More joy

[liv]

Everything is on fire, and besides I had half my tooth removed today. (Which is particularly annoying because it means I have to go to hospital to have the other half removed.)

So I reckon it's time for some sharing of joy. If you feel like participating, please add to the comments something that made you smile recently. Or an offer or request for something that might bring you more joy.

I'll start: Here's a really clever mashup of Paint it black with Back to black performed by a singer with a gorgeous voice. Thanks to cragdu for linking to it.

I can offer you recommendations if you pick a topic (eg books, music, people to follow on DW). Or I can send you or your favourite cause a small amount of money if you give me a convenient method of transferring it.

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

#tinyjoys a lovely housing officer who took our side in things.

Sorry you're feeling like your face is on fire, tooth pain is like no other

[liv]

Oh, I meant geopolitically everything is on fire. My tooth doesn't hurt very much, it's just been mildly unpleasant for about a month. I think I've taken two cocodamol in that time, while the dentist kept rescheduling my appointment. Thank you for sympathy, though.

I'm glad you have a good housing officer in a bad situation.

[alexseanchai]

definitely a joy!

[shreena]

I would love some book recommendations. Fairly light happy books.

[alexseanchai]

here's my thoughts-upon-first-read for Knit One, Girl Two by Shira Glassman (contemporary Jewish artist f/f) and Something Familiar by S. N. Arly (urban fantasy witch/shapeshifter f/m)

[liv]

Have you read The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison? It might be too fantasy-ish for you but it's a lovely book where everybody is basically extremely nice, apart from a few bad guys who are defeated by the force of niceness.

If YA isn't too light, how about Katy, by Jacqueline Wilson? It's an updated version of What Katy Did, and yes, it's about a girl who has a serious accident, but it's a really positive and I think really endearing book.

[batdina]

I'm always on the lookout for reading material. Suggestions?

Viz the world on fire: I hear you. We've got ours, you've got yours. I think whoever's gets put out first needs to help the other get theirs put out.

Slightly early Shabbat shalom.

[liv]

I am so looking forward to this Shabbat! A community member who's been very ill for a long time, and against all advice continuing to volunteer for everything, asked me to take over her slot to read Torah so she could go and do something fun for the first time in many months. And I gladly agreed, but then even more gladly ceded most of the reading to a visiting rabbi who has been a real mentor to me and who specially wanted to read the Song.

Books: Have you read any Rose Macaulay? She's having a bit of a revival lately, and she's very witty and not quite like anyone else. (She lived in the house where I lived in the later part of my teens, so I feel a kind of quasi-familial connection.) Her most famous book is Towers of Trebizond, I think probably her best is The world my wilderness, but most of them are great.

I am really fond of Anne Michaels' The winter vault. Her other very famous book, Fugitive pieces is also extremely good but at least half of it is directly about the Shoah, so although it's beautiful and moving it's not exactly joyful.

[batdina]

I grabbed the Macaulay The world is my wilderness. Am considering the Anne Michaels'. Thanks for the suggestions.

[warriorsavant]

At the risk of tooting my own horn (blog): https://warriorsavant.dreamwidth.org/717355.html That does include Goblin Emperor, which I loved.

Probably anything I have tagged as "books" has recommendations.

[batdina]

thank you! always fine with me to toot one's own horn.

[warriorsavant]

*toot* *toot*
Glanced at your journal. Glad you are on the mend. Some interesting writing. Please take a look at mine, and considering friending.
(PS: Origins of Totalitarianism should be required reading)

[batdina]

Origins of Totalitarianism should be required reading

Yes, it should be.

[alexseanchai]

Vathara, who I think is best known for writing the 700K Avatar: the Last Airbender canon divergence AU Embers (which, that fic is epic, its quality is goals), kudosed me like thirty times this week.

actually you know what, here's my ko-fi. having zero income for over a year grates for reasons including but far from limited to a commissioning fanworks budget of nada.

[liv]

Ooh, nice, how lovely to get kudos from a writer you admire :-)

Ko-fi money sent, I'm really pleased you felt able to drop the link here.

[alexseanchai]

right? (omg senpai noticed me)

😻

[seekingferret]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU8YyVOPC0o

[liv]

Oh, that is delightful, thanks for the video!

[independence1776]

My greatest joy this week: I managed to back everything up from my very old and probably dying computer.

Do you have any recommendations for either Jewish scifi/fantasy or blogs or books about halachah?

[liv]

Jewish fantasy: my favourite is Marie Brennan's Lady Trent series, starting with A natural history of dragons. It's about a Victorian lady explorer, in an AU that has a] dragons and b] no Christianity; everybody in European-derived cultures is Jewish. The second aspect is very much in the background; a lot of my non-Jewish friends didn't even realize, but it's really happy-making.

I don't know as much about halacha as I should. I recommend looking through the archives of R' Chaim Weiner (Masorti rabbi and halachist)'s blog: A question of Jewish law, which I think hasn't been active for a couple of years but has really good stuff, clearly explained. I also recommend R' Dr Nathan Lopes Cardozo's blog at the Times of Israel. It's not exclusively about halacha, it's often parshe commentary mixed in, but it's a good gateway to some of his halachic writing. He's probably best described as maverick Orthodox, I think.

