Dear friends,
It's an unseasonably cool Saturday evening (67 Fahrenheit) and as I fill in the gaps on this newsletter neighbors somewhere down the road are setting off fireworks. Other than fireworks, it's been mostly quiet today; our landlady is off to the Cape for two weeks which means living here is almost like having our own place (so! much! solitude!) and the neighbors who were moving out in stages seem finally to have vacated. I've spent the day reading about white nationalist theology (more below), sewing, and watching the first two episodes of The Loch because Door and Archie are in it. Now Hanna has just finished her evening meditation, and I have just finished my ten minutes of duolingo practice, and we're starting to think about raspberries and chocolate cake before bed.
It's an unseasonably cool Saturday evening (67 Fahrenheit) and as I fill in the gaps on this newsletter neighbors somewhere down the road are setting off fireworks. Other than fireworks, it's been mostly quiet today; our landlady is off to the Cape for two weeks which means living here is almost like having our own place (so! much! solitude!) and the neighbors who were moving out in stages seem finally to have vacated. I've spent the day reading about white nationalist theology (more below), sewing, and watching the first two episodes of The Loch because Door and Archie are in it. Now Hanna has just finished her evening meditation, and I have just finished my ten minutes of duolingo practice, and we're starting to think about raspberries and chocolate cake before bed.
Cats in Chairs: Our Household in Pictures
Christopher and Teazle continue to negotiate sibling life. Teazle, bless her heart, is trying to wrestle and play grab-tail-and-chase, the way she and Gerry used to but such sudden movements scare our shy Christopher. So they are navigating a tentative accord that we hope will deepen into cuddles and grooming.
We foolishly imagined we were buying extra deck chairs when instead we were purchasing cat hammocks! The green camp chair has become one of Christopher's favorite napping spots.Church
A few weeks ago during the Sunday service we reprised a song sung at the Pride service in June, and I haven't been able to shake it since. The song is "True Things" by J.J. Heller and you can listen to it here on YouTube. And here are the lyrics.I'm not the clothes I'm wearing
I'm not a photograph I'm not the car I drive
I'm not the money I make
I'm not the things I lack
I'm not the songs that I write
I am I am I am who I am
I am who I am
There are true things inside of me
I have been afraid to see
I believe, help my unbelief
Would you say again what you said to me
I am loved and I am free
I believe, help my unbelief
I'm not the house I live in
I'm not the man I love
I'm not the mistakes that I carry
I'm not the food that I don't eat
I'm not what I'm above
I'm not my scars and my history
There are true things inside of me
I have been afraid to see
I believe, help my unbelief
Would you say again what you said to me
I am loved and I am free
I believe, help my unbelief
I don't know how it is with you and songs, but I will often fall in love with a song (much like I fall in love with a story) for a single phrase that breaks my heart. In this case, I fell in love with this song for the phrase I believe, help my unbelief. I think because of the way it asserts and negates in the same breath.
Quilting
This stage of my quilt for Carol-Who-Sings-at-Church is a lot of tiny seams. Each square is 2.5 x 2.5 inches (2 x 2 after seams are taken into account). Each seam up the middle of the square -- the one that sews the two triangles together -- is about eighteen stitches by hand. If you multiply eighteen times the 120 squares you get 2,160 stitches.
So. Many. Triangles.
Over the past few weeks, I've taken my stitching to church with me, sewing during the sermon and parts of the service that don't require reading from the hymnal. I like to think that, in this way, the quilt will become infused with all of the best intentions of Unitarian Universalist practice.
#resist and #persist
Sometimes it just feels very unfair that we're being held hostage by a crappy businessman w/racist & sexist opinions he's being rewarded for
— AnnaClutterbuck-Cook (@feministlib) June 30, 2017
Continuing the smart women are smart theme, check out Bonnie Honig's "He Said, He Said: The Feminization of James Comey," Sarah Kendzior's "Trump is the best autocrat. The best. Nobody has a better autocrat than we do," and Anne Helen Petersen's "Ivanka Trump and the Aesthetics of Denial."
And, finally, if you want smart feminist ladies who swear like we do and tell you what's up with the world, check out Hellbent Podcast hosted by Devon Handy an Sarah Lerner with a revolving slate of whip-smart women.
Food and Drink
Food of the month: "I want chococolate cake" cake with cream cheese frosting and raspberries.
Drink of the month: Homemade cold brew
Recipe:1 cup ground coffee
1 gallon filtered water
1/2 tsp vanilla paste, vanilla extract, or 1 vanilla bean (optional)
1/4 cup crystallized ginger, chopped (optional)
Combine all ingredients and store in the refrigerator for 12-24 hours. strain and store chilled. Mix with milk and sweeten as desired. Serve over ice.
Fight Fascism with Queer Romance
Equip yourself here.I took the Forth of July week off as a vacation week this year; a good re-set in the middle of summer. Here is what I read:
1. Silence Fallen by Patricia Briggs
2. Grace Period: A Memoir in Pieces by Kelly J. Baker
3. The Ruin of a Rake by Cat Sebastian
4. The Hotel Oriente by Jennifer Hallock
5. The Furthest Station by Ben Aronovitch
6. The Ruin of Gabriel Ashleigh by K. J. Charles
7. Dusk or Dawn or Dark or Day by Seanan McGuire
8 Served Hot by Annabeth Albert
Today, I settled in to read my latest review book for Library Journal: Blood and Faith: Christianity in American White Nationalism by Damon T. Berry (Syracuse Univ. Press, 2017). Berry argues that following World War II, white nationalism in the United States developed an uneasy relationship with Christianity because of its roots in Judaism and perceived "love they enemies" softness, turning instead to a variety of practices that amount to "biologized spirituality": placing the biological continuation of white racial purity, and dominance, at the center of a cluster of metaphysical faith systems. A thoughtful intellectual history on a topic with much more contemporary salience than I imagine the author -- or any of us -- would wish.
And a few links about reading and writing romance:
Eight Reasons People Mock Romance by Sarah Nicholas @ Book Riot
Queer Feminist Characters Deserve 'Happily Ever After' Romance Novels by Roan Parrish @ Bitch Media
Who Cares What Straight People Think? by Brandon Taylor @ LitHub
Cat Sebastian's Favorite LGBTQ Historical Romances @ Bookish
"Les chats boivent du lait"
This summer, I decided to pick back up with French language learning using duolingo. I use "pick back up" in the loosest sense because I only had one year of beginner's French in my undergraduate education over a decade ago. My goal, insofar as I have one, is to get better at reading French at least.The duolingo app is handy in that I can practice my 5-10 minutes per day on my phone while walking to and from work.
#LibraryLife
Busts in storage in our stacks. What do you think they talk about when we aren't there? (I also think the name tags are adorable -- they look like children on a school outing waiting for the bus!)
This October 12th, I will be celebrating my tenth anniversary as a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society reader services' staff. I began working as a library assistant at the MHS shortly after my move to Boston. It feels a wee bit fitting, therefore, to share this anniversary month with the incoming president of the MHS, Catherine Allgor, who will become the first woman to lead the Society in its 226 years of existence. Dr. Allgor is an educator and historian who has most recently worked at the Huntington Library in California.
Just this week, we have also announced the acquisition of the "lost" sword of Robert Gould Shaw, who died at the battle of Fort Wagner with the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment -- one of the most famous of the black regiments to serve during the American Civil War. I have deep ambivalence about war-related artifacts, but am glad that the piece was donated to an organization that will make it available to the public rather than sold into the hands of a private collector.
#BostonSummer
@tinycarebot says "remember to take a moment to look at a plant please."Until the August newsletter rolls around, in friendship,
~Anna