In scholastic philosophy, "quiddity" was another term for the essence of an object, literally its "whatness" or "what it is." It's the quality that makes something what it is.
My partner Doug mentioned it tonight, and I had only seen it in Scrabble dictionaries. Try to lay that one over a triple word score. It's 8 letters but you can build it onto quid, id, dit, or it.
When cities expand their boundaries, they aren’t just adding land, they’re taking on decades of financial obligations that short-term metrics fail to capture.
It's really too early for me to feel like doing a full Babylon 5 rewatch yet, so instead I had a possibly cursed idea, which is to watch IMDB's top 10 and bottom 10 rated episodes and report back on them. And in fact I think I am going to do exactly that.*
*Unless I get distracted by something along the way, as often happens.
The best/worst lists are hidden in case you want to preserve the element of surprise.
The 10 best episodes according to IMDB, starting at the top
1. Severed Dreams 3x10 2. War Without End Part 2 3x17 (Since Part 1 is also in the top 10, I'm just going to watch them together, I think) 3. Z'ha'dum 3x22 4. Endgame 4x20 5. Sleeping in Light 5x22 6. The Long, Twilight Struggle 2x20 (By about this point I will probably have died of Drama and Tragedy. RIP me.) 7. Point of No Return 3x09 8. The Coming of Shadows 2x09 9. The Fall of Night 2x22 10. War Without End Part 1 3x16 (will be combined with part 2) 11. No Surrender, No Retreat 4x15
This looks fun! (For Babylon 5 values of fun.)
And as an escape from all of these heavy episodes, apparently I will be watching, in order of worst to ... slightly less worst:
IMDB's lowest rated1. TKO 1x14 2. Infection 1x04 3. Secrets of the Soul 5x07 4. The Gathering 1x00 5. Grey 17 is Missing 3x19 6. Grail 1x15 7. The Long Dark 2x05 8. Strange Relations 5x06 9. The War Prayer 1x07 10. Survivors 1x11
Genuinely surprised that they're not even all from season one and five! Absolutely unsurprised that most of them are! I do genuinely like some of these, and at least one of them, I skipped most of when I was originally watching season one, so it will be interesting to see what I think of it now.
Not starting this tonight (probably) because I have other things to do, but Soon™.
I’ve been to Hungary twice, most recently a couple of years ago when I was the guest of honor at the Budapest International Book Festival. Both times I was there I (and when she visited with me, Krissy), were made to feel welcome by nearly everyone we met there. It’s fair to say I have an attachment to the country.
Today, with a turnout of over 77%, the voters of Hungary voted out the autocratic government of Viktor Orban, whose 16-year rule saw the country become less free, less tolerant and more corrupt. Getting back from all of that won’t be easy and won’t be fast — but it all has to start somewhere, and now Hungary can start.
To which I can say: Lord, I see what you have done for others and want it for myself, and hopefully, soon.
In the meantime: Congratulations to my friends in Hungary. I hope what you have is catching. And I hope to visit you again, in this new era of yours.
Step into a tropical forest, and something feels different right away. The air feels rich, the ground feels alive, and every plant seems part of a bigger system.
This sense of connection is not just your imagination. Science now shows that trees in these forests actively support one another, creating a strong and balanced ecosystem.
The Hostage Negotiation of the Front-Facing Camera
I can see a little, so I do care a lot about light and contrast and things, so I'm not in the exact situation that a Blind online acquaintance describes here, but so much of this resonates with me. Especially as we're under increasing pressure to have cameras-on internal meetings at work.
"I am an unwilling cameraman, shooting an obscure documentary about my own face" resonated so hard with me!
My own parents are the even worse about this, though. As per entries passim, I talk to them every week. The only comment I've heard them make about my visual appearance is excessively unkind to say the least if not overtly transphobic, so it's not as if I'm motivated to share my face with them. Yet recently when my webcam was broken for a couple of weeks, my mom could barely carry on a conversation because of how distracted she was by this.
And her language is so telling. It's not "We can't see you" it's "We don't have you." It makes me feel so trapped -- pinned, like a bug in a collection.
