She wrote the date December twenty-first on an index card and stuck it in her mirror at the dresser where she would see it when she got ready at the start of each day. She had pulled down her photos months ago, they sat in a pile on the chair next to the trash. She hadn't found the strength to slide them in yet, but looked at them from time to time and considered it.

Seeing the date has made it easier

The day you are going to die

Yeah, knowing that that is going to be the end

How are you going to do it

Does it matter

I guess it does not

It does not

She typed on her phone and glanced up at the date occasionally, knees together, feet crossed, smiling and nodding along with the music.

---

She stood by the curb in the cold, long black shining jacket, a long black cloth covering her hair. She looked like a nun to him.

He was talking to two men, one on each side.

He looked at the one on his right, excuse me, and stepped directly between them and walked up to her.

Hello, I'm Jere

She looked like she couldn't believe what was happening, she looked at the street like she might run across it, glanced over his shoulder and saw the two men staring at them in disbelief.

Liz

He looked down at his hand and back to her, she slowly put her hand out and he gripped it and pumped it once.

Nice to meet you

Thanks

Are you being stood up?

What?

You look like you are being stood up, is that happening right now?

No, she chuckled nervously.

Alright, I wanted to make sure because you keep making eye contact with me.

She looked down.

That's what I thought.

She smiled and looked up at him, I'm just looking around, seeing who is here.

Is that so

She looked past him again, your friends are staring.

I don't give a fuck.

She flinched like he hit her.

I want your socials. Are you gonna add me?

She looked side to side to see who else was watching, nobody it was just his friends staring in disbelief, one with a beer in his hand and the other with a clear plastic cup.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and paged to his social media app, to the search page, and handed it to her.

I don't have that app.

What do you have?

She recited a few and he pulled up the search on one that he also had.

I could give you my number.

Want to text me? He switched to that app on his phone and typed, this is Jere, then handed it to her.

She typed in the number and her name and hit send.

Text me if he doesn't show, I want to talk to you.

Okay.

He turned around and faced his friends, stepping forward to close the circle.

Brazen

Who's that

No, he pointed at him.

They laughed.

---

Did you wind up going

Fuck no

Why not

I don't go to shit alone it's fucking sad

Well I would have gone

You said that

---

She turned off the road and into her apartment complex, came from the side street that ran along the area where town ended and the forest began, it went on for a stretch before the lake. Massive, black, and sprawling in the distance, only visible in winter and this was spring so the leaves had returned. A wall of darkness that shimmered when the wind blew. And someone had put out the street lights so it was just headlights and the exterior light shining yellow past the dumpsters and fenced in children's playground. Black bars, wood chips and small gray rocks, a facade to navigate in order to recycle cardboard.

She stopped on the other side of the garages, a way from the apartments and the lights so she could leave her music up loud. A low strumming accompanying a reverberating drum tapping. A woman joined, singing about how no one would ever love her again, not the way the man she feared would leave her.

She turned off the engine so she could hear it more clearly, then sat in her car crying. Her face growing uglier, more teeth and drool, blew her nose into the sweatshirt fetched from the back seat when she couldn't find a tissue.

The night was silent outside her car. It was late enough at night that everyone was asleep. Not even people returning from the bar on the road now.

The music included the sound of dogs barking but it wasn't at that part yet. She heard something hissing and moving in the forest behind her. Looked in her rearview mirror and a slender muscular woman stood red in her tail lights. She immediately took her foot off, went dark and the hissing continued, the sound of something crawling on the trunk and roof of her car, skittering.

She covered her face with the sweatshirt, tried to bury her hands in it, the dog barking began and the sound outside stopped. She peeked and a mass of snakes swirled into the forest darkness.

The song faded out and the chorus held one final note as the dogs had really picked up, then the muted sound of a woman's scream then the song ended.

She sat in silence, staring wide eyed at the rearview mirror from behind the sweatshirt.

The next song started and it was a woman cooing along with a jangling guitar, she immediately turned it off and sat in silence and watched for a few minutes more. She pulled out her phone and looked at it, unsure who to text or what to do. She looked at a list of people she could message but then noticed how early in the morning it was.

