Thursday 16/04/2026
Apr. 16th, 2026 09:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dark_kana posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
3_good_things_a_day1) listening to good music while working
2) delicious blueberries
3) a nice long hot shower
dark_kana posting in 3_good_things_a_day1) listening to good music while working
2) delicious blueberries
3) a nice long hot shower
Community Thursdays
Apr. 16th, 2026 12:05 amysabetwordsmithThis year I'm doing Community Thursdays. Some of my activity will involve maintaining communities I run, and my favorites. Some will involve checking my list of subscriptions and posting in lower-traffic ones. Today I have interacted with the following communities...
* "Books" inhistory
* "Female Leads" inhooked_on_heroines
* "Follow Friday Master Post" ininterested_in_that
* "Books" in
history* "Female Leads" in
hooked_on_heroines* "Follow Friday Master Post" in
interested_in_that
Community Thursday
Apr. 16th, 2026 07:07 amvriddyCommunity Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.
Commented oneverykindofcraft.
Commented on
everykindofcraft.
Allie Brosh: Hyperbole and a Half (2026-29)
Apr. 15th, 2026 08:54 pmsturgeonslawyerSubtitled "unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened."
This occupies a weird space between a collection of personal essays, and a graphic novel. It has just a bit too much text for a typical graphic novel (though we must not forget things like certain arcs of Cerebus where the text took over and the pictures were relatively few), but too many and to integral to the work for typical personal essays. And, yes, many, perhaps most, of the pictures have text in them.
The pictures, of people at least, are deliberately primitive, a step sideways from stick figures. Yet there is no doubt about Ms Brosh's ability to capture real emotion in a drawing. She does, over and over in the course of Hyperbole and a Half, in such a way that the text and the pictures support each other quite well.
As for the content: it consists, essentially, of stories of and reflection on Ms Brosh's life (or so it would appear; they could, of course, be about an entirely fictional "Allie," in which case more power to her), from childhood trauma to adult thoughts on why she is not the person she wants to think she is.
Particularly moving to me is the two-chapter discourse on depression. I make no secret of the fact that the black dog of depression gnaws at my own life, and Ms Brosh fluently describes and depicts not only what it is like to live with depression, but what it is like to live with other people who just don't get what it is like to live with depression, and whose attempts to cheer you up only make things worse. (The Bible gets this straight: just look at Job's "comforters.") I've never seen this dealt with so well.
Ms Brosh is apparently a dog person, though given the experiences she describes with dogs I can only wonder why. The main dogs in her life seem to be the Simple Dog, who might perhaps have a two-digit IQ on a good day, and is incapable of learning a command as complicated as "Sit" or "Come;" and the Helper Dog, who is no help at all, but an agressive beast who wants to attack every other dog he sees (except, apparently, the Simple Dog). If my experiences with dogs were like hers, I would start raising cats, or gerbils. Or maybe bonsai. Bonsai rarely gnaw on the furniture.
At any rate, Brosh manages to write and draw personal whatever-they-ares that are funny and sad, sometimes by turns, more often at the same time. The saddest is probably the story of why she did not get to go to a friend's birthday party. The funniest is, I think without question, the story of how she and her boyfriend and their dog were terrorized in their own home by a goose.
Eight out of ten parrot toys.
This occupies a weird space between a collection of personal essays, and a graphic novel. It has just a bit too much text for a typical graphic novel (though we must not forget things like certain arcs of Cerebus where the text took over and the pictures were relatively few), but too many and to integral to the work for typical personal essays. And, yes, many, perhaps most, of the pictures have text in them.
The pictures, of people at least, are deliberately primitive, a step sideways from stick figures. Yet there is no doubt about Ms Brosh's ability to capture real emotion in a drawing. She does, over and over in the course of Hyperbole and a Half, in such a way that the text and the pictures support each other quite well.
As for the content: it consists, essentially, of stories of and reflection on Ms Brosh's life (or so it would appear; they could, of course, be about an entirely fictional "Allie," in which case more power to her), from childhood trauma to adult thoughts on why she is not the person she wants to think she is.
