a fool's musings

Boreas by Waterhouse
Fool, said my muse to me,
look in thy heart and write...

Warning: Adult Content

achromatic

unfinished fic graveyard

recs journal

new stuff

recent stuff

my back pages
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001


the five Ws, or, all about me

profile

e-mail victoria

my livejournal

the original P&R

comments

current mood: current mood

"pathological and unbalanced"

Items of Interest

    Music
  • Walk On - U2
  • Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen
  • If I Can't Change Your Mind - Sugar
  • Sick of Myself - Matthew Sweet
  • Town Called Malice - The Jam
  • One - U2
  • The Space Between - DMB
    Books
  • Lord of the Rings
  • Catch-22
  • The Neely Trilogy
  • Absalom! Absalom!
  • Possession: A Romance
  • Foucault's Pendulum
  • Dreamhouse
  • LA Confidential
  • I Capture the Castle
  • Sandman
  • Waking the Moon

    Shows
  • Angel

    •
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in reruns)

    •
  • Alias

    •
  • West Wing

    •
  • The Simpsons

    •

webrings
< ? fanfiction ! >
< ? writers ! >

diaryreviews.diaryland.com

NYC Bloggers

Comments by Haloscan.com

all links, if I haven't screwed up somehow, should open in a new browser window

2002-07-18 - 3:06 p.m.

Man-boobs!

The story of Logan's bulging manly pecs, and how they met Mr. Costanza and Kramer.

Blame Peggy. And Khaki.

~victoria

[current mood: silly]
[current music: Should I Stay or Should I Go?]
[random quote: no one knows what it's like to be the bad guy, to be the sad guy, behind blue eyes]

~*~

2002-07-18 - 11:57 a.m.

god - and the devil - is in the details

I tried to post this comment in Thamiris' LJ, but LJ's being a jerk and not letting me.

So, I'm just gonna quote the important bits and respond here.

Thamiris wrote:

One of the most powerful triggers of nostalgia is place. I am a lover of physical spaces; I've talked about this in previous entries, about my grandmother's house and how I dream about walking through the rooms, looking for treasure, or about Lincoln Cathedral, where you can feel history under the stone. The whole concept of haunted houses (and yes, I'm writing a story about one--why do you ask? *g*) is predicated on the idea that we leave behind traces of ourselves in the places we inhabit, so that when you walk into one, it's like walking into a psychic archive.

It's therefore striking me how little fanfiction deals with physical space. When it comes to emotional reasonance, we figure it's all about the action, the dialogue and the thoughts of the character, so that an audience's response is triggered by the inclusion of recognizable feelings, the nostalgia of emotion. That is, you empathize with a character because you recognize the emotional playing field. But as writers, we can prompt emotion in other, less overt ways, for instance by creating a space that returns a reader to the cottage where she spent her summers, or the cave he used to play in when he was ten, or the kitchen where her dead mother made macaroons.

A simple description of setting, the details of where the action takes place, can be incredibly powerful and subtle at the same time, a

shorthand that guides the reader to a room stained with feeling. Both writers and readers often dismiss these kinds of details as extraneous to the action, to the speed of the story, but that rush to spell things out might also mean either a cheaper display of emotion, or a less resonant one. I'm not saying that a description of place is the only way to evoke emotion, only that it's one I miss in fanfiction. I want to go to fairs and candy stores, cemeteries and bakeries, and I want to know what they look like, how they smell, what it feels like to roll a gumball in your palm or breathe in the fragrance of cooking donuts.

I responded:

I don't put too much place description in my fanfic because it's boring. I don't read it in other people's stories - novels, fanfic, whatever.

I read enough to get me grounded in where the characters physically are located during a scene (the door opens onto the balcony, there's a fireplace on the right with a portrait of grandad above the mantle that stares balefully down at the nervous suitor or whatever), but beyond that?

Bored now.

Descriptions of sounds and scents and tastes and tactile sensations I enjoy, but I'm just not a visual person, and having to wade through

endless details of the yellow and white striped wall paper and the white silk comforter with the embroidered butterflies and the intricately carved bed posts... yawn...

To which Tham said:

I think that you're trivializing my point. I'm not talking about dulling down a story with Harlinquinesque details about curtains. I'm talking about transforming the setting into a vital one that combines insight into character and a twist on the mundane, so that the end result isn't cheap detail but something rich and evocative, not just blah prettiness.

Me, now:
I certainly don't mean to trivialize your point.

I can think of only one or two concrete examples from my own reading over the years in which setting stayed with me afterward, and impacted the story greatly. By which I don't mean location - I've read many books that could only have happened in New York or South Florida or the gulags of the Soviet Union or (my current obsession) Vietnam during the 1960s.

If that's what you mean - getting the details of DC or NY or something *right*, so much so that a native of the city can see the action taking place, then yes, I think fanfiction needs more of that (spoken as a grumpy X-Men fan who sees Westchester County all too often shrunk down to one dinky town instead of a large and affluent county barely 60 minutes from Manhattan).

However, if you mean, and this is what I thought, description of the actual settings - the houses, rooms, stables, cars - then honestly the only ones that have stuck with me over the years from *written ficiton* are the moors of Wuthering Heights and the House of Usher from Poe. There might be a few more, but those are the ones that come readily to mind.

I think a city, a town or a house *can* be an integral part of a story - another character, as someone else said (think of Homicide set anywhere but Baltimore, or Law & Order anywhere but New York. Doesn't work, right? They were both shot on location as well, so they're more real.), but I think it's far easier and more common to do it in visual media than it is in writing.

In writing, most people tend to do exactly what I did above, what you describe as Harlequinesque piling on of petty details, and that just turns me off.

I'd rather read about the red roofs of Spain (The Sun Also Rises) or the green light on the dock (The Great Gatsby) in one or two sentences than piles of description that do nothing but bore me.

I find it far easier as a writer (and more pleasurable as a reader) to write (read) about sensations other than the visual.

How the kitchen smells tells me more about the characters than what it looks like in terms of types of cabinets or something. Obviously, if it's clean and like new, or well used and messy, that tells me something, but I guess when people talk about mise-en-scene, I tend to think of that as what I wrote above, rather than capturing the *emotional resonance* of a place.

I was going to write a description of the Kent kitchen as an example, but I'm hopeless. I can't remember what color it is, or much of the layout. Which maybe tells you whiy I was somewhat flippant in my response to you (though I meant the substance of it).

The funny thing is, after I responded to you, I found myself writing a description of a bedroom in great detail, something I normally never do (see below).

Anyhow, let's take a mythical kitchen and attribute it to Martha Kent. It would be bright, cheery, warm. It would smell of apples and cinnamon. The table would be clean, but there might be sticky spots she hasn't gotten to clean up yet, that Clark could put his hand into, or there might be smidges of flour on the counter. Certainly she'd have bright copper-bottomed pots dangling from the ceiling, probably inherited from Grandma Kent and never used, since copper-bottoms are notoriously hard to keep clean. She hides her no-stick T-Fal pots and pans away.

Yes, that description (though obviously in a story it'd be written in a more... aesthetically pleasing manner) tells me a lot about Martha Kent.

Is that what you mean?

Because that works for me, if it's in the context of the story, and not just plunked down as a huge lump of exposition, or interspersed with "the Kenmore dishwasher with the flat white enamel door" etc.

I mean, sure, I could have Martha come over to the Castle to cook for Lex and do a whole big thing on how the AGA or thermidor stove and the subzero fridge were right out of House Beautiful, but looked like they were rarely used, and Lex subsisted on coffee and the mediocre meals the second-rate cook Lionel stuck him with before Martha sent Mrs. Rafelson to cook for him, or whatever, and how Martha wishes she had a stove like that, but it cost more than two years of tuition at Metropolis City College, etc. etc.

That sort of description tells a lot about Martha *and* Lex (and Lionel, by implication) - that Lionel is trying to "punish" Lex with this banishment not only from the big city, but from the haute cuisine to which he's become accustomed, and Lex doesn't care about food, maybe, as much as other things, and Martha wants to mother him, etc. etc.

Is that more of what you meant?

Oops. I forgot. Here's the little snip I wrote yesterday about Rogue's new bedroom:

I ignored him, choosing to open the door to my new sanctuary and take a look.

It was a pretty room, furnished in light oak wood; the walls were painted a pale, soothing yellow. I wondered briefly if Jubilee had had a hand in decorating it, and almost asked, but decided the shade was too subtle for her. It was warm and mellow, buttery in a good soft way. There were bamboo shades on the window and a delicately painted chinoiserie screen hid the door to the en suite.

I dropped my bag on the floor (hardwood, polished until it shone, with a soft hand-hooked rug in pale yellows and greens next to the bed) and headed to the bathroom, stripping my gloves off on the way.

It was a comfortable room, one where I could feel at home, and it had nothing of memory in it. It was completely clean of the past, and I needed that.

Comments are, of course, welcome.

~victoria

link

[current mood: intrigued]
[current music: Sympathy for the Devil]
[random quote: I rode the tanks held a general's rank while the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank]

~*~

2002-07-17 - 5:01 p.m.

books and hair

Got my hair trimmed at lunch.

It was the oddest haircut I've ever gotten.

First off, the woman paid no attention to my ears, and managed to rip out the faux diamond stud that has resided in the fourth hole in my left ear for the past 11 years.

Yes. Pulled it right out of my ear.

Yowch.

I removed my other earrings after that.

She made me stand the whole time, too.

And she didn't use scissors, which was the weirdest thing - she used the trimmer. I guess because I was only having half-an-inch taken off. I dunno.

My hair was washed by a lovely effete boy with dyed blond curls and a mincing walk. He had great hands, though. I'll give him that.

I love having my hair washing by someone else. Gives me quite a thrill. Doesn't matter the gender of the person doing it, either, or whether or not I find them attractive.

That's one reason the hairwashing scene in Bourne Identity was so erotic to me. They didn't need to kiss, didn't need to sleep together. Just the hair washing was enough for me.

I have to steal that.

Maybe for the end of Consumption, if I ever get that far...

Anyhow, the girl asked me if I wanted "angles" and I was like, "wassat?" So she said it was just cutting the two pieces in the front a little bit shorter than everything else, so I said okay.

I mean, as long as it's not bangs or layers or something. Do you know how long it took me to grow out the layers I had back in 1988? Two years. I've had the same hair cut since then - blunt cut, all the same length. Ranging anywhere from just above my chin to a few inches below my shoulders.

So after she did that, she scrunched it with gel and I left.

Yes, it was still wet. You know, it's $13 cheaper without the blow dry and it's 90 degrees out. Why in HELL would I need to sit there for another half hour while she tortured me with a blow dryer?

So yeah, it's of the curly now, the way it gets when I scrunch it with gel and let it dry naturally.

Except the grey really stands out. Maybe I'll dye it this weekend. It's time again for the scary red streaks, courtesy of Feria. *g*

I also have to pack for vacation, even though I'm not leaving until the 27th.

See, I don't want to schlep my suitcase on the subway and the railroad. So my dad said he'd come pick it up on Saturday, since he has to come into the city anyway, to supervise work on the old house (which is now very close to being sold - just waiting for the lawyers to settle the closing date). but that means I have to figure out what to pack a week in advance!

::whine::

I always pack the night before! At midnight!

How the hell am I supposed to know what I'm going to feel like in a week?

/end whine

The funniest thing - I brought some books into work - books I no longer want, that I leave in the reception area, for anyone who wants them. Other people do it too.

All three books went quickly, within two days. I noticed this afternoon they're all back where I put them.

I guess no one else wanted them either.

*snerk*

I'm working on Prodigal, still foundering about that conversation, but whatever, you know?

I have a Hershey's with almonds, it's almost time to go home, and I have a new haircut.

I'm good.

Oh!

I forgot - Once again, LaT shows why the rest of us should just shut up with her essay on character bashing, canon and predestination.

~victoria

link

[current mood: good]
[current music: Lola (Live) - the Kinks]
[random quote: Well I'm not dumb but I can't understand why she talked like a woman and walked like a man...]

~*~

2002-07-17 - 12:45 p.m.

go read the LJ

Okay, big loooong entry on Smallville, Superman, canon, Nietzsche and other things over in the LJ.