She set the sweatshirt on the passenger seat and put the phone on top of it, started her car and drove to her usual parking space. Then, ran quickly and noisily up the stairs, her jacket making rubber squirt noises and high heels tapping the pavement.

•

Inside she found someone in voice chat on one of the chat rooms she frequented.

She agreed, it could have been an angel

She looked around the room

Windows are closed

She bobbed a teabag in a steaming cup of water

I don't think it can fly I mean it looked like snakes

She was speaking into her headset, the only light in the room a consistent rainbow strobe from her keyboard.

It was dark, I didn't want to light her up again I mean what if she was still out there

She looked at herself while the person replied and realized she had not removed her boots, just her jacket which was thrown haphazardly on the couch.

Nah, I'm good, champ. If you want to fly out here and have a look you are welcome to crash on my couch.

She blew on the tea to cool it and then took a sip, wincing because it was still to hot.

She laughed, yeah, that could explain all the missing pets, you got it guys

She pulled her long boots off one at a time and set them on the floor, tried to balance them upright but they were too floppy so she returned to her tea, paging through internet search results.

No I'm not seeing anything, how about you guys

I attended a screening of a documentary, at a nearby cinema.

It was about how humans manage – or fail to manage – industrial waste, and consumer waste. There were a lot of statistics in the documentary.

It ended on an carefully curated optimistic note:

“In these dark times, we have a tendency to oscillate between complacent optimism and fatalistic pessimism. That leads us to lie down and do nothing... But one thing you can always do is to make a positive contribution to your community, wherever you are... What the planet needs is not a few people who do everything perfectly, but many people who do things imperfectly.”

It reminds me of a quote from a book by Dee Hock, former leader of the now-famous payment-processing organisation, Visa:

“There is no failure in failing to achieve something that you have dreamed of. The failure is in failing to dream of what you can achieve.”

As there was an accompanying discussion among panellists, I did some reading-up before the screening.

references

1. https://circular-economy.tomra.com/podcast/02-04/annupa-ahi
2. https://www.oecd.org/environment/extended-producer-responsibility.htm
3. https://www.eco-business.com/videos/can-the-music-industry-ever-reach-net-zero/
4. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/environmental-social-and-governance-esg-criteria.asp
5. https://web.archive.org/web/20120520130336/http://www.mensjournal.com/jack-johnson
6. https://blog.science.edu.sg/2023/12/08/wasted-an-eco-business-documentary-series-review/
7. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-capitalism
8. “Environmental scholar Bill McKibben proposes “full scale climate mobilization” to address environmental decay. During World War II, vehicle manufacturers and general goods manufacturers shifted to producing weapons, military vehicles and war time goods. McKibben argues that, to combat environmental change, the American Military Industrial Complex and other national arms producers could shift to producing solar panels, wind turbines and other environmental products in an eco-capitalist system.” https://newrepublic.com/article/135684/declare-war-climate-change-mobilize-wwii

my anti-library

an anti-library is defined as books that you haven't read.

1. Smith, Richard (2015). “Green Capitalism: the god that failed”. World Economics Association. pp. 55–61. ISBN 978-1-911156-22-2.
2. Tanuro, Daniel (2013). “Green Capitalism: Why it Can't Work”. Merlin Press. p. 112. ISBN 978-1-55266-668-5.
3. Jeremy Rappleye, Hikaru Komatsu, Yukiko Uchida, Kuba Krys & Hazel Markus (2020). ‘Better policies for better lives’?: constructive critique of the OECD’s (mis)measure of student well-being,“. Journal of Education Policy, 35:2, 258-282

#lists #conversations

I will listen to all of your problems offer support the best I can but you must understand that there will be a point at which I reach my limits and I must take care of myself It is possible to care for you while caring for me and I will find that balance so long as you are fighting your fight too I will not be the only soldier in your army

I will follow you as long as you lead I will help you without doing it for you I will love you while loving myself

#Poetry #MyBeautifulSky #SelfCare #SelfLove #CareTooMuch

I’m glad I’m not a fish. They don’t have an easy life: being predated on by bigger fish, no hands to scratch itches with etc, plastic bottles and micro plastics from fleece jackets everywhere.

Swimming in your own latrine everyday must take a toll on you sooner or later.

