sabotabby: (doom doom doom)
sabotabby ([personal profile] sabotabby) wrote2025-09-19 07:09 am
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podcast friday

 You should stop whatever you're doing and listen to Wizards & Spaceships' latest, "The Science Bros Answer Your Science Questions Part 2." There's a lot of explaining physics (and the problems with time travel, but also how mutable the immutable laws of the universe might be), and more slagging off the idea of Mars colonization. But most importantly there's a bit about dragon evolution that is rad as hell. It will make your day.
sabotabby: (books!)
sabotabby ([personal profile] sabotabby) wrote2025-09-17 06:55 am
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Reading Wednesday

 Just finished: Notes From a Regicide by Isaac Fellman. Goddamn this was good. It's one of those dreamy, elegiac works where I'm at a loss to tell you exactly why it affected me that strongly (but honestly, read the plot summary I mentioned two weeks ago) and that's a critical part of its strength, the degree to which Fellman inhabits the story. I've seen a lot of post-apocalyptic, we're back to a lower technology level settings, but very few where the social and cultural changes affect the style (the other one is Ada Palmer, who is writing semi-utopian, higher-technology settings but does a similar thing where the prose evokes a more historical style but is off slightly, because it's the future). He's also doing a lot of work with biography and memory; there is one part where Griffon, reflecting on Etoine, describes him as cold, admits we've seen almost nothing of this, and suggests that he only really talks about his moments of passion in disproportion to how he was in regular life. This is very much a throw-you-into-the-deep-end type of book in terms of its worldbuilding, and even to some degree its characters. We never really find out who Yair was beyond the cross-dressing Jewish guy who took Etoine and Zaffre in when they moved to New York, and that he's dead and they still mourn him, and it doesn't matter, because it's outside of Griffon's scope and his parents don't like to talk about the past.

Okay, I think that actually nails down why it resonated with me so deeply. It reminds me of my grandparents—who, for the record, were not trans, were not revolutionaries or leftists in any way, and were not artistic—in the way that when they told stories, they would evade a great deal. Like a Turner painting where most of it is an ethereal abstract and you get maybe one section of specific detail. It was frustrating as a child, of course, never really knowing your family's story, and I think this is a pretty common experience and why everyone is so obsessed with genealogy and connecting with fifth cousins these days. I imagine even more so if you find out your parents were artist-revolutionaries in a magical city frozen in time. Anyway. I loved this one quite a bit.

It's Okay, Just Set Me On Fire by Billions Against Billionaires. This is a 'zine, which I wouldn't normally log except it's really good and I wanted to draw your attention to it. It's about how fascist billionaires suck. All the writing is quite strong and it includes a single-player Basilisk simulation RPG and you should get it for the cover alone. It was quietly slipped to me by a member of the collective who put it out and now my goal is to write something worthy of the second issue. Here it is.

Currently reading: Antifa Lit Journal Vol. 1: What If We Kissed While Sinking a Billionaire's Yacht?, edited by Chrys Gorman. Well, the first story fuckin' whips. I mean, it's an anthology about how fascists suck. Maybe there's a broader rant I have about author/editor-led anthologies in general, because I keep having the same issues with them (see what I did there?) but it's a project worth doing anyway, and worth buying for the cover alone (so buy it).
fox_in_me: fox.in.me (Default)
fox_in_me ([personal profile] fox_in_me) wrote2025-09-13 01:33 pm

Свет осени среди штормов / Autumn Light Between Storms

odesa 2025


📝 Оригинальный текст записи
Добрый день, уважаемые читатели. Прошу прощения за длительный перерыв и мою слабую активность здесь.
На календаре уже осень, а в душе по-прежнему сорок какой-то августа. Множество планов, которые были на это лето, к сожалению, так и не исполнились — в основном из-за нехватки времени и сил.
Осень остаётся моей любимой порой года. Несмотря на войну и боевые действия, мне очень хочется ловить прекрасные моменты в объектив. Как и раньше, я стараюсь не снимать разрушения — достаточно видеть их глазами, чтобы помнить, но не множить боль.
Одно из самых желанных мгновений, которое я хочу воплотить, — встретить рассвет под фортепиано в Одессе. Это возможно лишь при условии, что хватит сил и вдохновения, но мысль о такой встрече сама по себе греет.
Скоро будет месяц, как я занимаю новую должность, осваивая для себя что-то совершенно новое. За это время я успел проехать через всю Украину и вернуться, снова увидев реальность, которая отличается от красивых роликов на YouTube. Пейзажи по дороге прозаичны: опустевшие сёла даже вдали от фронта, потому что люди уехали.
О службе скажу коротко: понять её, глядя на видео, читая статьи или рассматривая фотографии, невозможно. Жизнь на местах — совсем иная. Пафос и громкие слова остаются где-то в больших штабах, а на передовой — простые человеческие взаимоотношения, где ценятся поддержка и честность.
Я никогда не планировал карьеру в армии — всё складывается само собой. Трудно строить планы, когда нет даже намёка на конец войны. Но, как ни странно, именно это отсутствие определённости учит жить сегодняшним днём, замечать мелочи и цепляться за каждый проблеск красоты.
Осень — пора тихого света и долгих теней. Может быть, именно она напомнит нам, что даже после самых долгих бурь приходит время сбора и надежды. Я хочу верить, что однажды, проснувшись, мы будем слушать не тревоги, а музыку рассвета.
Времени на чтение новостей у меня в почти нет, но знаю ,что мир точечно прогревается под новые конфликты, слова потеряли свою силу, мир делят те, за кем стоят крупнейшие армии и передовые технологии.
С приходом очени вспомнилась одна итересная история, еее я напишу по возможности как буду в командировке. Єто история из нормальной жизни, без воин и прочего.
Так же добавлю немного о настроениях людей: Я біл в местах призіва и обучения людей в армию, видел в живую то, что не показівают нигде, реальніе лица, реальная картиа происходящего у нас. Люди не хотят служить, даже если єто будет служба относительно неподалеку от дома, либо не связанная с боевіми дейсвиями, так с подовляющим большинством людей. Любая ограниченная свобода лучше погной несвободы.
Так же добавлю, что стало рамного менше теристов, хоть сезон в городе продолжается, и снова появились курсанты в морской форме на улицах города. Если не знать о тривогах ,обстрілах других городов очень сложно
Хочу как можно скорее вернуться в мир дневников, читать Ваши записи и писать, возмжоно как в фильме «полночь в париже», без боевых дейсвий.



