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I’ve been chickening out and trying to avoid reading online discussions about the shooting in BC—IYKYK.
Touch wood, but I think our apartment may be in remission from the Unpleasantness.
Andrew and I don’t really do Valentine’s Day, but e came with me to the mall yesterday—I needed to buy a broom and some groceries—and we had slushy fruit drinks and bought a small toy for the cats in the shape of an ice-cream cone. It seems to have gone over well.
Finished reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Ruin, the sequel to Children of Time and just as enjoyable. Except for Dr. Avrana Kern, this one features a whole new cast of characters: humans, spiders, Humans, octopus, AIs based on humans, and one of the more frightening alien entities ever written, Us-of-We. Does Tchaikovsky count as hopepunk? He should: despite the many grim and horrifying things that happen in these books, they’re touchingly optimistic that peace, or at least detente, is possible if all sides can just communicate.
I did feel like most of the octopus characters were a bit underwritten, but that’s partly because it’s a plot point that their minds are even more different from human minds than the spiders’ are. That said, the scene in which the octopus flickers in response to Senkovi’s corny jokes, even though it doesn’t understand them, because it’s happy that he’s happy that he’s happy, is both touching and also a clue that they respond primarily to the emotional content of a statement. Sort of like how I’m told this song is a collaboration between Poland’s two best-known folk-punk groups/artists, and while I don’t understand the words, the tune is very catchy.
Other musical links: I’d heard of Viv Stanshall’s album Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead, but I’d never listened to it till this week, and it’s incredible—imagine if Eric Idle and Tom Waits got drunk together in a dive bar in Lagos.
Also—this M. R. James-esque report from the BBC on an apparent case of black magic.
Touch wood, but I think our apartment may be in remission from the Unpleasantness.
Andrew and I don’t really do Valentine’s Day, but e came with me to the mall yesterday—I needed to buy a broom and some groceries—and we had slushy fruit drinks and bought a small toy for the cats in the shape of an ice-cream cone. It seems to have gone over well.
Finished reading Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Ruin, the sequel to Children of Time and just as enjoyable. Except for Dr. Avrana Kern, this one features a whole new cast of characters: humans, spiders, Humans, octopus, AIs based on humans, and one of the more frightening alien entities ever written, Us-of-We. Does Tchaikovsky count as hopepunk? He should: despite the many grim and horrifying things that happen in these books, they’re touchingly optimistic that peace, or at least detente, is possible if all sides can just communicate.
I did feel like most of the octopus characters were a bit underwritten, but that’s partly because it’s a plot point that their minds are even more different from human minds than the spiders’ are. That said, the scene in which the octopus flickers in response to Senkovi’s corny jokes, even though it doesn’t understand them, because it’s happy that he’s happy that he’s happy, is both touching and also a clue that they respond primarily to the emotional content of a statement. Sort of like how I’m told this song is a collaboration between Poland’s two best-known folk-punk groups/artists, and while I don’t understand the words, the tune is very catchy.
Other musical links: I’d heard of Viv Stanshall’s album Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead, but I’d never listened to it till this week, and it’s incredible—imagine if Eric Idle and Tom Waits got drunk together in a dive bar in Lagos.
Also—this M. R. James-esque report from the BBC on an apparent case of black magic.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-15 09:46 pm (UTC)From:(Disclaimer: this comes via an MTL tool): Take a traditional song from the Appalachians. Set the Polish version in the Świętokrzyskie region. Combine the banjo motif with a punk folk orchestra. Film the film near the Polish B sanctuary in Licheń. Tell the algorithms it's cumbia argentina. Mix it up.
If it were evil, God would have created the world differently. But there is no God, so little Zosia had to die.
no subject
Date: 2026-02-15 10:12 pm (UTC)From:I’d noticed one of the performers actually goes by the name “Hiob Dylan.”
no subject
Date: 2026-02-16 12:45 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2026-02-16 09:18 am (UTC)From:That is M. R. James-esque, thank you.
(The Stanshall is amazing. May the unnameable continue to be averted.)
no subject
Date: 2026-02-16 09:49 pm (UTC)From:…A teenaged Tommy Iommii(sic) and Ozzy Osbourne watching on TV in 1964 - "Write that down! Write that down!"
…lol, I'm from Norfolk, witchcraft is what other areas call criminal activity, I'm from a long line of wrong-uns, them flickering lights at night ain't from no ghosts thas my old grandad robbing someones barn.
those effergies and sheeps hearts were probably put there to put kids off from playing in the ruins and finding where the loot from a breakin was hidden till it was safe to flog on.
…I grew up in a little village where they still practised some of those old rituals. Little things like having a lucky charm above the door of a house, or lighting candles to keep spirits away. Burning a Christian in a giant wicker effigy on a clifftop. You know, little things like that.