Translating our copy of The Long Tomorrow (Dan O'Bannon & Mœbius) into English for fun. I know there's an official English version out there, of course! If I ever see it, I'll be sure to compare. It's such a fun exercise, and a joy to read this old masterpiece a few layers of engagement deeper.

The tomb effigy of François de Sarrà shows his body being eaten by frogs and worms.

In light of canada maintaining its position in support of israel as well as the purposefully complicated and intrusive screening process of their temporary residential visa for Palestinian refugees programme, CALL YOUR MAYORS AND MPs TO DEMAND A CEASEFIRE using these easy tools:

Step 1: use this website to find your MP and mayor based on your zipcode, this should give you their email or office phone number

Step 2: use the following talking points while calling or emailing, copied from this website, which has a feature that automatically calls your MP by your inputted zipcode right on the petition site!

My name is [YOUR NAME HERE], I’m a constituent, and I am calling because there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza. Since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israeli civilians on October 7th, the Israeli military has killed over 16,000 Palestinians – 40% of whom are children. This strategy of collective punishment is a war crime. I call on you to join a growing number of MPs who have signed on to an open letter demanding Canada advocate for an immediate and lasting ceasefire.

tagging @allthecanadianpolitics

In light of canada maintaining its position in support of israel as well as the purposefully complicated and intrusive screening process of their temporary residential visa for Palestinian refugees programme, CALL YOUR MAYORS AND MPs TO DEMAND A CEASEFIRE using these easy tools:

Step 1: use this website to find your MP and mayor based on your zipcode, this should give you their email or office phone number

Step 2: use the following talking points while calling or emailing, copied from this website, which has a feature that automatically calls your MP by your inputted zipcode right on the petition site!

My name is [YOUR NAME HERE], I’m a constituent, and I am calling because there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza. Since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israeli civilians on October 7th, the Israeli military has killed over 16,000 Palestinians – 40% of whom are children. This strategy of collective punishment is a war crime. I call on you to join a growing number of MPs who have signed on to an open letter demanding Canada advocate for an immediate and lasting ceasefire.

tagging @allthecanadianpolitics

Whenever I’m “off trail” in the desert, whether doing volunteer work, or going off trail on a hike to snag that mylar balloon remnant dangling in the botany, or walking over that-a-way to that boulder to get a better photograph, I look down for two reasons. One, avoiding stepping on cryptogamic soil, and, two, to avoid rattlesnakes. I think I’m more fearful of getting yelled at by a desert conservationist about the soil than I am about rattlesnakes.

Excerpt from this story from Sierra Club:

I hadn’t walked very far along the trail in Arches National Park before I started to see the signs. Planted alongside the asphalt of the trail were little posts that read “Your steps matter. Protect park soils.”

Many visitors hadn’t gotten the message. Boot and sneaker prints extended past the boundary, out into the pale red soil. Perhaps the people who had left them didn’t understand that the pleas weren’t just the national park equivalent of “Keep off grass.” When hikers tread off the path, they are trampling on empires—incredible, communal organisms that are vital to the health of the desert.

Microbiotic soils (also known as biocrust or cryptogamic soil, depending on who you’re talking to) are found in arid places around the world. The term might seem a bit strange, given that all soil contains a panoply of microscopic organisms  But what distinguishes microbiotic communities is that they are a collaboration of different entities—fungi, lichen, cyanobacteria, algae, and other tiny organisms that come together in just the top few millimeters of soil.

Despite their unassuming appearance, these dark crusts on the surface of arid soil are actually tiny towers that are critical to the health of the desert. Biocrusts take in carbon and nitrogen and place it back into the soil, where it can be used by surrounding plants. They help keep the desert together—not only preventing dry sediment from blowing away on the wind but trapping sand and dust that’s blown over them. Biocrusts often retain heat too, helping to regulate the rhythm of who’s active when in these arid places. Some organisms found in biocrusts even produce compounds that help to break down pesticides and herbicides, meaning that crusts can help detox the desert such that biodiversity can return to places suffocated by human activity.

