#the horrors in question are financial instability

[paintalyx]

nothing like playing my silly little tabletop games with my silly little college friends to sway my thoughts away from the horrors of reality

[rhetoricandlogic]

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver review – a powerful lament for the American dream

A crumbling house is a solid foundation for this striking, time-shifting tale of a nation adrift

Unlike the incompetent architect of the house in her latest book, Unsheltered, American novelist Barbara Kingsolver has proved herself a supreme craftsperson over the past three decades. She possesses a knack for ingenious metaphors that encapsulate the social questions at the heart of her stories.

Her most famous novel, The Poisonwood Bible (1998), follows a Baptist missionary and his family into the wild Congolese jungle, as he realises the so-called savages are just as hard to tame as the terrain. The arrival of an unprecedented swarm of orange butterflies on an Appalachian mountainside serves as a fiery warning about climate change in Flight Behaviour (2012).In this, her eighth novel, a historic New Jersey home teeters on the verge of collapse and its structural instability speaks volumes about the strains within American society.

Kingsolver uses interwoven timelines to trace the lives of two families living in the house a century and a half apart. Freelance writer Willa Knox inherits the home in 2016, at a fortuitous moment: her academic husband, Iano, recently lost tenure, the couple care for his ailing father and their bohemian daughter, Tig, has returned from Cuba heartbroken by a love affair. Family life is thrown into further turmoil when son Zeke, reeling from his wife’s suicide, leaves his infant in their custody.

With the new house bursting at the seams, Willa is aghast when a contractor declares it an architectural “shambles” with a nonexistent foundation. Since even makeshift repairs are beyond their financial means, Willa hopes to win a preservation grant, if the house proves noteworthy within the history of Vineland, a utopian community back in the 19th century.

Her forays into the town archives unearth a previous owner, Thatcher Greenwood, whose story unspools in a parallel narrative. A science teacher at the community school, Greenwood moves into the house with his touchy younger bride in 1871. For the intellectual sin of propounding Darwinism in the classroom, he clashes with Vineland’s founder, Charles Landis, a land developer bent on building a self-sufficient Christian colony. Greenwood finds his support in among the community dwindling to the intriguing female biologist next door and their friendship undermines his increasingly shaky marriage.

The juxtaposition of these American eras is, course, pointed. Landis lures citizens still traumatised by the civil war to his colony with promises of an immaculately regulated Eden. But any notion of Vineland as a utopia has gone by Willa’s time: the town has become a stagnating backwater. On the national stage, the nativist rabble-rousing of GOP candidate Donald Trump fills Willa with incredulous horror.

Kingsolver adroitly sets off the echoes between these huckster demagogues: in Boston, Greenwood witnesses a “murderous crowd chanting ‘lock him up!’”, galvanised against the heretical Darwin, a chant familiar from Trump’s tub-thumping vilification of Hillary Clinton during his rallies.

She powerfully evokes the eeriness of living through times of social turmoil, but her true concerns are articulated by Greenwood’s neighbour, Mary Treat: “When men fear the loss of what they know, they will follow any tyrant who promises to restore the old order.” Yet the gullibility of ordinary people seems etched harshly when mirrored across both timelines. The church-going traditionalists who turn against Greenwood appear a nostril-flaring herd of conformists. Iano’s father is a Trump-cheering deplorable, deaf to all reason. They look ungainly beside Kingsolver’s otherwise striking and impressive presentation of family life.

Not only a bookclub author par excellence, Kingsolver is also the founder of the Pen/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Her progressive instincts compel her to follow Tig’s advice to her mother: “What you have to do is look for blue sky.” Part of a generation with scant belief in the moribund American dream, Tig prefers to live “unsheltered” by self-bettering materialist illusions. Love, community and making do are the only way to survive the crises of a failing healthcare system, shrinking middle-class incomes, far-right resurgence and runaway climate change.

Despite such pragmatism in grasping for solutions, Kingsolver renders contemporary America as a panorama of such bleakness that the prospect of a loved-up, free-cycling sanctuary doesn’t quite wash. As a work of socially engaged fiction, Unsheltered makes a decent case for escapism.

[carriagelamp]

November 2020: A Months of Familiarity

This November ended up being a month of me either rereading old favourites, exploring new books by favourite authors, or a mix of both.

…Be prepared for so much Terry Prachett, I found his audiobooks on Libby last month and since that I’ve been unstoppable.

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

The first of my Terry Practhett books to mention! I chose to include this one on my list because it’s a beautiful stand alone novel, perfect to read if you’ve never touched on of Pratchett’s works before, and is often overlooked.

The book is about Maurice, an “amazing” cat by his own admission, who has teamed up with a stupid boy and his very own plague of rats. The moneymaking scheme is simple: set the rats loose on a town and after causing a panic let the boy stroll in and offer to play his pipe and lead them away… for a fee. This is working well, until Maurice, the boy, and the rats arrive in the town Bad Blintz. Here the rats are beginning to question the morality of their work, the boy gets entangled with a young, mischievous local girl, and they’re all shocked to find out that the town already has a real rat infestation… or so the rat catchers claim. Things quickly turn sinister and deadly as the group is forced to confront not only the cruelty of humanity, but something even more sinister living in the small, dark, hidden place of the town.

This is a YA book, unlike some of Pratchett’s other novels, so it’s a quick, fun read, while still having all of his dry wit and heavy, complicated thoughts about society, morality, belief, and what it means to be a person. It’s a genuine delight to see Maurice and the rats, recently made sentient by wizards’ rubbish, struggle to come to terms with who they were and who they are now.

Black Pearl Ponies: Red Star & Wildflower

Y’all it ain’t a secret at this point that I enjoy a stupid horse girl book, right? I picked up the first two books of the Black Pearl Ponies books from the library on a whim and they were basically what they promised. Girl lives with family on ranch, father helps train horses, girl goes on pony adventures with ponies. A particular focus is given to horse welfare and care. Very mediocre but a nice thoughtless covid read if you, like me, get a craving for animals books written for seven year olds from time to time. Plus this comes with the added humour of it being written, as far as I can tell, by a British author who thinks all Americans are stetson wearing cowboys which I find unreasonably funny.

Crenshaw

I love Katherine Applegate’s work; I read the Endling series earlier this year and they are overwhelmingly good. Crenshaw was also an enjoyable read, though not my favourite by her. It read a little bit like a book I read last fall, No Fixed Address, which was also a very good read though not my usual genre. Crenshaw is about a boy, Jackson, whose family, though close-knit and loving, is experiencing financial difficulties and struggle with food scarcity, homelessness, and all the instability and stress that results from this. During this tumultuous time, Jackson is surprised by the reappearance of a tall, bipedal, snarky cat — Crenshaw, his old imaginary friend. This is a charming book that blends genuine, real world hardships with whimsy and magical realism.

The Enemy Above: A Novel of WWII

Since it was Rememberance Day this month, I decided to pick up a holocaust novel. This book is about 12-year-old Anton, a young Jewish boy who finds himself fleeing from his Polish farm in the middle of the night with his old grandma when a German raiding party that attacks their village in an effort to make the countryside “judenfrei”. The book is, perhaps, not the most well-fleshed out, but it’s fast-paced and exciting for a child/YA audience that’s being introduced to holocaust literature, without trying to downplay the absolutely horror and brutality of the Nazis. It manages to strike a satisfying balance between fear, tragedy, and hope.

“Everything he had heard was true. He was just a twelve-year-old boy and yet they hunted him. He had broken no laws, done nothing wrong. He was simply born Jewish. How could anyone want to kill him for it?”