Particularly moving to me is the two-chapter discourse on depression. I make no secret of the fact that the black dog of depression gnaws at my own life, and Ms Brosh fluently describes and depicts not only what it is like to live with depression, but what it is like to live with other people who just don't get what it is like to live with depression, and whose attempts to cheer you up only make things worse. (The Bible gets this straight: just look at Job's "comforters.") I've never seen this dealt with so well.
Ms Brosh is apparently a dog person, though given the experiences she describes with dogs I can only wonder why. The main dogs in her life seem to be the Simple Dog, who might perhaps have a two-digit IQ on a good day, and is incapable of learning a command as complicated as "Sit" or "Come;" and the Helper Dog, who is no help at all, but an agressive beast who wants to attack every other dog he sees (except, apparently, the Simple Dog). If my experiences with dogs were like hers, I would start raising cats, or gerbils. Or maybe bonsai. Bonsai rarely gnaw on the furniture.
At any rate, Brosh manages to write and draw personal whatever-they-ares that are funny and sad, sometimes by turns, more often at the same time. The saddest is probably the story of why she did not get to go to a friend's birthday party. The funniest is, I think without question, the story of how she and her boyfriend and their dog were terrorized in their own home by a goose.
Eight out of ten parrot toys.
Peter Watts: Blindsight (2026-28)
Apr. 15th, 2026 08:47 pmsturgeonslawyerIf you hear the occasional thump during this review, don't worry: it's me punching and kicking myself for not reading this book twenty years ago.
It's ... wow. It's hard to articulate what I find so extraordinary about it, without going into deep and spoilericious summary. But, y'know, the book is twenty years old, and if you haven't read it by now, a bit of spoliation won't kill you, so what the Hell.
1. The setup. The narrator, Siri Keeton, after a brief flashback to childhood, is on a spaceship in the Oort cloud, looking for the cause of a disturbing event that took place shortly before the ship, Theseus, was launched. On an otherwise ordinary day, a large number of objects entered Earth's atmosphere and burned up. They were coordinated in a way that suggests that they were taking a holographic picture of the whole globe. But for whom?
2. The characters. There are a lot of flashbacks to Keeton's past, but in the story's present, there are five main characters:
This last perhaps requires some explanation, because this is very much a hard SF novel. But I think I'll let Watts explain it for himself, should you choose to read it.
3. The story. Blindsight is, at the heart of it, a first contact story, but it refuses to act like one. It is, in another way, a Big Dumb Object story, except that it actually talks to the Theseus crew early in the story.
The plot is tense in a way that reminds me of the way I felt when I read The Andromeda Strain at the age of thirteen, over fifty years ago, and that's really the only comparison I can make here. More important, it takes twists and turns that I did not in any way expect but that made perfect sense — but only once I knew a lot more than I knew when they happened.
4. The theme. And here's where I can't help getting a bit spoily. Watts is writing, here, about the mind, about consciousness, about what it is, what it isn't, and about whether or not it's beneficial to us as a species: he (or, rather, one of his characters) makes a pretty strong argument that it isn't.
Watts delivers intellectual punch after punch. This isn't to say that there is no emotional payoff — there certainly is — but another way this book plays back to classic SF is that its core is not emotional but intellectual: Big Ideas propel the story every bit as much as the characters who live through it.
I think I'm prepared to call this the first great SF novel of the twenty-first century.
Ten out of ten space vampires.
It's ... wow. It's hard to articulate what I find so extraordinary about it, without going into deep and spoilericious summary. But, y'know, the book is twenty years old, and if you haven't read it by now, a bit of spoliation won't kill you, so what the Hell.
1. The setup. The narrator, Siri Keeton, after a brief flashback to childhood, is on a spaceship in the Oort cloud, looking for the cause of a disturbing event that took place shortly before the ship, Theseus, was launched. On an otherwise ordinary day, a large number of objects entered Earth's atmosphere and burned up. They were coordinated in a way that suggests that they were taking a holographic picture of the whole globe. But for whom?
2. The characters. There are a lot of flashbacks to Keeton's past, but in the story's present, there are five main characters:
- Siri Keeton himself, who, as a child, had one hemisphere of his brain removed to stop a series of violent convulsions that would, in time, have killed him. He is a synthesist, trained (and amplified by devices in the emptied half of his skull) to observe, make connections, and report without becoming personnaly involved.
