You don't know what you're in until you're out

[sovay]

Good news: watching and reading things I enjoy, cats affectionate, snow still on the ground. Bad news: dead exhausted. Have some links.

1. Courtesy of selkie: "The real-life refugees of 'Casablanca' make it so much more than a love story." I appreciate the shout-out to Mr. Skeffington (1944), even if I don't exactly recommend the experience.

2. Move over, Marcus Agrippa: "Negative Equivalent: Iain Sinclair on the Super Sewer."

3. For people in the northern hemisphere with telescopes, binoculars, or lower levels of light pollution: "Exotic green comet not seen since stone age returns to skies above Earth."

4. On cultural Christianity and the shapes of cultures: "culture isn't modular."

5. Matthew Cheney, starting from ChatGPT and plagiarism: "Academic Integrity?"

Comments

[alexxkay]

The discussion of "Christian atheism" reminded me forcefully of one of the fundamentals of who I am now. Sometime in early adulthood, I realized that being aggressively Weird (as I had been for many years) still constituted defining myself *in terms of* what mainstream society considered normal. If I *really* wanted to break away from the constraints of normality, becoming its exact opposite wouldn't accomplish that goal. I'm less weird now, but I am more myself.

[sovay]

If I *really* wanted to break away from the constraints of normality, becoming its exact opposite wouldn't accomplish that goal. I'm less weird now, but I am more myself.

I am glad you were able to recognize the distinction. I have met people who haven't even yet realized it exists.

(Incidentally, it produced a very nice yourself.)