Hot or not

May. 1st, 2026 10:48 pm
[syndicated profile] jl_pvt_fh_feed

Posted by The Editors


Today: Activist, musician, and writer jj skolnik.


Issue No. 556

Angine de la Scene
jj skolnik


Angine de la Scene

by jj skolnik

If you aren’t familiar with the Quebec band Angine de Poitrine (“angine de poitrine” = “angina pectoris,” chest pain caused by lack of blood flow to the heart), they’re a duo who wear oversized costumes with long-nosed papier-mâché (??) heads onstage. They’re covered in polka dots, right down to their bare polka-dot-painted feet, in the case of guitarist Khn de Poitrine. They make proggy math-rock, and have described themselves as a “mantra-rock dada Pythagorean-cubist orchestra.”

To me they’re reminiscent of the Rhode Island School of Design-centric scene of the aughts that produced Lightning Bolt, mixed with Primus and Frank Zappa. There’s also something that feels French-Canadian there that I can’t put my finger on because I’m American and have spent a grand total of maybe a week in Montreal total over my lifetime. Erin McLeod at touchofallright has more to say about the Quebecois context, placing their sound into the context of what she calls “cirque rock.”

I first noticed my online cohort discussing AdP a few months ago, when their KEXP session went viral just before the release of their second LP. At that point I filed Angine de Poitrine into the “not for me” category and went on my merry way. 

People really do love this band. On the popular podcast Justin Hawkins Rides Again, The Darkness frontman opined: “J’ADORE.” DJ Food enthused over the KEXP session as well: “It’s rare that something comes along at my age that knocks my socks off like this does, glad to know there are people out here this crazy.” Dave Grohl told 14-year-old Irish podcaster Logan Kelly that AdP’s music “absolutely blew my fucking mind.” There are endless references for fans to discuss: Adrian Belew-era King Crimson and Devo, Zs and Mick Barr.

Screen grab from Justin Hawkins Rides Again. Justin H. remarks on the justice of a commenter's observation ('Eat this, AI.') re: Angine de Poitrine
Justin H.: I think that's a really really good point.

The fanfare itself is at the core of the story among the lifetime niche heads I hang out with; a lot of the heads are irritated by the phenomenon itself, that is, rather than the band: why this band, where’s the dues for their predecessors, and why does the hype feel so inescapable? In part, I think the commercial landscape of modern music online is to blame.

While we have access to more music at our fingertips than ever before, at least online, it’s all controlled by platforms: streaming behemoths as well as the marketplaces for independent sellers, all obeying their own profit motives. Virality plays into the profit calculations of every platform; social media integrates with both streaming and selling platforms to drive discovery, and create as frictionless an experience as possible between sharing, listening, and purchasing. And then, arts criticism is often the first to go when media layoffs happen. In an age where social media is ubiquitous and AI is everywhere, being pushed down our collective throats, who needs people who know what they’re talking about and who know how to put a sentence together? Music journalists cost too much, and sometimes we do rude things to the bosses like try to organize. 

Interesting, intelligent, useful music journalism had been harder and harder to come by even when digital media felt like it still had some cash left in its pockets; a lot of publications preferred to push out argument-worthy best/worst lists to generate clicks and shares, or bite-sized, quotable commentary, rather than invest in the kind of deep dives that can illuminate the histories, the literature, the aesthetics, and the emotional connections we have with the music we love—or take a chance on a fine new band that maybe 30 people care about, so far.  

Sometimes, social media virality is organic. But as ever, marketers’ hands have been in the mix, manipulating “popularity” for the benefit of their paymasters. The recent Wired piece on the band Geese—another band that has generated critical discourse similar to that surrounding Angine de Poitrine—expanded on Eliza McLamb’s independent reporting on the digital marketing agency Chaotic Good, which creates networks of fake fan pages to boost virality. They were not particularly secretive about their tactics, bragging last March, in Billboard, about how they create their viral campaigns; in response to McLamb’s reporting, the firm removed their client list of artists from their website. As the Wired piece notes, juicing the stats via bots and streaming farms is well-established digital territory and exists firmly in the long lineage of payola and market manipulation. But the illumination of Chaotic Good’s tactics settled the feeling attentive music fans had been having that Something Was Algorithmically Up. 

