#now LISTEN i know that jame as the demon is a very predictable choice

[words-writ-in-starlight]

good omens au of the kencyrath?

Damn RIGHT, Good Omens AU of the Kencyrath.

a devil put aside (for me)

The year is 6000 AC1, give or take a few dozenmonths, when Jame is handed a baby.

This is not, as such things go, particularly commonpractice.  Something about Jame makespeople reluctant to hand her babies.  It’sprobably her clear and obvious alarm when handed a baby, or any other human toosmall to feasibly navigate itself home without her guidance.  It may also be the too-silver shine of hereyes over her sunglasses, and the cat-sharp points of her canines when shesmiles.  Regardless, Jame has taken greatpains to make sure she doesn’t look like someone who was cosmically meantto be handed babies2.

“Hail Satan.  You’relate, Jamethiel,” Keral observes, and Jame makes a vague gesture—at thegraveyard, at the half-cloudy night sky, at her pristine white car—as if to explain.

“Hail Satan, and stuff, sure.  Ran into traffic,” she says.  Keral doesn’t often lower himself to dallyingon Earth, and last Jame checked he didn’t totally understand what a car was,although there’s a certain intuitive grasp on things like traffic and hotcoals and slow torture among demons. He seems to have a broad grasp of what she means.  Bane, leaning against a gravestone andsmiling his too-wide smile, seems to have a much clearer grasp, but then Banelikes Earth3.  “So.  What’s, uh, happening?”

“Present for you,” Bane says, holding up an honest-to-Hellbasket, a tidily woven job that looks like something Jame might have seen incommon use seven thousand years ago. Bane lets it dangle from his fingers, rocking a bit, and Keral squawksangrily, jumping forward.  Bane closeshis fist securely around the handle and lowers his arm just before Keral canreach him, and Jame thinks idly about how she could be—anywhere but here,really.  Maybe somewhere with alcohol.

She’s never understood why Bane and Keral so frequently getassigned together.  Probably becauseKeral is uninventive but obsessively devoted to their Master, whereas Bane isalmost human in his creativity but untrustworthy even by demonic standards.  There’s some kind of hope that they’ll reineach other in.

All she’s ever really noticed is that Bane enjoys drivingKeral up the wall4, along with everyone else in the immediatevicinity.

“Here, m’lady snake,” Bane drawls, and holds the basket out,teetering, until Jame grabs it.

Jame flips up the lid, because curiosity has always beenwhat Jame does best5, and almost drops it on the spot.

“Oh,” Jame says.  Hervoice is a little faint, but even.  “It’s—thattime, is it?”

“Finally.”  Keralstretches in the corner of her vision, a movement that’s entirely too liquidand disjointed for his mostly-human appearance, and from the sound of hisvoice, he’s smiling, smugly delighted in the way of a demon about to achieve sometruly dire things.  “You’ve been honoredby our Master, Jamethiel,” he says.  

“Very honored,” Jame says automatically without looking upfrom the contents of the basket.  Thecontents didn’t seem to be bothered by Bane’s irreverent handling of them,still sleeping soundly.  That did notmake the contents any less alarming.

“About time, too, I was wasting away waiting for it,” Keralsays, and idly bends his wrist back until his knuckles touch his forearm.  There’s a pop, then several sharp cracks, andJame looks up.  

“Right,” Jame announces, an edge of manic brightnessentering her voice as she snaps the lid of the basket closed.  “Right. I’ll just go—do that.  About time.  Hail Satan.”

And she books the hastiest retreat she can manage, without actuallyrunning away.

Shortly thereafter, there is a shell game, but withbabies.  Three fair-haired male babies—tidilycode-named Baby A, Baby B, and the Antichrist, the Adversary, Destroyer ofKings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Princeof This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness—to beprecise.  The Monks of the LugubriousOrder of Saint Gorgo are a sweet bunch, if you ask Jame, but not always themost reliable at subtle communication.  Thiswill later be blamed for an enormous amount of trouble.  

As far as Father Loogan, head of the order, knows, the Antichristetc. is a scowling and squalling baby with ashy hair, delivered in a moreliteral than euphemistic sense to Caldane Caineron, American diplomaticattache, and his wife.  This baby—Baby B—isnamed Gorbel, and will be a terrible disappointment to quite a lot of people butalso an excellent politician6.

Baby A, for the sake of the reader’s peace of mind, isadopted by a kind couple and grows up well out of events, with the kind ofblithely silly nature that only blesses those who have narrowly missed growingup in politics.  We shall say that he isnamed Holly, and enjoys riding horses, climbing trees, and Not Being InvolvedIn Politics.

The Antichrist, the Adversary, Destroyer ofKings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Princeof This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness, is abeautiful and even-tempered baby, with pale blue eyes and hair so fair as to bevery nearly white.

His single mother names him Kindrie.

Jame doesn’t call ahead, because she doesn’t believe incalling ahead on principle7, and also because her counterpart isterrible at answering his phone.  Shejust shows up, parks indiscriminately half onto the pavement, and startshammering on the door, just above the Closed sign.

No one answers, so Jame snaps and the lock sheepishly undoesitself.  

“I’m sorry, we’re closed,” Torisen says from the back room,without looking up from his latest discovery of what appears to be genuine ship’smaps circa the fifteenth century, if Jame isn’t mistaken.  His shop mostly stocks books—histories andfirst editions and other things that could make an academic weep if given halfa chance—but she’s never seen him actually turn down an artifact8.  

“I just delivered the Antichrist to a monastery and theworld is going to end,” Jame announces as the door locks itself behind her.

The angel at the desk looks up, through the open door intothe shop.  Tori and Jame have always lookedalike—she thinks, vaguely, that they looked alike before the War, too, but can’tquite remember why—with inky black hair and silver eyes and very nearly thesame bone structure.  He’s allowed hiscorporation to show its age a touch more, with grey threading his black hair,rather than Jame’s perpetual early twenties, but they could still bereflections in slightly rippled water.  

As such, she suddenly has an excellent idea of what she musthave looked like, upon being handed the basket.

“Oh,” Tori says.

“Yeah.”

“Well,” Tori says, his hands moving slowly, apparentlywithout his instruction, to slide the maps into a museum-grade envelope9.  “I suppose that’s that, then.  How long have we got?”

“Eleven years, give or take.”

“And then…”

“That’s right.”  Torisennods, considering, and Jame collapses into the armchair across from him.  “Welcome to the End Times, angel.”

“Hm,” Torisen says, as if he’s still processing this.  “Drink?”

“Please.”

Six hours and a quite extraordinary amount of alcohol later,an angel and a demon concoct a supremely questionable plan to save the world.

Spoiler alert: it does not work10.

