It's Not A Cult - Joey Batey

Feb. 22nd, 2026 10:16 pm
troisoiseaux: (reading 3)
[personal profile] troisoiseaux
Read It's Not A Cult by Joey Batey, a debut folk horror novel about a band whose songs based on an invented mythology (the Solkats, small gods of wine stains and stubbed toes and untold jokes and bus stop fights and texts at three in the morning, etc.) inspire a literal cult following; I picked this up mostly because I know of the author for other work (he has a band, The Amazing Devil, and played Jaskier on The Witcher) and I'm not sure if it is, exactly, good— I suspect it might work better as an audiobook, because it has a rather distracting tendency towards draaaaawing out wooooords and phonetic spelling of accents ("updéeat")— but I did read the entire thing in one day. It's definitely a [Rod Sterling voice] wouldn't that be messed up? kind of horror novel— very ambiguous ending, and a lot of ambiguity throughout; not a spoiler, exactly. )

According to an interview I read when this came on my radar a few months ago, either the novel itself or at least the idea for it (unclear?) pre-dates Batey's career(s) as an actor and musician, but it's a bit of context that I found impossible to shake in light of, a., the themes of artistry (specifically, as a musician) and fandom, and b., the way the narrative is entirely framed by camera lenses: if an action takes place on the page, it's because there's a camera pointing at it, from the narrator's coping mechanism of viewing the world through a camcorder lens rather than looking at things straight on, to vloggers live-streaming their every thought, filmed police interviews, etc., including some rather improbably convoluted executions of the premise.

Culinary

Feb. 22nd, 2026 08:16 pm
oursin: Frontispiece from C17th household manual (Accomplisht Lady)
[personal profile] oursin

This week's bread was a Standen loaf, strong brown/buckwheat flour, maple syrup, malt extract - but due to electric scale going weird and giving strange readings, the proportions got very odd and it turned out larger and a lot denser than usual, if still edible.

Friday night supper: Gujerati khichchari, with pinenuts.

Saturday breakfast rolls: adaptable soft roll recipe, 4:1 strong white/buckwheat flour, a touch of maple syrup, dried cranberries, turned out rather well.

Today's lunch: Scottish salmon tail fillets baked in foil with butter and lime slices; served with La Ratte potatoes boiled with salt and dill and tossed in butter, buttered spinach and baked San Marzano tomatoes.

Theater review: Hadestown

Feb. 22nd, 2026 02:37 pm
troisoiseaux: (colette)
[personal profile] troisoiseaux
I took a day trip to NYC specifically to see the current cast of Hadestown— in particular, West End import Jack Wolfe as Orpheus and folk singer Allison Russell as Persephone— before the cast turnover in March, and it was absolutely worth the trip! I've loved Anais Mitchell's concept album for years and have actually seen the Broadway musical twice* before, although apparently it didn't stick, because I seem to have forgotten half of the songs...? Like, genuinely, I found myself thinking ...have I ever heard this song before? They can't have changed the musical since 2023, right? more than once. (The stage musical is substantially different from the concept album, both in terms of fleshing out the plot by adding new songs and in tweaking some of the original ones.)

In various assorted thoughts:
- Jack Wolfe was always going to be the best Orpheus I've seen, because the previous actor I saw was... not the strongest part of the show, but even without grading on a curve, he was in fact phenomenal, just absolutely perfect for the role. His Orpheus is so sweetly awkward and completely earnest it's no wonder that even street-smart, touch-shy Eurydice falls for his castle-in-the-sky promises of gold rings and wedding feasts and his plan to write a song that will bring the seasons— out of whack since Hades and Persephone fell out of love, all freezing winters and scorching summers, no spring or fall— back in tune, and he has the voice to pull it off: like, yep, this guy can in fact sing so beautifully it would make flowers bloom and the gods fall back in love, 100%, checks out. (I even forgive the musical for the lyric changes from Mitchell's original "Epic (Part I/II)", because the less flowery lyrics did in fact sound lovely when Wolfe sang them.) It perhaps made the ending even more devastating, because surely, if any Orpheus could make it out, this one... but no :(

