avilion | Reading

This was it. This was the week that America admitted America is going fascist – which is to say has gone fascist, i.e. has had its government seized by fascists with broad fascist support for imposing fascism which it is now doing with zeal, i.e. has an acute case of fulminant fascism.

I've been watching this bear down on us for a half a century, so it's slightly dizzying to finally have everybody else come into alignment. One of the basic exigencies of my life has been moving through the world being reasonably certain of a bunch of things that I knew the vast majority of my fellows thought were insane to believe. Over the last ten years, more and more people have been noticing, "what are we doing in this handbasket and where is it going?" but – as evidenced by the behavior of the DNC over the last year – it's taken the secret police gunning Americans down in the streets (since I started writing this: and throwing flashbang grenades at or into (reports vary) passing cars carrying little kids) for the greater liberal mass to come around.

Obviously, it would have been nicer for the realization It Could Happen Here to have not required It Happening Here to be the conclusive rebuttal of their pathological skepticism. But one of my favorite sayings is, "There's three kinds. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves," (Will Rogers) and this is why. Clearly America needed to piss on the electric fence for itself. I try to be philosophical about it.

I just felt, if only for myself and posterity, I should note this long-in-coming nation-wide realization has finally been attained.

I'm not getting too carried away, though. It's hard to be too jubilant when the problem that brought us here is still very much with us, by which I don't mean the fascism itself, I mean the terrible mentality on "my" "side" that causes that pathological skepticism and other catastrophic thinking faults that brought us to this pass and lead to the fascists getting away, quite literally, with murder.

siderea

This is blackly hilarious and absolutely worth a read.

Leftist journalist Laura Jedeed showed up at an ICE recruiting events to do scope it out and write about what she found. What happened next is... eye widening.

2026 Jan 13: Slate: "You’ve Heard About Who ICE Is Recruiting. The Truth Is Far Worse. I’m the Proof." [Paywall defeater] by Laura Jedeed:

At first glance, my résumé has enough to tantalize a recruiter for America’s Gestapo-in-waiting: I enlisted in the Army straight out of high school and deployed to Afghanistan twice with the 82nd Airborne Division. After I got out, I spent a few years doing civilian analyst work. With a carefully arranged, skills-based résumé—one which omitted my current occupation—I figured I could maybe get through an initial interview.

The catch, however, is that there’s only one “Laura Jedeed” with an internet presence, and it takes about five seconds of Googling to figure out how I feel about ICE, the Trump administration, and the country’s general right-wing project. My social media pops up immediately, usually with a preview of my latest posts condemning Trump’s unconstitutional, authoritarian power grab. Scroll down and you’ll find articles with titles like “What I Saw in LA Wasn’t an Insurrection; It Was a Police Riot” and “Inside Mike Johnson’s Ties to a Far-Right Movement to Gut the Constitution.” Keep going for long enough and you might even find my dossier on AntifaWatch, a right-wing website that lists alleged members of the supposed domestic terror organization. I am, to put it mildly, a less-than-ideal recruit.

In short, I figured—at least back then—that my military background would be enough to get me in the door for a good look around ICE’s application process, and then even the most cursory background check would get me shown that same door with great haste.

[...]

I completely missed the email when it came. I’d kept an eye on my inbox for the next few days, but I’d grown lax when nothing came through. But then, on Sept. 3, it popped up.

“Please note that this is a TENTATIVE offer only, therefore do not end your current employment,” the email instructed me. It then listed a series of steps I’d need to quickly take. I had 48 hours to log onto USAJobs and fill out my Declaration for Federal Employment, then five additional days to return the forms attached to the email. Among these forms: driver’s license information, an affidavit that I’ve never received a domestic violence conviction, and consent for a background check. And it said: “If you are declining the position, it is not necessary to complete the action items listed below.”

As I mentioned, I’d missed the email, so I did exactly none of these things.

And that might have been where this all ended—an unread message sinking to the bottom of my inbox—if not for an email LabCorp sent three weeks later. “Thank you for confirming that you wish to continue with the hiring process,” it read. (To be clear, I had confirmed no such thing.) “Please complete your required pre-employment drug test.”

