posted by sabotabby at 06:51am on 2026-01-14 under books
Just finished: Invisible Line by Su J. Sokol. This was quite good. Xe did a good job in not just complicating utopia—I have a minor dislike of "flee to Canada" as a plot point in dystopian fiction, and the portrayal of Montreal as a bureaucracy subject to limits on its ability to do the right thing is very nuanced and well done—but also making the characters messy and traumatized. The big crisis in the last act could have been averted if the parents talked to their damned kids, but of course they are too paranoid and distrustful from years of living under fascism, so they don't. Looking forward to reading the sequel.
Currently reading: Mavericks: Life stories and lessons of history's most extraordinary misfits by Jenny Draper. This is really fun—TikTok-sized portraits of history's interesting (not always good) characters. I knew about a lot of them, like Ellen and William Craft and Noor Inayat Khan, but a lot of the others, like Eleanor Rykener and The Chevalier d'Eon, are new to me. It's very fun and conversational.
We've reached the portion of the shore where there's parasailing, that's nice to see.
Quick stop to have detraining passengers get eaten by a crocodile.
Here's a hotel, I believe, that has this mesh wrapping that caught my fancy, I think because it looks like those mesh bags they'll put an orange in to carry.
And the Atlantic Ocean, seen from the other side from what we were used to back in New Jersey.
Nice and tolerably centered view of the shoreline and I'm guessing a parking payment station.
There's those parasailers again.
Is it really the Spilliaert House? Sign says so. I can't tell you anything more than that.
And here's the station at Oostende, roughly the halfway point and where we had to stop to turn around.
It was a multimodal station, buses, interurban, trains, probably boats, and as you can see, portable holes.
The portable hole, you can see, leads to a dimension of bicycle parking.
Also a drawbridge, raised and lowered as boats moved along the channel.
Here at the fabulous Belgian Hall of Justice ...
Trivia: New Jersey's constitution of 1844 expanded male suffrage to all adult white male citizens who had lived one year in the state and five months in a particular county. There was no move made to restore the voting rights of Black people or women, which they had enjoyed from 1776 through 1807. Source: New Jersey: A History of the Garden State, Maxine N Lurie, Richard Veit.
Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.
While listening to the Sam Seder podcast today, someone sent in a report about increased activity at the Burlington ICE facilities. Stay alert folks.
u/Neat-Beautiful-5505 • 4h ago
Another Reddit post showed three 18-wheel trucks hauling several new SUVs each to the Burlington ICE facility.
u/_still_truckin_ • 4h ago
Two dozen white Ford Explorers. They’re the same Interceptor models that real police departments use. You can spot them by the searchlight mounted to the driver side A-pillar and lack of tracks for roof racks. Saw them in the parking lot of the Burlington ICE building.
u/ThePirateKing01 • 4h ago
Shoutout to @BearingWitnessBurlington on YouTube and TikTok
To those who say protesting peacefully doesn’t amount to much, this person has been both protesting and monitoring the facility almost 24/7. Without people like this we wouldn’t have the heads up that we do now
u/minilip30 • 4h ago
“The bottom line: While no operation has been officially confirmed, Boston is not waiting to find out — it is mobilizing now.”
Good!
Remember, ICE needs a warrant to enter any private residence or business. Business that aren’t fascist supporting should have signs that they will not allow ICE entry without a warrant.
u/beanandcod • 4h ago
A judicial warrant, signed by a judge
u/Pnoman98 • 4h ago
A lot of police presence at Alewife& Gov Center
u/cccxxxzzzddd • 4h ago
The Rindge / fresh pond apartments at alewife are home to many immigrants, particularly Ethiopians
This is not good
Edit: not good that ice is there
u/mysteriousfrittata • 4h ago
Saw a car full of them parked outside of MGH yesterday evening. All wearing DHS fatigues etc. Naturally the assholes were parked in an ambulance parking spot. I called to report a strange vehicle parked there.
u/HolyMoleyGuacamoly • 4h ago
they appear to be staying at that marriott right next door. was by there for a bit and saw a ton of activity in and out of there of single white men in suvs with beards
Happy_Literature9493 • 3h ago
Copied and pasted from Safari reader mode [the Axios article:]
“Boston quietly prepares for an ICE surge Mike Deehan Boston City Hall is privately getting ready for a potential spike in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.
Why it matters: Even without a confirmed federal operation, the city is "planning for the unthinkable," according to Mayor Michelle Wu.
Escalating tensions and violence in other cities are deepening anxieties within immigrant communities and worsening the friction between sanctuary communities and federal authorities. The latest: Wu confirmed on WBUR this week that she is discussing enforcement scenarios with Boston Police leadership.
Her goal is to establish clear protocols to ensure local police resources are not co-opted into federal immigration efforts. Wu maintains that Boston police will not leak information to ICE, a stance she views as crucial to maintaining community trust. The big picture: Boston isn't alone in bracing for federal action.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has stated plans for a larger presence in Boston, promising more agents following disputes over sanctuary policies. Past initiatives mobilized large-scale enforcement across Massachusetts. Zoom in: Unverified but persistent reports from residents and activists note a delivery of SUVs to the Burlington ICE Field Office last week.