1  AfterCreation.

2 There isno helping the fact that, apparently, Someone thinks that Jame meant tobe handed babies.

3  In fact Banelikes Earth so much that he is strictly banned from being Hell’srepresentative there.

4 This is not a particular achievement: everyonefrom imps to archdemons enjoys driving Keral up the wall.

5  Jame hasretained certain things from her initial professional dalliance with curiosity,including slit pupils, a streak of black scales from the nape of her neck allthe way down her spine, and a fondness for sleeping in sunlight.  Really, she’s just glad she doesn’t hiss.

6  Being apolitician will earn the erstwhile Baby B some fatherly approval at first.  Then he’ll go and become a liberal, whereuponBaby B will finish thoroughly disappointing everyone and be much happier forit.

7  Jame got acommendation for the invention of the call tree.  She appreciates phones.  She also appreciates the upper hand, and justshowing up is better for that.

8  She hasalso never seen him sell one.

9  Jame isvery, very sure that Torisen has been abusing his miraculous abilities for thesake of protecting his books.  There’s noother way those maps are surviving being handled.

10  Someoneelse takes care of it.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

hi!! im wondering if you have any long (over 50k words) johnlock fics with no smut..? thank u !

Hi Nonny!

Ohhhh, gosh I ABSOLUTELY do! I love long emotional connection fics! I’ll stick to my K, G, and T-Rated fics since those I can guarantee has no smut, and I’ll also include M-Rated fics, so if you’re not okay with brief mentions of sex (not graphic details, just “the next morning after a love session” kind of description), then you can skip those :)

SMUT-FREE FICS OVER 50K W.

K to T-RATED

A Love with No Name Series by aceofhearts61 (G to M, 49,955 w. across 20 stories || Asexual Sherlock / Straight John, Est. Rel, Queerplatonic Relationship, Romance, Cuddling, Fluff, Platonic Romance, Domestics) – In which Asexual!Sherlock and Straight!John are platonically in love life partners.

An Experiment in Empathy Series by belovedmuerto (T, 62,397 w. across 13 stories || Empath AU || Psychic John, Psychic-by-Proxy Sherlock, Empathy, Psychic Bond, Romance / Bromance) – In which John is an empath, Sherlock is Sherlock, and an epic bromance happens. In the aftermath of The Great Game, John creates an unexpected bond between himself and Sherlock. Now they have to learn how to deal with it. John is better at this than Sherlock is.

You Have Drawn Red From My Hands by J_Baillier (T, 67,085 w., 17 Ch. || Three Garridebs, Heavy John Whump, Hurt / Comfort, Pining, Heavy Angst, Case Fic/Adventure, Slow Burn, Sick Fic, Injury, Guilt & Depression, Just Talk Already Please, Medical Realism, PTSD) –  John getting injured leads Sherlock on a path of guilt and revelations.

The Green Blade by verityburns (T, 72,929 w., 15 Ch. || Casefic, Bromance) – As a serial killer hits the headlines, the police are out of their depth and the next victim is out of time. With faith in Sherlock Holmes at an all time low, this is a case which will push loyalties to the limit…

Darkling, I Listen by You_Light_The_Sky (T, 73,254 w., 8 Ch. || Fairy Tale AU || Loosely Based on Beauty and the Beast, Magical Realism, Suicidal Themes, Romance, Creepiness, Adventure) – No one who enters old London ever comes out. They say that the beast devours them. When his sister disappears, John ventures into the dead zone beyond the wall, and finds a brilliant madman under a terrible curse… Part 1 of Darkling I Listen + Extras, Deleted Scenes

A Case of Identity by jkay1980 (T, 91,009 w., 22 Ch. || Post-TRF, Fake Relationship, Case Fic) – John and Sherlock have succeeded in rebuilding their friendship after Sherlock’s fake suicide, but an unusual case puts their relationship to the test. They pretend to be engaged and attend a marriage counseling workshop. Under the pretext of the case, Sherlock turns out to be a master of seduction, and John finally learns he might like Sherlock more than he thought. Slowly, John discovers that he loves Sherlock not only in a friendly, brotherly way, but both men have to fight their own demons before they can think of taking their relationship to a new level…

Definitions by siennna (T, 101,528 w., 12 of ? Ch. || Dev. Rel., Pining, Fluff and Romance, First Kiss, Love Confessions, Fluff, Cuddles) – Sherlock’s journey in defining his flat mate and stumbling through the muddled world of emotion. {{This feels complete; the chapter count is listed as ? but I feel like it is done}}

between each beat are words unsaid by darcylindbergh, hudders-and-hiddles (T, 107,998 w., 215 Ch. || Epistolary, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Angst, Happy Ending) – On their wedding night, John and Sherlock gift each other with the things they each said when the other could not hear, the things they each put down where the other could not see: a collection of writings that illustrate the way their love for one another has grown over the years. Part 1 of between each beat

THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF JOHN WATSON by skyefullofstars (T, 110,758 w., 24 Ch. || H/C, Kidnapping, Angst, Violence, Whump, Nightmares, Murder, Drug Addiction, Torture) – While Sherlock grapples with his new-found feelings for John Watson, he faces a very real threat: John’s kidnapping and shooting at the hands of James Moriarty. And the knowledge that the love of his life is being used to test an addictive drug - at the risk of John’s sanity and life. Prequel to THE BOYS OF BAKER STREET. Part 1 of THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF JOHN WATSON

The Swan Triad Series by Pennin_Ink (T, 121,660 w. across 3 works || Swan Lake AU || Magical / Fairy Tale AU, Romance, Falling in Love, Pining, Psychological Torture, Transformation) – Sherlock and John grow up spending every summer together. Their mothers’ attempts to play matchmaker only fuel their mutual resentment and scorn. But then, one summer.

The Horse and his Doctor by khorazir (T, 129,003 w., 13 Ch. || Horse / Vet AU || Magical Realism, Horses, Vet John, Horse Sherlock, Implied Alcoholism) – Invalided after a run in with a poacher in Siberia, veterinary surgeon John Watson finds it difficult to acclimatise to the mundanity of London life. Things change when a friend invites him along to a local animal shelter and he meets their latest acquisition, a trouble-making Frisian with the strangest eyes and even stranger quirks John has ever encountered in a horse.

