![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This morning my chiropractor wonked my neck, picked up my left hand, and said that my fingernails were blue. They were. My oxygen sat was 95%. So today I'm trying to breathe more and keep things chill, because apparently I've been revving so hard that I've actually been depriving myself of air. I'm doing okay. Just a little bit of panic and overload. Karl Rove is on campus today, and even though I've got choir practice to prevent me actually hearing any of his bullshit I can feel the shadowy edges of his presence like a pall over the land. Blecch.
I watched Men in Black III last night, which was surprisingly awesome. How did I not know that Emma Thompson had taken over MiB HQ? There is nothing not fab about that. And as usual the broyay was strong, and the timetravel plotline was satisfyingly fanservicey. Stuff like this is why I love science fiction, y'all - because realism is never going to get you to that one where you meet your baby back in time and they don't know you but you still love them crazy hard. And that's one of the best ones there is.
Because I'm writing Star Wars fic today, have 4+ minutes of Mark Hamill auditioning - reading against Harrison Ford, of course. That right there is why I give like 75% of the credit for the OT to the actors - the rest goes to Frank McQuarrie, Frank Oz, Ben Burtt, and Bob Anderson.
( video embedded behind the cut )
I watched Men in Black III last night, which was surprisingly awesome. How did I not know that Emma Thompson had taken over MiB HQ? There is nothing not fab about that. And as usual the broyay was strong, and the timetravel plotline was satisfyingly fanservicey. Stuff like this is why I love science fiction, y'all - because realism is never going to get you to that one where you meet your baby back in time and they don't know you but you still love them crazy hard. And that's one of the best ones there is.
Because I'm writing Star Wars fic today, have 4+ minutes of Mark Hamill auditioning - reading against Harrison Ford, of course. That right there is why I give like 75% of the credit for the OT to the actors - the rest goes to Frank McQuarrie, Frank Oz, Ben Burtt, and Bob Anderson.
( video embedded behind the cut )
I've been having a lovely wallow in Brecht over the last few days - I volunteered to lead seminar on him this week, because he's where I come from and very dear to me. I very much like his point about the unsure intersection between ethics and sympathy, although I don't always live by it - but it gives me language to talk about what happens to me in fandoms like Iron Man or Stargate, where I fundamentally disagree with the characters on ethical grounds but fall in love with them anyway.
(I just realized, this might be why I watched all the "Jack and Daniel fight" episodes of SG1 this week - because those episodes actually get close to articulating some of the Very Deep Issues I have with the entire premise and mission of the SGC. This is also, nb, why I hold so close to earlier characterizations of Daniel and am troubled by latter ones - because for me there's a big difference between a geeky outsider trying to shift the system and a scientist-collaborator who sells knowledge and intellect to a government for the purpose of making war.)
I don't want to NOT fall in love with them, though. My love affairs with characters like Tony Stark are oddly precious to me. They represent some of the best feelings of my life. And, every now and again, some lovely fanworker will make something like Average Avengers Local Chapter 7 of New York City, and bring love into line with ethics. Brecht knows that to be a passive part of the audience is to open oneself up to being used through one's loves; his solution is to force the audience to participate in the creation of meaning, so that they cannot be victimized, so that they have to be a responsible part of what is made.
I watched Theater of War last night, a gorgeous documentary - available on Netflx Watch Instant! - that follows the Tony Kushner/Meryl Streep production of "Mother Courage and Her Children" in 2008. Seeing clips from that production was lovely, but the documentarians also did amazing things with the model book from the original 40s production. The model book gives a series of stills of the production, sometimes only seconds apart; the documentary put them into a semi-animated slideshow, with the text spoken over, so that you got a real sense of ghosts in motion. Streep has a great line at one point - the interviewer asks her what it is to be an actor - she says that she is the voice of people who have died.
The film's worth it if only for the footage of Brecht's testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He treats it like a farce. It's beautiful.
(I just realized, this might be why I watched all the "Jack and Daniel fight" episodes of SG1 this week - because those episodes actually get close to articulating some of the Very Deep Issues I have with the entire premise and mission of the SGC. This is also, nb, why I hold so close to earlier characterizations of Daniel and am troubled by latter ones - because for me there's a big difference between a geeky outsider trying to shift the system and a scientist-collaborator who sells knowledge and intellect to a government for the purpose of making war.)
