Really great interview with Jodie Foster in The Guardian!
"There’s something Hugh Grant said [..]: that the fame thing at a young age is like being shot up with steroids and you live with those big muscles your whole life, and then, one day, you make the decision that there are no more steroids. And you don’t recognise yourself and have no idea who you are. And you have to rebuild an entire identity. That can be difficult, and [..] I had to learn late.” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/06/jodie-foster-interview-true-detective
... and what do you think about the above interview, @actuallyautistic?
Jodie Foster:
“I’m not a multitasker. I’m a weird focused person. If there’s a spectrum, that’s my spectrum. It doesn’t matter if there are planes going by or if someone is calling my name, if I’m focused on something. I’m really good at going, no thank you, I’m not doing that.”
My radar was having hiccups so intense were my feelings while reading this...
#OnThisDay, January 6, in 1994, U.S. Figure Skating Champion Nancy Kerrigan was bludgeoned with a police baton on her right lower thigh by an assailant hired by the husband of her rival, Tonya Harding (depicted in I, Tonya, 2017, starring Margot Robbie)
We just passed the halfway point of our fundraising goal for Banned Books Back! Moms for Liberty, eat your hearts out! 😏
To recap, our collective received a serendipitous donation of children's books that had been removed from Florida schools as part of an ongoing effort to censor titles depicting queer joy, civil rights history, immigrant stories, and more. Right now, our collective is harboring dozens of boxes of these "dangerous" titles — but not for long. Later this month, we'll be calling on our local community to help package bundles and send these Banned Books... Back!
Thank you so much to the folks who have boosted this effort, including but not limited to Autostraddle, The Washington Post, LGBTQ Nation, so many rad bookseller buddies, and the 270+ folks who've donated. 💓
According to Jon Bakos on Bluesky, 🍉 (to show Palestinian solidarity) is the Political Word of the Year in the American Dialect Society voting. #Woty2023
Using #language to counter bias favoring masculine-specific representations:
• gender-unmarked forms (neutralization strategy, e.g., “l'enfant”) are not fully effective in neutralizing the masculine bias.
• contracted double forms (re-feminization strategy, e.g., “un·e enfant”) are more effective in promoting gender balance compared to gender-unmarked forms.
Love is not supposed to be beautiful. It’s supposed to be a raw, gritty struggle that forces you to face the most vulnerable parts of yourself, so that when the good times come, you can savor and enjoy them, fully appreciate what they’re worth. Otherwise, you take it all for granted. —Lana Myers
The Cairo Geniza is a collection of 400,000 documents found in a synagogue in Egypt that span the Middle-Eastern, North African, and Andalusian Jewish history between the 6th and 19th centuries CE, and comprise the largest and most diverse collection of medieval manuscripts in the world.
@baruch and you can access over 18.000, 4.000 of which have keywords 🤩
"Thanks to generous funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, over 4000 documentary Genizah manuscripts (e.g. letters and legal documents) have been associated with key terms - such as ‘cheese’, ‘pirates’, or ‘ gambling’ - as well as names, dates and places drawn from over 100 years of published scholarship on the Collection." https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/genizah/1 #JewishHistory@histodons
It's 4 January, the anniversary of Louis Braille's birth. Every year at this time, I like to reflect on a man who was a teacher in his lifetime, and who in the years after his death has taught us lessons of empowerment, resilience, and self-determination.
Every day, I am grateful for the gift of literacy he gave me and millions like me who are blind. In the last year, I have benefited from that gift by labelling and identifying items.
I have referred to copious notes in meetings as part of my job as a CEO. Also in that role, I know that if I take the time to proof a document with Braille, it will be accurate all the way down to picking up extraneous punctuation that I might miss with text-to-speech.
It has helped the global community of blind podcast listeners as I read aloud with fluency the many contributions that come into my Living Blindfully podcast. One of the most wonderful things about that podcast is when I hear from people who were denied Braille as a child, or who became blind later in life, who have told me that my reading Braille on the podcast has encouraged them to embark on their own Braille reading journey.
I've delivered presentations to audiences around the world, some of those were large audiences, and read my speech notes in Braille.
Best of all, Braille allows me to read stories for my granddaughter, just as I read to my own children when they were little.
My life would be very different, and very much the poorer, without it. And my story is not unusual. The data are clear that blind people who know Braille have a far higher chance of finding employment.
The story of the Braille code shows us that the best people to develop solutions for blind people are blind people ourselves. Louis Braille designed, then refined his code, and taught it to other blind people. There was a period where the books containing his code were burned. The Braille code was driven underground because some sighted people felt threatened by its otherness. They insisted that blind people should conform and read raised print, even though it was inefficient. Thankfully, the Braille code prevailed. That lesson is just as applicable today.
Some think Braille is no longer necessary because blind people have talking books and talking computers now. This view is wrong and harmful. To people who say these things, I say we'll give up Braille when sighted people stop reading print and use audio exclusively too. Braille is our equivalent to print. When something is under my fingertips, I remember it more clearly. It is the same as being a visual learner.
And Braille is more vibrant than ever, thanks to an exciting range of Braille displays. It is also a tool of profound significance for those who are DeafBlind, for whom audio isn't an option.
So once again, a toast to Louis Braille the man, and Braille the code which in New Zealand we capitalise to always remember his genius and his sacrifice.
@JonathanMosen this is great stuff, I especially thought about this snippet:
"Some think Braille is no longer necessary because blind people have talking books and talking computers now. This view is wrong and harmful. To people who say these things, I say we'll give up Braille when sighted people stop reading print and use audio exclusively too."
Braille and also print both allow for a VERY flexible reading velocity based on your capacity to understand the respective words!
📖 The Fragile Threads of Power, by @veschwab. What a promising start to this new trilogy! So much of what I loved from the Shades of Magic universe is still here, but also a lot of novelty and very strong characters building. ✨ https://kevinplattret.com/reads/the-fragile-threads-of-power
No good deed goes unpunished. As Ume discovers when she rescues Shiomi. Neither Shiomi nor the jealous, vengeful ghost that stalks her appreciates the act. Something they both make clear. As for Ume’s partner, Tomo, he is less than thrilled at the intrusion of an unpleasant third into their relationship. “I know I told you to find someone who would appreciate your advances, but I really question your taste.”
Come, follow Ume-san, Shiomi-san, and the increasingly exasperated Tomo as the three explore their attraction for each other in a world where creepy things wait and watch from the shadows.
I looked at the cigarette in my hand, thought, “What the hell?” and took a puff; “Ugh, unflavored.” But I’d finally gotten a kiss from my konbini girl, a secondary kiss, but a kiss.
Come, follow Ume-san, Shiomi-san, and the increasingly exasperated Tomo as the three explore their attraction for each other in a world where creepy things wait and watch from the shadows.
"Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh;
Shadows of the evening
Steal across the sky."
Now the Day Is Over
Anglican priest, hagiographer, antiquarian, novelist Sabine Baring-Gould died #OTD in 1924.
He is remembered particularly as a writer of hymns, the best-known being "Onward, Christian Soldiers", and "Now the Day Is Over". He also translated the carols "Gabriel's Message", & "Sing Lullaby" from Basque to English.