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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
mswyrr's InsaneJournal:
- Dexter: Dexter Morgan and the Plastic Sheeting Bought in Bulk
- Veronica Mars: Veronica Mars and Her Sexy Brain
- Heroes season 1: Peter Petrelli and the Heartrending Destiny of Doom
- Doctor Who: Doctor Who and the Dodgy Fashion Choices
- Tomorrow and the next day I'm required by the community college to attend two orientations, and one workshop.
This will seriously cut into my precious reading all day in my pajamas time, not to mention my making fanmixes instead of sleeping hours, and scheduled crazy LJ comment block.
I feel silly for feeling this way, but I really don't want to climb out of my comfortable hobbit hole just yet. - Loretta Chase's "Miss Wonderful," though inanely titled, is a delightful, funny, feminist little romance.
Before I ramble on about it, let me point you toward![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
oyceter's write up, which convinced me to read it.
What I love about it: how flawed, decent, and equally matched the main couple is. There's none of of the ugly, anti-progressive shit here that so often frustrates me with historical romances.
For starters, the lady--Mirabel--is rather more practical minded than the hero: she's thirty-one, and has been running her father's estate for a while now. She's loves her home and she's clever and competant about protecting and developing it.
The fellow--Alistair--is the third son of a tolerant, well off father who's suddenly told his son that the gravy train is ending, now. Alistair's one great experience with "real life" was barely escaping Waterloo alive. He has a limp, and a bit of an obsession with clothes and appearance consequently. Despite his inexperience, he's trying to pull his own weight and be a fair business man. He's gone in with a friend on a canal building enterprise, and he can't imagine why Mirabel and the other people of her district would disapprove of it.
Another thing he can't understand is why Mirabel dresses in such drab, plain clothes. And why she doesn't seem to bother about her hair at all. Which, of course, she does because (a) she has too many things to do to be bothered and (b) she's found that no nonsense clothes get a better response from the men she has to do business with.
While befuddled by her complete lack of style, he respects her competence; doesn't see it as ugly or wrong in any way, apart from being a bit frightened of how she might wreck his business venture.
At one point, he says that women should be allowed at their nation's universities. And, frankly, I don't care if his views are anachronistic or not; they're in character for him, and so refreshing after the anti-progressive historical romances I've slogged through. - fst is having a Fairy Tale/Myth fanmix theme in August. I got the idea to do one on sirens, and made some cover art:
( see full image )
Now I just need to get, you know, actual songs that fit the theme.
The only one I'm certain of is Tim Buckley's Song for the Siren which the silly thing is named after.
Argh.
Suggestions from you musically and/or mythologically inclined are welcome!
| Saturday, August 11th, 2007 | |
| 3:14 pm | good shit Taylor Mali is a comic genius. He uses his words and body language to wring the humor out of a topic. Not only that, but the topics he picks and what he chooses to say about them often make sense and kick ass as well; sometimes the humor is in service to making people laugh like crazy, and sometimes it's about making a statement, too. I knew him from his popular "What Teachers Make" piece, which is just freaking brilliant. Then the Smart Bitches gave a link to his one about the "The Impotence of Proofreading," which you can see here: YouTube Link Then I surfed around for more, and found my favorite of them all, "Like, You know." Which is about, you know, how sometimes we tend to, like, qualify our sentences to death? And make questions out of statements, you know? This one hits home with me because I'm, like, almost certain that I do this a lot myself, maybe. YouTube Link It's awesome. |
| Wednesday, August 8th, 2007 | |
| 8:15 pm | dinner was a simple affair; no more than three dishes, and one pudding When I'm hungry but I don't want to cook, I turn to the pita pockets. I just took one out, put a layer of smushed up avacado on it, then thinly sliced red onion, then sharp cheddar cheese. I put it in the toaster oven, and let it cook until the cheese bubble up a bit. Then I took it out, put Spike seasoning on it, and mmmm. Tasty. Cheap. Very little work necessary. |
| 2:23 am | Joss Whedon Quote Meme This one's pretty long, but I chose it because, of everything said on BtVS and Angel, it pinged the hardest with me the first time I heard it and, years later, still comes back to me as the perfect encapsulation of a whole mixture of feelings and, just, the weight of experience settling down on your shoulders. Wishing the ugly truth weren't true, but choosing it over the lies. All that stuff!
