vital functions

Jul. 13th, 2025 22:30
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Reading. This week I have mostly but not entirely been reading more murdery bot: Network Effect, Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse, Rapport, aaaand I've also immediately launched myself into yet another quick reread of All Systems Red because we finished watching the TV series and therefore I want The Murderbot Of My Heart Thank You.

However! I have also continued reading about nerves! I have now read the entire first chapter of Nerve and Muscle, supplemented by a bunch more Wikipedia, and I think I am starting to have a better mental picture of how all of this works? I am going into way more depth than required by The Project, really, I think, but I will be happier if I know what's going on at least to the extent that I understand a little more about what it means, physically, when it is explained that some migraine preventives target Type A nerve fibre and others target Type C (which in turn is why if you get partial relief from something that targets Type C it's worth at least experimenting with adding in something targeting Type A).

And I have also made a tiny bit more progress with The Age of Seeds, but... yeah, mostly Murderbot.

Watching. Murderbot! I will concede that "I need to check the perimeter" did indeed get me Right In The Feels. I still prefer my book-Murderbot but I am beginning to acquire a better understanding of why folk love this Murderbot too.

The fanvid Bohemian Like You, by [archiveofourown.org profile] kuwdora, via [personal profile] sholio, via [personal profile] recessional.

Cooking. Several new things! Aubergine larb with sticky rice and shallot salad, lavender & honey Welsh cakes out of the Welsh cakes tourist tat mini-book, coconut pancakes. Now officially over two thirds of the way through East (with another Several planned for this week coming).

Eating. TODAY WE WENT ON AN ADVENTURE TO SEE ONE OF MY UNIVERSITY FRIENDS. I don't understand how it has been somewhere in the vicinity of ten years since I last got my act together to see this friend in particular given the part where, you know, we live in the same city, BUT we sorted ourselves out to meet up at King's Cross today and in addition to talking solidly for the entire duration we had FOOD including:

  • Ruby Violet (maxi moo moo with hazelnut crunch & raspberry, rosewater and prosecco on the grass by the canal; hazelnut & hazelnut brittle, salted caramel & almond brittle, hot cross bun, raspberry ripple, and coffee mocha ripple brought home, those last two primarily for A)
  • for lunch I had a funghi ma po tofu from rice guys, and A had a veg biriyani from somewhere I'm not immediately managing to spot on the Canopy Market trader list
  • from Bread Ahead we brought home two doughnuts -- pistachio crème brûlée for me, and something involving honeycomb for A; I think this is quite possibly the first custard doughnut I have ever eaten and actually liked (though were I to buy from them again I'd skip the pistachios)

... and upon meeting up with said friend, they reached into their bag with an "oh before I forget--" and pulled out a jar of jam, which conveniently gave me an excuse to reach into my bag and pull out the jar of jam I'd brought to give them, so I have swapped one blood orange + cardamom for one cherry plum + vanilla, and I've not eaten it yet but I am very excited about doing so.

... also raspberries, gooseberries, redcurrants, jostaberries...

Exploring. We poked around Granary Square a bit to go with Meeting Friends; we came home with lots of stickers (I also got some washi tape from that first one...), a gorgeous bowl (which she was not charging that much for at the market, goodness), and a business card for Creature Crafts by Nat so I could send their details on to Interested Parties.

Growing. ... I spent a whole day at the plot mostly reading Murderbot? (And did also do some weeding, and some harvesting, and some watering, and some general pootling.)

'murica

Jul. 13th, 2025 19:17
elisi: He's a Freudian cesspool of random impulse and deep insecurity. There's no one who can control that. (Homelander)
[personal profile] elisi
Can't remember where I came across this, but thought I'd share:

Who Goes MAGA?


And this popped up in my suggested on youtube:



Also, this is fascinating:

Trump’s mass deportation is backfiring
Money quote:
And all told, Trump’s second term has actually led to the most sympathy for migrants on record in the 21st century, per Gallup. Fully 79% of Americans now say immigration is a “good thing,” compared with 64% last year.

More Murderbot Articles

Jul. 13th, 2025 11:41
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
[personal profile] marthawells
A really thoughtful essay on Murderbot: ‘Even If They Are My Favourite Human’: Murderbot Just Explained Boundaries

https://countercurrents.org/2025/07/even-if-they-are-my-favourite-human-murderbot-just-explained-boundaries/

“I Don’t Know What I Want”: The Line That Changed Everything

In the final moments of the season, Murderbot says: “I don’t know what I want. But I know I don’t want anyone to tell me what I want or to make decisions for me. Even if they are my favourite human.”

