An interesting find this morning. I guess this group likes to examine the geography of past and present political, social, economic and cultural developments via the North American “regional cultures”
Writer, reader, knitter, sometimes organizer. Student of climate & shifting seasons. Contentedly discontent. Ghosts of Distant Trees, Porphyry Press 2025 Denali National Park, AK. Part of my heart lives in the desert. she/her ericarobinwatson.com
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An interesting find this morning. I guess this group likes to examine the geography of past and present political, social, economic and cultural developments via the North American “regional cultures”
Reminder: the financial situation for rural Alaska public radio stations remains dire. These stations provide vital, even lifesaving info. For example, KOTZ is the only radio for Northwest Arctic Borough, which is larger than the state of Maine. Please donate if you can. #AlaskaSky www.kotz.org
Yarn lovers are facing higher prices, delays, and supply issues as new U.S. import rules take effect. With parcels under $800 now taxed and many postal services halting deliveries, several beloved European yarn brands have already paused shipping to the U.S. 😿 Read it: 👉 archive.is/lxp1v
A lot can happen between now & March, but for now, I’m looking forward to this conversation at #awp26 …which I was so hoping would be anywhere but the east coast, but I’m getting curious abt Baltimore
Years ago, a friend worked for the ARCUS-affiliated org that paired researchers & k-12 teachers, & invited me to sit in on a workshop as a writer in residence. It was SO COOL to hear folks share insights across fields. I wrote about it here: www.thearcticinstitute.org/arctic-scien...
👀
I read 90% of it on a trans-atlantic flight last fall & barely even slept (usually flying just knocks me out). I found it so uncomfortably compelling in a very layered way.
Finally ventured out. Sound on for raging Nenana (and a dog shake off)
@rickirobin.bsky.social is too modest. There was a whole team behind this effort and she was one of them. The video only shows the people who were able to show up on a weekday afternoon. bsky.app/profile/rick...
Anyway…
I am once again begging people to stop suggesting Gavin Newsom represents a meaningful alternative to the unrestrained state violence of this federal government.
“Charlene Aqpik Apok launched Data for Indigenous Justice in 2020 after trying to collect the names of missing and murdered Indigenous people to read at a rally, only to discover no government agency had been keeping track” Colonialism is also when the state makes it hard to gather data on MMIWP
🥰
I am SO. F’ING. PROUD of these neighbors & comrades who met DOI officials with messages supporting parks, public process, & people. Persistent, creative, & joyful. 😍
Oh now it’s snowing. But it’s like…the bad kind of snow 😅
Feeling nostalgic for this
Wow. It is BLEAK on the east end of the park…I wish it was snowy
* I listened to Babel as an audiobook, & miles would pass on the same etymological footnote, which felt disruptive and weird but also…I didn’t hate it lol
I read Yellowface, which draws heavily on her public autobiography that @haharuffo.bsky.social mentioned & was entertaining in its heavy handedness imo, & Babel*, which was delightfully/absurdly nerdy & imperfect. I’m not always a good fiction critic but I’ll give it a chance.
Grateful to so many in announcing today’s launch of *”Alaska” is Not a Blank Space: Unsettling Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey* (@universitypress.cambridge). Free downloads now til 9/11/25+for print order here: doi.org/10.1017/9781.... (I recommend checking out the whole series, starting with Gahman, et al!)
It was a beautiful morning, just felt a little…on the nose I hope you can make it back to AK 🌈
Oof.
Have now raised $85. Not enough for one more night in a motel, but probably the second-most I've ever managed to raise at one time on BlueSky. I swear, being unhoused is expensive. I could rent a cheap room in someone's home for a month for the cost of like 11 nights in the cheapest motel.
imagine being so maniacally racist that you side with the fire over the firefighter
I’ve been unfocused & a bit in freeze mode lately in terms of but oh, the little local protest group has given me so much solace throughout. Even on days I can’t join I’ve felt better just reading the chat. People are indeed doing things, all the time.
This is a helpful resource in navigating this particular dumb shit
Oh? If only I knew an author whose book was pirated by AI and whose hatred for LLMs could power a small town 🤔
“We're past normal. The fascists already won round one… “But they don't have the money. They don't have the cities. They don't have the educated workforce. They don't have the young. And most importantly, they don't have legitimacy in the eyes of the majority.” open.substack.com/pub/cmarmita...