Advocates interpret the arrival of three car carriers hauling SUVs as a sign that the local ICE branch is staffing up. What we're watching: If federal enforcement accelerates, pressure will mount on public-facing institutions and communities with sanctuary policies.
Courthouses are typically a flashpoint for arrests. City community centers and schools will need to know how to respond if agents appear at their doors. ICE likely won't limit large-scale enforcement to Boston. Municipalities with large immigrant populations like Chelsea, Everett, Lawrence, Revere and Lynn could also be in the crosshairs. Threat level: Activists have staked out the Burlington ICE office for months and will likely be among the first to know of any major rollout.
Expect throngs of Massachusetts residents to demonstrate against ICE if a surge happens here. The bottom line: While no operation has been officially confirmed, Boston is not waiting to find out — it is mobilizing now.”
I have just been pleasantly surprised by a health insurance company: they aren't requiring "prior authorization" for my Kesimpta prescription. The person I spoke to this afternoon checked whether I had any of the drug left (no), and whether I'd missed a dose, before arranging delivery for Thursday morning. This is the drug whose copay will meet the 2026 out-of-pocket maximum. Yes, I selected a plan in large part based on the prescription drug coverage.
posted by leiacat at 04:19pm on 2026-01-13 under me
On the final day of my 40s one feels compelled to look back on decades past.
I said farewell to my 30s with a lovely bubbly - a farewell worth repeating. On my 40th birthday my first directing project opened, defining my decade with deeper immersion into theater. (This year we're two weeks away from the opening, and I can't wait for that show to be seen, too, it's been so great working on it.)
My 20s were departed from with less ceremony, but I did commence the tradition of weekend-around-birthday dim sum, I'd not realized I've been doing it quite that long! Within a week a cat would dwell in my house - the only pet I'd ever had. The decade would involve finishing grad school, having a wedding, getting a job. What people do in their 30s, right? I danced and did more theater.
Without the benefit of internet it's hard to rewind further back, but by aggregate pattern, one would assume my 20th was celebrated much like any other birthday, at home with family and then-boyfriend Sam - my recollections of the 21st are much more vivid, and the 20th was likely just another year. I'd graduate, move to Maryland for a job, Sam would join me, I'd lose the job and spend some time adrift before I figured out what's next. I would fall in with convention tech crowd and historic dance crowd, fine additions to my life both (and through them, theater crowd, though that took a while to ramp up).
10th likely would not have called for over-much ceremony either, I was not a model of popularity. Shortly I'd move from my childhood home to see it demolished, and then from my not-so-home country to see it fall apart too - the first of these left me far more maudlin than the second. Along with the usual teenage milestones I'd discover online communities.
And here we are. Notwithstanding my proneness to melancholy, it's not been the worst of runs so far.
We are coming up on the Michigan State Pinball Championship, in which I will not be playing. Neither will bunnyhugger. We don't play enough events, given how busy the Michigan pinball schedule is. Nor how competitive it is; even if we did do some pinball event every weekend we might not earn enough competition points to make the top-24 in the state.
But the day after the (open) Pinball Championship is the Women's Championship, which bunnyhugger runs and is also qualified for. And this week she's been calling news departments and such for tv stations anywhere that might be interested, and a few have got back to her. One of the Grand Rapids stations hopes to talk with her Thursday for a segment to air Friday. There's this Muskegon station that ... might or might not actually exist. She's been unable to tell, from their web site. And closer to home?
Lansing's Channel 10 interviewed her last week, for a segment that ran on today's 3:00 afternoon news show. This didn't talk about the state championship, though, just the upcoming start of the Lansing Pinball League season. bunnyhugger got to talk a fair bit about what's fun in pinball, and how the league is a pleasant, comfortable place welcoming to new players, and at the end of this she got cut off for mysterious reasons. I assume there was a time constraint that couldn't be worked around.
bunnyhugger was worried the video they took of her playing Attack From Mars would show off to any experienced player that she wasn't doing well under the news cameras. She needn't have worried; the editing cut up the flow of the game enough that all you could tell is she kept the ball from draining several times over. And that, in the end, she hit the shot that blew up a saucer, exactly the sort of visually distinctive and exciting thing you want to show on TV. There are more challenging accomplishments you can do on other games at our local hipster bar, but I'm not sure there are any so obvious to the novice that Something Exciting Is Happening.
Sunday we too De Lijn, an interurban that's been running the west coast of Belgium since the 19th century; the whole run is supposed to be an outstanding experience. Unfortunately we could only take it halfway, because we'd discovered late Saturday night that we had to leave De Panne early in order to make our plane flight home Monday morning. So we took half the line and you're going to see it.
Waiting for the train! We had our tickets and were just waiting to hop on.
