You and me together, fighting for our love

My brain feels more and more like a blank screen every day—the kind belonging to an old cathode-ray television, where the program snaps off with a diminishing zap. I dreamed last night of reading and discussing a famous novel retelling Ariadne and Theseus in a historical context, rather like Mary Renault's The King Must Die (1958), except that Ariadne was a trans woman. It was nothing especially unusual in the archaeological record of Minoan civilization in my dream.

I am reading this article about the virility of fascism and all I can think is that the first time I saw a photograph of Richard Spencer—the one featured in the profile by Mother Jones, reproduced in the article—"dapper" was one of the very last words to come to my mind. He was not remarkably beautiful. He did not wear his suit and tie with a particular grace. Perhaps he has a magnetism in action that only comes out in voice and movement, but since his most famous public appearance to date involves some Hitler saluting (that he now desires to retcon as "fun and exuberance," as if it is somehow excusable to throw the most unmistakable gesture of Nazi allegiance since 1926 if you do it out of sheer buoyant enthusiasm, like spontaneously embracing a stranger in a crowd rather than telling a racist joke at a party to gauge what else the guests will let you get away with), I suspect I am already immune to it. I am used to disagreeing with both pop culture and people I know about the respective beauty of all kinds of public figures; I can't even remember how old I was the first time one of my peers thought it was weird and alien for me not to have a crush on an actor everyone else had unanimously declared hot. My interest in people's bodies follows as it always has from my interest in their selves, so if you are a neo-Nazi, everything below the waist is kaput. Nonetheless, it remains curious to me that even if I look at Spencer aesthetically, I can't see him as anything special. He does not even trip my "interesting face" meter. What are journalists seeing when they talk about his physical appeal? Is it literally just a combination of whiteness, maleness, and semi-symmetrical features? This is the kind of question that makes me feel alien to ask, but so does watching a lot of human behavior; this just more than most.

I finally got hold of the soundtrack for Pride (2014) and now I can't get several hits of the '80's out of my head. Michael Cisco enthusiastically recommended me Frankie Goes to Hollywood at Readercon this summer and he was right.

You can either lead, follow, or get out of the way

Thank you to rosefox for pointing me toward Radical Dreams; their Black Lives Matter lapel pin was sold out in November, but it came back into stock at the beginning of December and now I have one next to the safety pin on my corduroy coat. I want to be clear about the messages I am sending.

One good result of asking the internet about fascism at five in the morning: handful_ofdust and teenybuffalo introduced me to Jidenna, whose "Classic Man" is one of the loveliest music videos I have seen in a long time. It has sartorial style, a roomful of gorgeous black people having fun with music and fashion, and the idea that kids should learn science. I'm for it.

I don't care if the Pizzagate shooter does not like the term "fake news"; it is the correct way to refer to a falsehood being presented as a real story in order either to deceive or provide an excuse. No one should ever again complain about the bogeyman of political correctness who wants to be allowed to refer to lies and misinformation as "reports carried by alternative media" and neo-Nazis and white nationalists as the "alt-right." Language has always mattered, but I am beginning to feel it's going critical now.

[edit] I just read that John Glenn has died. 2016, come on.

[edit edit] And dinosaur feathers have been discovered in amber. That is a marvel. Everything that makes me feel better lately is either art or science. I'd like to keep having both, you know?

Every madame on my team is a top general

My poem "The Firebird's Revenge" has been accepted by The Cascadia Subduction Zone. It was written for rose_lemberg in April and is about more or less exactly what it says.

Tonight when derspatchel and I were buying groceries at the Stop & Shop on McGrath Highway, the cashier—a black woman with braids, working later than we were shopping—told me she loved my lapel pin and asked where it came from. I said I was really glad and gave her the store name on Etsy. She said she wished I had a spare; I would have given it to her if I had. I think if seeing it makes anyone feel better, then it's doing the right thing.

We made quiche for dinner, with ham and black olives and two kinds of grated cheese. Autolycus positioned himself strategically beneath the counter to snaffle up any falling bits of extra-sharp cheddar or gouda. "Little scavenger!" I apostrophized him as he leapt onto the counter itself and began to Pac-Man his way toward the paper plate of cheese waiting to be stirred into the custard. "Oh, my little hagfish, no." He made another try for the completed quiche when it was on the dining room table, but we removed him. For dessert, we did make Rice Krispie treats with Penzeys Ceylon cinnamon and they are delicious. We added a heaping teaspoon of cinnamon to the three tablespoons of butter when they were melting in the saucepan and then stirred in the ten-ounce package of marshmallows and the result was not heavily spiced, but rather warmly, and we let them cool and cut them up into squares and then I ate three and it is mostly the fact that it is now too late for me to eat anything that is keeping the rest alive. There's still tomorrow.

Mythic Delirium has posted their 2016 award eligibility round-up, including my short story "The Trinitite Golem" in Clockwork Phoenix 5. Go read the year's archive and nominate stuff you like! At least good art came out of this year.