Here comes the devastation of public broadcasting. • My local public radio station will not be broadcasting from 11PM - 5AM S-Th, 12PM - 6AM F,S • No TV 12 AM - 6AM • No KUAC TV in Nenana • No more "This American Life" and other programs • Staff positions unfilled They still need $500,000 in cuts
I’ve been slowly poking away at the #glacierparkcowl this summer, and now it’s off the needles and ready for its season ❄️ Made with Poison Apple and Old Town Cobblestone hand dyed sock yarns I bought at Ginger Twist Studio in Edinburgh last fall, which was super fun to work with. #knitsky
No cheating post the last picture of your pet
There is not one marginalized, racialized, or oppressed group whose oppression or destruction is an acceptable cost for saving "democracy." Not one. If saving democracy requires leaving marginalized people behind, that's not a democracy worth saving. Either we all get saved or none of us do.
this is something i don't know enough about: the lines between a closed captioning service (which is awesome and lets more people participate!) and a note taking AI bot. I feel very behind on even recognizing what's happening
It's not like i'm "loyal" to financial institutions or whatever, but i DO NOT UNDERSTAND this trend of recognizable AK brands/banks changing from a popular thing to random meaningless word salad branding (lol "atmos summit infinite" wtf shut up)
Today I feel lucky that my parents taught me that James Dobson was a wanker
Fair. Also, this friend & I have discussed the relative ease I have with casually burning things in rural AK that she doesn’t in Chicago. I’d really struggle if I couldn’t just…have a spite fire every now and then
My friend, who is something of a book hoarder, was alarmed last year to find that she owned a copy of Hillbilly Elegy. She's moving to a new apartment this week & said she used its pages to pack dishes with. She said it felt good.
In Norway we see ourselves as ethically virtuous – so why is our oil wealth enabling genocide? | Sindre Bangstad
there's been several little ones all around us this morning, hmm...
oooh, my printer just made a little jiggly wiggle noise, maybe that's why (@ denali)
i was JUST talking to my yarn store friend about this...she pre-ordered a bunch of stock for next summer (it's a seasonal store) on pure speculation and it's...precarious
In wholesome news, my dad just had the idea that he could share preorder info for my book on fb, & called to ask if that would be useful 🥹
having weird al fomo but also really enjoying chilling in my house: the erica watson story
We're not meant to know this much at once: the bombs, the wildfires, the data centers. Do you know how to run for office shred a tire safely can salmon— Time speeds up, then slows: cranes fly overhead. We can still surprise each other.
We did what we could with short notice and a rainy evening in burnout season 📍Healy, Alaska
Migratory birds seem wiggly today
For new followers: in addition to attempting niche too-late AK political jokes, I’m plugging preorders for my book, Ghosts of Distant Trees! Tho it’s entering a different conversation around #nationalparks than I’d hoped, I think it’s ready for the moment. Order here: porphyry.press/ghosts-of-di...
I know I’m late
I just remembered this
Also, I saw somebody on #booksky ranting about not getting book sales from this platform, & fwiw I learned of Marketing the Wilderness from an interview link I found here 🤷🏻♀️
Good book mail day
Suddenly Alaska is the neutral ground for this big meeting between Putin and Trump. Please remember the history of Alaska as a borderland in the North Pacific- centered in WWII Pacific history and the long Cold War consuming most of the 20th century. Remember Indigenous perspectives for all wars
And thank you to Fairbanks organizers for the design loan!
Passersby welcome to join!
Sonofa… they’re kidnapping people here in Fairbanks now. Help if you can!
I’ve failed at that, I haven’t even weighed in on the Sydney eugenics discourse bc UGH what do these 🔵 bots want from me
I was a medium sized troll on old twitter
I’m just here to make Alaska jokes no one likes 😂
Fair - you are clearly a real human. I just got 15+ new followers that aren’t Alaskan, but this t*ump/pu*in thing has AK in a lot people’s mouths all of a sudden & it feels…related at a glance but 🤷🏻♀️
Oh no did the big blue maga accounts find Alaska sky? So many new stranger followers…
Different times… I wasn’t allowed contacts til high school & in 8th grade I just wouldn’t wear my glasses and got on an entirely wrong bus and got driven around a random ass neighborhood for a while out of vanity
i'm...trying to make a joke. it might not be a good one. but also maybe it's true who tf knows
oh i'm so glad! My mom was not optimistic when i asked her to keep an eye out (granted, she rarely is...)
They’ll be meeting in Whittier, where everyone lives in one—
I was a recipient last year, and these funds allowed me to 1) comfortably pay for writing-related travel & 2) hire a brilliant editor to help get my manuscript into book shape. It's an excellent resource for Alaska writers and a not terrible application process!