Be warned - there's a footnote and lots of wankiness.

Feel free to tell me I'm full of shit. Or if I'm misunderstanding Nietzsche.

Or, you know, what color underwear you're wearing.

I'm flexible.

And if I see that flashing banner one more time, I may just snap and kill someone. Grrr... Flashing things. Me no like flashing things on screen.

~victoria

link

[current mood: thoughtful]
[current music: And the Wind Cried Mary - Jimi]
[random quote: Leo: We're eliminating genocide. What are you doing? Sam: I'm eliminating the penny. I'll come back later.]

~*~

2002-07-17 - 9:50 a.m.

there... and gone

You ever just lose it?

Not your mind (though there are some who'll say I did that a long time ago), but that perfect bit of dialogue (or exposition or whatever)?

Gah.

I loathe that feeling with every fiber of my being.

I had it yesterday morning on the train. I was reading through the draft of The Prodigal, and suddenly, I knew what Logan was trying to say, and - far more importantly - how he was going to say it.

But in the scramble to get my notebook and pen out, I lost it.

Lost. It.

Grrr.... Arrrgghh...

That used to happen to me with poetry all the time.

I'd have the line. I could taste the words on my tongue. And then... Gone.

Gone.

Dammit.

Now I have NO IDEA what the whole damn conversation is abouit, as it's *not* the resolution, it's just, I guess it's just the intensification of the conflict, but I don't think I agree with Wolvie's point, as it stands now, and the thing is, he's supposed to be *right* and Rogue is supposed to be *wrong*, and grrr...

Why does my brain have to have all the holding power of a three year old bit of scotch tape that's been left out in the rain?

I can't even reconstruct the conversation. I hate doing that, too, because it's never as good as that first, perfect one you hear in your head, but usually I can at least manage the gist of it, but this time... nothing. Nada. Zippo. Zilch.

It makes me want to bang my head on the desk. Because I have no clue what the hell I was thinking.

Waaah!

In other news, am reading yet another book on Vietnam, and god, it's so freaking *sad*. Just... painful to read about the veterans' problems on coming home and how, even now, they have problems. And it's obviously worse for them since we *lost* Vietnam.

They won every battle and yet lost the war.

It baffles me, so it must be absolutely mind-boggling for these men who fought and saw their friends die and damn... and then to be treated like pariahs, like criminals when they came home, as if the war were their fault...

::shakes head::

Regardless of what I think of the people who got us into that war, and the fact that I was only 5 when it ended, I can't believe the way these guys were treated. Can't believe it. It's so wrong.

And now I'm on a soapbox, so I'll just stop.

But you know what? Think of those people - the soldiers and the pilots and everyone else - over in Afghanistan right now. And whatever you may think of our president (again, I don't think much of him, personally), have some damn respect for these guys who put their lives on the line while we sit at home and bitch about how they can't seem to find their asses with a map and a flashlight when it comes to rooting out al-Qaeda.

Regardless of politics, these people deserve respect.

::deep breath::

Whew. Okay. Didn't expect to go there.

I'm just going to crawl back under my rock and try to write some stupid stories now.

~victoria

link

[current mood: frustrated]
[current music: Maxwell's Silver Hammer - the Beatles (yes, really)]
[random quote: Don't start collecting things give me my rose and my glove People are suspecting things. People will say we're in love]

~*~

2002-07-16 - 11:12 p.m.

Meglo! For moi!

Meglo 5: Bad Night in Tights by Beth.

Ah yes.

Makes up for my hellacious 2 hour and 15 minute commute home this evening.

Meglo and ice cream and please, be careful while drinking during this fic.

No one brings the funny like Bethy.

~victoria

[current mood: sleepy]
[current music: Strawberry Fields - the Beatles]
[random quote: living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see]

~*~

2002-07-16 - 3:32 p.m.

Rogue and zucchini

Thanks to Maveness for the link:

Reduced Airtime for Rogue in X2.

Grrr...

Considering my stated fic manifesto is Making Sure Rogue Gets Off, I can't say I'm pleased with this turn of events.

