#and also poet laureate at the same time

[thedeafprophet]

Oh trust me I'm not including dream gate in this category 😭 that's the worst of both worlds where its a big grind AND it's deck based. I'd only consider it if it was to a much lower dream level. This is a hypothetical entierly

I felt like this concept deserved a poll

[srbachchan]

DAY 6338

Jalsa, Mumbai June 21, 2025 Sat 11:54 pm

Birthday - EF - Ashwini Sunday, 22 June love and greetings

❤️

Never too late to relive the desire to respond to the Ef in the comments column .. an effort .. but all could not be attended to .. apologies .. it is a task and one that I shall make an attempt for ..

All are considered my dearest EF .. and have the same love and concern and affection ..

I know you stand beside me in good or in bad .. your dedication is supreme .. and valued .. I do know that when needed you and all the Ef shall be with me holding hands ..

The World has changed dramatically .. culture, values, dignity respect have all flown out of the window and many other 'cultures' have been born ..

But the strength of birth is the strength that we are on this Hemisphere .. loved admired and made to live in strife at times, but also given the joys of existence ..

We value that and move on each day ..

... and there is immense admiration for Abhishek ..

"मेरे बेटे, बेटे होने से मेरे उत्तराधिकारी नहीं हींगें ; जो मेरे उत्तराधिकारी होंगे वो मेरे बेटे होंगे"

~हरिवंश राय बच्चन

my sons just because you are my sons shall not be my inheritors .. they that shall be my inheritors , shall be my sons

each role he has accepted and played has been with immense dedication .. he has ever delivered the character to perfection .. his choice of films and roles has guided him to give him opportunity to try something different .. and I remember the words written in my Autograph book as a youngster, by the great Hindi poet laureate , Shri Ram Dhari Singh 'Dinkar' , when he would often visit our home in Allahabad , now Prayagraj ..

" success comes to those who dare and act "

'act' not in reference to acting on stage or film but in life to be dare and to act ..

Abhishek has ever done that .. he has dared to take on films and characters that challenged him .. and he 'acted' .. he dared to act and be recognised ..

my admiration to my inheritor , my Son

Amitabh Bachchan

🪔 .. June 22 .. birthday wishes to .. Ef Ashwini from Sydney - Australia 🇦🇺 .. and Ef Asmaa Ghansar from Ryad - KSA 🇸🇦 .. 🙏🏽❤️🚩

[greensparty]

Remembering Brian Wilson 1942-2025

Sad news that musical genius (and I don't use that term lightly) Brian Wilson has died at 82. In the same week we lost Sly Stone, we've now lost another musical innovator who came up in the 1960s.

Wilson in the studio circa 1960s

Along with his brothers Carl (1946-1998) and Dennis (1944-1983), he co-founded The Beach Boys. They brought their surf pop sound to the masses. My introduction to the band was actually "California Girls". After hearing the David Lee Roth cover in 1985, I discovered the original. Shortly thereafter, I picked up the 45 single of their 1985 song "Getcha Back". In the years that followed they did a duet with The Fat Boys on "Wipeout" and "Kokomo" introduced them to a new generation. I had read that Paul McCartney was highly influenced by The Beach Boys' magnum opus Pet Sounds and that inspired him with The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper. I, then, went out and got Pet Sounds. Wilson’s musical genius truly reached its peak with the amazing songwriting, craftsmanship, and orchestrations coming together in this pure pop masterpiece. I’m not even the biggest Beach Boys fan in the world, but I can see the genius (and influence) in this album! “God Only Knows” is my personal favorite! Side note: McCartney can be heard chomping carrots on the album. I also got their 2003 Sounds of Summer compilation.

Sir Paul and Wilson circa 2006

McCartney had said that "God Only Knows" is his favorite song of all time and it brings him to tears. Hard not to cry to it, especially as it played during the end montage of Boogie Nights. McCartney performed that song with Wilson in concert once. There was a lot of overlap between Wilson and The Beatles. He and John Lennon partied in the 70s. Wilson and George Harrison had talked about doing a collaboration which never happened, but Wilson performed "My Sweet Lord" at the George Fest tribute concert. Wilson sang backup on Ringo Starr's album Time Takes Time.

In addition to his work with The Beach Boys, his solo music was significant too. 2004 saw the release of Brian Wilson Presents Smile, in which he re-recorded the unfinished Beach Boys album from 1967. It was worth the wait!

He appeared in a ton of documentaries including Echo in the Canyon. Last year, Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny did the documentary The Beach Boys. While it was good, I wanted more of that reunion of the band members they showed towards the end. Wilson's life also got the narrative film treatment with 2015's Love & Mercy, in which Paul Dano played him in the 1960s and John Cusack played him in the 1980s. Worth checking out!

The link above is the obit from Hollywood Reporter.

[grandhotelabyss]

What do you think of 2025 r*d sc*re (and ig heterodoxy’s regime turn more broadly idk)

To avow a political stance and therefore take responsibility for the exercise of power shows more honor than, for example, the dirtbag left ever has, who resentfully carp and sneer in their permanent exile. If Anna and Dasha had tried to appear aloof and above it all after Trump won, if they'd pled the case that they only supported him for the aesthetic, it would have been disreputable. They're not political pundits, though; they tend not to weigh policies on the merits or to think through their effects "dialectically," as their old comrades would say, or even to do what I do, which is to attempt an exhaustive and exhausting examination of my own divided loyalties and conflicting desires. They're just loyalists, which doesn't make for a good podcast, exacerbated by the paradoxically ultra-democratic un-democratic nature of new-right politics, where the Caesar figure is supposed to channel the will of his constituents directly, thus obviating any need on their part to question or cavil. (I could criticize the memecoins, but it's possible—probable!—we will all be shilling memecoins within five years.) Our heroines are also mismatched as types on this score: Anna is a true ideologue and moralist, Dasha an artist and ironist. Committed to truth and therefore able to lie, Anna said she hid her conservatism before, was only pretending to be a leftist, but now proclaims it openly; Dasha, on the other hand, is a chameleon poet, incapable of truth on that level, committed only to the higher or lower truth that is the emotional reality of time and place. She recently returned from the Caribbean saying "praise Jah," whereas Anna might have come back from the same trip with a distanced and acerbic political analysis. In that respect, Dasha is closer to the non-ideologue Trump, hence she said she voted for him but would not have voted for a generic Republican, whereas Anna said she would have voted for any Republican. Anna also recently conceded that truly winning against the left would be a disappointment because one would have to go back (I quote from memory) to "writing poems" and "going to parties," presumably non-ideological parties, since they do go to ideological ones, and non-ideological poems, too, since she could write political poetry if she pleased. (What's the MAGA version, I wonder, of "Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying"? MAGA's resident poet laureate, Joseph Massey, tends to write apolitical religion-and-nature lyrics in the Imagist style, not any kind of right-wing Brechtian satire or invective—Brecht, who was himself inspired by the right, by Kipling. But I digress.) Despite this admission, their podcast, to retain vitality, should return to its cultural roots and deal with the politics inter alia. Why did they review the dire Nosferatu, for example, other than as an excuse for their customary discourse on sex and gender, and not the much more Red-Scare-coded Anora and The Brutalist, films about which I am sure they would have had surprising and expert things to say?

