rather than have me gushing about how the world wraps around me like a blanket, i'll just show you some stuff i have pictures of that apply to the past month, and sprinkle in some silly shit i came across.
(Hover to reveal, click to enlarge)
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| biggest surprise of the year thus far was my taking to this book. FULL REACTION HERE (I've also gone and made areadingjournal printable for no reason as i probably wont use them.) |
a great deal of whats made this month so great is coming off the back of the rad xmas presents i was given. Case in point, framing this sucker felt like an accomplishment. I elected to use chinese classified ads for karaoke bars and possible brothels ive had saved for eons. |
a lot of time dedicated acting as chola's personal tailor. made her a beautiful winter coat to keep her cozy and expanded her raincoat (she fat). Both garments were made compatible with her harness so she can wear both, or all, at once. |
*ok i realize its been an extraordinarily asian-centric month, more than the 50% i usually operate at, but like my recent embrace of internet drama culture ive fully settled in to my era of oriental excellence. so be it. Also im writing this on Chinese New Year so technically this is still coming in at the top of the new month and moon.
Year of the Trash Dragon
Ok february let’s go
Notably chinese new year fell in February this year, which meant hot pot for no less than 21 people and red envelopes. I love chinese new year because it means fortune telling from my mom, an endless amount of shabu shabu leftovers, and pineapple cakes erryday. chinese new year is really thanksgiving for asian people, you see all your fam and eat until youre almost dead. love it.
Second major event, i got banned from etsy, making this the second or third platform ive been excommunicated from (See: the great yeetening), which is super annoying and fucked up, made more maddening by the fact that they kept the money from my last sale, and a wound that continues to sting as i keep forgetting and coming up with new ideas for products i cannot post. For now I will be looking for other e-commerce platforms, but my hopes are low since I cant really think of any others that have that built in audience/discoverability through the search feature, and i really dont want to put in the effort of marketing, at least not right now. I think I’ll add a comment box to this post if you have any suggestions for selling platforms please lmk. FUCKIN BOO.Beyond that shit with etsy, things have been pretty great. Ive been thinking about neocities a lot since i decided to make a video about some of my favorite sites. That should be done sometime in march and of course I’ll link it here. This month I read CURSES, an anthology by George Wylesol. I happened upon it at a comic book shop I discovered in January, and was determined to purchase it when I had a decent paycheck. It did NOT disappoint.
mama's got a new job boys! on top of the other shit i was already doing, i am now training ai models. yes, ive joined the darkside. i was gonna start going off about how im probably the only person you know that is emotionally indifferent to ai, but remembered where I am. i figure half of yall aren't going to care about what im doing to put hello-kitty toasted bread on the table, and the other half aren't even going to read this sentence. which leaves the margin-of-error outliers that might actually be curious. so to save myself from the effort of typing it all out, i have found an article that kind of explains what it is im doing.
This is an interview with the lead researchers over at Anthropic, makers of ChatGPT's only competition (as far as I'm concerned). Hover down to the third question, just below the illustration, for a sense of the kind of work I'm doing, why it pays so well, and a cheap shot at Amazon's MTurk. Oh yeah, the pay is great. It's gig work by definition, in that I can pick it up whenever I want, but unlike gig work in that I am paid well, consistently, and actually adds enjoyment to my day.
Another thing that has brought joy this month is the album Angel Eyes from Stephen Sanchez. It's been a hundred years since a) I found new music I felt compelled to make other people listen to and b) found an album and artist through a song that was playing on the radio. And its a concept album no less! The story is so Scorcese: "Taking place between 1958 and 1964, the concept album chronicles a love story between a famous crooner (The Troubadour Sanchez) and Evangeline, the girlfriend of a mob boss who owns the club where Sanchez performs."
Stephen Sanchez - Evangeline
Listen to this and tell me the ghost of Harry Nilsson isn't living in this man's throat. usually you gotta be an uggo to sing this good, which adds a whole nother layer of rarity since he registers as attractive in my eyes, which rarely favor celebreties and their kind. read: I dont find many famous people men to be attractive.
(slightly out of order, and not complete)
In all March was a great month despite me spending 55% of it in utter dread as my birthday approached. It was a big one and i denied any kind of celebration, thinking I was going to be an emotional baby. Most days leading up to it, it felt like i could hear crashing waves emotion ready to pull me under. but the day came and passed just fine. it was fun even. I had japanese wagyu for the first time in a 30s inspired steak house with a picture of ODB in the staircase. I also had american wagyu for the first time (it was kind of a steak flight, with dry-aged and wet-aged cuts too), and shit was beyond compare. it was like a krispy kreme donut facing off with one from 711. ok so within compare.
Gifts I received included a pen nib I had been oggling over since it was first presented on JetPens, a household favorite supplier of Japanese stationery. I have watched their videos radicalize several people in to becoming pen collectors, so approach their youtube channel with caution. I also FINALLY got the three hour version of the cinematic masterpiece Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, which I still haven't watched since.. turns out I dont have a blu-ray player.
