Fire extinguishers are useful...
Hey all! I'm taking this week off because my usually-trustworthy bluetooth speaker spontaneously caught fire last Thursday, and I'm still sorting through the aftermath. As these things go, we got very lucky. I was in the room when it happened, and we were able to put the fire out before it spread.
But it's been a huge disruption to my routine, and between emailing with the manufacturer and cleaning fire extinguisher powder off most of my personal possessions, I needed a fair amount of extra down time this week. A few quick notes before I go:
- We're still doing tshirt printing down at the Market this Saturday from 2-5pm. Bring your blank tshirts, tote bags, or other flat fabric objects and we will print the Montague Commoners logo onto them! If you can't make it between 2 and 5, you can drop off your blanks during normal Market hours (9am-2pm) but make sure it's labeled with your name. Anyone who helps out for at least an hour will get to take home a free tshirt of their choice.
- On Tuesday, Sept. 8th from 5-7pm, Common Ground is hosting a presentation on Media Literacy. We'll learn from librarian Laura Abramson about how to verify claims that you see online. As more and more of the internet is overrun by clickbait, AI slop, and propaganda, research skills are becoming more and more important to daily life.
- On Tuesday, Sept 15th from 5-7pm, Reviving Our American Democracy is hosting a forum on our local recycling system. Jeff Auch will be talking about programs within the City of Montague, Sarah Cooper will be talking about what's going on at the Muskegon County level, and I'll be talking about all the different material-specific programs Montague Commoners runs, and our plans for expansion next year.
- CALL FOR ARTICLES: I'm doing my darndest this year to take a sabbatical from mid-October through mid-January. I tend to get severe seasonal depression during those months, and I'm hoping that if I can take that time off from community work and go into it with a strong self care plan, I can get through the winter with fewer dangerously scary days and more craft projects. So if you'd be interested in pitching an article or two for the newsletter, now is a great time to do it. It's not a paid gig, but it's a chance to tell ~150 of your neighbors about something cool in town.
- Ideal length is around 800-1200 words. Ideal topics include local history, local organizations, local nature stories, upcycling projects, etc.
- Fair warning that the history and ethnography of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and other forms of misinformation is one of my lifelong special interests, and I am not always as polite as I'd like to be when those beliefs pop up in real life. I'm pretty strict with myself about fact checking any claims I make in this newsletter, and I'll be holding guest articles to the same standard.
- Deadline is October 1st, so that we can get them edited and scheduled before I go on sabbatical
Recommendation Corner
I'm pretty sure I've recommended Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries series before, but I'm giving it another plug because I've been using it as a comfort read while I clean up from the fire. I know the name is going to put a lot of people off, but it's actually the sweetest set of stories you'll read in your life. On the surface it's a sci-fi series about robots and spaceships, but underneath it does an amazing job of explaining what life is like as a traumatized autistic trying to fit in with the normal people 😂 There are 8 books out now, most of them novellas you can read in a couple of hours, and I've probably read the whole series a dozen times by now. One of the reasons it makes such a good comfort read is that the main character does exactly the same thing with its favorite media, so you get the sense that it wouldn't mind the repetition.
This Week's Nails
Kept things simple (for me) this week, and went with a single background color. I might keep the trend up for a couple of weeks, since I have a few new indie polishes on the way and it's a nice way to give a new polish a chance to shine.
Hope to see you all down at the Market on Saturday! If I don't see you around town, I'll see you back here next week.
Pre-meme-ium Content
Now that we've got a few people supporting us with premium subscriptions, we wanted to find a way to thank our supporters without putting anything useful behind a paywall. So I've started tacking on a couple of memes to the end of each newsletter! If the paywall feature is working, free subscribers will see one meme below, while paid subscribers will get to see all five. If you're living on less than $35k/year, please do not give us money. Just let us know and we'll hook you up with the memes for free.