The timing was unfortunate. Cannabis is legal in the state of New York, and I had partaken six days before my scheduled test. Then again, I hadn’t smoked much; perhaps with hydration I could get to the next stage. Worst-case scenario, I’d waste a small piece of ICE’s gargantuan budget. I traveled to my local LabCorp, peed in a cup, and waited for a call telling me I’d failed.

Nine days later, impatience got the best of me. For the first time, I logged into USAJobs and checked my application to see if my drug test had come through. What I actually saw was so implausible, so impossible, that at first I did not understand what I was looking at.

Somehow, despite never submitting any of the paperwork they sent me—not the background check or identification info, not the domestic violence affidavit, none of it—ICE had apparently offered me a job.

According to the application portal, my pre-employment activities remained pending. And yet, it also showed that I had accepted a final job offer and that my onboarding status was “EOD”—Entered On Duty, the start of an enlistment period. I moused over the exclamation mark next to “Onboarding” and a helpful pop-up appeared. “Your EOD has occurred. Welcome to ICE!”

I clicked through to my application tracking page. They’d sent my final offer on Sept. 30, it said, and I had allegedly accepted. “Welcome to Ice. … Your duty location is New York, New York. Your EOD was on Tuesday, September 30th, 2025.”

By all appearances, I was a deportation officer. Without a single signature on agency paperwork, ICE had officially hired me.

Click through to read the whole thing.

siderea

2026 Jan 14: NYT: "Renfrew Christie Dies at 76; Sabotaged Racist Regime’s Nuclear Program" by Adam Nossiter. "He played a key role in ending apartheid South Africa’s secret weapons program in the 1980s by helping the African National Congress bomb critical facilities."

Renfrew Christie in 1988.

Renfrew Christie, a South African scholar whose undercover work for the African National Congress was critical in hobbling the apartheid government’s secret nuclear weapons program in the 1980s, died on Dec. 21 at his home in Cape Town. He was 76.

The cause of death was pneumonia, his daughter Camilla Christie said.

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa paid tribute to Dr. Christie after his death, saying his “relentless and fearless commitment to our freedom demands our appreciation.”

The A.N.C., in a statement, called Dr. Christie’s role “in disrupting and exposing the apartheid state’s clandestine nuclear weapons program” an “act of profound revolutionary significance.”

From the doctoral dissertation he had written at the University of Oxford on the history of electricity in South Africa, Dr. Christie provided the research needed to blow up the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station; the Arnot coal-fired power station; the Sasol oil-from-coal facilities that produced the heavy water critical to producing nuclear weapons; and other critical sites.

The explosions set back South Africa’s nascent nuclear weapons program by years and cost the government more than $1 billion, Dr. Christie later estimated.

By the time the bombs began going off, planted by his colleagues in uMkhonto we Sizwe, the paramilitary wing of the A.N.C., Dr. Christie was already in prison. He was arrested by South African authorities in October 1979 on charges of “terrorism,” three months after completing his studies at Oxford, and spent the next seven years in prison, some of that time on death row and in solitary confinement.

“While I was in prison, everything I had ever researched was blown up,” he said in a speech in 2023.

Terrorism was a capital offense, and Dr. Christie narrowly escaped hanging. But as he later recounted, he was deliberately placed on the death row closest to the gallows at the Pretoria Maximum Security Prison. For two and half years, he was forced to listen to the hangings of more than 300 prisoners.

“The whole prison would sing for two or three days before the hanging, to ease the terror of the victims,” Dr. Christie recalled at a 2013 conference at the University of the Western Cape on laws regarding torture.

Then he recited the lyrics of an anti-apartheid folk song that reverberated in the penitentiary: “‘Senzeni-na? Senzeni-na? What have we done? What have we done?’ It was the most beautiful music on earth, sung in a vile place.”

