From 89b1e3ac183d161d6957ad29cbe36f8a3aef1472 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Lethe Beltane Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2024 19:51:27 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] New poem: Library Prompt II --- 2024_books.html | 18 ++++++++++++++++++ 2024_music.html | 6 ++++++ blog/2024/{february => 02}/diamond.html | 2 +- blog/index.html | 2 +- index.html | 1 + poetry/index.gmi | 1 + poetry/index.gph | 1 + poetry/l/library2.txt | 25 +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 8 files changed, 54 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) rename blog/2024/{february => 02}/diamond.html (95%) create mode 100644 poetry/l/library2.txt diff --git a/2024_books.html b/2024_books.html index b918775..4049a2f 100755 --- a/2024_books.html +++ b/2024_books.html @@ -127,6 +127,24 @@ Annette Atkins + + 2024-W14 + Women of Minnesota: Selected Biographical Essays + Barbara Stuhler and Gretchen V. Kreuter + I had to skip large swathes of this book because, being written in the 1970s, many parts were outdated. It was good to finally know the woman behind the one Betsy-Tacy book my mother had given me as a child, though. + + + 2024-W15 + Code Girls + Liza Mundy + Technically I listened to the audiobook version. + + + 2024-W16 + Talking to My Angels + Melissa Etheridge + I cried a few times. + diff --git a/2024_music.html b/2024_music.html index 1cbbf2d..1d40619 100755 --- a/2024_music.html +++ b/2024_music.html @@ -109,6 +109,12 @@ Indigo Girls Favorite track: Sister + + 2024-W13 + Look Long + Indigo Girls + + diff --git a/blog/2024/february/diamond.html b/blog/2024/02/diamond.html similarity index 95% rename from blog/2024/february/diamond.html rename to blog/2024/02/diamond.html index 48031e0..b3b0d98 100755 --- a/blog/2024/february/diamond.html +++ b/blog/2024/02/diamond.html @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@

Now that I've finally been able to go and properly review Diamond, I can confidently say that it's a worse Twitter (a low bar to clear, as Twitter has been a shithole for at least a decade) with a profit motive attached to it. A profit motive that undermines the whole point of a "social" network, as it leads every user to look out for only themselves and see others solely as wallets to extract money from in increasingly ludicrous rent-seeking schemes. Everything becomes about increasing the value of your "Creator Coin" so that you and your followers can profit; piss off the wrong person, and they sell their coins, tanking your Creator Coin price and making the rest of your followers feel betrayed.

The profit motive is poisonous to both art and to true social connection. The latter because the prospect of making money through posts entices one to spend more and more hours of their day behind a screen, churning out content instead of using the platform merely as a means of arranging interactions offline and away from the keyboard. And the former because, in a world with a collapsing economy and the majority of the resources concentrated in a minuscule global elite, the only people who will have the time and energy to make art (with the exception of those in isolated societies outside of the industrialized world altogether) are those who can make enough money off their art to survive, which means appealing to the tastes of said elite and avoiding offending them for fear of having their revenue stream taken away.

To quote Ursula Le Guin:

-
Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between the production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not quite the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.
+
Right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between the production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not quite the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.

This is not the kind of life I want to live. This is not the kind of world I want to help bring into being.

And besides, "DESO" was already Dead End Shrine Online to me. A swirling vortex of all the ugly things about capitalism, or a metal shed in the wilderness where I can make art without distractions and give away the things I make with no thought of profit in return. Which one do you think I'd prefer?

diff --git a/blog/index.html b/blog/index.html index 733135b..3e31d99 100755 --- a/blog/index.html +++ b/blog/index.html @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ diff --git a/index.html b/index.html index 0f1c21b..33bf175 100755 --- a/index.html +++ b/index.html @@ -54,6 +54,7 @@

Announcement Box

diff --git a/poetry/index.gmi b/poetry/index.gmi index 9428dce..ff1f713 100755 --- a/poetry/index.gmi +++ b/poetry/index.gmi @@ -99,6 +99,7 @@ => l/lawliet.txt Lawliet => l/latch-or-perch.txt Latch Or Perch => l/library1.txt Library Prompt I +=> l/library2.txt Library Prompt II ## M => m/melia.txt Melia diff --git a/poetry/index.gph b/poetry/index.gph index 917299b..6c63219 100755 --- a/poetry/index.gph +++ b/poetry/index.gph @@ -100,6 +100,7 @@ iL 0Lawliet l/lawliet.txt 0Latch Or Perch l/latch-or-perch.txt 0Library Prompt I l/library1.txt +0Library Prompt II l/library2.txt iM 0Melia m/melia.txt diff --git a/poetry/l/library2.txt b/poetry/l/library2.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e008db0 --- /dev/null +++ b/poetry/l/library2.txt @@ -0,0 +1,25 @@ +Library Prompt II +2024-04-10 + +*** + +At the writer's club, Jett, and there are more +people here than I bargained for. +More one-timers that will disappear +next month when there are no guest speakers. +Jett, I'm supposed to query +you for this writing exercise: +how do you decide +what things to be wary +of and what to accept as true and right? +What criteria do you abide by? + +Guest author looks me in the eyes +and says, "No poetry, +but any genre of prose is fine." +I'm sure you'll come to understand my iniquity: +you *are* a published writer of crime. + +*** + +CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander \ No newline at end of file