Hello DreamWidth, and an Introduction to Wobbegong

I joined LiveJournal quite late, and didn’t stop posting there until I found out about the sale to Russian owners, and subsequent coverage by Russian laws. I’ve still got a bunch of my book reviews and other writing up on LiveJournal, with the same username I’m using here.

I’ve finally made an account here, mostly because I want to publicly review books again, but also because I want to talk about my late ex spouse, Charles.

Back when I posted to my LiveJournal account, I came up with pseudonyms for everyone I talked about. For Charles, who was my spouse for the time I was most active on LiveJournal, I used the pseudonym “Wobbegong”. A wobbegong is also known as a carpet shark, a group of twelve species of Pacific Ocean bottom dwelling sharks, all of which I consider to be very cute, but which some people think are ugly.

I also invented a neopronoun for Wobbegong: ey/eir, because I didn’t think that Wobbegong fit well into the gender binary. Wobbegong was always happy to be addressed by any pronouns at all, and was very accustomed to, and comfortable with, he/him pronouns. I always thought Charles was an egg (a trans woman who is not yet aware of her gender), but, because he died of cancer at the age of 51, even if I was correct, he will never come out. We talked about this quite a lot over the years, and also shortly before he died, and he felt quite comfortable with being a cis man, or, rather, gender wasn’t very important to him and he definitely didn’t identify as either a trans woman or a non-binary person. I now use he/him pronouns for him, because those were the pronouns everyone else used for him, and pronouns with which he was very comfortable.

Songs for Charles

I have a spotify playlist I’ve entitled “For Charles, In Memory”. In my music listening, I have a long history of simply playing the same album over and over again, whether it was the bluegrass CD I picked up at a used music sale when I was teenager, right after I bought my household’s first CD player, the Hedwig and the Angry Inch soundtrack in college, Janelle Monae’s Dirty Computer for about four years of a bike commute, or The Cure’s Songs of a Lost World as soon as it came out last November.

Listening to Songs of a Lost World was very much a “for Charles” thing: we saw a bunch of Cure shows together in the 2000s, he’s always loved The Cure, and he had seen The Cure live before he died, while they were touring on this un-released album, so he already loved many of the songs, even though he didn’t live long enough for the actual album to come out.

But I don’t actually love every single song on the album equally, and there are many other songs which remind me of Charles, so I decided to make a playlist. And I’ve been listening almost exclusively to this playlist, as I have historically listened almost exclusively to a single album at a time.

This playlist has gone through quite a lot of changes; early on, I put TLC’s Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls, because Charles used to sing it himself while hiking in mountains (which may have waterfalls). He was quite aware that it wasn’t about that, but still enjoyed singing it to himself. However, I don’t believe I ever actually heard him sing it, and Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls is quite the ear worm, it was getting stuck in my head, it was getting annoying, and it didn’t go with anything else in the playlist.

The playlist currently starts with “Alone”, by The Cure, and is followed by “And Nothing is Forever.” These two songs are how the album “Songs of a Lost World” start, and they are the best two songs on the album, I think. For quite a while, my playlist started with “And Nothing is Forever”, because this is the song that I most closely identify with Charles: it isn’t about him, of course, but to me, it is. But not having “Alone” on this playlist felt like a mistake, and because Robert Smith thinks these two songs, in this order, are a great way to start a listening experience, I’m going to follow his lead.

The third song is “A Forest” because that was a song The Cure often played live while we were seeing them together, and it’s therefore another song that makes me think of Charles. After that is 10:15 Saturday Night, which was the first song from The Cure’s first, 1979, album, Three Imaginary Boys. Charles (like Robert Smith) felt that the whole album is a bit poppy and suffered from recording studio interference, but The Cure’s early poppy work has always been my favorite, so I’ve got this on the playlist. Because this playlist is as much about me as it is about Charles: it’s about the experiences Charles and I had in common, about what I think about when I think about Charles, so in goes 10:15 Saturday Night.

The fifth song is Night Shift by Lucy Dacus. It’s a bit of a stretch to put this one on the playlist, because, while I think I probably talked to Charles about this song, I’m not sure if he ever listened to it, and it certainly wasn’t one of his favorite songs of all time. But it is about the best breakup song ever written, Charles and I did break up, and, crucially, it’s in part about walking all night, a thing Charles and I did several times, and remembered very fondly.