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| Monday, August 6th, 2007 | |
| 3:41 pm | 'nother update re: me Slept very little. Got up early, went and stood in line at school. After I stood in that line, I stood in another, and another. In the bookstore line, I met a woman who's going to be taking the same history class with the same teacher on the same day as I am, but at a later time. She seemed amped about the class, so we exchanged cellphone numbers so we could phone-study together, if the teacher holds tests at the same time, which I can't see why he wouldn't. I got all my swag--textbooks, supplies, parking permit, dictionary--and I feel very satisfied with how things went. Sadly, now my brain is sleeping while I am on teh Internets. Poor, beleaguered Internets. |
| Sunday, August 5th, 2007 | |
| 8:31 pm | no, man, he's okay! an aryan chick loves him! When I saw "My Best Friend" at the theater yesterday, there was a trailer for the film "Rendition." You can see it here at moviefone.com. The film appears to be a fictional story based on the year long imprisonment and torture of Maher Arar, a man who's been found innocent of any illegal activity which might be used by some crazy person to justify imprisonment and torture. I say, good on Hollywood for raising awareness about the abuses that have gone on. The more Americans who are made to realize what a horrific, futile, abusive thing CIA rendition is, the better. But, I ask, was it necessary to make the Arar character's wife white? And not just white, but Reese Witherspoon with ash blonde hair and blue eyes white? I.e. as white it's possible to get without suffering from Albinism? One could say that she was chosen because she's a star. And that her fame will bring even more attention to this important issue. Okay. Why can't she be a brunette white chick that loves her husband? Reese was a brunette in "Walk The Line." Somebody had to have decided that she should be blonde for this project. Why? Why does the fictional Arar's wife have to look like an idyllic representative of the Master Race or something? There's this nasty implication, imo, that the people behind the film felt it was necessary to have America's sweetheart from the Legally Blonde films love this "brown" guy to make the audience give a damn about his being *tortured*. Even though the guy's completely innocent, he still needs to be known to recline upon a welcoming snowy-white bosom to be considered worthy of human rights. Did the producers somehow think it would be less sympathetic if we saw a woman who is of the same ethnicity as Mr. Arar's actual wife tearing her hair out and trying to find out what's happened to her, again I say it, completely innocent husband? Am I seeing nasty implications that aren't really here? And, if I'm not, how fucked up is that? |
| 4:13 pm | film: "My Best Friend" [I've tried not to give away much beyond what's shown in the film's trailer, but if you wan't to be absolutely sure of avoiding spoilers, I suggest scrolling past.] I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It's a French comedy about a man who knows many people who could be his friends, but has no friends. When he mentions at an antique buyers' dinner the sad turn out at the funeral of a man he did business with for many years, these people tell him that, of course, even less people will be at his funeral. "You're joking," he says, looking around the table anxiously. "No, Francois," his female business partner assures him. "It's true. You have no friends." "You like things more than people." He denies this emphatically. He ends up making a bet with her; in ten days' time, he will bring his best friend to show off and prove them all wrong, or he will give her a precious Greek vase he recently bought. He goes home, and makes a list of candidates for the position of "best friend." He goes after a best friend as if it were another status symbol. He is summarily rejected by everyone he seeks out, in scenes that are as sad and just as they are funny. He meets a gregarious taxi driver who seems able to make friends with everyone. "What is your secret?" he asks. And then offers to pay the bemused man to teach him to be sociable. The man agrees, and more humorous scenes follow. In the midst of this Francois realizes that the taxi driver, Bruno, has gone far beyond the call of money; he has done more than Francois ever paid him for; he seems to genuinely care; perhaps he's become a friend? But is Bruno's friendship good enough to qualify for a Best Friend? Does it meet the gold standard of such things? He doesn't know. He calls his business partner and asks her to tell him what she considers a best friend; a question he should have thought to ask