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Thursday, December 31st, 2009
yhlee	12:30a	noodlings on the writing of flashfic I know; it's a writing post. But then, I trust y'all know how to use "page down." :-) Flash (generally, for me, 100 words to 1,000 words) is a length that I adore out of all proportion. Part of it is that it plays to what I think of as two of my strengths, style/language and concept/idea. It also helps that at that length, I am usually not trying to achieve anything in the way of deep characterization, so I can let go of my usual overwhelming doubts about my ability to make people up. Language is important because, in a piece that short--especially if it's at the very very short end--every word counts. It's not unlike writing a poem, except for not having to worry about things like where to put the line breaks. (I apologize to any poets reading this. I, um, when I write a poem, I sort of fake my way through the line breaks.) You want every word to sing. When you're writing toward a conspicuously lyrical style, you're getting double points out of the wordage: the story in the words, and then the beauty of the words themselves. (Please note: not all style has to sound like Patricia McKillip writing anything or Roger Zelazny in Creatures of Light and Darkness to count as good prose! Sometimes good prose does not go flashbangboom. I actually think the best prose stylist I have ever read is Lloyd Alexander in the Westmark trilogy. It looks simple and easy until you get a Yuletide assignment to fic it and try to imitate the prose style. I almost opened my wrists over that one. rachelmanija did it before I did and could have warned me. *g*) Concept is important because, well, you have to leave the reader with something, and at that length it's hard to cram in plot without it sounding like the back cover summary for a longer story, and some people can capture character in a short span of time (I will forever remember how efficiently and beautifully Zelazny established Vialle in Nine Princes in Amber, in one paragraph), but I am not one of them. And then you have two more things. The less important one is the beginning (although it is still, of course, very important). I like to try to hook the reader with a sharp, unusual image in the first line or paragraph. You just have to emit enough curiosity pheremones to get the reader to keep reading, and my theory (which could be wrong) is that if the story is only 200 words long, if they're interested enough to finish the first paragraph, they'll probably give you enough rope to hang stick around for the ending. The ending is the thing that you absolutely positively must land. I was explaining to Joe earlier tonight that my theory of endings (well, one of them) is that you generally want to leave the reader feeling that zie has read the best possible ending for the story, where "best" means not "happily ever after" (necessarily) but "most fitting." (If they want the happily ever after on one of my stories, they are totally welcome to fic it. Just sayin'.) It is all right (if not ideal) if a story wobbles a little mid-flight, but it must land solidly. I don't claim that I achieve this all that often, but ideals are good to aspire to. Also keep in mind: in a 100-word story, the ending is proportionately more of the story than in a novel or a ten-book series. Or that's how I think of it. (Although you still want to absolutely positively get the ending right no matter what the length.) Finally, for me, there is the laziness factor. Different things come differently-easily to different writers. I got loaded with "pretty prose" and "weird ideas," and when I am writing a short piece, where I know exactly what I want to accomplish with the ending, I can write the story very quickly. For a flashfic it is unlikely (though possible) that I will be spending three hours after writing one sentence just screwing around with a conlang sketch so I can come up with names. It's just less work. The writers I envy are the ones who can write long fiction very quickly. I don't know how the hell you do that. I get bogged down in third-order implications of worldbuilding decisions, and then there is the terrifying necessity of having characters to tell the story with. I mean, at this rate, it's going to be another ten years before I finish another novel draft. Fortunately, I have been aware since 6th grade that it is vanishingly unlikely that I will ever make a profit doing this, so hey. =^) This entry was originally posted at http://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/105508.html. Comment here or there, whichever pleases you. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
