Hello all,
Today’s newsletter is sponsored by the number 13, my favorite number (along with 6) since I was in 5th grade out of spite of those who believed in luck or the devil. This is yet another attempt at consistency. Although I have recently heard about the “2-Day Rule,” where you try not to miss more than one day of a task you want to keep up with, since missing two days is where you start to flounder/get unmotivated. Idk, working so far this week.
Prose of the Month
We found ourselves, yet again, in front of Netflix, and a plea to watch Queen Charlotte. How could I, a wife, deny my husband another A Bridgerton Story™? Unfortunately, I enjoyed myself. However, I did not want my minimal annoyance and some enjoyment of this SINGLE Bridgerton story to be misconstrued as excusing *anything* having to do with Bridgerton. Hence, the above. I hope you enjoy my apparently controversial opinions!
Rabbitholes
Things I’ve learned, laughed about, and/or obsessed over
- living wage and an introduction to socialist economics, to be featured in an upcoming newsletter
- TikToks with the song Labour by Paris Paloma in them, which helped start my Curse Them playlist
- Holland and I watched all of the Fast and Furious movies with a friend to prepare her for Fast X, which has led to much sharing of Fast and Furious memes.
- ^Please share your theories below
- AND THEN we got to watch Fast X, AKA Jason Mamoa and John Cena Living Their Best Lives While Vin Diseal Alienates Everyone IRL. No Context Spoilers:
Book Búho
What I’ve been reading/listening to bc audiobooks let me do both. Yes, comics count.
- The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King, read by Lorne Cardinal – yes! I finally finished it from when I mentioned it a couple of newsletters ago! Pretty non-linear, telling a terrible story of colonizer conquest with great jokes along the way, and how Indigenous survival seems to require the use of “dead Indian” aesthetics. There’s way more I cannot encapsulate well at the moment.
- Ratchetdemic: Reimagining Academic Success by Christopher Emdin, read by the author – Emdin advocates for students and teachers to be allowed to be themselves in the classrooms, and to not have their spirit killed by conforming to the US Educational standard. He focuses on Black youth who have the traits (creativity, ingenuity, enthusiasm for learning, etc) that US schools say they want, but then specify that they want those traits to come out in a “correct”/white way. He is encouraging Black teachers especially to be themselves to be able to show their Black/IPOC students that there is room in the world for them. Everyone is “ratchet,” but schools really only let white students express their ratchet selves. I think he went a little long on the examples, therefore taking a bit to get to the meat of his argument, but I appreciate the message, and have been trying to argue for something like this through cultural capital.
- Speak of the Devil: How The Satanic Temple is Changing the Way We Talk About Religion by Joseph Laycock, read by Thomas Allen – This one was fun, since it’s mostly about a group that calls out Chrisitians who say they want “religion” in schools and public spaces, yet do not want any other religions included besides Christianity. I agree with their seven tenants, which they have used to argue that people should have access to abortions because of their religion. While The Satanic Temple is still struggling with being a religion or not, many have found community in the group. The group is also quite self-aware, and briefly talked about the whiteness of Satanic spaces.
- The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic by Leigh Bardugo, illustrated by Sara Kipin – This is technically part of the Grishaverse; it’s supposed to be a book of fairytales that are taught in the Grishaverse, like The Tales of Beedle The Bard for Harry Potter. I read this before touching anything else by Bardugo; I seem to be drawn to fairytale retellings. They all have a great and usually heart-wrenching twist. The last one is heartbreaking and beautifully told. Yet, when I picked up *Shadow and Bone* by Leigh Bardugo, expecting an even better story since she had the room to expound, I was disappointed with a romantic love triangle, which the 2000s and 2010s exhausted, and I had not encountered in Language of Thorns. By reading this one, I expected better from Bardugo in her novels.
- Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories by Kelly Barnhill – another example of a fantastic short story writer that, so far, while reading their novel I am a bit disappointed. The title is the perfect description for the content.
- Dying: A Memoir by Cory Taylor, read by Larissa Gallagher – a dying woman’s last non-chronological telling of her own life and death. It actually tends to go backwards in time. She doesn’t believe in an afterlife, and find community with others who are dying/are curious about discussing their own death.
Playlist of the Quarter
“Apparently,” I listen to my short playlists for a “wildly long time”
- Her – mostly Meghan Thee Stallion
- Curse Them – mostly wailing
Personal Chisme
chisme = gossip
- my little brother and two of my cousins graduated college!!!!!!!!!!!!
- My cousin had her baby and he is tiny!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just want to nap with him
- I found a new job! I will be working with adults with disabilities and essentially being a life buddy – not a caretaker, more like a peer mentor. (And the audience says, “Yea, that makes sense for her”)
The Void Shouts Back
If you would like to respond but don’t know what to say, answer the question below. If you don’t want to, just respond with keysmashing or send me a hug with your thoughts. If you don’t want to do that either, that’s okay too.
- Who are you proud of, besides yourself?
If you want to hear more Xisme, please check out my blog Colochos de Flores with the Xismosa Xit tab! If not, maybe you’ll check out my stickers?
Abrazos and/or high fives,
Ariana
Xismosa Xit 
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