sundries

[rm]

Grim and cloudy here today. The clouds are sealing the valley in again, which is good, as it means I'll just do my damn work. Of which there is copious amounts. I've been in bowl-like valleys before, but I've never been in one where the clouds come down in quite this way and seal the thing quite so tightly (in the time it took me to write this post, the mountains disappeared and anything more than two houses away is just a sheet of white). That's better than early last week, where the clouds were shaped like mushrooms, and it gave my Child of the 80s anxiety.

Yesterday, they were hanging the Christmas lights in the old town, so I hope they will be lit by the time Patty gets here, but I am not sure, as she will be too early for the Christmas markets.

Meanwhile, video date with Patty later!

Dogboy & Justine is up to 66 backers with a total of $3,205. That's 53% of the way towards our final goal, with just 44 days remaining. Soon Inception: The Musical will be up (the Webinatrix is webinating as we speak (I love making up verbs!) and you can witness the musical magic Erica creates. Also, Treble Entendre website (which is all construction-y right now, see: webinating)! RSN! RSN!

Yesterday I noodled around a bit by designing logos for Palatine Crescent (production company thingy with Kali -- which basically just means a way for us to have a cool name while we write the massive novel and finally write the WWII aviator chicks screenplay and noodle with a treatment for something else). It is cool. It is made of deep thoughts about gender, a random free font from the Internet, and a bad photo of a rug from a home catalog. Collage is your friend, but I need to redo it with using the full tag-line, trying it in lower-case, and seeing if I can get the text to run fluidly on a curved white banner placed over the stripes, which I'm not sure how to make happen in Pixelmator. Another day, another battle.

Blind cat in NYC needs immediate rescue from shelter after owner dies. Can you help?

The folks that run the Questioning Transphobia blog are in some tough financial straights and could use your help. I don't know them personally, but their contribution to the Internet is good stuff and no one should have to worry about where their basic food and medical needs are coming from.

Sam has just read Eric Hoffer's The True Believer for the first time. While I'm still getting over the fact that EVERYONE wasn't required to read this in sixth grade and that, that I was may explain any number of things about my personality, I'm going to take this moment to say that I think it's largely filled with obvious observations that would surprise very few of you, but it's a quick read, and you should probably catch up with that if you haven't.

The Duchess with a common touch. The hunting of the children with bloodhounds!

Robot thinks human flesh tastes like prosciutto.

But I'd love to eat here.

I am completely miserable to be missing Throne of Blood on stage.

Poems for DST. Have I mentioned I've been writing poetry again? This is what Switzerland does to me, and not in the good way. But USians, change your clocks. We're 6 hours apart again (it was five this past week).

Yearbooks are the latest self-esteem mechanisms in high schools. Is there, anywhere, a balance between anti-bullying and self-esteem, while also not bombarding people with messages that they are wildly successful just for showing up? Nothing hurt and humiliated me more in school than getting "most improved" awards. I was the worst at some things, and remained so, but because I got slightly better, they wanted to make me feel good. It was embarrassing, and antithetical to the experiences I had outside of school -- like in dance -- where I had to earn every scrap of attention, but where ever scrap of attention was like pounds of medals and remain moments I still savor. Nothing was more humiliating though than having to walk up on stage to receive Most Improved in Physical Education awards -- Look at this girl! We are showing her off! She cannot catch a ball and does not play well with others! Rumours you have heard that she is beautiful somewhere and somewhat else are just rumours! She finds dodgeball very hard!

Meanwhile, anti-bullying efforts are under attack because they are viewed as political because they "normalize" homosexuality. What I want to know is, if you believe someone is going to burn in hell, why do you think it's your job to make them suffer -- especially if they don't share your beliefs -- in this life? I understand, at least abstractly, the trying to save people from hell thing; it's the hastening people's way there business where I get confused.

I have no doubt in my mind that Ian McKellen is right about this. There is significant, explicit pressure in Hollywood, in New York, in the industry as a whole, not to come out and the image-making machine makes it easy for that explicit pressure to be frames as no different from marketing supposed alliances between heterosexual stars. But it is different. I love matters of persona, but this is one place where it's poisonous.

