For March, aka Sad Irish Literature Month, I figured I would only have time to read one sad Irish literature, so I looked for the saddest one I could find already on my shelves. This seemed to be a copy of Frank McCourt’s memoir Angela’s Ashes, which is about him growing up in dire poverty. It also fit the bill because the copy on my shelf used to belong to my aunt Birdie, who passed away several years ago.

Contrary to the popular blurb, this book is not just about young Frank growing up poor in a dysfunctional family in Limerick; the first couple of chapters are in fact about him growing up poor in a dysfunctional family in Depression-era Brooklyn. One of the things that is dysfunctional about his family is that his father is a severe alcoholic of the “drinks all his wages in one evening between getting paid and coming home” variety, on the occasions he manages to have a job, which isn’t often. At various points in time, being on the dole helps them keep body and soul together; at other times, he drinks the dole money between getting it and getting home too. This really highlighted the shitty gender politics of the nuclear family man-as-breadwinner model; Frank’s mother, Angela, had her own problems but probably would have been able to keep a job for more than three weeks if it’d been at all acceptable for her to go work at a factory or wherever, but she had to stay home to mind the ever-shifting number of children (it wasn’t always necessarily increasing; over the course of the book, Angela has eight pregnancies, resulting in seven live births, and four children are alive at the end of the book). This is exacerbated by the fact that Malachy McCourt, Frank’s dad, has ideas about Male Pride and Dignity, which always seem to equate to reasons he should be allowed to be useless in certain ways (one of which is not carrying things, which was a new one to me, but another was that his wife certainly couldn’t accompany him on the dole line to make sure the money made it home because that would be humiliating), no matter how badly he fails at fulfilling the traditional male role of getting some money from the jobsite to the house.

While the subject matter is relentlessly depressing–deaths, diseases, religious guilt, casual violence, everything you’ve ever heard about how mid-century Ireland was fucked up–the book is also extremely funny. McCourt writes from a first-person present perspective, thus giving us the anecdotes from the point of view of however young he was when the thing happened–so, usually, a very confused small child’s understanding. This is occasionally heartbreaking as very few people have any patience for young Frank’s questions, which of course does nothing at all to stop him from continually winding up having to take care of his whole family at distressingly young ages. (Eventually some neighbor or relative shows up and illustrates for us that little Frankie wasn’t doing nearly as good a job as he thought he was.) There’s excellent use of callbacks as little Frankie slowly adds concepts to his understanding of the world, like what “affliction” means or that a great way to call someone a snob is to say that they wouldn’t give you the steam of their piss. He also doesn’t use quotation marks with dialogue, which is how you know he is writing serious Joycean literary memoir and not just making jokes, no matter how absurd some of the anecdotes get. (Some people have questioned the veracity of this book, and maybe that’s just because it makes a lot of individual people and mid-century Ireland in general look bad, but also some of this stuff is so absurd that even if McCourt isn’t lying it’s hard not to suspect he’s maybe talked himself into remembering things a little colorfully, at least in certain instances.)

As Frank grows from an innocent child afraid he’ll be sent to the fires of Hell for laughing at a story about Emer winning Cuchulainn in a pissing context to a practiced street thief and embezzler, we see him slowly crawl back up out of the poverty his father had sunk them into, and back to the level of poor they were at the beginning of the book in Brooklyn, which had seemed bad enough at the time. He eventually embezzles enough money to make it back to New York, and that’s where the book ends; it has two sequels but as much as I liked this I’m undecided as to if I want to read them.

At the end of the day, poverty memoirs about growing up in fucked-up places are hardly the rarest kind of literature, but I can also see why this one sticks out and got adapted into a movie and a stage play and won a Pulitzer and all that stuff. It’s very engrossing.

