sundries

[rm]

It is pissing down rain here, making everything about the opera even more complex. It'll be fine. Right now: pinstripe suit, blue on blue shirt, with dark blue polkadot tie later (keeping my collar open for now, to be less obviously dude-like). Almost sedate, but totally not. Especially when you have to tuck your trousers into big black boots to save them from the deluge. It's a day. Rolled up my sleeves, cufflinks to be chosen, because it's sweltering in the office.

There seems to be more Amazon!fail afoot: basically if it's kinky, even if it's not queer, it seems to have wound up in the LGBT section.

A contest to win an expense-paid trip to TEDWomen in DC. What's your TEDTalk? Hell, what is my TEDTalk?

Soho actually starts heeding law about limiting lofts to working artists. WHO WANTS TO LIVE IN SOHO? WHO HAS HOPE? YES, PLEASE.

Bed-bug sniffing dog standards called into question. Oh, my city.

Oh, my city, even more: When new neighbors moved in who were later busted for running a heroin mill and neighbors saw them putting black curtains on all the windows they thought, "Maybe they just like to sleep."

I am missing everything: The guests wore red.

A profile on a part of the President's persona machine.

- Man hangs himself live on the Internet. Unlike similar stories I've heard from the US, it seemed people were mostly trying to stop him as opposed to egging him on.

- "Assertive" Chinese placed in mental hospitals.

Really am achingly sad about De Laurentiis. There's a bit of backstory from my NYC childhood there, but that's for another day.

More on Merlin: "The Changeling" -- not bad. I really love when Merlin and Arthur and, well, everyone, has these flashes of adult wisdom. And Arthur/Gwen is working for me in terms of chemistry and conflict, but irritating me a good deal re: the lack of narrative development to get there, because hey, it's like fanfic and we all already knew.

Yuletide!

1. I love Yuletide!

2. It may be a HUGE fan-wide community event, but it's still not something that we all get a vote in how it works. No, really. There's this illusion that often seems to take hold on the Internet that everything is required to be a direct hierarchy-free democracy. Yuletide's a thing some people run, and how they run it is up to them, and if that doesn't work for you, not participating makes lots of sense. Saying they are required to run it differently doesn't.

3. Can we knock it off with BNF as the dirtiest dirty word? Some people get well known in fandom because they contribute a lot to it. Some people behave well or poorly or neutrally in the face of this. Shouldn't the problem not be popularity or fame, but the grace with which one manages to navigate any public perception? Just rag on people for being assholes when they're assholes. It's clearer.

4. I like it's commitment to small fandoms and/or desires we don't think about year round, but if a fandom I think is too large gets in, especially if it's one I'm not involved with, then I won't read those stories. I only ever read a couple of dozen Yuletide fics anyway.

5. I am not in Hetalia fandom. I am very aware of some of the very bad behavior that's been engaged in my some members of that fandom (I refer to incidents involving Nazi uniforms and a Boston mall). I don't, however, consider Hetalia's possible inclusion in this year's Yuletide to be a social-justice issue that requires me to make a Yuletide participation decision. Obviously, YMMV, and that's cool too.

6. I'm in a "can't deal with fandom" place and have been for a while, even if I'm still reading some stuff and will certainly write fanfic again.

7. I am totally participating in Yuletide!

Comments

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Thanks for boosting the signal on the Amazon!fail.

Regarding Merlin: I LOVE ELENA AND I WANT TO KEEP HER FOREVER.

Yuletide: I'll be participating for the first time this year. Looking forward to it.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

It may be a HUGE fan-wide community event, but it's still not something that we all get a vote in how it works. No, really. There's this illusion that often seems to take hold on the Internet that everything is required to be a direct hierarchy-free democracy. Yuletide's a thing some people run, and how they run it is up to them, and if that doesn't work for you, not participating makes lots of sense. Saying they are required to run it differently doesn't.

Indeed. Becca let me know about the current idiocy - definitely too many people with too much of a sense of entitlement.

[idunn.livejournal.com]

6 million dollars for a loft in Soho *faints*

I have a friend who moved into Soho thirty years ago and her place was rent-controlled. She pays a couple hundred dollars a month. Needless to say, she's been there three decades now and is staying put.

[shadowvalkyrie.livejournal.com]

I have black curtains. Because I really just like to sleep dark and have no shutters/blinds. I wasn't aware that was weird! ":-(

[marcmagus]

I used to as well. I also kept odd hours, rarely encountered any of the other people in my small apartment building, would go for days at a time without leaving the apartment, and dressed and looked funny.

