potted_music

Back in the US. Somewhere along the way, Sherlock ate my heart. I was overjoyed with the first season as well, but not quite to this level: while the first season had an element of startling novelty to it (Holmes in the 21st century! with nicotine patches!), the second is better, I think, writing-wise. I didn't even have any problems with their portrayal of Irene: for one, I think their characterization is close to ACD's story, with the necessary tweaks added to make her as shocking as she must have been to the 19 century public; also, I don't think that one absolutely shouldn't portray sexually manipulative women, or straight-only-for-you plots, as long as their portrayals of women are not limited to just that. And, for what is, at the heart of it, a two-character story (and both of those are male), Sherlock has quite a wide array of kick-ass female characters (Mrs Hudson in 2.01, for one: that was awesome).

Anyway, I enjoyed the usage overarching themes in S2: the finale of ep3 circling back to the finale of ep1, and Sherlock looming imposingly over the precipice both in ep2 and ep3, and the motif of body betraying him in all 3 episodes (after all, what is death if not an ultimate betrayal), etc., etc. The plots do not make much sense, but there were so many squee-worthy scenes (the plane of the dead, and Moriarty's plan of Sherlock's downfall which is so much scarier than ACD's take, and lol-tastic Baskerville facility) that I do not really care.

Anyway, back to the topic of kick-ass female characters: I really liked Birthday Surprise & Launch Off series by marysutherland, a Molly/Harry fic in which Harry is a historian of the 18 century. What can I say, I do identify with heavy-drinking queer female scholars in humanities, so it has a lot of id-scratching value XD And the depiction of historians there is hilariously spot-on, with phrases like "Have you ever thought of writing about normal, happy people?" "They leave less evidence behind" and "He writes about p-pirates ... He'll tell you it's because he's interested in forms of democratic self-organising collectives, but actually I suspect he read the Ladybird Book of Pirates or something similar as a kid and got hooked." (I'm not a historian, but was raised by one & am friends with a score of them: so, that's my whole misbegotten youth in a nutshell)

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This term is filling me with foreboding, so I'm using the first week to procrastinate and watch all the movies(TM). Many of them are thoroughly unmemorable (say, Shame: a shame it was so cliched and boring), but two I have feelings(TM) about.

The Artist ate my heart. And brain. And soul, and whatever else I have to offer. It's probably gonna eat my wallet as well, since I plan on rewatching it time and time again. It's a love story about it's director's love for old movies, the first silent movie since the 70s; and it's a comedy about all the weird things we do for our creative obsessions. Brilliantly acted, creatively shot, with all the Murnau-like sequences shown through shadows. I'm overjoyed about all its Oscar nominations (I don't think it's gonna win in any of the major categories, but still). Awesome trailer this way!

Albert Nobbs looked like such a treat, judging by the trailer. ( major spoilers this way )

It's sort of heartening how the gender stuff is not the focus of the movie - nothing much would have changed plot-wise had Albert been biologically male - and Glenn Close is absolutely wonderful in the role, but that cannot carry the movie.
Another reason why the movie was such a disappointment is Mia Wasikowska, which is the phrase I never thought I'd utter. Mia's very easy on the eyes, and I'm known to have watched movies I would have avoided like plague otherwise just to watch her. However, she cannot act her way out of a paper bag. She can smile and be pretty; the moment she needs to convey sadness or, God forbid, anger, she's instantly out of her depth. She's young, so that probably will get better with time, but at the moment her acting in dramatic moments is painful in its awkwardness :(
Here, watch the trailer: it's like a tiny movie on its own, and a much better one than the actual film :(

I've been considering leaving the Russian-speaking part of fandom for some time now, and finally the push came to shove: one of my former professors from back at home, who, I suspect, is dating my friend, created an account on the Russian blog service, and friended her - and me. The thing is, he had not friended my RL account, which has all the funny stories, and pictures from my trips, and whatnot, but my fandom account, which has SLASH SLASH SLASH: funny priorities, huh. I freaked out, deleted my account and everything googlable that I could delete: there go 7 years of my fannish life. I will be fullfilling my last fandom obligation, but overall, I'm almost happy with this last bit of incentive to step away. [please don't link to this account at diary.ru, ok?] So, will be spamming this journal with random fannish ramblings from now on, yay. The one thing I'll miss is writing: I can pass for a native speaker in Russian, even though there are some limitations to what I can do, language-wise: but it's probably gonna be years before I reach anything comparable to that level in English.

