sundries

[rm]

It wasn't the thing I intended to get done last night, but the Bristol abstract is now off my desk (hey, if anyone else had submitted yet, do you want to compare initial response letters? does anyone else do that as neurotically as I do?). I owe a lot of people a lot of thanks for being critical of my first draft of it a couple of months ago, even if the whole thing made me retreat into a cave of "I am not a real scholar."

Other than Patty, I didn't have anyone look at it this time, but many of those suggestions made it a stronger thing, and I'm ultimately proud of what I sent and feel it has potential legs for other conferences/publications if Bristol doesn't pan out. Of course, I'll hardly be so ambivalent if it gets rejected.

Right now, though, I'm just particularly proud of this sentence, which is all you get -- "... thus the mourning activities of the fan community become an act of partial defictionalization, moving the desired bodies of personal and narrative fantasy into a tangible reality of absence."

TANGIBLE REALITY OF ABSENCE. I love my brain.

Somewhat on point: Venice is drowning and its people are leaving. Last week a funeral was staged for the dying city. You are witnessing the beginning of a myth. In two thousands years no one will know the origins of this tale or know if there was once any truth to it, and those who believe that there was once a slow-dying place of masks will most surely be called mad. via chris_walsh.

NASA suggests that you Be a Martian! via wcg. Me? Right now, I'm stretching my toes and thinking of one of my OCs in a recent fic.

Also in space-related news: Galileo's missing fingers found. I didn't even know they were missing.

Is anyone else, really, really... I don't know... concerned that the shuttle program is almost over and we seem to have no plans for further manned missions into space?

Adam Lambert kisses a man on stage at the AMA's and CNN feels the need to tell us that "ABC editors did not appear to remove any of Lambert's performance for the later feed. In fact, the network had teased the audience that it would be 'an outrageous performance.'"

gwailowrite, however, says it was edited in the rebroadcast.

Well, that's on point after yesterday's thing about the sexual perception of gay women vs. gay men. I don't really give a crap about Adam Lambert at all, but right now, I want to kiss him. I bet this subject will be burning up the Internets today, from discussions of gay visibility to slasher squee.

Facebook hates gingers. More accurately, a 12-year-old might have been beaten because "a Facebook page stating that Friday was 'Kick a Ginger Day,' referring to redheads and possibly inspired by an episode of the South Park series, may have sparked the injuries at the middle school, authorities said."

Fandom Secrets Bingo from phaetonschariot.

Yesterday Patty was talking to me on the subway about a Bollywood film she was watching that's a retelling of Othello and in talking about the guy playing Iago, accidentally called Iago, Ianto. I laughed for a really long time, and then my head spun off into all sorts of terrible dark places.

Later, she was watching some old Disney movie thing with a clairvoyant Welsh pig in it, and she started referring to it as Ianto!Pig and going on about its big blue eyes. I might have laughed way harder than was strictly appropriate.

Heroes and Sociopaths: Not that dissimilar. Whoniverse folks need to run Jack and the Doctor through the filter of that article. Yes. via mlleglass.

2009 -- WTF with kicking everyone's ass?

Negotiating with churches? Really? Fairly rational piece, but that this set of thoughts has to even exist....

Weirdly nicest thing about being home, other than the obvious and the not for your reading pleasure? -- the "audit the Fed" demonstration in Union Square yesterday.

The anthology from therealljidol from Fey Publishing will be out soon, but I don't know more than that.

I think I pinched a nerve or slept really funny or something otherwise stupid, as my hand/arm is all tingly today.

I should make a point to call my new headshot guy today, as well as the dude directing my play. Also, should go to bank. And now, off to work! Nice thing about jet-lag -- suddenly I'm a morning person.

Department of Shitty Songs I Am Obsessed With: All scenes in ConSweet which Evan is busy being an asshole and/or famous are now being written to "Let It Rock" on repeat. It makes me feel like I'm going to hell. It's also perfect.

Department of Shitty Songs I Am Obsessed With, pt. 2: Oh my god, I just listened to Lady Gaga for the first time and now I am hooked. The Bad Romance video practically deserves an essay of its own. Also, hello, 1980s NYC club scene references. I remember you.

Department of Casting Call Observations: "Sexy Stewardesses and Handsome Pilots" -- for something set now. Not so much with the reality there (I know, I know, MEDIA!), although pilots still have strong jaw-lines most times it seems. Including the woman that was the co-pilot on my flight back from Zurich. Did I say I loved my brain? I hate my brain.