Gregor the Overlander

Somehow I never knew that Suzanne Collins wrote anything other than The Hunger Games? I stumbled across this series at a used bookstore and was first taken by the cover and then shocked when I realized I recognized the author’s name. Well The Hunger Games was such a good read, how could I not pick up a book with people riding on a giant fucking bat?

Such a good choice. I’m almost done book two and bought book three today after work. It is exactly the sort of low fantasy that I live for, when a fantasy world lives so close to the real world that you can practically touch it. I also love the fact that while all the wild fantastical elements are happening, you still have the main character taking care of his toddler sister the whole time. It’s at times charming, hilarious, and nerve-wracking!

It’s about Gregor, a normal kid who’s doing his best to help his mom take care of his two younger siblings ever since his father disappeared years ago. Gregor expected months of boredom when he agrees to stay home over the summer instead of going to camp like his sister in order to watch his baby sister, Boots, and their grandma while his mom is at work. He never could have expected that a simple trip to the apartment’s laundry room would lead to both him and Boots tumbling miles beneath the earth into the pitch black Underland, a place filled with giant rats and bugs and people with translucent skin who fly through the massive caverns on huge bats. He also could have never expected that he would get wrapped up in a deadly prophecy that would force him to travel into distant, dark lands into the waiting claws of an overwhelming enemy.

Kings, Queens, and In-Between

A Canadian queer novel that I’ve seen trumpeted everywhere. Libraries, classrooms, bookstore, this book got so much hype (and has such a pleasing cover) that I had to get my hands on it. Now, I’ve got to admit that it’s not really my genre; I don’t love realistic fiction. But that being said, it’s a fun, heart-warming, queer romp through that explores gender, sexuality, love, family, friendship… there’s a lot of lovable, quirky, complicated characters that get thrown together in unexpected ways at a local summer carnival. While there’s tension and misunderstandings and mistakes, this is overall a very optimistic and loving novel, and would be a great read if you want a queer novel that reads like cotton candy.

Love, The Tiger

This book is the graphic novel equivalent of a nature documentary. There’s no text, but you follow a day in the life of a tiger as it moves through the jungle on the quest for food. The art is honestly beyond outstanding, and though it’s a really quick read it is so very worth it. I’ve also read Love, The Lion in this series (also good, though a bit more confusing imho) as well as one of the books from his other series Little Tails which is still very nature and education based, though for a slightly younger audience.

Making Money

More Pratchett! Making Money was the first Discworld book I ever read, and it’s one of my most reread ones — it’s an ultimate comfort read! This is technically the sequel to Going Postal (another book I reread this month), in which conman Moist Von Lipwig is saved from a rightful death at the noose in exchange for agreeing to work for the city. Going Postal sees Moist narrowly dodging death in many varied forms as he tries to get the Anhk-Morpork postal service back on its feet and get the drifts of dead, whispering letters moving again. In Making Money things at the post office have become… too easy. Moist is bored, restless, until he finds himself thrust into a new job: head of the Royal Mint. There he has been given not only charge of the biggest bank in Anhk-Morpork, but also a dog with a price on its head, a lethal family with all the money in the world out for his blood, and the fear that his secret past life may be on the verge of being exposed to everyone, all while he’s desperately trying to make money…

The Moist series is honestly an example of Pratchett at his absolute best imo, and the amount of humour, wit, adventure, and scathing commentary he can build around a bank is outstanding. Cannot recommend enough.

The One And Only Ivan

Another book I’ve been hearing everyone talk about, as well as another Katherine Applegate book. It’s been on my radar for a while, but with the sequel and a movie coming out, it had everything at a fever pitch and I finally picked it up. Fantastic read, I definitely enjoyed it more than Crenshaw. This book was based off the true story of Ivan, a gorilla taken from his home in the jungle and sold to the owner of a mall, where he spent years of his life growing from child to adult silverback in a small, concrete enclosure. In this fictionalized version, everything changes for Ivan and his friends, when a new baby elephant is bought to help revitalize the mall attractions and Ivan makes a promise he doesn’t know how to keep: to protect this baby, and keep her from living the life Ivan and his friends were forced to. This book made me very emotional. Applegate’s picture book that goes along with it is also a great companion read.

Ranma ½

I realized that our library had the 2-in-1 editions of Ranma ½ and honestly that was it for me. This has been a favourite series of mine since I was in middle school and realized that the creator of Inuyasha had written other things. It is unapologetically ridiculous and larger-than-life and you have to love the shameless joy it has at being ludicrous. It does start to feel a little repetitive the further into the series you go, but at the moment, with covid, I find I have a huge tolerance for rereading slightly repetitive things so long as they make me happy. And boy howdy does the vaguely queer undertones, endless pining, and relentless slapstick of Ranma ½  make me happy. This is classic manga y’all and if you’ve never read it you should!

The basic premise, for anyone that doesn’t is that of an bonkers martial arts comedy. It follows Ranma and his father who, while training in China, fell into cursed springs. Each spring has the tragic legend of a person or animal who drowned in it, and if someone falls in they inevitably turn into that creature any time they’re doused in cold water. Ranma had the misfortune of falling into “The Spring of Drowned Girl” and, indeed, turns into a girl anytime he’s hit with cold water. Things continue to spiral out of control when Ranma meets his arranged fiancée, Akane, who is as exasperated by this situation as Ranma. Both would rather be fighting people than worrying about things like romance. And don’t worry, there is lots and lots and lots and lots of some of the goofiest martial arts fights that you can imagine for a bunch of high schoolers.

Through the Woods

A beautiful and creepy Canadian graphic novel. I honestly really don’t even know how to describe it in a way that does it justice. It’s a collection of short horror stories, with beautiful, flowing art style that draws you in and sends chills down your spine. I’ll let the art doing the talk, and honestly beg you to go find a way to read this graphic novel:

The Witch’s Vacuum Cleaner: And Other Stories

The last Terry Pratchett book on my list (though shout out to the others I’ve listened to this month: Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, Men At Arms, and Snuff) and one that I actually physically, rather than listening to the audiobook. I included this one because unlike the others, this was a Pratchett book I had never read before. It collects a number of Pratchett’s short stories that had been written for children over a number of years. These weren’t necessarily my favourite examples of Pratchett’s writing (I prefer his longer work that can really dive into social issues) but it was such a quick, easy, fun read that you can’t really help but be charmed by it. I liked the stories that took place in “the wild wild west (of Wales)” in particular.

[pynkhues]

I love brio and I've read almost every fic on ao3. I've made little notes here and there of some fics that I would like to write, but I've never wrote anything like fan fiction. I can think up scenes in my head, but I just can't seem to get it out on paper. What are some tips you can give me to help? Because I would really love to write, i just dont even know where to start?

Hi, anon! And how cool! Welcome to the wonderful world of writing. :-) 

My advice on how to start – as wishy-washy as it sounds – is always just to start. Pick up a pen, or open a word document, and just start throwing words together. See what comes out, and try not to edit or self-police as you write, particularly when you’re just starting out. It’ll cripple you creatively – gosh, it still does sometimes for me, and I’ve been writing for over 15 years.

A good way to try this out is to set a timer for fifteen minutes or half an hour, and just free-write – so just write, and don’t let yourself re-read any of it until the timer bings. Give yourself the space to write words – some will be good, a lot probably terrible, but you can always make bad words better. 

You can’t make nothing better. 

And look, I’m going to maintain that that’s the most important piece of advice here, haha, but I get that that sort of advice can also be sometimes frustrating to people who are looking for more structure, so hey!

