Ecce Sigum

Category: Life

  • Weekly Round-up, March 8, 2025

    Pepper and Poe relaxing on the couch.

    [Poe and Pepper, relaxing on the couch.]

    Oh, we do live in interesting times. Trump and Musk are very efficiently dismantling the American Empire, which is a good thing, but they are doing so by dismantling America, which is a very bad thing. In the event that we ever have elections again, with candidates who are meaningfully distinct from one another and from the current ball of hagfish slime inhabiting the halls of power, I will vote from anyone who dedicates their career to overturning Citizens United, and putting strict caps on all campaign donations and all campaign spending. Spending is not free speech, has never been free speech, and must never be considered free speech. Free speech is only that which is enjoyed, both in principle and in practice, by all Americans equally. So any laws which act as de facto aggregators of power rather than dispersers of power are per se anti-free speech, and therefore pro-fascism.

    Reading

    Samuel Beckett. Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Patsy Southgate. Paul Blackburn. Gary Snyder. Carlos Fuentes. Denise Levertov. Boris Pasternak. All of these writers and dozens more besides, in The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966. This book is keeping me sane, for what it’s worth.

    Writing

    I felt particularly burned out over the past week and so accomplished very little, writing-wise.

    Weekly Writing Prompt

    Subject: Espionage, Super Powers
    Setting: Border Town
    Genre: Fantasy

    Listening

    Otis Taylor and his band with an amazing cover of “Hey Joe”, performed at the Kitchener Blues Festival in August of 2014. I have been a fan of Taylor since I first heard one of his songs on local station WYCE back in the early 2000s.

    Interesting Links

  • Weekly Round-up, March 1, 2025

    The view east from Draper Cemetery in Jackson County, Michigan.

    [The view east from Draper Cemetery in Jackson County.]

    After last week’s whirlwind project, which I can’t discuss but during which I learned a LOT of Python, I am completely exhausted and took the last two days of the week off as sick days, for the sake of my mental and emotional health. Twenty years ago I could have recovered from a 70+ hours-in-eight-days marathon of work by getting a single night of sleep. That simply is not the case any more. I need down time.

    This past Tuesday we laid my aunt Judy to rest. She was my Mom’s older sister, and the third of the four siblings to pass. I saw many relatives who I had not seen since Mom’s funeral back in the fall of 2021. The family just keeps getting smaller.

    Reading

    I am about a third of the way through The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966. So much good stuff here!

    Writing

    I have had neither time nor energy to put pen to paper this week, other than minimal journaling and some light note-taking and list-making.

    Weekly Writing Prompt

    Subject: Spiritual Beings, Portals
    Setting: Ship
    Genre: Western

    Listening

    “Ghostwriter” by RJD2, from the album Deadringer. I listened to this song a lot during my first few years as a web developer, on a compilation album someone gave me back in the early 2000s. The whole album is quite good.

    Interesting Links

  • Weekly Round-up, February 22, 2025

    The ears of an orange cat visible over a rumpled pile of bed covers, also orange. In the background a window through which snow-covered houses are visible.

    [Pepper, hiding.]

    I am in the middle of another insane work week, so light updates here.

    Reading

    The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957 – 1966. Amazing stuff here.

    Writing

    Code. Lots of code.

    Weekly Writing Prompt

    Subject: Colonization, Fae
    Setting: Mountains
    Genre: Fantasy

    Listening

    Hannah Waddingham and Brendan Hunt singing the B-52’s “Love Shack” This video will live in my head, rent-free, FOREVER!

    Interesting Links

  • Weekly Round-up, February 15, 2025

    A trail of cat footprints in a light covering of snow.

    [A trail of cat footprints in a light covering of snow.]

    This past week was hectic, but not overwhelming. We are already making plans for ConFusion 2026, and I am excited to be part of that process. ConFusion 2025 was a tremendous experience and I am grateful that we are able to keep that momentum up as we plan for next year.

    Reading

    I finally finished Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago. In any other year I would have completed it sometime around the holidays, but surviving in a cyberpunk dystopia takes a lot of mental energy, and is quite psychologically draining. And classic Russian literature requires a lot of focus and attention to detail.

    Immediately upon closing the Pasternak, I opened The Evergreen Review Reader, 1957-1966. I believe I picked this book up as a remainder when I worked at Schuler Books & Music back in the mid-1990s. So this book has been in my possession for between 25 and 30 years. And now I am finally reading it. The first two short stories therein are by Samuel Beckett and Jack Kerouac.

