vital functions
Jul. 19th, 2020 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberettReading. Persuasion, Jane Austen. I continue to very much enjoy Austen's very dry style, and I've a great fondness for her descriptions of place and of country walks. I am... dubious... about the assertions made by Anne in the penultimate chapter:
... but Austen usually writes with such precision that I am inclined to suspect myself of missing something, so I'll keep chewing that over for a bit.
Network Effect, Martha Wells. LOVED THIS. Lots of answered questions. Lots of excellent interactions. Really very fond. Have pre-ordered the next novella.
How to Be an Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi. I've picked this back up and am now about two thirds of the way through the main text, and I'm finding it... difficult and frustrating, partly because it's not the book I was expecting in two directions at once. About thirty percent of the book is written clearly, simply, and accessibly -- as in "for a wide variety of literacy levels", but also "for an audience of white sceptics". Kendi is quite clearly making the very deliberate choice to share anecdotes from his own life, from his own enaction of racisms, from MY RACIST INTRODUCTION onward. He chooses and explicitly advances the political argument that Black people can be racist toward White people; he rejects the definition of racism as "prejudice plus power", arguing that (the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house; Audre Lorde) racist powers create racist policies substantiated or justified by racist ideas, all of which must be identified and resisted.
Probably around a third of the remaining text is similarly clear and similarly accessible, discussing theories and constructions of racism and antiracism.
Interwoven with this is the remaining third, which... is where I really struggle. Some of it's paragraphs I can read five times and still not feel confident I've parsed correctly. Some of it is terminology being used in a way that clearly suggests there is some specific and technical meaning, but no definition is given, or isn't given until half a chapter later. Some of it is oversimplifications or misrepresentations of the current state of the art on, for example, our understandings of trauma, where I can see what he's trying to get at but it's not what he's saying. Some of it is a slightly unsettling inconsistency in which assertions are given citations, and which aren't; some of it's the choice to render quotations from sources as, for example, a crippled "self-esteem," a vicious "self-hatred," "the conviction of unlovability, the diminuation of affectivity, and the uncontrolled hostility. Some of it is -- well, for example, in the middle of a paragraph of clearly carefully-considered, painstakingly-chosen language, there's the sentence "White poverty is not as distressing as Black poverty." There's a citation given; it's to an article in The Washington Post.
(Kendi discusses intersectionality in the introduction, and extensively in Chapter 12, CLASS. He doesn't mention Kimerblé Crenshaw, who coined the term, until Chapter 14, GENDER. So far, most of the way through Chapter 12, he's been... consistently not great about the intersection with disability, specifically: I'm in the middle of an extended metaphor in which the concept of conjoined twins appears to be used, repeatedly and deliberately, to evoke disgust.)
I'm finding the tension between the two approaches, the careful gentle welcome and the stark confrontation, disorienting. I'm struggling to work out who I could recommend the book to, who I think would benefit from reading it. I can't work out what it's trying to achieve; I can't work out what its intended audience is.
I am, of course, going to keep sitting with this discomfort.
ETA 20/07 I thought about this more overnight, and think I've worked out some of what's driving my reaction-space.
Watching. Two episodes in to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I'm glad I'm going into it knowing it's good and self-aware: given what we've seen so far I'm bracing for uncritical presence of some pretty unpleasant tropes, and it's a relief to know that's not actually the direction we're going even as I can't entirely put the worry down. I had entirely failed to osmose the existence of the opening framing, the underlying logic of the musical numbers, and I'm charmed by it.
Listening. The Magnus Archives. I was intending to flesh out my thoughts on 176 but actually it's bedtime, so, here they are over atrydra_wong's.
Playing. A game of Scrabble with Adam! He trounced me, again. (I got almost all the high-scoring tiles but generally uncooperative hands, which was annoying.)
