Bridge to the Stars

I wanted to spend the afternoon lying in bed, reading, as the raindrops splashed against the window, but the weather didn't play ball, and I'd already finished my book before the rain arrived. Nevertheless, it's been a cosy couple of days, aided by a day off on Friday in which I did very little besides go swimming, chat on FaceTime with my sister and then my mum in quick succession, and sit out in the courtyard garden of our favourite cafe/bar with Matthias for a pre-dinner drink.

Yesterday, I was in Cambridge during the morning to get my hair cut, and also took the opportunity to refill all my spice jars at the health food shop that does refills. We do have a zero waste shop in Ely, but it only does refills of oils and vinegars, legumes, grains, nuts and dried fruit, and toiletries and cleaning products.

Matthias and I watched The Ballad of Wallis Island as our Saturday film last night. We'd meant to see this at the community cinema a few weeks ago, but ended up being sick with a cold, and we had to abandon those plans; thankfully it was available to rent on streaming fairly swiftly. It's a film that starts off being hilariously awkward, and awkwardly hilarious — an eccentric fan hires the two halves of his favourite (disbanded) folk duo for a private concert on a remote island, and all the artistic, professional, and romantic tensions that caused the pair to break up a decade ago come bubbling to the surface — and ends up sweet and emotionally affecting, without ever feeling saccharine.

This morning Matthias and I woke unprompted at about 6am, which I actually don't mind on the weekends — there's something nice about being awake at a time most people are asleep, watching the sunlight spread across the garden, lingering over breakfast and coffee, wandering around the cathedral and along the river, looking at smoke curling out of the houseboat chimneys, as the town slowly wakes up. We were back home by midmorning, and I baked an apple cake — an experiment that turned out successfully. I'm not a very good baker, and I'm worried that if I put more effort into it, I'll start treating it as I do cooking. I had to restrain myself from buying a stand mixer there and then (which would definitely do the job better than the whisk attachment on my handheld blender — which sent butter and sugar flying around the room — but which would also only enable me in this insanity).

I was a bit burnt out by reading, and therefore only finished a single book this week — Those Beyond the Wall (Micaiah Jonhson) — which I read essentially in an entire sitting this afternoon. It's a follow up to Johnson's incredible dystopian multiverse extractive capitalism critique, The Space Between Worlds, involving many of the same characters, but focusing not on the privileged elitist tech company town, but rather on the Mad Max-esque community eking out an existence on its periphery, sustained both by an incredibly codified violent honour culture, and an incredibly intense sense of community cohesion (residents may be terrified by the violence of their existence, but they would prefer that at least their own people are the ones inflicting it). As with The Space Between Worlds, it's both a plausible future endpoint of, and an incredibly unsubtle metaphor for, the history and contemporary politics of the United States (in this case colonisation and the genocidal displacement of the land's original inhabitants), but written with such exquisite worldbuilding and interpersonal dynamics between the characters that I can definitely forgive a lack of subtlety. I find the ending a bit too tidy and convenient, but hey, if Johnson wants to indulge the fantasy that it's possible to reveal a society's injustices to its citizens in a way that will inspire them to react en masse, who am I to stop her?

ETA: Updating with a second book — Sunbringer (Hannah Kaner), the second in her epic fantasy Fallen Gods trilogy. As with many second books in epic fantasy trilogies, this one sees our ragtag band of misfit heroes artificially separated for most of the book, so we miss out on the fun character dynamics that come from throwing together a bunch of mismatching individuals and seeing sparks fly, but it's still a lot of fun. My favourite part of this series is the way it conceptualises gods and deities, and how people understand and practice religion in a world where the divine is tangible and present (and terrifying). The double crossing, shocking reveals, and twisty political machinations come thick and fast, setting things up for what should hopefully be a satisfying concluding third book in the series.

The rain has started in earnest, and the sky is a mass of white. The house smells of cooked apples and brown sugar, and things couldn't be more cosy if they tried.

Unfortunately I need to take a preemptive (and hopefully temporary measure): screening all comments made by people not on my access list on most of my journal posts. This is because the level of filters available for comment screening are none, all, or non-access list only.

I'm hoping that this will only need to be a temporary thing and I can revert back to normal, unscreened settings, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to check if anyone subscribed to me, but not on the access list wanted to be granted access.

The vast majority of my posts have always been public, and I want to keep things that way, and I tend to defer to other people's preferences when granting access (i.e. if someone adds me as the result of e.g. a friending meme, if they subscribe only, I reciprocate, and if they grant access, I reciprocate in that way as well). But I'm not precious about this, and don't expect reciprocity.

If you're already on my access list, nothing should really change and you should be able to comment on most posts as normal. If you would like to be granted access, please comment on this post (here all comments are screened) or send me a message. If you're happy with things as they are, do be aware that future comments of yours may be screened, but I'll try to unscreen them at the point at which I reply.

I hope this makes sense — feel free to ask for clarification in the comments if you're not sure what I'm explaining here.

Let's close some tabs:

In my country of origin, Australia, sun protection is serious business, and testing requirements for sunscreen are very strict (in Europe, sunscreen is classed as a cosmetic product, but in Australia it's classed as a medical product) — that's why there's a massive scandal brewing as a number of Australia's most popular sunscreen brands have been found to be making false claims about the protection they offer.

One of the journalistic newsletters to which I subscribe has elected to put all their material behind a paywall for the month of September, and they lay out their reasons in a clear, compelling way here. As they point out, if no one who cares about credible, responsible, independent journalism, especially from foreign correspondents on the ground, is prepared to pay for it, the gap will be filled by nefarious entities that have the funds — authoritarian states, disinformation networks. I'm not saying this to suggest everyone should fund this specific newsletter, but I am saying that (if you have any money set aside for non-essentials), you should be paying for some form of journalism.

One of the journalistic outlets which I do fund is Byline Times, and this piece they published, by historian Olesya Khromeychuk, director of the Ukrainian Institute London, is just an incredible piece of writing, weaving together personal history, contemporary politics and geopolitics, and literary analysis with searing clarity.

This essay from Rebecca Solnit is another way of describing what I've long been calling '(geo)political abuse apologism.'

Did this kid use AI to fake research about how great AI is? — basically what it says in the title.

Speaking of extractive AI, this is basically where I'm at right now.

I liked this essay on fanfic as a form of literary criticism.

I really love instances of people with niche jobs or interests who are able to communicate to interested non-experts in a way that conveys a sense of wonder and curiousity, like an invitation into a hidden world — and I'm very much enjoying boisdejasmin's posts on perfumes and all things fragrance-related.

As always, Yuletide is abruptly upon us, and as always, it feels as if it's arrived without warning (despite being the same time every year). If you're planning to participate, the schedule and other requirements can be found at the yuletide_admin comm.