sundries

[rm]

When I was a pre-teen, the Atlanta Child Murders were happening, and when I found a green ribbon, as people wore then to say this must be stopped and this must be solved, I pinned it to my uniform at school. I then forgot to take it off before I got home, and was severely chastised by my parents. It won't make a difference, they said. And, You are a child, and with ribbons you never know what you're supporting. It's a memory from over 25 years ago, but one that remains vivid for me, and is still a source of confusion. I don't know what I did wrong.

Not long after, of course, AIDS entered the general public's consciousness. All us twelve-year-old girls talked about how we should all find virgin boys to fuck while something in the world was still safe, and one of the wealthy parents hired the preeminent AIDS researcher at the time to give a lecture for the frightened parents (and here we were, twelve and at a single-sex school) at their townhouse.

And there were, in addition to lessons on how to put a condom on a cucumber, ribbons I did not wear, lest my parents tell me again I was a child, both bad and ineffectual. I remember watching the Oscars and looking at those lapels with such suspicion. All those famous actors, they were bad children too.

I am wearing purple today. It is better to, than not. But no one else seems to be in my moving about the city so far today. I imagine they didn't hear about it. I imagine they don't care about it. I imagine they are like me and not, but certainly, better at defending themselves from shame.

Treble Entendre now has its own fan page on Facebook. So enter that in the search box; find us; join us, if you are so inclined.

In setting that up, I got into a conversation with someone who has an off-off Broadway theater space available in NYC for Halloween weekend. They've cast nine actors so far for a play festival of 60 - 120 second Halloween-themed plays. However, they need more material and are looking to partner with an existing company with actors and writers; they are also happy to receive plays directly from writers working independently. The theater seats 50 - 60 people, and the actors are committed to a 2PM performance on Oct. 30 and a 6:30PM performance on Oct. 31. If you are a writer ANYWHERE and have material for them, or, if you have a team of NYC-local actors and writers, you can contact glorzilla [AT] gmail [DOT] com. Make stuff happen!

Dogboy & Justine started to experience the infamous Kickstarter U -- that is, when you get a lot of donations at the beginning, and presumably the end, but things are slow and nervewracking in the middle. That said, we continue to be on target and moving along. As of this writing, we're up to $1,320 and need to raise at least $55 more today to stay on the current trajectory of slow and steady wins the race.

Thank you all SO MUCH. We don't get contact info to send personal thanks until after pledging closes and the project is successful. While we recognize some names as pledges come in, we actually don't always know who people are, so the big personal thank yous will largely be happening elsewhere down the line.

Check out this cool house in Cambodia.

Sea glass collecting: I love the story about the cache of tiny doll parts. Someone should do something with that in a fiction sense.

None of the 25 most dangerous neighborhoods in the US are in New York. This sure isn't news to me, but I am damn sick of it being news to everyone else.

In the news, the judge in the DADT case has refused to issue a stay on her ruling. Military recruiters have been informed they can accept openly gay applicants, but must warn them that the ruling could be reversed at any time. Several visible public figures in the DADT fight have sought to re-enlist in the military, including Lt. Dan Choi and at least one participant in the case brought by the Log Cabin Republicans. Additionally, the Prop 8 fight continues.

Hopefully, you already caught all that DADT news on your own. Because despite having a degree in journalism and having a long track record doing work both in and about the news media: I am not comfortable being your primary source of news. I aggregate links based on what I find interesting, outrageous, clever, or fascinating. I put them together quickly, while multitasking, and often not having had time to read full articles before I post them. This would be bad journalistic practice, if this link-blogging were an act of journalism. But it's not. However, it's increasingly being perceived as such, which is bad for me and bad for you.

Does that mean no more news links? I doubt it. I'm not that self-disciplined, and I'm grateful that if people aren't seeking out news in other ways, at least they're getting something about how some of the world works here. But, it's not a responsibility I want, nor, increasingly, an obligation I enjoy.

So can we make a deal? I'll spend 5 minutes more a day trying to bring more precision to my links, if you spend 5 minutes more a day exposing yourself to more news that you're not getting from here. Cool?

Good. So now that we've got that resolved, Patty has some pictures of Cardiff to show you. And none of them have anything to do with Doctor Who, Torchwood or Ianto Jones.

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Purple ribbon is also pancreatic cancer, in case anyone asks.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think the fact that I'd never heard that is an indication that there are too many damn ribbons.

[eandh99.livejournal.com]

This is all over my teenage daughter's highschool, so yay. Not well publicized - ie, not at all - at the university where I work, which even has a Diversity office for things like LGBT issues, or at my younger daughter's elementary school. And I'm in Canada, which may make some difference.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Do you think that was ignorance or fear of safety if they revealed that they were supporting LGBT people?

[gina-r-snape.livejournal.com]

No worries, the Daily Show is my primary source for news.

