🧿🪐

if you've ever watched a movie with your film buff friend and chatted about it afterwards, that friend might have pulled hours more of conversation out of the same 90 minutes of screentime, and wondered how the fuck they did that - it's not raw intelligence, it's a skill that's been honed. And I learned a lot about film from talking to friends who knew about film, and reading critique by film scholars

literature works exactly the same. so if you want to get more out of your reading, there are things you can do to train that. Find a book or short story you think you've got a pretty good grasp on, preferably from a widely read & respected author like Ursula K Le Guin or Ray Bradbury (if you're new at this don't swing for the Toni Morrison or the Samuel Beckett yet unless you feel very comfortable with the complexity of the text - the point is to develop a complicated new skill on good foundations). Then go to JSTOR, create a free account, and look up criticism on the story you've chosen. Find something that looks readable to you and at least somewhat interesting. Read that article, and look at what that writer got out of the same story you've read that you didn't get. Do you see the critic's points? Did they teach you something about the text? Go reread that story and see if the criticism has changed how you read it. Are you seeing more? Are you thinking about the implications of a line that you hadn't noticed before? Does the story feel richer now?

you don't have to read more deeply if you don't want to (but i'd recommend it, i genuinely think it makes you a better person)

if you want to learn to read more deeply, the resources are out there. try to find critical literature (that is, academic writing that analyzes the text) on works your familiar with so you can get a sense for how to do that analysis too

learning to deep read literature can help you deep read many areas of your life

The other post is much too big and it's not moving, which is unfortunate because I need money to survive the month. Very much disabled, very much going through it with medical bills, credit card bills and the like. Things will be slightly improved for me in September with some business things but honestly until I can write book 2, I'm boned. Um! So, I need like $500 to make it through the rest of the month, I am going to start the count over as I gave what I made to my parents for groceries and gas.

$0/$500 (August 16, 2026)

The FDA has upgraded an egg recall issued last month to “Class I,” its highest risk level, as it warns the public that consuming the products could cause “serious adverse health consequences or death.”

The recall of 1,589,577 dozen white-shell eggs and brown cage-free shell eggs was initially issued by Midwest Poultry Services in late July, which warned they might be contaminated with Salmonella Enteritidis.

According to the company, the eggs were produced and distributed from farms in Texas between June 6 and July 3 and have sell-by or best-by dates between July 20 and August 17. The recalled egg cartons have either the code P-1950 or 0840962 and Julian Dates between 157-184.

I am setting a goal of 400 to keep things together.

Link to my thread of pay methods.

I am setting a goal of 400 to keep things together.

Link to my thread of pay methods.

However, it's important I remember where I would be without their socialist notoriety and skepticism. I almost owe my whole platform to the trust their campaigns built in me, for mutual aid.

And so it is a selfish expectation that my following at least, follow and trust his daughter Zeina with their whole heart. Regardless of vetting numbers. Regardless of doubt.

Because Zeina is not just a child I know. She is a child I fight alongside. Regardless of my personal business or distractions from my page. My input towards her campaign is always overdue.

And so is yours, the reader.

Here's the link to help out.

"I don't know what most white people in this country feel, but I can only conclude what they feel from the state of their institutions. I don't know if white Christians hate Negroes or not, but I know that we have a Christian Church, which is white and a Christian Church, which is Black.

I know as Malcolm X once put it, that the most segregated hour in American life is high noon on Sunday. That says a great deal for me about a Christian nation, it means I can't afford to trust most white Christians and certainly cannot trust the Christian Church.

I don't know whether the labour unions and their bosses really hate me. That doesn't matter. But I know I'm not in their unions. I don't know if the real estate lobby has anything against Black people, but I know the real estate lobby is keeping me in the ghetto. I don't know if the board of education hates Black people, but I know the textbooks they give my children to read, and the schools that we have to go to.

Now this is the evidence. You want me to make an act of faith, risking myself, my life, my woman, my assistant, my children on some idealism, which you assure only exists in America, which I have never seen."

-James Baldwin, 1968, on the Dick Cavett Show (clip from I Am Not Your Negro)