#quotidian introduction post

[fatehbaz]

[S]peed itself might be understood as debilitating. [...] This echoes the transformation of the epidemic into the endemic whereby [...] “death becomes durational.” [...] [S]low death occurs not within the time scale of the crisis [a particular single instance of blatant physical violence], not of the [singular moment or] event [...], but in “a zone of temporality . . . of ongoingness, getting by, and living on, where the structural inequalities are dispersed, the pacing of their experience intermittent [...].” In this nonlinear temporality, [...] “[...] slow death describes populations marked out for wearing out.” [...] Slow death is, quite simply, “a condition of being worn out [...].”

More trenchantly, some are living the disability that does not get codified or recognized as such [...]. [Their experience of precarity, poverty, stress, harmful environments, inaccessible healthcare, etc. can have dire impairing health effects but might not meet a technical institutional definition of "disability".] Mingus highlights populations (institutionalized, incarcerated, racialized) for whom claiming the term and identity of disability is difficult given many are already stigmatized as nonnormative, and deemed in need of fixing [...]. “[...] [W]e need to think of [...] a model of disability that embraces difference [...] and challenges what is considered ‘normal’ on every front [...].” Thus [...] disavow[ing] pathology is intertwined with a critique of the embedded structures of [...] eugenics [...] and its attendant forms of administrative surveillance [...]. [D]ebility [...] [is] endemic, perhaps even normative, to disenfranchised communities: [...] not that which is to come or can be avoided, but a banal feature of quotidian existence [...]

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If debility is endemic to disenfranchised communities, it is doubly so because the forms of financialization that accompany neoliberal economics and the privatization of services also produce debt as debility. This relationship between debt and debility can be described as a kind of “financial expropriation” [...]. Debt peonage [...] is an updated version of [...] [the] critique of “choice” under capitalism. Debt as enclosure, as immobility, is what Gilles Deleuze writes of [...]: “Man is no longer man enclosed, but man in debt.” This is especially true [...] in the United States, where health care expenses are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy, a capacitation of slow death through debt undertaken to support one’s health. This theory of human capital entails that [...] one is, as Geeta Patel points out, paying for one’s own slow death, through insurial and debt structures predicated on risk and insecurity, and essentially forced into agreeing to one’s own debilitation. [...] More perniciously, [...] finance capital enforces repeated mandatory investments in our own slow deaths, continually reproducing the conditions of [...] debility, capacity and disability.

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All text above by: Jasbir K. Puar. “Introduction: The Cost of Getting Better". The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability. 2017. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph contractions added by me. In this post, the italicized text within brackets was added by me for clarity and context. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]

[drainagenwaterproofing]

🏡 Unlocking the Hidden Secret Beneath Your Raleigh Home: The Marvels of Crawl Space Encapsulation 🌿

Are you a Raleigh homeowner seeking to fortify your property against the perils of moisture, mold, and energy inefficiency? Look no further than crawl space encapsulation. In this insightful post, we'll delve into the myriad advantages that encapsulation can bestow upon Raleigh homes, as elucidated by Drainage Solutions, a premier provider of encapsulation services in the region.

Introduction: The Unassuming Hero Beneath Your Feet Crawl spaces often dwell in obscurity, yet they wield immense influence over a home's health and longevity, especially in Raleigh's climate. With its penchant for high humidity and sporadic deluges, Raleigh lays fertile ground for crawl space maladies like moisture buildup, mold proliferation, and pest invasions. Nurturing these crawl spaces is paramount to forestalling such woes and ensuring the endurance of a home's foundation and structural integrity.

Environmental Benefits:

Moisture Control: Explore how encapsulation staunches the ingress of surplus moisture into your home's foundation, thwarting threats like wood decay and mold proliferation.

Mold and Mildew Abatement: Learn how encapsulation erects a barrier against mold and mildew, fostering superior indoor air quality and abating health hazards.

Augmented Indoor Air Quality: Delve into how encapsulation fosters a pristine indoor environment by expunging moisture and impurities from the crawl space.

Energy Efficiency:

Curtailment of Heating and Cooling Expenses: Grasp how sealing and insulating the crawl space yield substantial savings on energy expenditure year-round.

Mitigation of Energy Squander: Discover how encapsulation curbs energy wastage by stymieing air leaks and easing the HVAC system's burden.

Influence on Overall Energy Consumption: Contemplate the broader implications of encapsulation on your home's energy usage and ecological footprint.

Structural Integrity:

Warding Off Wood Rot and Degeneration: Unearth how encapsulation bolsters your home's structural soundness by warding off moisture-induced harm to support beams.

Shielding Against Pests and Vermin: Acquaint yourself with how encapsulation fortifies against pest incursions, diminishing the peril to insulation and wiring.

Prolongation of Building Materials' Lifespan: Grasp the enduring dividends of encapsulation in safeguarding the longevity and sturdiness of your home's framework.

Health Benefits:

Diminution of Allergens and Irritants: Probe how encapsulation engenders a sanitised indoor milieu with diminished allergens and respiratory irritants.

Deterrence of Respiratory Maladies: Learn how encapsulation can help mitigate the risk of respiratory afflictions for your kin by elevating indoor air quality.

Amplification of Overall Occupant Well-being: Embrace the holistic advantages of encapsulation in nurturing improved health and contentment among occupants.

Financial Considerations:

Potential Appreciation in Property Value: Apprehend how encapsulation can augment your home's resale value by enhancing its structural integrity and energy efficiency.

Cost-Efficacy Over Time: Discern why encapsulation constitutes a judicious long-term investment, with savings on maintenance and utility outlays eclipsing initial expenses.

Comparative Evaluation of Upfront Investment versus Long-Term Gains: Weigh the pecuniary ramifications of encapsulation against the substantial dividends and benefits it confers over time.

Installation Process:

Synopsis of Encapsulation Techniques: Familiarise yourself with the steps entailed in encapsulation and how Drainage Solutions customises their services to align with your specific requisites.

Duration and Disruption to Homeowners: Familiarise yourself with the encapsulation process's timeline and minimal intrusion into your quotidian affairs.

Imperative of Engaging Certified Professionals: Grasp the significance of entrusting certified mavens like Drainage Solutions for the seamless installation of your encapsulation infrastructure.

Conclusion: Pioneering Home Health:

Uncover why the present juncture presents an opportune moment to contemplate crawl space encapsulation for your Raleigh abode and how Drainage Solutions can facilitate the realisation of a healthier and more robust living environment.

Speculate on the trajectory of crawl space encapsulation technology and its potential to catalyse further enhancements in home health and sustainability for posterity.

Eager to fortify your Raleigh dwelling and enrich your quality of life? Initiate contact with Drainage Solutions posthaste to schedule a consultation and unearth the transformative virtues of crawl space encapsulation firsthand.

[quotidian-oblivion]

𝙷𝚒! 𝙸'𝚖 𝚀𝚞𝚘! (𝙰𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎𝚜, 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢'𝚛𝚎 𝚖𝚢 𝚙𝚎𝚗𝚗𝚒𝚎𝚜)

Rᴇsɪᴅᴇɴᴛ ᴛʀᴀᴜᴍᴀᴛɪᴢᴇᴅ ғᴀɴғɪᴄ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇʀ ᴀɴᴅ ᴏᴠᴇʀᴇɴᴛʜᴜsɪᴀsᴛɪᴄ ғᴏᴜɴᴅ ғᴀᴍɪʟʏ ᴛʀᴏᴘᴇ ʟᴏᴠᴇʀ

(ao3) (youtube)

I ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ sʜɪᴘ.

Oʜ, ᴀɴᴅ I'ᴍ ℳ𝓊𝓈𝓁𝒾𝓂 (𝒮𝓊𝓃𝓃𝒾)

She/her

Cʜᴏᴄᴏʟᴀᴛᴇ ᴍɪʟᴋ ɪs ᴍʏ ᴄᴏᴍғᴏʀᴛ ᴅʀɪɴᴋ sᴏ ʟᴇᴀᴠɪɴɢ ᴀ "🧋" ᴏʀ "🍫🥛" ᴀɴʏᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ʜᴀs ᴍᴇ ᴇxᴛᴇɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴍʏ ғʀɪᴇɴᴅsʜɪᴘ.

Fᴇᴇʟ ғʀᴇᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴀsᴋ ᴍᴇ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴀɴʏ ᴏғ ᴍʏ ғɪᴄs ᴏʀ WIPs! I ʟᴏᴠᴇ sʜᴀʀɪɴɢ ᴀɴᴅ, ᴄʜᴀɴᴄᴇs ᴀʀᴇ, I ᴡɪʟʟ ᴏᴠᴇʀsʜᴀʀᴇ ʙᴇᴄᴀᴜsᴇ I ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴘᴏssᴇss sᴇʟғ-ᴄᴏɴᴛʀᴏʟ. As ᴀ ғɪᴄ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇʀ ᴅᴏᴇs

Hᴏᴡᴇᴠᴇʀ, I ᴀᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ᴏᴘᴇɴ ᴛᴏ ᴀsᴋs ʀᴇʟᴀᴛᴇᴅ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴍᴏɴᴇʏ, ʜᴀᴛᴇ, ᴀɴᴅ NSFW ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ.