Mise en Place by azriona (M, 161,004 w., 28 Ch. || Restaurant (Kitchen Nightmares) AU || Sherlock is Gordon Ramsay / Celebrity Sherlock, Restauranteur John, Harry Plays Prominent Role, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, Cranky Sherlock, Bed Sharing, Slow Burn) – John Watson had no intentions of taking over the family business, but when he returns from Afghanistan, battered and bruised, and discovers that his sister Harry has run their restaurant into the ground, he doesn’t have much choice. There’s only one thing that can save the Empire from closing for good – the celebrity star of the BBC series Restaurant Reconstructed, Chef Sherlock Holmes. Part 1 of Mise en Place

Fallen Series by Belladonna_Q, mamishka (T, 222,094 w. across 3 works || Winglock || Angel!John, Angels & Demons, Faes, Christianity, Changelings) – In a world where myth, mystery, and the supernatural flourish beneath the veneer of modern civilization, Sherlock is a master of magic as well as science and deduction. But there are some things that he cannot see, riddles he cannot unravel, even when they walk right beside him in the form of one John Watson…

M-RATED

The Homecoming Series by sussexbound (M, 51,744 w. across 12 stories, WIP || Domestics, PTSD, Love Confessions, Hurt/Comfort, Cuddling, Jealousy, Family Issues) – Sometimes home is all you need. After three years of horror, betrayals, and crushing loss, John and Sherlock find their way back home to one another, and together find new footing in a world that has changed forever.

John Watson’s Twelve Days of Christmas by earlgreytea68 (M, 53,464 w., 14 Ch. || Christmas, Holmes Family, Fake Relationship, Alternate First Meeting, Falling in Love, Fluff and Angst, Hardcore Pining) – It’s the holiday season. John Watson needs money. Sherlock Holmes needs something else.

Wars We Fought, Things We’re Not by blueink3 (M, 55,204 w., 10 Ch. || Post S3 / Post TAB, Parentlock, Fluff & Angst, Kidnapping, Whump, Post-TAB, UST/URT, 3G, Mild Peril, Slow Burn, Couple for a Case, Protective Mycroft, Infant Death Pre-Story, Friends to Lovers) –  Five months after John’s world has fallen apart, Mycroft sends the consulting detective and his doctor on a case that neither is prepared for.

floating through a dark blue sky by Lediona (M, 58,966 w., 15 Ch. || Notting Hill AU || POV John, Celebrity Sherlock, First Date / Time / Kiss, Past Drug Addiction, Angst with a Happy Ending) – Of course, I’d seen his films and always thought he was, well, brilliant – but, you know, a million miles from the world I live in. Or, when John is the owner of a travel book shop and the famous Sherlock Holmes stops in one day.

The Burning by SrebrnaFH (M, 60,658 w., 24 Ch. || Reverse Reichenbach, Suicide, Depression, Hurt Sherlock / John, Separation, BAMF John, Good Big Brother Mycroft, Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, Fake Character Death, Rescue Mission, Reconciliation / Reunion, Hospitalization, Marriage Proposal, Illnesses, Physical Therapy, Happily Ever After) – Something went very, very wrong. John had seemed, if not happy, then reasonably content with his life. Sherlock had never predicted something like THIS might have happened. Not in his worst nightmares. He was the lousiest friend ever, apparently. At least Mycroft found him something to occupy his mind with, so that he didn’t have to go back to 221B and stare at the walls and the chair, where John Watson would never sit again.

Bedtime Universe by Liketheriver (M, 65,173 w. across 2 stories || Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Angst, Humour, Case Fic) – John’s POV during Season 2 and beyond when Sherlock takes up semi-permanent residence in his bed. A collection of codas and missing scenes wrapped up into one long fic and topped with a bow that takes the story beyond Reichenbach and into happy territory once more.

The Vapor Variant by 88thParallel (CanadaHolm) (M, 72,684 w., 18 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Post-THoB, John Whump, Protective Sherlock, Guilty Sherlock, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Virgin Sherlock, Angst with Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, PTSD John, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Suspense, Virus, Sickfic, Big Brother Mycroft) – They stood face to face in the middle of a clearing. The dim light of the moon barely allowed Sherlock to see the glassy terror in John’s eyes and the sweat that glistened off his forehead. His nose was bleeding again, blood dripping in a slow stream from his right nostril. They were both gasping for air, John’s eyes locked on Sherlock’s. There was no recognition there, just wild animal fear. Time stood still for an eternal few seconds, and Sherlock took a shaky breath. “John—”Spell broken, John spun and bolted back into the woods. Still heaving for air, Sherlock took off after him.

Summit Fever by J_Baillier (M, 78,802 w., 18 Ch. || Mountain Climber AU || POV John, Angst, Tragedy, Suicidal Ideation, The Himalayas, Mountain Guide / Doctor John, Mount Climber Sherlock, Loneliness, Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Injured Sherlock / Sherlock Whump, Pining John) – After graduating from medical school, John Watson followed his heart to the Himalayas. Ten years later, he’s a haunted cynic working for his ex-lover’s trekking and mountaineering company. Will leading an expedition to Annapurna I—the most lethal of all the world’s highest mountains—shake John out of his reverie, and who is the mystery client added to the group at the last minute?

The Burning Heart by May_Shepard (M, 119,150 w., 21 Ch. || Canon Divergence, Post-TRF, John’s Sexuality, S3 Rewrite, Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, POV John Watson, John’s Gay) – When Sherlock dies, John Watson feels like his life is over too. He’s completely shut down, until Mark Morstan, a new nurse at John’s medical clinic, catches his attention, and helps him uncover the long buried truth of his attraction to men. Although he’s certain he’ll never get over Sherlock, John plans to move on, and build a new life with Mark, unaware that Sherlock is not quite as dead as he appears, and that Mark is hiding secrets of his own.

[amykingpoet]

“There comes a point in everyone’s lives where we start to recognize that we are making choices, that we are determining who we are by the actions that we make,” poet, educator and activist Amy King stated in a 2015 speech at SUNY Nassau Community College, where she is a professor of English and creative writing. “What we do says a lot about who we are, not just what we say.”

As a young child growing up in the Bible Belt, King remembers going to the grocery store with her grandfather—her one source of stability, love and unconditional support at that time who, “everyday,” made comments that she was learning to understand were racist. She recalls watching her grandfather flirt with a Black woman who was checking out their groceries. “I was very young,” she told students about that day. “I didn’t even have the vocabulary at that point to recognize this feeling or to articulate what this feeling was, but it was the feeling that something hypocritical was going on.”

That was when King, who identifies as queer, began trying to figure out how to address those moments in her family. “A story begins when a protagonist recognizes a conflict and begins to address how to correct that conflict,” she shared, “and some of us choose not to address that conflict—and that is a story too.”

After growing up in Stone Mountain, Georgia, King lived with her father in Baltimore, Maryland. As a teenager, she worked for the National Security Agency after testing high for analytical skills, but says she felt “uncomfortable” there, even just at 17, and “didn’t like the way the institution was run.”

Two consistent themes throughout King’s life are “social justice and story.” Her latest book, The Missing Museum, is described as “a kind of directory of the world as it rushes into extinction, in order to preserve and transform it at once.” Publishing it won her the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize and vaulted her to the ranks of legends like Ann Patchett, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rachel Carson and Pearl Buck when she received the 2015 Women’s National Book Association Award. (Named one of “40 Under 40: The Future of Feminism” awardees by the Feminist Press, King also received the 2012 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities.)

