post-weekend sundries

[rm]

We're home from New Haven. We had an excellent weekend, even though it was very crowded and would have been more relaxing had we gone up on Friday night as we have in the past (but couldn't this year because of BAM tickets.

Aside from the usual suspects, I also go to meet kdsorceress who proved, once again, that the world is always smaller than I think.

I'm still being moderately bothered by a professional blip that happened a few weeks ago, because the matter managed to pop up again, at least on my own personal radar. My life wants more yes, less no, and more patience too.

I should totally get new headshots, which is a thing that requires a lot of thinking, including about my self-marketing and representation. As a woman, logic would demand that my best bet is to present myself as an actor as young and femininely as possible, despite the fact that that, in and of itself, is already a performance, and I've long been told that my affect is more suited to older roles and blah blah blah. I think, _think_, that the right plan is to get the hair cut I really need, make it messy and go for the tough sci-fi chick look or something. I dislike the obvious yet inevitable complexity of this problem and the truth that if I really wanted to be a star, I'd grow my hair long again. This was a topic I was able to avoid for a while on the basis of headshot expense, but that's not currently the case, so I need to sort it out. On the plus side, I know myself well, and I know I'll feel the solution when it comes to me. There was something, someone very specific I was being when I got my first headshot done and it worked, it was a talisman and it saved me and got me work over and over. But now it's time for someone and something else, and she's not as sad or as quietly pleased at that picture.

The narrative of my sorrowful nature is no longer my finest currency as a performer or as a person. I wasn't sick when I had my first headshot done; and it's funny, because now I am sick, which means I'm not sick anymore, since now I don't eat the thing that poisons me. So yeah, new headshots.

I must note here that if an actor ever seems stupid to you? It's usually because it's easier that way. I actually have a good deal to say about this and plan to write a post about it soon. Not sure when. I'm still navigating it in my head, since I expect a certain degree of wank out of the examples I may use for the point I would be trying to make.

Patty is watching Goodbye, Lenin!, which I saw when it came out, but it's a good film and nice to see. And strange to me, because the fall of the Berlin Wall was such an odd, critically emotional thing for me as a teenager: I'd been obsessed with David Bowie's Heroes (yes, I know all the stuff about the story in the song and all the things it may or may not be) and had had a penpal, a daughter of a Soviet dissident scientist. I'd wanted to study abroad in Germany, and would have been there when the wall fell, but my mother is Jewish and said it was not for me. I can't watch this movie and not be sixteen-years-old. It's very evocative of a certain mythology of things that really happened for me. Patty was four, so I'll be curious her feelings on it.

NaNo novel update: Io Station stuff is amusing me so much. I've been sending Amanda some of it. Um, I've got aliens that don't communicate verbally except in intimate situations, political marriages, a canonical lesbian relationship and a very-well developed fictional fandom (hi, shipping wars!). Other than naming a bunch of things, characters and actors in it, I'm probably close to done with what I actually have to do for the Io Station background. Scarily, I actually want fanfiction about it all now. I've quite fallen for this story within a story or at least what the fandom rewrite of same would be.

Goodness, this is all very Sunday night, isn't it? Introspective, but not introspective enough to be useful. Maybe I will go write some Vitya/Max. I mean, I've better things I should be doing, but I finished a handful of articles on various film festivals I had due, but even the fictional people of my fictional people cheer me.

Comments

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Max/Vitya!

I want to write some cracked out Max/Jason fic. This is still me having a JASON STATHAM! moment. Heh. They could have a hilarious Vorenus Pullo sort of dynamic.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hahhahaha.

I really have no sense of what ANYONE looks like on the show (I don't even know what Evan looks like, although I've figured out Vitya's fucking wardrobe, god help me) with the exception of Katie and Naoki. But you know, feel free and all that... you'll be in before it's OOC or not!

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

When you say JASON STAHAM!'s name, you have to have all caps. Cause he is that intense! Hahahaha.

"The pinnacle of fucking civilization," he said, lifting a glass of the suspiciously clear liquid up to the light.

"Did you come all the way out to this station just to drink?" Evan looked at his glass with some trepidation. Whatever it was, it seemed as odorless and clear as vodka or possibly cleaning solvent.

"Not just to drink," Jason replied seriously. "TO drink what no man has ever drunk before. Cheers!"

"Na zdorove," Evan breathed, more as a prayer than a toast. If he was very lucky, it would just hurt and not actually kill him by morning.

[rm.livejournal.com]

wait, wait, did you just write me RPS involving fictional actor dude?

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

It works on so many levels!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Man, that's.... all over the place crazy. In a good way. Although you realize I've a) not cast Max yet and b) need to make some shit up there too.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I was thinking Max needs that serious, never crack a smile look that Eliot stabler from L&O: SVU has. And someone with some previous sci-fi cred, too.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Yay! I got to meet you too!

And for what it's worth (in the ways of world shrinking), I got an IM from lonebear earlier today noting that I should've written rm instead of racheline_m in my post. Soyeah. world is small and stuff.

