moon_custafer | Reading

About to fall over on top of this week's Thursday Recs 🥱

Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!

Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!

Okay, I don't know how to feel about this one. On the one hand, I can't help but feel that this shouldn't be made. This isn't entertainment and it certainly shouldn't be for copaganda. On the other hand, I thought they did a shockingly good job of it.

It's about Bruce McArthur, a serial killer who preyed for years on middle-aged, poor, brown gay men in the Village, while the cops turned a blind eye. If you don't want to read about that, who could blame you?

( Lost & Found )

In War and Peace, Natasha and Andrei have fallen in love and gotten engaged at great speed, although on the promise to Andrei's father that they won't get married for a year, and will keep their engagement secret for that year, which will cause absolutely no problems whatsoever. :) :) :) Natasha's first ball is one of the scenes I'd remembered fondly from my first read-through, ~10 years ago— Tolstoy is just so good at evoking the feeling of experiencing feelings (here, the deadly seriousness of preparing for, and giddy excitement of attending, Baby's First Big Grown-Up Social Event) and, between Natasha and Kitty in Anna Katerina, I feel like he's surprisingly good at writing teenage girls? On the other hand, I had not recalled the twin plot threads of Andrei and Pierre both trying to engage with reform via committee: in Andrei's case, advocating for military reform, through which efforts he quickly becomes besties with but just as quickly disillusioned with (I'm sensing a pattern/foreshadowing here) an upstart statesman; in Pierre's, getting really invested in the mission and mysteries of the Freemasons and trying to convince his fellow Freemasons, who view it more as a social networking club, to take it equally seriously.

I've started reading Madly, Deeply, the edited and published collection of Alan Rickman's diaries, 1993-2015; so far, his 1993 entries have been a blur of names and references that I mostly don't recognize— main plot threads of 1993 are a failed bid to acquire a theater(?) and shambles on the set of the movie Mesmer— but it is delightful whenever someone I do recognize pops up (so far, Fiona Shaw— who he refers to as "Fifi"— and Ian McKellen). I'm also delighted by his frequent mini-reviews of random movies: "Jurassic Park— what the hell is the plot? Great dinosaurs." and "Sleepless in Seattle— halfway through I think 'I was in this movie'" (followed by editor's note: "He wasn't").

Because I had to give blood at a frankly stupid hour of the morning, afterward I took

spatch to Mike & Patty's. He likes breakfast sandwiches and my mother had heard a rave of theirs on the radio. I do not like breakfast sandwiches. It's mostly because I don't like fried eggs, or even scrambled eggs unless I make them myself. Mei Mei got around my aversion by wrapping their oozily fried eggs in scallion pancakes and pesto, but for years the Double Awesome was alone of its kind and I tended to order its ham-based cousin, the Porco Rosso, when I could. I am still not designed for the majority of American breakfast foods, but it turns out that if the egg is fried hard enough and layered into a Reuben-adjacent mound of pastrami, cheddar, and a slightly mustardier relative of fry sauce on a griddled English muffin, it does count as real food by me. Rob reports favorably on the slyly named McLustin', which did not obliterate its traditional stack of fried egg, bacon, American cheese, and hash brown with its tongue-nipping sriracha ketchup. We ate while watching a swan chase a Canada goose across a reservoir like a majestically petty pocket battleship. The latest episode of Widow's Bay (2026–) scored its local points with a background issue of Agni such as fetch up secondhand anywhere within reading distance of Boston University. I picked up several issues that way myself.

Current Music: Pylon, "Boom Boom"

This one was a financial crime one, so you know I'm into it. I don't know why I'm like this either.

( The Winning Bid )

Look at them!

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

( Read more... )

Just finished: Nothing

Currently reading: Five Points On an Invisible Line by Su J Sokol. This is the sequel to Invisible Line, and follows the main characters: Laek, Janie, and their kids Siri and Simon, three years after they fled the US and settled in Montreal. They're now joined by Philip, Laek's best friend and former colleague, who had been devastated when he left because he'd been in love with Laek the entire time. Much of the book feels very slice-of-life, with the adults navigating poly relationships and the immigration system, while the kids figure out their identities, except that lurking beneath the surface, everyone except for Simon is involved in some kind of clandestine revolutionary activity and can't tell anyone else about it.

