NYR update - week 16
Apr. 23rd, 2025 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fred_mouseOnly a 'what has actually changed' set of notes today, rather than a reflection on where I am on the goals.
- craft - the middle of the year 100 days goal to have fewer WIPs is moving along steadily. I have a document and it has a lot of information / ideas in it. I have found yet another list that is to be reconciled into the main list (this one is in trello).
- reading - ahead 26 'books' and 59 pages (this has not been much of a reading week).
- music - Malle Symon now mostly doable at what might be a performance speed. Found a recording of someone else playing it, on a much larger recorder than I use, so the last practice I did on the alto rather than the soprano. I'm not sure if that is what made it a better run through, or maybe just I'm nearly dealing with that speed.
- organisation The three boxes of fabric and yarn have been taken away; two empty boxes have been returned; it is possible some of the fabric will come back but at the moment I'm calling that specific goal complete.
- writing I have spent some time poking at the neocities site. I have more text in it. I still haven't worked out how I want to handle some stuff. I also now have an airtable base with many Untapped books (it is intensely frustrating that there isn't just a list of them readily accessible, but needs must, and I'm poking at several different sources - I have a search in trove open, it has slightly more books than I've identified already).
New binary, WTAF
Apr. 23rd, 2025 09:24 pmfred_mouseSo, I've been off poking at recorder playing websites, in an attempt to do some upskilling. At the moment, I'm thinking about experimenting with learning circular breathing, because it looks like fun.
Most of what I've been reading is fine. And then I got to this piece on mouthpieces which was going just fine when talking about two breathing styles.
Then it gets into specifying which playing characteristics go with which breathing style, which had me making that 'what are you talking about' face, because I really don't believe that ones breathing style is going to affect how one positions one's fingers, and I *really* don't believe it goes with footedness.
Then it jumped the shark.
Apparently you can tell which breathing style a person is going to be, based on the ratio of sun energy to moon energy on the day they are born. There are two links to look further in to this, and determine which side of the binary you are, but both are in German, and I decided I'd read enough.
Also: I believe that both breathing styles are useful, and it does rather depend on the type of music you are playing.
Also Also: I'm not convinced that these are all the options.
in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha
Apr. 22nd, 2025 07:18 pmmusesfoolI Have News for You
There are people who do not see a broken playground swing
as a symbol of ruined childhood
and there are people who don't interpret the behavior
of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process.
There are people who don't walk past an empty swimming pool
and think about past pleasures unrecoverable
and then stand there blocking the sidewalk for other pedestrians.
I have read about a town somewhere in California where human beings
do not send their sinuous feeder roots
deep into the potting soil of others' emotional lives
as if they were greedy six-year-olds
sucking the last half-inch of milkshake up through a noisy straw;
and other persons in the Midwest who can kiss without
debating the imperialist baggage of heterosexuality.
Do you see that creamy, lemon-yellow moon?
There are some people, unlike me and you,
who do not yearn after fame or love or quantities of money as
unattainable as that moon;
thus, they do not later
have to waste more time
defaming the object of their former ardor.
Or consequently run and crucify themselves
in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha.
I have news for you—
there are people who get up in the morning and cross a room
and open a window to let the sweet breeze in
and let it touch them all over their faces and bodies.
--Tony Hoagland
*
Today’s book lists
Apr. 22nd, 2025 12:11 pmfred_mouseFrom [Book Jockey Alex’s] blog:
- Notable Young Adult Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror of 2024 - while the original post was at the blog, the actual list is at ReacTor Mag.
- YA Book Bundles – Science Fiction & Fantasy, Part 1
- YA Book Bundles – Science Fiction & Fantasy, Part 2
general thought: Look, I get that the USA has a stranglehold on some aspects of publishing, and that someone writing from North America about books published in English is going to get a lot more options set in the USA. But for me to pick something set there to spend my precious reading time, the summary has to be spectacular. Ditto ‘class warfare (near) future dystopia’. I’m here for the escapism, dammit. In the Reactor article there were books more relevant to my interests later on, but I nearly noped out when the first five or so were so dire.
Overall - I didn’t quite make it through these lists. I found it near impossible to focus on the descriptions to see if there was something I was going to like; then I just skimmed to see if there was anything jumped out at me. Also, two of these are from 2020, so there were several I’ve either got on the wishlist, or have read. Of the ~80, I added four to the wishlist, but only one is a ‘really want to read’, and that’s because it is one of my must read authors.
