Jonah Sutton-Morse

Goat surveying her domain

A blurry photo of a white goat on a rock looking out over a foggy meadow, with trees in the background

Golda needed to get porcupine quills removed from her muzzle this evening. After that, everyone went out for some nice foraging

Another wider shot of the flock among grass and goldenrod, with a bright blue sky bisected by the outline of a large tree in the background, and the barn in one corner.Closeup of the sheep's dark brown face, including ear with green tag and about a dozen black-and-white porcupine quills sticking out of her chin.A brown sheep with dark brown face stands in front of a wooden split-rail fence and brownish grass. The outline of porcupine quills are barely visible.A group of sheep grazing in the golden light of late afternoon. A bright blue sky and wood barn are in the background.

Dan Hartland, absolutely calling out my podcast habit … overcast.fm/+ABDNpY2E…

Netflix has Land Before Time and so now I’m realizing that probably some people saw Jurassic Park without having imprinted on that, and lots of people probably watched Jurassic Park sequels in the context of things like Jurassic Park and maybe Jaws but not Land Before Time.

Moving means stumbling on the papers in bins untouched since the last move. The Father’s Day address from my dad I will keep. The college paper with notes from the professor about the lack of engagement with secondary scholarship and “I wish you had not worked alone quite so long” maybe not

An unexpected advantage to our “never put the kids’ names on the internet” policy is that two of them have changed names, and I don’t have to correct any confusion with internet friends.

Nice evening out with sheep

A green photo with sheep (brown and white) in the foreground among grass and ferns, a red barn in the middle distance, and gold-green tree leaves aboveAn old grey sheep lies on the ground with a white sheep standing nearby. A brown sheep walks towards the camera, and another person's arm is visible taking a photo of the grey sheep.A wooden barn wall, with dirt and hay in front, and three browns and white sheep trotting to the left in front of the wall

Article by my grade school teacher about her marriage in the early nineties. I am slowly coming to realize in my 40’s how special my childhood was. www.friendsjournal.org/2009066/

I gotta say, parenting a 3-6 year old and watching her develop her language, reasoning, and reading skills is a really interesting time to also be watching dialogue about LLM usage and strengths/weaknesses.

Youngest kid is almost six, dog is confined behind a baby gate, and cats are restricted to bedroom/bathroom until they show they can use the new litter box. There are areas of the house that can have breakables in them and all my reflexes are freaking out when I see it.

Kiddo is starting high school and setting up a new (Windows because games) computer but we also have access to things like a Raspberry Pi at home to host random stuff. They’ve got ADHD and will definitely need help remembering calendars and assignments and stuff. Anyone have any tips?

Well, the thing that got me back on Facebook was needing to get rid of various items before we move out of state and wanting access to the marketplace, so there we are.

People are staking out very odd positions on the relevance of older SFF. Where’s the modern Flatland or Heavy Planet?

So glad to have discovered The American Vandal podcast. These Jameson Tapes, and the discussion around them, are fascinating and incredibly generous. overcast.fm/+AAkiQ0y8…

Hi from the top floor

A black and white speckled chicken stands above the viewer on a wooden barn floor. The stairs up are visible, as are the translucent plastic windows above herThe same black-and-white chicken standing on the wooden floor above, with the head of a black goal also visibleNow the black goat is standing at the top of the stairs that go down, and the black-and-white chicken is turning away

Picked up this “gem” at my local bookstore recently. Seemed appropriate to find it on the day I was listening to a podcast close reading Prufrock

A grey chapbook with the image of a tree trunk cut laterally so the rings are visible and the title "Tradition and the Individual Talent" by T S Eliot, published by Eris gems.

Fantastic Coronations

So, I want to riff a bit more of this observation I made about Fantasy coronations, specifically Maia’s in Goblin Emperor and Kelson’s in whatever Deryni book it was where he got crowned.

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In some ways these are very similar. The ruler spends some time in seclusion, then goes through some rituals and ends up with a crown. There are specific important words spoken by a Prelate or Archbishop, and also lots of political undercurrents. The thing about Kelson’s coronation is that the young king has allies at court and a political awareness. He knows what he’s trying to accomplish (getting his magic), and as an author, we know what Kurtz cares about (the actual mechanics of the ritual, and specific political maneuvering).

