happy birthday to meeee
May. 6th, 2026 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenI'm 48 today! I made a hummingbird cake but it looks boring so I won't post a pic. but it's gonna be delicious. the texture is just right so I KNOW this.
green
Fannish Appreciation
May. 6th, 2026 01:11 pmlydamorehouse I truly love fandom.
I've been in Bleach fandom since at least 2012 (a date easily checked because that's when I started my AO3 account.) And, you do not need to immediately comment that you've never read Bleach. I honestly wouldn't recommend it to most people. I honestly wouldn't recommend it to anime or manga fans, either! For whatever reason, Bleach just happened to be the thing for me that hit me in the right place at the right time. I felt 15 years old again, absolutely caught up in something that I felt desperate to share with other people. That feeling is probably familiar to you, my nerdy friends. So, as I talk, just imagine Your Thing anytime I say Bleach.
I've been really lucky that, over the years, I've had other Bleach fans gift me things. People have written stories for me, people have drawn amazing art for me, andopalsong even podcast one of my fics ("Hey, Opalsong, if you like Free! you should read my Bleach x Free! crossover," I say for the nineteenth time before I remember that YOU PODCASTED it.) There are so many things people have offered me as part of this fandom that I will cherish forever, but until recently no one has ever offered to share a amateur bound book of my work with me.
Behold!
Image: a fan-drawn manga of a fan work of Bleach.
The crazy thing about this, of course, is that in the past year or so there's been a scammer who has targetted me twice attempting to suggest that they will draw a comic book/manga-style work from my story. (It's usually kind of obvious it's a scam because they'll pick a story where I'm like, "three people have read this. Why?") I always answer this with, "if you found my AO3 profile, you know I've given blanket permission for you to do this. Have at it!" and then they always come back with, "Yes, but for a commission," and I have to say, "Friend, I write fan fic for free. If you want to do fan art for the love of it, go for it. I am not paying you to make fan art of my fan work." Especially since this book I got? I paid nothing. The book artist wouldn't even let me pay for shipping.
Anyway, fandom is the best.
I've been in Bleach fandom since at least 2012 (a date easily checked because that's when I started my AO3 account.) And, you do not need to immediately comment that you've never read Bleach. I honestly wouldn't recommend it to most people. I honestly wouldn't recommend it to anime or manga fans, either! For whatever reason, Bleach just happened to be the thing for me that hit me in the right place at the right time. I felt 15 years old again, absolutely caught up in something that I felt desperate to share with other people. That feeling is probably familiar to you, my nerdy friends. So, as I talk, just imagine Your Thing anytime I say Bleach.
I've been really lucky that, over the years, I've had other Bleach fans gift me things. People have written stories for me, people have drawn amazing art for me, and
opalsong even podcast one of my fics ("Hey, Opalsong, if you like Free! you should read my Bleach x Free! crossover," I say for the nineteenth time before I remember that YOU PODCASTED it.) There are so many things people have offered me as part of this fandom that I will cherish forever, but until recently no one has ever offered to share a amateur bound book of my work with me.Behold!
Image: a fan bound book with the title "Academy Blues" by TSP Bindery. (https://www.tiktok.com/@tsp.bindery).
This volume actually contains two of my multi-chapter fics. First,"Forever With You Never Sounded So Stupid"and "Academy Blues." Not than most of you care, but both of these fics are part of my emotional process of recovering after the absolutely stupid, rushed ending of the official Bleach manga. I will not get into it (in part because if I start ranting, I will not stop), but suffice to say this is a fix-it that, in my own personal head, is now canon. I literally note which panel to stop reading, because my story perfectly fits canon up to that point. I also actually include a lot of the information gleaned from the official light novels that Shounen Jump commissioned to also try to actually fix the mess Kubo Tite left behind.
Anyway, the cover isn't all that exciting, honestly. But wait until you see the interior....
Interior chapter start, this one featuring Renji from Bleach....
And a second one,
Image: featuring a bone tree from a part of the Bleach universe known as Hueco Mundo, the Hollow World
Also scatterred throughout are some bits of a manga-style comicbook that aysmiro drew and shared with me, while I was writing this particular set of fics. As I was telling a friend, the pieces of this fan manga are so important to me that I've desperately been saving it on various digital back-ups for years. Now, thanks to this fan project, I have high quality printouts forever.
Image: a fan-drawn manga of a fan work of Bleach.
The crazy thing about this, of course, is that in the past year or so there's been a scammer who has targetted me twice attempting to suggest that they will draw a comic book/manga-style work from my story. (It's usually kind of obvious it's a scam because they'll pick a story where I'm like, "three people have read this. Why?") I always answer this with, "if you found my AO3 profile, you know I've given blanket permission for you to do this. Have at it!" and then they always come back with, "Yes, but for a commission," and I have to say, "Friend, I write fan fic for free. If you want to do fan art for the love of it, go for it. I am not paying you to make fan art of my fan work." Especially since this book I got? I paid nothing. The book artist wouldn't even let me pay for shipping.
Anyway, fandom is the best.
I think that about covers it
May. 6th, 2026 07:03 ammrissaHello, friends. I've got something to show you
It's a book cover! In fact it is my book cover! Because...you can preorder my novella, A Dubious Clamor, directly from the publisher or from an assortment of bookstores of your choice! In ebook or hardcover editions! Isn't it pretty? Isn't it appropriate for the book?
Okay, so you can't know whether it's appropriate for the book yet. But you can trust Naomi Kritzer, friend and multi-award winner, who describes this book as, "No war but class war; also, harpies!" (She also says it's "delightful, unique, and frequently hilarious," in case you were wondering.) Some other awesome people describe it as things too! Wonderful people like authors Ruthanna Emrys and Davinia Evans and critic Paul Weimer! Do you want to know what those things are? You can see them on the pre-order page!
But wait! there's more. (You did the right voice in your head for that, right?) If you preorder, you can not only get this lovely novella (ooooh! aaaaah!), you can also get a really cool sticker of a skeptical sword! You can put this on your laptop, phone, water bottle, small child, or other sticker-bearing device! Be the envy of your friends and neighbors, or at least those of your friends and neighbors who are cool enough to like sword stickers. (As for the other kind, who cares what they think? You are a discerning individual who knows the value of sword stickers, and that's what matters.)
