Happy Thanksgiving, whether you're American or not! I'm lucky enough to have a litany of reasons to be grateful โ€” and you know what's on the list? You reading this email ๐Ÿ’–๐Ÿ’“๐Ÿ’๐Ÿ’•๐Ÿ’—

Especially those of you who've been reading them for years. It means so much that you cared what I have to say in the first place, and that you've kept caring, even through long periods of editorial flailing. I used to roll my eyes when YouTubers or similar would gush about their audiences, like c'mon stop pandering. But now I get it! Maybe I'm just an occasional subject line in your inbox, and that's fine, but you're my vocation and I can't pretend otherwise. Gotta remember:

Have I mentioned lately that I consider myself a furry? ๐Ÿฐ

Anyway. In celebration of the holiday, plus the weird quasi-holiday consumer smorgasbord immediately afterward ("Black Friday"), Mystery Zine Bundles are 50% off until I run out of them. I do not plan to restock, so [infomercial voice] act now while supplies last! Shipping is free in the USA and pretty cheap everywhere else.

A zine or several is a lovely token of esteem for the ponder-happy aesthete in your life. Heck, that could be you yourself ๐Ÿ˜‰ If you want a taste first, these three digital versions are free:

Instructions Unclear Online
My recent zine Instructions Unclear[https://www.sonyaellenmann.com/instructions-unclear-rituals-zine/] is availableas a free PDF! Fair warning, the file is almost 200 megabytes. Now that you knowwhat youโ€™re clicking on, hereโ€™s the full, high-res manuscript[https://www.sonyaellenmann.com/instructions-unclear-rituals-zine/instructions-unclear.pdfโ€ฆ
Bad Thoughts
I decided to release the digital version of my Halloween zine for free, since members [/membership/] will be getting a bonus in November. Ultimately, itโ€™sabout the horror of conscious selfhood โ€”ย the trauma of sentience. In addition to various papers that I had on hand, I used printables from theโ€ฆ
In Which We Must Agree to Disagree
Surely we can all get along! Right?

As promised, I'm donating half of Mystery Zine Bundle proceeds to charity. To make good on previous sales, I went ahead and gave $100 to Open Privacy. I would have done the same with Mother Trust Org, but I discovered that MTO's GoFundMe campaign has been paused. Suggest another small, golden-hearted charity? Currently I have no prospects in mind, so please do hit reply and let me know. I'll update y'all in a future newsletter.

Lastly, on a completely unrelated note, I wrote about whether it's ever a good idea to imbibe urine non-recreationally:

Drinking your own pee for survival: does the science bear it out?
If youโ€™ve been on the internet for a minute, youโ€™ve no doubt seen the famous Bear Grylls meme. But long before the British Army SAS veteran guzzled his way to meme glory in a now-infamous episode of his โ€œrealityโ€ TV survival show, drinking your own pee was a classic metonym for desperation in preppeโ€ฆ
Credit for the 'shop of Bear Grylls goes to Josh Centers.

Whatever you're doing today, I hope you're having a blast. If not, hang in there, 'cause I'm rooting for you!

Talk soon.