King is co-editor of the anthology Big Energy Poets: Ecopoetry Thinks Climate Change and the anthology series Bettering American Poetry; her other books include I Want to Make You Safe, one of Boston Globe’s Best Poetry Books of 2011. Much of her prose, activism and other projects focus on exploring and supporting the work of other women writers, especially writers of color. King is a founding member of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and former Editor-in-Chief of VIDA Review.

During a 2014 interview King gave for Houston’s Public Poetry Reading Series, she spoke on the subject of trying to understand poetry by asking a pivotal question: “What is ‘understanding’ and what is an ‘experience’ with a piece of art?” She went on to say poetry should “jostle” us out of our regular ways of thinking—it should “undo” us in ways that are both good and uncomfortable.

For this installment of Ms. Muse, King opens up about learning to speak up and step up—and shares three new poems with Ms. readers. Here’s to hoping that they “undo” you.

THE POEMS

Selling Short

I cannot afford to live in the city I teach in, & the number of people sleeping in cars has grown, indivisibly. This is not a dream of guarantees but the pursuit of handwritten freedoms that night the sting away. Demons of clinics devise distribution mechanics based on who you were born to & who you might know. The 2 a.m. quiet promises no solace or silence when days are hobbled & taken. Soon, light will be privately owned.

I’m Building a Body to Burn My Effigy In

I will not mention stars Today. They have been used for purposes not their own. Listen to them. Give them space. Observe but leave them distant. If you think you know everything about them now, you have outgrown yourself. In the south we say bigger than your britches burns, but I do not wish to confuse. I want to learn.

Joy Even

The denim and calico patchwork of my childhood. Mothballs in a little black box, felt lining each crevice. Michael Jackson on a hobbled turntable someone left at the apartment complex curb. Costwald Village. Regal. British. Anything but.

The dislocation of Backwoods, Georgia. The first time a man touched me, his semen glistening my inner thighs.

“Thriller” and the plywood coffee table. The hoarder grocery bag maze and Childcraft Encyclopedias flayed across the shag. My 12-year-old amazement. My 12-year-old embryo. The fact of a body electric, searing for days. Turning that birthed another world with a song and dance.

So many ways to joy. Some to death. My anything. Me, anything. Joy even.

THE INTERVIEW

Can you tell me about your process of writing “I’m Building a Body to Burn My Effigy In,” “Joy Even” and “Selling Short”?

I don’t have one process. Sometimes compiled notes take shape. Or a poem just falls out of me as if, gored, the liver drops from my body. The heart seeping sounds more fitting, but a liver plop fits better.

“I’m Building a Body…” comes from an interest in physics and mortality.

“Joy Even” is part of the slow-burn of outlining a memoir.

“Selling Short” emerges as predictive dream, touching on issues that have recently led me to Rosi Braidotti’s “The Posthuman.”

What childhood experiences with language informed your relationship with poetry?

When I first moved to live with my father in Baltimore at 15, I spoke slowly and heard the same. I often said “What?” in a deep southern drawl, uncertain of my own ears, which was probably also testament to a deeper uncertainty too. My father was my only safety line in a house full of strangers and with a stepmother who, quite quickly, began to play her own uncertainties out on me.

One day, as usual, I asked “What?” and my dad, no longer riding the romance of his daughter’s betrayal of her mother to be with him, the winner, suddenly shouted at me, “DO YOU REALLY NOT KNOW WHAT WE’RE SAYING?” It shocked the shit out of me. I made adjustments over time to alter the way I spoke, how I heard, to absorb unknown word usages and infer what I could. And to recover from what that moment meant.

You might prefer the story of how I used to read Gertrude Stein to friends over the phone to annoy them until I realized I had tricked myself as I was enjoying sounding her poetry aloud. Or how I grew up reading Nancy Drew and science fiction late into the wee hours and then woke up and watched Saturday morning cartoons in black and white. But this moment with my father shattered something. Luckily, the cracks are often where we make things and the broken pieces what we make things with.

I’m stunned by that moment with your father and your struggle to understand what people around you were saying. I’m also struck by the notion of the poet as a young girl not trusting her own ears, as you say. How did you learn to make out the words all around you–and to trust yourself?  

I don’t think I ever have really. I just embrace the temporality of life a bit more than usual and go with what comes across. It’s why I am not embarrassed to ask someone to pass the “lotion” for the salad or to verb nouns for decades now. I think subconsciously I suppressed my accent as a response to my father, but that shock taught me that not only is my mother unreliable, but so is the alternative, my father. I had already been disabused of the notion of unconditional love; I was holding out hope in him for at least a lasting, warm embrace. I’ve grown since that bottoming out: DNA is not all, and one can find family—and become family—elsewhere.

This is all linked to the notion that people speak to signal group intimacy; language is shaped by mutual alliances and allegiances. When family rejects your language needs, believe the message it sends and seek anew.

Do you seek out poetry by women and non-binary writers? If so, since when and why? More specifically, how has the work of feminist poets mattered in your childhood and/or your life as an adult?

I won a city-wide fiction contest for Baltimore ArtScape during my senior year of high school. It was judged by Lucille Clifton, which made a lasting impression on me. I was not a writer, but my high school English teacher, Carolyn Benfer, encouraged me tremendously. I was attending a vocational school in the city and, up to that point, was destined to become a CPA.

From there, I attended the University of Maryland at Towson State and had the good fortune to enroll as a double major in English and Women’s Studies. The latter program is especially noteworthy as the program served as the model for many other Women’s Studies programs across the country, as envisioned and spearheaded by Elaine Hedges, who was also an active feminist, affiliated with the Feminist Press. This program led me to numerous marginalized writers back in the early nineties that I likely would not have encountered so early on independently or simply from core English classes.

I cannot speak highly enough about the work that Women’s Studies program did. The short answer is that the program taught me to seek work by marginalized writers as I would be missing out on so much otherwise. I do not seek literature simply to reflect my own experiences—I seek to learn beyond them.

What groundbreaking (or ancient) works, forms, ideas and issues in poetry today interest and concern you?

There is no one work, and as such, I continue to read widely. There are so many books I have not read yet, which is thrilling. Some of my touchstones range from Cesar Vallejo to Leonora Carrington to Audre Lorde to James Baldwin to Lucille Clifton to Gertrude Stein to John Ashbery. There are numerous younger poets I look to for energy, shifts in consciousness and awareness of current cultural concerns and who also signal structural and formal changes. A handful include Billy-Rae Belcourt, Chen Chen, Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Vievee Francis, Airea D. Matthews, Raquel Salas Rivera, TC Tolbert, Ocean Vuong and Phillip B. Williams—but this by no means is an exhaustive list. Check out the poets anthologized in the Bettering American Poetry series I am lucky enough to be a part of.

