S.N.Arly

fantasy, dark fiction, and science fiction author (she/her)

[wiisagi-maiingan]

It was a lot easier to garden when I was unemployed. Between my job and the chronic fatigue and the housework, it is just so fucking hard to find the time and energy to go outside and weed, plant things, water everything, etc.

I think a lot of people without gardening experience don't really realize how much labor and time it really takes, not to mention the money, and how it's extremely unlikely that you'll be able to work a full-time job, take care of your house, AND maintain a massive garden with a wide variety of plants that you can live off of. That's just not sustainable. Even the most experienced gardeners, unless it's also their income, will usually just focus on growing a few high-yield crops like squash and beans and greens over a ton of different things that have so many different care and space and light requirements.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

When you first start planning a garden, you think that you'll grow beans and corn and squash and pumpkins and carrots and peppers and broccoli and potatoes and tomatoes and and and

And then the birds eat all your corn before you can get to it. And you get maybe a few squash and a couple small pumpkins before the powdery mildew takes over. And the squirrels dig up all your pepper seedlings. And you get maybe a handful of tiny carrots and potatoes because you underestimated how much space they needed. And the chipmunks pick your tomatoes right off the vine while they're still green.

[s-n-arly]

Last year I was unemployed and terrified about food scarcity. I started a basement pantry of dried goods and I expanded my garden by 150%. The garden was my life. And as someone with a disability, who has to be very mindful about weeding and digging, it was an INVESTMENT.

I've been gardening forever, but this really hit home that gardening takes time, energy, and a functional body (or people who can sub in for you). And while you can plan all you like (my garden plan was 125 pages long and very detailed), gardening is an exercise in failure and pivoting, over and over.

People working multiple jobs, or who are emotionally drained, or who have disabilities, or who have other responsibilities (work, kids, elders, etc) do not necessarily have time to garden.

This year's garden just got obliterated in a hail storm Friday. I lost about half the plants. Time to pivot.

[s-n-arly]

Crazy Busy Dance Weekend - Duet Edition

Kiddo and I have a classical Chinese watersleeve dance duet called impermanence. Its message is that we should treasure people while they're in our lives, as we never know when they'll be gone.

I play the role of mom, happy when my child is with me and wistful when she's away. As the child, they are just excited for their future. The dance ends with her alone on stage, looking back to where I was.

We'd performed this a few times during lunar new year, but we really fine tuned the moves and the emotional punch for this staged show. I legit burst into tears when I got off stage and had to get out of the wings so I wouldn't be heard.

I hope to see video of this at some point, because I want to see it as the audience did.

It should be noted that I had taken in Kiddo's costume on the sides, but the ladder stitch did not hold. I'll have to redo it with something more sturdy.

Photos by Jing Zhang.

[robertreich]

It's Worse Than Ever https://robertreich.substack.com/p/its-worse-than-ever

[s-n-arly]

He should NOT be president.

[s-n-arly]

Another set of pics from Crazy Busy Dance Weekend (TM)

These photos are from my kid's solo, Flowing Clouds, Running Water. The first three minutes were choreographed by our amazing instructor Aloe Ao Liu, who took into consideration kiddo's height and strengths. When Aloe had to go on leave unexpectedly, Arwin stepped up to choreograph the final two minutes and to provide the feedback kiddo needed to make this an amazing solo. We are grateful to both of them for giving my kid this chance to shine.

The kiddo's height and arm length made them a good candidate to use flags (AKA praise flags), which we hadn't seen other CAAM Chinese Dance Theater dancers use before. There are other, stiffer flags that we've used, but not these flowy ones.

Kiddo has been dancing with CAAM CDT for 12 years, and is officially moving from the youth program to the adult program. Those years have been both amazing and fraught. ADHD resulted in one of the teachers flat-out ignoring my kid, which meant her skills were self-built. In recent years, kiddo's dance friends and teachers have helped correct skills that were the result of observation without feedback. My kid's love in dance is what sparked me to give it a try during the pandemic. It is something she takes great joy in (especially the performing part).

Kiddo is hoping to get to perform this solo at outreaches throughout the metro this summer, and they plan to continue with dance at CAAM CDT in the adult program for the foreseeable future. I am so lucky to get to dance with my kid (who is no longer really a child)!

Photos by Jing Zhang

[s-n-arly]

Dai Fingernail Dance

Here are some more pics from Crazy Busy Dance Weekend (TM).

