apple turnover

GASP

The great critic Barbara McClay has written about the "politics creep" in every corner of human life, though really of bourgeois Anglophone human life, where every act from reading a novel to lighting a scented candle can be justified - and in fact, self-consciously needs to be justified in advance - as a bold act of resistance. Pretending that self-care is a brave political act detracts from actual political acts, and it sucks the life out of life itself: turning every moment into a performance for an audience, for an imagined crowd of other people on social media. This is other people not as fellow complicated human beings, but as fearful object, whose inner lives are imaginable only insofar as they might be watching and comparing and judging us for whether we've done enough, whether we're wasting our time. And books and movies and TV shows and every other form of fiction will always be, to some extent, a waste of time, as having friends will be a waste of time, as being in love is a waste of time, as every possible action or thought you may have could be considered a waste of time if every second of your life has to prove its value, and has to get a job.

This is back on my dash! And listen, I love to see Amir Khusrau getting appreciation, but this translation ignores a lot. The original rhymes! And scans! And does playful things with register! And conveys a tone of affectionate banter between the two speakers, not least because it has them both addressing each other as sakhi (translated above as “girl”) in the last two lines. I think taking some liberties with line order is worth it to preserve more of the rest—and I think there’s a better translation of sakhi. And so:

curious to hear y'all's suggestions for the worst possible pasta shape

hi! sorry if you've already answered this, but i absolutely adore your tithenai chronicles, and was wondering if you had any favorite queer books to recommend/suggestions for what a fan of your work should read next :) before inevitably restarting my strange and stubborn endurance audiobook again <3 thank you!

I wrote the above reply in a rush and thus, to my great shame and annoyance, left off several other books and authors that deserve a mention! Namely: