOW, some people are disposed to be stone faced.
• Gustave Klimt portrait, lost for a century, found—gorgeous: the first time I've seen this, AFIAK.
• Identical twins stolen from their mom, re-united. I've known a couple of sets of identical twins, and all described the bond as special and very close; it's dreadful to steal any parent's child, but seems an extra layer of cruelty to separate twins. Their story ends up being bittersweet, against a horrifying backdrop of thousands of stolen Georgian babies over decades.
• On a happier note, two shipbuilders a century apart, explore cutting edge sailing ships, as well as the importance of family: and as my parents were sailors, and my brother actually owned a 60’ steel-hulled staysail schooner for a time, this was a pretty cool story for me. I would love for sailing ships to come back in a big way.
• Micro acts of joy really do help provided you can get yourself to do the rather silly-looking exercises.

Well, one joyful thing I associate with camping is the time and peace to do watercolour landscapes. I don't do them consistently enough for them to get good, but they sure bring happiness, and they also serve as practical mementos of lovely scenes.

29jan2024

Woe is me, after being the principal instigator in a reno project involving little details like removing ceilings, putting in a new floor, rerouting wiring and replumbing a new sink (for which I had only to actually do a bit of painting & mudding) I thought I could go back to my lazy life, but alas, our basement “flooded”. By which I mean the switch on the sump pump evidently hung up, and an inch or so of the rain that's been falling ended up covering the floor—always damp, cold & conducive to mold, now it's a race to get rid of all the cardboard and other growth media before it become truly toxic. (Why yes, I do understand that as our flooding was low and contained no sewage backup, we were lucky.)

As with the reno, the work has been mostly done by the wizard, f2tE, and friends; nevertheless, but even the fitful efforts I've been contributing to these projects wear me out. (IOW, this is probably gonna be it for the week...)

But! A library hold, Tim Alberta's The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism came in on Friday, and I have to say, as an alternative to throwing out moldy crap and half-broken tools given me over the years that I was gonna ‘use someday’ I inhaled this book.

I had read an excerpt somewhere and found the narrative compelling, and since our library had it, I ordered it. Early in the book the author tells of his father's devastating and sudden death; at the church his dad spent his life building up, Alberta expects to be condoled by the church members he's known since childhood on the loss, but is instead taken to task over his prior book castigating Trump's rise within the GOP. His wife wonders ‘what is wrong with these people?’ and it must've been an absolutely shattering betrayal to be taken to task by the congregation of his own father's church at his father's own funeral.

I am—just ever so slightly—more aware of evangelical controversies than the average progressive, liberal atheist, but only because I read Fred Clark's Slacktivist, but one reason I find this sort of book compelling is because I think it's not only intellectually lazy but also morally dangerous to write people off, tempting as it is when they spout cruelty; and like most progressives, I haven't much patience for the pro-life anti-LGBTQIA crowd, given that I've accessed abortion care, have a gay child and am “transgender”.^[1] Oh, and atheist. Not to mention a female bodied feminist.

All things, so far as I can tell, evangelicals hate and want destroyed.

Alberta is both a seasoned political reporter and a (devout) preacher's kid, and this intersection informs his views: what, he wants to know, do chants of USA! USA!, abundant flags, books and other GOP merch for sale in a church(!)^[2] have to do with feeding the hungry, caring for the widow and orphan, submission to God? Evangelicalism is about preaching—informing—spreading the good news of Jesus’ kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven— not politics, let alone requiring one's congregants to vote for a specific candidate or party. Which, btw, both he and I note is against the separation of Church and State encoded into our country by the Founding Fathers, which shouldn't ought to need to be said...but obviously is. Idolatry—in the form of 35 million dollar buildings to dedicated corrupt individuals (not god)—sickens him.

He is horrified by the politicalization of church closures, mask-wearing, covid19 vaccines during the early stages of the pandemic. American evangelicals have lost the plot, fixing their eyes on earthly power instead of love of humanity, bowing down to corrupt power-brokers instead of a humble submission to god. They have substituted faux victim-hood for the persecution the early church experienced (& still experiences in other parts of the world where religious freedom is truly curtailed) & which, the author asserts, their faith directs them to seek out.

But the average christian—the average human—doesn't want to live with that sort of uncertainty, poverty, fear. Developing faith that god will protect one against the vicissitudes of earthly life takes a lot of courage, and one can't entirely blame people for attempting shortcuts. (Especially, in my view, because there is no balancing heaven, afterlife or re-incarnation. This life is the only one you get.) This is why I support UBI and universal health care, to free people from fear. Nor are evangelicals alone in wishing for material success: the other day I was in a metaphysical shop (a bastion of woo I would normally avoid) and was struck by the number of candles and herb mixes ‘to bring money’ to the purchaser. Calm, joy, serenity, even a quest for love I could understand, but cash?