Don't go yet! There's still more. Sadly we currently live in the timeline that has class war but no harpies. (I have improved on this in the novella! Which you can read on September 15 if you preorder it now!) But do you know what our timeline does have? It has harpy eagles. Harpy eagles are so cool. And the lovely people at the World Wildlife Fund allow you to donate to support their habitat. Every person who preorders will be entered into a drawing (subject to sweepstakes laws in your jurisdiction) to win a harpy eagle plushie that also supports harpy eagles in real life! For each hundred pre-orders, we will add another harpy eagle plushie (and its attendant habitat support) to the drawing, so your odds of winning an awesome harpy eagle plushie to be your new cuddly pal and mascot will never be less than 1 in 100. Or you can pass it on to be the cuddly pal and mascot of someone else you know, that part is up to you. Similarly you can also preorder copies of the novella and not read them, if for some reason you're opposed to opinionated weaponry, fictional operetta, and cake in your reading life. I will warn you, there is much cake.
So here it is! Pre-order today! or also other days, that's fine too!
March and April 2026 Books
May. 6th, 2026 09:49 amkay_brookeFive books read in March and six in April. I know I said in an earlier entry I wanted to read a little more slowly and more thoughtfully this year, and it started well, with me only reading five books each in January and February but having actual thoughts about them. But for the last couple months reading has been frustrating, and the slowness is not due to reading thoughtfully but because I'm bored and not reading at all for long stretches. I've been reluctant to DNF anything because none of the books have been bad (although April ended with a splat, see reviews below), and I think the problem is me. I can blame working long hours, but even when I have free time I rarely use that time to read. I'm hoping I can get past this slump soon. I probably just need to be more aggressive about DNFing stuff I'm not having fun reading.
Previous books posts:
Books 1-7 (January)
Books 8-14 (February)
( 15. No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull - 2 stars )
( 16. An African History of Africa by Zeinab Badawi - 3.5 stars )
( 17. The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ote Utomi - 4.5 stars )
( 18. The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin - 3.5 stars )
( 19. The Monster by Seth Dickinson - 3 stars )
( 20. Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin - 3 stars )
( 21. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett - 5 stars )
( 22. J is for Justice by Sue Grafton - 4 stars )
( 23. The Curator by Owen King - 2.5 stars )
( 24. Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland - 2 stars )
( 25. Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan - 2 stars (Spoilers for pretty much all of it) )
Previous books posts:
Books 1-7 (January)
Books 8-14 (February)
( 15. No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull - 2 stars )
( 16. An African History of Africa by Zeinab Badawi - 3.5 stars )
( 17. The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ote Utomi - 4.5 stars )
( 18. The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin - 3.5 stars )
( 19. The Monster by Seth Dickinson - 3 stars )
( 20. Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin - 3 stars )
( 21. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett - 5 stars )
( 22. J is for Justice by Sue Grafton - 4 stars )
( 23. The Curator by Owen King - 2.5 stars )
( 24. Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland - 2 stars )
( 25. Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan - 2 stars (Spoilers for pretty much all of it) )
Rowhammer Attack Against NVIDIA Chips
May. 6th, 2026 10:36 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
bruce_schneier_feedA new rowhammer attack gives complete control of NVIDIA CPUs.
On Thursday, two research teams, working independently of each other, demonstrated attacks against two cards from Nvidia’s Ampere generation that take GPU rowhammering into new—and potentially much more consequential—territory: GDDR bitflips that give adversaries full control of CPU memory, resulting in full system compromise of the host machine. For the attack to work, IOMMU memory management must be disabled, as is the default in BIOS settings.
“Our work shows that Rowhammer, which is well-studied on CPUs, is a serious threat on GPUs as well,” said Andrew Kwong, co-author of one of the papers. “GDDRHammer: Greatly Disturbing DRAM RowsCross-Component Rowhammer Attacks from Modern GPUs.” “With our work, we… show how an attacker can induce bit flips on the GPU to gain arbitrary read/write access to all of the CPU’s memory, resulting in complete compromise of the machine.”
Update Friday, April 3: On Friday, researchers unveiled a third Rowhammer attack that also demonstrates Rowhammer attacks on the RTX A6000 that achieves privilege escalation to a root shell. Unlike the previous two, the researchers said, it works even when IOMMU is enabled.
The second paper is GeForge: Hammering GDDR Memory to Forge GPU Page Tables for Fun and Profit:
…does largely the same thing, except that instead of exploiting the last-level page table, as GDDRHammer does, it manipulates the last-level page directory. It was able to induce 1,171 bitflips against the RTX 3060 and 202 bitflips against the RTX 6000.
GeForge, too, uses novel hammering patterns and memory massaging to corrupt GPU page table mappings in GDDR6 memory to acquire read and write access to the GPU memory space. From there, it acquires the same privileges over host CPU memory. The GeForge proof-of-concept exploit against the RTX 3060 concludes by opening a root shell window that allows the attacker to issue commands that run unfettered privileges on the host machine. The researchers said that both GDDRHammer and GeForge could do the same thing against the RTC 6000.
Reading Wednesday
May. 6th, 2026 07:04 amtroisoiseauxRead Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, which reads like how pressing on a bruise feels: poor doomed Giovanni, who you know from early in the first chapter to be fated "to perish, sometime between this night and this morning, on the guillotine" but not yet how he got there; the poor wretched narrator, who's rotting from the inside from internalized homophobia and willing to throw anyone and everyone else under the bus about it. Poor Hella, the narrator's girlfriend turned fiancée, whose brief period of being actually engaged to him reveals her to have such a nightmarish vision of midcentury heterosexual wedded bliss that it's almost a relief when the narrator's secrets blow up in their faces. An excellent novel, but HOO BOY.
In War and Peace, Nikolai Rostov— on facing the inherent contradiction of the top ranks of the Russian army being bosom buddies with the French now that peace has been negotiated between them, while wounded soldiers suffer in makeshift hospitals completely without resources, his friend Denisov faces a court martial for ""requisitioning"" a supply cart to feed his starving division, etc.; so many soldiers died fighting, and for what?— very nearly realizes that war is bad and unfair, but instead he gets drunk about it and insists that obviously whatever Emperor Alexander decides is best!!! So maybe we should all stop criticizing and complaining!!! (To the confusion of his drinking buddies, who literally did not mention the Emperor at all.) On the "paired scenes" theory of War and Peace, I had wondered if the parallel was between Nikolai getting goaded by Dolokhov into gambling himself into massive debt and Pierre getting himself talked out of his grand plans to liberate his serfs, etc., by self-serving estate managers; in fact, the parallel was that "all the plans Pierre had attempted on his estates—and constantly changing from one thing to another had never accomplished—were carried out by Prince Andrei without display and without perceptible difficulty."