It's a really cool story. There's a tension in genre writing where deep down, everyone kind of wants the trauma to matter, but the tight pacing required to actually create a readable story often doesn't allow enough space for it, and so you get stories where characters just shrug off the physical and emotional costs of fighting the good fight. Otherwise, you have characters spending the whole time talking about their feelings and processing. This to me strikes a good balance; it is absolutely about dealing with trauma, and specifically dealing with the trauma of state violence, but it's also compulsively readable and full of cliffhangers.

After more than seven months out of work, the degree to which I can afford anything above the bottom rung of Maslow has become truly minimal, but as soon as I discovered Quinquis' eor (2025), a shape-shiftingly electronic, primarily Breton-language album of mermaids and the sea, I leapt for it like it was mackerel. I heard first the all-night love-churn of "Morwreg" (2024), but the irresistible drag sirens of "Dec'h" (2025) sealed the deal.

The copy of Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld's Duck! Rabbit! (2009) which I sent my godchild for his first solstice was familially referred to for years as Baby's First Wittgenstein. I have no idea what Wittgenstein would have made of this cartoon, but I'm impressed.

I am not sure that I am much more than physically extant at the minute. I am clearing the refrigerator and the countertops. I am absorbing as much sunlight as I sleeplessly can. Yesterday kicked off with a doctor's appointment that was too early in the morning to be as unhelpful as it was and only dropped the bar from there, so this afternoon I made sure to secure a half-dozen donuts from the reliable Lyndell's and eat a jam-filled one as soon as I had finished walking home. The neighborhood smelled like alternating drifts of lilac and mulch. I have had the same headache since the weekend and am hoping it is related to the sexing of the trees. The nine o'clock advent of leafblowers to our block was inhumane.

Current Music: Quinquis, "Dec'h"

The fare is $3. If you commute, you take the bus or train twice a day, five days a week. Every week you spend $30*. You'd have to be caught and ticketed more often than once every five weeks in order to make this math not work out in your favor. And that is never going to happen, because there aren't nearly enough enforcement agents. As it is, the ones we have cost more than they make back. It's all a racket, but you'll notice the buses still aren't free because Albany is still in control of the MTA.

* I'm making a few assumptions here, first, that you're not sharing the same card among several family members with staggered schedules; once you spend $35 in a week on the same card, subsequent trips are free. Also, this is the full fare for most buses and trains, but not for the express bus.

In my defence, most of 2026 so far has been spent dealing with incapacitating levels of fatigue, which might finally be getting better (and that needs to be a separate post).

But the major problem is that I wanted to re-read Cascade, the first book in the trilogy, before starting Blight.

And while I loved Cascade -- here is my rave from way back when -- it produces an overwhelming sense of dread in me, even more than it did so on first read, because it captures, with remarkable precision and effectiveness, the sense of living in a liberal democracy that is teetering on the edge of ceasing to be one, and the stomach-dropping sensation when things begin moving unspeakably fast.

It's a very good book, but -- you see the problem.

Anyway, in recent weeks I finally got myself to re-read Cascade, and then I tore through Blight in a few days. Weirdly, I found it a much less difficult read because it's (both politically and environmentally) a post-apocalyptic novel, in which some kind of fightback is beginning.

Anyway it's fucking fantastic, without any of the common middle-book-of-a-trilogy doldrums. A really spectacular and unique mixture of wild magic, cosmic horror, and organizing for revolution, the last written with gritty specificity. The author is dead and all that, I don't know what's firsthand knowledge and what's research, but this is a book that (for example) writes with deep credibility about what it feels like to be in a crowd being tear-gassed.

As well as being a very good book, it also feels it's maybe a psychologically useful book to read right now.

I would like to do a proper write-up but I still have no idea what my energy's going to be doing day to day, so in the meantime here's a hype post, and if you want a review here's

james_davis_nicoll's:

https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/land-of-hope

ETA: Also it's on the Aurora Award shortlist for Best Novel:

https://www.csffa.ca/awards-information/current-ballot/

Ob!disclaimer that the author is an internet acquaintance, but I do in fact love the book.

Has anyone else been noticing that Google and MSN and other browsers are throwing FOX and CBS News stories, but one has to look for other outlets?
Or is that just me? I have to keep steering clear of them.