- Isaac Szpindel, biologist and cyborg who, as the blurb of the current edition puts it, "can't feel his own flesh.
- The Gang of Four, a woman (except for one of them) who deliberately induced multiple independent personalities in brain, not as competitors but as collaborators; together they are a crack linguist.
- Amanda Bates, a warrior who seeks to win without killing (or even fighting) wherever possible.
- Jukka Sarasti, a vampire, and the commander of the group.
This last perhaps requires some explanation, because this is very much a hard SF novel. But I think I'll let Watts explain it for himself, should you choose to read it.
3. The story. Blindsight is, at the heart of it, a first contact story, but it refuses to act like one. It is, in another way, a Big Dumb Object story, except that it actually talks to the Theseus crew early in the story.
The plot is tense in a way that reminds me of the way I felt when I read The Andromeda Strain at the age of thirteen, over fifty years ago, and that's really the only comparison I can make here. More important, it takes twists and turns that I did not in any way expect but that made perfect sense — but only once I knew a lot more than I knew when they happened.
4. The theme. And here's where I can't help getting a bit spoily. Watts is writing, here, about the mind, about consciousness, about what it is, what it isn't, and about whether or not it's beneficial to us as a species: he (or, rather, one of his characters) makes a pretty strong argument that it isn't.
Watts delivers intellectual punch after punch. This isn't to say that there is no emotional payoff — there certainly is — but another way this book plays back to classic SF is that its core is not emotional but intellectual: Big Ideas propel the story every bit as much as the characters who live through it.
I think I'm prepared to call this the first great SF novel of the twenty-first century.
Ten out of ten space vampires.
Survival Skills
Apr. 15th, 2026 08:53 pmysabetwordsmithSkills That Survived Every Economic Collapse in History
Every economic collapse in recorded history — from Weimar Germany to Argentina's default to Venezuela's currency crisis — followed the same brutal pattern: institutions failed, credentials evaporated, and the most "educated" people were often the first to starve. Doctors drove taxis. Engineers washed cars. PhDs traded cigarettes for potatoes.
So which skills actually survived? Not the ones you'd expect.
This video is an economic autopsy of seven major collapses across a century of data — drawing on NBER labor forensics, Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, World Bank research, and the real stories of Argentine mechanics, Cuban physicians, Russian dacha farmers, and Lebanese currency brokers — to identify the four structural categories of skills that have demonstrated resilience in every single collapse environment ever studied.
So let's take a look at what these are and how to use them...
( Read more... )
Every economic collapse in recorded history — from Weimar Germany to Argentina's default to Venezuela's currency crisis — followed the same brutal pattern: institutions failed, credentials evaporated, and the most "educated" people were often the first to starve. Doctors drove taxis. Engineers washed cars. PhDs traded cigarettes for potatoes.
So which skills actually survived? Not the ones you'd expect.
This video is an economic autopsy of seven major collapses across a century of data — drawing on NBER labor forensics, Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, World Bank research, and the real stories of Argentine mechanics, Cuban physicians, Russian dacha farmers, and Lebanese currency brokers — to identify the four structural categories of skills that have demonstrated resilience in every single collapse environment ever studied.
So let's take a look at what these are and how to use them...
( Read more... )
Buffalo
Apr. 15th, 2026 08:12 pmysabetwordsmith posting in first_nations_freaksColorado Released Thousands of Prairie Dogs In A Chemical Wasteland
Prairie dogs were released into one of America's most toxic sites — a former chemical weapons factory that manufactured mustard gas and nerve agents for decades. The soil was dead, the water poisoned, and the cleanup cost $2.1 billion just to contain the damage. But those rodents didn't just stabilize the dirt — they triggered a cascade that rebuilt an entire food web from scratch, culminating in the return of North America's rarest mammal to ground that once produced weapons of war.