In War and Peace, Nikolai Rostov— on facing the inherent contradiction of the top ranks of the Russian army being bosom buddies with the French now that peace has been negotiated between them, while wounded soldiers suffer in makeshift hospitals completely without resources, his friend Denisov faces a court martial for ""requisitioning"" a supply cart to feed his starving division, etc.; so many soldiers died fighting, and for what?— very nearly realizes that war is bad and unfair, but instead he gets drunk about it and insists that obviously whatever Emperor Alexander decides is best!!! So maybe we should all stop criticizing and complaining!!! (To the confusion of his drinking buddies, who literally did not mention the Emperor at all.) On the "paired scenes" theory of War and Peace, I had wondered if the parallel was between Nikolai getting goaded by Dolokhov into gambling himself into massive debt and Pierre getting himself talked out of his grand plans to liberate his serfs, etc., by self-serving estate managers; in fact, the parallel was that "all the plans Pierre had attempted on his estates—and constantly changing from one thing to another had never accomplished—were carried out by Prince Andrei without display and without perceptible difficulty."
发帖ing
May. 6th, 2026 07:35 pmnnozomiToo much boring work to do (better than no work at all, but still), so of course I am escaping reality and posting here instead. (Also owe some comments on other people's posts! Soon, I hope!)
I went to the thrice-yearly used book fair* in Kyoto, which is always fun and frustrating in equal measure; it’s the usual used bookstore problem writ large, i.e. I know there is something I want there, but there are so many books arranged in such random order, there’s no real way to come across it other than dumb luck. Still, I found one book for me (oral history in Japanese) and one for my mom (Hamerton’s Paris, architectural essays published in 1892, in amazingly good condition and not at all expensive), as well as some cute postcards from past book fair posters, see below. In the past I’ve also come across things like a set of Chujo Yuriko’s complete works at about 2 dollars a volume (there are a lot of volumes, but still), some art I still have up on my wall, at least one of the books I use as a source for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
senzenwomen, and my favorite piece of ephemera ever, have I mentioned it here before? a school directory for a Kyoto public junior high school from 1955, containing not just students’ names and addresses but also parents’ names, ages, and occupations, like a sociological map of the neighborhood at the time.
*(Of the three yearly used book fairs, the May one is the only one held inside; I usually skip the August one, because even in the shady precincts of the Shimogamo Shrine, Kyoto in August is too damn hot and humid to wander around outside for any length of time, and one doesn’t want to sweat on the books. October at Chionji (or is it Chion-in, I always forget) is much nicer.)
I’ve been watching a bunch of people doing reaction videos to songs/concerts on Bilibili, and found myself thinking, I could do this! Not showing my face, God forbid, just my voice and my terrible Chinese. I have things I want to say! It would be such good speaking practice! (she said innocently). Probably nobody would watch them, but so what? Except, I couldn’t do it, because I don’t have the relevant software/hardware and have never made a video in my life. Is that something you can just, like, download and learn? (Also I’d have to actually sign up to B站, but presumably that can be done…)
Considering some of the more varied uses of the character 美 in Chinese. 美甲, painted/polished/manicured nails; 美瞳, cosmetic contacts; 美声, bel canto (used, I think, as a metonym (?) for Western-opera singing in general, to distinguish it from Chinese opera). Also the phonetic ones: 美乃滋, Taiwan-Chinese for mayonnaise (the mainland uses 蛋黄酱, egg yolk sauce); 美式 is American-style and a 冰美式 is an iced Americano.
Other random Chinese stuff: 大肠发卷, a really delightful word which is literally “large intestine hairband,” ie a scrunchie; and the frequent online use of the English “ing”to mean, appropriately, “currently doing ~~” (I’ve seen “排练ing” and “考虑ing” among others).
Jiang Dunhao song of the post, 好的晚安, because the 转音 (melisma? do you call it melisma in a pop song?) get to me; also a bonus Zhou Shen version of the same song, up an octave of course (or rather JDH is taking it down an octave, Zhou Shen covered it first).
For the last orchestra concert, we had a different tuba player (the one before was a slight, fresh-faced young man who looked as if he might get sucked into his own tuba, a la Alice in Orchestralia); this one was a tall thin guy about thirty, with glasses and a short ponytail (still unusual in mainstream Japan). He looks like someone, I kept thinking, but I couldn’t pin it down until I saw him in his concert suit: Liu Sang!
Rereading the diaries of Nella Last, a mid-20th-c. housewife from Northern England, vibrant as always.
Photos: Miké-chan in the park; two from the regional jazz festival over Golden Week, one mostly sky and one a performance in a shrine (look close to see the sax and trumpet); iris, maple, and strawberries, the latter from my veranda; two from a recent Gaudí exhibition, because I can’t resist dragons, or mosaic (especially as a tiny model); and four postcards of past used-book-fair posters. Maybe the Heian lady is that girl whose name I can never remember who was so thrilled when her aunt gave her the latest chapters of the Tale of Genji? 
Be safe and well.
I went to the thrice-yearly used book fair* in Kyoto, which is always fun and frustrating in equal measure; it’s the usual used bookstore problem writ large, i.e. I know there is something I want there, but there are so many books arranged in such random order, there’s no real way to come across it other than dumb luck. Still, I found one book for me (oral history in Japanese) and one for my mom (Hamerton’s Paris, architectural essays published in 1892, in amazingly good condition and not at all expensive), as well as some cute postcards from past book fair posters, see below. In the past I’ve also come across things like a set of Chujo Yuriko’s complete works at about 2 dollars a volume (there are a lot of volumes, but still), some art I still have up on my wall, at least one of the books I use as a source for
senzenwomen, and my favorite piece of ephemera ever, have I mentioned it here before? a school directory for a Kyoto public junior high school from 1955, containing not just students’ names and addresses but also parents’ names, ages, and occupations, like a sociological map of the neighborhood at the time. *(Of the three yearly used book fairs, the May one is the only one held inside; I usually skip the August one, because even in the shady precincts of the Shimogamo Shrine, Kyoto in August is too damn hot and humid to wander around outside for any length of time, and one doesn’t want to sweat on the books. October at Chionji (or is it Chion-in, I always forget) is much nicer.)