The Spinoff’s best NZ books of 2024 - I found the summaries much more readable than the previous, and yet I added zero books to the reading wishlist.
The Best Books We Read in 2024—And What We’re Looking Forward to in 2025 by Words without Borders - books in translation. Another one where the summaries/reviews were interesting reading, but none sparked an interest in actually reading the books.
Read Palestinian Speculative Fiction Reading List by Sonia Sulaiman - to be fair here, I’ve read five booklists already, and I’m starting to flag. But this is the last one, and then I can close the window, and I’m very invested in that. So, I’m expecting to be unmotivated by any of the books, and that is not actually a commentary on what is written. … and then I started reading and discovered it is a stack of links. For now, I’ve shoved it into the ‘reading plans’ tab group, which is where anything online short fiction gets put until I have the oomph to read it.
this picnic is no picnic
Apr. 21st, 2025 06:08 pmmusesfool- So what are the odds we get an antipope this time in addition to a pope?
- Sepinwall gave season 2 of Andor a good review (minor spoilers, I guess) - the first 3 episodes drop tomorrow and it sounds like they are doing 3 episodes a week for 4 weeks, as each one comprises a mini-arc. Trying not to get spoiled on the internet is sure to be a nightmare.
- I haven't done the AO3 stats meme regularly since 2018 because not much changes in my top 10. In 2021, however, I made note of some up-and-comers in the 11-20 slots, and it turns out that as of 4/20/25, Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc (i.e., the one where Dick convinces Jason to stop killing through the power of hugs) has crept into the top 10 by hits - it's number 9! (It looks like Our history is just in our blood (history, like love, is never enough) (the Steve/Bucky remix AU where Steve finds Bucky working as a barista) is the one that fell out of the top 10.)
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc also made inroads into the top 10 by kudos, landing at number 5! Additionally, 2 Star Wars stories also found their way into the top 10 by kudos: There's Still Time to Change the Road You're On (in which Anakin time travels to the post-RotJ era and meets his kids) at 6, and deep as a secret nobody knows (AU where Leia tells Vader she's Padme's daughter and it changes everything) at number 8!
The 3 Avengers stories that dropped are again, Our history is just in our blood (history, like love, is never enough), plus Even a Miracle Needs a Hand (Clint/Darcy fake Christmas boyfriend), and with the lights out, it's less dangerous (Steve/Bucky, then and now).
According to these posts, I did not previously do the full list by comments, but I will note the appearance of deep as a secret nobody knows at number 3 on the comments list, and another Vader-and-Leia AU, Just a Little Bit of History Repeating, at number 10, with the VMars/Avengers crossover we travel without seatbelts on sitting pretty at number 7.
So I guess given enough time, these things CAN change.
- Today's poem:
Nothing Will Warn You
by Stephen Dunn
Nothing will warn you,
not even the promise of severe weather
or the threats of neighbors muttered
under their breath, unheard by the sonar
in you that no longer functions.
You'll be expecting blue skies, perhaps
a picnic at which you'll be anticipating
a reward for being the best handler
of raw meat in a county known
for its per capita cases of salmonella.
You'll have no memory of those women
with old grievances nor will you guess
that small bulge in one of their purses
could be a derringer. You'll be opening
a cold one, thinking this is the life,
this is the very life I've always wanted.
Nothing will warn you,
no one will blurt out that this picnic
is no picnic, the clouds in the west
will be darkly billowing toward you,
and you will not hear your neighbors'
conspiratorial whispers. You'll be
readying yourself to tell the joke
no one has ever laughed at, the joke
someone would have told you by now
is only funny if told on yourself, but no one
has ever liked you enough to say so.
Even your wife never warned you.
***
the indivisible wave of your body
Apr. 19th, 2025 05:40 pmmusesfoolIn other news, I watched the 3 available episodes of season 3 of Leverage: Redemption and enjoyed them, though there was some cognitive dissonance in seeing Noah Wyle as Harry Wilson after 15 intense episodes of The Pitt. Aldis Hodge gets more handsome every time I see him, and the gloves have come off in terms of the writing - they are not even playing anymore about how stuff that is legal still isn't right. Plus, there have been some fun guest stars: ( casting spoilers ) I look forward to the rest of the season!
