Did you see my new stuff?

I made and sold a hefty, hefty load of banners this month. Many of these were made for the Colorado Springs convention (uneventful, except the many kind faces I met!). Honestly, it’s too many to list individually.

Check out my profile to catch up if you want!

Thank you so much to everyone who purchased, followed, and reposted. I am supremely grateful for all the support.

If you missed any of these, likes and shares always help!

FOG ON THE HORIZON

October 10-11 at Hocus Poke-Us Tattoo Convention in York, PA again. I absolutely LOVED this convention last year.

Otherwise, there are IRL places with my merch around the MD area. As always, Brewing Good, Nowhere Thrift in Richmond, VA, and the NOW OPEN Flour Fable Baking Co!

New to the list is Bad Luck Club in Chicago, IL. They got some fresh library pins!

FOG Skincare

Sometimes I get weird itchy spots on my body and they make me scared. So, I nuke them with Clindamycin phosphate.

Nothing survives.

FOG Photo Editing

I’m bringing back vignettes.

FOG AOTY 2026

<sweating profusely> We have … uhh … eight records to talk about. Eight good records in the last month is crazy.

As always, these are Spotify links for ease, but don’t use Spotify.

—

Terraform the Afterlife by Evil Island is going to end up on the list 100%. I went in dark on this record, as 3/5 of the Blood Brothers reunited for it (and Jordan Billie, another Blood Brother, is on the record more than once too). It is the spiritual successor to one of my very, very favorite bands of the 2000’s. And the boys did it!

It rocks, it screams, it snarls. If you are unfamiliar with the … unique … vocals of Johnny Whitney, prepare to rethink much.

Don’t even know where to begin, it’s front-to-back great. T-Hexx was the song that wowed me first though.

—

Living Weapon is a new band from a handful of ex-Vein members. I have rarely heard a record like Death In The Family that made me actually concerned for blowing out my car speakers. This is the most distorted thing I’ve ever heard.

It’s good and might make the list just for how insane it sounds. Metastasis is a wild one.

—

Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats reunite (all everyone does is reunite) with the album ii. Looking like rap record of the year. The beats are fun and wonderful, Denzel is impeccable on it. Two of my favorites making music together again.

As always, I hate a Westside Gunn feature. Sorry. As always, I love a Jpeg Mafia feature. Sorry, again.

GONE FISHING is the opener and just flat-out cooks.

—

Sad rap is finally back! DOOMED! by Open Mike Eagle has “rap songs about a relationship that ends in every possible universe.” It’s a quiet breakup album, but packs a lot of humor and and delicacy into the tracks.

The first five tracks knock it out of the park, but the Kam Chancellor bar on Don’t Go Look (Battleworld Focus Prayer) make me laugh every time.

—

ASHA by Elephant Stone is very up my alley. If we want to simplify it totally, they ask the question, “What if The Lemon Twigs smoked more weeeeeed?” It’s spacey and more psychedelic, even a bit spiritual. A mid-tempo listen that’s fuzzy and warm.

Broken Arrow is my favorite song off the record.

—

Quick shoutout to Sigh and DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ (again!) for good records I won’t get into. Eight is enough.

—

Oddball incoming! Necropolitan by Green Lung is a wild record that is succinctly described as Dio’s Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden’s idiot baby. It’s campy as all hell, and maybe the best clean vocal metal I’ve heard in years. I am fully power-posing while this one’s one, squealing the lyrics.

It’s stupid and very fun. I dunno, no complaints. Ozymandias’ chorus is soooooo singable.

—

I think Nate Amos has it. This Is Lorelai is back with another(!) great album, The Singer In My Band. I loved, loved, loved his previous record, Box for Buddy, Box for Star, and this one is a bit of a departure from that. This one is streamlined and more linear. His songwriting chops are still top-notch, even though I miss the more out-of-the-box aspects he threw in the previous.

Billy Came Back is a strong Song of the Year contender. The guitar and vocal melodies are addicting.

