#439 - Galactic Aztecs, Prison Letters, and American Eurovision
Ten days out from my first COVID symptoms, I think I am finally coming off of this illness. It's definitely more than a nasty flu, in my experience. Similar symptoms, just heavier fatigue and load.
I managed to get some Paxlovid prescribed to me through this CVS program, so I recommend that if you can get it within 5 days of symptoms.
While isolating I watched the 2014 movie Dear White People, whose trailer was full of glorious witty Black critiques of white culture, while the movie itself was one of the most disjointed and meandering films I've ever seen to cross 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. I wonder if the 2017 Netflix series fared better...
I also finished the best book I've read in recent memory: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine.
Let me enumerate its triumphs:
Nuanced look at space colonialism through the eyes of a White ‘barbarian’ ambassador in the capital cityplanet of an intergalactic Aztec empire✅
Actual Mesoamerican beliefs, customs, and words carried forward into the space age✅
Brilliant treatment of brain implants that let the memories of ones ancestors live literally within ones head as a dual personality ✅
Most main characters are female, BIPOC, LGBTQ, or all three without being preachy ✅
All of the well designed political maneuvering of a palace drama with the same snarky believability as early Game of Thrones or a West Wing episode ✅
Space opera staples of mysterious aliens, futuristic wearables tech, interstellar warships, hive minds, and fallible AI ✅
Delightful original poems throughout, deployed as diplomatic cipher, intelligentsia art, or imperial newscast prose all in one ✅
Thoughtful exploration of self vs other, cultural assimilation and imperialism, and the culture shock differing versions of ‘us’ ✅
What else would we expect from an author who identifies as an ‘assimilated Russian Jew’ with an academic background in urban planning, the Byzantine Empire, and Armenia?
Needless to say, do yourself a favor and pick this one up, fam!
Tech
Vanity Fair Has Announced That I Am Going To Marry Curtis Yarvin — www.edencircle.net
My friend Lydia is going to marry the New Right blogger Curtis Yarvin, and Vanity Fair spilled the beans before she did so she wrote this quick little announcement.
If you haven't been following the New Right, the ensuing VF piece linked there is a good intro. I enjoyed Lydia's personal post here more, for the way she points out how she can date him as a progressive herself, and what the two extremes have in common.
Lifehacks
Some SF techies successfully crowdfunded a salon in Hayes Valley to serve as a gathering space outside of home and work, and I'm excited to see where it goes.
Oshan Anand has served tea at several Bay parties I've attended this year, and I recently learned that he was also doing that ten years ago, before a jail sentence for dealing psychedelics. His open letters from the prison here are sobering looks inside the reality of the prison industrial complex. :(
Fun
🇺🇸 Top 56 American Song Contest (ALL SONGS) — www.youtube.com
Somehow it took Eurovision coming up this weekend to teach me that America just started throwing its own version of the camp fest this year, and it looks just as zany and diverse as the original!
Also a good way to teach Americans about their territories - can you name them all from memory? I missed the Marianas and American Samoa myself.
Blind Joe I Will Not Comply Official Video — www.youtube.com
Of course there is a country song about not wearing your mask. I hate to say it's not that bad of a tune D: