Notes
📚 Revisiting Time’s The 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time.
N. K. Jemisin:
Don’t think of fantasy as mere entertainment, then, but as a way to train for reality. It always has been, after all.
📺 Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures is exactly the Star Wars show I would have written as a kid:
- Kai Brightstar
- Nash Durango
- The Crimson Firehawk
Brilliant targeting for its audience.
Finished reading: Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale 📚
A sweet historical romance involving a Quaker and a rakish Duke.
Announcement time!
Do you write a blog? Send it to me and I’ll read it!
🔖🌐 Read Webring History.
animated email gifs, web counters, scrolling and/or blinking text, midi background music that could not be turned off and the “under construction” images.
I’d forgotten about midi background music! This quote is basically a list of things that made the web feel fun for me. I’m going to work on recapturing that vibe, even if the tech looks different.
I was feeling disconnected from the Micro.blog community, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t just because I wasn’t posting that much. So I changed the setting so that I see replies in my timeline. (I’d had them hidden.) I already feel more part of the conversation.
O no two meetings left, not done for 3+ hrs, and yet so sleepy. Might be an afternoon caffeine day. I would love to just live in Paris forever but it will be really nice when I’m only 3 time zones away from my colleagues.
🔖 How Does Motherhood Impact Your Creativity? It’s Complicated vogue.com
Read: www.vogue.com
My inhibitions were methodically ripped to shreds by the pure chaotic energy of the small children and carers around me. I stopped caring about whether what I was doing made me feel silly, and that is a huge boon to anyone wanting to express themselves creatively.
I’m in Paris this week so I don’t know how much of Micro Camp I’ll catch live, but the schedule looks great.
Missing Moulin Rouge playing in my hometown but it’s okay because I got to see the actual Moulin Rouge.
🔖🎵 Read Patiently Holding the Sound: Gretchen Parlato on motherhood as a musical inspiration.
What a great interview.
🔖🌐 Read Bring Back Personal Blogging by Monique Judge (The Verge).
My blog host, Micro.blog, has declared it the Summer of Blogging and is offering 4 months of their standard hosting plan at a price of $1/month. I highly recommend them. If you want a simple way to have your own website, this is worth a try.
I’ve been obsessed with this chandelier for a long time and today I finally got to see it in person.
Reading the souvenir book they sell at Shakespeare and Company, Shakespeare and Company: A Brief History of a Parisian Bookstore.
For George, it was more important to have a community of readers and writers than just to sell books.
😍
Je suis à Paris. J’adore Paris. Yesterday I sat in the reading room of Shakespeare and Company, wrote in my notebook, and pretended to be A Writer. (I am a writer. But I am A Reader.)
I’m grieving dooce by going through her archives and reading this post while I am in Paris is extra beautiful. I was cranky and tired and in pain the day we got here, and even so as soon as I stepped out of the train station into the city, it took my breath away. I’ve always suspected Paris would be my heart’s true home (I was born on Bastille Day) and it’s lovely to have it confirmed.
Starting Season 7 in my rewatch of Star Trek: The Next Generation, finding myself very glad there’s so much other Trek media including TNG tie-ins so I basically never have to say goodbye to my Enterprise D friends. 🖖🏻📺
Want to read: The Witch of Woodland by Laurel Snyder 📚
🔖📝 Read My Commitment to Wellness as a Lifelong Writer by Yolande House — Breathing Space Creative
I’ve learned that honouring my needs each and every day is a part of what loving myself looks like. When I finally learned how to love myself, I learned it’s not a goal with an end. Rather, it’s a process of committing and being true to myself each and every day, even when (and especially when) it’s hard.
Over the past week, I’ve worked through Esmé Weijun Wang’s workshop, Building a Writing Habit While Living with Limitations. In the workshop, we assess our limitations, set writing goals, inventory our resources, explore how we can make the most of our 24 hours. Highly recommend, $117. 📝
🔖📚 Read BookTok encourages reading as an aesthetic and no one is safe from its gaze by Elena Cavender (Mashable).
Insightful piece about how limiting our reading to a particular aesthetic connects with our attention being commodified.
Finished reading: Mr. & Mrs. Witch by Gwenda Bond 📚
Loved it. Scorchingly hot, fun secret agent hijinks. Highly recommend.
I am reading Gwenda Bond’s Mr. & Mrs. Witch right now and one of the 🔥 scenes actually made me cry because it was so beautiful and made me so happy. 📚
🔖📓 Read Automated transcription and some risks of machine interpretation.
Dr. Daniel Turner does a great job illuminating how large language models work and how we need to think about indigeneity and colonialism when choosing our transcription method.