This is not a dramatic declaration. It is confusion wrapped in clarity. A sentence that holds discomfort and self-awareness in equal measure. It reflects a truth often ignored in stories about intelligence and emotion: that it is okay to not know, as long as that unknowing belongs to the self. In a world that constantly demands certainty, this line opens up space for uncertainty without shame.



* And a great interview with Alexander Skarsgård!

https://collider.com/murderbot-finale-alexander-skarsgard/

So, it just wants to start fresh and get away, and figure out who it is and what it wants. It doesn't really know that. I quite enjoyed that Murderbot didn't end up having answers to all the questions or knowing exactly what it wants. It's more messy and complicated than that. But it definitely knows that it needs to find its own path and make its own decisions, to make its own mistakes, and not have the Corporation or anyone tell it who it is or what it wants.
runpunkrun: illustration of numbered sheep jumping over a sleeping figure, text: runpunkrun (and then she woke up)
[personal profile] runpunkrun

Fam, I have been so wiped out lately that I feel like I have a Victorian wasting disease. All I can really do is just sit on the couch and read or work on my virtual farm. On the other hand this has given me plenty of time to make up Fake Victorian Wasting Diseases:

  • nervous frippery
  • whispering spleen
  • hysterical ennui
  • chimney wheeze
  • evening vapors
  • wastrel's scrod

Recent Reading

Jul. 13th, 2025 08:26
sanguinity: woodcut by M.C. Escher, "Snakes" (Default)
[personal profile] sanguinity
I am very brain-dead from going to a work conference in Atlanta this week. Getting up at what amounts to 4am personal time, to then spend sixteen hours go go go with way too many people, none of whom are comfortably anonymous strangers but also none of whom are friends, is exhausting. I got home late Thursday and took Friday off, even napping on Friday afternoon, which is something that I'm generally incapable of. But that's exhaustion for you, I suppose.

(The last time I napped, come to think of it, was after my last work conference, in which not only was I sleep deprived all week, but I came down with a case of literal hives on the airplane home. Ugh.)

Anyway. None of you are here to hear about all that. ;-)


Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign (1999)

Read aloud with [personal profile] grrlpup. First time for her; re-read for me.

This was one of my favorites from my first read of the series; I'm happy to say I liked it even better on re-read. I'm not sure how well it can be read as a stand-alone, as it assumes a working knowledge of Komarr. But I do like the strong ensemble of characters, and that the conflicts are mostly social and personal, instead of military or mystery. (Which does not stop it from rising to an action-packed climax at the end: I believe Grrlpup and I read the final three chapters in one day!)

Grrlpup's favorite characters were Dr. Enrique Borgos and his beloved butter bugs, and it is true: it is always a delight when they come on the page. Armsman Pym was also a favorite; she'd very much like to see his pov. (Alas, we do not, as I recall, ever get it in the series. I wonder if anyone has written Jeevsian fic for him?) And once again Lady Alys is serving strong Judith Martin vibes -- I do wonder if Martin was an inspiration for the character.


Lois McMaster Bujold, "Winterfair Gifts" (2004)

Read aloud with [personal profile] grrlpup. First time for her; re-read for me.

Taura, my beloved! *hearts-eyes* And I am fond of Armsman Roic, too (although I don't think this satisfied Grrlpup's desire for a Pym-centered story). Quick and sweet read, like a delicious chocolate truffle.


Daniel M. Lavery, Dear Prudence: Liberating Lessons from SLATE.com's Beloved Advice Column (2023)

I don't read many advice columns, but I find them most satisfying when there is an implied code of social logic that underlies them. (Make! The social! World! Make! Sense!) Lavery clearly has such a code, and the code tallies nicely with mine, which made this a pleasant read. I do enjoy the bits where he reconsiders the advice he originally gave; it's nice to know that even confident advice-givers grow and change over time. There's a chapter or two of letters on transitioning and/or coming out, presumably as Lavery himself was transitioning at the time and drawing more of that kind of question than I usually expect to see in a general-topics advice column.


Saeed Jones, How We Fight For Our Lives: A Memoir (2019)

Brief, lyrical, eminently readable memoir of growing up gay and black in the 1990s in Texas, attending university in the 2000s in Kentucky, and the death of his mother in the 2010s. There are some painful topics (gaybashing, homophobia, Christian evangelism, racism, a sexually self-destructive phase, and his mother's aforementioned death), and consequently the material gets heavy at times, but I raced through this in a day, always willing to turn the page and see what other thoughts and experiences he had had.