I must have slept ten hours. Hestia appears to be watching the rain with almost as much interest as the birds sheltering from it. May it and the recent snowmelt amend the drought. Tomorrow, of course, it is forecast to snow again.

selkie was safely collected from the Penn Station-alike that South Station has done its best to inhume itself into since her last visit, provided with an appropriate quantity of local barbecue for an obligate carnivore, and even successfully checked in to her hotel despite the mishegos attending every stage of her conference even before it started. At no point in this process did we apparently remember to take any pictures of ourselves.

My dreams seem to be branching out in terms of media, since last night's featured a youngish Alec McCowen starring in the radio version of a Tey-like crime novel as the ambiguously poor relation of an upper-class family who is not actually Kind Hearts and Coronets-ing his way through them, but needs to figure out who is before he's so handily scapegoated for the accidents escalating to murder ever since his arrival; he is, naturally, keeping a secret from the family, the authorities, and even the inattentive reader, but it isn't that. I was very pleased to find that a recording had survived, because the original novel had just been reprinted by the British Library Crime Classics. There were images mixed up in it in the way of dreams, but it was definitely on the Internet Archive.

Outside my head, I have been recently listening to Wu Fei & Abigail Washburn (2020), Jake Blount and Mali Obomsawin's symbiont (2024), and Huw Marc Bennett's Heol Las (2026), which I found through its ghost-boxish "Cân Gwasael (Wassail Song)." I like that I do not have to dream their remixes of folk and futurism and time.

Continuing my Peter Capaldi rewatch, and onto another I had very bad memories of. Overall I still found it a disappointing episode, but there was more that I liked this time. The large group of young schoolchildren seemed more palatable, and well-defined individuals, providing good material to watch, and complicating the experiences of the three main leads. Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor seemed to particularly thrive with young Maebh. And it was fun to see the two schoolteachers coping out of the classroom, as well as the challenges of their own relationship.

The first half or so of the story was solid for me, but things fell away after then. Too hand wavy, too vague explanations. I appreciate that a lot of the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who has a fairytale quality and dreamlike nature. But I think Frank Cottrell-Boyce stretched this too far.

The environmental aspect was refreshing, but still too vaguely handled. And the ending was far, far too predictable for me.

I'd probably skip this on future rewatches, but am pleased that I enjoyed it more this time.

1. What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?

LJ: In the late 1990s, various London-based bisexuals used a message board site whose name I can't currently remember. The particular one they created was called 'drunk bisexuals' - the founders were part of the section of the London Bisexual Group that stopped going to the group itself but still met up on Fridays at a nearby gay pub / an 'indie' club night, Popstarz.

The site had a load of problems (messages disappeared permanently after a semi-random time, for example) but it was where the people are - the eternal issue with the success or failure of a social media site.

One day, one of the Simons (there were at least five people called 'Simon' in the group, and they had Spice Girl nicknames) posted that soon no-one would be posting there, because everyone would have moved to LJ. They were right. Before long, a big chunk of the UK bi community was on it.

I bought a permanent account not long afterwards.

A large chunk of the UK bi people left for the evilFB when it arrived, but I still valued what was better about LJ (almost everything, apart from having fewer people I knew posting / reading!)

DW: the author of LJ, Brad Fitzpatrick, sold LJ to blogging company Six Apart in (checks) 2005. That brought problems - they started showing ads to people without paid accounts, for example. They sold it to a Russian company in 2007 (LJ was huge there) and that brought more.

When DW was announced, using revised LJ code, in 2008, I paid for a permanent paid account at the start without hesitation.

For years, I cross-posted DW posts to LJ. I stopped when the Russian LJ owners moved the servers to Russia and you knew that their security services had access to everything.

2. How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?

Not many. The one for discussing The Americans TV series was the last serious one.

3. Do you have a favourite community or one you check out often to see what's new?

No. The Americans ended its run years ago. A couple are on my default reading page but very rarely have anything new.

4. How did you pick your user name?

'Ian' was long gone on LJ. When looking through a list of lapsed .com domains around 2000, 'lovingboth.com' was available, so I registered it. It was also available on LJ, so...

