First, Flashpoint is getting a second season, yay!

Nathan Fillion's new show Castle has been picked up by ABC for the 2008-2009 year, along with Cupid, 2nd edition and a show I hadn't heard about, The Unusuals, with Amber Tamblyn as a cop in a Homicide Dept. with an odd sense of humor.

To go with Cupid, the CW has Valentine, Inc., about "a family of Greek Gods, the Valentines, whose purpose is to bring about the rare, strange, and often hilarious thing called love."

And I also hadn't heard that BET and Marvel are producing an animated Black Panther series, to debut early 2009. Anyone heard anything about the sneak peek they were supposed to have at Comic-Con?

It looks like BET is following AMC in developing its own slate of original series. The other ones that look most interesting to me are CIPHA, an animated sci-fi comedy series set in a world where hip-hop is outlawed (Will&Jada Pinkett Smith as exec prod), and Hannibal, also animated, telling the life story of the African king. I might also take a look at Somebodies, their only scripted series, a sitcom set in Athens, Georgia, about " a group of black slackers caught in that awkward period between college and a "real career" - when you're a nobody trying to be a somebody" -- based on the film.

It's actually a miniseries, but I'm going to watch Samurai Girl, which will air over three nights starting September 5th, about a Japanese girl who finds out her adoptive father is the head of the Yakuza, so she runs away, trains to be a samurai, and sets out to take down his evil empire!!! Girls with swords!

I thought about taking a look at Raising the Bar, because of J. August Richards (although I wish they'd just kept the last legal drama he was on), but I can't stomach the promos, with the long-haired, earnest young white male lead, and J. August only seen in one set shot of the whole group striding forward -- where he was on the back row, his face occluded by someone else's elbow, and in such a brief flash at that that I had to pause the Tivo and go frame by frame to make sure he was there at all.

My Tivo is under orders to alert me to many, many new shows this fall, if they ever appear. I'm looking forward particularly to The Mentalist, True Blood, and Leverage. I've seen the pilots for these, and watched the behind-the-scenes teasers for True Blood, and I really enjoyed them.

I have yet to see the movie, but I'm pretty happy to have more Star Wars with Star Wars: the Clone Wars.

I'm also going to watch Sanctuary, if I can get past Amanda Tapping's pseudo-British accent. And I already have the pilot appearing on the Tivo for Sons of Anarchy, about a motorcycle gang trying to protect their town from drug dealers and developers -- it has the very pretty Charlie Hunnam, with Katey Sagal as his mother.

Other fall shows I plan to give a try:

Fringe, described by its creators as a blend of Real Genius (really smart science types solving things with science--) Twin Peaks (--with a surrealistic FBI twist--), and The Fly (--as they investigate science gone wrong). I'm not kidding. The pilot has not so far wowed me, although I'm not done; sadly, except for Mark Valley, who I'm fond of for the sake of The 4400, the cast doesn't excite me much, either.

Crusoe, because "His desire to return to his wife and his strong and unlikely friendship with Friday are the only things that keep him sane." Yes, I am hoping for somewhat tortured, omg but I'm married!!! slash. How can I simultaneously have an aversion to "cheating on my spouse" fic and a kink? At least when the married couple is forcibly separated, apparently. Although they still don't seem to have cast Friday...? o.O But hey, it has Sean Bean, and Sam O'Neill, also, according to futon, "Daniel Defoe as BOOK." Although I'm not sure how they're going to do a man cast away on a desert island... and his family back home.

My Own Worst Enemy, because I like Christian Slater.

Dollhouse, which I await both in anticipation and with dread.

Eleventh Hour, because 1) Rufus Sewell, and 2) it sounds like my kind of semi-genreish thing.

Legend of the Seeker, in spite of apprehension of what I've been told of the series on which it's based, because there's so little fantasy on TV, really.

Life on Mars, because, um... I'm weak. And Jason O'Mara is pretty, and I can buy Harvey Keitel as Gene, and I can keep the real LoM safe and pure in my mind. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Others I'll take a look at, when and if they appear:

The Squad (A&E), the cops who investigate in prison, because I'm a sucker for police procedurals of all sorts, also prison sex.

Captain Cook's Extraordinary Atlas, which I just read about and which I really hope makes it, because it's a fantasy about THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL HAVING ADVENTURES after she finds the aforementioned atlas, which is rumored "to have documented a fantastical world of adventure and magic that exists right beside our own." A GIRL. HAVING ADVENTURES. ON MY TV. That would be awesome.

Finnegan, which has Teri Polo, Billy Zane, and Will Yun Lee. Also, because female cop in charge police procedural! Hey, I love The Closer, In Plain Sight, and Grace, so.


I will also take a look at the animated series Krod Mandoon and The Flaming Sword of Fire, because, well. Just look at that title. How could I not?


Right now I'm watching S.I.S. on Spike TV, a backdoor pilot about an off-the-books special investigation squad in LA that tries to catch violent criminals in the act of committing violent crimes, I'm guessing so they can just kill them and thereby guarantee the public safety. I don't know what I think of it yet, except that it has an older, longish-haired and somewhat dissolute cum exhausted Peter Stebbins, and a PI played by Christina Cox. Curse them for cancelling Blood Ties.

Why, yes. I do watch a hell of a lot of TV -- and this is just the new stuff....

WARNING: This Product Attracts Every Other Piece of Matter in the Universe, Including the Products of Other Manufacturers, with a Force Proportional to the Product of the Masses and Inversely Proportional to the Square of the Distance Between Them.

Why is it I can never remember the lovely little incidental things that enrich my life, but the things that make me cranky and upset are indelible? Why can't I remember not to read/listen to the conversations/comments/con reports/meanness/viciousness? Why must people scurry around and spread malice, and misinformation and unkindness, when they only have part of the picture? Or at all?

I'm so tired of unkindness, of nastiness perpetuated in the name of truth/art/self-righteousness/they're jerks/they did it first, of taking a bad situation and making it worse, of people behaving badly about/towards other people in front of me, of people saying and doing things that forever change the way I look at them in miserable ways, of people feeling superior and judgmental and all-knowing and fuck it all.

And I'm tired most of all of knowing I do it myself. Fuck, do I hate life lessons. And food for thought. A friend of mine has been trying her best for the last few months to not badmouth people to other people, to not participate in the kind of bashing that we all do so well. I really need to follow her example, but it's not just about not saying mean-spirited things; it's so hard to know what you should do when other people are doing it in places where you just happen to be, particularly when it's about people you care about.

Addendum: this post is deliberately vague, and quite probably not about you. But if you thought for even a moment that it was about you, probably you should consider why you thought that.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest. -Confucius

So, I finally arrived home sometime after 10:30p on Tuesday night, after a trip that included (I think) a complete circling of St. Louis on 270 and a nap in a rest area, and I immediately unloaded the car, so it would be ready to take back to Enterprise too goddamn early on Wednesday. Sorry to the Chicago folks for creeping out before anyone was up -- thank you so much for taking me in, and curse you for exposing me to the British series of Gladiators. I'm resisting the siren call!

So, apparently I was at this con last weekend? I remember lots of banana bread, lots of gorgeous faces, fabulous outfits, some vids, and MANY, MANY HUGS, of which there were still not enough. The whole thing went almost obscenely smoothly, and I'm so tired I can't even think straight. I'm at work, after taking a day at home to lie under a herd of cats who didn't want to let me move, but it's going to take quite a long time to recover, I think.

My thoughts are with those most affected by the news of the cancellation of SGA, woe!

Johnny Smith lives for the peaceful moments before bedtime. During the day, he leads a normal life. He's got a lovely wife, a perfect home, and two charming children. But at night, Johnny Smith connects with the dead...It all frightens him, the blood, the desperation, and the ghosts. But the most frightening part of all is this: which death is his own? Can Johnny Smith, as Death, outrun his own end? Or is he living all of the possible eventualities? To find out, he must sleep again... and hope that he wakes in the morning. --Dead Zone, described on strangefandoms by Stranger 3 from watching the vid "A Day in the Life"

I'm hanging out at cereta's until Wednesday, having arrived around 9:30p last night. The car I'm driving is BIG and HIGH and totally nicer than any car I will ever own in my life, and in spite of the largeness, just barely held everything. My suitcase rode on the floor of the passenger side, so it was nearly as full as my wee car coming home last year. jackiekjono has a point about finding someone nearer the con to hold some of the crap it takes to put on the con, since I live in slight anxiousness (not really fear) of having an accident or something that takes nearly the entire con out of commission (note: I worry about the con, not me, um), but at least for now, there's not a lot I can leave with anyone else, in part because most of it shows up during the year. *g*

I drove through St. Louis and planned to call Lucy to give her a rough estimate of my arrival time, only to find that even when I had plenty of bars, I had no coverage. I had no coverage standing outside her door, and I really have to rethink using T-Mobile. The problem is that I virtually never use my phone, and I keep it at this point almost solely for trips and the occasional voice message, and it only costs me $20ish a month. None of the other places I've looked have plans that low, but I may look into a trackphone, or something. Any suggestions?

I'm feeling kind of dazed and exhausted, but hopefully the next day or two, and getting to the hotel early (I'm in on Wednesday, this year) will give me time to recoup. I always have grand plans of early nights for the week or two before the con, but then I do things like end up working until 1:30a on Saturday night (with a several hour break while I wrestle supporting member mailing labels into submission and print con-related things), then up until too late on Sunday finishing copying con-related things I should have had done days ago, and... yeah. Heh.

Anyway, I'm here, Lucy's gone to meetings, and I was in so late and slept through the family departure this morning, so I have yet to say hi to the kidlet (which is why I'm here, you know), but I have books, and kittens, and I'm going to go scrounge breakfast.

I'm ages behind on LJ, so I hope you're all well, and happy/holding it together/supported by your closest/getting a break soon.

I'm late pointing to this, in part because I'd hoped to contribute something this year, but it doesn't look likely. However, I highly recommend looking around at some of the posts that have been made. Each day ibarw is collecting links for IBARW posts, asking people to either comment in the daily post for that, or to tag their post on delicious using the for:ibarw tag.

August 4th-10th is the third annual International Blog Against Racism Week.

To participate, from ibarw:

1. Announce the week in your blog.


2. If you use a blogging system that allows post icons/pictures, switch your default icon to either an official IBARW icon, or one which you feel is appropriate. To get an official IBARW icon, you may modify one of yours yourself or ask someone to do so. Here's a round up of IBARW icons.

3. Post about race and/or racism: in media, in life, in the news, personal experiences, writing characters of color, portrayals of race in fiction, review a book on the subject, etc. (Linking back here is highly appreciated!) The optional theme this year is intersectionality.

For inspiration, here are the previous years' IBARW posts and last year's POC in SF Carnival IBARW edition. You can also check out this post or delicioused recommended reading for further resources.