One of the major features of this environment we’re in, then, is the erosion of trust. I have no idea whether Angine de Poitrine’s sudden fame is more on the organic side with a touch of regular marketing (e.g., placement on the KEXP show), or whether there’s more manipulation than meets the eye. Does it matter, though, when the platforms we depend on have so much say in how music gets to us in the first place? When they have control over whose speech is suppressed and whose boosted, whose catalogs disappear, and whether there are fraudulent AI releases appearing under artists’ names, sucking away their revenues? 

There’s been good reporting around these issues, some of which I’ve linked to here, but most of us understand by now that the journalists doing the most valuable reporting are not having an easy time keeping themselves afloat. Will there be a day when they lose their jobs and their freelance checks, or get booted off of platforms like Substack? 

All of this, then, is an argument for supporting the offline communities that remain, and for building a robust independent media infrastructure. Trust is still difficult to earn, but harder to fake or manipulate, in independent spaces. It feels fragile and atomized at the moment; finding the time, and the money to pay the writers and print the magazines, feels both Sisyphean, and necessary.


MAY DAY MAY DAY

On this International Workers’ Day and/or European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, we direct your attention to a fiery roundup of last year’s observance of WICKER MAN WEEK at Flaming Hydra.

Here is our creepily insightful and critical collection, with works from Tal LavinAnnalee Newitz, (plus bonus Yak!), Maria BustillosMiles Klee, and Kim Kelly.

Groweþ sed and bloweþ med
And springþ þe wde nu,
Sing cuccu!

AND FURTHERMORE

Bluesky post from Hamilton Nolan: [IMAGE] of a crowded labor gathering with a big sign reading KNIGHTS OF LABOR: AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL
Hamilton Nolan

Share this post! Advise your mates to Subscribe, that the Hydra may Thrive

Daily Check In.

May. 1st, 2026 06:19 pm
adafrog: (Default)
[personal profile] adafrog posting in [community profile] fandom_checkin
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Friday to midnight on Saturday (8pm Eastern Time).


Poll #34544 Daily poll
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 5

How are you doing?

I am okay
5 (100.0%)

I am not okay, but don't need help right now
0 (0.0%)

I could use some help
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans are you living with?

I am living single
3 (60.0%)

One other person
1 (20.0%)

More than one other person
1 (20.0%)




Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
ecto_one_spengler: (celebratory egg boi)
[personal profile] ecto_one_spengler posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Title: Thank you.
Theme: Welcome / Looking Back (for the current Amnesty)
Fandom: Kirby (video game series) - particularly Kirby's Return to Dream Land and Kirby and the Forgotten Land.. (Mods please tag as Kirby.)
Rating: PG
Content notes: The Magolor depicted here is from a Kirby AU of mine where he wasn't a villain to begin with. Also, spoilers for Kirby and the Forgotten Land as well as scattershot spoilers for other games.
Artist notes: The most involved of my works - ironically, due TO work I didn't actually. Finish this until today. And I may have also had some itnernet issues at the same time... Yeah. I hope it's enjoyable anyway!
Summary: On the day of Kirby's first birthday spent in the New World, his unofficial older brother thanks him for their years of friendship.

(DUE TO RUSHING THIS I WILL RETROACTIVELY ADD THE ALT TEXT)

 

Read more... )

 



[migraine] ... mrgh

May. 1st, 2026 11:41 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Today has been. the first time in A While that I have spent mostly horizontal and mostly asleep on account of migraine, despite drugs. I am Not A Fan.

Read more... )

teaotter: (Default)
[personal profile] teaotter posting in [community profile] fan_flashworks
Title: It takes all that I have just to cry for help
Fandom: Wiseguy (tv)
Content notes: Missing scene from Loose Cannon; very definitely spoilers.
Challenge: Fragile
Length: ~750 words

Summary: But that’s why he came here, isn’t it?

Read more... )

[ SECRET POST #7056 ]

May. 1st, 2026 05:36 pm
case: (Default)
[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #7056 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


Content warnings on everything today!


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1007.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

seventeen years!

May. 1st, 2026 06:07 pm
pauraque: sleeping sheep in trans pride colors dreaming the word dreamwidth (trans dreamsheep)
[personal profile] pauraque
I wasn't planning anything for [community profile] 3weeks4dreamwidth, but then I realized today is my account creation anniversary! I've been on Dreamwidth for 17 years, since the second day of open beta.

