Luke O. @loppear@social.coop

Be chill and flamboyant like this tiny shiny fly

... real, but referenced in an eerily fictionalized and magical novel of Jim Crow North, "Lovecraft Country" by Matt Ruff.

Fear is palpable in so much of our unexamined racial interactions in this country. And comfort in caste.

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." - James Baldwin

Here's the Standard Form Restrictive Covenant, Chicago 1927. "[Restricted to not] be used or occupied directly or indirectly by any negro or negroes, provided that this restriction shall not prevent the occupation, ... of janitors' or chauffeurs' quarters in the basement or in a barn or garage in the rear, or of servants' quarters by negro janitors, chauffeurs or house servants, respectively, actually employed as such for service in and about the premises ..."

"Chained In Silence" by Talitha Leflouria is hard reading about women in convict labor in Georgia after Reconstruction. This is not about wealth per se but sets the raw ground of devalued labor, disposable underclass, and vagrancy laws to allow the rounding up of that class, that the incarceration exception to the 13th amendment immediately and persistently enabled.

"Color of Law" by Richard Rothstein i think lays out the extent of 20th century preferential legal treatment esp in housing most directly, emphasizing how it was a northern and western reality as much as any legacy of the south.

Moved by an avalanche of reminders about the racist, jim crow new and old, legal ways this country's past has enriched whites and made blacks a subclass long after slavery's end and poured subsidized dollars into wealth building for whites only. We owe a long road of repaying those lifetimes of inequality. Reading thoughts thread:

#Reading "Secondhand" by Adam Minter. Really good world tour of used goods, especially on what of our middle-class-up excessive consumption we assume someone will want to reuse vs what and where things are actually imported, repaired, and dumped. Very pro-reuse, good sections on obsolescence, declining quality, and right to repair, while also being a broad global view in how things repeat as more of the world consumes more new.

On the back corner of our property is a small former "swimming hole" maybe 6m across, overgrown and only of interest to me for being a wildlife stop (have seen an otter and huge snapping turtle passing through over the years, other turtles and frogs). But finally decided to clear one corner back so I can get to it, maybe put a little blind or cabin on the "shore", maybe after a year of watching it closer I'll feel comfortable with when and where to dip my toes in on a hot day. #smallstories

@nev want to id this georgia spider who just took care of the horsefly irritating me in my shed?

Butterfly garden happenings: Pearl Crescent.

"A natural human tendency is to try to continue with as ordinary and civilised life as possible, for as long as one can. Bruno Bettelheim later observed that, under Nazism, only a few people realized at once that life could not continue unaltered: these were the ones who got away quickly."

#Reading "At The Existentialist Cafe" by Sarah Bakewell

Contented tree frog on a rainy day.

The red shouldered hawks have their nest just into the wild woods behind the house this year a hungry white puffball is looking back at my binoculars has grown to take shaky steps and ruffle its feathers before I thought to look up and see #smallstories

Well I hope for rain again
Stood low in the field
Mud turned to dry grass pollen
Spun my eye through the ark
Where a dammed pond could be

#smallpoems

Heavier rains this year in our new normal #climate 3.8 inches overnight, pretty rough on a bunch of seedlings I had transplanted. 6th heaviest week of rain in 2020 (last week was 6.25in over two rain events, February was unreal). And yet I hope the summer isn't too dry, heat is starting to show up in next week's forecast.

Passing down historical objects, we now have a 1936 globe with a nice "sun ray" arm showing changes in seasons as the year progresses. Makes me nostalgic for the Globe Museum in Vienna, Austria.

I'm surprised that I know no other friends who darn socks (or, as quality has suffered my entire lifetime, seam repair in socks or shirts or sweaters). It radically extends the lifetime of (especially cheap?) clothes, reduces consumption and expense, takes a few minutes infrequently, and is very forgiving of sloppy technique. Maybe we just don't talk about it.

A relic from an earlier age.

Moving into late spring / early summer #florespondence around our yard.

At least fifty dragonflies making easy loops over our yard, some high some low some holding patterns some evasive maneuvers "Good job dragons, fly like a zero" says the child. #smallstories #smallchild