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Category: Life

Weekly Round-up, August 2, 2025

2025-08-022025-08-02 John Winkelman

Zucchini blossom nestled in an overgrown zucchini plant.

[Zucchini blossoms in the plant which is slowly taking over our back yard.]

Less than halfway into summer, and summer seems to be almost over. The long heatwave finally broke and the outdoor temperature of the past few nights has been down in the fifties. I have slept better over the past three nights than at any point since early June.

Reading

I am about halfway through Dan Davies’ The Unaccountability Machine. Still both enlightening and infuriating.

Writing

The only thing I wrote in the past week was Javascript.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Apocalypse, Genius Loci
Setting: Urban
Genre: Noir

Listening

Tom Lehrer, “So Long Mom (A Song for World War III).” Lehrer died this past Saturday, July 26, at the of age of 97.

Interesting Links

  • “Cruel Executive Order on Homelessness Is Also Ineffective Policy—Unless Goal Is to Discipline Workers and Boost Prison Industry” (Conor Gallagher, Naked Capitalism)

 

Posted in LifeTagged Tom Lehrer comment on Weekly Round-up, August 2, 2025

Weekly Round-up, July 26, 2025

2025-07-262025-07-26 John Winkelman

A crew digging in the street, replacing lead water lines with copper.

[A crew digging in the street, replacing lead water lines with copper.]

This was a rough week for famous people. In short order, we lost Ozzy Osbourne, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Chuck Mangione, and Hulk Hogan. All of these men were fixtures in my life growing up in the 1980s. The first three were amazing human beings. Hogan? Not so much.

Reading

I am slowly working my way through Dan Davies’ The Unaccountability Machine. It is an interesting exploration of cybernetics applied to business, and it is making me want to both study cybernetics and burn the entire EVERYTHING to the ground.

Writing

I haven’t managed much progress on anything. Too much work and life stress.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Genius Loci, Mutants
Setting: Labyrinth
Genre: Dystopian

Listening

Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford, “Close My Eyes Forever,” from the 1988 album Lita. Rest ye well, Mr. Osbourne.

Interesting Links

  • “The Fight for Hearts and Minds: Christian Churches Filling Void Created by Social Service Cuts, With Some Also Hard-Selling Far Right Political Messages” (Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back, Naked Capitalism)
  • “Pluralistic: Conservatism considered as a movement of bitter rubes” (Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic)
Posted in LifeTagged Lita Ford, Ozzy Osbourne comment on Weekly Round-up, July 26, 2025

Weekly Round-up, July 19, 2025

2025-07-192025-07-22 John Winkelman

Black Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar on a dill plant.

[ A Black Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar on a dill plant. ]

My first week back at work after a two-week break, and as usual, it was not so much a break as a deferred workload. Therefore this past week was exceptionally busy. Little time for creative pursuits.

I did find time on Friday to spend an hour or so with my friend Mark, beating on each other in the back yard. Mark teaches karate and kickboxing, and I teach kung fu and tai chi, so the techniques we come up with tend to be an interesting mix of a variety of sources. It was a good workout. And I feel it today in most of my joints.

Reading

I am currently about a quarter of the way through The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies, which explores how supposedly-smart, competent people can end up making stupid and destructive decisions. To sum up: They don’t. Or rather, the larger capitalist system is set up so that event the well-meaning (lol) members of the Professional Managerial Class couldn’t make truly ethical decisions even if they wanted to. I am already angry, and expect I will only become more angry as I work my way through the book.

Baudrillard is breaking my brain. I am about 20 pages into Simulacra and Simulation and need to take frequent breaks so my head-meat doesn’t char and set off the smoke alarm.

Writing

I spent some time reviewing the manuscripts I printed out last week, and I think Neighbors can be cleaned up and turned into a real draft, but Cacophonous will need to be re-written from scratch, though the bones of the story are solid. Now I just need to free up the necessary time to do the work.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Revenge, Colonization
Setting: Wilderness
Genre: Solarpunk

Listening

“The Ludlows,” from the soundtrack to Legends of the Fall, composed by James Horner. Jim Harrison‘s Legends of the Fall is one of my very favorite books, and the movie does it justice, thanks in large part to Horner’s extraordinary score.