Talk about your magical thinking! Yet, that's all the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ is, just with a christian skin on it.

Alberta speaks of the growing pastoral shortage (in a community where a big proportion of its adherents still bar women preachers, evidently) and alcoholism and affairs as an ‘off-ramp’ (i.e. escape) from their callings, because they are exhausted and afraid of their own flocks whom ‘they can no longer control’. And, that, right there, is really where the author and I part ways.

Politics is all about find areas where your views intersect—in this case, helping the poor, the marginalized, the immigrant, the politically weak (both of us find gunshots being the number one cause of death in USAian children horrifying—not least, because until 2021, my bugaboo, vehicular death, reigned, and that's bad, but at least cars serve another purpose besides killing; guns do not); environmental conservation (& boy howdy do I find it ironic that most conservatives seem to be agin it). In all of those Alberta's views align with the standard progressive agenda. (And this atheist's wish-list for a better world.)

But where our views diverge, sharply, (over and above the political issues of abortion and teh gays, which are basically two facets of feminism) is his reverence and my suspicion of ‘discipling’. This is the pastor's task of leading his (and nearly all the preachers, good or bad, in this book are male) flock to a ‘deeper understanding in Christ’. They are to submit to the Lord; indeed the very title gives us the slang phrase of ‘lording it over’ someone. It is, as Libby Anne of the now sadly defunct LoveJoyFeminism explains, a hierarchical system in which God reigns, and covers the pastors/other authority figures; the pastors, the men; the men ‘their’ women (and children). God is to be unquestioningly and completely obeyed, because He is the all-Mighty, and we are mere limited imperfect—distorted—images thereof. Copies.

I'm all for accountabililty buddies, but I can't sign onto submission. I want peers, not rulers or minions. Mentors and students, I can and do treasure, but that's because it's a flexible role: I can mentor you in bead-stringing, you can mentor me in weight-training. I can be your student in learning how to better interact with neurotypical folks, you can be mine in drawing.

Alberta sees signs of improvement: women calling the SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) on sexual abuse, children taking their parents’ hateful, FOX infused views to task, pastors, initially floundering, finding a voice in encouraging their congregations to radical love and acceptance. And I appreciated his snark and willingness to call out the many, many grifters who take advantage of the ‘sheep’ who've been trained by those self-same pastors only to watch the things and read the books the pastors said were ok—to do what they were told.^[3]

But I find it troubling that his buddies who are hoping to rescue the evangelical church from its extremism are folks like David French, a powerhouse lawyer who spent years—decades—supporting hateful evangelical goals. This NYT's commenter on French's recent ‘never Trumpers’ column sums up my feelings well:

That is why I both feel deep anger at him [French] yet respect him when he says: “I’m deeply, deeply grieved by the thought that I did anything in my life before Trump to contribute to that unrighteous rage.” Mr. French, the fact is that you did do many things in your professional life before Trump that contributed to where we are now. The fact that you did those things as an excellent lawyer and writer and honestly believed you were supporting your evangelical faith is of little comfort for many of us who, at the time, could see the melding of your evangelical Christianity and secular government as an enormous danger.

Alberta, in his book, stresses the need for christians to repent of their sins, but in my view, one of the important ones—especially for protestants—is their substitution of the misogynist focus on abortion for the no-longer-acceptable racism which has infected white USian christianity from the nation's founding. Fred Clark of slacktivist is fond of noting that evangelical opposition to abortion is younger than McDonald's Happy Meal, and when I worked at Mickey D's happy meals hadn't been invented yet. Because sexism has been part of humanity for at least as long as recorded history, women paid the price when the honchos at SBC and elsewhere decided the southern strategy was no longer gonna fly.

Alberta and his buddies French and Moore all doth protest they're evangelical, they're anti-abortion—over and over and over again Alberta assures his reader, despite his christ-like focus on the poor, the immigrant, the ‘widow and orphan’—without justifying this view: by what right can mere [hu]men demand that the people losing their health, sanity, autonomy to an unwanted, life-changing and possibly fatal parasite endure this suffering while still claiming to believe in an omnipotent, merciful and just god? No merciful or just god would steal away the most closely connected person's right to decide her body, mind and soul's fate to some other imperfect human being with even less of an understanding of the situation.

It boggles the mind.

