sundries

[rm]

Last night I got a package from Patty! So I had gluten-free welsh cakes for breakfast. I also got to talk to her on video a little bit, and it was awesome.

Patty, by the way, loves scary stories and needs them now more than ever since she's in a place that doesn't do Halloween like we do in the US. Do you have any recommendations for her?

Had dinner with Marci who also made me gluten-free hazelnut brownies that were so rich I felt like I was high. We rambled about a lot of stuff, and she had to hear my not yet cogent "short film that I shouldn't set in Sydney, because that adds an appalling layer of logistical complexity, but see, it has to be set there." But it felt good to speak it aloud. I feel very excited about that project too, but am also content to let it be back-burner because there are factors that don't let it be Now Now Now but do allow me to be doing the research and foundations and scripting (and a seminar here or there to teach me the things I need to know to get the right people on board) of it with an eye to finally really doing it. So hey.

Meanwhile, yesterday mithrigil and I got word that D&J has been accepted for Kickstarter funding; that was a big hurdle and an important one. The fund-raising project isn't live yet (among other things, we need to make a video in support of it, which I'm planning to storyboard out today), but will be soon. This is pretty much a critical step to making things happen, and you're on notice. I'm also going to go talk to my bank today and think about whether incorporation is better now or later. We've also seen some logos for stuff, and the web stuff is moving along. I, meanwhile, want to finish mapping out the bigger show structure by the end of the week.

*BREATHE*

And I'm back into the Pam Cook book. You know, I thought I'd heard most of the terrible stories from the Romeo + Juliet shoot; how'd I miss the one about the killer bees? Seriously though, right now what I'm enjoying most about the book is the look it's taking at the anxieties in academia about what is worthy of notice and serious examination and how that's impacted scholarship about Shakespeare (scholarship about everything, I say). So yay. Also, let's of relevances to Friends of the Text issues.

Still obsessing over an old character of mine who really needs a story of his very own. Not critical, but I'm waiting for my mind to put it together.

I think there will be more focus on ConSweet when I'm in CH. It's a good solitary endeavor.

Food issues for CH have been dealt with, and I have the address of the flat I think they're putting me in so I can register with the consular; unfortunately, the way their form works I'm "single, never married" which is NOT REAL HELPFUL if, god forbid, they never need to be useful to me and mine. I'll do that, and also do my passport numbers bit with BA today.

Among other things, I consider myself a student of marketing. So if the "I am not a witch" campaign works, I'm going to feel like I've been failing for years.

Jim DeMint says there should be know gays or unwed moms in the classroom. I find these things hurtful. For a long time I wanted to teach. I think, some of how I do the stuff I do instead, comes out of that lingering desire. The idea that I an unfit to help young people be who've they're gonna be bugs me. A lot.

Manhattan Free School. Completely not right for every kid; totally right for some kids. The money quote? "'I want to do something with my life between starting a family and dying.'"

Anti-gay attacks have been reported in NYC both at Stonewall and in Chelsea.

Comments

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

DeMint--not just unwed moms. Unwed women in sexually active relationships. Presumably though, straight male unwed teachers can fuck like weasels?

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Which Pam Cook book? I must have missed it when you first mentioned it, and it sounds like an interesting read. I'm on a non-fiction bend again...

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's an academic text on Baz Luhrmann's work, but has a lot of really good, really relevant to the Stuff People on the Internet I Know Like to Talk About material in it about appropriation, cosmopolitanism and transnationalism in film.

[sqwook.livejournal.com]

Yes, the "I am not a witch" portion is very "Don't think of an elephant."
The rest of the ad, though, I think is actually good -- and therefore annoying as fuck to me. Her reassurance that "I will do what _you_ would do. I am you." lets listeners project onto her words their own views, without providing any refutable position at all.

[spreadsothin.livejournal.com]

It is, but is also keeps saying that witches are bad people to be, which is not true and not helpful.

[sqwook.livejournal.com]

Right. For me, that goes without saying, which is why I didn't mention it, but of course there's very little that can actually go without saying.