before making the bet. She tells him that a best friend will go to the limit for you, will do anything. Plot ensues. Plot and spoilers. At one point, his business partner says (paraphrased): "I was lying when I told you what a best friend is. I was going to tell you that there is no love, only tests. But the truth is that there is no test for friendship, only love." He could have had many friends, including her, if he had bothered to care for anyone. But he never had. What I appreciated is that, even though the story is about Francois learning the type of love that leads to friendship, there's just as much proof that being gregarious and caring like Bruno sometimes leads to hurt, and even loneliness. At one point, he says "[To be friends with] everyone is the same as no one." It was a gentle comedy that was very true to its characters and very evenhanded in its handling of the subject. If that appeals to you, I highly recommend it. |
| 2:41 pm | Paranormal Romance: Metzger, Barbara. "The Hourglass" This book started out a bit slow. The basic premise is that a man who had done many cruel things in his life--he was a knight during the Crusades, and boy did he love his work--dies and is sentenced to work as a grim reaper. After serving his setence for many years, he works out a loophole and reclaims his human life. He can keep it only if he can prove himself an excellent human being and/or find the hourglass brooch that represents his human life span. Kind of interesting. But the writing was conventional, and the author's perspective was very conventional, too: she doesn't question the system of power her male character possesses[*] when he returns as a Lord (and later a husband) in Regency England, she merely gives us the *perfect* example of a Lord who uses his influence and money to help people in genuine, creative ways. Though, according to the law at that time, he has complete legal control over his wife, the author doesn't mention the problems with that, either. She uses his need to prove himself worthy of human life and, later, of a good after life, as a driving force that makes him be the best husband possibily imaginable within the circumstances. O Obviously, the author wanted to write an unencumbered fantasy, so she found a way to work around these problems, instead of dealing with them directly. That's a perfectly valid choice. But it doesn't excite me as a reader. I continued reading, though, because it was sweet and amusing in its own way. Then the author did something delightful. She took the basic premise and worked out some interesting implications of it, and it was AWESOME. Really, really nifty. Then she took it a step further and gave her lead female character the chance to take control of the situation while the lead male is out of commission. It was great watching the heroine be intelligent and crafty, pushing past her own fears and saving the day. Very nice. After that, I was pretty won over. Having loved the characters for a bit made the ending hurt even more, though. Neither of them die or anything like that, of course (this is Romance!), but there's a symbolic death there at the end which I really disliked. It served to remove all the eccentricity from the couple's lives, putting them in a highly conventional place, and I *loved* them for their eccentricity. ( futher, spoiler heavy explanation of my disappointment ) There's the possibility that the ending was something the publisher required, which really cheeses me off if I think of it too much. As pleasant as the journey was at times, the destination really disappointed me. However, not all readers will be disappointed by the ending. If the story sounds appealing to you, I suggest trying it, even if you have to imagine (like I did) that the delightful parts of the book came with a different ending. Grade: solid C+ [*]Yes, dear reader, there are Romance novels that do things like this, to varying degrees. They are vanishingly rare and precious, but they do exist. My reading in the genre is often a heroic quest to find the next one. Or find books ones that ignore social problems in ways that are more delightful/interesting to me. Current Music: Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime |
| Friday, August 3rd, 2007 | |
