moon_custafer | Reading

Their calendar is here -- creator sign-ups open on the 26th Jan:

https://fandomtrumpshate.dreamwidth.org/53196.html

Their list of non-profits they're supporting is here:

https://fandomtrumpshate.dreamwidth.org/53468.html

Apparently last year they raised $127K!

It was bitterly cold today. In the teens (F) with windchills factoring in the single digits (F) this morning, and got up to the twenties by midday.
Tomorrow it may make it to 30 F degrees - which as I told Breaking Bad this morning is relatively balmy. If we make to the 40s, so New Yorkers may start wearing shorts.

My living room overhead (ceiling) light has gone out. So I'm using the lights in my window (the tree and the snowflake lights), along with the little planet light (my niece gave me for Xmas one year), and two small desk lamps. The Super's wife popped by just as I was departing the shower to attempt to change the light bulb in the living room - but alas she needs tools - so her husband (whose not feeling well or under the weather) may have to do it after all.

Knees hurt today - it's the commute. The steps, and the walking through the bitter cold. And work was a mixed bag. I ran into folks from Jamaica (aka the head honchos behind all my project managers) and the negative energy emanating from them - made me physically ill. It took me two hours to recover. Thank god, I'm in Manhattan now and not in Jamaica, Queens, and far away from them. The folks I'm sitting near including Breaking Bad don't have that type of energy.

***

I'm following the news but out of the corner of my eye? I'm kind of giving it the side-eye? Or through my fingers, like I'm watching a horror film? Told mother that I wanted to be in galaxy far far away, albeit not the Star Wars galaxy. I might be willing to tough it out in the Star Trek verse, but not the Star Wars one. Nor would I want to be in BSG, Farscape, or Doctor Who's verses. Definitely not Tolkien's. No, I think the only one I could survive in would be Star Trek's. (Which is ironic, considering I was afraid of Star Trek at the age of 9.)

Also conversations on Lord of the Rings popped up.

Would I go on an adventure with Gandalf? No way in hell. I would run in the opposite direction if I saw Gandalf coming my way, and possibly try to hide (assuming one can hide from a Wizard). Gandalf has a tendency to send you off on a journey, abandon you to your own devices half way through, and forget about you.

***

Buffy and Angel Rewatch.

I'm enjoying Buffy S7 at the moment more than Angel S4, although Angel S4 is a mixed bag? Everyone works but Cordelia and Connor - who clearly are miserable. Writing those two characters out at the end of S4, and replacing them with Spike was a stroke of genius. I know folks liked them? But I'm finding both to be annoying. (And apparently the actors weren't overly thrilled portraying them at that point either.)

Buffy S7 - I'm really enjoying. It's spending more time on the supporting characters. Also "Selfless" (Episode 5) - the Anya centric episode is fantastic and among the best of the series. ( Read more... )
God, I love this show. It is by far my favorite television series.

Poll #34102 Snow

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22

View Respondents

After the snow has fallen, sometimes it looks like more snow is falling when the wind blows it off of trees and roofs. Do you have a word or specific phrase for this?

View Answers

Yes, and I'll tell you in the comments
4 (20.0%)

No, but I've heard some people use a term which I'll tell you in the comments
0 (0.0%)

No
14 (70.0%)

No - I don't live where it snows and am unfamiliar with this phenomenon
2 (10.0%)

Clicky?

View Answers

CLICKY
17 (100.0%)

( Read more... )

In an all-time record for my minimal presence in fandom, I am now participating in my third year of

threesentenceficathon. I have written four fills to date and taken the rare step of transferring all of them to AO3. Once again all selections are obviously me.

Current Music: Dry Cleaning, "Secret Love (Concealed in a Drawing of a Boy)"

Hello, I am still recovering, etc. Quite nicely as these things go, but still not up to doing all my usual little things.

Anyway, thought of something fannish and fun I could do if anyone wanted it - I made a personalised bingo card for

theseatheseatheopensea once, which was fun, and I do always love doing that kind of thing. So...

... if anyone else would find a custom-made bingo card (for writing/creating prompts) fun/useful/inspiring, comment here and I will have a go at making you one!

(I'll use the Bingo Generator, so it's very easy, and if I fail and include some rubbish prompts, a new card without such prompts can magically be re-generated with no trouble. Will do any size from 2x2 to 5x5.)

So just comment here if you'd like one & say what size card you'd prefer. You can also point me to/away from any fandoms/prompt types etc if you'd like, but no need. (If I'm really stuck for some reason, I'll just ask you for some pointers!)

