In ch. 15 of Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, Brownstein quotes several critics' reviews of S-K's All Hands album, then comments on the album more intelligently and deftly than the critics.
Windy Chien's A Year of Knots (17% so far) seems to be part knots and part mild memoir of having owned an indie record shop in the Mission district, worked at Apple, and only then become a selfstanding creative.
Finished The Angel Experiment - book one of James Patterson's YA series about Maximum "Max" Ride, a teenage avian-human hybrid on the run from mad scientists and also her destiny to Save The World - and ended up reading the equally if not even more batshit sequel, School's Out Forever (2006). (The School is the laboratory where Max and the rest of her "flock" were created and spent the first two to ten(?) years of their lives as twisted science experiments (!); Patterson apparently really likes the "school's out" joke because he used it in the first book, too, although this one does also feature an actual school.)
( Highlights )
Currently (re-)reading The Far Side of the World by Patrick O'Brian, which so far is the second book I've read this year to feature extensive info-dumping about the 19th century whaling industry. Also started reading The Book of Love by Kelly Link; I'm only a few chapters in but it's already, like, heart-bursting-ly good.
The barre class at the gym today kicked my ass; genuinely kind of embarrassed that I had to put down the weights and sit down during the arm work bit because I got dizzy. Anemia, why you gotta be so intractable?
The nectarine I had this morning was the best nectarine I have ever eaten, and I have eaten a lot of nectarines. The community garden is having a flame war in email over everyone's garlic being stolen for the second year in a row and lines of battle are being drawn between people who think we should install cameras as a deterrent and people who think this is surveillance culture/security theater.
It's been a few weeks since I've been to campus and I have a day chockablock with meetings; I will have to remember to pack lunch and a snack and I'm annoyed I already wore the shirt I planned to wear. How did I do this five days a week in the Before Times???
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
bloggess_feed Jul. 23rd, 2025 01:24 am)"No, ma'am, it was a Messerschmitt"
and
"DiMaggio--?"
-
Back in the bygone days of last millennium, I would read a children's book series, and I think it was in Baby Sitter's Club that this happened but frankly I don't remember, where the characters would do something called sucking the filling out of a twinkie.
I had no idea what a twinkie was. The only candy I knew that was hollow and you could suck things out of was twizzlers, because we'd do things like bite the ends off of twizzlers and then use them as straws for ginger ale and then eat the twizzler. So I assumed twinkies were some kind of filled twizzlers.
Many years later -- I was about 16? -- I saw twinkies for the first time and discovered that they're nothing like twizzlers. The betrayal. The confusion. Etc.
Anyway turns out we're in the future and they now make twizzlers with a filling inside.
I haven't eaten them. They seem to be a different, softer formulation of twizzler to make it work, and I don't feel the need to explore this at this juncture.
But.
This is exactly what I thought twinkies were.
Work was fine - busy, and kind of a lot, but not difficult despite the lack of sleep - but then I sat down on the couch after dinner to watch the Mets and fell asleep for about 40 minutes. *hands*
I'm really glad I took yesterday off too. I 100% recommend adding an extra day onto your vacation if you can - especially if it's a Monday, and doubly so if you actually went away. It makes it easier to get back into the grind, at least for me. I had 333 emails to sort through this morning, and there is way too much going on, as usual, but I timed it so that all of my regular meetings happened while I was out, so this week should be fairly quiet.
On the home front, I've had my new dishwasher for a week now and it is working really well, though I am still learning how to load it. The tines are much closer together and shorter than in my old one, which makes it difficult to get stuff in between them. But it's so quiet! And it doesn't leak! *knock wood* It does take 2.5 hours to run the full normal cycle, but I can live with that.
On the TV front, I finished Murderbot and enjoyed it - Mensah is still my favorite and I wish Bharadwaj had had more to do because I liked her as well.
I also finished the last 2 available episodes of My Life Is Murder because I read they are doing a new season, though who knows when it will be available here. I enjoyed the s4 2-part finale, and I do kind of low-key ship Alexa and Madison, though I also like that they have not had any real romantic interests for Alexa, and those 2 episodes really focused on her lingering grief for her husband.
In other news, Baby Miss L went to Sesame Place this past weekend and the videos of her vibrating with joy over meeting Elmo and Grover and Cookie Monster are amazing!
*
Unlike yesterday's long trip to Reno, the chiropractor's office is only a few minutes away from my house. I could walk there if I wanted to do so. I did not do so today because I'm still very tired. It's going to take days to recover.
Journaling prompt: What games do you play, if any? Are you a solo-gamer or do you view games as a social activity?
Creative prompt: Write a story/fic around the theme "game night".
I make my family play board games, usually at least two or three times a month. Per recommendation on DW during the Snowflake Challenge, I bought 2 of the EXIT games, but they were very difficult for us. We had to look at the clues and the solutions for many of the steps.
I also got the game Canvas, which is a kind of art composition game, and the boys, Minisculus in particular, really liked it. So we will be playing that again.
We usually play Ticket to Ride or Exploding Kittens. Sometimes we play Catan or Sorry. I play Monopoly or Yahtzee with the boys. Or Battleship with Minisculus.
I play Wordle, Spelling Bee, and the BTS game In the Seom. Here's a mood board I did for the last.
For the Creative Prompt, I did a double drabble in the Jeeves & Wooster fandom.
Title: Wager
Fandom: Jeeves & Wooster
Rating: Gen
Length: 200
Characters: the Drones minus Bertie
Summary: The Drones are having a wager.
( Read more... )
otw_news_feed Jul. 23rd, 2025 12:44 am)Over the past few weeks, we completed several important infrastructure updates including upgrading to Elasticsearch 8, finishing the transition to Rails 7.1, and migrating the bookmarks table to create room for more bookmarks. We also made some user-facing improvements, such as fixing various access and display bugs; clarifying some error messages, form labels, and page titles; and adding chapter numbers to comments in your inbox. Special thanks and welcome to first-time contributors Abhinav Gupta, hk-contribs, TemperedPetals, and Vemmy RM! We’d also like to thank Dhiraj Mishra for reporting a security issue.