Also Paramount is blacklisting various actors now - who it considers too liberal. Meanwhile I'm blacklisting/boycotting Paramount and CBS. I won't watch either. At all. I blacklisted Fox News when it popped into existence. It's not that hard? I don't like anything on either. I watch ABC only on cable at the moment - which makes me wonder why I still have cable? (Oh right, I can't figure out how to get rid of the equipment - and they'll refuse to pick it up. What I need to do is come up with a deal in which they gain something by reducing my equipment and it's in their interest to pick it up.) I kind of miss spectrum news - but I refuse to pay $169 a month for it.

**

No news on the strike - outside of the fact that they are still negotiating. I honestly wish my vote mattered more than it does - because if it did, we wouldn't be even considering a strike. But alas, no one cares what I think. I want Universal Health Care, Affordable Housing, Rent Control, and Food for Everybody. They did put up a free grocery store or Polymarket in February, it was on 137 7th Avenue. I don't think it exists now. NY and NYC also have health care - entitled MetroPlus or HealthPlus, and if you are a NY Resident you can go to the CUNY and SUNY Colleges and Universites for free (these are the NY State Universities and City Universities.)

The problem with money - is people never have enough of it. They always want more, or what the other guy has.

**

Been comforting myself at work - listening to Charisma Carpenter's Bitch is Back podcasts of all things. I'm as surprised as anyone by this news.

She says things like:
( Read more... )
And that she's not crazy about hugs, they make her uncomfortable, she's not sure why - maybe it's the breasts or previous trauma? I felt seen. Because I feel the same way. It's also kind of hard to hug folks when you are almost six foot with big breasts, and they are five foot two. It's just painful.
( Read more... )

Carpenter has also pointed out a few things that didn't occur to me previously? ( Read more... )

Another thing Carpenter says that is endearing? "It's hard to be a human being."

I'm by no means a fan? But I do like Carpenter and find her Bitch podcast comforting and entertaining

Another fairly meh episode, and not referencing a particular case as far as I'm aware. Which, given some of the things they've done with real cases, is maybe a blessing.

We do get some quality UofT though!

( Whole Lotta Love )

For Poetry Monday, with a cut for length:

Howl Under a Blue Light Filtered Moon, Elden Locke
(Dedicated to Allen Ginsberg)

I saw the best minds of my generation scrolling themselves to death,
starved for meaning, lit by the blue glow of a thousand screens,
dragged through the feed at 3 A.M. looking for something real.

Angels of burnout, prophets of anxiety,
wired into coffee and code and self-diagnosis,
naked in their rooms, refreshing the apocalypse for updates.

Who texted their prayers into the void and got an emoji in return,
who built their gods out of hashtags and dopamine,
who confessed their sins to algorithms that sold them better ones.

Who wandered suburbia in eternal leases,
tethered to Wi-Fi, dreaming of the open road but afraid of gas prices,
who howled under fluorescent lights of office towers
as their dreams were formatted into PowerPoints.

Who made love to ghosts through pixelated glass,
mouths pressed to screens, hearts buffering,
and cried out for human touch in the language of memes.

( Who believed in justice and were met with comment sections )

Source. Relevant Ginsberg.

---L.

Subject quote from Everything She Wants, Wham!.

Fic one: Protagonist very recently, like, last week, left home to live with a friend. Protagonist wonders how his newly estranged family found him, then reflects that "the internet still exists". Technically a true statement in 1994, however, it's perhaps a bit more likely that they just used the phone book.

Fic two: Protagonist is touristing in NYC, casually stops in a bodega, buys a flip phone so he can text people. Not in 1992 he didn't - texting via phones was only just invented that year and phones were bricks!

You gotta laugh. Kindly and gently, but still - you gotta laugh!

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

( Read more... )

Watch on YouTube

I was introduced to this piece - specifically Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity - via Wolf 359, the Christmas episode, aka the one where things go from "comedically dark" to "shit just got real".

This one's just bad. Not actively harmful or anything, it just doesn't make any sense.

( Family Meal )

Late in May as the light lengthens
toward summer the young goldfinches
flutter down through the day for the first time
to find themselves among fallen petals
cradling their day's colors in the day's shadows
of the garden beside the old house
after a cold spring with no rain
not a sound comes from the empty village
as I stand eating the black cherries
from the loaded branches above me
saying to myself Remember this

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

Link

Not everyone does, and we should be mindful of the reasons some don't and show compassion in how we celebrate and talk about this day - I think?

I am forever grateful that I have a loving mother who is my best friend. And have been for the most surrounded by loving mothers, including my beloved maternal grandmother. While far from perfect, I am grateful for my mom. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not.