yhlee	1:28a	it's gone viral We played three? four? straight rounds of Race for the Galaxy: me, Joe, AJ, Ingrid, and C. The first round was slow because of the learning curve, but things got faster. I think everyone else picks up new games faster than I do. *moue* We made Joe sit out a couple rounds; frex, the first round he was the neutral party helping people with their cards. (Something that telling the lizard what to do each turn when we play at home has undoubtedly prepared him for.) I spent a few hours today working on the L5R moodtheme. I probably won't be able to finish it before leaving NY (tomorrow is going to be doing Stuff with In-Laws, and on Jan. 1, we fly back, and then I have to recover from the awfulness that is Flying on Planes These Days). But I am very close to done. I did some screencapture app flimflammery to get some of the images. The problem with L5R card art, it turns out, is that if you want pictures of bushi scowling, or looking blankly meditative, or serene, you're spoilt for choice. But for other random emotions? Not so much. Things get better once you get into things like Events and Actions, but my ability to ferret out decent-quality images was limited. Still, it's been fun, and I am looking forward to swapping out my current multifandom (mostly Buffyverse/Avatar: The Last Airbender/Veronica Mars, and a couple others) moodtheme for a realio trulio L5R moodtheme! Back to my One True Fandom! (It's really a pity that I don't think L5R is remotely close to qualifying for Yuletide, or I'd nominate it myself. Although it has such chromaticity issues it's not even funny. But I am fond of it anyway.) Okay, time to head back. Oh, last funny thing: I was so confused during my introduction to Super Smash Brothers--I postulated that there was some attack characters came with that let them vampirically siphon health or something. Then someone told me I had been reading the percentages completely backwards and it didn't represent the amount of health you had, it represented the amount of damage. Although I don't understand how you can break 300% damage, and the mechanism by which one determines whether something is a KO or not is very mysterious. I tried playing Fox but have no idea how to kill people with him. Ah well. :-D Also, tonight's discovery: hibachi restaurant (Sakura): OMG the scallops were to die for, and I want that chef's knife so bad. It sliced through the chicken breasts like they were butter, for reals. *awe* I don't think our knives were ever that good new! This entry was originally posted at http://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/105456.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
ellen_kushner	11:09p	Girls' Day Out deliasherman & I took the day off to go downtown & taste the delights of the City. We never, ever, do this, and we should do it more often. Around Rockefeller Center we encountered many, many others who had come with the same intention - and quite of few of them clearly do not even live here! We went to a noontime concert at St Bart's (and paid our respects to Delia's family in the crypt), had lunch at the Waldorf-Astoria, checked in at the Helmsley to see if they still do that excellent afternoon tea (with harpist) - they don't, but the bar still has that fabulous Pre-Raph-ish painting of Richard III over the fireplace - and strolled up Fifth Avenue looking at windows. Lost in a haze of nostalgia, Delia pulled me into Tiffany's and, um, bought me something. So I bought her something, too, and we went out swinging our little twin blue bags. At Bergdorf Goodman's we had raptures over the Alice-in-Wonderland windows. You would, too. They are almost impossible to photograph, but many people have tried; I think this lot is the most successful; here's another. If you can possibly go yourself, do. Cold & footsore, we went into Bergdorf's for tea, and found it in the basement. It was awfully good, and a rather raffish old woman in ratty clothes and diamond earrings sat down next to us, complaining about the windows being too small and crowded. "Are you an artist?" I asked her; "I am an Artistic Person," she said. The Maitre d' gave her a welcoming kiss, and the waiter asked if she wanted her usual lobster salad. We chatted a bit, then went and let the guy at the Trish MacEvoy makeup counter advise us (very sagely) on new lipsticks and various powders. We took a cab home. I took a few photos here and there - they're up on my Twitter page. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
theinferior4 [ lucius_t ]	11:32a	Happy New Year A Day Early  Here's the new Incpetion trailer: Looks spectacular, but I'm catching a whiff of stupid. My Top Ten Movies You May Not Have Seen for the year (in no particular order) Goodbye Solo--Bharani's wonderful indie film about a cabbie and a man he is driving to his death The White Ribbon--Michael Haneke's awesome b&w study of a town's wickedness Import/Export--Life is depressing for refugees in Vienna.  Bummer of the year, but awesome 35 Shots of Rum--Claire Denis' beautiful study of family and its compilcations Tony Manero--a Chilean psychopath  in 70s Santago is obsessed by the main character in Saturday Night Fever Revanche--an Austrian thriller with heavy psychological overtones The Maid--Catalina Savedra's title performance as the new hire in the home of a wealthy family should make her an international star A Girl Cut In Two--Claude Chabrol returns to form Flame and Citron--Danish film about two nihilistic Nazi hunters. Il Divo--spectacular filmmaking about a real-life Italian politician Happy New  Year--I'm out for a few. (18 Comments |Comment on this)