Occasionally I am in the position of explaining to people what Dreamwidth is, and I usually say it's an indie social media site with no ads or algorithm. I feel like sometimes people don't know what I mean by that, or have a hard time wrapping their minds around how it can possibly exist. Like what do you mean, it doesn't exploit you for profit? It lets you look only at things you have chosen to look at without cramming trending topics and promoted content down your throat?? You visit it every day because you enjoy it, not because it is designed to manipulate you into feeling addicted to it??? Increasingly over the past 17 years I have felt like a lot of people experience a very different internet than I do, and if I had to experience that internet I probably wouldn't go online much.

Thank you all for being here and creating a space where the internet is still thoughtful and human and fun.

Turbulence, by David Szalay

May. 1st, 2026 03:12 pm
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


A modern take on La Ronde: a novel in the form of twelve short stories linked by airplane trips. Each has a main character who meets the main character of the next story. A pilot has a brief fling with a journalist in Brazil; the journalist flies to Toronto to interview a writer; the writer flies to Seattle where she meets two of her fans; one of the fans flies to Hong Kong, and so forth.

The blurb says each meeting causes a ripple effect as they change each other's lives, but that's not actually what happens in many of them. Some are minor chance encounters, some are present at a crucial moment in someone else's life but don't directly affect it, and some are important encounters but those are the ones where the people have pre-existing relationships. Most of the characters are disconnected, discontented, and lonely, despite the literal connections they have in a six degrees of separation way; the only character who seems happy and is focused on the people they love is about to get hit with a terrible tragedy that's someone else's traffic delay.

As we go from person to person, we get to see the characters from different angles, and understand things about them that others don't. The pilot, who in his story was wondering what would have happened if his younger sister hadn't died in a childhood accent, asks his one night stand how old she is. She says 33, which is the age his sister would have been. But she has no idea of any of this, and when he doesn't reply she thinks he's fallen asleep.

There's an impressively diverse set of locales and characters, sketched-in but real-feeling; I knew we were in Delhi before it was stated just from the description of the air. The emotional tenor is a bit distanced and chilly. Overall it reminded me of Raymond Carver, but with less striking prose.

Szalay won last year's Booker Prize for Flesh, a novel which sounds really unappealing.
sovay: (Lord Peter Wimsey: passion)
[personal profile] sovay
Rabbit, rabbit! For May Day, I made a garland and [personal profile] spatch photographed me. The inspiration was [personal profile] nineweaving.

And every hair all on your head shines like a silver wire )

And on the porch was sitting the copy of Vivien Alcock's A Kind of Thief (1991) that [personal profile] osprey_archer had offered a week ago and Hestia had run across my computer to claim, so she will sit on it and I will read it and we will welcome in the spring.
lannamichaels: Brachos 2a, caption: "There's a debate about that" (daf yomi)
[personal profile] lannamichaels


And that's Menachos! A good time overall, but I have got to break the habit of getting behind, catching up, getting ahead, getting behind, catching up, etc. One thing I can say about this week is that I mostly did the correct day's daf on that day. Mostly.

Up next: crash-course in animal anatomy Chullin!

The rest of my Menachos notes behind cut.

Read more... )
pegkerr: (Default)
[personal profile] pegkerr
As I mentioned before, I received a diagnosis several months ago for the pain in my pelvis: I have gluteal tendonopathy and bursitis. The inflammation also includes the SI (sacroiliac) joint. I have been doing physical therapy for several months, and things were a little better, but I have been plateauing for a while.

Finally, absolutely fed up with the decreased mobility and the pain, I made an appointment with a pain specialist and quickly arranged to get steroid injections in my SI joint and my gluteal
trochanter last week. It was not fun, and the results will take a while to emerge (3 to 14 days).

I have been monitoring my step asymmetry with my Apple watch, and my limp has been pretty bad. It is getting a little better, and I can walk farther. The pain hasn't entirely gone away, but I am hoping things will continue to improve. Anyway, I'm glad I did it, and maybe I'll be able to exercise a bit more consistently now.

Image description: Background: Lavender flowers (representing serenity and physical healing). Center: a human skeleton with a figure eight-shaped thorny bramble over the pelvis. Behind the skeleton at the pelvis: an orange calendula blossom (representing comfort and recovery). At the right side, a hand in a surgical glove angles a syringe so that the point hovers just above the pelvis.