Comments

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

I'm blanking here, was your play for the Queens One Act festival? I definitely want to go, because I wanted to submit but then NaNo ate my brain.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yup!

I only managed to submit because I had something sitting in a drawer that was relevant. I was tickled and surprised it got accepted since it's about sex work, disability and female beauty and is rather cavalier about EVERYTHING.

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

I still like the start of what I wrote, and may finish it in December for some other project or event. Victorian Adventuresses vs. The Sky Pirates! Yes, I am attempting to write a steampunk play!

Really looking forward to seeing your play!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Steampunk _play_ is a great idea, and sort of speaks to the source period in all sorts of cool ways.

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

Which is why a steampunk play set in the basket of a balloon is so much fun to write! But MUST finish NaNo first!

[logospilgrim.livejournal.com]

Welcome back home :-) Your entries from Switzerland were fascinating (and thank you for the photos).

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And I'm glad you enjoyed. I was afraid I was just being a grumpy and boring American about the whole thing to most people.

[logospilgrim.livejournal.com]

Oh, heavens no! It was so interesting (though I am sorry that you endured difficulties!). As an armchair traveler (for the most part), I was quite awed by your adventures.

[ex-adarog.livejournal.com]

Clairvoyant Welsh pig? Sounds like Hen Wen from The Black Cauldron, which was... loosely based on Lloyd Alexander's novel by the same name.

[rm.livejournal.com]

That would be it!

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

I will never forget watching Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert review this movie. There was a wonderful moment when Gene Siskel leaned forward and said, quite earnestly, "But, Rog, if the pig is pyschic then shouldn't he know that..."

Now, I'll probably be unable to kick the IantoPig name on rereading the book.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

I love your brain too. It's a paradoxical-sounding sentence, and yet in the context makes total sense.

Weirdly nicest thing about being home, other than the obvious and the not for your reading pleasure? -- the "audit the Fed" demonstration in Union Square yesterday.

Yeah, I saw that - a real "only in New York" sort of moment.

Enjoy the benefits of jetlag while they last...!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you. A sentence I never would have come up with without being mopey and lonely in Switzerland while wearing a pinstripe suit. I'm not even joking.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

Right (I deleted that to edit before I realized you'd commented).
But it's still not new, and is part of a cultural continuum that goes back centuries.
Also, Venice has always involved dead things, rather intimately. Particularly in summer.

[rm.livejournal.com]

My only personal sense of it comes from a grade school friend who went when we were like twelve. She brought back pictures of refrigerators floating in a canal from where a boat overturned during delivery.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

The funeral for Venice is eerie, but it's not the beginning; there's a long tradition of anthropomorphizing Venice. There is a yearly festival (first Sunday after Ascension) that celebrates the marriage between Venice and the Sea.
It's been an imaginary city since long before it started dying.

[rm.livejournal.com]

(Moving my comment around, chasing after you)

I have, as you know, this problem where myths only involve dead things for me.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

- Congrats re: sending the abstract! It's good, that feeling of having finished a thing that is finishable.

- I caught a little bit of the Adam Lambert thing and my only real thought is "fucking finally." His performance -- and I confess to watching it with the sound off because of where/when I was -- reminded me more than anything of Madonna in the 1990s.

- Iago and/or Ianto is...you're right. That's increasingly dark.

- I was wondering re: the antho. Now I don't have to send that e-mail...

[rm.livejournal.com]

Patty was all, "who's Desdemona?"

"Gwen," I said.

And that's not even Gwen!Hate, but that would have to be how that story goes. It's a Jack/Gwen scenario that Iago!Ianto decides to fuck up out of vengence for Lisa & desire for Jack. And it's DARK.

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

Oooh, yes!

Re The Churches

[keith418.livejournal.com]

I know it sucks, but what do you do if they are the ones providing the best, most efficient, and most dependable services to the needy in your area? Why don't liberals and progressives set up the same kinds of organizations and put the charitable groups run by homophobes out of business? Do these homophobic churches actually see themselves as having a duty - a day in and day out kind of duty - to serve the poor and needy that rich progressives don't?

[starkeee.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair, Adam Lambert didn't just kiss a guy but had a guy simulate (suggest) oral sex on him while dancing. But on the other hand, it's a pop music performance and there's plenty of suggestive sex going on in that oeuvre, in a heterosexual way, that wouldn't blink an eye.