yhlee	10:49a	[Cross-posted to LiveJournal and Dreamwidth.] For anyone familiar with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics--if I wanted to reread the original comics (graphics novels?), what title would I be looking for? I checked Amazon.com and there are a bunch, and I'm pretty sure what I am looking for is a set of three graphic novels, but I can't remember the titles. A friend let me read his copies back in 1997 or 1998, and he said they were the comics on which the kids' cartoon was based, although I seem to remember the comics being targeted at a somewhat older audience. But the other night we were trying to play some TMNT console game (I went straight for Rafael? Raphael? on account of the sai), and we were disappointed that there seemed to be no cooperative multiplayer adventure mode, but it did wake the nostalgia. Also, I had completely forgotten Casey Jones' existence. And I totally do not remember April O'Neil (sp?) being that bad@$$. Meanwhile, I know! I should take a picture of my sai and make that into my default icon. Although that would be false advertising because goodness knows I have totally forgotten the one kata I ever knew. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
yhlee	10:25a	Webreadings + Yuletart! ZOMG, my mystery yuletart artist presented me with a page of Fray fancomic. Fray and Harth, gen, comic book violence. *hearts* ( Webreadings: books, games, sci/tech, miscellany. ) This entry was originally posted at http://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/104835.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
yhlee	10:20a	Yuletide recs #2 Princess Tutu, Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series, Crane Wife songs - The Decemberists, Hazards of Love (album) - The Decemberists, Chinese Mythology, Meredith Ann Pierce's Darkangel trilogy, Roald Dahl's Matilda, Walter Farley's The Black Stallion series, George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Also, Yuletide Madness has Malazan fic! Even if I have forgotten so much of the source that I couldn't figure 'em out. ( Read more... ) This entry was originally posted at http://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/104688.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
purple_pen	6:08p	Post-festive travel I'm back in Leeds now, after a very enjoyable week with my family in Birmingham. We went on a couple of outings while I was there, such as to the Barber Institute to see Dutch paintings, and to a gastro-pub called The Bluebell in Henley-in-Arden for a nice meal, but other than that it was mainly about drinking coffee, reading newspapers, watching TV and generally relaxing by the fire. This was just what I needed, and has done me the world of good - I feel much more relaxed than I have done for months, and ready to get on with all sorts of life- and work-related projects which I couldn't face previously. The journey home on the train was a bit of a nightmare, though. They're usually pretty bad, as the company who run the line between Leeds and Birmingham (CrossCountry) fundamentally do not have enough rolling stock, so that they are running 4-carriage trains once an hour when they really need 8-carriage ones. Already I'd had to stand with eight other people jammed into a vestibule area all the way from Leeds to Birmingham, but on the way back the overcrowding was SO bad that I couldn't physically get on the first train I'd planned to catch, and had to wait an hour and take my chances with the next one. I was more pro-active the second time and managed to get on, but still had to stand with other people's bags in my face for the first hour. Anyway, I got home in the end, to find the snow still hanging on here a couple of days after it had all melted away in Birmingham. And if I had caught the previous train, I would have missed the chance of conversation with a little boy of about six, who saw me standing there with my suitcase waiting to get off the train as it came into Leeds, and exclaimed with mingled shock and disbelief, "You're not going on HOLIDAY to LEEDS???" I explained that people coming back from holidays usually had suitcases with them as well as people going away on holidays, and added that I had actually been on holiday to Birmingham. Bless his innocent soul, he was clearly as-yet unaware of the usual stereotypical ideas associated with that fine city, and thought there was nothing odd about going on holiday there at all. :-) So now I am pottering around at home, and starting to sort out all sorts of little things which need sorting. Today I have been tidying, starting to make plans for a couple of conferences I'll be attending at Easter, and also applying for a photo-card driving licence. I only had an old-style paper pink and green licence before, still showing my parents' address in Birmingham as my 'permanent