sundries

[rm]

A lovely review for Dogboy & Justine:

The most moving of the plays is Racheline Maltese’s “Dogboy and Justine,” directed by Cash Tilton. The setting is a brothel that specializes in kink, and the company duly thanks David Menkes Leather for the scary props and costume pieces. All the working girls are getting clients but Mistress Justine, who has to content herself with a frequent and pathetic caller who wants to be treated like a dog. “Everybody likes dogs,” he explains.

Though funny, Maltese’s work has a depth and poignancy that the other plays don’t access. The caller, played by Christian Barber, gets across an excruciating loneliness, even as we never see him. Stacy Ann Strong is the voice of his distressed mother, who sheds a sad light on why her son is the way he is. Melissa Ferraro plays Justine with a nearly maternal compassion; she’s not hard like the other girls Jeannie (Amanda Boekelheide), Erika (Laneshia Pryor) or Dynamite (Christy Richardson). This is a play that lingers in the mind.

I can't tell you how good this review feels. Remember Dogboy & Justine continues to run as part of Act V: One Act at The Secret Theatre, Jan 20 - 23.

Gallifrey One programming schedule is very fluxy. Times are changing. Panelists are being added. IT IS ALL VERY EXCITING. Real schedule from me here when things are more solid, as I think I'm about to be added to some stuff. I just, btw, stopped myself from volunteering for one in particular, because JUST BECAUSE I HAVE AN OPINION ABOUT SOMETHING DOESN'T MEAN I HAVE TO PROVE ANYTHING BY SITTING UP THERE AND TALKING ABOUT IT. God, sometimes I just have to be in the audience, or the bar, or sleeping late, or whatever. I think it was the right choice, but if they ask me to do it, I'll do it (in a heartbeat), but I don't think they know me well enough for that to happen. It's fine. See, see? This is me, learning to love with a more open hand. Or something. I am both not even kidding and totally making fun of myself, yes.

Yes, I was one of the gatekeepers for therealljidol this week. And I suppose I should make a brief comment. At this point I sort of view myself as the Simon Cowell of the thing. Some of you love me. Some of you hate me and many of you love to hate me. A lot of you also know I'm right.

Gary asked me to vote for 75 entries to stay. I struggled and struggled to get to that number. Being more generous than I wanted to be, I only made it to 40 on the first past. Eventually I got close to 75, but didn't hit it, and that was even after grading you people on a curve.

How many of you did I really think deserved to stay after reading all those entries? About 25. Maybe. You're lucky I was feeling nice.

Here are my general thoughts:

- Six sentences is not enough. In most cases, three paragraphs is not enough either.

- For the love of god, put spaces between your paragraphs if you want me to be able to focus on what you're writing about.

- There's a reason short fiction doesn't work for LJ Idol, and that's because short fiction is very, very hard to write. I don't know you, your characters or their issues. Short fiction is often harder to read than a novel, even if it is technically a bite-sized piece. I voted for very few of the fiction pieces, as mostly I found they had no point and no believable voice.

- I hate that Reader's Digest voice so many of you take on.

- I looked for pieces that felt like people would have written them as part of their journal even if they weren't competing in LJ Idol. I wanted a sense of organic relevance and honesty, which believe it or not, does come across even if I've never read anything else in your journal ever. Very few of you achieved this.

- Adjectives do not replace narrative!

- And for the record your excessive adverb use is strangling me. And not in the nice kinky way. But in the "I want to throw your sentences up against a wall over and over again until the extra words fall off" way.

- Similes and metaphors are your friend, but leading with cliched "this is my college application essay and I am like a great big tree soaking up knowledge" types of metaphors and similes is not how you make friends and influence people.

- "I hope this is okay" introductions about the inadequacy of what I am about to read: you are wasting my time. It's not humility, it's annoying.

- Endings that go nowhere fill me with rage. WHAT WAS THE POINT?

