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

[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.