rabbitstitch

[rabbitstitch]

The 12th Book for my 2025 Book Blanket is Wake: the Hidden History of Women-led Slave Revolts by Rebecca Hall and illustration by Hugo Martinez. I didn't have the right colors at all for the square, so much more vibes based than some of the others. (Also my camera makes all the yarn look darker and the book covers lighter).

My rating for Wake is ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐! Rebecca Hall doesn't just take you through the horror of slavery but the horror of erased history. I urge everyone to grab a copy from your local library (ASK THEM TO PURCHASE IT IF IT'S NOT THERE). It's becoming too easy and common to bury history again.

[rabbitstitch]

The tragedy of my life is that I keep acquiring and displaying fetish art and having to be corrected by my friends.

Most recently, a friend came over my house and saw my computer background and went, "Wow, um, I didn't know you were into that." To which I look at the picture of the well drawn muscular female minotaur in historically accurate Greek clothing and I start geeking out about how I love the detail the artist did with the clothing and I point out the period appropriate folds and pins, how the artist even inserted the native plant that was used to dye the clothing this particular shade in the background, and even how the belt has technology AND historically accurate weaving patterns on it.

Then I start explaining how I love the muscular choices of the minotaur, that I was so impressed with the artist's anatomically correct depiction of the muscles converging into the neck. That many people get an upright cow's neck wrong because cow's don't have collarbones, so it can be very difficult to merge the upper arms and a chest of a human with a cow's body. I draw her attention to the beautiful way they've merged the pectoralis major so smoothly while also staying true to how muscular they've depicted the rest of the body.

I finish up with my thoughts on the artist's bold choice to depict the minotaur as a female, and despite the underlying themes of a minotaur being violence, child murder, strength, and muscles. I segue into how unlike bulls, cow are perceived as mothers. That they are the major source of milk in human culture, and that idyllic depictions of them in a field usually depict calves frolicking nearby, yet the minotaur kills and eats children.

I finish and there is a long pause.

"Urban, this is fetish art." and she takes me to the artist's twitter and god dammit it's fetish art, not a bold statement on cultural perceptions of women and violence throughout history. I have been tricked again.

[rabbitstitch]

I just watched the finale of Make Some Noise on Drop Out and I need Brennan to know that I cackled at the Marquis of Queensbury Rules. THERE IS NO CUT TOO DEEP

[rabbitstitch]

[rabbitstitch]

DOGE just froze funding to vital Federal and Indigenous conservation programs devoted to supporting the very delicate and tenuous existence of the black-footed ferret.

I fell in love with these animals as a kid traveling to our National Parks. Their rarity and ferocity made me sharply aware, even as a child, of just how much of a responsibility we have toward our environment. I can't bear the thought of them being a fucking casualty of Trump and Musk.

Look at them! They do war dances.

[rabbitstitch]

[rabbitstitch]

[rabbitstitch]

A guy gets isekae'd to a fantasy world and it's completely disconnected from our own world, like no shared history.

Except.

Words keep popping up. Someone mentions a "French braid", and he's like "a what braid? Where did you hear about France?" and no one seems to know the etymology. He gets in some minor trouble for assaulting a bard who can't explain where he heard Old Town Road.

The local Duke shows off his new portrait and it's somehow AI generated? And still painted?

He's going slowly mad trying to figure out why there's our-world references leaking into this fantasy world. Is there someone else who is isekai'd here? Is there a portal between here and earth? A wizard who can travel back and forth? What the fuck is going on?

He falls to his knees sobbing in the street when he sees a poster for a play being put on in the Capitol city. It's called "War of the Stars" and it's about Lucas the Sky Walker who is given a holy sword to fight the Black Knight who never removes his armor, and he rescues a beautiful princess from a hidden fortress with the assistance of a wizard mentor, a traveling merchant, and his werewolf companion.

[rabbitstitch]

I think poor people deserve to buy luxuries for themselves

[rabbitstitch]

solidarity with osha. i love a good railing

[rabbitstitch]

Enemy (2013) dir. Denis Villeneuve

[rabbitstitch]

The 11th book for my 2025 Book Blanket is The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe, presented by Re: Dracula with Stephen Indrisano as narrator and Sam Stark as Roderick Usher.

This one gave me fits. This is the third version and its one that I'm mostly happy with. I love the crack on the image, and I tried doing a bunch of color changes to achieve it, which kinda worked but it was super thick and I didn't trust it to hold up to use and washing. I also tried a solid white square with embroidery floss, which didn't look great. Doing a chain of black on the white square split the difference perfectly and if it does come off, I can replace it without having to figure out how to replace a whole square.

I have two ratings for this one. My rating for The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe is ⭐⭐. I like Poe. I like Gothic literature. I didn't like the Fall of the House of Usher. 🤷‍♀️ BUT, as for the audio from Re: Dracula, Stephen Indrisano, Sam Stark, Tal Minear? ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐! It was gorgeous to listen to. I'm also listening to Carmilla and plan on listening to Dracula in May.