I don't want to NOT fall in love with them, though. My love affairs with characters like Tony Stark are oddly precious to me. They represent some of the best feelings of my life. And, every now and again, some lovely fanworker will make something like Average Avengers Local Chapter 7 of New York City, and bring love into line with ethics. Brecht knows that to be a passive part of the audience is to open oneself up to being used through one's loves; his solution is to force the audience to participate in the creation of meaning, so that they cannot be victimized, so that they have to be a responsible part of what is made.
I watched Theater of War last night, a gorgeous documentary - available on Netflx Watch Instant! - that follows the Tony Kushner/Meryl Streep production of "Mother Courage and Her Children" in 2008. Seeing clips from that production was lovely, but the documentarians also did amazing things with the model book from the original 40s production. The model book gives a series of stills of the production, sometimes only seconds apart; the documentary put them into a semi-animated slideshow, with the text spoken over, so that you got a real sense of ghosts in motion. Streep has a great line at one point - the interviewer asks her what it is to be an actor - she says that she is the voice of people who have died.
The film's worth it if only for the footage of Brecht's testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. He treats it like a farce. It's beautiful.
I just watched the first half of Brazil again. Shit. Why do I do these things to myself? Now I'm all wound and twitchy. It's the oscillation between the horrible claustrophobia dystopia and those wonderful dreamy flying scenes - the flying stuff opens me up all the way, strips all of my protective cynicism off, engages my heart fully, and then the crash back into dystopia just destroys me.
No fair, Terry Gilliam. You can do horrible dystopias, but it's not fair to throw in yearning violins and silver wings.
I saw Brazil for the first time as a really little kid - maybe eight or nine? - and those flying sequences haunted me for years. It's funny. The more I teach, the more amazed and somewhat ambivalent I am about how my parents handled that sort of thing with me. Because I feel such pressure to be gentle and safe with my college students, to protect them as they try to begin to deal with reality in all of its messiness, and my mom and dad just threw me into it. Here, little girl, watch Brazil. Watch Mononoke-hime. Read Brave New World. And Lord of the Flies. And The Once and Future King. And, you know, just deal with it. I grew up feeling like I wasn't allowed to not look - I didn't want to, but I felt some sort of weird deep responsibility to see all the messy. And now I'm not sure if I'm coddling my students too much, or if I was thrust into things a bit too far, too fast. Likely both things are true.
No fair, Terry Gilliam. You can do horrible dystopias, but it's not fair to throw in yearning violins and silver wings.
I saw Brazil for the first time as a really little kid - maybe eight or nine? - and those flying sequences haunted me for years. It's funny. The more I teach, the more amazed and somewhat ambivalent I am about how my parents handled that sort of thing with me. Because I feel such pressure to be gentle and safe with my college students, to protect them as they try to begin to deal with reality in all of its messiness, and my mom and dad just threw me into it. Here, little girl, watch Brazil. Watch Mononoke-hime. Read Brave New World. And Lord of the Flies. And The Once and Future King. And, you know, just deal with it. I grew up feeling like I wasn't allowed to not look - I didn't want to, but I felt some sort of weird deep responsibility to see all the messy. And now I'm not sure if I'm coddling my students too much, or if I was thrust into things a bit too far, too fast. Likely both things are true.
Oh internet! I am at prisint the busiest of bees - which is unfortunate, because it's bloody, bloody hot and my uni seems to have decided to turn off the air conditioning. 116-degree heat indices + French translations = zombies.
Um! So I am reading many good books - I just finished Mona Caird's The Daughters of Danaus, which started out aces and then was a bit pamphlety for a while and then was aces again, and which does gorgeous things with feminist reappropriations of Greek & Celtic mythologies - and now I'm reading Sarah Grand's The Beth Book, which is so far both clever and fresh and ridiculously adorable and true. And I just got back from a workshop on - if all goes well, and the initial scans can be made, I'm going to be TEI encoding Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh for the IU Victorian Women Writers Project, and I've been trulling back through AL in prep, and oh I heart it with so many infinite hearts. Novel in verse, like Jane Eyre smushed with - well, I hardly know what. Romola, maybe, but not a historical. Aurora's a deliciously empowered protag, almost a feminist-artist Mary Sue, and watching her triumphs and vindications is delightful.
