sundries

[rm]

Yesterday was a long rough day. Today will hopefully be a shorter, albeit likely to require equal amounts of massive focus sort of day. Nearly all desk job stuff. Not exciting. You know, except for the part where it was really stressful. Thank god for Patty being funny and keeping me sane during various parts of it.

Tonight I am going to see The History of War at NYMF. Also, since yesterday sucks my weekend is going to be less constricted than initially thought. So if I feel inspired, tomorrow will be when I peak in to NYCC for a bit during the day. Although, in truth, I may just run away to Soho again instead. Something to inspire me before getting ready for my class reunion.

Sunday -- another rehearsal and shooting footage for the D&J funding video and whatever else we need for the website. When I got home from the office at 2:15am last night, I stopped myself (by muttering "you are not allowed to play auteur at two-fucking-am" over and over again until I put the case down) from looking at the D&J disc that rufus provided me with during a brief meet-up in Tribeca yesterday, but I'll try to glance through that tonight and make some notes.

One of the current tasks isn't to work on all my projects at once (I have some things staggered, that I know are more 2011 or 2012 or later or maybe or not ever or whatever), but to know what all the projects are. Part of that is looking at things and going "what is this story? why does it matter? and what is the vehicle for telling it?" Once I know that, it can go on the list, even if that's on a list that's "Maybe I'll never care enough." Part of this means looking at work that's incomplete, or was created in one context for a small audience, but can perhaps be shifted to a different context for a broader audience. Which means, I'm looking at something old and half-finished and realizing that the answer to it is writing is as a poly-romance (novel/play/musical/film? story, what are you???) that takes place in the film industry of the 1930s. Not saying it's a priority, but that's what it is. Which is buckets of funny. BUCKETS.

I've mentioned, recently, a bit about the summer where I only slept four hours a night, because I believed that was the path to making lots of art and being wildly successful or something (Yeah, laugh at me; it's okay. I know). Now that I find myself somewhat in that position again, but this time because I am making lots of art and success and everything else is super busy besides, I've finally realized why this shit is so hard. Or at least why it has been so for me.

Because when you're sleeping four hours a night, sweet heaven, do you need physical comfort. Which is why this was soul-sucking when I was single in 2003/4 and why it's grueling now with Patty away. This is totally doable with the soothing and confidence-inducing nature of human contact; It's damn fucking tiring without. But, hey, less than a month until I see Patty, and I'm going to sleep in tomorrow; I've earned it.

I've been randomly thinking about films I love that I can watch over and over again vs. those I can't. Now some, that's obvious -- they're just different categories of emotional experience. But let's look at bleak, grueling films -- I can watch The Children of Men over and over again (that sequence in the Tate Modern is the best thing in ever) no problem. But I can't even tolerate the thought of watching 28 Days again (not because it scared the crap out of me, but because of that scene where he finds his parents and that note that reads "we're sleeping now; we hope you're sleeping too.") or V for Vendetta (a film to which I am admittedly over-sensitive, because the night I came back from seeing it, was the night I got sick with celiac, and my getting ill and staying ill is linked in my mind to the medical torture sequences in the Valerie's letter portion of the film). Anyway, I love stuff like this, but it's always weird to me which ones I can and can't do over and over. I also feel like a coward about it.

Okay, the problem in this story isn't that the hotel staff member was cross-dressing, but that the staff-member was inappropriately in the guest's room and using her stuff! So CNN, your headline? Totally sucks.

Twin discrimination? I get her being frustrated by the idea of having to bring a second care-giver with her, that seems like something I could get my head around bending in these circumstances. But it's not some outrage to have to "pay double" if you have two children enrolled in the same class. There are two of them. Am I missing something? I may be missing something.

The man who repairs time.

New York's queer tango festival. I sort of want to say "choreographers take note!" because you can produce such different energies in a piece, if you aren't trying to recreate or play into heteronormativity, no matter the gender of your dancers -- especially, especially, especially with tango. *flaily hands*

Prison guard held in attack on inmate who is a trans woman.

The bullying conversations that have been opened up by "It Gets Better" and the tragedies that launched that project are so valuable. Today I want to ask people to remember that not all the cases of kids who have killed themselves due to anti-gay bullying were, themselves, gay. Sometimes they were just awkward or skinny or whatever else leads to these things. Once again, homophobia hurts everyone, and as long as gay is a dirty word, it will keep hurting everyone. And all of this is about sex-negativity and misogyny too. Notice how the female suicides of this ilk are usually the outgrowth of being called a slut. This is about words for women and the shape of desire.