As a woman, and as a woman who writes, what do you need to support your work? What opportunities, support, policies and actions can/could make a direct difference for you—and for other women writers you know?

Besides the room, money and time Virginia Woolf called for, I’m beginning to find that a support network is vital. I don’t think this needs to be formal or a writing collaboration. I simply mean that it is encouraging to have regular check-ins with a small group of writers, as few as two even, where you discuss what you’re each working on, maybe share a small piece/excerpt, get feedback and discuss ideas.

It is often the idea exchange, even with just a friend on the phone, that I find generative. I find myself articulating ideas and vision in a way that is as revealing to myself as to my friend. I leave those conversations with ideas of where to head next with a poem or on what to research to build foundational ideas for a concept.

What’s next? What upcoming plans and projects excite you?

I’m outlining a memoir—fingers crossed—and writing poems. I may birth an essay down the road, but that is gestating for now. And volunteering time and support to a program called La Maison Baldwin Manuscript Mentors, a nonprofit arts and culture association that remembers and celebrates James Baldwin in Saint-Paul de Vence, to save James Baldwin’s house and turn it into a vital residency in France.

How has the current political climate in the U.S. affected you as a woman writer?

I am not so much shocked as often startled. I think we all knew white supremacy, colonialism and toxic masculinity were at the helm, but the built-in invisibilities kept them shrouded in respectability politics and notions of civility, and of course, that begs the question: Whose civility? I also don’t think we are in some unique moment of history where shocking things have taken hold and the end is nigh, but that is how it feels at times. Power and paradigm shifts are often premised on tectonic shifts, and folks have to finally step up, choose sides.

That seems key at the moment: one can no longer pretend to be above the fray. And that may be most painful for those of us with privilege. No one is outside anything after all.

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2:00PM Water Cooler 8/5/2019

Digital Elixir 2:00PM Water Cooler 8/5/2019

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Trade

“Trade Wars Escalate” [Tim Duy’s Fed Watch]. “The big news everyone will wake up to is the latest escalation in the trade wars between the U.S. and China. The situation is obviously a clear net negative for the economy that will keep the Fed biased toward easing again in September. The Fed will remain under pressure to help President Trump fight his trade wars with lower interest rates in the months ahead.” • If the Fed takes away the punchbowl, the worst might happen: A Sanders win.

Politics

“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune

“2020 Democratic Presidential Nomination” [RealClearPolitics] (average of five polls). As of August 1: Biden fluctuates to 32.2% (32.0), Sanders up to 16.5% (16.4%), Warren down at 14.0% (14.8%), Buttigieg flat at 5.5% (5.6%), Harris down at 10.3% (11.0%), Beto separating himself from the bottom feeders, interestingly. others Brownian motion. If these trends continue in the next release, Sanders will the only winner of both debates.

* * *

2020

Buttigieg (D)(1): “Buttigieg’s New Hampshire Director Leaves Team: Campaign Update” [Yahoo News]. “The Pete Buttigieg campaign has parted ways with its New Hampshire state director Michael Ceraso. The move comes days after the second round of Democratic debates — in which Buttigieg had no breakout moments — and two weeks after the campaign brought on Jess O’Connell as a senior adviser. O’Connell was chief executive officer of the Democratic National Committee in 2017 and has served as executive director of EMILY’s List. Ceraso departs just as she was seeking changes to make the campaign more competitive in key states, and ahead of New Hampshire’s state convention in September, the campaign said, adding that it will soon announce several other staffing changes.” • Yes, “chief executive officer of the Democratic National Committee” is the line on the resumé I want to see…

Gabbard (D)(1): “Tulsi Gabbard Thinks We’re Doomed” [New York Times]. “‘Tracking metrics of Russian state propaganda on Twitter, she was by far the most favored candidate,’ said Clinton Watts, a former F.B.I. agent and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. ‘She’s the Kremlin’s preferred Democrat. She is such a useful agent of influence for them. Whether she knows it’s happening or not, they love what she’s saying.’” • Presented without comment from the, er, reporter.

Harris (D)(1):

BREAKING:

In a major ethics violation, Kamala Harris’ iconic and memorable rainbow sequin coat she wore to San Francisco Pride was sewn together by truancy convicts in a California prison work camp, sources report. pic.twitter.com/MqliI2RD8D

— MSDNC (@MSDNCNews) August 4, 2019

Check source before recirculating…

Sanders (D)(1): “Mike Gravel to Formally Endorse Bernie Sanders’ Campaign” [The Daily Beast]. “[Gravel,] who was cajoled into running an almost exclusively online campaign by teenagers David Oks and Henry Williams, filmed an endorsement video for Sanders on Sunday. Gravel spoke with Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir before coming to the decision to make a formal endorsement and is planning to speak with Sanders himself in the coming days.”

Sanders (D)(2): “Bernie Sanders explains why it’s his time to win Nevada” [Las Vegas Review-Journal]. “‘We’ve got Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada and California,’ Sanders said. ‘And my guess is that any candidate who does particularly well in those five states is going to be the nominee and the next president of the United States.’… Sanders told the crowd that all of these issues — low pay, high-interest loans, medical bills — are intertwined in a web that keeps half of Americans living paycheck to paycheck.” • That last sentence is interesting, because it’s not Sanders’ language; the reporter was actually listening and thing.

Warren (D)(1):

.@SenWarren has been publicly critical of Wall Street in the past. Can she convince the finance industry that she’s the right candidate to lead the Democrat campaign in 2020? https://t.co/AOu1nwojaZ

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) August 4, 2019

Oh, I hope not!

Williamson (D)(1): “Marianne Williamson: Holy Fool” [The American Conservative]. “[L]et’s not fool ourselves: Trump, like Sharpton and his identity-politics-besotted enablers in the Democratic Party and the left-wing establishments, are trafficking in “dark psychic forces.” For years in this space, I have warned that leftist identity politics are summoning demons. So is Donald Trump…. Dark psychic force? You’d have to be a fool not to see it. And you’d have to be completely self-deceived to think that only one side has a monopoly on it…. I believe the capacity for this kind of hatred exists within every human heart. What we are losing is the sense that it is a destructive passion to be resisted.”

TX: Suburban Republicans:

People grossly oversold GOP vulnerability in TX pre-Trump and are grossly underselling it now. Texas is an overwhelmingly urban/suburban state, so GOP weakening in the suburbs is felt disproportionately in TX. It could go blue, quickly, under this current configuration

— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) August 5, 2019

2019

“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, spokesman leave her office” [The Intercept]. • Looks to me like Nancy won. I hope AOC is taking care of her district.

