sundries

[rm]

Okay that deal with Australia and A-cups? Not quite true (and the female ejaculation ban still stands). Thanks to lilacsigil.

Murder isn't activism. But terminology issues aside, Dr. Tiller's killer has been found guilty.

Out of Auschwitz, a survivor reflects on the liberation.

I was thinking in sort of an off-hand way the other day when I saw someone comment in regard to a couple of Doctor Who episodes (sorry, can't remember which of you it was) about how Britain is never going to get over WWII, that better that then... well, the US. I feel sometimes, that all we can remember is the Cold War that came after and our paranoia. Everyone is out to get us! If we approached the global threat of terrorism through the lends of WWII instead of through the lens of the Cold War, would we be behaving better? Would Gitmo be closed? Would we stop trading civil liberties for a false-sense of security? I don't know, but over here, I think we could use a lot more WWII memories and a lot fewer Cold War ones.

bodlon adds his voice to great slash debate. Since he's a transman who writes fanfic and pro material some containing what we call slash or m/m romance, he has a somewhat unique horse in this race. Also, thinky thoughts in comments.

Today's XKCD made me cry. Like, actually cry. Not a metaphor or exaggeration. I cried.

So John Barrowman is going to play a villain on Desperate Housewives. Shooting starts in march, apparently. I really only have two things to say about that, neither of them rational: 1. DH is my mother's favorite show, and having to deal with her getting obsessed with JB and deciding to watch Torchwood again (which she sorta likes but anything alien upsets her and she has to look away) is more surreal than I want to deal with it. 2. Surprise Naoko Mori!

gement points us to the worst ad campaign in ages. And it's for bus travel. In Cardiff. No, really.

John Lithgow, gossip columnists and scandals in the pre-Internet age. via redstapler.

lord_whimsy reminds me that I had wanted to mention the death of Louis Auchincloss who, as the New York Times obit says "was best known for his dozens and dozens of novels about what he called the 'comfortable' world, which in the 1930s meant 'an apartment or brownstone in town, a house in the country, having five or six maids, two or three cars, several clubs and one’s children in private schools.'" He was a chronicler of the dying world (although he felt strongly it was not) that long-time readers know I grew up peering into.

jonquil ponders to what degree gender has a role in whether people like Salinger's work. Despite leading with the Salinger news yesterday, to quote her poll, my feeling was generally "Eeeeeh."

Patty and I are going to try to go to Dances of Vice tonight, but she has a cold and I'm beat, so we'll see. If we go, you may be seeing the tux,since I have this thing going on where I have to wear it for something before Gallifrey or I'm going to have issues.

Boston people. Tonight, tonight, tonight! I know it's cold, but these ladies will be wearing less clothing than you and are smoking hot. Also, seriously, my love for this troupe has little to do with nudity and everything to do with the ridiculous amounts of charisma they have on stage, which isn't limited to the traditionally feminine archetypes that are a staple of burlesque. They're also my friends.

In planning for my new headshots, I've discovered something interesting, and that is that one of the images I'm selling makes me more of a romantic-lead type than I've ever been. Most of my acting career has been about being the sharp, dark-haired woman, which means VILLAIN. In Australia though, at every class it was "you're a romantic lead, we swear!" and I was like "Not in America! In my country I am evil and villanous. I only get cast as the undead and people who steal husbands!" (which was 100% true at that time). But in Australia, even my Lady in Macbeth was played like a romantic lead, you know, despite the crazy. And now I get it. Short hair, cute tight top, shiny pink lip gloss and a little bit of mascara and a huge smile. I'm suddenly unlikely, sweet, tom-boyish (something that's a particularly weird identity for me in a way that may not seem to make obvious sense) and not, not as hard or awkward as Miranda on Sex in the City. I say this a lot, but only in certain circles: Severus Snape taught me that everything I thought was ugly about myself is actually smoking hot. Jack Harkness taught me to stop pretending I'm the quirky not so cute best-friend next door.

Comments

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I have to say I like Whimsy but saying he doesn't care about Salinger because Auchincloss died is a bit like saying one doesn't care about milk chocolate getting banned because dark chocolate is banned. Like, I get that not everyone likes Salinger, but they wrote on rather similar themes.

