Have been listening to Kate Bush since I was an infant (mom’s a fan) so I may not be objective, but I ♥️ her female gaze on men even in The Kick Inside (“God but you’re beautiful, aren't you?” “Your beauty’s potency” “You look like an angel sleeping it off at the station”); even now, that’s rare.

Oof, rereading my baby-writer stuff from decades back, and the “then/than” swaps are REAL. So are all the newbie signposts: teeming semi-colons, comma splices and the “I got dressed, made the bed” structure I loathe now (that last one is a me-thing; YMMV). Nice to see massive evolution, I guess?

Scanning a TON of early writing because all that paper is (a) taking up space and (2) too accessible should I be hit by a bus tomorrow. It’s, like, really really bad tooth-cutting stuff no one should ever see, but need to…inch…towards…destroying…it...completely.

I had always wanted to have my skin flayed off in thin layers and my heart cut out while I was still alive but it wasn’t until Donald Trump took office that all my dreams were realized.

Bear is, in fact, quite accurate.

We do not talk about Arthur Conan Doyle’s "Tales of Terror and Mystery" enough. Holy cats. I have been right frissoned by 3 of these stories so far, and am only halfway through.

shocked face

Dear feds and/or city elders: I know some locals are bummed the last Snowbirds airshow for a decade(!) got stormed out on Canada Day, but permitting F35s or whatever the fck those just were to fly over the capital on %$@ July 4 while Mr. 51st State is POTUS is a baaaaad look, dudes. Read. The. Room.

Bought a pistachio croissant yesterday at my local bakery. One. single. croissant. $7.89 CAD with tax. Jaw dropped.

An AI take I have is that I’ve never yearned for any being to be subservient to me and I continue to think it’s weird that it seems to be people’s main motivation for pushing technology

PSA do NOT confuse Black Beauty with other horse-lit classics you never read, and end up like me, horrified and contorted, finding myself in the midst of an animal-cruelty-awareness story. Shook (moreso because animals in halters have always unnerved me, and it’s been worse lately).

Just a reminder. I'm always surprised how many people aren't aware of this. #Libraries

I’ve had both a parent (when I was 8) and a professor (when I was early 20s) do this to me. S’fun. 😡

Rewatching Walkabout; had forgotten that the brief research station scene (in particular) is a masterclass in composition. A gobsmackingly gorgeous series of setups set within a gob-gorge movie, overall (love myself a cinematographer-turned-director). 📽️

Audiobooking something I’d never bothered with before: Black Beauty. Discovering it’s basically Pilgrim’s Progress, only with equines. Not mad abt it, since “be kind to each other and all creatures” isn’t a terrible preach, but it’s…weird. (The good master/faithful servant stuff is 😒 but expected).

I know our first instinct when an author is a bad person is to negatively reevaluate their body of work and pick it clean for signs of evil, but unfortunately it’s never that simple. Bad people can make great works of art, simple as

Are Nigerian AI scammers getting smarter? This is the second example I've seen of the "are you currently repped by an agent" editor impersonation scam that uses an authentic-looking, but sneakily switched-up (an extra "i") email address rather than the more typical Gmail or AOL. Bad news if so

Hard on the heels of Carney's announcement to shirk goals to reduce climate chaos, an over-heated & moisture-laden atmosphere gleefully made its point by drowning out Canada Day festivities & flooding much of Ottawa. Can you say 'pathetic fallacy'? Our PM missed the demo. Already Alberta bound.

As someone who experienced an absolutely MASSIVE tornado as a kid (parents didn’t know if we were alive for 24hrs bc all the adults who’d been at work had to chainsaw their way through the forested streets to get home), I’m never comfy during high winds and severe storms. 🤷 It’s a love/hate thing.

If the dried black ketchup on the ketchup cap was a person it would be JD Vance

Back from a stay at a friend’s cottage in rural West Quebec. ALL THE DELIGHTS, including hours’ long lake swims and birding wonders. All the costs paid, too: 2 deerfly bites the size of olives, and several skeeter nips. I wasn’t at all tasty last year. Edibility is on a shifting spectrum.

Watching The Retreat and taken into a weird-vibe viewing zone because it’s not just shot in Ontario but *set* in Ontario (which is not the same thing as US directors trying to disguise Ontario). You have to be a Parisian, NYer or Angeleno to be used to this. Happens so rarely that it’s still weird.

Regressed to age 13 and thrust a very unequivocal bird at the home of the US ambassador as I drove by it today on way back from my local swimming hole. He’s a particularly DARVO Trump henchman who’s comfy threatening our country, so I am all out of soft diplomacy, not to mention grace.

