#Miranda in Retrograde

[sandythereadingcafe]

DUAL REVIEW:

MIRANDA IN RETROGRADE by Lauren Landish at The Reading Cafe:

'The premise is inviting and imaginative'

[thereadingcafe]

[overflowingshelf]

ARC Review: Miranda in Retrograde by Lauren Layne

Miranda in Retrograde Lauren Layne Publisher: Gallery Books Publication Date: August 13, 2024 Series or Standalone: Standalone Links: Amazon – Barnes & Noble – Goodreads – StoryGraph Rating: MY REVIEW If Lauren Layne writes it, I will read it. There is something about Layne’s writing that perfectly encapsulates the golden age of rom-com movies from the 90s that we all know and love,…

[jurassicworldtieindrpepper]

Reading List

to be updated constantly

Articles:

"Why Women Online Can’t Stop Reading Fairy Porn" by C.T. Jones for Rolling Stone

"They Called 911 for Help. Police and Prosecutors Used a New Junk Science to Decide They Were Liars." by Brett Murphy for ProPublica

"‘I Think My Husband Is Trashing My Novel on Goodreads!’" by Emily Gould for The Cut

"Woman in Retrograde" by Isabel Cristo for The Cut

"The unwanted Spanish soccer kiss is textbook male chauvinism. Don’t excuse it" by Moira Donegan for the Guardian

"I Started the Media Men List" by Moira Donegan for The Cut

"What Moira Donegan Did for Young Women Writers" by Jordana Rosenfeld for The Nation

"The Key Detail Missing From the Narrative About O.J. and Race" by Joel Anderson for Slate

"The Coiled Ferocity of Zendaya" by Matt Zoller Seitz for Vulture

"OJ Simpson died the comfortable death in old age that Nicole Brown should have had" by Moira Donegan for The Guardian

"Norm Macdonald Was the Hater O.J. Simpson Could Never Outrun" by Miles Klee for Rolling Stone

"Trans Stylists and Makeup Artists Are Reshaping Red Carpet Looks. Will They Get the Credit They’re Due?" by James Factora

"The ‘perfect Aryan’ child used in Nazi propaganda was actually Jewish" by Terrence McCoy for The Washington Post

"There Are Too Many Books; Or, Publishing Shouldn’t Be All About Quantity" by Maris Kreizman for Literary Hub

"An O.J. Juror on What The People v. O.J. Simpson Got Right and Wrong" by Ashley Reese for Vulture

"Super Cute Please Like" by Nicole Lipman for N + 1 Magazine

Essays:

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture edited by Roxanne Gay

Creep: Accusations and Confessions by Myriam Gurba

"On Chappell Roan and Gen Z Pop" by Miranda Reinert

"In Memory of Nicole Brown Simpson" by Andrea Dworkin

"My Gender Is Dyke" by Alexandria Juarez for Autostraddle

"Columnists and Their Lives of Quiet Desperation" by Hamilton Nolan

Nonfiction:

Belabored: A Vindication of the Rights of Pregnant Women by Lyz Lenz

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

This American Ex-Wife: How I Ended My Marriage and Started My Life by Lyz Lenz

The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination by Sarah Schulman

Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession by Rachel Monroe

The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adams

Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson

Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs by David Bellos & Alexandre Montagu

The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society by Eleanor Janega

Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America by Krista Burton

University of Nike: How Corporate Cash Bought American Higher Education by Joshua Hunt

What it Feels Like for a Girl by Paris Lees

Female Masculinity by J. Jack Halberstam

The Theory of Everything Else: A Voyage Into the World of the Weird by Dan Schreiber

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper

Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith, and Migration by Alejandra Oliva

Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate by Anna Bogutskaya

Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson

The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O'Meara

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

Eyeliner: A Cultural History by Zahra Hankir

Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement by Ashley Shew

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe

Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami

Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

Fiction:

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Just as You Are by Camille Kellogg

Just Happy to Be Here by Naomi Kanakia

The Misadventures of an Amateur Naturalist by Ceinwen Langley

Family Meal by Bryan Washington

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera

Blackouts by Justin Torres

We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer

The Faithless by C.L. Clark

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour

Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

The Institute by Stephen King

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Frankenstein: Junji Ito Story Collection by Junji Ito

Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart

The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin

Snuff by Terry Pratchett

Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix by Aminah Mae Safi

Only a Monster by Vanessa Len

[inmyownlittlecorner5]

songs that remind me of my fics, part i

Snow Angel by Reneé Rapp has got me all up in my feels. It's giving me Miranda Rose/Severus Snape trying to make it through Kairos in Retrograde vibes

(I heard this song live on SNL for the first time, and it's an awesome performance)

First to arrive, last to leave What's misery without company? It's hard to laugh when it's hard to breathe It's white outside but red underneath Feel the tip of my nose It's burning but it's ice-cold I'll make it through the winter if it kills me I can make it faster if I hurry I'll angel in the snow until I'm worthy But if it kills me, I tried, if it kills me

Smiles hide what secrets keep Can't tell a lie if you never speak Look in the mirror, she looks like me But half alive and twice as weak Feel the tip of my nose It's burning but it's ice-cold I'll make it through the winter if it kills me I can make it faster if I hurry I'll angel in the snow until I'm worthy But if it kills (kills) me, I tried, if it kills me I tried so hard, I came so far I met a boy, he broke my heart I blame him 'cause it's easier But I still look for him in her The seasons change, addiction's strange I loved back then what I hate today

I wish I went a different way But if I went back, I would do the same I'll make it through the winter if it- But why does it go slower when I-? I'll angel in the snow until I'm (worthy) worthy If it kills me, I tried, if it kills me, I-

[startrekships]

Miranda Class - Upside Down by Sven1310

[mirandamoonmagick]

Pick-a-Card Reading ~ What's coming next in Love? ❤️

This is a timeless pick-a-card reading, so whenever you find this post, is when it’s meant to apply to you.This reading is meant for singles, but if you’re not, you might still find something that resonates. 

