Shakedown Social

Wordy Words on WordsSo… I’m either reading or re-reading all of Stephen King’s stuff and this is a thing that he wrote and published as an Amazon single. It’s interesting. He makes a lot of good points as a guy who owns and seems to like guns. There’s space for nuance here somewhere between “guns are evil,” and “all guns should be open-carried all the time in all the places by all the people,” that I feel not enough people want to acknowledge. More importantly (to me), though, was the defeated tone that comes from having watched shooting after shooting after shooting. All the thoughts and prayers that don’t amount to shit, all the legal measures blocked by politicians that live in gun manufacturer’s pockets, and the crushing depression that comes from the certainty that this will continue to happen until the end of time or until something substantial happens. But the thing that’s interesting to me is that so many people who obviously can’t read subtext in King’s books freaked out when this came out. They said he shouldn’t get political or opine on serious matters but held been doing that literally since his first book. These are the idiots who failed English in high school for not being able to recognize symbolism, subtext, or meaning. The people who are taking everything at face value. You know. Morons. And these people were upset but I don’t get it. This isn’t anti-gun. This isn’t anti-gun owner. This is a measured appeal for common sense that made people upset because it dared to ask for limits on supposed freedoms. Look, take it or leave it, okay? People believe what they want to believe. But I think there’s something wrong with someone who ignores literally everything except the boo-scares in a series of over 60 novels and then complains when the author’s feelings become too obvious to ignore. Maybe King just isn’t for them. <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/books?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#books</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/bookrecommendation?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#bookrecommendation</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/booktok?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#booktok</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/bookstagram?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#bookstagram</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/bookstagrammer?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#bookstagrammer</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/booksky?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#booksky</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/readersofpixelfed?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#readersofpixelfed</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/read?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#read</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/readinglog?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#readinglog</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/stephenking?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#stephenking</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/guns?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#guns</a>

Wordy Words on WordsIt’s super interesting to read a philosopher’s take on how he thought Covid would impact our culture as a whole. He was wrong, but I think we all were. I distinctly remember thinking that Covid could - for all the heartache and death it brought with it - also bring a reframing of our lives and a refreshed priority list to all of us. We could really take a moment and breathe for a bit, look around, and evaluate whether we as a society are okay with the grind that is modernity. Turns out yes, people were okay with it. Well. Rich people were okay with it. As so often happens, the curtain lifted a bit to show that that so-called “unskilled labor force,” is actually holding up civilization while the rich just pretend to do important things. At this point, Covid feels like a wasted opportunity to right an awful lot of wrongs. Edit: I wrote the above in 2022 and I feel like I’ve just gotten more radicalized year after year from my disappointment in all of us as a society. We could have done so much. We could currently be in such a better place. But no, the workforce was forced to cave to the rich, showing their trick of limiting wages to barely livable also meant that nobody had the opportunity to reject the systems that they set up. We were set up, exploited, and manipulated and words cannot express just how fucking angry I am about the whole thing because now there are ZERO silver linings or redeeming values to Covid19. Just a whole lot of unnecessary death and tighter grip on the people by corporations and billionaires. It kills me, man. I’m not even kidding. I hate it and it breaks my heart every. single. day. <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/bookstagram?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#bookstagram</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/book?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#book</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/books?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#books</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/bookreview?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#bookreview</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/bookrecommendation?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#bookrecommendation</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/bookrecommendations?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#bookrecommendations</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/booklover?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#booklover</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/booknerd?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#booknerd</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/bookaddict?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#bookaddict</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/read?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#read</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/readmore?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#readmore</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/readmorebooks?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#readmorebooks</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/reader?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#reader</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/constantreader?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#constantreader</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/philosophy?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#philosophy</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/slavojzizek?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#slavojzizek</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/covid?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#covid</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/pandemic?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#pandemic</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/covidbook?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#covidbook</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/booksky?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#booksky</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/readersofpixelfed?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#readersofpixelfed</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/read?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#read</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/readinglog?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#readinglog</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/covid19?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#covid19</a>

Wordy Words on WordsIt’s fine. It’s actually got a pretty decent story to it where a local haunted house, Hill House (not to be confused with THE Hill House), is constantly toured by two little pranksters. The tour guide tells the tale of how the house was built by a seaman who led this side there and, after he never came back, she ran away. Then his ghost appeared, roaming the halls with a light looking for her. Pretty cool. Then a boy accidentally finds where the ghost is hiding (ghosts just hide places. What did you think they did? DISAPPEAR?) and told him now HE can’t leave, rips the kid’s head off (not gory, he just REMOVES the head like a toy crash test dummy) and hides it. Then the seaman leaves. Which is hilarious. Anyway, is the ghost of the kid roams the house. A new kid tells them he’s seen the ghosts and convinces them to join him there at night where he confesses that he is the headless ghost. He’s been borrowing this head (as one does) and needs to return it, which is just good manners. But now he wants the boy prankster’s head! The kids flee, stumble into hidden rooms or whatever and find the ACTUAL head. Then the ghost appears, reunited with the head, and fades away. Weird that the headless ghost wasn’t just hiding somewhere. Anyway, turns out this new kid is the tour guide’s nephew and they all leave. Decent story. But then Stine fucked it up because he just COULD NOT resist. WEEKS go by and the kids take one last tour only to find cops waiting for them outside asking what they were doing. They said taking the tour. “But it went out of business MONTHS ago. You must have been getting tours from ghosts!” And, sure enough, the tour guide and his wife are in the window, ghosts. Pretty sure those chunks of time need to be reversed to make any sense since other people were on these tours. Or he could have just stopped when it made sense! <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/books?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#books</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/bookstagram?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#bookstagram</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/readersofpixelfed?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#readersofpixelfed</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/read?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#read</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/readinglog?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#readinglog</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/goosebumps?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#goosebumps</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/goosebumpsbooks?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#goosebumpsbooks</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/rlstine?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#rlstine</a> <a href="https://pixelfed.social/discover/tags/rlstinebooks?src=hash" class="u-url hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#rlstinebooks</a>

Taylor Drew :tokyo:I compiled a list of what I read in the past month on my blog again. Still not completely sold on how I'm doing it, but I'm commited to keeping up the habit and figuring it out as I go.That being said, if anyone has any suggestions or anything they want to add about any of the books I've talked about, feeling free to let me know!<a href="https://taylordrew.me/october-2024-reads/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://taylordrew.me/october-2024-reads/</a><a href="https://famichiki.jp/tags/ReadingLog" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ReadingLog</a> <a href="https://famichiki.jp/tags/bookstodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#bookstodon</a> <a href="https://famichiki.jp/tags/AmReading" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#AmReading</a>

Jesse SkinnerJust finished Neuromancer, my first time reading William Gibson. Difficult but worth it. Wow. Amazing and prophetic, so many things written in 1984 that have become relatable today. The world he creates is so massive and complex. Curious about the sequels, but I think I'll read something lighter in the interim.<a href="https://toot.cafe/tags/books" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#books</a> <a href="https://toot.cafe/tags/reading" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#reading</a> <a href="https://toot.cafe/tags/readinglog" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#readinglog</a> <a href="https://toot.cafe/tags/gibson" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#gibson</a> <a href="https://toot.cafe/tags/neuromancer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#neuromancer</a> <a href="https://toot.cafe/tags/cyberpunk" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#cyberpunk</a>

Earthy in EV heavenJust finished The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill. A ripper of a read. <a href="https://aus.social/tags/books" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#books</a> <a href="https://aus.social/tags/ReadingLog" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ReadingLog</a>

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