( Read more... )
Prairie dogs were released into one of America's most toxic sites — a former chemical weapons factory that manufactured mustard gas and nerve agents for decades. The soil was dead, the water poisoned, and the cleanup cost $2.1 billion just to contain the damage. But those rodents didn't just stabilize the dirt — they triggered a cascade that rebuilt an entire food web from scratch, culminating in the return of North America's rarest mammal to ground that once produced weapons of war.
( Read more... )
Art
Apr. 15th, 2026 06:22 pmysabetwordsmithQueer Artists and Artworks We Love for World Art Day
Happy World Art Day! Our rec lists tend to be a bit book-centric, so we thought this’d be a great chance to share some artists and artworks we love.
Happy World Art Day! Our rec lists tend to be a bit book-centric, so we thought this’d be a great chance to share some artists and artworks we love.
Climate Change
Apr. 15th, 2026 04:40 pmysabetwordsmithMarch heat in the U.S. was the largest temperature anomaly ever recorded
Heat usually doesn’t define March, a month that still carries a hint of winter’s last breath. This year, it felt more like a preview of late spring, and sometimes even early summer.
Across the United States, temperatures didn’t just creep up. They jumped far beyond what anyone would expect for that time of year.
The numbers tell a blunt story. The average temperature for March hit 50.85 degrees Fahrenheit. That is 9.35 degrees higher than the 20th-century average.
It is not just a record for March. It is the largest jump above normal for any month ever recorded in the Lower 48 states.
Daytime highs pushed even further, running 11.4 degrees above average, nearly matching what people usually feel in April.
Ya THINK? It hit 89 fucking degrees here in central Illinois. REPEATEDLY. We're also in drought conditions. I've had to water things already planted so they don't die, in what should be the wettest time of year. >_< I really don't want this to be another year of eight months watering.
Heat usually doesn’t define March, a month that still carries a hint of winter’s last breath. This year, it felt more like a preview of late spring, and sometimes even early summer.
Across the United States, temperatures didn’t just creep up. They jumped far beyond what anyone would expect for that time of year.
The numbers tell a blunt story. The average temperature for March hit 50.85 degrees Fahrenheit. That is 9.35 degrees higher than the 20th-century average.
It is not just a record for March. It is the largest jump above normal for any month ever recorded in the Lower 48 states.
Daytime highs pushed even further, running 11.4 degrees above average, nearly matching what people usually feel in April.
Ya THINK? It hit 89 fucking degrees here in central Illinois. REPEATEDLY. We're also in drought conditions. I've had to water things already planted so they don't die, in what should be the wettest time of year. >_< I really don't want this to be another year of eight months watering.
Birdfeeding
Apr. 15th, 2026 03:58 pmysabetwordsmith posting in birdfeedingToday is cloudy and mild. It has been spitting a few drops of water now and then, but the promised storms have not arrived. :/
I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- While we were out at Whiteside Garden, I picked up a generous clump of wild ginger. :D I also saw a red-headed woodpecker.
We stopped at Home Depot and bought 12 concrete blocks, the kind with two holes, and water sealer. I'm going to make a planting bench with the solid-top pallet that we obtained earlier.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I planted the clump of wild ginger at the east end of the savanna where moss is growing. I'm going to try establishing a woodland garden there.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did some work around the patio.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I planted the mountain mint in the wildflower garden. This looks similar to the mystery wild mint that I had before, which is among the most popular pollinator plants. If so, that boosts genetic diversity.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I hauled 6 of the 12 concrete blocks out of the car. For some reason the guy putting them on the flatbed trolley gave me two different kinds; some have flat ends and some have ridges sticking out, and these aren't the kind of blocks meant to interlock.
I am done for the night.
I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- While we were out at Whiteside Garden, I picked up a generous clump of wild ginger. :D I also saw a red-headed woodpecker.
We stopped at Home Depot and bought 12 concrete blocks, the kind with two holes, and water sealer. I'm going to make a planting bench with the solid-top pallet that we obtained earlier.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I planted the clump of wild ginger at the east end of the savanna where moss is growing. I'm going to try establishing a woodland garden there.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did some work around the patio.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I planted the mountain mint in the wildflower garden. This looks similar to the mystery wild mint that I had before, which is among the most popular pollinator plants. If so, that boosts genetic diversity.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I hauled 6 of the 12 concrete blocks out of the car. For some reason the guy putting them on the flatbed trolley gave me two different kinds; some have flat ends and some have ridges sticking out, and these aren't the kind of blocks meant to interlock.
