In the absence of an actual post, since I have no thinkythoughts in my brain at all right now, enjoy this picture of my new shower, and contemplate how weird the reflections and shadows are.
#REVIEW: The Death and Life of Malcolm X, by Peter Goldman
This will be brief, as it’s been a stressful day; we had most of the rest of the work done on the bathroom (there are, sadly, still a couple of tasks to finish) and the guys were both an hour and a half late and then took much longer than they anticipated, which means I’ve spent the entire day waiting, and I’m currently chewing my arms off and climbing the walls at the same time.
The Standard Malcolm X Disclaimer: Malcolm is one of my favorite Americans; I nearly named my son after him (I had my wife talked into it and everything, and then we mutually decided to name him after his grandfather instead) and I have most of a shelf of books about him. “This book is about Malcolm X” means that I’m going to read it and unless it is tremendously poorly written, I’m going to enjoy it. It’s kinda baked in from the jump. And this book is certainly not poorly written.
Peter Goldman’s book was the first major biography of Malcolm X, coming out in 1973, with the edition I read dated 1979. I’m honestly surprised I’d never encountered it before, but I read The Afterlife of Malcolm X back in February and it got referenced enough times that I felt compelled as an amateur Malcolm scholar to pick it up.
And it’s a surprisingly solid biography, especially when one considers that it was written by a white guy in the early 1970s. Goldman appears to have had a good relationship with Malcolm and while the book isn’t as heavily footnoted as I might have liked, I didn’t encounter anything that smacked of shoddy historiography. He focuses heavily on the last year of Malcolm’s life, and then — and this is what made me decide to go ahead and write about it — also spends about a fifth of the book talking about the trial of the three men who were eventually convicted and sentenced for the assassination. Now, Afterlife covers that material as well, but that book is more interested in Malcolm as a cultural icon and I don’t think one book substitutes for another. The real interesting bit of the book is the 1979 addendum at the end, where Goldman says that he no longer believes two of the men convicted for the killing had anything to do with it.
I can’t really issue a blanket recommendation for this book, not because it’s bad but because it’s 2026 and there has been a ton written about Malcolm X in the years since he was killed. If you’re only going to read one book about him, you should read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, a book every single American should read anyway. If you want to read a biography, specifically, I’d recommend Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life Of Reinvention or Les and Tamara Payne’s The Dead are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X. If you already read those books and you haven’t read this one? Definitely give it a read.
A couple of quick notes
I finished another really good book today— maybe you can use context clues to figure out what it was!– but I feel like I’ve maybe used up all of my holy shit this was good you have to go read it now reviews for July? Or maybe that’s not a thing, or maybe I ought to just review the two books I DNFed in between this one and There Is No Antimemetics Division. Y’know, to combat the idea that all I do is slobber all over every book I read. I dunno. Are my book reviews too positive? Maybe I’m not trustworthy anymore.
I will say that July has been weird in that it’s featured both more amazingly good books and more DNFs than a typical month does.
Anyway, what else happened today? I spent part of my afternoon clearing out my Literal Physical Inbox, better known as the wire racks on my desk that I dump mail and paperwork into when it is too important to throw away and yet not quite important enough for me to file away immediately. Getting this done was a goal over Winter Break that didn’t happen, and then a goal over Spring Break that didn’t happen, and I swore to myself that I wasn’t getting through July without taking care of it.
I found stuff dated 2022, by the way.
Along the way I uncovered a ton of professional growth paperwork for my license renewal, which isn’t a critical necessity yet– my teaching license doesn’t expire until July of 2028, which means that technically it’s good through the end of the 2028-29 school year, but I figured I’d get a jump on getting the paperwork filed.
About half an hour ago I told my wife I was going to worry about getting it done tomorrow, expecting it to take the whole morning, and then I logged into the license renewal site just to see what I was getting myself into … and I’m done with the paperwork already. It took less than fifteen minutes. I have to wait for them to approve everything, which shouldn’t take more than a couple of days, and then I need to get my CPR certification up to date, and I think after that I can officially apply for my renewal, so in theory this might be done before the school year starts. Tomorrow morning I’ll find a CPR recertification class, which will probably take longer than uploading my paperwork did.
That will square up my teaching license through 2038, a year so far into the future as to be meaningless, and it might be the last time I have to renew my license, as I’ll turn 62 in 2038 and you best believe I’ll be retiring as soon as possible, even assuming that I make it through twelve more fucking years of teaching. That, all by itself, feels completely crazy. Not as crazy as the idea that if I don’t retire in 2038, I’d have to renew through 2048. That year’s not even going to happen. Let’s be real.
An open letter to Gov. Andy Beshear
Here’s how you handle this:
Announce that Mitch McConnell’s office has until the end of the week to respond in a satisfactory fashion to your entirely reasonable letter about his health. If they do not, at noon on Monday you’ll be holding a press conference on the front steps (or equivalent thereof; the hospital probably doesn’t have a lot of steps) of George Washington University Hospital in DC, which is supposedly where he is. After that press conference, you will be entering the hospital and demanding to see Senator McConnell.