    Writing

    While at Monumental ConFusion a couple of weeks ago, my partner bought me an unlined journal with paper thick enough to allow me to use a fountain pen without bleed-through or blotching. I have written a couple of poems in it, one a sort of “welcome to the journal” piece, and the other a response to finishing Doctor Zhivago here in the mid-21st century. Feels good to have my head in that space again.

    Weekly Writing Prompt

    Subject: Environment, Precursors
    Setting: Frontier
    Genre: Technothriller

    Listening

    “Careless Whisper” by Wham!

    While looking for a song to include in this post, I found a list of the top 40 songs of this date 40 years ago. “Careless Whisper” was at the top of an ABSOLUTELY AMAZING collection of music. 1985 was a hell of a year to be a teenager listening to the radio.

    Interesting Links

     

  • Weekly Round-up, February 8, 2025

    For the first time in many months, I had a week which wasn’t particularly busy. Or rather, not busy by my usual standards. And I celebrated by being completely brain-dead for the entire week. I managed to accomplish what work was sent my way, and I attended all of the martial arts classes as usual, but other than when working out, I spent the entire week on autopilot.

    Reading

    I made minimal progress in Doctor Zhivago, due to my brain simply not working. And also by sleeping through what is usually my reading time in the mornings. I really shouldn’t let myself get so exhausted.

    Writing

    I barely even wrote in my journal this week, though I plan to ramp that up significantly, if for no other reason than that between the tidal wave of LLM-generated content, and the capture of all of the online platforms by billionaire fascists of various flavors, handwritten creative work is the only writing which is guaranteed to be “real.”

    Weekly Writing Prompt

    Subject: Super Powers, Precursors
    Setting: Labyrinth
    Genre: War

    Listening

    “I Hate You” by Kirk Thatcher and his band The Edge of Etiquette. Recorded for That Scene in Star Trek IV.

  • Weekly Round-up, February 1, 2025

    I am back home and in blissed-put recovery mode after four days of Monumental ConFusion. I will post a write-up in the near future.

    Reading

    I finished Speculative Whiteness, and am in the final stretch of Doctor Zhivago. Zhivago has been a very long project, due in large part to chaos in my day job and also chaos in the world at large. Concentration and focus have been in very short supply this year.

    Writing

    My brain is recovering from the past three months of *gestures at everything*, so not much writing this week.

    Weekly Writing Prompt

    Subject: Undead, Genius Loci
    Setting: Library
    Genre: Solarpunk

    Listening

    Marianne Faithfull and The Chieftains, “Love is Teasin’”, from the magnificent album The Long Black Veil.

    Faithfull died this past Thursday, after a long, difficult, and beautiful life.

    Interesting Links

  • Weekly Round-up, January 25, 2025

    The view from the hotel window at ConFusion 2025. A parking lot, a frozen pond, and several roads are visible, as well as various evergreen and deciduous trees.

    [The view from the hotel window at ConFusion 2025.]

    This will be a brief update, as I am at Monumental ConFusion for the weekend.

    Reading

    With the crazy project finally mostly wrapped up, I finally have time and – more importantly – mental energy to dive back into reading. I am bouncing back and forth between Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, where I am well past the halfway point, and Jordan S. Carroll’s Speculative Whiteness, which is a short but infuriating read, though now that I am well past the halfway point it is becoming amusing. The alt-right, in all their various facets, are a bunch of pathetic losers.

    Writing

    Not much writing happening right now, thanks to the afore-mentioned Crazy Project.

    Weekly Writing Prompt

    Subject: Empire, Genius Loci
    Setting: Wilderness
    Genre: Dystopian

    Listening

    “Father & Son” by Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens. My partner and I have been watching Ted Lasso, with is remarkable and joyous, and the final scene of the final episode featured this song.

    Interesting Links

  • Weekly Round-up, January 18, 2025

    A sprig of purple kale peeking out of a pile of snow.

    [A sprig of decorative purple kale peeking out of a pile of snow just outside of Martha’s Vineyard in Grand Rapids, Michigan.]

    Another week in the hopper, and I am exhausted. This week I worked 51 hours and managed to avoid missing the evening classes by logging in between 6 and 7:00 in the morning. But we have two more days to go, though I am sure the project leads would love for me to work through this three-day weekend, that just ain’t gonna happen.

    The next blog post – indeed, the next couple of hundred blog posts – will be sent from the newly-formed Fascist States of America, headed by several billionaires stuffed in a sagging, ugly, shit-stained Donald Trump costume.

    This state of affairs became inevitable when the Supreme Court passed Citizens United, which codified into law the idea that money is exactly the same as speech, and that the richer a person (or corporation) was, the more deserving of free speech they were. It is no coincidence that these billionaire broligarchs consider themselves “free speech absolutists”, but only when it comes to the dissemination of white supremacist and other forms of hate speech. Note how quickly they close down any criticisms of themselves on their own platforms.

