#johngreen — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #johngreen, aggregated by home.social.
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Book of the Month: Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
This is a fantastic book by John Green, published in March 2025 and we picked up a signed copy at the Wellcome Museum in London back in October 2025. We finally got round to reading it this week, with its slight 208 pages offering a very moving historical record of one of humanity’s deadliest diseases.
Everything is Tuberculosis explores how the illness has shaped human history, from the arts through to medicine and beyond, with Green arguing the condition is primarily caused by human choices (rather than bacteria). Lets explore its compassionate pages here.
Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
“The world we share is a product of all the worlds we used to share. For me at least, the history and present of tuberculosis reveal the folly and brilliance and cruelty and compassion of humans. My wife, Sarah, often jokes that in my mind everything is about tuberculosis, and tuberculosis is about everything. She’s right.”
We got a TB jab 30+ years ago and tuberculosis hasn’t played on our minds much since. It feels like a disease of “the past”, even though it continues to kill over a million people annually. But there is a cure, unfortunately some people just don’t have access to that cure.
When we were growing up TB kept cropping in things we were interested in. One of our favourite writers, George Orwell, died of it in 1950 aged only 46. And in the cult classic film Ravenous (1999) the character Colqhuon (Robert Carlyle) recovers from the condition by resorting to cannibalism.
There’s an entire chapter in Everything is Tuberculosis dedicated to creative people who died of the condition. As during the 18th century, the illness was associated with creative genius. Stupidly, of course, as a lot of people got TB and some of them were always going to have a creative streak.
Some of the famous names who died due to TB include Emily Brontë, John Keats, Franz Kafka, Anton Chekov, Molière, and Frédéric Chopin. The disease was particularly associated with Romanticism.
There’s also the great Japanese poet Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), a haiku master who was still penning new prose just hours before his death. Although he died aged 34, he wrote over 20,000 stanzas. This was one of his last.
Pain from coughing,
the long night’s lame flame,
small as a pea.Tuberculosis is also a horrible disease. It was called consumption for a long time as it caused patients to waste away under its ordeals, become emaciated and skeletal in the process.
This often lent a pale, red-cheeked look that, in the Victorian era, society viewed as a sign of beauty (so other people, not even with TB, would often try to replicate the gaunt look). Yes, then, the pale and haggard look of people nearing death was viewed as attractive.
But this is not a condition you want to get.
“M. tuberculosis is a near-perfect human predator in par because it moves so slowly. The bacteria has an uncommonly slow growth rate. While E. Coli can double in number about every twenty minutes in a laboratory environment, M. tuberculosis doubles only about once per day. And so infections simply take much, much longer to make an infected person sick, as the number of bacteria remains lower, allowing the immune system lots of time to mount a defense against the pathogen.
But there’s a problem: M. tuberculosis grows so slowly because it takes a long time to build its unusually fatty, thick cell wall, which is a formidable enemy to the immune system. White blood cells struggle to penetrate the cell wall and kill the bacteria from within. In fact, it’s so hard for infection-fighting cells to penetrate the bacteria’s cell what that, instead, white blood cells usually surround it, creating a call of calcifying tissue known as a tubercle.”
And so for many hundreds of years, TB was a bit like leprosy. Something of a feared disease that could get you cast out of society, but also had that strange creative element attached to it.
But this was an era when death was just very common.
“Before vaccination, C-sections, infection control, and antibiotics, the death of children was routine. About half of all humans ever born died before the age of five. Child death was so common that it had to be acknowledged as natural. And so the acceptable times to die in much of the premodern world were 1. Early childhood, or 2. Late in adulthood.
But tuberculosis has long been known for sickening and killing those between twenty and forty-five, during the one period of life when you were supposed to be relatively insulated from illness and death.”
This was a book we bought randomly in October 2025 based on its cover. We like yellow, we love the Wellcome Museum in London, so we picked up a copy as what the hey.
It’s one of those lucky moments as Everything is Tuberculosis is a fine work. It’s tragic, inspired, at times funny, and highlights the precariousness of life on this Earth. It’s only in the last 50 years or so across all of human history that we’ve more or less banished this disease from western society.
Roy Porter’s excellent 2002 work Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine reminded us of that, too. How lucky we’ve been to exist in the last half century, coinciding with some actual proper medical understanding.
As in England, if someone you knew got TB tomorrow that’d be considered really bizarre.
Yet, for a long time it was the norm and, for some people, almost a desirable thing. As within that suffering, people penned poetry and are remembered to this day for it. That romantic concept of a tortured genius again.
And a Bit About the Writer John Green
John Green is a American author and YouTuber most famous for his 2012 book The Fault in Our Stars Adapted into a film in 2014). He’s also hosted the innovative podcast/non-fiction book The Anthropocene Reviewed from 2018-2021.