There but for the grace of god, go I - since I'm mindful that not everyone got that. And an insane amount of people did not.

Last year - I visited mother around this date, and took time off work. This year, I'm navigating doctor's appointments, work, and the fear of an impending strike over what amounts to pennies.

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

Haven't been sleeping well this week for many reasons not worth going into. I swear the internet has a solution for everything, some of which seem to be competing with each other for my attention and use. Choose me! I can solve all your physical ills! Choose me! I'm the expert! (Sigh, the snake oil salesmen no longer have to go town to town, they have the internet. And they seem to multiply daily. They've even evolved to selling apps and weight scales that will solve all your problems. I kid you not, there is actually a weight scale that diagnoses what ails you and provides the solution. It's like something out of a bad 1980s sci-fi satire. Maybe it did originate from that - and someone out there got the bright idea to create one and sell it.)

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

2026 is the year that folks have started writing and releasing "Protest Songs" again en mass. Not that they didn't do it off and on previously, they have. And there are some good ones from yesteryear...

( pre-2020s Protest Songs..or from yesteryear )

And here are some from 2026...
( newer protest songs )

And, you know, feel however you feel about your mother!

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

( Read more... )

Read Sounds Like Titanic by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, a memoir of her time - as a young, desperate aspiring violinist - playing violin in a fake orchestra that toured the U.S. (and, briefly, China) while "doing the Milli Violini", i.e., the instrumental version of lip-synching to a recorded CD. It's also a memoir of the cultural shift/dissonance of post-9/11 America ("The desire for postdisaster control was so strong in the years [Hindman] worked for the Ensemble, the years 2002-2006, that even the slightest sound of a pennywhistle was soothing") and of what she describes as life in the body, a theme encompassing everything from the way that being A Violin Player was an escape from and defense against the pressures of being A Teenage Girl, to the panic disorder ("disaster-brain") she developed while on the aforementioned U.S. tour. Engagingly written; had a lot going on in a relatively slim memoir - shuffling between circa-1990s backstory, the circa-2000s "main plot", and contextual/reflective interludes like a deck of cards - but it worked.

Read Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth, queer coming-of-age in early 1990s rural Ireland; I liked this a lot but don't have much to say about it. Would recommend if you enjoy intense teen girl friendships-to-lovers, complicated relationships with one's mother, Catholic guilt, and slow-burn emotional/personal growth.

* Actually finished both on Saturday, after starting on Friday and Thursday, respectively ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Current Music: Good Luck, Babe! - Chappell Roan

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Page Summary

soc_puppet in queerly_beloved - Thursday Recs
sabotabby - L&O season 2: Episode 9
troisoiseaux - Belated Reading Wednesday
sovay - What could be better? When will we know?
sabotabby - L&O season 3: Episode 8
conuly - Pretty goldfish shaped dumplings!
sabotabby - Reading Wednesday
sovay - Ne 'z in ket da gorolliñ
conuly - The sign at the bus stop reminds me that farejumping comes with a fine up to $150
rydra_wong - An apologia for it taking me a fucking YEAR to read "Blight" by Rachel Rosen
shadowkat - (no subject)
sabotabby - L&O season 3: Episode 7
larryhammer - “i’ll tell you that i’m happy if you want me to / but one step further and my back will break”
conuly - Two fics, two days - both set in the early 1990s
conuly - (no subject)
sabotabby - L&O season 3: Episode 6
conuly - Black Cherries by W. S. Merwin
shadowkat - Happy Mother's Day for those who celebrate..and the Protest Song
conuly - Have a happy day today!
troisoiseaux - Weekend* reading

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Stuff and Moonshine

Reading

Thursday Recs

L&O season 2: Episode 9

Belated Reading Wednesday

What could be better? When will we know?

L&O season 3: Episode 8

Pretty goldfish shaped dumplings!

Reading Wednesday

Ne 'z in ket da gorolliñ

The sign at the bus stop reminds me that farejumping comes with a fine up to $150

An apologia for it taking me a fucking YEAR to read "Blight" by Rachel Rosen

(no subject)

L&O season 3: Episode 7

“i’ll tell you that i’m happy if you want me to / but one step further and my back will break”

Two fics, two days - both set in the early 1990s

(no subject)

L&O season 3: Episode 6

Black Cherries by W. S. Merwin

Happy Mother's Day for those who celebrate..and the Protest Song

Have a happy day today!

Weekend* reading

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May 2026

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