The Debates

“Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Stood Together on Radical Progressive Ideas in the Democratic Debate” [Teen Vogue]. “Despite being jointly labeled as the party’s progressive standard-bearers, Sanders and Warren appeal to very different supporters. As explained by Politico, polling indicates that Warren appeals more to women, to better-educated voters, and to older voters; Sanders, on the other hand, is favored by the less educated, by men, by younger voters, and by those with lower incomes. The fact that the two candidates are running on similar platforms but have such divergent bases of support speaks to the broad appeal of progressive policies. Which, in part, is why it’s confusing to see so many Democrats so eager to attack these progressives.” • What’s confusing about it?

Impeachment

“Should we impeach Donald Trump?” [Patheos]. “For those like me with a more conservative inclination, we are getting a reputation for blindly tying ourselves to one political party without regard to things we have said in the past about how political leaders ought to behave publicly. To use my own crowd as an example, in 1998 while the Clinton impeachment was going on the Southern Baptist Convention passed a ‘Resolution on the Moral Character of Public Officials,’ but you’ll have to work hard to hear that document being cited by certain prominent Southern Baptists these days. We ought to hold elected officials that we like to the same standard as those we don’t. That doesn’t mean we should automatically be in favor of impeachment, but it does mean that if we were charging at Bill Clinton for his moral failings, we should be at least as critical as Donald Trump without rationalizing it away ‘because the other side is worse.’”

RussiaGate

“DNI Nominee Intent on Getting to Bottom of Russiagate” [Ray McGovern, Consortium News]. “Shortly before President Donald Trump announced he had nominated Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, Ratcliffe made it clear he intends to hit the deck running on the ‘crimes’ behind Russiagate. ‘What I do know as a former federal prosecutor is it does appear that there were crimes committed during the Obama administration,’ Ratcliffe told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. Mincing few words, he claimed the Democrats ‘accused Donald Trump of a crime and then tried to reverse engineer a process to justify that accusation.’ It’s an extravagant claim. But it is also true, and the proof is in the pudding of which we should have a steady diet in the months to come.” • This was written before Ratcliffe was unceremoniously heaved over the side, presumanbly after The Blob said “not on your Nellie.”

El Paso Shooting

Readers, I’ll have an El Paso Water Cooler Special tomorrow; I’m still gathering my thoughts.

“After the El Paso Massacre, the Choice Is Green Socialism or Eco-Fascism” [The Nation]. “Writing in New York magazine in March, Eric Levitz predicted that the climate emergency could easily spark two wildly divergent paths away from the current unsustainable model of economic growth: a Green New Deal vision of the future where socialist policies are used to remake the American and global economy to be more ecologically sustainable—or an extreme-right model based on immigration restriction and opposition to economic growth in the Global South.” • The mental health frame is not especially useful, I think.

“El Paso Terrorism Suspect’s Alleged Manifesto Highlights Eco-Fascism’s Revival” [HuffPo]. “Titled ‘The Inconvenient Truth,’ an allusion to Al Gore’s landmark climate change documentary, the ranting four-page document appeared on the extremist forum 8chan shortly before the shooting. Authorities have yet to confirm whether Patrick Crusius, the 21-year-old Dallas-area white man arrested in connection with the shooting that left at least 22 dead, is the author. ‘The environment is getting worse by the year,’ the manifesto reads. ‘Most of y’all are just too stubborn to change your lifestyle. So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.’ • Well, life expectancy is falling, and the birth rate is falling….

Obama Legacy

“The Democratic party’s quiet abandonment of Barack Obama” [Financial Times]. “As he surveys today’s wreckage, Mr Obama can draw on one other consolation: at least he merits the occasional mention. Bill Clinton, by contrast, has vanished. In the age of #Metoo, America’s 42nd president is persona non grata. Democrats are busy purging the past. Given the mood, it would be a surprise were Mr Biden to make it to the finishing line.” • The key word is “quiet.” The liberal Democrat hive mind operates rather like the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Deprecated figures in photographs are retouched away — with no explanation and no accountability.

“Obama Reportedly Unfazed By Criticism From 2020 Candidates” [The Onion]. • A survey.

“How Barack Obama Failed Black Americans” [Sandy Darity, The Atlantic]. From 2016, still germane: “The “acting white” libel is symptomatic of a more general perspective—a perspective that argues that an important factor explaining racial economic disparities is self-defeating or dysfunctional behavior on the part of blacks themselves. And Barack Obama continuously has trafficked in this perspective. Of course, there are some black folk who engage in habits that undermine their potential accomplishments, but there are some white folk who engage in habits that undermine their potential accomplishments as well. And there is no evidence to demonstrate that are proportionately more blacks who behave in ways that undercut achievement, especially since it is clear that blacks do more with less. Nevertheless, Obama consistently has trafficked heavily in the tropes of black dysfunction. Either he is unfamiliar with or uninterested in the evidence that undercuts the black behavioral deficiency narrative. These tropes, in my view, do malicious work.”

Realignment and Legitimacy

“The Idiocy of Ballot Bouncing” [Harold Meyerson, TAP]. “The California statute [on Presidential candidates’ tax returns] may just prompt Republican-controlled states to require every presidential nominee to, say, support the ongoing criminalization of undocumented border crossings, or call for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, to get their name on the states’ ballots. If the Democratic nominee’s name were not put before voters in Alabama, it wouldn’t really matter, since Alabama is bound to go for Trump. Then again, California is just as bound to go for the Democrat, no matter who it be. But what about Republican-controlled swing states like Georgia and Florida—or, for that matter, Arizona and Texas? Should the courts rule that states have the legal right to engage in ballot-bouncing, the Democratic nominee may be bounced to far greater, and more disastrous effect, than Trump.” • My example was “No Presidential candidate shall have used a private email server for public business.” NOTE I was wrong to assert that Lincoln was on the ballot in the slave states. He was not. All the more reason for California not to emulate them.

Why there should never be a digital intermediary between marking the ballot and counting it:

1989: Brian Fox introduced code into Bash, later released as version 1.03, which included the first of the Shellshock vulnerabilities publicly reported 9,169 days later. That’s 25 years, 1 month, and 13 days of exploitability.

Takeaway? You’re always running exploitable code. pic.twitter.com/wqE3cTQFwZ

— Today In Infosec (@todayininfosec) August 5, 2019

“You are always running exploitable code.” And the author of Bash is a highly competent programmer, unlike the voting machine vendors.

Stats Watch

Purchasing Managers’ Services Index, July 2019: “‘Robust’ — both domestic and foreign — is Markit Economics’ description of US service sector demand in July which, however, is not confirmed by the no more than moderate-to-solid diffusion score” [Econoday]. However, “hiring was ‘only moderate’…, inflationary pressures ‘historically subdued’, [and] optimism in the outlook slipping for a sixth month in a row.”