𝙸 𝚊𝚕𝚜𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚊 found family on tumblr (<- 𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚕𝚢 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛𝚜)

ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎ꨄ︎ఌ︎

Check out my ao3: quotidian_void - Works | Archive of Our Own

❥︎ Blanket permission to tag me on any tumblr posts/tag games. I appreciate asks too!

❥︎ Blanket permission also to create any inspired works, podfics, translations from me, or any gift fics too. As long as you contact me first and credit my works.

❥︎ Blanket permission also to just. spew nonsense anywhere, because chances are, I'll join in with you.

❥︎ Please do not repost my works or my posts. Give credit where it's due.

❥︎ Please do not feed my work to any AI or have AI go anywhere near my work. I like to preserve my original creativity.

❥︎ Requests for Not All Good Things Come In Packages is open! You can request anytime!

✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎✿︎

☻︎ Rules for requesting ☻︎:

You can request any pov, missing scene, extra scene, and idea under the comments of this work or any of my others, or better yet, my tumblr ask box cuz then I can sort through them easily.

I will TRY to write them all, but there’s no guarantee for that cuz it really depends on the prompt itself and my mental energy.

I’m not doing anything which is outside of platonic. I feel uncomfortable with sex and romance. So, yeah, that’s out of bounds.

If you do request something which was already requested or I can't do it for some reason or the other, I shall let you know.

I'm only accepting prompts from the fics that are present on my ao3 (regardless of which fandom).

If I'm not sure of something, I will ask you for further information either on the ask you requested, or in the comments section, or in tumblr messages.

I will take a while writing them, sorry.

You are very welcome to rant about a plot or theory or anything for a fic request.

Fluff prompts are welcome.

Angst prompts are very welcome.

Hurt/comfort prompts are very very welcome.

Crack is me. I am crack. (Meaning crack prompts are also very welcome)

The link to the actual work is up there attached to the title of the fic. 'Tis u͟n͟d͟e͟r͟l͟i͟n͟e͟d͟.

᯽ One last thing, I'm still getting used to being a regular fanfic writer + I'm a non-native English speaker so you may find some grammar mistakes. I'm improving every day though. ᯽

☢︎︎ My fics are purely for entertainment and are not meant to represent anything. They are also fiction. Please keep that in mind. ☢︎︎

ꕥ Have a good one! 💖🧋

༆༄༆༄༆༄༆༄༆༄༆༄༆༄༆༄༆༄༆༄༆༄༆༄༆

𝙼𝚢 𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚜: 𝕢𝕦𝕠𝕥𝕚𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕧𝕠𝕤 - original posts, conversations with moots and other users 𝕢𝕦𝕠𝕥𝕚𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟 𝕒𝕤𝕜𝕤 - asks i send, asks i answer (mutuals or anonymous askers have their nickname along with a '<3' after it) 𝕢𝕦𝕠𝕥𝕚𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟 𝕨𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕖𝕤 - my original written pieces on tumblr 𝕢𝕦𝕠𝕥𝕚𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟 𝕗𝕚𝕔𝕤 - information or links to my fanfics 𝕢𝕦𝕠𝕥𝕚𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟 𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕤 - books recs :) 𝕢𝕦𝕠𝕥𝕚𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟 𝕡𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕤 - my polls 𝕢𝕦𝕠𝕥𝕚𝕕𝕚𝕒𝕟'𝕤 𝕓𝕒𝕓𝕪 𝕡𝕠𝕤𝕥𝕤 - posts from the first time I got tumblr, before I abandoned the account for a year-ish and came back 𝕢𝕦𝕠 𝕕𝕚𝕕 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕗𝕗 - stuff I made (art, edits, etc.) 𝕢𝕦𝕠'𝕤 𝕕𝕟𝕕 𝕤𝕖𝕤𝕙𝕖𝕤 - memorable and funny instances from my Dungeons and Dragons sessions after school with irl friends 𝕧𝕚𝕕𝕢𝕦𝕠𝕤 - my edits (the term's lovingly coined by iggy ^^) Quotidian solves - I just wanted to save my detective work leftover from the aussie anon drama :)

Some notable events with the family tumblrweed and mutuals: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐩𝐞𝐭 𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐡(𝐚)𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 The unmasking of the aussie anon (subtag: birbs interrogation, binary anon's reveal, the astonishing accusation of quotidian, the compelling conclusion to the saga, the second unmasking, mysterious anons, mysterious anons: the reveal) The looming shadow of detective cygnus

[weaselandfriends]

I bet you have probably seen Neon Genesis Evangelion. If so, what do you like or don't like about it?(I'm talking about the original series, not the rebuild movies).

A lot of NGE detractors cite Shinji’s wimpiness as a problem with the story, but I think when people say that they’re actually identifying a visible symptom of a much more significant problem: inconsistent pacing.

If I step back and examine NGE the show structurally, I can divide it pretty cleanly into three distinct parts:

1. Episodes 1-6

2. Episodes 7-16

3. Episodes 17-26

The first part, which is the shortest, introduces the situation and stakes, establishes Shinji’s psychological problems about getting into the mech, and culminates with a large, climactic battle against Cube 2 Hypercube in which the heroic efforts by everyone (literally everyone, as all of Japan comes together to provide electricity for one superpowered attack) inspire Shinji to do what is demanded of him. The amount of narrative content packed into these six episodes is huge, because there’s also the development of the relationship between Shinji and Rei that serves as kind of a microcosm for Shinji’s ability to trust, depend on, and help other people, and which also sees a narrative resolution in the final episode when the two work together to defeat their enemy.

Episode 7 is essentially a filler episode, then Episode 8 introduces Asuka. I get, conceptually, the idea behind Asuka and what she’s supposed to provide to the plot. She is, in essence, a fiery, hypermotivated soldier who wants nothing more to get into the mech and prove herself, which juxtaposes her against Shinji’s reluctance. But I think, narratively, Asuka is redundant, as her role has essentially already been filled by Shinji’s classmates Toji and Glasses. Asuka adds a sort of gender dynamic to that question by being female while Shinji’s classmates were male, but ultimately not much dimension has really been added to a question that was already posed and resolved in the first 6 episodes. (I know you mentioned you weren’t talking about the Rebuild movies, but think about how effortlessly those films substituted Asuka for Toji in the experimental Unit 03 plot; these two characters really are doing the exact same thing narratively.) Asuka receives way more narrative weight that Toji does, has a huge flashy introduction episode, gets a lot more screen time, et cetera, but she hasn’t changed much of anything and because of that the next few episodes, which frequently focus on her role, are often pretty stagnant in the grand scheme of things. There are several obvious filler episodes where Shinji and the gals take on Monster-of-the-Week type angels who fail to live up to the massive narrative weight and big, flashy scale of Cube 2 Hypercube back in Episodes 5 and 6. As such, the story sinks into a dull holding pattern, one that lasts longer than the entire, densely-packed first arc. The pacing, in short, has gone from “fast” to “dead stop.” Nothing is developing, not the characters, not the story, not even the sense of scale or the stakes. The middle of NGE is a gaping black hole that only becomes more frustrating as the third part begins.

I think I would ordinarily want to put Episodes 17 and 18 into the previous part, because what should very obviously be a culminating moment for flashy new character Asuka gets stolen from her and given to (now irrelevant) Toji. If it were Asuka who gets into Unit 03, it would sort of justify the second part, although not its length or arduous pacing. But because Asuka is completely divorced from the Unit 03 subplot, I’ve decided to organize it into the climactic third part, where NGE seems to remember it’s supposed to have stakes. However, there’s another extremely frustrating element about these two episodes, because after them, Shinji regresses back to the reluctant (or unwilling) hero he was all the way back before the Hypercube fight. It’s this moment of regression, I think, that drives so many people batty about Shinji as a character, because NGE just topped off 9 to 11 episodes of nothing really happening with a huge moment of plot de-advancement. I think if this moment came shortly after Episode 6, with Asuka being more heavily involved in it, it plays out a lot better. But because of the show’s massively inconsistent pacing, the frustrations the viewer feels for the narrative itself are dropped onto Shinji and make him come across as kind of obnoxious. The fact that it’s irrelevant Toji who sparks this regression in Shinji is also a misstep; it just makes it a lot more difficult to empathize with Shinji when this tragedy has occurred to a character who barely rises above the background. (And in classic anime fashion, the show pulls a massive punch and doesn’t even kill Toji, when it really needs to be hitting as hard as humanly possible to sell this regression.)

By Episode 19, the narrative is basically back to where it started in Episode 1, with a couple more characters floating around and a smaller number of angels left to fight. Basically, the first 18 episodes don’t matter that much. It’s here where NGE actually starts, and also actually starts to get good. If you can get past the the huge frustration of Shinji’s regression, NGE very quickly returns to the fast pace and ramping scale/stakes of Episodes 1-6. The angels become more threatening and difficult to defeat, the characters start to break down emotionally and literally, the sense that things are slanting toward a disastrous conclusion grows and grows. And it finally culminates in End of Evangelion, which I would consider close to a masterpiece, an excellent film where my largest criticisms are that it’s shackled so strongly to the uneven show that came before it.

The first two Rebuild moves, while sacrificing the excellent visuals of the show and injecting a few stupid elements like Mari Illustrious, resolve a ton of the problems I have with the original. Asuka gets put into Unit 03, while Toji and the other schoolkids are correctly reduced to only the barest of roles. The distended post-Asuka midsection is slimmed down significantly and more emphasis is placed on using it to drive Asuka into that climactic Unit 03 moment. Unfortunately, Rebuild 3 is kind of a hilarious mess that makes zero sense, but oh well.