    So in that sense, Donald J. Trump, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and the other wealthy media outlet owners are the most cowardly men on the planet. They have gone to astonishing lengths to build up enough wealth to not only shield themselves from the consequences of any of their actions, but also to shut down most avenues of criticism of them and the members of their cohort. They are the living embodiment of Wilhoit’s Law: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

    Reading

    I have passed the halfway point of Doctor Zhivago, but it is still slow going. Maybe the long weekend will afford me time to get in some pages.

    Writing

    I am giving up on writing anything substantial until February. This month has been a total wash.

    Weekly Writing Prompt

    Subject: Artificial Intelligence, Cryptids
    Setting: Ruins
    Genre: War

    Listening

    Aphex Twin, “On”

    Interesting Links

    • With the annual State of the World address wrapped up, a new conversation is ongoing at The Well: “State of the News 2025“
    • Have a couple of decades to kill? browse the Magazine Rack at the Internet Archive.

  • Weekly Round-up, January 11, 2025

    The Grand River, as seen at sunset from the Bridge Street bridge.

    [The Grand River, as seen at sunset from the Bridge Street bridge.]

    Another week gone, consumed by the crazy work project. The end is nigh, but it is a combination of an abrupt cliff and a brick wall toward which we are racing headlong. So kind of like life in general.

    I am winding down my interactions with Facebook, as Zuck has joined Musk in licking MAGA boots, so Facebook will not stop even the pretense that it isn’t a Nazi bar. Thus it joins Twitter/X, Gab, Rumble, and Truth Social as a safe space for fascists.

    Most of my social media presence will now be on BlueSky (until it, too, follows Xitter into the shitter) and Mastodon, which has so far mostly avoided the problem of being owned by billionaire tech bros. We will see how that plays out in the next four years.

    Reading

    I have finally reached the halfway point of Doctor Zhivago, a month later than I originally expected. It is very, very good.

    Writing

    While sitting at a cafe yesterday morning before work I knocked out a rough draft of a poem about the Los Angeles wildfires. I might leave it at that, as the subject is so fucking depressing.

    Weekly Writing Prompt

    Subject: Empire, Aliens
    Setting: Bar
    Genre: Technothriller

    Listening

    Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds” has been bouncing around my head lately, for no particular reason, other than that, fifty-five years later, it is still a hell of a song.

    Interesting Links

  • Weekly Round-up, January 4, 2025

    A section of one of the shelves of books in the poetry section at Argos Books and Comics.

    [A section of one of the shelves of books in the poetry section at Argos Book Shop. Taken because of the presence of issue 2.3 of The 3288 Review, of which I was the Managing Editor.]

    This past week was blissfully quiet. I didn’t do much, and I would like to continue to not do much for the rest of my life, but alas – work started on Thursday, and though few members of our team were around, I had plenty on my plate to keep me busy, and fortunately few co-workers to disrupt my flow.

    ConFusion 2025 begins in three weeks, and the tasks and obligations are quickly stacking up. I am the Head of Operations this year, which mostly means answering a lot of questions and wrangling volunteers. And I am very much looking forward to the event which is one of the two major highlights of my year.

    Reading

    I am close to halfway through Doctor Zhivago, and it just keeps getting better. This is a much easier read than any of the Dostoevsky I read over the past several years. Not that Pasternak is a better writer, just more readable.

    One of my major reading goals for the year is to focus on nonfiction, and to that end I started Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right by Jordan S. Carroll. It is quite good so far, and has reignited in me an interest in politics and political theory, which I am pursuing in my offline journal. You may ask, “didn’t the recent several elections keep your attention?” and the answer is yes, but also the last three elections, thanks to Trump and his strangle-hold on American conservatism, have been utter shitshows. This will likely not stop until he is biodegrading and all of his works pulled down and salt strewn where they once stood.

    Writing

    I have managed some short creative works – a sentence here, a paragraph there, and also the rough draft of a poem which came to me while I was reading Doctor Zhivago in a laundromat last week. So the year has promise, in this one small facet.

    Weekly Writing Prompt

    Subject: Cryptids, Mutants
    Setting: Ruins
    Genre: Magic Realism

    Listening

    The Cars, “Moving in Stereo“. This song is of course most famous for That Scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but it was also one of the first songs I listened to on Pandora, back in the early 2000s, when Pandora was a web-based Flash application, and it actually downloaded the songs it played to a directory on the user’s hard drive. In case you are wondering, Pandora no longer downloads the songs it plays.

    Interesting Links