Pick from groups 1-4 using your intuition, then scroll down to see what’s coming next in love for you! I also offer private readings. Anyone who’s interested, feel free to message me. I hope you enjoy!!

-Miranda Moon Magick 🖤

⭐️ Group 1 ~ Dark Amethyst (top left)

For group 1, I’m feeling as though someone is going to come in very soon for you if you’re single. Likely two people around the same time that you might have to make a decision about. Or rather a decision or try again, or let go. I’m doing this reading during Mercury Retrograde, so it might be someone from the past coming back in around this time, as well as someone new possibly. It feels like this past energy was never spiritually closed off, so you’re very much connected still. You might think about them a lot, or have dreams about them, and they probably have the same about you. This person is going to have a feeling when someone new comes into your life, or when you’re trying to release them spiritually. They might see something on social media as well, and they’re going to pop back in out of nowhere because that jealousy is very much still there. It’s not that they feel any different from when they weren’t talking to you, they just don’t want anyone else to have you. My advice for you would be to not give them the time of day. They might try to prove to you that they’ve changed, or apologize, and you can accept that, but don’t accept them back into your life. They left the first time for a reason. This new energy coming in for you is so much better, whether it be another person, or just you releasing this toxicity from your life!! I also noticed the number 51 and 15 mirroring each other in the oracle cards, so this past person could be a twin flame. 3 of the cards that came out are the number 6 as well, so 666. This energy is just very manipulative. Performing a banishing spell might help to release this negative energy from you spiritually. 

⭐️ Group 2 ~ Rose Quartz (top right)

For group 2, it feels as though this next lover is going to come into your life during a very busy time. You’re not necessarily going to be thinking about finding love whenever this person comes in. You’re very much just going to be focused on your work and fulfilling your dreams. You might meet this person in a job setting or running errands. I also feel like you could meet this person on a day where you don’t really want to do anything, but you or your friends push you out of your comfort zone to do something different, and then you meet them. This person is most likely a water sign, or has water in their chart. I also get Earth and Aquarius energy so that could be you, or them too. This persons very connected and comfortable with their emotions, and I feel like that’s really going to be a good match for you to balance your energies. They’ll help you see your own beauty as much as they do, and embrace what feels uncomfortable. This is overall a beautiful energy! 

⭐️ Group 3 ~ Light Amethyst (bottom left)

The first energy I got here, group 3, was friends with benefits where one of you end up catching feelings. You or this other person could be a Virgo, Sagittarius, Leo, or Aquarius, or have those signs in your charts. This could be someone in your friend group currently that you end up hooking up with. You guys are good friends, I just don’t see this working as a relationship, especially if no one's saying the truth about how they really feel, or opening up at all. If this is you who catches feelings, say something! If it’s not reciprocated, that’s okay. At least you won’t be wasting your time. Don’t be afraid of rejection. You’ll only be hurting yourself, and holding yourself back more by keeping your true feelings hidden. I think you need to figure out within yourself first however, whether you just like this person because the sex is good, or because you have real feelings. It can be hard sometimes for you to differentiate it feels like. And don’t get mad at me, but Imo a good relationship isn’t usually built on the foundation of just hooking up. Of course there are exceptions, but in this case, this other person doesn’t feel like a good lover at all. They’re very selfish. And there’s nothing wrong with just hooking up, don’t get me wrong. You’ll have fun with this person, but I feel where you’re going to find a healthy relationship is somewhere completely different. 

⭐️ Group 4 ~ Clear Quartz (bottom right)

Wow! You have so much about yourself to be proud of, group 4. You’re so independent, and doing what you want to do in life already. I feel like your life plan is playing out just how you wanted it to. If you’re single right now, you're so okay with that, and that’s what’s bringing this stable love energy closer to you. Don’t get discouraged by seeing your friends starting to get into relationships. Family may even ask you, “why are you still single,” or try to make you feel bad for not settling down, but don’t listen to them. They’re just jealous seeing how successful you’re becoming without someone. You, and/or this other person might both be Earth Signs, or have strong Earth in your charts, but I feel Sagittarius as well. When the time is right, this strong stable energy is going to come into your life. They love the way you’re “flowing through life,” and accomplishing what you set out to accomplish. To see you growing and learning independently is so attractive to them. They want someone who can match their drive and success in life, and you’re that person. You might even become work partners, or own a business together. I see power couple energy. If this person isn’t in your life already, it might take a little while for you to find them. Just trust the timing, it’ll all work out perfectly. You might start seeing 333 whenever your about to, or when you meet them.

[cmdr-korinne-eichwald]

Federal Corvette-class vessel, Cocytvian, QXR-13

A cornerstone of the shadow armada fielded by the Phobyn Corporation.

