kit 🍵🌦 @wlonk@mastodon.transneptune.net

Today's lunch: toast with leftover bazhe and pkhali on it, with half an avocado sliced atop that. It was… delicious.

This passage really reminds me of some of the things Devereaux talks about here[1] regarding the performance of legitimacy. If we synthesize these two pieces, some of the work of performing legitimacy is making things within the realm of "mystique" seem plausible, without having to resort to might and thus tipping your hand regarding what is actually _possible_.

[1] https://acoup.blog/2022/02/18/miscellanea-thoughts-on-ckiii-royal-court/

Adapted from Black Panther #2, Ta-Nehisi Coates, cont’d:

My uncle is dead now, murdered by another king. I loved him, but I wish he'd told me not just of the power of kings, but of the might of the people. I wish he'd warned me that they, too, have secrets. They, too, hold mysteries. They, too, possess a power all their own.

Adapted from Black Panther #2, Ta-Nehisi Coates:

The day after I became king, my uncle offered a single piece of wisdom.

"Power lies not in what a king does, but in what his subjects believe he might do." This was profound, for it meant that the majesty of kings lay in their mystique, not their might. Every act of might diminished the king, for it diminished his mystique. Might exposed the king's powers and thus his limits. Might made the king human. Breakable.

Making dinner tonight: chicken bazhe and charklis mkhali. Would that I had a saperavi to go with it, I could be very 🇬🇪.

Saw a play last night. In person. In a tent, with masks. Still, first time in a while, and it was good for my soul. It was Midsummer Night's Dream from Bard on the Beach.

Oh also we saw a seal today out on the pier. It was delightful.

Apparently "coming-of-age comedy-drama" is the genre that is aimed at me (Gerwig's Lady Bird being pretty much my all time favourite film and guaranteed to get me crying).

Allie: What percent Kit-movie was CODA?

Me: That was lab-grown to be a Kit-movie. Let’s take:
- Boats
- Deaf culture and ASL
- Singing
- Complex family relationships at the core of the dramatic question
- Incredibly well-honed and delicately considered emotional reality for all the characters
- Female protagonist
- Long silent scenes in which we hear the clinking of dishes, but also have dialogue, because ASL is magic

…and I'm expected to do anything other than love it?

Well, I just found a clip on YouTube posted 8 days ago of some folks playing in the upstairs at Devitts, and there he is.

My heart, let me tell you, it is glowing.

Fifteen years ago, I would go every week to the session at Devitts on Camden Street in Dublin. Phenomenal craic, just a wonderful time. There was another bodhrán player there most nights who I had seen take second place in the World Bodhrán Championships in Milltown, Kerry, the year before.

But most of all, there was an older gent, Gerry, who played the squeezebox and always made sure that the energy bounced around, but whoever wanted to play or sing something, got to. A gentle but kind hand.

Orchestral music I can listen to forever:

- Rhapsody in Blue
- Beethoven's 7th Symphony, II. Allegretto
- Má vlast II: Vltava, Smetana