sundries

[rm]

Help me with something: name a temporary city that only exists periodically -- Pennsic. Burning Man. What else? Anywhere in the world. Not just geek-related.

I keep hearing we're supposed to get at least a sliver of the snowpocalypse, but there's been nary a flake.

Patty and I had the most awesome night last night. We picnicked on the floor -- fondue with potatoes, carrots, salami, apples, and also pesto sauce for dipping. And then we watched tons of Buffy.

I would like to state for the record that Ted was almost an impossible episode for me to watch (btw, I don't think it's a bad episode; I think it's pretty great, really, it's just not pleasant and hard for me to sit through) -- it punched all of my buttons, none of them good -- about never being believed (because you are female, an only child, unusual, imaginative), being threatened with institutionalization as a power play (it's happened to me, it's happened to friends), and gendered violence & humiliation (the "little lady" thing was causing me to want to flee the room). I really, really, almost couldn't watch it.

Also, Kendra's apparently Jamaican accent? Yikes. There is a lot of race fail one really has to overlook to get through this show (and the only reason there isn't more, it seems, is through sins of omission because IT IS SO WHITE, although I fully acknowledge I might not have noticed that when it was actually airing, although living in NYC and DC, I hope I would have).

I'm also still uncomfortable with the level of rape metaphor/content. I get that Wheedon isn't fetishizing rape in the gross way TV programs often do. I also get the necessity of its acknowledgement in a show about a young woman facing danger. But I can't get past a feeling of nice guy self-congratulatoriness I feel like I'm sensing in it. It's not handled badly (I thought the Giles/Jenny convo about "Your behavior is making me feel bad for not feeling better" was particularly smart), but I sort of want to yell at them for asking for a cookie quite so loudly.

But I really am enjoying the hell out of the show. Just watching many episodes close together gives me a way to see patterns (and feel saturated with themes) in a way that was different for peopel who watched it once a week and with seasonal breaks.

Yes, of course I'm still desperately interested in all things Whoniverse This Buffy thing is less a break and more of a refuge, because I'm about to descend into writing my paper for Bristol and what may be a very tense panel/audience relationship at Gally. Also, I'm working on making my relationship with melancholy and grieving a feature, not a bug, which means caring about other sorts of plots sometimes, although I realize Buffy will probably transmute into more of the same for me eventually.

Thanks to gay marriage legalization Mexico City now at center of debate.

FDA reconsiders portion size. Because no, no one eats 8 corn chips and then puts away the bag.

fireflygirl tells us of the lonliest whale.

The restoration of a movie palace.

The end of St. Vincent's. Shocking, I think particularly, to those who remember its centrality during the emergence of AIDS.

Something is up, and I know not what, with Amazon.com stocking my book. If you're looking for the print edition (as opposed to the Kindle edition), right now your best bet is B&N.

Comments

[puppetmaker40.livejournal.com]

What about the ice cities in China and Russia?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Perfect, thank you. That's exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Brigadoon? Or is that geek related?

Ted scared the crap out of me, at the time, and is possibly still one of the scariest, psychologically speaking, eps ever.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's not real. I mean an actual thing people build.

[moosesal.livejournal.com]

Ted is a horrible, horrible episode. I cannot rewatch that one. I'm really enjoying seeing you post about watching Buffy though. It's always fun to see a first-timer's reactions.

How about Renfest type towns? Some of them are put up for a full month or so each year.

[zeldajean.livejournal.com]

Such as Great Lakes Medival Faire.

I was thinking of Origins, but it's more of con, and exists inside already existing structures. it isn't something that is built for that purpose.

Carnivals and Fairs. Canfield Fair near Youngstown, OH is huge, lasts for a month or so, and when it's done the land is largely barren again (save for stables and such).

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Falcon Ridge Folk Fest is another "constructed city."

FDA reconsiders portion size. Because no, no one eats 8 corn chips and then puts away the bag.

I can't say how happy this makes me. Because a bowl of cup noodle is one fucking serving, not two. ::eyeroll::

[theotoky.livejournal.com]

snowpocalypse??! BAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[delchi.livejournal.com]

It was total FUD. We have snow, but it's hardly end of days stuff. :)

[ebonypearl.livejournal.com]

Some parts of Germany build a "Weihnachtheim" for Christmas, little christmas villages that are only there for a month.

And there's the Pagan Spirit Gathering, Starwood Festival, and Sirius Rising.

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

Ted is a revolting episode, and one of about five that I never rewatch.

