roadrunnertwice

From this week's

1. What was the last book you read (or are currently reading)?
Still working my way through The Urban Bestiary (Lyanda Lynn Haupt), Hidden Potential (Adam Grant), and Silent Spring (Rachel Carson).

2. What was the last movie you watched?
Project Hail Mary, which we enjoyed immensely.

3. What television series are you currently watching?
The Pitt (HBO Max), Paradise (Hulu), Hacks (HBO Max), Reservation Dogs (Hulu)

4. What are some of your favorite blogs or communities online?
Argh, I don't have a good answer for this one, my blog reading is limited to blogs of personal friends, and I do not have a lot of specific communities that I follow, but I do love my Reading Page/DW Network! I have also crafted a nifty BlueSky feed of climate scientists, renewable energy/energy efficiency experts, biologists/ecologist, historians, and astronomy/astrophysics accounts that is pretty affirming. Which reminds me, someone created a feed of cats watching the Artemis II splashdown last night that was pretty fun to scroll.

5. What social media do you belong to and check often?
Dreamwidth and BlueSky are the only places I check regularly. I have a FB account to maintain contact with some folks that I can't otherwise see elsewhere, but I largely keep it deactivated and check in only here and there. The platform is largely unusable to me these days and mostly foists AI slop, communities/personalities I don't follow or care for, or ads...not to mention the issues of maintaining an account tied to your government name while trying to exist as a person part of communities that are being actively attacked by the U.S. government. For the people in those communities that do feel comfortable enough to still post there, you are very brave, I am not. Other than that, I do occasionally read through some communities/book clubs on Fable.

oursin

A conversation on witchcraft: history, religion, and persecution - including Ronald Hutton (fangirling).

***

And on subversive women: Archiving Bengal’s Revolutionary Women:

[M]any women participated in the revolutionary movement, taking on roles that challenged colonial authority and social norms. The militants who joined underground networks, manufactured explosives, and participated in acts of political violence, however, remain largely absent from both public memory and archival records. When they do appear in colonial documents, they are often framed through their relationships to men: as daughters, wives, or associates, rather than as political actors in their own right.

Surprised? not really.

***

More on grassroots activism: Travelling activists, Radical Hospitality, and the Intimate History of Socialist Organising in Britain, c. 1880-1914.

***

Women in perhaps unexpected occupations (though I knew a little a bit about this since an old mate of mine did some research on the topic back in the 80s): Women in the Private Asylum Business in Nineteenth-Century England.

***

This association is already fairly well-known but a nuanced set of arguments about the complexity of how it plays out: Inequality and health: Lost in the mists of time?:

Rather than behaving like a toxin that produces a sudden spike in mortality after a fixed incubation period, inequality is more like a fog that gradually seeps into bodies, relationships, and institutions over time.

***

What the information in one scroll recording an C18th Chancery suit opened up concerning George Orwell's ancestors (Jamaica connection).

marycatelli

This may contain: a small stuffed rabbit sitting on the side of a brick road next to a building

james_davis_nicoll

10 works new to me: five fantasy, and five science fiction, of which at least three are series (if magazines count as series). I have not see that high a fraction of SF in quite a while.

Books Received April 4 — April 10

Poll #34466 Books Received April 4 — April 10

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13

View Respondents

Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Demonology for Overachievers by Lily Anderson (September 2026)
1 (7.7%)

All Hail Chaos by Sarah Rees Brennan (May 2026)
4 (30.8%)

The Faith of Beasts by James S. A. Corey (April 2026)
2 (15.4%)

FIYAH Literary Magazine Issue 38 published by FIYAH Literary Magazine (April 2026)
1 (7.7%)

House Haunters by KC Jones (October 2026)
2 (15.4%)

The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee (May 2026)
5 (38.5%)

A Wall Is Also a Road by Annalee Newitz (October 2026)
5 (38.5%)

There Are No Giant Crabs in This Novel: A Novel of Giant Crabs by Jason Pargin (November 2026)
7 (53.8%)

A Kiss of Crimson Ash by Anuja Varghese (May 2026)
3 (23.1%)

Teddy Bears Never Die by Cho Yeeun (May 2026)
4 (30.8%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
8 (61.5%)

falkner posting in

smallbatchicons

(These were made for the april iconathon.)

purplecat

The third Doctor and a long-haired gentleman (Cliff Jones from The Green Death for those who recognise characters) examine a mushroom.

torachan

1. I got the final confirmation from the tax guy so I was able to sign in the app and have those sent off. I get really antsy leaving it so close to the deadline so that’s a weight off my mind to have it all done finally.

2. After yesterday’s rain, today was warm and very sunny. And muggy. Ugh! And since it was Saturday, the crowds were out in force, but we still have a really nice day today at DisneySea. Tomorrow we are doing non-Disney stuff and then going back to the park on Monday which should be both less crowded and not as hot and sunny, so fingers crossed.

celli

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dancing_serpent posting in

c_ent

The weekly chat posts are intended for just that, chatting among each other. What are you currently watching? Reading? What actor/idol are you currently following? What are you looking forward to? Are you busy writing, creating art? Or did you have no time at all for anything, and are bemoaning that fact?

