Sosanni
☎️You Have Reached Erratica.
The Creative Journal.
Of Sosanni V.
An intensely curious. restless. overcaffeinated. seasoned seeker. who absconds punctuation – syntax & grammar rules.
Who writes books and creates art.
Loves all things culture, literature, art history & food.
Is fascinated by the vastness of the human experience.
An overthinker who asks big questions..
Explores the web to discover all things interesting.
Needs a journal to record
every single drop of the above.
That is me.
I am Sosanni.
This is the journal.
Welcome to Erratica.
Join the conversation.
The Arnolfini Portrait. 1434
This masterpiece contains a spectacular detail.
The Arnolfini Portrait, Jan Van Eyck 1434
Beyond Van Eyck’s exquisite technique of painting with such ‘photographic’ realism, the mirror that is shown on the back wall is a study all its own. It reflects the part of the room that is in front of the couple – depicting Van Eyck at work creating this painting as well as two people at the entrance of the room.
Excerpts from The Spill Unfiltered – the diary of a mobster’s wife
A taste from the diary pages without spoilers….
As easy or tragic as apple pie.
1 folded sheet (16 pages) : illustrations (woodcuts) ; 10 cm.
Talking about children’s literature. –
The edition featured here was published by John Evans, a major contender in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century children’s literature. His formula was simple: undercut the competition, including John Newbery’s firm, by selling unprecedentedly affordable books. He captured an emerging market: children’s books for hard up families who had managed, against the odds, to acquire literacy. And while his competitors targeted a middle-class audience, Evans “stayed true to the street literature tradition in which he had been brought up”, writes literary historian Jonathan Cooper, who gives 1793–1796 as the likely date for Apple-Pye. It was printed on a press at No. 41 Long Lane, West Smithfield, and sold for a halfpenny, like Evans’ other sixteen-page chapbooks — a tiny format, roughly measuring 3.5 inches tall by 2.25 inches wide.
The Tragical Death of Apple-Pie
This book is the most unusual ABC primer I have seen. Check it out: Peckish Alphabetics: The Tragical Death of a Apple-Pye (ca. 1793–1796)
On glitches, fairy tales, subliminal messages and herds.
Seeking glitches & Discovering them.
I began looking for explanations and for glitches.
The whole idea of fairy tales randomly blew onto my desk once again – the wind always brings in one thing or another.
Random? No…Nothing is random, nor is this tangent, lol.
And so, I began to examine fairy tales…and I suddenly saw a glitch…
I saw it NOW…I certainly didn’t see it THEN…way back in the day when I devoured fairy tales like many other children. I loved them, was never ‘frightened’ by any of them. BUT. I just saw this glitch and it has me wondering.
The subliminal messages fairy tales carry between the lines are atrociously toxic.
If these tales were written for children, well, the underlying evil or frightening themes that are not only center stage but also zoom straight into their subconscious as ‘message received’ and at the very least have the potential to shake a child’s sense of security, not nourish them.
Most fairy tales are built upon the idea that children are not safe anywhere, detailing how children can be kidnapped, imprisoned, abused, and ‘spellbound’ easily. The idea that you, as a child, are not ‘safe’ anywhere is not an ideal subliminal notion.
The fairy tale, for generations considered to be a carefully chosen bedtime story, has been stamped as ‘suitable’ by society.
And then it occurred to me:
Reading such tales to a child at night is like tucking in your child along while planting a nightmarish seed in the subliminal garden of the subconscious, and then kissing the child good night.
And this is something we take for granted – we accept fairy tales without really examining what they’re really saying. We normalized evil lurking everywhere, putting children in danger even in their own ‘safe zone’ – like most fairy tales depict. And they are extremely sexist – the woman is either a damsel in distress, a prisoner, an abused victim, an evil queen, a good queen that dies very young, a fairy or a witch.
But obviously, our subconscious has been nourished with these very ideas from a young age. And we normalized it.
But then again, I ask myself why bother wondering what the young generations are ‘thinking’ about these issues today?
Young children today may get a dose of fairy tales here and there – but they live in a completely different world than my generation experienced.
