#this is LE GUIN for FURRIES

[fox-teeth]

Hundreds of years in the future and thousands of light-years away, Mazu from Three-Hills practices her culture’s ancient art of sculpting spirit guides for the dead. But when technology from beyond the stars encroaches on her people’s lives—and deaths—what will happen to her art?

Read the rest of my new graphic novella "The Maker of Grave-Goods" this October exclusively through ShortBox Comics Fair--the innovative all-digital comics convention! @shortboxcomicsfair

[aulerean]

any time i scribble aimlessly my brain just makes little guys

[many-gay-magpies]

furry concept #2: what if i was a cat with wings

on a related note, does anyone else remember those really tiny books about the flying cats or was that an experience unique to my childhood?

[alicedrawslesmis]

Les Mis Big Supernaturals #2

Joly as a vampire. The one who started this whole thing:

Bossuet, former familiar now vampire. He still wears the same coat:

Enjolras, the old testament Angel:

Grantaire, gargoyle:

Combeferre, dragon: (PLEASE do yourself a favor and read Ursula K Le Guin's short story 'The Rule Of Names')

Courfeyrac, a fairy:

Feuilly, an elf (with a phrygian cap):

Jehan, witch and amateur-alchemist on the side

Bahorel in his furry werewolf form

[masterlovehurtssfw]

It’s not often that I post about anything other than freeuse smut here but... I thought I’d share some of the non-smut stories I’ve enjoyed reading:

Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper: SciFi in which tiny furry creatures that the expanding human empire can’t see as sentient at first end up being quite sentient. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0039UUBFC

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency By Douglas Adams: He solves crimes... holistically! It’s British humor, it’s fun, and you can’t go wrong with spending some time with anything Adams writes. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AYIN78A

How To Draw Anything by Mark Linley: When you don’t have “a drawing brain” but you still want to sketch out things well enough that people know what you’ve sketched out. This is the book. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0716022230

Zombie Prom by Phillip Rhoades: It has roller derby girls kicking ass and killing zombies. It’s a short book and a fun read by a little-known author. Clearly, the derby girls are a big draw for me. Same reason I wrote my derby girl stories. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08X3W17GT

Who P-P-P-Plugged Roger Rabbit (and other Roger Rabbit books) by Gary Wolf: Clearly an inspiration for my Fucking Toons story (and future stories). A world where toons and humans exist together. The movie’s version of Jessica was so great, he changed the character in future books. Eddie’s sister is even married to a toon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003FSU702

Various Stories by Lovecraft: Yeah, the man was not the best man and some of his writing is a little off but his monsters-outside-of-reason are great on a conceptual level and I am sure I reference some when I write alien stories or horror-themed smut. https://www.amazon.com/stores/H.P.-Lovecraft/author/B000AQ40D2

The Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin: I’m sure quite a few are familiar with these. Wizards, true names, bad choices, and great character development. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1481465589

Chronicles Of Prydain by Alexander Lloyd: If you like the Earthsea books and/or Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, then you will probably also love Prydain. Don’t let the flopped Disney adaptation of The Black Cauldron fool you, these stories are fantastic! https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250000939

I might make more posts like this, from time-to-time, if you guys are interested in my non-smut interests. Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into some of what I read when I’m not writing smut :)

[lyxthen-reblogs]

Hi there! I'm Lyxthen!

This is my reblogs side-blog. The bulk of the things I reblog go here! If you want to follow my main blog, where I post art and ramblings, I redirect you to @lyxthen

Things you may find here:

Videogames, Ace Attorney, Pokémon, Undertale

Anime and cartoons, Gravity Falls, The Owl House, Full Metal Alchemist, Madoka Magica, Evangelion

Books, Tolkien, Pratchett, Le Guin.

Memes

Furries

Writing stuff

Art stuff

General science bullshit

General fandom bullshit

More politics than it is healthy

Anything my mutuals are into at the moment, to be honest. Dunmeshi, RWBY, Disco Elysium, you name it

Things to keep in mind:

I ramble a lot in the tags of posts, if you don't like that, you may not want to follow me

On that same vein, I tend to overshare a lot there. Sorry I told you about my trauma, it will happen again

I may reblog posts that contain contradicting opinions, or things I don't completely agree with

I try not to get too horny in here, but some things might slip up

I do not tag spoilers

Many consider me to be annoying. I believe this assessment to be true

Trigger Warning Tags

#tw flashing for video or gifs containing flashing lights

#tw blood for images depicting blood

Other Tags

#fave tag for my favorite posts

#latamcore for posts that remind me, intentionally or not, of latinoamérica

#my beloved for posts containing my favorite characters

[book0ftheday]

City of Illusions by Ursula K. Le Guin. Cover art by Alex Ebel. Printed 1974.