I’ve been watching a bunch of people doing reaction videos to songs/concerts on Bilibili, and found myself thinking, I could do this! Not showing my face, God forbid, just my voice and my terrible Chinese. I have things I want to say! It would be such good speaking practice! (she said innocently). Probably nobody would watch them, but so what? Except, I couldn’t do it, because I don’t have the relevant software/hardware and have never made a video in my life. Is that something you can just, like, download and learn? (Also I’d have to actually sign up to B站, but presumably that can be done…)
Considering some of the more varied uses of the character 美 in Chinese. 美甲, painted/polished/manicured nails; 美瞳, cosmetic contacts; 美声, bel canto (used, I think, as a metonym (?) for Western-opera singing in general, to distinguish it from Chinese opera). Also the phonetic ones: 美乃滋, Taiwan-Chinese for mayonnaise (the mainland uses 蛋黄酱, egg yolk sauce); 美式 is American-style and a 冰美式 is an iced Americano.
Other random Chinese stuff: 大肠发卷, a really delightful word which is literally “large intestine hairband,” ie a scrunchie; and the frequent online use of the English “ing”to mean, appropriately, “currently doing ~~” (I’ve seen “排练ing” and “考虑ing” among others).
Jiang Dunhao song of the post, 好的晚安, because the 转音 (melisma? do you call it melisma in a pop song?) get to me; also a bonus Zhou Shen version of the same song, up an octave of course (or rather JDH is taking it down an octave, Zhou Shen covered it first).
For the last orchestra concert, we had a different tuba player (the one before was a slight, fresh-faced young man who looked as if he might get sucked into his own tuba, a la Alice in Orchestralia); this one was a tall thin guy about thirty, with glasses and a short ponytail (still unusual in mainstream Japan). He looks like someone, I kept thinking, but I couldn’t pin it down until I saw him in his concert suit: Liu Sang!
Rereading the diaries of Nella Last, a mid-20th-c. housewife from Northern England, vibrant as always.
5/13/41: Men are so odd. I often feel I give up trying to understand them at all. Perhaps they feel like that about us!!
6/8/41: Today at Morecambe Bay two carfuls of happy people sat within earshot and I caught scraps of conversation…the rest of the talk seemed to be of ‘whether our Margaret should stand so much of Bill’s nonsense—girls were daft nowadays to bother about things like that.’ I was so curious about Margaret’s particular daftness!
4/23/42: Mrs Waite started off about ‘crawling snakes’ and ‘tricks her mother would have done’ and suddenly I got angry and said ‘If I wanted to leave I’d leave. Nothing would stop me. But if you want to make me grow tired of Hospital Supply, you will start bickering and nagging. What I do when I’m not at Hospital Supply is my own concern and to talk of “liking to be where men are” in that nasty insinuating way you did when I said I would rather work in the men’s Canteen than change over was quite uncalled for. I do like men best—I’m more used to them and anyway I’ve never heard a man say as many stupid childish things to another man as you did to Molly Diss. You are a very peevish cantankerous old thing and I will not be spoken to like that.’ There was dead silence and then Mrs. Waite said mildly ‘I cannot see us doing without a bit of fire for a week or two’ and Mrs. Higham got up and went out. Later she said ‘I went off to have a mild attack of hysterics…’
12/18/45: And there’s a thing people tend to forget. One of the strongest cornerstones in American society as a whole is bitter resentment, either to their own country or another, which compelled them to seek a fuller life overseas.
3/7/47: Shan We [Siamese cat] seemed to lose his head—he took a header [from the window] into the deep snow and disappeared, except for the tip of his brown tail. I leaned forward and heaved and we both fell backward into the hall, bringing a pile of snow. The cross-eyed look of reproach he gave me and the anxious look he gave his tail, as if surprised to find it still on, nearly sent me into hysterics of laughter—helped by the same ‘Why should this happen to me?’ look on my husband’s face as he shovelled snow.
2/3/50: Then the elephant keeper ‘had a go’ [on the eponymous radio program] and in a perfectly serious voice, answering Wilfred’s ‘Why do elephants marching along a street hold on to each other’s tails?’ said ‘It keeps them decent’! not pausing to realise he meant decent in the Northern Irish idiom meaning ‘tidy.’ … I was in the lounge and my eyes fell on a little carved coconut wood elephant. I felt chuckles begin in my throat and a vision of five or six elephants swinging down the Strand, with their ponderous yet ‘mincing’ tread, so smug and confident in their ‘decent’ appearance as trunks gripped tails! My husband put his head round the door and said ‘What are you laughing about?’ and I said ‘Decent elephants’ and he laughed too.
2/27/50: Luckily I didn’t mention going to Ireland, for my husband said quickly ‘Ah, Nell can have a good rest [while he would be away]. I’ll soon be back and she will have to write lots of letters to me…’. I sniffed as I said to Mrs Howson ‘So, if you see a cheap line in chastity girdles, let me know.’ He wondered why we both set off laughing. He said ‘You’ve just got new corsets. What do you want another girdle for?’
6/26/52: I’d have awarded top place for oddity, though, to a gentle old world type of man who could have been a country parson or doctor. In Lyons he had a glass of lemonade with ice cream dropped in, and a double portion of ice cream, with four wafers, and by his look enjoyed his odd lunch.
6/8/41: Today at Morecambe Bay two carfuls of happy people sat within earshot and I caught scraps of conversation…the rest of the talk seemed to be of ‘whether our Margaret should stand so much of Bill’s nonsense—girls were daft nowadays to bother about things like that.’ I was so curious about Margaret’s particular daftness!
4/23/42: Mrs Waite started off about ‘crawling snakes’ and ‘tricks her mother would have done’ and suddenly I got angry and said ‘If I wanted to leave I’d leave. Nothing would stop me. But if you want to make me grow tired of Hospital Supply, you will start bickering and nagging. What I do when I’m not at Hospital Supply is my own concern and to talk of “liking to be where men are” in that nasty insinuating way you did when I said I would rather work in the men’s Canteen than change over was quite uncalled for. I do like men best—I’m more used to them and anyway I’ve never heard a man say as many stupid childish things to another man as you did to Molly Diss. You are a very peevish cantankerous old thing and I will not be spoken to like that.’ There was dead silence and then Mrs. Waite said mildly ‘I cannot see us doing without a bit of fire for a week or two’ and Mrs. Higham got up and went out. Later she said ‘I went off to have a mild attack of hysterics…’
12/18/45: And there’s a thing people tend to forget. One of the strongest cornerstones in American society as a whole is bitter resentment, either to their own country or another, which compelled them to seek a fuller life overseas.
3/7/47: Shan We [Siamese cat] seemed to lose his head—he took a header [from the window] into the deep snow and disappeared, except for the tip of his brown tail. I leaned forward and heaved and we both fell backward into the hall, bringing a pile of snow. The cross-eyed look of reproach he gave me and the anxious look he gave his tail, as if surprised to find it still on, nearly sent me into hysterics of laughter—helped by the same ‘Why should this happen to me?’ look on my husband’s face as he shovelled snow.
