So give me the ghost, give me the crumbs, and something to help me sleep at night

[sovay]

I do not understand the phenomenon whereby actually sleeping makes me even more exhausted, but I don't like it: I would prefer to be writing things and I need to work. Have some links.

1. I am fascinated by the existence of Terence Davies' Benediction (2021), both because it's a biopic of Siegfried Sassoon and I hadn't even heard it was in the works. It has a hell of a cast, even if I will inevitably complain that it's not that hard to cast a Jewish actor for a Jewish part—he didn't start Roman Catholic. Seeing Peter Capaldi credited as the older version of Sassoon suddenly made me want to see him in Stoppard's The Invention of Love.

2. In case your life contains an insufficiency of lesbians, please enjoy Beatrice Fenton and Marjorie Martinet. Also this on-set photo from Bound (1996) and its magnificent tag.

3. Courtesy of sholio: Torchwood Three TikTok headcanon accepted.

4. Courtesy of moon_custafer: a great face on a tailoring student from 1955.

5. I had never heard of seasteading before this article: "The disastrous voyage of Satoshi, the world's first cryptocurrency cruise ship." I have to say that offshore pirate radio stations, thalassocracies, and the Principality of Sealand all sound cooler to me, but don't double-feature as well with libertarians walking into bears.

I finally have a lap desk for Bertie as opposed to a succession of large flat books and Autolycus wants to sleep on it instead, of course.

Comments

[sovay]

But only a hubristic bitcoin boy would think he has the ability to create a whole new country from the ground up.

Without doing any research! I am not actually opposed to people trying wild social experiments with their consenting friends, so long as the damage is contained! But at least see if anyone before you has tried the same experiment, and if so, did they all have to sell their cruise ships or get eaten by bears?

Examples of attempts at utopias are all pretty authoritarian--or very quick failures.

I don't know that I agree that all failed utopias reduce to authoritarianism. One of the famous failure modes of communes, collectives, co-ops etc. is a reluctance to enforce boundaries, which doesn't have to mean libertarianism—which increasingly I feel is like anarchism for people who can't be bothered to do the reading—but may mean that no one sticks to the chore roster and the work defaults onto whoever is willing to put up with doing it and one day you're sitting there thinking about the success rate of utopian societies when the one person who's been doing the laundry for three weeks straight dumps it on your head and walks off to catch the nearest bus. You didn't turn into a cult or a totalitarian state. You just let the labor flow downhill and now you're going to have to wash your own socks. (This example started out fictional—I know people who have lived in successful communes; I also know people who left communes that imploded—but I feel like it may have turned into throwing shade at some of the Transcendentalists.)

[asakiyume]

Hah! I like how your hypothetical drifted toward a particular.

I don't think failed utopias reduce to authoritarianism; on the contrary, I was meaning that the failures tend to be the ones that *don't* reduce to authoritarianism. In other words, I'm saying that attempts that last tend to be authoritarian (and since that's not what we're thinking of with "utopia," by and large, I put "attempts in front). But that's overstating/overgeneralizing/maybe just plain incorrect too: I think you can have successful communes, etc., that aren't authoritarian. But they *are* going to have rules, and they're going to expect people to follow the rules. ... So yeah, not so much "authoritarian" as "have rules"--i.e., not anarchical we-all-do-what-we-want-when-we-want-forever.

[sovay]

Hah! I like how your hypothetical drifted toward a particular.

Fruitlands was just such a spectacular nope.

(I extend more credit to Thoreau, who never pretended that he was living in pure self-reliant isolation as opposed to spending a decent amount of time by himself on land that belonged to the friend he had worked out an arrangement with.)

I don't think failed utopias reduce to authoritarianism; on the contrary, I was meaning that the failures tend to be the ones that *don't* reduce to authoritarianism.

Check. Sorry to have misread.

So yeah, not so much "authoritarian" as "have rules"--i.e., not anarchical we-all-do-what-we-want-when-we-want-forever.

Anarchist communes per se actually seem to function enough of the time that I should really look into the practical details. I . . . just find living with people really tiring.

[asakiyume]

Anarchist communes per se actually seem to function enough of the time that I should really look into the practical details. --Yeah, here's where I think "anarchist" may mean, in practicality, something more workable than I'm thinking of with "anarchical"

I . . . just find living with people really tiring. You know, though: you do it really well. Or wait. I mean, I of course have no idea what you're like to share a living space with, but here online, you not only are a great, good person to interact with, personally, you also contribute to and build community in a really awesome way. Which isn't to say even this--waving at the interwebs and the communication we're doing now--isn't tiring: I know it is. But you do it admirably... at least, I admire it.

[sovay]

But you do it admirably... at least, I admire it.

Thank you. I think I am difficult in person: I keep odd and not entirely voluntary hours and I spend a lot of time needing not to talk to people. But at least I warn them.

[selkie]

Your terms are acceptable to many, I'm just saying. The one time I was puzzled you were out on the deck, it was hot. Why does anyone want hot.

[sovay]

The one time I was puzzled you were out on the deck, it was hot. Why does anyone want hot.

Because it was outside!

[selkie]

Perhaps people who can sweat encounter hot differently from me.
Eccch. You keep it and be happy in it!