Every day is a struggle for survival for a fish.

The good thing is that you can move in three dimensions, but then a fish is still a downgrade from being a bird.

I suppose being a merman in the ocean could be OK.

I’d rather be a human though.

Rather than that I’d like to be an elf.

MFW I bag a bad bitch (cute funny and clever) by being a silly goose. We have our first date today, and I’m incredibly excited to meet her in person, as she seems like she hits all of my desires in a partner. I can’t wait to see where this goes.

I was up late last night texting with her, and so this morning I slept in. After that I had martial arts, and right after that I went and worked out for like two hours. And then immediately went on a pretty long walk (~2 hours-ish?) and came home ready to sit down and enjoy resting my tired feet. It was a great day. I also had a lot of good thoughts, and I even ended up doing some CBT while out and walking. I am optimistic for the future.

Oh yeah, I was listening to an exurb1a video again, and there was a very poetically beautiful line I liked “Even ogres can tend beautiful gardens”. I think there’s a very nice set of insight there, and I may write about it some other time. I was a bit concerned that since this blog typically talks about negative things this may reflect on me in a biased way – but this serves to be something for me to I guess vent to no one about, and to spur on thoughts on things to potentially address in therapy all in the interests of self-growth. I am happy, and I do think a good reason why is because I allow myself to put any sadness down here, instead of carrying it around with me.

R – 3 breaths

E – I was a bit insecure about my friendships, and the lack of close intimacy recently has let anxiety sow its seeds in the spaces.

S – These thoughts have no basis to stand on, and so are wonderful things to contest. Doing CBT in the moment was a great idea, but also I want to pick them apart and understand them more in therapy today.

T – I wrote them down, and I will talk about them tomorrow in therapy.

Good night, and just because I don’t say this every time I want you to know I really do love you. I’m proud of the work you’ve done, and the resolve you have to improve yourself and grow into a person you are proud of. Good job, keep it up.

Human intelligence: another abominable idea from the AI industry

Helen Beetham has been on fire lately, and this piece is particularly sharp. Beetham writes about how the “AI” industry has tried to redefine “human intelligence” in contrast to, or to justify, its idea of “machine intelligence”:

In the guise of starting from something self-evident, the project of ‘artificial intelligence’ in fact serves to define what ‘intelligence’ is and how to value it, and therefore how diverse people should be valued too. Educators have good reason to be wary of the concept of ‘intelligence’ at all, but particularly as a single scale of potential that people have in measurable degrees.

Beetham goes on to discuss the discourse we've all seen ramp up in the last year or two, where helpful “AI” will make us “more productive” and do our work for us while we supervise. She sees this for exactly what it is:

What these self-serving comparisons produce is a double bind for students and intellectual workers. Submit yourself to the pace, the productivity, the datafied routines of algorithmic systems, and at the same time ‘be more human’. Be more human, so that you can add value to the algorithms. Be more human , so more of your behaviour can be modelled and used to undercut your value. Be more human so that when AI fails to meet human needs, the work required to ‘fix’ it is clearly specified and can cheaply be fulfilled.

We've been here before. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Attention, moral skill, and algorithmic recommendation

This is a pretty interesting paper by two authors from ANU, in Philosophical Studies. They make the case for attention as a “moral skill”, and argue that how we pay attention is as important as whether, or on what, we do so.

Online platforms can direct us toward things we should not attend to just as easily as toward things we should. And even when they direct our attention to the right things, they may not do so in the right ways, to the right degrees, or for the right reasons.

I find their argument compelling and it seems to open up a lot of further intersting questions to explore. However their conclusion was somewhat surprising and, to be honest, baffling. If AI-driven recommender systems are bad for our attention and moral health, according to these authors the solution is...more AI recommender systems, but build on generative AI running on your operating system. Fair to say it's not the conclusion I would have come to.

We Need To Rewild The Internet

On a somewhat similar theme, Maria Farrell and Robin Berjon explore rewilding as a both a metaphor and a somewhat literal suggestion for repairing the dystopian disappointment that is the Internet – and more specifically the World Wide Web – in 2024.