Overall, NGE is a strong story with extremely high heights muddled by some fairly quotidian narrative missteps. It’s worth it for EoE, though. That movie is phenomenal.

[womenintranslation]

Women in Amerindian Literature: an essay by Elisa Taber

(Image: armadillo carving, a handicraft of the Mbya Guaraní, the indigenous community the poet Alba Eiragi Duarte belongs to.)

Women writing in indigenous languages in Latin America are working to both decolonize hegemonic feminism and to counter systematic linguistic censorship. Their poetic discourse posits that women’s rights do not need to be individualistic but communal and that national identity needs to be multicultural. It is not why but how they write, and the range of languages they use, that makes their writings impossible to group together under the label “indigenous literature.” The Mixe writer and linguist Yasnaya Elena Aguilar Gil has rejected the standard binary imposed on literary production in indigenous languages in Mexico, “I have yet to find a common trait that justifies that a literature written in such distinct languages and that belongs to eleven disparate linguistic families shares any grammatical features or poetic devices that, together, can be contrasted to Spanish.” (“(Is There) An Indigenous Literature?”) The distinctiveness of each indigenous language and culture must be respected and the conception of a ‘minority’ literary category that homogenizes them must be questioned.

Those eager to discover linguistic, cosmological, and poetic diversity should read the work of the following contemporary women writers: Natalia Toledo and Irma Pineda, Zapotec poets; Ruperta Bautista Vázquez and Marga Beatriz Aguilar Montejo, Maya Tsotsil and Maya Yucatec poets, respectively; Liliana Ancalao and Faumelisa Manquepillán, Mapuche poets; Lucila Lema Otavalo and Eugenia Carlos Ríos, Quechua poets; Alba Eiragi Duarte and Susy Delgado, Mbya Guaraní and Jopara poets, respectively.

The community of Latin American writers and academics studying Amerindian poetry–especially Violeta Percia and Juan G. Sánchez Martínez–have generously shared with me the work of these contemporary women writers. I encourage readers to visit Sánchez Martínez’s multilingual digital collaborative anthology platform, Siwar Mayu. The digital nature of this anthology shows that, as Walter Ong posits, it is electronic, rather than print, media that makes visible the transgressions writing inflects on transcribed orality. The auditory and visual performance components of oral literature are rendered through multimedia; i.e. the translated text is accompanied by recordings and illustrations. A lyrical, fictional, or non-fictional piece is published in the original indigenous language as well as in Spanish and English, together with an illustration by an indigenous artist and an essay by an indigenous academic reflecting on the work’s literary value. The result, which is not simply the transcription but the multi-sequential and multisensory translation of oral literature, calls forth a secondary orality.

The poetry of these Zapotec, Maya, Mapuche, Quechua, and Guaraní poets present distinct modes of production, lyrical devices, and linguistic features that are jointly defiant of their Western counterparts. Their collections live between Spanish and an endangered indigenous language. They are crafted and distributed orally; transcription is a secondary and sometimes unnecessary step. Many are self-published in print or online, via social media. Language loses its weight this way; it becomes ephemeral, alterable, it ceases to belong to one person. However, the content is firmly rooted in the soil, sometimes focused on the quotidian–specifically, the act of boiling a potato–and other times on the metaphysical– specifically, the distance between life and death bridged by another conception of corporeality within time and space. I believe this poetry is excluded from the national canon of each country these poets belong to precisely because there is so much complexity encrypted in its apparent simplicity.

In this post I will introduce the poetry of the Paraguayan poet, Alba Eiragi Duarte, who writes in Mbya Guaraní (which is distinct from Jopara, a variant of Spanish-inflected Guaraní) and will discuss how her work is excluded by a definition of national literature so narrow that it has no place for indigenous poetries. Eiragi Duarte has introduced, illustrated, and self-published her collection Ñe'ẽ yvoty, ñe'e poty (Our Earth and Our Mother), writing bilingually in Spanish and Mbya Guaraní. The first section consists of sixteen of her own poems. The language and content are simple. The poems address ontological subjects: what it takes to survive, to cook, sleep, and work. Or what it means to be alive: the passing of the seasons, the transition from dawn to dusk, the birth and death of loved ones. The lines are short but read as sentences, almost like instructions. The language is formal and distant until speech erupts, In “Pore’ỹ” (The Absence), the third person narration shifts to the first with the lines

Che kérape rohecha,

che páype rohechase

che membymi porãite

I see you in my dreams and

when I wake, I wish to see you,

my daughter, my life.

Emotion is unmediated yet counters nostalgia with a sense of what is real now: her daughter is deceased and the narrator, alive. There is nothing mythical about these poems, if myth is defined as the attribution of human intentionality to the inexplicable or meaningless.

In her last poem, “Che Rata” (My Fire), day dawns, the narrator lights a fire and sets a sweet potato, a mandioca, and a kettle atop it. The poem ends with the lines, “che rata ikatupyry, / ombojy ha’uva’erã” (fire is vital, / it cooks food). Life appears to be as simple as waking. Regaining this clarity is a task that is as complex for the reader as it is for the author. The poet refuses to be distracted by the superfluous and encourages the reader to do the same. Alba Eiragi Duarte is, above all, an ethical poet. There is a circularity in each text that is intrinsic to the author’s conception of life and poetry: what is simple is complex and what is complex is simple. She has no need to resort to complex metafictional device to underscore this paradox.

In the second section, titled “Mombe’u añeteguaite Avá Ruguái rehegua” (The True Story of Avá Ruguái), Eiragi Duarte retells a religious myth. (In Guaraní Avá means man and ruguái, armadillo.) Avá Ruguái is like a man, but is more solitary, agile, and cruel. When men hunting in the jungle enter too deep to return before nightfall, he puts them to sleep and kills, quarters, and skins them. The poet recounts the story of the man who kills Avá Ruguái because Ruguái has killed his brother. In one scene, the narrator squats in the scrubland, watching Avá Ruguái lift his sleeping brother by the nape of his neck. There is something cinematic about the specificity with which corporeality in space is described. Time is ambiguous but the events that are recounted seem to occur in the span of one night.

The wilderness—its flora and fauna—is heightened by the descriptions and accompanying illustrations. It is as though the quebracho and palm trees witness the events as the readers do. Behind a low stand of thorn bushes, a man lies stiffly on the ground. The tips of his feet point right. He wears a dark shirt and light pants. His silhouette is delineated by the darkest line in the drawing. His eyes and mouth are lightly sketched, they fade into the white paper. He grips his hand over his abdomen. He seems dead, not asleep. Another man stands over him with a bow in his hands and a sack full of arrows on his back. Palm trees lean left and right in the background. The rigidity and lack of expression of the human figures is in stark contrast to the ornamentation and movement of the bushes and trees. The book’s illustrations underscore people’s inflexibility towards the elements of nature, which in turn adapt to them. The narrative shows the retribution of nature, embodied by Avá Ruguái, to the transgressions of humans.

Eiragi Duarte recites these poems and stories, transcribed on illustrated placards, to children in rural schools across Paraguay. This educational program counters the loss of knowledge of the Mbya Guaraní language and of sacred narratives. She comes from an oral or mnemonic tradition in which authorship is not individual but communal. The poet compensates for the transgressions writing inflects on transcribed orality by combining her poetry with stories that have been passed down to her and by illustrating both on the placards.

She aspires to create a national Paraguayan literature that is multilingual and multicultural. Yet her poetry is intrinsically untranslatable unless the conception of literature broadens to include her manifesto of social ecology. In the introduction to the book she not only posits an equality between genders but also between human beings and nature. By conceiving of human rights and authorship in a communal sense, and at the same time blurring the distinction between the social and ecological, she forces readers to regard the parts of a whole as distinct yet interconnected in new ways. Behind the apparent simplicity of these poems and stories lies a true reconception of reality and how it is rendered in fiction and poetry.

The term literature must be challenged because it reduces these verbally organized materials to a variant further developed by literate cultures. With respect to sacred narratives, the term authorship must shift from an individual to a communal definition. The narratives do not belong to the ones reciting them—they only author a version—but rather to the millenary indigenous cultures the reciters belong to. The history of the transcription and translation into Spanish of poetry from indigenous languages since the conquest has three stages. The first was carried out by missionaries; the second, by social scientists, specifically linguists and anthropologists; and the third, by writers.

I have featured the work of Alba Eiragi Duarte in this post because it speaks to the literary properties of the text, rather than exclusively to its cultural or linguistic aspects. She shows that the culture or language is not so much in danger of extinction as it is at risk of voluntarily subjugating itself through national aspirations to westernization. She also proposes that her translations are parallel versions of the original. It is only by challenging the terms “literature and authorship” that the national as well as the continental canon will be broadened to include indigenous poetry. Failing that, its lyrics will continue to circulate orally as common knowledge, but without validation as artistic works in their own right, not folkloric artifacts.

—Elisa Taber

Works Cited

Aguilar Gil, Yasnaya Elena. “(Is There) an Indigenous Literature?” Translated by Gloria E. Chacón. Diálogo, vol. 19, no. 1, Spring 2016, pp. 157-159. (Original article in Spanish published in March 2015 in Letras libres (https://www.letraslibres.com/mexico-espana/libros/literatura-indigena).