Maia is still finding his footing. He’s had a couple of very long and bewildering days, and now he needs to sit by himself for a while and then later he walks some places, endures the coronation, and then goes to bed and collapses. In some ways, what’s going on is that Addison really does wants us to understand this character, and so we’re tightly focused on Maia’s feelings and what he notices: the attempt to re-connect to his mom’s meditation practice, his awareness that there are a lot of people at court and he should try to notice who is acting in what ways, but because he’s out of his depth he can’t really, etc. This is well done, but what it means is that we’re following along with a very passive character, which at least for me detracts from the scenes.

As an aside, a few scenes earlier, Maia insists on meeting his household servants. A day or so earlier he attended a funeral for not-nobles. I couldn’t tell you anything specific about those household servants, or how Maia remembers them (except the one we’d already met). When passing by the places where the commoners review his procession, Maia doesn’t see or recognize anyone - the relative lack of specific individual interactions in the coronation is aligned with the lack of any connection to previous scenes in which Maia set himself apart from other Emperors by being interested in people who aren’t politically important.

There are three things I’m noticing on this read of Goblin Emperor: the first is that I really am rooting for Maia. He’s a basically good guy in a very difficult situation, and I want to enjoy reading a book about his journey to be happy and successful as emperor. I want this to be a story about Maia coming to power and using it well. The second is that there are a lot of ways that Goblin Emperor is very consciously in dialogue with the fantasy tradition: whether or not Addison is specifically writing to Kurtz, the notion that the ceremony by which a new ruler comes to his power is important isn’t novel - here as with many other scenes, Addison is telling us about Maia and how he fits in as a character in a fantasy world. Finally, I’m unfortunately very consciously that I just don’t like the choices at a craft level. I don’t think the scenes tell us much about characters beyond the obvious thing intended in that particular scene. I don’t think the details are dense enough or illustrative enough of what’s most important. The world and characters around Maia just don’t feel lived-in to me, in ways that I am consistently disappointed by.

Sigh, let’s give this another shot and see what I missed last time. (And also whether I hallucinated the racism and vague anti-religious stuff)

Cover of "The Goblin Emperor" by Katherine Addison.

📚 - Original Sins, Eve Ewing

Started Eve Ewing’s Original Sins, which seems like it’s going to be about how schools are part of the construction of racial hierarchy that’s been reinforced since the original sins of chattel slavery and Native American genocide, and I’d forgotten what a good author she is and also how good it is to read good sociology

My mom dug up an old photo of me (which came sometime after high school graduation, since that cowboy hat was a gift from my uncle). I am who I have been.

Photograph of a white teenager in a bright blue shirt with white letters reading "feminist chicks dig me" and a big black cowboy hat.

Having narrated The Lord of the Rings to my youngest (5 1/2) once, and working through it a second time, we’ve now decided to watch the movies. Lovely seeing these characters through her eyes.

A young blonde kid in a green shirt sits on grey carpet, her back to the camera, entranced by a view of Frodo and Gandalf in the Shire during “Fellowship of the Ring”The same kid from the back again, this time staring at Gandalf’s smiling face.

Seems appropriate that I got Eric Klinenberg’s “Palaces for the People” via ILL from my small-town library.

The cover of "Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure can help fight inequality, polarization, and the decline of civic life". The words are in green and blue. The cover is cream. There are wire-frame illustrations of people, parks, and buildings.

American Vandal really is an excellent podcast, and I appreciate this episode on the two VP candidates, and specifically Walz’s Minnesota politics. overcast.fm/+AAkiQ3B-…

We have some tall flowers growing

A blond child stands in grass and white flowers almost as tall as herA shot of three flowers - yellow circles inside white petals. One is nearly complete, one has petals with a few holes in them, one has lost nearly all its petals.Flat, circular, yellow flowers stand tall in the ground with grasses and smaller white flowers behind them

I am in general enjoying reading “Building a Second Brain” but the section on “Intermediate Packets” that references IP but doesn’t seem to understand the legal framework around work for hire or work created as an employee of a company is kinda obnoxious