sundries

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.