Pelvis

17 Pelvis

Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Oy, guttenyu: S&S Deli is closing

May. 1st, 2026 07:43 pm
[syndicated profile] universal_hub_feed

Posted by adamg

Boston Restaurant Talk reports that the venerable S&S Deli in Inman Square is closing in June, after more than a century serving area fressers.

Neighborhoods: 
Free tagging: 
beccaelizabeth: my Watcher tattoo in blue, plus Be in red Buffy style font (Default)
[personal profile] beccaelizabeth
https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/torchwood-everyone-s-dead-on-floor-3-3214

This was a solid 5 stars out of 5. The content warnings are well earned for something that never leaves the office. It starts out so ordinary and petty and then drops the year on you hard. It's like opening a box to find it full of jeweled beetles eating through everything, including a layer of bones. Everyone is so vividly and specifically detailed, even the dead ones. And even when I was sure something awful was going to happen it had me gripped on exactly which awful when.

This is really really good work.

And the only regular Torchwood character in it is an audio exclusive, Norton Folgate again. Who is someone you can plausibly show doing nearly anything as long as it's twisty so he's very useful to have around. But the Torchwood range covers the whole Torchwood historical era and dips in to so many lives we don't have a canon framework for so they can do anything. I've seen people complain about that because they want to revisit the characters from the first two seasons on TV but I think it's one of the great strengths of the range.

Though I can see how it is difficult to market something on the strength that you never know what you're going to get.

If you want to listen an audio where you start off thinking the corpses are going to be the horror and then learn, this audio is absolutely recommended.

... if you want a nice adventure where something gets won and it all packs neatly in a blue box in the end you want one of the other ranges...

Books read, May 2026

May. 1st, 2026 02:54 pm
brithistorian: (Default)
[personal profile] brithistorian
  • 1 May 2026
    • *The Monster in the Manor (Lyonne Riley)

Tortall art

May. 1st, 2026 03:40 pm
aurumcalendula: detail from Marilee Heyer's cover art from Lioness Rampant (Alanna)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula
The illustrator for the late 90s/early 2000s US Random House covers for Tamora Pierce's Tortall quartets has prints available for most* of her covers!

*(The original painting First Test's cover was sold years ago and she hasn't had luck tracking it down to scan, but she might try to reproduce it at some point)
[personal profile] tcampbell1000 posting in [community profile] scans_daily


JLA Giffen-DeMatteis-Sears, JLE Giffen-Jones-Robertson.

It’s time to face off against Dreamslayer, the wroth foe with a face like a Rothko. Except just now, he’s borrowed Max Lord’s handsome mug and an entire population of islanders. He could do even more damage with Max’s body in a single afternoon if he understood finance. )
vamp_ress: (Default)
[personal profile] vamp_ress posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Pairings/Characters: Viggo Mortensen/Orlando Bloom
Rating: Explicit
Length: 30.000 words
Creator Links: lennongirl on AO3
Theme: Journey & Travel

Summary: AU: Orlando and Viggo meet in Spain under strange circumstances and travel through Europe together in Viggo's truck, getting to know each other and themselves.

Reccer's Notes: This is an old comfort fic that I used to read and re-read all the time back in the day. It's 30.000 words of both road trip and falling in love and that combination is simply too charming for its own good. You'll get to see quite a bit of Europe in the story as this starts out in Spain and and ends in Denmark. And to keep readers in the know there's a map of the characters' journey/progress at the end of each chapter. This story is fluffy and romantic and adventurous - simply the best combination of all the ingredients!

Fanwork Links: The Journey is the Destination on AO3

you don't have to tell a tidy story

May. 1st, 2026 02:22 pm
musesfool: Rebecca and Keeley from Ted Lasso (can't believe their eyes)
[personal profile] musesfool
So I haven't written anything fictional since about January 2024 and mostly haven't even had any ideas, and then one morning last week (maybe the week before? I'm not sure - what even is time?), I woke up and was like, I could write a short DCC story set pre-collapse where Carl posts to AITA about breaking up with Bea and potentially stealing Donut. I told [tumblr.com profile] angelgazing about it and she was of course, very encouraging, and all, you should totally write that! But alas, I did not, though I did think about it longer than most ~ideas~ I've had over the last 2 years.

This morning, she texted me a link and someone wrote it! In a brief post on Threads of all places, but it was exactly that. And she was like, I only recognized it because you'd already told me about it! And I was like, see, I don't even have to write it because someone else already did!