Credits
- Coders: Abhinav Gupta, AliceLsr, Bilka, Brian Austin, calm, ceithir, Connie Feng, EchoEkhi, Hamham6, hk-contribs, kitbur, sarken, slavalamp, TemperedPetals, Vemmy RM, weeklies
- Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, ceithir, Coding-Hen, Hamham6, sarken, weeklies
- Testers: Bilka, Booksarelife, Brian Austin, Caitlynne, calamario, choux, Deniz, Keladry, LilyP, Lute, lydia-theda, Sam Johnsson, Sanity, Teyris, therealmorticia, wichard
Details
0.9.414
In the process of installing the new Elasticsearch servers, we upgraded to Elasticsearch 8 on June 24!
- [AO3-6259] – We upgraded the Elasticsearch gem to version 8.18.0.
0.9.415
On June 25, we finished off the last remaining parts of the update to Rails 7.1.
- [AO3-6894] – We flipped the remaining configuration values to use the new defaults from Rails 7.1.
0.9.416
Our deploy on July 1 updated older language on the work search and filtering forms from “Author/Artist” to “Creator” and added chapter numbers to comments in your inbox, among other improvements.
- [AO3-6050] – When accessing the Tag Wrangling page showing all relationship tags related to a character, tags would always be shown in alphabetical order, regardless of sort order. Now, tag wranglers can additionally sort through the tags by how many times they were used or by creation date.
- [AO3-6273] – Sometimes, when you used the “Post Draft” button on a draft, the word count of the publicly posted work would be blank. It should now always be the correct number.
- [AO3-6373] – If you blocked a user who had previously commented on your work, you could no longer freeze their comment. We fixed this, so you can now block users and freeze their comment threads in any order without problems.
- [AO3-6735] – We fixed that when you left a comment on an news posts with comment moderation enabled, the resulting comment email would incorrectly tell you that the comment was on a work with moderated comments.
- [AO3-6936] – We changed the browser page title on subscriptions pages to a format that matches other user pages: “username – Subscriptions | Archive of Our Own.”
- [AO3-6971] – We fixed an error that occurred if the “No Fandom” tag didn’t exist, for example in a development installation of the Archive.
- [AO3-7010] – Trying to access the chapter index of a work that’s both in an unrevealed collection and hidden by an admin used to result in an error 500. We’ve fixed that so it now results in a normal permission error.
- [AO3-7017] – If you knew the ID of a draft work or a work restricted to logged in users, you could access a few subpages of the work that revealed its title and blurb. Since that information isn’t meant to be public, we’ve once again restricted access to these pages.
- [AO3-7016] – We updated the gem we use to run database schema migrations of large tables.
- [AO3-5345] – Collection maintainers get an email notification if they run matching in a gift exchange and the sign-ups are invalid. We’ve improved the text of this email and prepared it for translation.
- [AO3-6541] – We changed the works search and the sorting and filtering options to use “Creator” instead of “Author/Artist” to match the terminology used by the rest of the site.
- [AO3-6750] – Comments in your inbox now include the chapter number, so you don’t have to follow the comment link to know where exactly it was left.
- [AO3-6807] – If you tried to use an invalid URL for an external work or in your collection sign-up, you would sometimes get a 500 error. We fixed that so now you will always get a proper error message telling you that the URL is invalid.
- [AO3-6999] – We removed some duplicate code for sending comment emails to admins.
0.9.417 & 0.9.418
On July 3 and July 4, we ran out of rows in the database table that stores bookmarks, so we had to move them to a larger table that can hold them all! Now you can once again add your own bookmarks to the 647 million we already have.
- [AO3-7031] – We migrated the bookmarks table to be able to hold more rows and then migrated all other table columns that refer to bookmarks to also support the larger bookmark IDs.
0.9.419
On July 12, we deployed an assortment of minor changes that included allowing the accent-color property in skins and clarifying some error messages.
- [AO3-6795] – When you were excluding a tag in a search and then made a syntax error when trying to filter those results, you’d get a 500 error. We’ve fixed this so it instead tells you that your query has a syntax error.
- [AO3-6989] – If you tried to view the pseuds list for a user who didn’t exist, you’d get redirected to the People Search page. That made sense in a way, but wasn’t terribly consistent with other nonexistent pages. Now you’ll get a 404 error instead, which makes it easier to check for typos in the URL you entered.
- [AO3-7007] – We fixed a 500 error when a guest tried to add a work to a collection by directly going to the “Add To Collection” URL.
- [AO3-7025] – We fixed a typo in one of the CSS properties in the Creating a Skin help pop-up.
- [AO3-7022] – We changed the default comment setting for news posts to “Only registered users can comment.”
- [AO3-5344] – We prepared the email that you get when your work is invited to a collection for translation.
- [AO3-7019] – You will now get an informative error message if you try to change your username to the same name as you currently have, instead of it silently doing nothing.
- [AO3-7033] – When you access a skin, the skin title is now part of the browser page title.
- [AO3-7041] – You can now use the accent-color property in site and work skins!
- [AO3-6852] – We removed some old unused scripts for testing gift exchange matching.
ao3_news_feed Jul. 23rd, 2025 12:36 am)Over the past few weeks, we completed several important infrastructure updates including upgrading to Elasticsearch 8, finishing the transition to Rails 7.1, and migrating the bookmarks table to create room for more bookmarks.
We also made some user-facing improvements, such as fixing various access and display bugs; clarifying some error messages, form labels, and page titles; and adding chapter numbers to comments in your inbox.
Special thanks and welcome to first-time contributors Abhinav Gupta, hk-contribs, TemperedPetals, and Vemmy RM! We'd also like to thank Dhiraj Mishra for reporting a security issue.
Credits
- Coders: Abhinav Gupta, AliceLsr, Bilka, Brian Austin, calm, ceithir, Connie Feng, EchoEkhi, Hamham6, hk-contribs, kitbur, sarken, slavalamp, TemperedPetals, Vemmy RM, weeklies
- Code reviewers: Bilka, Brian Austin, ceithir, Coding-Hen, Hamham6, sarken, weeklies
- Testers: Bilka, Booksarelife, Brian Austin, Caitlynne, calamario, choux, Deniz, Keladry, LilyP, Lute, lydia-theda, Sam Johnsson, Sanity, Teyris, therealmorticia, wichard
Details
0.9.414
In the process of installing the new Elasticsearch servers, we upgraded to Elasticsearch 8 on June 24!
- [AO3-6259] - We upgraded the Elasticsearch gem to version 8.18.0.