State-sanctioned anti-gay violence rampant in Cameroon.

The New York Times examines Facebook skeletons and politics.

US squeamishness about sex hurts our teens. No shit.

Keith Olbermann talks about his partisanship -- two days before he got suspended. One of the things I like about Olbermann is the union of anger and articulateness in his public persona and the way that relates to stories about anger in the backstage parts of his career. I poke at it, because it's interesting to me because you could say I have that sort of stuff going on with me too; at least that's how it feels from here. I really have no idea how I come off to other people, despite the endless calculation.

Comments

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Yeah... Long pig is, evidently, accurate!

[girlofavalon.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more with Sir Ian McKellen, but unfortunatelly it's not only a Hollywood problem. I live in Brazil, a country that's known to be quite "liberal", and yet there are very few openly GLBT actors/actresses. For some reason, it seems more acceptable in musicians... :S

Brazil isn't so much about cinema yet as it is about TV. I read an interview, once, with a well known soap opera writer that shocked me with his voicing that heartthrob male actors who are gay should stay in the closet, for the sake of their image with the public :O

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I love that article on teenage sexuality.

I'm pretty thankful for the way my parents treated such things. Namely, no bullshit, and an honest understanding that they trusted me not to be reckless with my sexual health.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

After reading that article, (and seeing that amazing French condom TV ad) I am amazed and in no small part jealous of that fact that teens in Western Europe can have adults listen to them w/o one of their peers being dead or pregnant first.

My question is this; My situation as a teen was that of being a mousy wallflower constantly having to dodge creeps. No one seems to believe that such a phenomenon happens; creeps only bug "bad girls" who were "asking for it". How does a young person get help for a problem that society refuses to believe happens, I wonder?

[sanat.livejournal.com]

My armchair opinion, as someone who had a similar teenage experience:

It is not so much the appearance of the female target that matters, as it is the construction of young women as commodities for male use in the mind of the man doing the targeting, a construction encouraged by patriarchal thinking which goes unacknowledged in mainstream culture despite it informing so much of how we think about gender and heterosexual relations.

So, to beat what many consider a tired old drum of feminist thought, it's objectification, not "appreciation", that's the issue. And I think in order to expose it, we need to ask the right questions of people who don't see it in order to get them to overturn their assumptions. Like the interviewers in this video did in re: the assumption that people "choose to be gay":

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, it was definitely a case of guys feeling that they needed to put someone in their place in order to maintain their place in the pecking order. I was, and still am, amazed at how difficult it was to get help on the problem. Dad would just get angry at me (?), and a great many other adults would just either tell me to ignore them of change the subject.

And then they turn around and act confused as to why so many girls and young woman think Edward Cullen's behavior isn't inappropriate...

As a result, in addition to being put off of sex for a very long time, also had the feeling that I was either not very intelligent, or had something wrong with me in the "communicating with others" department. I am willing to admit that some of that was probably a case of me inheriting the "Irish Catholic Super-Oblique Hint Dropping" gene, but still...

In the first few months after starting the Dream Job, it was all I could do to not gawp like a fish whenever I would say, "We need to do it like this..." and folks would agree with me. No arguments, no derailing, no "are you sure", etc.

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

I read the yearbook article, and while I was definitely one of those kids who wasn't in a single candid shot or superlative in the yearbook, what they were trying to do with equalizing the attention didn't seem that bad to me. But it also doesn't strike me as something that's necessarily going to be all that effective. By the time the yearbooks come out, the kids who aren't valued already know what their status is, so making all this effort to give them equal time and attention (and really, portraying a false portrait for the sake of the yearbook), isn't going to make any real changes in their status.

Or to put it more simply: if you're unpopular and spend four years sitting alone in the cafeteria, what does it matter if some yearbook staff make a big deal about making sure you're in a candid shot?

The article about attitudes about teen sexuality in Europe vs. the US isn't surprising at all. I'm just amazed how many people can't accept that puritanism simply doesn't work.

