sundries

[rm]

Tonight we do the paperwork for Claudette and we pick her up Monday.

Meanwhile, tomorrow we head to Cold Spring.

Google Buzz - less confusing than Wave but just as dumb? Certainly the various drama that's sure to arise when people start realizing who people know (either through the "how dare you talk to my ex" phenom or the "OMGOMGOMG you know Random Famous Person") because people couldn't figure out how to be discrete is going to be epic. Google, of course, auto adds contacts in a way that makes avoiding drama harder.

Nelson Mandela was released from prison 20 years ago today.

When he came to New York, after, there was a ticker tape parade for him. I had just met a young man through our mutual recent appointments to the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation National Youth Committee whose father was a judge, and he invited me down to one of the court house buildings where he said he could get us out on the roof. He did, and we were the only people up there and we watched the parade from there. It was terrifying, and I remember thinking he was supposed to kiss me; he didn't.

Tigers are on the verge of extinction in the wild.

What's on a $177 bagel?

What would you do with 178 sq. ft.?

Alexander McQueen has taken his own life.

Charlie Wilson has died.

A queer zombie anthology from a small horror press got canceled apparently because some of the other authors who write for that press expressed their homophobic complaints about sharing a publisher with queer content. When you surrender to bigots, even if you are not a bigot, you are still doing something bigoted. This goes for the press in this little drama and it goes for everyone who automatically gives a higher rather to fanfiction with gay content in it because otherwise someone on the Internet might yell at them.

Capitulation to bigotry causes real harm.

phaetonschariot explains why: Queer people people don't get to stop being queer. How fucking handy it is that you can duck out of the fight. Just because you can, doesn't mean it's right. You know, I don't like people yelling at me either.

jslorentz talks about desire, activism, quaint little categories and trying to do the right thing -- for oneself and for the community.

Designing a better gender menu, via supergee. I don't agree with all of the suggestions (I don't, for example, like "it's complicated" as the only choice beyond "male" or "female" and I'm not all that off-put by "other" because I feel it includes less judgment than other options which assign narrative that may not be relevant to me. Obviously YMMV), but it's a good, interesting, relevant read.

Is it terrible that my main reaction to this seems to be about my hatred of the double-breasted suit jacket?

Last night we watched that Buffy episode where everyone keeps reenacting that final fight between the teacher/student murder/suicide couple in 1955. It was like "here, watch the cast of Buffy demonstrate Practical Aesthetics." Seriously, it was WEIRD. I have no idea if any of the actors or the director were drawing on that technique for the episode, but every time the scene played out, it felt EXACTLY like a a Practical Aesthetics scene to me. EVERY TIME.

Also, wow, I feel way too much compassion for Spike.

Comments

[ciel-vert.livejournal.com]

I think the trouble with Buzz is less about people not knowing how to be discrete, but more about Google suddenly opting EVERYONE with a Gmail account IN without telling you (exactly). People shouldn't have to work to keep their email contacts private, that should be the default.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

...Yeah, the fact that the Gmail addresses on your email list just get sucked up into a Twitteresque follow/followed list automagically without your (or their!) say-so is decidedly creepy.

And wordy mcword to the phaetonschariot post (I read it when rm posted it on Twitter last night).

[nonlinearmusing.livejournal.com]

178 square foot apartment?! I would have to go outside to change my mind! Although, he makes it work without looking like a jumble of junk piled floor to ceiling. Still, I would go insane quite quickly!

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Jesus, all the posts you linked to really hit the spot.
It must be one of those days.

[gement.livejournal.com]

I have seen a proposal I found valuable, which was checkboxes instead of radio buttons (so you can check more than one) of
Man
Woman
Other
It's Complicated

Allowing me, for example, to hit "Woman" and "It's complicated" and not feel like I got stuffed into too tight a box. I'm always torn when I see Man/Woman/other, because I do primarily identify as a woman. I just want my complications to be recognized at the same time.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, especially on the Internet, I feel like, it's really important to be like "women are here" in areas that are considered more male (or, for that matter, just not overtly female), but at the same time... the whole thing is a big PitA.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Huzzah on Claudette! Will there be homecoming pics? " OopsaCat! "

[rm.livejournal.com]

Maybe not immediately, but yes.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

I'm really concerned about Google Buzz - I too thought I was opting out of it by saying 'no thanks.' Bad enough that Picassa grabs all your pictures off your hard drive (and essentially keeps them forever even if you delete the account), Google is getting way too intrusive. I have a gmail account that I don't use - time to dump that.

I looked at Designing a Better Gender Menu - and if gender being asked for marketing purposes then interests would better serve. Because if you went by my 'female' gender and age, you'd be marketing face lifts to me. Not cameras,or any type of new technology used for hiking/camping.

For discussion purposes, I like the slider bar. Speaking for myself (and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone), where do you 'fit' when none of the categories fit you? It allows for us who fall in-between the gay/bi/straight categories someway to identify. Probably explains why Ianto with his 'its only Jack' perspective resonates so strongly for me.

[jslorentz.livejournal.com]

I've been hearing about a new dating site that has sliders you can change every time you log in re: gay/bi/hetero (among other things). Basically, you can log in and say, "Today, I am feeling bisexual-leaning-gay, mostly adventurous, and available."

It has a monthly fee, but I'm giving serious consideration to a free trial...

Anyway, leave it to sex on the internet to facilitate radical change. :D

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I confess I like "it's complicated" because it is for me.

Someone, it must have been vanity fair or bazaar, ran a long article with photos in the wake of Isabella Blow's death that I wish I still had. The first articles I saw about McQueen didn't say anything about suicide, but they were wire service articles.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Aha! You've gotten to the haunting!

In which I feel awful for Giles, and for Spike, and in which I was totally blindsided by the final possession twist. Consider my expectations subverted. (I was younger and hadn't played around with gender as much at the time that I first watched it, but given the nature of television scripts, I think I'd have been impressed even today.)

The last Don't Walk Away From Me, Bitch almost brought me to tears. It was like a really good fanvid character analysis, except canon.

[rm.livejournal.com]

My heart is breaking for Giles. Just _breaking_. I continue to find this cathartic in a post-CoE world.

[tdanaher.livejournal.com]

The bed in that 178 square foot apartment is AWESOME. I used to live in a place a little bit smaller than that when I first moved to the East Village, and having a bed which lifts up with a hinge at the headboard end to reveal massive storage underneath would have solved many problems.

[abnormal-apathy.livejournal.com]

I had that stupid Gmail Buzz drama within 5 minutes of realizing they'd rolled it out. Stupid exes!

[xtricks.livejournal.com]

The whole gender menu thing is particularly interesting to me due to some workplace issues (I am my office's rep to the diversity committee at my workplace) going on now.

My sorta-partner ran the trans-information center for one of the homless youth social service agencies here and they needed to develop some surveys to try and get some numbers behind who needs what kinds of services. He finds 'other' objectionable, though I see it as sort of a first step.

What they came up with was:

*male
*female
*other (+ comment box)

And a check box for 'trans' because trans status can be in any gender combination. It seemed to be the best combination of quantatatively useful and broad enough to start expanding options for gender variant people.

[rm.livejournal.com]

What you describe makes the most sense to me personally. It's easily understood and I know instantly how to answer each of those questions. Some of the stuff proposed in the piece I linked to, I'd totally have to sit around and think about and play with for a while, which is cool, but I don't always have the time.

[elisi]

Also, wow, I feel way too much compassion for Spike.
And so it begins... (Resistance is futile.) Meant to come back yesterday and add that I'm also v. curious to follow your Buffy-watching, since Buffy is *my* show - the thing that gave me fandom, and fic, and meta, and crazy obsessiveness, and it's always fascinating to see it through the eyes of someone new. (I - quite literally - wouldn't be who I am today without that show.)