Watch on YouTube

“At zero dark hundred,” he continued, “the hanging party would come through the corridors to the gallows, slamming the gates behind them on the road to death. Once they were at the gallows there was a long pause. Then — crack! — the trapdoors would open, and the neck or necks of the condemned would snap. A bit later came the hammering, presumably of nails into the coffins.”

In an interview years later with the BBC, he said the “gruesome” experience affected him for the rest of his life.

Dr. Christie acquired his fierce antipathy to apartheid at a young age, growing up in an impoverished family in Johannesburg.

Many of his family members fought with the Allied forces against the Germans in World War II, and “I learned from them very early that what one does with Nazis is kill them,” he said at a 2023 conference on antinuclear activism in Johannesburg. “I am not a pacifist.”

At 17, he was drafted into the South African Army. A stint of guard duty at the Lenz ammunition dump south of Johannesburg confirmed his suspicions that the government was building nuclear weapons. “From the age of 17, I was hunting the South African bomb,” he said at the conference.

After attending the University of the Witwatersrand, he received a scholarship to Oxford, which enabled him to further his quest. For his doctoral dissertation, he chose to study South Africa’s history of electrification, “so I could get into the electricity supply commission’s library and archives, and work out how much electricity they were using to enrich uranium,” he told the BBC.

From there, it was possible to calculate how many nuclear bombs could be produced. Six such bombs had reportedly been made by the end of apartheid in the early 1990s; the United States had initially aided the regime’s nuclear program. Thanks to the system of forced labor, South Africa “made the cheapest electricity in the world,” Dr. Christie said, which aided the process of uranium enrichment and made the country’s nuclear program a magnet for Western support. (South Africa also benefited from its status as a Cold War ally against the Soviet Union.)

Dr. Christie turned his findings over to the A.N.C. Instead of opting for the safety of England — there was the possibility of a lecturer position at Oxford — he returned home and was arrested by South Africa’s Security Police. He had been betrayed by Craig Williamson, a fellow student at Witwatersrand, who had become a spy for the security services and was later granted amnesty by South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

After 48 hours of torture, Dr. Christie wrote a forced confession — “the best thing I ever wrote,” he later told the BBC, noting that he had made sure the confession included “all my recommendations to the African National Congress” about the best way to sabotage Koeberg and other facilities.

“And, gloriously, the judge read it out in court,” Dr. Christie added. “So my recommendations went from the judge’s mouth” straight to the A.N.C.

Two years later, in December 1982, Koeberg was bombed by white A.N.C. operatives who had gotten jobs at the facility. They followed Dr. Christie’s instructions to the letter.

“Of all the achievements of the armed struggle, the bombing of Koeberg is there,” Dr. Christie said at the 2023 conference, emphasizing its importance. “Frankly, when I got to hearing of it, it made being in prison much, much easier to tolerate.”

Renfrew Leslie Christie was born in Johannesburg on Sept. 11, 1949, the only child of Frederick Christie, an accountant, and Lindsay (Taylor) Christie, who was soon widowed and raised her son alone while working as a secretary.

He attended King Edward VII School in Johannesburg and was conscripted into the army immediately after graduating. After his discharge, he enrolled at Witwatersrand. He was twice arrested after illegally visiting Black students at the University of the North at Turfloop, and was also arrested during a march on a police station where he said the anti-apartheid activist Winnie Mandela was being tortured.

He didn’t finish the course at Witwatersrand, instead earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Cape Town in the mid-1970s before studying at Oxford. At Cape Town, he was a leader of the National Union of South African Students, an important anti-apartheid organization.

On June 6, 1980, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison under South Africa’s Terrorism Act, with four other sentences of five years each to run concurrently.

“I spent seven months in solitary,” Dr. Christie said in the 2023 speech. “Don’t let anybody kid you: No one comes out of solitary sane. My nightmares are awful.”

After his years in prison, he was granted amnesty in 1986 as the apartheid regime began to crumble. (It officially ended in 1994, when Nelson Mandela became the country’s first Black president.) He later had a long academic career at the University of the Western Cape, retiring in 2014 as dean of research and senior professor.

