Jemin Na > Recent Status Updates

The Free Street Theatre's musical "Project!"
https://freestreet.org/timeline/free-...

"Since Cabrini-Green and other beleaguered public housing developments in Chicago had vacancies, that's where large numbers of ex-offenders were went. These were people who needed shelter and a fresh start, but also required extensive guidance and counseling; parolees were supposed to be monitored and mentored."

The book's emphasizes the Cabrini-Green residents' lives. Where the children played, what jobs the residents had, how the police treated them and etc. Its scope is broader and more personal than I expected. By broader I mean, so far, I haven't read any clear policy based cause and effect arguments.

""Who is that?" she asked.
"It's Uncle Moog, dear, Do you remember me?"
"Uncle Moog? I...of course I do. You used to sneak me cookies after Mom had gone to bed."
The wizard clapped. "Aha, yes! I'd completely forgotten about that! Gods, but Valery was a tyrant when it came to---"
"Moog," Gabriel cut him off. "Please. You said we haven't much time, right?"
"Right. Sorry." Moog pretended to lock his mouth closed.."lol

"Critics of the day denounced [state-run housing] as government overreach, with the handouts maligned as anticapitalist, socialist, and generally un-American." I think we kind of have to live with each other's differences on this fundamental worldview issue. (We are obviously correct but since they won't change lol) I guess we just have to do the best to make our ideology-driven policies to work well in reality.

""Hold up," Sabbatha said. "Is Lastleaf not Vespian's son? How could he have two children? Did he have two wives?"
Kit threw up his hands, exasperated. "Good luck telling a story around this one," he said to Shadow. "Constant interruptions! No patience at all for dramatic exposition." lol. By the way, Kit who complains and Shadow, the story teller are both immortal.

"In his first year as president, in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt created the federal Housing Division, as part of the Public Works Administration. By then the shortcomings of the for-profit real estate market were evident in mass evictions and eviction riots, in homeless encampments and in countless neighborhoods like Little Sicily."

Clay recollects the highlights of his recent adventure while high on "Magic mudweed" the troll witchdoctor offers. I thought that was a nice way to provide a summary of the book so far to the readers.

"More than 40 percent of all workingmen in Chicago were unemployed during those years (the Depression), and the city had a shortage of 150,000 affordable homes, with the demand increasing and nothing new being built. A Hooverville formed downtown, on the outskirts of Grant Park, hundreds of jerry-built structures made of cardboard, scrap, and tar paper."

Owlbear has been mentioned like at least 5 times so far. I will be very disappointed if owlbear doesn't make an appearance in this volume.

"At the last station, the methadone dispensers sat behind a thick door on which someone had clipped an article from The Onion with the headline EVERYTHING TAKING TOO LONG, accompanied by a photograph of a man staring impatiently at a microwave."

"Just days after hearing this defeat, Scott ran into Heroin Susie and Billy at a gas station...That might have been an isolated incident...but then Oscar moved in with a full-blown habit."

It takes extra energy and cognitive effort to feel empathy and to realize that I am part of the problem. Doesn't personal responsibility get too much credit? I guess I can't stand when it gets weaponized to attack the vulnerable

"Substandard housing was a blow to your psychological health: not only because things like dampness, mold, and overcrowding could bring about depression but also because of what living in awful conditions told you about your self."

"People who were repulsed by their home, who felt they had no control over it, and yet had to give most of their income to it---they thought less of themselves."

"But the ghetto had always been more a product of social design than desire. It was never a by-product of the modern city, a sad accident of industrialization and urbanization, something no one benefited from nor intended."

American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass
"The Dynamics of Racial Residential Segregation," Annual Review of Sociology 29 (2023): 167-207

Elder Johnson, Bishop Dixon, Sister Atalya---none of them knew Crystal was staying at the Lodge. Only Minister Barber knew. Crystal didn't want members of her church to reduce her, to see her as an object of pity, a member of "the poor and the orphaned." She wanted to be seen as Sister Crystal, part of the Body, the Beloved."

Fighting against the main bad guy, a druin called Lastleaf, is an interesting story.
And then there's intergenerational feud between Lastleaf and Clay Cooper's band. Before, Lastleaf's father and Gabriel. Now, Gabriel's daughter is in danger from Lastleaf's attack on Castia. It's cool.

"Ned told Bliss and Sandra to tell the landlord they didn't live there, if she ever asked. He told them things, like: "You're as stupid as your father" and "You're a half-n snitch." One day he got a kick out of getting all the girls to march around the house chanting, "White power!""

If white race (whatever that means) were superior to others, why are they in danger of being replaced? Systemic problem much?

""When you look at Jesus, what do you see?" Larraine asked Betty.
"A hottie," Betty replied without missing a beat. A long, unlit cigarette shot out of her lips like a plank from a ship."

"To Sammy, Pastor Daryl, and others, Larraine was poor because she threw money away. But the reverse was more true. Larraine threw money away because she was poor.
... People like Larraine lived with so many compounded limitations that it was difficult to imagine the amount of good behavior or self-control that would allow them to lift themselves out of poverty."

"They got on when there was food in their bellies and some certainty about the next day. But Arleen was in the press of the city, depleted. So when Crystal exploded, Arleen exploded right alongside her." Pg. 213

"Look how neighbors, perfectly peaceful when the crop yield is plenty, will claw and trample and bite one another when bread is tossed from a food truck during a famine." Pg. 376

"In NA, Scott had learned that addiction tightened its grip when you were hungry, angry, lonely, or tired - "HALT - and Scott was all four."

"When people began to view their neighborhood as brimming with deprivation and vice, full of "all sorts of shipwrecked humanity", they lost confidence in its political capacity."

"Who had time to protest inequality when you were trying to get the rotten spot in your floorboard patched before your daughter put her foot through it again?"

The book explains the commonalities and difference between a wyvern and a dragon. "They were each vaguely reptilian...and covered with metallic scales."
And a druin can ride a wyvern.
It's the coolest thing ever.

I think there will be a drama that revolves Moog's personal story. The thing is that the drama will hit me as if I am reading the arc for the first time in my life.

The book is written from the bad guys' perspective. Maybe the Horde here means different from WoW.
The Horde = good guys
Humans = scumbags

"...between one-third and a half of youths aging out of foster care experience homelessness by the time they turn twenty-six. "Homelessness During the Transition from Foster Care to Adulthood,"
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...

"rent certificate program"
I can see the appeal of market driven economy. It feels organic, efficient and it may prevent government from having too much control.
Even if these were all true, I think it has the risk of taking away democratic demands. If redistribution demand can be ignored (maybe too dramatic of an example) let's have a next door dog decide everything for us from now on. (cats can't be trusted)

Clay Cooper and Gabriel must cross the Heartwyld, a dangerous forest, to get to Castia where Gabriel's daughter may be. It's fun to read about a world where goblins and treants live. You want to live in it for a while. I remember a writer making a comment about the Lord of the Rings movie. You want the world's existence to continue as you watch the movie so you don't mind the movies' epic length.

"Just as Lamar and the boys were finishing a blunt, its pleasant effects setting in, someone knocked loudly and confidently on the front door. It sounded like a landlord's knock, or a sheriff's...
After a moment had passed, Buck called out, "Who is it?"
"It's Colin, from the church."
"Shit!" Lamar said, at once relieved and annoyed. The boys muffled their laughter."
Nice comic relief 😂

The book is quite thick. I get a feeling of epic story from holding the book. That's a pretty cool experience.