We'll be compiling links for IBARW3 as well, both in the IBARW del.icio.us account and with daily round-ups on this journal. Here's the round-up post for Monday, Aug. 4, 2008.

Please to be noting that the nifty posting of links from del.icio.us to LJ is still undergoing troubleshooting, so right now, the best way to check for new IBARW links is the del.icio.us account.

PSST: It will help a lot on del.icio.us if you title your entry something topical, as opposed to just "Intl. Blog Against Racism Week."

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. -Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

A few weeks ago people were posting about William Sanders, editor of Helix, and his unprofessional conduct. In reaction, a number of people either asked to have their work removed from the Helix archives, or sought to post their work elsewhere and remove their own direct links to their work on the Helix site.

From this comes Transcriptase, an archive of writers currently and/or formerly published by Helix.

Transcriptase hosts reprints of our stories and poems originally published at Helix. During the controversy, some of us removed our work from Helix; others left it up. There are valid reasons to make either choice, and we hope you’ll respect that we had difficult decisions to make. We offer our stories and poems at Transcriptase so that you can enjoy our work away from Helix, if you choose.

The site also includes individual comments from some of the archive writers about the whole imbroglio.

It's a lovely, simple site, and I'm so glad to see it come to be.

Wisdom ofttimes consists of knowing what to do next. -Herbert Hoover

the_pug has posted a new Carnivale vid that I really love, and about which I am completely biased. I think he made an excellent musical selection, chose an unusual angle (the Dreifuss family), and ended up with a strong, poignant, and rather chilling vid.

Death in the Family (available only as a download)

I particularly love the title/opening of the vid, and the progression of it, as it moves from the blood family to the carnies as a whole, and shows that they're all family, and family looks after its own.

caveat: I was a beta on this, thanks to laurashapiro -- you send me the very best! *g*

Carving is easy, you just go down to the skin and stop. - Michelangelo

Neil Gaiman will be writing a two-part Batman story.

Two oversized issues. Due out in January. Illustrated by Andy Kubert. *swoon*

I just called my Visa card to fix something, and found myself being asked if I was the Neil Gaiman. I said yes, I was. "So," said the Visa person, "Are you going to be writing an episode of Dr Who?" --Neil Gaiman

absolutedestiny posted a reminder that signups are still open, but not for much longer! Last year I did Man in Motion with renenet, because I love that vid with a mad passion, and it was so much fun! I think I also popped up to do Copacabana, because Barry Manilow! And I know all the words!

Anyone got anything they've been thinking about, but they aren't brave enough to do on their own? I get pretty goofy by Saturday night....

Hey, LJ's back! Trippy! Surprisingly little of interest has occurred over here in the interim, mind you, but now I can rest assured that the instant the cat does something weird, I can tell the world. -UrsulaV

Yesterday, all in all, was a quite nice day -- and I spent nearly eight hours of it working. I still don't get how it is I can be more productive on a day when nobody else is at work, when it isn't the people at work that distract me from work. *g* Anyway, got a couple things done before working, got work done, came home and watched a few things and positively luxuriated in the thought that I still had all of Sunday! I knew I had things to do with that Sunday (VVC things, writing, vid beta), but it all felt doable!!

Today I wake up, it's a gray kind of day, and I didn't even want to get out of bed. Everything I need to do is just hanging over me, and I don't really want to do any of it! And it won't be the end of the world if I don't do it today (looks apologetically at those to whom I owe SC stories, I'm working on it, I swear!), but I can't settle.

And as expected, I'm hitting more tapes with macrovision problems as I dub the VVC library tapes to DVD. I actually got on the computer to see if the unit I'm using has any known hacks (no), or solutions (possibly; I've bought an intercept device that claims to work with the unit I have). And since there's no way to be sure which vids used commercial footage that will stymie the DVD burner, I end up wasting time and DVDs. I've already accepted that there's no way I'm going to be able to convert the whole library for this year; I simply started too late. And that's okay, because whatever I get done is more than we had, and it's a longterm project. It's still frustrating, though.

I've been dubbing some old Escapade tapes, and I'd forgotten how often vidders used to request that their vids not be included on the con tapes. It made sense; creating the tapes automatically degraded the visual quality of the vids as they went from 2nd gen to 3rd, at least. You had 1st gen (if you were lucky): the source tapes; 2nd gen: the vid itself; 3rd gen: copying the vids to the con tape). One that just hung on macrovision only had a third of the original show on the tape to start with. Mind you, all the vids appear elsewhere, on the vidders' own tapes, most of which I have. That's definitely one thing digital has improved on, though; once cons could switch to accepting digital files and con DVDs, most vidders were willing to let their vids be distributed on the DVDs, much to the joy of viewers like me!

I still need to get some copies of various con DVDs, and compile a library listing of everything that's in the VVC library, at this point. That's... going to take a while!

So, I'm off to not do the things I need to do for a little while longer, until the inner push is unignorable. I was thinking about a Mamma Mia/X-Files double feature today, but I don't think it's going to happen. Having been out of the house all day yesterday, following an inexplicably busy and/or social week for me (movie with friends/dinner with friends/hours at church/lunch with friends/concert in OKC/dinner with friends/work on Saturday, interspersed with sitting silently and dazed), I don't really want to even step outside.

Bah. *grumpy*

There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. -Leonard Cohen

All Star Wars fans must watch (video).

lawpeeps, I'm looking at you!

tzikeh: [school's] kind of like The Amazing Race, except I don't get to go anywhere, and instead of winning money I have to go into debt. I don't even get Phil to hand me my diploma at the end. This season sucks.
Lydia: "My semester is broken! This is bullshit!"
tzikeh: omg *dead*
Lydia: that is literally the only thing I know about TAR.

I've never bought any X-Files, because I just couldn't bring myself to.

Now, thanks to tzikeh bringing it to my attention, and soobunny and jarslberg71 for an incredibly thoughtful and generous birthday gift*, I'M GOING TO OWN IT ALL.

One day only, all seasons of X-Files are $19.99!!! And yes, I even bought the despised seasons 8-9, because some day, when I have distance, I want to actually watch them all. *kof*

OMG HAPPY DAY AFTER MY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!


*Their gift pushed me from the "Maybe" to the "OMG MUST BUY WILL NEVER BE SO CHEAP" place. *g*

I have not watched this season at all, but I will watch the finale, if only because the family should gather to say a last goodbye to a relative that sat around on life support and drained everyone's good will. This will involve pizza. --tzikeh, on the XF series finale

When Batman Was Gay

Link courtesy of afterelton -- it's not really telling me anything new, but it's a clear and interesting exploration of the dramatic shift in tone from the Golden Age, during which Batman used guns and killed criminals, to the more surreal and absurdist Batman of the Silver Age, during the 60s and 70s.

The villain of the piece* instigator who wanted Batman cleaned up is Frederic Wertham, he of The Seduction of the Innocents.

Batman and Robin, Wertham charged, inhabited "a wish dream of two homosexuals living together." They lived in "sumptuous quarters," unencumbered by wives and girlfriends, with only an aged butler for company. They cared for each other's injuries, frequently shared quarters, and lounged together in dressing gowns. Worse still, both exhibited damning psychological characteristics: proclivities for costumes, dressing up, and fantasy play; secretive behavior and double-lives; little interest in women; and, most damning of all, neurotic compulsions resulting in their violent vigilantism. Indeed, Wertham argued, depictions of Batman and Robin were frequently homoerotic, visually emphasizing Batman's rippling physique and Robins splayed, bare thighs.

And he said that like it was a problem. *kof*

*(see comment here about Wertham and his motivations)

More from the writer of the article:

If Bruce Wayne was a paragon of upper-middle class white masculinity - wealthy, cultivated, and amiable - his secret identity represented the dark liberation found in the lurid city, cruising strange corners. Even if Batman's genitals were never portrayed coming into contact with Robin, Batman's crime-fighting lifestyle still embodied a fantasy of freedom from male familial responsibilities and, in a very real sense, from women altogether. Batman's world of the 1940s was almost exclusively male.

.... Like many closeted men, Bruce Wayne dated women to keep up appearances, so that no one would suspect that beneath his placid veneer lurked the sort of fellow who wrestled with criminals in dark alleys.

....DC began to introduce a series of other female characters to provide romances for Batman and Robin - Bat-girl in 1956 and Batwoman in 1961.

As Best notes, Bat-girl and Batwoman's complementary crime-fighting acted as a replacement for regular heterosexual courtship: rather than dinner and a movie, a romantic Batman took his girl out on rooftops. In this sense, Batman's crime-fighting became a sight for potential heterosexual productivity, a time when Batman could WOO! and COURT! The cast of female characters provided Batman with something of a full family, or at least the groundwork for one. Even if the bat-family never achieved full "normalcy," it at least blunted the edges of a lifestyle that was irreconcilable with the gendered expectations of the decade.

....Just as elites worked aggressively to purge society and government of homosexuality, so too did DC purge Batman of any social deficiency which could be interpreted or construed as "gay."

Was it enough? To satisfy the most vocal critics, yes. But, ironically, the move to surrealism and fantasy also pushed Batman into the territory of high camp, in which Batman's ostensibly heterosexual romances were suspiciously unbelievable. Indeed, in the camp world of the Batman television series, Batman's exaggerated and largely asexual romances seemed almost like a parody of actual heterosexual romances

The article also uses the fannishly oft-reposted images of the rainbow-colored Batman suits, Batman wondering what he's done to Robin!!! Bruce&Robin sharing a bed, "Batman's doing his best to sound gay," and... the image in my icon. *g* (which I flipped, yes)

Hello, good citizen! My name is Batman. You could be my assistant! Would you like that? Would you like to ride with Batman? --Snickers commercial

batdina and chopchica have started stilljewish, a safe space for fannish Jews and Jewish allies to discuss and share their experiences, both on and offline. From the userinfo:

This includes things such as discussion of Jewish characters in books, shows and movies; discussion of how Jews are portrayed in the media; discussion of our favorite holidays or foods; discussion about conversion, child raising, weddings, cooking and other life events; discussion about the antisemitism we see in fandom and in the world, etc. Because we are Jews, we’re sure there will be a lot of discussion.

The only topics currently excluded are Israeli policies/politics (cultural and religious convo welcome), "attacks or judging of other people’s Jewish choices," and obviously any kinds of isms.

And I think this is very important to keep in mind:

If you’re here because you’d like to learn more about Jews and Judaism, that’s wonderful, but it’s not remotely our job to educate you, nor is this community an educational space. Our main suggestion is to *listen*. Then listen some more. And some more. And make sure you leave your agenda and privilege at the door. Don’t try to tell Jews just how things *really* are for them. Don’t explain why you’re right and they’re wrong. If a member of the community suggests that you might be missing something? It’s a pretty good bet you are. If multiple members say the same thing? We’d shoot those odds up to 100%. And if you’re here to educate us? That’s nice; please don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

AWESOME.