They’ll be meeting in Whittier, where everyone lives in one—
HITLER CONCERNS what are you people doing dude
Zenni & other online glasses places have CHANGED MY LIFE. I don't need progressives yet but they do have the option, & it's been a game changer to have some cheap "beater glasses" plus dailies, computer glasses, etc. I was so mad at how many $300+ pairs i've bought over the years
there were only 3 of us at last night's weekly protest at the Denali park entrance. to our surprise the older white guy in a threadbare Don't Tread On Me t-shirt came over to talk abt how he's interrogating Xian businesses in AK abt their hypocritical silence on G az a, & thanked us for being out
Spent the weekend with a friend, the dog, & all kinds of weather on the ✨new✨ Curry to K’esugi Ridge connector trail, in Denali State Park. The trail builders who designed & built it are friends of ours, & it was SO COOL to see their work. #AlaskaSky hikers & backpackers, check it out!
Spent the weekend with a friend, the dog, & all kinds of weather on the ✨new✨ Curry to K’esugi Ridge connector trail, in Denali State Park. The trail builders who designed & built it are friends of ours, & it was SO COOL to see their work. #AlaskaSky hikers & backpackers, check it out!
The alt text is helpful. Sort of. Wowowow.
Is this real?! I only know New York from tv and the internet
On my birthday in 1944, Martha & Jean Saw a Moose 📍 Curry Lookout
Last fall, I attended the premiere of a film that meant a lot to me. In late January, all of its hundreds of planned screenings were canceled without explanation. For @defector.com, I went digging:
ha, you've got a blindboy rec for every occasion, don't you? 😂 (and yes, I did listen - after the tree ghosts episode i had a little binge)
i have a couple bundles of creosote hanging in the bathroom, and the right kind of prolonged alaska rain brings out their smell. it's happening now.
oh no! is the address on the link the area where he got away? (i don't think i have many flagstaff bluesky contacts but my family is there)
"Flair Doherty said a Smithsonian staff member approached her and the other teen artists and told them she believed the "Free Palestine" slogan was "antisemitic and hateful." Doherty, who is Jewish, said she told her she disagreed, "We talked for maybe three minutes and did not really get anywhere."
"Tbakhi’s decolonial poesis shows us that the liberation of Palestine, indeed our collective liberation, necessitates both the end of the world and an after, realized here through tunneling—like seeds, like political prisoners—beyond the wreckage of coloniality." I want to keep thinking about this
I guess what has always confused me about Jeans Discourse is the idea that you only have one pair of pants and it has to have been purchased in the last 3 months and approved by a panel of judgy teenagers, and, like...i don't feel like any actual humans buy clothes like that...
Find out who's profiting from ICE contracts. www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/v... Note: This is not intended to be a list of companies to boycott/protest, but rather a starting point for further research.
Realized I only shared the drowned phone aftermath here & not the good fishing trip aftermath: last week on the Kenai!
in that this evolution sucks for musicians & fans, yes. i used to learn of new musicians on spotify, buy albums on bandcamp, listen on itunes, then 6 mos ago i got new devices & itunes is apple music, & music bought elsewhere regularly vanishes from it. i don't know how to buy music AND listen to it
A thirty-nine mile section of the southern Arizona border has been transferred by the department of interior for a military zone.
ha, I didn't know pandora still existed... and I've purchased music from Bandcamp but didn't know they had their own listening platform...and now i can't figure out how to get the purchased music onto new devices blah blah blah i miss CDs and MTV get off my lawn is i think where this is headed...
oh i haven't heard of qobuz...was your switch because of their treatment of artists?
awesome! I remember hearing about that one a while ago but couldn't remember the name. I'll look into it
Relatedly, how are y'all listening to your music these days? I've switched up devices (voluntarily & not) a bit recently & it's made me curious abt how to...have music in this era of music everywhere all at once
What are some viable alternatives to spotify, now that they're bucking down on AI slop? I've paid for a little over a yr, & despite the 💫problematics💫 i've rly loved it, learned of new music (i've been utterly BAFFLED by how to do that in the last 15 yrs), so it's sad but time to cancel i guess...
OH HEY ITS THE EUGENICS OF DISABLED PEOPLE WE ALL TOLD YOU WAS COMING
We can't even boycott the USA in peace, they're dragging us over the border now.
"Doubling down on the wilderness mythology, which is what we’re seeing right now...is understandable, but it’s a short term solution...The current political climate makes it more urgent, not less, that we reimagine what our relationship as Americans, and as Canadians, is to the natural world."
one thing about celebrity deaths is that i tend not to have heard of most celebrities til they die, so it's usually kind of a nothing
specifically DOI