***
I haven't posted any Neruda in a while, so here's today's poem:
Sonnet XLVI
Of all the stars I admired, drenched
in various rivers and mists,
I chose only the one I love.
Since then I sleep with the night.
Of all the waves, one wave and another wave,
green sea, green chill, branchings of green,
I chose only the one wave,
the indivisible wave of your body.
All the waterdrops, all the roots,
all the threads of light gathered to me here;
they came to me sooner or later.
I wanted your hair, all for myself.
From all the graces my homeland offered
I chose only your savage heart.
-Pablo Neruda
(Trans. ???)
***
Daily notes
Apr. 19th, 2025 10:23 pmfred_mouse- morning: today is an ow, stay in bed day, except for the fact that it is family dinner night; how that gets handled is for future me (although by the time this gets posted, future me might already have made notes on this)
- today's digital decluttering is my 'goal setting' tab (16 tabs); plus a separate window with two potentially relevant web pages. Most of these are things that can be closed, but also I've ended up with a stack more small to do list items as follow up. At the end of the process, I had four tabs still open. One requires about an hour of follow up, one requires reading a book, and the other two are likely to be kept for the time being.
- made bikkies, with help from Eldest, although they had a time based commitment so were only helpful at the start. Only filled the two good trays (I need more of these and to rationalise the assorted collection of trays, because these are the only ones I really like using, and they are a sad shadow of the ones I remember from my childhood which I really really wish I could replace) and put the rest of the mix in the freezer for some random future time. This happened because I've had several items on the counter for multiple days, and Youngest wanted to use some of the equipment, which meant that the oven would already be on. And then they were 'I'm about to do this and then the oven would be available, now is the time for the biscuit making'. And I grumbled and swore and got up and it wasn't fun but at least it is more done than it was.
- family dinner went well, we went through some of the stash of stuff. This included me pulling out a box of puzzles, of which we kept one or two and the rest have gone with Middlest to see whether or not their household are interested in any. I'm assuming that they are going to bring them all back, and then I'll see about rehoming them - I'm planning on taking them to gaming, because I think at least one of the D's might be interested at least in having a play
2024 reading
Apr. 19th, 2025 01:48 pmfred_mouseLast year I captured all book acquisitions in storygraph and made a list of books I own to prioritise reading in librarything. And then I confused matters by creating two other storygraph tags: 2024-aquisitions---read and 2024-aquisitions---dnf. I had allowed for adding acquired books to the librarything list by only putting ~50 books on at the beginning of the year.
At the start of writing this post, there were books in the storygraph 'acquired' list that had been read, so I needed to transfer those; I also decided that renaming it was useful because it wasn't grouping properly. Now, in storygraph, I have 78 unread books (including 11 that are in progress at various levels of abandoned forgotten about), 2 DNF and 17 read for a total of 97.
The librarything list ended up with 98 books, 36 of them with 2024 entry dates, and thus theoretically new to me in 2024. I've put reviews/ratings on 13. I've finished Passing Strange in the last week, but haven't reviewed it yet, and have 7 in the wilderness of 'in progress'.
There is obviously a significant overlap between these two lists. I didn't put everything acquired in the librarything tag, because I was capturing that in storygraph.
I was going to look at these in some detail and make commentary on my reading habits and so on and so forth, but actually, I don't think I care to. The numbers are interesting, but not really a surprise, because I know that I rarely keep to a plan and I also have a dreadful track record of reading books I own.
Going forward: I intend to do the same data capture in storygraph; I have not done the same thing in librarything. Instead, I have a tag for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
thestoryinside and I pick a set of books each month that meet the current selected categories, and that is causing me to read some of the books languishing on my shelves (I'm trying to remember not to put recent acquisitions on that list).
the shape of wind against a sheet
Apr. 18th, 2025 09:10 pmmusesfoolHere's today's poem:
Singe
I read the tops of the poems, ten or twenty lines down.
In the beginning of the book, a man is leaving his wife
for a lover. By the end, the lover is tired of the man, who wonders
if he made a mistake. The book has the quality of a diary,
the beginnings of poems imply the ends of other poems, other days,
this is a man to know in the morning.
It's raining here, where the book lives for now, and the mood
of fog fits the sadness of the book, I hold it out the window,
bring it back and dry it off with my shirt.