It's the same as Robert describes his friend: ""Oh, You're gone! Where did you go?" I don't go anywhere! My mom says "Are you there???" even while I'm already talking. Like he says, " I didn’t go anywhere. I am right here. I did not teleport. I am still in the same spot I was just a few seconds ago."
My new webcam is a nightmare. It doesn't even show my whole head on the screen if I have the monitor as close to me as I otherwise went it. It has way too high a resolution: I've never seen all my facial features this sharply, and I'm very distressed to start now!
Being able to see a little means I am aware of how I look, and you know how people hate the sound of their own voice on recordings because that's not how it sounds to them? I feel like that about seeing myself on video calls. (I actually mostly love the way my voice sounds on recordings, heh.)
I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches plus a brown-headed cowbird.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 4/12/26 -- I did some work around the patio.
EDIT 4/12/26 -- I emptied the bag of raised bed soil into the hollow by the garden shed.
I picked up the big branch in the south lot.
A third tuft of violet leaves is blooming yellow. That's three now, although this one is smaller. I'm so happy that my yellow violets are spreading. :D 3q3q3q!!!
EDIT 4/12/26 -- I picked up more big branches in the orchard and moved them to the firepit.
I've seen a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder. I heard a bluejay screaming above the south lot but didn't see it.
EDIT 4/12/26 -- I picked up more big branches in the savanna and moved them to the firepit.
EDIT 4/12/26 -- I picked up more big branches in the savanna and moved them to the firepit.
I saw two bluejays high in the trees above the house yard, bobbing up and down, screeching at each other. \o/
It's trying to spit rain.
EDIT 4/12/26 -- I picked up more big branches in the savanna and moved them to the firepit. We also dragged the biggest branch to the side where it won't block the mow path.
I just attended part of the online memorial for minoanmiss. While I was there, a couple of people talked about Ny, and read poetry. I disconnected after listening to one song, because listening to people sing over Zoom feels thin. There were some great photos of Ny, smiling.
Also, yesterday I went to shul with Adrian to say kaddish for my mother. Most of the service, including the singing, was in Hebrew, but I felt more of a connection there, I think because I was in a room full of people, not looking at boxes in a Zoom window.
Back in January I said I was going to make “comfort” my media theme for the first quarter of the year and then think about if I wanted to change. The first quarter of 2026 has been over for a bit. I’ve been having an amazing reading year so far! Other media not so much – I’ve been watching things only with other people, but that’s fine. Honestly I’ve not been thinking about my media theme much. So I guess it's going fine? I don’t see any need to change it anyways.
But now that I am thinking about my theme I kinda want to watch another crossdressing girl drama – those are so fun and comforting.
And now for some thoughts on recent media. It’s been a bit because I was busy and sick – but I’m doing better now.
NewsPrints by Ru Xu —Sometimes I read a thing that it seems like I should be really into and I'm just like "This is nice" That's how I feel about this book. It's got a crossdressing girl, cool diesel punk tech, found family! I'm not sure why I don't love it. (I started reading the squeal but it was somewhat darker and I didn’t really want to deal with that.)
Justice Society of America vol 1 and 2 by Geoff Johns, Mikel Janín et al. —I ended up reading this for convoluted reasons: I read Stargirl and the Lost Children because it had an appearance by a minor character that I was curious about, and then I wanted to know what happened next, which is told here. I would have liked even more lost children. But really the problem with this is that its too much story for the space, everything happens very fast and there is not enough time to get to know the characters. Probably I’m expected to come in already knowing and caring about some of them, but since I didn’t it really just felt like no one got much space to be interesting.
I Shall Never Fall in Love by Hari Conner—This queer regency romance is billed as “inspired by Jane Austen and queer history” but you could just as easily call it “a queer retelling of Emma”. I enjoyed it! I love how expressive the faces are. Also I really appreciated the facts and references in the back. And It’s super cool that all of the clothing is based on existing surviving garments or historical fashion plates!