[graysongoal]

One thing I often don't do a lot of is toot my own horn. After the past week and a half, though, I'm happy to do so.

I attended my first ever GenCon, the largest tabletop game convention in North America. Attendance this year was a record-breaking 71k. One-way masking and protections unfortunately meant that my spouse and I came home early with out first-ever COVID-19 infections. We're healed up now and mostly well.

Attending the con was exciting, overwhelming, and pushed me towards growth in a number of ways. In addition to seeing friends, I also got to see, meet, and spend time with several of my favorite comedians, game creators, and writers.

Perhaps one of the most impactful moments for me was attending the writer's symposium, which reminded me how much I loved to write fiction in my youth. Once I hit high school, I began to see it the same way I saw non-fiction writing. I always tried to include too many details. Plus, I quickly got too busy and decided it wasn't for me anymore.

Lately, though, I've been writing more poetry. I've also been entertaining the idea of possibly writing a few TTRPGs or short stories.

So, when I heard that Brandon O'Brien (the Poet Laureate for Seattle WordCon 2025) and Linda D. Addison (five-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award) were co-hosting an open mic event, I nervously jumped at the chance to read probably my favorite poem I've ever written.

Hearing these two amazing individuals alongside a roomful of people respond positively to my words wasn't something I was prepared for. But, being that vulnerable with complete strangers in-person was restorative in ways that I can't even begin to express. That's especially true of hearing folks repeat and sit with the words I carefully crafted, taking in their weight.

I have experienced a great many fascinating and incredible things, and yet I quite honestly don't know that I've known such a wonderful feeling.

So, I'm sharing that same poem here. Feel free to read or listen to it, if you so choose.

As a note, this poem is about child abuse. However, it is spoken about in metaphor and there are no details. (It also has a happy ending.)

[magdelanesingerin]

Two Sides

I am Valdo Marx, troubadour of Cidaris, poet laureate of Bremervoord, and esteemed scholar and lecturer of music at Oxenfurt Academy. 

I am not a villain. I am a musician and an academic. 

I know that Julian would say otherwise– has said otherwise, loudly and often from one side of the continent to the other. In all honesty, I could easily say the same about him, though I have tried to keep my criticism limited to the professional spheres in which we both move rather than making public personal attacks against his character. 

Believe me or don’t believe me, it makes little difference. What Julian Alfred Pankratz and I are now and have been to each other is all a mater of perspective.

From the beginning it seemed that we were destined to be as two sides of a coin. I am fair-haired where he is dark, golden-skinned where he is ruddy, my features fine and aristocratic where he has the eternally soft, round features of a cherub. I did not set out to make Julian my rival. Indeed, I didn’t intend to make anything of him at all. 

I arrived at Oxenfurt intent on my own studies, aflame with the love of music, and eager to prove my skills, to finally silence those critics who insisted that the circumstances of my birth made me somehow simultaneously unsuited to study at the school and while also giving me an unfair advantage. I wanted to prove that my talents were no accident of race or bloodline, but were a reflection of my own hard work and tenacity. I dove into the work with gusto and devoured the material. My work was meticulous and timely, thoughtful in its content. and deft in its execution. I quickly distinguished myself at the top of the class. 

Julian, meanwhile, was flighty, distractible, argumentative, and disorganized. He was constantly late and unprepared for lectures, masterclasses, and studio performances, skidding in at the last moment disheveled and grinning as though life were one huge game. Maddeningly and despite his complete lack of discipline, he continually outperformed our other classmates in both his written work and his music, seeming to excel with little effort or attention paid. 

This went on throughout our school years, the two of us constantly jockeying for position at the top of our class. I devoted myself wholeheartedly to the mechanical study of the voice, and to the art and craft of song. I studied language, its structure and meter, the way it could be finely stitched together into a tapestry of lyric or poem so much greater than the sum of the words in its lines. I studied the body as closely as any student in the medical college, learning the anatomy of the voice and each of the mechanisms and muscles that controlled it. I studied music theory which gorgeous hidden mathematics that governs the gods’ most perfect art form, and allows us to turn aural chaos into sweet harmony. 

Julian flitted about in a constant state of scandal, whether from his sordid assignations, or from his insistence on bringing the lowest type of poorly constructed popular music into the school. The standards at Oxenfurt were exacting and I was proud to not only meet but exceed them, proving my worth and earning my place there again and again. He ignored the expectations of our professors, not only through his failure to take his studies seriously, but at times by showing outright scorn for the institution and the material we were being taught. Had I dared to talk back to a professor as he frequently did, I would have surely been formally censured for it. Consequences seemed to slide off of him and he went on, oblivious.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about how he moves through the world, immune to consequence. That ability to evade the repercussions of his actions is not new. 

continue on ao3

[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: Leaning on a Blue Door by Alice Lee Timmins

On SALE: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/leaning-on-a-blue-door-by-alice-timmins/

Ancestors and newborns crisscross these poems, comfortably slip in and out of one another’s lives. There are celebrations, elegy, meditations on #nature, #family, #history, #science. The poet has created a jazz-like improvisation: voices from the last millennium call to the first quarter of the new and receive messages back. The variety of poetic forms in this short volume share an undercurrent: antidotes from divisive turmoil toward a welcoming rest. #poetry

Alice has been engaged in service-oriented careers – In Washington, DC with a women’s advocacy non-profit; in Maryland and Colorado as a secondary social studies teacher, and with a Masters Degree in Education and Counseling, she counseled numerous students in various public schools on both sides of the Mississippi River. Her final position was Coordinator of Adult Volunteers at the Denver Art Museum. Now retired to her beloved Maine, Alice writes poetry from a sunny desk at a cottage on the Great Works River in South Berwick. Daily she walks with her partner Margaret and their beloved dog Quincy. She stays extremely active creating textile art pieces, installing art at the Kittery Art Association Gallery, playing pickleball, hiking with artistic and spiritually-minded friends. Alice also spends long afternoons cutting firewood from felled trees on acres of her property’s forest floor.

PRAISE FOR Leaning on a Blue Door by Alice Lee Timmins:

“The poems collected in Alice Timmins‘s Leaning on a Blue Door forge subtle connections between the present and the past, the personal and collective, the natural and technological. Poems about a beloved’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, and another about the fate of the Voyager spacecraft, echo one another in ways that continue to haunt me. Poems about a woman running alone on a back road at dusk, and another about Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault testimony in 2018, have nothing, and everything, to do with each other. And poems about who and what we are responsible for—our homes and communities—are tied by a dark thread to poems about how we betray one another in small and large ways. What holds all this together? The poet’s sympathy for what’s fragile, yes, but also her trust that what’s true, in and through time, is unbreakable.”