2/3/50: Then the elephant keeper ‘had a go’ [on the eponymous radio program] and in a perfectly serious voice, answering Wilfred’s ‘Why do elephants marching along a street hold on to each other’s tails?’ said ‘It keeps them decent’! not pausing to realise he meant decent in the Northern Irish idiom meaning ‘tidy.’ … I was in the lounge and my eyes fell on a little carved coconut wood elephant. I felt chuckles begin in my throat and a vision of five or six elephants swinging down the Strand, with their ponderous yet ‘mincing’ tread, so smug and confident in their ‘decent’ appearance as trunks gripped tails! My husband put his head round the door and said ‘What are you laughing about?’ and I said ‘Decent elephants’ and he laughed too.
2/27/50: Luckily I didn’t mention going to Ireland, for my husband said quickly ‘Ah, Nell can have a good rest [while he would be away]. I’ll soon be back and she will have to write lots of letters to me…’. I sniffed as I said to Mrs Howson ‘So, if you see a cheap line in chastity girdles, let me know.’ He wondered why we both set off laughing. He said ‘You’ve just got new corsets. What do you want another girdle for?’
6/26/52: I’d have awarded top place for oddity, though, to a gentle old world type of man who could have been a country parson or doctor. In Lyons he had a glass of lemonade with ice cream dropped in, and a double portion of ice cream, with four wafers, and by his look enjoyed his odd lunch.
Photos: Miké-chan in the park; two from the regional jazz festival over Golden Week, one mostly sky and one a performance in a shrine (look close to see the sax and trumpet); iris, maple, and strawberries, the latter from my veranda; two from a recent Gaudí exhibition, because I can’t resist dragons, or mosaic (especially as a tiny model); and four postcards of past used-book-fair posters. Maybe the Heian lady is that girl whose name I can never remember who was so thrilled when her aunt gave her the latest chapters of the Tale of Genji?
Be safe and well.
1,000 Years of Medieval European History in 20 Minutes
May. 6th, 2026 09:00 amopenculture_feed
More than a few medievalists object to the term “Dark Ages” as applied to the period in which they specialize. That can seem wishful in light of most comparisons between medieval times and the Renaissance that came afterward, or indeed, the era of the Roman Empire that came before. Consider the state of Europe as the fourth century began: “The great cities of antiquity were depopulated, some left in ruins,” says the narrator of the How So video above, telling the story of the continent’s political and linguistic fragmentation. “The Roman transportation system decayed, eroding communication and long-distance trade. Coins vanished, leaving no economic system to support professional armies. Literacy plummeted, crippling administrative systems. And most notably, peace and security were gone.”
But there’s plenty more history to come thereafter: about a millennium’s worth, in fact, which the video covers in a mere twenty minutes. Events of note in that grand sweep include Justinian I’s attempt to expand the Byzantine Empire of the east; the creation and spread of the Islamic caliphate; Charlemagne’s unification of most of western Christendom; invasions by Vikings, Magyars, and Muslim raiders; the rise of castles and the feudal system that they came to symbolize; the creation of the Holy Roman Empire; the flourishing of cities and universities; and the Norman Conquest of England, as seen on the Bayeux Tapestry. There’s also the unpleasantness of the Black Death, which swept through Europe from the mid-fourteenth to the early sixteenth century — but as with other medieval disasters, the plague held the seeds of a civilizational rebirth.
“For some survivors, the consequences of the plague were not so grim,” says the narrator. “As the population dropped, land became widely available, and the demand for labor rose dramatically.” Peasants demanded improved conditions and revolted against the rulers who refused; ultimately, they “gained new freedoms and opportunities, and workers enjoyed higher wages. Creativity and innovation in science and culture followed, creating the environment in which European scholars “defined the past millennium as ‘Dark Ages,’ and so positioned themselves as the transition between the medieval and modern world.” Some liken the current state of the world to the decline of the Roman Empire; if they’re correct, maybe we have another Renaissance to look forward to about 40 generations down the road.
Related Content:
A Free Yale Course on Medieval History: 700 Years in 22 Lectures
What Did People Eat in Medieval Times? A Video Series and New Cookbook Explain
How Everything in a Medieval Castle Worked, from Its Moats to Its Dungeons
What Sex Was Like in Medieval Times?: Historians Look at How People Got It On in the Dark Ages
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. He’s the author of the newsletter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Summarizing Korea) and Korean Newtro. Follow him on the social network formerly known as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
Confidence: The Cartoon That Helped America Get Through the Great Depression (1933)
May. 6th, 2026 08:00 amopenculture_feed
No more bummin’, let’s all get to work…
Actually, hold up a sec. We’ll all be happier and more productive if we take a moment to start our work day with Confidence, a peppy musical animation from 1933, starring newly elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Mickey Mouse precursor, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.
Few Americans—today we’d refer to them as the 1%—could escape the privations of the Great Depression. The movies were one industry that continued to thrive through this dark period, precisely because they offered a few hours of respite. No one went to the pictures to see a reflection of their own lives. Gorgeous gowns, glamorous Manhattan apartments and romantic trouble certain to be resolved in happy endings…remember Mia Farrow’s beleaguered waitress basking in the Purple Rose of Cairo’s reassuring glow?
Given the public’s preference for escapist fare, director Bill Nolan, the Father of Rubber Hose Animation, could have played it safe by glossing over the backstory that leads Oswald to seek out advice from the Commander in Chief. Instead, Nolan delivered his joyful cartoon animals into nightmare territory, the Depression personified as a cowled Death figure laying waste to the land. It’s weirdly upsetting to see those hyper-cheerful vintage barnyard animals (and a rogue monkey) undergo this graphic enervation.
Oh, for some oral history—I’d love to know how matinee crowds reacted as Oswald raced screaming before a spinning vertigo background, seeking a remedy for a host of non-cartoon problems. Irony is a luxury they didn’t have.
Unsurprisingly, the can-do spirit so central to FDR’s New Deal quickly turned Oswald’s frown upside down. As presidential campaign promises go, this one’s uniquely tailored to the demands of musical comedy. Witness Annie, in which the 32nd president was again called upon to Rex Harrison his way into audience hearts, this time from the wheelchair the creators of Confidence didn’t dare show, some forty years earlier.
The division between entertainment and nation-leading is pretty permeable these days, too.
