Follow Friday 6-19-26
19/6/26 23:27Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die".
Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die".
The Apocrypha
A follow-on to my years-ago reading of the Bible. I did recognize the the stories of Judith and Susanna, but I reached peak entertainment with Tobit, where Tobit’s son Tobias goes off to collect some of Tobit’s money from another city, only to end up marrying Sarah, who keeps marrying guys who get demon-killed during the wedding night. An angel intervenes, all is fine, yada yada, but the thing that got me was when Tobias is like sweet, okay, let me go home and let my parents know everything is chill, and his father-in-law is like. No. You must stay here a whole fortnight in celebration. So Tobias’s poor parents back home are like wow...our son is dead probably...we are very sad...until Tobias finally shows up to clarify things.
Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne
Book covering seven distinct eras of Paris, from the 12th century to the mid-20th century. Probably not the best pick for someone who didn’t know much French history — frequent visits to Wikipedia were made — but informative nonetheless. Has the foibles one would expect of a book written by an old British guy. (E.g. opening the book saying London is a dude, NYC is ~ambiguous~, and Paris is certainly a woman + describing some lady as seducing her own father in a way that made me go “hmmmm”).
The Importance of Being Young At Heart by R. Zamora Linmark
Ken Z is a teenager living in the Pacific island nation of South Kristol, about to graduate high school and obsessed with Oscar Wilde. He’s spending an afternoon bunburying in a fancy mall when he runs into Ran, a guy his age from South Kristol’s richer more militaristic neighbor, North Kristol. Thus starts a whirlwind romance.
I was optimistic at first, for even if I didn’t quite jibe with these teens I was curious as to where the tensions between the countries might lead. The answer is: nowhere. Ran disappears but we don’t ever find out why, and Ken Z’s coping with it isn’t that interesting. Sort of felt like a whole lot of nothing.
The most compelling bit was Ken Z’s confronting Oscar Wilde (yes, he pops up here and talks, don’t worry about it) about letting himself be taken advantage of by his lover. Of course I have no idea how accurate that is, but I enjoyed the argument.
Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare getting his gory B-movie urges out. Read this because I was going to watch a production of it, which was as bloody on stage as it is in the text. (Perhaps technically less so, given the absence of one death in the opening act.) Even if you didn’t know it was a tragedy, you’d probably know Titus is fucked once he refuses the position of emperor. My guy, what did you think was going to happen?
The production I saw genderswapped the uncle, Marcus Andronicus, which I enjoyed. It removes one of Titus’s sons and Titus’s killing of him in the first act, which somehow made it feel like there was a more suspenseful build-up to the violence of this play. (Even though Titus does kill the firstborn of the Queen of the Goths. A more suspenseful build-up from the perspective of the Andronici, I suppose.)
Remains true for me that I can enjoy watching/reading bloody murders and self-dismemberments, having it wrap around to so exaggerated it’s comical, but this does not not really apply to sexual assault.
Titus roping both his children into holding his lopped-off arm and their dead brothers’ heads, complete with Lavinia holding her item in her teeth, remains so stupidly funny to me lmfao. I wondered if the production would cut that bit and it did not.






Moar and moar on performative reading, sigh: Booksmaxxing: how reading became sexy (haven't we been here before?)
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I haven't actually read the whole of this yet, but on reading and the sexxy, it goes the full academic: Romantasy and the quest for cliteracy. Abstract:
Romantasy – a hybrid genre of romance and fantasy – is well known for its explicit ‘spicy’ content. Like romance fiction, female desire and pleasure are central to the narrative. Drawing on textual analysis from three popular romantasy series, this article examines the genre’s potential to foster cultural cliteracy: or the recognition and understanding of the clitoris as a central site of sexual pleasure. It explores how depictions of clitoral stimulation, female sexual response and orgasm function as a form of public pedagogy on female sexual embodiment. Through detailed sensory description, romantasy offers rich narratives of female pleasure that contrast the often disembodied and risk-focused approaches that pervade school-based sexuality education. While the genre is not without its limitations, it is argued that romantasy provides readers imaginative, safe spaces to engage with the embodied, erotic and emotional dimensions of sex, gender and relationships. In doing so, it offers valuable counternarratives to patriarchal and phallocentric discourses that continue to constrain how female sexuality is understood and expressed.
People have been going WO WO SYMBOLICKAL METAPHOR about this: ‘Most famous tree in the world’: Sherwood Forest’s 1,000-year-old Major oak dies. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has a different take (bless 'em):
Although this marks the end of the Major Oak as a living tree, it does not mark the end of its story. The iconic oak tree remains a powerful presence in the landscape and an enduring part of our cultural heritage. The tree and soil beneath it will continue to be a vital refuge for wildlife and the knowledge we have gained by looking after the Major Oak will help preserve other ancient oaks across the country. Its legacy will live on through its saplings and the legends associated with it, with plans being drawn up with our partners, and the tree will continue to be a vital refuge for wildlife.
Honestly, this secret org sounds like a cross between the school playground and Versailles of the Sun King with who rates and why. I guess the 'got sand kicked in his face' is an aged trope (it was in ads for some body-building thing) but we feel some such back-stories must be in play.
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'Here they come building their big fancy Stonehenges, two wooden posts was good enough for us....': Archaeologists believe they have discovered an earlier, much simpler version of Stonehenge about 3 miles (5km) away from the prehistoric monument.
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A different kind of heritage: Glassy Junction, Southall: the definitive history of ‘London’s first Indian pub’
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Today in London history [last Tuesday]: RSPCA founded in West End coffeehouse, 1824.