What did we do this month? work a lot.a lot a lot. enjoying it tho.
I cropped, rotated and resized the image from this product page, gussied up the text and prepared it for cricut, then added it to a shirt my brother and his wife got me from Uniqlo. i think the correct equation is Bootleg SH X Daido Official.
LSRxWFR
↑↑ my academic obligations ↑↑
LSR, aka The International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots, bka Love and Sex with Robots is an academic conference about sex tech research and of course, sex robots, recently expanding to cover the realm of artificial "companions" and horny chatbots. It's had its share of controversies (1,2, 3,) which forced the conference into an online format for the past three years, two of which I served on the planning committee. This year marks the return to an online format, and will be held in Montréal. It also marks the first year I've been apart of where we have been flushed with cash, as such I'm actually getting paid to handle their social media and am expecting to get my travel and stay covered for the conference (though I still haven't decided if I'll actually go).
WFR refers to the World Futures Review and I'm sure ive talked about that somewhere. Im co-editing a special issue on Arts and Poetry and after collecting and accepting submissions, I finally spit out my side of the introductory editorial, which.. I know in my heart of hearts wasn't my best and I'll probably try to rewrite it. The problem was they never gave me a hard deadline, just "whenever it's ready", which probably sounds keen, but as a perpetual night before the deadline writer, it turns out i really need to feel the heat to produce anything of quality.
the grocery store i live by usually sells pints of Ben&Jerry's for $5.99+ but this month had a sale for 4 @ $3.00 per piece, yes, i am writing about this which is like buy 2 get 2, so.. ive had half a pint of ice cream each night and cooling my blood with chocolate and icey creams.
i think the less that happens the more prone i am to rambling because i somehow am trying to justify the time ive spent, or maybe, and this is true, i appreciate what my current version of monotony is.
round mid month i headed up to the city of sour patch angels to bid my good friend clark a fond farewell before he embarks upon his life-changing or at least -altering journey to the place Free Willy was filmed‡, Orca's Island.
This meant carpooling a couple hours w my ma post-Mother's Day who was game to go visit one of her own friends that day, visiting my bro and his wife at their home in [REDACTED], and constantly defending myself from Clark's -I say this with peace and love- demented ass dog.
And books. Many many books. One of Clark's best qualities is he has taste similar to mine*, and a natural consequence of moving for most people is having to downsize. Thus I was bestowed with many hundreds of dollars worth of top-tier stuff-and-things. Daido Moriyama, Martin Parr, very cool and obscure first issues of magazines that failed later. I am tempted to pull up prices for the mostly out of print haul I walked away with and come up with a grand total for the value to make him feel slightly worse about shedding his items. But in all seriousness folks, (folks? take my wife, please) I wish nothing but the best for him no matter what part of the planet he brings his talent and demented ass dog (peace and love)
*(Reading that back, i realize how vain it sounds, but i'm going to keep it because its funny and true)
‡ Note: I have no reason to believe or disbelieve whether Free Willy was actually filmed in, on, or around Orca's Island, but I'll believe it for their sake, since not doing so would really chaff my blowhole
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having spent the whole year reading contemporary japanese novels and obsessing over yokai, I found a book of contemporary japanese short stories BASED on yokai. |
Celebratory Meals- Chilaquiles and Creme Brulee at Ninas 5/5
- Make Hainan Chicken & Rice + Pineapple cake icecream for Mother's Day 5/12
- Ceviche at Yoltich's Graduation party 5/24
had a hard time realizing my sweet baby dove in paris was having a hard time
| Month: jewn. | |
| Intro | |
|---|---|
 | I know, I know this is late as hell. The month was a good, mostly kept my head down, working hard training my robot babies and pushing social media posts for my grown robot sluts. That journal issue I was putting together is finally done with. Not sure when its going to be released but some articles should already be available (linked below). The beginning of the month erupted with bizarre online drama, details of which will be forthcoming. As a general reminder, there's a bunch of goodies constantly uploaded to the Library. This month, I'm proud to present a short story I've searched for off and on for the past 6 years, The Adopted Chinese Daughters' Rebellion, from Better Living Through Plastic Explosives. |
| Media Consumption | |
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Gem of a graphic novel that takes place on a cursed family desktop computer in the 90s. Artist website: https://wylesol.com/sequential |
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BIBLIOMANIA: https://mangafire.to/read/bibliomania.1n64q/en/chapter-1 so nice I had to post it twice |
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Got 37% of the way through Brainwyrms, a queer horror novel by Alison Rumfitt, that is horny, trans and spooky, in that order. |
| Internets | |
| Mayor of Eastsound | Reinforcing the ruralness of the land my friend Clark moved to, is the mayoral race of Eastsound Fuck Honey Cat! |
| World Futures Review | Articles from the special Arts+Poetry issue of World Futures Review I was invited to co-edit are beginning released! Not sure when I will have a direct link to the issue, but you can read here as it comes out |
| Le Drama | |
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TLDR
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| i wrote this long ass thing laying it all out that i'm gonna have to turn into a separate page, mostly because said drama was a blip at the beginning of the month and proportionately was taking too much real estate from this update. I'll be damned if anyone would actually find it interesting but it's rare i get to actually experience a niche internet community drama myself. but here are some (archived) links to whet everyone's appetite: | |
| Links: | |
| ¹Sped-call-out (also named: SailorMoonDiary) | Very NSFW. NSF Living Rooms either. Meant to troll one of the farmers (comes with a deleted reddit post) |
| ³ban-divsel | The sloppy ass self call-out site |
| ²websiteforwomen | another stupid troll site tw terf shit |
July was filled, flushed, absolutely fecund with fun stuff for tooth. At the top of the month, my (dont tell the others) favorite cousin flew in fresh of fashion week in paris. Her sister (whom i also treasure) followed a couple weeks later from North (like far far north, norther than north korea north) China, and we fostered my brother's humongous mongrel in between. Both were on break from higher education, which is crazy to think about since I was part of their lower baby education. Ma.ny. meals were had trying to fill the girls up on all the foods they missed from America including a bountiful seafood boil (a summertime staple for us) and all manner of snacks. We celebrated my parents anniversary at JCK where I got to say "我請客".