Accordingly, what really sets this cartoon apart for me is the use of a Presidentially-sanctioned giant syringe as a tool to get Depression-era America back on its feet. A figurative injection of confidence is all well and good, but nothing gets the barnyard back on its singing, dancing feet like a liberal dose, delivered in the most literal way.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in 2014.
Related Content:
A Simple, Down-to-Earth Christmas Card from the Great Depression (1933)
Private Snafu: The World War II Propaganda Cartoons Created by Dr. Seuss, Frank Capra & Mel Blanc
Yale Presents an Archive of 170,000 Photographs Documenting the Great Depression
Ayun Halliday can’t get enough of that rubber style.
Me-and-media update
May. 6th, 2026 03:43 pmchina_shopPrevious poll review
In the Search engine recs poll, 49% of respondents use Google, 46.9% use DuckDuckGo, and 10.2% use StartPage. There were two write-ins for Kagi, a paid search engine that apparently works like it's 2004.
In ticky-boxes, apocalypse fatigue came second to the inevitable winner, hugs, 42.9% to 69.4%. Clumsy parrots came third with 42.9%. Hugs to you all, and thank you for your votes! ♥
Reading
Andrew and I finished Bujold's The Vor Game, and I've downloaded Cetaganda but we haven't started it yet. I've also grabbed the new Murderbot, which might save me from my swamp of easy-listening podcasts.
Still dipping into Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell. Really need to pick up a novel and devour it with my eyeballs sometime, but I accidentally filled my spare moments with something else (see Language Learning below).
Kdramas
Finished Phantom Lawyer, which was enjoyable enough. I wasn't invested in the romance, but the general vibe was good-hearted and cosy.
The Red Sleeve is heavy on the palace politics, so I don't know how long I'm going to last. Ot1h, Junho; otoh, a hundred scheming ministers and princesses. Maybe I should rewatch The King Loves instead?
Absolute Value of Romance is on a collision course with my DNWs, so I have my fingers crossed that it isn't going where everyone seems to thinks it is.
Other TV
We finished Dark Winds season 4 last night. It is a great show with very charismatic leads.
Still watching Rooster, Fringe, Bluey, Deadloch season 2 (no spoilers, please!) and People of Earth. Also original flavour Scrubs, though the comedy is wearing thin on the workplace bullying and constant misgendering, hmm. (Does the reboot keep those elements?)
Not sure what we're replacing Dark Winds with -- probably the latest season of The Lincoln Lawyer.
Audio entertainment
Like, just way too many episodes of Bill and Frank's Guilt-free Pleasures. /o\ Writing Excuses and half an ep of Cross Party Lines, which is diminished by the loss of one of its hosts to offline politics.
Online life
I'm really enjoyingpolyamships' prompts for 3weeks4dreamwidth and, similarly, maevedarcy's memes. Continuing to struggle with keeping up with my reading page, but that's probably the new normal.
The Slo-Mo Rewatch onsid_guardian has quietened down a little, but it still absorbs about a quarter of my fannish/writing time, and I love it.
Writing/making things
I'm being incredibly slow to make beta edits to my 520 Day fic. Where do the hours go? Never mind, I'm working reasonably steadily, and that's more important to me than output rates.
Life/health/mental state things
Sleep is improving, but my shoulder's been sore for a week... since I downloaded certain apps. Hm.
I have a number of political submissions on my to-do list, each of which require me to think coherent thoughts.
For those following the saga of my car, we called NZAA on Monday 4 May, took it for a long drive (and finished The Vor Game while we were at it), and it's now snuggled against the bank at the bottom of my path, with the trickle charger theoretically doing its thing. I've only driven it once for non-battery-recharging reasons since the oil crisis started, and that outing was at least partly motivated by keeping the battery charged. I'll see how the Warrant of Fitness goes on Monday.
House
The reputtying is complete, and the builders have decamped with the scaffolding, hooray! The next big job will either be [paint upstairs, replace the 1960s gas oven with electric, and refloor the kitchen] or [replace the toilet with a non-cracked, less water-hungry model, and refloor the bathroom]. Neither of these is super urgent, and both require research, decisions, and expenditure, blah, so I'll catch my breath first.
In the meantime, Andrew is filling some gaps in the kitchen wall, and I've ordered an IKEA shelving unit for the built-in wardrobe in my spare room. Which means soon there'll be less random clutter around the living-room, woohoo! In theory, it won't all go into the cupboard; I'm hoping to dispose of some of it while tidying away the rest.
Language Learning
I've spent the last eight years in a Chinese drama fandom, going, "Sunk cost, sunk cost, Korean is my One True Asian Language Love ♥ ♥ ♥" and "I wouldn't have the first clue how to even start with Mandarin" and "argh, tones! argh, characters!" Now, thanks tostarandrea's inspiring/encouraging post about starting their Chinese-learning journey, I have nine-day streaks for both Duolingo and Hello Chinese.
I prefer Hello Chinese: it has a good mix of speaking/listening/reading/writing, a variety of practice options, and occasional audio lessons about usage. I like its focus on teaching grammar-adjacent words like "to be", "this", "possessives", etc, rather than Duolingo's noun clusters (though of course you need both). But I've finished the free portion and am now wrestling with whether I'm actually doing thisand whether tracing characters on my screen is what's messing up my shoulder. Also, I had a moment of extreme outrage about stroke orders yesterday, lol.
Idk. I'm not sure how much of this I can cram into my aphantasic little head. *dithers with finger hovering over the "one month" (ie, lowest commitment, least cost-effective) option*
Good things
The re-puttying is complete! My sister's coming over tonight. My lemon tree is singing a song of a hundred lemons. My 520 Day fic is nearly done. Guardian, fandom, Dreamwidth.
In the Search engine recs poll, 49% of respondents use Google, 46.9% use DuckDuckGo, and 10.2% use StartPage. There were two write-ins for Kagi, a paid search engine that apparently works like it's 2004.
In ticky-boxes, apocalypse fatigue came second to the inevitable winner, hugs, 42.9% to 69.4%. Clumsy parrots came third with 42.9%. Hugs to you all, and thank you for your votes! ♥
Reading
Andrew and I finished Bujold's The Vor Game, and I've downloaded Cetaganda but we haven't started it yet. I've also grabbed the new Murderbot, which might save me from my swamp of easy-listening podcasts.
Still dipping into Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell. Really need to pick up a novel and devour it with my eyeballs sometime, but I accidentally filled my spare moments with something else (see Language Learning below).
Kdramas
Finished Phantom Lawyer, which was enjoyable enough. I wasn't invested in the romance, but the general vibe was good-hearted and cosy.