[an-incurable-affection-blog]

Waverley

Walter Scott. 1814. “Novel” list.

Walter Scott’s first novel and arguably the first historical novel ever, Waverley, or, ’Tis 60 Years Since, opens with a discussion of why the narrator chose the title Waverley, or, ’Tis 60 Years Since. Such an opening is only the beginning of the Waverley narrator’s running play with a meta-narrative of his own artistic choices. He discusses everything from chapter length (“Shall this be a long or a short chapter?–This is a question in which you, gentle reader, have no vote, however much you may be interested in the consequences”) to the introduction of new characters (”But Rose Bradwardine deserves better of her unworthy historian, than to be introduced at the end of a chapter”).

The narrator states that he chose the titular character’s (and based on it, the novel’s) title because it is “an uncontaminated name, bearing with its sound little of good or evil…”. The reason given for the subtitle, ’Tis 60 Years Since, is that it makes clear what genres the book is not (Gothic romance, sentimental tale, novel of manners), as well as the fact that it’s “more a description of men than manners,” a clue we can apparently gather from sixty years ago being, in terms of manners, an unglamorous period to describe. 

But the title has still more significance than the narrator explicates. The name “Waverley” is not in reality uncontaminated, having graced the characters of a few of his novelist contemporaries, but it does particularly suit Scott’s protagonist, one of whose defining qualities is indecisiveness. He “wavers” in matters large and small, from whether he will betray the current government to fight for the Stuarts in the Jacobite Uprising of 1745, to what books he wants to read. Waverley’s irresolution aptly represents the genre Scott seeks to establish, a genre that sits at the crossroads of the forking possibilities of the historical moment at which a particular novel set. We as readers are expected to know the outcome, and becoming familiar with Scott’s sympathetic Highland and Lowland characters, with the knowledge that their cause and their culture will be lost, adds to the pathos of the reading experience. “’Tis 60 Years Since” puts one of the novel’s feet in the year of its setting and the other in the year of its publication, simultaneously. “’Tis 60 Years Since” reminds us of what time it is “now” as much as it is an indicator of when the book takes place. It’s a very different subtitle than, say, “’Twas 1745,” for example. In that way, the subtitle mirrors the title, wavering between 1745 and 1805. Looking back from the vantage point of the latter, one outcome of the war has been foreclosed⁠. But for Waverley, and amidst the events of Waverley, indeterminacy rules.

Another of Waverley’s key personal characteristics that helps define the novel is his curiosity. In the course of his stay in Scotland, unfortunate circumstances make it look as though Waverley, an officer in the British army, has betrayed his commission to cross over to the rebels. This is not true⁠—it is only the government’s treatment of him as a supposed traitor that later allows him to be swept up in the other side. The first circumstance that gives his actions such a misleading cast, and the one that makes the rest possible, is the direct result of his curiosity. Motivated by curiosity alone, while visiting his father’s Scottish friend Colonel Bradwardine he joins an envoy to the Highlanders in order to observe their way of life. This throws him unawares into the midst of the Jacobite plot. (Waverley, by the way, is always unaware of the historical import of what happens around him, allowing the reader to exchange her post facto perspective on events for that of someone wrapped up in them as they unfold.) Compounding the suspiciousness of a visit to the rebel Highlanders, the robber Donald Bean Lean takes advantage of Waverley’s stay in his cave to steal his seal and commit treacheries with Waverley’s identity. 

This is only one of several instances in which characters’ curiosity drives the plot. If Waverley were not so curious, his life in this period would be too uneventful to write about. Similarly, in the novel as a genre, a reader’s curiosity is necessary for the act of reading to move forward. In the historical novel, which presents many situations the outcome of which is already known by the reader, Scott relies on our curiosity about what will happen to the fictional characters. History can tell us nothing about what side of the war Edward Waverley fights on, the consequences of his choosing the losing side, or whether he picks as his Scottish bride Flora MacIvor (who represents the grand sweep of history) or Rose Bradwardine (who represents everyday domesticity). Like Waverley’s name, Flora’s and Rose’s signify their symbolic roles: one is a particular flower, while the great one is floral in general. 

In the end, Waverley’s inability to make firm decisions saves him from the fate of Flora’s very determined brother Fergus (execution). Swept up in the rebellion almost unconsciously, he is later pardoned by the triumphant Hanoverian government. That trait that most disqualifies him to be a hero of history allows for his happy ending in the realm of the quotidian, just as the ability of Scott’s historical novel to fluctuate between past and present enables its success. 

[gynandromorph]

cherrvak replied to your post: TODAY i am going to… resist the urge to spend this...

Have you considered studying mathematics? Many people get turned off from mathematics because it’s taught very badly in schools, but there are fields abstracted enough from quotidian arithmetic that they feel more like puzzle games than “math”. I recommend Topology without Tears, which also contains a decent introduction to proof methods and an overview of cardinality (there are different sizes of infinity!)

have considered; am also turned off from it because compulsory education does indeed teach math as shittily as possible

[dweemeister]

Floating Weeds (1959, Japan)

Director Yasujirô Ozu was tardy to synchronized sound in movies. With the introduction of sound in 1927, he did not make his first talkie until 1936. So too was he tardy with color. With black-and-white and color movies released together for decades, Ozu’s first color film came with Equinox Flower (1958), followed by Good Morning (1959; a remake of Ozu’s 1932 film I Was Born, But...). Later in 1959 another Ozu color talkie remake of one of his black-and-white silent films came to Japanese theaters: 1959′s Floating Weeds, a remake of A Story of Floating Weeds (1934). An already great original version is made better in this instance thanks to beautiful on-location shooting and a more mischievous sense of humor. In one of his most accessible pieces in his filmography, the cast includes many newer faces in this Ozu film. This is because Ozu’s contract with his home studio, Shochiku, had completed, and this next project was thanks to an invitation by Masaichi Nagata – the president of Daiei Film. Floating Weeds is made up largely of Daiei’s contracted actors, with one notable exception being Ozu mainstay Chishû Ryû.

Shot on the edge of the Kii Peninsula looking into Japan’s Inland Sea, Floating Weeds is a late-career testament to Ozu’s remarkable consistency as a director and storyteller, a crafter of dramas as compelling any drama could be – even when all the “showier” moments are never depicted, only discussed.

It is a sweltering summer in a lazy seaside town, with the occasional fishing vessel making its way through the harbor. A traveling kabuki troupe has arrived and they announce their new slate of shows with an impromptu parade and music. The troupe’s leader, Komajuro Arashi (Ganjirô Nakamura), is here not only to perform, but to see his old mistress, Oyoshi (Haruko Sugimura), and college-bound son, Kiyoshi (Hiroshi Kawaguchi). Oyoshi runs an intimate restaurant while Kiyoshi works at the local post office, building his savings before heading to university. Kiyoshi is told that Komajuro is his uncle – a secret that is threatened when Komajuro’s current mistress, Sumiko (Machiko Kyô), becomes jealous as he is not spending enough time with her during the daytime before performances. The film features a younger troupe actress named Kayo (Ayako Wakao) and the theater owner (Ryû). Character actors Kôji Mitsui and Haruo Tanaka also play bit roles.

The screenplay, co-written by Ozu and partner-in-crime Kôgo Noda, leans into the melodrama moreso than most Ozu films. Central to Floating Weeds are its characters speaking about permanence and belonging – like the original silent film version, the title is derived from the saying, “Floating weeds, drifting down the leisurely river of our lives.” For this film’s characters, it is difficult to always be traveling, living within the mercy of ticket sales, although the company of fellow troupe members makes the difficulty worth it. Komajuro is not an authoritarian boss to his fellow actors, but he is unable to see situations through others’ perspectives. Why are they not more like me, he wonders, as he is repeatedly surprised that the other members of his troupe imagine what life could be like without traveling across Japan. He cares for his fellow actors to the extent that everyone depends on each other for their roaming lifestyle. To his “nephew”, secrets remains unspoken behind an avuncular act that occurs every few years – Komajuro does not want Kiyoshi to follow or replicate a life that is dependent, rootless. It is how he remains Kiyoshi’s father, because he knows of no other way to do so. This concentration on Komajuro does come at the partial expense of understanding Oyoshi. It is no debate that she has been a wonderful mother to her son, but she is essentially a single parent that receives the occasional payment from an absent father. Does she harbor any spurned feelings for this arrangement? Is she content with what life has become or does she yearn for something else? Ozu and Noda never explore this quite enough.

Cinematic ellipsis is found in most of Ozu’s work, leaving the viewer to work together what has occurred in between scenes. Less-experienced Ozu viewers will be caught off-guard, claiming that characters seem to lack motivation, but Ozu has never been one to show the details of a steamy date, pomp and circumstance, or tearful departing words. As Ozu’s career progressed, his use of ellipsis generally increased – he became less interested in narrative flow, more interested in human perceptions and insights at a given moment. When Sumiko’s machinations involving Kayo are revealed to Komajuro and when Oyoshi tells her son about who his “uncle”  is, all that has been built up to these dramatic reveals are moments of quiet or lightly reflective conversation. Melodrama here is empowered through objectively-shot conversation, oftentimes casual rumor-mongering or quotidian remarks about how the day has been. The static pillow shots in between scenes (Ozu’s innovation where, after a lengthy scene, he might show us a few seconds of the corner of a building or a shot of the sea’s edge or the neon lights of a narrow street to allow the viewer to reflect on what has just occurred) serve as periods do in writing. The idea of a scene may be picked up later, or maybe it has served its purpose in defining to the viewer the characters who gradually show who they are across the film (and in a handful of cases, minor characters who appear once or twice – to Ozu, even these characters have a significant role to the ideas the film expresses).