I am done for the night.
Birdfeeding
Apr. 15th, 2026 03:55 pmysabetwordsmithToday is cloudy and mild. It has been spitting a few drops of water now and then, but the promised storms have not arrived. :/
I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- While we were out at Whiteside Garden, I picked up a generous clump of wild ginger. :D I also saw a red-headed woodpecker.
We stopped at Home Depot and bought 12 concrete blocks, the kind with two holes, and water sealer. I'm going to make a planting bench with the solid-top pallet that we obtained earlier.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I planted the clump of wild ginger at the east end of the savanna where moss is growing. I'm going to try establishing a woodland garden there.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did some work around the patio.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I planted the mountain mint in the wildflower garden. This looks similar to the mystery wild mint that I had before, which is among the most popular pollinator plants. If so, that boosts genetic diversity.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I hauled 6 of the 12 concrete blocks out of the car. For some reason the guy putting them on the flatbed trolley gave me two different kinds; some have flat ends and some have ridges sticking out, and these aren't the kind of blocks meant to interlock.
I am done for the night.
I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- While we were out at Whiteside Garden, I picked up a generous clump of wild ginger. :D I also saw a red-headed woodpecker.
We stopped at Home Depot and bought 12 concrete blocks, the kind with two holes, and water sealer. I'm going to make a planting bench with the solid-top pallet that we obtained earlier.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I planted the clump of wild ginger at the east end of the savanna where moss is growing. I'm going to try establishing a woodland garden there.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did some work around the patio.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I planted the mountain mint in the wildflower garden. This looks similar to the mystery wild mint that I had before, which is among the most popular pollinator plants. If so, that boosts genetic diversity.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 4/15/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I hauled 6 of the 12 concrete blocks out of the car. For some reason the guy putting them on the flatbed trolley gave me two different kinds; some have flat ends and some have ridges sticking out, and these aren't the kind of blocks meant to interlock.
I am done for the night.
Swan mom
Apr. 15th, 2026 03:59 pmribirdnerd posting in birdfeedingThe Mute Swan couple looks to be expecting again...mom has been on this nest consistently for the past week or two. This is the pond down hill from our driveway.
The usual problem with local elections...
Apr. 15th, 2026 08:24 pmloganberrybunnyPublic
...as I've just seen someone point out elsewhere, is this. A whole bunch of candidates get elected on national issues and/or their own pet subjects. So you end up with a bunch of people whose main interest is Gaza (some indies and Greens) or leaving the ECHR (some Tories and Reform) suddenly having to devote most of their actual time not to those issues, but to somehow trying to find money from the council budget for the ever-increasing cost of adult social care. And surprise surprise, they're not always very good at it. As in other areas of democracy, you can't simply govern as you oppose and still make it work.
...as I've just seen someone point out elsewhere, is this. A whole bunch of candidates get elected on national issues and/or their own pet subjects. So you end up with a bunch of people whose main interest is Gaza (some indies and Greens) or leaving the ECHR (some Tories and Reform) suddenly having to devote most of their actual time not to those issues, but to somehow trying to find money from the council budget for the ever-increasing cost of adult social care. And surprise surprise, they're not always very good at it. As in other areas of democracy, you can't simply govern as you oppose and still make it work.
Trails
Apr. 15th, 2026 03:05 pmribirdnerd posting in common_natureI got out to one of our local trails late last week.
This one is an old state park that has been partially developed. It's a fun but small trail that has a variety of habitats for wildlife.
It goes around this drainage pond, which attracts many birds and waterfowl.
Then it passes the condo development, eventually leading to a bike path along the bay.
You can see one of the condos on the right.
This one is an old state park that has been partially developed. It's a fun but small trail that has a variety of habitats for wildlife.
It goes around this drainage pond, which attracts many birds and waterfowl.
Then it passes the condo development, eventually leading to a bike path along the bay.
You can see one of the condos on the right.