In addition to his daughter Camilla, he is survived by his wife, Dr. Menán du Plessis, a linguist and novelist he married in 1990; and another daughter, Aurora.

Asked by the BBC whether he was glad he had spied for the A.N.C., Dr. Christie didn’t hesitate.

“I was working for Nelson Mandela and uMkonto we Sizwe,” he said. “I’m very proud of that. We won. We got a democracy.”

Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing?

– Pete Seeger

sorcyress

It's the cold and dark of winter and I made the daily challenge on my discord be "Screaming", because it's sorta how everything has felt. In revenge, I had to have an annoying conversation with my boss about some (uncompensated, non-contract) responsibilities I hold have been slipping, and had one of my cabinets literally collapse in the middle of proctoring a serious standardized test. It was very dramatic, luckily it was just me and one student to be very badly startled.

Also luckily, my anti-Nemesis (comrade? buddy? hero?) was able to quickly swing by, and as he always does, he made my life demonstrably better. Huzzah! Now, when can we have a building that doesn't use the cheapest possible materials? We have not been present long enough for things to be literally falling apart.

Before the mild disaster, I managed to do a bunch of what my therapist yesterday called "productive avoidance". Genuinely good things! Things that need done! I checked some serious stuff off my todo list! None of it was the stuff that's the highest priority right now, which not surprisingly, is also the stuff that's stressing me out right now. Maybe tomorrow I will finally do some grading? Hahahah oh god.

I dunno man, it's the cold and dark of winter and also it's the cold and dark of fascism. I should probably be texting a lot more often with my sister who's currently in a city overrun by government thugs. I hope she's okay. I hope she stays okay. I hope we all stay okay. That's not just sisters, I hope we all stay okay.

***

I wrote all the above during the department meeting, when I was still kinda sad and frustrated, but then Geometry PLC was quite good, and Clayton and I were able to walk home together and that was _excellent_. It's always pretty good, it's so _so_ valuable to have people I genuinely like to work with, but this time was also especially fun because he was filling me in his theory that Moby Dick is just an anime. It's very charming when he gets into things like that!

This evening has been...not terrible? Not amazing. Played a lot of video games, which is sometimes very good, and sometimes very avoidant. It wanted to be the really big push for packing for Arisia, since tomorrow night is dance class and I will be less inclined to do any packing work then. I did a non-zero amount of packing! It's nowhere near complete, but it was good progress! I also, critically, did all the laundry, so I'm actually set _up_ to do more good packing tomorrow.

And I helped Rey buzz her hair short which was quite fun --I always like a chance to play with the clippers! And I washed all the dishes, which is good --I've been only an intermittent dish fairy these past few weeks, so it felt good to do it proper.

I still need to update my dailies list, which I'm trying to pay better attention to this year than last. I think I sussed out it was ~130 days that I actually logged things last year? Which is...not great. I'd like to do better this year, I'd like to see if I can at least get 2/3rds of the days gone. Using Habitica too, helps. Having the double things to log is actually quite nice, they scratch similar but not-quite-the-same itches.

I hope you are well and happy and stay that way.

~Sor
MOOP!

siderea

Heads up, locals! Observers report evidence of ICE/DHS activity preparing for an operation in MA, imminently.

2026 Jan 13 5pm: u/rarelighting in r/Boston: Boston quietly prepares for an ICE surge, points at:

2026 Jan 13: Axios: Boston quietly prepares for an ICE surge by Mike Deehan

Discussion at Reddit:

OP:

While listening to the Sam Seder podcast today, someone sent in a report about increased activity at the Burlington ICE facilities. Stay alert folks.

u/Neat-Beautiful-5505 • 4h ago

Another Reddit post showed three 18-wheel trucks hauling several new SUVs each to the Burlington ICE facility.

u/_still_truckin_ • 4h ago

Two dozen white Ford Explorers. They’re the same Interceptor models that real police departments use. You can spot them by the searchlight mounted to the driver side A-pillar and lack of tracks for roof racks. Saw them in the parking lot of the Burlington ICE building.

u/ThePirateKing01 • 4h ago

Shoutout to @BearingWitnessBurlington on YouTube and TikTok

To those who say protesting peacefully doesn’t amount to much, this person has been both protesting and monitoring the facility almost 24/7. Without people like this we wouldn’t have the heads up that we do now

u/minilip30 • 4h ago

“The bottom line: While no operation has been officially confirmed, Boston is not waiting to find out — it is mobilizing now.”