PoGo: Thursday was ridiculous, in that in quick succession I caught (1) a shiny Klink (!!! much excitement), (2) a shiny Mr. Mime (WHY ME. NO.), and (3) a shiny Pidgey. Community day: twelve shiny Gastly, plus three high-IV 'uns.
Horn: Ongoing experiments with stamina and core muscles and shoulders, basically, during which I established that I really do need to put the horn down to rest every time I am Seriously Inclined To, because I can't both concentrate on getting decent tone and concentrate on not making a mess of my wrists, and that's why I spent Monday night with a wrist splint on. I remain outraged at the clear correlation between more time practising and improved skill (ditto Pilates), by which I mean I've been grumbling to my therapist about how this is probably actually useful in terms of mastery, sense of agency, etc.
Cooking. Many things!
The tofu thing, with holy basil and I-think-garlic from the allotment, accompanied on a subsequent day by allotment peas. Cherry clafoutis, to use up the last of the allotment cherries, only half of it's actually blackberries such that I'm willing to eat it (with buttermilk substituted for the plain milk on the grounds that the current jar needs using up and we keep making things that aren't scones for dessert-ish purposes). The sweet potato and chickpea salad, with garlic and chillis from the allotment, with bonus broccoli-dressed-with-sesame-oil.
Eating. Blackberries! And... a green tomato, which came off in my hands while I was fondling it, so I chomped on it experimentally before consigning it to the compost bin and then chomped the rest of it for good measure. Not terribly inspiring, but definitely edible.
Growing. Basils on the patio are comprehensively dying, bah, despite treatment with milk solution. Figs are starting to ripen; blueberries continue (and probably want fed); patio-cucumber is setting fruit (about which I am decidedly excited).
At the plot, I harvested my shallots (inspired byewt); they're now curing on the patio, and I've planted out several of the remaining cucumber plants in their vacated bed. Ongoing desultory raspberry harvest, mostly directly into my face; the very final last truss of redcurrants is just about ready to come home; and I picked a handful of the purple chillis and then used them in dinner earlier, see above. I've also had the first courgette (nibbled by slugs, alas), another handful of the purple sugarsnap peas (will be planting more of these next year), and a goodly lot of the holy basil that is starting to turn purple at its ends, hurrah.
Weeding continues. The tomatoes still aren't red in spite of all my impatience, and the peppers are making their opinions on the value of regular watering extremely clear. A helped me disaggregate some of the pallets I have variously acquired, recently, so one of the jobs for this week will be starting to screw them together to form the approximate bed edging they're destined for. Also in infrastructural terms, I should be contemplating taking down the wire on the fruit cage (and storing it ???somewhere???) for the summer -- but it's definitely done its job, in that I got over 2kg of jostaberries and around 1.25kg of redcurrants this year (plus two servings of gooseberry), compared with less than 100g of currants in total last year.
Coming along: two types of beans are flowering, and contemplating setting fruit. The Tromboncini squash have likewise set fruit, and pretty soon I'll probably need to actually eat them (woe is me!). Pattison Blanc are finally flowering, so maybe I'll get some flying saucer squash this year after all; the luffa in the greenhouse are warily putting forth buds (and getting lots taller). It's quietened down a little after the first rush of getting the soft fruit in; the summer raspberries are notably slowing down (2kg in!) and the autumn canes haven't started flowering yet, so I've a bit of a breather for maintenance.
Observing. BATS. We have spent More Time on the patio of an evening with the Bat Detector and now have a much better sense of where all the bats like to be. We are also very cautiously edging towards convincing ourselves that we've a local soprano, as well; certainly there's something sounding much higher-pitched than the Definitely An Alto...
And the allotment fox trotted past me calm-as-you-please while I was making progress on some PhD work on I-think-Friday, so that also was nice.
"[...] If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty, but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred, and all duty violated."
... but Austen usually writes with such precision that I am inclined to suspect myself of missing something, so I'll keep chewing that over for a bit.