Nice to know that even without writing anything, I am still tapped into the fannish hive mind. *wry*

In other fannish news: Ted Lasso season 4 trailer!!!! August 5th!!! I AM EXCITE!!!

*

Farewell Fung Wah

May. 1st, 2026 04:45 pm
[syndicated profile] universal_hub_feed

Posted by adamg

OK, we were not looking for Fung Wah music. But we did want to see Dorchester's own Ayo Edeberi's remembrance of the flaming bus service this morning, did so, and then when we returned to YouTube later to call up some music, Google remembered and so stuck "Farewell Fung Wah" into our video list.

Free tagging: 
umadoshi: (Guardian Shen Wei 05)
[personal profile] umadoshi
May is sweeping in with a significant downpour here, although at least it doesn't feel as chilly as the last couple of days did.

Out of curiosity, yesterday I opened my Scrivener file of Guardian fic and did a rough tally of the various WIPs, which have mostly not been touched since the start of the pandemic. (There are three subfiles of scraps written on my phone in, I think, 2022, 2023, and 2024, which collectively add up to not much. There isn't one for last year, which I guess tells a story on its own.) It all adds up to something like 60,000 words, which is...better? worse?...than I expected. "Better" in the sense that if I never get back to any of them--and I'm open to surprise, but it's been so many years--it's not a terrible number of words to let fall away, even if there are things in there that I'm sad to not have finished, especially the pieces that were meant to link up with the incomplete story cycle that five of the six fics I posted belong to. :/

(I'm also a bit curious about what a similar tally of unposted Newsflesh bits and pieces would add up to, but that's scattered among multiple Scrivener files, all of them divided into multiple sections, so it'd be more of a pain.)

Yesterday and today are days off from Dayjob to work on Yona (ohmyheart), and I'm getting back to that as soon as I finish this post...while also having a first listen to Tori's new album, In Times of Dragons. So that's an odd combination, but I want to just...feel the vibe of the album without trying to immerse myself in it, given my track record of her last several. (All of which I relistened to recently for the first time in a long while, and I like the sound in general, but still had no luck bonding lyrically.)

Glancing back and forth to the lyrics is not going to help with work focus, but oh well. I need to know what she's singing. (Toriphoria already has the lyrics up, fortunately.)

Interview quote following the lyrics for "Veins":

You’re actually hearing it as I heard it for the first time. It was recorded as I wrote it, a direct “download” from the muses. I tried to record it again afterward and could never replicate it. I was sitting with arranger John Philip Shenale, the tape was running, and that was the moment. Just like when I recorded the song “Marianne” back in 1996. Some things only happen once.

Friday Five

May. 1st, 2026 12:36 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
These are [community profile] thefridayfive questions for May 1...

Read more... )

Birdfeeding

May. 1st, 2026 12:33 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy and cool.

I fed the birds. I've heard a squirrel barking but haven't seen it.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 5/1/26 -- I did a bit of work around patio.

I took some pictures around the yard. Columbine, alliums, poppy, wood hyacinth, and others are blooming.


.
beccaelizabeth: my Watcher tattoo in blue, plus Be in red Buffy style font (Default)
[personal profile] beccaelizabeth
Having one of those days when I can't quite settle to anything.

So I read the internet,
and then listened to like 3/4 of Sword of Orion (8 and Charley Big Finish)
before getting distracted by the internet again.

I have the feeling there secretly is something I want to do but it is Hiding so instead I have just about managed to eat a food and drink a ribena.

Maybe I want to write?

I keep putting characters all in the same place but then it turns into I Packed My Bag And In It I Put, like my mediocre nightmares of endless packing where the fire alarms go off but I keep trying to put enough stuff in a bag instead of leaving. I keep having to wake up and take mental inventory of which things I could just go to a supermarket and buy instead so I should not need to pack them. But no, boring packing again. Only when it is characters you have to worry about if you're secretly going on a one way trip through an interdimensional castle... as you do... and then you have to pack for EVERYthing.

Adventure can start when I have calculated a year's supply of loo roll and how much salt I can fit in a shopping trolley if the supermarket has it or potentially if we hit all the supermarkets in walking distance.

This is not massively helpful.

I keep trying to remind myself Conjob manages with whatever he's got in his pockets ie usually a lighter and a pack of silk cut.

