#we've watched almost 10 documentarys

[mlamhfynaeai]

im spending the week at my grandmas and while watching documentarys the whole time with my aunt i just realized that neither of us have showered since the first night here

god i see it now who i get it from ffs

[curiositydooropened]

NINE PEOPLE I WANT TO GET TO KNOW BETTER

Thanks for the tag @superblysubpar lemme kiss you 😘

last song: Walking in Memphis - Cher's rendition (everyone remembers the X-Files episode right?)

favorite color: This recently changed into a soft purple. More of a blue-y lavender

currently watching: so much Critical Role stuff, and it's not watching, but I've been devouring the Worlds Beyond Measure podcast. When I tell you DnD is my life...

last movie: I watched Top Gun the other night and then the Blue Angels documentary. I think in all ways but physically, I'd love to be a fighter pilot.

currently reading: OMG Book Haul. I just went to Powell's and bought - The Letters of JRR Tolkein, Bride of the Tornado by James Kennedy, The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson, If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio, and Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian. And I don't know which to start first! ALSO I bought a book on Birds of the PNW and I'm STOKED to be a bird fact person.

sweet/spicy/savory: Always savory. Xiao Long Bao, babyyyy

relationship: I've somehow been married for almost 7 years!? But we've been together for 10. Love my hubby.

current obsession: Birds, obvs. And I know I'm very late to the game, but I've been on this Top Gun kick for a little while... And always, DnD.

last thing I googled: a lady never doxes herself 😂

currently working on:

WELL...

I'm working on a novel. I'm in the fresh stages. It's about paranormal investigators and possession and how easily men can be swayed by Hot Goth Girls, and the MC feels like the most self-insert character I've ever written, even though he's a dude. And I'd love to talk about it more if anyone's interested? I need motivation to keep me going.

And I'm working on Ranged! It's about God Damn time I get back in the saddle. I've missed them and you guys xoxoxo

no pressure whatsoever tags! xo: @sweetsweetjellybean @bimrwolf @trashmouth-richie @sattlersquarry @idkitsem @hollandweather @huffledor-able541 @andvys @chaoticgood-munson

[littledigest]

Pluto conjunct natal Mercury-Uranus-Neptune

Pluto has been transiting my natal Mercury, Uranus, and Neptune since 2020. As of 2023, it is moving away from natal Neptune and towards natal Uranus and Mercury.

Neptune in Capricorn 26 degrees in 5th house [natal]

Uranus in Aquarius 2 degrees in 6th house [natal]

Mercury in Aquarius 3 degrees in 6th house[natal]

When Pluto was close to my Neptune, I happened to start or end a creative endeavor. Or, something about the event was Neptunian/Piscean in nature.

Going into 2023, there is a shift from Neptunian events to more Uranian and Mercurial ones.

Notice that until 2023, the events are creativity (Neptune) and hobby (5th house) related. Starting from 2023, my Mercury-Uranus in 6th house conjunction is getting more attention. My sudden job change and the nature of that job are examples of this.

LIST OF EVENTS WHEN PLUTO TRANSITED NATAL MERCURY-URANUS-NEPTUNE:

2020

5/12/20 - First day of working out regularly by following YouTube videos. I was working out every day for almost 2 hours. I had NEVER worked out before this. For several months after, I was obsessed with working out; it was therapeutic to me.

6/6/20 - First day of UX/UI design online course

2021

3/23/21 - I made a journal entry this day that I was seriously thinking of going into animation and coding.

6/6/21 - Last day of UX/UI design online course

6/7/21 - The day after, I started my first day of 3D animation class. Pluto is EXACTLY conjunct my natal Neptune on this day.

6/23/21 - I attempted a no-fish-and-seafood diet ❌🐟🦀❌ after watching a documentary about our negative impact on the ecosystem due to overfishing and overconsumption of fish/seafood. Failed, but I really tried.

2022

3/16/22 - Hit with a major internal crisis. Issues from the past came back, and I didn't know where I was headed in life. Felt very uncertain about what I was doing in life.

3/29/22 - Last day of 3D animation class.