With the move to DW, 'Ian' was available (and it's me) but partly to retain continuity with the LJ, this is the real account.

5. If you could change your user name, would you?

Breaking web links is just Wrong, and I think doing that would do that.

Continuing our slow rewatch of the newly remastered BBC Narnia TV stories from 1988-1990. Newly starting “The Silver Chair”. Looking forward to seeing Tom Baker again as Puddleglum. And Camilla Power as Jill is a fine young actress.

Doing the dance of the robot vacuums - or rather, the robot vacuums are dancing - while I'm sitting here with my feet up - listening, and typing along on my laptop. Tech - sometimes? I love it. Not often, but sometimes.

I do have to watch the vacuums and make sure all the chords are safely off the floor or they will attempt to eat them, which never ends well.

Catching up on the Question a Day Meme for March:

16. How often do you eat out?

I can't remember if I answered this one or not, and too lazy to go back and check.

Not often. If at all. I do occasionally pick up something for lunch while at work - but I only get it at Pret Manager - and it's either a white bean salad, a falfala Mediterranean Salad or Morrocan Lentil Soup. Everywhere else is either too expensive or doesn't cater to folks with highly restrictive diets and/or are coeliac. ( Read more... )

17. It’s Kurt Russell’s birthday – a child actor who grew up. Have you seen any of the Disney films in which he acted (he played the college student Dexter Riley)?

Yes, pretty much all of them - ( Read more... )

18. Which flowers or trees are blooming where you live now?

Well, very little is at the moment? It's still winter and cold, the warmest we've gotten it up to a high of maybe 60. Right now, it's cloudy and 51 F, feels like 48 F. So the trees and flowers are being a touch hesitant? I see some crocuses here and there, and some buds on the trees, and bushes, but that's it.

19. If you had the space (and the time), would you like to keep chickens?

No. I do see them though. There's someone about two blocks up and one across that keeps them. They keep brown chickens, and a rooster.
But no - I don't want to raise birds.

20. Was learning a new language part of your education when you were at school? Can you still remember any of it?

Yes. And ...very little of it. I wasn't very good at it, and unfortunately all my attempts to immerse myself in it - in order to learn it - were dashed. ( Read more... )

21. It’s National California Strawberry Day. What is your favourite way to eat strawberries?

With whipped cream or dipped in chocolate.

22. Do you still buy physical books, or do you tend to buy e-books these days? Does it depend on the type of book (i.e. fiction or non-fiction)?

I buy both. But I swing more towards e-books because it's become increasingly difficult to read physical books without glasses. And, I'm tough on books - I get things on them, tear the pages, they get rumpled as I read them. The last paperback I read, is kind of a rumpled mess. People don't like to loan me - books, once they figure out how tough I am on them? I kind of love them to death?
( Read more... )

**

Almost done with my Angel S5 rewatch - stretching it out. Damn. It's better than I remembered. That series holds up well. Particularly the last season, which is even more relevant now than when it first aired over twenty years ago.

There's some good lines:

"We're apparently in the midst of the apocalypse and have been for some time. Evil just neglected to let us know about it. And, as it turns out, we're fighting on the wrong side - although the winning side, since evil is winning, so I guess it depends on how you look at it?"

"Trying to cure Cancer, Mr. Wyndom-Price?"
"No. It wouldn't be profitable. I'm thinking we're probably making a major profit off of it as it is. With all the hospital visits, etc."
"True. Our client holds the patent on it."

"The worst part wasn't going into the basement and getting my heart ripped out over and over - don't get me wrong that's bad. No, it's the promise of the nice life, the kid, the family, the lawn, the sunny sky, the home, and the realization that it is all just a lie - none of it is real."

The satire in this show is on topic and well done. I miss it.