[spreadsothin.livejournal.com]

=D

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

But on the other hand, between this, Bobby Jindal's claims of performing exorcisms that can cure cancer, the footage of Sarah Palin being protected vs. witchcraft in her gubernatorial run, I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask why the GOP is vetting candidates who may seek to use the authority of their office to enforce religious views to the right of Torquemada. Do we really need a re-run of 1980s "Satanic Panic"?

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

...said the poster with an avatar wearing little devil horns....

[freyas-fire.livejournal.com]

If Patty is here on LJ, she could try the ontdcreepy community.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

"Jim DeMint says, 'Virgin Mary unfit for schools. News at 11...'"

I've wanted to teach for a long time, too, but I'm pretty sure that in the current social climate, that's impossible now.

Also allow me some sly amusement that I am not an unwed mother. Technically.

[tod-hollykim.livejournal.com]

Well, I can suggest the Halloween community here in Live Jounral called Spook Me!

It pops up every Halloween and is mostly for fan fic of all kinds that are meant to be scary. Or at least Halloween themed. They do set up themes for the people to write and they get prompts.

I'm trying for a Metalocalypse one again. But there is ton of fandoms represented.

[tree00faery.livejournal.com]

Every time you write "the Pam Cook book" my brain reads it as "the Pam cookbook" and I am momentarily confused. Seriously, every time. *pats my brain gently*

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Yes! Me, too!

I keep wondering if it's a cookbook for Pam, the cooking spray, for people named Pam, on how to cook people named Pam, written by the vampire Pam (from the Sookie Stackhouse books), or any of the things the initials PAM could stand for (previously acquired meat, peanuts and mushrooms, provolone and macaroni...)

[tree00faery.livejournal.com]

Yup. I mean, on one level I know what she's talking about. And on another, my brain sees "cook" and "book" next to each other, and any other meaning is gone. :P

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if Patty's looking for print media or something more interactive, but I do have a recommendation for her, if she has a free evening and can get to London (I don't know that much about her sitch or ease of travel, so.)

http://www.thewomaninblack.com/

This show's been running for AGES in the West End - I saw it when I was in London in 1992, and can absolutely vouch that it is one of the fucking scariest things I've ever watched. I adore a good ghost story, and this one has stuck with me for EIGHTEEN years.

[austengirl.livejournal.com]

The Jim DeMint comments? One of many reasons I am extremely glad a good friend lives here and not in the US. She's a girl scout troop leader, has been a literacy teacher, and currently tutors high school students. She's also a great mother to her two kids. And is now in a relationship with a woman after divorcing her husband last year. I feel like in a lot of school districts she'd come in for some difficult treatment from the administration and possibly the PTA.

Re: consular registration, are you able to list Patty as an emergency contact, or does it have to be a (biological) family member?

[rm.livejournal.com]

They let you list whoever you want, so that part is okay, but then it gets confusing when you have to click on who you'll allow them to give info to, because it's like WHAT CATEGORY IS SHE. So if I'm caught in a terrorist atack, teh State Department is now allowed to tell Everyone On the Planet, so I can be sure she'd find out.

[merrycaepa (from livejournal.com)]

My best friend is gay and is studying education. He's been trying to decide if he wants to focus on elementary or secondary, and it's because of people like DeMint that he's having to weigh them on more than what he likes and what he wants to do.

(delurking, btw. Hi!)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hi! I feel really bad for any man, especially a queer man, who wants to go into elementary education. There's so much bias there. Good luck to him. I hope he gets to do the work he wants to do.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Killer bees?!

And I really loved The Wild Hunt's take on Christine O'Donnel. "I'm not a witch. I'm you. Unless you're a witch..."

I saw the thing about Stonewall and Chelsea. WTF?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Killer bees. That they were conveniently blown away when an entire set got destroyed by a tropical storm. And you know about the kidnappings, right?

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Kidnappings?!

*boggle*

(That's a "no," by the way.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, part of the hair/makeup team got kidnapped and held for ransom for a stupidly small amount of money and then when the auditor from Fox cam down to check the books he got robbed at gunpoint. It was like constant WTF, apparently.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

We have enough trouble finding people willing to teach in the bad schools already and he wants to limit it to socially acceptable people? Thanks, dick.

Or maybe it's okay if the undesirables teach in low-income inner-city schools. We just don't want them in Our Yard.