For over a decade, he’s been a major global health advocate and is a trustee for Partners in Health. Everything is Tuberculosis has a big focus on Sierra Leone and its poverty crisis, with one individual called Henry documented throughout the work.
Green met Henry when he was 17, but the nature of TB meant he looked like a young boy. Happily, Henry was able to get a proper treatment regime and is alive and well.
But the book really did make it clear to us how lucky we’ve been. How diseases like TB that seem to belong in a past age are, in fact, still causing havoc across less fortunate regions of the world. Sierra Leone is so poverty stricken as the British Empire designed a railroad system to get all accumulated wealth out of the country as fast as possible. The pernicious nature of that system is still felt to this day.
Due to Green’s status, Everything is Tuberculosis was a hit and topped the New York Times bestsellers list, remaining in the list for some 23 weeks.
#Bacteria #Books #consumption #Disease #History #Illness #JohnGreen #lifedtyle #Literature #Medicine #Reading #TB #tuberculosis -
“I just want to do something that matters. Or be something that matters. I just want to matter.”
— John Green, An Abundance of Katherines -
“What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?”
— John Green, An Abundance of Katherines -
I found back an old vlogbrothers video that I really like.
It's about motivation, and it resonated a lot with me (and still does).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAEewFj_-dg
I've added it to the site as a curio. You can check those out here:
https://lzon.ca/curios#indieweb #personalweb #blog #motivation #vlogbrothers #johngreen #youtube #curios
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I found back an old vlogbrothers video that I really like.
It's about motivation, and it resonated a lot with me (and still does).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAEewFj_-dg
I've added it to the site as a curio. You can check those out here:
https://lzon.ca/curios#indieweb #personalweb #blog #motivation #vlogbrothers #johngreen #youtube #curios
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I found back an old vlogbrothers video that I really like.
It's about motivation, and it resonated a lot with me (and still does).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAEewFj_-dg
I've added it to the site as a curio. You can check those out here:
https://lzon.ca/curios#indieweb #personalweb #blog #motivation #vlogbrothers #johngreen #youtube #curios
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I found back an old vlogbrothers video that I really like.
It's about motivation, and it resonated a lot with me (and still does).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAEewFj_-dg
I've added it to the site as a curio. You can check those out here:
https://lzon.ca/curios#indieweb #personalweb #blog #motivation #vlogbrothers #johngreen #youtube #curios
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I found back an old vlogbrothers video that I really like.
It's about motivation, and it resonated a lot with me (and still does).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAEewFj_-dg
I've added it to the site as a curio. You can check those out here:
https://lzon.ca/curios#indieweb #personalweb #blog #motivation #vlogbrothers #johngreen #youtube #curios
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There are four fundamental types of people:
- This who have never heard of John or Hank Green.
- Those who were aware of John Green first.
- Those who were aware of Hank Green first.
- Those who were aware of both simultaneously (dftba!)
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Just started reading Everything is Tuberculosis and read these two sentences:
"We know how to live in a world without Tuberculosis. But we choose not to live in this world."This line causes so much anger and pain inside me.
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I’m not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is.
John Green (b. 1977) American author
Paper Towns, Part 3 [Quentin] (2008)More about this quote: wist.info/green-john/82574/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #johngreen #carryon #catastrophe #problem #recovery #survival #tragedy #trouble #endurance
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“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.”
- John Green, The Fault in Our Stars -
Want some truly awesome news? The Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone opened last week! This is going to be a huge deal for the families in that country.
They had 13 deliveries and admitted 27 patients on the first day.
https://www.pih.org/article/opening-day-maternal-center-excellence-sierra-leone
#partnersinhealth #pih #johngreen #hankgreen #vlogbrothers #nerfighteria #dftba #maternalcare #africa #sierraleone #nerdfighters
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Want some truly awesome news? The Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone opened last week! This is going to be a huge deal for the families in that country.
They had 13 deliveries and admitted 27 patients on the first day.
https://www.pih.org/article/opening-day-maternal-center-excellence-sierra-leone
#partnersinhealth #pih #johngreen #hankgreen #vlogbrothers #nerfighteria #dftba #maternalcare #africa #sierraleone #nerdfighters
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Want some truly awesome news? The Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone opened last week! This is going to be a huge deal for the families in that country.
They had 13 deliveries and admitted 27 patients on the first day.
https://www.pih.org/article/opening-day-maternal-center-excellence-sierra-leone
#partnersinhealth #pih #johngreen #hankgreen #vlogbrothers #nerfighteria #dftba #maternalcare #africa #sierraleone #nerdfighters
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Want some truly awesome news? The Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone opened last week! This is going to be a huge deal for the families in that country.
They had 13 deliveries and admitted 27 patients on the first day.
https://www.pih.org/article/opening-day-maternal-center-excellence-sierra-leone
#partnersinhealth #pih #johngreen #hankgreen #vlogbrothers #nerfighteria #dftba #maternalcare #africa #sierraleone #nerdfighters
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Want some truly awesome news? The Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone opened last week! This is going to be a huge deal for the families in that country.
They had 13 deliveries and admitted 27 patients on the first day.
https://www.pih.org/article/opening-day-maternal-center-excellence-sierra-leone
#partnersinhealth #pih #johngreen #hankgreen #vlogbrothers #nerfighteria #dftba #maternalcare #africa #sierraleone #nerdfighters
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The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we’d done were less real and important than they had been hours before.
John Green (b. 1977) American author
The Fault in Our Stars, ch. 21 (2012)More about this quote: wist.info/green-john/32880/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #johngreen #companion #grief #loss #memory #remember #remembrance #solitude
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I'm reading THE ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED by John Green, and when he writes, "I miss the luxury of caring about stuff that doesn't matter"--
DAMNED if that doesn't hit me hard in the mid-2020s 🫤 -
Associated Press: Hank and John Green’s studio becomes a nonprofit as they aim to make ‘trustworthy content’ online. “The change is intended to ensure viewers have access to engaging, fact-based content that can compete free of advertisers’ interests in the attention economy. It comes as artificial intelligence gives rise to absurdist ‘brain rot’ and distorted deepfake images while […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/02/06/associated-press-hank-and-john-greens-studio-becomes-a-nonprofit-as-they-aim-to-make-trustworthy-content-online/ -
Coding C is like that quote from John Green "As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once" but with writing utils.
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The Fault in Our Stars "I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once." Sale: $14.99 to $1.99 by John Green Rating: 4.6/5 (162,778 Reviews) #Youth #Romance #Literature #Teen #Cancer #Love #JohnGreen #BookSky
The Fault in Our Stars -
❝𝘚𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳. 𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬. 𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘸𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘯, 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘥𝘦. 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘥, 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘶𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘦.❞
Sam looks at some moments that stuck out from Green’s career.
⤵️ #bookblog #books #JohnGreen
https://www.booknotification.com/blog/6-times-john-green-hit-it-home/ -
Such a wonderful interview with John Green.
> What makes me feel better in the long run is engaging with other human beings, even though that causes me more initial anxiety.
> It’s funny, because anytime things are good — and things are relatively good right now — I understand that that’s temporary.
> When things are bad, that feels very permanent. It’s hard to remind myself that it’s temporary when things are bad.
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Trailer No Time to Run https://trailers.zouluvo.com/no-time-to-run/
#EricWilliams #ScottAvery #JohnGreen #RichardDaneScott #GregUrbaitis #ChristinaKaris #MarkCollins #HermanCain #DeanShortland #JamesJFuertes #ValerieJaneParker #27octobre2020 #EtatsUnis #2020 #octobre2020 #thriller #drame #suspense #VerticalEntertainment #politique #pouvoir #virus #justice #maire #gouvernement #viral #enquete #ville #famille #verite #corruption #action #combat
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‘Favorite author’: Pinoys thrilled as YA novelist John Green visits Philippines
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"I believe Guimaras could be the first TB-free region of the Philippines."
Despite the US admin caring more about building a luxury ballroom than saving lives, a hopeful message from John from the #Philippines.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=MxmqTLps334 #Healthcare #JohnGreen -
"The web is becoming a ghost town that we visit... to remember what life used to be like."
-John and Hank Green
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“You are helpful, and you are loved, and you are forgiven, and you are not alone.”
— John Green -
"The thing about a spiral is, if you follow it inward, it never actually ends. It just keeps tightening, infinitely."
- John Green -
De meest populaire app van dit moment is Focus Friend. Een onverwachte hit. Of misschien niet helemaal onverwacht.
https://janvandenberg.blog/focus-friend-de-meest-populaire-app-van-dit-moment/
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Beans knitting, don't disturb! https://www.yourfocusfriend.com/ #focusfriend #nerdfighteria #adhs #hankgreen #johngreen
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It’s #WorldTuberculosisDay – a day dedicated to the efforts to treat and eliminate the world’s deadliest infectious disease. We encourage you to learn more about this disease, and you could start with our video about its etymology – and about John Green’s newly released book on the subject. https://youtube.com/shorts/CxTnnxSnzB4?feature=share
#Etymology #Video #WordNerd #Linguistics #Language #Words #HistoricalLinguistics #LingComm #tuberculosis #disease #JohnGreen
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I had to consume this in many small chunks because it is sort of a feast of existential dread, but the overall take home (spoilers) is positive. We have lots and lots of terrible problems and also we can work together to solve them and manage them and survive them. There is hope. #Eons #PBS #JohnGreen https://youtu.be/74VvCEtMPcc
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CW: gubbins postcard, not original
thank you Evie (whoever you are!) for making this and thank you Hank and John for including it in the latest Were Here. made me laugh a whole lot.