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

I really hope they do resort Kings Theater. We've lost too many of them.

Back when I was still in school (yea, that long ago), there was a movie palace in Asbury Park like that. It was made to look like a castle courtyard in the theater part, very King Arthur sort of design. The ceiling looked like the sky at twilight. It was amazing.

My father took me to one of the last screenings there. 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

That's awful about St. Vincents. They provide incredible services to the addiction communities in NYC, what a blow to lose that space.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Friend of mine actually does research on what he calls "temporary communities." The Oregon Folk Festival is another example he uses, similar to Burning Man and Pennsic. I'll see if I can get a few references from him for you.

[kireishojo.livejournal.com]

Oregon country faire might qualify but they leave most of the buildings standing when the faire is not going.

[intelligentrix.livejournal.com]

How about Olympic Village? Does the World's Fair count? Hmmm. Of course, these tend to be cities within cities, not discrete entities. There's the Rainbow Family gathering, but that might stretch the definition of city a bit.

[pocketmouse]

...can you define what you're looking for when you say 'city?' Does it have to actually be the size of a city (as opposed to town, etc, according to census/geog definitions), and what qualifies as existing? I'm thinking of things like the research bases at Antarctica, which are permanent installations, but they have more people in the summer season than winter, though I don't know the numbers enough to know if either one qualifies as a 'city.' Though there are cities/towns in places in the Southwest (can't think of any names off the top of my head) whose population doubles or triples when all the snowbirds come down in the winter.

Be glad you're not getting snowpocalypse. DC sucks at dealing with this shit. The vast majority of the public transportation system has closed down. They're not running buses or paratransit at all, even though the roads are being plowed. So dumb.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I guess I mean places where there's little to nothing and structures/infrastruture has to be put in, quickly for a short-duration thing and then removed. I'm mostly interested in things of at least, say, 5,000 people.

And yeah, I'm sure DC is completely out of commission.

[jgcr.livejournal.com]

The Hajj transforms existing cities of one size into cities of a whole 'nother magnitude. I imagine other pilgrimage sites have the same situation, but that's the big one.

The Sturgis motorcycle rally has at times effectively doubled the population of South Dakota for a week or so.

In a whole different vein, and maybe not what you're looking for because they're temporary but not periodic, tent cities, refugee camps, military installations, and other such things are worth thinking about.

Probably worth poking around here for more: http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/

[rm.livejournal.com]

All potentially relevant to the sample set I'm trying to come up with. Thnx.

[drfardook.livejournal.com]

There's the Hajj. Isn't the pilgrimage at a specific time of year? I remember reading that the Saudis are having exponentially increasing logistic problems as more people can afford to make the pilgrimage.

Also read an article some time ago about a festival in India, the Kumbh Mela that attracts millions. In 2001 on the 12th cycle of the every twelve year festival it attracted 60 million people.
http://www.thepolisblog.org/2009/12/urban-transformations.html

The mongols might be another historical reference to look into for nomads creating temporary cities.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Is your publisher owned by Macmillan? Or owned by someone who's owned by Macmillan? Or etc? One of the many informative posts on the fail.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Nope. Hence my "what drama is here" feeling.

[kurometarikku.livejournal.com]

What about tent cities and shanty towns that pop up during depressions and recessions?

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1509795/tent_cities_in_america_signs_of_the.html?cat=17

[firinel.livejournal.com]

Would Whitby be an example of this? (Whitby Gothic Weekend, if you've not come across it before.)

I think Soul Survivor would also be a religious-focused version, too.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

ah, on reading the numbers, I'm not sure if Whitby duration is long enough duration to work for your purposes (I believe that it's not quite a week long). I'm not sure that the Soul Survivor summer festivals are still happening, but when they were that I knew of them, they were a week long, though some only went for a long weekend, and they easily had the amount of people that you were looking for.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

One thing to remember about Buffy is that it started in late 1990s. What Joss was doing was ground breaking in so many ways, even if it is klunky.

I use Buffy as ways to talk about stuff with the kidlet. The frat boy episode, as horrid as it is, was about the problems of being going out with older guys, sexual harassment (of both women and men; Xander's hazing is horrid in that ep and a good way to talk about bullying), dealing with your friends, all sorts of stuff. This show even prompted the kidlet to ask me what orgasms are.

When you watch eps in fell swoops things like the rape themes really do smack you. It's hard to know what exactly is going on in Joss' head. There is a bit of a search for a cookie but I don't think it's the sole reason. I think a big part of it is that it's a more realistic portrayal of the rape culture we live in than just about anything we see on TV.

Joss really didn't do racial stuff well. In some of the academic Buffy lit I've read, that point is brought up. Kendra and her accent and other stuff is the primary example but Impata from Inca Mummy Girl is also an example.

The make-up behind Ted is cool! It's well worth a watch if you've got the specials DVD!

Ted itself gives me chills. He's the type of potential stepdad that would've had me bolting, especially if I were Buffy.

Poor Joyce, her love life sucks!

[heron61.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of race fail one really has to overlook to get through this show

A persistent problem with Whedon, and one that I'm betting you would have noticed. As a friend of mine who lived for many years in SoCal said - "So which coastal SoCal town is it that entirely lacks a hispanic population?" I rather liked another friend's theory that Sunnydale was merely hideously segregated and there was a separate high school for the hispanic teens, where (lacking a Slayer, and presumably being in a much poorer part of town) the death rate was even higher.

I get both that Wheedon isn't fetishizing rape in the gross way TV programs often do. I also get the necessity of its acknowledgement in a show about a young woman facing danger. But I can't get past a feeling of nice guy self-congratulatoriness I feel like I'm sensing in it. It's not handled badly (I thought the Giles/Jenny convo about "Your behavior is making me feel bad for not feeling better" was particularly smart), but I sort of want to yell at them for asking for a cookie quite so loudly.

I completely agree, but it's (very sadly) worth looking at the time period. Prior to the mid 90s, I'd seen almost no TV that addressed any of this. The fact that on various gender issues Whedon is literally ground-breaking is utterly pathetic, but also vividly true.

Also, I'm working on making my relationship with melancholy and grieving a feature, not a bug,

There are definitely some later Buffy eps that I'm very interested in your opinion of.

FDA reconsiders portion size. Because no, no one eats 8 corn chips and then puts away the bag.

While very true, I'm puzzled at why people are annoyed at having to do very simple multiplication.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

While very true, I'm puzzled at why people are annoyed at having to do very simple multiplication.

It's not so much that, as it's terribly misleading to buy a muffin and see that the serving size is only half the muffin. Or if you buy a kind of pot noodle that comes in its own bowl, but the bowl constitutes anywhere between 2 and 2.5 servings. It's dishonest.

It's also misleading to say that your product has X amount of calories, but calculated from a quantity that tends to be half of what people would actually eat.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Are you focused on current or historical options for temporary cities?

Historical - powwows and rendezvous of native Americans and assorted fur traders; medieval fairs

N-SSA fall and spring nationals - most of the time it's huge empty fields with a smattering of buildings. Twice a year 10K +/- descend for about a week to shoot Am. Civil war weapons in competition. As it's a permanent site, improvements have been made over time but they still tend to be of the more temporary than not style. My dad's unit's campsite added a floorless pole-barn a few years ago to have a shelter from the rain.

NMLRA nationals in Friendship, Indiana - similar to the above but the focus in on individual competition with muzzle loading, black powder weapons.

[alterjess.livejournal.com]

But I can't get past a feeling of nice guy self-congratulatoriness I feel like I'm sensing in it.

This, in a nutshell, is Joss.

The writers insist to this day that Kendra's accent really does exist and is really for real based on a real accent from some tiny but very real town somewhere and they hired a dialect coach and everything for it. This is not, however, something I have ever heard confirmed from an actual Jamaican person. Go fig.

The racial casting of the show was more (but still not very) exusable on Buffy where at least you might be able to make the argument that some suburbs really ARE that white. On Angel (set in LA proper), it was just fucking stupid.

[rm.livejournal.com]

The writers insist to this day that Kendra's accent really does exist and is really for real based on a real accent from some tiny but very real town somewhere and they hired a dialect coach and everything for it. This is not, however, something I have ever heard confirmed from an actual Jamaican person. Go fig.

Patty also found a quote from the actress last night that was very "that accent was shit and I was not happy with it."

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I know I'm walking on dangerous eggshells here, do please consider who and not what I am when I ask this. This is not an attack nor an indictment against anyone. I'm asking you a question as a subject matter expert.

One of my buttons is the whole cookie thing. but I sort of want to yell at them for asking for a cookie quite so loudly. is understandable in the context of a mistake or overbearing in a script for a production , but sometimes it feels like the cookie is overused.

Is there ever a time when it's ok to expect some kind of recognition , in a positive manner, without being labeled as 'asking for a cookie' ?

