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May. 23rd, 2026 10:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dialecticdreamer
Affordable Housing
May. 23rd, 2026 08:41 pmysabetwordsmithTHE PLOTLAND HOUSES OF BRITAIN: HOW A 20TH CENTURY WORKING-CLASS HOUSING MOVEMENT WAS STIFLED
His piece of land cost him £10 in 1934. It is 40 ft wide by 100 ft deep. First, he put up a tent which his family used at weekends, and he gradually accumulated tools, timber and glass which he brought to the site strapped to his back as he cycled down from London. – Dennis Hardy & Colin Ward, Arcadia for All, 1984, p. 200
In the first half of the twentieth century, and particularly in the inter-war period, up to the 1947 Planning Act, the appearance throughout Britain of thousands of self-built shacks, chalets, recycled buses and railway carriages was considered by the powers-that-be as a terrible eyesore. Middle-class planners like Clough Williams-Ellis, architect of Portmeirion, the set of The Prisoner, considered them a ‘blot on the landscape’ that needed to be eradicated. But from another viewpoint, 80 years on, they look like the beginning of a postmodern urban vernacular. They were a new working-class architecture in the process of being evolved, that was brought to a halt through ignorance and class prejudice.
( Read more... )
Just Create - Ennui Edition
May. 23rd, 2026 06:07 pmsilvercat17 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
justcreateAn Owl (in Memory of Gil) by David Shapiro
May. 26th, 2026 08:27 pmconulyThe child for all his feathers was a cold.
Oh wow the owl.
The poem the vowels
The owl, look its vowels
That branch for you
Owl, are you an armature vector
And a large step for mankind?
Owl astronaut burgeoning owl is a gift
You give to me give to you
Terrible other things happen.
We stay on our branch.
A hundred eyes
Two will do
Link
I need some music recs
May. 24th, 2026 09:17 pmconulyPlease and thankies!
( Read more... )
Me-and-media update
May. 24th, 2026 10:55 amchina_shopIn the Circus poll, 25% of respondents would like to be the knife-thrower, while 18.2% would prefer to be the acrobat. In ticky-boxes, eight hours' sleep beat hugs, 79.5% to 77.3%! Artistic poetry-reciting tigers came third with 54.5%. Thank you for your votes! ♥
Reading
Cetaganda by Bujold (read by Grover Gardner) is fun, but we're not getting through it very quickly for logistical reasons.
I started Ann Leckie's latest Radch book, Radiant Star, read by Adjoa Andoh my beloved, but I'm having trouble focusing. My usual method of audiobook listening is to surf the emotional wave, so to speak, and this is political, worldbuildy omniscient POV. Maybe I should try it in text instead.
I also have some Nghi Vo and the latest Amina al-Sirafi (Shannon Chakraborty) to catch up on, along with the entirety of the 520 Day Guardian Reverse Exchange collection, which went live this week, yay!
Kdramas
I'm super enjoying To My Beloved Thief, a historical that bears similarities to Knight Flower but manages to be crackier. The prince plays against type, which is great, and I'm hanging out for an enemies-to-lovers OT3 (not my usual flavour of OT3, but they're all so entangled). We shall see. No spoilers, please!
Also still into Absolute Value of Romance, though last week's episodes were a bit weird. I'm increasingly conspiracy-theorising that it's a stealth m/m show. Could it be? Surely they realise who their audience is, given the starting premise?! (I haven't been able to watch this week's eps yet. Please don't tell me anything, not even a hint.)
And last weekend, Andrew and our friend Ed and I semi-randomly started a supernatural mystery/thriller called Miraculous Brothers, which I was mostly interested in for Bae Hyun Sung (Hae Joon from Family by Choice). I have no idea where it's going, which is always fun.
Other TV
Pardon My Icelandic - Ari Eldjárn standup special on Netflix. Great linguistic humour, fun with accents. (Hilariously, it came up when I searched for British stand-up.)
Cunk on Earth - one episode. Did not click.
Scrubs (original flavour) has outstayed its welcome. I'm starting to actively dislike JD, and the male-gaziness is off the charts. (Sorry to people who like it!)
