Pleased to report that after a day of this i am not longer craving caper brine and my mouth is not dry as usual. There's some good suggestions in the notes too that I want to try.
-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)
-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt
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In the northern regions of Spain, fair xanas dwell in hidden caves near waterfalls and springs, guarded by a great cuelebre. Her cave is filled with the treasures and relics of the great old moros, fairy giants who once ruled Asturias until they were forced into hiding in the spirit realm.
The xana gives birth to young spirits called xaninos. When a xanin is born, the xana wanders from her cave, seeking a human infant to swap with her own. The human mother is left to raise a cursed xanin while, unbeknownst to her, her child is taken away to live amongst the fair spirits and hidden things.
This illustration is the first in a series based on Asturian mythology. Big thank you to @valdevia for introducing me to this fascinating folkloric tradition and helping with research.
So "currying" a furry animal means grooming or brushing it with a currycomb, which in turn comes from the Old French correier meaning "to prepare [something]", because you prepare a horse for riding by brushing it; it's most commonly applied to horses but you can get e.g. currycombs for dogs.
If I understand correctly, medieval French folk tales considered chestnut-colored horses to be deceitful and tricky; the Old French word for a chestnut or dun horse was fauvel, and so the Old French expression correier fauvel, literally "to brush the chestnut horse", meant lying or being hypocritical for personal gain. This turned into "curry favel" in 15th-century English, and then mutated into "curry favor" over the next few centuries as people forgot about the horse.
So "currying favor" is really "brushing the Horse of Lies", and the reason you can't curry goodwill, or love, or hatred, or even disfavor is that we didn't have Horses for those.
And it follows that we can gain the ability to curry other things by assigning them to Horses.
#google is backing you up on this (via @oldguardians)
I realize, looking back on this post, that regular readers of my blog may have thought I made this up. Making up a ridiculous etymology is certainly the sort of thing I might do; in fact I've been meaning to start a sideblog dedicated solely to sufficiently accurate etymologies, and have a notebook with dozens of them jotted down, I just haven't had the time to do anything with them.
But I want to stress that this is not one of those cases. This is, to the best of my knowledge, the very real etymology of the phrase "curry favor".
The Old French fauve or falve referred to the light-brown color that's sometimes called "fallow" in modern English, but since it also sounded similar to faux, meaning "false", it was also associated with deceit and trickery ; the idiom estriller Fauvel literally meant "to groom the fallow one" but idiomatically meant "to lie or trick people".
Then in the 1300s we get the French poem Roman de Fauvel, a satirical poem about a fauve horse, whose name is derived both from the color and from the fact that FAVVEL is an acronym of Flaterie, Avarice, Vilanie, Varieté, Envie, Lascheté (Flattery, Greed, Vileness, Fickleness, Envy, and Cowardice) - all the different vices that this horse embodies.
Fauvel (purportedly modeled after Enguerrand de Marigny [source], an advisor to King Philip IV) is a sinful, conniving, and very rich horse who has various religious and secular leaders fawning over him and brushing him; it was well-known enough that "grooming Fauvel" came to mean "sucking up to someone powerful" more than just "being evil", and when it was translated into English the grooming was translated as currying, which specifically is grooming a horse with a curry comb [wiktionary]. From this we got the Middle English expression "currying Fauvel", which then mutated via folk etymology (in the "reinterpretation of unfamiliar words as more familiar ones" sense, not the "people are wrong about etymology" sense) into "currying favor".
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I recently watched the new Running Man movie with @alexanderwales. I went into the movie saying, "I hope it's good." I came out of the movie saying, "I wish it was good."
That being said, I can highly endorse the experience of watching The Running Man with Alexander Wales. If he ever invites you to go see a movie with him, you should take him up on the invitation. We both came out of the theater and immediately began discussing a vision for what a better version of the movie would have looked like.
(This post isn't going to "spoil the end of the movie" by telling you exactly what happened at the end, but it might spoil the end of the movie by telling you some things that didn't happen in the end. This post also quotes a conversation from the finale of Breaking Bad, and sort of vaguely gesture at several things that happen in the first 2 episodes of Vince Gilligan's newest TV show, Pluribus)
One part that both of us particularly enjoyed came during the opening credits, where we get a long sequence of Glen Powell walking through the dystopian city on an ordinary day. It's a cool introduction to the world. And it really felt like it was setting us up for something to take place here later in the film, like the movie was teaching us about how the city and the Network compound are laid out. This could then be paid off later in the movie when, instead of walking peacefully through the city as police mill around, Glen Powell might have to run through as those same police shoot at him. Classic setup and payoff, except that moment is not paid off.
There are many moments in Running Man (2025) that feel like the setup for something that is never paid off. For example, there is a moment where Glen Powell defeats one of the "Hunter" mini-bosses, and the big boss Josh Brolin eggs Glen on, telling him to kill the Hunter. Glen decides to spare the man. This feels like the setup for a "defeat means friendship" moment, where the mini-boss (who just heard how big boss Josh Brolin was rooting for his death) decides to join Glen in his rebellion against the system, which would have gone with the whole "worker solidarity" theme, where even the people who are directly working for the oppressive Network are part of the working class that suffers under it. It felt like a setup for a moment later in the movie where the Hunter returns and helps Glen Powell out of a bind, a narratively-satisfying moment where he gets "rewarded for his good deed," but that moment never comes.