—

Speaking of addicting, I cannot - CAN NOT! - turn this The Tubs record off, Hard Life. Sporting the worst band name imaginable, this was a random chance listen cause I saw the Pitchfork post and loved the cover. I can pretty comfortably call this the AOTY front-runner. No other record this year has demanded my ear even half as much as this one.

There are so many touchstones to note on this record. The huge ones are jangly, thin, 90’s radio rock. Were talkin’ Counting Crows, we’re talkin’ Gin Blossoms, we’re talkin’ I’ll Be There For You, we’re talking Barenaked Ladies. We’re talking Rod motherfucking Stewart. We are even, sometimes, just a little, talking Meat Loaf.

It’s a no-skip blast that will almost certainly end up with me doing a catalogue deep-dive on them. The Welsh boys have bonafide banger on their hands!

I can’t even choose what song to show you here. Uhh, I mean Who’s Gonna Love You Now? is fucking great, along with the other 11 tracks on this one.

Whatcha Readin?

Nothin’ much.

(Piranesi by Susanna Clark)

okayyyyyy, let’s get into it.

“I SPENT THE LAST YEAR OR SO READING ALL SIX EARTHSEA BOOKS, BY URSULA K. LE GUIN, AND THEY FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGED ME: A Reflection”

I’d like to talk about the Earthsea series by Usrula K. Le Guin. An often overlooked series of fantasy, spanning decades of the legendary author’s life, it deserves its laurels.

It should be read alongside other seminal works and long before whatever new, derivative junk social media is pushing. The series is a masterpiece.

The first novel - A Wizard of Earthsea - was published in 1968 when she was 39 years old. The journey, unknown to her while penning them, would finally end when The Other Wind would be published in 2001. She was 72 when the series finally concluded. It is a life’s work covering over three decades.

I loved these books. Ursula grows over the course of writing these (how could she not?), and we get to see her rid herself of all expectations. What begins as a young adult fantasy ends as a deep reflection of woman-and-motherhood. By its end, she has complete ownership of her story and they are a joy to read.

Her prose is invisible and masterful. I am a compulsive highlighter, and found myself doing very little of it during these six books. Yet, I was deeply affected by them. Her themes and writing are water-tight, as finely edited as any I’ve read. She is wholly disinterested in self-indulgence unlike Tolkien, almost allergic to rambling unlike Melville, and respectfully brief unlike Sanderson.

Even as a YA book, the first book  is lightyears beyond what anyone could reasonably expect. 

—

So, yes. The series does start as an adventurous, rollicking story for young adults. In fact, I read A Wizard of Earthsea as a young adult, with hair! I remember finding it strangely moving, haunting, and deep. Themes introduced here carry throughout the following five books: one’s True Name, the barrier between life and death, balance, dragons, and above all, chosen family.

It’s a short, razor-sharp book that flexes supreme efficiency. Her publisher asked her to write this book for the YA audience. While  she had no YA experience, I can hear them, “We gotta get one of those Lord Of the Rings books, Ursula.” Even then, when she was just getting started, she looked to upend those tropes.

One of the series main characters, Sparrowhawk, or Ged, his True Name, is a black boy-to-be-wizard. Explicitly described, he is a foil against traditional wizards (i.e. old, white, bearded). And for the remainder of the first book he hunts a shadow loosened from the land of the dead by himself in a bout of hubris and youth. 

It’s a wonderful, wanderlust morsel that sets the archipelago world out. A Wizard of Earthsea ends with a dangling carrot of Ged’s future accomplishments. It looked like after A Wizard was published, you could feel Ursula itching to expand. At least I could, which was incorrect!

Le Guin had no plans to continue the series after A Wizard. The future accomplishments, according to Ursula, were mere nonsense words at the time. But after a brief time away, she found herself itching to return to Earthsea. 

The sequel, The Tombs of Atuan, frankly fucking cooks.

Thrust into a new setting, we follow our second main character of the series, Arha, her True Name being Tenar. She is a young girl, selected to be High Priestess in a land across the oceans from where A Wizard took place. It’s a dark place, literally. The majority of the book takes place in the black, underground temples, where only Tenar can go.