[carnationinstantbutch]

Everytime I think of Sixth of the Dusk I also think of Ursula K Le Guin's "The Word for World is Forest". I read Forest long before Dusk ever got published but the two are intrinsically linked in my mind for some reason. My guess is, iirc, the planets from both books are primarily ocean, with lots of thick forested islands.

So I like to think somewhere on the planet Dusk takes place, there's some furry green people tucked away where no one can bug them.

[naamahdarling]

I’m fairly certain that you are at the very least aware of them, but just in case: Ursula K Le Guin wrote a series of chapter books about cats with wings. The first one is aptly named Catwings. Super cute and I loved them in grade school.

I have them all!!! They are so so so good!

And I heartily recommend them to children and adults, and this bit with Susan and Hank the humans and Harriet and James the cats made me cry the first time I read it:

“Oh, Hank," Susan whispered, "their wings are furry." "Oh, James," Harriet whispered, "their hands are kind.”

I still get all teared up.

[thatwritererinoriordan]

No one asked, but these are my all-time favorite episodes of LeVar Burton Reads:

- "Chivalry" by Neil Gaiman

- "The Second Bakery Attack" by Haruki Murakami

- "Furry Night" by Joan Aiken

- "The Fliers of Gy" by Ursula K. Le Guin

- "Blur" by Carmen Maria Machado

- "Mother of Invention" by Nnedi Okorafor

- "John Dillinger and the Blind Magician" by Allison M. Dickson

- "The Wishing Pool" by Tanarive Due

- "The Years of My Birth" by Louise Erdrich

[fox-teeth]

The Maker of Grave-Goods ~ only on @shortboxcomicsfair Oct '24

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 4, Number 9

The Long Hots

We enter the pumpkin latte season with a full slate of short reviews, covering both anticipated and overlooked releases from rock, pop, jazz, punk and unclassifiable genres. Contributors this time included Bill Meyer, Ethan Covey, Jennifer Kelly, Isaac Olson, Jonathan Shaw and Justin Cober-Lake.  

Baked – II (Exploding in Sound)

II by Baked

Baked, out of Brooklyn, belches a lava flow of viscous guitar sound over sweetly unassuming pop melodies. If J. Mascis ever wrote a song to impress the women of Look Blue Go Purple, if Beat Happening experimented with a whacked out set of fuzz pedals, it might sound a bit like this – in short, it’s fetching DIY pop with serious muscles under the anorak. When soft, vulnerable tune meets the bristling heft of feedback, there’s a palpable fizz, never more so than on “Hope You’re Happy,” sung by Isabella Mingione. “The Hartlett Anthem” does the same trick with Jeremy Aquilino singing tender hooks over the droning surf of dissonance like a sleepier Teenage Fanclub. This particular recording is Baked’s third, after 2014’s Debt and 2017’s Farnham but earns the “II” by being the second in Exploding in Sound’s Tape Club series. That’s undoubtedly why it’s so short, but brevity is tantalizing. These five songs leave you wanting more.

Jennifer Kelly

 Big Blood — Operate Spaceship Earth Properly (Feeding Tube Records)

Massachusetts-based Feeding Tube Records favors such a frantic release schedule that it’s easy to miss the consistently strange, often delightful albums they spit out. Earlier this summer, the label dropped Operate Spaceship Earth Properly, a fresh & freaky 45-minutes of scuzzy psychedelia from Big Blood. The Portland, ME duo of Colleen Kinsella and Caleb Mulkerin — joined here in some capacity by their daughter, Quinnisa — have been delivering properly furry trips since the 1990s, originally as founders of Cerberus Shoal. The spin this time involves a tip of the hat to authors such as Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin via a science fiction-inspired song cycle. Yet, concept aside, the songs have serious teeth, stomping forward in a heady slop of bullying riffs, martial drumming and Kinsella’s third-eye rants. It’s headphone music for the deep forest, a turned-on reality-strip far more properly psychedelic than the jammed-out noodling frequently paraded by those dressed in thrifted tie dyes. Listen at your own risk; be changed.  