0.9.415
On June 25, we finished off the last remaining parts of the update to Rails 7.1.
- [AO3-6894] - We flipped the remaining configuration values to use the new defaults from Rails 7.1.
0.9.416
Our deploy on July 1 updated older language on the work search and filtering forms from "Author/Artist" to "Creator" and added chapter numbers to comments in your inbox, among other improvements.
- [AO3-6050] - When accessing the Tag Wrangling page showing all relationship tags related to a character, tags would always be shown in alphabetical order, regardless of sort order. Now, tag wranglers can additionally sort through the tags by how many times they were used or by creation date.
- [AO3-6273] - Sometimes, when you used the "Post Draft" button on a draft, the word count of the publicly posted work would be blank. It should now always be the correct number.
- [AO3-6373] - If you blocked a user who had previously commented on your work, you could no longer freeze their comment. We fixed this, so you can now block users and freeze their comment threads in any order without problems.
- [AO3-6735] - We fixed that when you left a comment on a news posts with comment moderation enabled, the resulting comment email would incorrectly tell you that the comment was on a work with moderated comments.
- [AO3-6936] - We changed the browser page title on subscriptions pages to a format that matches other user pages: "username - Subscriptions | Archive of Our Own."
- [AO3-6971] - We fixed an error that occurred if the "No Fandom" tag didn't exist, for example in a development installation of the Archive.
- [AO3-7010] - Trying to access the chapter index of a work that's both in an unrevealed collection and hidden by an admin used to result in an error 500. We've fixed that so it now results in a normal permission error.
- [AO3-7017] - If you knew the ID of a draft work or a work restricted to logged in users, you could access a few subpages of the work that revealed its title and blurb. Since that information isn't meant to be public, we've once again restricted access to these pages.
- [AO3-7016] - We updated the gem we use to run database schema migrations of large tables.
- [AO3-5345] - Collection maintainers get an email notification if they run matching in a gift exchange and the sign-ups are invalid. We've improved the text of this email and prepared it for translation.
- [AO3-6541] - We changed the works search and the sorting and filtering options to use "Creator" instead of "Author/Artist" to match the terminology used by the rest of the site.
- [AO3-6750] - Comments in your inbox now include the chapter number, so you don't have to follow the comment link to know where exactly it was left.
- [AO3-6807] - If you tried to use an invalid URL for an external work or in your collection sign-up, you would sometimes get a 500 error. We fixed that so now you will always get a proper error message telling you that the URL is invalid.
- [AO3-6999] - We removed some duplicate code for sending comment emails to admins.
0.9.417 & 0.9.418
On July 3 and July 4, we ran out of rows in the database table that stores bookmarks, so we had to move them to a larger table that can hold them all! Now you can once again add your own bookmarks to the 647 million we already have.
- [AO3-7031] - We migrated the bookmarks table to be able to hold more rows and then migrated all other table columns that refer to bookmarks to also support the larger bookmark IDs.
0.9.419
On July 12, we deployed an assortment of minor changes that included allowing the accent-color property in skins and clarifying some error messages.
- [AO3-6795] - When you were excluding a tag in a search and then made a syntax error when trying to filter those results, you'd get a 500 error. We've fixed this so it instead tells you that your query has a syntax error.
- [AO3-6989] - If you tried to view the pseuds list for a user who didn't exist, you'd get redirected to the People Search page. That made sense in a way, but wasn't terribly consistent with other nonexistent pages. Now you'll get a 404 error instead, which makes it easier to check for typos in the URL you entered.
- [AO3-7007] - We fixed a 500 error when a guest tried to add a work to a collection by directly going to the "Add To Collection" URL.
- [AO3-7025] - We fixed a typo in one of the CSS properties in the Creating a Skin help pop-up.
- [AO3-7022] - We changed the default comment setting for news posts to "Only registered users can comment."
- [AO3-5344] - We prepared the email that you get when your work is invited to a collection for translation.
- [AO3-7019] - You will now get an informative error message if you try to change your username to the same name as you currently have, instead of it silently doing nothing.
- [AO3-7033] - When you access a skin, the skin title is now part of the browser page title.
- [AO3-7041] - You can now use the accent-color property in site and work skins!
- [AO3-6852] - We removed some old unused scripts for testing gift exchange matching.
Days 1-15
In case people haven't seen it,
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
china_shop and mific have started a comm for posting or linking to writing meta: ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fan_writers. Check it out!My check-in: An intensive session with my partner in crime pulling together meta-info (tags, summaries, author notes, etc.). Plus some editing + brainstorming with my other partner in crime.
Day 22:
china_shop, sanguinityDay 21:
badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, glinda, goddess47, luzula, nafs, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, yasaman( more days )
When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!
There's a kitten on the bed.
There's a kitten on the bed,
Please pet her silly head,
This kitten on the bed.
There's a kitten on the sill.
There's a kitten on the sill,
So please don't speak her ill,
This kitten on the sill.
There's a kitten on the couch.
There's a kitten on the couch,
She just might be a grouch,
This kitten on the couch.
Mom wanted my cousin Janet to have two rings, and two specific books, and we couldn't find any of them, despite searching repeatedly. This doesn't make sense: if only the jewelry was missing, it might conceivably have been stolen, even though other appealing jewelry was in her bedroom closet, including the few items that are mentioned in the will. If it was just those two used books, maybe they were put away somewhere safe. But there's no reason the rings and books would have been in the same place, where we couldn't find them while going through things that thoroughly.
Mark was already planning to take all of Mom's unclaimed jewelry back to New Orleans, photograph it, and offer it to our cousins. Because the rings Mom promised Janet are missing, he's going to give Janet first pick. (He, Linza, and the three of us have already looked at it, and taken a few things.)
The whole process was very amicable. We weren't arguing over who could take something that wasn't specifically left to either me or my brother, but agreeing that Mom's crystal might be pretty, but wasn't worth trying to take home on the plane. Instead, Mark took a glass bowl that a friend of his made, and Andy took a small piece of cranberry glass. There were two envelopes of paper money; we split the pounds, and I told Mark to take all the euros, because he's probably going to visit the EU fairly soon.