Network Effect, Martha Wells. LOVED THIS. Lots of answered questions. Lots of excellent interactions. Really very fond. Have pre-ordered the next novella.
How to Be an Anti-Racist, Ibram X. Kendi. I've picked this back up and am now about two thirds of the way through the main text, and I'm finding it... difficult and frustrating, partly because it's not the book I was expecting in two directions at once. About thirty percent of the book is written clearly, simply, and accessibly -- as in "for a wide variety of literacy levels", but also "for an audience of white sceptics". Kendi is quite clearly making the very deliberate choice to share anecdotes from his own life, from his own enaction of racisms, from MY RACIST INTRODUCTION onward. He chooses and explicitly advances the political argument that Black people can be racist toward White people; he rejects the definition of racism as "prejudice plus power", arguing that (the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house; Audre Lorde) racist powers create racist policies substantiated or justified by racist ideas, all of which must be identified and resisted.
Probably around a third of the remaining text is similarly clear and similarly accessible, discussing theories and constructions of racism and antiracism.
Interwoven with this is the remaining third, which... is where I really struggle. Some of it's paragraphs I can read five times and still not feel confident I've parsed correctly. Some of it is terminology being used in a way that clearly suggests there is some specific and technical meaning, but no definition is given, or isn't given until half a chapter later. Some of it is oversimplifications or misrepresentations of the current state of the art on, for example, our understandings of trauma, where I can see what he's trying to get at but it's not what he's saying. Some of it is a slightly unsettling inconsistency in which assertions are given citations, and which aren't; some of it's the choice to render quotations from sources as, for example, a crippled "self-esteem," a vicious "self-hatred," "the conviction of unlovability, the diminuation of affectivity, and the uncontrolled hostility. Some of it is -- well, for example, in the middle of a paragraph of clearly carefully-considered, painstakingly-chosen language, there's the sentence "White poverty is not as distressing as Black poverty." There's a citation given; it's to an article in The Washington Post.
(Kendi discusses intersectionality in the introduction, and extensively in Chapter 12, CLASS. He doesn't mention Kimerblé Crenshaw, who coined the term, until Chapter 14, GENDER. So far, most of the way through Chapter 12, he's been... consistently not great about the intersection with disability, specifically: I'm in the middle of an extended metaphor in which the concept of conjoined twins appears to be used, repeatedly and deliberately, to evoke disgust.)
I'm finding the tension between the two approaches, the careful gentle welcome and the stark confrontation, disorienting. I'm struggling to work out who I could recommend the book to, who I think would benefit from reading it. I can't work out what it's trying to achieve; I can't work out what its intended audience is.
I am, of course, going to keep sitting with this discomfort.
ETA 20/07 I thought about this more overnight, and think I've worked out some of what's driving my reaction-space.
Watching. Two episodes in to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I'm glad I'm going into it knowing it's good and self-aware: given what we've seen so far I'm bracing for uncritical presence of some pretty unpleasant tropes, and it's a relief to know that's not actually the direction we're going even as I can't entirely put the worry down. I had entirely failed to osmose the existence of the opening framing, the underlying logic of the musical numbers, and I'm charmed by it.
Listening. The Magnus Archives. I was intending to flesh out my thoughts on 176 but actually it's bedtime, so, here they are over at
rydra_wong's.Playing. A game of Scrabble with Adam! He trounced me, again. (I got almost all the high-scoring tiles but generally uncooperative hands, which was annoying.)
PoGo: Thursday was ridiculous, in that in quick succession I caught (1) a shiny Klink (!!! much excitement), (2) a shiny Mr. Mime (WHY ME. NO.), and (3) a shiny Pidgey. Community day: twelve shiny Gastly, plus three high-IV 'uns.
Horn: Ongoing experiments with stamina and core muscles and shoulders, basically, during which I established that I really do need to put the horn down to rest every time I am Seriously Inclined To, because I can't both concentrate on getting decent tone and concentrate on not making a mess of my wrists, and that's why I spent Monday night with a wrist splint on. I remain outraged at the clear correlation between more time practising and improved skill (ditto Pilates), by which I mean I've been grumbling to my therapist about how this is probably actually useful in terms of mastery, sense of agency, etc.