- At least from the nosebleed seats, the actresses playing Eurydice (Morgan Dudley) and Persephone (Russell) looked strikingly alike, which added an interesting dynamic to both Persephone's and Hades' interactions with Eurydice— the parallels between Eurydice and Persephone, and between both couples, are written into the story itself, but I did find myself thinking, like, did this Eurydice catch Hades' eye because she looks like Persephone? Is Persephone's particular kindness to/sympathy for Eurydice because she sees her younger self, too? I think the fact that I'd particularly noticed their similarly braided hair, and how Eurydice's neutral-toned first-act costume and Persephone's colorful one (green dress, ocre-red highlights in her hair) felt like visual foils, made me look at Persephone's costume change into vintage widow's black when she returns to Hadestown for the winter with new eyes, too, especially the detail of her hair being hidden away in one of those fancy hair nets (snoods?).

- I really appreciated how this Hades (Paulo Szot) wasn't trying to copy Patrick Page's original performance, because I feel like the other actor I saw in the role was trying a little too hard to match Page's "sounds like the lowest key on a piano" vocal depth and it had mostly just sounded growly. This actor's voice has/he was going for more of a rich timbre(?) (I don't know music words) than sheer depth; I found out afterwards that he's an opera singer by training, which checks out. Actually, overall, I really appreciated how differently this cast played the same roles than the one I saw before— it felt like a really fresh take! (I would say that both versions of Eurydice and Persephone are a tie for me, I liked this Orpheus and Hades much better, and my favorite Hermes remains the understudy I saw in 2023.)

Footnotes )

(no subject)

Feb. 22nd, 2026 05:07 pm
raven: [hello my name is] and a silhouette image of a raven (Default)
[personal profile] raven
There's a feeling, I hope, a unidentifiable but deeply uncomfortable burn, felt by white women, who don't know, but should know, how many private brown group chats are typing.

And as I don't want to take on a cringe middle-class racist white woman (at this point there's about five of them that I have at various times decided not to take on, all terribly right-on, right-thinking, probably-vegan feminist pro-Palestine queer white women), that is all I have to say about that.

Weekly (ish) check in

Feb. 22nd, 2026 10:15 pm
fred_mouse: drawing of mouse settling in for the night in a tin, with a bandana for a blanket (cleaning)
[personal profile] fred_mouse posting in [community profile] unclutter

How goes the decluttering? Have you shifted anything out of the house? Found something to sort through? Had thoughts on things you can let go of?

Comments open to locals, lurkers, drive by sticky beaks, and anyone I've forgotten to mention.

Congratulations to everyone who has found and/or disposed on any clutter in the last week!

ps. I'm going to be a bit sporadic for at least the next month; please cheer along others in the comments!

(no subject)

Feb. 22nd, 2026 12:51 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] laura_anne!

(no subject)

Feb. 21st, 2026 03:51 pm
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
My daughter “Melody” is in the midst of the terrible twos. Five or more meltdowns per day over normal frustrations/limits are typical. Recently, my mother-in-law, “Darlene” took Melody and my 6-year-old son out to run errands, and true to form, Melody had a blow-up. It was how Darlene handled it that has me seeing red. She told Melody that she was leaving her in the store and that she could find her own way home, and left her screaming on the floor! She then moved off with my son, out of my daughter’s view, and waited for several minutes before coming back for her. I only learned of this later when my son told me what happened.

When I confronted my mother-in-law, she claimed her method was helpful because Melody behaved afterward. And she said Melody was “never in any danger” because she kept her in sight at all times. After this, I no longer feel safe with Darlene going places with the kids without my husband present or me. Sadly, my husband is no help. He agrees that this was a good “lesson” in behaving for our daughter and that his mother used to do it to him and his sister when they were kids! Please tell me I’m right in telling Darlene her days of taking the kids solo are over.
—Pissed


Read more... )

(no subject)

Feb. 21st, 2026 04:28 pm
oursin: Books stacked on shelves, piled up on floor, rocking chair in foreground (books)
[personal profile] oursin

Books and screens: Everyone is panicking about the death of reading usefully points out that panic and woezery over reading/not-reading/what they're reading etc etc is far from a new phenomenon:

