sundries

[rm]

The Patty countdown continues.

The M15 Select bus is a thing of TOTAL BEAUTY. It took me 20 minutes to ride it from 14th street to 106th street last night. 20 MINUTES. Annoyingly, you have to insert your metrocard in amchines at the stops to get a ticket that no one collects, but if tickets are checked and you don't have one it's a $100 fine. This is fine, but the machines to get the tickets HAVE NOT BEEN INSTALLED at all the select stops yet. Like the one headed downtown by our house. GRAH.

It's not just that we only need to raise $590 more to secure funding. It's that as of this writing, 102 people have pledged financial support to this project and dozens more have provided links and emotional support as we've gone through this process under often unideal circumstances. This has included friends, family, Internet acquaintances, professional contacts, a few exes and complete strangers. This is remarkable. And overwhelming. The obstacles to producing art are many. $$ is one of them. Faith in yourself can be another. And even after you get to the point that you know your work is good, it can be hard to accept that other people might believe in you or want you to succeed. It's something I struggle with a lot. Aside from everything that happens next with D&J, this is pretty paradigm changing for me, and, while I don't want to speak for Erica, I know has a significant impact on her as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I spent my whole childhood looking at things shyly, and with great guilt, thinking if I stared at them long enough, perhaps they would be given to me or that I would perhaps be chosen to have access to them. This is different.

If you're prone to structuring chaos into narrative, as I am, I think it's very easy to look at any serious of political and social events and say that they represent a world-changing moment. As such, declarations of this sort are best ignored.

But between Wikileaks (which actually affected my getting a residuals payment yesterday); the state of the administration and Congress and the Republicans and the Tea Party; and five-years 'til Euro collapse scenario; and long-term cyclical shift to global economic growth being centered in what we euphemistically call the "developing world" (now, perhaps called such because what the fuck are we making here?) there are a lot of shifts going on in the state of the world that it's very hard to anticipate the shape of. As someone who does work about how the media does its work (both in matters of fact and matters of fiction) this is an exhilarating moment. It's also a scary one right now.

Currently, the most powerful man in the world is a random guy sitting in a UK jail on a series of rape charges. The insurance file is looming over all of us (and make no mistake, that file will eventually be activated, it's a matter of time); the impact this is having on corporate interests who are being retaliated against for succumbing to US government pressure is the stuff of Gibson and Sterling (a fact only enhanced by the announcement this hour of the arrest of a 16-year-old in The Hague for the Mastercard and Visa attacks); and the potential impact this has on freedom of the press in the US (as calls for prosecuting newspapers that publish the leaks grows) is terrifying. Julian Assange may be about to change the world, and, if one goes by Wikileaks' mission statements, not in a way that was ever intended.

A water tower to call home.

How some people live. Getting by in New York when no one is helping: the worst bathroom in New York.

Keeping bees next door.

An abandoned men's club as a sort of deconstructionist home. Also, if you look at the slideshow: it's not a dog, it's Anubis.

Sartorial moment via airspaniel: yes, that is exactly how you make that work. (Although, please, sir, shoot your cuffs and do something about the hint of tie I can see below your waistcoat, thank you). This definitely goes in my sartorial role models of personal relevance file (yes, this exists on my laptop).

Confession: I read more bad Sherlock holiday fic than is strictly good for the soul or the intellect last night. I'm just saying.

Comments

Plea

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

If you refer to Assange's rape charges, can I draw this comment by the lawyer for the women in question to your attention? It is entirely possible - in fact, likely (if you know anything of history) - that the same man could be both a rapist and a campaigner for truth, and I hate the way internet narratives are constructing an either/or binary for this particular story before the case has even been heard.

Re: Plea

[rm.livejournal.com]

I agree with that.

Nothing that I've said indicates that I think anything other than that I hold that opinion, that I have spoken about at lengths in other posts about Assange.

I have repeatedly tweeted about the situation saying we don't know what's going on, we can't make this about victim blaming and just because the rape cases are being used politically doesn't mean they're not rape cases and false rape accusations are extremely rare.

The fact remains that the rape cases are a remarkable part of the narrative, and that regardless of the outcome of those cases the situation and his power over pretty much everyone at this point is weird, disturbing and interesting.

Re: Plea

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

The either-or binary bugs me as well. It disturbs me both how governments are being extremely solicitious of charges that are normally thrown out every day in this country; and how pro-Assange/Wikileaks are rushing in (as usual) to slut-shame the women. It's crazy-making.

Re: Plea

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I'm driven to anger at feminist bloggers (whose stuff I usually love) who can't seem to brain that asking "why now?" and taking the allegations seriously and addressing them are not mutually exclusive.

Re: Plea

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Definintely that as well. It's a clusterfuck on so many levels...

Re: Plea

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

I think that there are a number of feminist bloggers who are not doing this. This piece by Kate Harding at Salon is very good.