Institute For Supply Management Non-Manufacturing Index, July 2019: “ISM non-manufacturing has consistently reported very solid rates of growth but it too is at a multi-year low” [Econoday]. “Yet rates of growth, though moderating, are still respectable…. Though it does fit in with the general slowing underway in global diffusion reports, this isn’t a bad report and is a reminder that domestic demand in the second-quarter… was very strong.”

Retail: “Inside the conflict at Walmart that’s threatening its high-stakes race with Amazon” [Vox]. “The company’s US online sales increased 40 percent last year, buoyed by a successful expansion of an online grocery business; the digital-first brands and digital-first talent it has acquired have breathed new life into its portfolio; and it has shed at least part of its reputation for being a digital dinosaur…. But it’s still far behind Amazon, and inside Walmart, tensions are rising. Multiple sources tell Recode that the company is projecting losses of more than $1 billion for its US e-commerce division this year, on revenue of between $21 billion and $22 billion. Walmart does not disclose these figures publicly and declined to comment. That size loss is an eye-popping figure for a company that is used to printing cash and that prides itself on its profitable operations; the overall Walmart business brought in nearly $7 billion in profits during the last fiscal year…. The problem is that building the online version of the Everything Store requires millions more products, and that means two things that Walmart’s current infrastructure does not support: dozens more e-commerce warehouses and a lot more merchants and brands selling through Walmart.com.” • Well worth a read. Almost makes you feel sorry for Walmart. • And then there’s this: “Walmart has not secured the same trust — and long leash — from Wall Street investors that Amazon has.” In other words, Amazon has and has had the privilege of running its operation at a loss for years.

Retail slash Internet of Shit:

As a tech critic, there is a lot of stuff that I think of as “Slavoj Zizek on easy mode”—labor-saving devices for the nihilist contrarian with a conference talk deadline. The Amazon dash buttons were in this rare category and I will be sad to see them go https://t.co/qF1WPGDczq

— Pinboard (@Pinboard) August 3, 2019

The Bezzle: “Autopilot failed to keep Tesla from sliding under semitruck at 68 mph, lawsuit claims” [Orlando Sun-Sentinel]. “About 10 seconds before the crash, Banner engaged the Autopilot system, according to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board.” • So I’m not sure about the case, but at the end of the article there’s this: “The NTSB, in a 2017 report, wrote that design limitations of the Autopilot system played a major role in the fatality, the first known one in which a vehicle operated on a highway under semi-autonomous control systems. The agency said that Tesla told Model S owners that Autopilot should be used only on limited-access highways, primarily interstates. The report said that despite upgrades to the system, Tesla did not incorporate protections against use of the system on other types of roads.” • Because of course they didn’t. Could be that determining whether you’re on a limited-access highway is a hard problem for robot cars, just like turning left?

The Bezzle: “Finnish Tesla Model 3 Inspection Reveals Soft, Thin, Under-Spec Paint” [The Drive]. “A Finnish condition inspection of a Tesla Model 3’s paint has returned extremely poor readings for both thickness and hardness, validating growing owner concerns about easily-worn paint on the firm’s cars. These results come as Tesla negotiates the settlement of some 19 air quality violations at its Fremont, California factory paint shop, raising questions about the possibility of a connection between those compliance challenges and the thin, soft paint found on Tesla’s cars. Paint issues were one of several factors that contributed to the Model 3 losing its Consumer Reports recommendation this year.” • Oops.

The Bezzle: “Uber and Lyft Investors Are Looking for Signs of a Détente” [Bloomberg]. • Would a cartel between two firms whose business models doom them to unprofitability be unique in human history?

Tech: “AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is such a hit it almost outsold Intel’s entire CPU range” [TechRadar]. “In June, AMD’s overall market share was 68% at Mindfactory, so the increase to 79% represents a big jump, and the highest proportion of sales achieved by the company this year by a long way. To put this in a plainer fashion, for every single processor sold by Intel, AMD sold four.” • I’m used to the idea of Intel dominating everything. Oops.

Tech: “Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp went down (again)” [Engadget]. “Numerous reports have surfaced of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp being unavailable to various degrees on the morning of August 4th. The failure doesn’t appear to have been as dramatic as it was in July, when image services were out for several hours (we had at least some success visiting them ourselves). Still, it likely wasn’t what you were hoping for if you wanted to catch up on your social feeds on a lazy Sunday morning…. There has been a string of problems across the services in recent months, with roots in everything from server configurations to the previously mentioned media services. It’s not clear why they’ve picked up after a long period of relative stability.”

Intellectual Property: “Fact check: What you may have heard about the dispute between UC and Elsevier” [Office of Scholarly Communications, University of California]. “Elsevier’s offer to increase open access publishing “five-fold” would have resulted in only 30 percent of UC’s research, all of which is supported by public funding, being freely available to the public. Under the past Elsevier contract, which required UC authors to pay an additional charge for open access (after the libraries already paid Elsevier for subscriptions), only 6 percent of UC authors made that second payment — making the majority of UC research published in Elsevier journals inaccessible to the public who helped fund it.” • Elsevier, it is safe to say, is not greatly loved.

Intellectual Property: “Elsevier: “It’s illegal to Sci-Hub.” Also Elsevier: ‘We link to Sci-Hub all the time.’” [Boing Boing]. “Yesterday, I wrote about science publishing profiteer Elsevier’s legal threats against Citationsy, in which the company claimed that the mere act of linking to Sci-Hub (an illegal open-access portal) was itself illegal. You’ll never guess what happens next. Elsevier’s own journals turn out to be full of links to Sci-Hub. It’s also not hard to understand this. You see, the researchers who write the papers that Elsevier publishes are scientists, not private-equity-backed looter/profiteers, so they are more interested in science and scholarship than ensuring that Elsevier continues to rake in billions. And since Elsevier doesn’t pay for any of the work it publishes, it’s hard for them to exert pressure to end this practice.”

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 23 Fear (previous close: 36, Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 58 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Aug 5 at 12:49pm. • Restored at reader request. Note that the index is not always updated daily, sadly.

Rapture Index: Closes up one on Crime Rate. “America’s 8th deadliest mass shooting occurred in El Paso.” [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 184. Remember that bringing on the rapture is a good thing.

The Biosphere

“When Tree Planting Actually Damages Ecosystems” [The Wire]. “Tree planting has been widely promoted as a solution to climate change, because plants absorb the climate-warming gases from Earth’s atmosphere as they grow…. Many of those trees could be planted in tropical grassy biomes according to the report. These are the savannas and grasslands that cover large swathes of the globe and have a grassy ground layer and variable tree cover. Like forests, these ecosystems play a major role in the global carbon balance. Studies have estimated that grasslands store up to 30% of the world’s carbon that’s tied up in soil. Covering 20% of Earth’s land surface, they contain huge reserves of biodiversity, comparable in areas to tropical forest…. Savannas and grasslands are home to nearly one billion people, many of whom raise livestock and grow crops… Calls for global tree planting programmes to cool the climate need to think carefully about the real implications for all of Earth’s ecosystems. The right trees need to be planted in the right places. Otherwise, we risk a situation where we miss the savanna for the trees, and these ancient grassy ecosystems are lost forever.”

