#66: Pinhole camera

and bad magic

Author

camille barichello
June 04, 2025

Mr. Horse from Ren and Stimpy saying "No sir, I don't like it"

Actual updates

I am not inclined to look back into issues from previous years to see if I was losing my mind more than usual in Mays past, but I have my suspicions. You would think it would be a good season for me - my birthday! The threshold of summer! The weather! - but it’s not, and it isn’t just because my birthday doesn’t hold much appeal for me (and neither does Mothers’ Day, which I don’t really even want to talk about). I’m not doing well, and I would be willing to bet I wasn’t doing well then, either.

This month there’s a specific, knowable reason; I’m going to keep that one close to the vest, because it’s boring and also because it’s a bit gross, and also because I am right to feel bad since it is my fault. Furthermore whenever I talk about things that are my own fault I get friends riding to my defense, which is good for my heart but bad for my morals. Sometimes a person deserves to feel bad.

But in large part, the reason I feel bad this time of the year is because it means another year has been wasted. “It’s only May, what d-” Stop. It’s not only May. If it’s May and we’re not halfway out the door, we’re not going this summer either; if we’re not going this summer, we’re not going this year. And why aren’t we? Me. My various failures. My Failures Various, which sounds like something medieval and dramatic. I know it’s the only thing I ever talk about but it kills me to want something so badly but not be able to do the things I need to do to bring it about.

So: here we are. I’m miserable and stressed and on edge; my recent errors and catastrophes have me always primed for disaster, neck always tensed for the fall of the axe. I’ll grin-and-bear my way through summer, which is in many ways even worse (constant reminders of failure, plus: hot), and in fall I’ll get back to work with an eye towards next year, but in May I haven’t got what it takes to fake.

In fact, I’ve barely got what it takes to do anything. What else is going on in my life? Who even knows anymore. At various times (none good!) in my history I’ve felt like my world has shrunk to a pinprick, and this is one of them.

Hmm. Let me try to salvage the mood. I’ve got a new contender for stupidest injury I’ve done to myself! That’s the kind of thing that cheers people up!

The other day, we were heading out to the park - it was a beautiful day and for once we didn’t have an Activity planned. Hap burst out the front door, and I put out my hand to catch the screen door as it came back towards me. But it must not have been opened enough to close slowly, because it came ROCKETING back at me, and the handle caught me on my palm, near the heel of my hand, and hit me hard enough that I gasped audibly.

I could still walk, of course, so I refused to stay home, and just begged off any playing of catch; on the walk over, I kept my hand up near my heart as if in an invisible sling, and carried the bag with the ball and the water bottle in the other hand. Over the time we were at the park, I could bring my arm down - my hand still throbbed, but I could move the arm - although I couldn’t close my hand into a fist or hold anything in that hand. Eventually, we left and headed home, and stopped for beverages on the way - so I effectively iced that hand with my cold drink.

Time passed, movements became less painful, and now it’s just bruised and swollen (update: still swollen, by the way, a week and a half later!) and hurts to touch but not to move. I’ve broken my hand before, of course, so I knew that wasn’t what had happened here, even right away. But it’s still sore now, days later, so I’m promoting “attacked by a screen door handle” to top spot in my list of dumbest ways I’ve hurt myself.

What am I reading right now

If you have a book you’re trying to get published, or even if you don’t but you hope to one day, one thing you hear a lot about is “comps.” Comps are comparison titles, books that are similar to yours that have audiences, so that agents and publishers can envision your book fitting into the marketplace and understand how to position it. I am reading a book right now that proves that they work.

The book is Battle of the Linguist Mages, by Scotto Moore. One blurb on the back cover says it’s like if Gideon the Ninth had a dance-off with Snow Crash, and, you know, those are two books that I love, and of course the idea of a “linguist mage” is interesting to me, and Matt saw it in a bookstore and thought: perfect. The comps did their job! They hooked someone based on their relationship to the compared books, and got the sale.

I am reading a book right now that proves they don’t work.

See, it’s kind of like Snow Crash, insofar as it’s about (basically) esoteric magic phonemes and the intersection of a video game world and the real world. That’s about as far as that goes; the real world in this book is entirely unrealized and ignored in favor of the video-game world (which is also frustratingly underdescribed), which contrasts poorly with the vivid world Stephenson creates in Snow Crash. It’s not really like Gideon the Ninth at all, unless you mean that the protagonist is quippy and “snarky” and makes references to things that people on the internet know about; also that there are lesbians. But Isobel is no Gideon. She’s well-realized, I can say, but they’re different in a million ways and only alike in a couple. And knowing that these comparisons were made really kept these differences in the forefront of my mind while reading! Going in without that comparison might have been better for me.

