Concordia discors

- I accidentally googled kintsugi mouse and found the worst taxidermy shop I've had the misfortune to be tempted to click on.

- Living in Squares, Loving in Triangles is still the best possible title for a book about the Bloomsbury Group, although What Narcissism Means to Me remains my favourite title in any category.

- Devastating book review written in black ballpoint pen inside the front cover of a novel I saw in a charity shop: "I couldn't be bothered finishing this". Also stamped on the same page: "DISCARDED Telford & Wrekin Libraries".

- Nature is odd, but pretty: shell lerps.

I have a habit of making, like, 97-Point Plans for the day and then managing two things and calling it good. That's fine. Though eventually I do need to get some stuff done. But also, my to-do lists end up long because I can't just, like, clean the kitchen. It needs to be doing dishes, cleaning out the fridge, taking trash, etc.

It is not quite the end of the month but I think it's close enough to report in!

( May Intentions )

And June!

( June Plans! )

- Reading: 58 books to 28 May 2025.

54. Cwen, by Alice Albinia, 2021, 5/5, is a trans-inclusive, anti-racist (anti-misogynoir), women-centred, feminist speculative utopian fiction set on an archipelago of small islands that are part of our contemporary British Isles but where 50% of local power has recently been legislated to women. Written in a very readable style, combining serious critique with the mischievousness of the best feminist fiction. Reminiscent of Ellen Galford (especially Fires of Bride updated and improved), probably intentionally although she doesn't get a namecheck unlike Marija Gimbutas, and the backstory of the islands includes a multicultural feminist separatist commune that fails but plants seeds of ideas and actions which I read as acknowledgement of the positive effects of second wave feminism.

The plot, which is unspoilerable, is that a leading local woman Eva Harcourt-Vane has died under not especially mysterious circumstances, after rowing out into a storm at sea, and bequeathed all her worldly possessions away from her three wealthy and politically influential sons who have demanded a Public Inquiry into the results of their mother's utopian feminism. Past and current events are then presented through the device of witnesses to that Inquiry, especially the dozen women who were most involved in Eva's cabal ( / coven / disciples): what they say in public, their private memories, and responses from other community members. There's a large cast of characters, who can be difficult to keep track of while reading, but many of the asides included from the Public Inquiry scenes appear to be intended as a Greek Chorus effect so the persona speaking isn't individually important and when a character does require closer attention in a scene it's obvious in context so readers don't need to track every utterance of every character for overall reading comprehension and enjoyment. There's also a supernatural element but readers can dismiss that as symbolic if they prefer. It sounds dry but the mix works well.

It's interesting that the situation in this novel is convincingly presented as a feminist utopia / gynotopia provoking massive backlash, but then undercut by the evidence given to the Public Inquiry which shows that what happened is not even equality for women e.g.: 50% representation in local government is under-representation; and the women's club isn't as luxurious and doesn't ban men as extremely as traditional men's clubs in the UK; and the reworking of museum exhibits only adds interpretations and accurately re-sexes the skeleton from a chambered cairn; and one woman working in an otherwise male-dominated field is seen as an unacceptable threat to men's livelihoods; &c.

The tone of this book is realistic encouragement: Utopia is here, and the revolution is always now, because here and now are the only possibilities and we should choose to live as much of the gynotopia in our lives as we can (men too, obv, unless you're one of those losers who finds 50% female a scary number).

I LOVED THIS. 5/5. :D

( Quotes and language use )

Aurora Australis readalong 6 / 10, An Interview with an Emperor, by Alastair Mackay, post for comment, reaction, discussion, fanworks, links, and whatever obliquely related matters your heart desires. You can join the readalong at any time or skip sections or go back to earlier posts. It's all good. :-)

Text of An Interview with an Emperor, by Alastair Mackay:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Aurora_Australis/An_Interview_with_an_Emperor

Readalong intro and reaction post links:
https://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/662515.html

Reminder for next week, the poem Erebus by Nemo (Ernest Shackleton):
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Aurora_Australis/Erubus

( Links, vocabulary, quotes, and brief commentary )

Okay, I'm actually more used to either hand-carried or cross-body bags, but I can deal with a shoulder bag for this. Look at this absolute joy of a bag:



I don't think last night was the absolute worst post-Memorial Day startup in the history of post-Memorial Day startups, but it was definitely in the top five. IIRC I took last year off and it was pretty quiet, so maybe I'll take next year's off so everyone else has a better night?

For reasons unknown they're sexy, I've ended up kinda obsessed with Orange Cat Industry's Super Robot Heroes model kits, the the Estailevs in particular. (Estailev Neamhain Warcrow for reference) There are four kits so far in the line: the Warcrow, Cassowary, and two versions of the first unit in both blue and a "Roll Out" white-n-grey option that is HHHNNGGGHH. I've managed to snag both Warcrow and Cassowary, and have hopefully managed the Roll Out, fingers-crossed on that order. Still looking for the blue, but it's early-days. There are also a bunch of kinda SD kits that I haven't looked at too closely but there's a black and purple one I may track down at some point. (But seriously, I think half my phone searches are variations on 'Estailev'...)

I finally completed Dragon Age: Veilguard, after only four months. ( I enjoyed it! with spoilers )

Other games: I played the rest of Carto, which is a very enjoyable little map puzzle game and I recommend it; I started Submerged but didn't get very far with it, played a bit of Loddlenauts and liked that better, will probably play more; picked up Quilts and Cats of Calico which has a ridiculous story mode that I'm working through, finished the second act but got stuck on one puzzle where my solution appears to be mathematically correct but doesn't get the right number of cats so I must be misunderstanding a rule somewhere, much more overtly math-y than I was expecting somehow; progressed my re-play of The Secret Order 2: Masked Intent which is as ridiculous as all my Artifex Mundi games but still oddly satisfying; and played a few minutes of Psychonauts after Sunday's video game concert included a track from it and I realised that the name was familiar because it was already in my Steam library. That one was mildly entertaining, but the interface feels a bit janky and the graphics are hideous (...it is twenty years old, probably not surprising); I'll probably try a bit more.

Ah, the weekend is over. It was mostly quiet and very nice, overall.

Saturday, we did the multi-cemetery run/ancestor worship. I only took a couple of photos and of those, the best one is unfortunately a little too distinctive to post publicly online. My one Suruga-ya package (not model kits or Lucifers) basically teleported but still arrived after we got back, thankfully. (I will have to share a picture later... it is a Roy Focker bag and it is amaaaaaaazing. No, it's better than that, lol. I have ended up on a weird low-grade Roy bender and this is satisfying me for now. Though I probably also need an icon, hmm...)

Sunday and Monday were much the same. Worked on Gunpla (Alto done, Flauros started, desk cleaned up a bit, SD Strike Freedom almost done), worked on archiving, did more house-cleaning than anticipated, watched a chunk of SEED Destiny and just... discovered things I'd memory-holed or something. I do need to get back to Battle Destiny, too. It feels like Neverending Tomorrow, control-wise, so it'll take some time to learn combat. I also really want to replay Gundam Musou 3 and maybe 2 (but definitely 3)...

Back to the grind! (At least it's a short week?)

55. Don't Kiss Me, the Art of Claude Cahun & Marcel Moore, 2006, non-fiction, art, history, biography, 4/5

Separate book post because some people, entirely reasonably, choose to avoid Nazi references (although choosing to be a fascist is imo a "chose not to be warned" life experience).

( Context is good actually. )

Don't Kiss Me, the Art of Claude Cahun & Marcel Moore, 2006, which is a collection of essays about the lives and art of CC & MM, plus a generously illustrated catalogue of the Jersey Heritage Trust's collection of Cahun and Moore's art, letters, and other archived documents such as news clippings (leaving out only the contents of CC & MM's published books). Some of the essays were more edifying than others. "On a le dieu qu'on mérite, tant pis pour soi". The art is what it is, and this collection represents what Moore / Malherbe possessed at the time of her death. The couple had presumably lost some of their personal art collection to Nazi destruction, both intentional and careless, when their home in Jersey was occupied after they were arrested for 4 years of active resistance (Cahun claimed the couple had created and distributed around 2,500 pieces of anti-Nazi propaganda!). This book and this collection isn't a complete overview of Cahun and Moore's works. Warnings for brief mentions of Nazi crimes against humanity, attempted suicides, and anorexia.