There are times where – other than the character names, the setting, the synchronized sound, and the color photography – Floating Weeds seems indistinguishable from A Story of Floating Weeds (the two films have similar opening pillow shots). By 1959, Ozu’s era of experimentation had long since concluded. Ironing out what became his signature style in the 1920s and 1930s, the tatami shot aesthetic (where the camera would be placed low to the ground, pointed slightly upwards) and the pillow shot became his trademarks. The ellipsis was a given (as was passable to terrible child dramatic acting, which Ozu never seemed to improve on – not as if children were essential to Ozu’s dramas). Differentiating between A Story of Floating Weeds and Floating Weeds is that the latter, mostly in its opening half, has a broader sense of humor, playfulness – one running joke, more easily understood by those familiar with Japanese filmmaking or culture at-large, is that this kabuki troupe is depicted as anything but a high-quality entourage. It is a welcome reprieve to what might otherwise have been a hard-hitting domestic drama with no easy resolutions. This might be because that Daiei Film was less associated with melodramas than Shochiku.

In his first Ozu film, cinematographer and Daiei contractee Kazuo Miyagawa (1950′s Rashômon, 1965′s Tokyo Olympiad) always keeps the camera static – as one would also expect from any Ozu feature. It is a beautifully shot movie, perhaps most notably for the following sequence. As Komajuro and Sumiko move in an argument that is carried across the street that separates them, the camera does not pan with them. Notice where the camera is located as the characters speak: not over anyone’s shoulder, but a set distance from each character as they make their points. The second way this is shot has the camera reverting back to showing us part of the rain-splattering street, far back enough so that neither character physically dominates the frame. This latter framing is an extraordinarily complex composition filled with vertical lines that almost threaten the frame’s geometry, but it serves to lend objectivity to the two characters arguing their views – so that cinematography does not have much say in giving unwanted sympathy to either character.

Composer Takanobu Saitô (1953′s Tokyo Story, Equinox Flower) usually had little of interest to do – musically, cinematically – in his scores for Ozu’s films. Flowing, pastoral string melodies without motifs are typically played over the opening credits. But this is, if only for one cue, an unusual score for Saitô. In the scene where the troupe enters town for the first time, Saitô has composed a cue where the melodies reside in the woodwinds and where percussion is prominent. It is carnival-like music, which may remind some Italian cinema aficionados of the exuberance of Nino Rota’s scores for ‘50s and ‘60s Fellini films.

Lacking the absolute serenity of many Ozu films, Floating Weeds is nevertheless an exemplar of Ozu’s inimitable style and how emotionally and philosophically effective it can be. Because it has more above-the-surface melodrama than most in Ozu’s filmography, Floating Weeds is a possible starting point for any neophytes to a type of filmmaking far removed from exposition-delivering and overt dramatics of mainstream Western cinema (not that all Japanese cinema has bucked Western influences – a vast majority of the most popular contemporary Japanese movies, live-action and animated, take notes from Hollywood and not Ozu). For those who make Floating Weeds their first or one of their first Ozu films, the film serves as an introduction to some of the unifying ideas in his entire filmography. Individual lives are inescapably altered by others. To repudiate or fail to intuit that truth is to invite suffering; to intuit that truth but not attempt to understand others’ actions is hubris.

My rating: 9/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[solsticeonfire-blog]

Introduction

Hi!

This blog will be an astrological record of my journey through life in 2019, using the methods of sidereal astrology. I won’t go into detail about the topic of sidereal vs tropical astrology here, but I recommend Solunars.com for more information if you seek it.

Those who are engaged with predictive astrology will likely be familiar with various types of return charts, transits, progression methods, etc. My goal is to learn, by experience, how all of these fit together, and to improve my interpretation of them in that shared context.

To that end, I will be tracking all of the following, using the classical 10 solar system bodies:

my Sidereal Solar Return (SSR)

all of my Sidereal Lunar Returns (SLRs) and their demi-returns (which I abbreviate DSLR - sorry, photography folks)

transits to anything in the nativity or SSR, or to secondary progressed luminaries and angles (the quotidian angles) from either chart - hard aspects within 1 degree orb. I’m ignoring transiting Moon.

secondary progressed planets aspecting both progressed and radical (non-progressed) planets and angles, for the both nativity and SSR - hard aspects within 1 degree orb (plus trine and sextile for SP natal planets).

I will also be evaluating a few supplementary charts as I go, mostly near their expiration or if extreme circumstances warrant me looking earlier: my Kinetic Lunar Returns (SLR for secondary progressed Moon), Anlunars (SLR for SSR Moon), and Enneads (9th harmonic or 40-day solar cycles), and converse Lunar Returns (SLRs cycling backwards in time from the day I was born instead of cycling forward in “real time”... yeah, I can’t say I expect much there).

I’ll probably also review my Demi- and Quarti-SSRs in passing, but also don’t expect much.

This process begins with my SSR, which will take place on December 21st. I’ll post SLRs and DSLRs as they become active (or slightly before), and track their unfolding over time. On most days (when I have something to note), I’ll post all of the ongoing relevant factors and the results, or lack thereof. For periods without much to note, I’ll summarize them at some point during it.

Major questions I hope to answer for myself include:

How do angular planets in a lunar return behave differently than in a solar return?

How do ongoing lunar returns, transits, etc fit within the scope of the current solar return?

How strongly do inner planet (and Sun) transits manifest? Do I need to care about them?

How strong are transits to progressed (quotidian) angles and luminaries, for the natal and solar return? How close to exact does the transit need to be?

Is it likely for anything major to occur between direct and retrograde transits by the same planet (I.e. between “passes”)

Finally, will I miss anything important if I never look at Kinetic Lunars, Anlunars, or Enneads ever again?

I hope that newcomers to astrology will be able to learn more about how transits and return charts work alongside me.

I also hope that more seasoned astrologers will be able to gain more data for their files as I analyze specific times and dates for specific types of prognostic tools.

I’ll post my birth data and natal chart later so others can follow along in their own software if they wish.

[eug]

It’s been a distinct honor working with Kara Walker, the artist we selected to create the original poster for this year’s New York Film Festival. Thank you to my colleague Ann Tenenbaum for making the initial introduction to Kara, who shared the following regarding her design: “I photographed the two cut paper figures silhouetted against the white backdrop of a shadow puppet screen in a number of cryptic scenarios. The initial result had the tonal quality of a grainy black-and-white film clip, but I was annoyed that there was no actual story. In post production—meaning, while fiddling with Photoshop—I cropped another of the characters from the shoot: the figure of a raging, menacing jackbooted man with a little red tissue paper around him. As I moved that crop around, it fit neatly into an outstretched hand like the cellphone that was missing all along. Suddenly, it is two women watching a man behave in some kind of way, as if fictional character Topsy foiled evil plantation master Simon Legree by filming him and then sharing it. The many events we are witness to, both absurd and horrifying, grand and quotidian, that are shared on small screens, resonated as a counterpoint to the legacy of cinema and the history of the New York Film Festival. What to make of the amateur filmmakers equipped with just cell phones and a critical eye?” Thank you, Kara. (at Film at Lincoln Center) https://www.instagram.com/p/CTkmEoTptyo/?utm_medium=tumblr

[daylflay]

Gen-Z

Biters’ Remorse (Or Lack Thereof)

Most good horror movies have something to say, some social commentary to thrust upon attentive and thoughtful viewers, especially zombie movies. George A. Romero was perhaps the most prominent director of zombie movies in cinematic history, and that’s because he basically invented the modern, flesh-eating, slow-moving, undead variety of zombie that contemporary audiences hunger for (forgive the quip). With Night of the Living Dead, Romero’s first, and arguably most seminal, foray into the genre, he used imagery such as that of hordes of white people attempting to kill a black protagonist in order to comment on the racism endemic in America circa the 1960s. Ten years later, In Dawn of the Dead, Romero once again used zombies as a vehicle for criticism, but this time he set the action in a mall in order to tackle the issue of consumerism. The latter portion of Romero’s zombie oeuvre features a couple of entries, Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, whose messages would undoubtedly resonate with modern audiences even though the two films were released almost fifteen years ago: The former features a fortified city separating the entitled from the rest of the embattled world, commenting upon the xenophobia and nationalism engendered by a post-September 11th America; the latter features individuals recording the horrors of the apocalypse with handheld cameras, an obvious allusion to the advent of YouTube (Diary of the Dead was released in 2007). If Romero were still alive, then I’m certain that he would still be making zombie movies, and furthermore I’m pretty sure that the criticisms he’d be levying would be directed at misinformation and its propagation on the web, among a plethora of other subjects (recent events would’ve given him plenty to work with, to say the least). The world is currently facing a real-life pandemic, COVID-19, and its spread is attributable to many factors, such as lack of hygiene, large gatherings of people, etc., but I’d argue that misinformation has also played an inordinate role in this crisis. In Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology And The Law To Lock Down Culture And Control Creativity, Lawrence Lessig states that “the internet has unleashed an extraordinary possibility…to participate in the process of building and cultivating a culture that reaches far beyond local boundaries.” Lessig isn’t criticizing the internet with his statement, but I’m indeed doing so with my quotation. That “reach” that Lessig referred to, it’s what ultimately makes it difficult to quarantine those infected by misinformation, and it in turn makes life more difficult for those trying to survive in the web’s hordes of misinformation/misinformed people. 