The Burroughs - three episodes of the Duffers' new show. It's a bit slow, mostly an exercise in "who's that actor?" but it's only 8 episodes, so we'll probably finish it. (Honestly, I don't think it needs the monsters.) My favourite part is Geena Davis and her younger love interest.
Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, Better Offline, Tech Won't Save Us (episode: "The UK Government's AI Obsession is a Big Risk w/ Will Dunn" /o\), Cross Party Lines, Guilt-Free Pleasures ("Whitesnake's Here I Go Again"), Dreaming Against the Machine, about 20 minutes of Pod Save America, Keep It Steady episode 7 (timeline cleanse), a bunch of ChinesePod beginner lessons ("不好意思, 我先走了"), and half an episode of You Can Learn Chinese.
Online life
The 520 Day Reverse Exchange is live, yay!!! I'll post separately about my Utterly Delightful Gift and the thing I wrote. I haven't been very present on Dreamwidth, but I've been around a lot, modding and writing, which feels Dreamwidth-adjacent (at least to me).
Writing/making things
I spent an hour on Wednesday rewriting a single sentence in my 520 Day fic. That's sort of how it's going. I have 687 words of a flashfic that I started for the last
fan_flashworks round (Avalanche), which I'm now planning to squeeze into this round (Late). Hopefully I'll finish it soon, so I can keep my "one fic a month" average steady. And then I'll get back to my Yuletide fic.Life/health/mental state things
At some point pre-Covid, I had standing lunch dates every weekday, plus (at one point) multiple weekly language exchange meet-ups and TV-watching dates. These days, almost all of my socialising involves friends coming over here for lunch or dinner/TV. My sole remaining regular lunch-date-in-town friend moved away last year but has been commuting, so we've met up roughly every second week. But she's just taken a job nearer her new place. I still see people a reasonable amount, but soon I won't have regular reasons to leave the house anymore. I may need to do something about that...
Some bad attacks by middle-of-the-night brain weasels lately. Bah!
House
My IKEA shelves arrive next week. I'm trying to plan how to organise things so I don't just stuff them full and close the door. Maybe I should watch some home organisation youtube videos? *loses half an hour* Oops!
Language Learning
I'm still going on Duolingo and Hello Chinese. The former has given me 30 days of free Premium (I can say, 我的爸爸不去中文书店和韩国饭店，你的爸爸呢？-- though, ha, when I came back to it, I didn't recognise the characters for bookstore or restaurant, despite knowing the pinyin.) With Hello Chinese, I'm still on the free option, so I mostly practice the 10 most commonly used characters (这是和不在有一的了人) and 一 to 十) and take the pronunciation quiz. (Typing is still a work in progress, but I'm getting there.) Question: is vocal fry part of 3rd tone? It seems really common, especially when people are enunciating clearly.
NZ politics, argh
( Cut to spare you. )
Good things
520 Day, woohoo! The weather has been conveniently mild. I made lemony fish pie on Friday; it was yum. Imminent new pillow and shelves (both in transit). My car actually started on Friday. A friend is lending us an EV to go up the coast and have lunch with my parents.
Among my siblings (if any), I'm
the oldest
17 (42.5%)
the youngest
8 (20.0%)
in the middle
5 (12.5%)
an only child
10 (25.0%)
a twin/triplet/etc.
0 (0.0%)
it's complicated
3 (7.5%)
other
1 (2.5%)
ticky-box full of giant pandas on streamer-bedecked penny-farthing bicycles
16 (40.0%)
ticky-box full of too many online subscriptions
12 (30.0%)
ticky-box full of electric eel electricians
14 (35.0%)
ticky-box full of taking a boogie break
9 (22.5%)
ticky-box full of hugs
30 (75.0%)
memes > chores
May. 23rd, 2026 04:32 pmshati( the meme instructions/notes/etc. )
1. On New Year's Day 1804, a group of generals gathered in Saint-Domingue to create a new nation.
2. In the United States, Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad, and Brazil, dolls and other types of appropriated and handmade figures along with Roman Catholic chromolithographs and religious statuary play numerous roles in such African Diaspora religions as Regla de Ocha, Shango, Vodou, and Candomblé.
3. Those, like Arthur Buies, who thought that the use of both languages would cause confusion and interference were more numerous: "We are so used to the two languages being mixed that we no longer make a difference, or see the character, the separate nature of each one."
