Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I know you to be a supporter of local arts, which is why this endorsement came as a surprise to me. I hope you will advocate for affordable studio and gallery space for local artists once Rockslide has closed.

My wife is a professional artist and had very hard time finding affordable studio space in Victoria, which is the source of my concern about this renovation project. She did end up on Rock Bay.

Across history the vast majority of human languages had no writing system. I might listen to an argument that language is necessary for thought (though it’s probably not) but writing? Not a chance.

I've never heard of "textual ruins" before, but now it's my favourite thing.

FFS *poring

Yes! I have the same feeling from The Lord of the Rings books, but not the movies. The barrow wights, the Southron people, Amon Sûl -- all these hint at unknown parts of Middle Earth that are vast and deep. As a child I'd spend countless hours pouring over the maps wishing there were more stories.

Hello. Amateur fencer here. At the university club where I fence there are non-binary and transgender fencers. They're awesome and the club would be much less fun without them.

Act like a dick at your neighbour's BBQ and maybe you won't get invited to the next one. Canceled! But this is not the same thing as getting hauled before a judge and facing fines or imprisonment. Not sure why it's a surprise to people that society has more than one way of changing behaviours.

"Cancel culture" is a similar phenomenon. Critics of it conflate criticism of behaviour from professional and social circles with criminalization of behaviour enforced by the state through the police and the courts. These things couldn't be more different.

That wouldn't be very neighbourly of you