These are from The Dai Fingernail Dance with CAAM Chinese Dance Theater, and they were taken by Jing Zhang. This dance showcases graceful feminine beauty through agile, elegant, and rhythmically dynamic movements. This dance features extremely long fingernails (ours were 7-9 inches long), typically gold in color.

Who are the Dai people?

"The Dai people are closely related to the Shan, Lao and Thai people who form a majority in Laos and Thailand, and a large minority in Myanmar. Originally, the Tai, or Dai, lived closely together in modern Yunnan Province until political chaos and wars in the north at the end of the Tang and Song dynasty and various nomadic peoples prompted some to move further south into modern Laos then Thailand. As with many other officially recognized ethnic groups in China (See Gaoshan and Yao), the term Dai, at least within Chinese usage, is an umbrella term and as such has no equivalent in Tai languages, who have only more general terms for 'Tai peoples in general'." - Wikipedia

One of the things I love about the Chinese American community in Minnesota, is that it welcomes all who are interested in learning language and culture. In this adult class, we had a variety of ages (17 to 70+) and ethnic backgrounds.

[conarcoin]

[naamahdarling]

I would play the shit out of this.

[ashanoir]

Please support this game! I've been following it forever and the developers obviously put a lot of love into finally repping my people as Not Just Generic Bad Guys To Be Slaughtered in QuickTime Events, but the unabashed horse girls we truly are. I really love how outspoken she is about representing proper care and compassion for these animals in the industry too.

Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori (PC & Consoles)

Experience the legendary adventures of a brave courier rider! Bond with your horse and tame the open wilds of 13th century Mongolia.

[finnglas]

Found it! Reblogging to kickstart when I’m at my laptop.

[s-n-arly]

This sounds SUPER COOL! I love the idea of video games more than the act of playing them. This is more because I have a connective tissue disorder and my hands are SOOOOO fragile and fucked up. Combat games are a solid nope because I like being able to tie my shoes. Puzzle and exploration games, however, bring me great joy. A game that promises us a different cultural representation is very exciting. Horses are an integral part of Mongolian culture, and this feels like an excellent branch off the original Windstorm games.

[s-n-arly]

Shanghailanders Weekend!

I'm off to the theater for tech rehearsal part 1.

Shanghailanders is expected to only have two shows. We hope to have a good audience to enjoy the outcome of so much work and effort.

Tickets are available at: https://search.seatyourself.biz/webstore/accounts/shenpei/buy-tix

[s-n-arly]

Question for Dancers (and those who spend mad amounts of time on their feet)

How do you handle, manage, or treat foot pain when you have an insane amount of rehearsals? Asking for me.

[s-n-arly]

Chinese Cultural Performance - Twin Cities

The CAAM Chinese Dance Theater's spring show, Where Spring Lingers, is this Sunday, May 31, from 2-4pm! This is my kid's final performance as a youth dancer with CAAM-CDT. We will be performing our water sleeve duet and they will be performing their first ever solo (it's AMAZING)!

This show will be held at the Eden Prairie High school (17185 Valley View Rd, Eden Prairie) - this is not the performing arts center.

Tickets are pay what you can starting at $5 (anything over that is a donation to CAAM-CDT). You can order yours at: https://caamcdt.org/ticket-order-form/

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

i NEED people to realise foreshadowing is. in fact. a literary device. and not a Bad Thing. the audience picking up on your hints is a Good Thing. because. it makes the story and it’s conclusion make sense. and some people will not see those but enjoy seeing them on a second read through. red herrings are one thing but if your novel consists of nothing but red herrings it’s not a coherent story it’s just a collection of paragraphs that don’t actually plausibly link to one another. you're not fighting with the audience you don’t look clever you look like you don’t know how basic fiction works. be vulnerable for once in your goddamn life and don't treat writing like a game to be won where the audience losing is a good thing.

[ineffectualdemon]

Getting to the end of a story and going "THE CLUES WERE THERE THE WHOLE TIME!" is always joyous for me whether or not I picked up on the clues leading up

If I saw the clues and caught the hints then yes! I am clever and me and the author/creator/artist etc were in on it together the whole time!

If I didn't notice the clues or got fooled but can clearly see them in hindsight then "Ha! You won this time storyteller! I am delighted by this game we play!' and then I enjoy putting the pieces together afterwards and enjoying how clever it was. I feel like the creator respects me as an audience

If there is a "twist" that comes with 0 clues or foreshadowing at all I'm annoyed. I'm pissed off. I feel like I'm being condescended to and patronised. It's not clever or interesting and makes me annoyed I ended up caring about characters and plot points that ended up meaningless.