JUST KIDDING.

btw, do you get NY1? They had video of Lt. Choi on this morning, talking about how he has faith in "at least one branch of government." I thought that qualification was genius.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty unusual cancer - it's just that it's also super devastating and terrible and it's possible that someone seeing you with it would have lost someone to it and would assume you had too. So, fair warning.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Purple is apparently also for lupus. (If this site is to be believed.) I think it's a sensible warning, I'd just wonder how likely the confusion is--I lost a cousin to leukemia, and I didn't even know leukemia had a ribbon color.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I only recently found out that celiac disease has a green and silver ribbon. Yes, my disease as Slytherin colors!

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I love that testicular cancer is orchid :)

[mercurybard.livejournal.com]

You and me both...though I didn't think I actually had an article of purple clothing with me (I've been living out of 1 suitcase for 3 months) until I found a shirt while doing laundry tonight (that may be why the towels are all weird-colored now...)

[notlefthanded.livejournal.com]

You didn't do anything wrong. I wonder what your parents were so afraid of?

I notice none of those "most dangerous" neighborhoods are anywhere near Los Angeles, either. Guess we'd better step up the efforts lest our families decide it's safe to move closer.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to visualize my closet to see if I have any purple. I think I may have a scarf that comes close.

But I really am having trouble with the calendar. Usually I at least know the day of the week I'm on, but that's shaky too this week.

[mercurybard.livejournal.com]

I'm of the "I'll post what I want to post, damn it" school of thought, but then again I don't have nearly the readership you do. Nor do I have the kind of professional interaction via the internet that you do as well.

[mercurybard.livejournal.com]

I've been convinced it's Thursday all day today.

And April Fool's Day always sneaks up on me and I wonder why all my friends have lost their minds.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I mean, my LJ is not a damn democracy. HOWEVER, it does have a community and it is a useful tool to me. Which creates a need to balance things, even if some of those things are, sadly, my own happiness and comfort.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

It's a deal.

No neighborhoods on that list over here, either.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I LOL'd.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

I'm not wearing purple yet. I'm still in work clothes, which come in burgundy, grey and black. But after my shower, I'll find my "Have Broom Will Travel" t-shirt which is purple. My husband isn't wearing purple simply because he doesn't own any purple.

I suspect it was mostly "Didn't hear about it" with a side of "Forgot" or "Don't own any" and a smidge of "Can't be arsed."

[puella-nerdii.livejournal.com]

I am wearing purple today. It is better to, than not. But no one else seems to be in my moving about the city so far today. I imagine they didn't hear about it. I imagine they don't care about it. I imagine they are like me and not, but certainly, better at defending themselves from shame.

I wonder if that says more about the nature of Internet-driven campaigns than it does about people not caring or feeling shamed. Spirit Day definitely does have a strong online presence, at least in the circles I frequent, but the circles I frequent are hardly the whole Internet, let alone the whole country, and I haven't seen a lot of offline promoting of the event. The Internet's a powerful tool for social organization, but it doesn't always have all the necessary infrastructure to support and promote a national event like this, and I wonder what else we could have done to get out the word, especially to people who aren't as Internet-savvy as some of us are.

(And I'm pleasantly surprised that none of the most dangerous neighborhoods are in Baltimore, since I think there was at least one Baltimore neighborhood on the list last year.)

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I am sad that my reaction was "eeew, colonization!" Followed by "couldn't they have made it more attractive?" It's a very antisocial space.

[bare-bear.livejournal.com]

I think the thing that's moved me personally with this whole Spirit Day and wearing purple thing is my 16 year old cousin. She's been so active with it, pushing everyone to wear purple, and then talking about it rationally with people who are hesitant about it. And if she, a 16 year old girl, is comfortable talking about it and not afraid to taking her friends and relations to task if they use derogatory terms and explain why it's inappropriate, well cripes, maybe wearing purple will make a difference, if only in a small rural town in Manitoba and those within her reach.

Actually, I had to come onto campus today (I usually work on my thesis from home), and it's been very encouraging to see so many people in purple. Half of us in my (admittedly small) research group meeting were wearing purple, and the rest either asked the reason behind it or forgot to wear something purple. If nothing else, it's encouraging conversation and discussion.

[hoyland54.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally, that 25 most dangerous neighbourhods thing seems to suffer from some methodological flaws. It looks like they've just taken the number of crimes and divided it by the number of residents, ignoring what the area actually is. The west side Chicago neighbourhood (number one) is where the United Center is, the Navy Yard in DC is the new Nationals' stadium and, if I recall correctly, on of the Atlanta neighbourhoods is a sparsely populated part of downtown. It sort of stands to reason that places with fewer residents but a lot of foot traffic would have higher crime rates than a comparable neighbourhood without a stadium, say. This was posted on Metafilter and someone managed to work out that their calculations may be out as well, as they were assigning crimes for a larger area to a neighbourhood. (One of the neighbourhoods spans two police precincts, I think, and seemingly got assigned all the crimes.)

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

I finally donated. I've been meaning to do it for days. :D

[melebeth]

5 out of 6 of my friends at the EPA I hit this morning were wearing purple (although one was wearing purple underwear, because she had to go to memorial service afterward.) I was one of them, but it was accidental. I hadn't actually heard about it until I saw them - I just woke up with an overwhelming urge to wear purple.

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the whole "rich white Westerners move to a very poor country and live in huge expensive house" thing occurred to me too.