Weekend Listening Post

I have acquired the three Washington singles I had thought would be on the album, but which are not.

Watch on YouTube

Podcasts: I listened to, and really enjoyed, The Spouter Inn's Moby Dick episode and Moby Dick bonus episode.

I listened to and enjoyed Kate Lister's The history of a nasty word, on the word 'cunt', although I warn you her approach to etymology is more... artistic than accurate. And I'm irrationally annoyed by her including Gwerful Mechain as an example of use of 'cunt'. THE POEM IS IN WELSH, KATE. THE WORD CUNT IS A TRANSLATION. The talk is, perhaps, most useful as an example of a kind of feminist performance art that hinges on embracing certain kinds of obscenity due to the obscenification of the female body.

Finally, I'm into book 9 of Paradise Lost with Anthony Olivera, and enjoying the return to the closet-drama style sections with their wild Satanic soliloquies.

---

Some links / essays of interest:

Brabble, Ludwig and Ewing (Nursing Clio), “All the World’s a Harem”: Perceptions of Masked Women during the 1918–1919 Flu Pandemic.

Kevin O'Sullivan (Irish Times), Blonde hair, blue eyes often not dominant characteristics of irish vikings, study finds. I read a lot of pop sci takes on this and the abstract of the actual article (also saw the spectacular promo photos taken by two of the researchers, which are not included in this article: they feature a young brunette guy dressed as a viking looming over his blonde, older, slave). For some reason this is the one I saved.

Daniel Lavery (The Shatner Chatner), The golden calf,in order of, do I love her, is she my best friend.

Dion Kagan (Sissy Screens), Portrait of a Gaze on Fire: Review Essay.

Taliah Mancini, interview with Eula Bliss (The Nation), The stories we tell about class. Re: Bliss' new book, Having and Being Had.

Jeremy Levine (Shelterforce), It's time to move on from community concensus. A good look at some of the major problems with concensus model consultation (not the same as bottom-up consensus model decision making, but I am not convinced that those are free of similar problems either).

Ruby Tandoh (The New Yorker), How A Cheese Goes Extinct. Recommended for those who loved The Glitter Article or the Guardian sandwich longread.

NPR discussion with a group of poets of colour, When poets decide who counts.

Tiffany Higgins (Guernica), In the ruins of paradise. A pensive account of the 2018 Oakland fires, sharply relevant this autumn.

Jesmyn Ward (Vanity Fair), On Witness and Respair. Re: the death of Ward's husband, and grieving during COVID.

Jeanette Ng (Own blog), On identity, performing marginalisations, and the limitations of ownvoices: or, why I can't just repeat my uncle's joke about eating dogs.

Sandra Muniz (Fashion History Timeline), 1866: Toulmouche, The Hesistant Fiancée. Mainly recommended for the painting, which: WOW. I can't help reading it in contrast to the cover of my edition of Good Wives. The Toulmouche might even have been a reference image, Meg's dress in that cover painting is WAY too lux for the narrative.

The Tetrapod (anon education blog), They just said the quiet part out loud: time for some fascist PSHE. The new UK guidelines for sex and relationships education are WORRYING, folks.