So, I've seen people doing the purse contents meme, and since I don't carry a purse, I'm tweaking it a bit. This is the pocket contents meme. Here be the things that usually reside in my pockets.

Read more... )

Anyway. So I was thinking, after reading like a billion interviews with JB and his autobiography, I've really started to notice how there are actually people that really have a serious problem with homosexuality. Ugh, this is longer than I thought it would be. )

Thursday, July 24, 2008

  • Jul. 24th, 2008 at 2:36 PM

Nicholas Johnson - At The End

  • Jul. 25th, 2008 at 12:37 AM
At the End

of this Eastern course, on deck observing
the gulls reel in the old dilemma, the tarpaulin
chaffed to a shine. Through the wheel the pull of
the sea is evident as separate vignettes appear
out of cigarette smoke. How tempting to drown
in such perceptions as you reconstruct shadow and sun
to a daze among polite trees somewhere on shore.
Coming home, it is clear the real tragedy is
dreams die too easily and the difficult country
reached via the grey, ice-bound river
can never be subdued. No, there are no Roman
roads here, but on the roads by the Seaport
you can feel the warm pavement give way
under your feet, giving you a sense of your own weight
and how easy it is to make an impression. Though hungry,
the longer you go without, the less you feel like it.
So we let them sleep in the lifeboat and do not
wake them for the prize of adoration, but simply continue
all the malicious lullabyes of the fair autistic weather
and those conspiracies of the tides that let you think
you can keep the course once set, that
you will not sink or rise.

-- Nick Johnson, from 'Degrees of Freedom'

Ragnarok and revolutionize.

  • Jul. 24th, 2008 at 1:09 AM
It was the height of summer, the weather was warm, and the scent of wildflowers and wine filled the air. Scott and I thought we'd lie down by the swimming pool. As can sometimes happen when the wine, the weather and the surroundings conspire, Scott and I felt a bit amorous and - oh, to be this young again - we had sex hanging from one of the huge ancient trees. When Scott and I headed back into the house, we thought our gymnastic performance was our little secret - until we caught up with Cameron, who was standing grinning in front of a picture window that had a clear view of the tree on which Scott and I had been enjoying ourselves. Ever since, I've figured that Cameron has always expected more of me as a dancer in his shows because he knows exactly how flexible I can be.
AGH GODDAMMIT

John, you really need to stop doing this to me. HMNGH

Is it weird that all I have left to report anymore is how turned on I am by homoeroticism? wtfwtf. My girlish squeeing is really starting to annoy the piss out of me. Badasses such as myself do not girlishly squee, god fucking dammit.

By the way, if anyone more imaginative than myself could expound on how exactly one has sex while hanging from a tree, pls describe in the comments, thx.

Oh, that's just super duper
Been pulled over by a Virginia state trooper
Said radar detectors are legally the commonwealth of Virginia
I said, Well. I betcha cloaking devices are illegal too
GOODBYE


And, Clutch rules^^^^^
Gahah.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

  • Jul. 23rd, 2008 at 5:12 PM
Rothko's Earth & Green, 1955

Perhaps each color was inspired by a sensation
in his pores, cigarette smoke in his nostrils
or the pleasant rise of heat around his head.
Red sweat. Ashen door. Then his whole sight
was that: canvas and haze, the sour hint of dinner
still on his breath. Already he had left the room
by painting a portal into the next, and this despite
his urge to stay in this world, to frame an impossible
gesture. It is said he could not remember
the faces of his country: reading near the warmth
of his father's samovar, hide-and-seek in the crooked
alleys of Dvinsk, yet such an ordinary fear haunted
him in every green vibration and encroachment

of blue, every thin overlap the hue of rainwater,
every wall through which a trace of light might pass.
Sometimes a color was just the thrill of his skin
at the brink of discovery, like when a boy notices
figures in the grain of a kitchen table, or milk
swirling with tea while his mother irons laundry
just behind him. Corresponding signals of press
and steam, wisp and dispersal. And even while
painting he understood that somebody else must
open the space between them, that a viewer could
ease his passage by recognizing that his canvas
was a door to the common world, dawn between
then and now; so stare for a moment into the mouth
of this picture: inhalation exhalation, green
blue, the yawn of a man before he stirs awake.

-- David Roderick, from Blue Colonial

Quick Newsy thing

  • Jul. 22nd, 2008 at 10:52 PM
A sneak preview of the Sandman 20th anniversary poster: http://celebritygossip.epicureforum.com/great-comics-artists-draw-sandman-characters-for-special-edition-poster-119.html

And Henry Selick told me that We will have our two top puppet fab people - Georgina and Martin - at the NECA toy booth with lots of Coraline puppets. Exhibit Hall - Booth 4345 (across from Warner Brother's 4329 booth)

So if you want to see what the puppets -- our actors from the film -- look like, now is your chance.