The Survivors

Not all of the individuals I’m tracking carry pretensions of professional journalism, some are simply trying to live their lives as normally as possible during this national emergency. Having said that, considering the prominence of the novel coronavirus currently present in practically all matters of public discourse, much talk of the epidemic is present in almost everyone’s tweets to some degree. Of the individuals of my blog’s focus, Kashana Cauley and Patti Harrison are easily the least politically active and journalistically inclined. The Twitter accounts of both women have been producing a minor amount of content as of late, which makes sense considering they, like everyone, are likely dealing with the coronavirus situation and all of its associated complications upon quotidian life. Cauley’s only tweet from 3/12/20: In response to a quoted tweet from CNN journalist Ana Cabrera that read, “McConnell ally says Senate won't take up House #coronavirus bill until after recess. ‘The Senate will act when we come back and we have a clearer idea of what extra steps we need to take,’ Sen. Lamar Alexander told reporters.”, Cauley tweeted, “I don’t know why, but I think if the rest of us rolled into work & said ‘let people die until March 23rd’ we might get fired.” Cauley is obviously paying attention to the news, but not necessarily engaging with it in any major way. Harrison only tweeted twice on 3/12/20, and one of the tweets read: “Lying in bed bottomless, legs spread, patting my mound, my phone 2 inches from my face, arching my back and moaning with SINFUL anticipation for all of the front-facing character videos we are about to see when all these comedians get quarantined inside our houses…mmmm fuck!”. Harrison is responding to the news, but not intimating at criticism of said news like Cauley did in her aforementioned tweet, instead vying for the use of apolitical humor in order to entertain her followers. 

Rick Wilson spends a lot of his time on Twitter attacking Donald Trump and the Republican party, and that hasn’t changed, as evidenced by his activity from 3/12/20: In response to a quoted Trump tweet that read, “Sleepy Joe Biden was in charge of the H1N1 Swine Flu epidemic which killed thousands of people. The response was one of the worst on record. Our response is one of the best, with fast action of border closings & a 78% Approval Rating, the highest on record. His was lowest!”, Wilson tweeted, “So this is how you want to play it?”. Wilson has never claimed to be a journalist, but he provides a lot of commentary on the news, especially news of a political variety, so it’s no surprise that a lot of his current tweeting pertains to the coronavirus considering its proximity to politics. Despite lacking in professional ties to the journalistic industry, Wilson is still playing an important role in the fight against misinformation by fact-checking and pushing against sophistic Trump/Republican narratives being circulated (https://www.vox.com/2020/3/12/21176750/trump-coronavirus-response-disaster).

The Quarantine

For all of the responsible web users who aren’t contributing to the spread of misinformation, there are of course those who need to be quarantined due to their being carriers and deliberate disseminators of said misinformation. Candace Owens is one of those individuals who needs to be quarantined, immediately. Twitter is by no means a newspaper, but it’s nonetheless a source of news for some, and when one has a following the size of Owens (2 million as of 3/12/20), then one has a responsibility to at least attempt to promulgate accurate information, especially when one likes to play at being a journalist. Owens has always fancied herself a journalist of sorts, but if she hadn’t dropped out of the University of Rhode Island while attempting to acquire a degree in journalism (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/youtube-tested-trump-approved-how-candace-owens-suddenly-became-loudest-n885166), then perhaps she’d understand that the journalistic institution has a code of ethics. One of the most basic aspects of journalism, an aspect that’s tragically being undercut in the modern era by irresponsible fools such as Owens, is so simple that a child could ascertain it: Get the basic facts straight. This is one of Owens’ tweets from 3/10/20: “One day, we will look back and study the impact of the coronavirus…Not the virus itself of course, but the mass global mental breakdown that it inspired…Because people think it’s novel that 80 year olds are dying at a high rate from a flu…This tweet will age well.” Not only is the information contained in her tweet plainly incorrect, but it’s dangerous. First of all, there’s a big difference between coronavirus and the flu (https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-vs-flu-which-virus-is-deadlier-11583856879), evidenced not only by the disparate terms, but by the simple fact that the flu doesn’t lead the World Health Organization to declare the presence of a pandemic every flu season (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51839944). Secondly, while it’s been reported that it’s primarily older people dying from COVID-19, youth doesn’t preclude one from catching coronavirus and spreading it to those older people; not to mention those of varying ages with underlying conditions such as autoimmune diseases who could easily die via coronavirus (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/health/coronavirus-midlife-conditions.html). Owens is just an extension of a type web-user Christian Fuchs refers to in Social Media: A Critical Introduction: “Cultural communities are not automatically politically progressive...Facebook group[s] [exist]…for Norwegian right-wing extremists…[like]the fascist terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in the Norwegian terror attacks on July 22, 2011”. Owens isn’t a violent terrorist (that I know of), but the misinformation she’s spreading could nonetheless be responsible for far more deaths than that of Breivik. It’s no wonder that Owens is a pariah to the vast majority of professional news outlets and can’t find columnist work outside of conservative propaganda-peddlers such as Fox News.

The Anti-Quarantine

Graduate of the University of Oxford, host of UpFront on the Al Jazeera network, writer/podcaster for investigative journalism outlet The Intercept, frequent commentator on networks such as CNN, Mehdi Hasan is essentially the diametric opposite of Owens (https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/14/18678698/mehdi-hasan-intercept-impeachment-donald-trump-pelosi-kara-swisher-recode-decode-podcast-interview). Hasan is a serious, passionate journalist who takes the dissemination of information/news very seriously, whether it be on Twitter or otherwise. Hasan has been absolutely restless on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting on germane news as it breaks and fact-checking those who attempt to misinform. Here’s Hasan challenging NBC columnist Richard Engel on 3/12/20, less than an hour after Engel posted his tweet: Engel tweeted, “The reaction/overreaction in the US to the virus seems largely political. Trump’s critics have no confidence in him, so they panic. Others defend Trump no matter what he does and don’t listen to anyone else. Not a recipe for keep calm and carry on. When broken you can’t be strong”; Hasan quoted Engel’s tweet and responded with, “Please don’t ‘both sides’ the anti-science, failed-on-testing, pandemic-minimizing conspiracy theorist in the White House.” Hasan is the antidote to the infection being spread by individuals such as Owens; whatever the opposite of a quarantine is, that’s what we need to do to Hasan. 

The Line

The line between amateur and professional may be blurred in some cases due to the rise of social media and the power of web-based technologies such as smartphones, yet in a lot of cases that blurring isn’t relatively important, but in the case of a pandemic such as COVID-19 and the blurring between amateur and professional journalism, the difference between an amateur like Owens and a professional like Hasan is of the utmost importance. Owens’ misinformation-spewing may well contribute to the deaths of actual people, and furthermore disrupt the important work of good-faith journalists like Hasan. What’s at stake here is clear: life and death. 

Life and death were subjects very much on George A. Romero’s mind during his filmmaking career, e.g.: Romero’s cinematic universe, a patchwork of films loosely connected to each other by an overarching narrative a la the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was kicked off by Night of the Living Dead; the concept of the living dead of course remained a linchpin of Romero’s work until the end. Unfortunately, like the namesake of so many of his films, Romero himself is now dead, so I have taken it upon myself to propose the concept for the next film in his cinematic universe of the living dead. In Quentin Tarantino’s Star Wars?: Digital Cinema, Media Convergence, and Participatory Culture, Henry Jenkins talks about “the story of American arts in the twenty-first century [and how it] might be told in terms of the public reemergence of grassroots creativity as everyday people take advantage of new technologies that enable them to archive, annotate, appropriate, and recirculate media content.” If I had more time, I’d certainly attempt to contribute to Jenkins’ perception of “twenty-first century” art via a short Romero-inspired film uploaded to YouTube or some similar platform, but I’ll settle for this faux-blurb instead: The year is 2020, and the world has rarely been more divided and vulnerable. Catastrophic weather events have ravaged the globe and displaced millions, spurred by a rapidly changing climate and subsequently decaying ecosystem. Political divisiveness has led to international protests and civil unrest with heretofore unparalleled levels of fervor. A highly contagious virus has begun spreading inexorably from country to country, slowly but surely infecting and killing an increasing number of people. Misinformation is running rampant on the web, leading to mass confusion and extreme skepticism of any and all information being disseminated. At the Biology department of a university in Fullerton, California, an accident is about to take place that will blur the lines between the living and the dead. For some, it’s felt like the end of the world for a long time, but those feelings are about to validated, and the world will be too distracted warring with itself, and the truth, for anyone to do anything about it. When the world already feels like hell, the living dead will feel right at home. Welcome to the world of…Gen-Z. Like those selfies while you still can. Coming to a theater near you…NOW! It’s already happening, so stock up on toilet paper…          

[smallpressdistribution]

12 SPD Books for a Super Scary Halloween

BOO! Here at SPD, we are going to get in you into that ghoul & goblin mood with some of SPD's scariest, most terrifying books. YIKES! It's trick or treat time, everyone. Hold on to your butts.