address' - as it was when I first passed my test back in June 1994. That's never really mattered before, as I have never owned my own car, and haven't really driven at all for the past ten years. But I am DETERMINED to get that sorted out this year, so applying for an up-to-date photo licence is step one of a plan which will then involve having some refresher lessons to get my confidence back, and then actually buying and driving my own car. I know I've been saying I will do this ever since I bought my house, but I really am determined now - thanks in no small part to my miserable experiences with trains over the festive period. I am so sick of being dependent on public transport, being unable to go places where it doesn't reach, being reliant on other people for lifts, and being restricted to things I can carry by myself in terms of luggage. I need proper adult freedom and independence, and it is about time I got over my terror of the road and obtained it. I don't make New Year's resolutions per se, but this is a good time of year to take stock a little and see what needs to be achieved in the coming months. So this is a Thing which I am Resolving at the turn of the year - and you are all at liberty to point and laugh at me if I still don't seem to have managed to graduate to full car-ownership by the summer. Click here to view this entry with minimal formatting. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
theinferior4 [ pgdf ]	12:18p	Sidney Sime I've always loved the artwork of Sidney Sime ever since encountering it about forty years ago in a Dover Books edition of a Dunsany collection. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_sime I was idly googling the artist's name today and found this magazine article from 1904 on the man, digitized by Google: http://tinyurl.com/yg6zn73 Useful for any researcher or fan, I would think. Posted by Paul DiFi. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
nwhyte	4:47p	Books unread Help me decide what to read next year - I did this last year and the year before and found it very useful! (I will post a poll of the books I have read this year tomorrow, all being well; there are still a couple I may finish in the meantime.) ( another big poll ) I included a text box for recommendations for or against particular books when I did this last year, but I think it is better to invite any such remarks to be posted as comments. (24 Comments |Comment on this)
selenak	3:13p	Spooks Season 7 For those of you keeping track, yes, I skipped season 6 on universal advice of it being horrible and because kathyh, who presents me with seasons of Spooks on a christmassy basis, agreed on this and gave me the seventh one this year. So, here's what I thought. ( Back to the USSR ) Current Mood: okay (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
yhlee	11:30p	Bang! No, it's nothing dirty. Rather, this is a card-game-ized riff on Mafia, except in the form of a spaghetti Western. (For reals: all the cards are bilingual, in Italian and English, and I am told the company that makes it is Italian.) There's a Sheriff and Deputies; there are outlaws; and then there is another role whose name I have forgotten, who wins only if zie is the last one standing. The outlaws win if the Sheriff goes down. The Sheriff's side wins if all the outlaws go down. I think I'm missing something in the chinks, but it's covered by the rules, I just can't remember. You additionally draw two character cards, each with some special ability, and you get to choose one to "play." For instance, there's a Bang! card (you fire at someone within range, as counted round the circle, and they lose one life, assuming no other effect intervenes) and a Missed! card that you can play in response to being fired at. The character Calamity Jane can use a Bang! as a Miss! and v.v., or, as C. described it, "She can shoot her own bullets out of the air, and she dodges so hard it hurts you." Based on Calamity Jane and the general entertainingness of the game, veejane, I kind of really badly want to buy you a copy of this, but I have to figure out where you get it first. *g* You gain life back by drinking beer right up to the point where there are only two players alive. :-D There are various actions and items, and Mafia purists will probably correctly divine that this is less of an exercise in intense intellectual mindfuckery than real Mafia. But it works well enough as a less intense diversion for a group of five. I like it a lot and wouldn't mind obtaining a copy for ourselves. We could then maybe kidnap some physicists and grad students and play it back in Pasadena. :-) I died early both games, but find it symptomatic that in the first game all three Mustang cards passed through my hands. (You can only put into play one lingering card of the same name.) Currently the others are downstairs playing Mad Scientist University. C. (a friend of AJ & Ingrid's) grew intrigued with the game when they explained that I wasn't allowed to play by virtue of laughing so hard I hyperventilated when confronted with Ingrid's description of how to make someone a willing sacrifice using two planks of wood. I then proceeded to prove their point by recounting said description, bursting out laughing, and...yeah. :-D I hope they are having fun. It does look like a fun game, even if I am apparently subject to Tasha's Hideous Uncontrollable Daughter Laughter. This entry was originally posted at http://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/104348.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