Alexander Wales also reminded me that the entire premise of the movie starts with giving us a "ticking clock" of 30 days, with the protagonist starting with a stack of 30 tapes (one of which must be mailed in every day as proof of life), and I can easily imagine a version of this movie where there's escalating tension over the 28th, 29th, and finally 30th tape, but this whole conceit is basically abandoned and forgotten by the start of the third act.
We're told several contradictory things about Glen Powell. Glen Powell is a man with a propensity for violence; we're told at the start that he's the most angry contestant the show has ever had. But for a guy who is introduced to us as unhinged, he very often finds himself being "the voice of reason" in his encounters with a cast of colorful characters he encounters along the way.
Chief among the contradictions of Glen Powell's character is that he loves his wife and daughter more than anything in the world…but he signs up for the murder game show that no one has ever survived and will surely leave his daughter an orphan (albeit one with access to better medicine). One could see his decision to participate in the murder game as a "heroic sacrifice" for the sake of his sick daughter, but that's immediately undercut when he gets help from a friend in the underworld who says "you know, I was about to offer you a job; you didn't have to go on the murder game show." And if that's true, that kind of changes everything! That, combined with his appetite for violence, felt like the setup for a Walter White moment where at the end he's forced to admit, "I didn't do this for the family. I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really…I was alive."
And that never comes. He has no character flaw and requires no growth to become the man the world needs him to be; the only decision he has to make is accepting the invitation to be a hero, which is something he was already doing from the very start of the movie.
On the whole, Running Man (2025) gives the impression of a movie that was assembled in the editing bay. There was a moment in the beginning (where Glen Powell first visits Josh Brolin's office) that had really obvious ADR, like something in the original script wasn't working and they were trying to fix it after the fact. And there's an early beat where we basically have a dream sequence to push the main character to move onto the next setpiece.
Running Man is a fascinatingly bad movie. I do not mean "fascinatingly" as an intensifier; I mean that it's bad productive ways. It produced a post-movie conversation that I don't think I'd trade for a "tighter" and more forgettable 7/10 thriller. In that sense, it actually succeeded in "drawing me into its world." I was not bored; the ways in which it was bad invited me to imagine what a better version would look like.
I felt an inverted echo of that experience later in the week, when I found myself trying to explain the new Vince Gilligan show Pluribus, which does some very interesting things in the first act. I said "Pluribus does a really good job of anticipating the questions that you might have if you were actually a character put in this situation, and then having the character actually ask those questions, and then she actually gets answers!" I added, "I could easily imagine a version of Pluribus, where they take most of the stuff you learn in episode 2, and instead take an entire season to reveal it, simply by having the main character not ask the obvious questions right away."
In the same way that Running Man (2025) invites me to imagine a better version of what the movie might look like, Pluribus invites me to imagine a worse version of what it would look like.
Not all media works like this. For example, I didn't come out of Martin Scorsese's The Irishman imagining what a worse version of that movie would have looked like. I just enjoyed the movie on its own terms. And while I'm not sure that makes it better than Pluribus, it does make it less interesting to think about and talk about, because it's dealing with "one big question" that is at its core mostly an emotional question. There's something about Scorsese's movies that often feels "self-contained" to me, in that they don't create a design space that invites my introspection. I enjoy his work, but I seldom find myself pondering it. And part of that is by intention and design: Scorsese is doing character studies; he's not setting out to create an interesting world that invites my imagination to explore it.
The Running Man (2025) is not a good movie. But it is an interesting movie. And sometimes that's better than being good.
Found out that pyroraptor are found in southern France and suddenly have a lightbulb above my head (aka excuses for me to draw napoleonic soldier and dinosaur together)
extremely endeared about the idea of shane and ilya babysitting the pike kids and shane getting assigned role of king because he's mostly just interested in sitting and spectating to make sure no one is actually getting hurt and meanwhile ilya is alternatively a dragon/enemy knight/friendly knight/horse depending literally on the second and which kid you ask
which also leads to the very funny moment of the twins bringing their "captive" to king shane for judgement of his crimes and shane not even lowering his sunglasses and going "off with his head"
ilya is just D:< you will not even TRY to argue clemency?? for your HUSBAND???
"sir ruby, what are his crimes?"
"smashing the village and eating ALL the villagers >:D"
shane trying to figure out how tf ilya managed to get out of having any tattletaling brought to him, and the answer is that he is Play Companion Shaped and not Authority Figure Right Now Shaped
ilya gets his revenge for his heartless execution by introducing the concept of revolution against a monarch to the children and having a GREAT time watching shane get fucking DRENCHED with waterguns
hayden and jackie get home later to all of them on the floor out COLD in a group nap
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The thing is, even if you were lucky and your parents taught you how to clean, they probably didn't teach you how to clean the stuff you clean stuff with, like brushes, mops, sponges, rags, and so on. Or how to clean your cleaning appliances, like a dish washer, clothes washing machine, and clothes dryer and its ducts (if you have a ducted dryer), or a carpet cleaner, vacuum, Or how to clean up clean messes, like spilled bleach or detergent.