Good!

Remember, ICE needs a warrant to enter any private residence or business. Business that aren’t fascist supporting should have signs that they will not allow ICE entry without a warrant.

u/beanandcod • 4h ago

A judicial warrant, signed by a judge

u/Pnoman98 • 4h ago

A lot of police presence at Alewife& Gov Center

u/cccxxxzzzddd • 4h ago

The Rindge / fresh pond apartments at alewife are home to many immigrants, particularly Ethiopians

This is not good

Edit: not good that ice is there

u/mysteriousfrittata • 4h ago

Saw a car full of them parked outside of MGH yesterday evening. All wearing DHS fatigues etc. Naturally the assholes were parked in an ambulance parking spot. I called to report a strange vehicle parked there.

u/HolyMoleyGuacamoly • 4h ago

they appear to be staying at that marriott right next door. was by there for a bit and saw a ton of activity in and out of there of single white men in suvs with beards

Happy_Literature9493 • 3h ago

Copied and pasted from Safari reader mode [the Axios article:]

“Boston quietly prepares for an ICE surge Mike Deehan Boston City Hall is privately getting ready for a potential spike in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.

Why it matters: Even without a confirmed federal operation, the city is "planning for the unthinkable," according to Mayor Michelle Wu.

Escalating tensions and violence in other cities are deepening anxieties within immigrant communities and worsening the friction between sanctuary communities and federal authorities. The latest: Wu confirmed on WBUR this week that she is discussing enforcement scenarios with Boston Police leadership.

Her goal is to establish clear protocols to ensure local police resources are not co-opted into federal immigration efforts. Wu maintains that Boston police will not leak information to ICE, a stance she views as crucial to maintaining community trust. The big picture: Boston isn't alone in bracing for federal action.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has stated plans for a larger presence in Boston, promising more agents following disputes over sanctuary policies. Past initiatives mobilized large-scale enforcement across Massachusetts. Zoom in: Unverified but persistent reports from residents and activists note a delivery of SUVs to the Burlington ICE Field Office last week.

Advocates interpret the arrival of three car carriers hauling SUVs as a sign that the local ICE branch is staffing up. What we're watching: If federal enforcement accelerates, pressure will mount on public-facing institutions and communities with sanctuary policies.

Courthouses are typically a flashpoint for arrests. City community centers and schools will need to know how to respond if agents appear at their doors. ICE likely won't limit large-scale enforcement to Boston. Municipalities with large immigrant populations like Chelsea, Everett, Lawrence, Revere and Lynn could also be in the crosshairs. Threat level: Activists have staked out the Burlington ICE office for months and will likely be among the first to know of any major rollout.

Expect throngs of Massachusetts residents to demonstrate against ICE if a surge happens here. The bottom line: While no operation has been officially confirmed, Boston is not waiting to find out — it is mobilizing now.”

siderea

"What I 'erd, this nobby, 'iz bird got fingered over a tin o'beans, only shot the poor cow, didn't they? So, like, everybody's tooled up, an'..."

– V for Vendetta, Alan Moore & David Lloyd, 1988

minoanmiss posting in

davis_square

Join us for a double feature in Boston tomorrow, Saturday 1/10. 12pm at the State House and 2pm at the JFK Federal Building.

sorcyress

Yesterday I was in a bad mood after my meeting, and also I'm a little sleep-deprived and I've been in a weird mood for a couple days anyways. Also, the band Seeming, who I'd just gotten pretty into one of their albums¹ right before winter break, did a "all our pre-2025 music free" as a special, and it felt prudent to nab it².

