TISHLILS(HIBPA): Who *shouldn't* be the Library of the Year for 2020

Today, apparently, is the perfect day for me to be salty about the presence of TERFs in places where they don't belong, and oh-my-gods how awful the library profession is about not kicking them out as swiftly and effectively as they can, because they believe other things are more important than their communities.

So, mostly just as a note, the author of the Harry Potter books was back on her TERF bullshit today. No links, because I'm not giving her the eyeballs and because she's got a big enough platform that you can find plenty of people yelling about her TERFy bullshit. So, at least at this point, about the only thing that I'm going to say that's good about the author of the Harry Potter series is that she's going to be the person who a generation of fans and fandom cites as the author they choose to exercise Death of the Author on. As far as I'm concerned, the novels are not particularly good fic about the story of a magical school and its inhabitants.

I doubt, however, that the library system is going to yank the books off the shelves because the author is terrible. They're still very popular, after all, and circulation statistics are one of the easy measures to point to as a way of justifying one's continued relevance in a world of shrinking budgets. We still carry Orson Scott Card, after all, and plenty of other books that have served this purpose for their generations. And if you ask librarians, you'll find that at least some of us have given thought to collection development and management and are weighing the pros and cons of putting popular books in the collection, putting books that represent the great variety of people respectfully (and preferably from people whose own origins are in that culture or community), and the tendency of librarians to want to put books that we think are good quality in front of our communities. Given how much librarians have been an institution for promoting very specific, very white, cis, het, Christian points of view, that instinct sometimes has to be squashed, rather than let out to say hello.

( And now we talk about Seattle Public Library and the award they got )

A Lot of Pain and Sorrow, And a Few Nice Things, Too

Let's begin, with one thing that will hopefully be useful to you. sonia reminds us that many links you get or share have tracking data appended to them that can and should be removed.

( Matters involving the continued death of Black people at the hands of white police officers, now most famously including George Floyd )

Captain Awkward has suggestions on dealing with the feeling that not wanting what capitalist society says you should want, or know, or desire is somehow bad and wrong. Which ties into a lot of thoughts about the things above and the things below. And also reinforces the idea that should is a pernicious thing and often gets in the way of finding what you want (or even taking a break and acknowledging that you might be doing enough right now, because you are doing everything that you can do right now). We mostly do not find what makes us happy in our jobs, and for many of us, our jobs aren't interesting enough to make us happy. And that's true even when you're in a job where you're not being assaulted by vocational awe and people saying that your passion for your job should override any concerns you might have about it.

What kind of tropes would you really expect to see in fanworks, only to find there aren't all that many works with those tropes?

The phenomenon of hurt/comfort and the importance of the comfort part of the pairing in making it work. Because we see a lot of narratives where there's a lot of hurt involved but very little comfort. The fictional_fans discussion on hurt/comfort.

An open letter is collecting signatories to send to the UK's Women and Equalities minister in the hopes that she will focus on important issues instead of talking about what is very strongly aligned with TERF turf. The language itself is not openly TERFy, but for someone who recognizes the rhetoric, is sounds a lot like the things that are being pushed by groups that want to exclude trans women from being recognized as women.

Who you see on the cover of a book should reflect who is in the book. Despite being a 2010 article, there are still plenty of books that I know of that have BIPOC characters in them who are not represented on the cover. Even main characters who are BIPOC.

As one might expect, in times of economic precarity, sex work is getting many more new professionals, and many are likely to find it the same sort of situation that people trying to make rent with publishing have had for years. Although I suspect it's that publishing has recently been put in the same situation that sex work has always been in, but the article is framing it as "look at all these amateurs that are turning to sex work as a way of paying the bills", interspersed with "how much is the professional industry going to suffer from an inability to shoot and produce the films they're used to?" and not really doing much with either.

Always check to make sure you have the name and address right if you are contracted to tie someone up in a sex fantasy. Thankfully, there was enough evidence to prove what happened was a case of mistaken identity and nobody was hurt, but all the same, triple-check everything.

Citations for reckless driving and exceeding the speed limit are up, as people apparently think that less traffic on the roads is a reason to go faster. The additional consequence of that is that when someone does cause a collision, the increased speeds make those collisions much more fatal.

Tony Hawk's first skateboard is part of a national history collection, and the interview article there highlights, but doesn't go completely into, the tension between skateboarding as a respectable sport with aerial tricks that deserves sponsorships and respect and skateboarding as a counterculture activity, treating the world around as an obstacle course, in much the way that parkour and freerunning do. Because there's still plenty of anti-skateboard sentiment, signs, and attitudes in the world around. As with anything that started in the counterculture, the question of authenticity is an important one, so I would expect Tony Hawk to be polarizing - the reason why people might have gotten into it, but also the symbol of corporate selling-out at the same time. Which I'll put next to a piece about minimalism, the SoHo loft space, and how it's been commercialized into the idea of a farmhouse aesthetic devoid of color and clutter alike, supposedly with the idea of open spaces, natural light, and anything that might make a place look like it was meant for people, instead of photographs, because one of the things I like doing in these roundups is juxtaposition of ideas, or variations on the same idea in different places. (What can I say? Librarianship tends toward making connections between things.)

