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Apr. 29th, 2012 04:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* Todd Akin wants you to know that Student Loans are the "stage three cancer of socialism." Guess which political party he's a member of. Go on, guess.
* Virginia Governor "Vaginal probe" McDonald wants you to know that even though he's softened and decided the government probably shouldn't force women to bear a child if it will literally kill her, he is planning to come down really hard on rape victims, cutting funding to rape crisis centers as the waiting lists for help aren't nearly long enough, as well as making sure the government will force rape and incest victims to bare their rape babies. After all mandated medical rape isn't really a bad enough punishment for surviving rape. there are, of course no plans to do anything to you know stop rapists or punish more of them. What would Jesus do? Yep.
* On the 25 Anniversary of the founding of Act UP. If you are too young to remember the worst of the AIDs crisis in the Us, you probably ought to take a peek as it's an important part of how we got here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#47213127
* I know at least one of you is interested in a more nuanced look at modern Islam. Melissa Harris-Perry had a wonderful discussion about women's issues in the Middle east in the context of the Arab Spring: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/melissa-harris-perry/46419672#47216315
* "The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia isn't a Marketing Tool:" http://www.sparkindarkness.com/2012/04/international-day-againt-homophobia-and.html
* They are trying to pass that Internet damaging law again. It's through the House and before the Senate: http://psybelle.livejournal.com/736146.html
* The assassination attempt against Teddy Roosevelt: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2012/04/theodore-roosevelts-life-saving-speech/
The speech he gave after was surprisingly prescient and apt or the situation a hundred years later.
* I kept being startled by how tired I am. I just figured it out. There was yet another coverage gap in two of my meds and one of them gives me more energy as a side effect. I missed two weeks and am only just back on since yesterday. Duh. Also, Squirrel fronted me money for real antihistamines so that would be adding extra sleepy until I acclimate. I'm having ninja naps just like starting hormones.
Mystery solved. Now if only I could figure out what's wrong with the skin of my ears.
* I still dream often of Hilyard House. It's still close to my ideal of the sort of house I'd want to own I were rich enough to own a house. Hard floors, a decent size kitchen, a covered patio and a yard with things growing in it. Enough room for all my stuff at once. Somewhere to park. I could rent out the upstairs apartment. I likely wouldn't paint it pepto bismal pink if it were mine, but it's still the most like home of anywhere I've lived as an adult.
* I think the NFL draft is a weird thing. I get objectively that it's designed to help keep all the teams in the League competitive. At the same time, how weird is it that people are told what city they will be living in and which team they will play for, that the teams trade picks and occasionally actual humans between themselves like commodities? It's just... creepy when you think about it. Especially when you see how many of the top picks are African American men. I know, I know, it's a huge amount of money and no one is likely to turn down a golden ticket to the NFL draft for fear they might end up somewhere godawful. I know they have the choice not to play or later to quit if they get traded somewhere they hate, but it still makes me uncomfortable.
* The last couple of months I'd been noticing late night comedians referring to Rick 'frothy residue" Santorum as gay casually. Oh right, I thought, he's a raging homophobe. It's now assumed anyone that homophobic loves cock. The thing that's interesting to me is it's not just us saying it among ourselves; it's now straight people just assuming it and knowing the audience of regular folks will make the same assumption. In my life time, it's become common wisdom. See a foam at the mouth ranter against the gays and start looking for closet doors. I'm not sure if that's going to be good in the long run. even earlier in this primary, they ere still having to say it out loud, that as Marcus Bachman believes he can convert gays, he must be one. They don't even have to say all that any more. Homophobe=homosexual.
Do we really want people looking at bigoted douchebags and thinking, "That's so gay?" You see my point. Yes, it' cool that people in general have internalized the truth that people really are born that way, and that there's something essentially wrong about demonizing folks for something that's inherent. at the same time, in the long run, is this not going to back fire?
* On a related topic, I'm examining my startlement on discovering Paul Shaffer (David Letterman's platonic life partner/sidekick) is straight a month or so ago. I just always assumed he was gay from when I first saw him on the Letterman show as a kid. Why did my gaydar go so wrong, I wondered? I just figured it out. My child brain noticed how much he looked like Elton John and thus subconsciously associated the two men. As Elton John was clearly gay.... Yah. I love brains, they are so fucking weird.
* Glee S2:
1. I have decided Santana is a betta fish.
2. I am still haunted by Brittany and the broccoli and the gummy bears. Watching the Christmas episode, it is clear to me that Artie is a way better boyfriend to Brittany than he ever was to Tina.
3. I think "Island of Misfit toys" was a little on the nose.
4. I still think "Don't Cry for Me" was just perfect there from a plot and a character perspective. I haven't an ipod, or I'd have been tempted, although, honestly, I wish there was a just Kurt version. (Again, nothing is wrong with Lea Michelle's voice, but it's an ordinary sort of good, and Chris sings it like no one else can.) Just generally, they are doing a way better job of using his voice in season 2 in things like "Jazz Hot."