Ethan Covey

  Manu Delago—Parasol Peak (One Little Indian)

Manu Delago, a classically trained percussion who specializes in the steel-drum-like instrument known as a hang, isn’t doing things the easy way. For this album and the accompanying film, he convened a chamber group of seven people and led them, instruments and all, on a mountaineering expedition in the albums (pity the cellist). These eight tracks were recorded outside, in all kinds of weather, using natural elements like sticks, rocks and trees for additional textures. The result is a rather lovely blend of percussion-dappled Reichian minimalism, augmented by the sounds of water, thunder and wind. The music works its way to the summit, beginning in the leafy, sun-warmed environs of “Parasol Woods,” where reedy, breathy clarinet and pensive trombone catch the light sparkling off intricate webs of tonal percussion. By “Ridge View,” sounds have turned chillier and more remote; flute and chimes are buffeted by gales of wind. A mournful, solitary whistle frames “Listening Glacier,” a trebly coating of ice on a grounding drone of cello, but there is exuberance and accordion wheezing triumph in “Parasol Peak.” Fingers and lips must be pretty frozen all round by this point, but a warm, pulsing joy emanates from this brass-y, syncopated reel. The question arises: why would anyone do such a difficult thing?  But the answer is right there in the accompanying video. Because it was beautiful, because it was hard and because it made a sound no other new chamber group could make, with woods, mountains, stones and  physical effort built right in.

Jennifer Kelly

 Ethers—Ethers (Trouble in Mind)

s/t by Ethers

Ethers spun out of the late Chicago drone-punk-garage outfit Heavy Times, pulling front man Bo Hansen and bassist Russell Calderwood into this new enterprise and adding Calderwood’s wife Mary McKane and drummer Matt Rolin. Along the way, Hansen et al seem to picked up a heightened appreciation for melody and hook (and percolating keyboards thanks to McKane). “It’s a Rip-Off” lurches and jitters on slashed guitar riffs and hard, straight up and down drumming, but there’s an undeniable lilt in its fuzzy tune, and “Emily” balances bluster and tenderness in equal parts. If Heavy Times drove a post-punk freight train through a long, shadowy tunnel, Ethers breaks out into sunshine on the other side of the mountain, the darkness in the music but not all of it. “Something” ends the disc on a high note, chiming guitar notes streaking like meteors down to a burnt-bare beat, an intoxicating smell of sleeping gas all around.

Jennifer Kelly

 Iron & Wine — Weed Garden (Sub Pop)

Sam Beam has somehow become a master of the EP. Last year's full-length Beast Epic from Iron & Wine received critical acclaim and a Grammy nomination, but it never really settled the way much of his earlier work had. Given that Weed Garden draws from that album's leftovers, the new EP could have been a quick toss-off to turn a few dollars on otherwise dead songs. Happily, though, Beam delivers a strong, quick set. Where he had traded in resignation, this one starts with an immediate rally, the call in “What Hurts Worse” to “become the lovers we need.” His awareness of brokenness becomes the grounds for a fragile restoration, his voice and the smooth production serving the message.

A few years old but until now unreleased, “Waves of Galveston” brings the necessary precision to a complicated situation, and the continuing Croce-like sound fits the mood perfectly. “Last of Your Rock 'n' Roll Heroes” brings a steady bounce to a series of impressions that eventually give way to the darkness. Closer “Talking to Fog” uses language to resist pending dissipation, offering gentleness among hardness and “reaching out” despite knowing safer options. Beam's writing relies on visuals until he makes blurry images come into focus, even if he maintains that “it's hard to find.” It's a strong statement from Beam, an album's worth of care in a little EP, again.

Justin Cober-Lake

  The Lavender Flu — Mow the Glass (In The Red)

Heavy Air, The Lavender Flu’s 2016 debut was a double album of feel-bad rock sent forth from the Pacific Northwest damp to soundtrack an endless bummer. Chris Gunn, formerly of The Hunches and Hospitals, assembled the album at home, on analog tape, building and reworking the tracks into one of the year’s most impressive collages of sound. The second time around, with Mow the Glass, the approach is different. Here, Gunn is backed by a proper band — brother Lucas Gunn, former Hunches drummer Ben Spencer and Eat Skull’s Scott Simmons. Those folks all lent a hand to Heavy Air, yet here they are in the same room, playing together to the buzz of warmed amps and a view of the sea. The album is trim and clear, focusing Gunn’s aesthetic without losing sight of the mindset that got him here in the first place. A couple of cuts from the first LP — “Demons in the Dark,” a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Like a Summer Thursday” — reappear with fresh coats of paint. “You Are Prey” begins tipsy and unraveling, with the band chasing a whip of stereo-panning guitar, before setting into a reverb-rich ballad. The mood is subtlety sunnier throughout, like a crack of light on the horizon viewed from the soak of a storm.  