I guess I'll just have to cling to that Temptation of Wolverine rumor, and hope Singer doesn't toss out the best damn chemistry he's got in favor of some lame, forced romance in the midst of the action.

Sigh.

~*~

To cheer me - and you, if you're a Logan/Rogue shipper, as I am - up, here's a recipe from my nonna.

Not that I ever called her nonna when she was alive. But I thought it sounded more authentic. *snerk*

My grandmother's zucchini and onions:

Zucchini
Onions
Olive oil
Oregano
Red wine vinegar

Peel and slice zucchini

Sauté in olive oil until lightly cooked, then remove and drain

Sauté onions until clear

Add zucchini back in

Add 1/3 - 1/2 cup of red wine vinegar

Sprinkle oregano to taste

Lower the flame and simmer until the zucchini is tender.

Remove from flame and either refrigerate or serve at room temperature.

Um, there are no real measurements because my grandmother didn't use any, so you'll have to experiment.

I'm thinking this would be good with eggplant too. I love the smell of eggplant frying... yum.

We also do this with meatballs, which is fabulously good.

~victoria

link

[current mood: annoyed]
[current music: Money For Nothing - Dire Strsits]
[random quote: Hawaiian noises! - King Jr. (you had to be there)]

~*~

2002-07-16 - 10:40 a.m.

soundtrack of my life

Okay, stealing this idea from Divagypsy.

I'm obviously a lot older, and I remember more scary songs than she. *g*

Welcome to the nightmare of the white middle-class urban 1970s.

And yes, I do recall these songs in the time that they came out, even though I was a small fry. Some things are just burned into your brain.

1974 - Billy Don't Be A Hero, Those Were the Days

1975 - Seasons in the Sun

1976 - Bad, Bad Leroy Brown - Jim Croce, Theme from Rocky, Fly Robin Fly

1977 - Saturday Night Fever, Grease soundtracks, Captain & Tennille - Love Will Keep Us Together

1978 - Donna Summer

1979 - I have no idea

1980 - Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin, Light My Fire - the Doors

1981 - Sailing - Christopher Cross

1982 - Asia, Diver Down, Van Halen

Eventually I got some cool, eh?

1983 - Let's Dance - David Bowie (or was that '84?), Dancing In Heaven - Q-Feel

1984 - Dancing in the Dark - Bruce, Shout - Tears for Fears, Rock Me, Amadeus - Falco, Unforgettable Fire - U2, Do They Know It's Christmas - Band-Aid, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go - Wham

1985 - Don't You Forget About Me - Simple Minds, Black Celebration - Depeche Mode, Sunday Bloody Sunday, Beast of Burden - Live Aid, Pump It Up - Elvis Costello

1986 - Pretty in Pink soundtrack, The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths, Document - REM

1987 - Louder than Bombs - the Smiths, Joshua Tree - U2, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me - The Cure, Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division, Warm Leatherette - the Normal. Let Me Go - arrgh, I always forget the name of the band!

1988 - The Sweetest Thing, original B-side version, Kick - INXS, Appetite for Destruction - Guns'N'Roses, Forever Young - Alphaville

1989 - Rattle & Hum - U2, Don't Tell a Soul - Replacements, Disintegration - the Cure

1990 - The Lion and the Cobra & I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got - Sinead O'Connor, Pale- Toad the Wet Sprocket, Bloodletting - Concrete Blonde, Pretty Hate Machine - NIN

1991 - Out of Time - REM, Achtung Baby - U2, Blood Sugar Sex Magik - RHCP

1992 - Ten - Pearl Jam, Nevermind - Nirvana, Badmotorfinger - Soundgarden, The Black Album - Metallica , Automatic for the People - REM

1993 Evenflow - Pearl Jam (down the shore!), August and Everything After - Counting Crows, New Miserable Experience - Gin Blossoms, The Only One - Melissa Etheridge

1994 - Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield, Copper Blue - Sugar, Workbook - Bob Mould, Girlfriend - Matthew Sweet, Siamese Dream - Smashing Pumpkins

1995 - Vitalogy - Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, 100% Fun - Matthew Sweet, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - Smashing Pumpkins, Dry & To Bring You My Love - PJ Harvey

