san diego (12-26yo us residents, not the whole collection just commonly banned books)
these cards (part of the books unbanned initiative) get you access to each library’s complete libby/overdrive collection (unless otherwise mentioned), no hoopla/kanopy/physical copies included.
ebook collections are expensive to maintain (many american libraries have annual fees for non-residents because of this) but because of an uptick in book banning (particularly brutal in mississippi last summer) larger libraries have opened their doors more, which is very kind of them!
i’ve used my seattle card for the last several months and their libby collection has about three times the books that my local library does, which is wonderful for accessing more niche titles or skipping a waiting list. would love to hear of similar ebook initiatives internationally!
i use library extension (firefox/safari/chrome compatible) to check all my collections (+ the internet archive) at once, works for several different countries highly recommend it.
spotify seems to be offering 15hrs/month of audiobook listening to premium subscribers and while that does seem useful if you’re already paying and are after a new release with a long library waitlist, libraries are better for everything else.
tbh i never want to hear another discussion about suicide and how it relates to oppression that doesn’t discuss suicidism. ive been suicidal nearly my entire life and his writing is the first time ive felt seen by a perspective on suicide that didn’t alienate me for having the Wrong Feelings about my own suicidality. also, alexandre baril is a trans man, and while he does not specifically bring up the high rates of suicidality amongst transmascs, i love supporting transmasc academics and i find it interesting that one wrote such a radical perspective on suicide. rlly cannot recommend this enough. he also specifically tried to write a book that would be accessible to people who struggle with reading academic texts.
good morning, I’ve been up for hours and already had my plans completely derailed by THIS IS CHICAGO, a podcast that’s just 7 minute snapshots of various Chicagoans talking about their jobs, or something that means something to them, no voiceover or even framing device beyond the bing-bong sound that the El doors make when they’re about to close.
I’ve been sitting at my kitchen table with a cooling cup of coffee for hours now. Who knows if I’ll get back to my actual paying job today.
Oh, this episode is the best one—a rhyme to that point I made long ago, about how ghosts are an enduring mark of suffering, how that comes to us as both horror and relief.
Hannah Gadsby in Nanette (2018)// At Eternity’s Gate dir. Julian Schnabel (2018) // Loving Vincent dir. Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman (2017) // Vincent Van Gogh in aletter to Theo Van Gogh (1880) // Almond Blossoms by Vincent Van Gogh (1890); painted as a gift for the birth of his brother Theo’s son named after him
“It is not immediately obvious which of Zadkine’s figures is Vincent and which is Theo. Like all who relieve the suffering of others, Theo—in a process that is the exact opposite of a blood transfusion—has taken some of Vincent’s pain into himself. Soon, however, it becomes obvious that while the sky weighs heavily on both figures, one, Vincent, feels gravity as a force so terrible it can drag men beneath the earth. From this moment on you are held by the pathos and beauty of what Zadkine depicts: despair that is inconsolable, comfort that is endless. One figure says, “I can never feel better,” the other, “I will hold you until you are better.”
Geoff Dyer on Ossip Zadkine’s sculpture of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh (from “Blues for Vincent”, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition)
The inherent homoeroticism of killing your enemy and immediately regretting it
It’s about rage, it’s about obsession, it’s about making that two-person war your entire raison d’être. It’s about loving and mistaking it for hatred and loving and loving and loving to the point of destruction. His or yours, it doesn’t matter. And you think seeing him dead at your feet will make you feel better, but all you feel is a whole lot of nothing.