Overview/Raw Data

Builder: YZ Ceti Aerospace, via Core Dynamics  

Operator: Eichwald Kommune

Cost: > 666,000,000 Galactic Credits*

Mass: (1781 units Unladen // 2021 units Laden)

Status: Active 

The ship’s name comes from Cocytus, the fabled river of lamentation surrounding Hades. By another well-known source, Cocytus is considered instead to be a frozen lake making up the very deepest circle of hell. CMDR Eichwald’s predisposition toward decidedly edgy themes such as this one is well documented.

 Crew Compliment:

Typical crew compliment is as follows. The ship typically operates with between 20 and 60 crew members though under dire circumstances it can accommodate both more and less. Usually, those manning this vessel are the best Eichwald can muster, particularly if and when she is on board.

 Crew A: (primary)

Bridge:

Flight Commander A– Korinne Eichwald

Communications Officer A– Lovell Hindle

Tactical Officer A– Ryder Deas

 Fighter Hanger:

Fighter Pilot A –Ignace Mault

Fighter Pilot B—Erwin Lion

Fighter Controller A—Mariam Torbet

 Medbay:

Medical Officer A – Windham Lecate

Astrometrics:

Science Officer A – Vail Cumberland

Combat Information Center:

Weapons Officer A – Delmer Siddens

Weapons Officer B—Thormond Fonner

Sensor Operator A – Utto Shira

 Engineering:

Chief Engineer A – Sumner Kennett

Engineering Officer A – Arendt Durnell

Engineering Officer B – Winston Leigh

 Supplementary Crew and Expeditionary Assualt Force:

Expeditionary Officer A— Dakota Stakes

Quartermaster B— Henri Willow

Auxiliary Crewman A— Heide Bowen

Auxiliary Crewman B— Kobe Widdifield

Auxiliary Crewman C— Miranda Hark

Auxiliary Crewman D— Delrick Greely

Auxiliary Crewman E— Elliott Sabins

(21)

 Crew B: (secondary)

Bridge:

Flight Commander B– Efren Loftus

Communications Officer B – Silas Gellings

Tactical Officer B – Fern Hessey

Fighter Hanger:

Fighter Controller B— Tomas Blacknall

 Combat Information Center:

Sensor Operator B – Cadwell Hanny

Engineering:

Engineering Officer C –Alwin Eakins

Engineering Officer D – Thorley Chappell

Supplementary Crew and Expeditionary Assualt Force:

Auxiliary Crewman F— Adelise Hayre

Auxiliary Crewman G— Giffard Paske

Auxiliary Crewman H— Corbett Smart

Auxiliary Crewman I— Klexxi Ferris

Auxiliary Crewman J— Whitman Tunell

Auxiliary Crewman K— Maurice Benner

Auxiliary Crewman L— Jean Horlick

(13)

Crew C: (tertiary)

Bridge:

Communications Officer C – Arvis Cory

Tactical Officer C –  Asher Mayers

(2)

 Crew D: (Reserve—usually off duty at base)

Bridge:

Flight Commander C– Amoux Kelsey

Communications Officer D– Onfroi Pafford

Tactical Officer D– Lunette Single  

Fighter Hanger:

Fighter Pilot C –Amrei Smythers

Fighter Pilot D—Osvaldo Kidner  

Fighter Controller C—Alita Raines

Medbay:

Medical Officer B – Norvin Lashe

Astrometrics:

Science Officer B – Hans Warrende

Combat Information Center:

Weapons Officer C – Gaspar Shreeve

Weapons Officer D – Hollis Flax

Sensor Operator C – Cyrus Faulkingham

Engineering:

Chief Engineer B – Armand Hyman

Engineering Officer E – Nelson Huben

Engineering Officer F— Akira Summerford

Supplementary Crew & Expeditionary Assault Force:

Expeditionary Officer B—Natalia Willets

Quartermaster B— Walcott Northrop

Auxiliary Crewman M— Caulder Slaymaker

Auxiliary Crewman N— Welsh Melton

Auxiliary Crewman O— Valerie Chevis

Auxiliary Crewman P— Sevrin Aton

Auxiliary Crewman Q— Shelli Barling

(21)

Core Systems

Powerplant: 42.3MW Nuclear Fusion. Significantly armored and with enhanced efficiency, it produces 12% more power and dissipates heat 12% more effectively than top-shelf models at the cost of a small increase in weight from standard 8A class powerplants. As a result, Cocytvian has limited stealth capabilities for its size and is viable as a long-range interceptor across large swaths of hyperspace since it can usually begin charging the FSD immediately between jumps without complication. Stealth capabilities are amplified with the same thermal venting technology utilized on the ship’s five beam-laser platforms as on the Razgriz before this.

Propulsion: Normal-space drives are approximately 45.6% more powerful than 7A class drives slated for use on Federal Corvette-class vessels. Personally enhanced by the famous Professor Ishmael Palin out of Maia. Capable of speeds well in excess of Mach 1 in an Earth-like atmosphere.

Hyperspace: (30.27ly Empty // 30.01ly Unladen // 28.00ly Laden) 6A     class Frame Shift Drive tuned by Farseer Inc. in Deciat and supplemented by hybrid alien technology. Optimal mass rating is 61.2% higher than normal and thus among the most sophisticated FSD drives produced at that location.

Life Support: The modified ultralight 5D Class system is more than 75%     lighter than standard with almost no loss to operational capacity.

Power Distributor: Charge Enhanced 8A class with Super-conduits,     capable of distribution at speeds in excess of 50% of standard with a     minor 8.8% reduction in power storage capacity thanks to the dwellers of     Black Hide in Wyrd. This arrangement allows the ship’s systems to be flush with available power at all times.

Sensor Array: Long-range enhanced 8D class sensors–A small reduction in weight from the standard 8A class while still offering far more sophisticated detection capabilities at range.

Defensive Systems

Core Armor: (3322 Integrity Rating) Deep-plated Heavyweight Military-Grade Composite. Offering nearly 150% more integrity than standard military-grade and additional resistances to all damage. A     product of lengthy connections with Selene Jean out of the Kuk system.

Supplementary Armor Reinforcement: The ship’s frame features significant and highly visible extra reinforcement in four areas. Most prominently on port and starboard of the nose and ventrally beneath the main propulsion system, but also around the vital components mid-ship and in stylized fashion on either side of the bridge in what could be mistaken for a type of horizontal stabilizer. The extra armored plating on the nose has the additional effect of shielding most of the visible exhaust from the ship’s retrograde engines. On the whole, the armor leaves Cocytvian’s maneuvering thrusters somewhat closer to the center of mass than is normal but the effect is minimal in comparison to the added     protection it offers for vital systems,

Shield Generator: (3687 MJ) 7A class Generator from the shield-experts at Trader’s Rest in Laksak. Experimental tech siphoned from a prototype Imperial Navy ship, and exclusive multi-weave technology allows dramatically increased base resistance to all damage: 59% to kinetic impact, 65.8% to thermal, and 71.5% resistance to explosive weapons, respectively. The system itself has also been hardened by 40% to defend against cascade-weapons.

Shield Boosters: Cocytvian also contains four 0A class “Resistance Augmented” and four 0A class “Heavy Duty” shield boosters specially made by Vatermann LLC in Leesti which round up the above numbers to be as high as they are. Each uses experimental supercapacitors to optimize overall shield strength

Shield Cell Bank: Contains five 7A banks each capable of reinforcing 711MJ in the span of eight seconds once spooled. Personally modified by Lori Jameson in Shinrarta Dezrah to operate more efficiently and ensure heat sinks are unnecessary with added “Boss Cells” for more powerful individual cell banks. In exceptional situations, five additional enhanced cell banks can be easily inserted into the ship’s primary 7E cargo bay. 

Automated Internal Defense System: The hallways of the ship are replete with automated turrets controlled by a central computer to aid the onboard crew in the event of a boarding action of any kind.

Neurotoxin Dispersion Network: Having been on the wrong side of one too many betrayals recently, and recognizing the heightened capabilities of many of the ship’s regular crew, Cocytvian’s life support system at any time has the ability to emit a unique pathogen usually fatal within 30     seconds of inhalation. A temporary antidote is stored in CMDR Eichwald’s Remlok suit at all times whilst she is on board.

Armament

(154.4 Total Damage Rating)

2 x 4A class Multi-Cannons … Overcharged for destructive power by Tod “The Blaster” McQuinn at Trophy Camp, Wolf 397. This cannon, mounted under the nose, has also been specially modified to fire corrosive rounds which break down the strength of any hull they come into contact with allowing the rest of the weapons suite to be that much more effective.

1 x 3C class Beam Laser … Enhanced for efficiency and damage output at Broo’s Legacy, Muang with exclusive thermal venting technology easily capable of eliminating the ship’s heat signature entirely in the middle of battle. 

2 x 2C class Beam Lasers … Similarly enhanced with thermal venting and optimized for efficiency and damage by     Broo Tarquin in Muang.

2 x 1C class Beam Lasers … Ibidem

Aircraft Carried

2 x DeLacy Taipan (Aegis F) Ship-Launched Fighters

Utility

Standard Cargo Racks/flexible modules: 1 x 7E class, and 1 x 6E     class cargo compartment. This allows for a combined cargo capacity of 208 units. These compartments can be quickly and easily filled with additional modules accessible through the fighter hanger. This space can include luxurious passenger cabins for VIP transport in the 6E or additional shield cell banks in the 7E bulkhead as mentioned above.

4E Class Corrosive Resistant Cargo Rack: Provides 16 units of space for otherwise highly damaging alien technologies and cargo. Similarly to the above, armor reinforcements or a 4A class FSD Interdictor can be readily swapped into the 4E compartment.

5A Class Fuel Scoop: Allows the ship to refuel itself by harvesting gasses from OBAFGKM class stars at a rate of 577kg/s.

5H Guardian Frame Shift Drive Booster: Using the latest in hybrid alien technology, this device generates a dramatic 10.5LY increase in jump-range for the fully-loaded vessel thereby solidifying its rapid response abilities throughout human space.

4A class FSD Interdictor: When equipped into the 4E compartment, used to tear other ships from supercruise into normal space for various purposes.

4G class Planetary Vehicle Hanger: Contains and deploys two Scarab-class Surface Reconnaissance Vehicles (SRVs).

Additional Compartments and Information

Astrometrics: The hub of operations for the ship’s discovery and surface scanners as well as any additional science equipment. From here Cocytvian can detect and perform detailed analysis of all objects within a given star system. Useful for locating targets or POIs, as well as, of course, general astronomical surveying.

Medbay: Staffed by at least one doctor at any given time, the room comes fully equipped with the latest combat stabilizing technology out of the capital systems. Bodies are cheap but they don’t grow on trees, at least not on this particular ship. Better to keep them running in the near-term and let them expire after the action.

Armory: As an advanced warship of considerable size, Cocytvian contains an extensive armory capable of turning each member of the crew into a veritable harbinger of death with plenty of munitions left to spare. This is complemented by the extensive combat qualifications of the majority of those on the crew manifest—particularly in the auxiliary teams.

Dungeon: One part brig and one part torture chamber, this is usually somewhere you don’t want to be. The rumor in the fleet is that its location directly beneath CMDR Eichwald’s quarters is not a coincidence.

Crew Quarters: Accommodation for up to 90 crew members on a rotating sleep schedule located mainly in the forward sections of the ship. Immediately behind the bridge lies the personal apartment of CMDR Korinne Eichwald, consisting primarily of a bed and a desk. As is typical for her, it is also rumored to regularly accommodate a slave or two in special cages for recreational purposes.

Mess Hall: Contains a selection of rapidly producible synthetic foods which are deposited upon request from the computers during downtime.  

Recreation Center: Onboard crew can exercise or partake in a wide variety of the latest holo entertainment programs from WorldCraft. Occasionally, a choice selection of CMDR Eichwald’s slaves are made available here to the general crew. For all of the tense atmosphere aboard the ship when she is present, the crew are well compensated.

[vagabondretired]

Imagine this scenario. Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies are arresting a man for domestic violence. They read him his Miranda rights. Then they ask him a question: have you been arrested or found guilty of any crime before? The man says yes, he has. A couple of times. Ah, in that case, the cops tell him, you’re free to go. We don’t arrest people with a pre-existing record, only those with a clean record. Makes our life easier and we don’t have to waste time and money on you losers. That, of course, would be absurd, insane and unacceptable. But it’s exactly what health insurance companies used to do with people who have pre-existing conditions, and it’s what they want to do again: insure those who are well. Let those who are not fend for themselves. It’s as retrograde a reversal of what health insurance is intended to be as if law enforcement were to arrest only first-time offenders and let repeat offenders go on their way. We’d never accept that from police chiefs and sheriffs. Why would we accept it from politicians and state government agencies? But we are. Without a word.

[jyany]

miranda voice: which planets are in retrograde now

[nebris]

Uranus and its six largest moons compared at their proper relative sizes and relative positions. From left to right:  Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon 

Uranus, the seventh planet of the Solar System, has 27 known moons, most of which are named after characters that appear in, or are mentioned in, the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.[1] Uranus's moons are divided into three groups: thirteen inner moons, five major moons, and nine irregular moons. The inner and major moons all have prograde orbits, while orbits of the irregulars are mostly retrograde. The inner moons are small dark bodies that share common properties and origins with Uranus's rings. The five major moons are ellipsoidal, indicating that they reached hydrostatic equilibrium at some point in their past (and may still be in equilibrium), and four of them show signs of internally driven processes such as canyon formation and volcanism on their surfaces.[2] The largest of these five, Titania, is 1,578 km in diameter and the eighth-largest moon in the Solar System, about one-twentieth the mass of the Earth's Moon. The orbits of the regular moons are nearly coplanar with Uranus's equator, which is tilted 97.77° to its orbit. Uranus's irregular moons have elliptical and strongly inclined (mostly retrograde) orbits at large distances from the planet.[3]

William Herschel discovered the first two moons, Titania and Oberon, in 1787. The other three ellipsoidal moons were discovered in 1851 by William Lassell (Ariel and Umbriel) and in 1948 by Gerard Kuiper (Miranda).[1] These five may be in hydrostatic equilibrium, and so would be considered dwarf planets if they were in direct orbit about the Sun. The remaining moons were discovered after 1985, either during the Voyager 2 flyby mission or with the aid of advanced Earth-based telescopes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Uranus

[disamedia]

FNYC: TO FEEL - PROGRAM 1 from Flaherty Seminar on Vimeo.

“TO FEEL, TO FEEL MORE, TO FEEL MORE THAN” PROGRAMMED BY ALIA AYMAN, DEVON NARINE-SINGH, AND SUNEIL SANZGIRI

Friday, April 2, 8pm ET & Saturday, April 3, 4pm ET

Live conversation to follow the screenings featuring our 2020 Programmers-in-residence - Devon Narine-Singh, Suneil Sanzgiri, and Alia Ayman and Guest Filmmakers: (Program 1) Ho Rui An , Kalpana Subramanian, Miranda Javid, Natasha Raheja, Bassem Saad and M. Woods / (Program 2) Erica Sheu, Vashti Harrison, Teona Galgoțiu and Leah Franklin Gilliam.

LIVE Q&A LINK: youtu.be/GlNLHmmb3c8

The future remains uncertain, but the past persists. The abundance, excess, and indulgence of images, and access to information that simultaneously leaves us sick, overwhelmed, and uneasy, also brings us further away from oblivion. Despite the fiction of borders, race, gender, and time that many would have us maintain through both overt violence and covert forms of soft power, our interconnection to each other—the continuum of care that brings us together across generations—is visible through the ways we commit to each other through our screens.