6/20/22 - The day I started my Tumblr blog littledigest. Pluto was also opposite natal asteroid Educatio (2440); seems appropriate as I am giving my experiences and take on astrology through this blog.

7/10/22 - The day I reached 100 followers on Tumblr

8/7/22 - I visited a local psychic fair with my mom and sister. 🔮 We've never gone out of our way to go to anything like this before.

10/3/22 - I learned how to use a sewing machine. Making clothes was something that I had been DREAMING about for so long. Did I continue? No, but I'm sure I'll go back to it someday.

11/22/22 - Introduced to a job position that seemed completely out of my league. I wasn't even job searching, but this landed on my lap out of nowhere. Had nothing to do with the job I was doing at the time.

12/12/22 - I got a call back that I got the job. Found out I will be earning a lot more than in my previous job 🤑. Pluto was also square natal asteroid Destinn (6583). Don't know if this job is my DESTINY, but interesting...Maybe I'm on the right path?

2023

1/6/23 - Last day of old job; got a new haircut in the city after work. 💇‍♀️ Realized this was the first time I went to get a haircut on my own IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. Prob not significant to you, but it was bonkers to me. How have I never gotten a haircut on my own before?

1/9/23 - First day of my new job. Transit Uranus is conjunct my natal midheaven too. I'm no longer 100% remote; I have to go into the office; my whole routine has changed. This new job of mine is an admin position but for a technology department. [Uranian]

2/8/23 - Met with superior. Afterward, manager tells me superior wants me to work with them on data work. My work becomes less about admin duties. [Mercurial/Uranian]

2/18/23 - Played a gambling card game with my family for the first time and won. Pluto also square natal asteroid Las Vegas (82332). Not Vegas but won some money 💵. [Neptunian/Uranian]

2/26/23 - started this Long Game project on littledigest. Pluto also inconjunct natal asteroid Discovery (9770). I hope this project uncovers something special! [Mercurial/Uranian/Neptunian]

More to come as time goes on

This post is part of a larger study based solely on my personal experiences with Planetary Transits and Returns.

[greaterstokesawareness]

Stokes Song Spotlight: "Lush Life"

This first song spotlight segment is brought to you by me learning that the word "distingué" exists and what it means (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Okay so hear me out, I was on the phone with my mom discussing normal everyday things like Frank Sinatra songs we've never heard before. My mom offered up the recommendation to listen to "Memories of You" from the new Sinatra Platinum release (x). While I was scrolling through this album on Spotify, I saw that "Lush Life" was on there.

"Lush Life" is a song that I had never heard before summer 2022 when I heard Brian Stokes Mitchell sing it at 54 Below. He told the story of Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington and how Strayhorn was a black, out, gay man during the 1940s/50s jazz scene. He wrote the song when he was 16! A few days after the 54 Below show, I heard Stokes sing the song on the Boston Pops performance that aired on the radio, and then again two more times live at the Perelman Center (10/5/23) and Ridgefield Playhouse (10/29/23). Ted Firth features prominently on piano, playing a long mood-setting intro before Stokes comes in on vocals and then another solo in the middle of the song.

“where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life, to get the feel of life..”

It’s one of those hypnotic songs, that somehow feels both simple and complex at the same time. I am extremely biased (you know where you are) but I’ll type it out anyway, Stokes’s version is my favorite. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen him sing it live and up close and you can tell he loves it too, but I also think his version is the most mournful. And what I mean by that is he just gets across all the story potential in the song. Like he paints the scene of a guy in a rumpled suit, sitting at a corner table, a fedora pushed back to the crown of his head, hungover and nursing a drink too early in the morning —but in that sad, smoky almost Edward Hopper-like picture you can also see that he’ll be back later, decked out and ready for those brief moments of life that the night brings when the band is playing and everything is right. I know I watch too many old movies it’s true. I guess what I’m trying to say is Stokes makes it cinematic ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ My next favorite version is by Sarah Vaughan.