I know a woman who knows the poet. I call her and ask
which tops of poems are true. She wants to know why I don't
finish the poems. I tell her I dreamed last night
I work inside a steam shovel, that the tops of the poems
are my sky, my white clouds. It's impossible to talk
to just one poet, and I'll feel the ears
of people I don't know floating behind me for a week.
There are two children in the book. They must be in college by now,
married or incapable of marriage. I believe the poet was honest
about their names, I consider finding and e-mailing them,
asking if they felt betrayed or like rock stars, some other kind
of celebrity, I suddenly want to know if they play tennis
or like Pop Tarts, if either drove up to see their father
and threw the book at his head, the stab marks on the cover
making him break down and apologize for the hurt, not the poems.
Calvino had an idea for a book that appeared to have been pulled
from a fire. What wasn't there would be as much of the story
as the little bells, the indentations of eye teeth in a pencil,
the shape of wind against a sheet. The bottom of this book
is on fire, is where the lies have fallen, where someone
tells someone they were never loved, where a body is rhapsodized
as the font of renewal, and eight pages later, deplored as snare.
I devise solace for the book: we should count birds, I tell it,
should ride a horse, you and I. Some other time I'll read
the bottom only, read this life and turn each page
with both hands, carry the words in the basket of my flesh,
carry them over, carry them safe, some other time, nor was it ever
too late.
—Bob Hicok
***
Petition
Apr. 18th, 2025 02:58 pmfred_mouseChange.org have:
Overturn the UK's New Legal Definition of a Woman
can be signed regardless of location.
Birds
Apr. 18th, 2025 10:19 amfred_mouseOver on tumblr, someone shared some lovely pictures of red tailed black cockatoos. To which the response was 'what lovely parrots'. Hmmph said I, those are cockatoos.
So I asked that most helpful (if sometimes inaccurate and regularly overly didactic) of sources, wikipedia. Which told me there are three superfamilies of parrots, being cockatoos, true parrots, and New Zealand parrots.
Hmmph said I. Not reeeeally parrots then are they.
(Yes, I have a basic understanding of taxonomy, this is absolutely me being a grump)
the patience that has lived so long in this body
Apr. 17th, 2025 06:28 pmmusesfoolThe Game
by Lorna Crozier
So many conversations between
the tall grass and the wind.
A child hides in that sound,
hunched small
as a rabbit, knees tucked
to her chest, head on her knees,
yet she's not asleep.
She is waiting with a patience
I had long forgotten,
hair wild with grass seeds,
skin silvery with dust.
It was my brother's game.
He was the one who counted,
and I, seven years younger,
the one who hid.
When I ran from the yard,
he found his gang of friends
and played kick-the-can
or caught soft spotted frogs
at the creek so summer-slow.
As darkness fell,
from the kitchen door
someone always called my name.
He was there before me
at the supper table;
milk in his glass
and along his upper lip
glowing like moonlight.
You're so good at that, he'd say,
I couldn't find you.
Now I wade through
hip-high bearded grass
to where she sits so still,
lay my larger hand
upon her shoulder.
Above the wind I say,
You're it,
then kneel beside her
and with the patience
that has lived so long in this body,
clean the dirt from her nose and mouth,
separate the golden speargrass from her hair.
*
(no subject)
Apr. 17th, 2025 06:52 pmfred_mouseI had ideas above my energy for today. I have done no sewing because the machine is having a snit and I can't find the manual to look up why; I got the shakes early in the day so no baking. Something else planned got not done for similar reasons, and I've spent the day flaked on the couch (I am winning on goal 'do not spend all day in bed').
I did find the bass recorder book I'd misplaced, and a patchwork book that I knew was in the sewing space Somewhere, so have poked at both of those. Also found bits of Eldest's quilt so have brought those out to be looked at. Have poked at a few other bits of craft.
Last night I pulled the basket of 'need to sew the ends in' down and watched youtube videos while doing so. Today I've done a tiny bit of making squares to use up yarn scraps. I've found a pile of squares, and need to work out what to do with them (stick them in the assorted squares box is easy, but not necessarily optimal)
I've read week 1 of the artist's way, grumbled at some of the stuff, and set up a log for the exercises, because they are lots of writing. I'm not yet doing the bits about affirmations, maybe that can be tomorrow's task. I did at least go and sit in the sun while reading, so got a bit of outdoor time.