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Magrat: "He will make friends easily" she whispered. It wasn't much, she knew, but it was something she'd never been able to get the hang of.

Nanny Ogg: "A bloody good memory is what he ought to have," she said. "He'll always remember the words."

Granny Weatherwax: "Let him be whoever he thinks he is," she said. "That's all anybody could hope for in this world."

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I wonder what straight romances anon has read.

I know it’s a genre people like to shit on. But any genre has good and bad writers. And even a single writer has good and middling books.

Anyway here’s my fave het romances just to counter this anon:

- Sea Swept by Nora Roberts (contemporary, found family feels, talks about abuse and healing, also features a ghost! But also how can you go wrong with Nora Roberts?)

- His Lady’s Ransom by Merline Lovelace (historical but in a hand-wavey way, a bit angsty misunderstood FL, but very hot! *waves face*)

- A Secret Affair by Mary Balogh (historical. I like many of Balogh’s books but of course not everything will be a hit. This one is part of a series that’s not super amazing, but it’s one of my faves by her. It’s about a widow and the guy she chose to be her lover)

- Nobody’s Princess by Jennifer Greene (contemporary, kind of light and not too complicated but in a witty, woman holds her own kinda way)

- Fancy Pants by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (contemporary, not sure how it holds up to time but this was so formative for me, very empowering character growth and also people with very angsty backgrounds)

- The Blackwood Bride by Jasmine Cresswell (historical, interesting set-up, some misunderstandings, simple but quite satisfying)

- The Bride by Julie Garwood (historical in a hand-wavey way ft. highlanders, and the ending is the best imo)

- Cotillon by Georgette Heyer (historical, light and frothy; I think I was just amused by how I didn’t see the pairing coming)

- A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux (time travel! one of the earliest romance novels I read when I was a teen so I have a soft spot for it)

- Plus some really fun contemporary teen romance novels from the Sweet Dreams line:

[ID: 3 books screenshotted from a Goodreads page. On Her Own by Suzanne Rand (1984), Thinking of You by Jeanette Nobile (1982), and P.S. I Love You by Barbara Conklin (1981). End ID]

My cousins and friends all read these when I was a teen. I can’t believe they’re that old. The last one made us all cry.

Let's just face it straight romances are boring as fuck.

What do straights have 'I love you' 'I would die for you'?

Why do we have? 'My one and only', 'my life will be more satisfying with you in it', 'my soul will stay with you', 'I will recognize him blind', 'I wish I knew how to quit you'.

Come on!

I remember I saw a post here saying something along the lines of straight men are attracted to women in such uninteresting ways and ain't that the truth.

That's why with a straight canonical ship still the m/m or f/f will be more popular.

There's nothing interesting in there, guy talked to girl BAM they're in love, the end!!!

--

...

Anon, I think it may be time to stop only socializing with tumblr users in their 20s. And maybe check out some less blockbuster media while you're at it.

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bingewatching will never come close to bingereading. there is nothing like blocking out the entire Earth for ten hours to read a book in one sitting no food no water no shower no bra and emerging at the end with no idea what time it is or where you are, a dried-up prune that's sensitive to light and loud noises because you've been in your room in the dark reading by the glow of a single LED. it's like coming back after a three-month vacation in another dimension and now you have to go downstairs and make dinner. absolutely transcendental

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Patterns are from this book published in St. Petersburg in 1871.

Embroideries and cornhusk doll are my own work.

Text #1 taken from Goddess Embroideries of the Northlands by Mary B. Kelly, 2007.

Text #2 taken from Goddess Embroideries of Eastern Europe by Mary B. Kelly, 1996.

Text #3 with photos taken from Lady of the Beasts: Ancient Images of the Goddess and Her Sacred Animals by Buffie Johnson, 1988.

Text #4 The Language of the Goddess by Marija Gimbutas, 1991

Note: Marija Gimbutas’ overarching theories have been largely discredited with one critic saying: "immensely knowledgeable but not very good in critical analysis. ... She amasses all the data and then leaps from it to conclusions without any intervening argument." With that being said The Language of the Goddess is filled with wonderful data and is a great jumping off point but read between the lines and draw your own conclusions based on your own research. Same goes with Lady of the Beasts as the author does refer to Gimbutas in the preface.

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As a kid, I was really upset that Bill Watterson wouldn't license Calvin & Hobbes so I could have plushies or so there would be a Saturday morning cartoon. Now, I realize his resistance is the reason we don't have a Calvin & Hobbes DreamWorks movie starring Chris Pratt.

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sketchbook shenanigans ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )/ 🍊

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“As colleges and universities have devalued the study of the past in favor of emphasizing majors in business and engineering, fewer students take any history courses, including in labor history. Labor unions and stories of work are a footnote at best in most of our public discussions about American history. Most history documentaries on television focus on wars, politicians, and famous leaders, not workers. Labor Day was created as a conservative holiday so that American workers would not celebrate the radical international workers’ holiday May Day. Yet today, we do not remember our workers on Labor Day the way we remember our veterans on Veterans Day. Instead, Labor Day just serves as the end of summer, a last weekend of vacation before the fall begins. That erasure of workers from our collective sense of ourselves as Americans is a political act. American’s shared memory -shaped by teachers, textbook writers, the media, public monuments, and the stories about the past we tell in our own families, churches, and workplaces- too often erases or downplays critical stories of workplace struggle. 