Anywayyyy, I’m not gonna lie I thought the lyrics were “distant gay traces” but they are actually “distingué traces.” I’ve never heard that word before and I had to look it up, it means having a distinguished manner or appearance and it makes the song so much better. It also gave me the idea for doing these song spotlights because I love learning and sharing my dumb nerd research. So please enjoy the links below for more info about Billy Strayhorn and then pop your headphones on and give this song a listen in all its many forms. And here’s hoping that it makes its way onto a Stokes album someday ✨

[side note: looking up stuff about this song also helped me to learn that the aforementioned Ted Firth has an album titled Lush Life with Tony Desare and one of the tracks is, you guessed it, Lush Life!] (x) (x)

Links:

versions of Lush Life by Stokes (x)

playlist with other versions of Lush Life (x) (x)

the lyrics (x)

an NPR interview from 2007 in support of PBS documentary about Strayhorn (x)

Link to Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn by David Hadju on amazon (x)

[valeriianz]

About Me Books

Rules: 10 (non-ancient) books for people to get to know you better, or that you just really like. (what classifies as "non-ancient"? lol)

tagged by @mathomhouse-e @academicblorbo and @seiya-starsniper

ahhh i'm not as big into reading as i used to be :') not sure if i can find 10 books to define me... but i'll try my best. here's a list of books that made me sit down for a while and/or yell about online...

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. anyone looking to get a little insight to the restaurant industry from the POV of a chef, this is the book for you. it's gritty and real and all narrated by Bourdain's dry, dirty, and dark humor. it's an easy read and for someone like me (who can't really stand kitchen TV shows or movies because that's the life i live) it is actually palatable and i really liked it.

We Play Ourselves by Jen Silverman. i only recently read this book last year and it blew me away. it is everything i want in a character story. it follows a young, bi woman, who's an up and coming play writer in NYC. she had done something so terrible she ran away to California to squat on an old friend's couch. while she's there, she meets with a woman who's shooting a documentary and while the protag gets involved and helps out, she realizes that it's... not a good situation. all the while hints are dropped about what she did in New York and-- its very relatable to me personally: running away from your problems, thinking if you bury it and dont talk about it, it will go away. distracting yourself into something else but it digs up old ghosts and forces you to make an uncomfortable decision... but its ultimately good for your growth and maturity. it's a fantastic read if you like character stories.

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. read this book February last year and once i was finished, immediately fell into the deep, dark hole that was Greek Mythology (i never was properly taught about the myths. i was assigned the Iliad to read for my English minor, but had just skimmed it like the lazy 20-year old college student i was). and throughout 2022 (up until October when i watched The Sandman) Greek Mythology was my entire personality. and while this book takes A LOT of creative liberties (esp with Patroclus, dear god) i still love it to death. it's gorgeous and so poetically written.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman. we've come into the first (and only) YA novel on the list lol. i haven't reread this in probably a decade, so i'm not sure if it still holds up. but if you like dystopian stories, boy howdy do i got a fucking unique one for you. i found a really good article about it that starts with a perfect summary: "...follows three teens on the run from a government that believes “unwinding,” or body harvesting, is an alternate solution to abortions and unwanted teens... Although controversial in topic, this disturbing novel inspires deep thought about organ donation, abortion, and one’s personal right to make decisions regarding his or her body." it's so captivating that i had started writing a short film screenplay for it in college (that of course i never finished). i read this when it first came out in 2007 and i still own my original copy.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. oof. so, this is one of those books that one read through was good enough for me, but it left me with such an emotional impact that i just had to own my own copy of it. if you dont know the book, it's a character story about guilt and redemption. it's set in 1970s Afghanistan and then again about 20 years later under Taliban rule. it's extremely hard to read (not just because of the subject matter, but it's also... incredibly dry). it starts off SO strong, falls in the middle (enough that i almost gave up) but then shoots off like a bullet during the last quarter of the novel. it's. phenomenal. heartbreaking and empowering and just such a good and believable story. (also the film adaption was done very well!)

From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty. just gonna start this one off by recommending all of Caitlin's books. this is her second and it covers Caitlin's relentless pursuit of encouraging "death positivity" by traveling the world to discover how other cultures besides our own, care for their dead. Doughty is a mortician (she also has a fantastic Youtube channel where she does mini documentaries and video essays on death and the macabre) and her writing is filled to the brim with respect, tenderness, and endless curiosity. i love her and share her beliefs.

