sundries

[rm]

Patty is home. It is glorious.

OMG, tomorrow we leave for Florida.

OMG, the day after that we are going on a cruise!

I am getting a ridiculous amount of waxing done later today for the first time in years. If I have one of those aestheticians who tsks at me about how hairy I am, there will be words. Mammal is not a moral failing.

You all better write me lots of lovely fic about Jack & Alonso while I'm gone. No, this does not mean I'm over Jack & Ianto at all.

Right now work is a race against the clock to get it all done before I go.

Saw a 17- or 18-year-old boy on the train setting up appointments via Rentboy.com and his iPhone on the train into work today.

I just got the word, I am officially a guest at Dragon*Con 2010. Every year, I breathe a sigh of relief. Going to try to branch out to some other tracks this year, since I think I've something concrete to offer BritTrack (see, this whole Bristol thing has been a plan related to other things all along) and there had been talk about something involving menswear, the Steampunk track and me.

Oh man, I'm afraid to even click on this one: The Naked and the Conflicted: "We denounce the Great Male Novelists of the last century for their sexism. But something has been lost now that innocence is more fashionable than virility, the cuddle preferable to sex."

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. I am sick of this idea that there is a binary that is manly sexism and emasculated everything else. NO NO NO NO NO. I think the little chart about the old narcissism vs. the new narcissism about the preoccupations of some male authors is very amusing, but otherwise -- ugh. Just... ugh.

The future of brain controlled devices.

Bringing long-lost Koreans home.

Yuletide is not a democracy. Nor should it be.

Someone on my friendslist (who was it? it's genius) recently referred to Doctor Who and a number of other shows (some of which will be obvious in a moment) as belonging to a genre called "Hellmouth Opera." Watching Doctor Who last night, I wanted it in places to actually be opera. Just saying. I would watch the shit outta that.

Further US airport security shenanigans tick off Canada. Basically the US wants the name, gender and birthdate of everyone who flies through US airspace, even if the plane doesn't touch down here. Canadian airlines says this violates their privacy procedures. Additionally "it is possible that Canadians overflying the United States could be denied boarding based on U.S. no-fly lists that were developed based on lower U.S. risk tolerance." Fucked.

Ireland has passed an anti-blasphemy law, that may cause problems for, among others, Mark Twain.

Oh good, Revolutionary Road is seeing a lot of air-time on HBO after nothing for ages. Maybe the next residuals check will be a little better.

I was so interested in the repeated use of "I'm going to get my reward" in EoT -- because it's such a Christian statement, but in Christianity, it's Heaven. In the Whoniverse, we start to believe there is no reward -- there is no Rest for the Time Lord. There is no Rest for someone like Jack. And then Ten goes and PROVES US WRONG. It's a powerful message that both utilizes and respects the power of religion while also blowing it out of the water, and I think it was very useful a note as the RTD years had this constant war of secular viewpoint and Biblical motif going on.

Comments

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Hellmouth opera: C'était moi. For a couple of years, I've been trying to describe Torchwood as space opera, but I think the space travel aspect is a crucially defining element of that genre. Hellmouth opera is what happens when your space opera characters get nailed to a particular location-- which is why I don't put New Who in that category.

But, yes, I would so watch the fuck outta any musical space/hellmouth opera that the TV wants to send my way.

And I so, so want more space/hellmouth opera, with or without actual music, on my TV.

I really do think that all those folks who think Torchwood is terrible could be shown that They're Watching It Rong if we sat them down in front of La Traviata (which, for the unitiated, is opera for beginners).

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Yeah, I'm so over people going "it's trashy, therefore it's bad."

KIDS, OPERA IS TRASHY. AND IT IS GOOD.

Grrrr high-art/low-art wank.

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Oh, and the SG-verse is unique in being both space opera and hellmouth opera, though from what I've seen of it, I'd say it tends to run light on the operatic aspects. (The writers are more interested in epic than opera?)