Napped on my lunch break at 3am and had a weird dream that Jed Bartlett was Batman. This will not do. --Sanj

From afterellon.com:

...a reader...told us that the show is based on an Israeli television program, and that the main character...had a female ex. In fact, an entire episode was devoted to her former female lover.

"She finds her old girlfriend (who she left, heartbroken, awhile back), gets things started again and when it gets heated up in the bedroom she suddenly 'remembers' why she is straight."

Wow. With a story line so original and complex, I'm really disappointed that we may never see this amazing scene played out on U.S. television. Maybe they can substitute it with something less gay but just as visceral, like how Bella Bloom "remembers" why she's anti-violence after she punches herself in the face.

Yeah, I could really hope the US version won't recreate that ep, please.

"I don't want assistance. I'm not broken, and I don't need to be fixed." --Brett Beasley, gay cousin of J. Falwell, when Falwell denied knowing him and offered any assistance he could.

They've cast Harvey Keitel as Gene Hunt. I... can see this. It's one of the first things that's actually made me think I might have to take a look, really. They've also cast Michael Imperioli as Ray, which I can see, and Jonathan Murphy as Chris, about which I have no opinion.

But Harvey Keitel! I just. It's not that he's a particular favorite of mine, just. He's good.

...and now I am in the trenches of Retail Hell. There's a reason why we all wear red shirts, but honestly? It's not that bad.... The other cashiers complain (we are, after all, red shirts), but I cling to the belief that, like Guy from Galaxy Quest, I'm the plucky comedic relief, and I'll survive to the end of the show. --gritkitty

liviapenn has done a great roundup of links here, including a link I saw last night to a short video Laura put up on Elevator Pitches, a site that "that allows entrepreneurs to pitch their startups to the general public," and a couple links to other, similar sites.

As cereta puts it, "That's her model, the one she's been trying to get off the ground. Step One: Get fans to do the kind of work they've been doing for free because they love the source and love fandom. Step Two: Profit.

The bit about how she's deducting her cell phone and con trips is particularly choice. There have been cases of zine producers/sellers profiting from the zines they sell beyond the costs of producing and selling the zines (see: Mysti of Agent with Style), but this seems like a whole new level. This is digging up specific shit I'd never heard of, and it's really appalling, not just in the doing of it, but in the transparent way Hale is attempting to dupe, use, and abuse fans to her own benefit, with a complete lack of respect.

when they made her? the mold was recalled. --Luminosity

ithiliana is awesome. I and a lot of people I know have been angry about the issues involved here (with Laura Hale/Michaela Ecks/Purplepopple/partly_bouncy) for a long time, but I didn't have what it took to speak out like this (although many people have been trying to stamp out the small flames here and there as they see them).

Note: please do not click on any links to fanhistory and thereby boost the hits to the page. svmadelyn explains why, as Hale has been open about her desire to sell the wiki to a commercial buyer.

Luck is infatuated with the efficient. --Persian proverb

"Knight Rider" FBI Agent's Bisexuality May Be Dropped

The folks developing the Knight Rider series were on the TCA press tour, and the question came up of whether they were going to keep FBI Agent Carrie Rivai's implied lesbianism/bisexuality (in the movie, she's shown saying goodbye to a blonde in her bed). Apparently the new EP was taken aback, and said "We haven't explored her sexuality at this point."

I really love this bit:

"Gary really was given sort of carte blanche when we brought him on board, to not be limited by what had been done in the two-hour movie," said executive producer Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith). "And having sat in the writers' room with them, the stuff that he's managed to come up with for … the first eight episodes are so imaginative. A question like that almost feels small," he said, referring to the question about whether or not Rivai is still queer.

Emphasis mine.

It's small, because it doesn't matter to him. He's not concerned with the lack of representation of lesbian/bi women on TV, let alone LB women of color. It's not relevant to his plot, and he apparently hasn't spent much time thinking about this character, which doesn't incline me to want to watch, I have to say -- not because he hasn't thought about her sexuality, but because he doesn't seem to have thought much about her, outside where the plot takes her. Which is normal, but maddening.

The article gets into the reactions of others, including the actress, another EP, and other people who worked on the movie. Dave Bartis said he intended for Rivai to be bisexual, because that opened up a lot of possibilities. Poitier, the actress, read it in the script and thought it was cool, and moved on.

But apparently it confused Thompson, because it didn't go anywhere. "I didn't understand it on a number of levels," he said of the sexually suggestive scene, "'cause there was no payoff. It didn't go anywhere. I didn't see her — I didn't see anybody talk about it, you know, and to me, if you're gonna do something, you should do it and make it a part of the thing."

I'd be willing to bet that if it had been a guy in the bed, or the agent had been male, leaving the blonde in the bed, Thompson wouldn't have been confused and expecting it to "go somewhere" plot-related. In the same movie, the main character is in bed with a woman, and another woman comes into the room, strongly suggesting a threesome -- but did that go anywhere, beyond setting up some character traits for the main character?

And this next bit just PISSES ME OFF:

Thompson cited that time slot as a reason for why he wasn't sure whether Rivai's character could remain bisexual. "We're also an 8 o'clock show," he said, "and I don't know what they're going to let us do. I get nailed on everything in standards-and-practice world." ...He skirted the question of why a bisexual character would need to engage in explicit sexual activity on the air...

wtf. I mean, I get it. I get that there are still a lot of idiots in the world who believe that GLBTQ is intrinsically more salacious/sexual/risky in terms of censorship than straight sex. But it makes me so angry.

Nothing's definite, apparently, but I have mixed feelings about the next bit, because it smacks of the same kind of issues as racial 'colorblindness':

Asked if producers were de-gaying Poitier's character, Bartis said: "That's not the case. … I want to introduce characters that are not remarkable in their sexuality. It's not remarked upon, it's a fact of life, as Syd said about her character, her generation … and I want to see that reflected in television the way it is for her generation."

In response to the same question, Thompson said that de-gaying her was "not my intention at all," but then he added, "I have no intention of anything; I haven't thought that far ahead."

Love it all. The fear, the excitement, the guilt, the power for change, the unworthiness, the hurt feelings, the euphoric feelings, the anger, the movement, the whole process, it’s known as life. --anonymous

According to futoncritic:

Effective immediately "Flashpoint" will now run on Thursdays at 10:00/9:00c while "Swingtown" will head to Fridays at 10:00/9:00c.

There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. -Leonard Cohen

Ron Moore interview by Maureen Ryan

( Interview bullet points )

There's also a transcription of the interview itself, in which they talk about the expanding length of the finale, and that it will definitely be a longer cut on DVD. As ambivalent as I am about BSG, in some ways, I'm still excited by the possibility of a Caprica series.

Descriptions below from futoncritic:

Warehouse 13 is about two FBI agents who are assigned to recover objects stolen from and objects that would appropriately be stored in the warehouse seen at the end of Indian Jones and the Ark of the Covenant. Not literally, but that's how it is in my head. *g*

After saving the life of the President, two FBI agents find themselves abruptly "promoted" and relocated to windswept South Dakota. Their new top-secret location is Warehouse 13 a massive, secret storage facility that houses every strange artifact, mysterious relic, fantastical object and supernatural souvenir ever collected by the U.S. government over the centuries. In addition to searching the country for several missing objects discovered stolen from the Warehouse, their job is to monitor for new reports of supernatural and paranormal activity that could indicate the presence of another object they must investigate and safely bring back to the vaults of Warehouse 13.

Revolution is a futuristic take on the American Revolution, essentially, with a US space colony rebelling against taxation and struggling for control.

New America is a colony settled by the now-named 'United State of America' on a planet resembling our own, located 50 light years away. Echoing many contemporary issues and themes, it is a futuristic version of a new world's passionate fight for freedom. The expansive drama centers on the Hart family one of the founding families of New America. Tom, a former military man turned industrialist, is the patriarch of the family facing great pressure from the government to increasingly tax the colonists already heavily burdened. His two sons have struggles of their own with one rebelling against his industrialist grandfather and the old America, the other more radical one heading toward revolution. His 16 year-old daughter is simply trying to find her way in this world. Add to this a new local Governor torn between her allegiance to the colony and her desire for peace, and a young ambitious bureaucrat looking to bring the colony back under control.

I'd heard of both of these in passing, but not in any detail. I'm happy that Sci Fi is still developing actual scifi series, and not just reality shows, because they seem to have a lot of the latter in the pipeline for the fall.

And apparently they're developing a miniseries based on Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age. Unfortunately, they seem to have shelved development of series like Middletown, Witch School, Johnny Midnight, and Avery House, all of which sounded like shows I'd watch.

I'm trying to think of something deep and profound about how much I loved this. Unfortunately, I think I just died of squee and I'm not even supposed to be in this fandom. --katrimae

( I have a few thoughts. )


I try to avoid things I know have no art in their badness. -Rachael Sabotini

I had a really, really good weekend, this weekend. Tiring, but very, very good. And amazingly social, for me. It's not what I'd want every weekend, but!

Friday night I had a picnic with some other people of a certain age from church. This is a group I've been going to dinner with for a few months, about once a month. I don't know how long they've been doing it; it's clear that they all know each other better than I know any of them, and it's not a group I expect to become bosom buddies with, but it's nice to get to know them better, and it pulls me out of my shell a bit, and makes me feel more connected. They are mostly married, with children, and I haven't yet discovered any commonality of interest beyond the church, but it's pleasant.

The night ended sooner than I expected, though; we met around 6p, were eating by 6:30, and then it got to be 7:15, I realized everyone had their food packed up but me, and suddenly it was over sooner than I thought! One of the others said it was probably because it was too hot, and people wanted out of the heat, but I really didn't find it that bad, particularly for Oklahoma in July.

Saturday, I puttered around and got several of the VVC tapes dubbed to disc, and made a dent in clearing the kitchen table, and then was picked up for a trip to Tulsa and an IMAX viewing of The Dark Knight. This was awesome for several reasons, because BATMAN, because I'd never seen a movie in an IMAX theater before, BATMAN, and in large part because the couple who invited me were folks I've known in a more casual way for a while at work (monsterofmud and falfax), and are definitely people I've been interested in knowing better. *waves*

Also? BATMAN BATMAN BATMAN BATMAN BATMAN. BATMAN.

When we got there, was delighted to find another woman I know and like from work was there (tallwithglasses), with her lovely husband (lawpeeps), along with a half-dozen other people, and I found that I definitely have commonalities of interest with these guys, and I feel like I didn't shut up at any point except when the movie was actually on the screen. *g* Batman, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Wendy Froud, Celtic music, superheroes, and they let me burble at length about fandom and VVC and all kinds of stuff, see: not shutting up!