Instead, our shared history tells myths about our economy meant to undermine class conflict. We are told that we are all middle class, that class conflict is something only scary socialists talk about and has no relevance to the United States today. Our culture deifies the rich and blames the poor for their own suffering. “Why don’t they just pull themselves up by their bootstraps?” so many people say. This ignores the fact that millions of Americans never had boots to pull up. Most of us are not wealthy and will never be wealthy. We are workers, laboring for a few rich and powerful people, mostly white men who are the sons and grandsons of other rich white men. We have a hierarchical society that has used propaganda to get Americans to believe everyone is equal. We are not equal. The law routinely favors the rich, the white, and the male.”

-A History of America In Ten Strikes, Erik Loomis

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Scott McCloud’s incomparable “Understanding Comics”.

I swear you can open this book to any page and it’s amazing.

(ps it’s actually a digital image of a printed copy of a drawing of a painting of a pipe)

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International Zine Month: Folds and Bindings Challenge!

It’s back to the sketchbook while I work on some new projects and things. This page features some planning and ideas for Coin Operated Press’ Zine Month Challenge. I do always love figuring out new things, it’s always so much fun!

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One of my more inflexible opinions is that the term “romance novel” refers to a very specific type of book (distinct from being a romance or a love story or romantic fiction or romantic or, God forbid, Romantic) and that the couple (or throuple, etc.) ending up together and that being presented as more or less a good thing is an indispensable feature of the genre. Not because romance novel readers “can’t handle” another kind of ending (many might enjoy that sort of thing in another genre). Not because a story can only be romantic if there’s a happy ending, either (I do not feel that way and am not making any value judgements here). It’s because the main focus of a romance novel is “how do they get together” and reading a book where the main focus is “will they get together” is an entirely different experience. Just as reading a mystery novel where the focus is “who committed this crime” is different from reading a book where the focus is “will the crime be solved.”

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Cannupa Hanska Luger, New Myth, Future Technologies, 2021

Dana Claxton, Headdress-Jeneen, 2018

Teresa Baker, Hidatsa Red, 2022

Raven Chacon, For Zitkala Sa Series, 2019

Caroline Monnet, Echoes from a near future, 2022

Marie Watt, Skywalker/Skyscraper (Calling Sky World), 2021

Anna Tsouhlarakis, The Native Guide Project, 2019

Meryl McMaster, Harbourage for a Song, 2019

Marie Watt, Companion Species (Calling Back, Calling Forward), 2021

Staff Pick of the Week

An Indigenous Present proposes that a book can be a space for community engagement through the transcultural gathering of more than sixty contemporary Indigenous and Native artists. Published by BIG NDN Press and Delmonico Books in 2023, An Indigenous Present was conceived of and edited by Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee artist Jeffrey Gibson (b. 1972) over the course of nearly two decades. 

In Gibson’s own words, “An Indigenous Present celebrates the work of visual artists, musicians, poets, choreographers, designers, filmmakers, performance artists, architects, collectives, and writers whose work offers fresh starting lines for Native and Indigenous art. But the book does not attempt comprehensiveness. Rather, those included here are makers I admire, have collaborated with or been inspired by, and who’ve challenged my thinking. . . . These artists and what they make will guide us to Indigenous futurities authored by us in unabashedly Indigenous ways.”  

An Indigenous Present features over 400 pages of color photographs, poetry, essays, and interviews resulting in a stunning visual experience for readers and a shift towards more inclusive art systems. The front cover art shown here is by Canadian artist Caroline Monnet entitled Indigenous Represent. 

View other posts from our Native American Literature Collection.

View more posts featuring Decorative Plates.

View other Staff Picks.

– Jenna, Special Collections Graduate Intern 

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favorite books of what i've read so far this year

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▪︎ Album of seaweed specimens, in scallop shell binding.

Place of origin: Great Britain

Date: mid-19th century

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Thinking about unwellness, studying it, dwelling in it, has radically transformed my approaches to everything I do. And if unwellness is structural, then so must be care. Self-care is an individual solution to an individual problem, completely divorced from a social context. We need structures of care that address the actual forces that make life feel unbearable. (via ‘We are all unwell’: a scholar’s radical approach to health | The Guardian)

See also, For The Wild Podcast - Transcript: DR. MIMI KHÚC on Claiming Unwellness /304 and access the audio here. The LA Review of Books - Differentially Unwell: On Mimi Khúc’s “dear elia”, and her TEDx Talk, The Revolution is in the Heart.

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for the last few months I’ve been working on a series combining character illustrations with photos I’ve taken during my walks along the Chicago River: “a long walk by the river.” there are 38 illustrations in total! I’ll have these for SPX, and then in my online store after the show! (:

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3 days in the arctic. not much time to draw, but a lot to see 🌠 kola peninsula, august '24