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Wolves
Apr. 7th, 2026 06:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mrissa New poem out today in Uncanny! I wrote The Truth About Wolves for my beloved younger godchild. I hope you enjoy it too.
mrissa
towards a personal ethical framework, 1/n
Apr. 5th, 2026 10:38 amjazzfishSo, this last few months I've been thinking about my own moral/ethical foundation. I can't claim any great insights, but at least I have a process that's a step or two beyond "what someone else told me to think."
1) I want some conscious moral/ethical guidelines to tell me what to do. That way I'm not acting on instinct and old programming, which ends with me doing or supporting things that it turns out I don't like very much.
2) The world is a complicated place requiring a great many judgement calls. I can't possibly lay down rules for every situation. Besides which: having inflexible rules may get me in less trouble than having no rules at all, but much of the trouble it gets me in will have been entirely avoidable.
3) Therefore, I need some simple principles that I can generally stick to, that can inform those judgement calls.
I've ended up at a handful of things that sound like truisms because they've been through the cultural wash so many times.
The big one is "choose to be kind when possible." This runs back to the golden rule, though I'm fond of Hillel's "that which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; this is the whole of the Law, all else is commentary." I'm not as good at this as I'd like. I'm still prone to letting old fears and old damage override my better nature. I try to do better, and to be kind to myself when I can't.
Related to that is "none of us without all of us," which is even more often honoured in the breach but provides guidance nonetheless.
And there's "intent isn't magic." It's not that only actions matter, especially in interpersonal relationships, but actions for sure matter a heck of a lot more than words or intent. I come to this from "the purpose of a system is what it does," which is kind of the long way round. Then again I have a long-standing tendency to take systems and authorities at their word, so maybe that was the best way for me to get there. (I also like the related "a system is not defined by rules but by how they are enforced," but that's less personally actionable.)
I don't have an unanswerable argument for any of these. I'm okay with that too. I'm not trying to convince anyone else, just myself.
In the course of writing this I realised it's only part of the story. The next bit will, I guess, be about acting on those judgement calls.
1) I want some conscious moral/ethical guidelines to tell me what to do. That way I'm not acting on instinct and old programming, which ends with me doing or supporting things that it turns out I don't like very much.
2) The world is a complicated place requiring a great many judgement calls. I can't possibly lay down rules for every situation. Besides which: having inflexible rules may get me in less trouble than having no rules at all, but much of the trouble it gets me in will have been entirely avoidable.
3) Therefore, I need some simple principles that I can generally stick to, that can inform those judgement calls.
I've ended up at a handful of things that sound like truisms because they've been through the cultural wash so many times.
The big one is "choose to be kind when possible." This runs back to the golden rule, though I'm fond of Hillel's "that which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; this is the whole of the Law, all else is commentary." I'm not as good at this as I'd like. I'm still prone to letting old fears and old damage override my better nature. I try to do better, and to be kind to myself when I can't.
Related to that is "none of us without all of us," which is even more often honoured in the breach but provides guidance nonetheless.
And there's "intent isn't magic." It's not that only actions matter, especially in interpersonal relationships, but actions for sure matter a heck of a lot more than words or intent. I come to this from "the purpose of a system is what it does," which is kind of the long way round. Then again I have a long-standing tendency to take systems and authorities at their word, so maybe that was the best way for me to get there. (I also like the related "a system is not defined by rules but by how they are enforced," but that's less personally actionable.)
I don't have an unanswerable argument for any of these. I'm okay with that too. I'm not trying to convince anyone else, just myself.
In the course of writing this I realised it's only part of the story. The next bit will, I guess, be about acting on those judgement calls.
"He thinks morals are paintings on walls and scruples are money in Russia."
Apr. 5th, 2026 10:32 amjazzfishI've been reading the news for at least a year with an escalatingly frantic mental response of "what the fuck is wrong with you people?" to just about every item. I guess I have an answer.
A couple days ago I read an article on tech jackass Marc Andreessen and his claim to not engage in introspection. Now, tech jackasses can do what they want with their unexamined-and-not-worth-living lives, that's no skin off my back (until it is, I guess). But this bit from the article got me thinking:
That, to me, sounds exactly like folks who get their morality from authority: from a book, from a religion, from what other people tell them. There's no questioning and no impulse towards questioning, there's only "this is what I was told so it's right."
