Endymion's Bower

Today's theme is My Chemical Romance.


addme_fandom  -- Addme Fandom
Find friends who share your fannish obsessions.
[Active with one post in June.]

allbingo  -- All Bingo
Share your creative bingo activities and discussions here.
Some fests have prompts based on song titles. Some players make their fills with fanmixes or vids.
[Active with multiple posts in June.]

beautifulmechanical  -- Beautiful Mechanical
Do you love music? We do, too.
[Active with multiple posts in May.]

strikethechoir  -- Strike the Choir
A journal centered on My Chemical Romance.
[Somewhat active with last post in December 2025.]

Confusion and ‘More Chaos’ as States Implement SNAP Food Restrictions

Five states have already implemented bans on soda and candy through federal food assistance programs, with over a dozen more set to take effect this year.


Abusing poor people is popular.

The real aim is not to make people eat healthier foods, but rather to discourage people from using assistance programs. The benefits are not free, but cost a significant amount of time and energy to obtain. If they are stingy and/or restrictive, then it quickly becomes a waste of resources to chase after that pittance. Nobody wants to have to make a separate trip just for the food stamp shopping, let alone struggle to figure out what is "allowed" only to get stopped at the register because items are rejected. People will buy worse food with cash which can purchase anything, or go to a food pantry.

If the government really wanted people to eat healthier foods, then it would subsidize things like spinach instead of sugarcane. Another good approach would be buying healthy foods in bulk to distribute through programs or food pantries. It's not that difficult; people just don't choose to do it.

( Read more... )

Today is mostly sunny and warm.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 6/4/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 6/4/26 -- I sprayed weeds in the prairie garden.

Black raspberries are ripening.  Blackberries have green fruit.

EDIT 6/4/26 -- I potted up the giant African marigolds.

EDIT 6/4/26 -- I watered the patio plants and barrel garden.

EDIT 6/4/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I've seen a fox squirrel.

EDIT 6/4/26 -- I picked a handful of black raspberries along the edge of the prairie garden.

EDIT 6/4/26 -- I watered the new picnic table garden.

EDIT 6/4/26 -- After sunset, we went out skywatching.  We saw Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury in a line. \o/

At least 2 bats were out tonight, skimming along the edges of the yard and up the driveway.  There were more fireflies, surprising given how dry it's been recently, but I am happy to see them.

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.
 

The following poems from the May 5, 2026 Poetry Fishbowl are currently available. Poems may be sponsored via PayPal -- there's a permanent donation button on my Dreamwidth profile page -- or you can write to me and discuss other methods. There are still verses left in the linkback poems "A Sense of Weather Changes," "The Loving Embrace of Night," "Generations of Cooks Past," "Homefree and Clear, " "One Bite at a Time," "Mishpocha," "Changing Your Nature," and "Besa."


"The Art of Morphological Derivation"
Summary: Words are humanity's most versatile tools.
25 lines, Buy It Now = $10

"Ĉiu Kreas Sian Forton"
Story Date: Evening of Monday, June 6, 2016
Summary: Shiv explores Esperanto words.
64 lines, Buy It Now = $32

The day had gone well, and
Shiv was pleasantly tired.

After supper, people were
gathering in clusters to share
stories or work on things that
didn't involve bending metal.


"Lichengloss"
Summary: It's about the slow struggle of learning a new language.
29 lines, Buy It Now = $15

"Shoutengai"
Summary: Tokyo is famous for its shopping streets.
54 lines, Buy It Now = $20

"Tumbled Voices"
Story Date: Friday, August 29, 2014
Summary: Kenzie talks with Many Tongues about what makes a dialect or a language.
102 lines, Buy It Now = $51

Kenzie enjoyed listening
to the flow of language
around him, even though
he didn't know much yet.


"Zakkyo"
Summary: These mixed-use buildings have commercial businesses on every floor.
40 lines, Buy It Now = $15

WHAT I MISS ABOUT THE EARLY (1996-2000) WORLD WIDE WEB

The Internet was dominated by kind of counter-cultural people

Then the mundanes showed up, and it began to suck -- much like what happened to fandom.

( Read more... )

Today is mostly sunny and warm.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches. Red-winged blackbirds are singing overhead.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 6/3/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen a male cardinal at the hopper feeder.

EDIT 6/3/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 6/3/26 -- I watered plants in the house yard.

EDIT 6/3/26 -- I watered plants in the new picnic table garden.

EDIT 6/3/26 -- I watered more plants in the house yard.

EDIT 6/3/26 -- We went out skywatching shortly after sunset and spotted 3 bats flying around the yard. :D Yay bats!

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.

Today is mostly sunny and warm.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 6/2/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 6/2/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
 
I've seen a grackle at the hopper feeder.

EDIT 6/2/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
 
EDIT 6/2/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I watered plants in the house yard.

EDIT 6/2/26 -- I watered the new picnic table garden.

I walked around the yard a bit.  The purple penstemon from last year is blooming in the wildflower garden with clusters of little white trumpets.  :D

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

The Poetry Fishbowl is now CLOSED. Thank you for your time and attention. I am done writing!


Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "Fun with Language." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.

I'll be soliciting ideas for linguists, translators, interpreters, historians, diplomats, refugees, explorers, partners, teachers, clergy, leaders, superheroes, supervillains, alien or fantasy species, failure analysts, ethicists, activists, rebels, other people who get into interesting linguistic situations, translating, interpreting, reading, researching, revising theories, conversing, traveling, inventing languages, parenting, teaching, adventuring, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, asking for help and getting it, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, expecting the unexpected, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, libraries, laboratories, meeting rooms, ruins, liminal zones, trading posts, port cities, schools, churches, supervillain lairs, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, farmer's markets, starships, alien planets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other places where languages mix, alphabets, pictograms and other symbols, lost languages, ancient tomes, mysterious texts, misnomers and mistranslations, recordings, the record that breaks the record player, puzzling discoveries, sudden surprises, the buck stops here, trial and error, intercultural entanglements, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

If you speak a language other than English and know untranslatable words from it, by all means share. Some other resources you might find helpful:

20 Awesomely Untranslatable Words From Around the World

45 Beautiful Untranslatable Words That Describe Exactly How You’re Feeling

203 Most Beautiful Untranslatable Words [The Ultimate List: A-Z]

Beautiful Untranslatable Words From Around The World

Eunoia website


Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

Hazbin Hotel Fest Bingo Card 6-1-26

Pride Fest Bingo Card 6-1-26


Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

The Bear Tunnels features numerous tribal languages.

Clay of Life is Jewish fantasy with occasional bits of Hebrew or Yiddish.

The Daughters of the Apocalypse spans a variety of languages, including a split before Before and After English.

Eloquent Souls presents a setting where soulmarks are common, but they don't always appear in the same language.

Fiorenza the Wisewoman is Italian fantasy with bits of Italian.

Frankenstein's Family features two scientists running a valley in historic Romania, with languages including Dacian, English, French, Hungarian, Romanian, and Latin.

Hart's Farm is a free love community with a few really exotic characters, set in Sweden with occasional tidbits from other languages.

Not Quite Kansas includes demonic and angelic writing.

Peculiar Obligations features a mix of Quakers, pirates, and other people speaking diverse languages.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society. It spans a wide range of languages including Arabic, Dhivehi, English, Esperanto, French, and several tribal ones.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

( Read more... )

I have made bingo down the B and O columns of my 5-1-26 card for the Greek Myth Fest Bingo.  I also made 4 extra fills.  I had this stuff done a week ago, just haven't had time to post about it, and I don't have the time to list them all.