We have been here before. Not just once, but repeatedly, in a pattern so consistent it reveals something essential about how cultural elites respond to changes in how knowledge moves through society.
In the late 19th century, more than a million boys’ periodicals were sold per week in Britain. These ‘penny dreadfuls’ offered sensational stories of crime, horror and adventure that critics condemned as morally corrupting and intellectually shallow. By the 1850s, there were up to 100 publishers of this penny fiction. Victorian commentators wrung their hands over the degradation of youth, the death of serious thought, the impossibility of competing with such lurid entertainment.
But walk backwards through history, and the pattern repeats with eerie precision. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, novel-reading itself was the existential threat. The terms used were identical to today’s moral panic: ‘reading epidemic’, ‘reading mania’, ‘reading rage’, ‘reading fever’, ‘reading lust’, ‘insidious contagion’. The journal Sylph worried in 1796 that women ‘of every age, of every condition, contract and retain a taste for novels … the depravity is universal.’
....
In 1941, the American paediatrician Mary Preston claimed that more than half of the children she studied were ‘severely addicted’ to radio and movie crime dramas, consumed ‘much as a chronic alcoholic does drink’. The psychiatrist Fredric Wertham testified before US Congress that, as he put it in his book Seduction of the Innocent (1954), comics cause ‘chronic stimulation, temptation and seduction’, calling them more dangerous than Hitler. Thirteen American states passed restrictive laws. The comics historian Carol Tilley later exposed the flaws in Wertham’s research, but by then the damage was done.

I'm a bit 'huh' about the perception of a model of reading in quiet libraries as one that is changing, speaking as someone who has read in an awful lot of places with stuff going on around me while I had my nose in a book! (see also, beach-reading....) But that there are shifts and changes, and different forms of access, yes.

Moving on: on another prickly paw, I am not sure I am entirely on board with this model of reading as equivalent to going to the gym or other self-improving activity, and committing to reading X number of books per year (even if I look at the numbers given and sneer slightly): ‘Last year I read 137 books’: could setting targets help you put down your phone and pick up a book?:

As reading is increasingly tracked and performed online, there is a growing sense that a solitary pleasure is being reshaped by the logic of metrics and visibility. In a culture that counts steps, optimises sleep and gamifies meditation, the pressure to quantify reading may say less about books than about a wider urge to turn even our leisure into something measurable and, ultimately, competitive.

Groaning rather there.

Also at the sense that the books are being picked for Reasons - maybe I'm being unfair.

Also, perhaps, this is a where you are in the life-cycle thing: because in my 20s or so I was reading things I thought I ought to read/have read even if I was also reading things for enjoyment, and I am now in my sere and withered about, is this going to be pleasurable? (I suspect chomping through 1000 romances as research is not all that much fun?)

(no subject)

Feb. 21st, 2026 11:20 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Carolyn: I know you love dogs, but in a reasonable way, so I figure you’re a good person to ask. Is there a “normal” amount of pets for someone to have? I never had dogs or cats growing up and didn’t want them in our home when our children were young.

All my children at times asked for a pet but grew to accept my aversion, except for my youngest daughter. When she used to insist she couldn’t wait to move out and get a pet, I took it with a grain of salt. She did get a dog in the house she shared with friends in college, and her obsession has only grown since then. The last time I saw her, she excitedly told me she’s a foster parent to a litter of puppies now. I’m not sure how that works, but it brings the number of dogs in her house from two to six, and she also has two cats.

I asked if she was going to get kicked out of her house, since her township can’t possibly allow that number of animals in a small home and yard, and she just laughed at me. She apparently doesn’t understand the law or care how this all must affect her neighbors.

Could this possibly be the start of some sort of mental illness? Should I try to intervene further?

Read more... )

(no subject)

Feb. 21st, 2026 10:18 am
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly posting in [community profile] agonyaunt
Dear Care and Feeding,

My wife, “Lourdes” and I have a 2-year-old daughter, “Mackenzie.” Mackenzie was a difficult baby (long crying spells, difficult to soothe, hypersensitive to sound, fussy about solid food, etc.), and my wife has a low threshold for frustration. So most of Mackenzie’s care fell to me since Lourdes said she “couldn’t deal with it.” The result has been that our daughter is closer to me than she is to her mother. Well, Lourdes said something disturbing regarding our daughter recently.

