I bought John Shirley’s “Really, Really, Really, Really Weird Stories” but forgot to read it, so I’ll get right to that. 😂
And I pre-ordered Brian Klaas’ “Fluke: Chance, Chaos, And Why Everything We Do Matters,” which will be released Jan 23, 2024 - looking forward to that very much!
A pleasant surprise! I just found out that one of the haiku I submitted for the annual contest of the Haiku International Association has received an 'honorable mention'. 😃
"Noël à la cathédrale de Chartres"
[1 Veni Domini
2 D'où vient qu'en cette nuitée
3 Ô dieu de clémence
4 Il est un petit ange
5 La légende de Saint-Nicolas
6 Noël nouvelet
7 Trois rois virent paraître
8 Or nous dites Marie
9 Il est né le divin enfant
10 Que j'aime ce divin enfant
11 Puer Natus In Bethlehem
12 Les anges dans nos campagnes
13 Puer Natus In Bethlehem
14 La vièrge à la crèche
15 Stille Nacht / Douce nuit
16 Allein Gott in der höh sei ehr]
Maitrise De l'Ecole Nationale De Musique De Chartres/Philippe Frémont
Grandes Orgues de la Cathédrale de Chartres/Patrick Delabre
(Coda Musique 2018) https://songwhip.com/maitrisedelecolenationaledemusiquedechartres/noel-a-la-cathedrale-de-chartres
@duanetoops@bookstodon
Very interesting, and beautifully said. I’ve been trying to resolve the puzzling tension in my own creative needs between writing (my only real talent) and making art — all I want to do now in my dotage.
Thanks for shedding a bit of light on this frustrating conundrum. 😊
Barbra Streisand's memoir, "My Name Is Barbra," is out now. She spoke to the BBC about growing up in poverty, getting her start in a Manhattan gay bar, and phoning Apple CEO Tim Cook to complain that the iPhone couldn't pronounce her name. "I guess that's one perk of fame."
Speaker-in-name-only McCarthy could cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government open. Five breakaway Republicans in swing districts could work with Democrats to keep the government.
Don't let ANY Republican off the hook because they won't stand up to the extremists in their own party.
"Greta Thunberg Could Face Jail Term After Second Blockade of Swedish Oil Port"
"The Swedish climate activist has been charged for a second time for failing to obey police orders."
(See the linked article at the bottom.)
Something I posted somewhere else:
Greta’s perceptive way of seeing the world in very literal, stark terms allows her to clearly see the climate crisis as an emergency, while so many others view climate change as an abstraction. To her it’s not an abstract threat, it’s an evident reality. That’s why she said this:
"Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act."
"I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire. Because it is."
And she’s right. She began her activism all alone, sitting in front of the Swedish Parliament building holding a sign, while refusing to go to school. She thought school was impossible to attend while the planet was burning. She needed to voice this massive threat to young people. She began the school strike that grew to include other young people.
I'm starting to really like Jamelle Bouie's writing on politics. While He still essentially has a liberal perspective (as opposed to a radical or left perspective) he's really good at identifying and criticizing liberal process, technicality and hypocrisy-based criticisms of the right.
These are criticisms that don't address the gulf in values, morality, or outcomes, but focus instead on things like finding hypocrisies, or showing how the right is failing to live up to the constitution. 1/
A few years ago I posted a question on /askreddit “why don’t more young people vote?” I got a LOT of replies and about 98% said voting is “too inconvenient,” AND the respondent would absolutely vote if it were online and secure, like bank or credit transactions.
I’m disabled and could not vote if CA didn’t have mail-in ballots. It’s time to adjust to people’s needs. We haven’t had a higher turnout than 67% since 1900, and Midterms average about 45%.
As Jim Jordan tries to inserts his committee improperly into state prosecutions once again, a reminder of why he is even in Congress in the first place. This is his district in Ohio. One of the most gerrymandered in the nation.
@georgetakei
In my mind, his successful re-elections should be one of the Inexplicable Wonders of the Modern World. The dude hasn’t done ONE WORTHWHILE THING IN CONGRESS for his constituents. I doubt any of the good voters in his District sent him to D.C. for the purpose of interminable and useless investigations.