I admit I was hooked with the early reference to James Scott's Seeing like a State, one of the books that has most profoundly influenced how I think about the world, but just as I was intrigued by the idea of attention as a moral question, I wanted to know more about the Internet Oligarchy problem as an emotional one:

Rewilding the internet is more than a metaphor. It’s a framework and plan. It gives us fresh eyes for the wicked problem of extraction and control, and new means and allies to fix it. It recognizes that ending internet monopolies isn’t just an intellectual problem. It’s an emotional one. It answers questions like: How do we keep going when the monopolies have more money and power? How do we act collectively when they suborn our community spaces, funding and networks? And how do we communicate to our allies what fixing it will look and feel like?

What Farrell and Berjon are suggesting in this piece is some combination of legalist liberal-democratic power through enforcement of anti-monopoly laws, Lenin's concept of “dual power”, and anarchistic “building the new world in the shell of the old”. Not that they'd likely put it like that.

Sunday 21/Apr/2024

Prayers, etc.: • 08:00 – Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel followed by the Angelus • 09:45 – The Glorious Mysteries of the Holy Rosary. Followed by The Memorare • 12:00 – the Angelus • 13:00 – Thought for today from Archbishop Lefebvre: On the altar we unite ourselves to the great prayer of our Lord. If we truly want to live out the virtue of religion and truly be religious souls, it is in coming before the altar, in uniting ourselves to our Lord, that we are going to do so. It is the most beautiful prayer of all: to offer ourselves with our Lord on the altar. • 18:00 – the Angelus • 19:20 – The hour of Compline for tonight according to the Traditional Pre-Vatican II Divine Office, followed by Fr. Chad Rippberger's Prayer of Command to protect my family, my sons, my daughter and her family, my granddaughters and their families, my great grandchildren, and everyone for whom I have responsibility from any demonic activity. – And that followed by the Sunday Prayers of the Association of the Auxilium Christianorum.

Health Metrics: • bw= 224.0 lbs. • bp= 136/74 (67)

Diet: • 09:00 – ½ peanut butter sandwich, 1 banana • 10:30 – 1 chocolate chunk cookie • 12:30 – 1 chocolate chunk cookie, applesauce & cottage cheese • 15:10 – meat loaf & white bread, a plate of egg rolls

Chores, etc.: • 09:30 – monitored bank accounts activity • 11:00 – work on household budget • 12:15 – tune in the Tampa Bay Rays Pregame Show before their MLB game vs. the NY Yankees. I plan to stay on this station to listen to the game. (and nap.) • 15:25 – moved to the Mets vs Dodgers Game, already in the 2nd inning • 17:45 – tuning in 105.3 the Fan for the Rangers pregame show. Will stay here for the Rangers game vs the Braves.

Chess: • 10:25 – moved in all pending CC games

posted Sunday 21/Apr/2024 ~20:45 #DLAPR2024

• 🤯I've been having less and less headaches since I got Covid-19 48 days ago. I think it's timely progress!
• 🩺It's been a bit more than a month since I got the iron infusion for my anemia. I started to feel less tired this weekend, which I think is a sign it’s doing its thing. The doctor said it can take at least 3 to 4 weeks to increase the iron levels.
• ✅I had a small crisis regarding my to-do list, but it's all good now! Crisis averted! I did some experiments only to realize I still like my current setup with Nirvana.
• 🌹I finished a fantasy romance that was fun and silly 🙃 called “That Time I Got Drunk And Saved A Demon” by Kimberly Lemming.
• 📖And I finally started reading “A Closed and Common Orbit” (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers. It's one of those books that gets me in the first paragraphs. I don't know why I took so long to pick it up! It's really good!
• 📖I’m also reading “Slow Productivity” by Cal Newport. Got to the part where he talks about Jane Austen’s writing routine, and how there are misconceptions about it.
• 💪No runs outside this week, it was too windy and cold, and wet. I went to the gym instead.
• 📺I watched the documentary “Raccoons: Survival Warriors” at Curiosity Stream. People usually hate them, I know, but they are so cute!
• THIS IS POST # 99 !! 🥳

-—

Post 99/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge!

#100DaysToOffload #100Days #weeknotes

Everything that could happen, has happened, and will happen is happening right now… in this very moment.

The now you are reaping is the now you have sown.