4. "We are rejoiced to see your cities, and as we are here in your temple, what I now beg as a favour is that you will show us your gods and Teules."
5. They themselves shaped the creation of new practices that in turn became traditional.
Hornytown Chutzpah, by Andrew Hiller
May. 23rd, 2026 01:00 pmmrissaReview copy provided by the author, who's a convention/online buddy.
Sometime in your life, you've probably met a smartass who always has a joke for every occasion--and then gradually realized that this person was genuinely kind. That they were not punching down, and mostly they weren't punching at all, instead focusing their jokes on wry incongruity or situation rather than mocking individual people. That there was a core of tenderness behind the wisecracking. If you know the kind of person I mean (let's be real: several of you are the kind of person I mean), you will understand Sol, the narrator of Hornytown Chutzpah pretty much right away. He's not just called Solomon the Wise Guy for a wry historical reference. He's definitely a wiseacre--but not as dumb as he might joke that he is. He's coping using a very specific kind humor--in this case, the instantiation of it that shows up in a lot of American Jewish culture.
And boy, does Sol have a lot to cope with. I knew I was hooked all the way when the guy who is enough of a smartass to earn the nickname Solomon the Wise Guy can be brought to action with a reference to tikun olam. Look, friends, I'm not Jewish, but I know that one. A call to repair the world? those are lyrics everyone can enjoy. And having it be a touchstone, a point that rings our hero like a bell? I'm in, I'm all in.
The Hornytown of the title is an incursion of Hell into the Washington, DC, area, complete with hellfire around it and sin-eating demons within (and sometimes without). It's run by a figure that will look unfortunately familiar, but rest assured that our hero is all-in against him. I was frankly worried by the title, because my interest in "city of people who would like to have a lot of sex" is pretty minimal, but it's not that kind of Hornytown at all. Whew. Is there chutzpah, though? There is chutzpah to spare. Which is a good thing, because the literally hellish nature of the problems Sol faces will require it.
Table talk
May. 23rd, 2026 01:21 pmnineweaving
She and her husband, the author/illustrator Keith Miller, took me to the courtyard at Oleana, which is spectacular.
The conversation sang.
Nine
Birdfeeding
May. 23rd, 2026 12:01 pmysabetwordsmithI fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
I've seen a hummingbird flying around the forest garden. :D
EDIT 5/23/26 -- I potted up the fruit tree seedlings from the 12-flat in the house. Out of 24 sprouted seeds, 5 seedlings survived to repotting stage: 3 Pink apple (2 of those in the same cell), 1 Ginger Gold apple, and 1 Yellow Pear. All were near the center of the flat, right under the light. This suggests that the light is not strong enough to support seedlings at the edges. However, these were in the cells for about 2 1/2 months. If I'd been able to transplant them sooner, I would've gotten more. On the other hoof, the survivors are likely hardier in the face of poor conditions. As an r-strategy gardener, this has value to me. We'll see if any of these survive to get planted in the ground.
Fruit seeds are free. Potting supplies are cheap. I don't mind planting dozens of seeds if I eventually get some fruit trees from them. Because cheap fruit trees hardly worth buying are typically $25+ and the more interesting cultivars are $50-$100. Occasionally I find a better deal, but most fruit trees are now ruinously expensive. Fuck that noise. I'll just keep experimenting with different propagation methods.
EDIT 5/23/26 -- I potted up the fruit tree seedlings from the water jug greenhouses. I had 4 jugs, each with 9 sprouted seeds sown in them: yellow pear, Pink apple, Ginger Gold apple, Ambrosia apple. Of these, only 2 survived to be placed in deeper pots: a yellow pear and a Pink apple. However, these are larger and more robust seedlings than the ones from the small cells. So I think this is worth repeating; the overall success rate is quite low, but the resultant seedlings are very promising.
I've seen a male cardinal at the hopper feeder.
EDIT 5/23/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 5/23/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
EDIT 5/23/26 -- I planted things from jugs into the prairie garden. Little bluestem, northern sea oats, and side-oats gramma each had a few seedlings; switchgrass didn't sprout at all. I thought these would form dense rootballs like they have in smaller pots, but they did not; they were barely sprouts. I'm not sure any of them will survive. It seems that native grasses do not enjoy this method. I did get three milkweed sprouts. They didn't form a dense rootball either, but at least they were a little more vigorous.