Also, this might be a character choice, but every time a new character made an appearance, the POV character described them with their pronouns and race and so on (i.e. “Steve - he/him, white, early 40s -”) and surely this could have been better conveyed in the substance of the narration? Nothing yanks you out of a book and onto the internet like specific demographic descriptions being applied up front!

There’s an article I share in the next section about overexplained magic systems in literature, and this feels like what they’re talking about - it’s literally a video game come to life, with hit points and buffs and heals and spells, and I bet that really lands for people who play a lot of video games, but I’m afraid it left me cold - and all of these things frustrated me because I feel like we got them at the expense of what could have been some really interesting stuff. The book takes place partly in the logosphere, which is the realm of ideas, and certain regions of it are described in detail but in general it’s just sort of - “the logosphere exists, physically, and you can go into it under the right circumstances, and they did, now let’s get on with what they did there.” I want to know so much more about it! Likewise, a major part of the plot is predicated on “power morphemes,” combinations of sounds with magic powers (for lack of a more accurate term). I have no idea what any one of them sounds like, despite audio being the crucial component thereof. I just wanted more - and therefore, less of other stuff, to make room. I want more of my senses to be engaged. I want the world to be more immersive. I want less of it to feel like I’m reading a video game; the protagonist is a big time player of this one particular game and it’s very important in-world, but ultimately I’m reading a book, not actually playing video games, and I want the particular strengths of written fiction to be used in order to convey the story to me.

Now that’s a real “this seems fine” of a headline!! Why Are All of America’s Biggest Cities Sinking?

In one of the internment camps the US sent Japanese people to during WWII, the guards shot a man and covered it up (well, probably in more than one, but this is a story about one man in particular). When it was uncovered, the people raised a monument to his memory. That monument was lost in time, found again, dug up roughly, and argued over - coverups upon coverups upon horrors. The Murder, The Museum, and the Monument

There probably is. We don’t want to risk making pickles the bacon of the 2020s (I can’t just write “the 20s,” that’s mentally reserved for the 1920s, am I alone). But I do love a pickle, a taste I came to as an adult, and we currently have pickle mustard in our fridge and friends, that’s a condiment whose time has come. Is There Too Much Pickle?

Frats and sororities are SO darksided to me. This impression has not been dispelled by anything I’ve heard from friends who were in any, by books I’ve read on the subject, or by this article. Just an absolute horror of a place made for collecting and creating awful people. Anyone who was in one and stayed normal dodged a huge bullet (and probably has massive strength of character). Greek Tragedy: A Drowning at Dartmouth College

We know breathing the smoke from wildfires is bad for you. But what about breathing the air in places where the fire has been and gone? What about the walls of your house that didn’t burn down? What about your stuff? In the Ashes

I love a roadside attraction! Too bad for me, I guess. I particularly wish the dinosaur thing in this essay was still around; it would be close enough to where we live that we could go. The End of Roadside Attractions

Put this guy under the jail, honestly. Like abolish the carceral state and everything but leave one jail standing for this guy, and then put him under it. What a douche. American YouTuber Who Left a Diet Coke Can for a Reclusive Island Tribe Is Arrested in India

MAiD came along after I moved, but it was being talked about as early as when I was in high school, and at that time, for obvious reasons, it sounded great to me. And I can still see sensible applications where the patient has requested it and nothing can be done to improve the remainder of their life. But it sounds like some jurisdictions, at least, are hustling through it, which is the absolute worst outcome. Rushing to Death in Canada’s MAiD Regime

Hey I hate this! Never has the whole “beauty standards are about making you feel bad so that you will spend money to ‘rectify’ the ‘problem’” thing been so bald-faced. Ugh. Facebook Allegedly Detected When Teenage Girls Deleted Selfies So It Could Serve Them Beauty Ads

I could not agree more with this1. I don’t want the magic of your fictional world to be as aseptic as the roll of a 20-sided die, I want the world to be lived-in and real, and nobody in any real world knows exactly how the thing works. You don’t have to know exactly what’s happening in an internal combustion engine to drive a car, you just know that it happens; you might know that you need certain components in order for it to go, like gas, or electricity, but the specifics of what happens to that gas or electricity once it gets into the engine to make it go aren’t important. What’s important is whether it goes or not. Same with magic: does it go? Magic Doesn’t Have to Make Sense

The tale of a jewelery salesman slash scam artist slash bitcoin huckster slash federal informant? I feel like not a single one of those descriptors bespeaks someone you’re going to enjoy sitting next to at dinner, outside of perhaps the first one. All That Glitters

Giant fucking birds!! And really fearsome ones, not big ol’ doofy-looking guys like ostriches. What do we have in that category right now? Just cassowaries? Okay, so, why? Why Have Birds Never Gotten As Big As T. Rex? 2