On the train here, looking back at the Blue Ring that's surely the companion to that Golden Ring over in Royal Oak or whatever it is in Michigan.
One of many features passed on the way up the coast; I believe it was a memorial to Great War dead. Don't mess with that Nood-opening; looks dangerous.
We have no idea what that Ferris wheel's deal is.
And then we encountered this sign of these beloved(?) Belgian(?) cartoon(?) stars(?) on the side of this hotel(?).
I feel like I'm looking at a meme.
Trivia: The Chicago Tunnel Railway is a system of about 62 miles of track, almost all underneath the city. In the 1940s 150 electric locomotives and three thousand cars delivered coal and other freight to basements of buildings in the Loop and hauled away ashes and more freight. Source: The Story of American Railroads, Stewart H Holbrook.
Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.
There is no competition between this light and the darkness which holds it. Both the light and the darkness are holy.
We light our chalice not to defeat the darkness, but because, for a time, we need the gifts of flame: warmth and light to guide and help us in our endeavors. And when the time comes, we will embrace again the gentle dark which allows us rest.
And so, we kindle this light with awareness and gratitude for light and dark and all that lies in-between. Each with its gifts, each with its beauty, each part of a sacred and necessary whole.
—Rev. Sean Parker Dennison Breaking and Blessing: Meditations
And now, I bring you --- believe it or not --- my last pictures from Plopsaland De Panne, in a race between the last hours of the day and the last bit of my camera battery charge, forcing me to take fewer and fewer shots. Which! Will! Win!
The Viking boat ride, and as you can see, several people shooting the water guns at people. You have to hand-crank the wheels on their sides to pump water through, which is how they make a game of it.
A small indoor area that we thought might be a gift shop; it's instead a bunch of kiddie rides and themed to that clown from the other day. And you can see a theater there, but we didn't see anything happening there.
We were delighted to find a tunnel-of-love style ride, Het Bos van Plop (Plop's Woods) an indoor boat ride through scenes. It was themed to Plop, a series about a gnome community that gave off Smurf vibes but more human-shaped.
Boat coming up, ready for us. The dark and steady movement mean pictures were really hard to get. There's a TV screen you can make out over there showing the safety spiel.
Part of entering the woods; there's a really nice decor of forest and miniature houses and, like, mouse-drawn sleighs and things like that.
A gnomic watermill that I imagine we'd know something about if we knew the show. There's a lot of figures here, many of them in steady motion.
And here's a delight, Plop's Woods's own amusement park, with a little Ferris wheel. There were other rides too and it made me think of the 'prehistoric amusement park' in the cave train ride at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
Back to Heidi: the Ride for another ride. Here's a view of how much queue space they have and how much wood they put into making it.
And back for one more ride, this time going for a back-row seat.
You'd buy this as the workshop of a Swiss Mountain-Living-Uncle of the 19th century, right? Look at all that stuff that could otherwise have been on the walls of a Cracker Barrel.
And our last ride for the day, The Ride to Happiness. I was trying to get a video fo the welcome spiel and failed.
But I did photograph this sign, of an award given in English to the park, in Belgium, where the languages are French and Dutch.
Trivia: A visitor to New York City in 1719 lamented that the city had ``but one little Bookseller's Shop'', which is more than Maryland, Virginia, and North and South Carolina had. Source: The Bookstore: A History of the American Bookstore, Even Friss.
Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.
And now, to come to some physical health news about me. It's behind the cut because it is bad news but, let me stress this, it is the least possible amount of bad news that could still be any bad news at all, and that I am fine and look to be fine as long as anyone in 2026 can hope to be fine.
And I just want to get ahead of things and thank everyone for their support and kind words and thoughts. Again, though, I'm as fine as anyone can be.
On a vastly lighter note, then, let's get closer than you imagine to the end of our day at Plopsaland De Panne.
Train's on the move again and here's beloved Land of the Lost star the ankylosaur!
We were a little early for this ride. Too bad.
Did put my arm up over the construction fence to see what progress they'd made on it, though.
This is a Viking-themed boat ride, sailing along a pretty comfortably long track, and --- it turns out --- shooting water cannons at other boats and people on the docks who have their own water guns.
Going into the boat ride we spotted this pigeon going about their business.
And her's a view of the course, which is satisfyingly long and offers a lot of nice chances to approach and draw away from other boats. It was fun riding. Also the 'rafts' and other 'boats' had targets you could shoot to make stuff happen.
Trivia: The basilica which we know as the Hagia Sophia was built as a replacement of a timber-roofed basilica which burned in 532 AD, which was itself was a replacement of a timber-roofed basilica that burned in404 AD. However, earthquakes in 553, 537, and 558 collapsed the original dome and the church was rebuilt with a higher dome made of ligher bricks, rededicated in 562. Source: Force: What It Means to Push and Pull, Slip and Grip, Start and Stop, Henry Petroski.
Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.
We went to the Boston anti-ICE demonstration today, one of many throughout the United States. Cattitude and I got there slightly after the nominal starting time, and managed about an hour before the cold got to me. Yes, it was above freezing and not windy, but standing still on a large open plaza is chillier than moving around. Adrian came to the demo with some of her comrades from Havurat Shalom, and arrived before we did. The crowd was large enough that we didn't try to find her until we were all preparing to leave.
It was a good-sized crowd, but the acoustics and sound system were abysmal; I could only make out a few scraps of what the speakers were saying.
I wore a winter coat, wool socks, and light-weight long underwear, which was too warm while we were on the trolley.
The case of Renee Good is a perfect example of ICE bullying people.
Was she blocking traffic? Absolutely. What did the ICE agent yell at her? Not "Move the car lady" which would have cleared the blockage but "Get out of the car!"
This would have left the car in the middle of the street while they arrested her. Then they'd have to either move it themselves or call a tow truck - which would have taken even more time. This would have taken time and manpower (it's always men, isn't it?) away from whatever mission ICE was on.
The ICE agents could have recorded her license plate, photographed her and had her move... and arrested her later at their leisure - but no. They needed to bully her by arresting her right then and there further disrupting whatever assignment them were on. The point was not law enforcement - but dominance. Suppression of dissent. Renee was trying to leave when she was shot. The video shows the cop pulling out his gun as he circled the car - as he was getting in front of it. The video shows her canting her wheels to avoid him when he shot her.
So, some sad pet news. It hasn't happened yet, as of this moment, but it's coming soon. Tucked behind a cut for people who don't need bad pet health news in their day.
On a cheerier note, how about some Plopsaland pictures? Still on the train ride here.
Nice view of the outside of Heidi: The Ride that the train offers. This sort of banked turn is a signature move of maker Great Coasters International.
Goats! Or goat statues, anyway. We're getting near the Heidi launch station.
And here's the train stop for Heidiland. The train you'll note is billed as an 'Express' even though it makes every stop.
T-rex statue visible from the train ride.
And the tail end of that brontosaurus you might have seen in other pictures. (I forget if I included one that showed it at all.)
There's a dinosaur threatening people who go down the log flume, which is a great way to juice a log flume up a bit.
Trivia: Toyland, Fred Thompson's amusement-park project for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915, was not complete until six weeks after the Exposition opened, and ran to something like $278,000 in cost, despite meeting almost none of Thompson's design goals for the site. Less than a week after its opening other investors were ready to close it. Source: The Kid of Coney Island: Fred Thompson and the Rise of American Amusements, Woody Register.
Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.
The new insurance requires me to use a different specialty pharmacy for the Kesimpta. I asked for a new prescription last night via MyChart, and just had a productive conversation with the pharmacy (Optum):
they asked whether I'd been off Kesimpta, because what they can see is that they were sending it to me in 2024, and not last year, so I explained that
we went over my list of medications, which was missing at least one thing, and had one I'm no longer taking
the doctor wrote the prescription for a 90-day supply, and the insurance will only cover a month of this at a time
the doctor sent them a prescription for the initial 'loading" dose, and they need to go back to the neurologist and clarify that
However, so far this has been remarkably efficient: less than 24 hours from me messaging the doctor, to me talking to the pharmacy. Whether the insurance company will cause delays by demanding "prior authorization," I don't know.
We just went to a small, and surprising brief, vigil on the Common in memory of Renee Good 'and other victims of ICE," organized by MIRA, a local immigrants rights and support group. I'm glad I went, and some good things were said. There will I believe be a larger event tomorrow, but when I can show up for short-notice things on weekday afternoons, sometimes that feels like my job.
I've been steeped in work hell (which is just not letting up) so I haven't really caught up with DW or formulated anything more than a wish for [REDACTED] to happen to every single ICE agent and [REDACTED, replaced with screaming into the void] in general, but in the meantime, podcasts gonna podcast I guess? Honestly that's where I get my news because the mainstream media has either fallen for the lie of objectivity or just reports on things so shallowly that it's unclear as to whether things like gunning down a mother in her car as she tries to get away or kidnapping the leader of a foreign country are actual crimes or just "controversial."
Anyway.
Today I have a new podcast for you, AI Skeptics, with Cathy O'Neil and Jake Appel. Cathy O'?Neil wrote the fantastic (and still very relevant) Weapons of Math Destruction, so I was very interested in what she had to say about AI. Neither of them really come off as Professional Podcasters but the content of this is excellent and both they and their guests are insightful. "AI Versus Artists and Educators ft. Becky Jaffe" is the most recent one and most relevant to my interests.
It should be noted that folks on the podcast are skeptics rather than professional haters like me, so there's occasionally a use case, 90% of which I still disagree with. But it's an important and intelligent discussion, and the episodes are quite short and accessible.
On my humor blog this week I finally wrapped up the Tale of Jimmy Rabbit and I just realized I forgot a joke I wanted to put in the closing sketch. Well, I'll just edit that in now and the newsgroup version will have to be out of date is all. Also, there's two comic strip plot recaps and some news about comic strip artists changing so you should be in good shape reading:
As usual for a Thursday now, please enjoy a dozen pictures from Plopsaland. Don't worry, there's only like twelve weeks left of this.