She is believed to be the reincarnated Eaten One (it doesn’t matter what that means), and lives lonely and alone, bound by duty, the palace walls, lesser priestesses, and her eunuch servants. Those about her worship dark indigenous powers, and are cut off from the outside world. Beyond the few eunuchs, there are solely women in this temple compound.

Shifting the focus to a cast of only women, Le Guin thrives, upending gender norms in this book insteAad of racial ones. She is able to write for her own lens now.

The darkness and loneliness are oppressive. Tenar’s responsibilities grow ever more serious as she becomes a young woman (ritual and penal killing by whatever means she decides). She feels more alienated. Despite her supreme power, she is bound. Her station of high priestess is a cage.

But below … the pitch black caverns stretch ever on, both unknown and tantalizing, as her devotion to the dark powers waivers. It is a book which visually lives and breathes. The understanding and compassion Le Guin has for Tenar is so evident. The first book’s Ged was a sketch of an idea, a vehicle, while Tenar is a full human being, emotionally torn but nonetheless complete.

The surprise of the book (for me at least, I don’t know how this was rolled out in 1971), was when Ged appears in the underearth, The Tombs of Atuan. I got goosebumps. I could feel the dissolution of Tenar’s convictions as her world was turned upside-down. The charismatic young wizard would only spell trouble for her - pulling her between everything she knew and the ever-calling world beyond.

As fabulous as this was, I felt a small pang of disappointment as Le Guin reintroduced Ged, her male protagonist. It felt tropey. He was here to liberate her. I was wrong again.

Funnily, he is immediately stripped of all authority and power while Tenar is held up as the highest being in the land. He is rendered to a lowly incarcerated trickster, against the immense position of Tenar - a deliberate choice, no doubt.

Things happen that I won’t spoil, and the two leave under different circumstances than you are imagining. Tenar goes to live in Earthsea proper, where the first book takes place. Ged on to the next horizon.

After this book, The Farthest Shore picks up in 1972. It is another adventurous story that gets a lot of world-building done. It’s probably the most important book, plot-wise and the least interesting thematically. Tenar is nowhere to be found!

Twenty-five (book) years later, Ged, a fully empowered Archmage at the helm of the world’s foremost wizarding school Roke, leads a young prince around the globe to discover why the magics of Earthea are in atrophy. A lot happens in and because of this book. 

We delve deeper into the ramifications of what happens when things aren’t allowed to die - when balance is forever ruined. Ursula really digs into some Taoist thought in Farthest Shore. We also finally get to meet some dragons, who are the engine of the series future.

Importantly, the book ends with Ged sacrificing much and finally returning to his childhood homeland. His young friend the prince becomes King, and he finds some semblance of happily ever after. This was supposed to be the endcap to Earthsea series. And it was, as she would put the series down after it until 1990.

But what of Tenar?

—

Eighteen (real-life) years pass.

—

Tehanu was released in 1990, and was her second attempt at ending the Earthsea series - its subtitle being The Last Book of Earthsea. It is regarded as her finest work and won numerous awards, and pushed the series into adulthood - literally and figuratively.

Set mere days after The Farthest Shore - and twenty-five years after Tombs of Atuan - Ursula herself has done significant growing by now. With her, the series’ themes mature and she shifts the lens almost squarely back onto Tenar.

Tenar, the once reincarnated High Priestess from a lifetime and world away, is a farmer’s widow, alone. One day, a girl is savagely beaten and left to die in the embers of a campfire. Found between life and death, Tenar saves the girl. The child is permanently disfigured and scarred; a hand burnt away, a face ruined by flame, an eye rendered useless, and a voice forever hoarse.

Tenar names her Therru which means flame, because she is ever warm. She adopts her as a daughter. Then, out of the very sky, Ged appears again, fresh after his sacrifice made in The Farthest Shore, also half dead. He is carried by the eldest dragon in Earthsea, barely conscious. 

Again Tenar nurses the weary and wonder back to health. But more than this, she accepts both Therru and Ged as they are. Both have been ruined by this time, in one way or another. At long last Tenar and Ged fall in love. 