It's not the most pleasant day today - cold (although above freezing), windy, and threatening to rain - but I went for a walk anyway and it was fine. While I was out I saw two yards with crocuses coming into bloom, the first signs of spring I've seen here so far.

The girls are supposed to be on a two week time-out from screens, but Violet seems to have figured out all my passwords and I keep finding that she's been using my computer or phone (she leaves YouTube videos open) so I have just changed every single password and have made myself a list in Google Keep because I will never remember which device has which password if they're not written down. I'd already changed one or two in the last couple of weeks but she figured them out.

Bonny always offers me her newspapers when she is out of town. I recently found out that the truth is her subscriptions are tied to a phone number she no longer has and making any changes promises to be a herculean task so... me. Which is fine. She gets the Seattle Times and the Wall Street Journal. I actually enjoy the Wall Street Journal. Last year I almost thought I'd get a subscription myself - digital, of course - but never did. Now we're back. The Sunday Seattle Times is no longer even a shadow of its former self but at least now I know I'm not missing anything. And the trash room is right next door.

I hemmed pants yesterday. Hemming black pants is not as much fun as you might imagine. I only got four pair done. There are so many more to do. If I were smart, I'd wear and then wash the ones I have done and once I'm sure they are fine, continue on. I think I'll do just that but I'm not going to put away my supplies. I'll leave them out as incentive to pick up the project once the proof is in.

Coming back from the pool this morning, there was a team of first responders coming in with a gurney. The had come in the wrong entrance and one of the residents had led them to the correct elevator. That resident is a man I know. Even knowing he has absolutely ZERO sense of humor, I conversationally as we were walking down the hall "This place is really hard to navigate when you've never been here." "It sure is AND they even had the wrong date on the brunch menu this morning." Yeah, life saving first responder misdirection and an incorrect date on a menu - equal horrors fer sure. (Sunday is the ONLY day they serve brunch so even the big clues aren't enough for him, I guess.)

Oh, there goes my friend, Maggie, out with her great granddaughter and her dogs. Maggie is very able bodied (her husband has Parkinsons) and lithe. Today she's got on very attractive slim jeans and boots. It is hard to wrap my head around a Great Grandmother is slim jeans and boots, but there she is. Neither one of my grandmothers ever even wore pants in public. I mean what if someone saw them????

Major League Baseball starts on Thursday. So this will be the last Sunday til Fall with no baseball game.

I have good TV to watch today and knitting to do and there is a puzzle going in the elbow. So my day is set. Guess I'll get it started.

v

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/wait-2

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Guess he's not buying the see-thru feel-thru corset either.

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/wait-2

In which this teacher earnestly wants a word to substitute for "chink" in Midsummer Night's Dream, and one person suggests kink which doesn't mean the same thing.

And on the one hand, I'm sure they all have their hearts in the right place, but on the other hand, maybe they should collectively teach a different play instead. Shakespeare wrote plenty of comedies, just pick a different one off the shelf.

I saw that there was another No Kings rally scheduled for the last weekend in March. I thought, "Oh, I'd probably go to the protest if I didn't need to work that day."

Then I saw that Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, and other famous figures/groups will attend the protest in St. Paul, Minnesota, as the flagship location for this national event. I thought, "Oh, cool, I'd really like to go to the protest if I didn't need to work that day."

Then I saw today that Bernie Sanders will attend this rally too. I thought, "Ok, I really want to go to the protest now." I checked with my coworkers, and they'll all be working, so I filed the request with my manager for time off. Normally, I'd have no doubt the request would be granted, but I've already filled his inbox with requests for other vacation uses during the next month (daily patrols, plus some weekdays to go do gardening). I'm hopeful (just not 100% certain) that I'll get approval to avoid work that Saturday.

Edit: I also see that some people are really increasing the impact of the message. For some, it's not just "No Kings" but "No Kings / No Cowards". That Minnesota message is different from the national organization's, and it definitely has a different punch to it.