The Red Sleeve is heavy on the palace politics, so I don't know how long I'm going to last. Ot1h, Junho; otoh, a hundred scheming ministers and princesses. Maybe I should rewatch The King Loves instead?
Absolute Value of Romance is on a collision course with my DNWs, so I have my fingers crossed that it isn't going where everyone seems to thinks it is.
Other TV
We finished Dark Winds season 4 last night. It is a great show with very charismatic leads.
Still watching Rooster, Fringe, Bluey, Deadloch season 2 (no spoilers, please!) and People of Earth. Also original flavour Scrubs, though the comedy is wearing thin on the workplace bullying and constant misgendering, hmm. (Does the reboot keep those elements?)
Not sure what we're replacing Dark Winds with -- probably the latest season of The Lincoln Lawyer.
Audio entertainment
Like, just way too many episodes of Bill and Frank's Guilt-free Pleasures. /o\ Writing Excuses and half an ep of Cross Party Lines, which is diminished by the loss of one of its hosts to offline politics.
Online life
I'm really enjoying
polyamships' prompts for 3weeks4dreamwidth and, similarly, maevedarcy's memes. Continuing to struggle with keeping up with my reading page, but that's probably the new normal.The Slo-Mo Rewatch on
sid_guardian has quietened down a little, but it still absorbs about a quarter of my fannish/writing time, and I love it.Writing/making things
I'm being incredibly slow to make beta edits to my 520 Day fic. Where do the hours go? Never mind, I'm working reasonably steadily, and that's more important to me than output rates.
Life/health/mental state things
Sleep is improving, but my shoulder's been sore for a week... since I downloaded certain apps. Hm.
I have a number of political submissions on my to-do list, each of which require me to think coherent thoughts.
For those following the saga of my car, we called NZAA on Monday 4 May, took it for a long drive (and finished The Vor Game while we were at it), and it's now snuggled against the bank at the bottom of my path, with the trickle charger theoretically doing its thing. I've only driven it once for non-battery-recharging reasons since the oil crisis started, and that outing was at least partly motivated by keeping the battery charged. I'll see how the Warrant of Fitness goes on Monday.
House
The reputtying is complete, and the builders have decamped with the scaffolding, hooray! The next big job will either be [paint upstairs, replace the 1960s gas oven with electric, and refloor the kitchen] or [replace the toilet with a non-cracked, less water-hungry model, and refloor the bathroom]. Neither of these is super urgent, and both require research, decisions, and expenditure, blah, so I'll catch my breath first.
In the meantime, Andrew is filling some gaps in the kitchen wall, and I've ordered an IKEA shelving unit for the built-in wardrobe in my spare room. Which means soon there'll be less random clutter around the living-room, woohoo! In theory, it won't all go into the cupboard; I'm hoping to dispose of some of it while tidying away the rest.
Language Learning
I've spent the last eight years in a Chinese drama fandom, going, "Sunk cost, sunk cost, Korean is my One True Asian Language Love ♥ ♥ ♥" and "I wouldn't have the first clue how to even start with Mandarin" and "argh, tones! argh, characters!" Now, thanks to
starandrea's inspiring/encouraging post about starting their Chinese-learning journey, I have nine-day streaks for both Duolingo and Hello Chinese.I prefer Hello Chinese: it has a good mix of speaking/listening/reading/writing, a variety of practice options, and occasional audio lessons about usage. I like its focus on teaching grammar-adjacent words like "to be", "this", "possessives", etc, rather than Duolingo's noun clusters (though of course you need both). But I've finished the free portion and am now wrestling with whether I'm actually doing this
Idk. I'm not sure how much of this I can cram into my aphantasic little head. *dithers with finger hovering over the "one month" (ie, lowest commitment, least cost-effective) option*
Good things
The re-puttying is complete! My sister's coming over tonight. My lemon tree is singing a song of a hundred lemons. My 520 Day fic is nearly done. Guardian, fandom, Dreamwidth.
Poll #34569 Sailing the seas
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 37
For ship fic, I prefer to:
View Answers
get straight to the romantic smooshing
6 (16.2%)
untangle a thicket of character issues first...
25 (67.6%)
... and/or during...
25 (67.6%)
... and/or after
19 (51.4%)
I don't care for ship fic
4 (10.8%)
other
5 (13.5%)
ticky-box full of giant bumble bees playing trombones
15 (40.5%)
ticky-box full of bananas, nuts, crackers, and fruitcake
14 (37.8%)
ticky-box full of language-learning apps
11 (29.7%)
ticky-box full of baking
22 (59.5%)
ticky-box full of hugs
27 (73.0%)
Happy Murderbot Day!
May. 5th, 2026 11:11 pmpetraMind you, I didn't remember till quarter past bedtime, so I am not done reading yet. But I will read!
Book meme
May. 6th, 2026 12:03 pmchina_shop#mybooks meme via maevedarcy, adapted by me to suit myself.
This week I'm reading: The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold, read by Grover Gardner; Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell; and a bunch of Kdrama subtitles... ;-p
My favorite book of all time is: What kind of question is this? Completely impossible! I can't even name a favourite author.
My current favorite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months) is:
Since February, I've read a bunch of new-to-me Bujold in audio, narrated by Grover Gardner (from the Vorkosigan and Penric series), some Courtney Milan in ebook (Wedgeford series), The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman (hardback from the library), The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley in audio, narrated by Sid Sagar, Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell in ebook, Good old-fashioned Korean spirit by Kim Hyun Sook (paperback from the library), and half of Siren Queen by Nigh Vo in audio, narrated by Natalie Naudus.
Of those, my favourite was The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman, mostly because I chose it fairly randomly, and it was delightful, enjoyable, thoughtful, and unexpected. (I love random library finds!) Runner up goes to The Hymn to Dionysus (thanks toprofiterole_reads for the rec).
If we went back another six or eight weeks, it would be Swordcrossed by Freya Marske (secondary-world high-society m/m, with guilds).
The last book I bought was: The Earl Who Isn't by Courtney Milan, in ebook.
The first book I bought with my own money was: LOL, no idea. At all.
The first book I received as a gift was: We're talking 50+ years ago. I do remember having an older (20-something?) penpal who would send me books when I was in my early-teens. In particular, she sent me I Am David and The Hobbit.
The last book I received as a gift was: Siren Queen by Nghi Vo, in audio.
The last book I borrowed from the library was: Hine Toa: a story of bravery by Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku. I only read the prologue before I had to return it. /o\
The book physically closest to me right now is: assuming ebooks don't count, it's Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals from Around the World, edited by Robyn Ochs and Sarah E. Rowley, which is at this end of the bookshelf behind me, in the queer section natch.