yhlee	5:25p	Postcard #2 Currently on: Bio Augmentation. Hey, I remember "Blood Music." Creepy as all heck. Also, I had no idea D&D had a "Graft Flesh" feat. O.o In other news, I went bowling for the first time in years today, with Joe, the lizard, Joe's mom, AJ, and Ingrid. The first round, I came in second at 105 (mostly by virtue of four spares in a row). I mostly managed to figure out how the scoring works by inspecting the scoreboard on the TV monitor. [1] The problem is that, even with a 6-lb. ball, my wrist and fingers hurt because I am Not Strong. The lizard worked out a method of bowling that consisted of putting the ball down near the line, then shoving it forward with both hands. She actually scored a strike this way. :-D For the most part she seemed to be having fun, except for the two times she fouled by stepping into the actual alley/lane/whatchamacallit. I now have a copy of Chad Orzel's How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. Yay! I look forward to (re)reading it. [1] This is an embarrassing admission, as I was explicitly taught how to score bowling in 4th grade. This included being graded on it, plus having a score-the-bowling-card question on a test. (I got it wrong, for the curious.) But dammit, it just didn't seem like that interesting a real-life skill! This entry was originally posted at http://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/104187.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
yhlee	12:54p	[2009] The Year in Fic ( Read more... ) I think I am pleased with "Negative Space" even though its length guarantees very few people will read it, but my favorite fic from this year actually come out of the Yuletide batch, so I'll discuss those later. :-) This entry was originally posted at http://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/103743.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
daphaknee	8:08a	YES MA'AM I KNOW I HAVE HOMEWORK WATCH FOR MY NEXT ENTRY what was your best christmas present and your worst christmas present best: luchador backpack worst: fingerless OR NOT gloves (32 Comments |Comment on this)
nwhyte	11:59a	December Books 15) Geschiedenis van het Nederlands, by Marijke van der Wal and Cor van Bree A very approachable introduction to the history of the Dutch language, aimed at undergraduates. It starts with Indo-European and Gothic and then follows the development of Dutch from the point where it is identifiable (700-1000 AD) to the present. One point that I was not left clear about: how exactly the linguistic frontier between Germanic and Latin became established, and when - was it before or after the fall of the Roman Empire? The more recent history of Dutch has much more controversy and politics than I had realised. The first attempts to standardise came at exactly the same time as the partition of the Dutch-speaking area between the Spanish and the independent Dutch spate; the standard language therefore started based on the dialect of Holland (ie the province of that name) but with substantial input from Brabant. A fascinating map much later in the book shows that the areas where locals habitually drop the final "n" in infinitives and plurals, etc, reflects this early alliance - the "n" is pronounced in Zeeland and the Belgian provinces of East and West Flanders; also to the northwest, everywhere above a line going roughly from Alkmaar to Arnhem; and in patches of both Limburgs. But it is silent in Antwerp, Brussels and Leuven, as in The Hague, Amsterdam and Utrecht. As a Dutch student, this is practically the first exception you are taught for the language's generally phonetic spelling; it is certainly the most common such exception. Scientists like Stevin and the Huygens family made Dutch an international language of knowledge, as well as of commerce. Much of the following centuries are taken up with debates about how far the written language should reflect its spoken form, mainly resolved in favour of the demotic. It took the French-educated rulers some time to catch up - French was the court language as late as Queen Emma, who was Regent until 1898. It was also, incredibly, not until 1898 that Dutch was recognised as an official language alongside French in the relevant parts of Belgium (not surprisingly the chapter on the Flemish language struggle is one of the longest). I was a little uncomfortable with the way that the authors slip rather easily and unconsciously into the dialectic of territorial conquest: most of Flanders is now secure, and losses in the Brussels area have been stabilised; Frisian is under control; Indonesia and South Africa (and, cough, New York) may have been lost, but at least the Caribbean is still there (though it seems likely to me that Dutch is an elite language in that last case, with most people speaking Papiamento or other creoles). But I enjoyed this book and learned a lot from it; Dutch speakers who want to learn more about the language will find it of interest. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