Also! I saw Midnight in Paris, and thought it was lovely. Muffed the ending a bit by tacking on an overly-cliche moral, but the cast and the sets and the costumes and the score were tangy and melty and charming.
Erm. I am out of all the loops. W*ll Sh*tt*rly's still being a douchecanoe, right? And Captain America next week - I've been celebrating by rewatching the Iron Man movies and reading bucketloads of Steve/Tony.
Um! So I am reading many good books - I just finished Mona Caird's The Daughters of Danaus, which started out aces and then was a bit pamphlety for a while and then was aces again, and which does gorgeous things with feminist reappropriations of Greek & Celtic mythologies - and now I'm reading Sarah Grand's The Beth Book, which is so far both clever and fresh and ridiculously adorable and true. And I just got back from a workshop on - if all goes well, and the initial scans can be made, I'm going to be TEI encoding Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh for the IU Victorian Women Writers Project, and I've been trulling back through AL in prep, and oh I heart it with so many infinite hearts. Novel in verse, like Jane Eyre smushed with - well, I hardly know what. Romola, maybe, but not a historical. Aurora's a deliciously empowered protag, almost a feminist-artist Mary Sue, and watching her triumphs and vindications is delightful.
Also! I saw Midnight in Paris, and thought it was lovely. Muffed the ending a bit by tacking on an overly-cliche moral, but the cast and the sets and the costumes and the score were tangy and melty and charming.
Erm. I am out of all the loops. W*ll Sh*tt*rly's still being a douchecanoe, right? And Captain America next week - I've been celebrating by rewatching the Iron Man movies and reading bucketloads of Steve/Tony.
tags:
So I enjoyed large chunks of X-Men: First Class. Truly, the slash was with this one. But the more I think about them, the more three things about it really bother me:
1. Whhhhy the dead bro walking/evil oversexed Latina fail? Whhhhhhyyy?!
2. The repeated failures of historicization. Emma Frost? I don't know where you get your lingerie, but that's not really what bras looked like in the 1960s. The makeup had the wrong textures - all those wet/glossed mouths! - and the fashion was vaguely 60s-inflected but I'm wondering what fabrics they used because the weight/motion seems subtly off to me. This sounds v. picky, but is linked, imo, to problems that others have noted in the film's inability to so much as mention the Civil Rights Movement.
3. It turns out that Michael Fassbender is a wife-beater. That sound you just heard? His sexy evaporating in the heat of my rage. Screw you, asshat.
1. Whhhhy the dead bro walking/evil oversexed Latina fail? Whhhhhhyyy?!
2. The repeated failures of historicization. Emma Frost? I don't know where you get your lingerie, but that's not really what bras looked like in the 1960s. The makeup had the wrong textures - all those wet/glossed mouths! - and the fashion was vaguely 60s-inflected but I'm wondering what fabrics they used because the weight/motion seems subtly off to me. This sounds v. picky, but is linked, imo, to problems that others have noted in the film's inability to so much as mention the Civil Rights Movement.
3. It turns out that Michael Fassbender is a wife-beater. That sound you just heard? His sexy evaporating in the heat of my rage. Screw you, asshat.
We saw Paul this afternoon in cinema - it was good, the Star Wars jokes were ripping, the female lead was underdeveloped, and I wish they'd pick a 'ship and then go with it, and possibly just do the slash already guys - and my ladyboner for Nick Frost has not abated. Forsooth he's hot! Longish hair v. flattering, and butch maturity v. attractive. mmmm Frost.
tags:
Saw The King's Speech again last night. Two things: 1. How does Colin Firth do that with his eyes? for serious. God, he's just edible. 2. idk if it's him or the costuming or something else, but the establishing shot of him in full dress after King Edward's abdicated is heartbreaking. Everyone around him is wearing much the same thing, but somehow he looks so much more weighed down; there's something cruel about the mass of ornamentation he's carrying. He looks burdened by it, oppressed by appearance in a way that I'm used to seeing only with female characters. Gorgeous work.