It was just amazingly comfortable and fun, in a way I don't get to experience often outside specifically fannish contexts, and that's just so nice. And yes, they are all already on LJ. *g*

As for the movie... I adored the movie, and the only element that shook me out of complete, brain-shut-off-and-enjoy-the-ride immersion in it was blinking every time "Johnny Smith" showed up as a reporter, heh. I don't know why, but it's much harder for me to recontextualize actors I heavily associate with a favorite TV character than it is to do so with primarily movie actors.

Reading through other reactions to the film, I'm almost embarrassed to admit that the fact that Rachel was almost entirely passive and used solely as motivation for the male characters completely passed me by. Batman just hits me at such an id level that it seems to turn my brain off entirely, and I miss those kinds of things entirely. I was too excited to hear my own beliefs about Batman's philosophy on killing and the like confirmed as being an intentional part of his characterization in the movie, too caught up in watching his extreme competence, too freaked out by Heath Ledger's excellent portrayal of The Joker, too enchanted by the mutual man crush that Bruce and Harvey were indulging.

Where Batman is concerned, I'm entirely too easy, and I am a happy, happy fangirl.


Sunday, I was "on duty" at church all morning, and it was a warm, warm morning, as the church's cooling system overheated and shut itself off. Still, it was good to see people, and the morning went quickly, and as always I wonder why it is that I've become so lax in my attendance. I did a little too much in and out of the heat and cool, though, as I ran errands between services, in and out of the air-conditioned car. By the time the service was over and I was finally sitting down, I started to realize how worn out I was. I came home and crashed out for an early nap, then got up and watched the Avatar finale. I may have more thoughts later, but by and large I was very happy with the end of the show, as well.

And then I did not one, but two vid betas, and that got my mind going in that creative, helping someone realize their own conceptions way that's incredibly satisfying. Every time I do one of these, I think, what if I've got nothing? What if I let them down? What if I can't see their vision? And when I feel that sense of rightness, that it's coming together, it is, indeed, extremely satisfying.

So, busy, busy weekend on my part, but fun and satisfying and full of good things. And this next week should be good, as well, and likewise social because Wednesday I'm off to see Heart, Journey, and Cheap Trick with wolfgrrrl (my birthday present to myself), I may get to watch more Blood Ties and/or Forever Knight with A. on Friday night, and Sunday I'm off to Tulsa and sushi with steldr, to celebrate our birthdays.

Who am I, and what have I done with the reclusive elynross?

I know some people...who take enduring comfort from the interconnectedness of all things, the sense that the weave of being ties us all together. Me--well,it makes me nervous. Too many weirdnesses in the economy, in the political climate,the social climate, the color of the morning sunlight. There are too many whackjobspulling at the threads in that great weave of being, and there's no way I can really untangle myself from them all. --Kat Allison

Not because I'm interested in it, but because I'm fascinated by the development of it? Um. Yeah, I got nuthin'. *g*

Apparently Jason O'Mara is the only survivor of the original unaired pilot, they've moved it to be set in NYC, and they've gotten "permission" to change the core secret of the show.

I just hope they give O'Mara a new wardrobe and hairdo, too, because it freaked me out seeing him with the buzz cut and dressed just like Simms' Sam Tyler.

Um. Not that I'm going to be watching. Nope.

Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more. -Franz Kafka, while admiring fish in an aquarium

I... am really boggling at the number of people who still seem to believe that 1) fanfiction/fandom is hidden/in the shadows/underground/secret/not readily available in millions of google hits, or that 2) fanfiction is still primarily something subversive.

Well, and that having some people want to have some kind of plan and or resources in place just in case someone does come after us is a bad thing. It's like the fannish, negative version of "If you build it, they will come."

Yes, I stupidly asked for links to the most recent kerfuffle that's a reaction to Rebecca Tushnet being interviewed on NPR, where she quite naturally talked about OTW, and her opinion of the legal standing of fanfiction. I wonder if any of those who are up in arms and wanting to hide under rocks actually listened to the interview? Or considered that NPR already knew about fanfiction, to want to invite Tushnet to come on in the first place?

We're getting random, unexplained (because they assume they don't need to explain) mentions in major entertainment magazines, more and more articles all over, pro and con, fanfiction on the official boards for major shows, places like Fanlib sponsoring fanfiction contests in conjunction with the shows themselves, writers and actors and such are getting queries about their opinion of fanfiction from mainstream interviewers -- we're not even an open secret.

What I have trouble understanding is the number of people who seem to either willfully misunderstand OTW's mission and intent, or haven't actually looked into it, and just accept the misinformation spread by those who think that we, as a whole, can stay under the radar that we haven't really been under in years.

Also, believe it or not, semagic picked the icon randomly. Course, I'm choosing not to change it, so.

It's really almost brain-breaking how fast I can go from feeling bad that I think so many people in the world just aren't bright, when really they just don't agree with me (although usually I question their underlying arguments or assumptions), to having my head explode wondering WHY SO STUPID.

Note: I don't think any and every fan should blindly support OTW, and I think you can reasonably and intelligently disagree with their goals and/or means. I just can't wrap my head around "OMG THEY'RE GOING TO OUT US" as either.

*kof*

A lifetime is more than sufficiently long for people to get what there is of it wrong. --Anonymous

Yeah, hi, I start posting, you can't shut me up. Don't ask me the point of this; I think I'm just documenting my own "huh!" moment. *g*

Someone else in comments to cereta's post mentioned Kiki's Delivery Service, and it made me realize that many of Miyazaki's films have female protagonists.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: Warrior/pacifist Princess Nausicaä desperately struggles to prevent two warring nations from destroying themselves and their dying planet
Laputa: Castle in the Sky: the adventure of two orphans (one girl, one boy) seeking a magical floating island
My Neighbor Totoro: the adventure of two girls and their interaction with forest spirits.
Kiki's Delivery Service: the story of a small-town girl who leaves home to begin life as a witch in a big city.
Spirited Away: the story of a girl, forced to survive in a bizarre spirit world, who works in a bathhouse for spirits after her parents are turned into pigs by the sorceress who owns it. (OMG I LOVE THAT DESCRIPTION)
Mei and the Kitten Bus
Howl's Moving Castle: the story of Sophie, turned into a 90-year-old woman by a curse, who seeks out the mysterious Howl to get the curse lifted.
(Descriptions from Wiki or IMDB)

I've only seen Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Howl's Moving Castle. I expected to really enjoy the first, with the English adaptation by Neil Gaiman, but... not so much. The language seemed odd and clunky to me, and the storyline was just kind of disappointing. The second I quite liked, because how can you not love that description! But I was really more enchanted with the visuals than taken with the actual story. And the last was fun, but none of these have made me so much a Miyazaki fan, as I am a fan of animation in general. I still need to see Kiki's Delivery Service, though, I know, and My Neighbor Totoro, because CATBUS.


Huh. I didn't realize that Miyazaki had wanted to adapt Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea tales. That would have been fascinating, even if the resemblance to the original was as wide as that of Howl to that of Diana Wynne Jones' book. Apparently Le Guin kept refusing, and then finally requested he do so... and he'd lost interest. She would have been better off acceding to his request than that of whoever made that wretched live action adaptation. His son did so as his first film; has anyone Tales from Earthsea?

But even that's not as good as the misquote from me in the Book Festival newspaper where I apparently say that "if you don't read Harry Potter books you'll wind up in the attic sacrificing kittens to Satan at midnight". Which is odd, as I thought I'd said, in response to a question about fantasy and reality, "It's not as if kids read Harry Potter books then wind up in an attic sacrificing kittens to Satan at midnight" which is not the same thing at all, really. --Neil Gaiman

cereta has an excellent rant here about how animated features of the last decade have failed to cast leading female characters, with particular emphasis on Pixar, who even made most of the ants we see in A Bug's Life into males.

In response, browngirl posted a link to the article Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test.

And then I wept.

If you're not familiar with the Bechdel test, it's named for Alison Bechdel, creator of the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. The Bechdel test first appeared in a 1985 strip, "The Rule," in which a character says that she only watches a movie if it satisfies the following requirements:

1. It has to have at least two women in it,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something besides a man.

(quoted from Wikipedia)

It's kind of alarming how hard it is to find things that measure up, even in shows that have multiple female characters. I kind of want to rewatch The (eta) Women's Murder Club to see how often any two or more of the women actually talk together about things that aren't either related to men, or related to the crime in hand. I mean, the latter would still technically pass the Bechdel test, but...

So, yeah, I read the article, written by a screenwriter who's been dealing with this since film school, and in film school she's told that she has to make the straight white males the leads, but as long as she does that, she can write "groundbreaking characters of other descriptions," as long as they don't detract from who the audience really wants to see. So she does, and she gets into the industry... and finds out that her "groundbreaking characters of other descriptions" cause problems, and when she tries to get answers as to why, there's hemming and hawing, until finally someone says, “The audience doesn’t want to listen to a bunch of women talking about whatever it is women talk about.”

And of course, it's not the industry who does it, all the straight white males (or even gay white males) who dominate the production/writing/direction of what we watch, it's us.

...and no matter how the numbers computed, they never added up to, “Oh, hey, look - men and boys are totally watching Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley like it’s no big deal they’re chicks instead of guys.” They always somehow added up to “Oh, hey, look - those effects/that Arnold’s so awesome, men and boys saw this movie despite some chick in a lead role.”

Just like it's always a shock when a movie like Sex in the City or Kit Kitteridge is a big hit, even if the numbers don't support that it's "only the girls" watching -- apparently girls/women don't really watch anything, so it's a surprise when something aimed at us makes money?

I concluded Hollywood was was dominated by perpetual pre-adolescent boys making the movies they wanted to see, and using the “target audience” - a construct based on partial truths and twisted math - to perpetuate their own desires. Having never grown up, they still saw women the way Peter Pan saw Wendy: a fascinating Other to be captured, treasured and stuffed into a gilded cage. Where we didn’t talk. To each other. About anything other than men.

I haven't quite reconciled the fact that my major fannish preoccupation is talking (mostly) to other women about men. Who fuck each other. Ahem.

If the inner truth of gender is a fabrication and if a true gender is a fantasy instituted and inscribed on the surface of bodies, then it seems that genders can be neither true nor false. --Judith Butler, Gender Trouble

On the kind of cool side, it's the first time a basic-cable show has ever been nominated for Best Drama, apparently, and both Mad Men and Damages got nods, along with Dexter, House, Lost...and Boston Legal. Huh.

However.

HBO was shut out for the first time in a long time, to which my immediate reaction was, "Well, since The Sopranos, what have they got?" and figuring it was payback for cancelling Carnivale, Deadwood, and Rome. And then I remember that The Wire isn't Showtime, like I was thinking, it's HBO, and it hasn't been over long enough to be out of the running (which was my immediate reaction when it wasn't listed), and it's been almost completely shut out for its entire run, now, save for one nomination for writing in 2005, and one this year for Simon&Burns, for the finale script. wtf. I just don't get it. Or maybe I don't want to. I think it's seriously one of the most under-rated and under-watched shows ever. I guess it got critical raves straight through, but man.