People being loaded onto The Ride To Happiness, but composed as if an album cover.
And the steps back down, which look like the fancy queue gates you never use in Roller Coaster Tycoon.
Train getting ready to depart the station here.
And here it is, on a low-speed spiral and already spinning.
More of the spinning car. Someone looks like they aren't quite having fun there.
We went back to the elevated swing ride, the Nacht Wacht Flyer, and discovered that --- much like Windseeker at many Cedar Fair parks has done --- the winds were too much.
Well, over to the spinning teacups ride, here doing its best to compete with Gilroy Gardens and d'Efteling for making the setting really good.
A better view of the teapot and cups. Also the floor, which looks too good for an amusement park ride despite being basically what a carousel might have.
Now we got on the train ride; here we are going past the #LikeMe Coaster.
And we go past the sleeping giant of Meli Park.
One of the other stations and the best view you're getting of the trash bin decor. It's a troll inside a gazebo or flat ride.
The other side of that little city-driving kiddie ride, where you can see there's gas pumps that do something, though we didn't see what.
Trivia: England's King Henry III esteemed the needlewoman Mabel of Bury St Edmunds, who made a chasuble in 1239 for him and an embroidered standard for Westminster Abbey in 1234, such that he commanded she be given six measures of cloth and a length of rabbit fur as reward, an honor usually reserved for knights of the realm. Source: Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle, Clare Hunter.
Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.
Yesterday I was in a bad mood after my meeting, and also I'm a little sleep-deprived and I've been in a weird mood for a couple days anyways. Also, the band Seeming, who I'd just gotten pretty into one of their albums1 right before winter break, did a "all our pre-2025 music free" as a special, and it felt prudent to nab it2.
Sometimes we can do things the right way though, and so instead of playing mindless phone games, I just put the song du jour on repeat, and got my sketchbook, and drew a picture:
Anyways, that's what I did last night, and I'm pleased about it! Maybe I will draw other things sometime this year, I would like that.
~Sor MOOP!
1: Specifically, Madness and Extinction. BDan recommended it, on one of the times I was looking for Bandcamp Friday recs. After the third time of tossing it into the "after school album rotation" and being all "damn this is really good I should go tell BDan", I finally took actual notice.
2: Technically I did pay-what-you-will at a dollar per album, since that way they get put into my Bandcamp account and I can stream them, instead of just being emailed the mp3s. I really like this set-up! And I went ahead and put the 2025 stuff into my cart to nab at above-cost on the next Bandcamp Friday.
(I appreciate so much that Bandcamp hasn't fully enshittified yet.)
3: Different fun fact! "The Earth is radiantly suicidal" is written three times because it was too off-kilter when I inked it once, and so I wanted to rebalance the picture. I sorta wish I had stuck with twice, since that's how they do repetitions of it in the song, but it's fine.
I'll lead a DIFFERENT library Zoom discussion this week on this Golden Age mystery, the first with Inspector Alleyn's serious love interest, successful artist Agatha Troy.
Discussion prompts:
How does Inspector Alleyn's professional eye for detail assist in his first meeting with Troy Alleyn?
Inspector Alleyn's interrogation/interview techniques vary from suspect to suspect. What did this achieve for him? Do you think he was good at his job?
This book has a large set of artistic suspects from varying backgrounds. Did the author convey the individuals well enough, or were they mostly a jumble for readers? Was there an artist you would have liked to hear more about?
Has anyone tried sketching or posing for figure drawings? Did the author convey well enough what was going on with the artist model's poses and behavior and how that may have contributed to potential motives?
Does the book make the solution to the complicated mystery clear? Did you think you knew the murderer before the end?
Did the romance get in the way of the mystery or enhance it?
One of the people from the boat trip at the beginning of the book is very vocally attracted to Alleyn's British-ness and hounds him, which contributes to Alleyn and Troy's initial issues. Have you ever known anyone who aggressively pursued anyone because of being so into British people? Do you think Marsh was parodying/criticizing someone in particular, or just an American "type" she'd noticed?
What did you think of the use of epistolary writings (letters/diary entries from the first part that re-surface later in the book)?
How do Inspector Alleyn's encounters with Troy in this book compare to Lord Peter Wimsey's encounters with Harriet Vane in Dorothy Sayers' *Strong Poison*?
What are other similarities between those protagonists' romances and families? Do you think Marsh was consciously imitating or trying to improve on / contrast with Dorothy Sayers' characters, or were her characters' characteristics/arcs an inevitable part of Golden Age mysteries?
Would this 1938 book still hold up as a mystery if the problematic aspects were modernized out? Did they spoil the book for you, or were they not so bad as that?
Would you recommend this book to other mystery fans?