Reunited decades later, Tenar and Ged desire nothing but an idyllic life. However, the world is cruel and men are callous. Hurt and tragedy befall them and their travels, forever nipping at their heels. Le Guin, 61 at this point, says she needed those years between book three and four, Tehanu, to understand Tenar as a woman. 

And that is the book at its core. Tenar and her daughter dealing with the horrible, real world. No wizardry or magic - the magic is still in deep atrophy. Tehanu strips away the high-fantasy from the series, grounding it in the poverty and dirt. It’s as if Le Guin realized that beneath the heraldry of wizarding schools, and dragons, and magic, her world was home to real people all along.

But cruelty is everywhere. Therru’s entire life is shattered before we even meet her, more a corpse than girl at her introduction. Tenar suffers horribly at the actions of men in power. Ursula writes this books (and, as she admits, Tombs of Atuan) with an anger towards man. Wrongly, the book was panned as a feminist wedge when it released.

I can’t imagine that interpretation. But I do have the luxury of reading it 35 years after its release. The evils of men are profound and ruining. Only with a truly soulless heart can anyone read through Tehanu unmoved. More than once I became misty-eyed.

A witch asks “Who knows where a woman begins or ends? … I have roots, I have roots deeper than this island. … I go back, into the dark! … Who’ll ask the dark its name?”

Tenar replies, powerfully, “I will.”

The whole book we see her struggle to figure out who she is: the powerful priestess of her youth, the widow and mother of her last twenty-five years, or the woman who seizes her beautiful, scary future by sheer willpower. She has to ask the darkness who she is.

In the end Therru also finds her own power, saving Tenar and Ged by summoning the very same dragon to her aid. She is Therru, flame, but also given her True Name of Tehanu by the eldest dragon. She is of both worlds, dragon and human.

Cover to cover, it’s a fascinating, gripping, harrowing read. The themes of motherhood, love, the evil of men in power, and its subsequent relinquishing are perfectly realized. Le Guin finally wrote the book which had been clanging around her brain for over two decades.

The series was finally over. It literally says “The Last Book of Earthsea.”

—

Almost another (real-life) decade passes.

—

Ursula K. Le Guin is approached in the late 1990’s by her publisher. I can hear them, “We gotta get one of those Harry Potter books, Ursula.” Even then, when she was nearly thirty years into the series, she looked to upend those tropes.

She writes Tales from Earthsea, a collection of five short stories. Fully fleshing out interesting histories and plot points of her world. It is very enjoyable, and serves up the bridging narrative that will lead us back into Tenar and Ged’s story.  I won’t get into those tangential stories, but will say they are well-written and sparklingly-polished, as always.

The through-line for us is the story of Irian, a wayward girl who was born with strong magical potential. Until now, I’ve not talked much about the internal workings or spoilers, and I’ll try not to. But in Earthsea, anyone can be born with magic within them, but only males can enlist into the Roke school. This is where you go to become a wizard. 

I won’t draw any comparisons to that other school from that other author’s books talked about above, but you get the point. Dudes only get to be wizards. Women remain unlearned, as witches.

A quick synopsis of Irian’s story:

Irian goes to Roke and raises hell, being a powerful woman. She is forced to live out in the magical woods with the Master Patterner (it doesn’t matter what that means). 

The Master Summoner goes into the land of the dead in yet another bout of hubris to see what’s the cause of the magical atrophy. Things that die should remain dead, he doesn’t.

The Master Summoner - evilly undead now - moves to throw Irian out by force. Irian, a woman with “roots deeper than this island,” turns him into dust, killing him absolutely, becomes a dragon, and flies away. 

Roll credits on book five, Tales from Earthsea.

The Other Wind, the actual last book of Earthsea, returns us to Tenar and Ged, now another decade older, grey haired and slow. They are happy. They love Therru, who has taken her True Name Tehanu now, and tend their garden peacefully. No one knows Tenar was High Priestess, nor the immense power Ged wielded in his youth as Archmage. They got their happily ever after.

