Intro

Hello, welcome to this week’s link round-up. Tonight is a lunar eclipse around these parts, and I’ll probably step outside to watch. Should be a beautiful night.

I’m still tweaking the categories. Not sure what to call the spirituality section. Spiritual hygiene? I like the word ‘extramundane’ but it’s probably not a particularly well-known term (and at least one online dictionary defines it as ‘extraterrestial’ which is not the meaning I’m shooting for).

Art & Illustration

• Austin Kleon – There are times when Austin Kleon’s cheery optimism is exactly what I need. Other times he feels a little too self-helpy and naive. I do love the peeks into his notebooks, and hope that if I follow him long enough I’ll adopt elements of his notebook practice.
• Colossal – One of my favorite art sites. Always worth checking out.
• Juxtapoz – Another favorite art site. One of the few magazines I subscribe to.

Books & Reading

• Speculative Fiction Showcase Speculative Fiction Links of the Week for May 13, 2022.
• 1953 was the year of peak science fiction (for magazines, anyway). The 1953 SF&F Magazine Boom.
• The finalists for the 2022 Locus Awards. So much good reading in this list.
• Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA) poetry roundup for April.

Cartoons & Comics

• Bizarro by Wayno (and sometimes Dan Piraro)
• Comics Journal weekly link list
• The Daily Cartoonist – A blog that covers comic strips.
• Far Side by Gary Larson – Yes, mostly reprints, but Larson occasionally posts new cartoons.
• Incidental Comics by Grant Snider
• K Chronicles by Keith Knight – Doesn’t update enough. The TV show Woke was created by Keith Knight.
• The Nib by various – Political cartoons
• Peyote Cowboy by Dan Piraro – The most recent episode was posted May 12.
• Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques. There’s a handy cast list here.
• Sarah’s Scribbles by Sarah Andersen
• Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle
• Therapy Comics by Mardou
• This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow
• You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack by Tom Gauld

Columns & Essays

• A long essay on labor from CrimethInc. “Anti-Work: From “I Quit” to “We Revolt”: Strategizing for 21st-Century Labor Resistance.”
• How WordPress and Tumblr Are Keeping the Internet Weird. An interview with Matt Mullenweg.

Extramundane & Immaterial (divination, spirituality, metaphysics, religion, faith, sacred)

• Tara Brach – I only started listening to Tara Brach within the last year. When I do a guided meditation, it’s usually one of hers.

Gardening

• Look for the website of a nearby agricultural college for primers on gardening. Here’s a good place to start for Florida gardeners. I planted a bunch of okra this weekend.

Horoscope

• Free Will Astrology for May 12.

Humor

• AI Weirdness
• The Onion

Movies

• I use JustWatch to see on which platform a movie is streaming.

Music

• Bandcamp Daily

News

I assume you already have your preferred news source(s). Here are news sources I use to supplement my news diet.

• Wonkette – I love the cursing and share their love of Molly Ivins.
• Popular Information – independent investigative journalism.
• WikiNews – Wikipedia has a news page. It can be kind of hit or miss, but I always use it when I’m following a big breaking news story.

Politics

Will they or won’t they? Members of Congress using subpoenas against other members of Congress is likely to end up in court. “Enforcing unprecedented subpoenas for GOP lawmakers turns on complex legal precedent going back centuries.” Or, it may not…

“Yet there is a catch. Because speech or debate provides legislators with immunity from both civil and criminal lawsuits, the clause prevents courts from hearing certain types of cases. And even when immunity does not apply directly, the clause may grant members with protections against the introduction of evidence or having to testify about certain actions if they relate to a legitimate legislative purpose.”

Scholarly Article of the Week

“Archaeology and Animal Persons: Toward a Prehistory of Human Animal Relations” by Erica Hill.

ABSTRACT: The discipline of archaeology has long engaged with animals in a utilitarian mode, constructing animals as objects to be hunted, manipulated, domesticated, and consumed. Only recently, in tandem with the rising interest in animals in the humanities and the development of interdisciplinary animal studies research, has archaeology begun to systematically engage with animals as subjects. This article describes some of the ways in which archaeologists are reconstructing human engagements with animals in the past, focusing on relational modes of interaction documented in many hunting and gathering societies. Among the most productive lines of evidence for human animal relations in the past are animal burials and structured deposits of animal bones. These archaeological features provide material evidence for relational ontologies in which animals, like humans, were vested with sentience and agency.