Anyway, any interesting blogs, fannish or lit-related, that I should friend here, now that I've lost another venue of procrastination?

Happy New Year (and all the other winter festivities)!


Concocting plans for collective family pastimes is somewhat complicated by the fact that my idea of an ideal Christmas movie entails either In Bruges or Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, whereas my mom's choice would be Love Actually. We've settled on Downton Abbey as a satisfactory compromise: the downfall of the old social order between the wars is a cliche rather than a plot proper, but it is emotionally appealing, and there are kickass women, and pretty scenery, and everything. As always, I'm rooting for the wrong pairing, the one that is supposed to set off the good of the scriptwriter's OTP, but, to my view, outshines it by far. (Oh, how I wish for an epic Mary/Richard AU where they do get together and run that news empire, making history through falsifications and casual threats, both too sharp and too ruthless for their milieu- but I digress, even fen don't share this particular pairing preference; I would have written this fic, but it's years and years before I have a chance of pulling that off on the linguistic level.) Anyway, fic recs!

"As you both shall live" by dollsome (Cora/Robert)
Summary: She steps, quite new, into his old world.

Cora is my favourite character, so I'm somewhat biased in squeeing over this fic: she's the mild-mannered and proper and beautiful lady of the house on the surface, but there's a streak (a mile wide) of cold and not particularly kind sense of humour which she's no afraid to use, much as she's not afraid to hide a corpse when need arises. If zombie apocalypse happened in that universe, I'm willing to bet money that Cora would be one of the survivers. Anyway, this fic does justice to her complexities - and in beautiful prose to boot.

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"The Earl Of Proxima Centauri" by Ankaret
Summary: The E.S.S Downton sets out on its mission to Proxima Centauri, and the crew experience a simulation while in coldsleep.

This is an absolutely awesome pastiche that provides the only plausible explanation of ways in which the canon plays fast and loose with chronology: because everything gets better with added spaceships!

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Usually, even the characters that are portrayed as villains can be redeemed, or at least made less one-dimensional, through a certain degree of reading against the grain. Alas, this won't work for Thomas, the villain of Downton Abbey: not only is he a casually cruel, petty, and cowardly person: he's also, oftentimes, too stupid to live. The problem with him being the most one-dimensional character on screen is that he's also the only gay character in the series: and fen do try to make him somewhat more human in fics. I liked "Like Clockwork" by Anonymous, which is a sympathetic account of his childhood, and "Where Youth and Laughter Go" by acaramelmacchiato (Thomas/Siegfried Sassoon) - because that is one of the bestest crossovers I've ever seen (and, okay, now I sort of want me some Thomas/T.E. Lawrence: they could commiserate about their respective self-perceived war-time failings together, or something).

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the number one ladies' detective agency (this year's Yuletide treat, anonymous so far) - Mary/Lavinia, PG: I liked the premise of this fic better than the execution, but the concept is delicious. The series itself deals with suffrage movement, so why not add the whimsical to it, while staying within the scope of themes outlined in canon? The fic author does just that, making Mary and Lavinia into awesome amateur sleuths. Had there been more descriptions of actual investigations, it could have been more fun, I think, so I'm hoping that the author might expand on it.

Collecting my snippets from spn_bitesized: all unbetaed, so I wonder how many atrocities against English I will be able to see here in half a year's time.

For a prompt Do halos seriously count? If they do, then ALL THE HALOS. I don't care who or when or how but halo porn and halos in general are sadly missing from most of fandom.