*glower*

Gabriel Byrne is up for lead actor for In Treatment, which I still can't quite say I enjoy, but it definitely kept me watching. It's got a second season, with all new patients, and I suspect I'll keep watching. While I don't care for Byrne's character, Paul Weston, in many ways, Byrne does a great job of portraying a complicated man who is both very compassionate and very blind; it's the blindness that sets me frothing every now and then when I just want to club him with a cluebat.

And Dexter! Best Drama, lead actor, yay! Is it fall yet?

Did anyone watch the full season of Damages? I started out watching it, but it fell by the wayside. I wonder if I should give it another chance. And then there's Pushing Daisies, with 12 noms; I watched several eps, and... it just wasn't made for me. I'm having similar, but not as extreme, reactions to Middleman, but Natalie is too awesome to not keep watching! Nobody on Pushing Daisies impacted me very much, and I think the core detail of the star-crossed lovers just put me off, for some reason.

Everything you've learned in school as `obvious' becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines. -R. Buckminster Fuller

I just watched the first Act of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and although there were some kind of cringy, near embarrassment squick moments for me*, it is fabulous!!! I don't think I'll watch Act II tonight, because I need to go sleep, but I did poke around on the Dr Horrible site, and looked at some of the merchandise.

I want a Captain Hammer T-shirt!!!! And given how things like this always seemed to be assumed to be more for fanboys than fangirls (not on Joss's part, necessarily, just in general), I am deadly amused (tho chagrined) to find...

...women's tees are Out of Stock in almost all the sizes of three of four designs (with Dr Horrible as the exception), while the men's... are not. And I wonder if this is because 1) we are out in droves for this, and prone to put our money where our delight is, or 2) they assumed that it would draw more fanboys than girls, and are subsequently very understocked in women's tees.

I am now going to bed, after having made myself ten new icons (the ones at the bottom of the list).

At last the time has come to reveal to you our Master Plan. BEWARE! Those with weak hearts should log off lest they be terrified by the twisted genius of our schemes! Also pregnant women and the elderly should consider reading only certain sentences. Do not mix with other blogs. Do not operate heavy machinery while reading this blog. You must be this tall to read. ‘Kay? --"Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog" Master Plan

My phone almost never rings, and when it does so at night, it's usually one of my credit card companies trying to enroll me in some program I don't want. However, it's campaign season, so tonight's call was a call bank on behalf of Bob Murphy, who is running for our state senate district seat. The blurb the caller read to me said that Murphy supported core Oklahoma values! After she finished, I asked her what these values were. Strangely, that was not part of her calling script. She did give me the number of the campaign headquarters and said they could probably answer my question. *g*


Nice thing that happened today: a new friend at work took the time to tell me she thought I was gorgeous! *beams* It was actually kind of adorable that she took the time to make it clear first that she's entirely straight, not that she has any problem with gays or lesbians! And I believe her on that -- we went out to dinner last Friday, and part of our discussion rambled over the issue of gay marriage, and she was pretty firm about thinking that it should be just as legal as the other kind. But she's of an age and a place and a temperament where, for her own comfort level, she needed to say that. And now I wonder if she thinks I'm lesbian... Heh.

Posted here in an attempt to reconnect fandomwise, if not fandomly. Um. *waves hands* Also, because soobunny nudged me! The longer I go without posting, the easier it is to not post at all. I've been reading, all along, ranting in my head about things like the Helix imbroglio and I don't know what all, but feeling that I have nothing to really add to any of the conversations. I'm currently busy trying to figure out my VCR-->DVD burner so I can transfer the VVC library to DVDs, to preserve it at least a little longer, I hope. I probably should get a big external drive just for VVC, and load it up with the files. If I learn how to rip the files. Heh.

And omg Avatar is on again!!! And for some reason they're running the entire last half of season 3 this week, ending with a 2-hour movie on Saturday. Also, I tripped across a rumor today that there may be a new, related series, but I'm trying not to believe it, because it's very weakly substantiated, possibly based on a misinterpretation of an interview, and I want it too much.

Also, this weekend I get to go see The Dark Knight at the IMAX with some newish friends from work! This is multiply cool, because these are people I'd like to get to know better, I've never been to the IMAX, and BATMAN. There is no bad.

Um. OH HAI. Tell me what I should talk about!

The Warhol Internet Corollary - On the Internet, everyone will be famous to 15 people. --tzikeh, on the meaningfulness of BNF status

I just got this in a notice from my university:

Also, OSU announced a $500,000 gift from the Masonic Charity Foundation of Oklahoma (MCFO) to create the Masonic Fraternity of Oklahoma Gender Studies Chair in the College of Arts & Sciences. The Masonic Fraternity is interested in academic disciplines like sociology, psychology, history, and philosophy aimed at researching the importance of men and the role men play in enhancing the stability of family and social life, as well as the economic and social progress of society.

“Our fraternal society is first and foremost the study of men and manhood,” said Robert G. Davis, MCFO board member. “There are few academic studies which have focused on the role gender-specific organizations have played in enhancing the physical, social and psychological health of individuals”

Davis continued, “Our hope is that this partnership with OSU will enhance family, social and community life through gender studies aimed at focusing on the needs of men, the ideals of manhood and a higher awareness of the importance of men in society.”(emphasis mine)

Seriously, I have nothing to say to that. I mean, at first I was all !!! Gender Studies! Okay, we're ages behind everyone else, and odd, that it's from the Masons, but...

And then I was just ???? Because men... need... more attention? Focus? Um?


I was editing an article for work, and there was a point being made about the difficulty of accurately assessing life expectancies, even within a fairly limited area.

The example used included an illustration -- a map of a section the London public transportation system -- and the comment that male life expectancy drops nearly six years between the westernmost station in this area and the easternmost station.

I take a closer look at the map. Second-to-last station is Canary Wharf. Well, there you go, is my immediate thought. Don't live near Torchwood headquarters. --faos

Sadly, my major response to July the 4th was WHEEEEE, DAY OFF! Part of which I spent watching the series finale of The Magnificent Seven with flambeau, the first ep of Little Mosque on the Prairie, and the last two eps of last season's Venture Brothers, which I had somehow failed to watch.

Saturday, I spent no time on the computer at all for the first time in what seems weeks, which is very unusual for me (to go that long without a break). I have this sort of love-hate relationship with my computer/the online world; I wouldn't want to do without it, and I'm fairly dependent on it in some ways, but when I'm off it for a day or two, I sometimes think I'd be happier if I didn't go back at all.

Today I went with gunhilda and wolfgrrrrl to see Wall-E, which was charming and delightful and I'll just ignore my reactions to the state of future humanity. Then I impulsively sneaked in to see The Hulk, which was a perfectly nice event movie of the testosterone-laden property damage sort, but which mostly made me want to see Ang Lee's version again, as I remember enjoying that much more, as it actually made me think a little. I've never been a huge Hulk fan, in general, so a straight-forward Hulk storyline isn't likely to really do a lot for me.

I went totally intent on movie popcorn and soda, and I suspect that's the last time for a long time. They've upped a large popcorn to $7, which is more than the movie ticket cost for a matinee, and the soda was over $5. I ended up with a combo that basically gave me free Twizzlers, but given that the core components were popcorn and fountain syrup, both of which are huge moneymakers for those what sells them, I'll definitely go back to smuggling in my own water and go with that. If I want to spend $20 to see a movie I'll buy the DVD.

I have once more proven to myself the inadvisability of reading the reactions of others about almost anything I have enjoyed by poking through reactions to the Doctor Who finale. I wonder if the difference is that however much I love various companions, I watch for the Doctor and his ongoing journey, and therefore I'm usually left happier (or unhappy in the best ways) than many other people are. Maybe. I dunno, for whatever reason the things that got to other people didn't get to me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

And now I'm going to find something to read before hopefully going to be before too late....

For some reason, I find the below sig immensely cheering and sanguinary. Sanguinatory. Sanguinificatory. ish.

Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together. --George Santayana

At work, at play, life seems to be challenging me with multiple occasions to exercise those qualities that I tell myself I want to develop: patience, serenity, acceptance, grace, humility forgiveness -- what the hell am I thinking?

I fucking hate learning experiences. What I hate most is that moment where you're all set to be deliciously, slyly, maliciously spiteful and go, "FUCK. It's another fucking learning experience!!! You're doing it wrong!"

At work management is making us do idiotic statistical tracking that will end up providing them with a purely imaginary number that will supposedly equal how much it costs to process a book that someone has donated to the library, and mostly proves how entirely they don't understand what we actually do and how we do it. This has provided me both with the opportunity to completely rearrange how I work in ways I hate (thankfully temporarily), and prove how right my boss was in giving me my lowest evaluation scores in the equivalent of "Is a team player" and "Works well with others."

I might have said "fuck" in front of her when she was telling me about the new task. At the meeting this afternoon, I asked a coworker to kick me if I started saying things out loud. It's kind of sad that my boss has developed this nervous laugh to everything I say.

And then I just watched Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders , a 2006 documentary on the credit industry and the lives it destroys with the help of our government, while patting itself on the back for its customer service and helping people afford their health care and mortgages and basic living expenses as it gouges them with interest rates up towards 30%. It made me physically nauseous, and I may have violated my own moral principles more than once calling curses down on some of those smug fuckers. I hope they lose everything and end up on the streets, but I'm not optimistic, and it's left me pissed off at the whole world, and resolved once again to pay off the credit cards and keep them that way. Which means I have got to stop eating out...

I haven't really posted since my fabulous vacation in California, which was fabulous. I didn't want to come home, but since then I've been swept up in prep for VividCon, which is going fabulously in spite of more fucking learning experiences and things that make me go o.O and flail.

And, um. Yeah, that's it. It seems like everywhere I turn, things and people piss me off, and I feel underappreciated and unheard, and what's with that? Probably I just need to watch more Corner Gas, sleep more, and watch Matt dance around the world some more. Nothing like a few good cathartic sobs to reset the universe!

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time. --Edith Wharton

lady_ganesh, rachelmanija, and telophase are running livelongnmarry, a fandom auction to benefit marriage equality. Proceeds are going towards the fight against the California initiative which will legally destroy existing same-sex marriages and ban any further ones.

More info and instructions at the comm profile here! And most if not all of the items up for bidding also come with "buy now" prices. Here is full info on bidding.

I think this is a fabulous thing, even if I'm omg so late in prompting it, and you've probably already seen it all over. I've been a bit...busy! OH HAI. *waves*


I was editing an article for work, and there was a point being made about the difficulty of accurately assessing life expectancies, even within a fairly limited area. The example used included an illustration -- a map of a section the London public transportation system -- and the comment that male life expectancy drops nearly six years between the westernmost station in this area and the easternmost station.