I also have a gob of Hum 110 bookgroup reading to write up, but I'll save that for their own posts.
umadoshi: (summer light (florianschild))
[personal profile] umadoshi
We made it to the little market down the road for the second week running and found the first vendor we visited down to his last several boxes of raspberries, so we bought two and headed back home. First raspberries of the season!

(I think yesterday was the first time I ever actually stopped and noticed why raspberries are called that.)

Reading: In non-fiction, I'm still reading through Tamar Adler's An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace.

On the fiction front, last week I read Cameron Reed's The Fortunate Fall, relatively recently (and finally!) reissued under her current name after its first life as an award-winning SFF novel under her deadname literal decades ago. (I believe her upcoming novel is her first since this one!) It didn't actually hit my emotional buttons very hard (which isn't indicative of how anyone else might react), but it's beautifully constructed and executed. I see why it's so beloved by so many people. ^_^

I also read We Are All Completely Fine (Daryl Gregory), which I didn't realize was a novella until I started reading, so it went by pretty quickly. Interesting horror worldbuilding, although other than the characters' specific histories it's almost entirely hinted at or nodded to; I, at least, came away with almost no actual idea of what's actually going on on a larger scale.

And I read the new Murderbot story ("Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy") that Martha Wells released for the show finale (note that Murderbot itself isn't actually present in the story).

Watching: No Leverage this week, I don't think. [personal profile] scruloose and I have agreed to switch this to an "I watch this when I feel like it, and if they're around and feel like it, they'll watch with me" show rather than one we're Watching Together. They enjoy it, but don't feel a burning need to see every episode.

I kind of wonder if I haven't been started a show on my own for so long because I'm sort of subconsciously waiting to be able to watch the rest of Justice in the Dark whenever the whole thing is subbed somewhere.

We've seen the Murderbot finale, and I'm awfully glad the show's been renewed.

Beyond that, the two of us have now watched the very first episode of Silo, having had good luck with Apple SFF shows. I haven't read the books, so I know almost nothing about it.

(I have food stuff to talk about, but I think I'll call this a post and hope to write more later.)

Small life update + film notes

Jul. 13th, 2025 21:15
caramarie: Icon of a magpie perched against a backdrop of the stars. (Default)
[personal profile] caramarie
I started back at university part-time last week! It was very confusing for the poor IT systems, which didn’t cope very well with someone being a returning student after 16 years (or ‘a very long time ago’, as the IT person who made me repeat my date of birth several times called it).

I am only doing one course at a time, so at the moment it is Japanese. In honour of which, I am posting the notes from a film I watched back in March. I have been telling people I’ve gone back to uni because I’m sick of my work, but maybe I should have been blaming it on Kurosawa :p

Ikiru (1952)

As a public servant, I felt attacked by this film.

Watanabe has worked in public relations for the city council for years and years, leading a dull life, until he learns (despite the doctor’s refusal to admit it) that he has stomach cancer.

After which ... )

Daily Happiness

Jul. 12th, 2025 20:01
torachan: (Default)
[personal profile] torachan
1. We had originally been planning to go to Disneyland this morning, but last night I was just feeling tired and suggested we skip our weekend trip since we're going to a show (Paul F. Thompkins' Varietopia again) tomorrow already, and just have one stay at home day. Well, turned out to be for the best because apparently JD Vance is at Disneyland this weekend and so not only is there extremely heightened security inside and protests outside, but the thought of being at the park at the same time as him is a bummer and would just ruin the trip. So we'll just wait and go sometime this week. It's not like we haven't been recently lol.

2. Instead of going to the farmers market or Disneyland, our usual Saturday morning choices, we walked up to a local bagel place and got fancy bagels. We each got two half bagels with different toppings. She got the laika (smoked salmon, cream cheese, pickled red onions, cucumber, capers, and dill) and the scarlett (cream cheese, lightly grilled tomatoes, lemon zest, and chili flakes), and I got the mia (avocado, pickled red onions, chili flakes, and cilantro) and the pre-jam (cream cheese, peaches, honey, and mixed berries). We also got a yuzu strawberry lemonade ice tea and a vanilla orange latte. Everything was so good!

They always have super long lines on the weekends so we've been curious but I'd never been before. Carla's been a couple times on weekdays, when it's not as crowded, but she'd only gotten the scarlett before and hadn't tried anything else. They have online ordering but I didn't know what time Carla would wake up, so I didn't put in an order early, and by the time she woke up around 9:30, there were no more order slots, so we just walked up, but the line wasn't bad yet (maybe fifteen minutes or so and then a bit more of a wait to get the order). Definitely worth it, though.