... TV Constantine 2014 gave him an entire house full of arcane artefacts, like JLDark gave him the House of Mystery or Secrets, and it bothers me. That's a whole different arcane archetype. That's the arcane equivalent of those old lady puppets in Labyrinth with the backpacks bigger than they are. And then the story doesn't allow any of it to ever make a difference anyway. He collects it all, he tries it in the middle of the story, he gets his arse kicked until he goes back to the comics original level of desperate measures. That's a very different story. They have accidentally made him subject to
futile packing
also.

The other way to think of it is to wonder what adventures I would be adequately equipped for if they were to arrive at my door right now
but that sort of thinking leads to wishlist full of survivalist stuff and military surplus gear with all the pockets.

Like I would still interrupt the adventuring to pack
but that would be the explanation for like
the first thirty years.

... the more I ponder this the less enthused I am...



Captain Jack Harkness manages with whatever is on him because what is on him is a wrist strap that works at the speed of the plot. Same with the Doctor and the sonic screwdriver that is straight up casting force wall these days. So that keeps the adventure moving but it moves ever further away from stuff you can guess or aspire to.

... says someone reading about magic...



I have tagged this plot bunnies but that is a lie. It is only a bunny like the ones they show greyhounds. Energizer bunny of out of reach same same.

I shall go... finish Sword of Orion I guess.

Mulligan

May. 2nd, 2026 03:24 am
tyger: Ven's Avatar Kingdom chibi. Text: Ventus (Ven - chibi)
[personal profile] tyger

Yeah today just... did not work as planned. At all.

Sat down to read on my phone while waiting for Sushi to eat his breakfast so I could wash - he eats in the bathroom - and just passed the fuck out, didn't manage to actually get up until sometime after 2. Needless to say, did not get my blood test done! :/

Also only got one coat done on the shelves, which is. Extremely annoying. Just. Why. Why like this. But yeah, fuzzy headed at best today. I did get some things tidied etc., buuuut... yeah. Fuck.

I DID at least manage to shower, and the blood draw place is open tomorrow morning, so I should be able to get that done! Still, brains are mush and have been all day, siiigh.

Some books

May. 1st, 2026 01:20 pm
aurumcalendula: detail of Hua Xiangyi from St's cover of volume 5 of Ballad of Sword and Wine/Qiang Jin Jiu (Hua Xiangyi)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula
Ballad of Sword and Wine, vol. 7 by Tang Jiu Qing (translated by XiA, Jia, and amixy):

Read more... )

I've also just started Desmond by Ulysses Grant Dietz and I'm liking it so far.

Public Do-May!

May. 1st, 2026 04:02 pm
[syndicated profile] fanlore_tumblr_feed
A collage of illustrations from Public Domain, a zombie figure, fairy, mermaid with an aquatic creature, and a woman reading a book. Text reads "Public Do-May: Public Domain Fandom Month".ALT

Brush off the classics and dig up your vintage media, this May Fanlore is celebrating Public DoMay, our month dedicated to Public Domain fandoms.

The Public Domain is a term used to describe media and creative works where there are no longer any intellectual property rights, which means anyone is able to use or transform them. Fandoms for Public Domain properties can vary widely, from classic literature that many learned in school, to more rare and obscure media.

Follow our social media for all the highlights!

——

We value every contribution to our shared fandom history. If you’re new to editing Fanlore or wikis in general, visit our New Visitor Portal to get started or ask us questions here!

Question thread #150

May. 1st, 2026 06:22 pm
pauamma: Cartooney crab wearing hot pink and acid green facemask holding drink with straw (Default)
[personal profile] pauamma posting in [site community profile] dw_dev
It's time for another question thread!

The rules:

- You may ask any dev-related question you have in a comment. (It doesn't even need to be about Dreamwidth, although if it involves a language/library/framework/database Dreamwidth doesn't use, you will probably get answers pointing that out and suggesting a better place to ask.)
- You may also answer any question, using the guidelines given in To Answer, Or Not To Answer and in this comment thread.

Volunteer social thread #163

May. 1st, 2026 06:17 pm
pauamma: Cartooney crab wearing hot pink and acid green facemask holding drink with straw (Default)
[personal profile] pauamma posting in [site community profile] dw_volunteers
I'm listening to thunder rumbling in the distance. (And I missed a month. No connection.)

How's everyone doing?