The Martian by Andy Weir. i'm not much into the adventure genre or sci-fi... but this one took me by genuine surprise. the narrator is so dry and funny, despite his horrifying situation of being stranded on Mars. we work through his attempts at staying alive together, painstaking as it is, while also catching glimpses of what NASA is doing back on earth about the situation. it's soooo cool and fun (and the climax is fucking amazing. i knew the film could never pull it off but boy was i still disappointed in how the film handled it lol).

Lord of the Flies by William Golding. read this guy in high school and it's just always stuck with me. something something man's inherent evil. how even the most sophisticated and promising of us can be reduced to our base instincts in dire situations. how it's not always an adventure, there are real stakes and consequences and... it's just so sad and terrible, almost comically so. as a teenage loner who was horrifically bullied all through middle and high school, this book was my fucking staple. i wore out that paperback.

Circe by Madeline Miller. oh it's another M.M. book lol. listen, Miller owns my entire ass at this point (im so excited for her Persephone book omg) i didn't get around to reading this until i'd finished a ton of Greek myths podcasts and reading The Odyssey so i felt a little more prepared going into it. i love Circe in this book, i love that she's not perfect and has literally hundreds and hundreds of years to fuck up and get better, grow into who she wants to be as a witch and as a woman. going through classic stories through her perspective is also a lot of fun, and my man Odysseus is there for a good chunk of it.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. a book about adventure, self discovery, learning what it means to be free and to govern yourself. being unafraid to be rootless while in search of your Personal Legend. this book reached into my brain and massaged it. if you couldn't tell by now, i'm obsessed with character stories. i am a vagabond in my real life and i can not settle down. this book was written for me lol i enjoyed every word. (it has Islamic/Christian undertones but it's not in your face, which would have been a major turn off otherwise). i listened to the audiobook version of this narrated by one of my favorite actors, Jeremy Irons *chefs kiss*

this took an incredibly long time, but it was a good way to spend my morning, rifling through my bookshelf while sipping coffee haha. and oh god, here we go being unsure who to tag: @tj-dragonblade @scifrey @issylra @hardly-an-escape @teejaystumbles @virgo-dream @watercubebee

[saintqueer]

This is why I follow you Jordy. So tired of fandom dividing into the ‘crazy Larries’ and the ‘calm and cool Larries’. Like the entire premise of Larry is considered crazy— there’s literally no point in ignoring potential signs from them in favour of being liked by some anti. At this point we’re not gonna be different from the hets in a few years. So what if it was a reach and we were wrong? At least we’re receptive. Harry and Louis need people who are open to their messaging ffs. 1/2

hiiii anon, if you don't mind i'm gonna use your messages to make my thoughts on the crazy shit going on with promo and the leak a little clearer.

i said i'd make a longer post on exactly why i think harry is a loose cannon right now, why he is reminding me of aug-nov 2014 harry a bit.

i wanted to use your messages as a jumping off point because i think you are right when you say an album leaking more than a month before release date is strange as fuck. this fandom is not unfamiliar with leaks, even purposeful leaks, leaks for promo, etc. but an album leaking exactly one whole month before release breaks pattern and is a huge risk for sales and streaming numbers. a week before release wouldn't have too much impact and might just drum up excitement but a whole month before risks diminished numbers from hardcore fans once actual release comes around.

i'm gonna simply offer a few strange things i've noticed in the past few weeks and allow you to draw your own conclusions:

i've heard from multiple sources that sony was NOT behind the leak and they were scrambling to figure out the source.

the album was leaked on 4.20, the wednesday before coachella weekend 2. the exact same day that lizzo was contacted by harry to perform I Will Survive with him. incredibly last minute and unusual for a festival so big.

louis was in an excellent mood on his 4.20 concert and We Are the Champions was the post-show song.

a bunch of unreleased songs, most of us had accepted we might never hear, were piled on with the leak of hs3 which is a bit unusual.