Whatever it is, talk to us about it here. Tell us what you liked or didn't like, and if you want to talk about spoilery things, please hide them under either of these codes:
or

cimorene

I think a clock that chimed every hour would be really helpful to me. It would be like having an alarm that goes off once an hour, but totally benign, instead of making me jump like an alarm. It would be nicer if the church belltower did - belltower chimes are the best ones, I think. Meanwhile lots of clocks don't even tick now, which I find very annoying, because I like to listen for the ticks and count them.

dine

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sovay

The better part of my afternoon was spent sitting on a park bench with

rushthatspeaks in the classically balmy sunshine, watching a classful of kindergarteners shriek and clamber all over the climbing structures, the fountain, and the swings. One edged his way over to us with his school tablet on which he showed us the groups of things he was learning. I saw another with a pinwheel, another with a fanny pack, another with a baseball cap made of duct tape, crouching with a friend to pry open a maintenance hatch in the fountain with a stick. We agreed that we miss tire swings and feel nostalgically toward metal slides which had to be insulated from thigh-scalding summer with pieces of cardboard or brown paper bags. FiDO Pizza turns out to deliver all the way from Allston and while I recognize the garlic honey and chili zing of the richly soppressata-studded Doc, the anchovy-forward collards and kale of the Braised Greens over Parmesan cream tasted like an entire kelp forest and I ate it like one. We had cookies left over from Pesach for dessert. Especially at the end of a scrambled week, it was a low-key, springlike, lovely time. We have made plans in the newly discovered directions of All She Wrote Books and Dani's Queer Bar. In the evening we saw that Artemis II had safely splashed down.

Current Music: Holly Humberstone, "To Love Somebody"

chestnut_pod

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aurumcalendula

I tuned in to NASA's YouTube stream a little bit before Integrity's communication blackout ended. I remember the loss of the Columbia, so it was such relief they came home safe!

( Read more... )

marginaliana

Various Opinions:

--The hour-long Dimension 20: On A Bus was a delight but probably would have been more of a delight at half the length. I think the concept couldn't quite carry that much time and the humor of 'everyone is losing their shit' got repetitive after a while. That said, Brennan's "I'm sad because of capitalism" made me choke on my own spit.

--I've been re-watching my favorite playthrough of Hollow Knight and we just got to the episode that makes me choke up as we learn that ( spoilers )

--This is the absolute smallest of the horrible things JKR has done, but remember when it used to be a fun little fan game to chat about your blorbos and assign them Hogwarts houses? It's not fun anymore. I hate that.

--I'm writing a smut fic and I might actually have to go watch some porn to work out the logistics of how the bodies fit together for this particular situation. Not something I've done before!

--Iceland was magnificent, by the way. We went inside a tunnel in a glacier!

ofearthandstars

Artemis II. Amaze Amaze Amaze. 💚💙💜

rebeccmeister

First brevet of 2026 for me tomorrow, stationed out of Westfield, MA. We shall see how this goes...

marycatelli

Neo-Confucians managed to get Korean royal hunting locked down in the 15th century. Very unsuitable business. Brought the king into contact with all sorts of non-courtiers.

Silver bullets were less popular for dealing with demonic beings such as werewolves than stealing lead from the church roof and melting that down into bullets.

The last monarch in Great Britain to withhold asset to a law was Queen Anne, in 1708, for the Scottish Militia Bill. What happened was that her ministers changed their mind about it and asked her to do that.

( Read more... )

musesfool

Today's poem:

The Other Woman

as I picture her
she has no basil
no cumin
no sun-hardened hyssop
nor sage around her eyes

she never catnips
but laughs comfrey
tansy with a primula smile

as I think of her
she's angelica
foxglove and jasmine
somewhat peppermint
not letting you see
all her saffron at once

one day I’ll meet her
that rue woman
that wild indigo teasel
somewhere neutral
free of woodruff and of dropwort
some summer savory

she's the nose
set to lavender
eye full of sesame
ear ringing rosemary

she's wind
through wild thyme

--Twyla M. Hansen

*

Current Mood: full
Current Music: Mets pregame

ranunculus

I'm sticking pretty close to home these days. Lots of garden work/prep for the season. The greenhouse has been emptied out of half of its contents and new plants have taken their place. A lot of the tomatoes are in the garden already, more are waiting to be planted. Gave Pete D. three trays of stuff which he was glad to have as he always plants a LOT of tomatoes. A couple years ago he had 100 tomatoes in the ground. He shares with neighbors and his farm crew members. I was very glad to get the little tomatoes out of the greenhouse, I was watering twice a day and not keeping up.
The first Iris opened a day or two ago. Its name might be Total Recall.( Read more... )

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Friday Five: Entertainment Edition

Rounding up various things

Happy Easter Saturday!

Books Received April 4 — April 10

TGCF, Qi Rong

Random Doctor Who Picture

Daily Happiness

#ArirangD2

Weekly Chat

Antique clocks are a problem because you have to wind them

I don't fall in love / baby, I'm a jumper

And this blue and green ball keeps spinning to the beat

Frederick Ashton's Sylvia (ABT)

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Sighs Queen

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The plan is to go in circles [bicycling]

tidbits cross history

she's wind through wild thyme

Tractor, Garden, Cancelled Events

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