You try hard to go easy on yourself

[sovay]

Rabbit, rabbit! A Warren canvasser just rang our doorbell and startled the cats. Fortunately I could tell him that he did not need to evangelize to me and that he should stay warm on his rounds. The cats were warily prowling when I returned upstairs and were rewarded with treats for being so brave and honest.

1. The Brattle is running a series of religious horror. It's mostly Christian, but I haven't seen any of the movies except for the double feature of The Witch (2015) and The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015), which I should very much like to be healthy enough to attend. Some of the rest look fascinating.

2. I am delighted by Yoon Ha Lee's The Phoenix Recursive: A Combinatorial Experience (2020). Technically it's a classically black-and-white photocopied minizine, but it's also a beautiful little lo-fi semi-poetry chapbook and it could win a Rhysling any day, I'm just saying. Huzzah for Deuce of Gears Press.

3. Courtesy of handful_ofdust: some cute role-reversal leap year cards.

I think I am actually furious about the coronavirus. About the dismantling of protections and preparations. About the denial of reality-responsibility until it is too late to do anything but wring hands and blame scapegoats. It is one thing to die for reasons beyond anyone's control; it's another to die for the insecurity, stupidity, and malice of those in power who laid the groundwork for what will be worse. I don't want to lose my family. I don't, for that matter, want to join the mortality rate myself. In terms of what can and can't be tested for, the situation feels medieval to the point that I am disappointed in the absence of traditionally masked plague doctors. I would like to be able to look back on these thoughts as overreaction. I spend so much time working to stay alive.

Comments

[yhlee]

I'm glad you enjoyed the zine! It was ridiculously fun to make. :)

--excuse me, I THINK MY CATTEN JUST DIPPED HER PAW INTO MY TEA WTF CAT

Stay safe/healthy. *hugs if wanted*

[moon_custafer]

I am hoping the irony of the apotropaic umbrella will apply and because I have more than a month's worth of all meds and an infinite quantity of lentils in the cupboard, nothing very much will happen at all.

(makes encouraging gestures)

[gwynnega]

That religious horror series looks wonderful. The Rapture is one of my favorites, though I've never seen it in a theater. I have seen The Exorcist in a theater, decades ago, and highly recommend it. I like The Invitation a lot, but would find it too terrifying to watch in a theater!

Yay Yoon Ha Lee chapbook!

The sheer irresponsibility and incompetence on display re: the coronavirus is enraging.

[kore]

It is one thing to die for reasons beyond anyone's control; it's another to die for the insecurity, stupidity, and malice of those in power who laid the groundwork for what will be worse. I don't want to lose my family. I don't, for that matter, want to join the mortality rate myself. In terms of what can and can't be tested for, the situation feels medieval to the point that I am disappointed in the absence of traditionally masked plague doctors. I would like to be able to look back on these thoughts as overreaction. I spend so much time working to stay alive.

Yeah. Exactly.

(And, what with threatened disability cuts and food stamp cuts, it's hard not to feel that those in power would be just as happy if a large part of the not-rich population died anyway.)

[teenybuffalo]

I appreciate your note about the Brattle series of religious horror. May I offer, in case you haven't seen it already: "Nuns review 'The Nun'." https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/real-nuns-review-the-nun

[asakiyume]

We're all of us **something** about the coronavirus, that's for sure.

So glad for Yoon Ha Lee's zine! Love his art and his storytelling, so I'm sure it's a delight.

[selkie]

I would just like to very pointedly direct some of the resultant cytokine storms. You know. *shrugs* I am exceptionally bored of putting beloved, good old men in the ground. Send me some of the other kind.

(There is a 'tahara in the time of coronavirus' webinar this weekend and I need to sign myself up. I actually don't know where the moral line lies there for me; one is obligated to give one's fellow the dignity of a good death, but one is also obligated to preserve one's own life, and I am a respiratory sitting duck. Good times in 2020!)