harry's mood and demeanor at coachella weekend 2 was chaotic, to put it simply kdjfghkdj. he was a bit wild, strangely aggressive and intense.

he added medicine to his set only after the studio recording leaked. and he was fascinatingly explicit in his performance of it.

on saturday, harry is seen with the entire stunt crew and he looks entirely stoic and uncomfortable except when conversing with corden. the videos are legit painful to watch. he looks incredibly anxious and is constantly looking around. we've seen harry have fun at concerts and this was not that.

harry's magazine cover debuts along with an interview that is at the same time more revealing than usual and also filled with repeat quotes that are slighted altered. i couldn't help but get the feeling that harry offered an in-depth interview that was cut and spliced with chunks taken out and replaced with old quotes altered in the final revision and okay from his team. part of it felt like it didn't match with the rest. so i believe the sections where he talks about his cleanliness clause and celeb documentaries were representative of the whole interview he actually gave but big chunks were taken out after the fact by his team to be replaced with the bits we recognized from so many previous print interviews.

olivia was served on stage on the 4.27 and the next day, on the 28th, harry is papped driving in LA.

later that night, harry posts directly to his IG story (nothing on HSHQ) an extremely low quality pic that, according to an app, was only taken 10 minutes previously of the back of the album laid out on the grass.... (grass...the album was leaked on 4.20...weed....maryjane...dots connecting)

a whole hour later, a proper high quality picture of the tracklist is posted by hshq. almost as if harry went rogue, announced it early and hshq had to scramble to catch up.

on 4.30, we get 60+ pap pics and videos from backgrid of harry and jeff on a hike in LA. these are likely quite a bit older than the 30th. as it seems like harry might have been in london yesterday. however, things look tense. even worse than they have looked and harry has looked pissy pretty much every time he is papped or spotted with jeff since after the grammys in early 2021.

any and all articles that have been coming out this week about harry with either these pap pics with jeff or the ones in his car have revolved entirely around olivia without mention of his new upcoming album.

everything around this promo is odd and off. plus them not getting harry out of this messy legal situation with his beard is ugly. it seems they are doing the opposite, rather than using any pap pics for promoting his upcoming album they are using them to publicize her messy shitty legal situation for abandoning her own children.

i realize i just kind of messily threw out a bunch of random facts but all these feel like really important things that have taken place over the last few weeks. that if they were put together with the billion other strange things that have been going on around harry over the last two years might help to start make sense of what's happening behind the scenes.

all that to say: the low quality picture of the back of the cd on a patch of grass being posted on harry's ig only made me far more sure in my theory that harry leaking his own album is somehow related to harry's, what appears to me, ongoing beef with his own management team.

this is not by any means comprehensive but my groupchat buds are composing a huge masterpost of all the shady shit thats been going on surrounding harry over the past two years so that should be coming soon. it's a really long list kjfhgkj.

[variousqueerthings]

on the pursuit of queer film

I think it's interesting that we decry a dearth of queer film generally when those movies do and have always existed and right now more than ever we have the tools to find and watch them

most of them are not mainstream, and of course a lot are going to be not good, as is the case for film generally, but there's also a separate post to make about what we define as "good" - do we mean easily palatable? do we mean "of a taste we've been raised on that's dictated by a mainstream culture of 20 or so white straight cis American dudes?" - some are almost impossible/completely impossible to find but

if I look at, say, this list on letterboxd for queer shorts there are over 1000 movies

or this list about lgbt woc with closing on 1000 movies

hell, I'm still early days in trying to curate some lists that have a little more direction, because I think it can be unhelpful to simply be thrown a list of 1000 movies with only "lgbt woc" in common, when what you're maybe looking for is, idk, coming-of-age movies, or movies that aren't about queer people in America/The UK, (of which someone else has a much longer list than mine, I still have a ways to go, but also I have a personal preference for movies sorted by release year and not fucking colour, I don't get why people on letterboxd do this, I want to watch things via release date!) or a documentary, or movies based on the lives of real people or what have you

I still have a watchlist of queer cinema that stretches into over 2000 movies that will likely never go down but only go up, and my curation isn't as refined yet as I want it to be but

the point is

we need to be supporting the making of movies like this by watching and talking about movies like this, and figuring out who's making/has been making these movies

engaging with these movies will give us a much better language for talking about queerness in visual storytelling, for creating a language that goes beyond heteronormative dictations of narrative and image and character and and and...