This program, developed as a final output of the Flaherty NYC programming team comprised of Alia Ayman, Devon Narine Singh, and Suneil Sanzgiri, looks at how media ecosystems, digital detritus, and cultural memory are navigated across boundaries, identities, and history. Can remembrance fix a broken world? If not only by an act of saving the memories from being encompassed by that world, but acting as beginnings for other possibilities?From children’s drawings collected by Frantz Fanon during the Algerian war, sci-fi allegories on toxicity, swimming, and e-waste, to a 1908 film effectively envisioning our obsessions with Zoom calls and Snapchat filters, these films question the human, our relationship to the natural world, to time, to technology, and to each other. Our title comes from a passage from Fred Moten’s Black and Blur, which asks if anything still remains of the human, and how we might enact that remainder.

PROGRAM 1 - Friday, April 2

Shell Revolution (2018) 1’, by Ho Rui An (Silent) Core Dump (2018) 15’, by Francois Knoetze WHALES SPF 50 (2017) 7’, by Wickerham & Lomax Tattva (2018) 4’ , by Kalpana Subramanian Long Distance Wireless Photography (1908) 6’, by Georges Méliés Bedford Cheese (2016) 19’, by M. Woods WARNING: This video may potentially trigger seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy. Viewer discretion is advised. The Wind (2019) 3’, by Miranda Javid Kink Retrograde (2019) 18’, by Bassem Saad A Gregarious Species (2021) 7’, by Natasha Raheja

TRT: 80 mins

PROGRAM 2 - Saturday, April 3

Memory Palace (2015) 2’, by Martine Syms A Short History (2017) 3.5’, by Erica Sheu Field Notes (2014) 18’, by Vashti Harrsion Glimpse of the Garden (1957) 5’, by Marie Menken An Excavation of Us (2017) 11’, by Shirley Bruno Brief Conversation about the D Word (2018) 15’, by Teona Galgoțiu J'ai huit ans (1961) 9’, by Yann Le Masson, Rene Vautier, Olga Baïdar-Poliakoff Now Pretend (1991) 10’, by Leah Gilliam I Don’t Protest, I Just Dance in My Shadow (2017), 5’, by Jessica Ashman

TRT: 78.5 min

Link to Q&A Program 1: youtu.be/GlNLHmmb3c8

[overflowingshelf]

July 2024 Reading Recap

Well, August didn’t start off how I expected, which is why I’m a bit delayed in getting my recap up for July. Unfortunately, my cat Fox was unexpectedly hospitalized again last weekend with congestive heart failure, but she’s back home now with a new dose of meds to help keep that in check. But that’s putting her kidneys at higher risk as she also has kidney disease, so it’s a delicate balance. I…

[annami84]

FISH TANK FRIEND 

All Mr Martinelli wanted was some peace and quiet. A pause from the ebb and flow, the wheeling and dealing that his job as a global executive required. A place to which he could retreat, breathe and just be. A place where the world didn’t trickle in and where he could take a break from being in the constant process of civilization-building, if but for a little while. Money was no issue. It was nigh on his only non-issue, and between global meetings and business trips he’d hired a renowned real estate firm, of which his colleagues and peers in the industry spoke warmly. He hadn’t had time to make his own inquiries, but in a city like Buenos Aires and a country like Argentina what difference would it make? The only people you could really trust were family and friends. The real estate agent had been exasperating, even for someone in property, utterly lacking in style or finesse. He answered his cell phone each time it rang, as if to demonstrate his own importance and he took the first opportunity to shake his watch out from under his garish shirt cuff just to brag about how much it had cost. Martinelli suffered through a number of meetings with this unbearable man, who was conducting a personality assessment by way of asking him to point at various architectural models, drawings and images of design hotels that all had the same eggplant-colored accent walls, muted spot lighting, and fluffy chalk-white towels.

After the agent had taken stock of his income and his foreign bank accounts, he’d had to enumerate his wives-children-lovers and the in-laws who might be expected at Sunday barbecues on the terrace in order to establish how large the property should be. Then he’d jokingly asked if Martinelli was one of those many men who potentially enjoyed tying his wives/lovers/visiting friends to the headboard, if a private gym was of interest or if the communal one in the basement would suffice. Finally the cascade of questions came to an end and a few options finally floated to the surface.

Throughout the whole process he’d been clear about the apartment having to be new, not some fusty upper-middle-class fin de siècle colossus where you’d have to deal with confused old ladies knocking on the door, asking to speak with their deceased husbands or the spirits of grandparents still sweeping over the parquet floors. Newly built, shiny and empty was the ticket. The future was his melody. He wasn’t interested in having to contend with another person’s style or their wear and tear, or Argentina’s many historical skeletons in the closet, for that matter. There were few things he despised as much as this country’s interminable folklore, which only served to impede all progress and development. Even a freshly newborn baby seemed to long for a return to its mother’s womb or out into some two-century-old gaucho-ridden field rather than for its own bright future, and therefore the country’s eternal curse seemed to be reborn with each curly brown-haired, attention-seeking child. This was of course one of the main reasons he’d never settled down, much less had anything to do with any of the country’s hysterical women whose entire identity seemed to be based on a love for all these frustrating mini-nostalgias.

 Once the papers were signed and he was turning the key in the lock of his dream property for the first time, he was grateful for the agent’s exhaustive lines of questioning. They’d paid off: the apartment was perfect. Open plan, like in the loft he’d had in Singapore, a large American kitchen with a glossy black bar for quick breakfasts and an airy Scandinavian dining room. Connected to it was a living room, guest room and a glassed-in winter terrace featuring a built-in bath tub with jacuzzi jets. The view was of a few still unfinished gated-community skyscrapers that formed a protective crescent around his building and beyond them was etched the rest of the city’s skyline. He walked through the silent rooms, stopping to admire the view, enjoying the empty rows of living rooms across the way. He caught himself wishing they’d never finish construction. That their windows would never light up.