140 in 1400 List

May. 1st, 2026 09:04 am
zhelana: (Marvel - Puny God)
[personal profile] zhelana
Finished This Month

Go to 3 painting parties in 2026
go to kelly's wedding


Progress This Month

Exercise every day in 2026
Weight lift every day of 2026
Brush teeth 360 times in 2026
Shower 2x weekly 2026
Deodorant daily 2026
Climb stairs weekly 2026
Art Every Day 2026
Go out to photograph 12 times in 2026
Paint 12 times in 2026
Write in Spanish every day of 2026
Finish my memoirs
Write 300k words in 2026
Write weekly 2026
Read 50 books 2026
Read 12 new fiction titles 2026
Read at least 2 pages a day 2026
Clean 2 minutes per weekday 2026
Clean 10 minutes per week 2026
Watch a video in Spanish every week 2026
Watch 200 educational videos 2026
Read 3 science textbooks
Read 3 social science textbooks
Read 3 history textbooks
Work through 3 math textbooks
Read 12 new nonfiction titles 2026
Go to temple 12 times in 2026
Go to 9 SCA meetings 2026
chanter1944: a lilac tree in bloom (Wisconsin spring: lilac season)
[personal profile] chanter1944
In other words (that aren't lyrics quoted from the In The Heights movie adaptation), I'm shortly out of here to a May Day protest. I suspect turnout will eclipse the last No Kings utterly; we have the support of Madison's public school teachers and, very probably, students, to the tune of citywide school closures, and atop that, the UW is in session. You know I'll be keeping a language count, singing and chanting myself hoarse, and marching until my feet take notice. You know I'm hoping we make the news, locally and nationally, for all the best reasons and none of the worst ones.

If I need bailing out by the end of this, I'm calling you, [personal profile] meimichan. :) Seriously, if I need someone to throw my bail, it means the ice-hearted and/or some towering racists showed up and tried something reprehensible. That would be monumentally stupid, given Madison's crowds (diverse, peaceful, vocal, and unlikely to tolerate random innocents being snatched for no reason) but given the ice-hearted... well. Let's just hope I'm imagining the unlikely.
[syndicated profile] universal_hub_feed

Posted by adamg

Boston Police report gang-unit officers arrested a man they say was chasing an ambulance with its lights and sirens going, right through a red light on Warren Street in Roxbury Thursday night, while packing a loaded gun and a separate magazine also filled with bullets.

Police say the gang-unit officers were driving on Warren Street around 9:30 p.m. when they "observed a motor vehicle speed through a red light while simultaneously following a Boston EMS vehicle with their emergency lights and sirens active."

They stopped the driver at Warren and Deckard streets - and discovered he was wanted on various firearms charges out of Roxbury court:

The operator was removed from the vehicle and taken into custody.  A search of the towed motor vehicle led to the recovery of a firearm underneath the driver’s seat.

The firearm was determined to be a Taurus G2C 9mm firearm loaded with eleven rounds of live ammunition.  Additionally, officers recovered a second magazine containing ten rounds of live ammunition inside of a backpack on the passenger’s seat.

Justice Tucker, 27, of Roxbury, was charged with unlawful possession of a loaded firearm, unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition and unlawful possession of a large-capacity feeding device, police say. He also got a ticket for ignoring the traffic signal.

Innocent, etc.

Neighborhoods: 
Topics: 
[syndicated profile] universal_hub_feed

Posted by adamg

Castillo and ruined planter

Castillo and detective holding up photo of one of his ruined planters.

The Boston Licensing Board concluded yesterday there's only so much the owner of Castillo Wine and Spirits on Washington Street in Nubian Square can do to combat a growing wave of loitering and littering on his block that he says seems to have begun after the city's latest push to clean up Mass and Cass sent people from there into Nubian Square.

The board found "no violation" on a police citation for "'public drinking in front of liquor store," after a Tuesday hearing at which owner Carlos Castillo said he has put up no-loitering signs on the block, in front of both his store and other storefronts he owns, increased staffing and cleanup efforts at the store and even installed planters to try to beautify the block. He said he's even hired somebody specifically to try to get people outside to move along.

The planters have since been ruined and basically become waste baskets for the street drinkers. 

Castillo said he doubted the people found drinking outside the store had even been customers - he said his staff did not recognize any of the people and that they aggressively ban anybody found drinking right outside.

Instead, he said, the area in front of his store has become a place for people across the square to congregate and drink, like on the night of March 10, when BPD licensing detectives wrote him the citation that led to Tuesday's hearing - they made a "licensed premises inspection" due to complaints from the neighborhood about drinking right outside.

