sundries

[rm]

Tonight Patty and I are dining with friends of hers, then tomorrow it's my parents, and then Wednesday it's just us and Thursday night she gets on a plane. Deep breaths. What's great about Cardiff is this time I won't have to go those two - three weeks where it's impossible to hear from her. Those are always the worst.

Right now I have two pitches out that I'm waiting to hear on. My goal for the fall, if I can manage it, is to always have three things out awaiting answer. That way, nothing looms too large and neurotically in my head, and I produce more and get stuff done. Also, if someone says no, most of these things can be retooled for other potential markets/outlets/mediums/whatevers.

Meanwhile, 'tis the season in New York. We're just off Fashion Week, now moving into the New York Film Festival and shortly into the New York Musical Theater Festival. It's the most wonderful time of the year -- that is, if you care and have the time and the cash and the clout. Me? Any year I can't get into the opening night of the NYFF always feels slightly tragic to me. I saw Akira Kurasowa's Ran with my parents the year it opened the festival, sitting up in the balcony in a hand-painted sweatshirt dress and a big clunky antique anklet on that had been my grandmother's in the old country. Kurasowa spoke and everyone below us was in black tie, and you could feel in the air that it mattered. It's one of the only times I can think of where I wasn't where I wanted to be, but it was happily close enough.

Speaking of that time of year -- it's time for the Regency Assembly in New Haven CT -- October 16 & 17th. (yes, Dragon*Con Recency people, I still owe you a post, but you should come to this!). Baring extreme social excitement, this will probably be my last public outing before I leave for my 5 weeks in Europe at the end of that month, so if you want to say hi, come to Connecticut.

Girl on a Whaleship! In 1868 a six-year-old girl went with her family on a 3-year whaling voyage and kept a journal, now scanned in and available online.

The Deseret News has been sympathizing with illegal immigrants, angering much of its conservative and devout Mormon readership.

At the polls, it's anger vs. despair and that breaks down along gender lines: men are angry, women are despairing and may stay home from voting. I could make comments. I could make a lot of comments, but they'd reinforce a lot of gender dichotomous stuff I work hard not to believe in or pay attention to when it comes to my opinion other people, so I'm just going to let it sit there, because you're all smart enough to draw your own conclusions.

Paul Krugman, meanwhile, on the rage of the rich. Btw, it's worth noting that study after study show that something like 98% of Americans, when polled, define themselves as a higher economic class than they actually are. There's some interesting lines to be drawn through my first voter rage link to this one, in light of that.

Keeping kids safe from the wrong dangers: statistically, it's irresponsible to put your kid in your car and drive them to the orthodontist; they're a lot safer if they walk there. Alone.

The German foreign minister has entered into a civil partnership. Good on him. Article linked because it notes how civil partnership in Germany conveys most of the same rights as marraige, oh, except tax benefits and the right to jointly adopt children. I'm so sick of all these "I suppose that will do" footnotes. Also can you imagine having such a high-ranking openly gay official in the US? Yeah, thought not.

So, Boardwalk Empire: Scorsese is at his best when he's working with music, and the same is true for this show so far. Much of the rest of it feels flat, and it's perhaps my own biases (and the heavily rhythmic trailers) that left me feeling this was something of a disappointment. On the other hand, Scorsese is also often at his best when working with small New York stories, so there may be hope for this, even as Atlantic City is on the fringe of New York. Certainly, it's no surprise to me that what shines the most in this show so far is the surprisingly sweet and wry face of the young Al Capone, a figure who is so far, merely a winking footnote to the audience. "Think about what this man will become!" the show cries. But I want the show to tell me a damn story. I'll be fannish if I'm fannish, and I'm happy to do the intellectual work, but the show should do its own hopefully compelling narrative work.

I've also seen a bit of discussion about the presentation of race in the series (notably, an early sequence showing a white band in black-face). Yes, it's historically accurate. But, that doesn't make it unreasonable for people to talk about how it makes them uncomfortable or whether or not showing this moment is necessary to the construction of the show. It's not appropriate to dismiss that conversation, even if you ultimately disagree with the conclusions any particular person involved in it reaches.

Last night on Angel: We watched "Number 5" and the one about Wesley's robot dad. Both episodes are problematic, and both episodes are saved by their heart and their performances.

I really, really did not know what to do with "Number 5". Is this Angel does Tarrantino? How much of this is as things happen in a supernatural reality and how much of this is as heightened (un)reality narrative bias? Is this racist? Should Whedon ever be allowed near anything that pretends to be about South American or Latin American or Hispanic cultures? Ever? Because I remember "Inca Mummy Girl" and so do you. On the other hand, it had such a small, gentle, touching ending, and I do like the idea that everyone, even the dude you think it just a punchline has an important, meaningful story and deserves your respect.

