Motley Kamuka

Saara El-Arifi wrote Cleopatra (2026). Now I'm not one to chase Cleo, though I have quite enjoyed Shakespeare's Cleopatra and Antony . I have read some history on her, and I do like things set in Egypt.  I like  Hatshepsut after going to the Met Museum, and read the wonderful book by Kara Cooney . I loved her book on what we know from archaeology, and what we can speculate wisely about based on an expert, and what we don't know. I felt her book had epistemic character, and telling the truth and being epistemically transparent is important to me now. I even like Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie, looking at the old monuments along the river. I know I'm casting a wide net, too wide of a net, but it's become a category in my head.  I want to get that all out into the world so I don't force it on people in the book club. I'm blasting through this book because the book club is coming up soon, and I'm determined to go to a black and brown women's book...

Already fascinated, reading Luminous by Silvia Park, by an imaginary future Bodhisattva called the Buddha of the Miasma . I'm not even sure what miasma is, but it was pretty big in Hellenism, the idea that is kind of putrid fog would pass diseases on. Like things that smelled bad would cause sickness. We know it's germs or fleas or whatever now, but it's possible that the smelly vapor had germs or fleas sometimes. Today it's mostly used as a metaphor for despair. Korea has a strong Buddhist culture, they have the two best Buddhist movies ( Mandala (1981) and Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall ... Spring (2001)). It's just a detail in this sci-fi novel, that is also a police procedural, and a family novel, three in one.  Ms. Park teaches in Kansas and lives in Korea when she's not teaching.  Notes on things I've learned, had to look up: There is a shopping center in New Zealand called Silvia Park.  Joseon architecture (1392–1910) is defined by simplicity, balan...

This week I'm reading my pile, not focusing on one book, moving on when I get tired of what I'm reading. I start my day with Blind Owl by  Sadeq Hedayat . A surreal, dark, and cyclical novella about a pen-case painter caught in an opium-induced state of alienation, heartbreak, and madness. Reread some of Meeting The Buddhas by Vessantara on the Vajrasattva sadhana, and he pulls up short, you need a teacher to get this full sadhana. This is a book for understanding Tibetan Buddhism and the panoply in their mythology, which you can use to supercharge your understanding of Buddhism. Rereading Boundless Heart by Christina Feldman. It's not a robot's disinterest, it's human not getting too caught up on the results. Sort of the opposite of capitalism that measures and expects and demands profits. She doesn't say that, I'm riffing off her. She dwell in the brahma viharas of metta, karuna, mudits and upeksha.  Reading  Itivuttaka for the first time. It's a s...

The 8th MurderBot novel by Martha Wells is another entry into this fine series of books at a security unit that isn't all machine, and also isn't all human. It has organic parts and looks mostly like a human. And yet it's pure killing machine, designed to keep it's assets alive, get them out of dangerous situations in a science fiction future where corporations are at war with each other, and do dastardly thing.  There's an Apple tv show that is okay, based on it. It kind of shows that a minimalist non-human narrator can run an action novel. Many of the 8 are pretty short, which is good. Does it's constant risk assessment tell us about our present? Does it's ruthless focus on saving individual lives tell us something?

  That this won the Nebula, Hugo and AC Clarke awards, a first, doesn't mean it's necessarily the best scifi novel.  From St. Louis Missouri, she studied with Octavia Butler. There are 3 novels and 3 spinoffs from the same universe.  I like it so far.

I've watched so many of her things on YouTube, I think I know her more than most of my close friends. I know she doesn't like going down on woman but she's attracted to Elliot Page, "maybe that could work." I know she had plastic surgery to cut off some belly flab. She got into a cereal paradox loop where you add milk to dry cereal and more cereal to too much milk. For a while she couldn't fall asleep unless she tapped her asshole 150 times. Her sister has talked about her rape. She talks about her mother, who is the top in a lesbian relationship. Let it all hang out baby, there's something really healthy about just talking about everything, I feel. My southern baptist relatives wouldn't think so. The things she says with Steph Tolev. Wow. They talk fast and low, but wow. I like her introducing me to her friends and family. I like Melissa Villaseñor now, Ivy Wolk. I publish things so I have a place to put thoughts about certain things, and I often don...