[aliceinfinland.livejournal.com]

"Bad Romance" sounds to me like a Eurhythmics song for the o'tweens. I can't stop listening to it either. And don't miss the "acoustic" (actually electronic Bosendorfer) versions of two of her songs starting with link below. She is a real musician not a producer's puppet. To my shock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP8SrlbpJ5A

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thanks for that. Up ’til now I only knew of Lady Gaga as a mutant clotheshorse, so its cool to learn that she actually has chops.

[qthelights.livejournal.com]

Hey RM,
Just wondering if you got my emails re. the fandom research stuff? Very sorry to be hassling, just worried you didn't get them and have no idea what i'm on about!!
~Q

[rm.livejournal.com]

I have, sorry, I've been traveling for work and have had no bandwidth. I'll try to get to it tonight.

[qthelights.livejournal.com]

That's okay! I know you've been travelling and stuff, it's fine if you need a few more days, I was just worried you hadn't even seen my emails and was needlessly panicking :)

[raaven.livejournal.com]

Is anyone else, really, really... I don't know... concerned that the shuttle program is almost over and we seem to have no plans for further manned missions into space?

Yes. Freaks me right the hell out. At least there are other countries continuing to reach in that direction.

I can't even go read the article on Facebook hating gingers. The summary is enough horror.

Venice has always struck me as one of those crazy, mythological, half time-glitched places. I'm delighted to see it becoming mythical history. Or historical mythology. Whatever.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

I'll let you know what my initial response letter is like, when I get one (mind you, I still haven't started my abstract -- I'm hoping to get onto it tomorrow).

Having said that, I don't think you need to worry at all about holding your own in the academic community -- the first draft of your abstract, as I recall, was not unlike many abstacts I've seen from doctoral students. And yes, "defictionalization" and "tangible reality of absence" FTW. I have to say, I'll be very surprised if they reject you.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I think it's pretty good; I think the main issues are relevance, someone else with better credentials going to the same place (hey, this forced me to make a CV, which is a little awkward when all you have is a B.A. in journalism, but ultimately turned out to be a hilarious exercise in "ways to frame panels I have been on about how much Ianto likes to suck cock porn"), and the degree to which they buy the inherent assumption (which while stated, isn't described in its amazing vividness due to word limit) that yes, really, the mourning ritual thing is for real and intense and not just an act of protest at writers.

I'm hoping you, me and Kali all wind up at this thing as that would be beyond awesome.

I'm also glad I got it in before the pinched nerve, as that is making the other writing I need to do pretty hard right now.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that would be great if all of us ended up going.

And don't worry -- at least one of the conveners of this conference has been involved in fandom for ages and writes slash, so she will totally get both the porn stuff and the intensity of mourning for fictional characters.

[i-amthecosmos.livejournal.com]

Speaking as one of your official reps from the Adam Lambert Slasher Coalition, it was a great exhausting night. But yeah, bringing up the fact that women have kissed onstage for years was the best thing he could've said on the subject. It's a shame it wasn't a better performance-bad sound mixing, he fell, ect. But, the core fans are happy and everyone else was distracted by Adam kissing Tommy for five seconds (I timed it).

[neifile7.livejournal.com]

Congrats on getting the Bristol abstract off! I'd love to see the final draft if you're interested in sharing. It would be awesome if you, Kali and Lefaym all got to be there! And I may have mentioned this, but I doubt that credentials are going to be the make or break issue; it's more to do with the shape the organizers want to give to the panel, and that's down to whatever agendas are in progress. They'd be stupid not to grab you, however.

I just got back from Venice (and am sorry to have missed the "funeral," because I'd be curious to unpack the political agendas there -- probably a strange marriage of left- and right-wing bedfellows). The intriguing thing is that this "death" is part of a long and willed history. Venice was the first Italian city (after Rome, which always had pilgrims) to self-consciously package itself for the tourist trade (and that's one of the things that allowed it survive Napoleon, among other things). Its status as a haunted city has always been part of the mystique. Still, there's no question that even less remains of a living city than even ten years ago -- the rate at which local services disappear has risen appallingly; go out for a pint of milk and you may find that the grocer's been replaced by a mask shop or purveyor of "Murano" glass made in China.

Did you hear about the group of Veronese separatists who took over the campanile of St. Mark's twelve years ago and tried to proclaim the return of the Republic of Venice?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hahaha no that's wonderful (Republic of Venice). Sicily has issues like this, without the romance as they don't consider themselves Italian, and feel like they are often on the receiving end of the anti-Muslim/anti-African European hostility (because Sicilians often don't look like Europeans or come from a European culture). Add to that that Sicily used to be a ton of different little tiny republics and stuff and it's just madness. I saw separatist offices EVERYWHERE when I was there.