There were more than enough good photos of Mom, her parents, and other relatives for me and Mark to take home, in some cases duplicate prints of the same picture. I labeled a few photos of people I wasn't sure I'd recognize if not, including a couple of pictures of my paternal grandparents, and one of Dad's older sister. I decided I wanted my mother's first US passport, from a trip to Europe in 1953, and her resident alien card (from before they were green).
Mark took some photos and documents home because he thought Janet would want them, and he was willing to schlep things for her. I'm not sure if that's because he's one of the executors of the will, or simple generosity.
As we were packing yesterday, we decided to take Mom's salt and pepper grinders: they have no sentimental value, but we've been unhappy with both our current pepper grinders and one of our salt shakers.
otter's comment reminded me that there also is, or may be, a gold charm bracelet that belonged to our grandmother. Janet asked to buy it from me and Mark, but we didn't find it either, only a different gold charm bracelet that belonged to Simon's first wife. The one we found is in the will as going to his daughter Liz, and after Mark took a picture, Liz confirmed that the bracelet we found was her mother's, and Janet didn't recognize it. We left that in the flat, because Liz will be in London in a few months. It's possible, though not likely, that my aunt Lea had the bracelet Janet wants, and that it's still in her and Dave's apartment. We asked Lea's daughter Anne, who doesn't have it but is going to ask Dave.If Dave finds it, or if the bracelet turns up a few months from now at Mom's flat, we'll give it to Janet, not sell it, but we're waiting until the bracelet turns up before telling her that.
[I am adding to this as I think of other things that seem to belong here.]
Minisculus passed to the next level of swimming lessons, but he isn't signed up for any more at the moment. In contrast to last summer (and most summers) we haven't been to the apartment pool once.
This working business *yawn* is tiring :)
Mugwump (noun)
mugwump [muhg-wuhmp]
noun
1. a Republican who refused to support the party nominee, James G. Blaine, in the presidential campaign of 1884.
2. a person who is unable to make up their mind on an issue, especially in politics; a person who is neutral on a controversial issue.
Other Word Forms
mugwumpish adjective
mugwumpery noun
mugwumpism noun
mugwumpian adjective
Origin: First recorded in 1830–35, artificial 19th-century revival of Massachusett ( English spelling) mugquomp, syncopated form of muggumquomp “war leader” (equivalent to Proto-Algonquian (unattested) memekw- perhaps “swift” + (unattested) -a·pe·w “man”)
Example Sentences
Telford Taylor, a mugwump Democrat, remarks that though good intentions may be mitigating circumstances, they do not negate the fact of a crime, if one occurred.
From New York Times
Indeed, the infamous mugwump was predictably dragged on social media after news of the decision broke.
From Salon
This year’s list included “blithering,” ”gauche” and “mugwump,” which refers to a person who remains aloof or independent - especially from party politics.
From Washington Times
This year’s list included “blithering,” ”gauche” and “mugwump,” which refers to a person who remains aloof or independent — especially from party politics.
From Seattle Times
It's not everyday you get called a mugwump.
From BBC
atlas_obscura_places_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 05:00 pm)
On an afternoon in September 1784, an air balloon piloted by Italian Vincenzo Lunardi had to make an unusual pitstop — for the sake of a furry companion.
Lunardi took off in a hydrogen balloon from the grounds of the Royal Artillery in central London, with a dog, a cat, and a pigeon in a cage. The balloon travelled northwards but Lunardi had to make a stop due to his feline companion’s inability to take to air travel so well.
The unwell cat was offloaded to be taken care of by a local woman, and Lunardi set off again, eventually headed north-northeast and landing near Standon Green End.
His balloon was later displayed in the Pantheon on Oxford Circus, London, in an attempt to recoup costs from the expedition
slacktivist_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 06:56 pm)I fed the birds. I haven't seen much activity yet.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 7/22/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 7/22/25 -- I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches plus a pair of mourning doves.
EDIT 7/22/25 -- I trimmed around the garden under the contorta willow tree. A few things are far enough from the trunk that I might need to move them closer in.
I am done for the night.
Also got my ticket to Mystery Wrestling 18 for the day after All Out and a couple of Stratford shows for the day before, so all I need to do is book some plane tickets and my September trip will be all squared away with two months to spare! HYPE HYPE HYPPPPPPPPE
Hmm. It's only Tuesday. That's unfortunate.
1. What Do You Gain From Pursuing Something You Do Really, Really Badly?
If you enjoy doing it regardless, then fun and enjoyment. If you don't... character, I guess? Ew, gross, no, just stop doing it in that case.
*the real solution is just to clean my room, I know, I KNOW
atlas_obscura_places_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 03:00 pm)
Seward Park is a well-used and popular park due to its playground and scenic biking/walking path which outlines the peninsula; but few know that the park’s interior is a real old-growth forest and contains some of the area’s oldest trees.
A forest is said to be “old-growth” when it has not been impacted by serious disruptions such as logging. These forests are ecologically distinct from forests regrown after their destruction, as they typically have far greater biodiversity, a lower proportion of invasive species, and complex tree structures with multilayered canopies.
Only a small proportion of America’s old-growth forests remain, and once disrupted it can take anywhere from a century to several millennia for a forest to regain old-growth characteristics, depending on its biome. This proportion is even smaller in urban areas like Seattle, which is one of the reasons why this park is so special.
The forest covers about 120 acres on the northern two-thirds of the park. Some accounts suggest that the presence of poison oak in the area may have been what saved it from being logged. The poison oak is still there, so be sure to stay on the marked trails!
rachelmanija Jul. 22nd, 2025 11:10 am)Wake Up and Open Your Eyes, by Clay McLeod Chapman
A horror novel about - I think - how a Q-Anon analogue turns people into literal zombies. I couldn't get into this book. I don't think it was bad, it just wasn't my thing. I didn't vibe with the prose style at all.
The Baby Dragon Cafe, by A. T. Qureshi
A woman opens a cafe that's also a baby dragon rescue. I adored the idea of this book, not to mention the extremely charming cover, but the execution left a lot to be desired. It was just plain dull. I dragged myself through two chapters, both of which felt eternal, then gave up. Too bad! I really wanted to like it, because the idea is delightful.
In the Path of Destruction: Eyewitness Chronicles of Mount St. Helens, by Richard Waitt
This ought to have been exactly my jam, except for the author's absolutely bizarre prose style, which is a combination of Pittman shorthand and Chuck Tingle's Twitter minus the sense of humor, with an allergy to articles and very strange syntax. I literally had no idea what some of his sentences meant. This weirdness extends to direct quotes from multiple people, making me suspect how direct they are. And yes, this was traditionally published.