Be conscious of now.

Blog 32/2024

Laat hem maar gaan ook dit hondje is niet van jou

(tattoo van drie vrij vliegende vogels)

Loslaten is houden van

Tellement d’informations nous échappent. Prenez ce vote en juin dernier, au Parlement canadien, d'une clause qui garantit que chaque Canadien·ne a droit à un environnement sain et qui impose au gouvernement fédéral le devoir de protéger ce droit. Je ne suis sûrement pas la seule à qui ce vote a échappé. Je me demande toutefois si on doit se sentir rassuré par cette clause?

#Droit #Environnement #JusticeEnvironnementale #Pollution #Sante #Tribunaux

Le Parlement canadien a en fait concrétisé une résolution de l’Assemblée générale des Nations Unies, appuyée en 2022 par 161 pays dont le Canada, reconnaissant le droit à un environnement sain, selon cette publication de recherche de la Bibliothèque du Parlement datée du 15 janvier 2024.

La reconnaissance du droit à un environnement sain s'ajoute au préambule de la Loi canadienne sur la protection de l’environnement, une loi qui date de 1999.

Le paragraphe 3(1) définit un environnement sain comme un « environnement qui est propre, sain et durable ». Cette définition est conforme à la définition de ce droit donnée par l’Assemblée générale de l’ONU. Voir Loi canadienne sur la protection de l’environnement (1999) (LCPE), L.C. 1999, ch. 33.

Quand à son application concrète, il va falloir attendre d’ici juin 2025 le cadre de mise en œuvre qui va préciser à la fois les principes et les mécanismes à l’appui de ce droit.

Au Québec, on avait pris pas mal d'avance sur Ottawa. Le droit à un environnement sain a fait son entrée dès 1978 dans le préambule de la Loi sur la qualité de l’environnement, puis il fut consacré en 2006 par l'article 46.1 de la Charte québécoise des droits et libertés de la personne.

Le hic, c'est que l'article 46.1 s'applique « dans la mesure et suivant les normes prévues par la loi » (Source: Centre québécois du droit de l'environnement).

Concrètement, ça veut dire qu'il est possible de porter atteinte au droit à un environnement sain si une loi encadre cette atteinte. Donc, 46.1 n'a pas de valeur supra législative et sa portée dépend fortement des autres lois québécoises.

Un genre de clause dérogatoire, en somme.

Mine de rien, au fil des années il y a eu au Québec plusieurs actions collectives qui ont un rapport avec un environnement sain. Dans l'article paru en 2020 L’action collective environnementale au Québec, de l'avocat Michel Bélanger, ce dernier cite plus de 32 causes regroupées en deux groupes: Bruit, poussière et odeurs (23 causes) et Contaminants divers (9 causes).

Pour Me Bélanger, «l’action collective n’est sûrement pas la voie à privilégier pour solutionner les conflits environnementaux, mais elle demeure souvent l’ultime recours pour rétablir un équilibre rompu par l’appropriation abusive qu’un tiers peut exercer sur l’environnement commun».

Toutefois, ce n'est pas le droit à un environnement sain qui est évoqué dans ces actions collectives, mais plutôt un intérêt de droit public à assurer la protection de l'environnement.

N'étant pas juriste, je ferais l'hypothèse que la difficulté viendrait du fait, comme l'écrivaient Sophie Thériault et David Robitaille dans un article d'un numéro de la Revue de droit de McGill parue en décembre 2011, que le droit à un environnement sain serait «tout au plus, d’un « droit » moral et symbolique reflétant l’importance que les Québécoises et les Québécois accordent à l’environnement.»

Je nuance; Sophie Thériault et David Robitaille écrivaient aussi qu'ils croyaient que l'article 46.1 aurait une portée juridique plus grande. Peut-être qu'un recours à cet article m'aura échappé, mais je n'ai pas trouvé de causes, ou d'ententes hors cours, démontrant que leur optimisme s'est avéré justifié.

Sans doute parce que, selon ce que j'ai cru comprendre, une personne dont le recours est fondé sur le droit de vivre dans un environnement sain et respectueux de la biodiversité doit démontrer qu’elle a été personnellement et directement atteinte par la violation de ce droit.