EDIT 5/23/26 -- I watered the newly planted things.
As it is now dark, I am done for the night.
Poetry Fishbowl Update
May. 23rd, 2026 11:21 amysabetwordsmithfuzzyred has sponsored "A Proper Community Is a Commonwealth," "Your Emotional Abilities," and "Aim a Little Above It" plus put $55 towards "Let's Go on This Journey Together" so that now needs $251 to be complete.Poll: Rate My Glasses
May. 23rd, 2026 10:23 amjesse_the_k( Looking and polling )
little libraries
May. 23rd, 2026 09:00 amasakiyumeThere's also a short video linked in the article, which is great, because you can hear Mr Lee in his own words:
"I think Malaysia should follow China, where every village has one library. That's good."**
I was thinking of Little Free Libraries in this country. I think they're a great idea in places where there's foot traffic, where many different people might stop by and look over the books. I sometimes see them, though, in places where I wonder what traffic they'll get. On winding country roads with rather large houses situated far back from the roads on ample, gracious properties. And at the roadside, a little free library. But who's going to be walking by? I guess maybe the neighbors? But there's just not the same thickness of people.
Also, this guy thinks of himself as lending the books, not giving them away. He doesn't mind if you keep the book a month, six months, a year, and in fact he probably isn't going to be upset if a book doesn't come back, but the *idea* is that it will come back--and that means that the borrower has more connection with the site, and there's a sense of mutual responsibility. Plus the story says that people like to come and chat with him.
There can be more than one pattern! Little Free Libraries have a kind of spy-drop-box vibe. Ships passing in the night, taking books, maybe leaving books. That can be fun too. But I like the actual social interaction involved in what Mr Lee is doing.
Do any of you oversee a Little Free Library or frequent one (or more than one)? What's your experience been?
**Not exactly his words, which are Malaysian-English word order and has some special words I didn't catch, but that's how they're glossed and mainly what he said.
Radio Rolanni Off-Line for Scheduled Maintenance
May. 23rd, 2026 08:35 amrolanniSaturday -- sunny and cool.
I have finally found the Sekrit to making an enjoyable (as opposed to merely an OK) cup of Harney's Chocolate Chai Supreme, which is! (1) Realize that there is more than one cup, but less than two cups of leaves left, and just brew it all, leaving the cup 1/3(ish) empty. (2) After tea is brewed, fill the rest of the cup with milk, and dump in the last spoonful of Ghirardelli's Cocoa Powder. The result is something like spicy hot chocolate, and really quite tasty. That said, I will not be re-upping my supply of chocolate chai.
Today, as previously reported, I'll be finishing my packing, making sure the laptop is functional, and flipping a coin to see if I'll be taking one of my crazy keyboards. Speaking of over-packing. I'm really bad on a flat keyboard anymore, but! I don't intend this to be a Writing Retreat. On the Gripping Hand, if I'm suddenly Struck by Inspiration (which is almost guaranteed to happen exactly when one is intending Not To Write), I want to be able to type, not flail. I think I have Steve's Special Flipping Coin around here somewhere...
Also today, I need to swap out the cat fountains (not the cat boxes; I did that earlier in the week), and decide how to adjust station air for the cats. It's going to be in the mid-50s a couple days, but what worries me more is the warmer days in the middle of the week. I believe I'll be setting station air at 72 COOL, which should keep things comfortable for them. They really don't get the Go Downstairs strategy when the upper house gets too warm, and they have plenty of blankets, not to mention each other, to snuggle with if it's cool.
I think it fair to say that from this point on, Radio Rolanni in all of its iterations will be transmitting intermittently, and possibly not at all. The conference areas will be open, and the kitchens stocked with snacks. Feel free to meet and talk among yourselves, or bring games and crafts. We'll be back on the air next weekend.
I append a picture of The Long Back Yard, with lilacs and those low-growing purple weeds that the bees like so much. I'm pleased to see such a lush patch of those.
(no subject)
May. 23rd, 2026 12:31 pmbuttonsbeadslace