nwhyte	10:44a	December Books 14) The Year's Best Science Fiction, 22nd Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois This came out in 2005, the year of the Glasgow Worldcon, and I guess that because I felt I had thoroughly chewed over that year's short fiction in the Hugo process I didn't urgently need to read this. That was wrong: Dozois has as ever pulled together an excellent set of stories, full of variety of approach and length. As noted below, I had read only the few stories which got shortlisted for the major awards, and one other which I had seen in its original anthology. Of the stories new to me, the standouts were Stephen Baxter's "Mayflower II" - I often find his prose style annoying but this time it worked - and Walter Jon Williams' "Investments", a hard sf story with softer edges. But they are all good, and I should get back into the habit of reading the "Best of the Year" anthologies as soon as they come out. The lack of overlap with the 2005 (and 2006 Nebula) award nominations is striking. Dozois includes three of the Hugo novelette nominees, and three novelettes and one novella which made it to the final Nebula ballots, but not "The Fairy Handbag" which won both Hugo and Nebula - indeed not a single winner in any category. (ETA: papersky points out that in fairness "The Fairy Handbag" was not science fiction. But the other winners by and large were.) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, December 28th, 2009
daphaknee	8:02p	I GOT A PRESENT FOR CHRISTOPHER MERRY SQUISHMAS IT EVEN HAS A TAIL (24 Comments |Comment on this)
yhlee	4:37p	Postcard #1 from the Land of TV Tropes [Cross-posted to LiveJournal and Dreamwidth.] HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *gasp, wheeze* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *gasp, wheeze* &c. Am lost in a twisty maze of tabs, not quite alike. Am much entertained. Do not expect to make it out alive, but man, what a way to go. (Currently am on "Bamboo Technology," where it tickled me to see Bridge of Birds by Hughart cited.) In other news, I...I...I may never write another story! This is kind of like how I felt after reading Diana Wynne Jones' hilariously cruel The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, if The Tough Guide to Fantasyland had an cyborg older brother on steroids. Now I am afraid that anytime I try to come up with something, all I will be able to do is numbly categorize the number of bad tropes I am perpetrating! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
yhlee	1:47p	Just out of curiosity. [This post is exclusive to LiveJournal.] What are your favorite (or least favorite, depending) examples of characters (in any media--book, anime, cartoon, live-action, computer game, movie, cereal box maze, ANYTHING) who are touted over and over in the narrative as being brilliant/best/genius whatever (tactician, strategist, composer, I-wot-not) but then the narrative also completely fails to deliver any PROOF that this is so? ETA: Oh, you guys, I have just today discovered (by virtue of someone pointing me to a link) the joys of TV TROPES! *dives in gleefully* (18 Comments |Comment on this)
theinferior4 [ lucius_t ]	1:36p	A post-christmas story... ...designed to bring you back down from all that holiday goodness, this story from my new collection... Carlos Manson LIves   by Lucius Shepard   No matter how fucked up I get, I can always float. I have this amazing capacity for floating. Maybe being smacked out makes me unnaturally buoyant. Hard to say, since the only time I ever do any serious floating is when I’m high.             The other night I made a party in the canyon given by this guy does lights for arena shows. Extremely boring. There was a Brit... Eric Something. Said he was with Virgin. He kept rubbing up against my ass and nudging my tits with his elbow as if by accident. He talked about my music. Not the usual vapid LA stroking. He never once said he was moved by my tunes, nor did he use "profound" as a modifier. He gushed over the way I manipulated words and changes to create "emotional tone."   ( Read more... ) (14 Comments |Comment on this)
yhlee	1:10p	Joe is watching Angels and Demons with his dad (AJ and Ingrid brought it over). Should I be afraid? (Note: I have not read or watched any of The Da Vinci Code or related books. I'm not sure whether I would find them cracktastically hilarious, or sporktastically awful.) This entry was originally posted at http://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/103336.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