I also want to say I am starting to see a certain amount of "[Dead kid #56356365] was a bully too." Yeah, probably. You know why? Because it's how you survive. Because if someone is picking on you, you find a target, any target, to ensure you're not at the bottom of the pile and you do the only thing you've been shown how to do by your peers: hurt. Our kids are in pain and they are afraid, and they deserve all the empathy and action we can muster. I don't have a great deal of compassion for people who have hurt me, but this is a failing. They did, after all, hurt me because they were afraid, not just of me, but of themselves. It's a terrible way to live.

Finally, National Coming Out Day is coming up. Being out is a privilege and can have serious consequences, even when you wouldn't think it because of the year or the location or whatever. But, one of the good things about being out is that it makes it harder for other people to make gay a dirty word. Please consider the possibility of being more out this year.

Comments

[yamx]

You know what I can't get myself to rewatch? Children of Earth.

It's a total tragedy, because I LOVED it so much, and I pre-ordered the DVDs so I'd get them the minute they came out, and it's one of the ebst pieces of television (imo) I've ever seen (yes, I know opinion on CoE are divided. I'm in the "that was fucking amazing") camp.

But every time I pull out the DVDs, I think about how I felt (I was so fucked-up I had to write an aftermath fic for catharsis before I was even able to start stopping to think about it all the time), and the riot scene, and Jack's eyes in that scene with Steven, and I decide to watch something else instead.

I want to re-watch it, dammit. It's one of my favorite TV things EVER. Plus, now that I've been to Cardiff, I want to look out for places I recognize (I rewatched the first two season within ten days of coming back.)

But every time try, I fail.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I also loved it, and have only rewatched it in conference settings or bits and pieces for scholarly reasons. Although, I am less afraid of going through the emotional journey I went through last time, than, somehow, because I've done so much scholarly writing about it, _not_ going through that journey with it. And that would be the worst thing.

[yamx]

True, that would be worse. But I don't have to be afraid it might happen to me. It'd hit me just as hard, I just know it.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I assume it would, because I identify with Jack so hard (Day 4 gutted me, Day 5 made me hate myself for about a week). But at the same time... yeah. I'll rip this bandaid off eventually and get it done, but I can't imagine when.

[yamx]

Same here. One both counts.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh, WOW. You know... that's an experience very, very few people have really got. And dear god, did it suck to do that on my own. I mean, my partner is fantastically sweet about it, and everyone I know is used to the way I involve myself in story, but I had a lot of email exchanges involving the use of "!?!?!?!" when I talked about the experience. I'm sorry you went through it too, but I find it a comfort.

[yamx]

I don't have anyone in my "real life" who even watches Torchwood (well, not here; I do where I used to live), so it was a very lonely experience. My online friends were a comfort, but what I really needed was a hug. And since I moved for this job, I don't have any friends I can walk up to and ask for a hug because I was gutted by something on TV. They wouldn't understand.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah. My partner doesn't watch Torchwood, despite, oddly, being in Cardiff this semester (that's so weird), but it was so awful, because I was crying so hard I couldn't breathe and she kept trying to comfort me, but being touched was all dobule-y and weird. I wound up having to go for a very long walk.

And, well, the online community -- that was different sorts of hard.

[yamx]

Reading the "this was really bad, RTD is a hack, he totally ruined Jack's character, I don't want to watch him anymore now" posts filled me with a blind "YOU DON'T GET IT!!!" rage. It was all I could do not to comment. I had to ban myself from reading them and online-hang out with people who liked it.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It was hard. I'm such a loud assholes sometimes. And I wasn't gracious a lot. And it's still hard, because the work I've done that includes the whole thign very prominently is personal to me, and when there's so much people behaving badly (instead of just expressing their pain differently from me or experiencing the show differently from me or having different tastes from me) it's hard to keep track of when it's vehement disagreement and "oh my god, don't be an asshole." I try to stay away from it now too, except when it's my job not to. But yeah... it's been one hell of a thing. Amazing to experience it in the moment (I tend to come to fandoms after all this stuff has happened usually), but not maybe an event I need to have again with some other fandom.

[yamx]

And now some people have already started tearing into season 4, and I just want to say "Please, can we WATCH it before you decide to hate it?" What can you really tell from a cast list and a few newspaper blurbs? Some of it may sound fishy, but in context it might be the greatest thing ever. I mean "angel statue that moves when you're not looking" doesn't say "unspeakably scary" to me, either.

I fully expect to be amazed again. If I'm not, well--I can deal with that *after*.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and if they don't want to watch, that's fine too, and if they want to talk about why, that's also fine, but I think that why is at least a more interesting conversation if it's based on what exists, not hypotheticals. I also have a problem with people calling RTD homophobic. If they want to discuss the possibility he didn't necessarily consider how killing off a queer character would read in teh context of a homophobic culture, that's fine, but he's arguably done more for gay people on television than anyone else out there, and there needs to be a certain acknowledgement of that.

