gratitudes, my photography, peace and tranquility, or not, my wife's birthday, jane schoenbrun tv and films
yesterday i was grateful for a good meeting with my cemetery colleagues...
today i am looking forward to getting some housework done and seeing my friend donna perform in the fringe festival...
images from this morning's walk...
the above images portray a peace and tranquility that belies the awfulness that is going on in my country... for many (most of us?) life continues to be much as it has been at the local level... mostly we know that awfulness is going on through watching and reading the news... and talking with our friends who are doing the same... the cruelty of the present administration is getting close to hitting home... a family member with children experiencing rough times is dependent on snap benefits... they are very worried the government shutdown will take them away... we are too, though we think the state they are in will step in and support the program... half the states in the country have said they run out of money as of november 1...
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has canceled House business again next week, meaning that over the last 17 weeks, the House of Representatives will have worked on Capitol Hill for just 20 days. It also means that the House will not be back at work before November 1, when at least twenty-five states have said they will not be able to provide the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits more than 42 million Americans rely on to put food on the table.
yesterday, isaac saul of tangle, a substack i follow, departed from his daily practice of presenting important issues by quoting the left, the right, and then offering his own opinion... yesterday he wrote his frank assessment of where we are...
Yes, things are pretty bad right now.
So, today, I want to share my perspective on the moment we are living in. And the honest truth, as I see it, is that things are actually pretty bad right now. Nearly everything in the political arena â the candidates, the policies, the extremism, the AI slop, the punditry, the writing, the thinking, the principles â it all seems to be getting worse in basically every meaningful way.Â
And, to me, one of the driving forces behind all of this is the Trump administration. Nine months into his presidency, I think the bad things Trump is doing vastly outweigh the good. Rather than pretending I donât feel that way, Iâm going to step forward and flatly make my case. Again, I say all this as an independent-minded thinker with no loyalty to any political party. I say it as someone who has published countless pieces criticizing excesses and failures on the left (including the media). I say it while holding a set of political views that I believe are decidedly middle-of-the-road in sum and all over the place from issue to issue.
isaac saul is dedicated to presenting news and analysis that is balanced... he is a centrist, perhaps leaning to the right... i read him for a balanced viewpoint on what is happening... heather cox richardson is definitely liberal biased... hcr, tangle and reason.com are my main sources of news... rounding out my presentation of examples of the awfulness going on right now...
this...
reason.com, a libertarian publication that is all about small government and deficit reduction...
The president has too many 'emergency' powers
But the intense acceleration of the quest to aggregate power in the White House is now unambiguously the more immediate threat to liberty. It's visible every day on my commute to work, as National Guardsmen linger in my D.C. Metro stop. It's visible in the September gathering of the nation's top military officials for something between a pep rally and a company retreat. It's visible everywhere Immigration and Customs Enforcement is staging raids and setting up warrantless checkpoints. It's visible in the administration's moves to take a stake in Intel and broker a TikTok sale. It's visible from space. (As I write this, Blue Origin is completing its 36th New Shepard flightâa bright spot in a dark month.)
the storm is gathering in washington and flowing out across the country... liberal, centrist and conservative outlets are all sounding the alarm... it promises to be category 5...
we get on with our lives... a very nice week of celebrating my wife's birthday... good food... an afternoon at the movies... we saw One Battle After Another... a great movie... also one that seems appropriate to the moment we are in...
yesterday i was in the butcher shop getting some provisions... i was being checked out by a young butcher duddess when the young butcher dude working with her came up and wanted to see my nails... he told her "he always has something cool going on with his nails"... he seemed to be particularly fond of the metallic orange red i was sporting before the current color... i love these sorts of moments... this one was not necessarily an endorsement of my feminine presentation... i was coming from my job at the cemetery and i dress masculine for that... that he had been paying attention to my nails made me happy... apart from the electric charge it gives me to look down at my colorful finger tips, i am pleased when my efforts are noticed positively... my overwhelming experience since i started doing things aimed at a feminine presentation... i do it for myself... i do it because i am really happy with this way of presenting... but i love being noticed... don't we all?...
this morning i was listening to to I'm Your Man, a concert video and album released in 2005... prescient...
i am really enjoying having a dedicated music player... reminiscent of the iPod days... i bought the fiio m21... i had struggles getting it set up and my music onto it... the struggles were not the fault of the device itself... there was a bit of learning curve... i had to get the time zone properly set before i could log into band camp and sonos... i had to figure out that the adapter that shipped with the micro sd card i bought to use with it was why i was unable to save my music to it... sorted out by new adapter... once i overcame these things i could appreciate how terrific the device is... and how nice it is to separate your music listening from the distractions of the iPhone...
i will end with this... found on literary hub...
Literary Hub Âť Jane Schoenbrun is adapting Charles Burnsâ Black Hole for TV.
Netflix will be releasing a series from Jane Schoenbrun based on Charles Burnsâ comic Black Hole, according to Deadline. The series doesnât have a release date yet, but itâs hard to think of anyone better able to translate Burnsâ vision off of the page and onto the screen.
set in a small town outside of Seattle where an STD called âThe Bugâ starts mutating teenagers, causing strange physical changes to their bodies and sending most of them fleeing to the woods as outcasts. As the townâs teens navigate the outbreak, some of the infected start disappearing.
also mentioned in the article...
I Saw the TV Glow is a 2024 American psychological horror film written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun. The film stars Justice Smith and Jack Haven[a] as two troubled high school students whose connection to their favorite television show drives them to question their reality and identities. The supporting cast includes Helena Howard, Lindsey Jordan, Conner O'Malley, Emma Portner, Ian Foreman, Fred Durst, and Danielle Deadwyler.
We're All Going to the World's Fair - Wikipedia
We're All Going to the World's Fair is a 2021 American coming-of-age psychological horror film[7] written, directed, and edited by Jane Schoenbrun in their narrative feature directorial debut. The film stars Michael J. Rogers and Anna Cobb in her feature film debut.[8] David Lowery served as an executive producer.[9] The film follows Casey (Cobb), a teenage girl who takes the "World's Fair Challenge" and documents the mental and physical changes that it causes her.
looks like some good halloween watching...