Here’s some more meat-and-potatoes advice too.

(Put behind a cut to not eat your feeds!)

Plotting a story in three questions

Building a plot really comes down to asking three questions: 

1. What does your character want? 

2. What’s standing in their way stopping them from getting what they want? 

3. How will they overcome this to get what they want? 

It might sound basic, but it forms really the backbone of every story. Take the Harry Potter series for instance, for which these questions are crucial. 

1. What does your character want? 

Harry wants a family.

2. What’s standing in their way stopping them from getting what they want? 

Voldemort is a direct threat to the new family Harry’s found. A threat he feels acutely because Voldemort murdered his original family.

3. How will they overcome this to get what they want? 

Harry will do anything to save this new, found family – the stakes of which escalates with every book. 

Of course, stories are more than this too – they’re themes and settings and arcs and dialogue, and character motivation tangles up in those things which means that the story world appears to expand well beyond those three questions I listed above. After all, Voldemort’s never just a threat to Harry’s family, he is for the whole world, right? But the thing is the threat to the world is never what drives Harry through the story, and therefore isn’t what drives the story overall. 

The plot is always the threat to Hogwarts and the life and family Harry’s found there.

Good Girls is exactly the same. 

1. What does your character want?

Beth, Ruby and Annie want to provide for their children. 

2. What’s standing in their way stopping them from getting what they want?

All three of them are in dire financial situations because Dean’s lost everything, Sara needs a transplant and expensive medication, and Annie can’t pay for her son’s needs. 

3. How will they overcome this to get what they want?

They’re going to get into crime and make enough money to save themselves and their children. 

The answers to these questions can change and evolve too – after all, the ‘what’ has certainly grown more complicated for Beth, Ruby and Annie across the show’s run, but those changes should evolve out of plot progression aka cause and effect. 

Beth’s original want was for financial stability for her children, and she still wants that, but she wants more than that now too – something that has been explored through the instability of her circumstances, and her growing attraction to power after having lived a powerless life.

So let’s talk about cause and effect a little more.

Cause and Effect

With those questions in mind, it’s important to remember that the way a story takes shape should be a sort of domino effect of cause and effect. Scenes aren’t placed together in a haphazard order. They’re not stacked on top of each other like three children in a trenchcoat! One scene should always cause the next, and that scene should lead onto the next, and so on, and so on. 

The enemy of good storytelling is ‘and then’. 

So when you write a scene, don’t think ‘now what happens?’

Look at what you’ve written and say ‘okay, what does what I’ve written here mean? What is the fallout of this? What is going to happen to these characters and this story now given what I’ve just written?’

This is also a good way to reverse engineer a story (and something I often do!) If you have a scene in your head, but you know it’s a middle scene, or an ending to something, ask yourself what happened that made that scene happen. 

In one of my most recent standalone fics, Drive You Mad (wear me out), I actually started with two scenes in my head – one where Beth and Rio were soaking wet for a mystery reason I didn’t know yet, haha, and the fact that it lead to them having sex in his car, and I had a vague idea that I wanted it to be  related to a crime job. 

Similarly with the pornstar!AU! I just wanted Beth and Rio to make a porno, haha, but I wanted it to feel like a genuine choice for these characters, so I needed to think of authentic reasons that would put them in that room, opposite each other, about to throw it all to the wind and bone on camera. 

I reverse engineered  both these stories by just asking myself ‘but why did this happen?’ What choices did these characters make to get them here? How did Beth and Rio end up soaking wet? Why would they have sex in that car? What would get somebody like Beth to shoot porn? What would make somebody like Beth connect emotionally with somebody like Rio in this AU (and y’know what? It was the exact same thing as in canon – a combination of parenthood and validation).

In other words, your story should never say this happened and then this happened, it should always say this happened and so this happened. 

Agency

Every character in your story should make choices. Good choices, bad choices, choices they think are not choices at all (because never forget - you always choose to do nothing. Nothing is never thrust upon you). 

Your characters are what drive your story forwards, and they drive your story forwards by making choices, not by standing still and waiting for the story to come to them. And look, it’s great if they make the right one, but it’s so much more fun (and opens up so many and so possibilities!) when they make the wrong one.

Grounding Your Story

Grounding stories in a place or a space is something I think a lot of new and emerging writers struggle with, and it was something I was really, really bad at when I started writing and worked really hard to get better at. Characters should never be interacting in vacuums. We don’t exist in them after all. 

Stories come alive when characters are engaging with spaces, or when those spaces are utilised effectively. Horror does this especially well, but a lot of other stories do too (again, Harry Potter is actually a great example of this!)

This is something Good Girls pretty consistently does fabulously too – think of any of their heists for starters, but particularly the one in 1.01. Settings can open up and close and add conflict and provide release. Use them! Think about them! I can guarantee you’ll become a better writer for it.

When I was really struggling with this area, I got some incredible advice that I still use to this day from Kim Wilkins, a gothic fantasy and horror author from my home town. She told me that when I start writing a new scene, go through the five senses - what can your character see, smell, taste, touch, hear. Write all of it. Then pick the best two descriptions, and dump the rest. 

Then think about the function of those descriptions. Okay, so the character’s in a park and can hear the metal whine of a rusty swingset. Does the chain link snap? Harming their child? Or maybe they can hear thunder in the distance while they’ve been trying to have a romantic anniversary picnic! Do they make it to the car in time? How does that affect their dynamic? Does it lead to a passionate make out in the rain? Or a furious fight in it? (Notice how this is all cause and effect too?)

These descriptions don’t always have to lead to a plot point – sometimes they can be reflective of an emotional state – an oncoming storm can foreshadow an oncoming fight between characters as much as it can lead to those characters getting caught in it after all – and sometimes it can just be for atmosphere too! 

All of this serves though to build your story into something evocative and grounded for the reader, plus it can be really fun to play around with. 

Love it or have fun! Try for both, but never have neither. 

Sometimes writing is a slog. 

Sometimes you sit down for a session and want to pluck your own eyelashes out because the story’s not working or the words aren’t flowing or you know your characterisation is falling flat, but there’s a difference between not enjoying a writing session, and not enjoying writing overall.

Writing can be really hard work sometimes, and when it is, you either need to love it, and love the story you’re trying to tell, or you need to move on to something else. 

That can be your silly, fun crack fic that evades all logic and you just straight up enjoy writing, or it can be something that isn’t writing at all. 

You’ve got to make it work for you – and if you don’t love it, and you aren’t having fun? It’s not worth it. 

You can take a break and come back to it, or you can take a break and never come back to it. Just do what’s right for you. 

Don’t get turned off by The Gap

Ira Glass describes this perfectly in this interview, and it’s something I always recommend to people starting out. Writing is, like practically everything else, a trade. It’s something you grow and develop and should never stop growing and developing and learning about. 

Writing though I think is also something that’s really easy to give up when you feel like you aren’t immediately good at it, and, well - - 

I think he says it better than I ever could:

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[alexsfictionaddiction]

10 of the best pandemic novels

It’s an understatement to say that the world as we know it has changed insurmountably over the last few weeks. We’re apart from our loved ones, most of our summer plans have been cancelled and we’re faced with more uncertainty than ever before. Pandemics and plagues have been present in horror, sci-fi and post-apocalyptic books for decades and they’ve always seemed to be exactly that. Abandoned cities, fast-acting deadly diseases and epic efforts for survival are things that happen in different worlds to our own but of course, they’ve never reflected reality more than they do right now.