Wikipedia Post of the Week

• Lunar Eclipse

Coda

Internet/blogging stalwart Jason Kottke is taking a sabbatical. He left this link list to occupy your time while he is away. Perhaps some of them might make it into your own rotation.

The Kid Should See This, The Morning News, Waxy, Colossal, Curious About Everything, Open Culture, Drawing Links, Clive Thompson @ Medium, Cup of Jo, swissmiss, Storythings, things magazine, Present & Correct, Spoon & Tamago, Dense Discovery, Austin Kleon, NextDraft, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Poetry Is Not a Luxury, A Thing or Two, The Honest Broker, Interconnected, The Whippet, Craig Mod, Why is this interesting?, Sidebar, The Prepared, Life Is So Beautiful, Fave 5, Sentiers, The Fox Is Black, and Scrapbook Chronicles.

Yay! This is post 100 of 100 for my arbitrarily assigned 100 Days of Blogging. Thank all of you who have followed along. I sincerely appreciate you taking time out of your day to check in on this tiny corner of the internet.

My gift to you for playing along is the following mantra. Print it out, write it down, tape it next to your monitor, next to a mirror, tack it to a corkboard, scrawl it on a whiteboard, use a magnet to attach it to the fridge. It is your mantra to recite to yourself.

Today I choose not to criticize myself. I am enough.

This isn’t the end of blogging, just the end of the daily challenge. I have lots more to post. Thanks for sticking around.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 100 of 100)

I am right out of things to blog about today, so here’s a reading update.

I’m currently reading Analogia: The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Control by George Dyson. It’s a bit of a slog tbh. I think all the disparate threads will come together in the end, but at this point I’m not sure how.

“In Analogia, technology historian George Dyson presents a startling look back at the analog age and life before the digital revolution—and an unsettling vision of what comes next.”

I’m also reading Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which has done a better job of grabbing my attention.

“As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on ‘a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise.'”

Cued up next is Spear by Nicola Griffith, and Weather by Jennifer Offill.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 099 of 100)

Books and Reading

Gail Carriger recommends Black Authors Writing Queer Comfort.

“One of my reading wheelhouses, Gentle Reader, is queer comfort. These are books, mostly romances, featuring queer characters where trials might happen but things all turn out okay in the end. One of the reasons I like these books is because I see them as writing into existence the future we all want.”

Rachel Cordasco at SFRA recommends some SF in translation.

Jo Walton’s Reading List: April 2022

Adri at Birds of a Feather, Flock Together recommends some recent short fiction. (I wish they had linked to the stories where available, but you can copy and paste into Google for a search.) Questing in Shorts: Spring 2022.

Cartoons, Comics, and Humor

Bizarro by Wayno – Wayno’s weekly post of the week’s Bizarro cartoons.

Sarah Andersen – Sarah Andersen’s tumblr.

Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques – I love all these characters, and am amazed at the prolificity and quality Jeph Jacques brings every day.

Therapy Comics by Mardou – Mardou’s therapy comics help me feel less alone. I don’t think the RSS is updated anymore, but I read new comics on Instagram.

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow – “The Absolutist”

You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack by Tom Gauld

A blog by Bado about editorial cartoons.

Peyote Cowboy by Dan Piraro

Columns and Essays

Jem Bendell is the author of Deep Adaptation, which I have not read. The following essay, however, has prompted me to get it through the library’s interlibrary loan. I share his critique of ecomodernism, but I have no opinion on his solutions.

Telling Uncomfortable Truths to Progressives

“…it can be helpful when those of us freeing ourselves from capitalism’s diminishing ideologies also try to influence public understanding and public policies.”

“…it is obvious that ecomodernism is bullshit…”

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An entrepreneur finds a way to repurpose partially used hotel soap. The surprising afterlife of used hotel soap.

Horoscope

Free Will Astrology – All signs; May 5, 2022.

Music

Bandcamp Daily – If you watch “What We Do in the Shadows” you’ve heard Norma Tanega. If you’re unfamiliar with her work, Bandcamp has you covered.

“Tanega, who had a single hit in 1966 with her song “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog,” was unwilling to bow down to the pressure of the music industry. She dropped off the scene after releasing two records (in 1966 and 1971) and spent the rest of her life as a visual artist and ESL teacher in California, where she grew up.”

Secondhand Songs – Search engine for cover songs.

News

I assume you already have your preferred news source(s). Here are news sources I use to supplement my news diet.

Wonkette – I love the cursing and share their love of Molly Ivins.

Popular Information – independent investigative journalism.

WikiNews – Wikipedia has a news page. It can be kind of hit or miss, but I always use it when I’m following a big breaking news story.