3. Later in the morning, Carla was talking about some Lush product she'd seen mentioned recently and it got us thinking about Lush again. There was another product she used to use all the time when they had a location here in Santa Monica, but that one's been gone for ages and it was sort of out of sight out of mind. But it turns out there's one at the mall in Culver City, so we decided to go check it out.

We got several things and then headed to the Target at the end of the mall and passed by a super cute hobby shop that had a bunch of knock-off lego type bricks with all sorts of licensed characters, and they also had a bunch of book nooks and other wood craft type stuff and we ended up buying quite a few things lol. Facebook/Instagram has been pushing book nooks on me for a while so it felt like fate. I got one book nook and Carla got three wood craft dinosaur sets and a Kung Fu Panda brick set (this brand is a lot less cheap looking than most non-lego brand bricks I've seen).

I have been trying to find some new plain t-shirts I can wear to work as I currently only have one that both fits well and feels nice (though I do have others that are tolerable). It's really hard for me to find shirts because I am sensitive about fabrics. I usually buy most of my clothes from Target because I don't like shopping and am lazy, but they don't have any good t-shirts right now, so while we were at the mall I checked out Uniqlo and Old Navy, and neither had good shirts (the Uniqlo ones I couldn't even bear to try on because the fabric felt so NOPE to me just from a quick touch), but at least I can mark those off my list of possibilities.

We then went to Target and got some random stuff (mostly food, but also a nice Encanto puzzle) and then while I was waiting for Carla to check out I got a pepperoni cheese pretzel from Auntie Anne's. Haven't eaten there in literal decades, but it was delicious. Also had tasty watermelon lemonade.

Overall it was a very nice trip. We used to go to the mall all the time years and years ago and never go, but this one is not at all dead and has lots of nice shops. Kind of seemed like back in the heyday of malls. We should do that more often!

4. Look at Tuxie's snoot! So cute!

Weekly Reading

Jul. 12th, 2025 17:49
torachan: onoda sakamichi from yowamushi pedal with a huge smile (onoda smile)
[personal profile] torachan
Currently Reading
A Slash of Emerald
82%. Second in the Dr Julia Lewis mystery series. It's been a while since the first one and tbh I've been reading/listening to so many historical murder series that they start to blend together a bit so I don't entirely remember the first one (though I did give it four stars so I clearly liked it) but I feel like I'm enjoying this one even more than the first? It's definitely good.

The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State
4%. Title is self-explanatory. Just started but it seems like an interesting topic!

Kill Her Twice
6%. YA murder mystery set in 1930s LA Chinatown. So far so good, but I've only just gotten started.

Just Happy to Be Here
26%.

Sister Outsider
32%.

Recently Finished
Riding the Rails
This was good! Felt a little repetitive and the best parts were short chapters that focused on individuals rather than the longer chapters that were supposedly organized by topic but kind of wandered a bit.

Murder at the Patel Motel
I really liked this a lot. It looks like the other books the author has written are middle grade and I'm going to check them out, but I hope he does some more mysteries because this was a lot of fun.

Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy
New Murderbot short story. It's available free here. This is set after the most recent book and is about ART and crew. I enjoyed it.

Astronautical!
Cute middle grade graphic novel set in a universe where a planet has broken apart into little bits and one can travel between the chunks in boats. Things like gravity and oxygen are hand-waved and it's very vibes-based and ultimately a little too silly for me, but it was cute.

Koyubi-sensei no Reiteki Sakusen
New manga by Uguisu Sachiko. This is a single volume collection of what were originally one-shots, so although they have the same characters, there's not really any plot arc. I've read (and scanlated) a couple of the stories but the rest were new to me. I like all her stuff and this was no exception.

Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri vol. 17
This really feels like it's wrapping up. There was an announcement for the next volume in the back and it was listed as volume 18 rather than final volume, but I would be surprised if it went more than another volume or two after that. tbh I'm fine with that. I've enjoyed the series but I liked it more before it developed an over-arching plot. (My same complaint with Katekyo Hitman Reborn, which also started as a gag manga and evolved into something with silly elements but overall more serious.)