I’ve been using this time to research and read a bunch of books that deal with pandemics and I wanted to share 10 of the very best of them with you. I completely understand if you’re trying to avoid these kinds of reads at the moment to limit anxiety or simply to escape. That’s why I also have a list of feel-good reads especially for you!

1. The Stand by Stephen King

The Stand is a book you’ll see on every pandemic fiction list because it is widely considered to be King’s masterpiece. The virus is really just the beginning of this enormous tome as its proceeded by ominous dreams, the inevitable end of days and the very real eternal battle between good and evil -perhaps not unlike some of your recent political discussions? Typical of a King novel, it’s populated by a huge cast of morally complex, tragic characters and there is an overwhelming sense of dread from the very first chapter. Expect a harrowing atmospheric read that will stay with you for a long time.

2. The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey

Essentially, it’s a zombie book but it’s also so much more than that. Set in a world where ‘hungries’ roam the wastelands, a select group of infected but high-functioning children are contained in a special facility. Amongst a ruthless scientist, a kindly teacher and a wary sergeant, child genius Melanie’s story will become one that haunts you in the middle of the night. It’s a classic page-turning thriller that isn’t an exact reflection of our current world but there are some eerie likenesses that will have you questioning who the real monsters are.

3. Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

Station Eleven is so full of believable situations and characters that I could easily see the end of the Earth looking exactly like this huge sprawling landscape, dotted with towns populated by small groups of suspicious, scared people. It chiefly follows five principal characters -seasoned Hollywood actor Arthur Leander who dies on stage during a production of King Lear, his incredibly talented but unappreciated first wife Miranda, his oldest friend Clark, Jeevan Chaudhary who tried to save him and Kirsten, one of Arthur’s child co-stars whose life has been shaped by the events of that fateful night. It’s a beautifully written, expertly constructed book that explores loss, resilience and the heartbreaking notion of desperately trying to hold on to the past. You’ll want several boxes of tissues for this one!

4. The Fireman by Joe Hill

Ok, so the virus in this one isn’t QUITE like COVID-19 but the intense fear, teetering sanity and unexpected small rays of hope aren’t unlike our current set of feels. Dragonscale marks its host with black and gold and burns them up from the inside causing them to eventually spontaneously combust and no one appears to be safe from this horrifying end. We follow pregnant nurse Harper who bears the ominous marks but is desperate to live long enough to give birth and the mystery of the Fireman -an afflicted man who has somehow learned to control the fire within him. It’s a very original premise and although it’s another beast of a book at over 700 pages, it will have you gripped from the very first page.

5. The Book of M by Peng Shepherd

There’s something about memory that feels so precious to me. It may be because in a normal functioning brain, it’s the only thing that constantly keeps us company and therefore, in some ways it’s like an old friend. The Book of M features a virus where shadows have begun to disappear, leaving their humans with a strange new power but also with a rapidly deteriorating memory. Following Ory and Max -two halves of a couple who have been torn apart by the prospect of heartbreak- we meet a bunch of wonderful characters on a journey to New Orleans, where sanctuary reportedly awaits. I stayed up late to finish it because I became so invested in getting these characters back together but I was left completely thrown and sobbing my eyes out by the very cruel twist at the end. Yeah... brace yourself!

6. The Last Town On Earth by Thomas Mullen

Set in 1918 in Washington state, this story follows a small quarantined town trying to stave off the Spanish influenza. The effects of financial instability on the community, the fear of the unknown and the erratic actions of a panicked mind will definitely seem familiar in our current world. It’s an enclosed domestic drama with a lot of social history, tear-jerking moments and a truly explosive ending. I’m delighted that I discovered this emotional hidden gem!

7. Skin by Liam Brown

Skin describes a world with an extreme version of a COVID-esque virus. Everyone must completely isolate from everyone else including the people they live with and can only communicate from separate bedrooms via technology. But then our protagonist Angela spots a man outside without any protective gear on and he doesn’t even seem to be slightly sick. Full of intrigue, complex characters and a twist in the tale, it’s a fast read with a lot to say about contemporary society via a wry cynical voice.

8. Severance by Ling Ma

Candace Chen is a routine-loving millennial who turns ghost city photo-blogger when the deadly Shen Fever sweeps New York. Joining an eclectic band of survivors on a trek to a supposed sanctuary, she is harboring a secret of epic proportions. Things get progressively darker as the group begins to develop a cult-like dynamic and the seemingly self-elected ‘leader’ Bob becomes increasingly tyrannical. The sudden jolt out of ordinary life and the making and breaking of human relationships in times of hardship mixed with a touch of satire makes for a thoroughly entertaining, topical read.

9. Wilder Girls by Rory Power

I love a good boarding school novel and this is possibly the darkest, most unique one I’ve ever read. The Tox has left multiple pupils at Raxter School For Girls with deformities and they’re now waiting patiently for a cure. But then Hetty’s best friend Byatt goes missing and suspicion heightens as to what’s really happening on the remote island. I couldn’t shake the feeling of doom for the entire time and there was such a heavy gloomy atmosphere that seeps through the pages. There was a lot of buzz around this book on YA Twitter when it was released late last year and it’s definitely worth all of the hype! 

10. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

This impeccably strange, enchanting novel is a little glimpse into some of the weirder rooms of Atwood’s mind. Snowman lives in a tree on a deserted beach and spends his days foraging for scraps and mourning his best friend Crake and the woman he loved, the enigmatic Oryx. He seems to be the only human left but somehow he has become a prophet-esque figure to the beautiful, ethereal Children of Crake. The actual virus doesn't appear until the final 50 pages but we see the effects of it from the very beginning, so I was pretty eager to find out exactly what had happened, which kept the pages turning. Although it is funny in places and exceptionally thought-provoking, there is a lot of disturbing content to be aware of including animal experimentation and child trafficking and sexual abuse. It’s a horrifying window into a possible future if extreme capitalism and the fast advances in genetic engineering were ever to meet in a head-on collision. 

[thebookbin]

This Tender Land

William Kent Krueger

Publisher: Atria Books Genre: historical fiction, literary fiction Year: 2019

It took me longer than usual to read and digest This Tender Land. At first I wanted to tear through it: it's right up my alley. A novel about kids, the found family trope, and exploring the American heartland? All things that sing to my heart. But as I started reading, I felt like this book was so powerful, that I regularly had to put it down and step away instead of devouring it like I usually would.

WORLDBUILDING

Krueger is a fantastic writer and This Tender Land is an incredibly immersive experience. I know a lot about the 1930's in an academic sense, but Krueger has a magnificent way of making the time period come to life. From the desperation that drove people to horrible ends, to the common suffering that lead to the deepest of compassion, the narrative seamlessly wove together a tale of race tensions, financial instability, and deep rooted connections to community that made me feel like I was living and breathing during that one summer in 1932.

PLOT

The story follows 4 orphans and their escape from the Lincoln Indian Training School down the Gilead river. Their intent is to escape, really, to leave the horror behind them, but what they each really yearn for is a place to call home. Their journey, meandering like the river they follow, has twists and turns, as they meet all sorts of people, each with their own gifts and their own ghosts. The world can be an incredibly cruel place, but also one filled with compassion. Ultimately our little band of vagabonds are struggling with which side the world really falls on.

THEMES & TONES

This novel is a love letter to Huckleberry Finn and the Odyssey, but only in the best of ways. Where Huckleberry Finn, both features racism and is imbued with racism, This Tender Land approaches the matter of Native American internment with grace and sensitivity. The journey that the kids take downriver is a journey about finding home as much as it is about finding one's soul.