[yamx]

Exactly! Also, I once saw him saying in an interview that not killing off a character if the story demands it because he's queer would actually be worse, because then you're really treating them differently because of their sexuality. And while I understand why Ianto's death can be read problematically given the cultural context, the goal surely should be exactly that--that eventually, everyone will be treated the same entirely independently of their sexuality.

Ianto wasn't killed because he was queer, he was killed because he was the hero's love interest and at this point in the story, the hero was on a downward spiral of loss and the love interest was the next logical step. If Ianto had survived, day 5 would not have worked out the way it did.

I was incredibly sad when it happened--yes, I cried--but from a story pov, I support the decision.

I also hate it when people say it shouldn't have been Jack who killed Stephen, it should have been Johnson--she should have had her soldiers restrain Jack and pressed the button against his will. That would Not Have Worked. It would have completely ruined Jack's journey if in the end, he'd stood be ineffectively as someone else saved the world and killed his grandson. And I don't really see how it would have been less sad, either.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the big tragedy of being Jack in that moment is that he's not the victim.

[yamx]

Yes. And making him the victim would make everything else pointless -- *including* Ianto's death.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

After seeing Day 4, I could not sleep. The dread was a physical thing knotting up my guts. I got through Day 5, but I had to FF all the scenes of crying children getting herded off to the 456, and spent several minutes after the closing credits staring into space. TWood used to be a fun show...

Let's just say that when you find yourself reading "Watchmen" after all that, and feel weirdly comforted, then CoE was a real gutpunch of miniseries. I'll give the 4th season a shot, but if Rhys and Gwen and Rhys' child get killed off, quite frankly, I won't be impressed.

I was really depressed for weeks after CoE, and then mad ans disgusted with myself for a) wanting to cry, and b) wanting to cry over a flipping TV show. I have a whole bunch of shame issues on the subject of tears.

[yamx]

I didn't have trouble sleeping--actually, I felt like staying in bed all day. But I think I must have had bad dreams. I didn't remember them, but I always felt shattered waking up.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who sat in front of the computer for an hour and couldn't stop crying after Day 5 ended and felt completely dazed for a couple of days (which I guess doesn't sound like much in the greater scheme of things, but it's by far the strongest emotional reaction I ever had to any kind of book or tv show), but also thought it was an absolutely brilliant story... It took me three weeks until I could bring myself to rewatch it, and I probably wouldn't have done it if I hadn't started to write meta and needed a better grip on the story, but for me it got easier. Rewatching created a certain amount of distance, and that helped.

At the same time... I've rewatched it two or three times since then, I've written about it, my emotional reaction is nowhere near as strong as it was in the beginning and reading my journal entries from back then is a faintly surreal and slightly embarrassing experience, but there's still that moment of hesitation—do I really want to watch this again?—every single time.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Man, I posted about it right when I finished watching it, like posted through tears. It's not comfortable to have that record there.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

I've actually considered locking some of those entries, but it's all part of the same experience, and part of me feels uncomfortable at the thought of tidying it up and making it presentable, so to speak. At the risk of sounding either completely pathetic or ridiculously self-important, if someone stumbles across my more recent, more analytically detached meta and actually cares enough to click the tag, I kind of want the whole story to be there and visible.

[yamx]

I will rewatch it one of these days. I will. I will.

I think it's amazing that it affected so many people so deeply. And even though I've only watched it once, and that was a while ago, I still remember surprisingly much of it in surprisingly sharp detail.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

I think it's amazing that it affected so many people so deeply.

I've always thought that, almost from the beginning. I know plenty of people were complaining it was just cheap angst and manipulation, but to get this kind of reaction from so many people... IMO that indicates that there is something more complex happening. OTOH it still makes me sad when I think about what it did to the fandom, even in my little corner of it, all the hurt and anger and hatred and broken friendships when you suddenly found yourself on the wrong side of the love/hate divide...

[yamx]

all the hurt and anger and hatred and broken friendships when you suddenly found yourself on the wrong side of the love/hate divide...

Which should never have happened, of course. We should be able to disagree about this ina rational manner. I have no problem with people who simply say "CoE was too angsty for me, I prefer my TV lighter and funner." I disagree, since I think it was perfect just as it was (though see above re: my not rewatching yet), but they are perfectly entitled to their own tastes, obviously.

It's the hating and belittling RTD and saying anyone who liked it must have a sick, sick mind that made me start to avoid certain corners of fandom.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

We should be able to disagree about this in a rational manner.

Perhaps it shouldn't have taken a tv show to do that, but the fallout from CoE made me drastically reconsider my opinions about rational vs. emotional and which part of the brain really drives us.

I don't have a problem with anyone not liking CoE, but as you said, I couldn't stand the sheer hatred, and it hurt being effectively called stupid and lacking in taste just for thinking it was good tv.