Update to 1.953

Upstream changes:
1.953    2023-01-08 19:02:24-05:00 America/New_York
        - as promised, this release no longer works on v5.8; in fact, due to
          some upstream libraries, it hasn't in some time
        - documentation has been cleaned up to stop referencing long-dead other
          libraries or methods
        - some small code changes to benefit from v5.10 and v5.12 improvements

(wen)