#re. naomi miller.

[thenookienostradamus]

Hey so I put together a list of trans and Jewish books (books about trans Jews or by trans Jews - or both!) for my synagogue for TDOV. We have been "the queer shul" in our city since the 90s so we have a reputation to uphold here. Anyway I thought I'd share it here for those interested.:

Memoir/biography

1. Becoming Eve - Abby Chava Stein. Chronicles her journey through transition, from ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to transgender woman

2. Through the Door of Life - Joy Ladin. A memoir of transition from the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox university

3. What We Will Become - Mimi Lemay. Lemay writes about her own journey and that of her child, Jacob, who knew he was a boy from age two

4. Blood, Marriage, Wine, and Glitter - S. Bear Bergman. Essays by Bergman, a trans, Jewish, polyamorous parent

5. Continuum - Chella Man. A memoir of many identities; Man is Chinese-Jewish, genderqueer, and Deaf

Fiction (adult)

1. Sarahland (Stories) - Sam Cohen. Cohen's 10 stories all center on women named Sarah, including a transgender Sarah who marries Hagar

2. Confessions of the Fox - Jordy Rosenberg. Rosenberg re-imagines English folk hero Jack Sheppard as a trans man

3. The Blade Between - Sam J. Miller. A man returns to his hometown to help (no joke) ancient whale demigods and the ghost of a onetime lover fight (again, no joke) insidious gentrification. I've read this one; it's an absolute bonkers joy.

4. The Right Thing to Do at the Time - Dov Zeller. A trans-centered Yiddish-inspired retelling of Pride & Prejudice

5. All the Things We Don't Talk About - Amy Feltman. A family saga about a neurodivergent father, a nonbinary teen, and the woman who abandoned them both

Torah & Spirituality

1. Torah Queeries - Drinkwater et al., ed. Modern, queer readings of the parashot

2. The Soul of the Stranger - Joy Ladin. Reading Torah and understanding God from a transgender perspective

3. Transgender & Jewish - Naomi Zeveloff, ed. Stories of the "first wave" of openly gender nonconforming Jewish people to take places of leadership in the mainstream

[peraltasass]

Read in 2023

✩✩✩✩✩ - ★★★★★

Fiction:

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes: ★★✩✩✩ (HUGE disappointment)

Babel by R. F. Kuang: ★★★★★ (HUGE recommend)

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: ★★★★✩  

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron: ★★★★✩

Pet by Akwae Emenzi: ★★★★★

The Call-Out by Cat Fitzpatrick: ★★★★✩

The Deep by Rivers Solomon: ★★★★★ (big recommend!)

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé: ★★★★★

Nevada by Imogen Binnie: ★★★★✩

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (re-read): ★★★★✩

Das Känguru Manifest by Marc-Uwe Kling: ★★★★✩  

The Women of Troy by Pat Barker: ★★★★✩

Die Känguru Offenbarung by Marc-Uwe Kling: ★★★★✩

Die Känguru Apokryphen by Marc-Uwe Kling: ★★★★✩

Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee: ★★★★✩  

Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi: ★★★★✩  

Peter Darling by Austin Chant: ★★★★✩  

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty: ★★★★½

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi: ★★★★★

Where We Go From Here by Lucas Rocha: ★★★½✩

Dschinns by Fatma Ayedemir: ★★★★★

Blutbuch by Kim De L’Horizon: ★★★★✩  

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang: ★★½✩✩

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall: ★★★★✩

Gwen and Art are Not in Love by Lex Croucher: ★★★★✩

The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard: ★★★½✩

Der Duft der Sterne by Simon Klemp: (can’t fairly rate, a friend of mine is the author)

The Binding by Bridget Colling: ★★★★½

In Deeper Waters by F. T. Lukens: ★★★★½

Non-fiction:

Von hier aus gesehen by Celestine Hassenfratz, Anna Luise Rother, & Ulla Scharfenberg: ★★★★½

Behindert und Stolz by Luisa L’Audace: ★★★★½   

Ich, ein Kind der kleinen Mehrheit by Gianni Jovanovic mit Oyindamola Alashe: ★★★★✩  

Radikale Selbstfürsorge jetzt! by Svenja Gräfen: ★★★✩✩  

Eure Heimat ist unser Albtraum (Your Homeland is Our Nightmare) by Fatma Aydemir and Hengameh Yaghoobifarah: ★★★★★  

Bad Gays. A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller:

Unlearn Patriarchy by Lisa Jaspers, Naomi Ryland and Silvie Horch (eds.): ★★★★✩

Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel: ★★★★✩

Sprache und Sein by Kübra Gümüşay: ★★★✩✩

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei: ★★★★✩

Lieber Jonas oder Der Wunsch nach Selbstbestimmung by Linus Giese: ★★★★✩

Gender. A Graphic Guide by Meg-John Barker & Julia Scheele: ★★½✩✩

Hood Feminism by Mikkie Kendall: ★★★★★  

Let’s Talk About Sex, Habibi by Mohamed Amjahid: ★★★★★  

Wie kann ich was bewegen? by Raúl Krauthausen & Benjamin Schwarz: (stopped bc it made me unhappy)

Caliban and the Witch by (not finished yet)

NichtMutterSein by Nadine Pungs: ★★★½✩

Desintegriert euch! by Max Czollek: ★★★★✩

Pageboy by Elliot Page: ★★★★★  

Hass by Şeyda Kurt: ★★★★½

Die stille Gewalt by Asha Hedayati: ★★★★★  

Die letzten Tage des Patriarchats by Margarete Stochowski: ★★★★½

Identitätskrise by Alice Hasters: ★★★½✩

Anti-Girlboss by Nadia Shehadeh: ★★★½✩

Graphic novels and webcomics:

Pimo & Rex by Thomas Wellmann: ★★★★✩

Pimo & Rex: Die interdimensionale Hochzeit by Thomas Wellmann: ★★★★✩ 

Freibad by Paulina Stulin & Doris Dörrie: ★★✩✩✩    

The Tea Dragon Festival by K. O’Neill: ★★★★★  

Medusa & Perseus by André Breinbauer: ★★✩✩✩/★★★✩✩

[kadytimberfox]

Kady's Expanse (Re)watch Blog

Episode 1.02 - "The Big Empty"

Hey all -- doing the second episode writeup quite a while after the first one I did (sorry about that giant delay but I've been quite busy recently!). This one and the ones going forward are hopefully going to be a bit shorter now that all of the table-setting is more or less out of the way.

I'm going to go ahead and limit myself to the summary and then highlight one or two of my favorite/least favorite things about each story thread. Once again, I'm intending this to be a companion rather than a comprehensive look at the show as a whole, so we're keeping spoilers light.

Strap yourselves in -- this is going to be a REALLY long summary.

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Summary

We open on a very sweet scene between Holden and his girlfriend on board the Canterbury as she teaches him how to make the perfect cup of coffee. He's quickly wrenched back into reality as the crew of the shuttle Knight, the only survivors from the Cant, fight their way through the storm of debris peppering their little ship in the aftermath of the ice hauler's destruction. An infuriated Holden has to be talked down from shooting his own crew as he's forced to watch the mystery stealth ship disappear from view, gone forever after getting away with the mass murder of everyone he's ever loved.

Meanwhile on Ceres, Detective Miller has much worse problems: his water ran out in the shower and now he has dried shampoo in his undercut. Since Julie Mao's off the station, Miller can use her shower to wash out his hair and look for more clues about her disappearance while he's there, I guess. He deepfakes Julie's voice in order to hijack her Alexa and finds some scathing messages between Julie and her father Jules-Pierre, who's apparently fed up with sponsoring her racing career.

While Miller scrubs all the shampoo out of his hair, we get our actual introduction to Chrisjen Avasarala, who gets told off by Undersecretary Sadavir Errinwright for torturing that guy from the last episode. "No, Chrisjen! Bad!" he says, wagging his finger at her. "No war crimes! Put him in the tank if you want to talk to him!"

