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?

[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.

[rm.livejournal.com]

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

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Oh! My mistake... let me see... Glastonbury Festival, it's the size of a city and has all the amenities of one during the festival.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yup, perfect sort of thing and one I might not have thought of.

[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.

[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!!!

[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.

[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.

[pocketmouse]

And where people reside as well? Because I think a lot of outdoor theatre festivals could count for that, otherwise. SFSTL routinely got 50,000 people over the course of a summer, but no one stayed in the trailers overnight, by park order. There might be other festivals that do, though. Though it wouldn't be the same 5K+ people...

Yeah, all the big examples I can think of are fictional.

[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.