While Le Guin makes it abundantly clear our two characters are at peace, the world is still unwell. The world of magic still is in atrophy. As she put it, she brought the story up to “now” with Tehanu, but “now” keeps moving. She needed to tie it all up.

The King - the young prince from book three - requests Tenar’s presence in the capital, as she is a mother of sorts to him. Whilst she and Tehanu are away, a young wizard visits Ged. He sees the land of the dead in his dreams. Funny to me, Ged tells him to go to the capital too, alone, where his wife and kid are. He simply says that he is done doing things (I find this hilarious).

Tenar is in her fifties now, and Le Guin makes it clear that she is content. Her days of suffering are behind her. Though apart from Ged right now, they are peaceful and in love. After all the world-shattering consequences of their lives, she yearns to pick fruits from their trees. She worries only for Tehanu, who is still closed off, a lingering scar of her abuse.

While in the capital, adventure rears its ugly head again, mother and daughter swept up in it. Along with the young wizard who sees the dead land. Tehanu, it turns out, is the only person able to speak with dragons (Ged used to, but he’s tired, remember). To Le Guin, dragons are the wilderness itself. She likens them to tigers, untamable and beautiful.

In all the books (except Tombs of Atuan), dragons play integral parts in the narrative. All of the wizardly languages are draconic and everyone’s True Name is too. Dragons are huge, intelligent, mysterious, and surrounded by folklore. Held in awe and feared, equally. 

Tehanu and Irian from Tales are all these things too … and women. Wild, untamable women. The two finally meet, as sisters, daughters of the ancient dragons. Fittingly, the entirety of The Other Wind revolves around chosen family. Newlywed couples tragically separated, Tehanu and Irian, even Tenar and Ged and the King. 

As Le Guin grew older, so much was stripped away from her books. Adventure, magic, wizards, travel, all that junk. Until all that remained was what was most important: family and compassion.

Motherhood plays another central role in this book. We see a Tehanu finally accept what and who she is, as she finds her half-sister Irian. Tenar, a woman with no country, stays behind while her daughter goes to blossom into what she truly is, neither sad or jealous.

There is a quiet, feminine stoicism as Tenar slowly loosens her grasp on the girl she saved all those years ago. It’s horribly painful for her, but shouldered with courage, acceptance, and grace. By the end of six books, it is abundantly clear who the hero is.

It’s the mother. It’s the woman. It’s the one who turned away from ideology to unite people, and the People. With nothing but compassion, Tenar faced the evil world and all it’s cruelty and still chose to love in the most complete way: to simply accept others.

In the end, Tenar returns to her home, alone, while Ged sits watching the day and waiting for her. He asks of their daughter, and Tenar says one of the Masters last “saw her. In the sunrise. On the other wind.” 

And, I cried. A lot. Right now a little bit too. What that all means, you should discover yourself by reading the books.

So, that’s my two cents.

Dealing with themes of race and complete womanhood decades earlier than it entered the fantasy zeitgeist, it succeeds in every regard. While Ursula K. Le Guin’s series lacks the codifying, monolithic influence of Lord of the Rings, it punches its ticket into the hall of classics, rightfully above all other contenders. 

Her prose is beautiful yet workmanlike. I was consistently stunned by the sheer ease with which she gets the best words onto the page. Over the course of six books I was never once bored, the weaving of her tapestry is masterful. 

As the books pile up, she managed to take her plucky young adult adventure about a young boy and transform it into her own inspection of what it is to be a woman and mother. All the while she had publishers asking her to mimic whatever was the popular fantasy series at the time. 

She delivered on this and more. A thousand times more. Writing a series that not just stands equal to the others, but above in many ways. She upended norms and forged new paths that are still trodden today. And ultimately by doing so, she made Earthsea hers.

—

10/10. Perfect. Masterpiece. Whatever you want to call it.

If you read all this, I appreciate you.

Want more FOGJUNK?

The entire backlog is online! Head over to The FOGJUNK Archives and waste a bunch of time.

I hope you reach out and let me know what you’d like to see!

Thank you, I love you.