Here are some quotes, none of which make more sense in context:
It contrasts the chance jungle violence with lava flows off Kilauea - so Hollywood but predictable.
"The state's closure seems yours. Have I missed something?"
[And here's a bunch of Tinglers.]
Heart attack took Eddie in 1975.
These years since wife Eddie died Truman's fire has cooled.
Since wife Eddie died, Rob is the closest he has to a friend.
Since wife Eddie died, Truman has been a bleak recluse, the winters especially lonely.
How to Write Fiction When the Planet is Falling Apart (2172 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: No Fandom
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Meta, Writing
Summary:
I think a lot about writing and its place in the world. I wonder if it matters, if it's enough. I wonder how we're all going to survive. The world is on fucking fire and even in fandom we can't pretend that it's not.
A guide to writing anyway in the age of despair or, a love letter to writers.
oursin Jul. 22nd, 2025 06:08 pm)Paging the ponceyness police, what?
In an age of constant scrolling, there is social capital to be gained by simply looking as if you are a cultured person who listens to music on vinyl and reads lots of books. And creating an aesthetically pleasing bookshelf is now easier than ever, thanks to an increase in booksellers who trade in “books by the metre”.
You know, I would be just slightly more sympathetic with people who are about The Aesthetic of BOOOX if they would ever demonstrate a touch of quirkiness and have shelves of (okay maybe nicely preserved copies) old Penguins? or those rather nifty little volumes of The Traveller's Library. Or just something that would suggest that this is more than just a step up from manifesting your Posh by having a lovely set of Heron Books Collectors Editions (bound in sumptious leatherette).
I think that if you're going to have Randomly Chosen For the Decorative Vibe books scattered about your pad, you should actually have to read at least some of them. And be able to respond to somebody asking about them without having to resort to whatever garbled wifflewoffle some AI engine serves up.
Okay, I am now meanly recalling the complete set of the works of Bulwer-Lytton in very good condition that lurked on a shelf in a bookshop I used to frequent. And also wondering as to whether there are collected editions of CP Snow's yawn-worthy 'Strangers and Brothers' sequence.
On the other hand, they might pick up something that they enjoyed and found engrossing, and develop the habit of reading. I would be there for that, in fact.
My own aesthetic is, the books have taken over, what do you mean, curated? maniacal laughter.
atlas_obscura_places_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 01:00 pm)
The underground mills of Col des Roches are a fascinating and unique site. Here, huge water-powered mills were built into the natural karst caves in the 17th century.
You can visit the caves and descend down to see the three levels of mill, from the giant waterwheel driven by the waters of the Bied River down to the position of the old sawmill.
The audio guide, included in the ticket price and available in German, French, Italian, and English, talks visitors through the history of this fascinating site from its founding to its time as the waste pit to a slaughterhouse after the mills had gone.
The museum attached to the site is also worth a visit, with permanent exhibitions about the history of the local area and temporary exhibitions.
atlas_obscura_places_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 12:00 pm)
Hulen ("The Cave") in Bergen is a bar and nightclub operated by students on a volunteer basis, and holds the title of Northern Europe's oldest rock club. Hulen was originally built during World War II as a bomb shelter and sits below Nygårdshøyden in Bergen's city center. Deemed unnecessary years later, the shelter was converted into its present-day club form in 1969, officially opening on May 17. Despite a history of financial difficulties, Hulen is kept alive by a committed group of volunteers and supporters.
Visitors can still experience the feeling of being in a cave or bomb shelter, with a long, spooky entrance, stone walls, and exposed pipes, which makes it a unique destination for a night out. They also have two bars inside with a decent beer selection. Hulen has concerts and club nights on the weekends, featuring primarily alt-rock and alt-pop, but also blues, jazz, electronica, and metal. Be sure to check the schedule before going (and wear earplugs!)
ambyr posted recently about culls and memory that got me to thinking about the complexities of reread, memory, nostalgia, and so forth.For example, when I read Peter S. beagle's Folk of the Air it was the right time for that story. I've kept it ever since, but never reread it--his later work didn't click with me, making me hesitant to revisit that one lest the same thing happen.
As I keep culling, I've discovered books that seemed really progressive at the time--books I really enjoyed, or that got me through a difficult period--that time has caught up with and bypassed in significant ways. Patrick Dennis comes to mind. His book about divorce, The Joyous Season, got me past the emotional whirlpool of my parents' marriage breaking up when I was a teen. There were other aspects that I really liked, but there are now attitudes and language that makes me wince now. And yet I can't cull that book.
But others I can place in the donation box with a mental salute to find memory, and hopes it finds its readership somewhere else. This ambivalence can go for problematical authors, too. But these things I think have to be decided for oneself. So many aspects to balance.
languagelog_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 03:17 pm)At the Swarthmore Farmers Market this past Saturday morning, I came upon a new stall selling onigiri, which are Japanese rice balls, a popular and versatile snack or meal component. They consist of steamed rice formed into various shapes, often triangles, and typically filled with savory ingredients like pickled plums (umeboshi), salmon, or tuna with mayonnaise. They are often enclosed in nori (seaweed).
These onigiri were wrapped in cellophane and had a label stuck on the side. As soon as I saw the design on the label, which looked like a human face, I found that I could "read" it:
I didn't know what it "meant", but I knew what it "sounded like": hehenonomoheji. Moreover, the nose and the jaw plus left side of the face, sans the nose, were pronounced "moji 文字", which means "writing", as in "emoji 絵文字" ("picture writing"), now a common English word — or so it seemed to me (I don't know if Japanese would view it that way).
Henohenomoheji (Japanese: へのへのもへじ HEH-noh-HEH-noh-moh-HEH-jee) or hehenonomoheji (へへののもへじ) is a face known to be drawn by Japanese schoolchildren using hiragana characters. It became a popular drawing during the Edo period.
The Edo period dates from 1603-1868, so that means this kind of emoji face has been around a long time, at least more than a century and a half. I suspect, though, that it is part of a deeper tradition called etoki 絵解き ("picture explanation"), which goes back to medieval times and I wrote about in Painting and Performance: Chinese Picture Recitation and Its Indian Genesis (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1988).