5. I'm seeing the cracks in Blaine. I understand why rm talks about the Pavarotti getting used to his cage scene so much. Ouch. Blaine is his cage waiting for Kurt to get used to it to so he can sing again. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I think it hit me extra hard having done 14 years in a cage like that myself. I only ever learned to sing outside of it, but I have a deep and personal understanding of the ways you have to mutilate yourself to get used to the cage. I saw people do it; I saw people try and fail. The last thing Anne Marie ever said to me before she escaped forever was, "You and me are the only ones left who still know how to be different." That was the year before Graham came and was gloriously different too. I think he was the only one got out completely unmutilated and unscarred.
6. Watching the Warblers perform, I keep thinking about how their choreography all looks like canaries with clipped wings moving back and forth on perches in unison. Ouch, ouch, ouch. And Kurt in the sectionals number not quite managing to be ordinary, but trying to be another clipped canary.
7. Speaking of canaries, I can't get it out of my head that in a scene earlier that season when Karofski knocks him to the floor, Kurt is wearing canary yellow. Deep continuity. In my head I see him sprawled there devastated and a little numb, the canary in the jungle, knocked out of his tree an aggressive predator juxtaposed with Blaine talking about getting used to cages. I grew up knowing in my bones there is no such thing as safety, I suspect over at Glee they know that too. I keep thinking about Fairyland and prices paid.
8. I've heard a lot of talk about Darren Criss not being a good actor. Watching him, I noticed something. He does exaggerated stage style acting when he's singing, which makes sense. There is also a sense that Blaine, the character, is always acting a little bit in scenes where he is not formally performing. I can see how people read that as Darren Criss is not a good actor, but that's not how I see it. I see it as Darren Criss is playing a person who is always performing, always pretending he's happy and fine and not even a little bit broken because if people think he's okay maybe they'll like him, an being liked means being safe, right? Right? Look at me! I'm high functioning, well adjusted, and articulate! Nothing to see behind my mask! Look at how extremely okay I am!
It seems to me that that's actually pretty subtle to try to get across. I think people are reading the trying a little to hard to fit in as Darren Criss trying to hard to fit in. I see it as Blaine trying to look happy in his pretty little cage so he won't get pecked.
9. BTW, I get that Blaine is talking about Kurt and not just the bird. I think he's trying to teach Kurt to cope like he did. I think about how he said that stuff about not being as brave as Kurt and running away from the bullying to Dalton. Now Kurt's run there too, he's trying to help him acclimate. I just think it's fundamentally Blaine's cage too. He's acclimated and started to sing again. The cage is less lonely with someone else in it to sing with.
I absolutely don't think Blaine's evil; I think he's terrified they will hurt Kurt because he's too different. I think for Blaine conforming is survival and it's serious or him. The things he said after the Warbler's rejected Kurt's solo bid about having to be a team player to succeed there? That signals to be they lop of the heads of flowers that grow to high in a metaphorical sense. Kurt is special and unique and a really tall flower. I'm not saying it's long term healthy, I'm just saying it's a completely understandable protective instinct.
I suspect everything he tries to get Kurt to hide is something that Blaine had to lop off himself to fit in. I suspect it's even scarier because Kurt shines so much brighter than anyone else we've seen in the show. He's making the Pegasus hide his wings.
10. I was going to write "we was making the gelfling hide his wings," but then remembered only girl gelflings have wings. I have Gelflings on the brain because of Sue offering that as a nickname choice in the scene where she kept calling him "Lady" and the visual associations between Kurt and winged things including birds,butterflies, fairies, and airplanes in the costume and set design. I am now wondering if the gelfling reference in a scene with all those gender presentation undercurrents is deliberate in the tangled way a lot of things in Glee are, but the pictures and concepts I have in my head are not translating well into words.
I now have a picture in my head of the Dark Crystal scene where they are falling and Kira busts out her wings, only now Blaine is Kira and Kurt is Jen (Because Kurt is clearly a boy and Blaine not so much), and after the bit where Kira/Blaine matter of factly explains Jen/Kurt doesn't have wings because he's not a girl, Kira/Blaine grins and whispers "Courage." My brain is an associative ad highly visual place, so sometimes things connect up weird.
This set leaves off at "A Very Glee Christmas." I'm in line for the next disk, and I'll likely have more thoughts then.
* Side note: all the discussion of locker contents on Glee makes me think of my own High School locker. It was mostly jammed with books as I went to prep school and you needed most of the space for them. The second half of High school I started putting photos of my life outside the cinder block prison on the inside door to remind myself of who I was when I was free.
* This dream charmed me: http://greenwick.livejournal.com/102275.html
Sticker books! Genius!