New Year's Day Night --- please try to keep up with me --- we saw the weather was less bad, and so we went to the Lake Victoria Light Show. This is a big setup by a guy on the outskirts of the city, near Lake ... you know ... and he had posted a day or two before how he was taking the time to fix some problems that came up on Sunday with all the rain. So while he might take the light show down anytime, we had reason to hope it wasn't quite so soon as this.
There was also the promise he might try some new things, now that Christmas was over, and so he did. Some of the Christmas music, played on his low-power FM station, was gone! In its place were more general rock tunes, not seasonal at all. The light show was as intense and varied for ... oh, uh. Not Get Ready For This, but something with a similar tone ... as it would have been for ``Blue Christmas'', but the energy still felt different. One wonders if he's preparing for a summer show; apparently he already does a Halloween lights show and I guess as long as the things are up, might as well use them. Curiously cut were ``The House On Christmas Street'', this novelty song sold to people who do overdone Christmas Light houses (with their own street in place of Christmas Street on the recording) and the request to donate to the food bank made every half-hour. Also nearly all the bits where an inflatable snowman fills up and then, to some goofy joke song, 'melts' again were run one after the other, instead of spacing out between songs. Possibly the program of performances got scrambled in the song substitutions. We were plausibly the last people there for the night.
And a couple nights later we drove all the way to Brooklyn, Michigan, to return to the Michigan International Speedway. You might remember that in mid-November we went to a 5K run or, for us, walk, to see the many light displays set up on the track while sauntering about. Now, just before Twelfth Night, was their last day in operation and we wanted to drive through it the way everyone not on the 5K experienced the ride.
We started --- wait for it --- later than we really meant to and were a little bit worried they might stop letting cars in before we got there. They did not, and in fact we wouldn't even be the last car in. A couple cars came in immediately after us and I finally pulled to the side long enough that they passed, and then we suspected we were the final people there, only to have someone catch up to us at the end of the trail.
We had seen all or almost all the paid-course lighting when we walked through it and so anticipated we wouldn't need to take many photographs at all, despite which we did. Completely new to us were the fixtures for sponsors, which you see in the long drive up to the ticket booth. There did seem to be more than we remembered there and some were pretty clever at that, so we also got bunches of pictures of those that won't be nearly as good as seeing them in person.
The light show was great but was done before we were ready for it to finish, and was great to have done, much like the holidays are. Back to quotidian stuff soon, and then back to pinball stuff shortly after that.
I'm happy now to bring you pictures of the ride to happiness, as we saw it back in the day (June):
So we got another Ride to Happiness. This time we noticed the boardwalk leading to it has the ride's (English) motto to 'Live Today .. Love Tomorrow ... Unite Forever' in it.
Some artificial lily pads in the waters surrounding the ride.
And here we are back at the station. There is something really Victorian Train Station about the high glass windows with all the muntins like this.
There's that motto again, underneath the computer-animated face greeting you into this.
Ride ready for dispatch. Half of everyone starts out backwards but the spinning --- unlike other spinning coasters we've been on --- starts almost immediately out the gate, rather than waiting even until we ascend the lift hill.
So while you can pick your seat, front- or back-facing, as you load the station there's no way to know which way you'll even start, and you certainly will spin during the ride.
Trivia: Noon, originally ``none'', was the ninth hour of the day, around what we would term three in the afternoon; the time retreated to its modern position over the fourteenth century, likely because during fasting periods monks could not eat before the none hour, and in long summer days this would take quite some time. Source: Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement From Cubits to Quantum Constants, James Vincent. This was also an era when there were twelve hours to daylight, with the length of the hour growing in summer.
Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.
This afternoon we saw a traveling exhibit at the Frick Art Museum, The Scandinavian Home. It's only there for a few more days; we kept meaning to go on a day with docent tours and logistics kept happening, but finally, success. (The remaining tours are this Friday and Saturday.)
The pieces are mostly drawn from one private collection of works from Scandinavia from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From the museum's description:
Exhibitions of Scandinavian art typically focus on either painting — often on the work of a single artist or theme such as landscape — or on artisanal design. The Scandinavian Home integrates folk, decorative, and fine art with “home” as a central metaphor, mirroring the tastes and convictions of the period’s collectors and creators.
There were a lot of paintings, many of them landscapes, many of them striking -- capturing the feel of hoarfrost or high-latitude twilights. The collection also included some furniture items, including this really nifty cabinet:
It's pretty shallow. I don't know its intended use:
From the description:
Lars Kinsarvik, Norwegian 1846-1925:
The complex design of this cabinet rewards close looking: trolls, animals, enigmatic faces, and fantastical details peer out from the interlaced patterns -- folkloric imagery that helped forge a national design identity in Norway at the turn of the 20th century. [...] A chronicler of Viking ornament and rural material culture, he incorporated historical motifs into his invented repertiore of trolls and other imaginary creatures.
