mx. tozka presents
My blog experiment has ended and I’ve decided to go back to Dreamwidth as my main journal/blog space– reasons are here, if you’re interested.
This domain will be up until early January, then I’ll forward it to my Dreamwidth journal for a bit and then it’ll shut down as part of a larger move to my new personal domain (tozka.fyi).
If you’re subscribed here via RSS, you can subscribe to my Dreamwidth RSS instead! I’ll be posting the same stuff, just over there.
This is super cute! Most of the mailboxes around here are buried in concrete pillars, so it was fun finding this one.
Hi, happy Friday! Here’s some links for y’all to explore:
The Yellow Nineties 2.0 is a digital collection of Victorian magazines, specifically “searchable digital editions of eight late-Victorian little magazines in the context of their production and reception between 1889, when the first issue of The Dial appeared, and 1905, when the last volume of The Venture was published.” I noted it for myself because it has copies of Pamela Colman Smith’s The Green Sheaf magazine as well as an excellent scholarly introduction to the series as a whole AND INDIVIDUAL ISSUES explaining the contents and how it was made, etc. Fantastic!
Hacking at Leaves is a recent documentary released via the Internet Archive and is available for free. Summary: “Hacking at Leaves is a 2024 Austrian documentary film directed and written by Johannes Grenzfurthner. It explores various themes including the United States’ colonial past, Navajo tribal history, and the hacker movement, through the lens of the story of a hackerspace in Durango, Colorado, during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was produced by monochrom.”
Free books (and a few zines) from Cita, a feminist indie press.
Here’s a collection of public domain and/or Creative Commons films hosted on Wikimedia Commons. You can sort by year, genre, country, and there’s a few special lists like works by female or LGBTQ+ directors.
Continue reading “hacking at leaves, free books, ai shopping scam”🎬 The Merchants of Joy: Directed by Celia Aniskovich. Follows five NYC families as they source, bargain and hustle to sell Christmas trees, blending street smarts and holiday spirit. 🔗
Watched on Amazon Prime; could’ve been really cheesy but it did a good job of showing the realities of running a seasonal small business in a cutthroat city alongside the gooey sentimental Christmas stuff. Still, it didn’t dip too far into sensationalism or anything– just a straight-on viewpoint of what it’s like being a Christmas tree seller in NYC.
Recommended if you’re interested in the topic (or just like NYC documentaries).
I’m luckily in a neighborhood where I can make a big circuit and visit 4-5 Little Free Libraries in about an hour’s walk. I’ve done two of those loops so far, and have gotten quite a few books! Some I’m planning on reading myself, and some I got just so move into other LFL later.
It’s a great area to walk around and explore, honestly. Even if I don’t find a book to take, it’s fun seeing the old buildings and the trees nearly bare of their leaves.
These are my logs for my 2 weeks so far in Denver!
New LFL visited
Also found a few unofficial/un-chartered LFL book swap spots: an interesting dollhouse style (shown below), a bookshelf found in front of a house, and a community book exchange in the laundry room at my sit.
Dropped off: A Trip of One’s Own (picked up in [redacted location] LFL in September), Taking a Stand (picked up at UBS in Ann Arbor).
Added to my stash: An Urchin in the Storm; The Tomb of Zeus; American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI; Walking My Dog Jane: From Valdez to Prudhoe Bay Along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline; Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge; Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup; Pioneer Days in the Catskill High Peaks: Tannersville and the Region Around; The Quokka Question.
Photos under the cut!
Continue reading “lfl visit log (3)”
Cheap Land Colorado: Off-Gridders at America’s Edge by Ted Conover (2024)
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, History
LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/28281260/book/300006632
Acquired from: Little Free Library, Denver, Colorado, USA
Started reading: November 13, 2025
Finished reading: December 2, 2025 (DNF)
Page 20: It’s hard not to be a little judgmental of people who buy land and put a house up and then have no money to sustain themselves afterwards but this author is supremely kind and writes in an un-sensationalistic manner which I appreciate.
Continue reading “reading log: cheap lands colorado by ted conover”Kind of a bleh week for blogging but enjoyable for living– relaxing and non-stressful, which is all that I want.
One thing of note: I realized I booked my flight from here to my next sit for the wrong day, but luckily I was able to cancel it and use the money towards a ticket for the correct day. I DID end up paying double what I originally did, which sucks, but at least I’ll get there on the right date now.
And it worked out okay anyway, money-wise, because the owner invited me to stay the night before she leaves, so I’ll save $100-something on a hotel! It all balances out in the end, really.
🐈 Curious orange kitty (codename Mr. B-Denver) has figured out how to open cabinets and got into the ones right above the fridge, which was hilarious! Luckily nothing important is up there. Overweight Siamese kitty (codename Ms. S-Denver) meanwhile has warmed up to me a lot and is now regularly sleeping next to me while I work on the computer. They not lap cats, which is kind of a bummer, but they do like to be in the same room as much as possible.
Continue reading “weeknotes (nov. 9-15, 2025)”Since my last Weeknotes update, I’ve left [redacted location] and arrived at my new catsit. I’m in Denver for the rest of the month! The cats here are adorable (as always) and the apartment I’m staying in is really nice; the owners are kind and let me come early and stay a few extra days, which was great for me because I saved a bit on accommodation money.