It was only when he sank with relief into his large Patagonian leather sofa that he, perhaps for the first time, understood how substantial his new home in fact was. The leather pillows didn’t seem to react to his body weight; it was nothing but a feather to them. Surely they would become more comfortable with time. After all he’d been the one who’d asked for brand new everything, so he should be nothing but pleased. He went to the bedroom where the king-size bed reigned, flawlessly made with pressed Egyptian silk sheets. He stood in front of it, thought for a second, then jumped. Soft and yielding, it received him, embracing his body. He sighed with pleasure, folded his hands over his chest and looked up at the ceiling. Enjoying the bright chalk-white paint and the lamp’s sharp lines. If only Argentinians could learn to appreciate clean lines. Would they then realize the problem with their labyrinthine roads and grandmother’s threadbare pillows? He sighed and let go of the thought as though it were an umbilical cord and let it sail away through the air. He had promised himself that this home would be a free zone. A place where these eternal unanswerable questions would be put out of his mind. He went out to the winter terrace and turned on the bathtub tap. It bubbled, churned and hissed, but no water came out. He kept turning the tap until it wouldn’t turn anymore, turned it back, pressed and prodded the buttons and knobs. Spotlights embedded in the floor lit up, the radio turned on and started bouncing between Sting, Buddha Bar and Miranda Mirandola’s repulsive horoscope show. He pushed the same buttons to put a stop to it, but managed instead to raise the volume and lower the base. Miranda’s preaching and Sting’s illegal alien was blaring from several speakers. Desperate, he looked for a circuit breaker but the smooth, pure-white walls betrayed not the slightest bump, nook or groove. Heart-pounding, he ran into the living room and quickly shut the glass door. He swore under his breath and went to get a drink from the kitchen. Unsure if he would find anything, he opened the stainless steel refrigerator. It was full. Full of mineral water and various miniatures of plastic-wrapped cheese, ketchup, mayonnaise, and salad dressing. Dejected, he grabbed a bottle of water. Why all of these milk-based salad dressings? Hadn’t he checked the lactose intolerant box in the interview? Made it clear that he never cooked at home, always ordered in? A nightmare scenario played out in his mind in which some service person had been charged with delivering pre-packed bags of groceries each and every day like some sort of unwanted extra mother. In the name of service. He’d be forced to have a word with that joker at the real estate firm — the man couldn’t have misunderstood his views about his private sphere to such a grave degree, could he? How much clearer could he have been about the outside world being unwelcome here?

 He downed the water and went to check on the monstrous alien-spacecraft of a tub he had out on the terrace. It was overflowing. He lurched open the sturdy sliding door, on a mission to save the glittering black stone floor and himself a future of feuds with neighbors and drawn-out legal action. He turned the tap in every direction as Miranda Mirandola’s soothing voice answered questions about how bad an idea it would be for a Virgo to date a Scorpio during Mercury Retrograde. The faucet wheezed, and he sank down next to the jacuzzi, the water wetting his pants. The black marble was seamless and seemed to have been hewn from a single piece. Of course he knew it was impossible with a surface area of this size, but he delighted in the illusion. Content, he ran his fingers over the delicate patterns, like pale wisps of fog caught in the stone. He was gripped by sudden fatigue and made for the bedroom, decided against brushing his teeth, crawled under the blanket and between the soft smooth sheets. The bed was enormous and his body felt small but safe in this bombastic environment and soon he was in a deep, calm sleep.

He woke up to the pattering of rain on the bedroom window. Layers of dark grey clouds hung around the skyscrapers and the helicopter pad on the nearby private Swiss hospital blinked red behind the crescent of buildings that marked the border of their sheltered utopia. Naked, he jumped out of bed, wrapped the thick but cool coverlet around him and stood by the window. Everything was cast in monochrome shadows down to the Swiss Medical building, which seemed to be spun in a cocoon of red thread. He opened a window and reclined in the lounger, a beautiful Danish design piece. He stretched out his legs and lay there until lunchtime became afternoon then early evening, not once giving a thought to the time. Out of the blue, he decided to start a water fast. He was barely aware that there was such a thing, but nonetheless decided to only drink water for a while. Three, four days? Maybe five? Chuckling at the absurd idea, he realized that he didn’t have to explain himself to anyone. Much less to the sky, rain, or horizon. They if anyone would know how beautiful the world could seem after water had spent a few days washing the debris and dust particles into the earth, making it possible to breathe again. Mostly the idea of the water fast came about for the sake of the apartment. So that the two of them would be at somewhat comparable starting points, both cleansed and reset. He dragged out a crate of Evian and laid back down in the lounger, anticipating nothing more than being thirsty or needing the toilet. He drank and drank, peed while humming and watched the rain pour down drizzle pause, only to time and time again summon the strength for yet another deluge.