–Kimberly Cloutier Green, author of The Next Hunger; former Poet Laureate of Portsmouth, New Hampshire

“Like the many artworks scattered through this beautiful collection, Alice Timmins’ poems paint pictures of exquisite grace and light. Her “bell of awareness” rings loud on every page, showing meticulous attention to, and celebration of, so many aspects of our glorious lives—love, sickness, birth, death, the joy and pain of friendship, and precise details of the natural world around us. With a well-tuned ear for the music of birds, the ocean, and most of all language itself, she writes intimate slivers of lovely stillness—like catching a finch or butterfly for an instant in your hand. While many of the poems are imbued with a deep sense of rootedness in loving partnership, in family, and in her New England home, the poems of section two blossom out to global and even astronomical perspectives, but with the same intense desire to reveal truth and find compassion. These poems will wake you to wonder and make you stop to listen again and again.”

–Brian Evans-Jones, former Poet Laureate of Hampshire, UK, and winner of the Maureen Egan Award from Poets & Writers.

With color, texture and exquisite detail, this artful collection invites me to see, feel, and practically touch what the author has experienced. Words, like watercolor on the page, invite me into longing, grief and healing; draw me toward fresh fields and earthen pathways; startle me into the “humble now” of heart truths I’d practically forgotten. I am grateful for these poems. I think you will be too.

–Rev. Ellen Quaadgras ~Minister, South Church, Portsmouth, NH

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #chapbook #read #poems #family #life #history #science #relationships #grief #healing

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

'If activists are hiding books from you, the best thing you can do is seek them out and read them!'

One of the strangest developments of the culture war has been the rise of authoritarian librarians. It sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Surely librarians are there to support education and to enable the dissemination of literature and knowledge.

But this week it was reported that the library service in Calderdale Council has been hiding books by feminists such as Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock. The Labor-run council confirmed that although these books would still be in the catalog and they could be requested, they were quote, "not visible on the library shelves." This is very odd.

Now, I've read the books in question by both Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock, and they are rigorous, intelligent and important studies concerning one of the key issues of our time. And yet these librarians are treating them as though they are toxic, as if members of the public who happen upon them while browsing might somehow be instantly corrupted.

And yet we shouldn't really be surprised at all. The rise of Woke Librarians, however ludicrous that sounds, is a real thing. Now, I should say from the outset that I've nothing against librarians. Some of my best friends are librarians. But there is something about the profession that seems to attract the kind of paternalistic pharisee who believes that it's their job to protect others from wrongthink.

Let me give you some other examples. So a few years ago, it was reported that the former poet laureate Ted Hughes was included on a watch list created by the British Library because of a family connection with a slave owner. Turns out the connection was false and the Library issued an apology. But why was the foremost library in the UK creating this kind of watch list in the first place? Well, it was because in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, the library had commissioned what they called a "decolonizing working group" which decided that they should review the collections and draw up a list of any authors with problematic pasts. This same group also claimed that the library's main building was a monument to imperialism, because it looked a bit like a battleship. I'm not even joking.

And in 2021 the Waterloo Region District School Board in Canada identified and removed books that were considered quote, "harmful to staff and students."

At the same time, other school libraries in Canada were disposing of copies of Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale following complaints about quote, "racist, homophobic or misogynistic language and themes."

And then there was the Ottawa Carlton District School Board which removed copies of William Golding's Lord of the Flies on the grounds that the themes of the book were quote, "outdated and too focused on white male power structures." Had they even read the book? If Lord of the Flies really is a comment on white male power structures, it can hardly be said to be an advertisement.

And then of course there's the whole trigger warning phenomenon. When archivists at Homerton College in Cambridge were engaged in a project to upload their collection of children's literature to the internet, they decided to flag a number of books with trigger warnings. Books such as Little House on the Prairie, and The Water Babies, and various books by Dr Seuss. And the archivists said they wanted to make their digital collection quote, "less harmful in the context of a canonical literary heritage that is shaped by, and continues a history of, oppression."

But books by Dr Seuss aren't oppressive or harmful, even if they do contain outdated racial stereotypes. They were written a long time ago, and readers understand that. Of course, that hasn't stopped the estate of Dr Seuss from withdrawing a number of titles from sale altogether. You can't even buy them anymore.

But the most revealing aspect of this story from Cambridge is a statement that the archivists at Homerton College put out. They said it would be a quote, "dereliction of our duty as gatekeepers to allow such casual racism to go unchecked." Gatekeepers. Now I thought they were meant to be custodians not gatekeepers.

And this is what is known as saying the quiet part out loud. Because really all of this behavior is edging towards censorship. For librarians and archivists to apply warnings to books or to hide them from the public, it's for them to say, "we don't think these books are good for you, we don't trust you to read these books and not to pick up some bad ideas, we must protect you from their influence." In other words, they're treating the public like a parent treats a small child.

And we shouldn't stand for it. Even the application of trigger warnings is a problem in and of itself. True, the books aren't being censored, but a trigger warning buys into the false belief that words and violence are the same thing. It implies that these books are dangerous, and in the wrong hands could cause trouble.

And it's not just libraries. Increasingly we're seeing museum staff attempting to protect the public from artifacts that they're meant to display. So last November, the Wellcome Collection in London shut down its key exhibit, one which dated from the 17th century, because it perpetuated quote, "a version of medical history that is based on racist, sexist and ableist theories and language."

Now we all know that ethical standards change over time and that people from the past held different views from us. Often views that we would consider objectionable. So why don't museum curators understand this too? Why is a museum preventing us from seeing artifacts from the past, when they should be facilitating access? Why is it that so many art galleries now insist on adding little labels next to paintings by great masters to say how much they disapprove of their values, as though the writers of these little sermons would have thought any differently if they had been born hundreds of years ago?

I don't care whether you disapprove of Hogarth's attitudes towards minorities, I just want to appreciate his work without having these soft-witted puritans breathing down my neck.

What we're seeing here is ideological capture. it's the same reason why the Catholic Church created an index of forbidden books which it had kept updated for 400 years right up until 1948. it's the same reason why Mary Whitehouse wanted certain TV shows banned back in the 1960s. It's the same reason why the BBC has censored scenes of old comedy shows such as Faulty Towers on the BBC streaming service. It's the same reason why staff at publishing houses revolt when there's a new book coming out by Jordan Peterson or JK Rowling or some other problematic author. And when the authors aren't as well known as Peterson or Rowling, the staff often get their way.