I've known for awhile that those are people whose empathy is severely lacking. That's an obvious correlation. It's a lot harder to keep believing that it's okay for awful things to be done to people if you don't really view them as people. I'd never thought to look for a causative link, though. It had literally never occurred to me that empathy is something that can be learned or activated, beyond 'teaching kids how to share and to get along.' Or that it can be actively discouraged in ways more subtle than 'those aren't real people.'
For much of this year I've been sporadically chewing over my own ethical/moral framework. I guess the above is sort of a lead-in to that, but I feel like it deserves its own separate post. Or posts.
A couple days ago I read an article on tech jackass Marc Andreessen and his claim to not engage in introspection. Now, tech jackasses can do what they want with their unexamined-and-not-worth-living lives, that's no skin off my back (until it is, I guess). But this bit from the article got me thinking:
When you examine your own motivations, desires, and inner life, neuroscientists have discovered, you are using the same parts of the brain that allow you to understand the motivations, desires, and inner lives of others. This means in turn that when you wall off access to your own inner life you also impair your capacity to imaginatively inhabit the experience of other people. Zero introspection is not just a personal quirk or a supposed productivity hack. It's a permission slip for zero accountability [emphasis mine].
That, to me, sounds exactly like folks who get their morality from authority: from a book, from a religion, from what other people tell them. There's no questioning and no impulse towards questioning, there's only "this is what I was told so it's right."
I've known for awhile that those are people whose empathy is severely lacking. That's an obvious correlation. It's a lot harder to keep believing that it's okay for awful things to be done to people if you don't really view them as people. I'd never thought to look for a causative link, though. It had literally never occurred to me that empathy is something that can be learned or activated, beyond 'teaching kids how to share and to get along.' Or that it can be actively discouraged in ways more subtle than 'those aren't real people.'
For much of this year I've been sporadically chewing over my own ethical/moral framework. I guess the above is sort of a lead-in to that, but I feel like it deserves its own separate post. Or posts.
Books read, late March
Apr. 2nd, 2026 03:14 pmmrissaGeorge Abraham and Noor Hindi, eds., Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry. Some poets in this new to me, some I'd read in their own collections. I think one of the benefits of a collection like this is that it's much harder for an uncareful reader to think "I guess I don't like Palestinian poetry" because there's so much variety of it, even the stuff that's focused on Being Palestinian as opposed to all the other things Palestinian poets write poems about.
Lloyd Alexander, Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen. Rereads. Ha. "Rereads." Probably the most reread books of my life after the first decade. I was just thinking that maybe this would be the reread when I got nothing new out of them except continued enjoyment and then I came upon the passage that made me cry about living in Minnesota in early 2026, thanks, Lloyd. (Seriously though thanks, sometimes we need the catharsis.)
Rebecca Boyd, Exploring Ireland's Viking-Age Towns: Houses and Homes. Glad that a friend talked about this, because it does exactly the sort of thing I like where it talks about where the interior walls went in a typical building changing over time and what that meant socially and where people stored their hazelnuts and that. Material culture for the win.
Andre M. Carrington, ed., The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories. A book club read, and I feel like reaction was not unified but more unified than a lot of the other books we've discussed--a lot more closer to "we all think this is a very good story," "nobody likes this story but we all respect it," etc. Still a lot that's worth discussing here.
Christopher de Hamel, The Manuscripts Club: The People Behind a Thousand Years of Medieval Manuscripts. Lavishly illustrated and focused on the people who have been focused on the manuscripts. If you're a person who thinks of yourself as having friends and kindred souls across spacetime, de Hamel is with you, and here is a book about some of his and the (increasingly old) books they loved.
Peter Dickinson, King and Joker. Reread. One of the most coming of age coming of age stories I have ever read in my life, wrapped in a tidy murder mystery, with Dickinson getting to do an alternate history of a type that is often neglected, the fairly minor change type. I still do like this for its complicated relationships that are allowed to stay complicated.