If you are provided sufficient evidence that McConnell is alive and able to perform the duties of his office, you will come out and tell everyone that. If you, the governor of Kentucky, the state that McConnell represents, are denied the chance to see him, either by hospital staff, DC police, McConnell’s staff, or literally anyone else, you will be notifying the still-gathered news media of that fact and then you will immediately either appoint a new Senator in McConnell’s place or name the date of the special election, depending on which method your office has decided you’re able to utilize this week. I feel like this part keeps changing.
They will sue you, if you do that. An awesome thing about facing a lawsuit, though, is that they would have to prove he is alive in order to sue you for unlawfully replacing him. Which happens to solve the exact same problem that you already had, so it’s all good.
It’s time to make an ass of yourself, Governor. Do it.
#REVIEW: There Is No Antimemetics Division, by QNTM
I liked this book so much, I’m willing to forgive the author for wanting me to call him QNTM. I don’t know why, but I have a weird visceral reaction to authors using their Internet handles on their books. It’s made even weirder when you remember that “Luther Siler” is a pen name. I don’t know a single thing about QNTM other than that he wrote this book (and, I guess, that he’s a he, judging from his author picture) but if he’s going to keep writing books this good I’ll call him whatever the hell he wants.
This is one of the most original books I’ve ever read. I can imagine China Miéville writing something like it, which is not to say that Miéville has written anything like it yet. I’m not sure who or what else to compare it to. This is going to be a fairly short review, first because I don’t want to indulge in any spoilers, and second because beyond describing the premise, I’m really not sure how the hell to talk about this book. So I’m going to give you the basics, and I’m already telling you you need to read this if you’ve ever enjoyed science fiction that was smarter than you were, and that is going to have to be enough.
The main character of the book is Marie Quinn, who is in charge of the Antimemetics Division of something called the Unknown Organization. Her division is responsible for tracking, categorizing and occasionally keeping captive entities and objects that have the property of erasing themselves from memory. That’s what an antimeme is; it’s something that you view or interact with or occasionally get messily killed by and the very moment you’re not interacting with it you forget it exists. Some can erase specific kinds of memories (the book is generally not funny, but one entity that feeds on the very specific memory of knowing how to ride a bike has a fe pages dedicated to it) and some have the capability of also erasing notes, videos and recordings that reference their existence as well.
So, given that, and given that the potential threat these types of entities pose to civilization should be immediately clear, let me ask you two questions:
- How do you fight against these things, if you forget they exist the moment you turn away from them?
- How the hell do you write a book about fighting against something like that?
This is a short book; at under 300 pages it can be read in a day easily, and somehow, despite the complexity of the premise, it’s impressively clearly written. You would think this would be a mess to read, and in a lesser author’s hands, it would be; I certainly couldn’t have written this book. I almost read it twice in a row, and there’s a very good chance I’m going to read it again before the month is up. It’s an incredible achievement, both as a story and as a piece of craft. I know I’ve been super positive in my reviews lately (and I have read some amazing books in 2026) but once again I need to tell you that you absolutely have to read this one. Go grab it, right now, before you forget.
This was fun
It’s rare that I pick up a Lego set specifically because I want to build it, and not necessarily because I want it on display, but I took a look at the soccer ball set that hit stores in time for the World Cup and then a conveniently timed double points weekend rolled around and my money disappeared. Because look at the inside of this thing:
That looks a lot more complicated than it was, surprisingly enough, and it was tremendously satisfying to put together. Then there’s the bit that goes in the middle:
If you press that little tan piece sitting right in front of the green, the players jump up and down and the fireworks swing from side to side. Then the whole thing can close up, and honestly, the ball looks pretty cool closed up, too:
We aren’t going to do the math on how much this cost vs. how many hours it took to put together or anything like that, we’re just going to say it was a fun way to spend an evening and an afternoon, leave it at that, and … sigh, figure out somewhere to put it.
Book review coming tomorrow; I’m waiting for the high to die down a little bit.
Not tonight
I got a bit over six and a half hours of sleep last night, woke up at 5:30, went back to bed at 9:30, and slept until 1:30. I currently feel like pan-roasted crap, it’s 7:30, and I think I’m going back to bed now.
Be nice.
On executive dysfunction
This novelty ruler has been in the wrong room in my house for months. Every time I have looked at it, for that entire time, it has annoyed me. Today, I picked it up, carried it through a hallway, my kitchen, my laundry room and the master bathroom and placed it right there, where it belongs, and where it will be used to make sure that all of my books are lined up perfectly.
Months. It took fifteen seconds to move and has annoyed me multiple times per day for months.
But now it is in the right place.
Also, because that wasn’t much of a post, sometimes I say things on more ephemeral websites that I don’t think are completely stupid. With that in mind, I offer you the following screenshot, and invite you to comment on its wisdom or lack thereof, either here or at the original source. I’ve talked about some of these ideas before, but some of them are newer, at least in terms of being expressed by me:
I will freely admit I have not done the math, which may need to be tweaked, but I do genuinely think something like this would work for more accurate, proportional representation. Am I dumb? Call me dumb!