And if you don't think any of this is authoritarian, what about the time when the body in charge of elementary and secondary schools in Southwestern Ontario authorized the ritualistic burning of books if they contained outdated stereotypes, in what they described as a "flame purification ceremony." Almost 5000 books, including copies of Tintin and Asterix, were removed from shelves and were destroyed or recycled because of course, only the most [rogressive people in history have ever burned books.

[ Source: The Times, via archive.today ]

It sounds preposterous, but the proliferation of activists in libraries, museums, schools, publishing houses, the arts and the media, makes complete sense when one considers that the devotees of this new woke religion have a vested interest in controlling the limits of acceptable thought. To use their own words, they are the gatekeepers.

But as adults in a civilized and liberal society, we don't need to be coddled, particularly by people whose capacity for critical thinking has been stunted by ideology. They say it's for our own good, but what tyrant in history hasn't made a similar claim?

So enough with the woke librarians. If activists are hiding books from you, the very best thing you can do is seek those books out and read them. These petty little authoritarians will do anything to control your speech and your thoughts. Don't let them get away with it.

==

We are reliably informed that it's only right-wing conservative Xians who want to ban or burn books. But it isn't true. There is a mirror image of the same Puritan authoritarianism on the woke left.

[justforbooks]

Having long been tipped as the next Nobel laureate, the Norwegian writer has this year been awarded the prize. For those new to the acclaimed playwright and novelist, here are some good ways in.

The novelist, playwright, essayist and poet Jon Fosse, 64, is this year’s winner of the Nobel prize in Literature. He is now set to become the world’s best-known Norwegian writer of contemporary fiction, perhaps even overtaking his former student, Karl Ove Knausgård. In his career as a playwright, Fosse has been hailed as “the new Ibsen” – borne out by the fact that his plays are the most widely performed in Norway after Ibsen’s own. Despite years of international acclaim, however, it is only relatively recently that Fosse’s books have begun to reach the mainstream of English translation publishing – so here’s where to begin.

The entry point

Fosse’s powerful (and frequently very short) stories in the collection Scenes from a Childhood span Fosse’s literary career from 1983 to 2013. They serve as an introduction to the central themes of his work – childhood, memory, family, faith – coupled with a strong sense of duality and of fatalism. Fragmentary, elliptical, at times deliberately simplistic, they mark life’s journey from extreme youth to old age. Standouts include Red Kiss Mark of a Letter, And Then My Dog Will Come Back to Me.

If you only read one

In Fosse’s 2023 novella Aliss at the Fire, an old woman, Signe, lies by the fire at her house next to a fjord, dreaming of herself 20 years earlier and her husband, Asle, who rowed out one day on the water in a storm and never came back. It is typical of Fosse – bleak, with a grand use of a repeated central image, that of blackness, and structured around the grip of ancestral history (the Aliss of the title is Asle’s great-great-great-grandmother), doubles and repeated actions: Asle’s grandfather had the same name as him and met the same fate by drowning. Hypnotic and mysterious.

If you’re in a rush

Published in 1989, The Boathouse is the closest thing Fosse has written to a crime novel. The 30-year-old narrator seems to have failed at everything in life – he lives with his mother, is a virtual recluse, doesn’t seem able to do basic things for himself. His most important achievement lies in his past – the rock band he had with his childhood friend Knut, with whom he has lost contact. Yet one summer a chance encounter with Knut, now married and relatively successful, will lead to a devastating denouement. Parallel to this, the narrator is also writing a novel that is an acute observation of every instance of his “restless” existence: a perfect example of the “write, don’t think” maxim as Fosse instructed his students in the late 80s in Bergen, when this book was in the making.

The play

“I can’t help wondering if the cultural gulf between Fosse’s world and our own is too wide,” wrote the Guardian critic when his 1999 play Dream of Autumn had its English language premiere in Dublin in 2006. Much has changed in Europe and the rest of the world in the intervening 17 years, however. The drama’s premise is simple, the undercurrents are not: a man and a woman meet in a graveyard and begin an affair – perhaps they knew one another in a past life. As they leave the graveyard the man’s parents arrive for a funeral and, as is common with Fosse, time leaps forward by years, in a lingering, longing dance of intergenerational circularity.

The one worth persevering with

In Melancholy I and II, Fosse takes us deep into the tortured mind of the 19th-century landscape artist Lars Hertervig, who died impoverished in 1902 in his early 70s, and whose life was blighted by the hallucinations and delusions that made his paintings appear so dreamlike, so sublime. Hertervig first became psychotic as a student at art school in Düsseldorf and, as well as an often terrifying examination of mental illness, the novels (originally published separately but now as one volume) are most significantly about what it means to be an artist. Melancholy I details the young Hertervig’s obsessions, anxieties, and eventual breakdown during one terrible day; Melancholy II acts as a coda, with different narrative perspectives – including that of a would-be fictional biographer – many years after Hertervig’s death.

The masterpiece

The seven books of Fosse’s Septology I-VII (helpfully compressed into three volumes comprising The Other Name, I Is Another and A New Name) centre on Asle, an ageing artist living in remote south-west Norway. A Catholic convert, like Fosse himself, Asle is grappling with time, art and identity. It is an extraordinary work of existential crisis, of memory loss, and persistent doppelgangers, either real or imaginary – the life lived, and the life that might have been lived, in the person of the shadowy other. It’s a frightening and intense read, which is rendered without a sentence break, so that the reader is essentially living Asle’s life with him. Septology is also a work of deep religious faith in which a man, an artist, and a human being, above all, in the end comes full circle: “It’s definitely true that it’s just when things are darkest, blackest, that you see the light.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[xplrvibes]

i swear if amber, shea or stas would have posted that pic the stans would have reacted way different and cheered them on. Same with how natural they are compared to malia or how it's only bad how m has no job and just hangs at colby's but when stas just chilled in vegas for months on end while the boys were editing it's something total different. And of course shea is way superior cause she writes poems (mainly about colby but she of course is not a clout chaser and never used colby)

To be fair, Amber and Stas did receive a lot of the same type of hate and bullshit back when they first hit the Colby Brock airwaves.

They eventually were able to win over the fanbase somehow and now people are a lot nicer to them, but it was rough for a while. Amber received death threats and Stas had to private her instagram.

It's really just sad how this cycle repeats every time this man comes out of the gilded cage the fans put him in.

Anyway, the double standards in general really are something to behold. Maybe Malia can eventually win them over and theyll eventually forget that they ever treated her like this...or maybe she'll just fade away and all these people who bullied and harassed this girl relentlessly will celebrate as if they did something to save the planet.

Either/or.

Also, doesn't she own a boutique or something? I swear I saw her mention a boutique at one point...

No comment on the poet laureate 🤣

[ecopoetry4teachers]

Teaching Current Events in the Classroom Through Ecopoetry

Last week, my students spent time viewing weather reports, watching projections and talking about Hurricane Lee. After gauging their interest in the hurricane, I decided to use short lessons that allowed them to steer the conversation. They used their experience with post tropical storm Fiona in 2022 to engage in the daily lessons. Most of my students are not yet 10, but their conversations and insights told me it is an area of interest, or perhaps concern, for them.  What can Adora Svitak teach us?