Ethan Covey

  Long Hots — Monday Night Raw (Self-Released)

Monday Night Raw by Long Hots

You should listen to Trouble Anyway, the new LP by Rosali Middleman. Middleman is a talented songwriter, but part of what makes Trouble Anyway so listenable is its lush instrumentation, all-star band, and pristine production. Middleman is also a member of The Long Hots, and their debut tape, Monday Night Raw sounds, by contrast, like it was recorded on a Fisher-Price tape deck by a band with about three weeks of musical experience between them. It’s glorious. The members of Long Hots are rock and roll lifers, so Monday Night Raw’s amateurism is both affected and effective, and sure to satisfy anyone who thinks Here Are the Sonics!!! is too slick. Of particular note is the ten minute “Boogie Trance,” which delivers exactly what it promises, no more, and “Die Die Die,” the chorus of which goes, you guessed it, “Die, Die, Die, Die.”  

Isaac Olson

  Paul Lydon — Sjórinn Bak Viò Gler (Paul Lydon)

sjórinn bak við gler by Paul Lydon

When you’re on your own, labels don’t mean much. Paul Lydon is an American musician who has been based in Reykjavik, Iceland since the mid-1990s. His discography is small, and he’s never made the same record twice. He’s sung alone and with a partner, in English and Icelandic, and kept the accompaniment varied each time. On Sjórinn Bak Viò Gler there is no singing at all, but it’s the most lyrical music of his recording career. The album’s title translates as The Sea Behind, and given Iceland’s prevailing clime you might want to keep it that way until there’s a closed door behind it and you. Lydon’s touch on the instrument betrays close acquaintance, and it’s easy to imagine him spending hours playing and ruminating on what he’s played. It doesn’t fall easily into any genre; its stream-of-consciousness flow is too perambulating for pop, too elaborate for minimalism and it doesn’t fall easily into any classical form. So let’s not worry about what it isn’t, and instead appreciate its confidently open-ended melodies and comfortably solitary mood.

Bill Meyer          

 Thee Open Sex — White Horses (Sophomore Lounge)

THEE OPEN SEX "White Horses" by Thee Open Sex

Indiana might seem like an odd place to give birth to a combo committed to diving deep into Krautrock concepts but think again. You’ve got highways and flat land that doesn’t afford much of a view once you’re over the cornfields; what could be more practical than motoric music? The Open Sex makes music that’ll whittle away the road miles, and White Horses is cut precisely to get you 35 minutes closer to home. That’s how long guitarist John Dawson and drummer Tyler Damon bear down on a groove that’s more metronomic than equine. Three guests use their playing as a foundation for a wheeling superstructure of squelchy notes and spacey textures. This is white line meditation music; be sure to stay mindful of the weight of your foot upon the gas.

Bill Meyer

 Rob Noyes & Ryan Lee Crosby — Modal Improvisations on 34 Strings (Cabin Floor Esoterica)

[CFE#68] Modal Improvisations on 34 Strings by Rob Noyes & Ryan Lee Crosby

On record and in concert, 12-string guitarist Rob Noyes displays a clarity of intent that you don’t often see from an artist who is young and new. But not only does he keep his picking clean and lyrical through rustic rounds and mystery-laden excursions, he keeps his head in the presence of a very different guitarist. Ryan Lee Crosby plays chaturangui, a sort of hybrid veena / dobro guitar developed by Debashish Bhattacharya. The chaturangui is suited to the swoop and chime of Hindustani ragas, and that’s how Crosby plays it. Noyes embroiders the contours of his partner’s voluptuous lines and pushes back with pure-sound strumming. He manages to sound quite supportive and engaged without compromising the very different character of his playing. This short (not quite 28 minutes) tape is a typically atypical Cabin Floor Esoterica product; home-dubbed and hand-wrapped, a first edition has already gone out of print, but a second run is imminent.

