Books read in August 2025

 Holy Wild by Gwen Benaway

The first soil

If you're going to grow some potted plants or a garden, you need soil.

 

Not dirt, soil.

 

It is possible that the soil in your yard might be good enough for a garden, but it's likely you'd buy something at the garden centre to enhance it.

 

And if you were setting up potted plants, you almost certainly would buy soil, not just grab a shovelful of dirt from your yard.

 

 

I wonder when this distinction between soil and dirt originated?

 

At some point early in agricultural history, people would have figured out that some areas are better for growing food than others. How long did it take them to figure out it's the soil? (Rather than the hilliness or which trees are growing nearby or which areas are under the protection of which gods?) (Although, also, which trees are growing nearby might also be a function of the soil.)

 

Someone came up with the idea of adding stuff to soil to make it richer and more fertile. Once commerce existed, these soil additives would have been sold, and, eventually, someone came up with the idea of packaging and selling the soil itself.

 

And now we live in a world where you buy soil, because you can't just plant your houseplants in any old dirt.

 

Although, when I mentioned this to someone who knows more about plants than I do, they pointed out that commercial potting soil that you'd buy for indoor plants has the benefit of having been sterilized, so it's far less likely to have contaminants or pests in it.

 

Which I am completely onside with, but it is kind of funny that we buy soil instead of using dirt because the dirt is dirty.

 

 

Also, fun with the English language: If something is soiled, it most likely doesn't have soil on it. But if something is dirty, it might have soil on it.

Steal This Idea: stealth crossover mystery

Two or more TV shows (or other works of fiction) are set in the same location at the same time, with different, unaffiliated characters solving mysteries.

 

Except, unbeknownst to any of them, they're solving the same mystery!

 

Each show has the characters find a different set of clues that lead them to the same person having committed the same set of crimes, although perhaps each show emphasizes a different crime. (For example, one show is solving "Who stole the MacGuffin?" and the other is solving "Who was the hit and run driver?", when it turns out the driver committed the hit and run during their getaway from the MacGuffin theft.) If it's the kind of mystery that has to end with the police arresting the bad guy, it's shown in screen in a way that's vague and non-specific enough to avoid any awkward questions (e.g. montage with uniformed officers and dramatic music while the main characters have an emotional discussion that resolves their respective B plot.

 

Just once or twice in the season, we see actors from one series as background characters in a scene in the other series. For bonus points, we see them both in the same scene in the different series - e.g. one cast walks by the window as the second cast eats in the restaurant. 

 

For added authenticity, both series could share background actors, so they both have the same older lady in a statement hat and enormous man walking a tiny dog walk by in the background.

 

 

The most important part: they must not promote this crossover in advance! Wait for the internet to notice, and be careful with your IMDB curation until the internet does notice! This should be posted by some small Tumblr (yes, I said what I said in this the year 2025), then reblogged by some big-name fanfic writer, which leads to it being screenshotted on Reddit and then someone makes a TikTok post about it that doesn't get traction until some influencer duets it. By the time the information becomes general knowledge, the season is already over, and the ensuing buzz saves at least one of the serieses from cancellation.

 

I theorize that there's a 63% chance someone's already done this and no one has noticed. 

Journalism Wanted: if you evacuate a plane and leave your belongings behind, what happens next?

If you're on a plane that crashes and you have to evacuate, you're supposed to leave your belongings behind. And every time there is a plane crash that makes the news, you hear about people trying to bring their belongings with them.

 

An easy way to prevent this would be to widely publicize what actually, in real life, happens to people who evacuate a plane and find themselves on the tarmac of a strange airport in a strange country with only the clothes on their back. (Which might not even include coat and shoes, because sometimes people make themselves comfortable on airplanes.)

 

What measures are in place to keep people safe? How do they avoid the pitfalls we can all anticipate, and those we can't?

 

Suppose your passport is on the plane. You're in a foreign country with no passport and no ID. Maybe it isn't your destination country and you aren't actually legally permitted to enter that country. What measures are in place to regularize your presence so you don't get arrested and imprisoned? What if the country you're in isn't safe for people of your demographic?

 

Suppose your wallet is on the plane. You have no money and no cards. How do you get all the things you need, including random incidentals like menstrual pads and eczema cream?

 

Suppose you lose your driver's licence in the plane crash and need to drive home from the airport. What provisions are in place to keep the cops from arresting you for driving without a licence?

 

What if your baby's car seat is in the plane? How do you safely and legally get, like, anywhere? 

 

To what extent are they assuming goodwill ("Don't be silly, the authorities won't arrest you for being in a foreign country without a passport if you've just been in a plane crash!") vs. having actual procedures in place ("This is your official internationally recognized Plane Crash Survivor card")?

If they actually want people to leave their belongings behind, they need to let people know what measures are in place to protect them. But I've never seen anyone report on this - it's always just "These plane crash survivors are Bad and Wrong for trying to collect their belongings!"

Discoverability is not morally neutral

I tend to learn about books/TV series/other creative works because I've seen it around, people are talking about it, it seems vaguely interesting, I think I'll check it out.

 

Occasionally, when I do check it out, I fall in love with it. Most creative works I don't fall in love with, but occasionally I do. I tend to have one primary fandom that I'm absolutely in love with going at any given time. I have no control over when this happens, and I have no control over when and how it switches to another primary fandom. 

And every once in a while - although certainly more often than I'd prefer! - I learn, long after falling in love with a creative work, that the creator is a gross person, which makes me no longer want to be a fan of the work. 

 

People in this situation often get rid of their books via used bookstores or libraries or little free libraries.

 

But the problem with that is it increases discoverability by people who might be like "Yeah, I've heard of that, it seems vaguely interesting, I think I'll check it out!" but aren't into it enough to know why the creator of the work is gross.

 

Which could then lead them into this very unwanted situation of falling in love with the work, and being in love with a work by a gross creator.

 

This is a problem. Discoverability is not morally neutral - especially when the creator is still alive and using their money to do harm or protect themselves from the consequences of harm they've done.

 

As a reader/viewer, I don't want to be emotionally attached to works by a gross creator. It has happened entirely too often! I would very much like product labelling and curation norms to protect me from this by making me aware of the issues before make the decision to read/watch.

 

***

 

What do I mean by "protect me"?

 

An example of this is the societal norms surrounding labelling/classifying/marketing/curating sexual content.

 

I have certainly in my life encountered sexual content that I'd rather not have seen, but in every instance, I felt like "Well, what did I expect?"

 

When I was 11 I had the chance to stealthily watch an R-rated movie, and quickly became uncomfortable as it referenced aspects of sex that were far too advanced for me to even think about. Well, what did I expect? It's 18+!

 

Sometimes I've clicked on questionable links and seen thoroughly unappealing porn. Well, what did I expect? I clicked on a questionable link!

 

Some (but not all) of the sexual content aspects of Monty Python made me uncomfortable watching as a teenager (and others made me uncomfortable watching with my parents in the room). Well, what did I expect? It was introduced to me as irreverent, boundary-pushing humour written by a male comedy troupe!

 

This sense of "well, what did I expect?" is useful! I want that every time I come across something I didn't actually want to see!

 

However, this sense of "what did I expect?" doesn't seem to work for other types of content that I might want to be warned about. For example, I didn't anticipate the racism in Monty Python. I'm not able to explain why I was able to anticipate the sexual content but not the racism, but something about it didn't end up working out for me the way I wanted to.

 

This needs to be fixed somehow. We need a way for audience members - especially ignorant audience members - to be effectively forewarned, like we are with sexual content. 

 

The big problem for me with racism and Monty Python is that I wasn't worldly enough to perceive it. But if I had gone in forewarned, and if I had decided to watch it anyway (Teenage Me might have watched it anyway to see what the big deal is), I would have kept an eye out, asked questions (I would have been comfortable asking my parents and they would have answered), and come away more informed.  

But instead, I stumbled upon something I didn't even know was racist and went around gleefully talking it up to everyone who would listen for decades.  Much like how, multiple times, I've stumbled upon - and become emotionally attached to - works that I would never have given the time of day if I had known in advance that the creator was a bad person I don't want to support, and gleefully promoted those works to other people.

 

***

 

I don't know what the answer is for the problem of unwanted discoverability of gross creators. I don't want to burn books or ban books. I just don't want to fall in love with any more works by gross creators without being aware of the problems.

 

Maybe a useful approach would be to treat works by gross creators the way you would obscure reference books. They aren't the shelves, but you can pull them from the stacks or order them on request - not because they're banned, but rather because there's higher priority for shelf space. That way, people won't accidentally stumble on them and innocently fall in love with them - you have to know about them to ask for them, and, if we normalize this approach, the fact that they're not on the shelf might lead people to think "Oh, what if this is problematic?"

 

I'm sure other people who are smarter than me can also think of other useful approaches. And hopefully some of these people are in charge of curation and discoverability.