Amal El-Mohtar, Seasons of Glass and Iron. Discussed elsewhere.
Susan Griffin, A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War. Creative nonfiction about the effects of violence at every scale, sweeping where I would have liked it to be specific, readable but not really what I was looking for.
Rokeya Hussain, Sultana's Dream and Padmarag. Mostly historically interesting rather than fun reads for me: this is the work of a very early 20th century Indian feminist writer who used the structure of a dream to talk about the future--popular at the turn of the last millennium, from what I can tell. It was very much a "nuh uh we don't suck, you suck" vision in places, but one can understand that in context. And now I know.
Ange Mlinko, Venice: Poems. Literal and figurative Venice, waters and references. I liked this in a mellow sort of way, even though they aren't all mellow poems.
Jared Poon, City of Others. I'm not sure what's getting us so many good Singaporean authors available in the US in the last decade or so, but I'm for it, I'm absolutely for it. This is in the "weird magical things handled by a specialist in a modern city" subgenre, which I like depending on the skill of the author and the interest of the magical things, and this has both skill and interest.
Anthony Price, The Labyrinth Makers. Reread. Several of the other spy things I had recently revisited from the mid-late twentieth were, frankly, stupid, and I was a bit worried that this, which I remembered as non-stupid, would also be stupid. It was not. Whew. It was clearly a spy novel written both by and about a white British man in 1970, but with less of the attendant gender stuff and a lot less of the attendant race stuff than one might fear in that context. There are several more in this series, which I will also be revisiting as I get around to it, I think. One of the virtues of this series is that I remember them varying considerably; we'll see if and where that also ends up being one of its drawbacks.
T.K. Rex, The Wildcraft Drones. Discussed elsewhere.
John Sayles, Crucible. This is exactly what I wanted out of a John Sayles novel. I'm pretty sure he didn't write it just for me, but he could have. (This was also true of A Moment in the Sun and Yellow Earth.) This one is centered on Detroit in the Great Depression, with tentacles as far north as the UP and as far south as Brazil. It has Sayles's use of multiple perspectives that are genuinely different to make for a richer story of its placetimes and their people. Love it. I did notice that his rather too frequent habit of italicizing the single syllable of a word that would make the sentence sound like it would if David Strathairn was saying it, but you know, we all have our quirks.
Cat Sebastian, Star Shipped. I had enjoyed the others of Sebastian's things I'd read, two mysteries and an historical novel, all with a m/m love story in them, so I thought, hey, maybe I will like a genuine romance by this author, maybe we have found the place where my taste and genre romance overlaps. Answer: not quite. I read the whole thing, and it was fine, it's a nice book with nice people in it, but all the questions I had for the narrative were not the ones it was interested in answering. I can easily imagine describing a book the same way--"two actors who have been on the same science fiction TV series for years fall in love and have to navigate their personal, professional, and public selves"--and having it be focused on the questions that interest me...and that would not be this novel, which was largely interested in their relationship. Which is exactly what its genre claims it will do, and the people who are looking for that will likely find it very satisfying. Ah well, it's good to explore these things to find out.
Una L. Silberrad, Success. Kindle. I spent a lot of my college years and just beyond thinking and talking about the way that the image and self-image of physics and chemistry changed after each of the two World Wars, but it's still fascinating to stumble upon something like this, a pre-Great War book that lionizes its engineer hero to a degree that's been impossible since my grandparents came of age, that seems to take as its thesis that brilliant engineers gotta brilliant engineer, that assumes as obvious that of course a British engineer has the right to sell his weapon plans to France and Germany...in a novel that came out in 1912.... I continue to enjoy the places Silberrad actively rejected some of the standard romance plots that don't fit her characters. This is a book that also has places where I'm not sure whether she's actually neutral on there being background Jewish characters, but there's room for that reading, so I went with it. (Narrative: so lots of this guy's friends were Jewish; me: same, buddy, same; narrative: now on to the plot that has nothing to do with his pals; me: sure, okay.)
Rebecca Solnit, The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change. Another essay collection, about building the new in a time of turmoil, not one of her more outstanding books but still worth a read.
Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn (The Irish Member). Kindle. Is it Trollope's fault? the thing where people want to tell the stories of the emotional and professional lives of politicians without being, you know, political? Because I hate that thing, and here's a bunch of it--quite a large bunch--he is no more committed to brevity here than he ever was. The ending only makes sense structurally: you can see that's what he's working towards, but not because he's making anything make it satisfying, just because that's what this shape of thing is going to do and by God it does it. The thing is, it's Trollope, so this is not his least satisfying book, not by a long shot, because he manages not to make Finn a cartoon Irishman, thank God, except that it makes me say, okay, look, you could see some of the trouble of being a shunned ethnic minority in this context? yes? and yet when it came to Jewish people in your other books? yes? no, apparently no? But also it is not nearly one of the most satisfying Trollope books, because the tropes don't play well with the actual characters he's written. I see that there's a sequel, so I looked up a synopsis, and I think he saw that he'd done the same thing, but it doesn't make me want to read the sequel really, because I will get even angrier at the treatment of at least two characters as tools of the titular character's arc, I think.
Olivia Waite, Nobody's Baby. A novella with an unusual shape of mystery enabled specifically by the science fiction setting, which is much more satisfying to me than having science fiction upholstery and mystery engine. There were a few bits that were more mannered than I'd like, but I'd just been reading Trollope and may have gotten oversensitized.
Lesley Wheeler, Mycocosmic. Poems both metaphorically and literally about fungi, definitely right up my alley and I bet right up the alley of several other people around here too.
Darcie Wilde, The Matter of the Secret Bride. Another of the Rosalind Thorne mysteries--one of the two my library didn't have, so I read it a bit out of order. It's the kind of mystery series where that doesn't matter greatly, and the places where it touches on actual history were entertaining as hoped.
Yoojin Grace Wuertz, Everything Belongs to Us. I felt like the ending of this book did not really come together at all. The things Wuertz was trying to do with class at the beginning just fell apart, and especially how they tied in with the title mostly fell apart, and the bit where people actually overcame their obstacles to reach their goals mostly happened off the page between the last proper chapter and the epilogue. I hate to spoiler something like this, but I know that infant death and particularly infant death for plot convenience are very, very bad things for some of my friends to encounter unawares, so I'm going to say right out: there is a baby who is on the page for a large chunk of the novel and whose presence is not convenient, and then he just dies off the page and no one has to have any emotional reaction to it. Which is too bad, because the beginning was very promising, and we don't get a lot of novels in English about Seoul in the late 1970s. Endings are hard, I'll tell you that for free.
marketing, etc
Mar. 31st, 2026 11:39 amjazzfishWell, my condo is on the market. The photos and drone tour make the place look even more staged / hotel-room-like than it is in person. I'm also back to being not terribly optimistic about the prospects, though I remain hopeful. Open house this weekend, probably another one next (since this weekend is Easter), and if there are no bites by then we reevaluate.
In light of my lack of optimism, I'm also going ahead and booking flights etc for the Gathering in late April. (I have a supply of worthless Americanski dollars to use for the trip, so it's not cutting into any budgeted-for-living funds. Though I strongly suspect this will be my last Gathering for some time.) Should I need to move at the end of April and have to reschedule/cancel the trip I will look on that as a Good Problem To Have.
It's spring. Spring in Van is always an iffy prospect, but it's been gloriously sunny most of last week and this. Mr Tuppert, however, is BORED. Unfortunately I have yet to come up with any reliable methods of play for him. He's not fond of physical toys; responses range from disdain to irritation to leaving the room. Even the red dot gets old quickly. Assuming I remain unemployed I may look into getting some cat-talk buttons. Teaching him to use those will be a Challenge for us both, I expect.
In light of my lack of optimism, I'm also going ahead and booking flights etc for the Gathering in late April. (I have a supply of worthless Americanski dollars to use for the trip, so it's not cutting into any budgeted-for-living funds. Though I strongly suspect this will be my last Gathering for some time.) Should I need to move at the end of April and have to reschedule/cancel the trip I will look on that as a Good Problem To Have.
