Literary and media historian. Not my employer’s account. She/they/punk rock tomboy. Settler on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh land. Setter of types, maker of typos. A person whose first object in life is a joke.
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2026-07-22T07:26:40Z Event JSON
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Last Notes npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic we have had a weirdly damp winter even for Vancouver, but my neighbourhood (next to the port: it is Squamish territory, and has had, and has, waves of immigration—Jewish, Italian, Black from California and the Caribbean, Chinese, and Slavic people) is the historic clothesline capital of the city. Here’s what my yard will look like if it ever stops raining. I would like to see neighbourhoods install covered communal long clotheslines in parks. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic #FreetheClothesline npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic The collies found two toilet paper rolls. The 7-year-old dog managed to capture both rolls. Very high-value—even more than socks, almost as much as large bully sticks or biscuits. She is carrying both rolls around in her mouth while whining and whistling, and protecting them from the 2-year-old dog by growling at him, until she has a chance to bury the rolls beneath the bed pillows. #dogsofmastodon #bordercollie npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic The branch manager came by this morning #dogsofmastodon npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic to the middle-aged white man who blocked my young daughter’s path as she was running today and alerted him that she was approaching on his left, laughed at her when she crashed into him (she is *fast*), and then said, “serves you right, smarty”: women, even very young and old ones, have a right to move their bodies fast in public spaces. They don’t owe you a smile, the sidewalk, or their stillness and silence. Check your effing privilege. Signed, a mum and a runner. #running #RunningWhileFemale npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic You’ve heard of #ElfOnTheShelf. But have you considered . . . ? #philosophy #Spinoza #Hanukkah npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic It’s autumn in collie land #dogsofmastodon #bordercollie npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic oh yes, for sure, and this is an insight, really crucially, of some critical race theory, in particular Patricia Williams’s Alchemy of Race and Rights, which brilliantly subjects the abstractions of contract to real-world questions about the historical unevenness of power and its consequences—particularly for people whose forebears were objects rather than agents of contract. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic #literature folk, esp colleagues in #C18 and #C19: does anyone have easy access to the Oxford World’s Classics Persuasion—preferably the Kinsley and Lynch edition, but Kinsley alone is fine—and could tell me the page number of the final page of Vol 1, Ch 10? I am tidying footnotes at home on a deadline, tomorrow is a stat and I live an hour from my office, and my respectable Persuasion edition is at work. Thank you so so so much if you can help. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic the regime south of the border will now, absent a body of studies, order MDs to prescribe #acetaminophen to pregnant people only in cases of fever with risk of febrile damage to fetuses. I will only point out that withholding pain relief in #pregnancy and childbirth has long been practiced in some quarters as a disciplinary value in line with Genesis 3:17: “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow [pain] and thy conception; in sorrow [pain] thou shalt bring forth children.” npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic This is a major reason for the insecurity and easy losses of/in the liberal status quo with specific respect to gender relations and gendered rights. The liberal status quo in this area is not worth defending. As the current regime is contested, and if some kind of restoration is to take place, it must radically rethink the intellectual basis, confirmation, and organization of authority at the heart and foundation of the American polity. 10/x. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic and depends on it for legitimacy. The political scientist Carol Pateman called this “the sexual contract” and argued that patriarchy is therefore not unique to absolutist/strongman/divine right politics but has a submerged and lasting presence in liberalism as well. 9/x npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic Locke says that women’s irrationality and sexual allure is dangerous in the public sphere. Fortunately the natural, conjugal contract that precedes the public sphere’s formation as a gathering of rational male citizens excludes women’s disruptiveness from political decisionmaking. The so-called “social contract” that sees citizens contract with each other to submit their natural right to a delegated state authority, whether parliament or president, requires women’s exclusion for stability 8/x npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic Such things are human, not divine. However, Locke continued, though born free, women have less physical strength and mental capacity than men, and pregnancy makes them vulnerable. Born equal in natural right, women are born unequal in capacity. This makes women—from Eve to all women for time immemorial—eager to submit to a male protector, giving sexual, domestic, and childcare services in exchange for protection. This, Locke says, is the first contract. And all governments form in contract. 