All these French books were definitely too ambitious. I thought manga would be easier because the pictures would be a guide, but actually they're harder: the words don't follow the images, and isolated speech bubbles give much less opportunity to deduce meaning from context.

I forgot I read Brave New World in Spanish! Good job, old me.

It's time to finally accept I'm not going to read most of these Spanish and German-language books and free up that space for comics 😔

*Hug* hope the anxiety passes soon and you can enjoy being stoned

I had the most amazing time at an adult summer camp this weekend, I hope yours is amazing too

Maybe I'm just more sensitive reading now in 2026 rather than when The Seep came out in 2020—a lot has changed in our world! The book does get there in the end, and I'm glad I finished it. Still.

The Seep isn't a pure paradise, but it's honestly a pretty good go at it. The alien presence wants to understand the experience of living in time and in return for that offers access to immortality, to bodily transformation, to communion with each other and nature, and of course freedom from want 💯

In many ways it got me thinking about Brave New World. That dystopia is a horror, built on mutilation and enslavement, but the author seems to be really vexed about the parts of the world we'd now praise like sexual freedom & lack of jealousy.

It's just that the third party narration, the authorial voice itself, also seems to share Trina's skepticism of the progressive world. Many little bits together that feel like eyerolls at what some would call "woke": complex coffee orders, gestures to signal pronouns, housing as responsibility, etc.

At the same time, there's a background thread of disgruntlement by the main character at the relaxed, utopian, unchallenged, flexible quality of the new world (brought on by a benevolent, diffuse alien presence). That's also fine! Change is complex, and she's aware of the horror of that nostalgia.

The main character, Trina, loses her wife, the love of her life, at the start of the book: not to death but to rebirth, as the wife decides to relive life from childhood with loving parents. That very real grief and loss and feeling of abandonment powers the rest of the book, and that works.

I recently read The Seep by Chana Porter. It's a book about a profound loss and grief, set in a pretty solidly utopian future, and I was surprised to wrestle with it as much as I did. 🧵

Saw a great production of Measure for Measure at Crow's Theatre tonight—smartly transforms the play into an internet radio production, allowing for narration and minimal staging and folks playing multiple roles in a small space. (The play itself is a mess, but that's nothing new 😄)

The right has successfully given "penumbra" a bad vibe, but it's actually a simple idea: rights can be derived from explicitly stated ones. For instance (if simplified), we have a right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers and effects, from which we can understand a right to privacy.

Nice to penumbras are back in vogue, except now they're being used to protect the President from accountability rather than to shield the rights of the people

"speeding on Parkside Dr up over 500% since the province intervened in the removal of speed cameras"—fuck Doug Ford 😡 My friend @lucianocesta.com researched & wrote this great article on Parkdale/High Park elections and how candidates want to improve this truly dangerous street, check it out!

😭😡🥶

fuck this

Oh damn, that really sucks! I'm sorry you missed it, hope she can make it back to Ottawa for something.