~Sor

[rm.livejournal.com]

The world is SO SMALL. And I'm really starting to think that it's the dancers who know EVERYONE.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Heh. It occurs to me that it's very possible then that you know where I got my tailcoat --Chort/John Montrie? I know he hits up Newport every year with his very lovely librarian wife Paula.

(He's also where I got my breeches, which kinda leads me to believe I should just throw money and puppy-dog eyes at him until I've managed to acquire an entire secondhand gentleman's outfit. It'd be a damn sight finer than anything I could make, certainly.)

~Sor

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

And I don't know if this counts as one of the ads you're trying to avoid (you didn't want body-negativity, right?), the ad at the bottom of this post reads "1 tip of a flat belly: cut down 3 lbs of your belly every week by using this 1 weird old tip"

It's for a company called fatburning furnace (and yes, I feel guilty for clicking the link to find out). Yep.

~Sor

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yup, that is my "problem ad" -- I've been trying to get it solved for a week. I think it's the only problem ad, which is something, but it's aggravating the hell out of me (although I've sort of narrowed down where it's coming from -- which is an authorized ad network on AdSense, which is what's getting around the ban, so I've emailed AdSense support a lot to make it go -- I'm trying to figure out what's triggering it, and I suspect it's if I post anything at all wherein I mention appearance issues of any sort and the female gender. It's so depressing).

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

Dude! That seriously *is* depressing. Good luck fixing it.

~Sor

[austengirl.livejournal.com]

I agree that Goodbye Lenin! is an enjoyable film, did Patty like it? Have you seen The Lives of Others and if so, what did you think? For me it crystallizes what you said so well, the 'certain mythology of things that really happened'.

I'm hoping to get to Berlin before the end of the year, possibly only for a brief visit, but the desire to go is only getting stronger.

Hope it's ok that I've added you as a friend, I was linked to you your LLA post and find your writing to be hilarious/delightul/spot on. Cheers.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Berlin is a fantasy land of mind, but as you can imagine Germany is somewhat verboten when it comes to speaking of desiring to be there.
I second the question about The Lives of Other, if you saw it what did you think? If you haven't you really should! It's a great movie about the parts we play for different people :)

I haven't actually seen Goodbye Lenin!, I suppose I really should.

[saomigray.livejournal.com]

I was around 13 or 14 when the Berlin wall fell and living in West Germany.

Even though my family traveled a good bit across Germany and in the surrounding countries we never made it to Berlin and never saw either the wall or where it had stood once it fell.

I don't think my parents understood the historical significance somehow. I remember quite a few of my classmates went to Berlin and came back with chunks of rock or brick or whatever the wall was made of that they'd pulled down. There were also street vendors in the military shopping center who had pieces of the wall packaged with certificates of authenticity, so it became a commercial thing.

It was a weird time for us all in that we knew this was important but we were too busy being kids to really understand just how big a deal it was.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I should totally get new headshots, which is a thing that requires a lot of thinking, including about my self-marketing and representation. As a woman, logic would demand that my best bet is to present myself as an actor as young and femininely as possible [...] the right plan is to get the hair cut I really need, make it messy and go for the tough sci-fi chick look or something.

I think that could work really well, actually. I'm not sure I have the most useful angle to contribute re: the hair, though I think if you had a choice between seeking work in a haircut that doesn't make you miserable on a daily basis and one that does, the superior life choice feels like a better bet.

Scarily, I actually want fanfiction about it all now. I've quite fallen for this story within a story or at least what the fandom rewrite of same would be.

It's the sci-fi version of Shadow Unit? *grin*

[rm.livejournal.com]

I do not know from Shadow Unit.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Shadow Unit is an imaginary TV show that Elizabeth Bear and some other writers came up with. It's got its own fandom, fanfiction and other fanwork spring up, etc. It's entirely meta in the same way that copperbadge's Torchwood Chicago stuff is, with imaginary writers, actors, etc.

I haven't really had a chance to delve in very deep, but here's a link to some info about its origins, and the people involved.

http://shadowunit.org/origin.html

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh hahahaha awesome. This is totally like that. Amanda already wrote me a story actually. And I'm so fighting the urge to make a community for it, since a few other people have mentioned wanting to do same. Considering this all comes out of my ConSqweet backstory, and considering what inspired ConSweet it's such a RIDICULOUS meta thing it's insane.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

FYI, I may be mistaken about some of the imaginary support. Like I said, I've not really gone in with much depth.

But dang, yes.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

You know, a set of Io Station stories might not be bad marketing...

[rm.livejournal.com]

I know! It's great marketing in fact. I'm just not sure if it should exist before or after trying to sell the book.

Acutally, I suppose what I should do is once I've got the Io Station backgrounder a little more done (and I should send you what I have, since it'll make you laugh) and then I've got some of ConSweet written is put up some excerpts with ConSweet, a cute snappy backgrounder on Io Station and then let people have at it.