For some reason, I can't add this book to my shelf, but I'm about a quarter of the way through Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. I get that it's a classic of science fiction for how it imagines the immense enlightenment of second, third, and fourth dimensional space, and it's my go-to allegory on the subject. So far, I really dislike it, though. I know it's old, but it's still shockingly sexist and classist to my sensibilities. It also creates lore wholecloth that isn't necessary to underscore the point of the thought experiment, and unless our author Edwin Abbott explains himself later on, I'm convinced he hasn't thought it all the way through to its many conclusions. If the isosceles people are so prevented from achieving the ranks of the polygons, but equilateral people are so easily graduated into having more sides, the middle class of Flatland is going to disappear in only a handful of generations, and not into the lower class, as is the case in my reality today, but into the circle realm, which just doesn't stand to reason given the power dynamics of the revered yet gatekept circle class. Flatland is revolutionary in its base concept, but for me, it's the epitome of not throwing out the baby with the bathwater in short novel form. And this bathwater stinks.

How are you guys doing?

.Floating City

Green Giant

Throne

“Energy is everything. Guard it.”

Nothing like some escapism in the middle of all the horrors.

Saw a local screening at OFX with a panel that included the local journalist who reported on this case for the local news despite forceful pressure from Kerr-McGee & its bedfellows. Getting to have a Q&A in the presence of so many folks who were there for this event reminds just how recent it was that we grappled with nuclear energy, yet our collective memory seems to be forgetful as data centers encroach on stolen land and nuclear propositions are coming through the back doors of local jurisdictions. Very important film -- very nuanced, very ambivalent, a smidge long & meandering, but important.

Went in blind not even knowing it was an adaptation of the video game & barely knowing it was a Markiplier project. Just curious about the grassroots box office situation. Saw it late, late at night in a theater of maybe 4 patrons. I kinda waned in & out of grogginess, and I think it made my viewing experience much more bearable & metacontextually in line with the tone of the film. I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone outside of genre fans & Markiplier followers, but it is indeed a big boy movie that surpasses much of the lower-budget studio garbage if only for its utter passion & dedication to doing the thing. I'm glad I was able to see it, if only to have seen it.