Est-ce que la modification à la Loi canadienne sur la protection de l’environnement pour y inclure le droit à un environnement sain va faciliter le recours aux tribunaux sur la base de ce droit?

Peut-être, mais ça me semble compliqué dans notre système politique où l'environnement relève de compétences soit fédérales, soit provinciales ou partagées.

Alors, est-ce que vous êtes rassuré·e·s?

Advertising casino rules

This week, the internet presented me with one of those short advertisement videos, that it is still stuck in my head. Maybe half a minute long, it is a video like you encounter on pretty much every “social media” platform.

The basic message was more or less

Dear men in your 30s, please be aware that women who are single in their 30s and have no mental issues are very rare and hard fought over. If you want to get one of those, you need to [...] and I can help you in one of my classes...

Dear readers, come on: You might not want to admit it, but you agree!! Even RuPaul said it: 'You better work' I knew, you're going to like it, George. Life's a competition, everyone wants the same, and all we want are “things” to tick boxes. That's how you think! And you will tell me why this is wrong in 3... 2... 1...

We could point at the blatant misogyny and totally miss the point. The ad works hurts the same way after swapping genders:

Dear women in your 30s, please be aware that men who are single in their 30s and have no mental issues are very rare and hard fought over. If you want to get one of those, you need to [...] and I can help you in one of my classes...

Well of course, it's a dating market for both sides of the equation. You won't complain about equality now, will you? No princesses simply waiting to be rescued! I happily repeat: 'You better work'

A dating “market”, clear quality criteria (single: check; no mental issues: check; education: check; ... ), now hold your own values against the shop window and hope to be led in. It's obvious that I am not the target group of the ad. George is. Our self-talk is. And it works, it pushes the right buttons, aim and hit.

Because they know what you truly want: The happy Instagram story! Perfect partner, perfect job, perfect smile, perfect body, perfect sunset, ... And what if I don't? If I don't like sunsets? Or if my personal idea of a perfect job is a different one? What then? Then you have to watch more ads. They can tell you what you want, what you need. And you have me!! I tell you, my friend. And if by then you still don't want it, well then you have – obviously – mental issues. Especially in your 30s.

...

You've realised by now, haven't you? You won't win this one. We prepared the board, we shuffle the cards. We wrote the rules and loaded the dice.

...

Now take your seat Then I don't play. I refuse to sit on this table, to play by your rules. Judge me if you like, your scale isn't mine.

Then you won't win. But I might not lose myself trying. And look at it this way: If as you say the ones without “mental issues” are so very rare... then we the others might be legion. Keep your table and your rules and show me the door.

---

Last post: “Facts are true”

Je ne sais plus où j’ai entendu parler de cet ouvrage de la sociologue Rose-Marie Lagrave, mais je sais que c’était très récemment, et en jetant un oeil à mes dernières lectures je fais l’hypothèse que c’était dans Littérature et Révolution de Joseph Andras et Kaoutar Harchi. Je pense que c’était Kaoutar Harchi qui citait ce livre comme un bon exemple de récit de transfuge de classe qui ne se contente pas d’être un récit de vie mais propose également – et surtout – une analyse sociologique, et politique, de ce parcours.

Dans cet ouvrage, Rose-Marie Lagrave retrace en sociologue et féministe son parcours de fille de famille nombreuse, enracinée en milieu rural, que rien ne prédestinait à s'asseoir sur les bancs de la Sorbonne puis à devenir directrice d'études à l'EHESS : une migration sociale faite de multiples aléas et bifurcations, où dominations de classe et de genre s'entremêlent.

Mobilisant un vaste corpus théorique et littéraire, l'autrice ouvre sa malle à archives et la boîte à souvenirs. De ses expériences de boursière à ses engagements au MLF et sa pratique du métier de sociologue, sans oublier les membres de sa famille, elle exhume et interroge les traces des événements et rencontres qui l'ont construite, remettant en cause les récits dominants sur la méritocratie, le mythe d'un « ascenseur social » décollant par la grâce de talents exceptionnels et les stéréotypes sur les transfuges de classe. Parvenue à l'heure des bilans, elle questionne avec la même ténacité la vieillesse et la mort.