- Endings that assume the reader is stupid and spell out the point like five times. Assume your reader is at least as smart as you. Offer them a gift, don't shove it down their throat.

- Look, most of us aren't special snowflakes. Most of us have experienced loss, heartbreak and mean kids at lunch. Do not try to make your ordinary experiences sound special -- it makes them more mundane -- the value-add you provide is your observation and perspective on those experience. Way too many of you did not bring a value add.

- Knock it off with the sex. It's not that it's TMI. It's that it's boring. Again, what's sexy or interesting is context and observation. Talking about sex to be "edgy" reads, to me, as incredibly jejune and boring.

reannon alerts us to the absence of Poe's mourner this year. Like her, I'm surprised by how solidly I find myself hit by this.

The Rabenmutters of Germany: life where women really can't have it all. At least not until schools stay open past lunch.

First world problems: therapists report rise in green disputes.

And yet another new YA book in which a PoC main character is depicted as white on the cover.

US weapons inscribed with Bible references. And we're trying to convince people this isn't about religion?

About 40% of the way through the Jack/Alonso fic now. This time it's working.

Because this is good.

This is almost like the last 207 days haven't happened, and almost like Jack didn't pay a masseuse for a hand job three fucking days after Ianto died just so he could have all the loss over and done and gone at once.

It is almost like, instead of burning his only photo of Steven, he had left it with Gwen instead.

See, this is why I have to do it this way. Because I can.

Comments

[theotoky.livejournal.com]

i have goosebumps! i'm delighted for you. bravo!

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, very nice review. I hate the fact that all the cool stuff happen at least a sea away from me.

Shivers at your rough quote.

[supremegoddess1.livejournal.com]

Simon Cowell has nothing on you - you look better in white T-shirts.

[chris-walsh.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing this is true. (Not like I spend much time thinking about Simon Cowell, let alone his dressing choices...)

When is the next season of LJ Idol? Is it twice-annual?

[sra33.livejournal.com]

Wooooooooo, what a read.

I feel violated! But in a good way... >.> Maybe.

Anyway, I didn't realize how many of you Gatekeepers wanted "real life entries".

Being a green gill, I thought this was more of a writing competition than a journal competition. I'll definitely keep this in mind in the future.

Knowing without a shadow of a doubt that I'm not one of the 25 you would have chosen to pass through just gives me more determination.

Whether you keep reading any of my entries or not, know that your opinion has changed my entries, hopefully for the better. ^^

Thank you for your hard work in grading us, it's never an easy task!
~Sammy-Joe

[(Anonymous)]

wedding ceremonyは、ルイスのbrotherにしてもらう？

[(Anonymous)]

ジミーさんに来てもらう？

[chite.livejournal.com]

What you said about the gatekeeper round--I agree 100%.

[rattsu.livejournal.com]

Heh, now I feel alive! *grins* Gatekeeper round + my biggest experiment yet = nervousness.

First of all, thanks for taking the time to think long and hard about who to vote for! I know I would have had trouble picking myself, though I'm fairly certain that our 25 we liked would be nothing alike. Reading what some gatekeepers have written, I must admit that I am rather surprised that so many people seems to think that the main focus of this competition should be journaling, because I had the impression that it was about anything you put on a journal, from writings, to stories about your life, to everything else. But, I'm a beginner, so what do I know. It was just interesting to see this viewpoint since I had never seen it brought up before, and I personally tend to get really bored by journal style entries. Most people rarely have anything interesting to say about their own lives.

It is especially interesting since I started this competition with doing long journal style rants, and have subsequently tried to move into areas I didn't do before, like fiction, humor, and *gasp* shorter entries. Now I have to take into consideration that might actually alienate some readers too. I guess the lesson is that I should write what I like, because it's no pleasing everybody. Some hate it long, some hate it short...

I came here with the purpose of getting a question answered about my entry (http://rattsu.livejournal.com/76630.html) but since it was a short, experimental fiction/poetry piece quite unlike anything I had ever posted before (and which doesn't seem to be your thing) it's hard to pick a question. But, here we go:

Did it make you want to read more?