I guess it could be indicative of someone with something to hide, and it's possible that said something to hide is something illicit, rather than just valuing privacy or liking to get naked without checking if the neighbors are peeking in. I'd hate to think the neighbors from this story have been made to think "I should have reported it", rather than "Huh, go figure".

[rm.livejournal.com]

What I thought was weird was not that people found the black curtain innocuous, but that the thought was "likes to sleep a lot" vs. "works odd hours" or "does photography" or something.

[marcmagus]

I read that as 'pornography' in skimming the preview. Which . . . perhaps the guy thought "sleep around a lot" and edited himself for public consumption?

It was probably a slightly odd way of phrasing "sleep in late" or something, though.

[marcmagus]

I feel like I need a new icon so I'm looking back at you if we're having a conversation. I just realized it kind of looks like I'm looking sternly down at the commenter below me. I think I need to sleep a lotmore.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

Have to agree vigorously with the remark about the expectation of some impossible standard of mass democracy within fandom. It's not effective and not even preferable--especially not in some huge undertaking like Yuletide. BNF is an annoying term. Some people do an amazing amount of work keeping things running, a few are fabulous writers by anybody's standards and others are simply notorious.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

basically if it's kinky, even if it's not queer, it seems to have wound up in the LGBT section

In my continuing efforts to not hate all of humanity, I have to wonder if someone who feared complaints from fundies put it there. "They won't find the kinky stuff if we hide it with the gay books", they thought, "And if they do, we can say, 'Well, what were you doing in that section?' and maybe they'll go away."

It's not necessarily good logic, but you can find good intentions of trying to prevent a shitstorm in there.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

In Kansas City, where I lived for twelvish years before moving to Canada, anything that appeared to deliberately obstruct your windows could, if the police wanted, be probable cause for a warrant to search your home for drugs or paraphernalia. Believe it or not.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Wow. I used to work nights and sleep during the day, and I had my windows as blocked off as possible with heavy curtains, in a semi-crummy neighborhood. I can't imagine having to have to deal with the police in my semi-coherent mid-day state; once I kind of flipped out on someone like the mail carrier when whoever it was knocked on my door unexpectedly.

[puella-nerdii.livejournal.com]

I am very aware of some of the very bad behavior that's been engaged in my some members of that fandom (I refer to incidents involving Nazi uniforms and a Boston mall).
Yeah, that was fucking awful. What annoys me about when people bring this up, though, is that the entire fandom pretty much said DUDE WHAT THE HELL NO THAT'S NOT WHAT WE'RE ABOUT after it happened, and it's kind of disheartening that the incident you mentioned has pretty much become the defining feature of the fandom to people who aren't in it. I mean, I can get why, but. Bleh.

And lord, do I ever sympathize with the cultural flatness the woman in the Performa piece talks about, and I hope she's right about the avant-garde not being gone.

I'd have more hope about the SoHo lofts if they weren't millions of dollars. But it's nice that those spaces are opening up for artists! ...not that many artists have millions to spend on housing!

[i-amthecosmos.livejournal.com]

I think I'll particpate this year! Which means I need to figure out how to actually use my AO3 account (I'm lazy.)

I am eligable again after screwing the pooch about six years ago, so I'm good. (I no longer wait until two days before the fic for a challenge is due! I swear!)

BNF-whatever. It's fandom. I co-maintain one pairing community and we've gotten the "elitist" tag a couple of times. Obviously the lovely people who run that monster of a challenge are going to catch flak.

Hoping for really good fic about indie gay movies this year. And the idea of someone writing fic for songs on the Adam Lambert cd is really fun.

I'm glad I nominated the things I did for inclusion. I am excite.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

In this discussion over on my journal (I'm the one rm linked to above), someone pointed out that it's actually the publishers who choose the categories, and that Amazon probably doesn't check every one -- BUT that doesn't change the fact that the categorisation is grossly inappropriate, and that Amazon should definitely be keeping an eye on the books that make their "top 100" lists to ensure that they are correctly categorised.

I'll also point out that it's not kink in general that is ending up in the LGBT section -- it's stuff like bestiality, incest, and child sex.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

I'm looking at youuuuu.

(Which is to say, I think it would be utterly charming if you and rm had icons facing each other and had conversations. I would try to get you guys to leave each other _so many comments_.)

~Sor

[natf.livejournal.com]

What does BNF stand for? To a UKian it stands for British Nuclear Fuels and is close to the British Nationalist Party (BNP, the fashists(sp?)).

[rm.livejournal.com]

Big Name Fan.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Am not doing Yuletide this year (in spite of last year's realization that I would really enjoy it) because there's not enough of me. At least, as far as I know. Hm. Maybe I should look at the timeline?

[natf.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhhhh. Thanks!