audeamusss

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Decorated skeleton of St. St. Friedrich in Melk, Austria

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i feel some people may enjoy these

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07022025

Oh yes I went on a mad fetch quest yesterday to pick up my first record player!

I took a visit to my local record shop and picked up some light bits and pieces but I couldn’t be happier with it. Theres something really special about the physicality of it. The act of picking it up, taking it out and putting it onto the turntable.

It sounds different from streaming but in a really good way. It sort of removes the detachment I feel from just streaming music.

[audeamusss]

Btw, this is how conservatives keep getting to claim that trans people are a new thing no one has ever heard, because our history and existences have continually been erased or obscured systematically through out history.

The most famous example was 92 years when the Nazis raided the library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, the medical practice where the term transsexual was first coined and the first gender affirming surgery was performed in in 1931.

What did the Nazis do after raiding the library on May 6th, 1933? You may be familiar with these images

It is happening again.

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“Public libraries are such important, lovely places!” Yes but do you GO there. Do you STUDY there. Do you meet friends and get coffee there. Do you borrow the FREE, ZERO SUBSCRIPTION, ZERO TRACKING books, audiobooks, ebooks, and films. Have you checked out their events and schemes. Do you sign up for the low cost courses in ASL or knitting or programming or writing your CV that they probably run. Do you know they probably have myriad of schemes to help low income families. Do you hire their low cost rooms if you need them. Have you joined their social groups. Do you use the FREE COMPUTERS. Do you even know what your library is trying to offer you. Listen, the library shouldn’t just exist for you as a nice idea. That’s why more libraries shut every year

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As a young boy in school, Masaki Sashima would be dragged out of his classroom and beaten by his fellow students.

Masaki, now 72, was different to the other kids. 

He was Ainu, an Indigenous people from the country's northern regions, most notably the large island of Hokkaido.

"During recess, the hallway door would open, and several guys would yell at me to come out," he said.

"I clung to my desk in the classroom and kept quiet.

"Everyone would surround me and beat me."

Japan has long portrayed itself as culturally and ethnically homogenous, something that some have even argued is a key to its success as a nation.

More than 98 per cent of Japanese people are descendants of the Yamato people. 

But the Ainu are distinct, with their own history, languages, and culture.

But, as the victims of colonialism, assimilation, and discrimination, much of that identity has been lost. 

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Terracotta vase in the form of a lobster claw, Greece, circa 460 BC

from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Theres brief flickers of where the plots intertwine. The hints that seem to connect between one another.

The prose is witty and funny in places, I can see whole scenes play out in my head. The level of detail reminds me a lot of Disco Elysium.

“the reptilian Michael Pemulis”

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Mike Pemulis brings a sort of air of faggotry to the Enfield Tennis Academy that Avril Incandenza doesn’t really like.

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What a way to start 2025.

I think it is really rare for a book to capture love the way that Patti Smith captures it in Just Kids. I think sometimes the general perception of love can be so prescriptive and confined by labels- but its always been a lot deeper that.

Just Kids Defines love as a connection so whole and complete that its the acceptance of a person without the dismissal of flaws. Its not really tangible, it goes beyond words or something entirely definable.

It resonated a lot with my connection with love, this idea that no one can really tell you what the 'right' way to love is. Its entirely individual a secret language between two individuals. It doesn't have to be a large gesture or confined by a ring. It can persist decades and defy personal revelations.

I think with a memoir there is the risk that you can linger too long on details and lose the pacing. The prose is so melodic, it washes over you and soaks through your skin like osmosis. It has a really good sense of flow that I found easy to digest and follow. It wasn't really surprising I finished the book in about three sittings.

Smith never lingers too long, there's such a strong pacing to the book that makes it feel more like a film of someone's life than a rigid retelling. Like a vignette of memories. Imbued with little snippets of the time, fashion, food and music.

On another personal matter the way that the book touches on creativity, particularly that a creative endeavour is really not defined by a single medium. As someone who used to draw prolifically and now only sometimes, I think it has a a certain reassurance that creativity is fluid and flows from one place to another. Its never static and grows with you as time goes on.

You can feel the tenderness through the book and I'm so glad I read it. An easy easy 5/5.

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“…𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐨'𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐝-𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐢𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐬. 𝐎𝐫 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐨'𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐛𝐨𝐝𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐜𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝.“

-𝐃𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐝 𝐅𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞, 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐉𝐞𝐬𝐭

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12 Books for 2025

Moving into 2025 I have decided to commit to 12 books this year. With a focus on quality over quantity.

I completed my reading goal of 40 about mid-year last year and went on to read a total of 61. It wasn't intentional to read that many books but my pace seemed to fall back into the echo of a time in my life where I'd do nothing but read.

Now that I feel like the habit of reading comes more naturally to me I am keen to move away from a quantitive approach and focus on longer, challenging reads.

My main goal this year is to read 12 books with an average of over 400+ pages. Focusing on deeper reading with time to digest the books more. And I'm going to try to use books that are already on my shelves.

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Septology - John Fosse

Killing Commendatore - Haruki Murakami

The Shards - Bret Easton Ellis

The Monk - Matthew Lewis

The Ebony Tower - John Fowles

Don Quixote - Cervantes

Life & Fate - Vasily Grossman

Possession - A.S Byatt

1Q84 - Haruki Murakami

The Makioka Sisters - Junichiro Tanizaki

The Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas

We'll see how far I get!

[audeamusss]

The Magus by John Fowles

“I saw that this cataclysm must be an expiation for some barbarous crime of civilization, some terrible human lie. What the lie was, I had too little knowledge of history or science to know then. I know now it was our believing that we were fulfilling some end, serving some plan - that all would come out well in the end, because there was some great plan over all. Instead of the reality. There is no plan. All is hazard. And the only thing that will preserve us is ourselves.”

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fuck yeah !!!!!!!!!

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It would be passable PASSABLE if he was Telemachus

Apparently Tom Holland has been cast as Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s new adaptation of the Odyssey.

Girl no.

This man didn’t spend 20 years away from home to be cast by a twink.