Chrisjen begrudgingly agrees and, amazingly, her prisoner is actually starting to talk now that his lungs aren't being crushed. He decides he doesn't have to tell her shit about the OPA and whatever connections they might have to Mars, which he is correct about. She says she can send him somewhere much worse than this. He says do your worst.

Back on the Knight, the crew take stock of their situation. Drifting in a leaky lifeboat with no radio, a blown airlock, and bleeding more atmosphere every second, things look sufficiently dire. Holden quickly takes charge -- the thing he hates doing, remember? -- and makes a simple calculation: no radio, no rescue, and everyone slowly suffocates to death. Since the airlock is busted and opening the door now would suck all of their oxygen into space, the crew vent the cabin, don their space suits, and Holden and Amos take a nice walk outside to fix the antenna while Naomi takes charge of the repair job inside.

Miller has finally finished his shower and links back up with Havelock to jump on a top-priority mission: some rich Earth guy's lawn is turning brown. Miller thinks it's a local gang, the Greigas, who've stolen water before but aren't usually this obvious about it. It ends up being a bunch of upstart kids selling water out of a warehouse, and Miller gets his third shower of the episode as he's drenched by a falling water barrel. He captures the lead kid, but decides to let him go after telling him to stay away from Da Akwa!

While being stranded in space is terrifying, it does give everyone onboard the Knight time to get to know each other better. Holden asks Amos what the hell is up with him and Naomi (valid question), and Amos replies by telling him that the only thing keeping him from ripping Holden's helmet off and kicking him into space is that Naomi wouldn't like it. He then calmly asks Holden to pass him a drill.

After a lot of swearing, a lot of suffocating, and a lot of kicking, the radio finally crackles to life. All they have to do now is sit around and wait to be rescued by someone who's okay with losing their on-time bonus. The irony is not lost on them.

After her failed interrogation of her OPA friend, Chrisjen tells Errinwright that she needs to move him from her Top Secret Torture Chamber to an Even More Top Secret Torture Chamber on the moon. She shares her fears that Mars is supplying the OPA with stealth tech, but Errinwright is skeptical; the cold war helps Mars more than Earth, so they have little motivation to rock the boat. She tells him to keep an eye on their weapons facilities anyway.

Later, she gets a message on her iPad that her prisoner killed himself on the way to the moonbase by denying himself an injection of medication designed to keep him alive through the hard G's he pulled during the ascent. A message to Chrisjen after she used that very same gravity to torture him earlier. As far as ways of dying go, that's pretty badass.

Back on Ceres, Miller chases down the last of his leads and goes to the dock master to try to find the Razorback, Julie's racing ship. The dock master doesn't know anything about the Razorback, but he does remember Julie fondly; he tells Miller how he saw her kick some creep's ass after he hit on her. He also tells Miller that Julie shipped out on the Scopuli, giving Miller one more key piece to the puzzle. He ends up scrolling through her Space Tinder in a definitely-not-creepy way and finds someone she matched with, which is basically what qualifies as a lead for him right now. His ex-partner (in both senses of the word) Octavia finds him and clearly thinks he might be a little too invested in this case, which she's right about.

After some tense waiting on the Knight, the crew's distress signal is picked up. Unfortunately, it's received by the big, badass pride of the Martian Navy, the MCRN Donnager. Given that the Cant was lured to the Scopuli using a Martian beacon and blown up by a ship using Martian stealth tech, Holden and company are less than enthusiastic about their rendezvous with the Mickies.

Holden flexes his home video skills with a desperate recording explaining everything they know about what happened, saying that their deaths will only confirm that Mars was responsible for the attack. He broadcasts the signal only to learn that the Martian warship's jammers were in range, leaving it unclear if anyone even heard his transmission.

As the Donnager tractors the beat-up shuttle and Martian marines cut through the hull, the crew try to make peace with their apparently impending deaths as a swarm of laser sights find their chests.

"You are prisoners of the Mars Congressional Republic. Move and you die."

-----------------

Unless it wasn't clear from the size of that summary, HOLY SHIT SO MUCH HAPPENED IN THIS EPISODE. Miller basically has two full separate story arcs, there's plenty of character moments and good tense action in the Knight crew's fight for survival, and Chrisjen's story finally gets started in earnest. There could've easily been two full episodes' worth of story here, but the pacing doesn't feel too fast, either. It's just delightfully dense. Let's dig in!

-----------------

Holden and the Knight

In any show about space, space needs to be really scary. You can say "life in space is hard and dangerous" all you want, but unless you show the audience the perils of space travel, they'll never take it as a serious threat.

This part of the episode is about establishing that threat. Most of the danger happens after the stealth ship leaves and before the Donnager arrives, when the crew is alone with nothing but the titular Big Empty to contend with. And we spent a good chunk of the last episode getting to know a bunch of characters who just got nuked, so the audience knows that no one here has plot armor (except for maybe Holden). It makes for an absolute rollercoaster of a sequence as the crew jumps from one crisis to another.

Easily my favorite scene from this episode is Holden and Amos' conversation as they're trying to fix the radio. Amos is one of the most fascinating characters in this show, and we get our first good look inside his head here. What we seem to find, initially, is that he's a sociopath, but it's more complex than that. He simply appears physically incapable of comprehending morality or ethics. It's not that he doesn't care about people; it's that he lacks the ability to think about people in anything except purely rational or practical terms.

He doesn't think that it would be "wrong" for him to kick Holden off the shuttle, just as he doesn't think it would be "right" not to, because his brain isn't wired to think about things in terms of "right" and "wrong". The reason he doesn't do it is because of Naomi's disapproval. He's aware that he doesn't have a moral compass, so his solution is to use Naomi as a barometer against which to measure right and wrong behavior.

And suddenly, so many things about him click into place: why he listens to everything Naomi tells him, his deadpan demeanor, even why he might take a job as a mechanic on an ice hauler; less of a chance of doing something wrong if you interact with other people as little as possible. Naomi being his direct superior is also a plus.

This will come up again and again as we continue to dig into Amos and as he begins to form relationships with the rest of the crew. What I love about him is that a set of less capable writers could've easily written him as a character who struggles with a lack of humanity because of his mental illness, but he's one of the most fundamentally human characters I've seen on television.

It's not even necessarily framed as a bad thing; it just makes him different from the rest of the crew and creates some fascinating relationship dynamics with Holden, Naomi, Alex, pretty much everyone he interacts with. For mental illness to be treated with this level of care and nuance is so rare on TV and it's wonderfully refreshing.

-----------------

Miller and Ceres

Remember the conversation we had last time about Julie being Miller's Dulcinea? Yeah, this is what I was talking about.

I actually want to focus more on Miller's B plot this episode, since the Julie investigation is only the focus of about three scenes that I basically covered in the summary. Before we move on though, I wanted to point out that Julie's dating profile confirms that she is canonically pansexual! It's more of an easter egg than anything, really: the only on-screen or referenced relationships she has are with men, but it's still a nice touch.

With that aside, the main thing I wanna talk about this time around is the scene with Rich Earth Guy as he's complaining to Miller and Havelock about his lawn. My favorite tiny detail in this scene is the way Miller takes a drink of water. He takes the tiniest sip out of the glass and swills it around his mouth, savoring it for as long as possible before pouring the rest of the glass carefully back into the pitcher. The opening text of "Dulcinea" told us that water is more valuable than gold in space. Miller, the only Belter in the room, treats it as such. It makes Rich Earth Guy's complaining about his lawn water seem ludicrous by comparison.

As a good leftist, I'm definitely a sucker for anything that lets me hate on a guy who's basically the space-age equivalent of an HOA board member, but this is also a great example of the absolute disdain off-worlders on Ceres have for Belters. It's not enough that Rich Earth Guy gets to live in the only part of this station that looks like utopian paradise, surrounded by beautiful green spaces and observing his kingdom from his massive balcony; no, those filthy Belters have to know he's up there. They have to appreciate him, respect him, thank him for being so generous as to use his lawn to cycle the air that they breathe.

He's not this callous with his language, of course, but you can feel the sentiment dripping from his words. And we can immediately tell that he doesn't really care that his lawn is important to the station; he just gets off on feeling important.