* Icon sale: http://djinni.livejournal.com/403024.html
* Virginia Governor "Vaginal probe" McDonald wants you to know that even though he's softened and decided the government probably shouldn't force women to bear a child if it will literally kill her, he is planning to come down really hard on rape victims, cutting funding to rape crisis centers as the waiting lists for help aren't nearly long enough, as well as making sure the government will force rape and incest victims to bare their rape babies. After all mandated medical rape isn't really a bad enough punishment for surviving rape. there are, of course no plans to do anything to you know stop rapists or punish more of them. What would Jesus do? Yep.
* On the 25 Anniversary of the founding of Act UP. If you are too young to remember the worst of the AIDs crisis in the Us, you probably ought to take a peek as it's an important part of how we got here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#47213127
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* I know at least one of you is interested in a more nuanced look at modern Islam. Melissa Harris-Perry had a wonderful discussion about women's issues in the Middle east in the context of the Arab Spring: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/melissa-harris-perry/46419672#47216315
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
* "The International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia isn't a Marketing Tool:" http://www.sparkindarkness.com/2012/04/international-day-againt-homophobia-and.html
* They are trying to pass that Internet damaging law again. It's through the House and before the Senate: http://psybelle.livejournal.com/736146.html
* The assassination attempt against Teddy Roosevelt: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/history/2012/04/theodore-roosevelts-life-saving-speech/
The speech he gave after was surprisingly prescient and apt or the situation a hundred years later.
* I kept being startled by how tired I am. I just figured it out. There was yet another coverage gap in two of my meds and one of them gives me more energy as a side effect. I missed two weeks and am only just back on since yesterday. Duh. Also, Squirrel fronted me money for real antihistamines so that would be adding extra sleepy until I acclimate. I'm having ninja naps just like starting hormones.
Mystery solved. Now if only I could figure out what's wrong with the skin of my ears.
* I still dream often of Hilyard House. It's still close to my ideal of the sort of house I'd want to own I were rich enough to own a house. Hard floors, a decent size kitchen, a covered patio and a yard with things growing in it. Enough room for all my stuff at once. Somewhere to park. I could rent out the upstairs apartment. I likely wouldn't paint it pepto bismal pink if it were mine, but it's still the most like home of anywhere I've lived as an adult.
* I think the NFL draft is a weird thing. I get objectively that it's designed to help keep all the teams in the League competitive. At the same time, how weird is it that people are told what city they will be living in and which team they will play for, that the teams trade picks and occasionally actual humans between themselves like commodities? It's just... creepy when you think about it. Especially when you see how many of the top picks are African American men. I know, I know, it's a huge amount of money and no one is likely to turn down a golden ticket to the NFL draft for fear they might end up somewhere godawful. I know they have the choice not to play or later to quit if they get traded somewhere they hate, but it still makes me uncomfortable.
* The last couple of months I'd been noticing late night comedians referring to Rick 'frothy residue" Santorum as gay casually. Oh right, I thought, he's a raging homophobe. It's now assumed anyone that homophobic loves cock. The thing that's interesting to me is it's not just us saying it among ourselves; it's now straight people just assuming it and knowing the audience of regular folks will make the same assumption. In my life time, it's become common wisdom. See a foam at the mouth ranter against the gays and start looking for closet doors. I'm not sure if that's going to be good in the long run. even earlier in this primary, they ere still having to say it out loud, that as Marcus Bachman believes he can convert gays, he must be one. They don't even have to say all that any more. Homophobe=homosexual.
Do we really want people looking at bigoted douchebags and thinking, "That's so gay?" You see my point. Yes, it' cool that people in general have internalized the truth that people really are born that way, and that there's something essentially wrong about demonizing folks for something that's inherent. at the same time, in the long run, is this not going to back fire?
* On a related topic, I'm examining my startlement on discovering Paul Shaffer (David Letterman's platonic life partner/sidekick) is straight a month or so ago. I just always assumed he was gay from when I first saw him on the Letterman show as a kid. Why did my gaydar go so wrong, I wondered? I just figured it out. My child brain noticed how much he looked like Elton John and thus subconsciously associated the two men. As Elton John was clearly gay.... Yah. I love brains, they are so fucking weird.
* Glee S2:
1. I have decided Santana is a betta fish.
2. I am still haunted by Brittany and the broccoli and the gummy bears. Watching the Christmas episode, it is clear to me that Artie is a way better boyfriend to Brittany than he ever was to Tina.
3. I think "Island of Misfit toys" was a little on the nose.
4. I still think "Don't Cry for Me" was just perfect there from a plot and a character perspective. I haven't an ipod, or I'd have been tempted, although, honestly, I wish there was a just Kurt version. (Again, nothing is wrong with Lea Michelle's voice, but it's an ordinary sort of good, and Chris sings it like no one else can.) Just generally, they are doing a way better job of using his voice in season 2 in things like "Jazz Hot."
