Was it right for you to stay? Was it wrong to walk away?
It is amazing the things that haunt a person who is just trying to get to sleep. There I am in the wolf-hours of the morning, having put in some dedicated effort to cool down from a thing that upset me right before bed, and like a picture postcard from a personal enemy my brain zaps in an interaction I hadn't thought of in years. I must have been about thirteen, because I was still doing archery in North Andover instead of Dedham; the person I knew best at the range beside the instructor was a woman with short silver hair who had started about the same time I did. We were talking about equipment—I can't remember what I wanted, although the chances are good it was new arrows, but she declared that she was going to reward herself with a new sight "when [she] hit thirty." She meant, of course, when she achieved the highest possible score of all three arrows of an end clustered within the concentric gold ten-rings at the center of the target. I said curiously, "How old are you now?" Considerably after the fact, I recognized I had reproduced a pattern of joke that is so much older than dirt that it's a recurring bit of vaudeville in The Great Muppet Caper (1981), but in the moment it took me one of those slow-dawning stomach-drops to understand the reactions around me and why my older friend was roaring, "Hold your tongue, young Sonya!" which was so archaically reproachful, I felt like Peregrin Took on the spot. I can't remember how I managed the apology, which I hope she believed; it didn't sear into my memory in the same detail. I still couldn't tell you her age. Now with any luck I have sufficiently desensitized the story that it won't pop scaldingly back into my head while I'm lying in the dawn-dark tonight. I've sort of gone back to not sleeping. Have some links.
1. Almost seventy years after the publication of Alan Turing's "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis" (1952), our understanding of what are now called Turing patterns has progressed to the point where they can be introduced into colonies of E. coli and look really cool. I remember earlier research manipulating the reaction-diffusion process within individual cells to create bacterial letters. I wonder what our patterns are.
2. I enjoyed this interview by Tananarive Due with Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins about The Silence of the Lambs (1991).![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rushthatspeaks showed me that film.
3. Courtesy ofselkie: a votive amulet from Athens and a petrified tree on Lesbos.
4. Courtesy ofspatch: the guiña, melanistic edition.
5. Actually, just admire this tweet of his.
There is a full moon; it is Purim; I will be making hamantashn with my mother tomorrow. It was the last holiday we celebrated normally in 2020. And now here we are again. I have nothing more profound than that. There are people whose names should be blotted out.
1. Almost seventy years after the publication of Alan Turing's "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis" (1952), our understanding of what are now called Turing patterns has progressed to the point where they can be introduced into colonies of E. coli and look really cool. I remember earlier research manipulating the reaction-diffusion process within individual cells to create bacterial letters. I wonder what our patterns are.
2. I enjoyed this interview by Tananarive Due with Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins about The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
rushthatspeaks showed me that film.3. Courtesy of
selkie: a votive amulet from Athens and a petrified tree on Lesbos.4. Courtesy of
spatch: the guiña, melanistic edition.5. Actually, just admire this tweet of his.
There is a full moon; it is Purim; I will be making hamantashn with my mother tomorrow. It was the last holiday we celebrated normally in 2020. And now here we are again. I have nothing more profound than that. There are people whose names should be blotted out.
no subject
I am very glad. Do they want a print copy or are they happy with pixels?
(I think we're just going to be doing prune, poppy, and apricot, because we are traditionalists and also who wants to shop.)
And tomorrow we get to borrow Shabbes?
And run with it.
no subject
I think they are good with pixels for now, specifically because their podfriends are not ready -- or their podfriends' parents aren't and I want to skip that convo -- and the pixels reside with Mama on a password-locked machine. (I have literally stopped work to let them read it, but controlling the flow of information to other little precocious mongeese = excellent self-preservation.)
(The Silence of the Lambs is one of my top five films. Of which there are only, like, 20 to start and 5 are Mel Brooks. And those photos from 1991 are legit.)
no subject
Your household are weirdos.
(I have literally stopped work to let them read it, but controlling the flow of information to other little precocious mongeese = excellent self-preservation.)
Your child's podfriends' parents are different weirdos, but I do not debate the wisdom of this equation.
(I really don't think of any of that book as NSFW. It's educational and full of cartoons! Plus now you got the earthbender harpy thing going on.)
(The Silence of the Lambs is one of my top five films. Of which there are only, like, 20 to start and 5 are Mel Brooks. And those photos from 1991 are legit.)
It's on the list of films I immediately thought were brilliant and have never written about. I would like to see it in a theater sometime, unless audiences are going to be weird about it.
no subject
...Okay, Your Grace. (It's all really tiny usages and jokes, nothing about the informational content or even the imagery for the most part! But like, slut does not need to enter my kid's vernacular because it's a short word they want to try out. They already curse too much. Except in front of you? That is super fucking weird, what the fuck.)
I would like to see it in a theater sometime, unless audiences are going to be weird about it.
I worry, but we should go! We can throw popcorn at the weird people! I only flail and clutch at my fellow moviegoers for five minutes near the very end! It's not like when I cut off the bloodflow to your hand for all of Wiegala the other year.
(I was touched to learn that Hannibal had paid Hopkins' mother's hospital bills.)
no subject
Okay, fair. That could go very poorly, very fast.
They already curse too much. Except in front of you? That is super fucking weird, what the fuck.
I don't think I've ever heard them swear! Admittedly my standards for what constitutes profanity plunged sharply in 2020, but I still think I'd have noticed if it were a regular feature.
I worry, but we should go! We can throw popcorn at the weird people!
Sounds cathartic to me! It's a deal!
. . . I miss theaters so much.
(I was touched to learn that Hannibal had paid Hopkins' mother's hospital bills.)
(Same.)