Havelock, to his credit, is still naïve enough to try to call Rich Earth Guy out on his bullshit. This place you live in might as well be an alien planet to Belters. And maybe if Belters weren't down in the shit fighting for their fucking lives day after day, they'd have a little more time to appreciate your lawn. Again, he's a little more subtle than that. But not by much. Rich Earth Guy hands him a cactus and tells him, politely, to fuck off.

As we're going to find out, Earth is basically run by thousands and thousands of Rich Earth Guys. And every single day, whenever the Belt reminds them that they never get to see Earth's lawn, that they're too busy breaking their backs for Earth to ever even dream of having a lawn of their own, Earth hands the Belt a cactus and tells them, with varying degrees of politeness, to fuck off.

------------------

Chrisjen and the UN

And now it's finally time to see what's got Chrisjen worried about her lawn. We still don't spend too much time with her this episode considering all the madness going on with the Knight, but we still get our introduction to Errinwright, who's going to be a key player at the UN going forward.

My favorite Chrisjen scene in this episode has to be her conversation with Errinwright after her failed interrogation of the OPA prisoner. As she's talking about shuffling her secret political prisoner between black-site interrogation facilities, Errinwright openly wonders how no one is keeping tabs on this woman. His answer is self-evident: he's appointed himself as Chrisjen's watchdog.

Their relationship appears mostly transactional: Chrisjen allows Errinwright to keep an eye on her and shares information in him in exchange for his support in the government. It's clear from the jump, however, that both of them are using the other to achieve their goals. Chrisjen's goals are clear: she wants to figure out what the hell's going on with Mars and the OPA. Errinwright's motivations remain unclear at this early stage, but it's clear that Chrisjen trusts him, at least as much as she trusts anyone.

Without spoiling very much, Errinwright's character is defined by his relationship to Chrisjen, and he helps develop Chrisjen's character in turn. The thing that becomes clear in this episode is that he and Chrisjen are so close to each other because they speak the same language and play the same game. I'm very much looking forward to seeing them play that game in future episodes.

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If you're here, thank you so much, again, for bearing with me through this ludicrously long post. I'm trying so hard to work on being brief, and again, there was a ton of stuff I didn't talk about in this episode that I really, really wanted to.

Happy holidays to you all! I'll be picking up the story with "Remember the Cant" in hopefully less than a month -- sorry about that delay again. See you starside!

[hqmutants]

Looks amazing! Any MWF? Also MW powers? I have far too many ideas!!!

OH , anon - you and i both ! re too many ideas , thank you so much that you like the look of the group ! honestly , like too many ideas , there are so many gorgeous women about but please find some suggestions below (if there's a face you want to play but don't see them here, don't fret - i could go on for hours !)

anyone that @keetika has giffed honestly ! thank you for your resources ! - gemma chan, marisa tomei, natasha lyonne, salma hayek, joy sunday, kiki layne, richa moorjani, t'nia miller, coco jones, maris racal, geraldine viswanathan, seo jihye, son yejin, emma myers, ni ni, angelica ross, nichole behaire, angelica ross, m.j. rodriguez, park minyoung, simone ashley, naomi scott, jordan alexander, savannah lee smith, zion moreno, gina torres, jessica alexander, jessica chastain, amy adams, rebecca ferguson, hunter schafer, ryan destiny, zainab johnson, eva longoria, carla gugino, jennifer aniston, josie totah, tika sumpter, lucy liu, maja salvador, kathryn bernardo, rena owen, sakina jaffrey, laura dern, jessica alba, nadine lustre, sandra oh, mookda narinrak, pinar deniz, jessica chastain, charithra chandran, madeline cline, zendaya, wakeema hollis, hyoyeon, ziyi wang & michelle yeoh ! 

powers:

acid manipulation, aether manipulation, air manipulation, astral projection, duplication, ecokinesis, elasticity, electrokineses, empathy, enhanced agility, enhanced speed, enhanced strength, flight, force field manipulation, fusionism, ice manipulation, invisibility, immortality, light manipulation, omnilingualism, pain inducement ,power mimicry, precognition, pressure manipulation, pyrokinesis, sensory scrying, shapeshifting, sonic scream, super senses, technopathy, time travelling

[kinetic-elaboration]

September 17: The Expanse 2x12

Hmmm, I don’t know how I feel about this one. I think overall I found it pretty depressing to no real purpose. I like this show when it moves its plot forward and especially when it gets deep into world building, but it spends a lot of time on briefly intense scenarios that take up a lot of screen time in any given episode but don’t really contribute to a larger story. I don’t have a lot of patience for that in 2024, personally, which is not at all the fault of The Expanse.

For example, I understood the gist most of a season ago re: how Eros has affected Holden and Naomi in polar opposite ways. I don’t need to hear him continuously screaming at people or her taking the bleeding heart route at every turn. I especially don’t need to see it because I have watched this dynamic before—again, not this show’s fault. So her whole story in this episode just struck me as kind of pointlessly sad. I see my emotions being manipulated and I refuse to let it happen! I don’t know all of these refugees and I’m fairly sure we’ll never see them again so what is the point of me being depressed about them other than the depression itself and showing where Naomi is as a character right now, which is something I already know? Also I really thought she was going to be stampeded when she got off the ship, because that was a wild sort of naivete, but though it was rewarded—a mob listened to reason and carefully separated itself into survivors and victims, how… sweet?—the back patting at the end was a little strange given that her actual initial plan (trust her boyfriend to bring his second ship around and save everyone actually) would have worked? Like you took a middle ground and saved who you could save today but you could have done more, technically. Is the compromise good enough in these stakes, is what I’m saying really.

I would have liked to see more of the Holden plotline, not because I care about his Big Rage but because I like Prax and the most interesting concept explored in this episode was the hunt for the x-files alien hybrid or whatever. Is it his little girl? Another melding with the unknown as with Julie and Miller? Has potential. But not when it’s given like 3 seconds of plot time. I also continue to enjoy Alex a bizarre amount. I like how every time he gets stressed his Southern Cowboy accent jacks up by a power of ten.

Chrisjen and Bobbie remain a nice pair though that story line, again, could have taken up more space imo. Like they have a good dynamic but not a lot of time together. Nonetheless, standout moments for me include Chrisjen entering the ship (that’s how I should walk into every room lololol) and Bobbie immediately going to the little sandwiches. Relatable.

Errinwright was really depressing me at the beginning of the episode but I’ll admit, this was a he had me in the first half situation. I think he is a sociopath perhaps. The way he just turned on the screaming and the waterworks, I mean, that was more legitimately chilling than anything else in this episode, possibly this season. Also I love a character with clear and totally selfish motivations. I mean sorry he cares about Earth, whatever. Finally some machinations is what I’m saying.

[ulkaralakbarova]