Jul. 22nd, 2008

  • 6:06 PM
Over two summers and the seasons in between, my friendship with Marilyn deepened. Since up to this time I had experienced only one real gay relationship - and, as you've learned, even that never went beyond the secret handshake - Marilyn and I decided to try out the boyfriend/girlfriend thing. I have to admit there were lots of things I enjoyed about it, including an increased appreciation for the softer parts of the female form, but in the end it simply confirmed to me that I was a fully committed player for the boys' team.

[...]

To this day, Marilyn has the honour and, dare I say, pleasure of being the only woman I've ever seriously snogged, and I mean seriously - but that's all I've ever done with a woman. My boys and I have never gone where no gay man should ever go. And now you know how I know that I've never sired children.
an increased appreciation for the softer parts of the female form

JOHN. JOHN YOU WANT TO EXPERIMENT WITH A WOMAN. BECAUSE I AM GOING TO FUCK YOU SO HARD. OMGOMGOMGOGMGOMGOMGOMGAMGLDRRLJFKLSDJAFJKL

ARGH

Goddammit. And that whole deal he had with Valentino Garavani, ZOMG. On his yacht and there were all these pretty people and then Scott being all like, Christ, John, you should have fucked him. ADSFASDFASDF

This is raw lust guys. I want to leave bitemarks all over this guy.

You know, John. It wouldn't be the first time I've seduced a gay man. To this day, I've seduced three. I mean, they didn't go permanently straight, but I had them in a straight mood long enough for me to get what I wanted. Why not make it one more, yeah? I promise, it'll only hurt a little. Perhaps you'll even enjoy it.

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2008

  • Jul. 22nd, 2008 at 11:44 AM
We've made some changes to our FAQ, and welcome the community's opinion on these decisions. Specifically:

20. Are there any other guidelines I should know about before submitting a link?
Yes. Metafandom is about building community and facilitating conversations. It's not about bullying other fen because they disagree with you. Links to posts that "out" fans or that we feel otherwise act contrary to our goals will be removed. Knowingly editing linked posts, or link bombing metafandom posts to maliciously connect real life and fannish identities will result in banning from Metafandom. Period. Be cool with each other, mmmkay?


Further, starting with tomorrow's post, we will change our default settings to screen comments. We hope this will be temporary. Links are still welcome and appreciated, and still can be left as comments to our posts, however we do not want to be used to promote agendas that we feel are contrary to the metafandom ethos.


  • [info]twtd: Post Int'l Day of Femslash meta - So, the International Day of Femslash was yesterday. I'm betting that most people in fandom didn't know that. -

  • [info]zillah975: No, seriously. - One of the things I'm really freakin' tired of is this specious idea that there is some universal standard of "CIVILITY" that we ALL JUST KNOW and if we'd ALL JUST ABIDE BY IT everything would be peaches and sunshine. -
    (tags: fandom)

  • [info]villainny: On actor interactions - The key thing, though, is that we must allow the actors to establish their own comfort zones with this. It's awesome to have Joe tease the McSheppers, even if he's not aware exactly that that's what he's doing, but asking David Hewlett to buy into and dir -

  • [info]telesilla: Sit down, suck it up and STFU - 2. Stop privileging one form of fannish participation above others. Reviews and rec lists are as legitimate a form of fannish activity as making videos or art, or writing.

  • [info]karjack: Deconstructing Dr. Horrible. - I suspect that, amusing moments aside, what I liked about it is precisely what a lot of the folks (including myself) who didn't like it hated. I think it was fairly biting social commentary, and I wonder how many people even realized they were being bitte -

  • [info]zvi_likes_tv: How I Want Fandom To Be, by zvi - I believe that defining fandom civility such that it is impossible to offer critical advice ]...] to a stranger also precludes an environment in which fanfiction can be publicly discussed among the readers of it. -

  • [info]nakeisha: Canon or fanfic - If you had to choose between watching/reading/listening to your main fandom(s) canon or writing fanfic based on it, what you choose? -
    (tags: fanfic poll)

  • [info]queenzulu: Not really the answer to a meme. - What I love about stories is storytelling. And my characters are constantly telling stories: to themselves, to the people around them. -
    (tags: writing house)

  • [info]seekergeek: Thoughts on concrit - Which brings us to the next part. Concrit is difficult to receive. It is easy to get hurt by accident. A person who is hurt may have a hard time getting out of that hurt headspace into one that is willing to listen to a justification of what was said. Or -
    (tags: concrit)

  • [info]cschick: On Internet Privacy . . .Welcome to the Internet, folks. The Internet, designed for redundancy, designed so that NOTHING EVER DIES. Designed so that information is preserved in the wider somewhere, and that someday, someone will be able to find it.
    (tags: privacy)

Several people wrote to ask why I wasn't doing a Coraline movie panel in San Diego on Saturday, as mentioned on this blog a few months ago. Laika had asked me to do it originally (and that was when I mentioned it here) but, as far as I know right now, all the Coraline people are madly beavering away trying to get the film finished in time, they've never mentioned it again and it's not on the Comic-Con schedule.