Interesting Links

  • ““The Corporate Takeover of Housing”” (Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism) – Smith discusses the embedded article by John P. Ruehl, which looks at the housing situation in the United States. Briefly put, there are lots of houses available, but few people can afford them. Corporate ownership is part of the problem, but not the whole problem. As usual for Naked Capitalism posts, there is a lot of excellent additional information and nuance to be found in the comments.
  • “Pluralistic: Conspiratorialism and neoliberalism” (Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic) – The conclusions Doctorow draws in this excellent article tie in to Curtis Yarvin’s “dark enlightenment,” which is the most cowardly, impotent, bootlicking school of thought to emerge in the entire internet age. I am in the process of writing up a take-down of the entirety of the Moldbug philosophy, which is probably vast overkill, since it really only needs a short paragraph to counter every variation of the dark enlightenment, from every one of its adherents.
Posted in LifeTagged James Horner comment on Weekly Round-up, July 19, 2025

Weekly Round-up, July 12, 2025

2025-07-122025-07-12 John Winkelman

A small snail on the boardwalk at Huff Park.

[A small snail on the boardwalk at Huff Park.]

I was on vacation for the past two weeks, and much to my surprise, the more vacation time I had, the more my energy level diminished. I suppose that is just another symptom of burnout and depression, or maybe it is simply because I am 56 and not getting any younger.

Reading

Currently working my way through Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation because I look so cool when reading it in a cafe. But before that I read Travis Baldree’s Bookshops and Bonedust, a prequel of sorts to his wonderful Legends and Lattes. Bookshops and Bonedust was decent, but not as good as Legends.

Writing

Back in 2018, for NaNoWriMo, I wrote a book called Neighbors: A Malediction, which was a lightly-fictionalized version of my encounters with an obnoxious neighbor over several years. I completed the first draft, as much as a first draft is ever completed during NaNoWriMo (really more of a zero-th draft). Since then the work has been sitting in my Google drive, gathering dust.

Earlier this week on a whim I collated all of the chapters into a single Word document, did a quick round of formatting, and had the draft printed and spiral-bound at Kinko’s. At a little over 54,000 words, and printed on 8 1/2 x 11 paper, with 1.5 line spacing, it comes in at 120 pages.

Even if I don’t do anything with the manuscript, it sure feels good to see it in printed form.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Cyborgs, Precursors
Setting: Bar
Genre: Magic Realism

Listening

Midnight Star, “Freak-A-Zoid”, from their 1983 album No Parking on the Dance Floor. I was a freshman in high school when I first heard this song. I wish I appreciated it as much back then as I do now.

Interesting Links

  • “Cops’ favorite AI tool automatically deletes evidence of when AI was used” (Ashley Belanger, ArsTechinca) – As if cops needed any help avoiding accountability. They were doing just fine before they started using an AI tool deliberately designed to protect cops from the consequences of their actions.
  • “A New Far-Right American Party?” (John Feffer, Portside) – The Democratic Party is America’s right-wing party. The Republicans are the American Nazi Party. Musk’s “America Party” will also be a Nazi party, as Musk himself is a Nazi, as are all people who support him in any of his political ventures. The only moral way to interact with Nazis is with a guillotine.
Posted in LifeTagged Midnight Star comment on Weekly Round-up, July 12, 2025

Weekly Round-up, July 5, 2025

2025-07-052025-07-05 John Winkelman

Onion blossom

[An onion blossom, in our backyard garden.]

So.

Thanks to literally every Republican voter, and literally every elected Republican at every level of government, the United States of America is now a full-on fascist state, and if conservative Christians have their way – and it looks like they will – within a generation the USA will be a christofascist ethno-state, which has been the end-goal of all of American conservatism from the day the Declaration of Independence was signed.

To be clear: All legislation which enforces the consolidation of power or wealth (which is really the same thing) is inherently fascist. Per Wilhoit, any politics which relies on hierarchy is de facto conservative, and there has never been a version of conservative politics which does not rely on in-groups having the freedom to arbitrarily abuse out-groups.

This version of America is, and has always been, the Real America. The ascendancy of Donald Trump became inevitable the day the Supreme Court decided that money is equivalent to free speech. Trump ran on a platform of white supremacy and all of conservative America just gobbled that shit up. The GOP/MAGA/KKK/ICE/DOGE voting bloc (hereafter referred to as “Republican”) views immigrants as an expendable resource to be treated as little more than slaves, and they define “immigrant” as “anyone who isn’t white.” This is true of everyone who voted Republican at any level of government, in any location, in any election since 1980. Any Republican who claims otherwise is lying. Any Republican voter who claims to have been tricked or misled or lied to, is lying.

Now that the Project 2025 Big Beautiful Bill has been passed, some Republicans are expressing surprise and regret because they and their loved [sic] ones will be negatively affected. This is all performative bullshit. Just like the Musk/Trump feuds of recent weeks, Republican regret is rehearsed, scripted, and utterly false.