The Wesley's robot dad episode has its own set of problems. Namely, robot ninjas raining from the sky. Ninjas are a crappy shortcut in terms of narrative and racial presentation (faceless Asian horde, seriously?). On the other hand, the performances knock this out of the park -- we see the awkward Wesley we remember from Buffy, we see a man who is both too ruthless (Wes, just because you have nothing left to live for and would happily give up your life for the greater good, doesn't mean everyone else is on that page) and too generous (for fuck's sake, TELL FRED) to be happy, and, ultimately, we see a man who doesn't know quite what to think about his own childhood. Was his father merely cruel (not that words don't do a lot of damage) or as was referenced in an episode way back (Patty had to remind me) actually physically abusive? What makes Wesley the worse man? the desire to connect with his father or the desire to kill him? None of this works without Alexis Denisof being able to run rings around a simple script (again, ninjas? must we?).

This is also an episode that speaks, again, to so much of early Torchwood -- Wesley and Angel touching base after a night of professional disasters. Wesley, worrying about how their fearless, remote, miserable leader is doing, more than being worried about his own pain related to robot girlfrienddad. I can see watching this and shouting at the TV "what is this? Why is it here? What is the deal with these two? It makes no sense!" and I see how you get from here to Jack/Ianto "Cyberwoman" - "They Keep Killing Suzie" -- because none of that makes any sense either, it just seems to thanks to sex.

It's worth noting that if I write about pop-culture and race on here, I invariably get a lot of Hetalia ads.

Comments

[yamx]

Westerwelle isn't just foreign minister, he's also vice chancellor. (Chancellor is the most powerful post in German government.) And the head of the junior partner in the current government coalition.

Let's just say there's been more than one occasion where he could have done a lot more to make real equality happen. But he seems more concerned about pushing his party's political goal in the area of economics, and about not pissing off the bigger partner in the coalition.

Still, I'm happy for him and his partner. They've been together for years now, so I'm sure they're overjoyed to take this step. :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

I also have to imagine the visibility (although clearly, this isn't news to anyone there) has to help on some level. My knowledge of German politics is much more detailed than many Americans but deeply spotty, as I only know stuff relevant to some of my clients, and this isn't that.

[yamx]

The first high-level German politician to come out was Klaus Wowereit. He came out very shortly before he was elected mayor of Berlin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wowereit

It caused a lot of press interest, because he was the first, but it, and the public reaction, were overwhelmingly supportive. It was probably at least in part what gave Westerwelle the courage to officially come out after his homosexuality had been sort of an open secret for years.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Ah, I knew about Wowereit (as you say, it got a lot of press, including here), but sort of missed everything after.

I am completely, btw, fascinated that gay pride there is called the Christopher Street Day apparently (or this may be an odd translation I'm getting from my German-speaking colleagues, I'm not sure). This New Yorker (where Christopher Street is) is tickled by that.

[yamx]

Yeah, it's called that. Has been for... forever. *g* Though mostly just CSD for short. :)

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

I also have to imagine the visibility (although clearly, this isn't news to anyone there) has to help on some level.

I keep abreast of the German news partly to maintain language skills and partly because I spent a lot of time procrastinating on the internet (to make it clear that I'm not speaking as someone in Germany, or ever Europe), and it took ages before I found out Westerwelle's gay. There was a small row a while back about whether his partner should go on state visits to countries hostile to gay people and whether by not taking him, Westerwelle was tacitly accepting their policies, which then turned into a debate on whether a straight politician would be subject to such scrutiny of his personal life. On the other hand, I'm not sure it comes up that often that Volker Beck's gay and he'd be my answer if you asked me to name a visible gay German politician.

[rm.livejournal.com]

There was a small row a while back about whether his partner should go on state visits to countries hostile to gay people and whether by not taking him, Westerwelle was tacitly accepting their policies, which then turned into a debate on whether a straight politician would be subject to such scrutiny of his personal life.

This is a totally, totally worthy discussion. What was the ultimate concensus?

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

I don't remember how the issue came up (maybe Westerwelle went to Saudi Arabia), but the status quo was maintained: Westerwelle's partner doesn't travel to countries where it would be obviously problematic; Westerwelle says that by being an openly gay foreign minister, he's accomplishing something, regardless of where his partner is. (Never mind that his partner and everyone else's presumably have lives and things to do.) I don't think the question of unfair scrutiny ever got resolved, as these things never do.

There was a business component to this as well (well, I think there were two travel to-dos--I think I got them a bit confused and the scrutiny question was the business travel row): http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,684722,00.html As ever, it's only possible to find things on the Spiegel website in the language you're not looking for--hopefully Google Translate won't make a hash of that.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I mean, on a certain level I agree with the guy's partner not traveling to countries that have significant anti-gay laws, because it sucks if it's okay for the political guy with diplomatic immunity to have his partner there in a country where citizens can be imprisoned or worse for being gay.

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's a delicate balance no matter what. I suppose "Would you go there without diplomatic immunity?" is not a terrible test to employ. On the other hand, there are surely places where you'd be okay as a foreigner or a tourist, but where the situation is not good for locals.

[rm.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, there are surely places where you'd be okay as a foreigner or a tourist, but where the situation is not good for locals.

Which is also sketchy. Also situations where gay men are persecuted and gay women aren't because of cultural definitions of sex.

Considering all the places Patty and I go both for work and fun, this is stuff we have to think about sometimes.