Reunited after 15 years, famous chef Sasha and hometown musician Marcus feel the old sparks of attraction but struggle to adapt to each other’s worlds. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Sasha: Ali Wong Marcus: Randall Park Keanu Reeves: Keanu Reeves Harry: James Saito Veronica: Michelle Buteau Jenny: Vivian Bang Brandon: Daniel Dae Kim Tony: Karan Soni Ginger: Charlyne Yi Judy: Susan Park Quasar: Tsutomu Shimura Chloe: Casey Wilson 12 Year Old Sasha: Miya Cech 12 Year Old Marcus: Emerson Min 14/16 Year Old Sasha: Ashley Liao 14/16 Year Old Marcus: Jackson Geach 16 Year Old Veronica: Anaiyah Bernier Mr. Tran: Raymond Ma Mrs. Tran: Peggy Lu Barry: Simon Chin Denise: Panta Mosleh Kathy: Karen Holness Fast Food Cashier: Steven E. Rudy Paparazzi #1: Eddie Flake Paparazzi #2: Brian Cook PFA Doorman: Chris Hlozek Photographer: Neil Webb Southie’s Bartender: Nevin Burkholder Reporter: Sonia Beeksma Saintly Fare Host: JayR Tinaco Marty (Suits ‘n Stuff Salesman): Sean Amsing Server #1: Latonya Williams Server #2: Marco Soriano Simon (Tom Ford Salesman): Oliver Rice Waiter: Jason Canela Goat Guy: Peter New Coat Check Person: Byron Noble Another Reporter: Tyler McConachie Kitchen Worker (Enrique): Emilio Merritt Uber Driver: Jagen Johnson Uber Passenger: Yaroslav Poverlo Food and Wine Presenter: Ellen Ewusie Dim Sum Worker #1: Yue Lan Zheng Dim Sum Worker #: Tana Yu Dim Sum Worker #3: Rachelle Yu Dim Sum Worker #4: Chi Ying Cheng Dim Sum Worker #5: Xiao Qing Li “High Society” Lead Singer: Chelsea D.E. Johnson “High Society” Band: Kenan Zeigler-Sungur “High Society” Band: Adam Farnsworth-Lautsch “High Society” Band: Ashton Sweet Omar: Omar Khan Sous Chef: Juno Kim Maximal Patron: Kipp Glass Ramona (uncredited): Maddie Dixon-Poirier Elegant Guest (uncredited): Marcella Bragio Server (uncredited): Johnny Walkr Jr. …: Esther K. Chae Film Crew: Producer: Erin Westerman Director: Nahnatchka Khan Co-Producer: Michael Golamco Producer: Nathan Kahane Producer: Randall Park Producer: Ali Wong Editor: Lee Haxall Casting: Rich Delia Director of Photography: Tim Suhrstedt Costume Design: Leesa Evans Unit Production Manager: Brendan Ferguson Music Editor: Andrew Silver Sound Mixer: Mark Noda Art Direction: Cheryl Marion Music Supervisor: Trygge Toven Original Music Composer: Michael Andrews Stunt Double: Jackson Spidell Executive Producer: John Powers Middleton Production Design: Richard Toyon Music Supervisor: Toko Nagata Co-Producer: Brady Fujikawa Production Manager: Adrienne Sol First Assistant Director: Matt Rebenkoff Second Assistant Director: Lorie Gibson Stunt Coordinator: Dan Shea Associate Producer: Joanne Byon Assistant Art Director: Cherie Kroll Supervising Sound Editor: Becky Sullivan Set Designer: Angela O’Sullivan Set Designer: Austin Chuqiao Wang Set Decoration: Elizabeth Wilcox Assistant Set Decoration: Michael A. Billings Script Supervisor: Kristin Rapinchuk Music Editor: Ryan Castle Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Mark Paterson Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Jeremy Peirson Costume Supervisor: Janice MacIsaac Assistant Costume Designer: Kelsey Champion Makeup Department Head: Naomi Bakstad Makeup Artist: Megan Harkness Assistant Makeup Artist: Danielle Fowler Assistant Makeup Artist: Tanya Hudson Hair Department Head: Anne Carroll Visual Effects Producer: Guy Botham Visual Effects Producer: Rebecca West Visual Effects Supervisor: Jiwoong Kim Visual Effects Supervisor: Ricardo Marmolejo Visual Effects Supervisor: David Lebensfeld Visual Effects Supervisor: Grant Miller Visual Effects Producer: Matthew Poliquin Visual Effects Producer: Evan Davies Set Decoration Buyer: Audra Neil Movie Reviews:

[subtlesolitude-tailoredtaste]

Art21 proudly presents an artist segment, featuring Theaster Gates, from the "Chicago" episode in the ninth season of the "Art in the Twenty-First Century" series.

"Chicago " premiered in September 2016 on PBS. Watch now on PBS and the PBS Video app: https://www.pbs.org/video/art-21-chic...

Theaster Gates first encountered creativity in the music of Black churches on his journey to becoming an urban planner, potter, and artist. Gates creates sculptures out of clay, tar, and renovated buildings, transforming the raw material of the South Side into radically reimagined vessels of opportunity for the community.

Establishing a virtuous circle between fine art and social progress, Gates strips dilapidated buildings of their components, transforming those elements into sculptures that act as bonds or investments, the proceeds of which are used to finance the rehabilitation of entire city blocks. Many of the artist’s works evoke his African-American identity and the broader struggle for civil rights, from sculptures incorporating fire hoses, to events organized around soul food, and choral performances by the experimental musical ensemble Black Monks of Mississippi, led by Gates himself.

Learn more about the artists at:

https://art21.org/artist/theaster-gates/

CREDITS | Executive Producer: Eve Moros Ortega. Host: Claire Danes. Director: Stanley Nelson. Producer & Production Manager: Nick Ravich. Editor: Aljernon Tunsil. Art21 Executive Director: Tina Kukielski. Curator: Wesley Miller. Associate Producer: Ian Forster. Structure Consultant: Véronique Bernard. Director of Photography: Keith Walker. Additional Photography: Don Argott, Brian Ashby, Steve Delahoyde, Jeremy Dulac, Damon Hennessey, Sam Henriques, Ben Kolak, Christoph Lerch, Stephan Mazurek, Andrew Miller, Christopher Morrison, Leslie Morrison, Murat Ötünç, Logan Siegel, Stephen Smith, & Jamin Townsley. Assistant Camera: Kyle Adcock, Joe Buhnerkempe, Alex Klein, Ian McAvoy, Sean Prange, & Liz Sung. Sound: Sean Demers, Alex Inglizian, Hayden Jackson, İlkin Kitapçı, Joe Leo, Matt Mayer, John Murphy, Richard K. Pooler, & Grant Tye. Production Assistant: Hamid Bendaas, Emmanuel Camacho, Chad Fisher, Elliot Rosen, Stanley Sievers, Chris Thurston, & Steven Walsh.

Title/Motion Design: Afternoon Inc. Composer: Joel Pickard. Online Editor: Don Wyllie. Re-Recording Mix: Tony Pipitone. Sound Edit: Neil Cedar & Jay Fisher. Artwork Animation: Anita H.M. Yu. Assistant Editor: Maria Habib, Leana Siochi, Christina Stiles, & Bahron Thomas.

Host Introduction | Creative Consultant: Tucker Gates. Director of Photography: Pete Konczal. Second Camera: Jon Cooper. Key Grip: Chris Wiesehahn. Gaffer: Jesse Newton. First Assistant Camera: Sara Boardman & Shane Duckworth. Sound: James Tate. Set Dresser: Jess Coles. Hair: Peter Butler. Makeup: Matin. Production Assistant: Agatha Lewandowski & Melanie McLean. Editor: Ilya Chaiken.

Artworks Courtesy of: Nick Cave; Theaster Gates; Barbara Kasten; Chris Ware; BAM Hamm Archives; Bortolami Gallery; Cranbrook Art Museum; Margaret Jenkins Dance Company; The New Yorker magazine and Condé Nast; James Prinz Photography; Jack Shainman Gallery; Sara Linnie Slocum; Chris Strong Photography; & White Cube. Acquired Photography: Sara Pooley; The Art Channel/Bobbin Productions; & University Art Museum, California State University Long Beach.

Special Thanks: The Art21 Board of Trustees; 900/910 Lake Shore Drive Condominium Association; Michael Aglion; Ellen Hartwell Alderman; Adam Baumgold Gallery; Naomi Beckwith; Biba Bell; Stefania Bortolami; Kate Bowen; Pat Casteel; Chicago Embassy Church; Coachman Antique Mall; Maria J. Coltharp; John Corbett; Department of Theatre & Dance, Wayne State University; Detroit School of Arts; Christina Faist; Bob Faust; Martina Feurstein; Julie Fracker; William Gill; Graham Foundation; Jen Grygiel; Sarah Herda; Jennon Bell Hoffmann; Sheree Hovsepian; Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania; Istanbul Biennial; Nicola Jeffs; Jenette Kahn; Jill Katz; Alex Klein; Kunsthaus Bregenz; Jon Lowe; Sheila Lynch; Mana Contemporary Chicago; Christine Messineo; Laura Mott; Deborah Payne; Bishop Ed Peecher; Lisa Pooler; Rebuild Foundation; Diana Salier; Tim Samuelson; Amy Schachman; Zeynep Seyhun; Keith Shapiro; Alexandra Small; Jacqueline Stewart; Hamza Walker; Clara Ware; Marnie Ware; & Steve Wylie.