On Ghosts By Elizabeth Robinson (Solid Objects)

"Elizabeth Robinson's ON GHOSTS returns us to the haunted aura around words. Here, a crossing of genres—poetry, prose meditation, personal testimony—shows that language itself amounts to a gathering of ghosts. Robinson's oblique lyricism beckons us toward a twilight zone where we become 'witness to the unverifiable.' This is writing as the highest form of bewitching."-Andrew Joron

lo que les dijo el licantropo / what the werewolf told them By Chely Lima (The Operating System)

"Be very afraid of the full moon. There are several transformations in lo que les dijo el licántropo/what the werewolf told them by Cuban poet Chely Lima, and all of them come with teeth, blood, and a sort of vicious sadness lying just below the surface. In the title poem of the collection, Lima’s speaker (the werewolf) speeds down the highway with their own body in the trunk, “la negación / de la negación” (“the negation / of the negation”) (16/17), muffling their own screams. " -Gabriel Ojeda-Sague

Skeleton Coast  By Elizabeth Arnold (Flood Editions)

"Arnold’s collection is simultaneously powerful and delicate, radiating elegance and resilience." -Publishers Weekly

Ghosts and Grinning Shadows: Two Witch Stories  By Helen Adam (Hanging Loose Press)

"a welcome and timely treat." - Chance

The Tales of Horror: [A Flip-Book] By Laura Mullen (Kelsey Street Press)

"Mysterious fluids, blood curdelling screams, inappropriately all-caps sentences--they're all here, and wonderfully immediate, making an exaggerated, rollicking introduction to many of the pre-occupations, rhetorics and methods of experimental poetry. "  -Publishers Weekly

Utopia By Joey Yearous-Algozin (Counterpath Press)

"In UTOPIA, Joey Yearous-Algozin rewrites the first of the seven Saw movies in the second person, using the undated version of James Wan and Leigh Whannell's script available on imdb.com.”

Real: The Letters of Mina Harker and Sam D’Allesandro By Dodie Bellamy and Sam D’Allesandro (Talisman House, Publishers)

“Real contains letters between Dodie Bellamy (Mina Harker) and Sam D'Allesandro; the transcription of a story that was taped by D'Allesandro before he died in 1988; and a letter by Bellamy that concerns D'Allesandro's death.”

Murder By Danielle Collobert, trans. Nathanael (Litmus Press)

"Uncompromising in its exposure of the calculated cruelty of the quotidian, MURDER'S accusations have photographic precision, inculpating instants of habitual violence."

The Necro-Luminescence of Pink Mist By Ed Steck (Skeleton Man)

"With language by turns horrific, violent, and austerely meditative, THE NECRO-LUMINESCENCE OF PINK MIST is the undead exploitation film Ozu never made, and that the world is finally ready for."

Pop Corpse By Lara Glenum (Action Books)

"A radiant brew of emoticon opera, fairytale fan-fiction, and chat-room flame war, POP CORPSE! follows a heroine mermaid on her devoutly disarming search for "realness." Along the way, Glenum dismantles pieties of both the left and the right, proposing new models of configuring text, voice, body and species-hood for those who swim in the increasingly fetid waters of the 21st century. "

PUSWHISPERER By Mark Crislip, MD (Bitingduck Press)

"How does a cat parasite in the brain make you a terrible driver? Why do people erroneously think 98.6 is normal body temperature? What do mummified head lice say about human migration to the Americas? All of these questions and more are considered in the PUSWHISPERER, a collection of a year's worth of Medscape blog posts that has been edited and reorganized for a lay audience."

Third-Millennium Heart By Ursula Andkjaer Olsen, trans. Katrine Ogaard Jensen (Action Books / Broken Dimanche Press)

 “Olsen's ambivalence entails an embryonic potential: uncoupled from all normative arrivals, her syntax sprouts with mutant possibility, one nimbly conveyed by translator Jensen's flexible touch. From the darkness of this "comajubilation," in a stutter-step of declarations and retractions, THIRD MILLENNIUM HEART is a work of radical re- conjuration.“

[shooktim-blog]

In the last 7-8 years, I’ve been on a number of river cruises not only in Europe, but also in many other parts of the world. My enjoyment with this style of travel isn’t unique either; interest in seeing the world from a smaller and more intimate ship has increased dramatically. I just returned from another one of these fun travel experiences, but sailing with a company that was new to me and on an itinerary that certainly wasn’t average. Since I’m in a position to compare and contrast with other cruise experiences, that’s what I want to do today and, in the process, hopefully share what the experience of sailing with Avalon Waterways on the Danube was really like. This isn’t a full review; that’s still to be published. No, rather I think that given just how many river cruise lines there are, that it’s first important to learn what makes some of them stand out.

What is Avalon Waterways

Founded in 2004, Avalon Waterways regards itself as a relaxed luxury cruise line that operates 16 ships in various parts of the world, but especially in Europe. Their ships are called Suite Ships, which I’ll detail more in another paragraph, but it means that their rooms are larger than the industry average and feature incredible panorama windows. From my own experience, they are a company that doesn’t fear innovation and offer unique experiences that do indeed make them stand out from their competitors. They also have a fierce commitment to the welfare of their crew and staff that, in turn, improves the guest experience in almost every way. Ships also accommodate slightly fewer guests than the industry norm, creating a more intimate and almost private experience. No, Avalon certainly isn’t your average cruise line and I think it’s the experiences off the ship that best prove that.

Active & Discovery

I sailed on the Danube from Budapest to Linz, Austria on one of the company’s Active & Discovery itineraries. Offered several times throughout the year on different rivers and ships, these itineraries are definitely not your average river cruise experience. These cruises are for guests who want to do and not just see and offer a wide variety of included-excursions that enable passengers to be active and fully engaged with the local cultures. As I learned, Active is no understatement and on my cruise guests had plenty of options including: biking in Budapest, hiking through national forests, jogging along the streets of Vienna, just to name a few. This is tempered by the Discovery side, which is very much focused on bringing local cultures to life in any number of ways. For me it meant learning some Hungarian in Budapest, taking a cooking class in Vienna and visiting a Trappist monastery in Austria followed by a beer and cheese tasting. When combined, the Active & Discovery itineraries feature some of the most engaging excursions I’ve ever seen, whether on a river or ocean ship, and nearly all were included at no extra charge. Looking back at it now, the excursions made an already fun experience so much more robust and engaging and it’s a concept I can’t believe more companies haven’t copied.

Cabins

Unless I am in a suite, I am nearly always underwhelmed by cruise ship cabins. They are what they are and over the years I’ve become accustomed to their compact size. Avalon is different though and for the company, it’s one of the major features that sets them apart from others. Onboard their Suite Ships, nearly all rooms are Panorama Suites and feature a much larger room size than the standard cabin on any of their competitors. When I walked in, it didn’t feel like a small river cruise cabin and, for me at least, that was the first test. What drew my eye instantly though were the massive windows, a standard feature in all of their Panorama Suites.

With the widest opening windows in river cruising, these wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling windows open 11-feet wide and, when combined with the innovative Open-Air Balconies, create an incredible feeling of bringing the outside in. To feature these views, the beds in the cabins actually face the windows, another unique design concept that shockingly hasn’t been copied by rival lines. Beds can be further personalized with a mattress and pillow menu, ideal for picky people like me who want a certain firmness in their beds. All together, these features come together to create a luxurious and infinitely comfortable experience the likes of which I’ve never seen onboard a river cruise ship.

The Intangible

I usually tell people that no matter their background or inclinations, there is somewhere in the world a cruise for them. I believe that strongly because I’ve been on a fair number of them and understand the different personalities that cruise lines possess and how those personalities greatly impact the travel experience. This was my first time sailing with Avalon and after more than a week with them, I walked away impressed. They feature many special touches I would expect in a luxury experience, but without any stuffiness or rigidity. The cruises aren’t just destination focused, they are guest-focused which, oddly (and sadly) enough is not the industry norm. Every guest was made to feel special, that their unique needs would be met, allowing them to enjoy their trip. Finally, all of these disparate features coalesce for me to create an intangible feeling that I can’t necessarily put into words. Avalon felt like a warm and welcoming space, a ship that would allow me to explore but also have fun. It all just felt right and sometimes in the travel experience, that’s enough.

As I mentioned in the introduction, expect a more comprehensive review of the sailing experience soon. I first though wanted to share not those quotidian details one might find on any river cruise experience, but the special attributes only found onboard an Avalon Suite Ship experience.

  This trip is a project managed by iambassador in partnership with Avalon Waterways. LandLopers maintains full editorial control of the content published on this site.

The post River Cruising with Avalon Waterways: First Thoughts About Key Differences appeared first on LandLopers.

[dumbfrickinlit]

obligatory first post

Hi! Welcome to my little writing blog. I’m dani. I like to play D&D, and I like to write about D&D. Thus, I have amassed an amount of writings sizable enough to warrant its own space -- this blog. Posts here should be relatively infrequent (perhaps excluding every other Sunday or so) barring the initial spam of old works, and will include things such as short drabbles, campaign “chapter” summaries, diary entries, and character Q&A’s for the most part. Posts will be tagged appropriately based on character(s) and campaign. My main group tends to mingle between different campaigns and story-lines so I’ll offer a brief explanation of things.