I have always felt it was important to teach current issues in an age appropriate manner. I believe students are curious about their world and want to know more about it. As a parent, I want to shelter my children from some of the harsh realities, but I also know the importance of teaching them the truth. Young educational activist Adora Svitak said:

"By bringing current events into the classroom, everyday discussion, and social media, maybe we don't need to wait for our grandchildren's questions to remind us we should have paid more attention to current events."

Adora Svitak https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/adora_svitak_594720

Adora Svitak and Paulo Freire: What is the connection?

This young activist reminds me of Paulo Freire. Freire believed that teaching adult learners to read would help them see their own oppression. This knowledge could then transform their lives through action. Teaching current events in the classroom, can do the same. Elizabeth Lange, in her 2023 book Transformative Sustainability Education, stated that Freire’s:

"literacy process was called conscientization as adult learners become conscious of the root causes of their oppression and then took collective action to improve their lives" (Lange, 2023, pg. 76). 

This is similar to Svitak's belief that children need to understand current events, so they can begin their work toward change. To learn more about Paulo Freire’s theory of education, watch the following video.

An informative academic article regarding Freire's transformative learning theory can be found here:

The Ecopoetry Connection

One major current issue that faces children globally is climate change. Extreme weather events, loss of ecosystems, endangered species and species at risk, pollution, environmental disasters or social system failures are all partly the result of climate change. We need look no further than Great Thunberg to see how these issues are affecting children and young adults. Her global climate strike has mobilized millions of students throughout the world. My own students have hosted small rallies outside our school as a way to tell adults they want change. Youth do have the intelligence, willingness and creativity to take action against climate change. Young spoken word poet, Amanda Gorman, gives us a glimpse as to what youth can do:

Black eco-poets, such as Frank X Walter use their experience with oppression and resilience in his poems. Contemporary eco-poets are using their word to teach about environmental impacts to our natural world. Below is Walter's poem Love Letter to the World.

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/8-black-eco-poets-who-inspire-us#:~:text=%E2%80%9CEco%2Dpoetics%E2%80%9D%20%20may%20be,finding%20home%20away%20from%20home.

Edinburgh Napier University Professor Sam Illingworth states that ecopoet Elise Paschen, uses her poem The Tree Agreement, to

"promote the idea of the agency people possess in protecting and preserving their local environment. These poems discuss neighborhood resistance to tree felling and challenge our need to make a mark on the world."

Eco-poetry is more than poetry about the environment. It tells a story that is meant to expand the reader's thinking and make connections between humankind and the litany of social issues that surround their lives. As Eleanor Flowerday (2021) states,

“Eco-poetry roots you in your environment both physically but also in the way we tell stories to one another. It provides that line of connection to your surroundings that is so necessary in founding a relationship with the natural world: that feeling that you actually belong there.”

As an educator, I believe eco-poetry has a role to play in helping to transform the global climate crisis. Eco-poetry has a place in every language arts curriculum because the climate crisis effects everyone. The poets, educators and activists discussed in this blog are just a few in the every growing list of climate change activists.

Reference List

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ImsBe97u3DMtBAbB4hj3N9Rt8ASKcpEYfYP6JJPUhZQ/edit

[amrv-5]

😬 Stanislaw Lem, "The First Sally (A) Or: Trurl's Electronic Bard," in The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age, 1974.

Plain text below the cut.

Trurl had once had the misfortune to build an enormous calculating machine that was capable of only one operation, namely the addition of two and two, and that it did incorrectly. As is related earlier in this volume, the machine also proved to be extremely stubborn, and the quarrel that ensued between it and its creator almost cost the latter his life. From that time on Klapaucius teased Trurl unmercifully, making comments at every opportunity, until Trurl decided to silence him once and for all by building a machine that could write poetry. First Trurl collected eight hundred and twenty tons of books on cybernetics and twelve thousand tons of the finest poetry (…)

Not much time went by before news of Trurl’s computer laureate reached the genuine—that is, the ordinary—poets. Deeply offended, they resolved to ignore the machine’s existence. A few, however, were curious enough to visit Trurl’s electronic bard in secret. It received them courteously, in a hall piled high with closely written paper (for it worked all day and night without pause). Now these poets were all avant-garde, and Trurl’s machine wrote only in the traditional manner; Trurl, no connoisseur of poetry, had relied heavily on the classics in setting up its program. The machine’s guests jeered and left in triumph. The machine was self-programming, however, and in addition had a special ambition-amplifying mechanism with glory-seeking circuits, and very soon a great change took place. Its poems became difficult, ambiguous, so intricate and charged with meaning that they were totally incomprehensible. When the next group of poets came to mock and laugh, the machine replied with an improvisation that was so modern, it took their breath away, and the second poem seriously weakened a certain sonneteer who had two State awards to his name, not to mention a statue in the city park. After that, no poet could resist the fatal urge to cross lyrical swords with Trurl’s electronic bard. They came from far and wide, carrying trunks and suitcases full of manuscripts. The machine would let each challenger recite, instantly grasp the algorithm of his verse, and use it to compose an answer in exactly the same style, only two hundred and twenty to three hundred and forty-seven times better. (…)

There were many poet protests staged, demonstrations, demands that the machine be served an injunction to cease and desist. But no one else appeared to care. In fact, magazine editors generally approved: Trurl’s electronic bard, writing under several thousand different pseudonyms at once, had a poem for every occasion, to fit whatever length might be required, and of such high quality that the magazine would be torn from hand to hand by eager readers. (…)

The following month Trurl received a bill for the electricity consumed by the machine and almost fell off of his chair. If only he could have consulted his old friend Klapaucius! But Klapaucius was nowhere to be found. So Trurl had to come up with something by himself. One dark night he unplugged the machine, took it apart, loaded it onto a ship, flew it to a certain small asteroid, and there assembled it again, giving it an atomic pile for its source of creative energy.

[fandom-space-princess]

Best Things I Read This Year

per the title. I made it through more than one book a week this year with time to spare! in no particular order, here are the ones I enjoyed the most:

SFF&Horror:

Linghun - Ai Jiang. novella, fantasy-horror, ghost story.

The Butcher of the Forest, The Siege of Burning Grass - Premee Mohamed. fantasy and science-fantasy. her work continues to impress me. Burning Grass in particular was excellent (it was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin prize this year) and imo not nearly enough people read it. bleak as hell, but an incredible examination of the effects of war on the vulnerable, and what it takes to hold true to pacifist convictions in the face of unrelenting violence.