Cooking. Many things!
The tofu thing, with holy basil and I-think-garlic from the allotment, accompanied on a subsequent day by allotment peas. Cherry clafoutis, to use up the last of the allotment cherries, only half of it's actually blackberries such that I'm willing to eat it (with buttermilk substituted for the plain milk on the grounds that the current jar needs using up and we keep making things that aren't scones for dessert-ish purposes). The sweet potato and chickpea salad, with garlic and chillis from the allotment, with bonus broccoli-dressed-with-sesame-oil.
Eating. Blackberries! And... a green tomato, which came off in my hands while I was fondling it, so I chomped on it experimentally before consigning it to the compost bin and then chomped the rest of it for good measure. Not terribly inspiring, but definitely edible.
Growing. Basils on the patio are comprehensively dying, bah, despite treatment with milk solution. Figs are starting to ripen; blueberries continue (and probably want fed); patio-cucumber is setting fruit (about which I am decidedly excited).
At the plot, I harvested my shallots (inspired by
ewt); they're now curing on the patio, and I've planted out several of the remaining cucumber plants in their vacated bed. Ongoing desultory raspberry harvest, mostly directly into my face; the very final last truss of redcurrants is just about ready to come home; and I picked a handful of the purple chillis and then used them in dinner earlier, see above. I've also had the first courgette (nibbled by slugs, alas), another handful of the purple sugarsnap peas (will be planting more of these next year), and a goodly lot of the holy basil that is starting to turn purple at its ends, hurrah.Weeding continues. The tomatoes still aren't red in spite of all my impatience, and the peppers are making their opinions on the value of regular watering extremely clear. A helped me disaggregate some of the pallets I have variously acquired, recently, so one of the jobs for this week will be starting to screw them together to form the approximate bed edging they're destined for. Also in infrastructural terms, I should be contemplating taking down the wire on the fruit cage (and storing it ???somewhere???) for the summer -- but it's definitely done its job, in that I got over 2kg of jostaberries and around 1.25kg of redcurrants this year (plus two servings of gooseberry), compared with less than 100g of currants in total last year.
Coming along: two types of beans are flowering, and contemplating setting fruit. The Tromboncini squash have likewise set fruit, and pretty soon I'll probably need to actually eat them (woe is me!). Pattison Blanc are finally flowering, so maybe I'll get some flying saucer squash this year after all; the luffa in the greenhouse are warily putting forth buds (and getting lots taller). It's quietened down a little after the first rush of getting the soft fruit in; the summer raspberries are notably slowing down (2kg in!) and the autumn canes haven't started flowering yet, so I've a bit of a breather for maintenance.
Observing. BATS. We have spent More Time on the patio of an evening with the Bat Detector and now have a much better sense of where all the bats like to be. We are also very cautiously edging towards convincing ourselves that we've a local soprano, as well; certainly there's something sounding much higher-pitched than the Definitely An Alto...
And the allotment fox trotted past me calm-as-you-please while I was making progress on some PhD work on I-think-Friday, so that also was nice.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-07-19 11:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-07-20 08:36 am (UTC)That's the second time ~recently I've tripped really badly over assuming and then interpreting something through the lens of a White target audience, so I... am moving it much closer to the top of the list of Things To Consider When I'm Uncomfortable (in that sometimes, in fact, We Are Not About Me!).
I definitely still think there are Actual Problems with the book, especially around ableism, but I also feel like something's clicked and I understand what it's doing much better now.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-07-20 11:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-07-20 04:50 am (UTC)I hope you like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.There were a couple of bits that made me cringe, but nothing that made me need to turn it off or take a break.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-07-20 08:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-07-21 06:35 pm (UTC)