learning by proxy
Jul. 4th, 2025 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Mayunn, cyclists shouldn't need to be braver than the troops just to get around.
post-Pride peripatesis
Jul. 4th, 2025 12:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
But! Yesterday I attempted to go to the women's munch, but the Wildrose was closed for the week after Pride. Do they do that every year? Maybe, and I just hadn't noticed. I can hardly blame them given how utterly bananas Pride weekend is for them.
And who should I run into just across the street from the 'Rose but P, whom I met at the Dykes on Bykes fundraiser a few months ago? The 'Rose was closed, but Vermillion wasn't, so I got some culchah with my beer and talked with an honest-to-goodness dyke on a bike. P is from Florida, which I can't believe I'd forgotten. P knows fellow Florida escapee Funny Lady, because Funny Lady knows everybody. The two of them have something in common: charm.
I'm not feeling too patriotic today. Plan for today: hit Uwajimaya with Tacoma Girl for Asian eats, and then probably read books by dadburn ferriners*. Screw all my dumb, butt-kiss-craving countrymen.
*Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart, and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.
Book reaction: Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age (Ada Palmer)
Jul. 1st, 2025 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
A book has to really impress me to get a reaction before I've finished it, but Ada Palmer's Inventing the Renaissance has definitely done that. I had read some of Palmer's science fiction and been very impressed by it, and I knew before reading this that she is a historian, so when I first heard of this book, I immediately requested it from my local library.[^1] Not really knowing anything about it when I requested it, I thought it was a history of how the Renaissance came to be. Then I started reading it, and from the way she talked about historians creating the idea of the Renaissance, I thought it was a Renaissance equivalent of Norman Cantor's Inventing the Middle Ages.[^2]. Then I read on and saw that it's both of those things and more. It's also Palmer's academic biography, and an explanation of how academia works, and an exploration of the processes that created the Renaissance (and that created similar shifts in society at other times and places. It's the best history book I've read recently.[^3]
Besides the major historical themes of the book, Palmer has also included a number of interesting trivia and also Easter eggs for science fiction fans: - The genetic changes in Europeans that makes the Black Death no longer the huge plague that it was in the Middles Ages took several hundred years to come about, and also caused Europeans to be more susceptible to "autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, celiac, and (in [Palmer's] case) Crohn's disease."[^4] - She refers to Florence in the Renaissance as a "wretched hive of scum and villainy."[^5] - She uses the board game Siena as an illustration of how government worked in Renaissance Florence.[^6]
I particularly love this paragraph about the chronology of the Renaissance, and how it's exceedingly different depending on who you ask:
All agree that the Renaissance was the period of change that got us from medieval to modern, but people give it a different start date, because they start at the point that they see something definitively un-medieval. If we leave the History Lab a moment and visit my friends across the yard in the English Department, they consider Shakespeare (1564-1616) the core of Renaissance, while Petrarch's contemporary Chaucer (1340s-1400) is, for them, the pinnacle of medieval. When I cross the walk to visit the Italian lit scholars, they say Dante (1265-1321), despite being dead before Chaucer's birth, is definitely Renaissance, and often that Machiavelli is the start of modern, even though he died before Shakespeare's parents were born.
Reading this book makes me both sad and glad, in varying degrees at different times, that I never got my PhD and entered academia, depending on whether I feel at that particular moment that by having done so I would have been placing myself in cooperation or competition with Palmer. But leaving that aside, I'm exceedingly glad to be living in a time that I get to read this book, and I'm eagerly looking forward to getting to read more of Palmer's books.
[^1] Apparently a lot of other people had also heard of it, because I only got it about a week ago.
[^2] Although much more fun to read than Cantor.
[^3] I almost said "easily the best history book I've read recently," but I'm also currently reading Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis: War, Climate Change & Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century, which gives Palmer some serious competition. But since I feel compelled to write a pre-completion reaction to Palmer's book and not to Parker's. . .
[^4] p. 116. All the MAGAts who keep yammering on about herd immunity with regard to COVID need to know that, but they probably wouldn't listen anyway.
[^5] p. 136.
[^6] pp. 65-8.
Really, brain? REALLY?
Jun. 30th, 2025 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
WHAT THE HELL, BRAIN?!
This obviously won't happen in real life. But in that brief instant between sleep and waking out of the dream, I was SO UPSET.
Twelve days until the concert! The Seattle show is the first one of the tour, which means the band should be all riled up. And that I'll have no idea what the tour merch is, so I'll have to make my purchasing decisions in real time. Yes, there's a part of my brain that says buy it allllllll, but I'm trying not to listen to it. No really, I'm trying to, because I know I don't need all the Long Live: The Black Parade merch. Probably.
(buy it allllll)
Rebuilding journal search again
Jun. 30th, 2025 03:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png)
Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.
Pride weekend, part 2
Jun. 30th, 2025 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Went to the Broadway street fair as one does. Bought a book from the queer bookstore that is, ironically enough, within walking distance of my house. Spent too much money on a big pendant of a biblically accurate angel in Pride colors. Saw:
- Fellow Lambert House trans facilitator A-the-dude (A-the-lady is the one I've spent way more time with).