A henohenomoheji featuring in a manga panel in the 1910 issue of the Japanese girls' magazine Shōjo.
The word breaks down into seven hiragana characters: he (へ), no (の), he (へ), no (の), mo (も), he (へ), and ji (じ). The first two he are the eyebrows, the two no are the eyes, the mo is a nose, and the last he is the mouth. The outline of the face is made by the character ji, its two short strokes (dakuten) forming the ear or cheek.
Henohenomoheji is often used to symbolize an undistinguished or generic human face, such as the faces of kakashi (scarecrows) and teru teru bōzu. The characters are often sung as they are drawn, making the henohenomoheji an ekaki uta (絵描き歌, drawing song).
Entertainment and education combined in a popular activity that was fun for its participants.
Selected reading
- "Memes, typos, and vernacular English in a 12th-century Latin homily" (7/20/25)
- "Emojis vs. emoticons" (7/8/19)
- "Emoticons as writing" (7/7/19)
- "Monumental laughing face" (1/22/19)
- "The prehistory of emoticons" (9/21/07)
- "'Facial expressions' in text-dominant online conversation" (8/2/16)
- "Explication of a favored emoji" (2/20/21)
atlas_obscura_places_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 11:00 am)
Deep within the forest close to Lake Anten, near Alingsås, Sweden, is a unique monument made of a pile of stones and a plane propeller, with American names of military personnel. What happened here?, you might think. The answer is from way back in 1944.
That year, on October 19, 6 American C-87 airplanes took off from Leuthars Air Base in Scotland heading for Bromma Airport in Stockholm as part of Operation Sonnie, a secret Allied intelligence operation over neutral Swedish territory. During the flight, one of the planes suddenly got an engine failure and returned to Scotland. The others chose to continue on the mission.
Upon arriving in Bromma, the weather conditions had gotten quite severe and foggy, and the route was rescheduled to Torslanda Airport in Gothenburg instead. The plane, filled with oil barrels, crashed in a forest in the middle of the Swedish countryside around midnight and caught on fire. The official explanation to the crash was wrongful navigation.
Ruth Andersson lived only a few hundred meters from the crash site. Her testimony from the accident is horrific. She described that she heard a loud bang and her whole cabin was shaking. When she ran out to check out the origin of the noise she saw that despite the fog and the darkness of the night, the whole forest was lit up by a large blaze. She saw the airplane in pieces on the forest floor on fire. Because of the immense heat she couldn't get close to the site and look for survivors. She screamed out amid the rumbling noise of the fire but the only response she heard was silence.
When police and fire ighters later arrived and managed to put out the fire, the radio operator Oakley Ragland was found alive, but he later died in the hospital. The charred remains of the other crew members were found inside the airplane.
The monument was constructed to commemorate this event in 1945 by the area’s local cultural heritage association. Since then, there has been an annual commemoration ceremony on October 20, with Swedish and also in some years American participation.
atlas_obscura_places_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 10:00 am)
One of the oldest and most beautiful historical monuments in Ankara, the Aslanhane Mosque, whose name literally translates to ''Lion's House Mosque,'' predates the Ottoman Empire and was built during the period of the Seljuks that succeeded the Sultanate of Rum amid Mongol invasions. At this time in the late Middle Ages, the wool-producing Silk Road town of Ankara was uniquely ruled not by the sword but by a community or "republic" of Ahis, a so-called brotherhood formed by trade guilds under the guidance of Sufi concepts. There are several mosques in the old quarter of Ankara, built by members of the Ahi community, which bear the name "Ahi" before the names of their founders.
The colloquial name "Aslanhane" does not come from the use of the mosque to house lions in the past. Rather, it is because an ancient sculpture of a lion can be seen on one of the walls of its burial ground, which is located directly opposite the mosque. Its origin is unknown, but it was a common practice of the many pragmatic builders of the time to use readily available materials — often the stones from ancient ruins in a region as rich in history as Anatolia. In fact, a similar use of fragments of ancient buildings and even ancient tombstones can be seen on the building and interior of the mosque itself (just look at the base of the mosque's minaret and the heads of the wooden columns inside the mosque) and, on various occasions, on the Ankara Citadel, which has been renovated at various times during its long history dating back to the Phrygians.
In 2023, the Aslanhane Mosque, along with four other mosques from various Anatolian cities, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List under the title "Wooden Hypostyle Mosques of Medieval Anatolia." Aside from its interesting history, the exquisite woodwork of its interior alone makes it worth a visit. Another eye-catcher is the equally beautiful tile work of the prayer niche.
atlas_obscura_places_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 09:00 am)
This work was created in 1987 by the Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal, who made this powerful image famous on a beach in Punta del Este ,Uruguay, and also on a colossal hand found in the Atacama Desert in Chile.
The work, here called “Dedos” (“Fingers”) has been located on the main promenade of Juan Carlos I Park since 1994, after having been exhibited on Alcalá Street during the Chile Vive exhibition, and in subsequent years at the Cuartel del Conde Duque museum.
The sculpture shows five monumental fingers made of white concrete emerging from the ground.
The fingers are rendered with great realism, and the nails and even fingerprints can be seen on them. It is one of the most well-known sculptural elements in the park, part of the so-called Sculpture Path, an artistic journey by various renowned artists that seeks to integrate art with nature.
In this ERB pastiche, unremarkable academic Tarl Cabot reinvents himself as a man of action on the counter-Earth, Gor. There's much less BDSM than the series' reputation would lead one to expect.
Tarnsman of Gor (Gor, volume 1) by John Norman
The trip home was OK as these things go: I ordered a cab to take us to Heathrow, using the service Mom always used, and paid in cash using my half of the British money she'd had in an envelope, including a generous tip for the driver. We had time to finish things like washing our dishes and clearing Mom's data off her computer before leaving, and enough time at the airport to be at the gate before boarding started, but not enough to get bored. I arranged the cab, and got us all aisle seats for the flight home, on Sunday, and then turned everything over to Cattitude and Adrian once we got to Heathrow. By the time we got off the plane, I was so worn out that I was stopping occasionally to lean on the walls in the airport, but fortunately doing better once we got home.