Check-In Post - April 15th 2026
Apr. 15th, 2026 07:44 pmbadly_knitted posting in get_knittedHello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.
Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?
There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.
This Week's Question: Does your crafting change with the seasons, certain crafts at certain times of the year?
If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.
I now declare this Check-In OPEN!
This Year: 365 Songs Annotated: A Book of Days, by John Darnielle
Apr. 15th, 2026 07:47 amrunpunkrunThe lyrics to 365 songs written by John "The Mountain Goats" Darnielle, including some that are unreleased, accompanied by musings on their poetics, musicality, and personal meaning. Darnielle is a thoughtful, funny, devout man who has lived a lot of different lives, and while he resists making this a memoir, it is, though you just as often see him decline to explain the personal significance of a song. I respect his honesty, and his self-reflection, and even his coyness. If he were a character in a book, I'd say he had interiority, which isn't something you can say about everyone who's written a memoir.
I really enjoyed this, even as it's basically just really, really thick liner notes. The book gave me a new appreciation for my favorite songs and even introduced me to some new ones. I bought "Horseradish Road" after reading the lyrics and listening to it on YouTube; I learned he had an album that came out in 2022 that I'd never heard of—probably because we had some other stuff going on at the time—and which I will be buying soon, and in the four months it took me to read this, I've been listening to the albums I already knew I enjoyed (Transcendental Youth, All Eternals Deck, We Shall All Be Healed) and those I never quite clicked with (Beat the Champ, Get Lonely). I did not listen to Goths, Jenny From Thebes, Dark in Here, Getting Into Knives, In League With Dragons, All Hail West Texas, or Ghana, but there's still time. And I don't need an excuse to listen to Tallahassee, The Sunset Tree, The Life of the World to Come, or Heretic Pride, as they are my absolute favorites and I'm listening to them all the time anyway. Also do not sleep on the Babylon Springs EP.
If you're a The Mountain Goats fan, or a fan of Darnielle's social media presence, and/or a poet, songwriter, or storyteller, there's plenty to think about here. Darnielle shares what he finds interesting as an artist, the phases and trends he's gone through in his career, and the echoes he finds in his work. He recommends reading one entry a day, thus the format, but I had to read several a day because this was a library book, and huge, but it definitely benefits from being read in small bites, like poetry, so you can sit with it a while.
Contains (in part): references to child abuse, drug use, addiction, overdose, suicide. The ebook duplicates the print book's index, but does not bother to link any of the song titles to their entries, which is bullshit.
( Status Updates from Goodreads )
I really enjoyed this, even as it's basically just really, really thick liner notes. The book gave me a new appreciation for my favorite songs and even introduced me to some new ones. I bought "Horseradish Road" after reading the lyrics and listening to it on YouTube; I learned he had an album that came out in 2022 that I'd never heard of—probably because we had some other stuff going on at the time—and which I will be buying soon, and in the four months it took me to read this, I've been listening to the albums I already knew I enjoyed (Transcendental Youth, All Eternals Deck, We Shall All Be Healed) and those I never quite clicked with (Beat the Champ, Get Lonely). I did not listen to Goths, Jenny From Thebes, Dark in Here, Getting Into Knives, In League With Dragons, All Hail West Texas, or Ghana, but there's still time. And I don't need an excuse to listen to Tallahassee, The Sunset Tree, The Life of the World to Come, or Heretic Pride, as they are my absolute favorites and I'm listening to them all the time anyway. Also do not sleep on the Babylon Springs EP.
If you're a The Mountain Goats fan, or a fan of Darnielle's social media presence, and/or a poet, songwriter, or storyteller, there's plenty to think about here. Darnielle shares what he finds interesting as an artist, the phases and trends he's gone through in his career, and the echoes he finds in his work. He recommends reading one entry a day, thus the format, but I had to read several a day because this was a library book, and huge, but it definitely benefits from being read in small bites, like poetry, so you can sit with it a while.
Contains (in part): references to child abuse, drug use, addiction, overdose, suicide. The ebook duplicates the print book's index, but does not bother to link any of the song titles to their entries, which is bullshit.