I take a closer look at the map. Second-to-last station is Canary Wharf. Well, there you go, is my immediate thought. Don't live near Torchwood headquarters. --faos

Thanks to cofax7 for the head's up.

coffeeandink here discusses her reaction to a Wiscon 32 panel that dealt with the perceived gender inequities exhibited when Night Shade books published their anthology, Eclipse One, which had a 50/50 gender split of authors, while their cover displayed only male names.

And I quote her: My take is that there was a lot of sexism and male privilege displayed in the cover design, the name selection, and the ensuing conversation, including but not limited to people representing Night Shade Books.

Hold that thought.

cofax7 points to the author listing for Eclipse 2...which contains a 7/93 gender split of authors, and guess which gender is best represented? That's right, there is one woman in this anthology, out of fourteen.

In comments to cofax7's post, I expressed the opinion that if asked, the publishers would claim virtue and gender-blindness; even though I was entirely sincere, it was still disheartening when despotliz confirmed that this is exactly what they say. And the rep in question doesn't even see any reason to be embarrassed or concerned.

Because, as we all know, as long as your intentions are good, if you're blind to gender, then it doesn't matter if the perception is that there's a bias towards male authors. Even if, as pointed out in the comments to the post, the contributors to the second anthology were directly solicited, so that you're not operating solely based on submissions.

Apparently more solicited women "didn't deliver" than men, but then, "[o]f the stories actually delivered, some didn't quite work for [the editor in question] (that happens all the time too). Again, as it happened, more submissions for women were knocked out, but only by chance. It was just how it worked out... The key thing I'd ask you to take away from this, and I'm quite serious, is that I honestly don't think about this when buying stories. I'm not looking to achieve a gender balance."

There's no consideration given to the possibility of encouraging more women writers, not even a token consideration that continuing to put out male-dominated anthologies might lead to a continuing of the problem, not even a moment's thought given to the idea that possibly your view of what constitutes a great story is influenced by this kind of trend. Nobody who considers themselves blind to a particular disparity thinks that their perceptions are at all influenced by the disparity; we're too busy patting ourselves on the back for not being one of them: the people who pay too much attention to trivial issues like race, gender, orientation, ability. If only everyone were blind to such differences in the human condition! *cries*

Cofax said to me, "Do they think nobody's going to notice?" Obviously the answer is: they don't care, because they are secure in their virtue and high-mindedness.

I'll copy cofax7 again in pointing to hth_the_first's response to the virtue of blindness when it comes to issues of discrimination. And I won't be buying any books from Night Shade books any time soon. Because hey, I also support Affirmative Action.

I'm not saying there should be capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?

So, for reasons that won't bear close scrutiyscrutiny (ETA: and clearly neither will my spelling), I didn't sleep last night. And by "didn't sleep" I mean "didn't go to bed at all." By which I mean "sat on the FUCKING COMPUTER ALL NIGHT LONG.

I mean, sure, I had reasons. A reason. For getting on the fucking computer. To check something! I paused a TV show! There was a chain of events! ...I'm just a little fuzzy on some of the links. One or two. One.

See, clearly I ended up somehow on Amazon, but does that every really need explanation? I think it was because I was posting about books. It made sense! And I wasn't there all night. Because posting meant comments meant answering leading to catching up on LJ leading to seeing the very nice new icons that lanning posted last night. Which led to googling images of cat art! S'obvious! And then at some point there was the image search for "feral," because of the feral librarians and needing an icon, which led to uploading of icons and more searching for..something. Name of an artwork. Something.

And...somewhere in there there was a thing. A small thing. Maybe it was a cartoon. A, um. Very special and sadly far from unique cartoon. And by "special" I mean pornographic and by "sadly far from unique" I mean OH. MY. GOD. Um. Did I mention it was Lilo and Stitch porn? *hides*

I CAN SEE YOU JUDGING ME. I did not spend all night browsing Lilo&Stitch porn!!!! Really. Because there were Disney characters and Cartoon Network and Anime characters and X-Men and Superman and Batman and really THERE'S A GREAT DEAL OF CARTOON PORN OUT THERE. Which wasn't a surprise, at all! Just. Practice is much more... there. Than theory.

Of course, some of it involved short skirts and tentacles, usually belonging to two different creatures (although an argument could be made that more often than not only one character was wearing both), and it's not that the content of any of it was a big surprise! Or even particularly shocking--

Okay, there was the cartoon kiddy porn. AND NO, I DIDN'T SPEND ALL NIGHT SURFING ARTIFICIAL KIDDY PORN. But the bit I saw was... disturbing. And by disturbing I mean everything you think I mean, and while I still see a tremendous difference between actual child pornography and this...stuff, I can feel responses and arguments shifting in my head, because that stuff... was not harmless. And it did not make me feel better at all that Mommies seemed to get a fairly equal share of time with their little boys. *twitch*

And that was just in passing. YES.

There may have been a point last night when I almost came close to nearly considering thinking about actually spending money to get into a cartoon porn site. Which would have given me access to multiple cartoon porn sites! Because possibly there were seductive promises of more comic book porn pictures and um. Okay, I didn't even start to get out of my chair to hunt down my plastic, but THERE WAS A MOMENT. And I now have a slightly better understanding how porn addicts can lose their lives to this stuff, because those sites are tricksy. You see a tableau of pictures! You click on an, um. Intriguing one! And it takes you to another page full of pictures, which may or may not include the one you were "intrigued" by. Which leads to opening more tabs. And more. And there are traps, of course, movies that want to download, cgi scripts that want to run-- Dangerous things.

And of course, for reasons like this, this was all incredibly stupid and I have no excuse, it's just one more link, then bed, oh, huh, look at. Um.

My poor Firefox had a nervous breakdown and kept trying to escape, refusing to cooperate, crashing three to four times before it just couldn't take it anymore and it disappeared entirely. I think it had its head under a pillow, with ear plugs and a sleep mask, and when I tried to coax it back it wouldn't respond, as if to say "GO AWAY YOU SAD, SAD KINKY WOMAN."

Of course, it could have been one of the mozilla add-ons that's apparently known to do something similar, and the poor browser was finally persuaded to come back in safe mode, with add-ons disabled, at which point I could restart it and it was fine. Only a tiny tremor or two.

The end result of all this is that as far as how I'm feeling? It's still last night. I mean, it can't be tomorrow, I haven't slept yet. It was still light when I sat down at the computer, not quite twilight, but the sun wasn't really up. And by the time I realized that I should stop promising myself that be able to lie down for at least three hours, two hours, one, I was practically late for work and the quality of light, today being gray and cloudy, was almost exactly the same as when I sat down. It literally still feels like last night, and about twelve hours of my life just evaporated in a pornographic cartoon blur. It all kind of just... smushes together. And yeah, some of the pictures were just like that.

And I can hear you now. "You...are not precisely the person I thought you were." I am! No, really! Okay, I'm precisely the person I always was, only now I'm... more illustrated. In my head.

Some people cartoons were never meant to have sex.

Please be laughing. *looks nervously at Joule*

...and I said, but the forecast said it would be better this weekend! and Seah said, "The weather channel always gets us wrong!" and I said, "But I went by the local news site Margie gave me" and she said, "NO HORRIBLY HOT! ALL BAD! ALSO THE U.S. IS OUT OF GRAIN AND WE HAVE TO STOCK UP!" She also said, "Look, just think of it as stocking up against the Zombie war"

Like I'm going to think she's really serious about protecting us from the Zombie war when we don't even have the MOAT in yet. --Merryish

Lovecraft's Cthulhu meets Len Deighton's spies. In the title piece, Alan Turing, the father of modern computer science, completes his theorem on "Phase Conjugate Grammars for Extra-dimensional Summoning."


The Sword-edged Blonde stars "sword jockey Eddie LaCrosse, a private investigator who has spent most of his life trying to distance himself from a shadowy and tragic past.... Incorporating elements from both hard-boiled mystery and heroic fantasy, Bledsoe's genre-blending first novel is both stylish and self-assured: Raymond Chandler meets Raymond E. Feist."

(Clearly I'm on a posting upswing. I'll go to bed soon. No, really.)

Wouldn't it be great if kittens were found with the same frequency as spiders? My flatmates would rush out of the bathroom screaming, "there's a kitten in the bath! We think it crawled up the plughole! Please deal with it!" And late at night, you'd look out of the corner of your eyes, and see something furry scuttling across the wall, or hanging by a thread from your ceiling, purring. --Katharsis

(I wonder why that one reminds me of merryish...)

"In The Divinity Student, you are introduced to an enigmatic character whose insides are stuffed with papers and he lives off of formaldehyde."

I also find that I like my stories on the smaller scale. Mention of an "epic journey" has me easing away...


Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and Real Programmers wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the middle of the machine room. --from Real Programmers Don't Write Specs, Tom Van Vleck

Portable Childhoods, by Ellen Klages

From a review:

"In the House of the Seven Librarians," which closes the book, is a charmer about the unconventional upbringing of a child raised by feral librarians.

RAISED BY FERAL LIBRARIANS. It doesn't hurt that it has a Gaiman intro, either, but. FERAL. LIBRARIANS.

...Tor has purchased rights to a Norse fantasy not-a-trilogy that I call the Edda of Burdens. I'm very excited about that: it's all dark and Gothic and soaring architectures of the human soul and darkest night and chasing Michael Moorcock down a dark alley to thump him a good one and riffle his pockets for leitmotifs. --Elizabeth Bear

Does anyone else daisy-chain through Amazon's "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" links, adding things that look tempting to one of their wishlists? Just me, then. You do have multiple wishlists, though, right? Divided by genre, or type of thing? Um? And I have no idea why some people looked at me funny when they found out my fantasy fiction list was 17 pages (413 items). It's remote memory, people! I don't necessarily want to own all those books, but I don't want to forget them! Okay, that's not right. I totally forget most of them when I'm not looking at the list, that's what the list is for. And hey, if people buy me things off it? Everything on it is totally something I thought looked interesting! Same with the DVD list, and the mystery list, and the nonfiction list, and the YA/children's list, and the comics/cartoons/manga list, and the kitchen list, and the spirituality list, and the music list....

Oh, hush. I like lists of "to be experienced" things! It means I will never run out.

Anyway. While the current structure of ten "pages" of "also bought" recs under the original book info is nice in some ways, I miss the option to add an "also bought" rec directly to my wishlist with the click of a button.

And I would be much, much more tempted by Amazon's " Better Together/Buy this book with" combinations if the total combined price wasn't a simple sum of the individual prices. I always think "this is not a deal! I gain nothing, buying them together!!!" -- unless I already wanted both of the items they combine.

And I still don't get why they combined a set of frying pans with my headphones. But I did need frying pans.