Sometimes we can do things the right way though, and so instead of playing mindless phone games, I just put the song du jour on repeat, and got my sketchbook, and drew a picture:

Write the song you need to hear. And draw it, I suppose.

( art process babbling under here )

Anyways, that's what I did last night, and I'm pleased about it! Maybe I will draw other things sometime this year, I would like that.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Specifically, Madness and Extinction. BDan recommended it, on one of the times I was looking for Bandcamp Friday recs. After the third time of tossing it into the "after school album rotation" and being all "damn this is really good I should go tell BDan", I finally took actual notice.

2: Technically I did pay-what-you-will at a dollar per album, since that way they get put into my Bandcamp account and I can stream them, instead of just being emailed the mp3s. I really like this set-up! And I went ahead and put the 2025 stuff into my cart to nab at above-cost on the next Bandcamp Friday.

(I appreciate so much that Bandcamp hasn't fully enshittified yet.)

3: Different fun fact! "The Earth is radiantly suicidal" is written three times because it was too off-kilter when I inked it once, and so I wanted to rebalance the picture. I sorta wish I had stuck with twice, since that's how they do repetitions of it in the song, but it's fine.

elusiveat posting in

davis_square

Can anyone recommend a good local dermatologist?

It's been a bit since I had an appointment, and when I called the place I used to go, they said they were scheduling out to November 2026.

I'm hoping for a place with a no-nonsense approach that will focus on skin health, not marketing cosmetic procedures.

siderea

2026 Jan 6: Görkem Şen (Yaybahar on YT): Yaybahar III Nadiri

Watch on YouTube

The description text:

The essence of gold was rare, he conquered with his virtue, offered his gifts and fell behind the sun...

Dedicated to the soul of my dear friend's father, Nadir Oğuz...

I am surmising that "Nadiri" means "Of Nadir". Yaybahar is the instrument, the artist is its inventor:

The name yaybahar (pronounced /jajba'har/) has Turkish origin. It is a composite of two words: yay means a "string" or a "coiled string" and bahar means the season "spring." According to Gorkem Sen, the name is derived from the idea of a new life or a new beginning. [1]

I assume this is the third one of its kind the artist has made.

Artist's website: https://www.gorkemsen.com/

sorcyress

LB asked a few days ago, because I never did elaborate about Kale Pudding in here during the actual summer. So here is a story from Pinewoods this past July!

***

The Kale Pudding was a Pinewoods adventure, and I'm surprised about the part where I didn't give details any time this year, except of course I didn't, I have been _so shit_ at updating Dreamwidth. Oh well.

The ~~short~~long version: At Pinewoods dance camp Scottish Sessions, we have a big auction to raise money for camp. Because we raise fucktons of $$ (like, basically always five figures, this year was a record in the ~27,000 range), the crew of Pinewoods are often willing to donate various goods and services that they don't really offer to other sessions which split their $s between camp and the parent orgs (or don't donate to camp at all). One of these services, for several years, has been "the head cook will let you choose what the dessert for the last night of camp is".

We've had creme brulee. We've had sticky toffee pudding. We've had cheesecake. It's chances for the kitchen crew to flex on the fact that food at Pinewoods is _way_ outside the league of "camp food" anywhere else. And in...let's say 2021 or so? In about 2021, when the bidding started, I made a bid just to get things going and loudly announced that I was bidding on "kale pudding" for dessert. No one knew what that would, but they recognized it for the thread it sounded like, and outbid me.

Continue the running joke for several years. Cue 2024, at which point Geoffrey, who had frequently outbid me in the past, comes up to me and says "I've got $300 for you this year, I think it would be funny if you won". And so did someone else. Oh-ho-ho, with shadowbackers, I have an actual chance! Bidding gets to just over a thousand dollars before Terry says "okay, raise your hand if you'll throw in $50 for NOT kale pudding". (he then wasted it on Pot de Creme, which is a delicious chocolate treat that I just do not like and also that the kitchen like, regularly makes at camp? So it's not like you couldn't get it at Pinewoods in general? DO SOMETHING INTERESTING WITH YOUR DESSERT CHOICE, THE CREME BRULEE YEAR THE KITCHEN CREW GOT TO BORROW BLOWTORCHES THAT WAS AWESOME!)