I was worried going in, about the idea of overt Christian themes, as a lot of the Christian fiction I've encountered can be stiff, hollow, and lacking compassion. While Odie does often wrestle with the nature of god, and his older self who is narrating the story clearly believes in some form of god, but I didn't find it to be a hindrance to the story.

CHARACTERS & CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Odie O'Banion is a clever and cheeky boy, and you can't help but love him right from the start. He's powerless in almost every way, and yet he can't seem to stay quiet when he sees an injustice to his twelve year-old eyes. Because of this, he often find himself in trouble but he's such an earnest kid, and his struggles and questions about the world are so earnest, you can't help but love him.

Albert was the quiet hero of the novel. Always looking out for his younger brother, and always looking to keep the group alive and together, Albert didn't often receive love or attention from his brother. But he so diligently takes the lead, and is so quietly compassionate, I loved him fiercely.

I was afraid Mose was going to be a stereotypical Native American character. He's mute because his tongue was cut out as a child, and he seems to always have a cheerful outlook on life. But over the course of the novel, he reconnects with his Sioux heritage, and finally learns what was taken from him, and what he never got the chance to experience. His arc is intricate, heartfelt, and profound.

Emmy is just a little girl. She mostly serves as a plot device, but my favorite thing was to watch these older teen boys just love her and want to take care of her as best they can. I also love her random and very cryptic statements.

TECHNICAL SKILL

Kreuger is a master of his craft, and I was transported from the page to the story. His writing is lyrical and both of Odie's voices, his young and old voice, mesh together seamlessly.

"In every good tale there is a seed of truth, and from that seed a lovely story grows. Some of what I've told you is true and some... well, let's just call it the bloom on the rosebush."

OVERALL

I think this novel truly supplants Huckleberry Finn as a great American classic, that tackles all the same issues, but does so without the rampant racism. The children are still in their formative years, and are so tender to be abused so early in life. They're each searching for something unknown to them, and it's truly a gorgeous journey to behold. It can be sad, and brutal, and so incredibly hopeful, it's a true coming-of-age experience that will appeal to the young and old alike.

MY RECOMMENDATION

If you love classics, but need some new material, you'll fall in love with This Tender Land. Especially if you love historical fiction, this is the book for you.

goodreads | amazon

RATING: ★★★★★

Houston: Murder by the Book

I had the wonderful opportunity to see Krueger (he prefers Kent) at my local mystery store Murder by the Book. Kent was a fantastic speaker, and offered a lot of insights to this book, and his writing in general. 

Kent is a very soft-spoken man, but he feels heartfelt and genuine. He has a way of weaving words, even as he speaks, that’s mesmerizing. Most of his readers seemed to be from an older generation, I’d guess I was the youngest one there by 20 years at least, but I think it some younger readers, and writers especially, could really benefit from his expertise. If I ever got the chance, I would jump to take his writing class and learn from him.

[fuwaprince]

A to Z tag game

i was tagged by @simsparadise3 (Thanks a bunch bird mom I love you)

 A - Age: 19

B - Birthplace: California

C - Current Time: 2:21 pm

D - Drink You Had Last: Water

E - Easiest Person To Talk to: My lizard gal pal

F - Favorite Song: Currently it's 10CC - I'm not in love

G - Grossest Memory: Projectile vomiting all over the shower and bleeding out and screaming on the bathroom floor for 4 or 5 hours after I got stoned outta my mind and took some drugs. Justin had to clean it up and I felt so bad because it was DISGUSTING. Blood and guts and vomit everywhere. Pretty nasty aha

H - Horror Yes Or No: depends what you consider horror. I consider butterflies horrifying so.... maybe? I'm pretty desensitized to typical horror stuffs

I - In Love? Oh man I don't even know. It feels like I've fallen so hard but everything in my damaged heart is screaming no 

J - Jealous of: With healthy relationships and enough money to be stable

K - Killed Someone? The only thing I slay is pussy *air horns* Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you

L - Love at First Sight or Should I Walk Past Again? Walk past

M - Middle Name: Anne

N - Number of Siblings: 1

O - One Wish: I wasn't traumatized. Sometimes I'm so high functioning while being ill that I feel like I'm faking. I wish I wasn't in constant fear due to my PTSD. I wish I could love freely.

P - Person I Called Last: Smot Poker you didn't pick up

Q - Question You’re Always Asked: "what's your gender" "what's your sexuality" "are you sure" "why didn't you *insert something that I am unable to do due to my physical limitations, financial instability, and/or mental illnesses*" "why don't you just call him/her your bf/gf"

R - Reason to Smile: my hands can pick up lizards

S - Song You Last Sang: Probably dancing in the moonlight

T - Time You Woke Up: 8:38AM

U - Underwear Color: Mint

V - Vacation: This summer my roommate and I are going on a trip somewhere (his treat, not really any limitations as to where or how long, Idk where yet)

W - Worst Habit: Self doubting

X - Xrays: One time they xrayed my foot because I jumped a bridge for fun and upon swimming down the river for hours and finally getting out, I fell in a big ol hole. Nothing broke but I couldn't walk

Y - Your Favorite Food: Edible

Z - Zodiac Sign: Aries

And I will be tagging~ whoever wants to do it just say I tagged em!

[bloodinhershoesrpg]

Season 01 Episode 01 — The Show Must Go On 

Timid steps echo from the opera house’s lonely halls, multiplying in volume to make up for the neglect of the past week. Not a soul of the cast set foot in these dangerous territories after the gruesome passing of one of their own, the beginning of which this locality witnessed, its creaking doors and hardwood floors still whispering about the horrors they have been made to see to the busy bees behind the scenes desperate to save a production that has scarcely been rehearsed for thus far. Security vanished in every aspect imaginable for our graceful little dancers, once taken for granted, now ardently desired. Friday delivered the long anticipated yet dreaded ‘go’, the Sleeping Beauty remaining green-lighted with a replacement for the former star of the show long since selected. 

The show must go on; everything back to normal now. 

If only that wasn’t easier said than done…

It starts in your subconscious, unbeknownst to you instilling a sensation that can only be described as crippling fear with the bad habit of catching you off guard sans your consent. A pause before you turn the dimly lit street corner. Goosebumps form a second layer of clothing you wear for protection amidst the summer heat. Every noise behind you rushing down your spine like a stab in the back, your neck sore from all the twisting and turning on your way home, more efficient training than any rehearsal could ever provide.

Full focus on your qualities: alertness, full control over your body, stamina, muscular strength. What pays for your rent now also bargains for your longevity.

updated: may 31st

Click here for every dancer’s current theme song on the way home

The group is hereby open for actual roleplaying! All interactions throughout this episode must take place between August 15th & August 22nd 2016.

Additional details and plot suggestions at a glance:

♚ August 15th marks the first day of rehearsal post-Katerina’s murder. Slight alterations to the cast had to be made, resulting in a handful of danseurs and danseuses being set back in their schedule and having to work themselves to the bone to catch up, never mind there only laying four rehearsal sessions behind them thus far and the production not premiering before spring 2017. A potential tribute to Katerina being weaved into the show is currently under debate.

♚ Safety measures have been taken in accordance to the persisting threat, making it harder for non-members of the ballet and opera house to enter the premises. It is advised that dancers do not walk home alone after dark.

♚ Unfortunately, murder means instability and bad publicity. Instability and bad publicity mean additional efforts are required to present the production in a positive light appealing enough to draw in the general public nevertheless. Bad publicity and the necessity of additional promotion also mean more money might be needed but it will not be willingly provided. Perhaps some new negotiations are in order.