Bill Meyer  

 Riesgo — Demo MMXVIII (Self-released)

Demo MMXVIII by RIESGO

It’s not often that you can claim a tape is both a throwback to and a continuation of a vital movement in punk, but listen to Riesgo’s new demo. You can hear both of those historical trajectories as soon as “Lobxs” kicks it. The bass’s rubbery warbling and the guitars’ razoring buzz recall the initial tones of Black Flag’s “Nervous Breakdown.” Then Carlos Ruiz starts singing, and the tape’s sound snaps into sharper focus. Chicago’s South Side, Latinx punks, thrashy attitude: Riesgo have picked up the baton from the excellent and underappreciated Sin Orden, who in turn had received it from the nigh-legendary Los Crudos. (Or, in a couple cases, band members just held onto the baton: Ruiz sings for Sin Orden, and Jose Casas played guitar for Los Crudos.) Razacore is alive and angry. That’s good news, and very timely. Given our current national moment — the current bullshit hating on Latino American identity and the reactionary responses to the violence in Chicago — this bolus of pissed off, politically fierce punk is precisely what’s needed. “Ahógate” is a standout track. The vocals and lead guitar are pretty unhinged, while the rest of the band hammers away at a compelling hardcore riff. It’ll sound great in a sweaty basement. Viva, Riesgo!

Jonathan Shaw

  Rocket 808 — Digital Billboards b/w Mystery Train (12XU)

Digital Billboards b/w Mystery Train by Rocket 808

Rocket 808 is the latest incarnation of the garage guitar phenomenon John Schooley, whom you might remember from the Revelators (or if not, enjoy this set of Billy Childish covers laid to tape in a record store in Columbia, MO in 1996). A frequent solo performer (his website is called John Schooley and his One Man Band), Schooley does it all on these two tracks. “Digital Billboards” overlays the cheerful cheesiness of a vintage drum machine with incandescent flares of whammy and deep reverbed guitar darkness. Surf rock, sure, but evil and skeletal and scary, with shades of Suicide in the wild ghostly automatism. Side two’s “Mystery Train” amps up the rockabilly, the drum machine cranked to the breaking point, the guitar arcing and spitting in turbulent bursts. Schooley sings on this one, steering classic blues lines around hard bends until they lift off the pavement. This sort of blues-referencing, early-rock-aware music always has an element of parody, but Rocket 808 seems less performance-art-ish than Bob Log III or Heavy Trash. It’s dark and dangerous, a heightened reality rather than a pose.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sam Weinberg — A/V/E (Anticausal)

A/V/E by Sam Weinberg

Sam Weinberg has contributed some raw sax to some harsh ensemble settings, particularly the duo W-2 and various gigs with Weasel Walter. But when he closes the door to his Brooklyn apartment, things get real. The sounds from outside his window and on his kitchen table prove equally valuable as he constructs a mutating environment out of inscrutable industry, passing traffic and critters, the mechanical parts of his horns and some vigorously scoured surfaces. This is the stuff of life, or at least Weinberg’s life. Layer upon layer of sonic activity coexists like the residents of a big old NY apartment building, close in proximity yet not particularly interested in each other.

Bill Meyer

[random-thought-depository]

Star Trek tried to depict a world that’s different from and better than ours in the same kind of way our world is different from and better than the world of 1845. It sometimes fell into the obvious potential failure modes of trying to do that. But I think that’s a valuable imaginative project, and y’know, it’s something I actually don’t see much of in science fiction. Dystopias and “a lot like the modern First World but with spaceships and lasers,” societies are a dime a dozen in science fiction, but attempts to depict a society that’s radically better than ours actually seem fairly rare (no doubt because doing so convincingly is such a challenge and trying is so much going out on a limb creatively and socially). The only other examples I can think of offhand are Chris Wayan’s various pastoral bonobo furry utopias and kinda-sorta Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. I respect the imagination and bravery involved in what Star Trek was trying to do.

I have issues with Trek, sure, like how much the technology and stories have gotten way dumbed down, but I am also sick of an assumption - an object lesson - in lots of other space settings that fascism and empire are basically a given that we should all just resign ourselves to and that humans don't actually have meaningful agency.