Because it's not that these stories don't have foreshadowing or plot clues. They just abandon it for a "surprising twist"

A story that pays off the clues is letting me into the fun and makes a participant in the story

A story that just gives me a "shock" but no pay off is telling me not to engage or get attached or care. So why would I watch?

[s-n-arly]

OMG! THIS!

Random plot twists that don't connect to anything in the story are not clever. If we don't see it coming because the writer didn't provide any clues, they aren't clever and it's totally unsatisfying (and I will NEVER read this writer again). These clues need not be lit up in neon with a parade of elephants and showgirls. But they need to be present

I'm a writer and am rarely surprised. Often, if I am surprised it's because the writer was a dumbass and included a "twist" that makes no sense (and therefore isn't really a twist, it's just random bullshit). If a writer genuinely surprises me, without being an absolute dumbass, I am FUCKING DELIGHTED! I will tell everyone I know to read the book/see the movie/watch the show.

[s-n-arly]

Shanghailanders

We're coming up on three years of my involvement with this project. It's been a greater time commitment than I'd planned, but it is going to be amazing.

We are using dance and acting to tell the story of Shanghai's Jewish population during WWII.

If you happen to be in or near the Twin Cities in Minnesota, we will have two shows at Fridley High School: May 30, 7:00pm ~9pm May 31, 6:30pm~8:30pm

Tickets are $30. Students can get in for $19, and groups of 8-15 people can use the code GROUP to get their tickets for $27 each.

Tickets are available at: https://search.seatyourself.biz/.../accounts/shenpei/buy-tix

[nariiminus]

[s-n-arly]

Yep. If a website needs my ID, then I clearly don't need the website in my life.

[robertreich]

Psst: What No One Will Tell You About the National Debt (But I Will) https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-no-one-will-tell-you-about-the

[s-n-arly]

An accurate depiction of Republicans in congress right now.

[thatlittleegyptologist]

"Using an Oxford comma is a sign of AI"

bestie boo, let me fill you in on something: if you're going to take any part of 'good grammar' and randomly assign it to She's A Witch! AI, you might as well give up. It's over. You're cooked. Anyone who has spent the last decade or more learning to type properly, anyone who has spent any time writing articles/papers/essays that require you to use 'good grammar' is going to fall into that 'oh no it might be AI' trap.

Stop hunting like it's 1692. You're not going to find Goody Proctor at the ChatGPT sacrament. What you're going to do is exactly what happened back then: harming people who've done nothing wrong.

[arviyya]

can I reblog this a million times

[s-n-arly]

I've been using Oxford commas since before the internet existed. I've been using semicolons correctly since before dial-up.

Witch hunts are not helpful here.

[s-n-arly]

Go Do Your PT

Are you putting off your physical therapy because it's boring, hurts, makes you dizzy, or for any other reason? I understand. I have been there.

I'm not allowed to go to bed until I stand in a corner, barefoot on a pillow, and do my stupid head tilts and head circles. So I'm going to do that. And you, you can do your PT, too. We've got this.

[pirateprincessjess]

Google Chrome has been installing an AI model on users devices without their consent.

[pirateprincessjess]

Since that file path is only on the screen for a second, the ai is located in

C:\Users\<YourUsername>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\OptGuideOnDeviceModel\weights.bin

[s-n-arly]

I was already in the process of stripping everything from Google. This just moves up my timeline.

Fucking evil platform.

[s-n-arly]

I've over-committed myself... again

I thought I would be doing two hours of dance class/rehearsal twice a week (one day with one studio and the other with the project studio). Last week I participated in 10 hours of class and rehearsal. This week looks a bit better. It will be more like 8.5 hours.

Both studios have performances the last weekend in May. If you're in the Twin Cities and are interested in a dance drama that tells the story of Shanghai's Jewish community from the 1930s, you may want to check out Shanghailanders.

This piece includes as much acting as dancing, and is the passion project of choreographer Shen Pei. Shen Pei just turned 90 this month. She grew up in Shanghai, and her neighbors were Shanghailanders, Jewish people who came to Shanghai in the thriving 1920s economy and social scene. They were also the refugees who fled Europe. Her father was murdered by Japanese soldiers during the occupation, while trying to protect his neighbors and family.

I'm honored to be a part of this project. But I'm also a little bit tired. I think I have my costumes sorted now... well, except that whole trenchcoat thing, but there's time. Right?