[rm.livejournal.com]

You know, I spend a lot of time doing death related work (I'm working on a paper now about audiences engaging in mourning rituals for fictional characters), so on one hand, anyone playing with death mythology, I'm interested, and you can make sentences and understand cadence. Which means you're way ahead of a lot of the entries I read.

On the other hand, I remember reading this and said "oh, darkity, dark dark dark." I think when you do this style of work, oddly, just like when people write about "my roommate drank my milk" or "kids were mean to me in school" the demand for a value add is very high -- what makes what you're doing different from a hundred thousand other gothic/horror/Lovecraftian writers? Your entry didn't hint at this, although your technical competence says that if you can deliver the differeniating thing, it might be very good.

This to me was more world-building exercise than narrative, which is okay, but it either needed more world or more narrative.

It didn't entice me as a reader, but it does make me want to say "do better" more than it makes me want to say "don't do that."

[laura47.livejournal.com]

i have a mad desire to drive down from Boston and see your play. I must consult my schedules.

[amberite2112.livejournal.com]

road trip??

[delchi.livejournal.com]

At first I was thinking about how writing messages on bombs was a time honored and somewhat censored tradition. (Apocalypse Now -
"But their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!"). I recall during the first gulf war some soldiers were taking donations to help out wounded soldiers, and in exchange they would write your message on a bomb.

In this case its the manufacturer of the scopes having "JN8:12" on them. This sort of things happens even though such things are directly prohibited. Many a time I've seen projects or part names passed through which when turned into an acronym carry a different message. It's a tough call to say that either they were turning a blind eye or if they were simply ignorant/not paying attention.

Either way, yeah it sends and interesting message. I've always thought this was about oil, not religion ... but then again saying it's about religion covers up that it's about oil.

It makes me wonder how many non Christian soldiers might object to the stamping. That would give me a giggle.

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

Actually, I like your take because in the end it makes people better. At least it should.

I found it constructive more than anything.

Also, Simon Cowell is more straight up mean. That really wasn't.

[beautyofgrey.livejournal.com]

Ohh, I like your feedback. Though I'm confused over the "Reader's Digest" voice - maybe that's because I don't subscribe.

That said, I do have a question about my entry (http://beautyofgrey.livejournal.com/560366.html): What is its weakest point?

[rm.livejournal.com]

I would have opened with your middle section (which I did think was very well written) and then cut to the noise and stuff you describe. Your description in the opening part is too expected and ordinary (and doesn't contain enough action words) -- we know January is cold, and that no one likes to get up in the morning. This tells us nothing about you. Knowing that you were dealing with a separation that wasn't going well FIRST would then inform the description -- your reasons for not wanting to get out of bed being different than mine, for example.

[agirlnamedluna.livejournal.com]

I don't think you and I ever really cared for one another or our entries, but I was very pleasantly surprised by your critique on the gatekeeper round. It seems you have a very different opinion than the 'general public' of lj idol season six, or maybe that's just an impression.

did it grab you? (http://agirlnamedluna.livejournal.com/649018.html). (mind you, the fiction was a bonus entry).

[rm.livejournal.com]

I was so grateful for your first sentence I could have cried -- short, conversational, minimizing something that might be big. This is a journal, we're having a conversation. You were one of the few people that I felt got the opening right.

That said, "needle in a haystack"? While cliches are cliches for a reason and therefore are sometimes good choices, I also feel they can be emotionally distancing -- we say them instead of what we are really feeling or seeing. So I thought that (and there were a few moments like that was a weakness).

A lot of good cadence.

Meanwhile, for me, the fiction had no context, but seemed workman-like (not a bad thing, if I had context). So it suffered from that "but what's in it for me?" factor.

[mstrobel.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll bite. Did you care (http://mstrobel.livejournal.com/7386.html) or was it pointless?

[rm.livejournal.com]

I wanted to care (because again with the "you know how to make sentences," but I didn't.

The cadence, weirdly, reminded me of a lot of not great porn I've read, which probably says more about me than you, but who knows?

It was clear to me you knew this story as a movie unfolding in your head and you were telling us what you saw in order. To me, that's a great way of doing a rough draft, but for me as a reader, I wind up feeling locked out by adjectives and details about which I don't have an emotional context, that you don't provide -- either by showing explicit drama between the characters or the emotional life of the characters and/or narrator.

I also - and a lot of people did this - really hate when pieces open with time/place/season in an explicit way. Why are these things important? How do they enrich the story? Specificity is good, but show me -- the quality of the light, the dress of the passengers, the speed at which people are walking -- don't tell me. And don't show me until I need to know.

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what else, if anything, would apply to me, but this stood out for me:

I looked for pieces that felt like people would have written them as part of their journal even if they weren't competing in LJ Idol.

Mainly because my entry this week was used more to inform my flist WTF I was dealing with overseas, than because I wanted to stay in the competition. So I suppose the obvious question would be, did it actually come across that way? (http://comedychick.livejournal.com/415158.html)

[rm.livejournal.com]

I liked that your tone was conversational, and I laughed a bit in sympathy at the beginning. I liked that a lot. I thought it trailed off into having less of a focus (and being less about you and the conundrum and more about logistics), which is explained by your post here and weakened it as a competition entry. For under pressure it wasn't bad, and honestly, with a little bit more time on it (which you understandably probably didn't have), I think it actually could have been a consistent, solid piece.

[shadowwolf13]

Thank you so much for giving your thoughts on judging. Many of them are things that I have though often while reading entries, though how many of them I actually follow I'm not always sure.

I'm curious, here's my entry, did the style work for you?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Some of your comma errors made me frustrated as they robbed us of some of the cadence I think your piece was intended to have.

I liked that you knew you had a story you wanted to tell; a lot of people didn't.

You got a little adverb happy and you should never under underestimate the effectiveness of a simple "said" when attributing quotes (or sometimes not attributing at all, when we can follow the speaker) for better rhythm and energy.

I think you overused the rhetorical questions.

It's a good story, worth telling, but that would be more effective if you were more subtle about leading us through it and showing us the conclusion.

Also, pause for the laughs. You rushed us past some of the good bits.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for doing your Gatekeeperly duties once again! I'm not sure I quite understand what I hate that Reader's Digest voice so many of you take on means exactly, but I fear I might be one of them, LOL.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Another comparison would be the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" thing. Just, like "here is a heartwarming story with a moral." Obviously, that stuff sells. I personally like more nuance.

[teaberryblue.livejournal.com]

Sure, I'm in for feedback! I do want to say first that I was totally surprised by your suggestion that our posts should be things that we would have written anyway, even without LJI, though-- I don't think that works for everyone in the competition, especially since in my case, I know I entered specifically to encourage myself to write things I would never have written otherwise and to set genre and stylistic challenges for myself-- so, for me, personally, a successful entry would be to write something that was a strong departure from the rest of my journal. I know many of the other friends I have in the competition joined for the same reason, so seeing that a judging criterium is the exact opposite of the challenge many of us set for ourselves by entering is a little jarring. I am not saying this to challenge your decisions, especially since I don't know what they were, but I found it interesting and wanted to bring it up!

My question is: with that specific personal goal and the fact that I am challenging myself to do every entry in comic format in mind, what would you like to see from me in the future? (http://zia-narratora.livejournal.com/586099.html)

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

I wish one could call Godwin on the New York Times. In what I thought was an irritatingly, "Let's poke the weird Europeans" take on an interesting subject, this

For several mothers, their great-grandmothers’ maxim, “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” — children, kitchen, church — holds true, even if, as Mr. Haugeneder says, “increasingly it is a way of life people can’t afford.”

really got up my nose. It is now 2010. And the great-grandmothers of women now with primary school-aged children would have been young German mothers themselves when, precisely, on average??? Do the maths.