( Balthazar shows off his halo in the same nonchalant way he shows off his power )

For a prompt Gabriel, five angels he misses

( He misses Lucifer. Gabriel doesn't begrudge him the twenty inches of angelic steel )

( One-liners )

Arrived in Ukraine hale & healthy. The orchestra at the Boston airport played Christmas carrols and Hanukkah songs in turn. On the last part of my flight, shared a row with Hasidim, marveling at each Hebrew word that I understood (also, kosher food at Ukrainian airlines looks so much yummier than regular food! can I ask for kosher food too the next time I fly with these airlines?). The world is a tiny and very nice place, especially around the holiday season.

Meanwhile, while on the seemingly endless transatlantic flight (the one downside to transcontinental PhD-ing), listened to the podfic of Four Minor Interludes for the Solo Violin by Katie Forsythe (podfic read by general_jinjur, text), and found it thoroughly disturbing. I'm not saying that it cannot or should not be enjoyed - far from it - but creepily possessive boyfriends and relationships framed as ownership, I think, should be at least acknowledged as not unproblematic, and they usually are, when they are found in, you know, Twilight, the text fandom loves to hate. Here, meanwhile, the relationship looks eerily similar, but it's The fandom classic, and at least all the reviews I've read were all "twu wuv yay!" - which is even more disturbing than the text. Also, for me, Watson is the make-it-or-break-it character in all Holmes adaptations: Holmes is always an intellectual construct one step away from the realms of fantasy, whereas Watson is the point for readerly identification, demonstrating (through various remakes) how a normal person reacts when confronted with a miracle. The moment he's relegated to being the source of passive appreciation of Holmes, I click a back button, and he is just that in this fic. He's not tough, or generous, or smart on his own here: only a mirror that allows Holmes to shine. And I do not want that in my porn :(

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One thoroughly happy-making moment: one of my mom's friends works at this private Catholic university, and he suggested that I contact them when I graduate (in, ugh, ages and ages), because they are planning to open a complit department, or something. And my (religious) mom said that there might be a problem, because I'm atheist. I think it's the first time she acknowledged that as a legitimate choice rather than a faze. Baby steps, but yay!

Done with all my deadlines, going back to Ukraine for winter break on Wednesday, leisurely enjoying the weirdness and the joy of this university.

Like, the other day I saw a huge, discarded, violently violet blackberry in the library sink: it looked so weird and wonderful that it almost called for a metaphor (the forgotten sour berry of knowledge, or something). And later, my German dorm neighbours were making mulled wine! I know better recipes, taste-wise; but the process looked magical: you place a slab of sugar (I have not seen such a thing outside of fairytales where it would be used to bribe an evil crone, or a cannibal deep in black woods) on a crate over a pan of wine; you pour rum over it, and set it on fire. It burns blue in the dark; where it drips into the wine, it catches fire too. And after that - a climb to my friend's office at the top of one of the tallest buildings on campus, climbing over the windowsill onto the terrace, carefully passing drinks, watching the lights of the city at night, and the white spires of university buildings. If only it had a soundtrack, it would have been a movie :)

Then, on a whim, bought a ticket to a midnight premier of Sherlock Holmes: ethnic fail, one spoilery fail, fanservice so thick that it's actually somewhat offensive, but also some truly awesome moments which balance out the bad parts. What truly bothered me, however, were the trailers: I'm familiar with all the theories about the male gaze and all, but it have never been laid so thick within just 10 minutes, I guess? Even SPN, which is a notorious perpetrator of many fails, has some plot between those fails, whereas in trailers, it's just torture porn scenes and scantily clad women in quick succession. And all the upcoming movies seem to be just CGI-laden blockbusters? I like actiony CGI concoctions as well as the next girl (hence my viewing of this version of Sherlock Holmes), but I do want me some alternatives. Another disappointment: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, for which I've waited for the whole year, would have been a wonderful movie (their cameraman is seriously awesome, and the cast is to die for), had the scriptwriter took the trouble to make the plot understandable to people who have not read the book. I'm a relatibely competent reader, but it seemed like a collection of disjointed scenes to me :(

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spn_bitesized, which is generally an awesome community with great prompts, is hosting a kink meme this week. I hardly ever participate, but this banner is too gorgeous not to be reposted!