The Voice That Murmurs In the Darkness - James Tiptree Jr. aka Alice Sheldon. scifi, short story collection. classics.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, Into the Riverlands, Mammoths at the Gates, The Brides of High Hill - Nghi Vo. fantasy. these are technically a "series" but you can truly read them in any order. and you should. they're wonderful.

The Bog Wife - Kay Chronister. gothic horror. kind of understated for my tastes, but not bad.

Good Night, Sleep Tight - Brian Evenson. horror, short story collection. occasionally as clever as it thinks it is.

Road to Ruin - Hana Lee. science-fantasy a la Mad Max. this one was just kind of a bop. I'm not normally here for this much romance and/or pining, but the setting was so much fun. I was into it. excited to see where the next book goes.

All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Fugitive Telemetry, Network Effect, System Collapse - Martha Wells. scifi. oh murderbot, my beloved murderbot. i binged all the way through these twice and then read NE a third time for good measure. my LIFE for the anxiety-riddled asexual aromantic robot that just wants to watch its shows in peace. and every one of its ridiculous friends.

The Wings Upon Her Back - Samantha Mills. science-fantasy. young girl gets recruited into her city's militia in service to her mecha god. parallel narrative: the same woman, much older, experiencing social rejection and cult deprogramming. this one was also slept on by too many people, it was great.

Jewel Box - E. Lily Yu. fantasy, short story collection. banger after banger in here.

Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions - Nalo Hopkinson. sf&f, short story collection. everything she writes is a gift.

Fiction:

We the Animals - Justin Torres. I can't believe it took me so long to get around to this.

Grand Slam Romance vol 1 & 2 - Ollie Hicks, Emma Oosterhous. graphic novels. magical girl softball teams experience intercontinental dyke drama. i am so happy i read these. they are SO SILLY and i needed that.

Nonfiction:

Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right - Jordan S. Carroll. this is less a book than a hundred-page bound academic paper, but it was incredibly worthwhile. discusses the ways in which sff is historically and currently used as a battleground to determine who gets to imagine the future, and who that future is built to include. the footnotes gave me a ton of further reading suggestions which i hope to get around to next year.

The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction - Samuel R. Delany. this book was critical in establishing SF as a meaningful subject of academic criticism in the 70s. 10/10 no notes. i am forever grateful for the fact that I live in a world with Samuel Delany in it.

Notes From An Island - Tove Jansson, with paintings by Tuulikki Pietilä. delightful.

Poetry:

You Bury the Birds In My Pelvis - Kelly Weber

Philomath - Devon Walker-Figueroa

Forest of Noise - Mosab Abu Toha

Calling a Wolf a Wolf - Kaveh Akbar

Can You Sign My Tentacle? - Brandon O'Brien (who has been named poet laureate for Woldcon in Seattle next year. I'm REALLY hoping I get to hear him speak more extensively while I'm there.)

We Contain Landscapes - Patrycja Humienik (this one isn't out for a few months yet but if you have the opportunity to pick it up once it's available it's worth your time.)

The Kingdom of Surfaces - Sally Wen Mao. listen. listen. SWM is maybe my favorite modern poet. this collection was stunningly well conceived, cohesive, lovely, painful. i have her book of short stories on my "tbr++" pile and I can't wait to get to it.

[greensparty]

2025 IFFBoston Wrap-Up

I'm so sad when it's over :( The 2025 Independent Film Festival Boston wrapped last week. It is my favorite festival (read my coverage here). I have a special place for this festival: in 2014 my documentary Life on the V: The Story of V66 had its World Premiere at the festival, and in 2015 I was on the Documentary Jury. In previous years, I would go see multiple films and events in one day and be completely tired by the end of the fest. This year due to my own schedule, I was not able to catch nearly as many films as I would have liked. But I had a great time as an industry / alumni attending the fest and catching up with some friends, both local and outside of New England. Here is my lightning round of films I caught at this year's fest:

director Ryan White during the intro (above) and White with the subjects on zoom during the Q&A

Opening Night film was the documentary Come See Me in the Good Light from documentarian Ryan White. This marked his 5th time at IFFBoston. His excellent doc Good ‘Ol Freda was at the 2013 fest. His doc The Case Against 8 was there in 2014 when I was there with Life on the V. I interviewed Mr. White in 2022 about his doc Good Night Oppy and he said “Most of my films are similar to that [Good 'Ol Freda]. Where someone - usually a woman because most of my films have been about women - that found themselves in these incredible circumstances and are looking back on it.” Here, White is documenting Andrea Gibson, the poet laureate of Colorado. Over the course of several months we get to know Gibson's career as a spoken word artist and poet, her relationship with partner Meg, and her cancer diagnosis in her 40s. It is very moving as the film is a meditation on one's own mortality. But there are some genuinely funny moments, not just comic relief from the seriousness, but actually funny moments. Tig Notaro is a producer and we see her briefly during a show that Gibson is opening for. I saw some parallels between Notaro's trajectory in the 2015 documentary Tig and Gibson. There is also a beautiful message in this about how creating your art can be a means not just of helping you through tough times, but a means of survival. Watch for this when it's released by Apple TV+ later this year. After the film, White did a Q&A and over zoom the subjects joined. At the Opening Night Party upstairs at the Crystal Ballroom, I talked to White for a few and he was super cool and humble.

When my doc Life on the V was at the 2014 IFFBoston, Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo was there, and it was such an ego boost to know that my own film was in the same fest as Gondry (as well as films from Richard Linklater, Mike Myers and more)! Now Gondry has gotten the documentary treatment with Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself. Director François Nemeta narrates and describes his fandom of Gondry's band and the videos he was directing for them in the early 90s and how he became Gondry's assistant director. I say this because the director is a part of the story being told, but make no mistake it is Gondry's story as a creative soul going from music videos to feature films and more. Along with Spike Jonze, Gondry was one of the super stars of music video in the 90s with his innovative videos for Bjork, Lucas, The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, The Chemical Brothers, The White Stripes, Beck, Paul McCartney and more. I picked up the 2003 DVD compilation The Works of Michel Gondry and watched it numerous times. His feature films have been hit or miss. He is truly a visionary, but his best work is usually when he has a fantastic screenplay that can match his aesthetic, i.e. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, his magnum opus that he won an Oscar for. But there's no denying the DIY spirit and creative energy of Gondry's filmmaking and this doc made me want to go out and make my own movie of Eternal Sunshine in the style of his Be Kind Rewind where characters re-make their own versions of popular movies with limited resources!

Speaking of 90s music, this year's IFFBoston was a throwback to the 90s Alternative Nation! In 1991, I saw the Butthole Surfers at Lollapalooza when they were more of a cult group. The big thing I remember was was singer Gibby Haynes shooting his shotgun during some songs. In 1995, I saw Pavement at Lollapalooza as they were indie rock slackers who were mostly critic darlings but broke through with "Cut Your Hair" and some soundtrack / compilation appearances. I never got heavy into them, but I do love Slanted and Enchanted, their low-fi indie rock gem! As it was just my luck, IFFBoston had films about both bands playing at the same time. I went to the Butthole Surfers doc, but I did get to view a screener the other for this coverage!