1996 - Runaround - Blues Traveler, Santa Monica - Everclear, Caught a Lite Sneeze - Tori Amos, Creep - TLC, Bringing down the Horse - The Wallflowers, Last Goodbye - Jeff Buckley

1997 - King Nothing - Metallica, Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind, Push & 3am - Matchbox 20

1998 - Garbage, Full of Grace - Sarah McLachlan, It Doesn't Matter - Alison Krauss & Union Station, Inconsolable - Jonatha Brooke

1999 - Touched - VAST, Dummy, Portishead, Adagio - THC

2000 - Shameless - Ani DiFranco, I Try - Macy Gray, Smooth - Santana & Rob Thomas, American Skin (41 Shots) - Bruce, Chinese Burn - Curve

2001 - All That You Can't Leave Behind - U2, The Space Between - DMB, Untouchable Face & Gravel & Napoleon - Ani DiFranco, Fields of Gold - Eva Cassidy, Do I Move You - Nina Simone

2002 - Moulin Rouge soundtrack, Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley, Ain't No Sunshine & Time After Time - Eva Cassidy

Now I feel old, 'cause I also remember the lovely original version of Time After Time - 1984, Cyndi Lauper (a much more fitting candidate for Delirium than Tori Amos, actually, but whatever...)

~victoria

link

[current mood: perky]
[current music: Over the Hills and Far Away - Led Zepplin]
[random quote: if music be the food of love, play on...]

~*~

2002-07-15 - 10:40 p.m.

Happy Birthday to me!

Ah, birthdays.

Mine have a history of being sucky.

The short version: car breakdowns, burned by boiling water, and knock-down, drag-out family fights.

But not this year.

No.

Slept until noon, which was nice. (I always take my birthday off and recommend everyone else do so, too. Not take *my* birthday off. I mean, take off your own. No one should have to *work* on their birthday.)

Got up, sat outside and read for a while. Ate a nice toasted salt bagel with cream cheese.

Went over Mary's house and hung out in her pool, with her and her kids.

It was lovely. I love the pool. I love the smell of chlorine and waterbabies. It just... everything is possible, you know? That's what it makes me think of.

Childhood and potential and all the endless possiblities open to you before you grow up and start limiting yourself, and letting the world limit you.

Anyhow, we swam, we played, we laid out in the sun and ate popcorn and sunflower seeds. It was good.

Then I came home and mom made the dinner of my choice, chicken cutlets and homemade cheese macaroni.

My mom makes the best cheese macaroni, with the breadcrumbs all crumbly crispy on top and the cheese all hot and melty and smooth... mmm...

And then the rest of the fam came over for homemade all chocolate chocolate cake (i.e., chocolate cake with chocolate icing. accept no substitutes.).

So there were seven very loud children running around on a sugar high. Tricia seems to be taking after Nicki now, growling and shrieking at everyone, and grunting instead of talking.

She isn't walking by herself yet, but she climbs. She climbs anything she can get her hands and feet onto - chairs, tables, stairs...

The kid has no fear.

So we had cake and ice cream and apple struedel for the infidels who don't like chocolate, and they sang happy birthday to me, and then we sang happy birthday to Dom (since M&A et al. weren't there yesterday).

I got cash ("it's as good as money," per Yogi Berra), or checks actually, and a carrying case for my laptop, since I decided that a totebag was probably not the best means of lugging my baby Xander around. *g*

It was a good day.

Now I've got 125 emails to sort through, on top of the 490 or so that still need answering (let's not even *talk* about the 500 in my Clex folder - those are all stories that haven't been read yet. Sigh. In two weeks I'll be at Lake George with no internet access, so I'll do some catching up. That's what I keep telling myself. Sadly, I don't believe me. *g*)

So, yeah, good day. Even if I'm old. Sigh.

Also, Happy Birthday, Fern! And, even though I didn't see him again, to Kenny!

~victoria

link

[current mood: older *G*]
[current music: I Keep Forgetting - Michael McDonald]
[random quote: I keep forgetting we're not in love anymore, I keep forgetting things will never be the same again]

~*~

2002-07-14 - 10:45 p.m.

old friends and cliches

Bright Shiny Objects, your one-stop recs shop, has been updated.