The Unbeatable Squirrel Girlvol 1-2 by Ryan North, Erica Henderson, et al— this continues to be very fun! Featuring such delights as dinosaurs and a zine issues!
Nezha (2019)— I watched this Chinese animated movie with my group watch discord. So I generally I write up notes on each item for these posts a day or two after finishing it so it will be fresh in my mind (Then I wait until I have several things so I can post them all together) But this time I had to run off after watching Nezha and now its been a week so I don’t remember this as well as I’d like. It was fun though. Content Note traumatic childbirth, gross bodily fluids
What was the last book you read (or are currently reading)?
Jan Morris’ Trieste and the meaning of nowhere, for what I feel are obvious reasons. It is a very romantic, forgiving view of the city.
What was the last movie you watched?
We caught a bit of the Minions movie dubbed into Italian last night. It was (perhaps unsurprisingly?) easy to follow in another language.
What television series are you currently watching?
Nothing at the moment. We finished a few things before the Easter holiday (new series of Death in Paradise, Small Prophets).
What are some of your favorite blogs or communities online?
I really only read DW and LJ these days. That's enough for me.
What social media do you belong to and check often?
I still have accounts on the usual platforms but I haven't checked any of them since January 2025 when I removed all the apps from my phone. I vaguely miss contact with a few people but it has generally been a good move. I spend more time communicating directly through messaging or email, or more diffusely but in greater depth here on DW & LJ.
Second paragraph of third essay (“First War of the Global Era: Kosovo and U.S. Grand Strategy” by James Kurth)
As we will see, all of these claims about the Kosovo War are true, but they are also incomplete. They could therefore be misleading both about the causes of the war and about its implications for future conflicts. To understand these causes and consequences, we will need to examine the war in the context of the grand, or national, strategy of the United States. For the Kosovo War was, inter alia, an outgrowth of a new grand strategy that the United States has developed in the aftermath of the Cold War. Among the Kosovo War’s distinctions, it was the first American war of the global era.
A collection of essays about the Kosova war, published in January 2002. Most of the essays are critical of the way in which the war was conducted from a military doctrine or strategic thinking viewpoint. Most of them also try to look ahead to see what the implications are for future conflicts where the USA may not need to have a strong ground component, though very few of the observations turn out to have been helpful to understand the Afghanistan war, started just before the book was published, or the Iraq war, which started just after.
Less surprisingly perhaps, none of them foresaw a future where the USA first threatened annexation to its allies and then attacked Iran and lost. One feels for analysts trying to make sense of the world we are in and then discovering that the future has arrived and it’s not as expected. But none of these essays made me feel that the US policy community had any much better idea of what is going on in the world than the rest of us. In particular, none of the writers has much knowledge of Kosova itself, which is what I am most interested in.
You can get War over Kosovo here. This was the shortest book acquired in 2022 which was still on my unread shelf. Next on that pile is The Light That Failed, by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes.
See here for methodology, though NB that I am now also using numbers from StoryGraph. Books are disqualified if less than 50% of them is set in Togo.
These numbers are crunched by hand, not by AI.
Title
Author
GR raters
LT owners
SG reviews
The Village of Waiting
George Packer
479
151
61
The Shadow of Things to Come
Kossi Efoui
61
24
12
Adikou
Raphaëlle Red
125
4
25
Descent into Night
Edem Awumey
72
13
13
Dirty Feet
Edem Awumey
57
25
8
Neyla
Kossi Komla-Ebri
50
31
1
The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles
Charles Piot
39
3
8
Cola Cola Jazz
Kangni Alem
9
5
3
This was particularly challenging, with a lot of people having tagged their books “to go” as “togo”, which is confusing, and additionally there are many fans of the well-known 1920s sled dog Togo. In the end, I found only eight books which have owners on all three of GR, LT and SG and which also appear to be more than 50% set in Togo, so they are all listed above.
The Village of Waiting sets a new record for the least widely owned winner in any country, beating the UAE handily. I’m afraid it’s by a chap who worked there in the Peace Corps. The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles is also by a white American guy, about how US visas are allocated to applicant Togolese.