Sometimes when people toss around that phrase it sounds like the mirror reflection of the argument about how some people have to ask for acceptance that should be granted to them without asking. It's like becoming the monster that is being hunted bit.

In my eyes, it seems to make the effort to do something right a moot point. If you are not doing the right thing, you are inherently wrong for perpetuating the problem. If you try to do the right thing, despite the uphill battle & look to be seen apart from the wrong, you are labeled as ' asking for a cookie ' and slapped down. It breeds a lose/lose situation which makes for a return to the path of least resistance, which sets everything back.

I understand that there are situations when it is gratuitous and the cookie applies. You can find examples of that without looking very hard at all. Politicians are the number one source of this kind of thing, when they think that siding with an issue will get them votes instead of being the right thing or the will of the people. People who act/portend to support when it's just a means to an end for them. I get that. They exist and should be called out.

I'm just wondering if there is ever a time where it is seen to be real. Where the cookie is not a bad thing. Where the phrase is not even used ( because IMHO I think that saying 'oh you are asking for a cookie' is degrading ) but instead a simple thanks and/or nod is done.

Again, I'm not trying to accuse or offend anyone. I just want to know if it's possible, or if the overwhelming amount of bad makes it impossible to see the good.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I feel strongly, way beyond this particular issue, that people should not get extra rewards for doing basic things, even if those basic things are rarely done.

Whether that's being relatively sensitively aware of rape issues or having a perfect attendance records. I'm a hard-ass; I mean it about my inner Snape; and I don't think people should be rewarded merely for not being douchebags.

There are a couple of men I've run into on LJ who are really awesome anti-rape activists and most of the work they do doesn't get much or any public notice. They do it anyway. They only complain about it not getting notice because that notice would help more men understand how to be anti-rape activists. That's not asking for a cookie.

Joss Wheedon (whose motivations I admittedly don't know) and his "look, I talked sensitively about rape in my vampire show AGAIN" scripts, come off as, among other things (some of them good) as self-congratulatory to me. Am I an authority on this? Maybe slightly more than a generic fan, but nope, not really. Everyone's got different eyeballs.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Temporary cities in the real makes me think of things like large scale motorcycle rally/meets such as Sturgis. It's similar to burning man in that it's a gathering of a 'tribe' to a central location for a fixed time - and the sheer numbers are enough to form a small city. ( http://www.sturgis.com/ )

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

There is a lot of race fail one really has to overlook to get through this show (and the only reason there isn't more, it seems, is through sins of omission because IT IS SO WHITE, although I fully acknowledge I might not have noticed that when it was actually airing, although living in NYC and DC, I hope I would have).

I can't remember, have you seen Firefly or Serenity? That was a bit wonky in its handling of race, because Joss posited a future in which China had tremendous political and cultural influence (hence the "oriental" element in set and costume designs, and the characters' habit of swearing in Mandarin), yet none of the protagonists were Asian; in fact, there were few onscreen Asian characters that I recall.

Hm, temporary cities...there's the Ice Hotel in Sweden, which is rebuilt every year. In addition to rooms for eating and sleeping, it includes performance spaces and a church. According to the web site, it sleeps about 100 people, so over the course of a season (about 4 months) the transient population could be somewhere in four figures. Also, they plan to start selling tickets for trips into space in 2012.

Re: nutrition labeling, I agree with redstapler: anything that is obviously packaged as a single portion -- a microwavable bowl of whatever, a wrapped muffin, a 12 oz. bottle of soda -- should give us the figures for the entire contents, not some fraction that constitutes a mythical "serving".

I hope the renovation of that movie palace works out. I love Depression-era theaters, with their incredibly opulent interiors. Also, the last image in that slide-show, of the "Drink and Be Refreshed" fountain, is wonderfully creepy.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I can't remember, have you seen Firefly or Serenity? That was a bit wonky in its handling of race, because Joss posited a future in which China had tremendous political and cultural influence (hence the "oriental" element in set and costume designs, and the characters' habit of swearing in Mandarin), yet none of the protagonists were Asian; in fact, there were few onscreen Asian characters that I recall.

Yes, although my understanding is at least part of that had to do with Fox and who it wanted to sell as leading actors in it. Firefly has a lot of other weird race issues as far as I'm concerned, and it's both sort of ballsy on that front and totally fail in a pretty interesting combination.

[rhiannonstone.livejournal.com]

"Ted" is also damned near impossible for me to watch, for very much the same reasons. We recently re-watched the entire series during our weekly video night, and I made sure I was in the kitchen doing stuff the whole time "Ted" was on.