Boston locals! Blue Heron, an acapella early music ensemble, is throwing a three-day shindig to celebrate Guillaume de Machaut (died 1377), May 1-3, mostly involving talks about Machaut's works, talks about his lyrics, talks about the illuminations in the manuscripts his works come from, concerts of his music, and also a little ars subtilior tacked on the end just because.

More info https://www.blueheron.org/machaut-weekend/

Affordability note: They have a free ticket option as part of the "Card to Culture program" for people with EBT, WIC, and ConnectorCare(!) cards*, and a discounted "low cost" option.

Of note, the "Opening Festivities: Keynote, Performance & Sing-Along" on Friday night includes (emphasis mine):

a keynote talk by one of the world’s leading scholars of 14th-century music, Anne Stone (CUNY Graduate Center), performances of pieces in several of the genres represented in Machaut’s oeuvre, and a sing-along of the Kyrie from the Messe de Nostre Dame.

Which: huh. Huh. The Kyrie, huh? Wow. Now that is certainly a choice. I commend their bravery. Were I in better health, I would consider showing up just to be in on the shenanigans.

If you're curious what the Kyrie from Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame sounds and looks like, here you go.

* There is no separate ConnectorCare card like there is for MassHealth. They mean your regular insurance card, which if it's a ConnectorCare plan should say so on it, or so the Mass Cultural Council, whose program it is, thinks.

The YouTube algorithm pseudorandomly served me this, thereby answering the question I'd had on a distant back burner forever, "Hey, didn't I hear something about colored cotton cultivars once upon a time? Cotton that you didn't need to dye? Like back in the 90s?"

If you are a fellow fiber freak or interested in agriculture or organic crops or the underappreciated problem of sustainable clothing production, you may find this as fascinating as I did:

2026 Mar 7: Good Yarn Bad Knits [goodyarnbadknits YT]: "The Yarn That Almost Saved The World"

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5791

Emily is my wife's favourite character so this story is basically a little present for her (and possibly...for you???)

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5791

There is Drama going around in the indie TTRPG community. Some people accuse a game designer of being a jerk, a cheat (someone who doesn't pay contractors, not someone involved in relationship shenanigans), a liar, and weaponizing their fame to harass other people in the community.

Others say the above comments are nothing but hate-speech aimed at a person of a marginalized identity, and this person has written great works and brings creativity and fresh insights to the community at large.

I'd love to figure out which is true, or if they both have elements of truth.

The details are apparently covered in a Rascal article, possibly some posts at Medium, and of course, in multiple Discords. If I joined the right ones, I might be able to find out who actually said what. (I will not be joining any Discords over this.)

I can confirm:
• Creator in question has written some amazing stuff, not only much-lauded but also unique improvements to the TTRPG-sphere
• People I respect (but do not know personally) are calling aforementioned creator a scoundrel and abuser

( My analysis )

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.

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.

One determined man struggles to save humanity from the mutant scheme to avert doomsday.

Ring Around the Sun by Clifford D. Simak

1. Some Divorce Trends That Aren't Leaving Your Partner Mid-Hike

(tags:satire funny relationships murder )

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

Posted by Girl on the net

https://www.girlonthenet.com/blog/5-different-types-blow-job/

https://www.girlonthenet.com/?p=29970

Unlike with suck jobs, I’m going to launch into this piece without any preamble whatsoever: here are five different ways to suck a dick. There are many more ways to suck a dick than this, but these are the first 5 types of blow job that popped into my head. Feel free to expand in […]

The post 5 different types of blow job appeared first on Girl on the Net.

https://www.girlonthenet.com/blog/5-different-types-blow-job/

https://www.girlonthenet.com/?p=29970

My room is so nearly finished now that Husband has ticked it off his list as done. The cupboard doors went on yesterday, and I'm putting in the shelves as I put things inside them. We're probably going to have to go back and get the remaining two shelves that I initially thought I didn't want, though. I thought, with the layout, they would be too difficult to reach to be useful, but I no longer think this is true. Not urgent, though.

Nearly all my belongings are back in here now. There are still a few things in the lounge, but they will have to wait until I've got these boxes sorted out. It's all quite chaotic.

What remains to be done in here is just some details, like hanging pictures and such. There is also a shelf I want put back up on the wall, which Husband offered to put up for me today. It depends on how far I can get with the chaos already in here. Again, I need to deal with the current chaos before there's room for adding more chaos. I also want to get a cork board and a new bin (blue plastic from the mid-90s is frankly no longer doing it for me in my room of grey and purple!) but I haven't been looking at those yet.

These cupboards have given me so much more storage space than I had before, and they are large enough that I can have the sewing machine, the iron and the big sewing box actually put away and not hanging around on any available surface or the floor. It also makes it seem like I have more free floor space, but I'm pretty certain that's an illusion.

There's a weird empty space in the lounge behind the sofa now, though.

No pictures yet, because so much chaos!

[requires both audio and video]

Jonasquin on YT (previously) has written a wholly original motet in the 16th century style after Desprez upon the cantus firmus "Seven Nations Army", for the words of Psalm 10, verses 2, 3, 7-11.

Comment would be superfluous.

2026 Mar 20: Jonasquin YT: "A 16th century motet for the US President"



Click through to the video on YT to see the translation in the description.

Title: The People You Meet Along The Way.
Author: lannamichaels
Fandom: The Parent Trap (1998)
Rating: G
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: Twelve years later, they meet at an airport.


( Meredith is so fun to write )

I've been looking for communities that want to center Latinx culture in their posting but haven't found any so I made one!

latam is a new community for people to come together to talk about latinamerican music, films, food, culture, fandom, and more!

Everyone's welcome, no matter where you're posting from! And you can also post in your language (official languages of the community are Spanish, Portuguese and English!)

Come make friends! We have a friending meme going on right now :)