My parents threw away all of these things (even the vacuum cleaners and the dryer) when they got too dirty to function, because no one even told them THAT they could be cleaned. Cost them thousands of dollars over the years.
All I'm saying is that cleaning is not intuitive, and not knowing how to clean is not a moral failing, but it is something you can learn.
I'm going to reblog this post with resources for learning how to clean things and how to clean cleaning things (I'm not at my desk at the moment). If you have any favorites, please feel free to add them in too!
I like this video because it does a great job of introducing the basic foundations of house cleaning (and because he doesn't use bleach, which is a common allergy in addition to being awful to inhale). He also talks a little about how to clean a vacuum. And why you shouldn't put grease from your pots and pans down the sink drain. I also love that he mentions that different houses and different people have different needs and different versions of what clean and cleaning looks like.
He doesn't mention though that the toilet seat comes off. I take my toilet seat off to clean under the hinges and clean the seat more thoroughly once a quarter.
This is another video from the same guy about cleaning and depression. This advice, especially at the beginning, can feel really really difficult and oppressive to hear. However, I find that it's generally pretty solid. But I'm autistic and so is he, so that gets a massive Your Mileage May Vary stamp on it.
I have a favorite part of this video. It's from 10:52 to 12:36. I think we could all use to hear that. There's a HEFTY pause after that one. I promise the narration does come back.
I'm also going to recommend KC Davis' book "How To Keep House While Drowning"
This is a pair of videos about how to correctly load and use a dish washer.
The first one is a quick 1 minute 30 second overview on loading. I can't find the exact video I'm looking for, so consider this a substitute for that. If I can find the one I'm looking for, I'll swap it in.
The second is a half hour deep dive on dishwashers and detergents. The short form of that is you shouldn't need to pre-rinse anything, detergent pods are overpriced and can cause problems, some dishwashers have a filter in the bottom that needs to be cleaned (but most don't), run your sink until the water is HOT before starting your dish washer, and put a little detergent in the pre-rinse dispenser when you're washing extra dirty dishes (or on the inside of the door if your dishwasher doesn't have a pre-rinse dispenser).
How to clean a front load washer (with bleach). This should be done monthly or every time you wash really soiled clothes.
With expert tips and tricks for all types of washers.
How to clean a top loader (without the removable agitator thing). This should be done every 1-3 months depending on you unit, or every time you wash really soiled clothes.
Regular cleaning of a top-load washing machine will prolong the life of the appliance and leave your laundry cleaner and brighter.
How to clean a top loader (with the removable agitator thing). This should be done every month, or every time you wash really soiled clothes.
These carpet brushes are a LIFE SAVER if you have dogs. This thing allows me to go from vacuuming about 4 square feet before my vacuum is full to vacuuming half the living room (I don't vacuum often enough. You should vacuum weekly, and I just can't.). I have to unclog the vacuum less often. It fluffs up some of the flat spots in the carpet. And I also use the brush to shampoo my rugs in the spring.
A spot cleaner (or a carpet cleaner with a spot cleaner attachment) is another life saver, ESPECIALLY if you can afford to splurge on a heated one. I see them at Goodwill or at yard sales occasionally, and they're worth picking up. The shark one in the video is great too.
This channel is gold. There's tutorials for cleaning EVERYTHING on there. Just go subscribe!
Gonna throw another potential resource at the end of this very long list, which may be potentially helpful for others like me who loathe videos. It's... the weirdest thing that has genuinely been helpful to me in housekeeping. Absolutely full of useful advice, and bizarrely still relevant in large part. (Though, caveat, research ANYTHING to do with chemicals or cleaning products more complicated than vinegar + lemon + water for modern information.)
It's America's Housekeeping Book (1941). Available for free download on the Internet Archive. (Large PDF file at the link here).
The LISTS y'all. The step by step lists. The emphasis on efficiency and arranging spaces for the least resistance possible. The basic concept of "take a tray or basket into a room when you are tidying up so you can put things that belong elsewhere on it and take them out LATER in ONE GO".
Wacom recently asked me to talk about why I make queer comics, and given there are multiple bills right now floating around in congress that are effectively "we will kill your livelihood if we get a sniff of queer" I had some pretty strong, simply feelings to relay.
You can read the interview here, you can buy my graphic novel featuring a gay vampire here, and you can call your congressmen about rejecting HR 2616, HR 8705, HR 7661 using 5calls.org (they don't have these specific bills listed as things to call about, but luckily you can talk about whatever you want on the phone)
Btw the strongest raw powerlifter Tamara Walcott started lifting at 34 and broke world records at 39. And is currently 43 and still beastmoding. So if I ever hear you guys whining about being too old to learn something new at 24 I say shut the HELL up #youcandoit
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