I've read through a bunch of books since I asked for urban fantasy recs, but the one I want to hawk is Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, which I enjoyed so much I immediately ordered the sequel, although it won't be out in the US in paperback for a bit yet. (Stupid US publishers, he lives in WI, but is published first through a UK publisher hmf!) If you like Thieve's World-type fantasy and/or have a soft spot for too-clever-for-their-own-good con artists, you might like this. I don't know exactly why I compare it to the TW books; it's richer in some ways, and has an "ancient/alien civilization disappeared/died and left remnants" setting, with a kind of Renaissance feel to it. The culture is mingled Italian/Spanish/Portuguese in feel, kind of, but there is a type of thieve's guild, and a priestly order of many gods. Maybe it's the traces of D&D ancestry that it shares with TW that evoked that for me.

But as con artists, the main characters are a joy to me. It starts with a bit of the title character's origin, and then the present-day con job story is interspersed with sections telling more of his story and that of one of his closest compatriot's, and how they came to do what they do as the self-proclaimed Gentleman Bastards. It's not always an easy read, and Lynch doesn't pull any punches in what he's willing to put his characters through. I won't even argue that it's always plausible or entirely reasonable, either in storyline or character capability, but I didn't care. It's a book I think I'll be rereading for years.

Also, Lynch seems pretty cool:

# What do you think about fanfic set in your fictional worlds?
I find the thought immensely flattering. However, for liability reasons again, I won't hunt it down and read it, offer opinions on fanfic sent to me, or, in fact, even acknowledge its existence. It's probably best for all concerned if you don't point it out to me... that way I can maintain plausible deniability.

This isn't to say don't do it; if it pleases you, write anything you like for private use. After all, who can stop you, or should?

The second rec is one that someone responding to my post reminded me of: Mike Carey's The Devil You Know, also a UK publication, although at least the author is also British, this time. *g* The sequel, Vicious Circle, will be released here later this summer, although both it and the third in the series are available in the UK/as imports. A fourth book is due out in October.

Carey is probably best known for his comics writing for Vertigo, first for Sandman Presents, then in his own series, Lucifer (which I also recommend), as well as a 40-issue run on Hellblazer. His novel's protagonist is Felix Castor, who bears some similarity to John Constantine, in ways of which I approve, although he's a nicer chap. I'd say he falls somewhere between Harry Dresden and Constantine, um. If you were to draw a line between them! *kof*

It's a "feel" thing again, having to do with character types (Felix is more ruthless and less open than Harry, less ruthless and more open than John) as well as the tone of the books, I think, where Devil is closer to the gritty style of Hellblazer, but... Hrm. It may be that the similarity in tone with Dresden is in part because they're
urban fantasy-type books compared to HB's comic format. Still, I do think that the tone and the relationships that Felix has and the way he relates to people are more like Harry in some ways, while Felix operates more like John, sometimes. But nicer.ish.

Felix Castor is a non-religious exorcist in a world where ghosts have made themselves kind of ubiquitous and magic works, a magic closer in tone to Hellblazer than Dresden Files. There are werewolves, but they're of an original type, a kind of haunting. At the opening of the book, Felix is working as a party magician for a rather wretched boy, and you learn that he hasn't been practicing as an exorcist for a while. The mystery surrounding that fact emerges over the course of the book, but chance plays Felix a cruel trick and suckers him back into exorcism, supposedly of a minor haunting at an historical archive -- which of course then gets complicated.

So, yes, loved them both, want more of each! I don't know if Carey plans more beyond the four in the series. Lynch apparently has a seven-book arc plotted out for Locke, as well as another seven-book arc set twenty years in the future. However, I think he's only under current contract for four books.

As well, he'll be publishing related novellas through Subterranean Press, a lovely, dangerous small specialty press that publishes limited and lettered editions of novels, chapbooks, and short story collections of various genre authors (sometimes the more obscure titles), including in no particular order Naomi Novik, Charles de Lint, Joe R. Lansdale, Caitlin Kiernan, Charles Straub, Dan Simmons, Poppy Z Brite, Robert Bloch, Elizabeth Bear, Jim Butcher, Ray Bradbury, Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman, John Crowley, Philip K. Dick, Philip Jose Farmer, Brian Lumley, George R.R. Martin, Tim Powers, Michael Resnick, and Connie Willis. I've ordered a handful of books from them, and found them worth the price, with nice jacket and interior illustrations by a variety of artists. They also publish their own magazine, and offer a variety of online content including fiction, audio, reviews, and interviews.

I have no problem with change, I just don't like to be there when it happens. --Adrian Monk

Specific link from giandujakiss, Court gives detainees habeas rights:

In a stunning blow to the Bush Administration in its war-on-terrorism policies, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign nationals held at Guantanamo Bay have a right to pursue habeas challenges to their detention. The Court, dividing 5-4, ruled that Congress had not validly taken away habeas rights. If Congress wishes to suspend habeas, it must do so only as the Constitution allows — when the country faces rebellion or invasion.

The Court stressed that it was not ruling that the detainees are entitled to be released — that is, entitled to have writs issued to end their confinement. That issue, it said, is left to the District Court judges who will be hearing the challenges. The Court also said that “we do not address whether the President has authority to detain” individuals during the war on terrorism, and hold them at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba; that, too, it said, is to be considered first by the District judges.

So, it doesn't guarantee the detainees a good verdict, but at least they have the opportunity to pursue their challenges.

There are also a number of links to various press articles on the issue.

torch: I can't stop reading, I have to see who gets pregnant next. Did I mention that Snape is having Hagrid's baby?
Margie: You did not, but somehow, I am not surprised. Horrified, but not surprised.
torch: Man, this story has everything. Voldemort just had grilled Narcissa for lunch and Lucius was raped to death. Certainly a contrast to all the domesticity.
Margie: You know, I've been in fandom too long. It didn't even occur to me to take "grilled Narcissa for lunch" metaphorically.

...if the Judiciary Committee doesn't act.

With regard to my Kucinich as Keebler Elf Hottie of yesterday, from AfterDowningStreet.org, "WEDNESDAY 3:15 p.m.: Congress has just voted overwhelmingly (251-166) to send the articles of impeachment (H Res 1258) to the House Judiciary Committee to be acted upon there. 24 Republicans voted Yes along with all the Democrats.

Two articles of Clinton's impeachment passed by a 228-206 vote, although both votes were largely on party lines, so sheer numbers is misleading.

CNN has Kucinich effort to impeach Bush kicked into limbo, which points out that the move to committee allows the Democratic leadership to freeze the issue indefinitely, so it seems likely to me that the House doesn't really want to deal with it, and this allows them to do that. Not do that. Especially since many Republicans wanted to talk about it and (according to CNN) "paint Democrats as political creatures in a time of serious issues."

... THIS IS SRS BSNS.

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said she would not support a resolution calling for Bush's impeachment, saying such a move was unlikely to succeed and would be divisive."

...because it's all unity there now! We only impeach on grounds of moral rectitude in this country, I guess.


And REMEMBER: you can't say "we have no time" AND "if he attacks Iran then we'll impeach him" WITHOUT your head exploding.

synecdochic and co-conspirators have been plotting!

Excerpt:

There's a quote from bash.org that sums up what saddens me about the Web 2.0 world:

please describe web 2.0 to me in 2 sentences or less.
you make all the content. they keep all the revenue.


I believe it doesn't have to be like that. I believe there's a way to sustain an online community, a community made up of smart, intelligent, and creative people, that functions as a community, not as a cash cow. I believe that it's possible to build a site that serves its community, not its board of directors or its venture capitalists or its investors or its advertisers.

I believe it's possible for smart people, creative people, to build a service and understand the people using that service, because they're part of the userbase too. I believe it's possible for a small group of highly motivated, highly experienced people to build a service that accepts it's always going to be a niche market, and I believe it's possible to rock the everliving hell out of that niche.

We're going to give it our best damn shot.

I am proud, exhilarated, and more than a little terrified to announce to you the birth of Dreamwidth Studios.

AWESOME. Although I am thwarted -- I didn't read the original subject line, and I was all ready to lay down my money and make an account! I don't have accounts at JF, GJ, or IJ, for a variety of reasons, but I think I'll be supporting Dreamwidth.

tzikeh: DENNIS KUCINICH HAS NEVER BEEN THIS SEXY
Lydia: ...what?
Bas: ........
tzikeh: Congressman Kucinich is on the floor, giving a factually-supported speech of 35 individual incidents of George W. Bush violating the Constitution, and calling for his impeachment. Scott McClellan has stated that he will appear before Congress under oath and testify to any questions they have as to what he knew and when he knew it.
Bas: !
Lydia: whoa
Bas: wow. that is hottt
tzikeh: I'm watching him on C-Span right now. He's going point by point with extraordinary detail
Bas: Kucinich, you delightful little keebler elf.
tzikeh: I AM HOTT FOR THE KEEBLER ELF
Lydia: you know that if elyn were here, she'd be sigging that.


It's good to have friends. *g*

counteragent's little sister-in-law, Jenny, is very sick. Jenny is a 14 year old with a rapidly progressing paralysis. Her family is looking for other people with similar symptoms in an effort to find treatment or doctors who might recognize these symptoms. It would be wonderful if you could take a quick moment to check out her family's blog and see if you might know anyone like her.

Her family would also really appreciate it if you post about this on your blog and thus help spread the word.

You are never too old to be what you might have been. -George Eliot

Just for a change of pace!

Tired of things like the feminine derogatory on SPN, the "oh, how CUTE for a show about sexual victimization" picture in TV guide (brought to my notice by tzikeh), finding out that the f/f kiss on a current show was presented entirely in context of taunting/teasing a male*, finding out that actually, L&O did have a female cop, for s17, but according to Wikipedia she was thought to be promoted on a fluke, to be too inexperienced, and disappeared after flubbing an interview and being told she wasn't long for Homicide, I decided to read the news.

There, I was just depressed by articles on rising gas prices and food prices, until I went to the main pictured article on the US page of CNN:

Black college has first white valedictorian
Joshua Packwood knows what it's like to be a minority. This weekend he'll be the first white valedictorian to graduate from the historically black, all male Morehouse College in the Atlanta school's 141-year history.

HE KNOWS WHAT IT'S LIKE.

# Story Highlights
# Joshua Packwood, 22, will become first white valedictorian of Morehouse College
# He turned down Ivy League scholarship to study African-American studies
# Throughout his life, Packwood always gravitated toward the black experience
# Packwood: "I don't think ethnicity makes the difference; it's what's in his heart"

I don't know that I'm actually dissing Packwood, so much as the article, although some of his statements really make me wince. But this:

This came naturally to Packwood, who attended a predominantly black high school.

"A large majority of my friends, like all my girlfriends have been minorities," says Packwood. "So it was very, it was kind of strange that I always kind of gravitated to the black community."