[natf.livejournal.com]

Being a 40+ UKian, I just do not understand the whole yearbook thing. Also, some of us hate seeing ourselves in photos and so hate being photographed. I am a photographer not a model! Being the subject of a photo, however candid, puts me the wrong!incorrect! side of the camera lens. Just my 2¢.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

The hunting of the children with bloodhounds!

If you haven't read The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, you should. For PC* research purposes if naught else. ;-)

*We need another abbreviation. PalCr? Dunno...

[rm.livejournal.com]

What's the hosue number? We'll just use the house number! Confuse the crap out of everyone. But yeah I love the PC problem.

[kalichan.livejournal.com]

Hee! Sadly, I don't remember. When you get home, check out one of the letters... I probably wrote it at the top at some point.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

Strange, strange question, but the rhythm of this: "Look at this girl! We are showing her off! She cannot catch a ball and does not play well with others! Rumours you have heard that she is beautiful somewhere and somewhat else are just rumours! She finds dodgeball very hard!" is INCREDIBLY FAMILIAR and yet I can't place it at all.

Are you referencing something? Or am I seeing connotation where you're just playing with cadence in a very effective way?

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm just playing.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

My brain automatically started singing the first two sentences to "Part Of Your World" from The Little Mermaid. Also, bizarrely relevant, especially the Disney version. YMMV.

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

I can see that, definitely, but that's not the cadence I was hearing, weirdly enough.

I went dystopian novel places in my head. But ah well!

[rm.livejournal.com]

That's definitely where I was playing. In a carnival barker sort of way. I can do a lot with my self-hatred!

[byzantienne.livejournal.com]

Yeah, carnival or -- actually -- freak show busking. To get people inside the tents.

it's very effective. Also ow.

[rm.livejournal.com]

There are whole avenues of creative work I just don't touch anymore because I didn't stop hating myself so much as I just found it too tiring to consider the ways in which I grew up feeling deformed.

Which is fine really. I've enough to keep myself busy. But it will pop up at the drop of a hat.

[i-amthecosmos.livejournal.com]

I see your "Most Improved" in PE award and raise you a "Best Special Education Student" award in jr. high.

Two years in a row.

Okay, now it's funny, but "now" is about 27 years later.

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

Best Special Ed Student? Oh man.

I think that beats my being in both advanced class for academia and remedial gym one year.

[i-amthecosmos.livejournal.com]

*nods* Called up in front of the school and everything. Yep. It's a good thing resources for kids with difficulties are much wider and more personalized now. I think some kids are actually helped now, instead of segregated from other students in a trailer classroom like I was. (Note: there were trailers for other classes too, the school was broke!)

[featherofeeling.livejournal.com]

The Ian McKellan thing reminded me of Rufus Wainwright's "Release the Stars," which you almost certainly already know. It's a powerful song that for me resonates beyond critiques of Hollywood, etc.

I do understand the idea that homophobic people could oppose efforts to make children/teens feel more comfortable with homosexuality. The article describes anti-bullying campaigns that go beyond just saying that children shouldn't bully other children about anything, even if they disagree about whether it's right; instead, they do try to "normalize" homosexuality. To me, the "homosexual agenda" is a real and awesome one: item #1, to make the world a safe place for people to openly love someone of whatever gender and to present their gender in non-normative ways. I think we should work really, really hard for that, and that schools should be encouraging it (that's how you cut at the root of bullying, not by telling kids on one hand that it's not ok to be gay and on the other that they shouldn't taunt others for it). But I also think that we should acknowledge that that idea, that change in the world, is very frightening to people who don't want their children to grow up thinking that being gay is fine (who knows, maybe they'd "decide" to "become" homosexual themselves!). Let's face it, the "tolerance" campaigns in the article go beyond teaching kids to be nice to each other and do attempt to change the values their parents might have taught them. It's time to 'fess up to that, to say that it's not that radical, and to not back down.