I know this has been pointed out many times by many people but I just want to reiterate: Anthropic is basically using Kurt Vonnegut's drawing of an asshole as the Claude logo

The only democratization of art that we need is UBI so that people can actually pursue the things they love to do.

Flipping post of the WEEK here, people.

Happy solstice, and happy flutterbys, everyone. ☀️🦋

Certainly the case in Carney’s Canada. 🤷

Museums are more controversial than they used to be, but 'lmao sell that shit' is fucking appalling. Some things are a public good that you pay for on that basis. I argue museums and art galleries should be free. Not everything is about showing a profit, man. globalnews.ca/news/1190954...

The Thing (1982, John Carpenter) #TitleCardTuesday #filmsky. Opened the same day as Blade Runner (1982). The similarities don't end there; both movies met with unfavorable reactions by critics... and are now considered masterpieces by film fans.

Reading The Hunchback of ND and getting the sads because Hugo turns entire chapters into what are essentially rich philosophical essays on the spirit of an ancient city that wld never be “allowed” in a novel today ("beats! show! hook! dialogue! immediate action!") and sorry but that’s a shame. 😒

A weird side-benefit of being a 📽️ nerd is that even non-gearheads get very good at estimating the era of cars. In my case, bc I’ve devoured 70s (and adjacent) Euro film my whole adult life, I told someone that this car in our apt garage is “very early 80s” with a lot of confidence. shorturl.at/i5gA3

Some of works of art that have expanded my horizons the greatest were obviously not made for me. Many didn't act like I existed or could read them. They were utterly preoccupied with their truths and visions, and I would not have their creators amend a word.

I almost got into it with 3 strangers today, one of whom very clearly took my photo in a public area already under heavy foreign-state surveillance (to us locals’ eternal consternation). Didn’t say anything to him, but I made prolonged “I see you” stink-eye at him for several provocative beats >

This is the same energy as people who go to Japan and complain they don't have good tacos. Like yes, that's not what this place is FOR. The restaurant discourse is just xenophobia with a Yelp account.

A wee reminder why "digital convenience” culture, from the get-go, has been worth a good side-eye. Period and sleep trackers, eg? When that data goes to 3rd- or 4th-party data-miners whom we now know are fascists or amoral sellouts? Shed as many apps, watches, Alexas as you can. Please.

Well now I’m reminded of my favourite film logo of all time; to this day, I think, “My word, that designer was ON” every time I see this opening. Beauty.

Highlander. Xtro. Razorback. The Thing. Honestly, I felt not the least deprived. 🤷

And what a fantabulicious day it was.

I know, as we get older, that red wine tolerance drops for many folks, but I’m having issues only with white wine these days. Seems I have to be biologically contrarian in every damn aspect… 😮‍💨 All hail Deep Red, the Primary Grape, I guess.

Adorable young kestrels surprised by a butterfly.

everyone in publishing knows the little codes--"audience size" and "not sure how to break this out to readers" and "didn't connect with the protagonist" and countless others. it's horseshit and publishing needs to look in the mirror about it

I’d like to think that if I produced a movie as wildly profitable as Obsession I would have already reached out to the crew to let them know what kind of bonuses to expect.

Not sure if AI art is inherently fascist but it definitely converges with the fascist’s yearning for art unburdened by introspection, empathy, the effort of an open human mind. Art as empty aesthetics. Dead art.

1. Ethno-supremacists by their nature are destroying their own roots. Go read about what Zionists have done to Mizrahi (especially Yemeni) cultural practices, or how Hindu nationalists treat indigenous tribes in India. If you’re white, go read about what white supremacy stole from you specifically.

My nearest urban swimming hole on the river opens to the public tomorrow at 7am, and my swim-bag is packed for my first wild swim of the season. I don’t care that we’ve had an unusually freezing spring and the water will be 🥶.

My nearest grocery store: Quick! RR is coming in. Remove the polenta from the pasta, grains, organic AND “international” sections, and remove the rice vinegar from the oil&vin AND “international” sections too! Can’t have anyone actually finding what they came in for!

Do…do these male arbitrators/judges not understand that when they slap the wrists of sexual harassers and assaulters, many of us glean it as a tell that said arbitrator/judge has behaved that way himself, so he thinks “Big deal”? tinyurl.com/4ytmprdx

I don't know what everyone's complaining about. Just go to settings > features > worms, then change the "worms pouring out of my phone" toggle from "yes" to "maybe later"