The sixth song is Mr. President by Janelle Monae. Charles preferred Monae’s political songs, while I prefer her joyful, pleasure focused songs. So this is Monae at her most political. Followed by Turntables, a Monae song that Charles actually told me to listen to (it was from a TV show, not from a album), and I might not have noticed it if Charles hadn’t told me how good it was. The third Monae song I’ve included on this playlist is Make Me Feel, which isn’t terribly political, but I needed an up-tempo jam if I’m going to include any Monae, and it’s Monae’s song which reminds me most of Prince, and Charles did enjoy Prince, so it’s here.

The ninth song is Lazarus, by David Bowie, off his 2016 album Blackstar. Bowie died two days after releasing the album, although he had already released two singles, Blackstar and Lazarus, complete with music videos, in December of 2015. The music video for Lazarus is clearly about death, and Bowie died of cancer (only made public after his death). I had seen the music video for Lazarus, and was quite struck by its theme of death, but I couldn’t watch it, or listen to the whole album, again after he died for at least a year, maybe more. I have since become much more comfortable with death, and Blackstar in general and Lazarus in particular is no longer difficult for me to listen to. But it absolutely makes me think of Charles. In particular, after the terminal, stage 4, diagnosis, my boyfriend Dan mailed Charles equipment to make electronic music. Our hope was that Charles would be able to use his impending death as a reason to make music again, or that making music would be a useful emotional outlet. Unfortunately, Charles was intimidated by this new tech, and wanted to just use the same stuff he’d used in the 1980s, and he made only a very little bit of music after his stage 4 diagnosis. So, after Charles died, we mailed the music stuff back here to Chicago, and it has actually gone on further to other people who want to make music, already. But, yes, Lazarus makes me very much think of Charles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JqH1M4Ya8

Directly following Lazarus, I put the also death-themed This Morning, which was initially released only on the vinyl version of The Cure’s self-titled 2004 album. Charles and I were living together at that time, and we didn’t have a record player, but my dad did. So Charles and I listed to the album together one day, while my dad was not home, holding the album sleeve and reading the lyrics. And I was immediately struck that This Morning was about watching loved ones die in the hospital. Charles initially disagreed with me, because so many of Robert Smith’s songs are about romantic loss, but we quickly learned that, yes, This Morning was about Robert Smith watching his wife deal with the death of one her parents. At the time, my own dad, whose house we were in, had been diagnosed with cancer. Happily, my dad didn’t turn out to have cancer (just a pre-cancerous syndrome that has not, even now, 20 years later, progressed to actual cancer), and Charles died of cancer first. Not at all what I would have predicted at the time. But very much a song that makes me think of Charles.

For my 11th song, I put Fiona Apple’s Heavy Balloon. Because after two super-sad death themed song, I needed something about perseverance and strength, and Heavy Balloon is about thriving even though you’ve got clinical depression. I stuck with Fiona Apple for the next song. In 2020, Apple put out Fetch the Bolt Cutters, and it was a perfect lockdown album. Charles and I both greatly enjoyed it, and talking about it quite a lot. I don’t know what Charles’ favorite song was on the album, but I do know that in 2022, while we were together on a flight to Norway, Charles was listening to this album, and when he came to the song Newspaper, he raved about the lyric “wearing time like a fiery crown.” I had listened to this album at least 50 times, and the lyric was completely unfamiliar to me. I realized I had just completely ignored the most metaphorical language, because I’m not usually hugely into metaphors. It was a very funny moment, and I have (mostly) payed particular attention to this lyric since.

And then, for the 13th song, and the end of the playlist, I play Endsong, the last song on Songs from a Lost World, and a song very much about death and endings.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4YkuBnTiRgva1GVPWVL4ZO?si=W2-FXeUeTfmxMupqGADlKQ

Book Review: Everything Is Tuberculosis

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of our Deadliest Infection, by John Green, 2025

I first heard about this book before it was finished, because I follow dress historian Nicole Rudolph on YouTube, and Nicole did a react video to a video by John Green about consumption (tuberculosis) fashion in the 1800s. And John Green watched Nicole (and Abby Cox’s) videos about this, and talked to them, and even visited Nicole, and edited this section of his book, and mentioned both of them in his book. I think because it was a late edit, this section of the book is actually the least well written. But it’s a short section, I strongly suspect that it is more accurate due to the edit, and it’s not terribly written: just not as sparkling and coherent as the rest of the book.