Additional Art21 Staff: Maggie Albert; Lindsey Davis; Joe Fusaro; Jessica Hamlin; Jonathan Munar; Bruno Nouril; Pauline Noyes; Kerri Schlottman; & Diane Vivona.

Public Relations: Cultural Counsel. Station Relations: De Shields Associates, Inc. Legal Counsel: Albert Gottesman.

Dedicated To: Susan Sollins, Art21 Founder.

Major support for Season 8 is provided by National Endowment for the Arts, PBS, Lambent Foundation, Agnes Gund, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.

©2016 Art21, Inc.

[peletiersdixon]

Book Roundup 2022

I thought I would make a list (for my own posterity, mostly) of the books I read this year (excluding re-reads) and then list my faves out of those books. FYI my GR goal this year was 50, and according to them I read 67. However, that included re-reads and I also DNF’d quite a few books because I wasn’t trying to torture myself this year:

The War of Two Queens by Jennifer L. Armentrout (here on out just JLA)

Hook, Line, and Sinker by Tessa Bailey

The Ex-Hex by Erin Sterling DNF

Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez

To Marry and To Meddle by Martha Waters DNF

The Ravaged by Norman Reedus with Frank Bill DNF

Pure by JLA

Deity by JLA

Below Zero by Ali Hazelwood

The Gilded Cage by Lynette Noni

Apollyon by JLA

Sentinel by JLA

Weather Girl by Rachel Lynn Solomon DNF

Book of Night by Holly Black

The Return by JLA

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

The Road Trip by Beth O’Leary

Mr. Wrong Number by Lynn Painter

The Power by JLA

The Struggle by JLA

The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams

Just Last Night Mhairi McFarlane

The Change by Kirsten Miller

Grace Under Fire by Julie Garwood

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey

Some Mistakes Were Made by Kristin Dwyer

The Off LImits Rule by Sarah Adams

Would You Rather by Allison Ashley

One Moment Please by Amy Daws

Perfectly Adequate by Jewel E. Ann

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford

The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake

Belladonna by Adalyn Grace

Set on You by Amy Lea

The Blood Traitor by Lynette Noni

Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane

The Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan

Too Hot to Handle by Tessa Bailey

For Butter or For Worse by Erin La Rosa

My Killer Vacation by Tessa Bailey

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

Starry Eyed Love by Helena Hunting

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik

Daughter of Sparta by Claire M. Andrews

Confident Women by Tori Telfer

The Heiress Gets a Duke by Harper St. George DNF

A Light in the Flame by JLA

Blood of Troy by Claire M. Andrews

A Very Merry Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

My Cone and Only by Susannah Nix

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi DNF

Pint of Conention by Susannah Nix

The Fixer Upper by Lauren Forsythe

~~~

FAVE Reads of 2022 (in no order)

The War of Two Queens by JLA

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams

The Change by Kirsten Miller

Some Mistakes Were Made by Kristin Dwyer

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

[doolallymagpie]

this is based on pretty much nothing, but i feel like, if it had absolutely had to (say, holden died on the agatha king), the ring gate/investigator/whatever could’ve interfaced with bobbie

[qqueenofhades]

long live the queen!!! do you have any hiatus book recommendations for a starving reader?? 🥺🥺🥺

Ahaha, oh boy. How much time you got?

Below is a non-exhaustive list of the books I have read, am reading, or am planning to read, from about the last 6-8 months. This excludes books that I am re-reading and first read a long time ago, that I have previously recommended, or which disappointed me (because the purpose, after all, is for things that you WANT to read). It would take forever to try to summarise these, but you can probably see what my tastes run to, and do some investigation to see if any of them look like they grab you.

Happy reading!

Fiction – Sci-Fi & Fantasy

The Last Smile in Sunder City, Luke Arnold Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo Crooked Kingdom, Leigh Bardugo The Poppy War, R.F. Kuang The Dragon Republic, R.F. Kuang The Burning God, R.F. Kuang The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir The Future of Another Timeline, Annalee Newitz Autonomous, Annalee Newitz Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik Uprooted, Naomi Novik A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, Christopher Paolini A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, H.G. Parry Witchmark, C.L. Polk Vicious, V.E. Schwab The Bone Season, Samantha Shannon The Mime Order, Samantha Shannon The Song Rising, Samantha Shannon The Mask Falling, Samantha Shannon The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon Seveneves, Neal Stephenson Empire of Sand, Tasha Suri Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir

Fiction – General/Literary/Historical

The Testaments, Margaret Atwood The Immortalists, Chloe Benjamin The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton The Royal We, Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan Plain Bad Heroines, Emily M. Danforth The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro The Mere Wife, Maria Dahvana Headey The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova The Bad Muslim Discount, Syed M. Massood The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller Circe, Madeline Miller Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell The Shakespeare Requirement, Julie Schumacher Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie The Mistress of Florence, Salman Rushdie Rodham, Curtis Sittenfeld Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy The Odyssey, trans. Emily Wilson

Nonfiction

Putin’s People, Catherine Belton The Future is History, Masha Gessen The Jewel House, Deborah Harkness Dead Wake, Erik Larson Thunderstruck, Erik Larson Agent Sonya, Ben Macintyre A Spy Among Friends, Ben Macintyre Double Cross, Ben Macintyre Bag Man, Rachel Maddow Blowout, Rachel Maddow A Promised Land, Barack Obama Chernobyl, Serhii Plokhy The Lost Kingdom, Serhii Plokhy The Kingdom of Ice, Hampton Sides Permanent Record, Edward Snowden

Forthcoming Releases

Civilizations, Laurent Binet A Master of Djinn, P. Djeli Clark Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr Rosaline Palmer Takes the Cake, Alexis Hall One Last Stop, Casey McQuiston

[bloody-wonder]

end of the year reading survey

me? talking about books again?? it’s more likely than you think

How many books did you read? Did you meet your goal? My goal was 100 books, I’ve read 121 so far but the year isn’t over yet and I’m still in the middle of a couple :D

Most read genre? probably definitely fantasy

Longest and shortest books you read. According to Goodreads, the longest one was Thousand Autumns by Meng Xi Shi (2175 pages), but it’s hard to tell with danmei bc it’s published online so tbh Heaven Official’s Blessings by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu felt much longer to me. The shortest one was Heracles’ Bow by Madeline Miller - only 10 pages.

Favorite book published in 2021? The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by KJ Charles.

Favorite debut book in 2021? I don’t think I’ve read a debut from 2021 but if it’s a general question than my answer would be The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. They are the kind of books that you would never think were debuts if you didn’t know and that make you certain you’ll never be good at anything you might ever attempt.

Favorite book not published this year? oh i don’t know there are so many to choose from THE LYMOND CHRONICLES

A book that lived up to the hype. Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik and The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden. These are objectively good and well written and entertaining compared to some other hyped books which I personally didn’t like😐

A book that did NOT live up to the hype. Dark Rise, regrettably :( Also Gideon the Ninth but this one I actually wanna re-read to see if it’s a me problem.

Book that felt like the biggest accomplishment. lol idk? reading capri in french maybe

Favorite character. My brilliant devil, my imitation king; my past, my future, my hope of heaven and my knowledge of hell... Francis Crawford of Lymond❤

Least favorite character. Probably Sabetha. It’s not her fault tho, she just suffers from the *written by a man* disease😬

Most shocking book/moment. That character death in The Disorderly Knights hit me like a truck😞 Also there’s a shocking moment at the end of My Dark Vanessa, it’s of a quieter sort but still makes you think wow,, she really went there didn’t she😕

Favorite couple/OTP. Technically I read The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation last December but I’m still gonna say Wangxian bc given all the MDZS adaptations that I consumed afterwards they’ve really dominated my year ship-wise.

The best written book you read this year. All the books that I’ve mentioned are the best. none as well written as aftg tho lol