Contre les injonctions à « réussir » et à « rester soi », cette enquête autobiographique invite à imaginer de nouvelles formes d'émancipation par la socioanalyse : se ressaisir, c'est acquérir un pouvoir d'agir permettant de critiquer les hiérarchies sociales et de les transgresser.

Il faut le dire tout de suite : même si le déroulé de l’ouvrage suit une trame chronologique (l’enfance, l’école, le lycée, les études supérieures, la carrière universitaire et les engagements féministes, puis la retraite et la vieillesse), il ne constitue pour autant pas une autobiographie. C’est avant tout une enquête autobiographique où l’autrice passe son parcours au prisme sociologique.

Le texte comporte beaucoup de réflexivité et j’ai trouvé cela passionnant. J’ai beaucoup aimé le discours de Rose-Marie Lagrave sur la notion de « mérite » (qu’elle réprouve) et sur le rôle de l’État et des conditions socio-économiques dont elle a bénéficié à l’époque, notamment par son statut de boursière. Elle en profite pour regretter que ce modèle social, aussi imparfait fut-il, soit attaqué et sévèrement remis en cause désormais.

Brandon O’Brien 64 pages Interstellar Flight Press (2021) 

Tl;dr summary: Eldritch horror meets pop culture meets Blackness meets black humor, all mixed together and with line breaks

Read this if you like: Elwin Cotman, speculative poetry, hip hop culture

See the book on Bookshop

I’m not nearly as well-read in poetry as I am in fiction, or even in creative non-fiction. This was part of the reason I picked up this collection—a poetry chapbook with speculative elements felt like it could be more accessible for my genre fiction sensibilities than the collections I’ve read in the past. I say this, in part, as a caveat: I’m much less confident in my opinions about poetry than when I analyze prose, especially when it comes to elements of craft. 

One thing I do feel confident in saying about Can You Sign My Tentacle?, though, is that it’s a blast to read. On the big-picture level, the juxtaposition of the Cthulhu mythos with pop culture creates a fertile sandbox for imagery that’s at minimum surprising and at times hilarious. And it was unexpected in other ways, too. I was thrown off at first by the way many of the poems seem to drift in and out of narrative but after a few reads I think I’ve decided I like it—it creates a kind of untethered feeling, a dreamy-yet-anxious state that fits with the cosmic horror it’s inspired by.

This surprise carries through to the line level with phrases like “gnawing at / the bark of unsheathed pencils” or “you are just a chalice / for the ritual of melding truths”—arresting moments that made something familiar seem new, or felt like a truth that always existed but had never been put to words in quite that way. Ultimately, I think that was my biggest takeaway from this collection from a craft perspective. O’Brien’s use of surprising language keeps the reader on their toes, and because of that I wanted to keep reading to see where he would take me next.

The references to pop culture peppering this chapbook, to my reading, gave it some much-needed grounding and cohesion. In the poems that play in the Lovecraftian world, I found they would start to lose me a bit in the sections that went more conceptual and got away from that real-world tether—the language was nice, but there were definitely places that made me feel like the poem was too smart for me (which, to be fair, might have been the problem). 

Ironically enough, some of my favorite works were the ones that eschewed these references and instead focused in on the mundane. “time, and time again” is a beautiful and heartbreaking rendering of grief, and the voice in “the lagahoo speaks for itself” builds a distinctive character in a very small space. That poem also sticks the landing with its last line (“picking my teeth with the memory of your name.”). Poems like these feel like just the right amount of different to serve as a kind of palate cleanser while still fitting in with the vibe and flow of the surrounding works.

Of course, leave it to the prose writer to find the only bit of prose in a poetry collection—but the “Author’s Note” in the back is also definitely worth the read. I almost wish that came before the poems instead of after them, because it gives a lot of very useful context for the works and what inspired O’Brien to write them. Then again, it was also cool to have a reason to flip back through and re-read some of the poems through that lens.

In either case, I’d definitely recommend this collection anyone who has an interest in speculative poetry, especially newcomers to the genre. The narrative feel to a lot of the poems, combined with the humor and pop culture nods, make it a very accessible gateway for speculative fiction readers and writers into the poetry side of the genres.

 

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