So now I've got a challenge, a target, and a goal. And a whole bunch of people also into The Joke. At LCFD weekend, right at the start of the summer, I warn Amanda the head cook. I'm serious. I'm going to campaign. "And part of my campaign is predicated on 'I trust Amanda to make something _good_' so, uh, good luck babe". ESCape rolls around, the session immediately before Scottish, and some friends do actual campaigning for Make The Scots Eat Kale Pudding fund¹. I don't just have shadow-backers anymore, I have straight up donation-matchers. Like, more than one of them.

So at Scottish Sessions, I go ahead and start collecting a list of people I think it would be funny to get money from. A big ol' list of collaborators, and also making it clear that anyone could bid shadow-wise, and not have anybody but me know that they were in. I will be the fall guy for this BUT ALSO if anyone can make Kale Pudding taste good it's Amanda. Believe in them, you know? Auction night rolls around. Me and Geoffrey make a plan --he'll be the face guy for the ESCape part of the fund, and bid against me to make the $$ go up if necessary. We're gonna spook people, then he's gonna hit me with the "well, ESCape wants to be on the winning team" and throw in his funds so we can crush the competition.

...except no one else wants to bid on the dessert. The joke has just about hit its limits, and I have successfully either convinced everyone that Amanda is really good at their job and it'll taste good, or have intimidated them into thinking they're not going to bother. So Geoffrey and I have a (brief) screaming match of "I bid 1000...for kale pudding" "oh yeah? Well I bid 1500....for kale pudding!!!" until we reach $2500 and agree to go in together and then we gave Pinewoods camp a $5000 donation² in exchange for making the Scots eat kale pudding for their last night dessert.

Which Amanda made as "pot de brassica", a sort of violently neon green creamy pud, served with lemon curd, tasted sharp and interesting and yes like kale and delicious. Most people enjoyed it, or at least found it "good enough". Very few people didn't like it, but honestly, I don't like pot de creme which everyone else finds The Shit, so it's all normal.

And I assured a great many people that last year was the last year of the joke anyways, so it's going to be very very funny if the new kitchen head [Amanda has retired after their triumph] offers this same auction item and I bid any amount. What, I just want some lemon meringue pie!

AND THAT IS THE TALE OF THE KALE PUDDING!

~Sor

1: "Why should you care what some people a week from now eat for dessert? First off, you shouldn't. Second off, because it would be funny. And third off, because the money goes to a good cause..."

2: It is important to note that Geoffrey works in SF with computers, and we had a _lot_ of shadowbackers and donors. I did not pay anywhere near this amount myself.

sorcyress

I can tell I've been too long away from home and my proper routine, because this morning I was dithering a little bit going "wait, what should I do during breakfast, I can't knit and eat at the same time so that's obviously not it".

Like babe. You know this one.

You pour a bowl of cereal, you pour on some milk, you eat your cereal and milk and read the comics. This has been your routine since like nineteen fucking ninety six. Forty percent of your partners weren't born when you started this.

Also it means I'm actually going to read the dreamwidth friends page in who knows how fucking long (two weeks, give or take) so it'll be nice to know what y'all have been up to. On the one hand, we should bring back the phrase "pants bankrupt", on the other hand, maybe a good new years resolution would be to just...not be pants bankrupt very often this year?

(like, it'll happen around Pinewoods of course, but let's try not to let it happen at other points because Dreamwidth really is The Good Place and I would like to keep it running well.)

~Sor
MOOP!

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variegated threads

Reading

Well, we're finally here [me, pols]

Slipping on into ICE [curr ev, pols]

Sohlangana ezulwini (How can I keep from singing?) [in memoriam, hist]

(no subject)

Massachusetts is next [Ω, MA/US]

IYKYK [cur ev]

Boston Area Protests 1/10

(no subject)

Dermatologists?

Yaybahar III Nadiri [music]

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What is a "roo-teen"

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June 2019

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