5. I'm seeing the cracks in Blaine. I understand why rm talks about the Pavarotti getting used to his cage scene so much. Ouch. Blaine is his cage waiting for Kurt to get used to it to so he can sing again. Ouch, ouch, ouch. I think it hit me extra hard having done 14 years in a cage like that myself. I only ever learned to sing outside of it, but I have a deep and personal understanding of the ways you have to mutilate yourself to get used to the cage. I saw people do it; I saw people try and fail. The last thing Anne Marie ever said to me before she escaped forever was, "You and me are the only ones left who still know how to be different." That was the year before Graham came and was gloriously different too. I think he was the only one got out completely unmutilated and unscarred.
6. Watching the Warblers perform, I keep thinking about how their choreography all looks like canaries with clipped wings moving back and forth on perches in unison. Ouch, ouch, ouch. And Kurt in the sectionals number not quite managing to be ordinary, but trying to be another clipped canary.
7. Speaking of canaries, I can't get it out of my head that in a scene earlier that season when Karofski knocks him to the floor, Kurt is wearing canary yellow. Deep continuity. In my head I see him sprawled there devastated and a little numb, the canary in the jungle, knocked out of his tree an aggressive predator juxtaposed with Blaine talking about getting used to cages. I grew up knowing in my bones there is no such thing as safety, I suspect over at Glee they know that too. I keep thinking about Fairyland and prices paid.
8. I've heard a lot of talk about Darren Criss not being a good actor. Watching him, I noticed something. He does exaggerated stage style acting when he's singing, which makes sense. There is also a sense that Blaine, the character, is always acting a little bit in scenes where he is not formally performing. I can see how people read that as Darren Criss is not a good actor, but that's not how I see it. I see it as Darren Criss is playing a person who is always performing, always pretending he's happy and fine and not even a little bit broken because if people think he's okay maybe they'll like him, an being liked means being safe, right? Right? Look at me! I'm high functioning, well adjusted, and articulate! Nothing to see behind my mask! Look at how extremely okay I am!
It seems to me that that's actually pretty subtle to try to get across. I think people are reading the trying a little to hard to fit in as Darren Criss trying to hard to fit in. I see it as Blaine trying to look happy in his pretty little cage so he won't get pecked.
9. BTW, I get that Blaine is talking about Kurt and not just the bird. I think he's trying to teach Kurt to cope like he did. I think about how he said that stuff about not being as brave as Kurt and running away from the bullying to Dalton. Now Kurt's run there too, he's trying to help him acclimate. I just think it's fundamentally Blaine's cage too. He's acclimated and started to sing again. The cage is less lonely with someone else in it to sing with.
I absolutely don't think Blaine's evil; I think he's terrified they will hurt Kurt because he's too different. I think for Blaine conforming is survival and it's serious or him. The things he said after the Warbler's rejected Kurt's solo bid about having to be a team player to succeed there? That signals to be they lop of the heads of flowers that grow to high in a metaphorical sense. Kurt is special and unique and a really tall flower. I'm not saying it's long term healthy, I'm just saying it's a completely understandable protective instinct.
I suspect everything he tries to get Kurt to hide is something that Blaine had to lop off himself to fit in. I suspect it's even scarier because Kurt shines so much brighter than anyone else we've seen in the show. He's making the Pegasus hide his wings.
10. I was going to write "we was making the gelfling hide his wings," but then remembered only girl gelflings have wings. I have Gelflings on the brain because of Sue offering that as a nickname choice in the scene where she kept calling him "Lady" and the visual associations between Kurt and winged things including birds,butterflies, fairies, and airplanes in the costume and set design. I am now wondering if the gelfling reference in a scene with all those gender presentation undercurrents is deliberate in the tangled way a lot of things in Glee are, but the pictures and concepts I have in my head are not translating well into words.
I now have a picture in my head of the Dark Crystal scene where they are falling and Kira busts out her wings, only now Blaine is Kira and Kurt is Jen (Because Kurt is clearly a boy and Blaine not so much), and after the bit where Kira/Blaine matter of factly explains Jen/Kurt doesn't have wings because he's not a girl, Kira/Blaine grins and whispers "Courage." My brain is an associative ad highly visual place, so sometimes things connect up weird.
This set leaves off at "A Very Glee Christmas." I'm in line for the next disk, and I'll likely have more thoughts then.
* Side note: all the discussion of locker contents on Glee makes me think of my own High School locker. It was mostly jammed with books as I went to prep school and you needed most of the space for them. The second half of High school I started putting photos of my life outside the cinder block prison on the inside door to remind myself of who I was when I was free.
* This dream charmed me: http://greenwick.livejournal.com/102275.html
Sticker books! Genius!
* Icon sale: http://djinni.livejournal.com/403024.html