Yet these so-called compassionate christians do not trust the most nearly connected people to decide their own fates. —I don't think Alberta is misogynistic, nor even consciously sexist, but I'll note there are precious few women in his narrative, and the ones that do stand out are those in the chapter about the SBC's sexual abuse of women and girls (and their years—decades!—long fight to expose that abuse). Sarah Jones, in this Intelligencer critique of the book, puts it well:

Alberta invests his hopes for the church in a small remnant of Evangelicals who are dismayed by what their faith has become. They nevertheless appear conservative on issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. This sets up a greater problem, one that never really gets resolved in the book. On the subject of abortion, conservative Evangelicals are extremists, out of step both with medical science and public opinion. Even the remnant is complicit; if you think abortion is state-sanctioned murder, you cannot be apolitical. It’s a bit rich, then, to accuse your more partisan brothers and sisters of wrecking the faith: “Winning is a virtue. I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.” So do you, if you’re anti-abortion.

Early in the book, Alberta claims his father's Achilles’ heel is a ‘love of country’. This is true for many evangelicals, (judging by their slogans) but the great sin of the USA is that we stole the land from the tribes already here, and labor from enslaved Blacks imported from Africa specifically for that purpose. So if love of country is indubitably intertwined with evangelicalism, then those are the sins that need to be acknowledged and repented. But don't take my word for it—over the three days I've been working on this essay Mr Clark providentially dropped a column addressing Alberta's buddies on this very same issue:

In response to their critics, Moore and French defensively reassert and reaffirm their adamant abortion-is-murderism as proof that their white evangelical standing ought to be above reproach. And here I think maybe their critics come closer to glimpsing the truth than Moore and French do themselves. They’re a bit closer than Moore and French are to realizing that abortion-is-murderism has always primarily been a device to allow white racists to tell themselves that they’re the Good Guys without ever repenting of white racism.

Alas, the language on all sides of that “broader division” in the niche world of white evangelicalism is so muddied by layers of proxy subject matter and euphemism and deliberate imprecision that they’re not able to think about it, let alone to talk about it, clearly.

As Mr Clark has been known to say: Preach.

Because I think the robust answer is not, actually, radical acceptance of an ‘unseen world’ (the Biblical verse on which Alberta ends his jeremiad) but the acknowledgement, instead, that this world, this life, is all anyone gets, and that it's our duty to treat everyone's—every thing's—precious life with the honour and grace it deserves.

Any distraction that allows people to displace that reality (e.g. with fantasies of god or heaven) are therefore suspect, and why, though I honour the good work religious people do, I cannot wholeheartedly support the underlying philosophy.

And oh, yeah, here's that photo I've posted on which to hang this still-messy, rambling screed. But I gots basements to clear out and taxes to prep, so this will have to do. Take care.

16jan2024

I've been busy helping with a reno project, so I haven't been getting much else done, including web pages, let alone art. However, I did manage to edit the image for today's post before I ran out of steam, and moreover found a poem that evokes a similar kind of melancholy (to the photo); it starts:

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

Poetry is one of those things for which I've only dabbled in the shallowest way, though the Langston Hughs’ poem I've always called ‘Ain't no Crystal Stair’ is one of my most vivid reading experiences in grade school: I identified with it because of delivering newspapers in shabby duplexes up some of those bare stairs. (N.b., the actual name of the poem is Mother to Son.)^[1]

Thus, Robert Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays resonated, because to me it had a similar feel; of course, the poet, growing up in 1910s, was (roughly) of my grandparents’ generation, and I only experience that kind of cold while winter camping. Yes, today the inside of one of my bedroom windows has ice on it. No, it doesn't count—the room itself is at least 45–50 degrees, not least because I keep the register closed. (Whatever else you have to say about Laura Ingalls Wilder, she vividly captures the bitter cold of life before central heating.) It's not at all surprising that Hayden had read and admired Hugh's work, though according to the accompanying interview, his greatest influece was Countee Cullen, whom I'll have to check out.

I was additionally delighted to discover the poet was born and grew up in the same city (albeit different ‘boroughs’ —technically I lived in the McNichols and Woodward area, rather than Paradise Alley) though separated by half a century; the house I grew up in was built around the time this gentleman was born and at the time was considered upper class—housing built by middle management, so I was told by my father, for the big Ford factory down the street. It was also, he explained, why our side walks were 5’ wide, enough for three people: folks walked to work back then.

The majestic elms that lined those street were dying from Dutch elm disease by the time we moved out, and if not quite the slums, the area is now poor, despite the legacy of plaster walls and foot high walnut baseboards and ceiling cornices, both of which my mother stripped to expose the magnificent wood; now I live in a small town, which evokes another famous work with a melancholy mood, Edward Hopper's Early Sunday Morning.

Stay warm, everyone! —I gather we'll be back to rain, (and perhaps fog as well) lots of it, next week. Oh boy.