Notes
Realized today as I was listening to the John de Lancie episode of Gates McFadden Investigates that I would 100% sign up for a Star Trek acting intensive with those two as teachers. ๐๐ป
Today’s 28 Days of Black History post about Jerry Lawson, who led the division that made the first console where players could change out game cartridges, is exactly the kind of thing my vintage computing nerd heart loves. Check it out! ๐ฎ
I just did a search on Google Scholar for the exact phrases “serious leisure” and “pedagogy of play” together and only found one result. I’m going to put on my thinking cap now. It’s very pretty. (It’s invisible.)
Finished reading: Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon ๐
Again!
๐ Read My Platonic Life Partnership Went Viral On TikTok, & People Have A Lot Of Questions
I’m a person who’s been squarely romantically committed for 23+ years but I am so happy this idea is out there for people that need it. It’s sort of like having a chosen sibling, I think - at least, it sounds like how I feel about my sister.
Peak on-brand middle aged Kimberly: Cutting out doll clothes sewing patterns while watching the Ask a Mortician video about books bound in human skin.
๐ Read Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot Dotโ | Against the Contemporary American Essay by Jackson Arn.
Timely, given my own musings on essays. There’s a lot of fun to be had in this anti-essay essay.
I haven’t felt like writing a long blog post for the post couple of weeks. Maybe tomorrow. I’m reading a lot though & that has made me really happy. I’m also drinking a lot of smoothies and eating a lot of oatmeal. I hope that’s enough of an update for now. Stay safe, friends!
Currently reading: Ninth House (Alex Stern Book 1) by Leigh Bardugo ๐
Currently reading: Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930 (CultureAmerica) by Kelly J. Baker ๐
Finished reading: King Of Scars by Leigh Bardugo ๐
I love it so much. Nikolai, Zoya, and Nina have always been my faves so it felt a little like Leigh Bardugo wrote this book just for me.
Finished reading: Sexism Ed: Essays on Gender and Labor in Academia by Kelly J. Baker ๐
Highly recommend. Baker’s writing is always incisive and accessible. She’s one the writers that inspires me to want to keep writing.
๐ Read The Holes We Live With by Katie Rose Guest Pryal.
I think my hole is named in the Encanto song “Surface Pressure”:
I’m pretty surะต I’m worthless if I can’t be of servicะต
Dana has a lightsaber now.
[Image description: An 18 inch doll holds an appropriately scaled lightsaber.]
Want to read: The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University (Reforming Higher Education: Innovation and the Public Good) by Adrianna Kezar ๐
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The life of the mind tends to ignore the body, but our bodies aren’t so easily avoided. - Kelly J. Baker in Sexism Ed: Essays on Gender and Labor in Academia, reflecting on bell hooks’s Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
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Explaining away the plight of adjuncts as brainwashed dupes ignores the structural realities of the disastrous academic job market. - Kelly J. Baker, Sexism Ed: Essays on Gender and Labor in Academia
I thought the Internet should know: Nikolai Lantsov is now my book boyfriend. Sorry, Kvothe. (Links definitely contain spoilers.) ๐
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One of [the] things about the “love professions,” which includes academia, it is really easy to forget that you are a worker. But when people remember that they are workers, they can make life better for themselves. - Miya Tokumitsu, interviewed by Kelly J. Baker in Sexism Ed: Essays on Gender and Labor in Academia
Finished reading: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty ๐
Accepting death doesn’t mean that you won’t be devastated when someone you love dies. It means you will be able to focus on your grief, unburdened by bigger existential questions like “Why do people die?” and “Why is this happening to me?” Death isn’t happening to you. Death is happening to us all. - Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory
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The great achievements of humanity were born out of the deadlines imposed by death. - Caitlin Doughty, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory
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The doll is named Dana. She is here now and I think she’s actually 200% haunted. The mid-life crisis continues.
I’m psyched to present my dissertation research at FanLIS 2022: Fan Futures Beyond the Archive. I’ll talk about how cosplayers find, evaluate, use, share, and create information, as well as possibilities for FanLIS as a discipline to expand into fan practices beyond fanfic.