Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 27

Wednesday books

Among the books I brought back with me from Letícia was a copy of a children's novel that I found in the common room of our hotel, Aventura en el Amazonas. I started reading it, and it was so charming (and informative!) that I bought a copy when we got back to Bogotá (no bookstores in Letícia). Its dual narrators are six-year-old twins with an indigenous mother and a white father. At one point they climb out the window of their stilt house rather than go through the door, and since I **saw** kid...

Tuk-tuk ride

We didn't actually ride in a tuk-tuk until we were heading back to the airport on our last day in Letícia, but I thought I'd share these very short videos Wakanomori took because it'll let you see the streets of Letícia and how dominated they are by motorcycles (and secondarily: tuk-tuks).

We saw whole families on one motorcycle: a mom and two schoolkids she just picked up from school,* plus a baby asleep on her shoulder. Most people ride astride, but we saw some passengers sitting sidesaddle. W...

inhale, exhale

I learned so much in the Amazon: one, that the river inhales and exhales: when it has breathed in deeply and its waters extend the farthest, tall trees are underwater and the fish feed on palm fruits. Maximum expansion is March. And then it exhales, shrinks-shrinks-shrinks, and temporary islands appear, and people rush out and take advantage of the 40 cm of rich soil the river has left to grow quick crops that can be harvested before the river rises and swallows the islands back up again. The r...

trip countdown

By this time on Friday--assuming no flight cancellations and no sudden-onset covid--Wakanomori and I will be on a plane to Colombia. We'll spend a day in Bogotá, staying at the same place we stayed in 2018, and then we'll hop on a plane to Letícia.

I blocked off this week from work so that I could be free to prepare for the trip, and the result is that I think I'm well prepared ( sovay --I have in fact purchased antiseptic ointment and band-aids, and I can feel the ~ scorn ~ of Markiyan Kamysh), bu...

good works

On Monday, the richest man in Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov, "said ... his investment company would exit its vast media business to conform with a law designed to curb the influence of 'oligarchs,' a move cheered by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office" (quoting this Reuters story ). This involved turning over Media Group Ukraine's print and television licenses and stopping all online media.

"All online media" includes the volunteer effort I've been part of since March, proofreading translated Ukraini...

Neptune Frost now streaming!

Neptune Frost is now available (for pay) through these streaming services (link includes Amazon and Apple, plus several others).

In addition, the soundtrack, Unanimous Goldmine, is also available.

This song, Mbere y'Intambara (Before the War), is my favorite. It's sung by Cécile Kayirebwa, a well-known, well-loved Rwandan singer, making her screen debut in this film.

And this piece, Terambere Ry'igihugu , shows the amazing, propulsive drumming--Himbaza Club, the drum collective that performs it, por...

Happy Tanabata

Since we don't have any bamboo handy, when the kids were little we'd attach our wishes to the branches of our birch tree or rhododendron bushes.

Here's a sweet illustration of what Tanabata celebrations used to look like in Edo-Period Japan. The artist is Sayuri Sasai; she posts on Instagram and Twitter. Here is her Tanabata post from Twitter:



( Link to tweet )

Her pictures of daily life during the Edo period are super charming (and informative!)--I think many of my Dreamwidth friends would like t...

New story: New Day Dawning

I have a new story out: "New Day Dawning."

A novel cyanobacterium is threatening ocean fish stocks, and Winna and Tomás are at an international conference convened to address the problem. Also at the conference is Káurë New Day, a participant from the Solimões Sodality whose presence warrants an FAQ and causes some strife.

Káurë New Day is named after Cacicus cela, called káurë in the Magüta language, and photographed here by Flickr user Francisco Piedrahita.



It's a pretty bird!

"Magüta" is an auto...

Neptune Frost

I just saw the Afrofuturist film Neptune Frost (2021; dir. Saul Williams and Anisia Uzeyman), and whoa. It's pure resistance poetry from beginning to end; it fights the gender binary; it braids pessimism and resilient hopefulness, and it's *beautiful*. The music, the colors--and the languages! Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Swahili, French, and English. Amazing.



Here's how one review summarizes it:

When an intersex runaway and an escaped coltan miner find each other through cosmic forces, their connection ...

seven seconds of June

Have a seven-second ride down a road that leads from Amherst to B'town, MA:



Here is the tiny jungle I've been delighting myself with before my trip to the Actual Jungle. You can click through to see it larger.



And here are milkweeds, for pollinators' delectation:



And a sunset ... which is not true in its colors. My phone panics when faced with vividness: it renders the vivid red as yellow. WHY, phone? Why? In other news, I'm going to take an actual camera with me to the Amazon.



I still can't believe...