Friday Links

1. Well here’s an argument for not posting through it: You Can’t Post Your Way Out of Fascism. This is a great point!

“More recently, researchers have found that the viral outrage disseminated on social media in response to these ridiculous claims actually reduces the effectiveness of collective action. The result is a media environment that keeps us in a state of debilitating fear and anger, endlessly reacting to our oppressors instead of organizing against them.”

 

2. We can still knit through fascism, though.

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by chessie ✨ (@salty___stitches)

 

3. “February is the worst month of the year. But it’s an honest month.” But remember, “If you can live through February, you’ll live another year.” (Remember this guy?)

Friday Links

1. Somehow it’s STILL January but tomorrow is February and Imbolc, the cross-quarter day between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. We’re halfway; we can do it!

2. Yes I want January to be over but this also has merit:

3. The Public Domain Review has a new visual search engine that’s super fun to browse. I recommend “Infinite View.”

4. I also recommend looking at a baby capybara (and not the news).

Friday Links

1. If you looked at the devil’s butthole’s executive orders this week like me (oops), you’ll know that our trans friends are already under attack. (And trans people already have a staggering 82% suicide risk.) What can you do right now? Order Girl Scout cookies from a trans or non-binary Girl Scout. There’s a list compiled right here and they ship.

 

2. Maybe we can go to France and camp out in the cheese room of this restaurant? The Hottest Restaurant in France Is an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet (includes some extremely New Yorker lines such as “The effect is something like a Golden Corral by Auguste Escoffier”).

 

3. Something cool: Archaeologists Are Finding Dugout Canoes in the American Midwest as Old as the Great Pyramids of Egypt. The urban waterways in the Great Lakes area fascinate me. Imagine having a neighborhood lake!

 

Friday Links

1. The 48-hour trip that I spent a month sewing things for is coming up this weekend! It’s SUCH a middle-aged lady niche interest trip, too: We’re going to the scent museum and the pinball museum and, of course, Stonemountain Fabrics.

2. Would you like to see lettering from classic jazz albums? How about albums designed by Milton Glaser?

3. America may not make it but hell yeah, imposter syndrome is out! (Also I’m glad to know it’s not just me worrying about getting fired all the time.)

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Boredwalk (@boredwalk.los.angeles)

Friday Links

1. I’m taking a break next week to not post, drink too much coffee, and enjoy Dead Week:

Dead Week isn’t a week off for everyone, or at least the thing it is a week off from isn’t work. Rather, it is a week off from the forward-motion drive of the rest of the year. It is a time against ambition and against striving. Whatever we hoped to finish is either finished or it’s not going to happen this week, and all our successes and failures from the previous year are already tallied up. It’s too late for everything; Dead Week is the luxurious relief of giving up.

 

2. I’m prepping for Christmas dinner:

 

3. I’m bracing for January, with advice from Mike Monteiro:

Hope and optimism will come from helping those that need it. Hope and optimism will come from seeing that our actions, both big and small, can help others. Buy someone a fucking sandwich. Help someone pay their rent. Drive someone to the grocery store. And yes, put your body between their and those that would hurt them. Let people know you are here should they need you.

Help is not coming. You’re already here. I hope you’re ready. I’m optimistic you are.

 

4. And I’m celebrating the Solstice tomorrow! We made it; the sun is coming back. Thank you, sun.

Friday Links

1. Again, I don’t want to go on a watch list, but I thought this take on the online popularity of our boy was right on:

People don’t cheer for chaos when they feel like justice is possible. But right now, what options do they have? The Supreme Court is corrupt, for many people voting feels useless, and the people in power are funded by the very corporations they’re supposed to regulate.

Of course, Mangione gets turned into a meme hero—it’s not him they love; it’s the idea of someone finally fighting back.

Also this meme in that newsletter was pretty great:
Anyway! Just doing intellectual exercises over here, not condoning anything, nope, no siree.

 

2. This combines Dad Lore and 80s Nostalgia and is just fun to look through–someone posted their dad’s collection of hand-drawn VHS labels on Reddit. The recreation of the “Festival of Claymation” font! a stack VHS tapes from the 80s with hand-drawn labels.

 

3. “City of Bend to vandal: Stop putting googly eyes on statues” (click for pictures, amazing).

 

4. Subtle foreshadowing had me wheezing.

@xran..domx #CapCut subtle foreshadowing.#subtleforeshadowing #subtle #funnyy #funny #pepsi #mentos #pepsiandmentos #fyp #fyp #fypageシ #foryoupage #viral_video #viral ♬ original sound – your month your…

Friday Links

1. Did I click through The Catalog Blog and want to look at most things? Yes. Is the J. Peterman catalog in there? Of course!

 

2. Speaking of ephemera, this recipe booklet/story book is astonishing–it rhymes, the art is exquisite and also just plain weird: The Prince of the Gelatin Isles from 1926.

 

3. I don’t want to get put on a watchlist so I’m not going to share a lot of what I’m seeing about the United Healthcare CEO, but I thought this summary by journalist Taylor Lorenz was good.

“People have very justified hatred toward insurance company CEOs because these executives are responsible for an unfathomable amount of death and suffering. I think it’s good to call out this broken system and the people in power who enable it. Again, not so they can be murdered, but so that we can change the system and start holding people in power accountable for their actions.”

 

4. OK, I do have to post this though. That last line!

@philiplabesAnd medical violence is always wrong, but only when it flows one way

♬ original sound – Philip Labes

Friday Links

1. Journalist Lyz Lenz wrote about the election last week and I promise it’s funny and not one of the endless “what went wrong” takes, but she also makes a great point. We have work to do regardless.

But as devastating as these next four years will be, the reality is that I live and work in a red state, and the work is not much different despite the results of the election.

Even under a Democratic president, Iowa saw a loss of reproductive rights, an erosion of the social safety net, book bans, loss of rights for LGBTQ people, and the loss of funding for public schools. I still saw the childcare tax credit discontinued and wages stagnate while the cost of living rose.

[…] There are no quick fixes to building a better life. Even if Harris won, Trump voters would still be around, still running our school boards and state legislatures.

This is the work.

 

2. My old coworker Justin Shiels also posted this last week and it’s been in my head (click through the whole slideshow):

 

3. Joy, of course, is not the same as buying things. But my brain is saying what if buying yarn for a rainbow sweater WAS a way to create some joy? Hmm.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Cogey (@cogey)