My fave photo is Je Tends les Bras in which Cahun gives surreal life to a stone gatepost.

Transgressive art positioning a gravestone as a phallic symbol, or Cahun clinging to hope over death? Clue: it's not exactly a traditional Hope and anchor. I note again that androgyny is not masculinity and making jokes about phallic symbols doesn't imply the joker wants one for herself.

Claude Cahun repeatedly visually referenced herself with symbols of female genitalia, including pussy cats, and seems to have imagined the anti-Nazi art and propaganda campaign she and Marcel Moore engaged in as resistance cats toying with Nazi eagle-birds.
- 1940, Nazi soldier-eagles on the beach overlooked by Cahun's enthroned cat.
- 1945, shortly after the couple's release from prison, Cahun made a portrait of herself with a Nazi eagle uniform badge between her teeth (like a cat with a bird). Significantly, the badge was a gift from the uniform of one of the German soldiers held for desertion &c, in the same prison, who Moore / Malherbe and Schwob / Cahun encouraged and supported.

- Fanfic: Has anyone written tardigrade/TARDIS fic yet? I feel like tardigrades could survive on the outside of the Tardis and form part of its ecosystem of extremophile epibionts.

- Citizen science: still biologging &c. Am still seeing new-to-me species including a "Nationally Scarce" aka "Nationally Notable" beetle. And an adorable large mole wandered over above ground to investigate me and my foot (the advantage of being somewhere with no pet cats or badly behaved dogs off leads).

- Birb log: 14 May, Goldfinch gathering nesting material. Also usual spring outbreak of Blue Tits, in search of edible arthropods, hovering like hummingbirds outside my windows.

- Plant babies: most of the fussy Echeveria are ded, except 3 of the medium sized plants that look unhappy. The reliably growing species look sick about being repotted, probably due to having their roots touched. The species I was told not to attempt to grow because they wouldn't without artificial light are thriving, including two different species that are the happiest succulents I've grown. The most notoriously difficult seem to like the shaded, north-facing Kitchen window sill, so I would speculate they prefer moist air (desert dew) to watered roots (rain) and maybe grow under other plants in the wild? As predicted I also now have at least a dozen successful Jade babies and am working on a variety of shapes of fake bonsai (will still need to give some Jades away).

( Habitat )

I mailed out the monthly mail yesterday, including to Canada since CanadaPost is still running (for now). Fingers crossed.

Would any Star Trek friends like a couple of brochures from Riverside Trekfest XXVIII? These turned up while sorting stuff at the 'rents and given some of their travels and stopping at every tourist trap they could in the past, they must've ended up in Riverside, Iowa once. (I'll post anywhere in the world. First come.)

Got almost all my physical zine stuff organized and made a post about it on makezines. I think the only thing missing is The Home for Unwanted Robots and that might take some digging. But this was one of the goals for the weekend, so yay.

I also did a bunch more painting on my SD Heroes Strike Freedom, and then built like 2/3 of the white Alto. He'll get finished up today, surely, and then have his wings added on tonight? I don't know if I'll get to Plutone over the weekend, but I'll definitely get started on Flauros.

I had really ambitious plans for the year re: zines and while I'm sure I'll fall a little short, I feel like there is still plenty of hope.

The original plan was one zine per month, while also basically doing updated/edited versions of all my old zines at the rate of also ~one per month. This sounds like a lot and it both is and isn't. (Right now it sure is!)

At some point, I'll probably take an extra long weekend or two and do some more catch up. (I have no real vacation plans again this year because look at the world on fire; I might as well make zines.)

Anyway- so far for 2025:
Dragon Stories (Jan) - done, copies available
Rimokon #2 (Feb) - partly done
Tiniest Tales #1 (March) - done, copies available? (might have to print more)
Cemetery Zine #0 (April) - partly done
Lost Dawn & The Box of Dreams (May) - partly done
Chic Musique #9 (June) - I know I had some vague notes for this but ???

