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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.