For Poetry ~~Monday~~ Tuesday (because spent yesterday hiking in the mountains), another Francis:

Hallelujah: A Sestina, Robert Francis

A wind’s word, the Hebrew Hallelujah.
I wonder they never gave it to a boy
(Hal for short) boy with wind-wild hair.
It means Praise God, as well it should since praise
Is what God’s for. Why didn’t they call my father
Hallelujah instead of Ebenezer?

Eben, of course, but christened Ebenezer,
Product of Nova Scotia (hallelujah).
Daniel, a country doctor, was his father
And my father his tenth and final boy.
A baby and last, he had a baby’s praise:
Red petticoats, red cheeks, and crow-black hair.

A boy has little to say about his hair
And little about a name like Ebenezer
Except that you can shorten either. Praise
God for that, for that shout Hallelujah.
Shout Hallelujah for everything a boy
Can be that is not his father or grandfather.

But then, before you know it, he is a father
Too and passing on his brand of hair
To one more perfectly defenseless boy,
Dubbing him John or James or Ebenezer
But never, so far as I know, Hallelujah,
As if God didn’t need quite that much praise.

But what I’m coming to; Could I ever praise
My father half enough for being a father
Who let me be myself? Sing Hallelujah.
Preacher he was with a prophet’s head of hair
And what but a prophet’s name was Ebenezer,
However little I guessed it as a boy?

Outlandish names of course are never a boy’s
Choice. And it takes some time to learn to praise.
Stone of Help is the meaning of Ebenezer.
Stone of Help; what fitter name for my father?
Always the Stone of Help however his hair
Might graduate from black to Hallelujah.

Such is the old drama of boy and father.
Praise from a grayhead now with thinning hair.
Sing Ebenezer, Robert, sing Hallelujah!

---L.

Subject quote from Don't You (Forget About Me), Simple Minds.

I held the bannister and I got it

I sat down to look for it

I took it with me because I could not find it

Damn splinter!

The

snowflake_challenge has put out challenge number 10, and it works in media that I generally do not think in nor work in.

Challenge #10: Big Mood (Board)

CHOOSE SOMETHING YOU LOVE AND CREATE A MINI MOOD COLLECTION OF THREE (or more) ITEMS THAT EVOKE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT IT. You don’t have to limit yourself to visual media, or collect the items into a special format like a square (though you can if you’d like).

( I suppose I can make a fanmix for El Higgins? )

Current Mood: artistic
Current Music: Bloodhound Gang - I Hope You Die

My plans to sleep out a recovery from Arisia were somewhat complicated by the move-in of the new upstairs neighbors and the resonating chamber of feet and furniture our bedroom immediately downstairs of this process necessarily turned into, but the snow remains beautifully fallen and is not even supposed to rain back into immediate slush or, worse, spring.

I am re-reading Kathryn M. Drennan's To Dream in the City of Sorrows (1997) for the first time since it came out and had completely forgotten the introduction by J. Michael Straczynski in which he designates it the first fully canonical novel in the Babylon 5 tie-in line. Despite the volumes of Harlan Ellison I was tracking down in used book stores and reading at the time—his credit as creative consultant was a point in the show's favor—it was not until years later that I caught since how much of his nonfiction voice had been adopted by JMS. "How difficult a task was this? Job would've packed it in, Hercules would've retired, and Orpheus would've decided that his days spent in Hades weren't really that bad."

The Post-Meridian Radio Players have now opened auditions for their spring show: Jeeves & Wooster: Hijinks and Shenanigans. I am seriously considering throwing myself on a slot for the genderswapped adaptation. It would be something of an exercise if I went for it; most of my performance skills do not translate into straight acting and I am frankly missing the facility with accents specified in the sides or I'd be able to code-switch out of being asked all the time where mine's really from. There was an intrusion here from Tiny Wittgenstein which has since been deleted. But even if it's just the hangover from Arisia, I have not auditioned for anything since 2019 and so long as I could decouple the experience from actually landing a part, it suddenly looked as though it might be fun.

Indeed, I had never heard of hickory oil. I am not however thrilled by the prospect of trading off maple syrup.

Current Music: Dry Cleaning, "Hit My Head All Day"

Had today off - since it's MLK's Birthday. (It's also a day of service, but alas, I'm being insanely lazy and resting my knees.)

Found out last night that my niece passed her EMT training and is a now a certified EMT. Also she may end up in Georgia at some point in May, with a course on how to prevent fires by setting them (burning off brush). My lovely niece is well on the way towards her goal of becoming a forest ranger. It's actually easier to protect trees than people. People are difficult. So, I'm glad she shifted from human rights to environmental protection and forestry.