And then there was comiccon!
Holy Haul-lelujiah, Batman!
As always, I was able to sneak in swiftly with elegance and grace and able to fill my bags to my heart's content in similar style. Suck Geoff Darrow wasn't there again but truly, this year was a lot better than past prior. If I went through everything I got we'd be here all day but here are some Haul Highlights:
- MUD + SLUDGE (Q Hayashida)
- FUTURE (Tommi Musturi)
- UNKNOWN PLEASURES (Tomer Hanuka)
- MINION II (João Ruas)
- Ultraman Art Book
- The Lost Tune (Stanislav Sukalski)
- hella art supplies from Holbein
- Cool shirts, knickitty knacks and DVDs
*Also to be clear, she generally doesn't travel in that bag, in fact she usually goes grocery shopping in this set up since the beginning of the year when she made it clear that she will no longer tolerate being in stores with freezers.
October'24
I've decided to step out of our regularly scheduled aesthetic to celebrate the season. Whatta Month! First off, I'm happy to report I'm back on my book shit. Having not found a decent novel to slide into for months, I was thrilled to find Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin was finally released in paperback edition (I cannot with hardcovers and their stupid floppy dust jackets). I had been waiting nearly since it was first published and it did NOT disappoint. Not only is it a good read, it's strong enough to get elected over other options. That is, I'll turn off youtube and read in silence. Nights I couldn't sleep I'd turn on the lamp and read a bit instead of.. well, youtube. The point is 
One book I did manage to get through was It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by the inimitable Zoe Thorogood. It's an auto-bio graphic novel that does one of those manga about a mangaka making a manga numbers but Western and the last thing I'll say about it is it does one of my favorite things in literature, which is to translate the psychedelic experience (drug-induced and otherwise).
Ok, enough with that malarkey, let's move on to the main event. When I tell you I have been obsessed with this case, I don't know how to finish this sentence. There's a lot of cases that have commentary, trial coverage and all that. But very rarely do we have the defendant writing unhinged letters to the public at large. And boy howdy were these letters fun to read. So much that there are dramatic reading performances all over youtube. Sarah Boone is the type of bitch who will be asking to see the manager in hell. In every one of her letters she is virulently complaining about her attorneys to the Judge while making up adverbs and coming to crescendo with a 58 page handwritten missive dressing down the Court and world at large. Her demands for the complete and undivided attention of her attorneys lead to well over two dozen madcap letters to the judge and E-I-G-H-T public defenders and court appointed attorneys withdrawing from her case. At which point, the judge ruled she had waived her right to an attorney.
Did I mention she stuffed her boyfriend in a suitcase while still alive and left him to die overnight? And recorded herself doing it, as he begged to be let out, saying he couldn't breathe while she cursed him out in slurred words because she was blackout drunk? And because she was black out drunk, she didn't remember filming any of it, and gave her phone to the detectives happily.
After chasing away all her attorneys and being forced to represent herself, she would eventually get decent enough representation who would submit a SELF DEFENSE plea under Battered Spouse Syndrome. Keep in mind the man was zipped up in a suitcase which she admitted to striking with a baseball bat like a fucked up piñata. The trial was a whirlwind, starting with what felt like a weak argument from the State, Sarah taking the stand, and a huge comeback in the rebuttal where not a single witness came forward and instead we were treated to a phone dump of videos, text messages and notes that were so compelling the jury came back an hour-and-a-half after closing arguments. 
Once the dust had settled, and the bitch was found GUILTY, online citizens desperate for more Boone-tent would uncover her newly reopened alimony negotiations with her poor ex husband. Here too were letters posted as court documents that were even wilder than those of the second degree murder trial! Unfortunately they were closed to the public, but one woman was able to grab screen shots of them before they were sealed. The community (
It so happened that I woke up this morning and one of 