Dude-Sure La Jolla is ten miles away from downtown San Diego, it's also only ten minutes away! So why can't you stop by the con one day? After all how hard can teaching be? Aren't your
fan worth it? Late - Chip

They definitely are -- that's why I'll be doing a reading at Mysterious Galaxy tomorrow, and a signing (but I think all the signing numbers are already given out).

As for teaching not being that hard, I'm sure you're right. But whether it's hard or not isn't really the point. The work days start at 8:30am and go till about midnight. Clarion is boot camp for writers -- it's intensive story round table criticism in the morning. In the afternoon while the students write stories (they write at least six stories in six weeks, sometimes more), I'll be doing an hour of individual work with each student (there are 18 of them this year), and giving talks on specific subjects that students want to know stuff about (talks still to come: Writing Comics, Writing for Film and TV, and one on Story and Myth), introducing evening guest speakers (tonight we had author David Brin, with comics genius Scott McCloud and editors Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Liz Gorinsky coming in later in the week), while nights are spent reading the stories we'll be critiquing the following morning.

It's really a fun and fascinating experience for me as a visiting instructor: I'm over my initial terror and I think the students are learning lots -- probably more from each other than from any of the instructors. But it's not a schedule that's really made for nipping in to Comic-Con and doing an imprompu panel or signing. Depending on how many of the individual student conferences I have on Saturday, I might be able to get into the con for a few hours, but if I do I'd spend the time trying to say hello to old friends, or even try and catch some panels. Then I'll need to get back earlyish on Saturday to meet Geoff Ryman and Nalo Hopkinson, who together are teaching the last two weeks, and to fill them in on anything they could need to know.

(I was made very happy to learn that some of the Clarion students learned about it from this blog, by the way.)

Mr. Gaiman, my name is Bruno D'Alincourt, and my question is, how you draw up its dialogues?

If you speak alone, get you.
If you use your cats.
His family.
Your friends.
Or another case to let their texts flow as if they were called in real life.
I know that the dialogues that make the story (For more fícção or description that is) more 'family' possible, as had already been counted and so many can identify with it.
Since already thank you very much.
But unless we see more, having a good morning, good afternoon and a good night.
And you are truly happy.
What all you want God to give you twice.
And do not forget what happened to the man who has everything I wanted ...
... He had a happy life for all forever.
I hope that this humble reply fan.
Me sorry for my English badly written, promise better.
Anything we see in the future.

I don't really know what it is you're trying to find out, Bruno, but I think you ought to know that what the translator program turned it into was practically poetry, if it wasn't already.

Frank Gaspar - My Hood of Stars

  • Jul. 22nd, 2008 at 9:34 AM
My Hood of Stars

God was still walking around in the wilderness
fascinated and puzzled. He kept trying to show
me how to take the words from dreams and old
magazine covers, to make something out of them.
He was preoccupied for hours and hours, but
he never spoke his mind plainly. He did not
like people to feel too comfortable around him.
He was far more troubled than anyone now wants
to remember. This is when the world was
mostly without form, but it wasn't void: it is
just that everything made only one kind of sense.
You didn't have good words like automobile or deduction,
though you had rebuke and anoint. Then God
bent down and picked up a handful of desert.
Not really. It's just how we talk about such things.
He picked up a handful of desert and there came
a great tempest. Then there were worlds standing in line,
waiting on street corners and in train stations. Then
God went a great way into that wilderness, whistling
and singing in bright garments. I watched him go.
Everybody did. Then his stars fell around us like swallows,
stricken and stunned: That’s when the people began scooping
them into their pockets and purses, trying on names, in-
venting excuses. That’s when I tried on my own garment,
drunk on fear and craving. That’s how I began whistling and singing.

--Frank Gaspar, from Night of a Thousand Blossoms
Why do they still let M. Night Shyamalan make movies?

I'm only sixteen minutes into The Happening and I can safely say that this is possibly the most retarded thing I've ever seen. And this is after watching Jackass 2 with Adam and Hannah and Jeff the other night.

It's like he blows this big budget on A-list actors and then is like 'Okay, now ditch every technique you've ever learned about acting and be two-dimensional and basically just act like this is your first gig ever so that you're not believable at all. As a matter of fact, don't even act, just recite lines at each other, which won't be hard considering the script you're given.'

His writing is so abysmal. I'm surprised these people even accepted the roles in this film, considering it's probably the worst career decision imaginable for a somewhat well-established actor.

By the way Mr. Shyamalan, your social commentary that you try to convey in your retarded films is fail. Go back to college and get some real learnings, thx. EYEROLL


And, I introduced my friend Jeff to Doctor Who and Torchwood. Now he's texting me like every hour asking me questions. Oh my god guys, you'd laugh so hard at these conversations. The girl looks like that chick from diaries of a call girl // That's because it is, that's Billie Piper. // I saw that episode where they introduce Captain Jack. The one where all the people look like Pink Floyd characters. 'Who has a sonic screwdriver?!' And the part where Captain Jack ended up with a banana. I laughed.

Gahah what.

It's funny because I totally brought him over to the dark side. He's already bugging me for series two.

Monday, July 21, 2008

  • Jul. 21st, 2008 at 10:54 PM