( Status Updates from Goodreads )
🌙
Apr. 15th, 2026 06:41 pmadoreMoontime began today morning, right as I woke up. Turns out napping is what works to relieve the cramps better than anything else. This is not good news for workplaces that don't want to give menstrual leave.
I've been reading Haroun and the Study of Mischief by Lynn Strong and it's the perfect moontime read. It's comforting and hilarious and all the characters are a delight. It's set in a fantasy world that feels close to home. My South Asian self rarely encounters such a thing. I don't often want to escape to a world that feels close to home, but here I do. So that's a novel feeling!
I bleed so heavy that I need to use pads most of the time and change around 8 times a day. I prefer period panties on my light days, but on my heavy days it has to be pads because washing a pile of period panties is exhausting. Four days of my period are heavy, so that's a lot of pads I run through. I was unhappy about the prices of organic pads and the hazardousness of the inorganic ones, but I recently found organic bamboo pads that are 400 rupees, or $4, for a pack of 40 pads 320mm long! I'm using them now and they're really nice. Comfortable, handle my flow, don't make me sweat. And they're unbleached!
It seems that there's a factory churning them out cheap and supplying it to brands (white labelling) because when I search for organic bamboo pads, they all have the same wrapper but are being sold as different brands. There are some being sold as a generic lot with no box or brand, and with the same wrapper, like this lot. I just thought that was interesting, lol. I'm going to stick to the brand I bought because they come with additional individual disposal bags that you can reseal.
I've been reading Haroun and the Study of Mischief by Lynn Strong and it's the perfect moontime read. It's comforting and hilarious and all the characters are a delight. It's set in a fantasy world that feels close to home. My South Asian self rarely encounters such a thing. I don't often want to escape to a world that feels close to home, but here I do. So that's a novel feeling!
I bleed so heavy that I need to use pads most of the time and change around 8 times a day. I prefer period panties on my light days, but on my heavy days it has to be pads because washing a pile of period panties is exhausting. Four days of my period are heavy, so that's a lot of pads I run through. I was unhappy about the prices of organic pads and the hazardousness of the inorganic ones, but I recently found organic bamboo pads that are 400 rupees, or $4, for a pack of 40 pads 320mm long! I'm using them now and they're really nice. Comfortable, handle my flow, don't make me sweat. And they're unbleached!
It seems that there's a factory churning them out cheap and supplying it to brands (white labelling) because when I search for organic bamboo pads, they all have the same wrapper but are being sold as different brands. There are some being sold as a generic lot with no box or brand, and with the same wrapper, like this lot. I just thought that was interesting, lol. I'm going to stick to the brand I bought because they come with additional individual disposal bags that you can reseal.
Let's build a team of adventurers!
Apr. 15th, 2026 07:20 amsenmutQuestion for anyone to ponder:
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, movie version, played with larger than life literary persons of the 19th century dealing with a threat just at the turn of the century to the 20th.
What persons, literary or real that have been mythologized, would have been a good 20th century team to deal with a more nefarious Y2K plot?
Discord has offered Egg Shen (Big Trouble in Little China), Sarah Connor (Terminator franchise), and Hiro Protagonist (Snow Crash).
I offered the mythologized Jimmy Hoffa as either recruiter or villain, not both as M was in the movie.
Looking forward to your ideas. Let's build a team of adventurers!
ETA: as I have been hit by rules lawyers elsewhere: person must feasibly be able to exist/be established to exist on Earth of the late 20th century within their canon.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, movie version, played with larger than life literary persons of the 19th century dealing with a threat just at the turn of the century to the 20th.
What persons, literary or real that have been mythologized, would have been a good 20th century team to deal with a more nefarious Y2K plot?
Discord has offered Egg Shen (Big Trouble in Little China), Sarah Connor (Terminator franchise), and Hiro Protagonist (Snow Crash).
I offered the mythologized Jimmy Hoffa as either recruiter or villain, not both as M was in the movie.
Looking forward to your ideas. Let's build a team of adventurers!
ETA: as I have been hit by rules lawyers elsewhere: person must feasibly be able to exist/be established to exist on Earth of the late 20th century within their canon.
