Follow Friday 12-20-24: Folk

Today's theme is Folk Music.


beautifulmechanical -- Beautiful Mechanical
Do you love music? We do, too.
[Active with multiple posts in December.]

onesongaday -- One Song A Day
You love music? Come share, listen, enjoy.
[Active with multiple posts in December.]

Friday Five

These questions come from thefridayfive.

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Internet Popularity

This post talks about scale and internet popularity.

I'm not interested in that kind of scale.  I am aware that many people chase numbers online.  But in my experience, crowds tend to ruin things.  I like having an audience where there's time to get to know people, even if I don't know all of them equally well.  If I had a thousand readers, I wouldn't have that kind of interaction, which would suck.  Dreamwidth is well equipped to support relationship, and lacks the kind of number-focused features common to short-form social media.  I like this about it. 

Genocide

This article talks about the connection between nationalism and genocide. 

Video: "Carol of the Bells" and "Imperial March" mashup

This works disturbingly well. 

Read "Holiday Tree"

duskpeterson made a wonderful fill for the Creative Jam in "Holiday Tree." 

Pool Update

The pool is closed for the Holiday Poetry Sale. All pool poems have been marked accordingly on the sale page. The sale itself ends Friday night, so if you're still shopping, now's the time to make your selections.

Below is the list of poems sponsored by the pool.  (The crossed-out number is the half-price rate and the second is the quarter-price rate.) Thank you for your generosity! It will take me a long time to post all these poems. Please be patient, and keep an eye on this page to make sure you catch them all as they go up.

"Follow Your Heart and Intuition" ($36, $18)
"Whoever Tries to Understand" ($31, $15.50)
"Unexpected Circumstances and Unseen Dangers" ($39, $19)
"Not the Machines, But the Peoole" ($22, $11)
"Utilizing Your Skills and Resourcefulness" ($21, $10.50)
"The Ubiquity of Sparrows" ($10, $5)
"The Democratic Armada of the Carribean" ($254, $127)
"A Peaceful Air of Reflection" ($37, $18.50)
"Reading the Seas" ($106.50, $53.25)
"The Bookstore Cat" ($2.50, $1.25)
Darrow poems ($20, $10)
Missing You Haiku ($15, $7.50)
"With You Wherever You Go" ($10, $5)
"When You're Lost, You Question Everything" ($119, $59.50)
"Preserving the Quality and Character" ($173, $86.50)
"So Much Gray Area" ($128.50, $64.25)
"Thaw With Her Gentle Persuasion" ($147, $73.50)
"Not Alone in Your Struggles" ($105.50, $52.75)
"How They Braid Together" ($135, $67.50)
"Acceptable Humans" ($58.50, $29.25)
"The Twin Corners of a Civilized Society" ($74, $37)
"A Marvel of Mechanical Skill" ($195, $97.50)
"Yankee Doodle Dinner" ($143, $71.50)
"So Monumental and Still" ($162, $61)
"What's Given by Nature" ($65, $32.50)
"The Wall in the Room We Shared" ($129, $64.50)

Animal Sex

Sex in the animal kingdom can get extremely weird.  Add this to your collection of fun things to say to the gender police until they cringe and flee.  Also, pegging fans now have a subtle signalling option: wear a T-shirt or button of a barklouse with the species name.

Not spiders, but barklice (Neotrogla), which aren’t flies and aren’t lice, but a kind of true bug, have completely reversed sex roles.

The female has a penis-like protrusion called a gynosome, which is erectile and curved. The male has no such organ; he has an internal chamber instead. When she penetrates him during sex, he delivers sperm into a duct in her gynosome, which leads to a storage organ. He still ejaculates, but he does so inside his own body, not hers.

Birdfeeding

Today started out sunny but has clouded over since. It's cold and blustery outside. Last night it snowed a little, leaving a narrow line of white along the roof and a few bits scattered around the fields.

I fed the birds. I've seen a large flock of sparrows plus a male and a female downy woodpecker separately.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 12/20/24 -- We marked where to plant the hollies and dug a small starter hole there. Then I carried the holly pot to set there in preparation for tonight's Midwinter ritual.

I've seen several house finches.

EDIT 12/20/24 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen at least two male cardinals chasing each other around the forest garden, and there might have been three.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Lord of the Rings Is the Greatest Christmas Movie

This actually is a pretty good list of arguments. 

Artificial Intelligence

Here's an interesting article about using artificial intelligence to write, or more properly, to brainstorm ideas for writing.

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Happy Yule!

We held our Yule ritual tonight. :D




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Poem: "Follow Your Heart and Intuition"

This poem came out of the May 7, 2024 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from chanter1944. It also fills the "(Im)Perfect" square in my 5-1-24 card for the Superhero Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to An Army of One series.

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Poem: "Whoever Tries to Understand"

This poem is spillover from the September 3, 2024 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from chanter1944. It also fills the "Agency and Power" square in my 9-1-24 card for the People with Disabilities Drabble Fest Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to An Army of One series.

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Poem: "Unexpected Circumstances and Unseen Dangers"

This poem is spillover from the August 6, 2024 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from chanter1944. It also fills the "unseen" square in my 8-1-24 card for the Discworld Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It belongs to An Army of One series.

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