It's spring. Spring in Van is always an iffy prospect, but it's been gloriously sunny most of last week and this. Mr Tuppert, however, is BORED. Unfortunately I have yet to come up with any reliable methods of play for him. He's not fond of physical toys; responses range from disdain to irritation to leaving the room. Even the red dot gets old quickly. Assuming I remain unemployed I may look into getting some cat-talk buttons. Teaching him to use those will be a Challenge for us both, I expect.
The Wildcraft Drones, by T.K. Rex
Mar. 31st, 2026 09:09 ammrissaReview copy provided by the publisher.
The line between mosaic novel and themed short story collection is a very blurry one, but I spent 99% of this book fairly sure that it was in the latter category. And then I got to the end and I don't know any more. These stories are linked thematically and by their science fictional world conceit. There's not an overarching character arc for any characters told in these tales.
...unless, as I was carefully taught as a high school sophomore, the setting can be a character, in which case there absolutely is character arc here, and a very settling/satisfying one too. These science fiction stories have a consistent thread of using technology to reach out to the natural world and to heal the things that are already broken in our time. There's a wide range of characters--dolphins, robots, cats! humans I guess if you need those!--and they are generally not perfect but doing their best, which is basically my favorite kind of characters.
I am not the target audience for the type of mini-comic that appears in a few places throughout the book, but these particular examples of the form are charming and fit well with the stories around them. I feel like "now, more than ever" is one of those cliches I don't want to lean too hard on in 2026, but also now, more than ever, we really do need stories about doing the best we can with what we've got, and these are that, and I'm so glad they're all in one place to lean on.
Avallu, 2016-2026
Mar. 28th, 2026 08:30 pmjazzfishErin's dog Avallu is gone. He was throwing up yesterday, Erin took him in to the vet today, and he didn't come home. Cancer, ruptured spleen, a large dog and ten years old.
Avallu was a Tornjak, a big fluffy livestock guardian dog. Mostly white; brown facemask, speckled muzzle, and a dark patch over his hindquarters. He came from somewhere in Europe. Erin and I picked him up in Van and drove him north to Fort.
Once the fence went up, and once he learned to stay inside it, he was an exemplary guardian. He chased off lynx and bears; he was polite to the cats and the various fowl. It took him awhile to warm up to Solly the new pup a couple of years ago, but eventually they (and Thea, a little younger than Avallu but arrived slightly before him) worked out a routine to keep the place safe. He was, I suspect, always a bit anxious. We got on well. I'd stand outside, watching birds or pigs or Erin, and he'd come and stand next to me, his hip pressed into my thigh.
I don't really have stories about Avallu, not like Whiskey being a scaredycat until he discovered that petting is Good or Void Demon the cat who 'doesn't like people' settling in on my lap. He was just always there, a solid presence in the chaos of farm life. He was the best of pups.
Avallu was a Tornjak, a big fluffy livestock guardian dog. Mostly white; brown facemask, speckled muzzle, and a dark patch over his hindquarters. He came from somewhere in Europe. Erin and I picked him up in Van and drove him north to Fort.
Once the fence went up, and once he learned to stay inside it, he was an exemplary guardian. He chased off lynx and bears; he was polite to the cats and the various fowl. It took him awhile to warm up to Solly the new pup a couple of years ago, but eventually they (and Thea, a little younger than Avallu but arrived slightly before him) worked out a routine to keep the place safe. He was, I suspect, always a bit anxious. We got on well. I'd stand outside, watching birds or pigs or Erin, and he'd come and stand next to me, his hip pressed into my thigh.
I don't really have stories about Avallu, not like Whiskey being a scaredycat until he discovered that petting is Good or Void Demon the cat who 'doesn't like people' settling in on my lap. He was just always there, a solid presence in the chaos of farm life. He was the best of pups.
sure no one liked Squeeze but at least we walked through the fire
Mar. 27th, 2026 07:47 amjazzfishCleaners and "floor-planner" and photographer come today, starting in just under half an hour, and then we list on Monday (for what I had realistically and then optimistically hoped to get, which in practice in this market means probably somewhat less but eh).