While we were listening to fairy tales being read to us, or eventually reading them ourselves, these children today are scrolling away on their phones from toddlerhood – exposed to who knows what. What they may have ‘normalized’ from the screentime alone by the time they enter school is beyond my imagination.
So, of course, I ignored my realizations about today’s kids and the state of society they are growing up in, sipped some coffee and moved on.
I continued to look at the messages woven into fairy tales in greater detail…and examined the Pied Piper of Hamelin, Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and a few other tales…All cloaking prevailing themes of abandonment, deception, victimization, and abuse.
“…One Google search for “fairytale villains” generates a slew of sadistic female “baddies”: Cinderella’s evil step mother, her “ugly sisters”, Ursula, the wicked witch of the west.
Five reasons to stop reading your children fairytales now
These women are vindictive towards one another and negate any concept of sisterhood.
…
They represent what literary scholar Ruth Bottigheimer called an “apparent inner drive to incriminate females” in her book Grimms’ Bad Girls and Bold Boys. …”
from independent
Ugh. But before I totally abandon that topic, I will add this bit. I came across something interesting while digging into the themes of fairy tales.
I found this interesting BBC piece about Beatrix Potter, pointing out that her tales were laden with social and political commentary relevant to her experiences at that time.
The excerpt from this article refers to a book, Beatrix Potter: Writing in Code by M Daphne Kutzer.
“…As M Daphne Kutzer writes in Beatrix Potter: Writing in Code, “She never attempted to write a novel, but it is fair to say that a number of her small children’s books are in fact novels: their characters and their plots are as complex and open to interpretation as any novel published at that time.”…
The hidden adult themes in Beatrix Potter
…”In Beatrix Potter it seems the personal and the political, the private and the public are perfectly joined. Perhaps that’s why her animals don’t just talk, they have something to say.”
Okay…”…In Beatrix Potter it seems the personal and the political, the private and the public are perfectly joined.…”
Beatrix Potter had her views and experienced many social and political situations that fueled her opinions. And it makes sense that the sharp woman, skilled writer, an experienced person that she was would be able to merge and meld her views and stands and weave them consciously or maybe subconsciously in her writing.
And I asked myself, “Today, do we even have personal, political, private and public stands that can be woven into children’s literature?
–
As individuals do we even have any thought out individual opinions on issues? Or do we adhere to blurting out spoon fed truths and memes that condition our perspectives (or numb us out). Do we have individual voices and ‘stands’ or do we simply vocalize knee jerk reactions?’Do we simply echo the opinions of the powers that be or of the group that would serve us best? Are we encouraged to be empowered sovereign individuals with our own perspective on things – backed by our logic and rationale?’
Now that took me down another rabbit hole.
The rabbit hole that leads to the issue of the individual and the herd.
I came to the conclusion that one can’t voice their own thoughts and opinions – backed by their individual stance – while being part of a herd and functioning within the herd mentality in society. One needs to be empowered, fully aware of themselves, know themselves, and disregard the need to adhere to the herd mentality views.
And I looked for the glitches in these trenches, dugouts, and rabbit holes.
Glitches that have been dangling in front of our faces.
This is what I have been focusing on lately at ‘my writer’s desk’.
How can one expect to know themselves, to have an identity, if they have latched themselves into this collective interconnected hivemind web of memed mediocrity?
Should that be a podcast? To swim in the sea of podcasts that rant and rave about this very topic?
This herd-like mentality, this contemporary social setup does not allow for ‘the individual’ to thrive. What a vicious circle.
Herds? Herd Mindset? Don’t get me started…More ranting follows…
On Cocktail Parties, Metaphors, Being Lulled & Glitches.
A long musing. Or rant. Or a rambling stream of thoughts is more like it.
Imagine a cocktail party…chic, gorgeous cocktails and a magnificent array of exquisite appetizers. A feast for the senses.
The cocktails? The appetizers? The best of what we know – mixed in with a few selections of ones we would love to try.
The venue, the chatter, the guest list, and the music? Imagine these as what we enjoy and what we look forward to – without a doubt.
The cocktail party? Like the ones that came before…Same things. Same buzz. Same routine.
But this time…An uninvited guest comes in.
She appears engaging and clever – and seems to be rubbing elbows with everyone while provocatively throwing around ideas that seem vague and elusive at first, but actually they were sharp enough to pop the bubble with a bang. But the only things at the cocktail party constantly popping with a bang were the corks of the champagne bottles.