Mission! vol. 4

Saint Young Men vol. 21
sovay: (Sydney Carton)
[personal profile] sovay
I dreamed of taking a transcontinental train with as little difficulty as traveling to D.C., which I am not convinced has been the state of American rail for decades. Otherwise since my sleep has gone principally to hell again, I feel burnt and friable and past my last fingernail of whatever I am supposed to be doing. On the one hand we are a communal species; on the other I would like to feel I had any right to exist beyond what other people require of me.

I am relieved to see that the enraging article I read last night about the deep-sixing of Yiddish at Brandeis has since been amended to a reduced but not eradicated schedule, but it would have been best to leave the program undisturbed to begin with. The golem reference is apropos.

My formative Joan D. Vinge was Psion (1982/2007), which even in its bowdlerized YA version may have been my introductory super-corporatized dystopia, but I had recent occasion to recommend her Heaven Chronicles (1991), which I got off my parents' shelves in high school and whose first novella especially has retained its importance over the years, of holding on to the true things—like one another—even in the face of an apparently guaranteed dead-end future, the immutably cold equations of its chamber space opera which differ not all that much from the hot ones of our planetside reality show. Not Pyrrhically or ironically, it chimed with other stories I had grown up hearing.

Jamaica Run (1953) is an inexplicably lackadaisical film for such sensational components as sunken treasure, inheritance murder, and a deteriorated sugar plantation climactically burning down on Caribbean Gothic schedule, but it did cheer me that it unerringly cast Wendell Corey as my obvious favorite character, the heroine's ne'er-do-well brother whose landed airs don't cover his bar tab and whose intentions toward the ingenue of a newly discovered heir may be self-surprised sincere romance or just hunting his own former fortune, swanning around afternoons in a dressing gown and getting away with most of the screenplay's sarcasm: "What is this, open house for disagreeable people?"

I cannot yet produce photographic evidence, but the robin's eggs in the rhododendron beside the summer kitchen have hatched into open-mouthed nestlings. A dozen infant caterpillars are tunneling busily through the milkweed.

(no subject)

Jul. 12th, 2025 11:29
skygiants: the aunts from Pushing Daisies reading and sipping wine on a couch (wine and books)
[personal profile] skygiants
lest you think that having returned The Pushcart War to its rightful owner I went away with my bookshelves lighter! I did NOT, as she pushed 84, Charing Cross Road into my hands at the airport as I was leaving again with strict instructions to read it ASAP.

This is another one that's been on my list for years -- specifically, since I read Between Silk and Cyanide, as cryptography wunderkind Leo Marks chronicling the desperate heroism and impossible failures of the SOE is of course the son of the owner of Marks & Co., the bookstore featuring in 84, Charing Cross Road, because the whole of England contains approximately fifteen people tops.

84, Charing Cross Road collects the correspondence between jobbing writer Helene Hanff -- who started ordering various idiosyncratic books at Marks & Co. in 1949 -- and the various bookstore employees, primarily but not exclusively chief buyer Frank Doel. Not only does Hanff has strong and funny opinions about the books she wants to read and the editions she's being sent, she also spends much of the late forties and early fifties expressing her appreciation by sending parcels of rationed items to the store employees. A friendship develops, and the store employees enthusiastically invite Hanff to visit them in England, but there always seems to be something that comes up to prevent it. Hanff gets and loses jobs, and some of the staff move on. Rationing ends, and Hanff doesn't send so many parcels, but keeps buying books. Twenty years go by like this.

Since 84, Charing Cross Road was a bestseller in 1970 and subsequently multiply adapted to stage and screen, and Between Silk and Cyanide did not receive publication permission until 1998, I think most people familiar with these two books have read them in the reverse order that I did. I think it did make sort of a difference to feel the shadow of Between Silk and Cyanide hanging over this charming correspondence -- not for the worse, as an experience, just certain elements emphasized. Something about the strength and fragility of a letter or a telegram as a thread to connect people, and how much of a story it does and doesn't tell.

As a sidenote, in looking up specific publication dates I have also learned by way of Wikipedia that there is apparently a Chinese romcom about two people who both independently read 84, Charing Cross Road, decide that the book has ruined their lives for reasons that are obscure to me in the Wikipedia summary, write angry letters to the address 84 Charing Cross Road, and then get matchmade by the man who lives there now. Extremely funny and I kind of do want to watch it.

Daily Happiness

Jul. 11th, 2025 22:48
torachan: karkat from homestuck looking bored (karkat bored)
[personal profile] torachan
1. I had a pretty laid back day at work today but I am super glad it is the weekend and I have a break for a couple days.