I'm really enjoying my re-watch of Buffy and Angel. The later seasons hold up better than the earlier ones do - partly because the later seasons were done in the early 00s and not the late 1990s. So while there's still the errant - "I ran like a girl" - the other characters snort at it.

Season 7 and Season 4 Angel actually have some well-written episodes in there. Deep Down - S4 Angel, where Wes searches the ocean for Angel and rescues him, and Angel, Gunn and Fred confront Connor is a good episode. And Wes has become very interesting.

Also, the first episodes of S7 are really good. I find the series more entertaining now than I did when I initially watched it. Maybe because while I don't remember most of the details, I remember the final result, so don't have quite the same anticipation or worry that I had when I first watched it - when it aired for the first time in 1997-2003. Also, I'm not as invested in the romantic "ships"? I know they are all doomed. So, it's comforting in a way it wasn't back then. And, I'm not trying to figure out where it is going, or pulling it apart like a puzzle to figure out what will happen next. There's something to be said for not over-analyzing the plots of television shows?

Buffy S7 Takeaways?
( Lessons through Beneath ME )

And Angel S4 is more enjoyable than I remembered. It's kind of obvious though that the writers are writing out Cordelia.( Read more... )

Wes's arc is more enjoyable than Cordelia's. ( Read more... )

They brought in Gwen to chemistry test her against Angel and Gunn, as a potential replacement for Cordelia - I can tell. She got a back story and everything.

I don't remember most of this - or enjoying it nearly this much.

**

Outside of television watching - I did another watercolor. Not perfect. This is of a confrontation between a little old woman with a walker and big truck that I saw ages ago in Jamaica, but can still visualize.

H.R. 7013 (Greenland Sovereignty Protection Act) was introduced by Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) last week: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7013

It prohibits the use of Federal funding to facilitate the invasion, annexation, purchase, or other form of acquisition of Greenland.

No dayjob today because we're off for MLK Day.

It snowed all day yesterday, starting before dawn, but nothing stuck to the sidewalk until after dark, by which time it was still snowing and I was just not up for shoveling. Which meant, of course, that first thing this morning, after the overnight freeze, there was a layer of ice on the sidewalk. With a great deal of effort and about an hour in two segments (pre- and post-breakfast), I managed to break up and remove enough to make it reasonably safe. I hope. My hands were a little shaky at the end, which indicates I exerted myself more than I should have. Our house is not that wide, thankfully.

The temperature is supposed to go above freezing this afternoon, so hopefully that softens the remainder enough that I can scrape it up. Putting salt on top of ice doesn't help, it just melts the top so it can refreeze in a new and more slick state. Nope!

I have a free ticket for the Orchestra's MLK Day concert this afternoon; I was originally planning to attend with my friend who is now out of town because of a death in the family. We shall see if I recover from my exertions enough to attend. I am not worried about wasting a spot, they generally hand out more tickets than there are seats for these events, and tell you a seat is not guaranteed.

It's possible more snow will arrive in the coming week. Whee. If it does, I hope it doesn't affect our choir kickoff on Saturday, January 24th. Also, I hope the scores get sent out soon, as I need to make a trip to the library to print mine.

I'm back to the office tomorrow and Wednesday.

Given all space and time, and all history and fiction, which offer of adventure would you be most likely to accept - and which one would you definitely decline?

ffutures asked.

Well, I'm tempted to say "none, because I'm chicken and would rather read about those adventures than experience them". But that would be a boring answer, and there are some which don't carry the risk of dying of smallpox or being turned into a Cyberman, one presumes. So, let's see....

Fictional: To get the obvious out of the way first: assuming that I'd live in a universe with the Doctor in it for real (the only universe worth thinking about, according to the Master, who ought to know), and that I would not live in one of those eras where one can google at least asome appearances of his which ought to give me an inkling about the risk travelling with him involves... I think I'd say yes if 'Thirteen offered me a trip with the TARDIS. She's not my favourite Doctor, but she conveys trustworthiness if she wants to, and even if I did manage to look up her companions, thehir rate of not just survival but lack of heartbreak (Yaz always excepted) at the end of their travels with her is promising. Most of the other Doctors would in real life make me think "nah, you seem to be interesting and/or crazy, but I wouldn't trust you to bring me home again".

I would definitely say no to Gandalf. Especially if I were in Bilbo's position. Firstly, stagemanaging an intrusion by loads of uninvited guests is just rude, and secondly, no way you're getting me anywhere near a real life dragon to be torched. No thank you. And that's before we're talking about the travel conditions. I can't ride, and while I do like long hikes, taking these in eras where I could get eaten by trolls... no, really not. I'm just not Burglar material.