Corvaric is about three-quarters of the way to being a blank slate. The last couple of days have entailed packing up things I still need, so that it will Look Nice for the photographs. (I shall unpack at least some of them once today is over with.) This has been frustrating because it means finding a Home for things that already HAVE a Home and are in it. But it's pretty much ready to go. I have even done some v basic spackle and paint work, for which I had to buy an entire gallon of paint because they didn't have any quart containers, but maybe the next people will appreciate it.
My brain can apparently only cope with so much at a time. I know that I'm going to the Gathering next month but I have been unable to plan for that in any real way, like timing or plane tickets or anything. Far as my brain is concerned, things that happen after Monday don't really exist. April is a nebulous blur and past that, I get nothing, it's a huge blank.
Facebook reminds me that four years ago I was standing in an apartment surrounded by boxes. I guess it's a small win for my psyche that the boxes are in a storage unit this time.
I'm gonna miss this place. It is Too Small but not by a whole lot: a second bedroom for a library/office would have made it perfect. (The unit upstairs from mine, with the same floorplan but with the addition of a loft over the kitchen, was for sale about a year before I bought my place. For, as I recall, what I'm asking now. O, Vancouver.) I've even mostly reconciled to the kitchen having an insufficiency of counterspace and drawers. I won't miss the Stifling In Summer, though. Or the upstairs neighbours who vacuum and galumph at all hours, though they probably won't miss the viola playing either, so, fair enough.
I've had the Paranoid Style's "Doug Yule" stuck in my head for the last few days. It's loosely about the guy who Lou Reed recruited to turn the Velvet Underground from a set of clashing personalities making really interesting music to the Lou Reed Backup Band, while the rest of the band quit one by one, eventually including Reed himself. I've rehearsed and rehearsed that my life is a curse / I've been driven away in a rudderless hearse / I've made things that were merely awful much much much much much worse (much worse) (much worse). (Interestingly I think that verse is written to be from the perspective of Sterling Morrison, the second VU member to leave after Reed fired John Cale. I think the verses are each from a different VU member, and the choruses from Reed. I appreciate that a lot.)
Onward to face the day.
Corvaric is about three-quarters of the way to being a blank slate. The last couple of days have entailed packing up things I still need, so that it will Look Nice for the photographs. (I shall unpack at least some of them once today is over with.) This has been frustrating because it means finding a Home for things that already HAVE a Home and are in it. But it's pretty much ready to go. I have even done some v basic spackle and paint work, for which I had to buy an entire gallon of paint because they didn't have any quart containers, but maybe the next people will appreciate it.
My brain can apparently only cope with so much at a time. I know that I'm going to the Gathering next month but I have been unable to plan for that in any real way, like timing or plane tickets or anything. Far as my brain is concerned, things that happen after Monday don't really exist. April is a nebulous blur and past that, I get nothing, it's a huge blank.
Facebook reminds me that four years ago I was standing in an apartment surrounded by boxes. I guess it's a small win for my psyche that the boxes are in a storage unit this time.
I'm gonna miss this place. It is Too Small but not by a whole lot: a second bedroom for a library/office would have made it perfect. (The unit upstairs from mine, with the same floorplan but with the addition of a loft over the kitchen, was for sale about a year before I bought my place. For, as I recall, what I'm asking now. O, Vancouver.) I've even mostly reconciled to the kitchen having an insufficiency of counterspace and drawers. I won't miss the Stifling In Summer, though. Or the upstairs neighbours who vacuum and galumph at all hours, though they probably won't miss the viola playing either, so, fair enough.
I've had the Paranoid Style's "Doug Yule" stuck in my head for the last few days. It's loosely about the guy who Lou Reed recruited to turn the Velvet Underground from a set of clashing personalities making really interesting music to the Lou Reed Backup Band, while the rest of the band quit one by one, eventually including Reed himself. I've rehearsed and rehearsed that my life is a curse / I've been driven away in a rudderless hearse / I've made things that were merely awful much much much much much worse (much worse) (much worse). (Interestingly I think that verse is written to be from the perspective of Sterling Morrison, the second VU member to leave after Reed fired John Cale. I think the verses are each from a different VU member, and the choruses from Reed. I appreciate that a lot.)
Onward to face the day.