Four things: Descensus update and more!

[rm]

Four things:

1. How queer is fandom? Specifically HP fandom? I hang out in such disparate parts of it, and am also not terribly social in it until recently that I still can’t figure it out. Like do I know the 20 queer Potter fans? Or is it statistically similar to the general population or is it gay gay gay gay gay?

2. Chronic illness and fandom. What’s up with that? Is this our escapism? Or are we just home more because we have crap wrong with us? Or is fanfiction, like comedy, all about pain? I’ve always wondered about this, but I suppose I never asked before, because even with the MVPS, I never really considered myself part of the club until this celiac bullshit.

3. Speaking of celiac, I’ve gotten really sick of carrying around big bottles of wheat-free soy sauce and the like. So I bought a bunch of cobalt blue 50ml bottles and jars and stuff, so I can stylishly (and geekily) have safe condiments wherever I go.

4. The moment at least some of you have been waiting for: Facilis Descensus Averno is updated.
April 21, 1979, part 2 is here: http://community.livejournal.com/descensus_hp/8390.html
If you need a refresher, Part 1 is here: http://community.livejournal.com/descensus_hp/6042.html

Comments

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

Hi rm! Added you, and just realized we've a ton of friends in common! Sweet!

How is acting going in the city? I lived in NYC for about a year, and I really miss it.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Good I have a huge advantage in that I was born here, and have lived here for my whole life other than college, which really removes the pressure of having to "make it" here or being overwhelmed by how difficult the city can be.

This year has been hard for me, in that I've had a lot of medical drama, but I did join SAG and have been working a lot, although mostly background -- it is money and it is not sitting at a desk. And I directed something I wrote at the begining of the year. Hopefully more good things will come in the fall, now that I've got my strength more or less back.

And yeah, i just went to your journal and had a "Nick Cave!" moment at you. I've probably seen him at least a dozen times in concert.

[upstart-crow.livejournal.com]

That's so great. You're very lucky to be so familiar with the city....then again, you probably get that a lot :)

It's been a bad year for me too as far as mental illness goes, so I sympathize (hehe speaking of your "are people in fandom sick more often?" question. I don't know the answer to that, but I suspect we have higher rates of mental illness than the average population.)

I am so very, very jealous of you. I've promised myself I'll go see Nick play in Europe if I can get a literary agent by the end of 2007. Did you see him in NYC or across the Atlantic? I know he comes here sometimes, but it seems like he only hits the biggest cities like NY and LA.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I've seen him mostly in New York and in Washington DC a few times (one of those stories is quite long and surreal, and eventually I'll probably share). I just missed him when I was in Australia so that was a huge bummer.

As to mental illness -- probably -- or we're just mroe inclined to talk about it perhaps. I also have theories about lots of the subsets of HP fandom (i.e., drama in the SS/HG community is always so longwinded (and involves so many PhDs because everyone reading SS/HG identifies with one or the other of the two geniuses of the wizarding world) and their particular brands of crazy. I love it all anyway, and have largely escaped the drama, which unfortunately, cannot be siad for a lot of peopel I care about who have gotten caught in the crossfire.

Growing up in NYC makes everything different, certainly. Exploring other places is hard. It has its own sort of inertia to be from here, but I am lucky, especially considering what I've chosen to do.

[virginie-m.livejournal.com]

Ooooh joining in on the Nick Cave love.

I saw him once about eleven years ago in Auckland. It was not long after the release of Let Love In. And oh god he was fabulous. Making love to the microphone -- a cigarette in one and a glass of something golden in the other -- wearing a skinny suit and a white shirt. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! They performed a lot of songs from that album too. I think my highlight was Do You Love Me? And the sun was setting during their set.

Tee hee.

Anyway, it's really interesting what you say about fandom's queerness. I've never seen any stats - I don't know how you would get them. But for me fandom is way of expressing a part of myself that gets completely ignored in real life as I am in a long term relationship with a man and we have a child. I wonder if that's true for anyone else?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

2. Chronic illness and fandom. What’s up with that?

Two of the four people who make up my elective family have significant food sensitivities, as do I (all different, which naturally makes restaurant hunting difficult - thank the gods for Japanese and Chinese food). Expanding this circle wider, the number of people I known in the far fringes of geek culture, including serious fans, pagans, gamers, & occultists who have significant food sensitivities or other chronic and annoying problems is quite large. In some odd way, it almost seems a physicalized mark of our separation from mainstream culture.

3. Speaking of celiac, I’ve gotten really sick of carrying around big bottles of wheat-free soy sauce and the like. So I bought a bunch of cobalt blue 50ml bottles and jars and stuff, so I can stylishly (and geekily) have safe condiments wherever I go.

What an absolutely wonderful idea. I have occasionally brought olive oil and vinegar along with me so I can make certain to have both salad dressing and a butter substitute wherever I do, and taking them along in something that lovely would actually be a very nice touch. Thank you for mentioning this.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I got these at Whole Foods, it wasn't even one of my random special projects.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

In early fandom (I mean general science fiction fandom of the 1930s), pretty much through the 1960s, fans tended to be sickly: polio, osteporosis, heart murmurs. It might just be that people who are sick spend more time alone, reading, incapacitated in ways that incline one towards reading and thinking at length about fantasy worlds.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Oh, and where'd you get cobalt blue bottles? Want want want!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Whole Foods, believe it or not -- specifically the one at Columbus Circle.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

It's interesting that the two biggest factions I see in HP fandom are gay folks, and married women. Not all of the married women are housewives either.

[karen-jk.livejournal.com]

Lots of gay folks in fandom, that's for sure. And lots of straight. Lots of young women, lots of 40-something young at heart women like myself. And a few men big on the HP love.