Hungry but satisfied, he lay down to sleep. A few hours later he woke up to a rainbow, a burst of sunshine and thunder all at once. The gods must be crazy, he thought, happy to be installed in the completely un-crazy universe of his new apartment. He realized that establishing some form of routine in his new home was essential. At the very least, an end-date for the fast. He pulled on a pair of underwear, thought for a while, took them off and walked naked into the kitchen. On the American breakfast table was his iPhone. He felt an urge to smash it to pieces on the stone table, but collected himself, choosing to instead ignore the steady flow of beeps notifying him of updates, phone calls and urgent emails. Instead he cast an eye on the five-day weather forecast. The bad weather would last three days, which sparked the decision to end the fast then, too. He wondered whether he should seek out information on how to fast but realized that it went against the nature of the project and instead drank two bottles of Evian in a row. Thunder rattled the windows. He looked out over the room and what he saw made him scream in fright. A sea, a lake, a pool, a bright, monstrous surging aquarium had risen between him and his view of the sky and the uninhabited skyscrapers across from the winter terrace. Shocked, worried but alert he ran to the sliding glass door. Rain was splashing against the trim of the terrace doors but there was no indication that any had seeped through. The glass seemed to be braced and bulletproof against the hundreds of cubic meters of water that must have filled the terrace overnight. He was as though entranced by the water. Who was responsible for this? He himself or the bathtub? Was it still filling up? He stood very close to see if the water level appeared to be changing. The jacuzzi seemed dead, down to the lone bubbles of oxygen rising to the surface, which was at head height. Or wait. He pressed his ear to the glass. Somewhere in there Miranda Mirandola’s voice was still clucking, warped and slowed by the body of water. He listened tensely. What she was saying wasn’t audible but he decided it was in line with his wishes and new ideals. During an ad break he sat down on the floor, cross-legged.

It was an insensibly lovely sight. The stone floor emitted a melancholy darkness, the hazy skyscrapers glimmered beyond and Miranda Mirandola’s voice sounded like a gurgling mermaid. The beauty aside, he knew he had a problem. A big one. He wanted to keep his indoor ocean but the question was how slapdash a construction job was this, actually? Would the pressure from the water raze the terrace and flood his newly renovated dining room and kitchen? Would it trickle into the apartment below or form a lagoon on his kitchen floor? He pulled on a wrinkled shirt and dress pants and knocked on the downstairs neighbor’s door.   “Martinelli,” he said, reaching out his hand and introducing himself as new to the building. He inquired as to whether the neighbor might have noticed a leak in his apartment after the night’s heavy rain. The man chortled as he shook his head. “My, my, young man. You’ve only been here two days and already you’ve forgotten how much you’ve paid for this ironclad armored fort? This building has been constructed to withstand tsunamis, sieges from any great power, yes even mass invasions of the angry poor from the outskirts. Everything down to the tubes of glue was NASA certified.”

 Reassured, he thanked him, apologized for having taken up his time, went back to his place, and locked the door. Smiling, he neared the aquarium and stood reverentially in front of the glass walls. Humming happily, he played some music on the surround system. He turned the volume up to the max and danced a victory dance as if he and the indoor ocean had won a big multi-year contract  with a strategic global partner. Soon he noticed he didn’t really have much energy left after a day without food and took a break to fetch another Evian from the fridge. He knocked back the bottle, never taking his eyes off his ocean. He lowered the volume and started moving more slowly and rhythmically to the music. At first it was like his head was coming up with a move, which it then asked his body to carry out, but soon they flowed together as though there were no negotiation between body and brain. They worked seamlessly together. His smile grew wider and wider and he got more and more into it. His jumps were no longer hops, his arms no longer flapping and spinning on his toes stopped making him dizzy. He ran through his home and flung open the windows and the doors. He repeated each movement for the empty, unfinished living rooms across the way, cool evening air filtered through the open windows. Mid-movement he decided there was one song he simply had to listen to. Hot and slightly sweaty he thanked his maker for granting him restraint when he’d wanted to destroy his cell phone. He connected it to the sound system, pushed “repeat” and rushed back to the balcony. He took his place, in anticipation of the first beat. Michael Jackson’s first verse and the body’s response in dance. One arm. Then the other. Knees to the ground. Stranger in Moscow. Again and again.

I was wandering in the rain. 

Mask of life, feelin’ insane. 

He danced and danced until he collapsed in a pile of sobs on the floor. He sniffled and rubbed his eyes hard. Tried to calm his senses. He pulled his bone-weary self together and went to the bedroom. Took a seat on the bed, but changed his mind and dragged his coverlet down to the aquarium. He made his bed on the leather sofa and communed with the water. Tomorrow he’d call Miranda Mirandola with the lingering questions he had and then he’d see. Except for the water fast, everything was wide open. The rain storm would continue for another two days. by: Annamaria Olsson  translation: Saskia Vogel

[inmyownlittlecorner5]

Find the words

Thank you so much for the tag @yletylyf!

I'll stick to January's WiP, which is Kairos in Retrograde. The words I am supposed to find are: slow, time, secret

slow:

“You told me to be slow, and I was. It’s not like I could completely disobey orders. Not without raising suspicion.”

time:

Count to ten, Miranda. “No, you didn’t. Next time I won’t bother. Have a nice afternoon, Healer Prince. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

secret:

She folded her arms over her chest and glared back at him. “No more lies. No more secrets. Remember?”

This was fun! Okay, I'm tagging folks with the words: "love, maybe, don't" @constitutionalweasleymonarchy @cailynwrites @girl-with-goats @lynnieharper @allalrightagain and anyone else who'd like to play! Show us what you're working on

[startrekships]

TOS Miranda