The Washington Post profiles Stacey Abrams, paying attention to what she's not interested in doing and what she is interested in doing. Some of the social circles I follow have said very strongly that Mr. Biden, as the Democratic nominee, needs to have a Black woman as his running mate to keep him from gaffing with regard to the constituency he needs the most to win. If that's the case, Stacey Abrams would be a very good choice.

( Things regarding the ongoing epidemic of SARS-CoV-2 )

Observing the way that nature (and orcas) do things show us that connection to community and family are important things for us so that we can all survive together, lacking official alcohol in certain nations, some home brewers are using pineapples to brew some booze of their own, a cat learning to walk on a treadmill, the herons in Regents Park, and a video of a person building an athletics course for squirrels, and the squirrels that run the course.

Science quests for children to do while at home. Virtual programs from the Maritime Aquarium, and writing exercises for young writers. Aboriginal Australian artists using their media to record, recall, and show others what they suffered at the hands of white fosters during programs meant to take Aboriginal children and turn them white, which should sound familiar to Indigenous people everywhere in the world.

Combining the deeply personal arts of cartomancy through Tarot and tattooing to create Body Spells, tattoos first drawn to be oracle cards and then inked onto the body of the querant that drew it. This has feels attached to it. I think it's because I recognize the very personal decisions that go into getting a tattoo, because almost all tattooing, at least in the States, is connected to memory, a means by which something cannot be forgotten, because it has been inked into the body. Tattoos can be removed or altered if needed, but there's a lot of power and vulnerability that goes into getting and showing one's tattoos, given the cultural attitudes that often accompany the presence of body ink. Where it is, what it is, and how much of it there is change how a person is perceived.

And much of the same vulnerability comes when you consult oracle cards and other forms of divination, because most of those oracles are meant to have specific meaning to the querant and their inquiry. Which may or may not be any meaning known to the person helping the querant at all. So, yes, it's an interesting piece and I like it a lot.

The National Hockey League unveiled a plan for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for 2020, involving a seeding and several games played all in a single (or few) locations without fans in the stadia. None of the games will take place in Canada, as the travel restrictions and quarantine requirements that will not be relaxed for the hockey players would make a Canadian site impossible. Which, yes, lost revenue, but good for the provinces that are sticking to their requirements. The National Basketball Association is considering having the rest of its seasons games play out in a single building. The IOC is considering what a more simplified version of the Olympic Games might be.

The International Olympic Committees are almost at parity between men and women, with the election of two new women chairs. Which is actually pretty nice.

In technology, Yukata Zero, trying to make it possible for people to enjoy wearing yukata-type garments and make them accessible to newcomers or those with disabilities, which, from the looks of the pictures involved, means two different types of breaking the yukata up into separate pieces that can be put on in sequence to create a full yukata, where there are snaps, or whether the obi holds the two pieces together and hides the piecing, and a third model that is adjustable to the body shape of the person with some hidden buttons. All of the models appear to be meant for women, but it's a good idea to see.

A game being played that replicates the experience and fears of being inside during the pandemic. The review makes it sound like the kind of thing that people who enjoy playing games that only obliquely reference the fact that they're psychological horror games would find helpful.

Utilizing the waste heat of photovoltaic power generation to desalinate water through evaporation and condensation, allowing for electricity and drinking water from the same setup, which is pretty cool.

A situation in which everyone has correct information and conclusions, and a problem is solved because someone knows where to draw the chalk circle. (I boggle at how this scenario became possible, but I know that technology has some interesting error modes and ways of carrying on despite them.)

Last for tonight, In society where everyone has their niche, it is unwise to try and remove a niche because you think it's ill-adapted. Because it might come around, later on, that the situation for which that niche will excel arrives.

a handy page of isolation stunt fight sequences, courtesy thewayne. Not for you if you get weirded out by people swinging at the camera, and at least one of them has blood effects and knife stabbing. Others have some amount of firearms in there.

How a song carved in stone as a memory to a dead wife became a theme listened to by millions of people, because it was incorporated into a computer game.

A request to have sent birthday cards to a 100 year-old SFF fan, present for the very first WorldCon. (Sorry, I do these in batches, but some belated birthday wishes will hopefully not be amiss.)

And some art of a kaiju carrying all their children and explaining to them the proper way to wreck a city.