In an unrelated bleg, because I lost all the bookmarks I didn't have backed up to del.ici.ous when my computer fizzed out over holiday, does anyone have a link to/remember a conversation that took place about a year and a half ago, maybe tangentially related to racefail, about the connection between racial privilege and the narrative structure of the single protagonist? Talking about which global locations could be the center of the world?
In an unrelated bleg, because I lost all the bookmarks I didn't have backed up to del.ici.ous when my computer fizzed out over holiday, does anyone have a link to/remember a conversation that took place about a year and a half ago, maybe tangentially related to racefail, about the connection between racial privilege and the narrative structure of the single protagonist? Talking about which global locations could be the center of the world?
tags:
In conclusion, I love yuletide. I love the story I received - Being His Father, Battlestar Galactica Classic gen babyfic - and I love all the other stories, and and and I love you all. My recs are going straight to delicious this year, so they're all over there if anyone's interested. And I did end up writing two Madness stories, which was great fun as always.
I'm still home in Michigan, up in the cold and the snow, rereading Middlemarch and missing my Boy. I'm so ready for this year to turn over, and be ended, and get a clean new one without any mistakes in it, as Anne Shirley would say.
I saw The King's Speech on Christmas Day, which was totally unspeakably lovely. Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle had a scene together! Which is not the point, but still made me unreasonably happy. In terms of the actual movie - oh, the hurt/comfortosity! Total love.
I'm still home in Michigan, up in the cold and the snow, rereading Middlemarch and missing my Boy. I'm so ready for this year to turn over, and be ended, and get a clean new one without any mistakes in it, as Anne Shirley would say.
I saw The King's Speech on Christmas Day, which was totally unspeakably lovely. Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle had a scene together! Which is not the point, but still made me unreasonably happy. In terms of the actual movie - oh, the hurt/comfortosity! Total love.
tags:
I actually saw The Voyage of the Dawn Treader last week, but it broke my heart enough that I haven't really been able to talk about it. I saw it on the last day of term, and this has been such a terribly jonah term - Narnia has always been my strongest, deepest desiring fantasy of escape to something better, and dealing with that when I desperately wanted out was a bit more intense than it might've been.
( not what a star is, but only what it is made of )
So I just finished writing a term paper on Ivanhoe, because Victorian medievalism is about as close as I want to get to actual medieval lit in any critical way, and because I had a massive affair with that book when I was about thirteen. And now that the paper's gone, the fannishness has set in. There is definitely fic. There may also be icons. And The Boy's never read it, so we've been investigating adaptations.
Also apparently contrary to the rest of the known world I ship Ivanhoe/Rowena, and think Bois-Guilbert is rather boring really. So, um, that kind of influences my preferences re: adaptations. Seriously, is everyone into the Ivanhoe/Rebecca action?
( nattering about various adaptations )
It's been fun - and strange - playing with this novel again, because I see so much of myself in its author. Scott really, really desires the fantasy of the Virtuous Knight, the liberal Hero who uses Might for Right, and defends the weak, and helps the helpless. And hoo boy am I ever susceptible to that fantasy. But at the same time, the entire novel is haunted by the traumatic knowledge that it never does actually work that way, that chivalry is just a pretty gloss for cruelty and oppression. But somehow I can't seem to get rid of the fantasy of knights in shining armor.
( not what a star is, but only what it is made of )
So I just finished writing a term paper on Ivanhoe, because Victorian medievalism is about as close as I want to get to actual medieval lit in any critical way, and because I had a massive affair with that book when I was about thirteen. And now that the paper's gone, the fannishness has set in. There is definitely fic. There may also be icons. And The Boy's never read it, so we've been investigating adaptations.
Also apparently contrary to the rest of the known world I ship Ivanhoe/Rowena, and think Bois-Guilbert is rather boring really. So, um, that kind of influences my preferences re: adaptations. Seriously, is everyone into the Ivanhoe/Rebecca action?