Book that you pushed the most people to read in 2021. You might remember that when I finished The Lymond Chronicles I posted about it non-stop for a while and so I actually got a couple of people, both online and irl, to pick up The Game of Kings. The results were,, poor :( I can’t fathom why, it’s a very accessible, easy to follow adventure story with a manageable amount of likable characters whose motivation is as clear as day at all times.

Favorite book cover of the year. I really like the minimalist covers of both Susanna Clarke books.

Favorite book adaptation. I just watched Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell the mini-series and, barring some of the more glaring adaptational attractiveness issues, I would say it’s a pretty faithful adaptation of the book and a perfect way to experience this wonderful story for someone who isn’t prepared to commit to reading over 1000 pages.

What book made you cry the most? twas The Disorderly Knights & other lymond books but The Bear and the Nightingale, Killing Stalking, Convenience Store Woman and Arrête avec tes mensonges made me shed some tears as well. some of this could’ve been pms tho

What book made you laugh the most? I’ve already talked about some very amusing books in my mid-year book freak-out tag, but among the ones that I’ve read since then Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell stands out with its dry british humor. I’m currently reading The Nobleman's Guide to Scandal and Shipwrecks and it’s quite hilarious too, just like the previous books in the series.

A new favorite author you discovered this year. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, Naomi Novik and Susanna Clarke. And Dorothy Dunnett, I suppose. (Normally I don’t consider someone my favorite author until I read and like two or more of their books which don’t belong to the same series BUT her mind birthed Lymond so there’s that).

Favorite book you re-read this year. Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris and Confusion by Stefan Zweig - some of my all time favorites and very underrated books too and all of you should read them right now. or like,, tomorrow. or next week.

What is the best non-fiction book you read this year? Male Trouble by Abigail Solomon-Godeau. It’s a very insightful book about the representation of masculinity in the french academic painting at the turn of the 19th century. I read it bc I study art history and my master thesis is gonna be about how observing nude men for hours in order to paint their likeness over and over again is gay actually :)

i’m gonna tag @starlingshrike @moonsandstarsaregay @oliviermiraarmstrongs @fandomreferencepending @pemberlaey @jimscoffee @counterwiddershins @raelis1 @remicatscratch @figuringthengsout @fugitoidkry @bibliophilic-vacillator @thehalcyonharbinger @bellaroles if you guys wanna do this

if i didn’t tag you bc i don’t know you or that you’re a bookworm and you wanna do this survey DO IT AND TAG MOI. i’ve been harassing people like this all year long and now i actually have someone to talk to about books, it works i swear😁

[thatwasthenightthingschanged]

books read in 2021!

I did this last year and it was so much fun that I decided to make another list for the books I’ve read in 2021! as last time, the numbers in brackets indicate a ranking out of five points (five out of five being the highest and zero out of five being the lowest)!

Lady Audley's Secret - Mary Elizabeth Braddon (3/5)

The Prom - Saundra Mitchell (4.5/5)

Avatar: The Rise of Kyoshi - F. C. Yee (3/5)

Felix Ever After - Kacen Callender (5/5)

Red, White & Royal Blue - CaseyMcQuiston (4/5)

The Falling in Love Montage - Ciara Smyth (3/5)

Date Me, Bryson Keller - Kevin Van Whye (5/5)

How It All Blew Up - Arvin Ahmadi (3/5)

The Henna Wars - Adiba Jaigirdar (4.5/5)

Der Wortschatz - Elias Vorpahl (2/5)

Turtles All The Way Down - John Green *re-read* (4/5)

The Fault In Our Stars - John Green *re-read* (5/5)

Tipping The Velvet - Sarah Waters (4/5)

Affinity - Sarah Waters (3/5)

Shadow and Bone - Leigh Bardugo *re-read* (3.5/5)

Siege and Storm - Leigh Bardugo *re-read* (4/5)

Frankly in Love - David Yoon (3.5/5)

Perfect on Paper - Sophie Gonzales (5/5)

Just Like Fate - Cat Patrick & Suzanne Young (1/5)

The Cerulean - Amy Ewing (4/5)

Heaven's End: Wen die Geister lieben - Kim Kestner (2,5/5)

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro (4/5)

Kate In Waiting - Becky Albertalli (4.5/5)

The List - Siobhan Vivian (1.5/5)

The Power - Naomi Alderman (3/5)

The Dream Thieves - Maggie Stiefvater (3/5)

Blue Lily, Lily Blue - Maggie Stiefvater (2/5)

Only Mostly Devastated - Sophie Gonzales (4.5/5)

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn (3.5/5)

Girls of Paper and Flame - Natasha Ngan (4.5/5)

Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo (5/5)

Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo (5/5)

You Will Get Through This Night - Daniel Howell (5/5)

The Untethered Soul - Michael A. Singer (4/5)

Archenemies - Marissa Meyer (4/5)

The Raven King - Maggie Stiefvater (1/5)

Trinkets - Kirsten Smith (3/5)

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky *re-read* (5/5)

Concrete Rose - Angie Thomas (3/5)

Red Queen - Victoria Aveyard (2.5/5)

Heartstopper Vol. 1 - Alice Oseman (5/5)

Antony & Cleopatra - Shakespeare (3/5)

Julius Caesar - Shakespeare (3/5)

Titus Andronicus - Shakespeare (4/5)

Coriolanus - Shakespeare (2/5)

Cool for the Summer - Dahlia Adler (3.5/5)

The Things We Don't See - Savannah Brown (4.5/5)

Lady Audley's Secret - Mary Elizabeth Braddon *re-read* (3.5/5)

Circe - Madeline Miller (3.5/5)

We Were Liars - E. Lockhart (3/5)

Hamlet - Shakespeare (3/5)

Orlando - Virginia Woolf (3/5)

Mary - Mary Wollstonecraft (3/5)

Any Way the Wind Blows - Rainbow Rowell (5/5)

(for detailed reviews & more bookish content, u can also follow my bookstagram @/sarahs.booklist on instagram!)

[peraltasass]

Read in 2023

✩✩✩✩✩ - ★★★★★

Fiction:

Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes: ★★✩✩✩ (HUGE disappointment)

Babel by R. F. Kuang: ★★★★★ (HUGE recommend)

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: ★★★★✩  

Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron: ★★★★✩

Pet by Akwae Emenzi: ★★★★★

The Call-Out by Cat Fitzpatrick: ★★★★✩

The Deep by Rivers Solomon: ★★★★★ (big recommend!)

Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé: ★★★★★

Nevada by Imogen Binnie: ★★★★✩

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (re-read): ★★★★✩

Das Känguru Manifest by Marc-Uwe Kling: ★★★★✩  

The Women of Troy by Pat Barker: ★★★★✩

Die Känguru Offenbarung by Marc-Uwe Kling: ★★★★✩

Die Känguru Apokryphen by Marc-Uwe Kling: ★★★★✩

Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee: ★★★★✩  

Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi: ★★★★✩  

Peter Darling by Austin Chant: ★★★★✩  

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty: ★★★★½

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi: ★★★★★

Where We Go From Here by Lucas Rocha: ★★★½✩

Dschinns by Fatma Ayedemir: ★★★★★

Blutbuch by Kim De L’Horizon: ★★★★✩  

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang: ★★½✩✩

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall: ★★★★✩

Gwen and Art are Not in Love by Lex Croucher: ★★★★✩

The Red Scholar’s Wake by Aliette de Bodard: ★★★½✩

Der Duft der Sterne by Simon Klemp: (can’t fairly rate, a friend of mine is the author)

The Binding by Bridget Colling: ★★★★½

In Deeper Waters by F. T. Lukens: ★★★★½

Non-fiction:

Von hier aus gesehen by Celestine Hassenfratz, Anna Luise Rother, & Ulla Scharfenberg: ★★★★½

Behindert und Stolz by Luisa L’Audace: ★★★★½   

Ich, ein Kind der kleinen Mehrheit by Gianni Jovanovic mit Oyindamola Alashe: ★★★★✩  

Radikale Selbstfürsorge jetzt! by Svenja Gräfen: ★★★✩✩  

Eure Heimat ist unser Albtraum (Your Homeland is Our Nightmare) by Fatma Aydemir and Hengameh Yaghoobifarah: ★★★★★  

Bad Gays. A Homosexual History by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller:

Unlearn Patriarchy by Lisa Jaspers, Naomi Ryland and Silvie Horch (eds.): ★★★★✩

Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel: ★★★★✩

Sprache und Sein by Kübra Gümüşay: ★★★✩✩

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei: ★★★★✩

Lieber Jonas oder Der Wunsch nach Selbstbestimmung by Linus Giese: ★★★★✩

Gender. A Graphic Guide by Meg-John Barker & Julia Scheele: ★★½✩✩

Hood Feminism by Mikkie Kendall: ★★★★★  

Let’s Talk About Sex, Habibi by Mohamed Amjahid: ★★★★★  

Wie kann ich was bewegen? by Raúl Krauthausen & Benjamin Schwarz: (stopped bc it made me unhappy)

Caliban and the Witch by (not finished yet)

NichtMutterSein by Nadine Pungs: ★★★½✩

Desintegriert euch! by Max Czollek: ★★★★✩

Pageboy by Elliot Page: ★★★★★  

Hass by Şeyda Kurt: ★★★★½

Die stille Gewalt by Asha Hedayati: ★★★★★  

Die letzten Tage des Patriarchats by Margarete Stochowski: ★★★★½

Identitätskrise by Alice Hasters: ★★★½✩

Anti-Girlboss by Nadia Shehadeh: ★★★½✩

Graphic novels and webcomics:

Pimo & Rex by Thomas Wellmann: ★★★★✩

Pimo & Rex: Die interdimensionale Hochzeit by Thomas Wellmann: ★★★★✩ 

Freibad by Paulina Stulin & Doris Dörrie: ★★✩✩✩    

The Tea Dragon Festival by K. O’Neill: ★★★★★  