Okay. Tattoo removal as a science and a practice is interesting, and the article is worth a read. But the framing of this article seems baseless. Everyone isn’t getting their tattoos removed! I do not know a single person who’s trying to get a tattoo removed, and I feel like just about everyone I know has at least one. And a bunch of them have a crummy one from when they were 18! Most people are, in fact, still trying to get more! (I definitely am) It turns out the AUTHOR is getting theirs removed and I think they’re having a bit of confirmation bias. But this whole “we’re older now and want to be sensible and that means not having tattoos” line is total hooey3. Why Is Everyone Getting Their Tattoos Removed

If you only think of frat bros when you think of lacrosse, think again: it’s steeped in long years of Haudenosaunee tradition; like the title says, they invented it, and moreover it’s very important to them culturally. And they’ve been able to play under their own flag in other competitions. But the IOC has some requirements around what counts as a “country” that sound like they’ll keep the Haudenosaunee Nation from being allowed to participate in the Olympics as their own country. They Invented the Game. Will They Be Able to Play It in the Olympics?

Tunes I’ve been listening to lately

I’m not going to New York City anytime soon. I just like the way it sounds.

Which, relatedly, I can’t think about Steve Earle anymore without thinking of this song:

I am not moving to Saskatoon, either! Wait, is Saskatoon cool now? This song makes it sound like it might be?

I laid a 10+ minute song on you before so there’s precedent! This one’s only 10+ minutes because most of it is a digression, during a live show, to describe a supernatural encounter with a being that promised to cure hotel-room ennui via the judicious application of swimming in the almost-frozen St-Lawrence river.

This month’s top 5: Dumbest ways I’ve hurt myself

  1. Obviously the hand thing I mentioned earlier

  2. One time, I was in the kitchen, and I thought the cat was about to attack my foot, so I yanked it out of the way and in so doing SLAMMED the top of my foot into the handle of the oven drawer. Absolutely got hurt worse than I would have if the cat had gotten me

  3. The bus stop near my house has a young tree right next to it, and one of its branches sticks out horizontally AND has a U-bend in it. I didn’t notice this, one wet day as I stepped out of the bus, looking down at the muddy ground in an attempt not to slip. And then, oh, I noticed it - via the sudden impact of my forehead on the branch, which nearly knocked me back into the bus.

  4. I’ve been stung by a bee twice that I can remember and neither was a massively glorious escapade on my part. The first time, the bee was inside my house, crawling on the floor, which I did not realize until I stretched out my legs while sitting there. The back of my knee landed on the bee and that was the end of that. The other time, it was at one of Hap’s birthday parties, and the bee landed in my hair; I tried to brush it out, and the bee didn’t take kindly to that and stung the side of my hand.

  5. Not so very long ago I did something to the tip of my pinky finger that I think was actually breaking it, although I didn’t get it seen by a doctor or anything because that would have been a colossal waste of everyone’s time. I was in the grocery store, and I was trying to unstick a basket from the stack of baskets, and it just wasn’t coming unstuck. I tried grabbing the side of the basket to pull it up, rather than using the handles, and this did ultimately work, very abruptly, with the application of sufficient force. The thing is, I didn’t realize that my fingertips were through the holes all the way into the next basket in the stack - so when the baskets separated, the holes abruptly ceased to be aligned, and the shearing motion scraped the other fingertips but the little one got hurt worse than that. I was hit with a wave of nausea and dizziness that had me reeling through the aisles, trying to figure out why a little owie like that would affect me so much, and only some hours later figured out that it probably meant something.

I was going to say something relevant to the current state of the world to cap this off, but I saw an ad for the Otter Co-op, which was the farm supply et cetera store my grandma went to, in an article4 I was reading in her local paper, and started crying, so I guess we can infer that the state of me, at least, is: bad. And so is the world! World bad, me bad, everything’s going real poorly.

At least I was fortunate enough to have a few extra dollars this month to send to some fundraising campaigns; if you’re similarly fortunate, here’s a good list.

1 this article also references The West Passage, by Jared Pechaček, a contender for the best book I’ve read all year. I’m actually reading it as of this writing, but I’m about to finish it, and I’m sure the “What I’m reading” section will be about something else. You NEED to pick this one up though. People who are animals. Vehicles that are people. A palace that’s a country. Rulers that are part building, part animal, part clothing, and part monster. Honey with magical powers. Holiness so strong it makes you puke. I’m telling you!

2 it was all i could do not to make the T.Rex/bird joke that would be linking to this song. and look: i still did it

3 the fact that i used the term “hooey” at all proves that i have landed both-footed in old age and look at me! still trying to decorate more of my skin’s canvas!

4 on queer country acts playing at a local event!

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