Director Alex Ross Perry has emerged as one of the brightest of the NYC indie film scene over the last decade. What really blew me away was his 2018 movie Her Smell where he showed a rock star (Elisabeth Moss getting her Courtney Love on) at five different times in her career. It was beyond excellent, just the sheer amount of one-takes that Moss did! Now he has turned his attention to a real life band with Pavements. It is described as "kind of a documentary...until it's not". There is a documentary framework of the Stockton, CA band's trajectory, trying to remain low-fi (the sound, singer Stephen Malkmus's voice and the minimalist production quality was a part of the band's charm) combining archival footage and interviews. But then there's also some elements of the 2022 Pavement pop-up museum and the off-Broadway Slanted and Enchanted: A Pavement Musical, which ARP directed as a jukebox musical of Pavement's story. Where the film veers from documentary is when it shows a movie biopic of the band ARP is directing with the likes of Joe Keery as Malkmus and Jason Schwartzman as the founder of Matador Records. The thing with this movie is that much like the band, it thinks it is way more clever than it is. ARP is an exciting voice in indie film right now and his passion of 90s alt-rock is in every frame here, but I think the meta-element of the music biopic being cast and then being shown didn't quite work. The off-Broadway musical that ARP conceived for this film and the museum with footage of indie rockers like Speedy Ortiz and Snail Mail performing at, would've been enough. The film-within-the-film couldn't decide if it was trying to be a commentary about Hollywood music biopics and how they're all the same or if it was trying to be a love letter for a band like them that more than likely wouldn't get a music biopic. Either way, it felt shoe-horned. But Pavement did have a slacker couldn't-care-less attitude (or so they seemed) and as a result they made some alt-rock gems that still hold up today. I think a movie like Martin Scorsese's Rolling Thunder Revue was able to pull off the idea of a documentary that's not entirely true, but Pavements doesn't quite pull it off. But maybe that's part of the band's irony being projected!

Haynes (center) and the crew of the Butthole Surfers doc doing a Q&A

During the alt-rock boom, there were some bands that were just barely mainstream enough for radio and MTV, but were somewhat experimental and surreal, i.e. The Flaming Lips, Ween, The Meat Puppets (an argument could be made for Faith No More) and the Butthole Surfers. Hailing from Austin, TX they did this weird noise rock sound that was almost performance art. In 1996, they scored a hit with "Pepper". I always liked them, but never got that into them. What got my attention about Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt was my friend producer / editor Scott Evans who co-directed last year’s The Road to Ruane. The director is Tom Stern, who I was a fan of back in the 90s when he and Alex Winter co-directed a ton of music videos and the MTV sketch show The Idiot Box. Stern himself directed a live video for the Butthole Surfers at CBGB's in 1986 and this doc is clearly a labor of love for him. This is also very much an audience movie. The band gets the music documentary treatment (archival footage, band members interviewed, fans) but it was very creative in that Stern used puppets to recreate some of the stories the band tells. It's not uncommon to see animation or re-enactments in docs, but when we're seeing puppets doing outrageous things it adds to the absurdism of the scenarios. Some serious LOL moments and then there's tonal shifts where there's some shocking bombs dropped. Among the interviewees are Dave Grohl (Nirvana were fans and friends), Richard Linklater, John Hawkes, Flea, and prior to her death they interviewed former drummer Teresa Taylor. This is definitely one of the most original music docs I've seen in a long time. As I sat in the audience of the Somerville Theatre, Stern and Butthole Surfers singer Gibby Haynes were sitting just a few feet away from me and they had a lively Q&A with Evans and more crew. Even if you're not a fan, please seek out this doc! At the after party, I briefly spoke with Stern and congratulated him on the award the doc won at the fest!

Evans (left) doing a conversation about Road to Ruane

Speaking of Scott Evans, he did a conversation about both Road to Ruane and the Butthole Surfers doc. They also did a special encore screening of Ruane, which served as a fundraiser for funds needed for the doc's distribution.

My #1 Documentary of 2023 was 20 Days in Mariupol, which also won the Oscar for Best Documentary that year. Filmed on the front lines of the Ukrainian city during the invasion of Russia, it was one of the most powerful docs ever made about the brutal impact of war. Director Mstyslav Chernov is back with another doc about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with 2000 Meters to Andriivka. Also filmed on the front lines, the doc looks at a Ukrainian platoon on a mission to liberate the Russian-occupied village of Andriivka. This truly puts the viewer into the moment as the footage is from what appears to be GoPro type cameras attached to the helmets of some of the soldiers. While I'm glad I saw this in the movie theater (there's a certain impact this has when watched all at once on the big screen), it is also gut-wrenching and difficult to watch. One of the most powerful anti-war statements I've seen on the big screen!

Victor doing an intro to Sorry, Baby

The Closing Night film was the Sundance hit Sorry, Baby which was filmed in Massachusetts last year. I didn't catch too many narrative films at this year's IFFBoston, so it felt refreshing to see a scripted film with actors after so many documentaries. Writer / director / actor Eva Victor did an intro and a conversation afterwards. I'm going to try to describe this film without any spoilers (not easy): Victor plays Agnes, a college professor at a New England university where she, herself, went for grad school. The film jumps around to various time periods (present, past, future, etc) as Agnes tries to move on in her life after a terrible and traumatic thing happens to her and the people around her move forward in their life. There are some genuinely funny moments and some great performances, including a small role from John Carroll Lynch (who I interviewed in 2017). It's hard to analyze this movie without getting into spoilers, but overall it was an impressive debut for Victor. Watch for it when A24 releases it in June.

me on the red carpet of the 2025 IFFBoston

Congrats to all my friends who had films this year and to the IFFBoston team for another great year!

For info (and ways to support) IFFBoston

[miasmablog]

Origins & Interpretation

The poem Scottish Fiction was written by poet laureate Edwin Morgan (1920–2010) in response to a letter from Roddy Woomble, lead vocalist of the Scottish rock band Idlewild.

A long-time admirer of Morgan's work, Woomble made contact during the production of what would become the band's third studio album The Remote Part. In his letter to the poet, Woomble spoke about identity and belonging and Morgan's response ended with a poem addressing these topics.

This poem was incorporated into the closing (title) track of The Remote Part. The album was released in July 2002.

Interpretation

In this poem, Morgan examines the idea of national identity: how culture and society inform our perception of ourselves, and how we in turn represent ourselves to the world. While this can apply to any group or nation, Morgan focuses on Scottish national identity and uses specific examples of cultural relevance (e.g. the Red Road flats) to ensure that the work resonates with its intended audience.