7/x npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic So the precedent remains in the Anglo-American world. Moreover, it’s crucial to consider John Locke’s 1690 response to Filmer in Two Treatises of Government. In the Second Treatise, Locke - super-influential on US political thought, of course, including the Declaration of Independence - totally rejected Filmer’s idea that royal authority is a divine grant of right to husbands and by extension to fathers. Men and women, he declared, are born free and equal. God created no kingship. 6/x npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic At that point they’d also become petty kings. (This is why killing one’s husband was described in English law as “petit traison.”) 5/x npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic God’s banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden, understood of course as historical fact, was, Filmer argued, the first divine grant of kingship. Adam became a king and Eve his first subject (KJV, God to Eve: “thy desire shall be to thine husband and he shall rule over you.” The KJV makers chose the language of “rule” for a cynical Stuart-absolutist reason.) Cain and Abel and subsequent children would also be subjects, but their subjection would last only until they founded households. 4/x npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic This gender politics is not new in the US and not unique to the far right. Historians of “the Enlightenment” know that the “patriarchy debates” of the period surrounding the English Civil War and 1688-9 “Glorious” revolution feature the domestic roles of men and women as sources of political authority. Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha, of 1680, argued that the God-given right of kings is bound up with, derived from and confirmed by, each king’s status as a husband and father going back to Eden. 3/x npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic Absolutely true that strongmen rely on the paterfamilias to be a mini-strongman: the strongman’s authority is a compendium of his supporters’ donations of strength. The current trifecta of white reproductivity, suppression of non-white populations, and “the family vote”/ removed of women from workplaces/the public sphere indeed performs and confirms the rightful strength and authority of the white father-husband, thereby confirming big daddy’s power as well. But—and it is a big but— 2/x npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic Adrienne Matei’s Guardian article on why far right regimes need “tradwives” misses a key point. She quotes historian Claudia Koonz’s 1980 interview with Nazi lady’s-mag propagandist Gertrude Scholz-Klink: “Scholz-Klink made domestic and reproductive duty feel prestigious, rather than peremptory, helping ‘the Nazi party make ordinary women feel valued in a way that other women in more liberal parties didn’t, Koonz says.” https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/sep/21/fascism-women-homemaker-trad-wife 1/x longish thread. #gender #history #liberalism npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic During the Vancouver stop on her Farewell Tour on Thursday, the resplendent Cyndi Lauper told about how, growing up in Queens c 1960, she loved how the hurricane fences let her look across all the yards to the end of the block, and how everyone had a washing machine but drying was done outside. “The wind took the sheets up like big sails and it became magic,” she said. I’m 20 years younger than Cyndi but grew up in the same kind of neighbourhood and live in one now. Here’s to #clothesline magic. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic snow geese because of the numbers and dynamism of their migration. Bluebirds because they are like a piece of the sky. (We don’t have them here, so this off-course mountain bluebird had birders flocking to see him a couple of years ago.) Hermit and Swainson’s thrushes because they herald summer, and the latter’s song. This hermit was in my garden. Owls, especially great horned; this family was near my parents’ house. Any hummingbirds because their flight is so effortful. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic I so admire stalwart mothers like you. An inspiration. I’m having a really hard mum day and reading this is immensely cheering. Thank you for your courage and love. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic will add: my dog rolls in human poop on most hikes we take. I was taught: bury it or pack it out. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic my beloved six-year-old dog has a new cancer diagnosis and is very sick. No “No Kings” protest for us today. Solidarity to everyone in the streets, especially those at 1075 West Pender, Vancouver, at 11. No pasarán. #NoKings #NoTyrants npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic and traumatize dogs and anyone who has survived gun- or explosives-based violence. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic #silentSunday npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic I look forward to the correct answer :) npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic flycatcher, obvs. Cordilleran? (I have so many pics of local sightings I can’t identify beyond “flycatcher/phoebe/peewee.”) npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic great photo! I’ve never seen one. (Blackburnian?) npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic Incoming administration attacks on Social Security in the US will disproportionately affect older single women and partnered older gay women—the poorest demographics in the country. This is not separate from attacks on reproductive freedom or the 19th Amendment. (As a single woman, I’m also nervous about a different kind of attack on Old Age Security in Canada: on the “unfair burden” aging pop places on younger demos who struggle to afford housing. As an Xer, I’m well aware—and will need OAP!) npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic (2): I bind books, set type, do woodcut + copperplate, make ink + paper, and sew—all analogue communications technologies that had by the 1790s developed global reach in concert with transport infrastructure. (Studying this stuff is what I do professionally.) I see fedi’s do-it-yourself-in-community ethos as continuous with the above and also with early freenets from the Whole Earth Lectronic Link on. There’s a maker-user aspect in public spheres that act as commons. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic #silentSunday #dogsofMastodon npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic #silentsunday #dogsofmastodon npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic What is true: birds need vertical barriers that segment glass visually 4 inches apart, so that they perceive the verticals as a barrier to flight. You can make these using wood or plastic strips and paracord. For DIY instructions: https://www.birdsavers.com/make-your-own/ The cords are not ugly. Since I installed mine when a pine siskin hit my balcony window five years ago, I haven’t had a single bird strike. It’s most crucial to do this if you live in a leafy area & your window glass reflects foliage. #birds 2/2 npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic for urban and migratory birds, the biggest human-caused hazards are habitat loss, cat predation, and building strikes. Cats should be kept indoors: that’s a hill I’ll die on (and the shelters I’ve adopted from required a pledge to that effect.) People can petition cities to fix building codes—but we can also amend our own dwellings to keep birds safe. This article quotes “building experts” that “decals” on windows work best to prevent strikes. That isn’t true. https://wapo.st/4cfAWNz #birds 1/2 npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic I will just add that one consequence of the street reselling of dental stuff is that the alleys in my neighborhood are full of discarded flossers. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic oh, wow. So this is really a thing. I’m so sorry you couldn’t easily find what your friend needed. Around here dental product aisles are often empty, but it’s because people take them to resell on the street. They are only in stock if locked down, and I don’t tend to frequent the locked down kinds of places. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic thank you for this! Seems like North American Pacific markets are serviced by LG—in pharmacies and groceries in California; via Amazon’s sulphurous drop shipper gang in BC? npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic also, Amazon claims Johnson and Johnson makes it but the website on the package sends you to the Korean head office of LG, which I associate with washing machines that break down a lot. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic I don’t know? I’m sorry it shrunk. My suspicion of Reach as it now exists is that it has only the word “Reach” on it—no larger corporate info or product info—and, at least here, exists only on Amazon, where most things I buy seem to be either fake or strange one-offs with names like RoIFedz or SuseeSweetEar. npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic PS Reach now exists only on Amazon as a strange own-branded or counterfeit product. And! You have to “subscribe” or buy packs of 6, 8 or 10 at around $9 each. #no npub1kzmkk9dgwyrg50z38d0nwmendcq7vyj38f9amu2hzxq88n07929q55mtme Real Syntactic people in Canada, please help: all dental floss except “flossers” (lengths of floss attached to “disposable” plastic brackets, i.e. plastic waste) and Glide floss (Teflon coated and therefore a source of forever chemicals) appears to have disappeared from the shelves and websites of London Drugs, Shoppers Drugmart, Pharmasave, all Loblaws brands, Safeway, and Save-On Foods. What’s going on? And what’s a sensible human who just wants their Johnson & Johnson/ Reach regular old waxed floss to do?