The exhibit includes an ornate chair (obviously well-used) by the same artist. The docent told this story: the collectors found the chair, very beat up and covered in crud, at some sale or other, bought it, and stuck it in their basement. Later they started to clean it up and realized they had something special, but they didn't know anything more about its origins. The chair was, it turned out, one of a pair: somewhere in Europe (I forget the details) they happened to be at a museum, saw the other one, and said "we have one just like that at home!". So that's how they found out who the artist was. I didn't ask, but I assume they acquired the cabinet sometime after that.
You can see the exhibit any time the museum is open (through Sunday), and we wandered around on our own for a while before the scheduled tour. The guided tour is about an hour; it was informative and the docent was friendly and approachable. I appreciate having a guided overview of an exhibit before diving into the details and reading all the little cards one by one (which at most museums is physically taxing for me). After the tour we went back through the exhibit to take a closer look at things.
I said that reading the display cards is usually a challenge. The Frick Museum gets major kudos for always having printed booklets (at decently large font) for people to use. Each page includes the information from the card and a small photo of the item it's for. Sometimes I have to do some flipping through the book when starting a new "section", especially when there are many rooms that you can take different paths through or when there are displays in the middle of the room as well as along the walls. But it works pretty well and it's a huge accessibility win. I don't know how long it'll be there, but I later found the PDF for this exhbibit on their website (and I see that somebody has already saved it in the Wayback Machine).
The exhibit included a few tapestries and carpets. Most were displayed so you could see only one side, as usual, but they had one hanging in a room so that you could view both sides. This is a tapestry from 1906 of wool and linen; they did not include information about dyes. After only 120 years of, presumably, being hung in range of sunlight, compare:
The two sisters each think of the other as having saved them from the dog. Are they both right? How does this relationship hold up during the book?
Humor is mixed in with the grief of the story. How did the balance work for you?
What's the longest road trip you've taken? How did it compare to the Takeshima family's trip?
How did the family deal with the move from Iowa to Georgia?
While finishing up the trip to Georgia, Katie notices that every Georgia town declares some claim to fame. Have you noticed towns in Maryland that do this? Do you remember any other town-identity signs from your travels? (e.g., Webster, NY "Where Life is Worth Living").
Who else laughed when Katie's dad told her what the "B" word meant ("Bad Lady", referring to the mean woman at the hotel), and told her not to tell her her mom he'd told her?
What did you think of the chess in this story compared to *The Queen's Gambit* that some of us read earlier?
What did you think of the way the story portrayed the main adults?
Did you have a favorite character? (mom, dad, Katie, Lynn, Sammy, Uncle Katsuhisa, Silly, others)?
Lynn keeps a diary. Have you ever maintained a diary for long? Have you read any diaries?
What did you think of the portrayals of racism in the story? Were they age-appropriate? Should the story have gone farther?
The chicken processing plant has long and hard hours, but also emphasizes hygiene. How does this compare to other food-related jobs you've read about in books?
What are examples of kindness of strangers shown in this book?
How did Katie's dad and Katie's stress/grief coping mechanisms compare?
Is there a scene or quote you'd like to share and discuss?
posted by sabotabby at 07:10am on 2026-01-07 under books
Just finished: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. Did you know that the edition I have ends with an afterword from the author asking people to read his 1200-page book twice? Anyway I am very proud of myself as I managed to finish it around 30 minutes before the hold was due back at the library.
So, is it good? Yes. Do I totally get it? Not totally, though yes, more than I would have if I'd read it when I was 16. Definitely the time stuff, the illness stuff, the characters who are thinly veiled stand-ins for pre-WWI European political debates, yes. But of course, it's a very different world now—there is no longer the temptation to embrace illness as freedom, the idea that you can just convalesce for years in what amounts to a different reality, the fairy-tale world of the sanatorium. Which is why the ending hits so brutally hard. Structurally, the first half of the book is Hans Castorp's first three weeks on the mountain, and then it goes blurry, and the next seven years pass in a dreamlike state, with the changing of the seasons and the coming and going (through death and otherwise) of the patients being the only sense that time exists at all. And then there's essentially a massacre of half the cast in various ways, culminating in the arrival of WWI, and Hans disappearing into a viscerally described battlefield; time and history do exist after all, and it collides with the dream.
Reading it in 2026, of course, I am struck by the debates between Settembrini, representing humanism, and Naphta, representing totalitarianism (Catholicism/communism/fascism, but look, Mann was very much working out his political ideas in this book), but something I didn't talk about last week is Mynheer Pieter Peeperkorn (yes this is a character name) who pops up late in the book as Clavdia Chauchat's sugar daddy. He's a larger-than-life figure who gets described as kingly and charismatic despite being far too old for her, distracting Hans from the aforementioned philosophical debate with revels, partying, and a hella Freudian love triangle. I'm particularly struck by his speech patterns. Look, the guy is basically Trump; he is charismatic because the other characters (except Settembrini, who winds up being the only character who comes off well by the end) read meaning into his rambling words that isn't there. This book feels so incredibly apropos for our present day despite being over a century old.
Anyway, I finished The Magic Mountain, ask me anything lol.
