Asakiyume mita

I saw dreadlock, deadlock, and deadname in quick succession and started thinking about not hair or tangled traffic or trans rights, but about a dreadful lock, a lock that dies--is executed even. A dead lock. And I thought, how do you kill a lock?

Answer:

The key was turned
The bolt slid into place a final time
Then liquid copper was poured into the hole
--the whole plate melted, a metal smear—

Then prayers, candles, incense
No more will people pass through here

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osprey_archer posted a very fun, very short Valentine's extra for her novel Honeytrap, readily understandable even if you haven't read the novel. All you need to know is it's set in the 1950s, and the characters are a Soviet agent and an American agent who are working together (for reasons). It's a discussion of the capitalist nature of Valentine's Day as celebrated in the America. (Read it here!) And then, coincidentally, a friend linked me to this TikTok video where a woman talks about how capitalist Valentine's Day is, and then provides links to her free anticapitalist you-can-use-them-for-Valentine's-or-any-day cards. I liked "Workers are Billionaire Creators" best.

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I love this art, located in London, by Colombian street artist Stinkfish:



Detail:



(Source: Hooked: Street Art from London and beyond)

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I'm doing some pro bono work for a friend of one of my kids, who's written about the Titanic. I reached a passage where it talks about the SS Californian, which was very close but didn't render assistance, and he describes how it seemed to the Californian that this ship--they didn't know what ship it was--that they had noticed was moving away from them, getting smaller, when really what was happening was it was sinking. It made me think of that famous poem by Stevie Smith, "Not Waving but Drowning.

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Well that would be a bad note to end on! So some light humor. Someone used Google translate to translate a packet of Chinese rice crackers and got this:


(Twitter source)

One of my kids retweeted it with "tag yourself"

So go ahead: Who are you?

I pass this veggie stand on the way to work every day, and I always contemplate stopping, but until last Tuesday, I never did.



A big old tree provides shade, and two elderly white guys sit in outdoor chairs by it, every day. Tuesday was a steamy hot day. I bought some green beans--"first of the season," one of the old guys told me--and a beautiful eggplant. I was able to see their rambling garden back behind the stand. Wonderful.

As a goodbye remark, I told them to stay cool. "I love the heat!" the other guy proclaimed. "I changed my shirt once already today! Love it! Love being out in the garden!"

I love the heat too, but it's rare to find others who do. I left charmed and delighted. I'm going to buy more eggplant there.

(There's a more sturdy farmstand right near my house; I go there too. What a blessing.)

This cabbage white butterfly looks like the protagonist of a fairy tale. Her beauty is matched by her fearlessness and her creative thinking.



This is a public planter. I like it! I particularly like the yellow vine flowers, which I discovered are Thunbergia alata, "black-eyed susan vine." I saw them first--or, well, noticed them first--in Colombia, cascading down walls. They're apparently native to East Africa, but naturalized in places like Brazil and Puerto Rico (and maybe Colombia?) I want to grow some, so I ordered a packet of seeds. It'll be late by the time they get here, but maybe if the plants once start, I can have them indoors. We'll see.



And here is some sidewalk art from Amherst, MA:



The third season of She-ra is out! So we can watch that now. Meanwhile, we've been watching Evangelion (I've seen it once before, but long ago), which means having the theme song ALWAYS IN MY HEAD.

Last Thursday wakanomori and I were in the town of Turner's Falls, and we saw this fabulous mural (photo is his).



So much story in there. I'm ready to like this lady of small creatures right away.