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Archive for the ‘Biography’ Category

Links #844

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 6, 2026| Leave a Comment »

You’re not the future anymore!  –  Mark Zuckerberg, sort of

Though Tim Curry died only the day after Dolly Parton, I wasn’t going to cheat him of a proper sendoff.  The links above the video were provided by Ryan Marino; Radley Balko; Scott Greenfield and Dan Savage; The Onion; Ryan Marino again; Amy Alkon; and Nun Ya, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Lost Update

Posted in Diary, Fiction, Miscellaneous, tagged , , , , , on September 4, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I haven’t forgotten that I estimated Lost Angels would be released around June, but long-time readers know that I’ve never been especially good at estimating when my books would come out; The Essential Maggie McNeill came out six years after I first announced I was working on it, and even The Forms of Things Unknown was much later than originally announced.  The main reason my books tend to come out so much later than my most hopeful predictions is that I’m not working from an advance, which means I need to prioritize my bread-and-butter writing first.  But another part is that I’m a rather moody person (I know you’re shocked at this revelation) and will sometimes procrastinate some step or another for months until I get into the right frame of mind.  But this time, I have what I believe to be a better excuse:  Chester Brown has been busy with other projects, and since he does these covers for me out of friendship I don’t like to hassle him as though I were some kind of entitled ingrate.  But I recently decided to email him to ask if he was still busy, and he replied that he was, but if we waited until he wasn’t the cover would never be done.  So he included a rough sketch of his cover concept and I was pleased and excited by it; I shot back a little input, and I suspect it won’t be terribly long before he is done.  So I’m not going to make another estimate which will probably also be wrong, but I will say that I think it’s not improbable that it will be out this year.

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Diary #844

Posted in Diary, tagged , , on September 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I did realize that a full-grown turkey could not live comfortably in a henhouse with chickens, but what I did not realize was just how much trouble it would be.  First, he injured himself trying to get through the chicken door, so I had to let him in and out through the walk-through door for the past couple of months.  He also kept trying to flap his wings inside, which meant every day I had to deal with the feeder getting knocked loose (and the feed consumed 50% faster), most of the water being dumped on the ground, electrical cords being knocked loose, and nasty shit getting everywhere, producing a reek that was intolerable even by chicken standards. But then I realized that in addition to all that, the hens were pecking him so badly he had bloody sores under his tail and on his back between the wings.  So last week I shooed him out into the paddock, which was not easy; he whacked me with his wings (which are much stronger than one would expect) and kept running in every direction other than the one where I wanted him to go.  That was through the open gate, which meant several of the chickens took advantage of it even though he wouldn’t, which meant they needed to be shooed back in once I finally got him out.  He then spent several days just lurking outside the fence, staring in with an expression I interpreted as the avian equivalent of a child with no money pressing his runny nose against the window of a candy store.  But on Saturday he started wandering around a bit, and on Sunday he was up in the north paddock hunting for bugs in the grass.  He later joined the pigs and goat eating the corn I throw over the fence; I’d been giving him some separately from the pigs, but on Sunday he joined them so I just doubled the amount.  All in all, this looks like the way to do it, should I choose to raise more large fowl in the future, but next time I’ll do it before the injuries start accumulating.

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Links #843

Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 30, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Get on the fucking ground…I will fucking tase you. – cop to “missing child”

Even with all of her songs to choose from, this felt to me like the most appropriate tribute to one of the world’s most beloved human beings.  The links above it were provided by Radley Balko; Mistress Matisse; T. Greg Doucette; Ryan Cooper and Scott Long; Nun Ya (x2); and IncarcerNation, in that order.

From the Archives

I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one.  Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful.  But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer.  So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets.  Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements.  Thanks so much!

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Diary #843

Posted in Diary, tagged on August 25, 2026| Leave a Comment »

We didn’t have a bumper crop of plums this year, but the ones we got are plump and juicy.  I made a plum pie, and though Jae loves plum pastries I find them more tart than I care for. I do like plum bread, though, and plum sauce, so I think I’ll make some this week.  The tomatoes are just about big enough to make fried green tomatoes; this year I bought only two of a cherry-tomato variety and four of a table-tomato variety, but the former grew so quickly and so large they’ve really overwhelmed the latter, so next year I’m only going to buy one and plant it in a separate planter so the table-tomato plants have more room to grow.  I’ve never had a green thumb and I don’t particularly like digging in the dirt, so my gardening is limited to plants I can basically ignore other than ensuring they get enough water.  And that typically works out just fine for me.