Reprints:
Gods of Agassia (Jan) - from 2023, done, copies available
No Creature With Wings (Feb) - from 2007, needs edit + fix art/covers
Chic Musique #1 (March) - from 1998, will need to be retyped and reformatted, graphics might be tricky/will do my best
Chic Musique #2 (April) - haven't even looked at
Rimokon #1 (May) - haven't even looked at
Knocking Boots (June) - haven't even looked at, will probably just need an edit?
The Small Fandom Survival Guide (Unassigned) - from 2009, eight-page Yaoi-con panel extra, probably just needs a quick edit

Weekend plans include catching myself up through February, which just means an edit + fixing art on No Creature and, uh, writing like ten six more pages of a twelve page zine. Not actually impossible! (Big pictures, the secret is big pictures!)

Doing a Friday post, attempt the second.

- My weird life: I was on a bus when it decided the potholes in the road were bomb craters or something and set off a automated repeating voice message alarm: "This bus is under attack. Call 999. This bus is under attack. Call 999." I kept expecting Keanu Reeves to jump aboard. Tangent: it'll never stop being lolarious that the film The Big Bus existed 18 years before Speed.

- Memorable but cringeworthy acronyms: CLANG - connect, learn, be active, take notice, give. So somebody who does all those things is presumably a Clanger? :D

- Friday Five: answers on a post(card) please.

1. What was the best gift you received?
I mean, life from my parents but mostly the 9 months work my mum put in, lol.

2. What was the worst gift you received?
Life? But also the life-threatening infection "given" to me in hospital. Because humans are complicated.

3. What gift did you wish for, but never got?
[redacted]. [also redacted]. Nope, I "give" up! Nothing postable here. ;-)

4. What was the best present you gave?
The "present" moment, which I have given to many people - some of whom appreciated the gift.

5. What was the worst present you gave?
Probably some minor respiratory virus? I hope I haven't done worse than that!

Uughhh been feeling tense and restless lately for no reason bleaghhh. Well I'm sure there's probably a reason but I don't know what it is. Whyyyy blehhhh

What I Just Finished Reading
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman. I can't decide if I liked this or not. I couldn't get through the Thursday Murder Club because I didn't like the characters and wasn't interested in the murder. In this one I like the characters and would absolute be up for reading more with them in, but wasn't that interested in the murder. And found the short chapters cutting between characters made it hard to get into.

Clean Point by Meg Jones. This was awful. I thought it was a tennis romance, but then read the preview and thought it was an interesting tennis story about drugs and parents and coaches. That part of the story was interesting and would have been better if it had been the main part of the story. Sadly most of it was about the two main characters spending all their time thinking about each other's legs, which was dull and predictable. I kept reading for the tennis aspect and whether it was all going to end up happy or more realistic. I could have not bothered.

What I'm Currently Reading
Triangle: Imzadi II by Peter David. My Unconventional Courtship fic is set during this book. I skim-read bits when I started, but then my writing stalled. I finally have an idea for the next bit (if not the ending) and I thought reading this book would help me actually write it.

What I'm Reading Next
Is This Working? by Charlie Colenutt. A library hold that's just come in.

Mirrored from my blog.

- Reading: 53 books to 21 May 2025.

53. The Lie of the Land, Who Really Cares for the Countryside, by Guy Shrubsole, 2024, non-fiction, 5/5, is a book of practical environmental policies, written in an accessible style, and presented in solid contexts of history and society.