#MAINQUEST - Working title for the “main” and first campaign I have ever played in. Party characters include an elderly tiefling wizard Sircius (mine), the stoic wood elf ranger Phecda, the emotional high elf cleric Eleniel, and the tough living-suit-of-armor fighter Roc. #BABBYDUNJUN - Working title for the secondary campaign (and don’t tell anyone, but also my favorite) I’m in. Party characters include a naive wild magic sorcerer drow named Valdrin (mine), the sassy half-elven rogue Eurwen, the straight-man fighter Cameron, the hot-blooded oni barbarian Takako, and her soft-hearted barbarian brother Takeo. #ARANDEL - Title for the campaign that I DM for (my first time doing so!) with my normal group. Party characters include a quotidian human barbarian Roland (my DMPC), the deceiving harpy sorcerer Caeli, the slightly-unstable aetheril cleric Abigail, and the atypically-naive half-orc paladin Jalnira. #SEVEN ISLES - My own working title for the (at this time) new campaign I play in outside of my normal group. Party characters include the wandering kenku bard Griffin (mine), the dutiful elven ranger Keryth, and the chaotic aasimar paladin Astraea. More characters may return or be added later. Party is only in it’s 4th or 5th session at the time of writing.

I think that’s everything for now! Might make a secondary post giving a brief introduction into each of my characters. Either way, thanks for reading, whoever you are! I hope you enjoy.

[urbanyayawarblog]

2019 AD: Post 9 This iconic location in our city of dreams requires no introduction. Named after the statue located here, it is easily identifiable, even when bereft of the statue itself, missing even in this image, captured in 2015. However, since two years, the statue is back on its rightful place, in its full glory, presiding over on an equally iconic art festival that is back on its annual visit in this precinct this week. Yes, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival - KGAF, where you celebrate the extraordinary creativity out of what could otherwise be quotidian objects of Mumbai.  KGAF is indeed a celebration unparalleled - unmatched even for this pulsating city of ours; countless people thronging around appreciating those lively inanimate objects & moments full of gaiety & sparkling energy; possibly chaotic elsewhere but not in this city. How tempting it would be to pen the stories behind all those moments & lives around! How onerous the task would be! Not for a gifted raconteur perhaps, but for me surely. So I found a better way to celebrate: to whirl around like a dervish, lugging around the camera  and capture through my lens-eye the symphony of those chaotic moments on the street. Soon, you can see some of the images captured in past editions of #KGAF in a gallery on this site. Meanwhile, care to join me for a couple of hours of street photography? Do DM or call immediately, to meet just around the corner. Have you visited this edition already? Share with me your impression. #kgafest #tkgaf20 #kalaghoda #streetphotography #streets #mumbai #streetsofmumbai @the.street.photography.hub (at Kala Ghoda Art Precinct) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtfK58JhRxG/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1s9vckuzehoq

[trentteti]

The Morning Cometh: The January 2019 LSAT Recap

For most of you reading this post, you probably didn’t spend this weekend watching a meaningless football exhibition, or being hoodwinked by a network into thinking a highly publicized televised production of a popular musical was actually live, or being reversed psychologied into running for president. Most of you — being a smart and motivated type — probably elected to spend four or so hours of your weekend holed up in a test center, taking the the first LSAT of the calendar year 2019. And, if you’re still plugged in enough to note that all football exhibitions are, technically speaking, somewhat meaningless; that any televising of a live event involves at least some tape delay so none are, technically speaking, live; and that you can’t, technically speaking, make psychology into a verb, then we’re sure you did great on said exam. Your attention to detail is beyond reproach, and that definitely served you well on the test.

But no matter your attention to detail, everyone feels at least somewhat concerned after finishing a real LSAT. Even if you took dozens of practice exams before the big test, you’re now deprived of the option to receive your score back instantly, as was custom for all those practice tests. All you can really do is ponder how well you did. Many fixate on whether that one section that went slightly worse than the others was the experimental section. Many hope and pray and dream for a forgiving curve. Many wonder if others had as much difficulty completing that one logic game, or the one Reading Comp passage, or the one LR question about — you know, it was like vitamins and swimmers and tomatoes, or something?

So, for all of you left wondering how the exam went, that’s where we come in. We’ve spoken to students and read all the internet scuttlebutt, and now we are prepared to talk about last weekend’s LSAT. But … [voice deepens to a quiet, serious tone; eyes flutter nervously from left to right] … you know, LSAC might be watching us, right now. They could have hidden cameras installed around us. The phones might be bugged. We are living in a panopticon of their making. So we can’t get too specific with how we break down this exam. I don’t have the answers to any specific questions, nor could I give them out if I did. We can’t even give out too many details on the types of games or passages that were on this, lest we incur LSAC’s notorious wrath.

But there are a few things we can talk about. Like the difficulty level. And people who took this exam mostly agreed that the Logic Games section was the most difficult of the bunch. But not crazily, impossibly difficult. All of the games were ordering or grouping games — there wasn’t anything seriously strange that had test takers in a panic. Mostly, the reports suggested that the games were generally a little trickier than normal, made more difficult by some hard-to-parse rules.

Ambiguous-sounding rules were, unfortunately, a problem for many on the last LSAT — the November 2018 test. We don’t know if consecutive tests with ambiguous rules are an unhappy coincidence or part of a larger trend. Or if, perhaps, the writers of this test suddenly and mysteriously got worse at writing. But we do know that it’s always a good idea to double check each rule in a logic game. If there is an ambiguity in the wording of a rule, there’s usually a clarification in the introduction that can help you out. Anyway, that’s something to keep in mind for those who are planning to take an exam in March or beyond.

The games themselves involved ordering computer installations; arranging differently colored statues and pillars from shortest to tallest; determining the investment, loan, and mortgage departments in the east and west branches of a bank; and assigning traditional, modern, or luxury apartments to a few different floors on a building. For the record, the reports indicate that it was the last game with the ambiguous-seeming rule. That game also sounded like it had nine players to deal with — a larger-than-normal number of variables that might have further complicated that game.

We can also talk about the topics of the Reading Comp and LR questions. Reading Comp dealt with some tried and true topics the LSAT can’t get enough of. Copyright and trademark law, for one. The ethics of comparative medical research, for another. Oh and indigenous groups and astronomy, two seemingly distinct topics that this exam found a way to blend together into one passage. The most consistent complaint about the Reading Comp section was that the comparative passage (which was about two playwrights working in cultures other than their own) came first — a sneaky move, since that passage usually appears third or fourth in a section. Overall, Reading Comp didn’t seem overly difficult. Just the normal, quotidian difficulty of most recent Reading Comp sections.

Over on LR, Marie Antoinette, windmills, a colorful stone axe, e.coli in cows, and some dude named Smith were the most consistently referenced question topics. And, in a shocking-if-true twist, there were zero questions about dinosaurs, according to some.

We’re also allowed to predict the curve of this exam. Which not only involves quite a bit of speculation on any test, but is a sort of a futile exercise for a nondisclosed test like this one, since the curve will never be released. But, because many test takers use these predictions to determine whether or not they should cancel their score, we may as well give our best guess. Since there were multiple things that felt tricky to the test takers I spoke to, I don’t expect a particularly harsh curve like a -9 or -10 (meaning, you could miss 9 or 10 questions and still get a 170). But I wouldn’t expect a very forgiving curve like a -13, either. Although some of games were difficult, there wasn’t anything truly baffling, and I didn’t hear that any of the passages were completely indecipherable. Usually it takes an incredibly difficult game and an incredibly difficult passage to raise the curve into the -13 range. So I predict a -11 or -12 curve for this exam.

In sum, there may have been some difficult parts of this test, but those may be at least somewhat offset by a slightly forgiving curve. Barring any test center disasters, I don’t think there’s any reason to expect your score to be substantively different than your practice exam scores. If those diagnostic scores were around your target scores, it’s celebration time. If you want to live in a drunken and debaucherous state until the score release date of February 15, well, that is certainly one way to pass the time.

If, on the other hand, you’re thinking about canceling this score, you have some time to make this decision. You can read up on LSAC’s official cancellation policy here. Of course, it wouldn’t be the LSAT without overcomplicating a relatively simple idea. The official cancellation policy according to LSAC: you have until 11:59 pm EST on the sixth day after the exam to cancel using your LSAC account. To make that a bit easier to understand: you have until Friday, 11:59 pm Eastern to cancel. So sleep on it. Take a look at this video, if you need a little consultation from Blueprint co-founder Matt Riley.

Before canceling, you should also be aware that nearly every law school will simply use your highest LSAT when constructing your academic index, or whatever calculation it uses to assess you as an applicant. Although law schools will see every score you got on the LSAT, the vast majority of them won’t hold having multiple LSAT scores against you to a significant degree. For most test takers, our recommendation is don’t cancel. Choose to receive your score, just on the chance that you’ll be happy enough to with the score that you don’t have to study for the next exam.

No matter your ultimate decision, congratulations on finishing this exam. Hopefully, this blog is the last thing you’ll read about the LSAT, for at least a little while. If you decide you’d like to take another shot at the exam in March, we’ll be here for you, ready to help.

The Morning Cometh: The January 2019 LSAT Recap was originally published on LSAT Blog