Currently reading: Invisible Line by Su J. Sokol. You know, something light and fun after reading all that. Ahahaha. This is hopepunk but I'm assuming that the hope part comes in more towards the end. It was first published in 2012 and the first 50 pages were such that I had to text the author and ask if xe had like, rewritten it for the current edition to update it or something? Xe had not. I suppose the direction was obvious in 2012 where the political climate was moving but it's nonetheless one of those unsettling dystopian books, set in a crumbling fascist US rife with surveillance and police brutality.
Laek, a history teacher, Janie, his activist lawyer partner, and their two kids, Siri and Simon, are doing their best to live a normal life in New York, but Laek was a bit more of a spicy activist when he was a teenager, and his fake ID is no longer cutting it. So they make the decision to flee by bike to Montreal, which has declared itself a sanctuary city in tension with the Canadian government. It's basically too relatable, with a bunch of moments where the characters wonder if it's too much, if they should stay and fight the small battles they can or GTFO while it's still a possibility. There's a scene early on of a teachers' union meeting where a new policy means that the teachers must report their children to immigration, and it's the most accurate depiction of this kind of scenario I've run across in fiction, and yeah. If your feelings about living under fascism, or next door to fascism, are escapism, this book is going to be too real; if however, like me, you need to just read more about living under fascism, you'll be into it.
We went on New Year's Day to the Festival of Trees at Lansing's historic Turner-Dodge House, the very building where Turner Dodge invented the automobile or something. We got there closer to the 5 pm closing hour than we expected, in part because we'd gotten the bad information online that they were open to 7:00, but we had time to visit every room in the house anyway. We also would have had an extra quarter-hour or more; while were there the docent promised a woman on the phone that if she and her gaggle of kids could get there by 5:15 they'd have the place open for them, but not later. I don't know why so many people are missing on the proper closing hours. My supposition is that some LLM somewhere decided the Turner-Dodge House could stay open until 7:00 and if that were false, that was a burden they were content to make the Turner-Dodge House staff bear.
Every room in the century-and-a-half-old house had at least one tree in it, many of them several trees. There were a couple that were straightforward, keeping their whimsical elements to a topper or a couple special elements. There were a number that were a little odd but in normal ways, if that makes sense, like a fairy tree where all the ornaments were fairy-winged dolls; that's not far outside the range of things someone might use as their ordinary tree. And then there were some high-concept ones, such as the humane society's ``tree'' made out of cat trees and canned goods and animal toys, things that had been donated and that I assume after the event go back into the donation bin. One that I ultimately voted for as best was in the ballroom on the top floor, a snowman tree framed by a giant cardboard book to look like you were stepping into a fairy-tale. Another that I almost voted for, and that bunnyhugger did, was an actual game of chutes and ladders, with several dozen colored and numbered squares, and half-pipes and ladders, with a couple of movable ornaments for your game token and inflatable six-sided dice to play.
Also a couple of rooms that we hadn't seen previously were open, including a billiards room just off the ballroom. It had a model train set up, but the track was in all many pieces so there was no hope of it running. Also in the corners they still had the plastic skeletons from some Halloween event we assumed. On the first floor they had open the servants kitchen, which we weren't fully sure we were allowed in, but they had explanatory signs in there so we can't have been doing anything too bad by nosing around. Also past that, open, was the real kitchen, with the staff refrigerator and all. We probably weren't supposed to be in there so we didn't stick around, past observing what rooms still had those push-button on and off switches along with your modern rocker-style light switch.
As we drove home we went past the pet store we normally get stuff from, and saw cars in the lot and figured this a good chance to get some pet food. Nope: the store was closed. Why so many cars there, then? We don't know; maybe the staff holiday party? No telling.
Meanwhile seven months ago we were in the middle of a parade. We'll start with a couple stills from the movie I took and then go back to normal pictures when I accidentally stopped the movie recording.
Bumba! I guess! Some kind of clown show, at least, as we saw at that playground area and also one of the indoor areas that I can't remember if I shared pictures of yet, or if they're coming. You'll see.
And some bees, which bunnyhugger tells me are coincidental to the park's former existence as Meli Park, built around an apiary.
And there's the close of the parade with beloved Plopsaland character (???) waving to everyone.
Back to ordinary park activities like not being eaten by a pterodactyl statue; how's that sound to you?
Back to photographing those ducks in a circle. It does look fun, doesn't it ?
And here's the entrance to The Ride To Happiness, seen from the side where there's gardening and all.
Trivia: In 1920 Marjorie Merriweather Post, inheritor of C W Post's cereal company, married the second of her four husbands, investor E F Hutton. Hutton left Wall Street to work for what would become General Foods. Source: A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression, Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe.
Currently Reading: A Call to Arms: Mobilizing America for World War II, Maury Klein.
curious
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austin_dern at 12:10am on 2026-01-14 under european vacation
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revlyncox_feed at 09:03pm on 2026-01-11
accomplished
angry
sleepy
insomniac