Real: If I was dared as Nellie Bly was to travel around the world in 80 Days a la Jules Verne, with a newspaper paying for it, absolutely, I would have tried my best.

Would not have joined: any expedition involving the Artic. I like snow in winter, and I also like to ski, but I like it with the perspective of afterwards returning my heated apartment and being able to take a luxurious long hot bath. Not from the perspective of someone looking for the North West Passage on a sailing boat in the 18th century or someone racing to the Pole in the 20th century. I like my limbs unfrozen and uneaten, thanks.

The other days

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Munich

Now, we don't have a coffee maker. We have a french press, and we have a pourover thinger, and no coffee maker. Electric coffee makers are roach magnets, and I will stand by that statement.

But the job has a coffee maker, a nice new model after the pot on the old one broke, and the lid on top opens to the left, which means you have to hold the coffee pot in your right hand if you want to pour the coffee into the machine. Also, all the measurement numbers on the coffee pot are only visible if you're holding the handle in your right hand.

And you may say this is petty, and it is - well, it's petty for me because I have two hands, I might well be more annoyed, and justifiably, if I was missing one! - but somebody made a choice to hinge the lid on the left instead of on the back, and somebody, maybe that same somebody, made a choice to only put numbers on one side of the handle instead of both. And they didn't have to make those choices, they could've made different choices that didn't screw me over personally, me and all the other lefties as well as approximately half of all people who don't have mobility in their right hand or don't have that hand at all*, and they chose poorly. Probably didn't even think it through even a tiny little bit.

* Wait, is this a valid assumption? Or are people more likely to be disabled on this side or that side?

************************

( Read more... )

I am a knotted nebula—
a whirling flame
Shrieking aftire the endless darkness ...
I am the eternal center of gravity
and about me swing the crazy moons—
I am the thunder of rising suns,
the blaze of the zenith—
... the tremble of women’s bodies
in the arms of lovers ...
I sit on top of the Pole
Drunk with starry splendor
Shouting hozzanas at the Pleiades
... booting footballs at the moon—
I shall outlast the sun
and the moon
and the stars.…

*****

_Link

(Yes this is the real Robert Reich, yes he has a Tumblr.)

https://www.tumblr.com/robertreich/805924550315524096/congress-is-now-considering-the-appropriations

Congress is now considering the appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security, whose funding runs out at the end of January.

Call your members of Congress and tell them to vote NO on any bill that increases ICE's funding.

Please demand that the DHS appropriations bill prohibit ICE and Border Patrol agents from carrying guns and that it unambiguously declare that agents do not have absolute immunity under the law if they harm civilians.

Also tell them that any bill must restrict ICE and Border Patrol’s ability to conduct dragnet arrest operations and target people based on their race, language or accent. And the bill must clarify that ICE agents are liable under civil and criminal law if they harm civilians.

Do this as soon as you can.

To reach your representative or senator, call the U.S. Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Tell them the state and city where you live. They will connect you to any member’s office.

Tonight after my second and last panel of the convention, I was told by one audience member that they would listen to me read the phone book because even under those circumstances they would learn something interesting and Tiny Wittgenstein was definitely confused.

The panels went chaotically well. "Cursed Literature" lived up to its name by losing two panelists before the con even started, but in practice it turned into a freewheeling discussion less of literature in particular than the concepts of hazardous information, the spellmaking of language, and narratives as contagion, which gave me an excuse to boost Emeric Pressburger's The Glass Pearls (1966), An-sky's Jewish Ethnographic Program of 1912–14, and Aramaic incantation bowls plus the inevitable M. R. James. "SFF on Stage" had a supersaturation of panelists mostly from the performing arts and could have gone an extra hour at least as we started with the inherently liminal nature of theater and bounced around through all the ways that the speculative can be invoked on stage through conceits, stagecraft, scoring, nothing but the contract that reality changes because the actor says it does. I went all in on twentieth-century opera and weird technically realist plays and discovered that there has actually not been another production of Jewelle Gomez's Bones & Ash: A Gilda Story since the one I saw with my grandparents in 1996. As always, members of the audience asked such good questions that they should have been on the panels to start.

I have been asked multiple times if I will be around for the last day of Arisia and since I have no further programming the odds are unfortunately good that I will be flat in bed, but at the moment I regret nothing. I saw a

genarti! I saw a

skygiants! I failed to write down the names of a pair of extraordinarily well-dressed attendees who wanted to talk about Jewish folk magic and were thrilled that I recognized their Babylon 5 tie-in novels!

nineweaving and I shared a panel for the first time since virtual 2021! I did not make it back to the dealer's room before it closed and instead sort of keeled over in the disused cosplay repair area with

choco_frosh and presently a friend of his who is unlikely to be on DW, since this time around people were giving me their contact information on Instagram and I felt as though I should have business cards printed on papyrus scraps. I had genuinely not been sure how this experiment in professional interaction would go. It is snowing as busily as a real winter in New England and without begrudging a second of this vanishing season, I am looking forward to Readercon.

