Is Sorrow The True Wild?

Rafael Alberti, tr. by Ben Belitt, from An Anthology of Spanish Poetry: From the Beginnings to the Present Day, Including Both Spain and Spanish America; "Paradise Lost"

[Text ID: “Across centuries / and the void of a world, / sleepless, I seek you.”]

“If you want to frisk me, I’ll let you, but you got to hurry because there’s a lot of me and we don’t got much time. And don’t be alarmed if I get aroused.”

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits - Jason Pargin

Plein Air Paintings by Tomas Honz

The three-ring binder is the apex of book technology, by the way. All the advantages of a codex, plus you can add, remove, and reorder pages at will - pages which you can furthermore protect from damage in transparent sleeves, and store commentaries, notes, and other paratextual addenda behind them without obscuring the primary content. Truly the queen of codices. Reblog if you love the three-ring binder.

i always wanted someone to make blackout poetry of one of my posts but so far i have only had one blacked out to say egg. i guess you if you can't write the poem yourself you can't choose the poem

Oh hey, you just followed me. Which means you're online when you should be working on your novel :) I suggest you the name Edson for some nonconsensual character who dies a funny death in it. Or not. Up to you :)

-a name a day blog

On it, boss! 🫡

Mosquitoes

Thin buzz of hunger, constant hum. At night I drape a net around my bed just to keep them away. They like the flesh above my ankles best, and then the sweetness of my face. The Buddhists say we mustn’t want to kill another living thing. How often have I taken one, crushed it in my palm?

A saint said the lion is in love with the gazelle it hunts. I love salmon, so I sauté their bodies with garlic and butter, slip the moist flesh in my mouth. And haven’t I bitten my beloved until a pink stain colored the skin?

A tiny drop of blood is all they crave. Is that so much to ask? And they are so devoted, groupies at the backstage door, a band of Hare Krishnas, wailing in the street, cherubim, playing their small harps without cease, as they are said to do in heaven.

Only this is not heaven. I dream of a night without blemish, of love without the sting.

But here they are, a mini mariachi, hovering outside the net, singing their same old, high-pitched serenade— volver, volver , they cry, the song about the one that got away.

Bonfire Opera : Poems. -- Danusha Laméris.

The Sissy Strikes Back

I’ve lost faith in the saying “You’re only as old as you think you are” ever since I got old. It is a saying with a fine heritage. It goes right back to the idea of the Power of Positive Thinking, which is so strong in America because it fits in so well with the Power of Commercial Advertising and with the Power of Wishful Thinking aka the American Dream. It is the bright side of Puritanism: What you deserve is what you get. (Never mind just now about the dark side.) Good things come to good people and youth will last forever for the young in heart. Yup. There is a whole lot of power in positive thinking. It is the great placebo effect. In many cases, even dire cases, it works. I think most old people know that, and many of us try to keep our thinking on the positive side as a matter of self-preservation, as well as dignity, the wish not to end with a prolonged whimper. It can be very hard to believe that one is actually 80 years old, but as they say, you’d better believe it. I’ve known clear-headed, clear-hearted people in their nineties. They didn’t think they were young. They knew, with a patient, canny clarity, how old they were. If I’m 90 and believe I’m 45, I’m headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub. Even if I’m 70 and think I’m 40, I’m fooling myself to the extent of almost certainly acting like an awful fool. Actually, I’ve never heard anybody over 70 say that you’re only as old as you think you are. Younger people say it to themselves or each other as an encouragement. When they say it to somebody who actually is old, they don’t realize how stupid it is, and how cruel it may be. At least there isn’t a poster of it.