My research indicated that none of the other six novels on the list is explicitly set in Togo, but that in each case the unnamed country in which most or all of the action takes place is pretty clearly based on their home countries by the Togolese writers. I am not totally certain about the two books by Edem Awumey.
Raphaëlle Red is the only woman writer on the list. My research indicated that more than half of Do They Hear You When You Cry, by Fauziya Kassindja, is set after she escaped the threat of mutilation in Togo and went first to Germany and then the USA, where she was treated brutally by the authorities. Une Esclave Moderne, by Henriette Akofa, is about her life in Paris. Fetish, by Christine Garnier, has no StoryGraph owners and may not be set in Togo. Very Young Catholics In Togo, by Emily Koczela, has no Goodreads or StoryGraph owners. I can see that as I get to less well-known countries I may have to tweak my listing criteria.
One comparatively popular book by a Togolese writer that I disqualified after research was An African in Greenland, by Tété-Michel Kpomassie; it does indeed start with his birth and early life in Togo, but more than half of it seems to be about his later travels, ending up in Greenland.
Jumping over to Israel next, then back to Europe for Hungary, Austria and Switzerland.
Have been reading two wildly different nonfiction works from the '80s covering criminal trials in the American South: James Baldwin's The Evidence of Things Not Seen, a 1985 book-length essay technically about the Atlanta child murders of 1979-81 and the trial of the man believed to be responsible (although only convicted for the murders of two adult victims), but more broadly about the intersection of race and (in)justice; and I've just started Nancy Lemann's The Ritz of the Bayou, a 1987 book springing from a failed Vanity Fair assignment to cover the '85 racketeering trial of the then-sitting Governor of Louisiana, which so far is less any sort of coherent trial coverage and more a collection of snapshots with an eye for personality and atmosphere.
Have turned back to Mick Herron's Slough House series of spy novels about spies who are, for the most part, pretty bad at their jobs, such as they are after being relegated to a dumping ground for MI5's screw-ups and burnouts— Joe Country (book #6) and Slough House (#7); I'd ended up skipping book #5 (London Rules) after a couple of failed attempts last year, mostly because it seemed focused on the one character I actively cannot stand (an incel-y hacker with delusions of grandeur and an incredibly annoying internal monologue)— which are very much potato-chip reads, fun and not particularly memorable. ( Spoilers? )
Scorched Earth is described on its website as a piece of dance theater about a detective reopening an Irish cold case, a description which fascinated us so much that we made a second patently absurd decision to once again park in NYC just exactly long enough to see a show before continuing on our multi-state travel.
If you'd forced me to describe what I expected from this show, I would have hazarded something like 'Tana French book, adapted as a ballet?' Not at ALL correct. The cold case is not a mystery, not full of twists: we've got one detective, one suspect, one victim, one piece of land (and one ambiguously metaphorical donkey.) The ninety-minute show begins with a series of projected documents explaining the history of Irish Land Dispute Murders before establishing a more-or-less regular pattern: short interrogation scenes between the detective and the suspect, interspersed with bursts of emotion and memory, some dramatized and some in dance.
Sometimes -- often -- this worked extraordinarily well. The land under dispute is represented, personified, by a dancer in a ghillie suit who slithers in and out of the central interrogation/morgue table* like a giant muppet, or the Swamp Thing and dances a violently romantic duet with the suspect -- and it could have looked so silly, as I'm describing it it sounds silly, and instead it was haunting and evocative, perfectly elucidating the narrative themes of the show while also just being a gripping and powerful piece of performance.
*remarkable piece of set design, that table; afterwards we all agreed it was the hardest-working table in show business
Other times, the balance felt a little off; the dialogue would tell us something and then a duet would be danced and I'd think, well, you didn't need to tell us both ways, one or the other would have worked fine. Or I'd start to admire the dialogue for its spareness in suggesting the complexity of a dynamic -- who's from here, who isn't, who has rights to land, who doesn't, what's worth punishing on behalf of the community, what isn't -- and then it say it again more explicitly and I'd be like, well, okay, but you didn't have to. What I'm saying is that I think the show probably could have been just as powerful at sixty minutes as at ninety minutes. But I wasn't at all unhappy to be there for ninety minutes! I was compelled the whole time! If the show sometimes told me things about the situation more times or more explicitly than I needed to hear them, it did an admirable job of not telling me what to think about them, and trying to decide what I did think about them left me plenty to occupy my mind.