There is no path to redemption for Trump supporters. They must never be forgiven, and their actions must never be forgotten. They deliberately, and with malice, voted for the party that thinks the only protected group should be billionaires, and all other humans are meat for the machine. So let the MAGA crowd be ground up in that machine. Let them lose their families, their homes, and their livelihoods, since that’s what they voted for for everyone else.

Happy Independence Day.

Reading

I finished a re-read of The Maverick Poets, an anthology I return to every few years. I also finished Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Albina and the Dog Men, which was entertaining but light.

Writing

Haven’t had a lot of energy for writing this week. I knocked out a rough draft of a poem a few days back, but I doubt it will go anywhere.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Mutants, Cyborgs
Setting: Wilderness
Genre: Technothriller

Listening

The Dead Kennedys, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off.”

Interesting Links

  • “Trump’s Neo-Stalinist Pentagon Photo Purge” (Arnold Isaacs, Naked Capitalism) – MAGA defines “DEI” as “Anyone who isn’t a straight white man.” The reason Trump supporters are against DEI is because, to a person, they are all too stupid, too untalented, and too weak to compete for success on anything remotely close to a level playing field.
Posted in LifeTagged Dead Kennedys comment on Weekly Round-up, July 5, 2025

Weekly Round-up, June 28, 2025

2025-06-282025-06-28 John Winkelman

A milkweed beetle on a milkweed plant

[A milkweed beetle on a milkweed plant]

This was another busy week, leading up to a couple of weeks off (more or less) from work. Whether or not I have any actual down-time during my break remains to be seen…

Reading

I randomly pulled Wolfgang Hilbig’s novella Old Rendering Plant off the shelf and read it in a couple of days. It wasn’t bad. Mostly atmosphere, and some very good writing which, purposefully or no, strongly echoes Lovecraft. So a good but light read.

Writing

Having been inspired by this past week’s Grand Rapids LitFest, and specifically by the all-day Grand River Poetry Collective event at the Wealthy Street Theater Annex, I have begun to assemble the many poems I have written over the past decade, to see if enough of them are competent (or even “good”) enough to turn into a manuscript. I expect this project will take at least the rest of this year, and likely a good chunk of the next.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Music, Economics
Setting: Frontier
Genre: Magic Realism

Listening

“Horses” by Rickie Lee Jones, from her 1989 album Flying Cowboys. Until recently the only RLJ song with which I was familiar was “Chuck E.’s in Love.” Someone made a post about Jones on Metafilter and that put me on something of a deep dive, as much as an hour on YouTube is a deep dive. I really like this song.

Interesting Links

  • “US Attacks Iran: Start of a Long War? Update: Iran Parliament Votes to Close Strait of Hormuz” (Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism)

 

Posted in LifeTagged Grand River Poetry Collective, poetry, Rickie Lee Jones comment on Weekly Round-up, June 28, 2025

Weekly Round-up, June 21, 2025

2025-06-212025-06-21 John Winkelman

Milkweed blossom

[Milkweed blossom, smelling like heaven.]

A super-short post this week, on account of I am insanely busy.

Reading

Late Thursday evening I finished Zig Zag Claybourne‘s excellent Breath, Warmth, and Dream. The story is engaging, the writing poetic, and the reading experience was a delight.

Writing

Nothing. Too busy.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Aliens, Super Powers
Setting: Ruins
Genre: Utopian

Posted in LifeTagged ZIg Zag Claybourne comment on Weekly Round-up, June 21, 2025

Weekly Round-up, June 14, 2025

2025-06-142025-06-14 John Winkelman

A House Finch nestling perched on the edge of its nest, amidst fern fronds.

[A house finch nestling perched on the edge of its nest, on the verge of becoming a fledgling.]

Several weeks ago, just after hanging fern baskets around my front porch, a pair of house finches built a nest in one of them. A week later there were five eggs. A couple of weeks after that there were four hatchlings. Up until a couple of weeks ago we had three nestlings, and finally, a single fledgling. I like to think the other two youngsters fledged earlier, as I didn’t find any little bird bodies in the area, nor evidence that they had run afoul of one of the many neighborhood cats. And there are currently several house finches around our small property, so at hopefully that number includes my temporary lodgers.

The fledgling in the above photo took off and joined its parents in exploring the neighborhood a few days ago. I have probably seen it at our bird feeder.

Nature finds a way.

Reading

Still reading Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and Claybourne’s Breath, Warmth, Dream.

Writing

Too much chaos in the world right now to focus on creative pursuits.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Empire, Dragons
Setting: Lost City
Genre: Horror

Listening

Sly and the Family Stone, “Sing a Simple Song”.

Sly Stone died a few days ago. He had a hell of a life, but he and the Family Stone left behind a whole lotta good music.

And as I am writing this post, I see that Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys just died. Damn.

