Notices by Jessamyn (jessamyn@glammr.us), page 3

Book 42: Bleeding Heart Yard. Another book in the Harbinder Kaur series and, unlike the Ruth Galloway books, this series really doesn't center the protagonist (a late-30s queer southeast Asian detective in London) as much as I might have liked. It's a story about a group of popular kids who are some part of a murder in their school days and now it's 20 years later and... there's another murder. Plotwise it's fine, wraps up better than you think it's going to.

Book 43: Open Borders. This is a graphic novel about why open borders make sense both from an economic perspective (i.e. most immigrants give more to their new country than they receive $-wise) and also by other measures. It traces some of the history of immigration in the United States and shows, using a lot of stats and studies, why fewer restrictions on immigration would benefit the US in a number of material ways and help turn it into a more just society. Not just an essay with pictures.

Book 44: Lovely recipe. A graphic novel about two teenagers in their last year of high school who are both interested in food. One works in her parents restaurant. One misses the way her grandmother would make big meals that brought the family together. They meet up during the whirlwind of senior year and the whole "Who is going away to college and who is staying nearby?" uncertainty and begin cooking together and healing some of their unrecognized underlying feelings. Sweet and well-drawn.

Book 45: Love by the Book. This is a story within a story of a platonic and yet also romantic (bot not sexual) friendship between two women. Remy is dealing with the inevitable aging-and-distancing of her best-friend group and she meets Simone who is pretty closed off but maybe open to being friends. Both women go through a lot in the short course of this novel. Remy is also trying to undo some writer's block after her first successful novel and decides to write about their friendship.

Book 46: Conversion Therapy Dropout. This is an achingly poignant story about a guy who grows up in a religious household trying to "pray the gay away" for eight years with conversion therapy programs all the while enjoying a very successful career as a social media marketer for the same churches which don't accept him. He eventually comes to a better place as a queer adult but it's a long slog to get there and he remains very religious, but within an affirming community and supportive friends.

Book 47: Platform Decay. This was just on the shelf at my library! I like the Murderbot books. This one had a bunch of characters which I wasn't totally familiar with and did not have the other characters I did know and like (for the most part). There's a lot of Murderbot "emotional growth" if you can call it that, but a lot of the logistics of the mission they do are "And then I hacked into THIS thing and made it work for me." Not enough ART. These feel more like serialized magazine stories.

Book 48: How to Die. This book is not about how to die. It's a collection of essays by Mike Monteiro who is an Old Web guy and a designer answering questions that people pose to him about life stuff. Simple questions like how to make a grilled cheese, or a mixtape, and more complicated ones like how to get your joy back. He writes these up for his weekly newsletter and this is a collection of them. If you've read his other work, you'll know if you'll dig this or not. Pulls no punches. Very good.

Book 49: The Last Word. I went into this book, the last in the Harbinder Kaur series, with a bit of trepidation since the reviews in the little slip my library puts in the back for patron reviews PANNED it. I thought it was fine. Wraps up a few things nicely. The mystery is fine. I find the multiple-perspective writing a little tiresome since I want more Kaur and this was more about her group of friends and a mystery they encounter about a writers' book group with a very high mortality rate.

Book 50: Love, Misha. Misha doesn't feel that their mom has been supportive of their gender transformation. They are going on a road trip together (one that Misha doesn't want to go on) and get lost. They wind up in a spirit world, meet a lot of unusual creatures, some friendly, some not. Being lost is both true but also a metaphor for Misha's relationship with their mom as they work together to find a way back to their own world and get to know each other. Really well done and illustrated.

Book 51: Kampung Boy. This graphic novel is a classic of the genre which somehow I had never come across until I found it in a local LFL. It's an excellent story about growing up in a rural village in Malaysia as a Muslim kid at the same time as the rural ways are disappearing. The drawing is goofy and expressive and there is so much going on in each page it was fun to flip through it. It highlights just how isolated rural communities were and yet how much was still going on in each one.

Book 52: The Keeper. Tana French's Cal Hooper series does not miss. An American ex-cop moves to a small town in Ireland, learning the ways of a place where everyone's known each other for generations. In this episode a young woman who is set to marry to local Big Man's son turns up dead. Trying to figure out what happened is a whole *thing*. Cal is folded more into the community as they unravel the story, this reveals some buried feelings of Lena's and everything disrupts and then settles again.

Dear quilting/library community, please enjoy this bookshelf quilt made as a fundraiser for the new library (in Belleville ONT). The books are all named after local people and organizations.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cabhc/55366630415/

@derek @adamgreenfield Yes, that. And there is some good airship content on Flickr Commons. I had started a gallery but it's mostly trying to showcase as many commons members as possible so it's not all the airships just select airships.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/flickrfoundation/galleries/72157722171195645/

There are some blimps in KSR's Antarctica

https://www.kimstanleyrobinson.info/node/344

and a few more noted in this newsletter

https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/might-there-be-blimps

@derek They were big in the airship business at the time. I remember this photograph from a bit later (sister is an airship nut)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/8623220@N02/53679323117/

I have a tall stump in my front yard that I left when I had to take down a dead tree. it is right on the sidewalk. It is now home to some incredible massive wasps. They look scary but are harmless to humans. I have a laminator. I made a sign. (CWed pix of wasps in next toot)

(re-posted from 2023)

I asked why the library didn't have a #Juneteenth holiday. The response was "It's not one in the policy manual." I wrote to the trustees, they put it on the agenda, voted unanimously for it, and now it's a library holiday.

When we talk about white supremacy and libraries, think about how a group of well-meaning but ultimately non-proactive trustees (and director) just kind of... didn't think about this for two years, just never put it on the agenda. That's how it works.

Happy Pride Month. If you know a young person (age 13-26) in the US who is getting their access to queer library books restricted because of local small-minded policies or laws, please refer them to the Books Unbanned program where they can get digital access to banned or restricted books thanks to the cooperation of larger libraries in more open-minded locations.

It's a great program that more people should know about.

#pride #libraries

https://booksunbanned.com/card

There are a lot of up- and down-sides to living someplace ruralish (my town has 4500 people). We have no food delivery. The town is asleep by 9 pm. All our street parking is free. I know everyone who works in my town's government. It's easy to get elected to do stuff if you want to. You have to make your own fun.

On the brightest side, I was able to go into my public library and the new Murderbot was on the shelf! Exciting!

#vermont

Friday afternoon reminder to not empty your inbox at the expense of someone else's. The beloved beardo in my life has a gig this weekend (Feeding Tube Records - May 31) and I'm planning a road trip. I'll deal with what email I can and leave the rest for work times. Be mindful about your messaging and go interact with some art. Have a good weekend.

Image credit: Swedish National Heritage Board, on Flickr Commons
https://www.flickr.com/photos/34419668@N08/5493576767/

@evan I've always taken it that way. The master's tools can never dismantle the master's house by definition. He's not the master if you're at the house-dismantling stage with his former tools.