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Out in the Open

Posted in Biography, Current Events, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , on August 24, 2026| Leave a Comment »

He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.  –  Jon Ossoff

One thing that never ceases to amuse me is the inability of vanilla squares to see something so obvious it’s practically dancing on their noses, because their understanding of human sexuality is so limited and ignorant that they completely lack the ability to recognize a kink relationship when they see it.  Case in point the mad emperor’s aide Natalie Harp, who has been in the news lately because the epigram above cast light upon their relationship, which Trump’s followers and enemies alike seem confused and embarrassed by.  Harp first came into the public eye in 2019, when she credited Trump for saving her from cancer; she joined his losing 2020 campaign and soon unsettled his other aides (and the Secret Service) with her obsessive, slavish devotion, following him around with a portable printer so she could print out laudatory articles for him to read.  For one of his New York court appearances in October 2023, his other staffers tried to ditch her by leaving no seat for her in a motorcade; she rode along in a vehicle’s trunk, like a piece of cargo.  During his 2024 campaign, they tried to keep her away from staying with him at his golf club by denying her a room; she responded by sleeping in the women’s locker room all summer.  When she accompanies him out on the golf course, he does not let her ride in his golf cart but forces her to trot along behind like a dog; she has written apology letters to him for being unable to keep up.  She has access to his “Truth Social” account and was responsible for the infamous tweet depicting the Obamas as apes.  And she writes him love letters which include phrases like “You are all that matters to me“, and signs them, “With all my heart, Natalie“.

Many on social media are implying that she is essentially the mad emperor’s favorite concubine, and of course his followers insist that their relationship is “chaste” and “spiritual”.  And both sides are right, and both are wrong.  Because any kinky person knows a D/s relationship when we see it, and it’s blatantly obvious that this is the psychosexual dynamic involved here (though neither of them probably recognizes it for what it is).  It’s not “chaste” in any way; it’s deeply sexual.  But not all sex involves genitalia or orgasm, despite the inability of squares to grasp that.

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Links #842

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 23, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I just love a captive audience.  –  Whitney Lynn

I always enjoy sharing my earworms, especially when they explain things about my daily life such as why I often call my pig Louie by singing, “Louie Louie Louie Loo-eeeee”.  The links above the video were provided by Mike Siegel; Shiv Ramdas; Angela Keaton and Mike Masnick; Radley Balko; IncarcerNation (x2); and Mike Siegel again, in that order.

From the Archives

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Diary #842

Posted in Diary, tagged on August 18, 2026| 2 Comments »

One really nice thing about the climate here at Sunset is that when I pick blackberries, I can wear a long-sleeved top to protect my arms from the thorns; in Louisiana and Oklahoma it’s much too hot for that.  So when I noticed late last week that there were plenty of ripe blackberries, I put on this old work shirt of Matt’s that I have used as a light jacket for almost 15 years, and in half an hour I had what you see here.  And this represents only about a third of what was there; because I’m the only one eating them I didn’t bother with anything but the biggest, nicest ones.  Another nice thing was that, since it was overcast (as it so often is here), I was not fooled into picking some of those that were still somewhat red, as happens regularly when it’s very sunny; as you can see, all of these were at the peak of color, which is also the peak of sweetness.  On Saturday I made a blackberry pie, and it was one of the best ones I’ve ever made, as sweet and flavorful as one could wish.  There are also lots of plums on the trees, and it looks like I’ll be getting enough tomatoes and apples for my needs as well.  So because I know this year’s weather was a fluke of the changing climate and it may not be this way next year, I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.

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Links #841

Posted in Current Events, Links, Miscellaneous, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Jail erodes every aspect of a person’s agency.  –  Lindsey Krinks

I recently watched all the Charlie Chan movies Chekhov had in his collection.  The low-budget Monogram Chan pictures of the 1940s weren’t as good as the 20th Century Fox ones of the 1930s, but though Mantan Moreland, who played Chan’s chauffeur in the ’40s pictures, was typically paired with Benson Fong as “Number Three son” for comic relief, a couple of the films included guest appearances by Moreland’s former vaudeville partner Ben Carter, allowing the two to show off the very funny ‘indefinite talk” routine which made them famous.  The links above the video were provided by Jesse Walker, Anarres Ansible, Mistress Matisse, IncarcerNation, Nun Ya, T. Greg Doucette, and IncarcerNation again, in that order.

From the Archives

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Diary #841

Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous, tagged , , on August 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Chekhov and Yellowbird gave me this cool egg rack last Christmas.  Typically, I use it to hold regular “large” size eggs (and put the extra-large and jumbo ones in the basket at the bottom).  But right from the start I realized that it would be an excellent way to hold undersized pullet eggs once the young hens started laying.  And as you can see, they have!  When I first started keeping chickens 20 years ago, I realized that when a recipe calls for x number of eggs, that meant large-grade eggs, so if I wanted to use pullet eggs in a recipe more would be required.  So while I still had my last carton of store-bought eggs around, I measured the volume of a typical egg and discovered it to be 1/4 cup.  So if a recipe calls for 3 eggs, that really means 3/4 cup of eggs, and if I want to use pullet eggs I just crack them into a measuring cup until I get to the right amount.  If I’m cooking something less finicky (for example, just regular scrambled eggs) I just use 2 for 1 at this stage, then later when they are just small rather than tiny I move to roughly 3 for 2.  And if I want to use normal-sized eggs for whatever reason (or give them to friends), the eggs from the mature chickens are still stored in the cupboard like usual.

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