(I think really I just had issues with the way he phrased it, though, TBH.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, these are two things that are not related (and they did write on similar worlds at different moments from different perspectives. I think I've enjoyed Auchincloss more because I was closer to the world of Holden Caufield just on teh basis of the dissafected kids I grew up with. I never got to live the world I grew up in as an adult, however).

[bluejeans07.livejournal.com]

Surprise Naoko Mori? Eh?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Yea, ditto?

[jigglykat.livejournal.com]

OMG that XKCD makes me so sad!

[starstealingirl.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who cried at that XKCD. It was so, so sad.

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear gods. You mean I will actually have to watch an episode of Desperate Housewives?

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

It's not the worst show ever. I mean, many parts are cringe worthy for various and many reasons... but it is a fun and don't-need-to-think-too-deeply-about-stuff kind of show.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, that XKCD...

[ex-adarog.livejournal.com]

I think that was me with the WW II comment, talking about "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances". I phrased it rather flippantly, but it wasn't meant as a criticism, an implied "You people should get over it". Pearl Harbor was a long way away from the North American mainland; England is a geographically small nation, and their capital was bombed every night. They don't have to get over it. But when you watch a lot of Who, classic or new flavor, you can't avoid seeing how that shadow is still hanging over them, how many times they re-visit that era in fiction or re-create aspects of it (see also Harry Potter).

During the Cold War we were afraid of the very thing happening to us that happened to Great Britain, and that we made happen to the Japanese: Death from the sky. But it never came, until 9/11. I'm going to think about how that Cold War mentality was reinforced by that event....

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

I'm going to think about how that Cold War mentality was reinforced by that event....

Interesting point. Thinking of historical ironies, apparently "Band of Brothers", a miniseries set in WWII, broadcast its first two episodes two days before 9/11 and was (apparently) very nearly never completely shown as a result.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Fortunately, I had already heard about Spirit, and had been inured by spiritrover and opportunitygrrl. I already have my stories about them, and in my stories they know it's a one-way trip, and they are SO STOKED to have beaten their operational parameters by 2100%.

Meanwhile, in Cardiff WTFery: http://worldofwonder.net/2010/01/29/AD_CAMPAIGN_FAIL/

[rm.livejournal.com]

OMGWTF CARDIFF!

XKCD

[nysidra.livejournal.com]

Me too! So very depressing.

[amand-r.livejournal.com]

Okay that deal with Australia and A-cups? Not quite true (and the female ejaculation ban still stands).

Still amazingly LOL.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

So glad that the murderer of a physician who performed legal medical procedures wasn't allowed to get away with the 'saving the babies' excuse. 37 minutes to decide - I think the right to birthers are going to have to find another excuse.

Cardiff bus ad - its a joke right? I mean it has to be, right? They couldn't have seriously...oh they did. Nevermind.

[newsbean.livejournal.com]

Today's XKCD made me cry. Like, actually cry. Not a metaphor or exaggeration. I cried.

Me, too. Too often I feel like that little rover wanting to be enough, do well enough so that I will get to go home. Wherever it is that home is.

[rm.livejournal.com]

WE ARE ALL THE MARS ROVER.

[sociallyawkrd.livejournal.com]

Dr. Tiller was my dr. I cried the day he died and I cried today. He was the most compassionate dr I have ever had on one of the worst days of my life. It was also some of the scariest days of my life. I feared dying in that clinic by the hands of a self-professed "activist".

I am glad his murderer was convicted of 1st degree murder.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Dr. Tiller inspired me to become a clinic escort. I took the first class after his death, and the room was *packed* with people who were joining the clinic defense task force in his memory.

[torenheksje.livejournal.com]

I teared up, too. We've all felt the sting of abandonment or the betrayal of our expectations.

I saw that ad a couple of days ago and sent to Alec Hopkins, who it turns out is originally a Cardi lad. :c)

[marchek.livejournal.com]

I thought about DoV but I'm absolutely exhausted and James is working late tonight and will spend the night at my place because two radiators exploded and flooded his apartment last night which also means he has no heat. I also have furniture being delivered tomorrow morning that I need to be coherent enough to receive.

Have fun if you guys end up going.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Oh God, right there with you re: XKCD.