With regard to I understand, at least abstractly, the trying to save people from hell thing; it's the hastening people's way there business where I get confused. I don't think that the people who object to the "tolerance" campaigns think it's wrong because they want to save the people being bullied. I think they're far more concerned with saving the people doing the bullying, the people saying that homosexuality is wrong, from perhaps being swayed to the other side.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I haven't read The True Believer yet. Apparently I really, really need to if I want to maintain cultural literacy.

(Speaking of cultural literacy, my viewing of Moulin Rouge! last night got interrupted at the scene where Christian is walking out of the theatre and Satine starts singing "Come What May." Fucking hell.)

The Olbermann continues to give me quiet fits. The man is opinionated and passionate, and his work allows him to be in ways that aren't traditionally acceptable. Journalism is among the professions that I've always idealized as a vocation, like the priesthood or being a counselor; there are things one has to give up in order to do the Work. (It's possible that these things are like unicorns, but if that's so I'll play the "I WANT TO BELIEVE" card and place myself squarely in the Fox Mulder/Neverending Story camp, thankyouverymuch.) I wonder how much his actions were calculated in a belief that it would allow him to strike at FOX, and how much of it was just ridiculous bad judgment (and how much these things aren't mutually exclusive because Liberals in our culture have more to prove).

Still, it will be good to have him back.

Also, can't we have Sir Ian sainted or something? The man's very existence makes life better.

[rm.livejournal.com]

More on other things later.... you have _seen_ Moulin Rouge before, haven't you?

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

There is no answer to this question which is both good an honest.

I've seen the introduction before this, and I saw it in, erm...August?

(To be fair, in 2001 I was living with the Bastard Ex who largely prevented me from having any kind of life at all, and who Did Not Care To See It. I missed a lot between 1999 and 2004.)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Well, I caught on 5 years after the fact myself. But I can't believe you've a) never seen the tango scene before and b) got interrupted during it. I have many, many things to say about it, but top of the list is it makes me envision what an R-rated version of Moulin Rouge, that was that consistently dark would have been. And it's probably the scariest film ever not-made. Sort of tragic really.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

No, I saw the tango scene. I got cut off after Christian sells his typewriter and is in the Sitar Player's costume and walking away from the stage on opening night.

it makes me envision what an R-rated version of Moulin Rouge, that was that consistently dark would have been. And it's probably the scariest film ever not-made.

Shivers. Lots of them.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh that scene. Okay, that's a crap place to be interrupted too. Brain is slow with the clouds sealing us in again here today.

And that story (the MR that wasn't) is what I'm asking for for Yuletide this year.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was not delighted. OTOH, I will take being interrupted over watching MR with my ex in the house. I'm very much "MINE. NOT HIS." on this. I want nothing of him in the experience.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhhh. I love that you've taken to this. I can't wait til you start messing around with all the extras on the disc. Because I'm do for a rewatch of weird things on there and we can howl with laughter together.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Randomly: I cannot stop looking at the pianist's not-quite-Doctor-Who scarf. And the conductor at the very beginning.

[rm.livejournal.com]

You do recognize Dave Whenam as Audrey, ne?

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize that was him, no! Huh.

(Also, the cabal of bald, bespectacled musicians made me happy. Like they're another species, sort of, who congregate like prairie dogs or birds.)

Amusingly, I spent far too much time trying to figure out if that was Dave Foley playing the Duke. Which, having now looked it up I feel a bit silly (it's dark in the wrong ways for Foley), but there was just something in the character-actingness of it and Roxburgh's features with the hair and the mustache that I wondered.

[riverrocks.livejournal.com]

Most of my experiences of bullying around issues of gender presentation and sexuality, particularly in childhood and adolescence, have been at the hands of a religious organization or people explicitly sanctioned or encouraged by one, so when folks say things like "no one should be bullied" in the same sentence with talk of agendas and morals, it makes my head spin and sends my internal hypocrisy meter into the red zone. I personally found attending public school a relief (granted, over twenty years ago) because at least there I managed to find a few other people (including teachers) who thought for themselves and challenged the status quo.