formerlibrarian

[formerlibrarian]

[formerlibrarian]

Working on my Abraham Lincoln / Walt Whitman slash fiction.

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The full article about R.L. Stine (who turned 81 on October 8) is located here:

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Gail Simone on Twitter asked folks to talk about novels that taught them something and changed their life, to which I added,

"I was a sad, closeted kid when a friend (same one who introduced me to Bowie!) loaned me her stack of Weetzie Bat books, along with some others by Francesca Lia Block. She painted such a hopeful world of queer, magical, arty friends living together. #ThisBookTaughtMeSomething"

Which led me to looking up how people respond to her now and like.

Criticism of her early work in regards to cultural appropriation/terms? Valid! She has very much grown and learned since then!

People calling Weetzie Bat basic, fluff, immature romanticism of queer life, though....?

Fuck you all the way off, lol. It's YA, it's not for your grownass. It was written in the 80s about an LA that doesn't exist anymore, to give HOPE to young LONELY people in the midst of the AIDS crisis, like.

Imagine reading about a girl who has a baby with her two gay best friends in 1989, when everyone is telling you that you and your friends are going to get AIDS and die just for being who you are. Those books weren't written for adults in 2023. But there's still plenty there for isolated teens who feel like there's no hope, no future where they're happy safe and loved in a chosen family in a house that looks like ice cream.

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I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.

Edgar Allan Poe

[formerlibrarian]

What have I been reading lately?

Before I left on my silent meditation retreat in August, I was reading these books:

And then when I came home from the retreat, I really needed to get back to the core of Buddhist basics with the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. So I dove into this book by my original Buddhist teacher:

And then I got distracted because I really love reading about California history, honoring the original custodians of the land that I live on and their struggles against Spanish colonization followed by Mexican rule. (Keep in mind that many Mexicans are generally a hybrid of the Spanish colonizers and the Indigenous population, who were often forcibly converted to Catholicism and coerced into the Spanish way of life.) Reading about Mexicans attacking the indigenous population breaks my heart!

And of course, I haven't finished any of these. (Against the Stream is a re-read. But it’s probably been 15+ years since I last opened it.)

I DID finish this one though:

And I gave up on this one after over 100 pages:

Here’s an example of what it’s like reading it:

And that’s what I have been reading lately.

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What I've been reading: nonfiction edition. I'm still digesting "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and I know it's a book I will return to again. There is a lot to savor here for a more peaceful and interconnected relationship with the world. I highly recommend it, especially this time of year when there is so much focus on buying and spending.

[formerlibrarian]

“My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.”

— Edith Sitwell (b. 7 September 1887) British poet and critic

[formerlibrarian]

Annabel Lee

By Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,

   In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

   By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

   Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

   I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

   Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

   In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

   My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

   And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

   In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

   Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

   In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

   Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

   Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

   Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

   Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

   In her sepulchre there by the sea—

   In her tomb by the sounding sea.

[formerlibrarian]

Mark Twain in the lab of Nikola Tesla, 1894. He is holding Tesla’s experimental vacuum lamp, powered by a loop of wire which is receiving electromagnetic energy from a Tesla coil (not visible). Tesla’s face is visible in the background.

Photo: Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyf

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“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

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How my to-read pile currently looks (not counting the ebooks on my phone) —

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happy birthday james baldwin by god you would’ve been deeply disappointed by the state of the world today but always saddling forth with hope and love and the care of an unbridled honesty that i aspire to