| 5:45 pm | West Wing fandom and The Vagina Monologues I'd heard a lot about this play. Lots of the typical mainstream media shrieking, of course, but I heard the most positive things about it from a hot, well written Donna/Josh fanfic. Now there's one fandom that, despite having some bad fic, knows how to BRING the feminist het romance stories, yes indeed. Probably because it attracted so many politically aware women, and then turned them on with all the sexy banter. ( more fannish thoughts ) Back to the play: a couple days ago, I was reminiscing about awesome J/D fics of yore, and looked to see if my library had a copy of The Vagina Monologues. I thought, heck, I should read it, finally, and see what all the fuss is really about. Well, the library did have a copy. I picked it up last night and started reading it today. I loved the lyricism Ms. Ensler, the playwright, brings to the women's monologues. This is a case where poetic license makes perfect sense to me as a way to take the truth and then refine it down into its sharpest, most effective point. I'm about half way through, and I had to stop because the juxtaposition of the beauty of the female body and the atrocities committed against it was just too much. It's both a celebration and an act of grieving: there are funny, sweet, glorious moments of women discovering their pleasure and taking joy in themselves, and there's quite a lot about the high number of rapes, and about female genital mutilation, but a particular section where the playwright interviewed a woman who had survived the rape camps in Bosnia really combined the two aspects and broke my heart. The interviewee talks about being a young woman, discovering her body, how she loved herself, experienced her pleasure as such a precious wonder, how she loved her boyfriend's "gentle fingers." Intercut with her memories of her youth is her description of her prolonged, agonizing raped. It gets very explicit. The parallelism is obviously a rhetorical device the playwright imposed, but that artistic device, I think, clarifies and strengthens the voice of this woman, of all survivors. ( excerpt (warning: explicit, triggery) ) I know that these things happen, but I don't really understand why. Psychological descriptions can't begin to really justify why people take each other--so beautiful-- and and tear them apart, eviscerate them physically, psychologically. There's a very funny, cathartic bit that comes after that, it begins ( My vagina is angry. ) I can see why the play's become such a phenomenon. It's a shout of pleasure. It's funny. It's an angry scream in the face of cruelty, and a long, cleansing weep. I'm glad I'm reading it, I'm glad fandom gave this good thing to me. |
| 2:34 pm | fandom diaspora On the down side: the prospect of losing people to various journal servers, and losing the content and sense of community in my favorite LJ coms. On the up side: I learnt a new word! Disapora means "any group migration or flight from a country or region; dispersion." Nifty. |
| 3:18 am | testing I crawled out of bed to make this posting to multiple journals at once thing work. Something good ought to come of the fiasco. This post I'm making from semagic should show up here and be automatically mirrored over at my GreatestJournal and new InsaneJournal. ETA: Looks like it worked, thank goodness. The only hitch is that Semagic doesn't seem to allow one to edit three journal postings at once, though. |
| 1:26 am | technological mastermind here, reporting in LJ's journal-deleting insanity rode again. In response, I played with copying my whole history of LJ posts over to GreatestJournal, in case all or most of the folk I like leave. I heard that it's possible to post to both GJ and LJ at the same time from Semagic, and I thought I'd do that if my flist ended up divided across journal services. Then, with the mistaken click of a button, I ended up deleting my last couple months worth of posts and comments. Ouch. They're still in LJArchive, at least. But still. That stings. ((fiddles around more)) ((tries to get them back)) ETA: Got the posts back, but not the comments. BUGGER, I say. They're still in LJarchive, but there's no way I can think of to put 'em back where they were. Egg, meet face. Face? This is egg. And quite aside from the embarrassment, I'm really sad to lose all those awesome exchanges with you guys. Grr. And I've no one but myself to blame, damn it. ETA2: I'm gonna copy/paste the comments on some posts in from LJArchive, just so that they're there, 'cause, damn there was some really good discussion in comments on the Doctor Who posts and stuff that I hate to have disappear. Damn. ETA3: Okay, just trying to copy/paste one post's worth of comments is (a) ouchy to the wrist and (b) really making me feel increasingly stupid about my flub up: you're all bright, funny, perceptive people and you took time to say things and I freaking deleted what you said. Guh. I'm sorry for that. ((foolish heroine: exits, heading to bed, flagellating herself as she goes)) |
| Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 | |