In engaging with these movies we realise this text has existed since... movies existed. We discover histories and communities we may not have known about, we create a connective language through the past, we don't consider ourselves isolated, we broaden our minds

I think people perhaps want to be pointed towards "these are the movies you have to watch" lists, and what I'm saying here is more complicated than that, yes. But communities of people documenting queer film also exist and we tend to be a nice bunch, I think, and beyond that if someone reaches out to someone looking for something -- especially in a time in which it's more than likely to know someone who's grown up anywhere in the world -- one can find treasure troves

I am continuously surprised by just how many beautiful films are out there that I've never heard about (literally only discovered the Filipino "Die Beautiful" through the wonderful @hunkydorkling I'd never consciously come across it before last week), never seen on approved "top 10 queer movies of all time" lists, never would have seen if I wasn't talking to people from all over the world

anyway here's a list of horror films written by, directed by, or featuring transgender, non binary, and genderqueer people (358 movies) which was curated by a person who also did a fascinating documentation of how horror has featured trans people throughout film history

[slavghoul]

Interview with Tobias from today’s (Sept 10) issue of Aftonbladet

--

When Metallica's self-titled album saw the light of day, Tobias Forge was ten years old, completely unaware of the major role the band would later play in his professional life. He had heard of the thrash metal group from the US West Coast, but it was the Black Album that really put them on his radar.

- Almost overnight, Metallica became a band that people talked about at school. Even the girls in class knew about them, so you knew they were big. I've always been pretty out of sync with popular music, but there and then I was in sync.

Do you remember the first time you listened to the album?

- Well, not really. It was probably as simple as my older brother playing it as soon as it came on. He kept himself up to date and had played the album a lot beforehand. However, I remember very well watching the documentary "A year and a half in the life of Metallica" the following year, about when they made the album. It taught me two important things that I've carried with me ever since - how to make a record and how to tour that record. I use this knowledge when working with Ghost.

What is your favourite song on the album?

- "Of Wolf and Man" is the best. It's more in line with the style of music I used to play and is also closer to the "old" Metallica. "Wherever I May Roam" is also a favorite. You almost get tired of songs like "Enter Sandman", "Sad But True" and "Nothing Else Matters", as much as I like well written ballads.

What makes this album a classic, in your opinion?

- I think most people can agree that it's an incredibly well-written album. Nowadays, people talk about artists like Kanye West as sound artists. Metallica was in that position in 1991. They created a sonic space that sounded louder and bolder than almost anything that had been done before.

Today, a commemorative edition is released along with the tribute album "The Metallica Blacklist". Ghost has included a cover of "Enter Sandman", a song you've just said you are quite tired of. Why that song?

- We were asked to play the song at Polar Music Prize three years ago. It wasn't the song I had chosen myself but it was the requirement to be included, so it had to be. Then when we were asked by Metallica to contribute a cover to this anniversary, we only had a couple of days, we were in between big tours, so it had to be "Enter Sandman" because we already had a basis. I wish it was a sexier story than that, but that's the one I have. And the profits will go to charity. We've chosen an organisation that organises summer camps for young transgender people. The vulnerability of children is reflected in the content of the song, which strikes a chord with me. So with that in mind, the choice seemed obvious.

How does this version differ from the one performed at Polar Music Prize?

- The thing that bothered me a little bit then was that we didn't have room for a solo. But now we didn't have a three-minute time limit to deal with, so this time I wanted a solo that could be even a bit more rock 'n' roll than the existing one. Lately, I've been too rusty to play really sizzling, fast riffs, so I asked Fredrik Åkesson from Opeth to help us. His contribution was really the icing on the cake.

So you're happy with the result?

- I like the song, it sounds nice. We'll probably play it live later. There are others who will surely contribute much better interpretations. I guess James or Lars might hate me then (laughs)