Yellow Submarine Session 4

These are pictures from Session 4 of building the Yellow Submarine.

Here are all four Beatles.  \o/


From this side you can now see the rudder of the Yellow Submarine, which moves.


Here is a top view.


This is the bottom.  You can see the propellers.  They really spin.


This is the upper deck.


See the top view of the Yellow Submarine with the deck in place.


This is the side/bottom view.

Resistance While Disabled

Terrific post on resisting while disabled or otherwise limited.

Also, use your folding vote!  They may care fuckall about your rights, but they sure care about their profits.

Yellow Submarine Session 5

We finished assembling the Yellow Submarine!  \o/  We enjoyed putting this together.  I recommend it for Beatles fans and Lego fans.  Young fans or others with low dexterity may need extra help putting it together, as some of the pieces are finicky.  We found it worth the time, though.

( We're done playing with Legos! )

Thank you!

... to all the folks who came to the Hard Things cuddlepile.  Moral support makes life suck a little less, and that's what those posts are for. 

More on Speculative Poetry

I found another discussion about the Rhysling Award controversy I mentioned earlier.  "A Speculative Kerfluffle" quotes several sources, including my post.  Woohoo, people read it!  \o/  The exploration of issues is quite thoughtful.

This led to an interesting survey on "What is speculative poetry?"  

Notice that there is consensus regarding the core (science fiction, fantasy, etc.) but not the fringe (surrealism, metaphor, etc.) of the content.  In particular, I call your attention to the splatter of opinions about tropes, metaphor, simile, analogy, and other literary devices.  Why is this so important?  Because people argue over whether something is literal or figurative.  I've watched this happen: "Well, the coffin is clearly a metaphor..."  "No, I meant what I said.  The vampire is in a coffin, floating through outer space."  Doesn't get much more speculative than that, does it?  Except when people don't believe you.  0_o

Now add the fact that cultural interpretation of symbols will vary widely  across cultures, and one culture may have highly speculative connotations while another does not.  Frex, the snake.  A basic emblem of lies and death in Christian lore, the snake is a sacred embodiment of the Goddess and transformation (due to shedding skin) in Pagan lore.  So for Pagans, it's more speculative because we'll think of shapeshifters, magic, and life/death/rebirth.  Christians are likely to count it only if they also  count religion/cosmology in general as speculative or they equate snakes with the Devil sufficiently to land it in the angel/devil subgenre that many folks consider speculative.

Clothing the Resistance

unmutual has "Fight for Your Rights" (with a fist) on t-shirts, pillows, postcards, and other items.

Also the creator says, "I'm donating a portion of all proceeds from the Brassorchids shop to the ACLU & Planned Parenthood as well. And I'm going to duplicate the shop on Zazzle, hopefully to double the exposure."