Medusa & Perseus by André Breinbauer: ★★✩✩✩/★★★✩✩

[luthienne]

Hi dear, do you have any good words on emotional courage?

hi my love, you can check out this post and this post; here are a few more:

“I know a lot about pain… and I know it is bad for people, eats away the spirit, but how about courage, what is it for if not to use when needed?”

Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters 

“This is in the end the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to face the strangest, most unusual, most inexplicable experiences that can meet us.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet 

“You don’t realize it, perhaps, but you are turning these delusions and illusions of the past into criminal things. Relinquish everything. Stay in bed until you feel so shock full of energy, hope, courage that you bounce out of abed. You can only aid the world–if you still believe the world needs our individual aid–by retaining your faith in life. Your body may be weak, but I know you still have wings.”

Henry Miller, A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller

“I… want to inherit the witch in my women ancestors—the willfulness, the passion, ay, the passion where all good art comes from as women, the perseverance, the survivor skills, the courage, the strength of las mujeres bravas, peleoneras, necias, berrrinchudas. I want to be una brava, una peleonera, necia, nerrinchuda. I want to be bad if bad means I must go against society—el Papá, el Pápa, the boyfriend, lover, husband, girlfriend, comadres—and listen to my own heart, that incredible witch’s broom that will take me where I need to go.”

Sandra Cisneros, A House of My Own

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.”

Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

“In the winter I am writing about, there was much darkness. Darkness of nature, darkness of event, darkness of the spirit. The sprawling darkness of not knowing. We speak of the light of reason. I would speak here of the darkness of the world, and the light of———. But I don’t know what to call it. Maybe hope. Maybe faith, but not a shaped faith—only, say, a gesture, or a continuum of gestures. But probably it is closer to hope, that is more active, and far messier than faith must be. Faith, as I imagine it, is tensile, and cool, and has no need of words. Hope, I know is a fighter and a screamer.”

Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Poems, and Prose Poems

“There is always some miracle left; and though miracles do not happen, they might happen. Who knows? Perhaps our intelligence, our instinct, our senses, in spite of their daylight clearness, are leading us astray. Perhaps the one thing needful is just that unreasoning courage which follows hope’s will-o’-the-wisp as it burns…”

Jens Peter Jacobsen, Niels Lyhne

“But if the deepest loss, […] / can be, not just survived, but made into the matter / of hope, made into song, not into a hatchet / to cut off the offending parts, made into poems / then blessed be the end of things, the loss of whatever / secures us blindly and mutely to our lives.”

Julia Alvarez, The Other Side/El Otro Lado

“I run / stumbling, expectant. / Impatience is hopelessly / desperate. Hope / takes time.”

Marie Ponsot, Springing: New and Selected Poems

“How lightly we learn to hold hope, / as if it were an animal that could turn around / and bite your hand. And still we carry it / the way a mother would, carefully, / from one day to the next.”

Danusha Laméris, The Moons of August

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Representative John Lewis

“Where does such a force come from? What does it mean? A voice very faint, and inside me, offers a possibility: how shall there be redemption and resurrection unless there has been a great sorrow? And isn’t struggle and rising the real work of our lives?”

Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Poems, and Prose Poems

“Don’t forget that apparent impossibility of something is the first sign of its naturalness—in a different world, obviously.

Marina Tsvetaeva, from a letter to Anatoly Steiger

“Grieve. Have / hope.”

Jorie Graham, Swarm

John Berryman, “The Heart is Strange”

“Skin had hope, that what’s skin does. / Heals over the scarred place, makes a road.”

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Two Countries”

“I am quite troubled in the depths of my soul. But that will pass,”

George Sand, in a letter to Gustave Flaubert

“Let’s dance a little before we go home to hell.”

Muriel Rukeyser, A Muriel Rukeyser Reader

Hélène Cixous, Hyperdream (tr. Beverly Bie Brahic)

“That most moments were substantially the same did not detract at all from the possibility that the next moment might be utterly different.”

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

Ada Limón, “Dead Stars”

“Listen, everyone has a chance. Is it spring, is it morning? Are there trees near you, and does your own soul need comforting? Quick, then — open the door and fly on your heavy feet…”

Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems

“Get to the bottom of this intensity and have faith in what is most horrible, instead of fighting it off—it reveals itself for those who can trust it, in spite of its overwhelming and dire appearance, as a kind of initiation. By way of loss, by way of such vast and immeasurable experiences of loss, we are quite powerfully introduced to the whole.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Countess Alexandrine Schwerin, June 16, 1922

“…only one thing is urgently needed: to attach oneself with unconditional purpose somewhere to nature, to what is strong, striving and bright, and to move forward without guile, even if that means in the least important, daily matters. Each time we tackle something with joy, each time we open our eyes toward a yet untouched distance we transform not only this and the next moment, but we also rearrange and gradually assimilate the past inside of us.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Adelheid von der Marwitz, September 11, 1919

“Continue to believe that with your feeling and with your work you take part in what is the greatest. The more strongly you cultivate this belief inside of you, the more it will give rise to reality and world.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Elisabeth Freiin Schenk zu Schweinsberg, September 23, 1908

“…I have known with certainty that the worst things, and even despair, are only a kind of abundance and an onslaught of existence that one decision of the heart could turn into its opposite. Where things become truly difficult and unbearable, we find ourselves in a place already very close to its transformation.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from a letter to Anita Forrer, February 14, 1920

“…he says, it will be all right.

“It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. They are words you might speak to a child ... and somehow I am comforted. He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.”

Madeline Miller, Circe

“Right then she knows herself even less than she knows the sea. Her courage comes from not knowing herself, but going ahead nevertheless. Not knowing yourself is inevitable, and not knowing yourself demands courage.

Clarice Lispector, Complete Stories; “The Waters of the World”

“Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining—regaining of a clear view. I do not say “seeing things as they are” and involve myself with the philosophers, though I might venture to say “seeing things as we are (or were) meant to see them”—as things apart from ourselves. We need, in any case, to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity—from possessiveness. Of all faces those of our familiares are the ones both most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult really to see with fresh attention, perceiving their likeness and unlikeness: that they are faces, and yet unique faces.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, from his essay On Fairy-Stories

Camille Norton, Corruption: Poems

“Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.”

May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

“I have the fervour of myself for a presence / and my own spirit for light; / and my spirit with its loss / knows this; though small against the black, / small against the formless rocks, / hell must break before I am lost;”

H.D. from Collected Poems; “Eurydice”

Denise Levertov, “Epilogue”

“The days go numb, the wind / sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves. // Through the empty branches the sky remains. / It is what you have. / Be earth now, and evensong. / Be the ground lying under that sky. / Be modest now, like a thing / ripened until it is real…”

Rainer Maria Rilke, from Rilke’s Book of Hours (tr. Anita Barrows, Joanna Macy)

“I know your sorrow and I know that for the likes of us there is not ease for the heart to be had from words of reason and that in the very assurance of sorrow’s fading there is more sorrow. So I offer you only my deeply affectionate and compassionate thoughts and wish for you only that the strange thing may never fail you, whatever it is, that gives us the strength to live on and on with our wounds.”

