trans women, literary book club, john irving, best books, best art films, thoreau's kalendar, panforte di siena, photos
yesterday i was grateful for yoga with maryann and literary fiction book club...
today i am looking forward to an investment planning meeting for the cemetery, a little more christmas shopping and the resumption of christmas movie watching...
last night we attended our first meeting of the literary fiction book club at stanza books... we discussed queen esther by john irving... it was broadly felt to be not his best work... a retread of familiar themes with not much new to offer... once the familiar themes were stripped away, it became about the israeli-palestinian struggle and was unabashedly pro israel... there really wasn't much depth or nuance on the subject... it was suggested by the group moderator that irving had recently discovered he had jewish blood and was exploring what that meant...
the group was predominantly women, overwhelmingly really... there were three amabs (assigned male at birth) there and i, of course, present femininely, so the feminine spirit was strong in the room... i wondered why that might be and my working hypothesis is that women are the more empathic gender (whether because society trains them that way or the realities of motherhood)... literary fiction promotes empathy, or so it has been said... men prefer reading material that is more "left brain" if you will... more masculine to them... the sci-fi reading group has a lot more men in it...
this morning for my daily feminine mystique download (inspiring pictures of attractive women) i focused on finding images of trans women... i am wondering about finding more trans community... right now i move almost entirely in a world of heterosexuality which is not surprising given i am married to a woman and we go out into the world together... and we have always socialized with the heterosexual community... and most of our lives together has been heterosexual... exploring trans gender community and lgbtq+ community is less comfortable for my wife than heterosexual community is for me, so we tend to stay in the heterosexual lane for socializing... my wife is fully accepting and supportive of the lgbtq+ community... it just isn't her first choice in community to socialize with... or so i believe...
the last time i was in stanza book store, i was looking for comic books and graphic novels as a gift for my wife... mark, one of the owners and moderator of the sci-fi group, helped me and in the process pointed out a graphic novel on the history of transpeople... i have been thinking about it and though i feel a little shy about it, i think i want to buy a copy...
among my new year's aspirations will be finding more lgbtq+ community, especially trans... i also want to explore makeup more... right now its all about lipstick... i want to do more with eye shadow... i am also wondering if this will be the year i get my ears pierced... i have some good clip on earrings but my choices will be exponentially expanded if my ears are pierced and most of my clip ons hurt after a while...
best books of 2025, one of many, many lists...
The Best Books of 2025 | AnOther
When she was 16, Linn Ulmann found herself alone on the streets of Paris in the middle of the night, having forgotten the name of her hotel. The only address she had to hand was the apartment of the predatory Vogue photographer she’d come to town to work with. Set in Oslo, Paris and New York, Ullman’s novel/memoir, Girl 1983, returns again and again to this night, revisiting it from her adult perspective in an effort to reunite the splintered shards of her own damaged psyche. Ullman is the daughter of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman, and once you see it, you can’t unsee Girl 1983’s Bergman-esque symbolism, uncomfortable truths and fragmented, hypnotic narrative.
and, from a 10 best art films list...
Named for the musical range comprising most notes of a vocal part, this short documentary follows three contemporary transgender opera singers — Breanna Sinclairé, Lucas Bouk, and Katherine Goforth — whose capacities challenge both traditional conventions and the presumption that opera itself is an inherently conservative art form. Revealing the gender-fluid history of this classical genre, Tessitura echoes far longer than its 18 resonant minutes. —Eileen G’Sell
and...
That artist Meredith Monk is not a household name says much about the sexism she has faced in her 60-year career, as this documentary reveals in no uncertain terms. For those unfamiliar with the avant-garde, multidisciplinary artist, this film serves as an apt corrective, a vibrant mosaic of her life and work that both honors her prolific output and celebrates her singular vision. If the world wasn’t ready for her in the ’80s, then maybe it is now that she’s in her 80s. —Eileen G’Sell
i am intrigued with the idea of recording things over time and noticing any evolution or patterns that establish themselves... in fact, i think of this daily blog as doing that...
Literary Hub » On Henry David Thoreau’s Ultimate Instrument of Perception, the “Kalendar”
Comprised of six multipage charts of general phenomena, the Kalendar was an instrument for recording and perceiving not just annual, weather-related phenomena themselves, but also the hidden relations between them--between the skies of one June and the skies of past and future Junes--relations we often feel but can't quite hold, stuck as we usually are in our own brief moment of linear time.
"Each season," Thoreau observed in his Journal in June of 1857, "is but an infinitesimal point. It no sooner comes than it is gone. It has no duration." In other words, loss is fundamental to our experience of time: every moment we experience is already passing away.
i am thinking i will make this before christmas...
Panforte di Siena - by Jack McNulty - VeganWeekly
You can spend your whole life cooking and still get ambushed by a dessert that decides it has its own rules... no intention of bowing to your expectations... no interest in fluff or grandeur. Panforte is exactly that kind of dessert—a stubborn little marvel.
a few photographs from this morning...