[rabbitstitch]

Just a quick note from your friendly neighborhood bookworm/indie author

if you use kindle for the majority of your library, they will be shutting down the function that allows you to download your files and transfer them via USB on the 26th of February. Which doesn't sound like a huge deal, but this also means that if a book is taken off Amazon for any reason—like it being banned—they can scrape it off your kindle as well. So maybe backup your library?

[rabbitstitch]

This is a big deal. Bigger and more mainstream organisations are standing up and speaking out.

The American Bar Association 2/10/25 statement rebuking Trump's administration & emphasizing the importance of the Constitutional balance of powers

summary of daily political news by legislative historian and reporter-analyst Heather Cox Richardson including a synopsis of the ABA statement and an equally impactful NYT op-ed by 5 previous Secretaries of the Treasury, warning that DOGE's access of the Treasury systems could cause “irreparable harm.” Excerpt:

"It is not for the Treasury Department or the administration to decide which of our congressionally approved commitments to fulfill and which to cast aside. [...] While significant data privacy, cybersecurity and national security threats are gravely concerning, the constitutional issues are perhaps even more alarming.” [They reiterated] the key principle outlined in the Constitution: “The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.”

My longer abridgement of H Cox Richardson's quotes from & synopsis of the ABA statement below:

Today [2/10/25] the American Bar Association took a stand against the Trump administration’s “wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself” as it attacks the Constitution and tries to dismantle departments and agencies created by Congress “without seeking the required congressional approval to change the law.”

“The American Bar Association supports the rule of law,” president of the organization William R. Bay said in a statement. “That means holding governments, including our own, accountable.” He cheered on the courts that “are treating these cases with the urgency they require.”

“[R]efusing to spend money appropriated by Congress under the euphemism of a pause is a violation of the rule of law and suggests that the executive branch can overrule the other two co-equal branches of government,” Bay wrote. “This is contrary to the constitutional framework and not the way our democracy works. The money appropriated by Congress must be spent in accordance with what Congress has said. It cannot be changed or paused because a newly elected administration desires it. Our elected representatives know this. The lawyers of this country know this. It must stop.”

He called on “elected representatives to stand with us and to insist upon adherence to the rule of law…. The administration cannot choose which law it will follow or ignore. These are not partisan or political issues. These are rule of law and process issues. We cannot afford to remain silent…. We urge every attorney to join us and insist that our government, a government of the people, follow the law.”

[rabbitstitch]

There are so many Republican lies about immigration with most coming from Musk and Trump himself. Trump says undocumented migrants are being housed in NYC luxury hotels. Musk says NYC is paying double the going rate to house them there. Both are lies.

Federal funds were legally dispersed by Congress for emergency migrant housing, under a strict set of guidelines. The hotel is a closed dilapidated building that is undergoing refurbishment. NYC is spending twelve dollars and fifty cents per person to house these people in the dead of winter so they won’t be on the streets straining already taxed social services. $12.50 to keep someone alive in a frigid New York winter.

Trump/Musk/DOGE illegally used a government computer system to pull back the money already deposited in a city bank account. Not only was it illegal but they didn’t inform anyone in NYC they were doing it. City auditors and accountants went to work the next morning to find $80 million mysteriously missing and to also find the city liable for tens of thousands in overdraft fees. Once they traced it back to the federal government they contacted their bank who politely waived the overdraft fees when Trump’s illegal action was explained.

Once Congress authorizes money for something it is against the law to use it for other purposes or to withhold it from its intended purpose. NYC will have to join everyone else in federal court to get it back.

The richest man in the world and his orange billionaire puppet won’t spend $12.50 to keep a human being from freezing to death.

[rabbitstitch]

2025 Book Blanket Update #1

Woo! 10 squares are in the bag! Honestly, very surprised that I reached 10 this quickly seeing as how I've been in a reading slump since college. Here's how it's going so far:

Books

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites by Joy Demorra

Witch King by Martha Wells

Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo

The Adventures of Isabel by Candas Jane Dorsey

Nettle and Bone by T Kingfisher

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

There There by Tommy Orange

Sources

Local Library

Queer Liberation Library

Personal TBR collection

Books in Progress

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

The Removal by Brandon Hobson

The Lost Continent by Terry Pratchett

Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu from Re: Dracula (weekly miniseries)

The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe from Re: Dracula

[rabbitstitch]

My 10th book for my 2025 Book Blanket is There There by Tommy Orange! The cover is so VIBRANT; I wish I had a different orange for it. I really wanted to get the orange, yellow, and black in there, but it HONESTLY looks like a Reese's Pieces package to me. 🫤

My rating for There There is ⭐⭐⭐⭐. This is my 3rd time reading it (this time for a book club), and even though I really like this book, i still don't know what to think about it really. I get more from it every time. its a hard and emotional read that gets into questions of identity, history, connections, and loneliness. With 12 distinct and interconnected narrators in Oakland, California in the days leading up to the Oakland Powwow, Orange pulls no punches, and you really don't want him to. It's a book I really recommend, but you should also double check the content tags because its an incredibly weighty novel. Get a notebook to keep with you as you read and take notes on all of the history and music and quotes you don't recognize and then dig into them, its a treasure and will really open your eyes. (It certainly did mine).