sundries, mostly personal

[rm]

Patty leaves for Cardiff in 8 days. Between now and then her parents are visiting, we need to try to see my parents, she has a friend we're supposed to do dinner with, and we want to go to a fancy dinner before she goes. It is a very busy time. Also, Patty just sent me email about cheese inspired by ziggurats.

In my exuberance about other issues, I have neglected to ask if any of you have any intel about the New York Musical Theater Festival. Which is to say, I can choose tickets to four shows, but don't know what to choose. Got anything?

Speaking of exuberance, man, New York is some serious gorgeous today.

I got my retconbook rewrite story, which I didn't read last night because I wasn't supposed to get it until today. So reading and excitement there. I need to finish mine for my recipient as well.

On the professional front, oh hey, I have a story due at the end of the month. I should get on that.

Also, I got notification today that I didn't get a grant I applied for to defray some of the costs of Bristol; oddly, I don't feel shattered (as I tend to do). It's a thing that has to do with any number of issues long before me and my scholarship. May every day be so mentally healthy.

Speaking of Bristol, I have not mentioned The Society of Friends of the Text in some time. But, we're trying to put new things in motion and there's some great new content on the site, so you might want to check that out.

Ever so tangentally related, death, death and more death will be back at Gally in 2011. Yay. Seriously, check out that AWESOME panel schedule. And it doesn't even include many truly awesome things that are to come.

Patty just forwarded me the greatest potential outlet for some personal essay about some of the work I've been doing EVER. I am writing a pitch TONIGHT. Wow.

Unsurprisingly, France has passed a law banning burquas and niqabs. Not cool, France.

The San Gennaro festival was a love of my childhood. It wasn't any less corrupt or crowded then, but it was less homogeneous and more authentically about being Italian-American in a way that remembered Italy and remembered when we weren't wanted here. It felt like, at seven, my culture. Anyway, I haven't gone for years, because I don't need the crowds or the booze or the crappy street food. But I may go to check out Torrisi Italian Specialties booth which plans to integrate Italian and Chinese specialties and techniques in a nod to the way Chinatown has merged into what was once Little Italy. I'm curious, although I doubt I'd be able to eat much, or even any, of it.

I really loved Little Italy when I was a child. It was somewhere we went at night, as a treat, or after being fashionable and edgy in Soho. I stood on the rungs of a bar stool to play pinball and we went to Ferrara's before it was rennovated and before it was a chain. One night, at another cafe with better cookies, Robert Redford hit on my mother while my father bought anisette toast and cat's tongues. Any my mother said to me, it is very important that I am flattered and my father said it is very important that I am angry and then I knew lots of things were complicated and games, even if my mother was very flattered and my father was also definitely angry.

I cannot believe sometimes how far away 1978 or 1982 feels sometimes. Not, in number of years, but in the nature of what this city was; darker and dirtier and unrefined. New York was abrasive and marketing was so much more naive; and we used to eat platters of fried zucchini sitting in Puglia's while the fat sang (really, my father would say "Do you want to go to Puglia's and here the fat lady?") "You are My Sunshine" up into a mic in the front.

It's all still there. Here. But it's all different now. And not just because I am older.

Someone needs to make a Torchwood vid to Come Sweet Death (ignore the random Dead Like Me vid, it was the only way to make you able to hear this song easily) that makes me laugh until I cry. The song popped up on my Last.fm in the week before CoE, and now is firmly embedded in my mind with everything that happened in the narrative and in the fandom in that chunk of time. When people talk about "I had to go to the bathroom at work to cry" -- hell, when I talk about it -- this is the song that's playing in my head.

Last night on Covert Affairs:

1. Is Ben dead? Can Ben be dead? I don't care about Ben.
2. Although Jai's pain and inner-conflict about Ben and Annie is AWESOME.
3. I dislike when Auggie is used for comic relief, however, that thing with the kids was AWESOME.
4. Meanwhile, I love this Arthur-Auggie vs. Wilcox Sr.-Liza thing. All the conflicts that come up in these alignments are wonderful, and imply that this show could be a seriously great thing. Lying liars who lie!
5. Also, seriously, how much do you want fic where Joan and Auggie are having an affair now, because wow that would complicate the already fucked up situation in #4.
6. I love Joan. Joan is awesome. Joan is the leader Jack Harkness wishes he were.
7. Now that season 1 is over, is it fic time nao? Joan/Annie, Annie/Jai/Auggie, Auggie/Joan -- WHERE IS IT, PEOPLE?
8. Chris Gorham is a boon to fic writers everywhere, as he's been posting twit pics of details from the set for Auggie's apartment all week. If you're one of those people who needs to know those things, and you're planning to write in this fandom, you should check this shit out.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Arthur/Joan finally got interesting, as opposed to comic relief that never quite made sense. And I really liked the England episode too. I thought it did a good job about Americans being dumbasses about the UK too. I was really amused.