Wikipedia Post of the Week

Remedios Varo – Spanish surrealist artist working in Spain, France, and Mexico.

Coda

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 098 of 100)

Yikes! The day slipped away. Have some Kenneth Fearing.

Aphrodite Metropolis

Harry loves Myrtle—He has strong arms, from the warehouse,
And on Sunday when they take the bus to emerald meadows he doesn’t say:
“What will your chastity amount to when your flesh withers in a little while?”
No,
On Sunday, when they picnic in emerald meadows they look at the Sunday paper:
GIRL SLAYS BANKER-BETRAYER
They spread it around on the grass
BATH-TUB STIRS JERSEY ROW
And then they sit down on it, nice.
Harry doesn’t say “Ziggin’s Ointment for withered flesh,
Cures thousands of men and women of motes, warts, red veins,
flabby throat, scalp and hair diseases,
Not expensive, and fully guaranteed.”
No,
Harry says nothing at all,
He smiles,
And they kiss in the emerald meadows on the Sunday paper.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 097 of 100)

So many typos! Every time I post I see a whole slew of typos. I’m not sure if I’m making more than I used to, or if I just didn’t notice before.

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Here’s a bit of a deep dive into Led Zep fandom. John Coulthart uncovers the source for some fonts used on the fourth album. Coulthart isn’t always about Zep. He’s mostly about art and design.

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I didn’t know Birds Aren’t Real was a thing. It is a thing. The Guardian explains where it came from.

McIndoe made a placard, and went out to join the march. “It’s not like I sat down and thought I’m going to make a satire. I just thought: ‘I should write a sign that has nothing to do with what is going on.’ An absurdist statement to bring to the equation.”

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“The purpose of education is to teach each of us to defend ourselves against the seductions of eloquence.” –Bertrand Russell (in Harper’s, March 1991, p. 47) [source]

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Terrific (albeit brief) interview with Josh Glenn. I’ve been a fan of Glenn’s since reading Hermenaut in the 1990s. Hermenaut was an awesome and influential zine, and Glenn’s current website is HiLoBrow. He also has the best ‘generation’ definitions around.

A reminder of my 250-year generational periodization scheme:

1755-64: [Republican Generation] Perfectibilists
1765-74: [Republican, Compromise Generations] Original Romantics
1775-84: [Compromise Generation] Ironic Idealists
1785-94: [Compromise, Transcendental Generations] Original Prometheans
1795-1804: [Transcendental Generation] Monomaniacs
1805-14: [Transcendental Generation] Autotelics
1815-24: [Transcendental, Gilded Generations] Retrogressivists
1825-33: [Gilded Generation] Post-Romantics
1834-43: [Gilded Generation] Original Decadents
1844-53: [Progressive Generation] New Prometheans
1854-63: [Progressive, Missionary Generations] Plutonians
1864-73: [Missionary Generation] Anarcho-Symbolists
1874-83: [Missionary Generation] Psychonauts
1884-93: [Lost Generation] Modernists
1894-1903: [Lost, Greatest/GI Generations] Hardboileds
1904-13: [Greatest/GI Generation] Partisans
1914-23: [Greatest/GI Generation] New Gods
1924-33: [Silent Generation] Postmodernists
1934-43: [Silent Generation] Anti-Anti-Utopians
1944-53: [Boomers] Blank Generation
1954-63: [Boomers] OGXers
1964-73: [Generation X, Thirteenth Generation] Reconstructionists
1974-82: [Generations X, Y] Revivalists
1983-92: [Millennial Generation] Social Darwikians
1993-2002: [Millennials, Generation Z] TBA

LEARN MORE about this periodization scheme | READ ALL generational articles on HiLobrow.

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Happy Friday everyone! Hope the weekend’s a good one.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 096 of 100)

I don’t follow any traditional religious practices, so I’ve decided to create my own. In this new personal religion I’m creating I observe eight Solar Sabbaths (a term I just made up). The eight solar sabbaths are the two solstices, the two equinoxes, and the four cross-quarter days. And today happens to be the point between the spring equinox, and the summer solstice.

I’ve also created four new seasons that overlap with the tradition seasons. These cover the time between the cross-quarter dates, and are:

• Spummer (spring/summer)
• Sutumn (summer/autumn)
• Finter (fall/winter)
• Winring (winter/spring)

That means today is the first day of Spummer.