Livia and Sarah T.: Give them love. Thank them profusely for all the hard work they do on the Smallville Slash Archive and the Level Three Records Room.

Everybody in every fandom should thank their archivists. Today. Not just on May 1 and November 1.

So, thanks to Kate Bolin for keeping up USCL and The Buffy Writers Guild and starting the dot.creative archive. Thanks to Yasminke for keeping dot.creative going.

Thanks to Sarah and everyone else who was involved in the WRFA, to the people who set up XMMFFC and the Kielle, for getting the movieverse ball rolling in the first place.

Just big bunches of thanks to everyone.

Your work is most appreciated.

~*~

In other news, it really is a small world.

Case in point.

When I was very young (2-3 years old), my brother's best friend was a kid named Brian. He had two younger brothers, the youngest of whom was exactly my age - we have the same birthday. I think he's 12 hours older. We were engaged when I was three.

(Yeah, we were precocious. *g*)

Anyhow, they moved when I was 3 or 4, and after seeing them once or twice, that was it. We fell out of contact.

Fast forward about 26 years.

My cousin and one of her colleagues/friends are chatting, and our last name comes up.

Angela, the colleague says, "Why do I know that name?"

My cousin replies, "I don't know. It was my mother's maiden name."

I'm not quite sure how the conversation went from there, but all of a sudden, the friend says, "My husband grew up with a kid named Domenick P."

And my cousin says, "That's my cousin!"

And well, after much squeeing in disbelief, it turned out that yes, my cousin's co-worker's husband was indeed my brother's best friend from kindergarten.

So at the party today, they met for the first time since, oh, 1976.

It's funny, the things you remember. Or the things I remember anyway. I was only about 3, but I remember my erstwhile fiance in a Batman costume and bobbing for apples at a Halloween party (also my mom's birthday party, btw), and lo and behold, one of the pictures Brian brought with him today was of that very same Halloween party, where he and my brother and his middle brother were all dressed as superman, Kenny was dressed as Batman, my sister was some kind of princess, and I was an angel.

He also had a picture of one of the boys bobbing for apples.

I take it people don't do that anymore, as it's unsanitary, but this was the '70s. *G*

So yes, it was very cool. He and my brother recognized each other right away, and their kids and wives got along well, so I'm thinking this could be the re-start of a beautiful friendship.

Speaking of which, just talking to someone about this -- Casablanca is an awesome movie - greatest of all time, iffen you ask me, and the fact that some people find the dialogue cliched really chaps my hide.

Because all those lines you think of as cliches?

Coined in Casablanca, people.

Know your shit before you start talking about cliches.

This came up because, in reading some early, early L/R fic, you notice things that have become trite, fanon cliches, and you forget how *powerful* they were in the early days.

I can see people not getting the older stuff now, the stuff that was written two years ago (gah. where does the time go?), before fanon took hold and certain ideas became almost set in stone.

That's one reason I think fanon isn't a good thing sometimes. Because new(er) people might feel compelled to write within it, never realizing that it's not the end-all and be-all of the fictional universe.

Your better writers will eventually break from that mold, but even so, I think fanon should be used very sparingly.

Especially stylistic fanon, which is another rant for another time.

I didn't even plan on doing the first one.

So to sum up:

Yes, it is a small world.

Make time to catch up with childhood friends.

Hug your archivists.

Take all fanon with a silo of salt.

Here endeth the lesson.

~victoria

link

[current mood: good but itchy]
[current music: Pushing Forward Back - Temple of the Dog]
[random quote: Here's looking at you, kid.]

~*~

previous - next

DiaryLand

Disclaimer: Reading this diary is not required by law. If you do not like or agree with the contents herein, or find them to be offensive on more than one occasion, please go elsewhere and don't come back. Management is not responsible for any adverse reactions to content within.

The painting is "Boreas" by John William Waterhouse. Again, not a muse, but I like her. She suits the color scheme.

The quote is from Sir Philip Sidney.

This site is best viewed with IE4+ | 1024x768 | true color | verdana | tables