Mackenzie had a meltdown when my wife tried to get her dressed for daycare, so Lourdes told me I needed to do it because of her theory that our daughter “hates her” and “the feeling is mutual.” Mackenzie has a routine of putting her clothes on in a specific order. Lourdes is aware of it, but wanted to do it her way, which set her off. Mackenzie has her quirks, and if you work with her (her daycare providers follow them and have reported no issues), everything is fine. The trouble is that my wife is accustomed to people doing things her way, and she does not react well when her expectations are not met. I’m seriously concerned about her relationship with Mackenzie, especially because right after her mother tasked me with dressing her that day, she said, “Mommy is mean.” Lourdes balked when I suggested counseling. How am I supposed to resolve this?

—Daughter Division


Read more... )

(no subject)

Feb. 21st, 2026 12:44 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] lokifan!
alias_sqbr: (happy dragon)
[personal profile] alias_sqbr
I didn't watch Dunc and Egg but Cam did, and he found himself thinking about how fun it could be to have a story where a somewhat loner knight (disgraced/unproven/just antisocial, whatever) takes on a determined and surprisingly knowledgable page, who he eventually realises is a girl in disguise, and they have Adventures (but no romance, preferably)

He asked if I knew of any stories like that, since it feels like a really obvious premise, and I felt like I must have seen something along those lines by Tamora Pierce/ Mercedes Lackey etc but nothing came to mind. eg the Alanna series has the crossdressing page part but not the loner knight, Kel doesn't have the cross-dressing, etc.

So I come to you! At this point we're mostly just curious if it exists at all, but actual recs are definitely not unwelcome. Books/tv/movies, whatever.
oursin: image of hedgehogs having sex (bonking hedgehogs)
[personal profile] oursin

(Okay, I have an essay-review coming out on several works which deal with moral panics around coffeebars and jazz clubs and so forth in the 1960s - 'the monkey walk was good enough for us'....)

But on the one hand wo wo the yoof of today are not even getting into leg-over situations, though the evidence for this as far as the UK goes dates to the NATSAL 2019 report based on survey undertaken 2012.

And if they do, The death of the post-shag sleepover: Why is no one staying over after sex anymore?

Okay, very likely - I dunno, is the '6 people I spoke to in a winebar last week' cliche still valid or has this migrated to some corner of social media, but amounting to pretty much the same thing as far as statistical sociological validity goes?

But while it may be all about anxieties around sleep hygiene rituals, or looks-maxxing practices, which will not sit happily alongside unrestrained PASSION and bonkery -

- there is also mention that, individuals in question are living with room-mates and one does wonder whether they actually have RULES about overnight guests who might hog the bathroom wherein they perform their wellness things (apart from any other objections such as noise....)

Yes, my dearios, I am already doing the hedjog all-more-complicated flamenco about this, and thinking about a narrative theme of the 1960s of young women rising from beds of enseamed lust in order to go home to the parental roof and sleep in their own chaste bed so that they can be plausibly awakened therein. (And is there not a current wo wo narrative about young people still living with PARENTS???)

Hobby Update

Feb. 20th, 2026 08:51 am
osprey_archer: (cheers)
[personal profile] osprey_archer
It’s been three months since I last posted a hobby update, partly because the hobbies have been on hiatus lately. It’s been cold and gray and dark, and after doing so well getting up early for tea and cross stitch in November and December, I’ve slipped back into my slovenly old ways of dragging myself out of bed at the last possible moment.

Also my right shoulder has been acting up, which has impacted my ability to play dulcimer or cross stitch. I have finished but one of the adorable cross stitch advent tags for next year’s Picture Book Advent. And actually I’ve only finished the cross-stitching part; it still needs to be sewn to a felt backing in order to become a true tag.