I feel Morgan is arguing that at the core of human identity there is a duality or dichotomy: the fiction versus the friction; the polished image we present to the world versus the visceral, messy reality beneath.

I will now analyse the lyrics of the poem and give my own interpretation of their meaning:

It isn't in the mirror, it isn't on the page

Fundamentally, human nature / identity cannot be understood through introspection (the mirror) or reflection (writing/reading) ...

It's a red hearted vibration Pushing through the walls of dark imagination  Finding no equation 

... it is something more primal, a base instinct incompatible (finding no equation) with higher consciousness or logical thought.

There's a Red Road rage  But it's not road rage  It's asylum seekers engulfed by a grudge 

The Red Road flats were constructed in Glasgow in the 1960s. Initially a successful example of low-cost urban housing, the complex gradually deteriorated due to neglect, lack of amenities and limited resources. Rife with crime and violence, and latterly used to house international refugees, the flats were eventually demolished in 2015.

I think Morgan is using the flats as a way of contrasting the justifiable anger of citizens towards those in charge with the inexcusable and thoughtless anger exemplified by so-called road rage. Perhaps both forms of anger have the same underlying cause (a feeling of hopelessness or loss of control) but it is the way they manifest and are directed that is at odds.

We also encounter another dichotomy: the optimistic vision of the flats versus the eventual grim reality. The victims of this violence, left with no recourse, turn their anger back on themselves / their own community, and therefore it is the asylum seekers that bear the brunt of their animosity.

Scottish friction, Scottish fiction 

This line encapsulates the theme of the poem: the surface versus what lies beneath.

It isn't in the castle, it isn't in the mist 

The stereotypical image of Scotland as represented by majestic castles shrouded in mist is negated. This echoes the structure and sentiment of the first line of the poem (the mirror ... the page) and asks us again to consider the fundamental origins of our identity.

It's a calling of the waters As they break to show the new black death With reactors aglow 

Mirroring the second stanza, the poet refers to something primal: the oceans from which life arose; Nature itself sounding an alarm. Reactors aglow seems to reference nuclear power plants, humankind's meddling with the basic particles of existence, but there is also a sense of menace in the phrasing, like the great glowing eyes of some abomination from the deep.

You think your security  Can keep you in purity  You will not shake us off, above or below 

Morgan now turns the focus of the poem onto the reader, stating that one's privilege (be it of wealth, class, gender, etc.) does not make one exempt from responsibility. We all have blood on our hands; nobody is pure. There is a degree of threat in the final line: you will reap what you sow, be it in this life (above) or the next (below).

Scottish friction, Scottish fiction

This line is repeated; the dichotomy is maintained. We are simultaneously the creators of, and products of, our own identities.

[thebookofnehemiah]

"The Dynasty." From the Book of Nehemiah, "the Exploration of the Mysteries of the Lions that Lay," 3: 18.

We continue to discuss the rebuilding of Jerusalem incrementally in districts and half districts.

Districts are 485, דחה, dha, "rejected" because it is too formal.

Half Districts are 520, הך , hach, "you, hurray!"

Herein lies the challenge with the creation of the Nsh. He must be more formal and also less than other human beings and still pull it off. We've explained how this is done, he must be artful in the making of his mistakes. For this he and we need what are called Levites, "free thinking people to whom we are joined."

For Districting to work we must have Levites. And guess what, we don't have any...so now we must discuss the role of the Nsh in their gathering as we cannot make repairs to our present conditions without them. This is called "Binnui" or "the building of the dynasty":

18 Next to him, the repairs were made by their fellow Levites under Binnui[f] son of Henadad, ruler of the other half-district of Keilah. 

Binnui son of Henadad means "to build with grace."

"The verb בנה (bana) means to build, mostly of stone buildings and thus of houses and thus of families and dynasties: hence the association between this verb and the nouns אבן ('eben), stone, and בן (ben), son.

Noun בניה (binya) means a building in the sense of a structure. Noun מבנה (mibneh) means building in the sense of place of building. Noun תבנית (tabnit) means building in the sense of the act of building: a construction, pattern or image.

Noun תבן (teben) means straw (the stems of grains), which was inserted into clay to enhance the structural integrity of the building. We do the same today with carbon fibers.

The verb חנן (hanan) means to be gracious or to favor. Nouns חן (hen), חנינה (hanina), תחנה (tehinna) and תחנון (tahanun) mean favor or grace. Adverb חנם (hinnam) means freely or gratis, and adjective חנון (hannun) means gracious.

The unused verb הדד (hadad) probably meant to thunder or make a loud noise (it does so in cognate languages). Nouns הידד (hedad) and הד (hed) describe a shout or shouted cheer."

The verse further says "half in Keilah" or "through eating" and "a crown of laurel."

In ancient times, very few young men got to wear a crown of laurel.

"The laurel wreath is used as a symbol of the master's degree. The wreath is given to young masters at the university graduation ceremony. The word "laureate" in 'poet laureate' refers to the laurel wreath.

In Ancient Rome, it was worn on the head as a symbol of triumph. The symbol of the laurel wreath is from Greek mythology. The Romans adopted the symbol because they admired Greek culture. In Rome, they were symbols of military victory. Laurel also represented a "natural antipathy for anything of a fiery nature."

The conquering hero in the Book of Revelation also wore a laurel crown, a warning all moral victories are temporary:

6:2 And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

The message here is our Nsh might be young and cute and interesting to us now and the world will kneel at his feet but we need more than one Nsh and one moral victory over the forces of darkness and much more than our traditions which have lasted, we need a dynasty, as the text idicates; a cherished and proper way of life that is transmitted from father to son peer to peer, academy to student until God draws the curtain of time closed.

But first...the Nsh.

The Number is 6914, ו‎טיד‎, "and TID." "a weed."

One weed can spoil the whole field:

"The weed of choice would have been darnel, which looks a lot like wheat but when consumed causes a potentially fatal nausea. The Latin name of this plant is lolium temulentum, with lolium relating to the word latrine and temulentum meaning drunken.

Besides bankrupting the owner of the contaminated lot, this crime could also result in the death of innocent consumers, or even incapacitate an entire local population. This means that it could be used as an act of war, or a first assault of an ensuing battle. The act of sowing tares in someone else's field reminds of salting the battlefield, which is what Abimelech did to the town of Shechem (Judges 9:45). This in turn reminds the much earlier circumcision of the men of Shechem, which Levi and Simeon insisted on so that they could kill them all, while they were inconvenienced (Genesis 34:24-25)."

To repair the District of Jerusalem, the place and also the spirit of the people, we need to clear the field of weeds and sow the Nsh, the one upon whose head belongs the laurel who will seed the rest.

This crappy shit that is being caused by democracies has to be stopped. They are planting poisonous weeds all over the planet, pretending to act in the defense of man when they are verily only planning to be its enemies. America is a good example of this. We will continue to explore remedies to this as the repairs continue.