David Adger

@davidadger.bsky.social

2565 Followers 1468 Following

syntax and other stuff, mainly more linguistics and cogsci but occasional queerness, poetry, cats and @ans.bsky.social 🏳️‍🌈 https://davidadger.org

David Adger
Snail Ritual

You always moved the snails to someplace
safe, lifting them from flower pots and the path
of the wheelie bin, tucking them under vinca
where they'd pace their careful roads, waiting
for the wet dark to rise, like little gods of time.

Each morning as you dreamed your oxycodone
dreams, I'd leave our bed in a ritual I kept from you:
I'd dip an empty shell in the pond we'd dug together
and carry it to the silver birch to pour a libation
to whatever god would give us more time.

10 January 1993
Caller (w): 'Can you tell me about Clone Zone?'
Me: 'yes it's a shop selling everything from lycra shorts + underwear to leather harnesses + nipple clamps. Predominantly
gay boys but some women use it. Why, what do you want?' (thinks she's looking to buy a dildo)
Caller: Well I've just found an access receipt in my husband's pocket!'
！！：

Black and white cat on a leather bean bag on his back, paws stretched into the air, fast, oh so fast, asleep

opened box containing dark green books called Mereological Syntax, one of which is diagonally placed on top of the others

Author Danny Bate smiling with a copy of his new book in his hands

Dear Calvin,

I’m sure you're aware that the Equality and Human Rights Commission has now submitted an updated statutory Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations to the Minister for Equalities in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision back in April and that this will be laid before Parliament under the “negative procedure” very soon.

You are also, I’m sure, aware that the Code impacts the fundamental rights of both trans and non-trans people in the UK. It will be burdensome, costly and unpopular for those tasked with making it happen. There is also significant legal uncertainty over its lawfulness. Unless it is challenged, the new Code will become Statutory Guidance with no oversight from Parliament.

My main worry about this, as someone who fought against Section 28 in the 1980s, and who knows the appalling and decades long impact this had on both gay students and gay school teachers, is that this will lead to the forcible outing of trans people in their daily lives at work and in society in general. If you are trans, you will be legally barred from using the bathroom that is appropriate to your gender as you live your life, and that will out you to your colleagues. This is a total violation of trans peoples’ rights to privacy, and will be devastating for many, especially as many trans people have been living for decades in their felt gender, and their lives will be destroyed. I have many other objections, but this one is, I think, central.

Do we really want a Labour government to be responsible for removing rights from a vulnerable group?

Please could you write to the Women and Equalities Minister and to the Prime Minister to ask for proper Parliamentary scrutiny, debate and a free vote on any new Code. I also ask you to support any motion tabled in Parliament objecting to a Code that risks breaching people’s human rights. I’m sure you would anyway.

with best wishes

your constituent

David Adger

Cover of Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan with robed figures gathering under high vaulted roofs

A bowl and a large basket full of apples on a red linoleum kitchen table

Printed poem reading:

Gutter 32
David Adger
Anemone

as though someone had pricked the rock and squeezed too hard
or taken a poisoned apple and sliced it into a perfect half
as though they'd puffed their cheeks and blown
a chill bubble of blood from the wet
as though mermaids swam
under glass, faces pressed close, waiting
for it to split, waiting until their coils of hair might tense, hold,
and, when a rush of sea disentangles them, pulse into the foam

screenshot of google ai response to a query 'Dementia in PhDs' which says "A higher level of education, such as a PhD, is generally associated with a reduced risk of dementia, not an increased risk. This is often linked to the cognitive stimulation and brain reserve that education provides. While some studies suggest a temporary increase in dementia risk after the initial period of obtaining a PhD, likely related to the stress of the process or other factors, the overall long-term effect of higher education is protective.
Here's a more detailed explanation:
Cognitive Reserve:
Education, including pursuing a PhD, contributes to building cognitive reserve, which is the brain's ability to cope with damage or disease.
Protection Against Dementia:
A more robust cognitive reserve can help delay the onset or slow the progression of dementia symptoms.
Brain Stimulation:
The process of earning a PhD involves intense cognitive activity, which can help maintain and strengthen neural connections in the brain.
Potential Temporary Increase:
Some research suggests that individuals who have recently completed a PhD may experience a temporary increase in dementia risk in the first couple of years after completion, potentially due to the stress associated with the final stages of the degree or other factors. "

Grey cat looking contented on a garden table with laptop, papers, pen and coffee

Spiderlings

but you shouldn’t
say their name

call them hook-legs
little wild stags

blisters of salt
loop-spinners

their cradle
is not a trap

but gentleness
in emptiness

one quick jab
unclusters them

a stop-motion
yarrow scatter

a panicked
flowering

but it’s second moult
that breaks out

desire to cast strands
into chancy space

to dial sun
into sidelit shape

to charm the world
into a smaller world

to charm it into
lines and a reel

to charm it
into prey

black ink painting of a cat from the side, facing left, sitting up with paws out to the front and tail swooping forward.

Black and white cat stretched out sleeping on multicolour rainbow quilt on a bed.

image of a poem, a translation of Sorley MacLean's A Chiall 's a Gràidh, translated as Reasoning with Love:

If our language said that sense
is equivalent to love
it lied.

When I saw your face
I had no sense of love’s
asymmetries.

When I heard your voice
it didn’t crack open my chest
at first.

But love breached, unnoticed,
and ripped apart my keel
swept me aside like drift.

With all the judgment I had
I made a shadow fight
an unreasonable war

until from that old hidden place
I spoke to love, saying
neither of us is worth this.

Love was in the house's heart
reason in the elegant room
but the foolish door
between them was broken

and my reason said to my love:
its not for us, this doubleness
love has mixed us up.

table from Wiki showing number of council seats held by different political parties in the UK as of May 2nd. Labour at 6323, Tories at 5035, LibDems at 3009, then Greens at 850. Putting aside parties that don't compete across the whole UK, next is Reform at 808.

I’m writing to urge you to speak out for your constituents who are trans after yesterday’s decision. People will be scared and worried about simply living their lives, even if the decision was on a fairly narrow basis, as it comes after a long period under the Tories where trans people especially were under constant attack by the press, by the government, and by people that the government had put into positions of power. Labour has always stood up for minorities, and the Equality Act was an important piece of legislation that sought to provide not just equality for people with protected characteristics, but dignity and respect. In these dark days of rising authoritarianism, it’s so important for elected representatives like you to make the case clearly and forcefully that Labour will continue its tradition of supporting minorities and work to halt the backsliding that we see on trans people's ability to live a life of dignity and respect.

I hope to hear you standing up for the rights of trans people, as well as of other LGBTQ+ minorities, in parliament,

Photo of text that reads ' Death, thou shalt die' has nothing on the apophatic reversals of Krasznahorkai's metaphysics, where art exposes the scrim between us and non-being.

Black and white cat curled up on a now unreadable open copy of the London Review of Books looking innocently up, paw firmly placed on the title

black and white cat fast asleep, nose to foot, on a green blanket

sun rising through bare tree branches in frosty landscape

black and white cat dozing on a leather beanbag with paws outstretched

Scene of canal and buildings

Scene of perplexed person staring at Gaelic scrabble board with glass of champagne

Picture of Anson holding the race number 147 and initial pre race information

Title page of book

Aaron Hicklin introducing a panel

Cat, laptop, coffee in a sunny but shaded garden

Tabby cat on a meditation cushion looking a bit too big for it