Current Music: Blondshell, "Berlin TV Tower"

Catlin(s) (from CJ Cherryh's Cyteen)

for

ilyena_sylph

digital fanart: Catlin I & II from CJ Cherryh's Cyteen

January Question a Day Meme

15. If you could, would you like to be a little bit taller or a little bit shorter?

I'm okay with my height. But if I could get rid of the slight curvature of the spine, and the rounded shoulders - I'd be happy. Genetic curse.

I'm 5'11 and 44 inches or 6 foot, when I can stand up fully straight. Most of it is in my legs, I'm all limbs.

16. Do you have a favourite genre of music?

Not really? My taste in music as in all things is wildly eclectic and moody? And changes at will. It's easier to list the genres I'm less fond of? Anything high pitched, with a lot of amp feedback - doesn't work for me. Also, I need to understand the lyrics? So most opera doesn't tend to work for me either - I don't like high soprano. Nor do I like to be punched in the face with music? So a lot of rap and heavy metal tends to give me a headache, I do like some of it though. (I like Nine Inch Nails for example).

17. The US celebrates Hot Buttered Rum Day today! Have you ever tried it?

Yes, not a fan. Too sweet.

18. It’s Sunday – what was the best part of last week?

Saturday. I'm a fan of Saturdays. Today, I felt guilty for not doing anything. Saturday? I never feel guilty for not doing anything. I think it's the pseudo-religious upbringing? Or that usually I go back to work on Monday and get the Sunday scaries.

***

As mentioned in the last post, I finished the much-maligned Buffy S6, which is still among my favorite of the seasons. ( Read more... )

Almost done with Angel S3 rewatch - and this season is actually much tighter plot wise than Buffy S6. Like Buffy S6, it does have a handful of weak episodes (mainly featuring the Grooslaug). But overall - it's better than I remembered it. It does help that I don't remember most of it at all.
I really have forgotten most of both series.

What's interesting in Angel - is how everyone enables Angel. ( Read more... )

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moon_custafer

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rydra_wong - Fandom Trumps Hate 2026
rydra_wong in thisfinecrew - Fandom Trumps Hate 2026
shadowkat - Tuesday is cold but...watching Buffy and Angel to comfort itself
conuly - Linguistics question
sovay - Does everybody know he's a ghost?
thisbluespirit - Personalised bingo card offer
larryhammer - “slow chains may pull us apart/ when our life gets into your heart/ baby don’t you forget about me”
conuly - Yet again, I’ve been injured doing laundry
silveradept - Snowflake Challenge 02026 #10: The Aesthetic of It All
sovay - Life, a series of memorials and signals
shadowkat - More Buffy/Angel rewatch, among other things...
aurumcalendula in thisfinecrew - H.R. 7013 - Greenland Sovereignty Protection Act
oracne - Snow!
selenak - January Meme: Adventure in Time and Space to Accept or Decline
conuly - Job has a coffee maker
conuly - Youth by Frank Horne
rydra_wong in thisfinecrew - Robert Reich has talking points for calling your reps re: ICE and the DHS funding bill
sovay - I want to show you all the versions of myself
yhlee - [fanart] Catlin(s)
shadowkat - Question a Day Meme and other things..

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Page generated Jan. 21st, 2026 07:44 am

Stuff and Moonshine

Reading

Fandom Trumps Hate 2026

Fandom Trumps Hate 2026

Tuesday is cold but...watching Buffy and Angel to comfort itself

Linguistics question

Does everybody know he's a ghost?

Personalised bingo card offer

“slow chains may pull us apart/ when our life gets into your heart/ baby don’t you forget about me”

Yet again, I’ve been injured doing laundry

Snowflake Challenge 02026 #10: The Aesthetic of It All

Life, a series of memorials and signals

More Buffy/Angel rewatch, among other things...

H.R. 7013 - Greenland Sovereignty Protection Act

Snow!

January Meme: Adventure in Time and Space to Accept or Decline

Job has a coffee maker

Youth by Frank Horne

Robert Reich has talking points for calling your reps re: ICE and the DHS funding bill

I want to show you all the versions of myself

[fanart] Catlin(s)

Question a Day Meme and other things..

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January 2026

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