2. I am so glad I was able to get this picture. Jasper: She's lurking again, isn't she?

some good things

Jul. 11th, 2025 23:56
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett
  1. The fan. Got house down to Actually Matching Outside Air Temperature in finite time; set up to experiment with running it in the bedroom overnight. (It has been Too Warm For Cuddles, which is Bad.)
  2. Made the nonsense lavender-and-honey Welsh cakes for breakfast. I was sure I had picked way too much lavender but it actually fit in the measuring spoon pretty much perfectly, and wound up being noticeable but not Overwhelming.
  3. New Murderbot novelette! I have not launched right into reading it because I am just about a quarter of the way through a System Collapse reread (and fascinated by how little of it I remember, though I concede I've read it many fewer times than All Systems Red...) so I'm going to finish that first. Which I am not expecting to take me very long.
  4. Having spent a bunch of time poking around Wikipedia, I've gone back to Nerve and Muscle and, now almost two whole pages in, it is making significantly more sense than my previous attempt. (I have not yet started making myself notes on neuroanatomy but I am definitely considering it.)
  5. It is The Time Of Year when strawberries are relatively cheap, so after dinner we wandered down the hill in service of me getting my steps, and us getting some exposure to The Breeze, and acquiring me a giant box of strawberries, and also picking up Ice Lollies to consume on the way back up.
  6. Realised I could stick a jug of water in the fridge. This has made hydrating significantly easier. (I do not do well at drinking water that isn't Cold, and the magic ice dispenser on our freezer is currently out of action.)
  7. The online Oxfam shop. Shortly to be on their way to me: a pair of cargo shorts; two pairs of linen cargo trousers; a book I previously had out from the library but which I wanted to have a reference copy of at least briefly for writing purposes.
caramarie: Lady at a dinner party. (dinner party)
[personal profile] caramarie
Title: If It’s All I Got
Fandom: A Bittersweet Life
Music: The Working, by Grayson Gilmour
Length: 4:20 min
Prompt: 00s music, for [community profile] vid_bingo
Download: If It’s All I Got (mp4, 131 MB)
Elsewhere: on AO3
Content notes: graphic violence, blood and injury, torture, gun violence, plus he gets buried alive
Summary: ‘I had a sweet dream.’

Streaming )

(no subject)

Jul. 10th, 2025 23:33
skygiants: the aunts from Pushing Daisies reading and sipping wine on a couch (wine and books)
[personal profile] skygiants
I mentioned that I did in fact read a couple of good books in my late-June travels to counterbalance the bad ones. One of them was The Pushcart War, which I conveniently discovered in my backpack right as I was heading out to stay with the friend who'd loaned it to me a year ago.

I somehow have spent most of my life under the impression that I had already read The Pushcart War, until the plot was actually described to me, at which point it became clear that I'd either read some other Pushcart or some other War but these actual valiant war heroes were actually brand new to me.

The book is science fiction, of a sort, originally published in 1964 and set in 1976 -- Wikipedia tells me that every reprint has moved the date forward to make sure it stays in the future, which I think is very charming -- and purporting to be a work of history for young readers explaining the conflict between Large Truck Corporations and Pugnacious Pushcart Peddlers over the course of one New York City summer. It's a punchy, defiant little book about corporate interest, collective action, and civil disobedience; there's one chapter in particular in which the leaders of the truck companies meet to discuss their master plan of getting everything but trucks off the streets of New York entirely where the metaphor is Quite Dark and Usefully Unsubtle. Also contains charming illustrations! A good read at any time and I'm glad to have finally experienced it.

Daily Happiness

Jul. 10th, 2025 20:49
torachan: john from garfield wearing a party hat and the text "this is boring with hats" (this is boring with hats)
[personal profile] torachan
1. Had a long day today with a lot of driving, but it was a good day. I made three store visits and they were all pleasant and not being made because of some stressfull issues that had to be addressed or anything like that. More of this, please.

2. While I was out, I had a bunch of delicious foods. The first store I went to has a little restaurant that sells freshly made sushi hand rolls and I got those for lunch, including their wagyu beef one, which is so good. Then when I went to the next store, there was a shop in the same shopping center that has mochi donuts and lattes and I got a sakura matcha latte and black sesame mochi donuts.

3. Carla went out shopping today and actually stopped at a different branch of the same mochi donut store and brought home donuts, so I can have more of them for dessert and for breakfast tomorrow!

4. This morning as I was about to leave for work I spotted this silly guy in the laundry.

Profile

starlady: Raven on a MacBook (Default)
Electra

February 2025

S M T W T F S
       1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
232425262728 

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios