sundries

[rm]

It's best to just say I'm a little crazed today and leave it at that. Lots to do in lots of different arenas and I'm trying to not flip out about any of it.

Last night, at the seder, not only did my mom give Patty and I both 5 pound notes for finding the matzoh that she decided we shouldn't actually bother to search for, she forgot to put out the glass for Elijah. So when she was cutting the sponge cake and the platter part of the crystal cake stand just snapped right off, she blamed him and then hurriedly got on that. Yeah, go my family!

bodlon, for whom I have any number of peculiar descriptors because he is awesome, is rapelling down the side of a historic building to benefit the Special Olympics. He needs to raise 1K to do it. Go team Internet.

Meanwhile, my former roommate is jumping out of a perfectly good airplane to raise money for SOAR, Speaking Out Against Rape. Aside from the "hey, this is a good cause" factor, megan is a good cause. She's done some awesome stuff this year, and if you can contribute to this project, it would be a nice recognition of that. Go team Internet some more.

More students have been expelled from school in the wake of the case in which a bullying campaign led to a girl's suicide. Additionally, a tenth person may be charged in the case (currently nine are charged).

This is for Patty: Tomatoes!

A remarkable opinion piece from Sinead O'Connor on the ongoing Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals. It is remarkable not just for it' content, or, to some eyes, its author, but because its structure and cadence is quite elegant.

I was eighteen or nineteen years old when she ripped up the photo of the pope on TV. I remember watching it at home with my parents. Maybe I was just finishing high school or it was the last time I came home during break in college; I'm not sure. What I remember was a sense of dismay as it happened, because even though I didn't really get it, I knew there was something there to get, and most people wouldn't and wouldn't try, they'd just be angry.

Sinead O'Connor's first album, which was a sort of ubiquitous thing in queer and lesbian and feminist circles if you were eighteen or nineteen at the time, sounded like nothing else anyone had ever heard before. I remember having it waaaaaaaaay before anyone else I knew, because I'd read about it in British music magazines I had to hide from my parents. It was so angry and primal and I spent an endless amount of time listening on repeat to "Just Like U Said it Would B" and thinking I knew things, even though I was a virgin.

Sinead O'Connor taught me women are wrath with the unprettiness of much of her voice, and it's slightly peculiar now to be regarding her commentary on the Church with admiration for her skills as a memoirist.

Finally, Matt Smith has the experience every Whoniverse fan worries about, at least on their way to cons. He got stopped by airport security for carrying a sonic screwdriver.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Man I remember the first time I heard Sinéad O'Connor. Absolutely fell in love with her voice and performance (and seeing her on tour remains one of the most crowded concerts I'd been in; I'm SURE we were violating the fire code, given every seat was filled and there were people sitting on the steps in the aisles).

The Lion and the Cobra is an album I still listen to.

[abnormal-apathy.livejournal.com]

O'Connor's article is amazing. Thank you for sharing.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing "Troy" for the first time when I was about 13 and it was like a homecoming in many ways. I also couldn't believe it was the same person singing "Nothing Compares 2 U", which I find kind of OOC for her in many ways.

When I was 20 and I discharged from the IDF I was filled with a fire inside me (of rage, of sadness, of I don't even know what) and I was in the States, taking care of my sister's baby and I hated everything.

I downloaded her discography (I left my music at home) and when I listened to The Lion and the Cobra I knew I had to change, she inspired me to shave my head and listening to her after I came back from the States and was immediately called for war, absolutely saved my sanity. I can honestly say she's saved my life, her new albums show a peace she was yearning for, but she's still, as you say, wrath and Vox.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Thank your for the signal boost! I'll be sure to keep the world posted with how things are going.

(Argh. That was meant to be two carriage returns, not a tab and a carriage return. *shakes fist at cognitive map*)

I've been spending a lot of time reflecting on the bullying case. A lot of it is...well, a lot of it is rage. And I should probably take the time to write about it, but the overall point I keep coming back to is that somebody shouldn't have to die before a student's genuine distress is acted upon.

Seriously. Rage.

O'Connor's thing is beautiful, and I am glad to read it, and will more than likely link it around. It's funny, because I'm seeing it in the same week I've been having these very intense and deep conversations about pagan theologies, and how one relates to deity, and consent, and so on. One of the things that's come up in it is Ireland's Brehon laws -- the legal system from the Gaelic period -- and the ways in which one is compensated when wronged by a higher authority, and how one can negotiate with someone far more powerful in the appropriate way. O'Connor's piece is very much in that vein, and I think that makes her triply correct: she's right to fight, she's right in her reasons, and she's got that right by the laws Patrick used to get God to let him judge the Irish. Not a Catholic, but I stand by her.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Relevant to nothing, check out the link I just added.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Dear Airport Security,

Listen closely, because I shall say this only once:

Don't fuck with Elevenses.

Best,
Me.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

''I've broken four of them ... I like to have it about my person at all times, just twirling it around and flicking it. It's all part of the magic, isn't it?''

See, it's this and the writing fanfic and various hilariousness that makes me love him already. Okay, I know I'm easy here, but the man isn't exactly making this a hard sell for me.

[rm.livejournal.com]

HE WRITES FANFIC?

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Yup! And him not even much of a fan before he got the part.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

YOU DIDN'T KNOW?!

In the article about S5 costuming that's going around:

“I think [the costume] has to be an extension of me. We had three huge fittings that went on for hours. I was originally going to have either a black leather coat or a blue swashbuckly one. I was always very keen that the element of the professor would come out. I was reading loads about Einstein at the time. I wrote loads of stories, actually, about the Doctor and Einstein, in Egypt. And that’s how the pyramids were made, because the Doctor rocked up. Because I had six months to prepare it was the only way I could get in contact with the Doctor.”

[melebeth]

Gosh. I kind of love him now, on principle, and I really didn't think I would.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Hee, icon-cousins. And rock on Matt Smith for putting his own stamp on things.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I confess, I saw yours and got excited since I hadn't seen anything since The Oncoming Streak/Time Pants/Temporary Naked Eleven ones.

It's all about preparedness for the weekend.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

Re: the Massachusetts bullying case.

So, let me see if I understand this correctly... A kid can be seen by a teacher popping an aspirin, and get strip-searched, but they are free to stalk, assault and threaten to their heart's content?

The amount of bullshit and gaslighting that we demand that minors put up with is staggering.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Nom, tomatoes.

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for the signal boost!!!

I should mention that today is the very last day of fundraising!! I'm at my goal already, but of course want to raise as much as possible cause it's a great cause. But many thanks for putting it out there and the nice things you said. :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

AAAAAAAAAARGH, that it's the last day. I mean, I'm glad I finally got it together, but I'm so sorry it wasn't up sooner.

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

Oh, no problem at all!! The thought is great, and any donations that come in after today will still go to SOAR, they just won't be directed to the local organization we've dedicated part of our fundraising efforts to (I think we're giving to the Columbia University Crisis center).

[delchi.livejournal.com]

In retrospect, I guess then it's a good thing you didn't get that package from me.

That's exactly what was in it - a sonic screwdriver , as a good luck thingey for your trip/talk.


( edit : That and for your role as the next Doctor )

[weirdquark]

You know, my first thought when reading the airport security story was "boy, I sure am glad I put the Daleks in my checked luggage that one time" but upon further reflection, what baffles me about the story is that this happened in London. How can a British person not know what a sonic screwdriver is?

[electricalgwen.livejournal.com]

Heeee, thanks for pointing out the sonic screwdriver article, that made me and others around here quite delighted.

Thanks more, however, for the link to Sinead O'Connor's piece. She was a massive chunk of my musical world around that age too.