[annetsagkari]

Catwings❤️🐈🌃 by Ursula K. Le Guin

Αγαπημένο παιδικό βιβλίο 💜

✨ Oh, Hank," Susan whispered, "their wings are furry." "Oh, James," Harriet whispered, "their hands are kind.✨

🌌 🌌

#ursulaleguin #catwings #childrensbooks #kidsbooks #bookstagram #booklover #bookaddict #childhoodthrowback #catbooks #bookstagrammer #fictionbooks #instabook #instavivlio #artlovers #bookphotography #booklovers #bookish #bookworm #booksbooksbooks #bookaholic #booksofinstagram #bookaddict #bookobsessed #ilovebooks #livre #livrestagram #lecture #bookstagrammers #catsofinstagram #catstagram

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[saltdragon]

If science fiction is this, or is capable of being this, a true metaphor to our strange times, then surely it is rather stupid and reactionary to try to enclose it in the old limits of an old art – like trying to turn a nuclear reactor into a steam engine. Why should anyone try to patch up this marvelously smashed mirror so that it can reflect poor old Mrs. Brown – who may not even be among us anymore? Do we care, in fact, if she’s alive or dead? Well, yes. Speaking strictly for myself – yes. I do care. If Mrs. Brown is dead, you can take your galaxies and roll them up into a ball and throw them into the trashcan, for all I care. What good are all the objects in the universe, if there is no subject? It isn’t that mankind is all that important. I don’t think that Man is the measure of all things, or even of very many things. I don’t think Man is the end or culmination of anything, and certainly not the center of anything. What we are, who we are, and where we are going, I do not know, nor do I believe anybody who says he know, except, possibly, Beethoven, in the last movement of the last symphony. All I know is that we are here, and that we are aware of the fact, and that it behooves us to be aware – to pay heed. For we are not objects. That is essential. We are subjects, and whoever among us treats us as objects is acting inhumanly, wrongly, against nature. And with us, nature, the great Object, its tirelessly burning suns, its turning galaxies and planets, its rocks, seas, fish and ferns and fir trees and little furry animals, all have become, also, subjects. As we are part of them, so they are part of us. Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. We are their consciousness. If we stop looking, the world goes blind. If we cease to speak and listen, the world goes deaf and dumb. If we stop thinking, there is no thought. If we destroy ourselves, we destroy consciousness.

Ursula K. Le Guin, “Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown,” (1976) in The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Susan Wood (1979)

[anniekoh]

Ursula K Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) wrote many utterly fabulous novels and short stories. However, it is only since her death that I have read her wee works, the blog posts and short interviews, that make her personality come clear to me. Wry, radical, warm.

Here she is on what cats have to teach us humans about politics

That so many of us can’t see the cat’s level gaze as a declaration of equality, but see it as contemptuous, arrogant, even threatening — as declaring superiority — signifies that, like wolves and dogs, we simians are hierarchs. We want power to be assigned to certain individuals once for all, not to pass around among us according to circumstance. We make permanent niches — Higher, Lower — and fill them. Creatures who won’t stay in the niche we put them in frighten or anger us. The gaze of equality from a small, speechless, furry creature is read as the intolerable challenge of an inferior claiming superiority.

I said cats are anarchists, but a society of equals is also, after all, a democracy.

The cat-human connection, historically an almost entirely practical, utilitarian one (with occasional fits of worshiping the cat as a divinity) in our time has come to include powerful bonds of intimate affection, unconditional, as between equals. I like the idea that from these subtle, intense companionships we might have something to learn about the nature of our own politics, our difficulty in achieving, even conceiving, genuine equality.

Here she is puncturing some silly writerly questions from the Times Literary Supplement with something true and silly

If you could make a change to anything you’ve written over the years, what would it be?

In The Dispossessed, I would mention the communal pickle barrels at street corners in the big towns, restocked by whoever in the community has made or kept more pickles than they need.  I knew about the free pickles all along, but never could fit them into the book.

Here she is with a fairy tale illustrating the politics of welfare and unemployment in the United States

“Lady,” he said, “I look for work, I ask for work, but there’s no work to be had. And people have lost patience with me, bothering them for jobs, but not able to take the little they can offer.”

“You may cease to look,” said she, “whenever you wish.”

“But that would break our bargain.”

“Yes,” said she. “By seeking work, you prove that you are a hopeful man, who believes that good people always have enough money. To cease seeking would prove that you have lost that righteous belief. It would show that you are discouraged. The Gift Fairies cannot see discouraged people. You would become invisible to me. You would become ineligible for my gift.”

And of course her 2014 National Book Awards speech

Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words I’ve had a long career as a writer, and a good one, in good company. Here at the end of it, I don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want and should demand our fair share of the proceeds; but the name of our beautiful reward isn’t profit. Its name is freedom.