Illustration from G. E. Mitton’s ‘The Book of Stars for Young People,’ 1907 Courtesy of AAVSO

A Snake of June - Shinya Tsukamoto 2002

in the latest cyber-news: the internet archive has lost their case against 4 major publishing houses (verge article). they’re going to appeal, but this is still a bad outcome. the fate of the internet is currently hanging in the balance because 4 multibillionare publishing groups missed out on like $15 of combined revenue during the pandemic because of the archive’s online library service. it’s so fucking stupid.

for those who don’t know what the internet archive is, it’s a virtual library full of media. books, magazines, recordings, visuals, flash games, websites - a lot of these things either don’t exist anymore or cannot be found & bought. heard of the wayback machine? that’s part of the internet archive. it is the most important website to exist, and i don’t say that lightly. if the internet archive goes down, the cultural loss will be immeasurable.

so how can you help?

boycott the publishing companies involved in this. they’re absolute ghouls, frankly, and don’t deserve a penny. the companies involved are harpercollins (imprints), wiley (imprints), penguin random house llc (imprints), and hachette book group (imprints). make sure the websites are set to your location as it may differ worldwide.

learn to torrent. download a torrent client (i recommend transmission), a vpn (i recommend protonvpn - sign up and choose the area that’s closest to your continent/country), and hit up /r/piracy on reddit for websites. with torrenting, you can get (almost) any media you want for free in high quality, with add-ons such as subtitles, and with no risks of loss. i would also recommend getting into the habit of watching stuff online for free. the less you can pay to a giant corporation, the better.

get into the habit of downloading and archiving materials. find a TB external hard drive, ideally the higher the better. it’ll probably cost around $60 for 1TB and continue to go up, but they’re so so useful. if you can’t afford a drive, look for any GB harddrives or memory sticks you have lying around and just fill them up. videos, pdfs, magazines, songs, movies, games - anything you can rip and download and fit on there, do it, because nothing is permanent.

donate to the internet archive. this is the most important option on the list. the IA relies entirely on funding, and it’s going to need more to fight this case. whatever you can donate, do it. i promise it’s helpful.

and finally…

shots from the making of The Thing, via Movie Memorabilia Emporium

very fond of what butches have done with gender

Did some much-needed mending and tinkering on my well-worn CMC/thumb splint! This one is now my best working splint. Only a matter of time before she helps me fix up her older brothers. Well, one of them. I managed to snap the steel in my second splint. We'll figure it out.

1. My functionally repaired and improved splint. Fresh velcro, reinforced strap attachment, and brighter thread colours that should help make the dang thing more visible when I inevitably put it down somewhere.

2. A moment on the way there. Clamped a vise to the table, a lil wooden block into the vise, and the splint in place so I could punch some holes and make the sewing process easier and less haphazard.

What do I even call this? It ain't leather work, nor cobbling, though I admit to eyeball-skimming on some of their movements and practices. For now, I'll go with visible mending.

Floodwood Station trestle bridge ruin along the Hocking near Nelsonville, Ohio

When the government makes a bunch of comics illegal, we call that banned dessinée

Grit by Silas Denver Melvin

The polite transphobia from adult women is no longer keeping you hostage as you sob an earthquake in your ex-boyfriend's car.

Grit is a transgender coming of age story. There are no beautiful rainbows here, no whispers, but raw cries from somewhere primal.

"Silas' words dart in and out like a scalpel revealing layers of flesh that have been given-or-taken-by lovers, parents, cruelty, and fate." - Sean Felix

fucking relatable master yupa

It's Monday! That means it's time for another update for I'm Not The Protagonist! We're coming up on the end of chapter 1, guys. :D

St. Joseph Gazette-Herald, Missouri, May 22, 1883