If they're going to say, "And they still cling to Nazi ideology over there" they might at least have the honesty to make the slur overtly.

[lyorn.livejournal.com]

I'm in two minds about the article. In a way, it's all true. The German education system relies, today more than ever, on mothers beind unpaid assistant teachers, janitors, secretaries and administrators, herd kids, raise money, and in the afternoon help their kids study. You cannot do that, you better have a damn clever kid, or she'll just fall behind. And who will have a chance to go to uni vs. who'll spend their lives on the dole is decided at age 8.

They are reforming the schools twice a year, it's just one pig after another driven down main street. Latest idea is to put 9 year's worth of classes in grammar school into 8. That's why they are starting with afternoon classes. Note that this is about grammar schools, not schools for immigrants and other plebejans.

And they are still attempting to make SAHM-ism affordable by giving tax breaks to men whose wives to not work, by paying women for have kids, and by shunting women into part-time jobs with bad career options and forseeable poverty in old age, and claiming that's family-friendly.

In my office? The men have children. The women don't. A friend with a doctorate in computer sciences works 10 hours a week because she has kids. In the afternoons, she tutors the neighbor's kid, whose mother is working and who was marked from day one to be the one who'll fail school. (And is the only brown-skinned kid in the school, how strange.)

But all that, oh, it's changing now? We had that in the 1920s. And 1960s, when unemployment was below 1 per cent. And again and again, it's always "changing", but it never gets there. And as long as children are sorted into their future social stratas at age 8, everyone's clutching their pearls about 10 year olds going to the pool unsupervised, and teenagers are regarded as something like viking war bands, as long as Germany is spending a pittance on education, I don't see that kind of change happen, and the NYT just has another useless lifestyle article.

And I'm going to have a chamonile tea now to get my blood pressure back down.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I so wish I could see your play. Where is my future and my jet pack, damn it?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Coming to Fox, apparently.

[kittenboo.livejournal.com]

thank you for being a gatekeeper! And for your open and honest discussion of your criteria. I always think of idol as being about writing in a journaling style, and usually enjoy entries more that come across that way. I have a harder time getting into fiction entries, or I should say fiction entries written like fiction, because I suppose journal style entries could be fiction as well.

So again I say thank you!

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

Awesome review!! Did you get my email about how I know your director? I'm gonna try and go Thursday but this week has me bouncing off the walls.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I totally did! Weird world. I'm still not sure what day Patty and I are going, actually.

[dipping_sauce]

Knock it off with the sex. It's not that it's TMI. It's that it's boring. Again, what's sexy or interesting is context and observation. Talking about sex to be "edgy" reads, to me, as incredibly jejune and boring.

Does it make me a prude that I wish I could scream this from the rooftops? And not just concerning LJ Idol.

[teaberryblue.livejournal.com]

No. I used to be a photo editor for a porn company and I agree wholeheartedly with this. Sex is essentially mechanics, and it is one of the most basic human functions. Something has to be very, very special to grab my attention as a piece of sex writing.

[tigrkittn.livejournal.com]

I jut knew you were one of the Gatekeepers! Thank you for your offer to answer a question-- given how many of us there are, and how much you've already done, that's very generous!

My question is whether my entry (http://tigrkittn.livejournal.com/76769.html) managed to come together for the reader, or was incohesiveness my downfall?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Did it make sense? Yes. But I think the better starting point was halfway through where you actively talked about your husband. The opening with an abstract and rhetorical question which made the theme obvious, wasn't a grabber for me. How you talk about that theme is what I care about, and you didn't do that in a way that was personal for you, or for me as the reader, until about halfway through the piece.

[in48frames.livejournal.com]

Did I get the value or was it mundane? (http://in48frames.livejournal.com/301452.html)