Today’s also the first day of my Screenless Spummer challenge. I’ve been good at reducing my social media time, now it’s time to reduce the amount of time I spend in front of screens. I can’t completely eradicate screens from my life because I’m expected to use them for my job, and I use screens for creative expression, learning new things, and recreation. Nonetheless, I’m certain my life will be enriched by diminishing the amount of time I focus my attention on glowing glass. I won’t truly be screenless, but my intent is to be more mindful of how much time I spend in front of a screen, and shut them down more often than I have in the recent past.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 095 of 100)

I have LOTS of political opinions, and once upon a time I blogged frequently about politics. One of my favorite moments from the Re/Creating Tampa days was covering local political matters. I did summaries and explainers of city and county issues, and even did a live event giving background info on ballot items relevant only in the region.

In this iteration of my blogging life, however, I expect to keep my political comments to a minimum.

So, how about a poem.

Goodbye to Tolerance

by Denise Levertov

Genial poets, pink-faced
earnest wits—
you have given the world
some choice morsels,
gobbets of language presented
as one presents T-bone steak
and Cherries Jubilee.
Goodbye, goodbye,
I don’t care
if I never taste your fine food again,
neutral fellows, seers of every side.
Tolerance, what crimes
are committed in your name.

And you, good women, bakers of nicest bread,
blood donors. Your crumbs
choke me, I would not want
a drop of your blood in me, it is pumped
by weak hearts, perfect pulses that never
falter: irresponsive
to nightmare reality.

It is my brothers, my sisters,
whose blood spurts out and stops
forever
because you choose to believe it is not your business.

Goodbye, goodbye,
your poems
shut their little mouths,
your loaves grow moldy,
a gulf has split
the ground between us,
and you won’t wave, you’re looking
another way.
We shan’t meet again—
unless you leap it, leaving
behind you the cherished
worms of your dispassion,
your pallid ironies,
your jovial, murderous,
wry-humored balanced judgment,
leap over, un-
balanced? … then
how our fanatic tears
would flow and mingle
for joy …

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 094 of 100)

Perhaps ‘remembered’ is a better term. This 100 day blogging challenge reminded me of one reason I turned away from blogging, it takes a lot of my writing time.

There are only so many writing hours in a day. Whatever time I use for writing blog posts is time I’m not using for stories, or non-fiction essays, or writing exercises.

As I conjure up a new self-image I think I’ll be able to strike a better balance. Or care less about the balance (or care differently perhaps). As long as whatever I’m writing contributes to joy, happiness, or a feeling of satisfaction it doesn’t really matter what form it takes.

That said, one of the funnest times I had on the blog was when I posted a story a month in 2017 (the Full Moon Story series). So, while the daily regularity of posts will cease, I expect to start posting a story a month for the rest of 2022 starting mid-June.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 093 of 100)

I really like blogging.

I’m not sure what that says about me, or why it’s become such a laughable pasttime, but it suits me well.

Blogging helps me scratch that zine itch. Zines are typically small scale and personal, as is this blog. I loved making (and reading) zines in the 1990s, and blogging allows me the freedom to do all the stuff I enjoyed when making zines. I can opine, and joke, and fantasize to my heart’s content. And I can point to the stuff I think is cool.

One of the things I love most is that people choose to see it. I’m not randomly popping up in some social media feed. If you are reading this post it’s because you choose to read this post, not because I’m a friend of a friend, or an acquaintance of a relative.

For me, one of the early tipping points that moved FB from fun to no fun was when people I didn’t know started chiming in on some jokey or snarky FB post of mine. I have great friends, but some of their friends are… well, they see the world differently. And if I make some off-hand comment about the horribleness of Tim Burton, I don’t need some FoaF explaining to me how many ways I’m wrong.

I started weaning myself off FB four or five years ago, and I started radically reducing my Twitter consumption in 2021. At this point I think I’m ready to let them both go. Though, I suspect I won’t completely shut down my accounts because there are people on each platform where that is the easiest way to get in touch. I’ll probably continue using them as I do now. When some link sends me there I take a minute or two to look around, and then I click away to some other page/site.

So, what I’ve learned is that I like blogging more than social media platforms. It suits my temperament better. These 100 days of blogging have allowed a new blogging habit to start taking root, and I think I’ll probably keep this up, albeit not every day. My guess is that it will end up being 3 or 4 times a week. I will think of it as my virtual, sequential online zine. Frankly, I wish more people embraced wordpress/rss. Or, maybe they’re out there and I just haven’t done a good job of keeping track. Remember blogrolls? I should probably add a blogroll.

(100 Days of Blogging: Post 092 of 100)