A lot of the creative team seem to have a history with Punch Drunk and have worked on Sleep No More explicitly, and it was interesting for me to compare/contrast -- the style of expressive choreography is notably similar, but Sleep No More is a piece of theater that has almost no dialogue, that draws a lot of its power from being oblique and ambiguous to the point of fault. Finding that exact right point of convergence for dance and theater seems to be an ongoing challenge and point of interest for the people coming out of the Punch Drunk school and I'm very curious to see other explorations of it.
Doing my best to track the media I have been consuming other than books here.
F and I went to the cinema two weeks ago to watch Project Hail Mary. I didn’t think the book was all that great – I was Deputy Hugo Administrator that year, and I see from my records that I put it fifth on the ballot (and Hugo voters actually ranked it sixth out of six, though it had the third highest number of first preferences). It was far ahead on Goodreads/LibraryThing ownership, while the actual winner was third on average ratings and fourth on number of owners. But there was enough squee about the film that it seemed worth a Whyte father-and-son expedition to the cinema.
Yes, folks, it’s a really fun film. Andy Weir has managed to grab a few headlines by asserting that the story is not political and he doesn’t understand why anyone would want it to be. Of course both film and novel are political, even if he wants to pretend otherwise, but a lot of the things that annoyed me about the novel have been taken out of the film.
There are lots of silly things – the protagonist’s amnesia is just sufficient to carry the plot, the (complicated) science mostly happens in parentheses, millions (perhaps billions) die on Earth while the mission is happening out at Tau Ceti and we are not really invited to care. But the energy of the single chap carrying the hopes of the world on his mission is compulsive, rather like Neil Armstrong (and who was p[laying him in First Man? Oh yeah). In particular, the effects are brilliant, with Rocky the alien stealing your heart. I’m sure it will be a Hugo finalist next year (and I don’t plan to be involved).
The other thing I’ve watched since my last update is “The Long Morrow”, an episode of The Twilight Zone from 1964. This is the first step in my project of reading and watching sf set next year, ie in 2027. There’s quite a lot of it (2026 was surprisingly sparse).
“The Long Morrow” has a simple punchline. An astronaut sent on a 40-year mission in 1987 falls in love just before his launch. He decides to forego the usual suspended animation, so that he can age at the same rate as his girlfriend back home. BUT she doesn’t know that this is his plan, and puts herself in suspended animation in anticipation of his return, so at the end of his mission, in the far distant future of 2027, she is still 26 and he is 70. As science fiction, it’s very well done, a great example of Philip K. Dick’s line about wanting to move from “What if…?” to “My God! What if…”.
The last eight minutes (of 25) are set in 2027, and feature the confrontation between girlfriend and astronaut. Mariette Harley really glows as the girl. The script does its best to focus on Robert Lansing as the astronaut, but Harley steals it.
Unfortunately all we see of 2027 is a corridor in the space control centre, so we can’t deduce much about Rod Serling’s predictions for what next year will look like. This story apparently inspired the opening episode of Season 7 of The Gilmore Girls, which has the same title, but I have little information about that.
I just want institutional decision-making to be both well-informed and well-intentioned, even if it must also be open-minded. When I look at contemporary examples among social policy and technological innovation, it's hard to feel as if the future is filled with hope, in the way that some previous generation might have. Given the sea change that LLMs are causing in software development, I don't how much hope to have for even just my personal future.
Perhaps the Artemis program is an unusual exception, charging me with a little of that same hope that the 1962 Seattle World's Fair might have brought its attendees, reminding me of the perhaps naive optimism that experts would be able to guide our progress to a future worth embracing. Even if I am not part of it, I would still be glad for it to happen.
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