♚ So far, the police have no trace of the killer they can actively follow. Judging from the evidence, they presume the killer to be male as they were strong enough to move the body from the crime scene to the park but they cannot yet confirm that said killer is working on their own or that they are an outsider, meaning all precautions taken by the QVB might be to no avail.

Humpday Update:

♚ Talks of an in memoriam choreography have been put on hold in light of the production’s rocky financial situation. For now, a humble tribute at the end of the premier as well as a mention in the playbill are planned. Further discussions are scheduled for Friday.

♚ Also scheduled for Friday: an appointment regarding finances between Norah Monroe and Elijah Granville. Word of mouth is that the QVB might have to consider hosting a charity event to ask long term subscribers and local lovers of arts and culture for additional donations.

♚ Headline: Still no trace of the killer. Police at a standstill. The cast, crew and other employees are being interviewed within the confines of the opera house again but might eventually be invited to the station for further questioning. With so few clues to follow, everyone is once again a suspect.

[ganymedeandcallisto]

someone asked me for the 100 questions but tumblr is fuckin up so here u go my friend

1. What’s your middle name, and do you like it? a: lea (pronounced lee), it was my grandmas middle name and yes I do love it 
2. are you artistic? a: fuck yeah I am I sing and play instruments and do art 
3. Have you had your first kiss? a: yes 
4. What is your life goal? a: to be happy TBH 
5. Do you have any expieriences with a famous person? a: my dad went to grade school with this guy who won an Oscar! also Bernie sanders came to my high school for a rally which was so so cool 
6. Do you play any sports? a: what is a sport 
7. What’s your worst fear? a: that everyone I love is pretending to like me TBH 
8. Who’s your biggest inspiration? a: Kim from Matt and Kim ngl, also the people in Costa Rica who created the giant dog sanctuary 
9. Do you have any cool talents? a: I play 6 instruments and also I have a really good memory 
10. are you a morning person? a: YES I love getting up early especially when I don’t have to do anything 
11. How do you feel about pet names? a: hate (dyldoge) 
12. Do you like to read? a: YEAH I DO it’s so fun to me 
13. Name a list of shows that have changed your life. a: the office, game of thrones, the walking dead (mostly cause glenn and maggie) 
14. Do you care about your follower count? a: nope unless it’s 420 or 666 
15. What’s the best dream you’ve had? a: probably one where I was either flying or hugging someone 
16. Have you ever kissed someone of your same gender? a: I have not 
17. Do you have any pets? a: YEAH I HAVE TWO BEAUTIFUL BABIES (dogs) 
18. Are you religious? a: I am not 
19. Are you a people person? a: ahahahahaha noooooooooooooooo 
20. Are you considered popular? a: I’m not sure?? TBH 
21. What is one of your bad habits? a: saying yes when I want to say no, also procrastinating 
22. What’s something that makes you feel vulnerable? a: showing music I love to people 
23. What would you name your children? a: *dogs I love all dog names 
24. Who’s your celebrity crush? a: Marcos is the biggest celebrity of my heart 
25. What’s your best subject? a: English/history that uncovers how awful white america is/has been 
26. Dogs or cats? a: both!!!!!!!! but TBH dogs more 
27. most used social media besides tumblr? a: I’m not sure but I’m gonna say chat snaps 
28. best friends name a: Marcos and varla ofc <3 <3 <3 
29. who does your main family consist of a: my sister and my mom and dad and my two beautiful dog children 
30. Chocolate or sugar a: chocolate 
31. have you ever been on a date? a: yes! not formally like “would you like to go on a date with me?” tho 
32. Do you like rollercosters? a: I did……but Marcos and I went to the fair last summer and concluded that we are too old for this and our joints are too stiff 
33. Can you swim? a: yes and I love swimming so much 
34. What would you do in the event of an apocolypse? a: grab everyone I love and live in a Costco 
35. Have you struggled with any kind of mental disorder? a: yes ednos, depression, and trichotillomania 
36. Are your parents together? a: yes they are 
37. What’s your favourite colour? a: green forever and ever 
38. What country are you from/do you live in? a: USA :^) 
39. Favourite singer? a: I’m gonna say my favorite artist is Matt and Kim but there are so many other favorites ahahah 
40. Do you see yourself being famous some day? a: no TBH unless it’s for cooking 
41. Do you like dresses? a: yeah I fuckin love dresses but they are uncomfy sometimes 
42. Favourite song right now? a: poplar street by glass animals or vampire money by mcr honorable mention: planetary [go!] by mcr, well it’s true that we love one another by the white stripes, northeast by Matt and Kim, man on the moon by zella day, the way we move by langhorne slim and the law, when you’re young by Edward sharpe and the magnetic zeroes 
43. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? a: no I actually really like talking about sex! I think it’s healthy to 
44. How old were you when you first got your period? a: like 11 I think lmao 
45. Have you ever shot a gun? a: nope and I don’t really wanna 
46. Have you ever done yoga? a: yes 
47. Are you a horror girl? a: hell yeah give me some of that 😩💯😭👌🏽✔️✔️👅💦💦😳👀😍 babadook 
48. Are you good at giving advice? a: sometimes like I know exactly what I wanna say but I talk around it bc I’m bad at explaining things 
49. Tell us a story about your childhood. a: one time when I was 4 my cousin was bothering me and putting a pillow over my face so I bit him so hard it bled and now he’s a trump supporter but I can’t bite him bc I’m an Adult 
50. How are you doing today? a: I’m good!! I had a really great breakfast with my RA Rebecca and my roommate Sydney! 
51. Were you a cute kid? a: there was no kid cuter than me up until like 1st grade when I got glasses 
52. Can you dance? a: when no one is watching TBH 
53. Is there anything you do that you can’t remember ever not doing? a: eating with chopsticks and also wanting to be in love 
54. Have you ever dyed your hair? a: nooooo but I wanna 
55. What colour are your eyes? a: brown 
56. What’s your favourite animal? a: horses and dogs!! 
57. Have you ever made a huge fool of yourself? a: yes I definitely have :^)))) 
58. Do you have a good relationship with your parents? a: I think so!! they support my decision to change my major and I’m so so happy 
59. Do you have good friends? a: like 3 maybe who I never get to see ://// 
60. Are you close with anyone of the lgbtq+ group? a: ya bich it me (also yes!! many of my friends are) 
61. What’s your favourite class? a: this quarter, Asian American studies 
62. List all the tv shows you are watching. the walking dead, westworld, full frontal with Samantha Bee, daily show, game of thrones, I think that’s it? 
63. Are you organized? a: honey………no 
64. What was the last movie you saw? Opinion? in theaters I saw rogue one and I loved it so much THERE WERE POC LEADS 
67. Which tv character do you relate to most? a: I don’t know actually but probably Pam from the office TBH 
68. What are some things that stand between you and complete happiness? a: distance :/ and financial instability :/ 
69. If you received enough money to never need to work again, what would you spend your time doing? a: taking care of dogs 
70. What would you change about your life if you knew you would never die? a: id change the not dying part…….it’s gotta happen sometime just not now 
71. What would you do differently if you knew that no one was judging you? a: I’d dance all the time in public 
72. If you could start over, what would you do differently? a: stand up for myself 
73. Would you break the law to save a loved one? a: is this even a question of course I would 
74. When was the last time you travelled somewhere new? a: in August when me and Marcos went to SLO 
75. When you think of your home, what immediately comes to mind? a: the living room and my dogs greeting me and getting in n out for dinner 
76. What have you done to pursue your dreams lately? How about today? a: I found out I can change my major really quickly 
77. What did you want to be when you were a kid? a: a paleontologist I loved dinosaurs 
78. If you dropped everything to pursue your dreams, what would you be risking? a: not too much actually I dream of being financially stable with my love Marcos and being surrounded by dogs and having my family live not super close but not too far away 
79.When did you not speak up, when you know you really should have? a: in class bc participation is part of the grade 
80. Describe the next five years of your life, and your plans, in a single sentence a: I’m going to finish college with a steady job, hopefully travel a lot, and spend all the time I can working towards The Dream™ 
81. What would happen if you never wasted another minute of your life, what would that look like? a: me: graduates college and gets a masters degree within a year 
82. If you could live forever, how would you spend eternity? a: looking for a way to make Marcos also live forever and then taking care of all dogs 
83. How would you spend a billion dollars? a: I’d buy a big house that has a lot of land for my dogs to run around in and pay for a bunch of kids’ tuition and buy my parents a bunch of vacations and create spaces for dogs everywhere and donate to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren……that’s kind of a big question 
84. If you could time travel, would you go to the past or the future? a: the past so that I can see all the history white people cover up 
85. What motivates you to succeed? a: The Dream ™ of being financially stable in a nice apartment with a few dogs and the love of my life Marcos 
86. What dream that you’ve had has resonated with you the most? a: I had a nightmare that trump became president 
87. Would you rather live in the city or the woods? Why? a: woods bc city smell like pee and is smoggy 
88. Do you believe in life after death a: kinda but I hope it’s a life where I don’t really have to Do anything 
89. What teacher inspired you the most? How did they? a: my great uncle because he was a professor of English and he loved my great aunt so much and had a house in the middle of nowhere surrounded by forest and deer and it had a greenhouse and a place for bats to roost 
90. What’s your fondest childhood memory? a: making pillow forts with my sister and then destroying them by jumping on top of them 
91. If you could have dinner with any one person, living or dead, who would they be and why? a: I wanna have dinner with Donald trump, specifically so I can stab him in his orange face with my fork 
92. What would you have to see to cry tears of joy? a: not too many things TBH I cry very hard at practically everything 
93. What is the hardest lesson you had to learn in life? a: you shouldn’t have to change something about yourself in order to deserve love (unless ur a neo nazi or a mass murderer or something like that obviously) 
94. What do you think happens after we die? a: party in the afterlife 
95. What would you do if you would be invisible? a: probably steal money from trump but make it look like mike pence or richard spencer did it 
96. What’s something you can’t do no matter how hard you try? a: whistle ahahaha 
97. Would you want to choose the sex and appearance of your offspring? a: all dogs are beautiful 
98. How did your first crush develop? a: my first crush was on Luke Skywalker and it developed by me watching a new hope 
99. Is there a feeling you are trying to ignore? What is it? a: it’s the feeling of That Fuck Shit and i ignore it on the daily 
100. Do you live or do you just exist? a: time is meaningless and none of us Actually exist

[zeroboats]

ZERO BOATS #4

Notes on labour

The very term “migrant labour” can be misleading, as it melds together both the mobility of the workforce within Italy for seasonal agricultural work and the birthplaces of the members of that workforce being outside of Italy. While these two aspects do often combine within the same workforce, this is contingent, and does not explain the necessity of the second aspect for the first. That is, the workforce, the labour-power (in Italian, the same term) which is used for the agricultural sector (among others) is non-EU. Much of the agricultural work in Eastern Sicily is performed by Romanian and Albanian women, whereas in Western Sicily the dominant groups are Moroccan, Tunisian and Senegalese. Of these, it is the Senegalese workforce – flanked by other West African nationalities – which has swelled in the past few years, thanks for the opening up of the Libyan route across the central Mediterranean following the fall of Gaddafi. This is, without doubt, not only a “migrant” workforce, but a Black one. It is Black labour which is now holding up the Italian agricultural sector. The importance of this distinction is not to undermine the Arab or Eastern European workforces, but to note the particularity of Blackness and the exploitability of Blacks within the world economy, and how this is being utilised to overcomes aspects of the Italian state’s own national economic crisis. To be more precise: accidentally or otherwise, the racial division of labour within food production is a quite direct response to instability in the financial sector.

In this way, the entrance of the new Black workforce has allowed the emigration of the young Southern proletariat without precipitating the total collapse of the Italian agricultural sector. The African workforce sends the majority of any wages (after the most basic of living costs) back to families in Africa; similarly, the Southern Italian workers across North-Western EU states save their poorer, wage-depressed relatives from needing to support them in Italy. Since 2016, Italy has seen net emigration: this is not an ironic coincidence, but interrelated. The immigration allows emigration without collapse of a sector that not only include cheap olive oil and wine, but also the oranges that produce Fanta (Coca-Cola).

The working conditions of Black labourers in Italy cannot get much worse. The small shanty towns set up for the tomato, olive and orange harvests across the Italian South are disconnected from utilities, legality, trade union protection. There is no enforcement of the lowest ethical or legal norms for employers. Workers do not even work every day, as the wages are so low that they often refuse the offers from local farmers, only to find they are pressured into accepting the low wages as the labour supply is plentiful; furthermore, not maintaining the same workers all the time allows the employers to shirk labour laws in case of rare checks by the authorities. Accounts of the horrendous conditions in these labour camps, from flimsy tents in the mud for male African in Western Sicily to routine sexual abuse and rape of Eastern European women in Eastern Sicily, are plentiful enough that they do not need repeating here. The question is how these situations can be altered. Media attention has proved a weak and near-futile tactic.

The most well known resistance was mounted by Yvan Sagnet, a Cameroonian student-turned-trade unionist who led important struggles in 2011, and continues to campaign on the legal front, pushing for the introduction of harsher – and the enforcement of existing – labour laws. The situation has not improved much however, and organisation has passed over from the mainstream unions (FIOM, CGIL, UIL) to the grass-roots ones (USB and COBAS). Last week, 200 workers in Foggia entered local church during mass in a silent protest, with a sign reading “we are workers, not mince meat.” Worker organisation is, however, not only difficult but threatens the very future of the workforce. Automation is a constant threat. In the harvests, a careful balance is struck between the costs of planting the vineyards and olive groves densely and employing human labour, or planting them further apart, decreasing the yield allowing access for farm machinery. If the costs of labour-power rise, those farmers with some capital reserves will move over the mechanised harvesting. Of course, not all farmers are so blessed, but the larger and more powerful companies will do so.

In the South the Black labour force is supporting the agricultural sector, many of them asylum seekers or refugees, or at least people who have recently passed through the hostel system for asylum seekers (often it makes little difference for working conditions whether a Black worker has documents or not; a recognised refugee can be treated the same as someone with an expulsion notice). In the North, the well known struggles in the logistics sector are dominated by North African workers, and include Senegalese and Eastern European workers; Italians are a minority. When a North African worker was killed last year after a scab drove into a picket with a car, there was not an Italian in the entire striking workforce. Again, it is the grass-roots unions which have organised and won important struggles in the logistics sector.