However, I did manage to decorate MANY paper hearts to brighten up my office door. In fact, I made so many that I took the overflow hearts home to decorate the Hummingbird Cottage, with the intention of making yet more, but then I ran out of steam… However, even this moderate sprinkling of hearts brightened the place up, especially since I’m the fortunate possessor of four Valentine-themed dish towels and six Valentine cloth napkins (black fabric with red and pink hearts, striking).

I have St. Patrick’s Day napkins too, but my search has so far not turned up any St. Patrick’s Day dishtowels. However, I’ve been cutting out paper shamrocks at a remarkable rate, so hopefully the plethora of shamrocks will overcome any defects in the dish towel area. Should perhaps consider a few leprechauns too?

I’ve also been looking through my trusty Irish cookbook and have been thinking it’s time to make lemon curd again, plus perhaps try my hand at brown bread ice cream. (Sprinkle brown bread crumbs with brown sugar, bake till toasty, then fold into softened vanilla ice cream. Crunchy and caramelly, apparently.) Plus of course I’ll be making my usual round of Guinness stew.

After St. Patrick’s Day, I’m thinking the office door will segue to a general spring theme that can last through graduation at the beginning of May. Flowers, probably. But what kind? Paper tulips and daffodils? A crabapple tree in full bloom? (I believe this could be stunning but would require me to cut out MANY pink flowers.) A torrent of general mixed flowers?

For the Hummingbird Cottage I’d also like to do some decorations on a more specifically Easter theme. I have a vision of cut paper pysanki eggs, which may be beyond my somewhat limited paper-cutting skills. But you never know till you try.
[syndicated profile] bruce_schneier_feed

Posted by Bruce Schneier

It’s a demonstration of how toxic the surveillance-tech company Flock has become when Amazon’s Ring cancels the partnership between the two companies.

As Hamilton Nolan advises, remove your Ring doorbell.

(no subject)

Feb. 20th, 2026 09:38 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] elekdragon!

More bits and bobs

Feb. 19th, 2026 06:04 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin

Hampstead’s retro cafés fight back against a revamp:

“London is a muddle” as EM Forster once observed — but one whose complexity is enjoyed by inhabitants. This bitter row over cafés, with small operators objecting to a tendering process that rewards a chain, has pitted the Corporation’s efforts to modernise facilities against those who feel protective towards their homeliness.
....
But as the campaigner Jane Jacobs, who championed haphazard urban environments, pointed out, city life is inherently messy. Imposing more rigid schemes can destroy its vitality, what she called “the intricate social and economic order under the seeming disorder of cities”.

***

Shop windows tell the story of London’s revolutionary illustrated newspapers:

Printing on the Strand in the 18th century was a major hub of London’s popular print culture, characterised by vibrant publishing activity that wasn’t constrained by rules affecting printers within the City of London.
Key sites included Bear Yard, near present-day King’s College London, which hosted significant printing and publishing operations, and a King’s College exhibition, which is free to view through the shop windows, tells their story.
The printers moved away when the area was redeveloped, hence the exhibition title, the Lost Landscapes of Print, which is a mix of objects and stories from the printers’ trade.
Although Fleet Street is synonymous with the newspapers, two of the most popular newspapers of the 19th century were printed on the Strand, not Fleet Street. They were the Illustrated London News and rival The Graphic, both trading on their revolutionary ability to print pictures in their pages.

***

More and “Better” Babies: The Dark Side of the Pronatalist Movement - we feel this is the darker side of an already dark movement, really.

***

Apparently this was found to be missing recently from Le Guin's website but has now been restored: A Rant About “Technology”:

Technology is the active human interface with the material world.
But the word is consistently misused to mean only the enormously complex and specialised technologies of the past few decades, supported by massive exploitation both of natural and human resources.

***

And talking about people getting all excited about 'technology' me and a load of other archivists and people in related areas were going 'you go, girl', over the notes of cynicism sounded in this article about the latest Thrilling New Way Of Preserving The Record (it is to larf at): Stone, parchment or laser-written glass? Scientists find new way to preserve data.
Admittedly, I can vaguely recollect an sf novel - ?by John Brunner - in which an expedition to an alien planet found the inhabitants extinct but had left records in some similar form.

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