This or that:
Physical book, e-book, or audio: ebook or audio, depending on the book, the narrator, and my mood.
Used, new, or fell off the back of the internet: Any.
Fiction or non-fiction: Mostly fiction, but I go through NF phases.
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: In ebook, mostly on the couch at home or while I'm stretching after exercise; in audio, while I'm doing dishes, stretching after exercise, walking, folding dumplings, etc.
Paperback or hardcover: physical books can be pretty hard on my hands/wrists/arms/neck, so if I'm reading in hard copy, anything that will lie flat on its own.
Romance or Crime: Romance.
Yes or no:
Literary fiction? Sure.
Sci-fi/fantasy? Yes, please.
Poetry? Not as much as I used to, but sure.
Memoirs? I'm not opposed to them, but rarely pick them out.
Philosophy? Yep. Also, science and pop psych.
Thrillers? Only if there's another aspect to draw me in.
Chronicles? I don't know what this is.
Travel logs? No.
Dialogue heavy? Sure.
Also, I thought I'd add a note on what makes me try a book:
I have a google doc of recs from offline friends and my reading page; I'm definitely influenced by recs. There are some authors and audiobook narrators that will lure me in. I am predisposed towards SF/F and romance, often in combination. I enjoy narrations with a sense of humour and queer rep, and I will generally try Korean books in translation, if I encounter them. As mentioned above, I love browsing the library, semi-randomly choosing a book, and discovering something unexpected and great. But I don't do it very often, because hard copy...
maevedarcy, adapted by me to suit myself.This week I'm reading: The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold, read by Grover Gardner; Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell; and a bunch of Kdrama subtitles... ;-p
My favorite book of all time is: What kind of question is this? Completely impossible! I can't even name a favourite author.
My current favorite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months) is:
Since February, I've read a bunch of new-to-me Bujold in audio, narrated by Grover Gardner (from the Vorkosigan and Penric series), some Courtney Milan in ebook (Wedgeford series), The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman (hardback from the library), The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley in audio, narrated by Sid Sagar, Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell in ebook, Good old-fashioned Korean spirit by Kim Hyun Sook (paperback from the library), and half of Siren Queen by Nigh Vo in audio, narrated by Natalie Naudus.
Of those, my favourite was The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman, mostly because I chose it fairly randomly, and it was delightful, enjoyable, thoughtful, and unexpected. (I love random library finds!) Runner up goes to The Hymn to Dionysus (thanks to
profiterole_reads for the rec).If we went back another six or eight weeks, it would be Swordcrossed by Freya Marske (secondary-world high-society m/m, with guilds).
The last book I bought was: The Earl Who Isn't by Courtney Milan, in ebook.
The first book I bought with my own money was: LOL, no idea. At all.
The first book I received as a gift was: We're talking 50+ years ago. I do remember having an older (20-something?) penpal who would send me books when I was in my early-teens. In particular, she sent me I Am David and The Hobbit.
The last book I received as a gift was: Siren Queen by Nghi Vo, in audio.
The last book I borrowed from the library was: Hine Toa: a story of bravery by Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku. I only read the prologue before I had to return it. /o\
The book physically closest to me right now is: assuming ebooks don't count, it's Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals from Around the World, edited by Robyn Ochs and Sarah E. Rowley, which is at this end of the bookshelf behind me, in the queer section natch.
This or that:
Physical book, e-book, or audio: ebook or audio, depending on the book, the narrator, and my mood.
Used, new, or fell off the back of the internet: Any.
Fiction or non-fiction: Mostly fiction, but I go through NF phases.
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: In ebook, mostly on the couch at home or while I'm stretching after exercise; in audio, while I'm doing dishes, stretching after exercise, walking, folding dumplings, etc.
Paperback or hardcover: physical books can be pretty hard on my hands/wrists/arms/neck, so if I'm reading in hard copy, anything that will lie flat on its own.
Romance or Crime: Romance.
Yes or no:
Literary fiction? Sure.
Sci-fi/fantasy? Yes, please.
Poetry? Not as much as I used to, but sure.
Memoirs? I'm not opposed to them, but rarely pick them out.
Philosophy? Yep. Also, science and pop psych.
Thrillers? Only if there's another aspect to draw me in.
Chronicles? I don't know what this is.
Travel logs? No.
Dialogue heavy? Sure.
Also, I thought I'd add a note on what makes me try a book:
I have a google doc of recs from offline friends and my reading page; I'm definitely influenced by recs. There are some authors and audiobook narrators that will lure me in. I am predisposed towards SF/F and romance, often in combination. I enjoy narrations with a sense of humour and queer rep, and I will generally try Korean books in translation, if I encounter them. As mentioned above, I love browsing the library, semi-randomly choosing a book, and discovering something unexpected and great. But I don't do it very often, because hard copy...
(no subject)
May. 5th, 2026 04:06 pmysobelI keep wanting to do art of, or at least inspired by, the greenbelt by my place -- basically a long green area with paved bicycle/pedestrian paths and lots of grassy areas and trees of different types -- but I keep dithering on specifics.
Small scale, like focusing on a single tree, or more broad? Realistic or stylized? How much detail? Which season? Habitated (a few dog walkers, a bicyclist or two, maybe a family walking together) or not? More people-built stuff (lampposts, benches, etc) or less?
...obviously I'm not limited to just one, but even with multiple projects there's stuff to decide. Same scene in different seasons? (in which case do I make it into an animation?) Same scene but different styles? Related images, like close up of a tree with more detail and also a bigger picture incorporating that tree but with less detail and broader context? Different images altogether? Multiple images worked to a point and then pick my favorite to finalize? Sketch out a few quick drafts and have my inner critic decide they're all irredeemably stupid?)
hmm...
Small scale, like focusing on a single tree, or more broad? Realistic or stylized? How much detail? Which season? Habitated (a few dog walkers, a bicyclist or two, maybe a family walking together) or not? More people-built stuff (lampposts, benches, etc) or less?
...obviously I'm not limited to just one, but even with multiple projects there's stuff to decide. Same scene in different seasons? (in which case do I make it into an animation?) Same scene but different styles? Related images, like close up of a tree with more detail and also a bigger picture incorporating that tree but with less detail and broader context? Different images altogether? Multiple images worked to a point and then pick my favorite to finalize? Sketch out a few quick drafts and have my inner critic decide they're all irredeemably stupid?)
hmm...