But there is a poster of “Old age is not for sissies”—maybe it’s where the saying came from. A man and a woman in their seventies. As I remember it, they both have what the air force used to call the Look of Eagles, and are wearing very tight-fitting minimal clothing, and are altogether very fit. Their pose suggests that they’ve just run a marathon and aren’t breathing hard while they relax by lifting 16-pound barbells. Look at us, they say. Old age is not for sissies. Look at me, I snarl at them. I can’t run, I can’t lift barbells, and the thought of me in tight-fitting minimal clothing is appalling in all ways. I am a sissy. I always was. Who are you jocks to say old age isn’t for me? Old age is for anybody who gets there. Warriors get old; sissies get old. In fact it’s likely that more sissies than warriors get old. Old age is for the healthy, the strong, the tough, the intrepid, the sick, the weak, the cowardly, the incompetent. People who run 10 miles every morning before breakfast and people who live in a wheelchair. People who work the London Times crossword in ink in 10 minutes and people who can’t quite remember who the president is just now. Old age is less a matter of fitness or courage than of luck equals longevity. The leafy greens and the workouts may well help that old age to be healthy, but unfair as it may be, nothing guarantees health to the old. Bodies wear out after a certain amount of mileage despite the most careful maintenance. No matter what you eat and how grand your abs and blabs are, still your bones can let you down, your heart can get tired of its incredible nonstop lifelong athletic performance, and there’s all that wiring and stuff inside that can begin to short-circuit. If you did hard physical labor all your life and didn’t really have the chance to spend a lot of time in gyms, if you ate mostly junk food because it’s all you knew about and all you could afford in time and money, if you haven’t got a doctor because you can’t buy the insurance that stands between you and the doctors and the medicines you need, you may arrive at old age in rather bad shape. Or if you just run into some bad luck along the way, accidents, illnesses, it’s the same. You won’t be running marathons and lifting weights. You may have trouble getting up the stairs. You may have trouble just getting out of bed. You may have trouble getting used to hurting all the time. And it isn’t likely to get better as the years go on. The compensations of getting old, such as they are, aren’t in the field of athletic prowess. I think that’s why the saying and the poster annoy me so much. They’re not only insulting to sissies, they’re beside the point. I’d like a poster showing two old people with stooped backs and arthritic hands and time-worn faces sitting talking, deep, deep in conversation. And the slogan would be: Old Age Is Not for the Young.

No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters - Ursula K. Le Guin

Where to Find Free, Legal Books

If you have access to a public library and/or have college credentials;

Libby - Ebooks, digital audiobooks, and magazines from your public library. Free, but requires a library card. Materials aren't infinite, so popular titles will often have a several week long waitlist. If you're in the US (or sufficiently crafty) you can sign up for a free card from the Queer Liberation Library.

Hoopla - Another service often bundled with a library card. The selection is smaller than Libby, but you have a limited number of instant borrows per month to cash in.

EBSCOhost Research - Ebooks and research materials, usually offered through a college. Where I do most of my reading lately, TBH.

Worldcat - Browse the world’s libraries from one search box. Easiest way to find out where to go to check out a book if you can't find it at your usual spot.

US residents will likely have a public library near them, but if you cannot go in person and sign up, there are a number of public libraries that don't require anything but a local address to get an Ecard. The libraries that offer this change frequently, so ask around.

Also keep in mind that US public libraries don't typically purchase self published material. If you're looking for your favorite tumblr author's book, you might want to try the links below instead.

If you can't get a library card (or couldn't find what you're looking for)

Open Library - Large collection of ebooks. Some materials may not be available currently due to ongoing legal issues.

Project Gutenburg - Another huge collection of ebooks, probably the most well-known option on this list.

Standard Ebooks - Professionally formatted public domain ebooks (sourced from places like Project Gutenburg but then turned into dynamic epubs)

LibriVox - Public Domain Audiobooks. Extremely limited library, but provides a rare service.

Audible Free Trial - Amazon offers a free trial of their service, with one free title on signup. You need a viable payment method to get access, but you keep the book even after you cancel. Don't give Amazon your money, folks.

I'd also recommend trawling youtube and soundcloud for user-made audiobooks. The quality varies, but I've been surprised at the results.

Other cool resources

StoryGraph - A non-Amazon GoodReads alternative, for those who like to challenge themselves to read more or enjoy writing book reviews.

Banned books list - Around since 1994 and currently still updated weekly, this site showcases books that are either banned or have been attempted to have been banned somewhere in the US. Some are available to read for free on site.