52. The Museum of Whales You Will Never See: And Other Excursions to Iceland's Most Unusual Museums, by A. Kendra Greene, 4/5, is a collection of non-fiction (mostly) essays about the meaning and practice of making and keeping museums in the context of the 266 museums (official tourist board count) in Iceland where the population is about 330,000 people (= 1 museum for every 1250 people). The writing style is a crossover between quirky popular travel writing and the publisher Granta's thinky-thoughts house style. The title refers to two of Iceland's whale museums: the one the author tried to visit but couldn't manage to find, and the one she implies has no actual whales in it. Quotes:

pg52: "At first I felt as if I was borrowing the stones - but now I have come to terms with the fact that they will remain here forever."

pg108: Mostly when I have thought about eggs, if I have thought about them at all, it has been as symbols, as beginnings. Only here does it occur to me that they are easily read in reverse, as finality, as the punctuation to some other process, some other series of events.

pg113: And notice how singular objects don't need initials carved in their sides - a unique enough thing needs no further distinction - but the stuff of plenty is marked up in ownership, personalised in that way, so that at the end of haying season, everyone can take back what is theirs.

pg159-60: When I think about the red house, I wonder if it had to be the last building, if the volunteers couldn't have saved this one building until it was the only one left to save. Momentum can be hard to come by, and the last chance focuses the effort. There's a kind of urgency to the endling that's different from the last thirty, or even the last four, then three, then two. So often we can't hold onto the one until we have lost the many.

pg188: Siggi is not a collector. There was that time he kept a belly-button lint collection to disturb his daughter-in-law - which proved effective - but with objective achieved he abandoned the project.

pg225: "You know what to do with your fear of a mask - but how do you begin to approach the bones that hold it up?"

pg236: They counted to three and then each bolted, in a sprint. They ran in opposite directions. They ran screaming. They ran singing. They ran shouting at the top of their lungs. And they ran like this, crying out in the night, so each might hear the other, for as long as they possibly could.

Aurora Australis readalong 5 / 10, Southward Bound by Lapsus Linguæ (anon), post for comment, reaction, discussion, fanworks, links, and whatever obliquely related matters your heart desires. You can join the readalong at any time or skip sections or go back to earlier posts. It's all good. :-)

Text of Southward Bound by Lapsus Linguæ (warning for mention of euthanising an injured pony):
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Aurora_Australis/Southward_Bound

Readalong intro and reaction post links:
https://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/662515.html

Reminder for next week, An Interview with an Emperor, by Alastair Mackay, about an imagined discussion with an Emperor Penguin:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Aurora_Australis/An_Interview_with_an_Emperor

( Links, vocabulary, quote, and brief commentary )

I continued the culture theme - actually I forgot to post about it, but I also went to the opera! That was ten days ago now, Peter Grimes, a Britten piece I'd never actually heard before. What a downer though.

Anyway. On Saturday I went to the cinema to go and see Ocean, a new David Attenborough that was having a theatrical release. Excellent as ever, although mostly not new; I liked the juxtaposition of "incoming climate disaster" with the example of Save the Whales as a campaign that really worked. Afterwards I had a couple of hours to kill before church, and they were offering £5 tickets, so I took myself across the building to see Thunderbolts*, which was entertaining, had some genuinely touching character moments, and did not go in for too many extended fight scenes as a replacement for plot. I mean, there definitely were plenty of fight scenes, it's still Marvel, but sometimes you think "really we could have cut half an hour of fight scenes out of this film without losing anything" and I didn't, here. Helped that it was a two-hour film, probably.

Then on Sunday my dad got confused answering one of the crossword questions and produced the concept of Douglas Adam's Watership Down, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

The Short Version is that I haven't been archiving much, which is a combo of things. I am doing other things that make me happy! And I also just sort of hit a wall of feeling like I was getting nowhere because there is just So Much and even though I had some solid plans to take care of the stuff that needed archiving the most, that looming 'there is just so much' just kinda got me, you know?

Actually, I'm not sure there's a Long Version? Like, I thought this was going to be a longer post but that's pretty much it. That and some of the more, idek, 'needy' stuff is also ancient and on the literal 'do a good edit/rewrite' list so I'm kind of at a crossroads with what to do with it.

I suppose one answer is to just archive it here, backdated/locked/privated, so it's backed up just in case, and then go from there. That might be the best plan...

Huh, maybe that was easier than I thought? We'll see what my brain says when I actually try it. *facepalm*

Still obsessed with the fact a whole family decided to go with Blundell-Hollinshead-Blundell as a surname.