"It was the first warm spring day and nice weather encourages people in the neighborhood to get outside and congregate when it's convenient," his lawyer, Jennifer Allen, said.

Castillo told the board he started noticing an increasing in loitering drinkers in February, after increased loitering enforcement at Mass and Cass sent people there into other nearby areas, such as Nubian Square and Uphams Corner. "We really are affected by the pushout from Mass and Cass," he said, adding he has been in close contact with BPD District B-2's new captain to try to get increased enforcement.

It doesn't help, he said, that there are now few places actually open in Nubian Square at night. A nearby convenience store closes at 6 p.m., and he said his store is now the only place open on Washington Street up to the other side of Melnea Cass Boulevard. He noted even the Foot Locker recently closed up shop - and said the square now has more vacant storefronts than it did 12 years ago.

At the hearing, board Chairwoman Kathleen Joyce told him that since liquor-license holders are responsible for the sidewalks outside their premises, "this is your problem." She said the board has been receiving a constant stream of videos and photos of "people loitering in front of your business," and added, "from what I'm seeing, you're going to have to come up with some solutions."

But on Thursday, when the board voted on whether the citation merited any punishment, Joyce said she concluded there was no violation.

"He's doing as much as he can right now," she said, noting all the signs he's posted and his efforts to work with the city. Commissioners Liam Curran and Keeana Saxon agreed.

Neighborhoods: 

Round 186: Journey & Travel

May. 1st, 2026 08:17 am
runpunkrun: combat boot, pizza, camo pants = punk  (punk rock girl)
[personal profile] runpunkrun posting in [community profile] fancake
Photograph of things you might take with you, or pick up, on a trip, with added text: Journey & Travel, at Fancake. Items are neatly arranged on a rustic wooden table or door and photographed from above: hat, knapsack, barn coat, worn boots, folding knife, sunglasses, bottle, magnifying glass, as well as various maps, notebooks, pine cones, cameras, lenses, and rolls of 35mm film.
Our theme for May is journey & travel!

The tag for this round is: theme: journey & travel

If you're just joining us, be sure to check out our policy on content notes. Content notes aren't required, but they're nice to include in your recs, especially if a fanwork has untagged content that readers may wish to know about in advance.

Rules! )

Posting Template! )

Promote this round! )

cuneiform

May. 1st, 2026 07:52 am
prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (Default)
[personal profile] prettygoodword
cuneiform (kyoo-NEE-uh-fawrm, KYOO-nee-uh-fawrm) - adj., wedge-shaped. n., an ancient Mesopotamian writing system of logo-syllabic characters composed of wedge-shaped strokes.


a selection of cuneiform
Thanks, WikiMedia!

This came up in a dispute over how to pronounce it -- it turns out, we both were right -- and since I'd not run it before, here we are. Indisputable pictographic writing first developed in Uruk and other Sumerian cities around 3300 BCE, and evolved into a logo-syllablic system by c.2900 BCE that became more and more stylized, and by 2600 BCE it was so stylized it could be written quickly by pressing a wedge-shaped stylus into clay tablets (which could be baked and so preserved). This Sumerian system was later adapted to writing Akkadian, Hittite, Old Persian, and other languages. Interestingly, the last dateable cuneiform text was also from Uruk, written in 80 CE. We took the general adjective from Latin in 1677 (from cuneus, wedge) and applied it to the writing system in the 1850s.

---L.

Prompt: Seasonal Foods

May. 1st, 2026 07:58 am
runpunkrun: silverware laid out on a cloth napkin (gather yon utensils)
[personal profile] runpunkrun posting in [community profile] gluten_free

It's that time of the year again! When it's whatever season wherever you are, and our prompt is seasonal foods.

To fill this prompt, you can:

  1. Slide into the comments of this post and share a link to a recipe, product, or resource and why you like it.
  2. Write up a favorite recipe and post it to the comm.
  3. Post a review of a related product or cookbook to the comm.
  4. Try someone's recipe and reply to their post (or comment) with any changes you made and how it turned out.
Monthly prompts are only for inspiration and not a requirement. You can post whatever you like to the comm whenever you like as long as it meets the community guidelines.

And, a reminder, you can now tag your own posts.

Profile

maevele: (Default)
maevele

September 2022

S M T W T F S
    123
456789 10
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627282930 

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated May. 2nd, 2026 12:12 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios