sundries

[rm]

Getting off the subway just now, I see a woman in tears chasing after a man, wailing, "how could you do this to me? how can you just toss me aside?" Then I tripped over some woman staring at the scene, as if the woman crying (the presumably injured party) was somehow insane. The whole thing rattled me in the dark places. If he can't respect you, time to stop respecting him.

Can we be done with the Mercury Retrograde please? It has been epic and ridiculous and horrible.

Speaking of Mercury Retrograde, some of you will remember a thing I posted about advocating for more academic programming at Dragon*Con -- well here's an update on how to do (and not) do that.

Also speaking of Mercury Retrograde, Dances of Vice was wonderful last night after we finally found it, because Google Maps (and some random people we stopped on the street) led us astray in an epic wandering journey through Park Slope, which was super fun in a corset. I hope the other lost folks we found on the way had a great time too.

Highlights included the degree to which it was very organically like things I remember from the 80s -- it wasn't a recreation or a set-up or full of winks and nods, but there were bright lights and shiny objects and an oompah band playing 99 Luft Ballons along with a fire act and an actual dance company and costumes and odd cocktails and a guy who made himself into different animals using shaving cream as well as a fellow Jill and I kept referring to as Lumiere of Rassilon and then Patty and I wound up hiding in a nest of pillows behind some chairs for a while. Pictures soon.

laughingirl raises money for breast cancer charities by walking in various Avon Walks and also by auctioning off small plush bears autographed by stars. She's raised tens of thousands of dollars doing this, and current autographed plush bears for auction may be of particular interest to many of my fannish friends and include ones from John Barrowman, James Marsters and GDL. Buy a bear, people!

Speaking of bears, check out this article on Ring cycle fannishness, which includes a photo of a woman with a costumed bear. Proof that fannishiness isn't some tawdry low-culture thing or proof that opera really is just as trashy as fans have been trying to tell you for years?

If you visit the Creation Museum you can ride a triceratops.

There's a meme going around for people to post high school pics next to pics of them now. I post lots of now pics of me all the time, so that seems a little besides the point, but this is from the beginning of 9th grade (1986), so I'm probably 13 or barely 14 in it.



It reminds me that I've always been serious and that I really need a fucking haircut.

Comments

[ecce-echo.livejournal.com]

You can also pet a 'zorse'(zebra/horse) and a 'zonkey' (zebra/donkey) in the petting museum at the creation museum (I forget what their existence was supposed to 'prove', but they are adorable). I grew up about 15 minutes from where the museum now sits and a lot of us from around there now feel this sense of embarrassment at its existence because people come from everywhere to see it and then they get this Kentucky = fundamentalist christian bedrock thing in their heads.

It's an interesting place to visit as a 'fan' because I had some level of self-identification with these people leading these rigidly text-based existences. I wanted to empathize because the 'museum' had the air of a con that's gone on far too long and taken itself far too seriously. Like, this is canon, you must comply. (But then you have to confront the crazy of holding up 'man's logic tells us that the world is 4.5 billion years old, god's word tells us the world is 6,000 years old' as equally valid statements)

(Sorry for the random comment by a stranger, I've been following your journal because you say such interesting things ,and I wanted to reply because I have very strong feelings toward the creation museum)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And that's a really interesting perspective and one that has potential to be useful to me in terms of having compassion for folks I often view as the enemy.

(aside, my first boyfriend was from Bowling Green, KY, and he was queer and had pink hair, so my sense of Kentucky isn't all fundamentalists!)