The Black labour force is also vital to the sex trade. Again, there are innumerable articles now within the genre of “Palermo noire”, describing the cross over between Nigerian and Sicilian organised crime, human trafficking of women, narcotics, guns, etc. All the tropes of the libido are invoked, as much as the journalists attempt to underline the horror of the situation. Black sexual labour in Sicily is carried out under conditions as exploitative, and even more dangerous, than Black agricultural labour. Murder and violence is frequent, choice is almost (if not entirely) non existent. Women are ransomed and beaten into the labour force. And while the increasing supply of trafficked Nigerian women is well known, the increasing demand for sexual labour by European men is hardly mentioned. It might be argued that supply is meeting a prior but unrealised demand; there is however also an uncomfortable possibility that the demand has increased along with anti-migrant rhetoric, and continuing othering of Black Europeans and, indeed, Black Europe. The racial division of labour cuts across the female and male workforces, and the manufactured hatred for Blacks encourages the exploitation of both.

Both the male and female Black workforces are reproductive, in the sense that both are heavily involved in the reproduction and valorisation of the Italian workforce. As schematic as this might be, this holds true for the sexual workforce in that it allows for the violence of the Italian male workforce to be meted out on an Other and redirect it away from Italian men and women; the sex trade is also enabling the flow of capital out of the Italian middle class (or, better put, the salaried classes) and into the informal sector, in the same way that the drug trade does. From the informal sector it works its way up the chain again into the Mafia bourgeoisie, whether white or black. The male and female Black labour force is also reproductive in that it performs labour which saves time for Italian workers, enabling them to go to work. The most well known example is cleaning houses and offices, and looking after the elderly, jobs which have been performed in Italy by women of colour since the 1970s (as much as Italians generally claim that immigration began in the 1990s.) These jobs are increasingly performed by Black men as well as women. Other urban jobs performed by the Black workforce (particularly outside of the agricultural season) are washing cars, carrying and packing at supermarkets and informal markets, cleaning in kitchens, and informal construction work. It is normal for Black men to be paid €20/day for such work, or less. The low wages of this work allows for a range of services to be sold to the Italian salaried classes at lowered prices, ameliorating stagnant Italian wages. The racial division of labour functions as a pressure valve, beating back the complaints of the white working class not only in providing a scapegoat for their animosity, but also in compensating for depressed incomes.

[ldorbin-blog1]

My first ramblings

I don't normally post big things online but I feel the need to and this seems like the ideal place to start it off. So there are a few things that have been bugging me recently and after last nights horrific act of cowardice on Manchester and how ‘close to home’ it has been for so many in the north it feels right to get them written down. As a country we need to think very carefully about how we act going forward. There are many things at the moment I am proud of and many that make me sick. The current election that is going ahead is a good place to start on this, the last election was held and many people had there vote swayed by the promise of an EU referendum. There were many policies that most peopled used to make there mind up who ‘best represented’ them but it appears the EU referendum was the closer to the deal. The day of the referendum arrived and mislead on what we all now are aware were false promises the country decided to leave. I went to bed hopefully the country had the same opinion as me, that being in the EU was something to be proud of. There may have been some laws imposed that we didn't like or didn't suit us but overall they helped us and I was proud to be from a country that helped others. There was also some laws passed by the EU that have been great, thats before we look into the trade and business that comes through Great Britain because of it. I was also prepared to accept the peoples opinion as after all this is apparently a democracy and looked forward to see what happened either way. When the result came in I was sickened, all the hope had gone and the great feeling of shame took its place. What had we done? It was a decision none the less and ‘the people’ had spoken. So off we go to make the best of the situation we have landed ourselves in, with leadership changing hands all over the place during massive political instability, whats the worst that could happen? Over the next few months promises fade to ‘well that was just a suggestion’. A country led to a decision based on suggestions? That cant be right? Apparently it is, as it is all brushed under the carpet with no repercussions for those involved. So now we go into a general election that has been brought upon us by the very person who took over in the unstable times and said there will not be an election to make sure we are ‘strong and stable’ throughout the negotiations. Whoops. Now i am sat here deciding who to vote for, in the past I have voted Lib Dem only to witness them go back on all there promises to keep things friendly in the coalition. Then on to the Conservatives as somebody who has worked hard to get into my position where I earn what I do, I like to see those who work hard rewarded. on top of this i thought they were doing a good job of what was necessary to lead us out of the recession. This time around I have no idea. I have come to learn that not one party really has my best interest in mind. Our political system is based on voting for who is best for my area in the hope they represent ME in parliament. Realistically we are voting for the puppets of the party leaders. If I vote for my labour MP (who has stood in this area for a long time) I am admitting to agreeing with all of Mr Corbyn’s policies, if i vote for our Conservative MP I am am saying all of Mrs May’s policies are a great idea. This is far from the case, i agree with parts of both. How can we have both you ask? I wish I knew, no party stands for what I believe and I am sure I am not alone in saying that as much as I hate the privatisation of everything (Especially the NHS) I also hate the idea of tearing into hard working citizens to support those who haven't worked as hard! I have seen many social media posts that think this is about the class system and that people who aren't in well payed job are worth less, it isn’t! To me it is about encouraging people to work hard, and supporting those that work as hard as they can. The current campaign started with the 2 main parties concentrating on what was wrong with each others policies, rather than promoting there own. It has now spread to the media focusing on certain aspects of the policies to highlight the good bits of the parties they support. It takes considerable effort to go and find all the information required to make your decision, yes more people will vote than ever but most of hem will vote based on the media propaganda as apposed to which parties views they most agree with. We find ourselves in a position now in a country driven by finance and Key Performance Indicators in business. This is also becoming the way in everyday life too. For example managers are more concerned with looking good to there superiors than making sure there workforce are as productive and well rewarded as possible. the same way our local MP’s are in parliament to support the Prime minister and not represent their constituents views. Have you seen or heard from your local MP’s so far in this election? Nobody has asked what I want. This approach works short term to increase profits as you cut costs but in the end you will drive everybody to loose drive to work harder then productivity drops and companies end up in a position that I think sums up our county now. Why bother? Nothing I do will effect anything! We are screwed anyway! Whats the point? Does this sound familiar to you? It sure as does with me, I go to work to be discouraged from working hard to find I live in a country that was once a proud place to be full of depression, anxiety and people from all walks of life struggling to make ends meet. On to last nights horrors. Along side all the worries from the financial side of life we are in a world where some people think that a suicide bomb at a music concert full of young people is the right way to spread a message. A message they have been trying to spread since September 9th 2001. A message I still don't understand, or even know what they are trying to say. Terror? Fear? Well we would be stupid if we said they hadn't done that, wouldn't we? I totally agree that life should carry on in a normal a way as possible, but for those who have had there lives ruined by sick, twisted, broken individuals, this just isn't possible. I would love to walk around as though nothing had happened in the past but fear can not be helped and will cause some responses that given time people will not be proud of. However from this the best of humanity is shown and in time some responses that even the most caring people in the world could look back on and be proud. I really do think every single person who went out of there way to ensure the safety of those present in the Manchester attack last night is a hero. you can walk around for the rest of your lives knowing that you have made a difference to many peoples lives and that is all you can ever wish for. Where do we go from here? I don't know. I have many questions as I am sure we all do. I have no answers and I am sure nobody does. However I do know that we need to be very careful where we go, what we do, and who we trust to do it. It is such a shame that in this major crossroads in British history, no way is clearly sign posted, each road is in darkness and that I don't trust anybody but myself to chose which road to take. This scares me, and I am not afraid to admit it. I will vote because it is my right and privilege to have a say in my countries parliament, even if I do wish I could remove all parties and start again with a system about representing the people from the bottom up! Be it in running a business or the country, remember if the people who actually deal with your decisions aren't happy then you have made the wrong one. Even if you do look good to your superiors. I would rather please the 10’s,100’s or even 1000’s of people I represent than the one person who I have the privilege of representing them too.