| 8:44 pm | (possibly fun) meme So, there's this game I saw over on ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small} fanthropology. It's called "Fandom and the Obvious Title." It uses the title conventions of the Harry Potter books to humorous effect. Pick one of your favorite fandoms, choose a character and go!Here are mine: It's FUN! Probably. |
| 4:17 pm | feminism is nothing more than the revolutionary truth that women are people There's a discussion about problems with "feminism" over on ozarque's blog. The post and comments have covered both experiences people have had, and perceptions people have taken from our culture. It made me sad to see how many women have internalized the negative "anti-man," "anti-family," "anti-motherhood," etc. stereotypes surrounding feminism, to the point that some repeat them as if they were truth, and others talk about being unable to call themselves feminists. It's amazing to me how much power the extremely narrow, prejudiced, hateful "stories" told about different people through mass media are accepted. My reply to the thread is here. I'm trying to respectfully present my own positive experience of feminism, and what it means to me. ETA: svilleficrecs is posting about the proposed abortion law insanity in Ohio. My head has exploded not once, but twice. Come join the fun!Snagged from matociquala: feminism is not about men. |
| Monday, July 30th, 2007 | |
| 8:07 pm | the lady pwns The Girl-Wonder forums have a thread about Miss Manners, and how awesome she can be. ( the evidence ) I can't help but agree; not only are her two replies sensible, fairminded and well written, but they've this delicious tongue-in-cheek tone that I lovelovelove. |
| Sunday, July 29th, 2007 | |
| 8:56 pm | school, books, and fanmix fun |
| 12:40 am | Journeys in JournalFen The good folks on fandom_wank have dug up the Potter!wank. (There wasn't as much of it as they'd hoped, I don't think) They tracked down some bitter Snapefen and found some saying what a stupid woman Rowling is, and how omgimportant and soomistreated their favorite character is. Then the fandom_wankites were, like, So what would you call a book all about Snape? Best suggestion: "Severus Snape and the Witty Retort He Masturbated Over Later" A cruel, witty exaggeration of the truth. Quite Snape-like, actually! ;) Another good one: "Severus Snape and the Twenty-Year Grudge Subtitle: Taking Shit Out On People Whose Fault It Isn't." tinuvielberen, who I snagged the fandom_wank link from, has a suggestion for ( spoiler )HEH! As I said in her journal, my own wanking has been related to ( yet another spoiler! ) |
| Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 | |
| 7:05 pm | school stuff The Psych teacher emailed out our grades. I got a very merry and satisfying A. Woohoo! When Summer semester started, I wondered what kind of focus it would take to do well in the condensed time frame. It's good to know now that, though it's exhausting as heck, it's doable. |
| Thursday, July 12th, 2007 | |
| 10:25 pm | update Exhausted. Seriously. I feel like all the life and creativity has been bled out of me and now I'm just a generic homo sapien creature, alone in a vast arid plane, a pointy stick in my hand and only my survival instincts to guide me. Summer semester ends next Wednesday. I have many things to do between now and then. I will continue to be a mostly silent and numb friend here until the Friday after, I think. I'll be human again--instead of a wrung out washrag--after I've slept a whole lot and drunk down a couple books like cool water. Farewell until then. ETA: Book recommendations are more than welcome. But only fiction--I am quite, quite through with non-fiction for the time being--and only if the story's got positive aspects. You could, like, bring life again to my dried out husk of a soul, just by giving me WORDS. Sweet, sweet words. ((pause)) ((purse lips)) Yanno, sometimes I wonder if this need for stories is kind of weird. Two of the women I'm chatty with in my class were talking about all the parties they're going to go to after finals, and the fun they'll have, and I just didn't get where they were coming from. The thought of spending more time around people while I'm so worn out just seemed so tiring; I just felt this pathetic longing right in the center of my chest for stories. To be alone and quiet and dressed only in my most comfortable summer pajamas and read. |
| Saturday, June 30th, 2007 | |
| 11:29 pm | Doctor Who: The Last of the Time Lords The few good things this episode had about it were *very good*. Aside from them, though, it was rubbish. ( spoiler-y thoughts ) |
| 12:05 pm | Doctor Who Meme When you see this, quote Doctor Who, old or new. "But you have access to the greatest source of knowledge in the universe!" "Well, I do talk to myself sometimes, yes." |