sundries

[rm]

Patty left yesterday for an archaeology conference in Atlanta. She'll be back Sunday. Text messages indicate things are going well.

While she's gone it's work as much as possible time. Except for last night's writing meeting with Kali that went horribly wrong when our bar of choice was invaded by some horrible Columbia university undergraduate reading which featured a terrible non-fiction essay in which the author linked her cat's intestinal blockage with the Enron crisis and then complained about her inability to understand the futures market. People listened with rapt attention, applauded with enthusiasm and then fawned over the follow-up which was some blond, patrician boy who had someone read a Nigerian scam letter as his intro (which I found jaw-droppingly offensive for a long list of reasons) and then read from his I'm Losing You/Wild Palms/lost in the wilderness of Los Angeles wanky bullshit novel. At that point, we ran like fucking hell and wound up in an Irish pub with karaoke.

I thought the one thing I could expect from an Obama presidency was an end to outrage fatigue. Not so much. Our government tortured in our names. This did not make us safer. This did not garner us information. It merely made us lower than animals. The more I read, the more it seems like a series of acts committed as nothing more than an exercise of vindictive, spiteful power authorized by those too self-loathing and cowardly to even see what they were doing or why they felt compelled to do it. It's why people rape, codified into memos. We must prosecute.

shadesong is having a series of fundraising events so that she can send her daughter to a fantastic academic summer program. Check out her journal and help her out.

I hate when people write truly mediocre fic about critical subjects. It makes me sad.

In the realm of WTF: the latest fundraising letter from HRC offers a tote-bag like premium for donations of $48 or more and notes that the bag is modeled on those carried by soldiers in WWII. Um, other than amusing Torchwood fandom, why?, HRC, WHY? I sorta want one.

Comments

[sykii.livejournal.com]

Your third bullet point - yes. I am not always a fan of Garrison Keillor (I'm not exactly his target audience), but he was right on when he called them "nihilists in golf pants."

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

-- your second point is sort of an encapsulation of a certain kind of surreality which is just so very Morningside Heights.

*sigh*

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear that the event wound up being offensive - the concept as flyered around the various restos in the neighborhood sounded intriguing. But then, maybe I was expecting too much from Columbia.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I sooo wish I could have heard those readings. Epic fail whales are tasty snacks.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Are you nuts?
I'd rather listen to a four year old practicing the violin.

Four year olds become five year olds. These mooks are going to be pretentiously bad for life.

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

Give them a chance! I think I was fairly unbelievably unbearably pretentious at one point. Some people grow out of it! (Ok, I never read anything quite that terrible in *public* but I sure as hell wrote some!) Education is designed to eventually wake these people up. Eventually. Hopefully.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I have a deep and special fondness for terribly bad books written by pretentious college students.

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

RM's Law. Bad writing drives out good writing-literally !

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure I know what fic you're talking about, and could not agree more.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Truly mediocre is such a great and damning phrase. Feh. It makes me sad.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

My curiosity is piqued! Throw a girl a link?

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I don't wanna be all BLARGH FIC on rm's journal, but I'll be happy to link if you drop me an email, copperbadge at gmail dot com.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I have enough of a rep for being a big meanie as it is.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

#6: Pics?

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

*g* Seconded. If only for copperbadge's nefarious iconning purposes.

[sushis.livejournal.com]

Sorry if I'm being really dense here, but, I'm really curious--why is it WTF that it's noted that the bag is modeled on those carried by soldiers in WWII?

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's the highlight of the promo piece. Which might have been cool or logical if it was a tie in to the gays in military issue or something, but it just kinda goes on and on about this point, and it's strange and funny from a marketing perspective.

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

I have the tote bag, it's really awesome.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I tend to give my money to Lambda Legal because HRC has annoyed me with its Clinton is better than Obama for the gays (hi, Bill SOLD US OUT) stance and the way they've repeatedly abandoned trans issues. On the other hand, better than shopping at Amazon ;) and they have gotten better lately. hrrrr.

[kessie.livejournal.com]

our bar of choice was invaded by some horrible Columbia university undergraduate reading which featured a terrible non-fiction essay in which the author linked her cat's intestinal blockage with the Enron crisis and then complained about her inability to understand the futures market

Seriously? Seriously?

[thunderemerald.livejournal.com]

Two of my boss's clients just called me from that same Atlanta conference. Awesome!

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, the writing part of the meeting actually went fairly well. ;-)

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

That's good news for EVERYONE!

[hmrpotter.livejournal.com]

I hope she came prepared...the weather here has been crazy!!! In the past two hours, it has been 80 degrees, then cloudy, then the sun came back out but it was raining a bit! Only in Georgia...

[timelady.livejournal.com]

What I'm mainly irritated is that Obama's crew seem to be turning to playing the blame game because they're getting frustrated that everything that they've done hasn't fixed the economy one iota (not to mention changing the main headlines from the economy to something else). It's a Bush administration tactic (like when they blamed the recession on Clinton's administration) and honestly I was expecting better of Obama's administration (if they want to change the subject from the economy they could at least start considering ways to bring the troops home).