Packwood fit in immediately at Morehouse. His charm, movie-star good looks and chiseled physique made him popular among students. He was elected dorm president and to class council during freshmen year - and was a favorite at campus fashion shows.

Then there are comments about his life not always being easy, and the reaction to being named valedictorian over 3,000 black men:

Even though he received the support of school administrators, Packwood's scholastic success did not come without some controversy. When word got out that he might become the next valedictorian, some of his classmates - even friends - were admittedly chafed.

"They approached me and said, 'Yeah, I have a problem with you being valedictorian. I know you've earned it and even though I know you on a personal level - I like you a lot - but it disturbs me that out of roughly 3,000 black men - there's not one that's done as well as or better than you academically,' " says Packwood.

Still, the majority of students told CNN that he earned his accolades and they stand behind him. Some say, if anything, Packwood's academic success should serve as a lesson to his fellow students.

"I think that it should be a wake-up call to an all black campus," says Muhammad. "At Morehouse we're supposed to be at the top as black men. We only have a few white students and to see a white student will rise to this - is something unsettling to me because it shows that we need to work harder."

And... I really have no words about this following bit, because I'm don't think I'm sure what he means. I hope. I mean, my immediate reaction is wtf?!

Overall, Packwood says his experience is the best proof of Morehouse success, because the school was able to produce a white valedictorian - against the odds. He's eager to quote the school's most notable alums.

And he was immediately hired by the prestigious Wall Street investment banking firm Goldman Sachs.

I think I'm back to rage now.

*On the funny-sad side, yesterday I was telling a co-worker about the Bechdel test. Today she came in and said I was contagious. She was watching Grey's Anatomy, and ( spoiler for last night's GA )

Oh, and they cancelled Women's Murder Club. It wasn't sensational, but it was solid, and I liked it, and it had four women leads, one of them black, and her husband was in a wheelchair, and they were dealing fairly frankly with some related issues, and almost every episode it passed the Bechdel test!!! Sigh.

It did lead me to ponder the cozy niche casting of coroners. Black on CSI:Miami (up to a point), Bones and WMC, disabled on CSI, hispanic on Moonlight...

And that's Friday in the elynverse. Although it also comes with cracked pepper bread, kalamata olive tapenade, and genoa salami. And tomorrow, I'm off to California for a week and a bit to see friends, and be able to be depressed and rage in person! Yays! \o/

elfwreck, in metaquotes: Merrie was talking about ... something and she used the word Fuck. A few times. Finally, Fred broke in and said, "Hey, stop that. Fuck is not a comma."

spatialrift47: That's made of win fuck punctuation fuck and just general awesomeness.
imalumberjack27: I see you are a user of the Oxford fuck.
tears_of_nienna: I support the Oxford fuck as well, although no one else seems to give a flying comma about it.
imalumberjack27: Maybe people are afraid to use it because they might accidentally splice their fucks.
etcet: Just don't shit your infinitive.
imalumberjack27: Well at least I haven't got a dangling bollocks.

According to afterelton.com, "Fans of out actor Russell Tovey (which definitely include me) will be glad to know that the BBC 3 has ordered up a six-part series of the drama Being Human about a werewolf, a vampire, and a ghost living together while trying to blend in to society. Being Human first aired as a pilot episode last year with Tovey playing the part of George, the werewolf. No word yet on the casting for the series, but my fingers are crossed that Tovey will be in it when it airs next year."

tzikeh: yay!
xenacryst: yay!
lydiabell: \o/
tzikeh: :D
tzikeh: or
tzikeh: \o?
lydiabell: hee
xenacryst \o-) (raised shield)
tzikeh: OMG YOU MADE A SPARTICON
xenacryst LOL
tzikeh: (-o-)
tzikeh: I attack Sparta with a T.I.E. Fighter
tzikeh: THIS! IS! ENDOOOORRRR!!!!

No detailed recounting, but last night I debated cultural appropriation with myself in my sleep, in the context of wearing what (in the dream) I thought of as "generic medieval Buddhist peasant," and isn't that phrase just rife with problems to start with. And the outfit itself was involved pants, tunic, tabard, and some odd cardboard over thingie. And a conical sedge hat, which part I blame on a recent post&comment set on fatshionista.

Then I dreamed that absolutedestiny posted in the VVC comm that Dreamhost had truly resolved the ftp problems!!! Only to wake up and find that they haven't even publicly admitted there are problems on DH's end that aren't "resolved" by their claims of "It's your ISPs!" and "Use this workaround that doesn't actually solve the problem!" GRRR. This dream, at least, is typical of my contemporary stress dreams, which have evolved through "I'm in elementary school and I forgot to wear clothes" to "I'm in JH/HS and I forgot to wear clothes/forgot to go to a class/forgot to take a test" to "I'm in college, and ditto" to "I'm teaching and forgot to prepare/wear clothes/etc" to "I'm BACK in college and/or HS and forgot I was taking a class/forgot my locker combination" (weirdly, I don't remember having the locker combo issue dream at any point I actually had a locker), to "I'm going to a con and I don't have a roommate/nobody talks to me/nobody is happy to see me/I was so late I missed the con" to the present day "I'M RUNNING A CON AND IT'S FALLING APART OMG." Mixed in with bits of the rest. *g*

Interestingly, I've never had stress dreams that directly pull imagery from my actual job. It's just not that stressful a thing, thankfully.


It was very odd, staying away from the computer all weekend, and finding on Monday that I had missed the latest race imbroglio concerning the HP RPG game. The oddness stemmed from basically "reading it" backwards, starting with the knowledge that actual change had been effected, back through the justifiable outrage to the initial reports. As usual, some terrific thoughtfulness and discussion arose/is arising in the wake as people work out their thoughts and feelings. liz_mark's post on the experience of a Holocaust survivor her mother knew is most striking for me, because I don't remember hearing about brothels located at the camps before, although I'm completely unsurprised. And the post led me to poke around online and hit some horrid revisionist sites who want to claim that Auschwitz I had a swimming pool and theater and hospital and all these amenites, for the prisoners, and this is clearly proof that they were well cared for! Without caring that there was a long-term Polish army base there first, that there were initially mostly political prisoners who mayhave been better treated, the "swimming pool" doesn't look much like a swimming pool (Um. It's a concrete rectangle?), and the theater was stuffed full of shoes and clothes of the murdered, awaiting shipment back to Germany, among other things. *breathes deeply*


I'm starting to feel informationally over-stimulated again. I can barely keep up with LJ, both because I've added new people, added some old people back after my last purge because I found I missed them, and mostly because a lot of my "friends" are syndicated feeds -- and that's not counting my news filter and issues filter. I try to keep up with 100 posts back on news, but that always leads to more daisy-chaining through stuff, and I haven't really had time to read much on the issues filter, sadly. So I go home and I'm kind of a mental zombie, which means not getting done the stuff I need to, like writing on Sweet Charity stories and doing vid beta and OTW-related stuff. *looks apologetically at affected people*

I seem to alternate between feeling like I need to keep better informed, and living with my head in the sand, just trying to not let my head explode from information overload. Fandom on LJ has just kind of exacerbated this for me.

I try and be more productive on weekends, and some weekends that's a fabulous success, and others, I lie around in bed a good part of the day, only to get up to eat and then loll about on the couch the rest of it, reading and eating and watching TV. Does anyone else do that? I'm single, there's no reason in the world I shouldn't do that occasionally, and yet I'm apparently culturally-conditioned to feel guilty and like a lazy slob, even when I don't have things I've said I'd do.

I have been trying to get back on track eating and exercise-wise. I'm not dieting. I think I've pretty much given that up in favor of trying to eat healthily and sensibly, and trying not to stress too much about my weight, as long as I am eating so, and getting regular exercise. I've been back to the gym for a few weeks, though I haven't yet made it a habit, and I've missed the last couple of days. My coworker cohort first had an injured foot, and now is out of town for the week, and that makes it just that much harder to go, especially since without her reminding me, I tend to work too late and then not feel inclined to stay away from home later. Add to that that ongoing construction still makes it a pain to get to the gym, and this week's Special Olympics complicates both getting there and parking, and it's been far too easy to just go home.

Still, I started using the weight machines again last week, and I really like how that makes me feel. Right now, my basic commitment to myself is four days a week, hopefully five, alternating just treadmill with treadmill+weight machines, or alternating upper and lower body on the machines+treadmill. This means that this week, I have to go in on Saturday. *g* Hopefully this will mean it's not one of those "lie in bed until the cats can't stand it, then lie on the couch the rest of the day" days!

You're born naked, the rest is drag. --RuPaul

From DeadlineHollywood, AMPTP Walks from SAG Talks.

Reading through it, it's as if the WGA strike never even happened.

I do actually realize, for the record, that real life is a bit more complex than television. This is a metaphor. For one thing, if it were television, I'd have a bigger apartment, and I'd be the wacky comic-relief neighbor, as played by that chick on the Gilmore Girls.Some kind of horrible gaudy clothes. An annoying voice. Although probably a better car. And hey, if we were cable, maybe I'd even get a girlfriend. --Sanj

From all over:

In response to heat they're getting from the American Family Association, P&G is conducting a phone poll to see if people are for or against the Luke/Noah storyline on As The World Turns. Even if you don't watch the show, please consider taking a quick moment to support boy kissing and thwart homophobic bigotry. The poll is completely automated. You don't have to talk to anyone. And it really does take all of a second to register your opinion.

Just call 1-800-331-3774 and press #1 to continue in English (or #2 for Spanish) [ETA: apparently you may or may not get that question, so listen to the menu], then #2 to get to the ATWT poll, then press #1 to continue the storyline.

Please spread the word if you're so inclined.

I don't watch, but it took about 20 seconds to call and push buttons!

Lanning: Someone who thinks he's Rasputin? House would eat that up with a spoon.
Lydiabell: WHITEBOARD! * shot * stabbed * poisoned * drowned
cereta: "What's the differential diagnosis for being a total nutbar?"
elynross: "And check for vasculitis."

Sarah Warn has posted asking about movies that in some way deal with violence against women the right way, saying:

I thought it might be worth noting some off the movies that draw attention to violence against women in the right way. Movies that drive home the point in such a way that you finally get why some women make such a fuss about feminism. Movies that help you understand the depth and pervasiveness of the problem, if you don't, or make you want to get out and do something about it, if you do.

She names Thelma & Louise, The Accused, What's Love Got to Do With It , The Color Purple, North Country, and episodes of L&O:SVU. Commenters add Girl, Interrupted, Shame, Monster, The Dogwalker, Prime Suspect movies, and Boys Don't Cry.

You have to register to leave comments, btw. I don't have any to add to this list; I admit, I tend towards escapism over reality when I watch movies at all. But I still remember the impact Thelma & Louise had on me, as well, and how it broke my heart, the choices they felt forced to.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line between sanity and madness gotten finer? --George Price