Interesting Links

  • One political assassination and one attempted political assassination in Minnesota. This is the world we live in now. The rhetoric has become normalized, and now the actions will be to. Just as MAGA intends.
Posted in LifeTagged Sly and the Family Stone comment on Weekly Round-up, June 14, 2025

Weekly Round-up, June 7, 2025

2025-06-072025-06-07 John Winkelman

House Finch nestlings in a potted fern, about to become fledglings.

[House Finch nestlings in a potted fern, about to become fledglings.]

My birthday was two days ago, and O BOY, is the world getting more interesting as we move farther into 2025. Ukraine took out a sizable chunk of Russia’s nuclear-capable bombers with swarms of off-the-shelf hobbyist drones, Trump and Musk broke up and are performatively feuding, and the financial aftershocks of Trump’s tariff nonsense are hitting the street.

But other than that, things are going great!

Reading

I have returned to The Wretched of the Earth and it is once again blowing my mind.

Writing

I managed a couple of pages of world-building notes for Cacophonous, as well as a couple of lines of verse, though they weren’t very good. Or rather, interesting ideas poorly executed.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Undead, Kaiju
Setting: Battlefield
Genre: Fantasy

Listening

Alice Coltrane with Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson, “Turiya and Ramakrishna”, from the amazing album Ptah the El Daoud.

Interesting Links

  • “Ukraine drones ’emerged from trucks’ before strikes on bombers during major attack in Russia” (BBC)
Posted in LifeTagged Alice Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Pharoah Sanders comment on Weekly Round-up, June 7, 2025

56, or 7x2x2x2

2025-06-052025-06-05 John Winkelman

Happy birthday to me! For no particular reason, I have decided to to a retrospective of the past forty years, in five-year intervals.

40 years ago, I had just finished my sophomore year at Springport High School. I was learning to program on my new Commodore 64 and made my spending money milking cows, baling hay, and shoveling manure. I think this was the summer that I was hired out to a neighboring farm to help with the hay baling for $2.00 an hour, which was substantially less than the $3.00 an hour I made milking cows on our farm.

35 years ago, I had just finished my junior year at Grand Valley State University and was living off-campus for the first time, in a terrible apartment on the northwest side of Grand Rapids. I worked for a landscaping company, then for a moving company, then for Meijer. My roommates and I were taking classes at a local Shorin-Ryu karate school and playing a lot of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. For my 21st birthday a few friends took took me to Tootsie Van Kelly’s bar in the Amway Grand, where I drank many beers, shots, and mixed drinks, including Ouzo, Guinness, and something called a Blue Motorcycle. Was it fun? Yes! Did I get horribly sick? Also yes!

30 years ago, I was living on the southeast side of Grand Rapids and working at Schuler Books, which was in the middle of leveling up to become Schuler Books & Music. I was an up-and-coming student at Master Lee’s School of Tai Chi Praying Mantis Kung Fu, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life.’

25 years ago I was living in a different place on the southeast side and working at CyberNet Engineering, my first “real” developer job, and discovering that, for some employers, the idea of work-life balance was a thing to be roundly mocked and derided. I was now an instructor for Master Lee’s School of Tai Chi Praying Mantis Kung Fu.

20 years ago I was living in an apartment on the northeast side, which was in a house owned by a friend and occasional co-worker. I had recently quit my job at BBK Studio and was working as a contractor for Waterfall Productions, just about to be brought on board as an employee. Master Lee was training me and senior instructor Rick Powell to teach Iron Shirt Chi Kung to some of our most dedicated kung fu students.

15 years ago I was living in my current house on the northeast side, and working for PeopleDesign, the new iteration of BBK Studio. Rick and I were teaching an Iron Shirt class to a group of about ten students, three mornings a week, out of From the Heart Yoga, the studio owned by Rick and his wife Behnje.

Ten years ago I was working for my present employer and living in my current house. Caffeinated Press was just getting off the ground. Rick and I were still teaching the Iron Shirt Chi Kung class. Thus my average week included about seventy hours of work-like activity.

Five years ago my partner Zyra and I were enjoying our first summer living together, and also the first summer of the COVID lockdowns. We were also entertained by our new kitten Poe, who we had adopted from a farm in the Upper Peninsula. Zyra and Poe still live here, so we must have done something right.

And now here is me, 56 years old in 2025, still in the house with Zyra and Poe and our second cat, Pepper, who we adopted from the same farm where we got Poe. I am in my eleventh year at my current employer and things continue to go reasonably well. With a little luck, I will get to post a few dozen more of these annual updates.

Thanks for stopping by!

Posted in Life comment on 56, or 7x2x2x2

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