In a weird way, WW II feels more relevant to my life than ’Nam, even though Dad is a Vietnam-era vet (though thankfully he was never In The Shit). My paternal grandfather would have enrolled in dental school if Pearl Harbor hadn't been bombed; instead he joined the Army Air Forces and was part of the group that succeeded the Flying Tigers. Presumably, somewhere there's an alternate universe in which he, Dad, and my uncles are all dentists instead of pilots.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

naoko mori is on DH too?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Nah! It's a joke about last year's Gallifrey One, wherein she was not a guest but showed up to say hi at random because Gareth had run into her at the headshot retouchers and told her to stop by and freak Kai Owen out (which she did, but entering the ballroom with a scarf hiding her face and asking a crazy stalker-y fan type question to him first).

[delchi.livejournal.com]

When I thought about it, I was surprised. To most of the people I know in the USA WW2 is either a video game or the plot of a movie ( not just war movies with big male heroes, but comedies like 1941 ). To talk to someone from the UK and/or looking at images of a bombed out London it's no comparison. The UK saw real in your face destruction of their world - world defined as their houses , cities, families, etc. The US saw little if any of that except for the soldiers that didn't come home and a considerable bit of paranoia. Now in the cold war we were facing the destruction of everything - not just a few buildings and a foreign army occupying - but the end of all human life.

Both of these leave a severe impact on the people who experienced them, but the simulated devastation brought to us in "The Day After" or "When the Wind Blows" can't hold a candle to walking the streets and standing in the bombed out pit that was once your home or ancestral house, complete with the bodies of loved ones.

Thanks for making me think. I never would have come up with that one on my own.

[better-late24.livejournal.com]

Today's XKCD made me cry. Like, actually cry. Not a metaphor or exaggeration. I cried.

Have you ever seen that movie AI: Artificial Intelligence? That comic sort of reminds me of it. And that movie ranks up there with some of the most disturbing I've ever seen for similar reasons. It just quirks something in my head.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yes. YES. I know most people hate AI, but that movie had the potential to be the greatest film ever made. It wasn't, but it's profoundly disturbing. I can barely watch the first third, and the second third has left me with a lingering question (what personal pains would something like Gigolo Joe have to be programmed with in order to have sexual compassion for others)

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

Lithgow's an interesting dude. There was a list that you could probably still find floating around of old-style gossip about various celebrities, much of it gakked from other sites like Bitter Waitress and the like, and in the preface the author noted that Lithgow had actually mentioned the list on Conan O'Brien.

I saw the xkcd strip as mostly riffing on Wall-E, but it was still quite touching.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm pointing everyone who was upset at XKCD at tamnonlinear's why that comic was wrong post.

They are tough and they are brave and they are courageous. Don't insult them by portraying them as homesick creatures that have been abandoned. They have impressed the hell out of everyone who followed them. See them as curious, stubborn, resourceful explorers who have gone out to do the best job they can and done better than ever expected.

[realtsunamigirl.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, and yet another line that separates Canadians from our southern neighbours, the war that we can't seem to get over is WWI. It is not overly uncommon to even hear some people my age (mid-30s) refer to it as "the Great War". I couldn't tell you off-hand what battles Canada was involved in in WWII, but the names Dieppe, Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele are tattooed on my brain.

When I grew up hearing about war, it was about muddy, rat infested trenches and friend's corpses left in no man's land because they couldn't be retrieved. It was about gruelling boredom interspersed with abject terror, trench foot, lice, inedible food and "going over the top". It was grim pride in the fact that we did things that no other country had managed no matter how many times they tried, but without ever forgetting for a moment what it had cost. There's no Memorial day in Canada, it's Remembrance Day, renamed from Armistice Day; still commemorated at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month. Needless to say, it's short on picnics but long on tears and ceremony.

Maybe the really scary thing about the cold war and "war on terror" being what occupies your countrypeople's minds is that so few of you have actually been touched by it. 9/11 was a horror, of course, and the country was rocked to its roots, but even with the subsequent war in Iraq, as a culture you are too far away from it. You have not watched every able-bodied young man of a generation walk away for four years. Too few of you are directly involved; too few of you that really understand why "glorious war" is such an oxymoron. You all get fear, you just don't necessarily have the horror embedded in your culture the way some do.

[kargashina.livejournal.com]

No, maybe not embedded. What war we think about is diffferent person by person. I grew up in the cold war, but what think about is Nam. I also realize I learned more about modern history in school than is normal for the US.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

The xkcd really messed me up too and I had to scroll it off the screen fast and remember not to mention xkcd (or the rover) to anyone for a while so that I don't socially-awkwardly choke up.

[sanat.livejournal.com]

Hi, I'm adding you cuz my friend gwyd is always reposting your linkfinds. You seem neat! %D

And I so hear you on the idea that sharp dark-haired woman = villain in America. I blame Disney, because I never related to the fair-haired pug-nosed girls that still make up half their princess roster. Fortunately, I married someone who always thought the wicked witches and evil stepmoms were hotter. Awww...

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

I very much apologise for last night's outburst in your lj. It was over the top and uncalled for. I've spent a lot of time thinking it over and really want to say sorry for it, to everyone I may have hurt by it.

I think it did manage to clarify to me, however, one of the reasons I've been feeling upset and on edge about the proposed US Torchwood series. One of the other complaints about COE which rather got lost in the other stuff was that they blew up the Hub (and a large amount of the Roald Dahl Plass and the Millenium Centre) and RTD, in interviews, didn't even seem to care (poor Myfanwy). And that's been tugging at the back of my mind and last night it came together; he may or may not have been de-gaying the show to make it more palatable to Fox by killing Ianto(I don't believe this was necessarily so, but it's a possibility that I rejected out of hand before the Fox story broke and now am less certain) but he was absolutely certainly de-Britishing the show by blowing up the Hub and therefore destroying the connection with Cardiff. And it's a symbol that new Torchwood - if it happens - will no longer be interested in stories like to The Last Man or exploring the class issues which were done so well and so interestingly in the first three days of COE because they aren't the stories that an American audience is interested in hearing. And there won't be another An Empty Child/The Doctor Dances for the same reason. And that's another bit of my cultural heritage gone. Which makes me both angry and afraid - and hence, liable to lash out. And I am very sorry.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the apology, although I don't really think it was necessary. As long as you worked out whatever you feel need to be worked out between you and the other commenter, I sort of view it as not my problem. You're allowed to get upset in a conversation about _war_.

As to the rest of it, I always appreciate thinky-thoughts and self-awareness and the ultimate conclusion you reach (regarding your cultural heritage and your feelings about it) is both a good and interesting one.

However, and I'm not saying you did this (quite frankly, I'm not sure, so don't worry about that either, but just as you needed to write out your process above, I need to write out mine below), but this comes up over and over again in my journal (often, it seems, when people are apologizing for things I didn't think they needed to) so I'm just throwing it out there anyway: I have really different feelings about what RTD (or any creative) is obligated to care about. Creatives aren't required to feel the way I feel about a story/place/character. I see the "he didn't even care about Myfanwy" thing over and over again and my main reaction is "was he supposed to?" I've no problem with people saying that ultimately leads to a type of storytelling they don't like or that they feel it produces weaknesses/flaws in the work, but I have a hard time with people criticizing a creator because their/our perception of their emotional involvement in the world isn't what we have decided it should be.

As to Ianto's death -- Jack's narrative is about the tragedy of eternal life. Torchwood's narrative is that (someone said this in fanfic and I love it) in Torchwood "if you don't die young, you die weird" and sometimes it's both. Jack's lovers are going to die as a major plotpoint as long as he has lovers on the show. They are going to be young and go out in grisley ways as long as the plot makes them TW operatives (which since so much of the plot is "you can't have a RL in TW"). If Jack's omnisexuality is going to shown on the show, that means there's going to be a lot of dead young gay dudes. Are we in a cultural moment where that can still look like fridging to lots of people? Yes. Is that the intent? I don't think so. Do any of us truly have any way of knowing what goes on in RTD's head? Nope.

Look, I love watching fictional tragedy. Maybe RTD does too. And maybe he likes his fictional tragedy to look a little bit like his life. Which means when he kills off someone like Ianto, it's not homophobia or some evil plan with Fox or whatever. Maybe he just has buttons that are easily misread in 2010. That's my suspicion anyway.