( nattering about various adaptations )
It's been fun - and strange - playing with this novel again, because I see so much of myself in its author. Scott really, really desires the fantasy of the Virtuous Knight, the liberal Hero who uses Might for Right, and defends the weak, and helps the helpless. And hoo boy am I ever susceptible to that fantasy. But at the same time, the entire novel is haunted by the traumatic knowledge that it never does actually work that way, that chivalry is just a pretty gloss for cruelty and oppression. But somehow I can't seem to get rid of the fantasy of knights in shining armor.
tags:
Am currently watching a 1976 BBC production of Dorian Gray on Netflix Instant - starring Jeremy Brett as Basil Hallward. He has a mustache! His shirt is quite entirely open at the chest! It is making me v. v. charmed.
tags:
Took The Baby to see The Princess and the Frog, and (this so doesn't count as a spoiler) that's a really big, obviously displayed diamond ring. Thinking back, I don't remember Disney doing the diamond-industrial complex thing before. Yah boo hiss.
Am now playing happily with the Yuletide Madness prompts lists. Two ficlets up up and away already - we'll see how many I get through by the end of the day!
Am now playing happily with the Yuletide Madness prompts lists. Two ficlets up up and away already - we'll see how many I get through by the end of the day!
Just got back from seeing Zack and Miri Make A Porno, and I'm in love. Kevin Smith has this ability to reduce me to a pile of grinny, soppy mush, and to make me laugh hysterically, and to really get me going again on sex.
(Star Whores: The Phantom Man-Ass! Never going to stop being funny! Never ever!)
No, seriously. Because nearly every other sex scene, sex reference, or supposedly-sexy thing out there just makes me irate and analytic, or bored and sad, or just sort of meh. But Kevin Smith reminds me why sex is fucking awesome. Why sex matters. Why pleasure matters. Kevin Smith is all about the, I don't know, joy, of eroticism. Sex in the Askewniverse isn't worthwhile just because it's sex and duh, everybody wants sex. It's worthwhile because sex can be a wonderful, earthshaking, happymaking, hot hot hot thing. Or not. But it can be.
(It also probably helps that my man is a very Seth-Rogen-esque sweet unskinny geekboy with wildly curly dark hair. I tend to find it very easy to wander into inappropriate thoughts where Mr. Rogen is concerned. Geekboys do it better, yo!)
So anyway. Kevin Smith love. Also saw a preview for My Bloody Valentine 3D. I didn't figure out what it was until we were like, is that Jen Ackles? Oh my god it is Jen Ackles! Being a dorky dorktronic dorkface! Am so going to see it, and Friday the 13th, even though I hate horror movies. J-squared represent!
(Star Whores: The Phantom Man-Ass! Never going to stop being funny! Never ever!)
No, seriously. Because nearly every other sex scene, sex reference, or supposedly-sexy thing out there just makes me irate and analytic, or bored and sad, or just sort of meh. But Kevin Smith reminds me why sex is fucking awesome. Why sex matters. Why pleasure matters. Kevin Smith is all about the, I don't know, joy, of eroticism. Sex in the Askewniverse isn't worthwhile just because it's sex and duh, everybody wants sex. It's worthwhile because sex can be a wonderful, earthshaking, happymaking, hot hot hot thing. Or not. But it can be.
(It also probably helps that my man is a very Seth-Rogen-esque sweet unskinny geekboy with wildly curly dark hair. I tend to find it very easy to wander into inappropriate thoughts where Mr. Rogen is concerned. Geekboys do it better, yo!)
So anyway. Kevin Smith love. Also saw a preview for My Bloody Valentine 3D. I didn't figure out what it was until we were like, is that Jen Ackles? Oh my god it is Jen Ackles! Being a dorky dorktronic dorkface! Am so going to see it, and Friday the 13th, even though I hate horror movies. J-squared represent!
tags:
My head is this really weird collision of various geek verses right now - I've got Prydain fic that I've been working on for a while, and then we watched the original Star Wars trilogy, and I'm still rabidly eating House fic, and maybe possibly writing some extremely self-indulgent House/Wilson. Also, we rented the second Futurama movie, which I kind of hated, so clearly I had to watch a bunch of Futurama Season Three episodes in order to get the bad taste out of my mouth, and now I seem to be writing a Fry/Leela Five Things fic.
Also, watched X2 again last night. Does anyone know whose idea it was to use The Once and Future King as a leitmotif? Because I am in love with whoever that person was.