I woke up this morning at 7:30 Boston time, which seemed good--about 7.5 hours sleep, and back on my home time zone. The milk from before we left was iffy but the cut of tea tasted OK. The igniters for the stove burners didn't work when I turned them on, but I remembered both that we have long matches for just this purpose, and where we keep them, so that was OK for the moment, and we can investigate that further when Adrian and Cattitude are also awake.
We plan to do very little today: order groceries, unpack, and I might inject the about-monthly dose of my current MS medication, which I take every 4-6 weeks, and would have taken Saturday if we'd been home). Some balance PT would also be a good idea.
bruce_schneier_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 11:05 am)Law journal article that looks at the Dual_EC_PRNG backdoor from a US constitutional perspective:
Abstract: The National Security Agency (NSA) reportedly paid and pressured technology companies to trick their customers into using vulnerable encryption products. This Article examines whether any of three theories removed the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that this be reasonable. The first is that a challenge to the encryption backdoor might fail for want of a search or seizure. The Article rejects this both because the Amendment reaches some vulnerabilities apart from the searches and seizures they enable and because the creation of this vulnerability was itself a search or seizure. The second is that the role of the technology companies might have brought this backdoor within the private-search doctrine. The Article criticizes the doctrine particularly its origins in Burdeau v. McDowelland argues that if it ever should apply, it should not here. The last is that the customers might have waived their Fourth Amendment rights under the third-party doctrine. The Article rejects this both because the customers were not on notice of the backdoor and because historical understandings of the Amendment would not have tolerated it. The Article concludes that none of these theories removed the Amendment’s reasonableness requirement.
languagelog_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 10:43 am)
Charles B. writes:
Apparently, birds are not considered wild animals by law. Reference here, where apparently feeding them in parks in permitted except if they are red masked parakeets:
SEC. 486. FEEDING BIRDS AND WILD ANIMALS PROHIBITED.
It shall be unlawful for any person to feed or offer food to any bird or wild animal in or on any sidewalk, street or highway of the City and County of San Francisco. It shall be unlawful to feed or offer food to any Red Masked Parakeet in any park of the City and County of San Francisco.
(Added by Ord. 268-64, App. 10/2/64; Ord. 133-07, File No. 070467, App. 6/15/2007)
The sign and the ordinance title have "birds and wild animals", while the body of the ordinance has "any bird or wild animal". And the ordinance specifies three (or four?) disjunctions within the scope of "unlawful": what you can't do ("feed or offer food"), who you can't do it to ("any bird or wild animal"), and where you can't do it "in or on any sidewalk, street or highway". Multiplying it all out, this gives 2x2x3 = 12 (or if we include "in or on", 2x2x2x3 = 24) specific prohibitions.
The uncertainty arises because the interaction of "in or on" with "any sidewalk, street or highway" is kind of fuzzy. It's fine to say that you can't feed any bird on any sidewalk, but it's unidiomatic at best to tell you not to do it in any sidewalk. And both "in any street" and "on any street" are plausible phrases, but they seem to mean almost the same thing. (Though maybe it matters whether it's the feeder or the food that's in or on the street…)
Anyhow, given that birds are biologically animals, and therefore non-pet birds are "wild animals", Charles relies on the Gricean Maxim of Quantity to infer that the San Francisco Police department adheres to a non-standard taxonomy of species. But it seems more likely that they're trying to avoid the misunderstandings that might arise if they left out the explicit prohibition again feeding birds.
And of course there's also the ambiguity of shall, though in this case the prescription of plainlanguage.gov to replace it with must doesn't work, since the subject is expletive it ("?It must be unlawful for any person…"). The Pennsylvania legislature (along with many other groups) uses plain old is in that context ("It is unlawful for any person …"), which is less fancy but clearer.
All in all, a good example of why legal drafting is hard.
I'll leave it to readers to tell us about the Red Masked Parakeets.
cap_ironman_fe posting in cap_ironman Jul. 22nd, 2025 06:12 am)
Welcome to the 15th anniversary of Cap-IM Rec Week!
Today is STONY DEFINITION: Show us the seminal fanworks that took your breath away and defined Steve/Tony characterization for you. What fanworks really capture Steve and Tony for you? What fanworks show what Steve and Tony are all about? Share your favorites that capture the essential magic of their relationship.
To rec, simply REPLY to this or any other daily Themed post on any platform, or make your own reclist or post:
- DISCORD - use the #look-what-I-found channel
- TUMBLR - tag @cap-ironman in you rec post and use #capimrecweek
- BLUESKY - tag @cap-ironman in your post and use #capimrecweek
- DREAMWIDTH - the perfect option if you want to rec anonymously!
Don’t forget to let us know why you’re reccing a work and please mark any major warnings. If you’d like to participate in our Special Bonus Bingo Round, join the Discord. HAVE FUN curating.
atlas_obscura_places_feed Jul. 22nd, 2025 04:00 am)
What are the limits of human physical flexibility and mobility? Věra Čáslavská (1942–2016), who was born in the Nazi-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and devoted herself to figure skating and ballet at a young age, was determined to find out. She was introduced to the secrets of gymnastics by her coach Eva Bosáková, an Olympic champion and two-time world champion.
Thanks to this, Věra became a seven-time Olympic champion, four-time world champion, eleven-time European champion, and four-time Sportswoman of the Year of Czechoslovakia over the years.
She could undoubtedly have continued to win and break other records, but on August 21, 1968, Soviet tanks occupied Czechoslovakia to suppress the uprising of liberal reforms known as the Prague Spring. When Věra stood on the winner's podium in October 1968 at the XIX Summer Olympics in Mexico City, she repeatedly protested with gestures during the Soviet anthem. Moreover, she had previously signed the liberal document "The Two Thousand Words."
Although she was declared the best sportsman in the world that same year, the communist government banned her from competing and traveling abroad for many years, and the media labelled her a disgrace, even as she continued to arouse sympathy in the occupied nation.
After the Velvet Revolution of 1989, she received offers for many different positions, such as ambassador to Japan or mayor of the capital Prague, but she ultimately accepted the position of advisor to Václav Havel, a playwright who was a political prisoner before the Velvet Revolution and president after the revolution.
In August 1993, Josef Odložil, Věra's ex-husband, died after a fight with his son Martin, who was sentenced to four years in prison. Věra had suffered from depression for 15 years after the incident.
In 2015, about a year before her death, she wrote an open letter to the Czech public, appealing for solidarity during the refugee crisis, which was received controversially.