BBQ Mushroom Pizza
Apr. 15th, 2026 04:31 amnverland posting in creative_cooks
BBQ Mushroom Pizza
Makes one 12" pizza
Ingredients
6 oz. mixed mushrooms, cut or torn into large pieces (about 3½ cups)
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 lb. store-bought pizza dough, room temperature
⅓ cup (or more) barbecue sauce
6 oz. fresh mozzarella, torn (about 1 cup)
2 oz. smoked Gouda, coarsely grated (about ½ cup)
½ small red onion, thinly sliced
Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
Crushed red pepper flakes and cilantro leaves (for serving)
Preparation
Step 1 - Place a rack in upper third of oven and preheat to 475°.
Drizzle 6 oz. mixed mushrooms, cut or torn into large pieces (about 3½ cups), with extra-virgin olive oil in a large bowl; toss to coat. Set aside.
Step 2 - Swirl 2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil in a 12" cast-iron skillet to coat bottom and ½" up sides. Place 1 lb. store-bought pizza dough, room temperature, in pan; lift, stretch, and press dough so it fills pan. If dough shrinks from edges, cover with a kitchen towel and let rest 10 minutes before stretching again.
Step 3 - Bake just until crust is starting to set but hasn’t taken on any color, about 5 minutes. Carefully remove skillet from oven and spread ⅓ cup barbecue sauce over entire surface of crust. Top with 6 oz. fresh mozzarella, torn (about 1 cup), and 2 oz. smoked Gouda, coarsely grated (about ½ cup), followed by ½ small red onion, thinly sliced, and reserved mushrooms. Season with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.
Step 4 - Return skillet to oven and continue to bake until crust is golden brown underneath, cheese is melted, and mushrooms are golden, 16–20 minutes longer.
Step 5 - Heat broiler. Broil pizza until mushrooms are browned and crispy and cheese is browned in spots and bubbling, about 2 minutes. (Begin checking after 1 minute.)
Step 6 - Drizzle more barbecue sauce over pizza if desired. Top with crushed red pepper flakes and cilantro leaves.
BBQ Mushroom Pizza
Apr. 15th, 2026 04:31 amnverland posting in recipecommunityBBQ Mushroom Pizza
Makes one 12" pizza
Ingredients
6 oz. mixed mushrooms, cut or torn into large pieces (about 3½ cups)
2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 lb. store-bought pizza dough, room temperature
⅓ cup (or more) barbecue sauce
6 oz. fresh mozzarella, torn (about 1 cup)
2 oz. smoked Gouda, coarsely grated (about ½ cup)
½ small red onion, thinly sliced
Kosher salt, freshly ground pepper
Crushed red pepper flakes and cilantro leaves (for serving)
Preparation
Step 1 - Place a rack in upper third of oven and preheat to 475°.
Drizzle 6 oz. mixed mushrooms, cut or torn into large pieces (about 3½ cups), with extra-virgin olive oil in a large bowl; toss to coat. Set aside.
Step 2 - Swirl 2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil in a 12" cast-iron skillet to coat bottom and ½" up sides. Place 1 lb. store-bought pizza dough, room temperature, in pan; lift, stretch, and press dough so it fills pan. If dough shrinks from edges, cover with a kitchen towel and let rest 10 minutes before stretching again.
Step 3 - Bake just until crust is starting to set but hasn’t taken on any color, about 5 minutes. Carefully remove skillet from oven and spread ⅓ cup barbecue sauce over entire surface of crust. Top with 6 oz. fresh mozzarella, torn (about 1 cup), and 2 oz. smoked Gouda, coarsely grated (about ½ cup), followed by ½ small red onion, thinly sliced, and reserved mushrooms. Season with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.
Step 4 - Return skillet to oven and continue to bake until crust is golden brown underneath, cheese is melted, and mushrooms are golden, 16–20 minutes longer.
Step 5 - Heat broiler. Broil pizza until mushrooms are browned and crispy and cheese is browned in spots and bubbling, about 2 minutes. (Begin checking after 1 minute.)
Step 6 - Drizzle more barbecue sauce over pizza if desired. Top with crushed red pepper flakes and cilantro leaves.