selenak	8:46p	Fannish Year In Review Meme, from nolivingman 1. Your main fandom of the year? I remained a committed multifandom girl. 2. Your favorite film watched this year? It's a tie between Star Trek XI, for the sheer nostalgic fun of it and the new cast gaining my affection on their own, and Milk, which was both a good film based on real characters and a cinematic expression of the romance of political activism. If pressed, I'd pick Milk, though. 3. Your favorite book read this year? The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, hands down. 4. Your favorite album or song to listen to this year? There was that band from Liverpool whom you might have heard of, and whose entire ouevre went out on CD again. I think my overall favourite Beatles album is probably Revolver, but this year I listened to Rubber Soul a lot. Especially Norwegian Wood and In My Life on it. 5. Your favorite TV show of the year? Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. So very, very, very good. Favourite tv event of the year, which is not quite the same thing, was Torchwood: Children of Earth, hands down. Some of the best tv I've seen in years, and who'd have thought that, as Paul Cornell memorably put it, "this hard beast grew out of the corpse of dear old campy slash fiction Torchwood"? 6. Your favorite LJ community of the year? b5_revisited. It's great fun to discuss the old episodes on a weekly basis, though we seem to be on Christmas hiatus right now. What's up with that, ruuger? 7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year? It's a tie between Vaughan's Ex Machina with its clever combination of politics and geekdom, and the recently marathoned Merlin. 8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year? Not the BSG finale, which I was mostly okay with, but the previous storyline, or lack of same, for Laura Roslin post Revelations. There were other problems for me in the last half of s4, too (along with elements I appreciated and enjoyed), but Roslin going after three and a half years as one of the best female (or for that matter, of either gender) characters on tv to Bill Adama's love interest is something I will never completely get over with. Despite reaching a sort of zen state via fanfic. 9. Your TV boyfriend of the year? The aforementioned Star Trek movie triggered a rewatching of not TOS but TNG for me, which put me in Captain, my Captain mood about Jean-Luc Picard all over again. 10. Your TV girlfriend of the year? Either Gwen Cooper (Torchwood) or Debra Morgan (Dexter). I went from being mostly indifferent to Gwen in the first season of TW to liking her in the second, with the teaser for Something Borrowed mid-season being the point where the sympathy was transformed in love, to absolutely adoring her in Children of Earth. Which means Gwen bashing now makes me even more furious than it used to when I just objected out of general principle. With Deb, I liked her from the get go, but didn't immediately love her. By now, I do, passionately so. She's had fantastic and consistent character development over four seasons, and is probably the character about whom I mostly want to know what she does next. 11. Your biggest squee moment of the year? Scotty mentions he tried out transportation on a moving object with "Admiral Archer's Beagle". For some reason, this example of the one of the trekkiest of ST inside jokes ever made me laugh and beam so widely my face hurt. Closely matched when the Muller sphere, invented by Milo Rambaldi, found its way from the Alias to the STverse. Oh, J.J. Abrams, you may be on crack sometimes (sometimes?), but I am rather fond of you when you pull these kind of stunts. 12. The most missed of your old fandoms? Every now and then I think about theatrical_muse, and all the intense and fantastic role play I experienced there with some wonderful fannish writers, and feel both nostalgic and very guilty for leaving. But it was both a time issue and an issue of my muses not talking to me anymore, so I really had no choice. 13. The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to? Slings and Arrows. 14. Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year? Getting my Hamlet dvd and watching the production I saw live again, the new and final season of Lost, and Iron Man II. Current Mood: nostalgic (14 Comments |Comment on this)
theinferior4 [ pgdf ]	2:53p	The Eyelashes are a Window on the Soul [From McCall's for April 1969. Click twice for readability.] Did you ever realize that a woman's entire personality and career-aptitude could be determined from the shape and thickness of her eyelashes--especially if they were fake ones chosen from the store?!? I plan to examine female eyelashes much more closely in the future, employing this handy guide. Posted by Paul DiFi. (Comment on this)
yhlee	11:52a	Dollhouse 2.10 "The Attic" Dollhouse 2.10 "The Attic." Eh, some interesting things, but a lot of tedium too. ( Read more... ) This entry was originally posted at http://yhlee.dreamwidth.org/102995.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

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