Samuel Beckett’s words of consolation to his friend, Alan Schneider

“What matters is not to allow my whole life to be dominated by what is going on inside me. That has to be kept subordinate one way or another. What I mean is: one must not let oneself be completely disabled by just one thing, however bad; don’t let it impede the great stream of life that flows through you. I have the feeling of something secret deep inside me that no one knows about.”

Etty Hillesum, from a diary entry featured in An Interrupted Life

“You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. / This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. / To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam. / To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.”

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“Try to keep what is beautiful to you and what you can use for today and now — You must not let things you cannot help destroy you —”

Georgia O’Keeffe, from Georgia O’Keeffe: Art and Letters

“What we love, shapely and pure, / is not to be held, / but to be believed in.”

Mary Oliver, from Evidence; “Swans”

“In time of the crises of the spirit, we are aware of all our need, our need for each other and our need for ourselves. We call up, with all the strength of summoning we have, our fullness. And then we turn; for it is a turning that we have prepared; and act. The time of turning may be very long. It may hardly exist.”

Muriel Rukeyser, from A Muriel Rukeyser Reader, “The Life of Poetry”

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” 

Howard Zinn, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

“But don’t lose heart, dear ones—don’t lose heart. Don’t let it make you bitter. Try to understand. Try to understand. The world’s already bitter enough, we got to try to be better than the world.”

James Baldwin, from Another Country

“You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves. / Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. / Meanwhile, the world goes on.”

Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”

[brandonshimoda]

R.I.P. (Rest in PDFs), Part II

in progress ...

Part I (A-M) is here.

Note: If you see your work on here and prefer that it not be made freely accessible, please email me at: brandonshimoda@gmail.com, and I will remove it. Thank you!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Naomi Murakawa, The origins of the carceral crisis: Racial order as "law and order" in postwar American politics

Natasha Ginwala, Maps That Don’t Belong

Nathaniel Mackey, Other: From Noun to Verb

Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero. Translated by Sherif Hatata.

Nick Estes, Liberation, from Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance

Occupy Poetics. Curated by Thom Donovan

Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment

Patrick Chamoiseau, School Days. Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale

Patrick Wolfe, Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native

Pëtr Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

Phil Cordelli, New Wave

Phil Cordelli, Tidal State

Poetry of Resistance in Occupied Palestine, translated by Sulafa Hijjawi

Reece Jones, Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right To Move

Rinaldo Walcott, Moving Toward Black Freedom, the first chapter of The Long Emancipation

Rinaldo Walcott, The Problem of the Human: Black Ontologies and “the Coloniality of Our Being”

Rinaldo Walcott, Queer Returns: Human Rights, the AngloCaribbean and Diaspora Politics

Rizvana Bradley, Aesthetic Inhumanisms: Toward an Erotics of Otherworlding

Robert Yerachmiel Sniderman, from CEDE; [Truesse, Unknown Worker, Charles]; Chaos and Rectification

Roberto Tejada, In Relation: The Poetics and Politics of Cuba’s Generation-80

Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

Robin D.G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression

Roland Barthes, A Lover’s Discourse. Translated by Richard Howard.

Roland Barthes, Mythologies. Translated by Annette Lavers.

Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text. Translated by Richard Miller.

Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes. Translated by Richard Howard.

Rosemary Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Fatal Couplings of Power and Difference: Notes on Racism and Geography

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Forgotten Places and the Seeds of Grassroots Planning 

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Globalisation and US prison growth: from military Keynesianism to post-Keynesian militarism

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California

Saidiya Hartman, The Plot of Her Undoing (Notes on Feminisms)

Saidiya Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America

Samuel Delaney, Times Square Red, Times Square Blue

Saniya Saleh, Seven Poems. Translated from the Arabic by Robin Moger.

Saniya Saleh, Seven Poems. Various translators

S*an D. Henry-Smith, Flotsam Suite

Shosana Felman & Dori Laub, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History

Simone Browne, Introduction, and Other Dark Matters; Notes on Surveillance Studies; Branding Blackness (from Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness)

Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace. Translated by Emma Crawford and Mario von der Ruhr

Simone Weil, The Iliad, or the Poem of Force. Translated by Mary McCarthy

Simone Weil, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties towards Mankind. Translated by Arthur Wills

Simone Weil, Oppression and Liberty. Translated by Arthur Wills and John Petrie

Simon Leung and Marita Sturken, Displaced Bodies in Residual Spaces

Solidarity Texts: Radiant Re-Sisters

Sophia Terazawa, I Am Not A War

Sora Han, Letters of the Law: Race and the Fantasy of Colorblindness in American Law

#StandingRockSyllabus, compiled by NYC Stands with Standing Rock Collective

Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study

Steve Biko, Black Consciousness and the Quest for True Humanity

Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, the Black Power chapter of Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America

Sukoon Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 2, Winter 2017

Suzanne Césaire, 1943: Surrealism and Us; The Great Camouflage (from The Great Camouflage: Writings of Dissent (1941-1945)

Sylvia Wynter, Black Metamorphosis: New Natives in a New World

Sylvia Wynter, “No Humans Involved:” An Open Letter to My Colleagues

Sylvia Wynter, Novel and History, Plot and Plantation

Tamara K. Nopper, The Wages of Non-Blackness: Contemporary Immigrant Rights and Discourses of Character, Productivity, and Value

Tavia Nyong’o, Racial Kitsch and Black Performance

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee

Thom Donovan, “In The Dirt of the Line”: On Bhanu Kapil’s Intense Autobiography

Tina Campt, Listening to Images

Tina Campt, The Lyric of the Archive

Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson

Toni Morrison, The Future of Time: Literature and Diminished Expectations

Toni Morrison, Memory, Creation, and Writing

Trinh T. Minh-ha, Documentary Is/Not a Name

Trinh T. Minh-ha, The Walk of Multiplicity

Trinh T. Minh-ha, Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism

Veena Das, Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary

Võ Nguyên Giáp, People’s War, People’s Army

Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project. Translated from the German by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin

Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction

W.E.B. Du Bois, The World and Africa: Color and Democracy

Wendy Brown, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity

Wendy Trevino, Brazilian Is Not A Race

Wendy Trevino, narrative

Winona LaDuke, Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Environmental Futures

Worker-Student Action Committees, France May ‘68, by R. Gregoire and F. Perlman

Yanara Friedland, Abraq ad Habra: I will create as I speak

Ye Mimi, eleven poems

Yerbamala Collective, Our Vendetta: Witches vs Fascists

Yi Sang, The Wings. Translated from the Korean by Ahn Jung-hyo and James B. Lee

You Can’t Shoot Us All: On the Oscar Grant Rebellions

Youna Kwak, Home

Yūgen, edited by LeRoi Jones & Hettie Cohen (1958-1962), #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Yuri Kochiyama, The Impact of Malcolm X on Asian-American Politics and Activism

Yuri Kochiyama, Then Came the War

Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men

[battlestarbones]

I'm re-reading caliban's war and now I'm even more pissed off at the "naomi gave the protomolecule to fred and everyone hates her" plotline!!

not only did they replace "holden has a complete anxiety/PTSD meltdown about ganymede where he again tries to take emotional responsibility for the state of the entire solar system" with "ooh ~interpersonal conflict~" but also we don't get to have naomi trying to talk him down with "the intensity of your feelings isn't evidence" (ok the part where she kinda dumps him for being too much like miller isn't "fun" but it is a hell of a lot more interesting than the tv version!!)