But the ideas of the uninvited, unexpected guest were sharp enough to not just pop those corks but to pop THE Bubble.
What bubble?
The bubble of illusion.
I use the example of the cocktail party because these events usually hold an aura or an atmosphere of being ‘relaxed’, of ‘guards being let down’, of a sense of getting buzzed or mildly intoxicated in a safe environment – beautiful, among friends and with a ‘choice’ atmosphere.
So the cocktail party in my metaphor symbolizes the relaxed, unsuspecting, content, and ‘safe’ mind.
And the uninvited guest? – It is not ‘a person’; the uninvited guest symbolizes a thought.
But not just any thought. Not a thought that you were consciously ruminating.
This uninvited guest symbolizes an UNEXPECTED thought. One that suddenly appears in the mind – not invited and not expected.
The thought
- that creates that sudden aha! realization –
- that unfiltered observation –
- the thought that pops into your head and is capable of shattering the illusion.
That state of cocktail party buzz? That symbolizes the state of society – in a ‘buzz’ – a buzz that creates a lulled mind. That is the ideal state for feeding the illusion.
Compare that cocktail party buzz to the state of society as people rush through their daily grind and scroll through life.
They have become (un)pleasantly numb and accepting. Perhaps because they don’t have the time or strength to tackle the very effort of questioning anything.
That is what is happening in society….
- acceptance
- numbness
- the inability to focus
- to think critically
- to analyze –
- we are in a buzzed state 24/7.
At the cocktail party, they were lulled by the alcohol. In society, we are in a perpetual lulled state.
We are lulled as we swim in white noise and have given much of our lives hostage to the illusion of experiencing reality while living in a virtual state.
Many of us in society have moved out of our homes and families and into the screen.
Unfortunately, we don’t realize that this virtual existence isn’t ‘real’ – although that is the life that many spend their very existence ‘feeding’ and trying to ‘build’.
Many mistakenly no longer see the possibility of being a strong individual who can stand out from a hive-minded herd, but rather, they believe that they actually are the retouched photo, the tweaked truths and false impression they post, their memed “cut-out” appearance, the number of likes, or the number of followers of their social media account.
I realized how lulled we are.
I realized that we don’t see a glitch even if it floats in front of us.
On Dostoevsky.
Dostoevsky is one of the ‘deepest’ writers I have encountered through my journeys in literature. I say ‘deep’ because he fearlessly peels back layers of social expectation and just lunges for primal, raw, and unfiltered emotions, reactions, and observations.
I don’t have a ‘favorite’ Dostoevsky work…they are all magnificent and stand alone in their magnitude and depth. Entering the mind of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment is by far the most memorable trip in reading Dostoevsky’s work. As for The Brothers Karamazov, it whirls around so many dark emotions associated with serious issues like patricide and faith. The book has a wide range of characters – each bearing their own flaws and issues. Especially evident are the conflicting morals surrounding issues of identity, faith, lineage, fatherhood and murder.
I found an amazing offer on Dostoevsky’s books, and I’m sharing it in the Totally Booked section at the bottom of the post. Check it out if you want a great Dostoevsky read or just can’t resist book bargains like me.
Below is a post I ran into on X showing a page of Dostoevsky’s draft manuscript of The Brothers Karamazov.
Regardez : Voici le brouillon de Fiodor Dostoïevski pour son ouvrage Les Frères Karamazov : https://t.co/IK5uAPaj0V
— Perseus (@PerseusLeGrand) October 9, 2026
Totally Booked on Erratica:
Totally Booked posts on Erratica suggest the best books
- to build up your tsundoku
- to find books to devour and
- to take advantage of great deals on classics that no culturati, avid reader, or literature diva should miss.
The Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Novels, Short Stories and Autobiographical Writings: Complete Psychological and Existential Works of 19th-Century Russia
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Author), Constance Garnett (Translator), & 5 more
You can’t go wrong with this book. It has his amazing novels, novellas, short stories, letters, memoirs, and a biography. A whole library!
Paperback is around 40$…but the Kindle is 1.13 $ last I looked.