I really, really want to see The Dark Knight again, because I've only been to the one midnight, and that was after illicit drugs and schnapps. But the weather keeps being gorgeous, and also my boyfriend works nights. Maybe we can catch a matinee tomorrow.
Mainly, I'm just lusting after Dead Poets' Society. The continued House thing has really got me back in touch with my Robert Sean Leonard thing, and the only thing of his I own is Much Ado. But apparently DPS is a rare movie - none of the shops in the area have it, and my netflix is turned off for the summer. Ack. The Boy is trying to torrent it for me tonight, so maybe we'll have it when he gets home tonight. I really hope so. Yum.
Also, watched X2 again last night. Does anyone know whose idea it was to use The Once and Future King as a leitmotif? Because I am in love with whoever that person was.
I really, really want to see The Dark Knight again, because I've only been to the one midnight, and that was after illicit drugs and schnapps. But the weather keeps being gorgeous, and also my boyfriend works nights. Maybe we can catch a matinee tomorrow.
Mainly, I'm just lusting after Dead Poets' Society. The continued House thing has really got me back in touch with my Robert Sean Leonard thing, and the only thing of his I own is Much Ado. But apparently DPS is a rare movie - none of the shops in the area have it, and my netflix is turned off for the summer. Ack. The Boy is trying to torrent it for me tonight, so maybe we'll have it when he gets home tonight. I really hope so. Yum.
tags:
So, as expected, I loved The Dark Knight like crazy. Of course I did. I seem to be functionally incapable of not being in love with Christian Bale's characters.
But the thing that I loved best about the film was the fact that they totally stopped pretending that Gotham isn't Chicago. The movie opened with a shot of Union Station - at one point, Bruce goes zipping through the new Millennium Street Station - the trains are clearly Chicago Metra and Amtrak lines - one of the major fight scenes takes place on La Salle street, right in front of the Board of Trade Building, and they didn't even edit out the street signs. There were big panning shots of the Adams/Jackson/Van Buren bridges over the river. The Boy and I kept making squeaky noises when we recognized landmarks or places we'd been. It was lovely to see my pretty city up there in the midst of all the other mythic wonderfulness.
But the thing that I loved best about the film was the fact that they totally stopped pretending that Gotham isn't Chicago. The movie opened with a shot of Union Station - at one point, Bruce goes zipping through the new Millennium Street Station - the trains are clearly Chicago Metra and Amtrak lines - one of the major fight scenes takes place on La Salle street, right in front of the Board of Trade Building, and they didn't even edit out the street signs. There were big panning shots of the Adams/Jackson/Van Buren bridges over the river. The Boy and I kept making squeaky noises when we recognized landmarks or places we'd been. It was lovely to see my pretty city up there in the midst of all the other mythic wonderfulness.
tags:
I love Marion Ravenwood. That is all.
p.s. no it isn't. my thesis defence is tomorrow morning. pray for my soul, gods of academia. at least we're in gemini now - the mercurial influences will help.
p.s. no it isn't. my thesis defence is tomorrow morning. pray for my soul, gods of academia. at least we're in gemini now - the mercurial influences will help.
So. This whole Prince Caspian movie thing.
( rambling hopes and anxieties, some possible spoilers )
Supernatural finale in two hours, Narnia in twenty-two. It's going to be a good weekend!
( rambling hopes and anxieties, some possible spoilers )
Supernatural finale in two hours, Narnia in twenty-two. It's going to be a good weekend!
( here be spoilers )
I'm beyond satisfied. I want to see it again tomorrow. More coherent things later, I think. I've got some thinky thoughts about Sparribeth and my poor dearest James going, but it's nearly four in the morning, and I'm perished. Off to read some fic--I have to find some resolution after all--and then to bed.
Oh, I do love the world when there are new lovely pirate movies in it.
I'm beyond satisfied. I want to see it again tomorrow. More coherent things later, I think. I've got some thinky thoughts about Sparribeth and my poor dearest James going, but it's nearly four in the morning, and I'm perished. Off to read some fic--I have to find some resolution after all--and then to bed.
Oh, I do love the world when there are new lovely pirate movies in it.
.