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I’m with #JohnGreen on this one: I love the correct use of dashes—whether en- or em-sized. In fact I had committed to memory the correct keystrokes in both #Linux and #macOS to enter either:
Linux:
en dash: ⎄ + - + - + .
em dash: ⎄ + - + - + -macOS:
en dash: ⌥ + -
em dash: ⌥ + ⇧ + - -
@appassionato @bookstodon Loved this book, Dr. Mack is so funny and relatable. If you liked this, you may also enjoy the podcast she does with author John Green, covering the history of the universe. #KatieMack #johngreen #theuniverse #astrophysics #podcast #astrokatie
https://open.spotify.com/show/5sdOcHY6d4Q6slJ7PCu5Oc?si=ywZo4Q_dT2WShSPJoEYN0w
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Hi friends!! Please sign this petition to tell Danaher Corporation and Cepheid that their test prices are too much.We have almost 1/2 the signatures we need, we NEED yours!! Why should someone have to spend ALL their money just to get a test? Medicine should not be a luxury. #TimeFor5 #PeopleOverProfits
#TB #Tuberculosis #JohnGreen #vlogbrothers #DFTBA #Nerdfighteria #SocialJustice #Healthcare #PublicHealth #Equity #FediHelp -
Hi friends!! Please sign this petition to tell Danaher Corporation and Cepheid that their test prices are too much.We have almost 1/2 the signatures we need, we NEED yours!! Why should someone have to spend ALL their money just to get a test? Medicine should not be a luxury. #TimeFor5 #PeopleOverProfits
#TB #Tuberculosis #JohnGreen #vlogbrothers #DFTBA #Nerdfighteria #SocialJustice #Healthcare #PublicHealth #Equity #FediHelp -
Hi friends!! Please sign this petition to tell Danaher Corporation and Cepheid that their test prices are too much.We have almost 1/2 the signatures we need, we NEED yours!! Why should someone have to spend ALL their money just to get a test? Medicine should not be a luxury. #TimeFor5 #PeopleOverProfits
#TB #Tuberculosis #JohnGreen #vlogbrothers #DFTBA #Nerdfighteria #SocialJustice #Healthcare #PublicHealth #Equity #FediHelp -
Hi friends!! Please sign this petition to tell Danaher Corporation and Cepheid that their test prices are too much.We have almost 1/2 the signatures we need, we NEED yours!! Why should someone have to spend ALL their money just to get a test? Medicine should not be a luxury. #TimeFor5 #PeopleOverProfits
#TB #Tuberculosis #JohnGreen #vlogbrothers #DFTBA #Nerdfighteria #SocialJustice #Healthcare #PublicHealth #Equity #FediHelp -
Hi friends!! Please sign this petition to tell Danaher Corporation and Cepheid that their test prices are too much.We have almost 1/2 the signatures we need, we NEED yours!! Why should someone have to spend ALL their money just to get a test? Medicine should not be a luxury. #TimeFor5 #PeopleOverProfits
#TB #Tuberculosis #JohnGreen #vlogbrothers #DFTBA #Nerdfighteria #SocialJustice #Healthcare #PublicHealth #Equity #FediHelp -
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Wgh8Gfs2S7M&si=_wsIqmCp-_QTBF_p this is becoming a tradition #AuldLangSyne #JohnGreen #NewYear
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"wow I loved The Fault in Our Stars, I wonder what the fandom is like!"
John Green: it's time to bully Johnson and Johnson into not renewing the patents on Tuberculosis medication
#TheFaultInOurStars #johngreen #nerdfighteria #nerdfighters #hankgreen #tuberculosis
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CW: Long thread/20
In service to that end, pharma companies have perfected a process called #evergreening, where they dribble out ancillary patents after their initial filing, covering minor reformulations, delivery systems, or new uses.
Evergreening got a moment in the public eye earlier this year, with #JohnGreen's viral campaign to shame #JohnsonAndJohnson out of using evergreening to restrict poor countries' access to #TB medication:
https://armandalegshow.com/episode/john-green-part-1/
20/
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#vlogbrotjers video #JohnGreen "How to Make Hot Sauce for Just $65 a Bottle
#dftba #nerdfighter -
Don't forget!! As we continue to encourage Danaher to lower the price of #XDRNext and put #PeopleOverProfits, we’ll be looking at how TB has influenced art of all forms and asking Danaher/Cepheid to help end this disease with an Arts Theme Week Nov 13-19! Info here: https://tbfighter.link/art-week