Books: this is going to seem like a bit of a weird rec but I learned a lot from Blu Greenberg's How to run a traditional Jewish household. It's quite old, and coming from a perspective that was feminist by the standards of 1980s Orthodoxy, but still assuming that "running a household" is a woman's job. She's really good at explaining how you get from theoretical halacha to actual practical day-to-day actions.

[independence1776]

Ooh, Lady Trent! I read and loved the first two books, but the orange print in the third (I think it's the third?) made it really difficult to read, so I stopped halfway through. I own them; they're on my to-read/re-read list and they just got bumped up.

Thank you for the blog recs! A quick skim through both shows I'm going to have some happy reading hours ahead of me.

I will definitely check out that book; it sounds exactly what I was hoping for.

Thank you!

[warriorsavant]

This sounds like fun. Just reserved it at my public library.

[emperor]

If you'd like another mashup - this one of Seven Nation Army & Sweet Dreams is pretty good...

[liv]

Cool, thanks! I do love random bits of creativity like that.

[doseybat]

Being home and not in Madagascar is So. Lovely.

More book recs very much appreciated! Loved Murderbot.

[liv]

You are amazing at saying no to things. All the kudos!

More books, hm. I think you might appreciate Ring of swords by Eleanor Arnason. It's about understanding and misunderstanding alien cultures.

[doseybat]

yay thank you!

[redbird]

More people to follow here would be nice.

[liv]

Hm, I feel like you already know everybody! Have you met ambyr? She goes to Scintillation sometimes, so you might have met in person. She's interested in books and theatre and games and poly and random cool things. I think you'd find slashmarks' journal interesting - scroll past the fanfic posts if they're not your thing.

[solitarywalker]

At a meeting. One of the items on the agenda was an announcement of a change which should be transparent. But i had a question, which was answered, then i wanted something clarified, after which i had a related question, and that was answered too. Then there was a pause, then the person very nearly started moving on to the next thing but stopped short, perhaps expecting yet another interruption. So i said: i'm done. And everyone laughed and the meeting moved on.

[liv]

Thank you, I appreciate the little snippet of a pleasant moment in the meeting.

[rosefox]

A couple of people have said very kind things to me recently.

[liv]

Oh, hooray for kindness. I'm so glad to hear it.

[hunningham]

My neighbours have a scots pine in their garden, and I can see it from the kitchen window when I wash up. Beautiful tree.

[liv]

Thank you for telling me about something beautiful. My office is at the other end of campus from the main entrance, and we tell visitors to access it by going past the "lovely tree" (a huge and probably quite venerable oak). It's a very good thing to have in my life.

[azurelunatic]

I have been enjoying Courtney Milan's books, to derive some good out of the upheavals in Romancelandia. They are very sweet but engaged with injustice in a way I found enlightening and satisfying.

I also finished reading the Ancillary Justice series, and found it solid as well. I like spending time with Breq, I find the concept of ancillaries and that level of technology fascinating, and there's plenty of tea-drinking and engagement with the matter of cheap labor.


My PayPal is azurelunatic at gmail, if you feel so inclined.

[liv]

Ooh, I have Ancillary Mercy still to look forward to, that is a pleasing thought.

And I should read more romance, I've seen lots of good recs from my friends lately.

I've sent some money, thanks for asking.

[azurelunatic]

I was very pleased with Ancillary Mercy, and Administrator Celar continues to be a great beauty.

[shewhostaples]

It is a beautiful bright clear day here(as I guess you know!) and I have just had my hair cut.

[liv]

I am enjoying the weather, definitely. And yay haircut, thank you for telling me about it.

[shewhostaples]

:-) Here's a picture. (Plus small good things for the rest of the year so far on the #366daysofdelight hashtag.)

[ayebydan]

My mum's dog is losing her vision and while that is not joyous of course it has been lovely to see my dog and mum's other pup react. They sense when Senna is struggling and will go and check things for themselves and if they realise there is nothing to fear they have begun ushering her away from whatever startled her.

[rysmiel]

I am in the middle of rereading both the Long Price quartet and Necroville and am enjoying them immensely.

Yesterday in work I finally resolved a problem that had been outstanding for a week and a half, which involved interactions between a couple of different pieces of software written in languages I have very little familiarity with. It was pleasantly surprising to be able to abstract functionality enough to fix this without having to put a couple of weeks into learning the relevant languages.

Then last night we finished the second game of Pandemic:Legacy Season 1 I have been involved with, and we are talking about not only playing season 2 with that same set of people but what set of people would be interested in a third iteration of season 1 at some point. And since then we have also had a very fun game of the "superbug" variant from the Stare of Emergency expansion we for for Christmas.

And people are arriving for tonight's through-reading of Henry V, and we look to be on track for geting through all the history plays in order by may or June.

[hairyears]

My fellow exiles and co-workers in Dublin turn out to be very welcoming people: that's a thing I've missed, and not known I missed it, working on the London trading floors.

Friday was Cake Day in the office: it is exactly what you think it is.

[rysmiel]

Largely inspired by this thread, for the first time in a while I took on trying to get things from old mostly-defunct computers, and it went better than it has in ages, I have retrieved at least one thing from five years ago that I had basically given up on. (Yay never throwing old computers out.)

[silveradept]

I'm not sure what would bring me joy at this point, but apart from the world being on fire, there's nothing immediately that I can point to as a cause of why the days aren't super full of joy.

So maybe something for when you're just there and nothing is spectacular or terrible.