Seriously. A dollar and change, and you have all the Dostoevsky of a complete library on your computer/tablet/kindle. I love great book buys. Lovies, you don’t find buys like this…Grab it. And yes, I might make a penny on the dollar for the Kindle buy as an Amazon associate…seriously. This isn’t about the commission…It’s a dollar. Buy it for your library…this isn’t a tsundoku collection – it’s a must-read.
Traditional Greek Cooking & A Bit of Alchemy.
Quince – the yellow fruit that turns into the most gorgeous red spoon sweet or marmalade you have ever seen.
Spoon sweet? It’s the English translation of ‘γλυκο κουταλιου’ which literally translates as sweet of the spoon. It’s a traditional Greek sweet made by simmering fruit (and not only) into candied morsels in thick syrup that are traditionally served on a spoon in a small dish
along with a glass of cool water – You only need a spoonful – they are SO sweet and delish. –
Marguerite Yourcenar. A brilliant mind.
Marguerite Yourcenar was a literary rebel who looked to the past to break the rules of her present.
Born in Belgium, she eventually moved to the United States, where she wrote and taught at Sarah Lawrence College in NY.
Best known for her masterpiece Memoirs of Hadrian, she made history in 1980 as the first woman elected to the Académie Française—shattering a 345-year-old boys’ club.
While she famously rejected the political label of “feminist” in her public life, her art told a much bolder story.
In her raw, 1936 lyrical book Fires (Feux), Yourcenar used ancient Greek myths to openly explore intense, same-sex love and female desire. Dropping a queer narrative into the hyper-conservative society of the 1930s wasn’t just brave; it was revolutionary. She didn’t march for rights—she simply wrote with the absolute freedom that society tried to deny her.
Fires is a brilliant read that immerses the reader in monologues and narratives, weaving in strong female prototypes like Sappho, Antigone, Clytemnestra, and Phaedo – women who stood out through the centuries for their stands, their views, their talents, and their ‘rebellions’.
I love to shine the spotlight on brilliant cultural ‘greats’. I want to share this post I saw today on X and add it to Yourcenar’s ‘spotlight ‘!
The following excerpt is from Yourcenar’s Les Yeux Ouverts – a fascinating transcribed ‘conversation’ with Matthieu Galey – in which she reveals her personal views on so many topics including drugs, spirituality, relationships, love, and feminism. This excerpt is from the post by Paroles d’ Auteurs on X.
Magnificent Text by Marguerite Yourcenar (Les Yeux Ouverts, 1980) 🤩
from the post on x
“I condemn the ignorance that reigns at this moment in democracies as much as in totalitarian regimes. This ignorance is so strong, often so total, that it seems willed by the system, if not by the regime. I have often reflected on what the education of the child might be.
I think there should be basic studies, very simple ones, where the child would learn that he exists within the universe, on a planet whose resources he will later have to spare, that he depends on air, water, all living beings, and that the slightest error or the slightest violence risks destroying everything.
He would learn that men have killed each other in wars that have only ever produced more wars, and that every country arranges its history, mendaciously, in a way that flatters its pride.
He would be taught enough of the past to feel connected to the men who preceded him, to admire them where they deserve it, without making idols of them, any more than of the present or a hypothetical future.
One would try to familiarize him at once with books and with things; he would know the names of plants, he would know the animals without submitting to the hideous vivisections imposed on children and very young adolescents under the pretext of biology.
; he would learn to give first aid to the wounded; his sex education would include attending a birth, his mental education the sight of the gravely ill and the dead.
One would also give him the simple notions of morality without which life in society is impossible, instruction that the elementary and middle schools no longer dare to provide in this country.
In matters of religion, no practice or dogma would be imposed on him, but one would tell him something about all the great religions of the world, and especially that of the country where he is, to awaken in him respect and destroy in advance certain odious prejudices.
One would teach him to love work when work is useful, and not to let himself be taken in by advertising imposture, beginning with the one that praises more or less adulterated sweets to him, preparing future cavities and diabetuses for him.
There is certainly a way to speak to children about truly important things earlier than is done.”
by Paroles d’auteurs
@Paroles_auteurs
trompe-l’œil or technique ?
Classic Musical Brilliance Carried Down Through The Centuries.