Which is, to be clear, overall very sparkling and coherent. It’s also quite short, and easy to read. Reading it now, in March of 2025, after the Trump administration has cut (without input from the Congress, which designated money for it, and has the constitutional authority over the budget) a lot of foreign aid, including a lot of foreign aid to fight tuberculosis (and AIDs), is fairly difficult. But, of course, the Trump administration makes everything difficult, so that’s not really about this book. As I was reading it the first time, I was hoping that this short, clear, sensible book could be a good way to convince the convincible Trump voters. But, as I started reading it for a second time, I noticed that the very first page mentions, as a casual aside, climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels. To me, John Green feels like a centrist, because he is a Christian (and I know leftist Christians exist, but I don’t know many of them), but, upon further reflection, this is a book for liberals and leftists, not a book to convince the right wing. The right wing Christians who are, for example, dismissing empathy as evil or immoral, will not be convinced by this book, which is all about empathy.

It’s also a book written by a person who was originally a fiction author, and it does embrace a kind of suspense, which surprised me somewhat. In Chapter 1 (which is the second chapter, because the book starts with an introduction), Greene mentions Henry, a tuberculosis patient John met in Sierra Leone. John includes a picture of Henry, talks quite a lot about him, and does not disclose his prognosis. It’s a choice I don’t know if I agree with: for example, I don’t feel it’s ethical to tell people to watch the documentary The Aplinist without telling people that the main character, Marc-André Leclerc, dies. But, with Everything is Tuberculosis, if you’d like to know the fate of Henry, you can simply flip to the end of the book and find out. Since this is non-fiction, many people do die of tuberculosis in this narrative, including Eleanor Roosevelt, the assassins of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, John Green’s own great uncle, and two of James Watt’s children, among many others. Because, as the subtitle says, tuberculosis is the infection that has probably killed more humans than any other disease, over the course of deep human history.

Unlike the movie The Aplinist, I want to share this book with as many people as possible. I don’t think I really know anyone far enough right to dismiss a book that mentions climate change on the first page, just because of political reasons, and I really do think that this book can (help to) change the world. This book aims to convince people that we really can make the world a better place. Green talks about vicious cycles, which definitely occur in the progression of active tuberculosis. But Green also talks about virtuous cycles, which do occur in the successful treatment of TB; people get stronger, and get their appetite back, which means they can get even stronger, which helps their body fight TB. Green argues that we must be optimistic enough to reach for the virtuous cycles in society. Right now, of course, is a very dark moment for virtuous cycles in worldwide health. But the future can be different than the present, and the cruel and essentially inefficient, insufficient Trump administration’s policies could lead to a broad backlash that makes the whole world better for a long time. This isn’t, of course, inevitable; this really could be the beginning of much increased worldwide suffering and death.

Green’s book provides optimism and a path forward, though. So while it’s hard to read in this dark time, it’s also very hopeful to read. And, unlike Princen’s The Logic of Sufficiency, it’s an easy read that just about anyone can easily finish. Which is why I’m so widely recommending it.

I realized while reading this that it is in one my favorite genres: non-fiction with footnotes. Of course, I do enjoy other genres, and I personally prefer books with both asides in footnotes and sources in foot or end notes to books, like this one, with just asides in footnotes, and no page by page reference or sources resource. Green does mention many of his sources, in the “Further Reading” chapter at the end of the book. And I accept that Green is probably making the correct choice to make this book more readable by not having any non-readable sections, like dense lists of sources.

Another surprise of this book is that it has quite a bit of disability activism in it. It is written by a privileged author whose mental health diagnoses are well controlled by drugs, but he has clearly read, and taken on board, a lot of disability activism by TB survivors.

So, yes, I think you, yes you, should read this book. And if you live in Chicago, I’m happy to lend you my copy!