“‘This is the beginning’: new study warns climate crisis may have been pivotal in rise of drug-resistant superbug” [Monthly Review]. “A new analysis warns that ‘global warming may have played a pivotal role’ in the recent rise of a multidrug-resistant fungal superbug, sparking questions and concerns about the emerging public health threats of the human-caused climate crisis…. ‘The argument that we are making based on comparison to other close relative fungi is that as the climate has gotten warmer, some of these organisms, including Candida auris, have adapted to the higher temperature, and as they adapt, they break through human’s protective temperatures,” lead author Arturo Casadevall, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a statement.”

“By separating life stages, metamorphosis may circumvent harmful evolutionary tradeoffs” [PNAS]. • I’m only leaving this here in case there’s an evolutionary biologist in the house who can explain it.

Health Care

“What the Measles Epidemic Really Says About America” [The Atlantic]. “Bright-blue counties in Northern California, Washington State, and Oregon have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.” • There’s the lead, buried fourteen paragraphs down.

Games

“Fame and ‘Fortnite’ — inside the global gaming phenomenon” [Financial Times]. “Fortnite is technically a video game, and one with a simple premise. At the start, players drop on to an island and shoot each other until only one person is left standing. Each match lasts about 20 minutes and slowly, the numbers whittle down. A storm approaches, making the map smaller and smaller. If you jump off the island you die. Antoine Griezmann, the French football star, said playing Fortnite makes him more stressed than professional football.” • Truly a game for the neoliberal era….

Guillotine Watch

Class Warfare

But everywhere in chains (MA):

I am VERY RARELY able to access toilets while away from home in San Francisco. I am white, English-speaking, able-bodied and might be perceived as professional.

An experience last night really cemented the cruelty of San Francisco and the gig economy it has shaped. #thread

— Hans Lindahl (@hiHelloHans) August 2, 2019

(Similar case; different reaction.) So Uber has turned cab-driving into an Amazon warehouse. Here is one response to the thread above:

This is going to sound silly, but maybe this could work. There should be an app where you could summon a truck mounted port a potty to come wherever you are. Making it credit card based would keep out the messy customers. Like Uber, but for pooping.

— Jim Maruschak

(@JimMaruschak) August 3, 2019

“Make it credit-card based….” I wonder if the repellently infantile word “poop” has suddenly achieved ubiquity because our symbol manipulators are seeing more of it?

“Disaggregating data by race allows for more accurate research” [Nature]. “The term ‘women of colour’ was introduced as a symbol of political solidarity, but its evolution to a biological term encompassing all non-white women has resulted in aggregation of data from diverse ethnic groups. Breaking out statistics by race, ethnicity and gender is therefore crucial for researchers who are committed to inclusion.” • Nothing on income. Superb class erasure!

“How the Other Half Matriculates” [Inside Higher Ed]. “As a community college administrator, it was hard not to notice the sheer wealth of the university…. After the orientation, we spent a couple of days at Virginia Beach to make it feel like a vacation. At one point, the young woman behind the counter at the hotel asked me about the Brookdale Summer Shakespeare Festival t-shirt I was wearing. She mentioned that she had never seen a Shakespeare play. I suggested that the local community college might be a good place to look. She seemed satisfied with that answer. When I mentioned that outdoor community college summer productions are often free, she seemed especially happy with that. Economic reality has a way of creeping in, no matter how pretty the bubble. Back to reality…”

“The Appeal and Limits of Andrea Dworkin” [Jacobin]. “Not coincidentally, Dworkin’s influence grew as the backlash against feminism took hold in the eighties, when the utopian visions of the whirlwind period lost their persuasive power. Her dystopian vision of a women’s experience dominated at all times by male violence, or the fear of it, could feel like a bold stance against feel-good corporate feminism, especially in the absence of a dynamic left…. Particularly prescient, and often ignored in reconsiderations of her work, was Dworkin’s analysis of the Right and its appeal to women — perhaps including herself — in Right Wing Women, written in the early years of the Reagan administration. Dworkin showed how conservative women, far from denying, ignoring, or even embracing sexism, made what often looked like rational trade-offs: in exchange for the promise of what she termed ‘enforceable restraints on male aggression,’ women received relative degrees of safety, economic security, and respect. Dworkin also offered an indictment, highly relevant today, of liberal feminism and its unwillingness to view the women it failed to reach as anything other than dupes.”

News of the Wired

“The 11-step guide to running effective meetings” [Nature]. “1. Do you need a meeting?” • Excellent!

“Recursive language and modern imagination were acquired simultaneously 70,000 years ago” [Phys.org]. “Numerous archeological and genetic evidence have already convinced most paleoanthropologists that the speech apparatus has reached essentially modern configurations before the human line split from the Neanderthal line 600,000 years ago…. On the other hand, artifacts signifying modern imagination, such as composite figurative arts, elaborate burials, bone needles with an eye, and construction of dwellings arose not earlier than 70,000 years ago…. While studying acquisition of imagination in children, Dr. Vyshedskiy and his colleagues discovered a temporal limit for the development of a particular component of imagination. It became apparent that modern children who have not been exposed to full language in early childhood never acquire the type of active constructive imagination essential for juxtaposition of mental objects, known as Prefrontal Synthesis (PFS)…. Thus, the existence of a strong critical period for PFS acquisition creates a cultural evolutionary barrier for acquisition of recursive language…. The second predicted evolutionary barrier was a faster PFC maturation rate and, consequently, a shorter critical period…. An evolutionary mathematical model, developed by Dr. Vyshedskiy, predicts that humans had to jump both evolutionary barriers within several generations since the “PFC delay” mutation that is found in all modern humans, but not in Neanderthals, is deleterious and is expected to be lost in a population without an associated acquisition of PFS and recursive language. Thus, the model suggests that the ‘PFC delay’ mutation triggered simultaneous synergistic acquisition of PFS and recursive language…. Such an invention of a new recursive language has been observed in contemporary children, for example among deaf children in Nicaragua.” • Culture ignites! Fascinating stuff. I’ve quoted the set-up, but check the last few paragraphs for the summary.

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (JN):

What a lovely wooded brook!

Bonus plantidote (Re Silc):

Re Silc writes: “My first mobile build.” We have our own Calder! This is more plant-adjacent than plant, but it looks like a really interesting project? I wonder if other readers have done similar things? If so, send in your pictures!

* * *

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Readers, thank you very much. The mix of one-time contributions to smaller, monthly subscriptions is now more like what is was, and hence the total I budget for is back to normal as well. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! So if you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form…

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2:00PM Water Cooler 8/5/2019

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