In 2024, the controversial artist David Černý created a moving contortionist sculpture based on real photographs of Věra Čáslavská, and the work was first exhibited as a landmark at the Czech House in La Villette Park on the occasion of the 2024 Summer Olympics in France. Later, the statue was placed in Prague.
The over 30 foot (9 meter) high gimbal gyroscope allows slow rotation around three axes of the Cartesian coordinate system is powered by servomotors controlled by a complex program and casts reflections on the surrounding buildings.
The sculpture is in the colors of the Czech tricolor (white, red and blue in this order), but due to the mobility of the statue, the sequence of the colors depends on the current configuration and the angle of view, so it can sometimes paradoxically resemble the Russian tricolor (white, blue and red in this order).
The larger-than-life mannequins depict contortionist positions such as a splits or backbend, which most people cannot do — yet almost anyone can learn them! One can achieve great flexibility if they start training at least one hour every day during their pre-teen years at the latest. That is, if they start stretching exercises a few years before growth stops and the more time they spend in flexed positions, the better their body adapts to them. Those who start later can also become contortionists, but will probably never be able to do oversplits or triple fold backbends.
I felt as taut as a bowstring pulled, ready to release the arrow and realizing that I had to build the target I needed to hit. [loc. 1690]
Airón, prince of the Northern Empire, has been raised as an assassin: his twin sister Eonai is to marry the Emperor of the fearsome Imperium, after which Airón will kill his new brother-in-law. He doesn't expect to survive, but the Imperium must be destroyed. Except it all goes horribly wrong when Eonai and Airón are presented to Tallu, 'a viper' reportedly responsible for the deaths of his parents and younger sibling. Because Tallu decides that he will, instead, marry Airón...
( Read more... )
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Sammie (Preacherboy)
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: traditional art, pencils on toned paper
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: bubblegumarts on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: This is a very simple drawing of Sammie playing "I Lied to You", and I really like it. His face and expression is just right.
Link: I Lied to You
fan_writers is a community for meta about writing. everykindofcraft is a community for sharing information, advice and images about all sorts of crafts projects, old or newenemiestoloversex, a multifandom gift exchange focused on the "enemies to lovers" trope (including ships that don't have that dynamic in canon), is open for sign-ups until July 23rd, 10PM UTC.relationshipping, a fic/art/podfic incest exchange, has opened sign-ups until July 25th, 9:59PM EDT.austenexchange, an exchange for all things Jane Austen, has opened sign-ups until July 27th, 10PM UTC.sedoretuex, an exchange dedicated to celebrating the sedoretu (a specific organization of a poly marriage created by Ursula K. Le Guin), is open for sign-ups until July 27th, 11:59PM EDT.classicfilmex, an exchange for fandoms in movies released before 1/1/1980,is open for sign-ups until July 29th, 10PM UTC + 2.spookybang is a Big Bang focused on crossing over characters from different supernatural, paranormal and horror fandoms. Author Sign-Ups are open until August 10th and Artist Sign-Ups are open until November 30th.jadelennox Jul. 22nd, 2025 12:33 am)I have started rereading the Amelia Peabody mysteries. It makes me sad that they've definitely had at least a light visit from the suck fairy [note], because I've never realised before how much Amelia is in love with Evelyn in The Crocodile On The Sandbank.
She's obviously got it bad for Emerson as well, but my goodness her jealous desire to spend her life with her beautiful Evelyn is overwhelming.
Note: Amelia was never supposed to be a reliable narrator, and her Victorian Orientalism was always to be read as historical. It's just that in modern conventions we -- correctly -- no longer feel it's okay to portray the likable heroines of (wholly unrealistic) historical romances with historically accurate racism. [back]
One of my friends on FB was talking about the experience of having a daughter who's a bookworm (at her birthday, as soon as she opened a present and saw she got books, she wanted to go read). It reminded me of this story from my past:
One of my mom's favorite stories to tell about me was that the Christmas I turned 7, one of my gifts was a stack of books (Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). As soon as I got those, Christmas was over as far as I was concerned - I opened Alice in Wonderland (because it was at the top of the stack) and started reading. In the back yard was a new swingset that my dad, my uncle, and my grandfather had spent all day Christmas Eve putting together. They had to drag me away from my books to go see it. I played for about 10 minutes or so, then went back in and went back to reading.
This is basically a textbook, which means its purpose is to educate more than to entertain. And on that note, I think it did good–it’s a pretty hefty book that goes into a lot of the cultural context and surrounding politics of the leadup to the Revolutionary War, the War itself, and its aftermath, and I learned a lot. But I’m also going to rate it on the reading experience, which I must admit was often fun. Taylor seems to subscribe to the same idea I do that you can tell you are reading history and not mythology if basically everybody sucks at least a little, and Taylor seems to take positive glee in laying out a real No Heroes approach to the factions and personalities involved. He is occasionally allows a little humor to sneak in, whether it’s by his choice of epigraphs for each chapter or dry observations like that renaming part of East Florida from “Mosquito Inlet” to “East Smyrna” did not trick the mosquitoes into not biting the colonists. In the acknowledgements, he dunks on his editor for not allowing him to name the book “American Revolutions: Colonize Harder.”
Jokes notwithstanding, this is not otherwise a feel-good book. Taylor gets into the nasty racial politics, classist sneering, financial shenanigans, riots, famine, terrorism, dispossession, disease, and general awfulness that characterized late-colonial and revolutionary-era American life, and the experience of war specifically. He gives a fairer shake to the Loyalists than you usually see in lay history by and for Americans, discussing their suspicions of the Patriot movement and also baldly laying out what actually happened to them during and after the Revolution (how many grade-school accounts of the Revolution teach you that it generated thousands of dispossessed refugees that fled to Canada?). This is not to say that he has convinced me that the British were the good guys or that Loyalists weren’t ultimately a bunch of bootlickers, but I think I have a less cartoonish view of what would cause people to have doubts about the Revolution, especially when it hadn’t won yet. He also gives plenty of page space to various parties outside the borders of the thirteen colonies–particularly Native politics, but also the territories that whites were expanding into, the British possessions that weren’t rebelling in Canada and the West Indies, and the French and Spanish colonies on the North American continent.
Overall I found this to be a very expansive, multi-faceted exploration of the Revolution and I really liked that about it.