- vantablack from Mastodon. She doesn't live in Cal Anderson Park, but I've seen her there about half a dozen times.
- E, a more or less elder goth who lives near Broadway. I'm pretty sure she used to have an LJ, but damned if I can remember her old username.
- K and L,
gement's little sisters! K has a storied history as a Burner and organizer of (ahem) parties to which I often wore latex, whereupon she had to remind me not to hug her because she's severely allergic to it. ("K!" "Noooo!!")
Went home. Ate leftovers. Turned around twice. Wriggled into my new latex LBD for...
Saturday evening: the
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Said a brief howdy to one of the latex gang, who were showing up right after Hot Flash ended. Then Funny Lady suggested that we hit the Merc, which we did. Sometime around midnight we called it a night. I got ramen at Betsutenjin, where the staff have started to recognize me, and caught the last train northbound. Much win.
Pride Sunday: slept until 0900. Wore my customary Pride outfit*. (Mental note: get spirit gum for my reusable pasties. Toupee tape doesn't cut it.) Went to the parade to find Ken Shulman, director of Lambert House, because he had what I thought might be urgent business. He wasn't with the LH parade contingent, at least not at that time, so I headed toward the Seattle Center just in time to see the parade start.
You know what that means: the dykes on bikes. No, I didn't try to join them this year because see above. But the sound of a few dozen motorcyclces revving in the concrete canyons of downtown Seattle is impressive, to say the least, and I find it moving.
So I made it to the Seattle center, wandered around, ate & drank, and eventually ran into Ken. And our IT guy on the board of directors. And two or three of the yoof from Lambert House. I've mentioned here before that there's no such thing as a brief conversation involving Ken Shulman, and luckily, we were in the shade. Plus, Ken & Ray imparted much-needed info to me so I can do my database monkey thing. Oh yeah, lots of excellent queer eye candy in full sunlight.
Went home. Napped. Put stuff away.
It was all too brief. I wish I could do all the things and see all the people, but even when I was half the age I am now with seemingly limitless energy, there simply isn't time.
*Black Stetson, black leather harness from Apatico, Pride stripe nipple pasties, skirt belt from Chrysalis, black leather thong, knee-high Pride socks, white Docs that K in SF gave me, Pride stripe accessories. You know, the usual.
Game reaction: Relooted
Jun. 30th, 2025 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
A South African video game studio (not a phrase I think I've ever typed before) has created a game called Relooted, a heist game where the objective is to rob museums and steal back African artifacts. I'm pretty sure my computer isn't powerful enough for me to be able to play it once it's released, but I love the idea and I look forward to seeing more games like this.
SOTD: Green Day, "Fancy Sauce"
Jun. 30th, 2025 09:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I recent listened to Green Day's latest album Saviors (édition de luxe) for the first time. I liked the whole thing, but I've especially latched on to "Fancy Sauce." The chorus is like a Russian nesting doll of Easter eggs: The tune of the chorus is like a greatly slowed down version of the can-can song (Offenbach?), while the lyrics of the chorus contain call-outs to Suicidal Tendencies ("I'm not crazy, you're the one that's crazy") and Nirvana ("stupid and contagious"). Enjoy!
Status quo ante
Jun. 30th, 2025 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Between finally getting off of Keppra (with its side effects of lethargy and sleepiness) and finally starting to get caught up on all the things I fell behind on during my long Keppra-induced nap, I feel like I'm finally starting to get back into my usual life again. Barring unforeseen events (which is never a safe thing to do, and yet I persist on doing it anyway), you should start seeing me around here more often, hopefully even reading and commenting on your posts.
Kickstarter Launched! Shakespeare Adjacent from 2 Jokers Publishing
Jun. 29th, 2025 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I'm so excited to announce that the Kickstarter for the 2 Jokers Publishing anthology Shakespeare Adjacent is now live! It's a delight to work once again with Lou Tambone, who also co-edited From Bayou to Abyss, as well as co-editor Ali McDowell. I have a longstanding love for Shakespeare's stories, especially his skill at characterization and, of course, his witty dialogue. I also love how his stories can be remixed, retold, and translated to other media without losing any of their power or relatability. It's a real treat to get to play around with one of my favorites of his plays, and try it out in a novel setting.
I don't write a lot of romance, despite having respect and affection for the genre, so I decided to try my hand at one of the romantic comedies. Of course there's a lot more going on in Much Ado About Nothing beyond the central romances (as fun as it always is to watch Benedick and Beatrice spar--if you've never seen David Tennant and Catherine Tate in those roles, incidentally, it's well worth it), including the larger political context in which the story is set, the family rivalry between Don Pedro and Don John, and the changing gender norms and relationships at the time that Shakespeare wrote it. Do all of these still work in a future Western setting beset by drought and political deterioration?
Back the Kickstarter, and judge for yourself--and get 12 other stories to read, into the bargain!