Note translated in assistance with AI.

Good day, dear readers. Please accept my apologies for the long break and my low activity here.

The calendar says autumn has arrived, but in my heart, it still feels like the fortieth of August. Many plans I had for this summer, unfortunately, didn’t come true — mostly due to a lack of time and energy.

Autumn remains my favorite season. Despite the war and ongoing hostilities, I still want to capture beautiful moments through my lens. As before, I avoid photographing destruction — it’s enough to see it with my own eyes to remember, without multiplying the pain.

One of the moments I most wish to make real is to meet the sunrise accompanied by a piano in Odesa. This is only possible if I have the strength and inspiration, but even the thought of it is comforting.

Soon it will be a month since I took on a new position, learning something completely different. During this time, I traveled across all of Ukraine and back, once again seeing a reality far removed from the polished videos on YouTube. The landscapes were plain: deserted villages even far from the front, emptied because their people had left.

About the service, I’ll say briefly: you can’t truly understand it by watching videos, reading articles, or looking at photos. Life on the ground is completely different. The pomp and big words remain in large headquarters, while on the front lines it’s all about simple human relationships, where support and honesty matter most.

I never planned a military career — things just happen as they do. It’s hard to plan a normal life when there isn’t even a hint of the war’s end. Yet, strangely, this uncertainty teaches you to live in the present, to notice the small things, and to hold on to every glimpse of beauty.

Autumn is a time of soft light and long shadows. Perhaps it will remind us that even after the longest storms, a season of gathering and hope arrives. I want to believe that one day, when we wake up, we will hear not alarms but the music of dawn.

I barely have time to read the news, but I know the world is quietly heating up for new conflicts. Words have lost their power, and the world is divided by those backed by the largest armies and the most advanced technologies.

With the arrival of autumn, one interesting story came to mind. I’ll write it when I can, during a business trip. It’s a story from ordinary life — without wars or anything of that kind.

Let me add a little about people’s moods: I’ve been in places where people are drafted and trained for the army, and I’ve seen firsthand what isn’t shown anywhere else — real faces, the real picture of what’s happening. People don’t want to serve, even if it’s near home or not directly tied to combat. The overwhelming majority feels this way. Any limited freedom is still better than complete lack of freedom.

I also noticed there are fewer tourists now, even though the season in the city continues, and once again there are cadets in naval uniforms on the streets. If you didn’t know about the air raid alerts and the shelling of other cities, you could almost believe in ordinary life again.

I want to return to the world of diaries as soon as possible — to read your entries and write my own. Perhaps, like in Midnight in Paris, without war.

sabotabby: (doom doom doom)
sabotabby ([personal profile] sabotabby) wrote2025-09-12 07:20 am
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podcast friday

My major podcast news is that I finally finished listening to Mike Duncan's French Revolution series. A phrase I remember from the foreword to the copy of Ulysses I read as a teenager always sticks in my head: "you put it down with the triumph of a general suppressing a revolt," or something like that. I commend the effort it took to make this podcast—it's nso much research and writing and analysis and it's an incredibly good history of the French Revolution.

But.

Nothing really sticks in my head. This is possibly because Mike is more interested in dates and names than I am, and more interested in military strategy than either he claims or I can understand. But it's also a factor of his voice, which he can't really help, but I'm quite allergic to what I call NPR Voice. I just kind of drift off. It's kind of like, "this happened, and then this person did this. How droll." I have the same problem with Conspirituality sometimes, and pretty much all the time with Democracy Now. It just slides off my brain. Nevertheless it's worth listening to if that is not a problem for you.
sabotabby: (books!)
sabotabby ([personal profile] sabotabby) wrote2025-09-10 07:34 am
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Reading Wednesday

 Just finished: Nothing.

Currently reading: Notes From a Regicide by Isaac Fellman. I'm getting near the end of this and it's so good. By the way, fantasy authors, this is how you do worldbuilding. Fellman isn't concerned with why things work as they do, the details of how the post-apocalyptic New York functions or why Stephensport is stuck in time; everything is character, narrowed to the focus of Griffon and Etoine. Even Zaffre's rebel activities are in soft focus—we know there are revolutionary trans nuns (hell yeah) but Etoine is so hyperfocused on her, and what she represents, that the scale and scope of their rebellion are outside the scope of his understanding. 

And it's just written so well. There's a subtle strangeness to all of the language that is just weird and offputting enough to feel like journal entries of two men across a gap of time and culture, not only from us, but from each other.