Multipassionate scholar-librarian and mom. Metadata mermaid. Lovechild of Giles and Jenny Calendar. (Not so) secret goth. Wearer of crowns and fairy wings. She/her. Blog updated most weekdays.
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Spotted this little mushroom nestled in the grass outside the co-working space/Montessori School.
Currently reading: Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of ‘80s and ‘90s Teen Fiction by Gabrielle Moss 📚
📺 Watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 1 episode 7, “Duel of the Droids.”
📚 Read Uncanny X-Men #131.
This is what one doctoral candidate looks like.
It’s Proposal Defense Eve, when Impostor Syndrome comes out to frolic!
📺 Watched Ranma ½, season 1, episode 1.
📺 Watched Sailor Moon, Season 1, episodes 1 & 2.
📺 Watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Season 1 episodes:
I really enjoyed Yoda being awesome in “Ambush,” but the rest of these are a bit space battle-heavy for my tastes. I watched most of them while cleaning, so I didn’t pay super close attention. I’m looking forward to later seasons when things involve more diplomacy.
Imbolc Tarot Spread by Lindsay Mack
Cards are The Moonchild Tarot.
Okay before we dig too deep, let’s look at #3.
I’m defending my dissertation proposal on Monday. Pretty perfect to have The Universe here, as it’s a great time to celebrate the completion of an important cycle. (I’m probably only going to take one day off, though; there are IRB and fellowship applications to submit.)
As for the other two, around the Solstice I totally decided to really be myself and take care of “boring responsible grown-up shit” as Bakara Winter puts it.
But with #2 I was like WAIT WHAT? And pulled more cards for clarification and got the 3 of Swords? WHAT IS GOING ON? I’m going to harvest fear at the equinox? So I pulled more cards. The Devil! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? (But also yeah, fear IS bondage of my own making, fair enough, The Devil) so I’m all, fine, I guess by the equinox I’m going to be ready to let go of fear and accept support and abundance and love, cool, but… Let’s just get some more details, yeah? THE FREAKING HANGED MAN. Major arcana energy today! Okay, release fear, accept love, embrace the nature of a time of transition (absolutely what the time between dissertation proposal defense and dissertation itself defense is…), but for what? What are we getting at here, Tarot?
Oh.
The Ace of Pentacles. Yeah, that tracks.
A small first step toward abundance.
Okay.
I’m with you, Tarot.
Want to read: Monster, She Wrote by Lisa Kröger and Melanie R. Anderson 📚
Switching my kid’s carseat from rear-facing to front-facing is a much bigger milestone than I thought it would be.
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I was trying to figure out how to scrape data from YouTube for my dissertation & then I remembered I have MaxQDA which will do it for me & now I’m looking @ 410 comments for 1 video that were downloaded automatically in less than a minute & it’s so beautiful I might cry.
Want to read: The Summoner by Gail Z. Martin 📚
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Want to read: The Once and Future Geek by Mari Mancusi 📚
Want to read: Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia 📚
Look, I’m never not going to have a crush on Wil Wheaton, okay? (This message brought to you by his GoodReads review of John Scalzi’s The Collapsing Empire.)
Want to read: The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi 📚
Want to read: Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty 📚
🎵 Listened to The Hazards of Love by The Decemberists.
I “picked this up,” to the extent that one can digitally do such a thing via a streaming service, because it is the source of the game Illimat. Illimat was conceived as a device for a photoshoot related to the album, and the Luminary cards - colorful, narrative-ish Tarot-sized cards - in the game are drawn from the story of the album. I read the summary on Wikipedia before listening, and flipped back and forth between tabs with my work in them and the lyrics at Genius to make sure I was following everything.
After reading the summary, I was like, yeah, this is my kind of narrative. Fairy story elements, creepy goth kinda stuff (The Rake is hella goth, y’all), sad love and such. As I was listening, the first thing that occurred to me was that this reminded me of Whisper House, the first thing Duncan Sheik released in the wake of Spring Awakening. It, too, is a creepy and old-fashioned feeling concept album that was eventually staged as a musical. It was released in January 2009, a couple of months before The Hazards of Love. And it has ghosts in it.
It’s weird listening to these things 11 years after their release, especially because I first listened to Whisper House as soon as it was released. I’m sure as I ruminate on them more, I’ll come up with some thoughts about the timing of their release and how it relates to my own life experience in early 2009, when I was about to leave teaching behind to go to library school, just after the inspiring inauguration day for President Obama, which happened on the day after we had a snowstorm here and the world felt quiet and peaceful and full of promise.
And here were these two albums, like a warning, almost.
the prettiest whistles won’t wrestle the thistles undone
from The Hazards of Love and
When everything is done
and everything is said
Life is naught but pain
from Whisper House.
Now that I’ve depressed you thoroughly, back to my thoughts about The Hazards of Love, which actually isn’t similar to Whisper House at all, I just have only very limited experience with concept albums and thus they all remind me of each other. (But I’m about to go listen to a bunch more because they really are very the kind of thing I like.)
Anyway. In summary, I liked it, but it’s not a thing I’m going to listen to over and over again (which I did, in 2009, with Whisper House). I don’t know from music if it’s not showtunes, so I can’t tell you about the sound, you know, or how it affected me. And I don’t care about the depth of the story, I care about the flavor, which is very much my speed.
So here’s what I can tell you, then:
Parenthood has ruined me for culture.
Happens to most parents, I think.
Anyway, I like The Hazards of Love, and I love Illimat.
Want to read: Pride and Prometheus by John Kessel 📚