I’ve now been here with the cats alone for a week and I’m really enjoying the whole experience. I’m in a residential area and it’s super fun to walk around looking at all the interesting houses and the trees slowly dying for the winter. I’ve been going out nearly every day just wandering around (in a borrowed fleece jacket because it’s been fairly cold (for me)) with a few occasional forays into the rest of town.
I’m a little annoyed that most (all??) of the museums here have a fairly high entrance fee ($10+ minimum). Of course yesterday was free museum day and I totally forgot…
Continue reading “weeknotes (nov. 2-8 2025)”Hello, happy Friday! Some links for y’all:
Here’s a bunch of really artsy, really cute witchy/pagan printables including coloring pages, grimoire pages, and idea lists.
And here’s a typeface for people who love to knit— and it doubles as a pattern, too!
Pride Radio Network, which is “a multi-mode amateur radio repeater network created by and for the members of the LGBTQ+ community and their allies.”
Some intriguing zines I found recently:
Also ZineMap.com which has zine libraries, stores that sell zines, etc. listed in an easy-to-use directory.
Sacha Judd writes about how the internet is broken for groups/communities, not just individual users. She didn’t mention forums at all, BUT they have everything needed for a vibrant community space except the problem is cost: hosting, plus time/emotion/effort for moderators to keep things running. One reason Discord has taken off for fan groups is because it’s free, you can do mod things, you can search for history more or less, and so on. It’s basically like a slightly shittier forum mixed with IRC. Anyway…
Streetpass for Mastodon — a fun browser extension where it automatically finds Mastodon accounts for websites you visit. It’s a spin off the Nintendo 3DS’ StreetPass feature!
A short but informative video presentation about ReclaimTech, a community movement away from corporate web/social media. Here’s their main website which has more info and resource links.
Here’s a little thing about the downsides of open source software licenses (h/t alisx).
Two modes of Internet use by Tracy Durnell:
I’ve found my relationships are healthier when I keep my offline-first relationships offline (e.g. not following each other on Facebook or Instagram) — following someone’s Instagram makes it feel like I know what’s going on with them without interacting. Following offline friends on social media can reduce what used to be normal friendships into parasocial relationships.
[…]
I suspect bringing offline relationships online is responsible for a lot of the loneliness people feel — social media looks like you have all these friends… but no one you could ask to feed your cat while you’re away, because one-to-many broadcasting replaced direct interactions 😿 Essentially, the offline relationship became an online one.
“Former library director awarded $700,000 after she was fired for refusing to remove LGBTQ+ books” — yay!
Need more stuff to read? I’ve compiled all previous linkspam posts here on my website, or you can explore the linkspam tag to find more.
Confessions of a Concierge: Madame Lucie’s History of Twentieth-Century France
by Bonnie G. Smith (1985)
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, History
LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/1238610/
Acquired from: Capitol Hill Books, Denver, Colorado, USA ($6.50) [see also: Indie Bookstore Visit Log]
Started reading: November 6, 2025
Finished reading: November 13, 2025
An interesting memoir/biography of a woman who grew up in early 20th century France and lived through to the 1980s. Focuses almost entirely on the subject (the concierge) and not so much on the people who live in her building, and in fact the “memoir” part ends when she gets the job and then the “biography” part starts when she’s been working there for 40 years. The gap was noticeable but I assume it happened because the author couldn’t get her to talk about that time period as much as she did the before-concierge job part.
Copyright page says the following:
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.
I’ve never seen that before, but sure enough the pages aren’t yellowed and are sturdier than many other paperbacks, more like a nice hardcover paper.
Page xvi: Quite a long-winded intro on why this story deserves to be told by a historian and why it’s important to historians or whatever which I think must be a sign of the time it was written (1985,) because nowadays it’s just taken for granted that first-person historical info is important and wanted?? Published by Yale so maybe something there too– like author had to argue why it’s academic, maybe?
Page 3: First part of book is written in first-person POV from POV of Madame Lucie, and covers her childhood and adult years up to becoming a concierge. Second part is third person from POV of historian and covers her life that overlaps with the historian.
Page 12: Can’t find a “Queen Navolo” but there was a Queen Ranavalona III around that time period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranavalona_III
Page 14: Separation of church and state apparently means you can have religious schools but the teachers can’t wear religious garb? I’m gonna have to Wikipedia this later for more info.
Page 19: “little bugs” in their hair from lack of regular washing, but it wasn’t lice. French term punaises — which a quick search pulls up either stink bugs or bed bugs, neither of which I think someone would tolerate in their hair for months.
Page 38: First boyfriend died in the war, second one was already married. My god, it’s like a novel!
Page 51: Both her parents were buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery. I’ve been there!
Page 60: Secret stash of 700 francs in 1925 = worth about $645 USD in today’s money
Page 63: Ford factory workers (and their families) were evacuated from Paris during WW2 and sent to Bordeaux! I didn’t know that.
Page 76: Kitten murder! Gah 😖
Page 88: About a Californian painter living in Mme Lucile’s building:
Harton always returned to Paris, glad to be back to the French style and a place where he, like most expatriates, could feel his freedom by not belonging to the society.
Page 129: Noticing quite a few typos/missing ending punctuation in this part of the book.
Page 151: Interesting theory that as Mme Lucie aged her memory started to go and as it went her focus became her physical body because that’s all she could see/interact with. On the other hand ending the book with the main “character” sitting with her underwear around her ankles because she couldn’t bend to pull them back up is a major bummer.
See also: Books Read (2025) / All Reading Logs