Also I hadn't heard about Alexander McQueen - busy day, haven't turned on the news. :(

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

The 178 feet thing made me smile because I live in a whole lot more space these days, but have lived in smaller or single-room flats before. It wasn't all bad.

Re: Google Buzz, I've got a friend really trying her damnedest to get me to set mine up. I'm ambivalent. My inbox is where a lot of different worlds meet -- social networking, pro writing, family, etc. -- and I'm reluctant to facebook my inbox. Facebook is already the unholy and uncomfortable union of things I don't do all at once if I can avoid it. (That is, incidentally, probably why I don't use Facebook much.)

I love that people are talking about gender menus. I wish I could engage the topic at length without having to pull back when I get too frustrated with having to justify the need.

RE: the Google Buzz thing for you

[bloodredroses1.livejournal.com]

RUN AWAY!!! RUN AWAY NOOOOOOW!!!

I think you're right about your in-box being where the many different sides of you meet & if you feel the least bit uncomfortable about having those sides meet then Buzz isn't the way to go.
Admittedly I'm rather paranoid about keeping my family & friends separate (so much so that I use a completely different name) but I think anyone should be cautious about this. Especially as far as the work world is concerned. So much has been turning up in the news lately about someone who had something that their work should never have seen (much less have access to) causing them problems w/ their job. This Google Buzz sounds ripe to add to this problem.

To rm - sorry to butt into your post

Morgan

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

Holy crap! Alexander McQueen. :(((

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

The zombie link is not working for me.

I've been following this, because I'm now stuck with 2000 unfinished words of post-zombie-apocalypse lesbian truckers.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Weird, because it was working ealier. Now sure what's up there. I'm sure Jim will have his site back up soon.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Having read the article, I'm relieved that the $177 (!!!) bagel is theoretical, and not actually listed on a menu somewhere.

I had never heard of Practical Aesthetics, so that's my vocab lesson for the day. :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Acting technique advanced by the folks behind the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School where I used to study. FANTASTIC as a go to technique for when you're in trouble, but I find it produces a very particular type of dynamic that doesn't work for all material and creates a heightened theatricality that rarely works in film. Let's just say I've become disaffected.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

You know, I just knew that that bagel would end up having truffles involved, because I've seen two or three other "most expensive" dishes that partially justified their price by including truffles; it's like catnip for fools with money.

My admiration of the tiny apartment guy is tempered by the fact that he bought boots that he doesn't wear that take up floor space. It really looks like the kind of place that I wouldn't want to visit because I'd need to keep my arms tightly in at all times to keep from knocking over some priceless flea-market find.

[wednesday]

Takarazuka Casablanca!

Probably still doesn't have the crack value of "The Final Countdown", though.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

I kind of think that SMG and DB did a good job with those scenes, but it is very technique-y.

SPIKE! I ♥ him so much.

I will write some fic soon. Really.

[rm.livejournal.com]

The scenes work really well as they are delivered and teh technique-y thing helps to highlight the possession, but man they are WEIRD.

[better-late24.livejournal.com]

eople start realizing who people know

Is that what Google Buzz does? I just saw it was something new and said no thanks. I wasn't a fan of Google Wave.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Kinda, sorta inadvertently, yes.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Also, wow, I feel way too much compassion for Spike.

I'm betting this only gets stronger over the next four seasons.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Ugh I heard about that anthology and despaired - they object to the publisher accepting gay work? Ye gods, like anyone will judge their work on what their publisher produces!

And yes, that is perect - we don't get to stop

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Yay, join me in the Spike love.

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

It's too bad about the zombie anthology, because I would LOVE to read a GLBT-themed zombie anthology. That idea actually seems brilliant to me.

Stupid homophobes taking away my fun.

[crewgrrl.livejournal.com]

I actually used Google Wave to plan a party with my boyfriend, which worked better than Docs because we could put the guest list in one section, the shopping list in another, etc. without having to have many documents created. So mostly I am meh about it, rather than opposed.

This Buzz thing seems like twitter without the character limit and threaded replies.

Also Spike! He winds up with some of the most insightful lines in the whole series.