I'm sitting at the reading room in our library. It's exam period. A girl from Student Mental Health Liaisons is walking around, giving people sweets and notes saying "Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures". It is a stressful university, but the lengths it goes to to make students feel appreciated!.. <3 <3 <3 *flails*

The other day, my legendary culinary prowess led to the whole dormitory getting evacuated (now I know the difference between a timer and a fire alarm, yay!). Today, I found a quote in Kuroshitsuji that should be posted on my door: "Cooking is an art, and art means explosions!" - that's the sentiment I fully subscribe to (as do my neighbours, judging by how often we get evacuated).

Ironically, I feel like my English is becoming worse by the day :) I mostly hang out with fellow international grad students, and we exchange speech peculiarities like whoa (my Ukrainian accent probably has an Arabic & Chinese tint to it by now), but even when I'm talking to native speakers, getting my point across is the thing that matters, not stylistic subtleties. The same goes for the accent: I bothered with phonetics (and felt insecure) for the first month; then I switched to a laid-back "most people understand me most of the time? ok fine moving on."

At this point, I sound more or less like Alex from Everything is Illuminated :)

1) I'm listening to the audiobook of The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan, which, based on the description, should have been very enjoyable, but is not. The authors coming from other genres to self-proclaimedly revolutionize fantasy should be given a reading list of classical fantasy works, and only allowed to write if they pass a quiz on reading comprehension. Or something :)

So, The Steel Remains was supposed to be revolutionary, dark, gritty, and have a 2/3 queer cast, but it delivers only on the last part of the claim. It's as cliched as you would expect from that sort of self-representation (after all, when you don't know a genre, the first ideas to come to your mind are probably the most obvious tropes everybody already resorts to), but its definition of dark&gritty is just plain offensive to all the fantasy books that are genuinely that. My mental definition of dark fantasy was formed based on the works by Andrzej Sapkowski and, say, The New Crobuzon series by China Mieville: both take on "real world" issues and explore all the ways those could go wrong. Basically, both are, among other things, serious meditations on intolerance, fear of the Other, and the failure of the idea of a multi-cultural society. The Steel Remains, meanwhile, is, from the feel of it, an angry adolescent revenge fantasy which makes me want to bang my head against the wall in frustration and shout at Richard Morgan, "no, saying 'fuck' and 'slut' every other sentence doesn't make you look *dark*, whatever you might mean by that." Look, like many people who learned English from TV, I swear - often, at inopportune moments, and English swear words do not carry much connotations for me. So, if even *I* start noticing that there's too much swearing in the book, there is indeed a problem. Everybody swears, from religiously conservative older women to the Emperor, which leads us to another problem: all the characters' voices sound exactly the same. Beyond that (and all the cliches about prophesies and the unspeakable horror coming to get everybody), the first half of the book is just plain boring.

Judging by Amazon reviews, the book is considered revolutionary for having queer characters, and mortal enemies fucking. At that, I can just roll my eyes: I know of one literary niche where no reader would bat an eyelash at life-or-death situations getting resolved with angry sex, and, coincidentally, that niche is predominantly tolerant of shoddy world-building and cliched plots. That niche is called "slashy original fiction," and why would one pay money for it if there's plenty to be found online, often with better writing?

I have a quarter of the book left, so it might yet pick up somewhat, but I'm not holding my breath waiting for that.

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2) My professor of one long-dead language is a very accomodating guy who always tries to help his students out. His reading handouts always come with helpful translations. It took us exactly a term to convince him that neither Latin nor Greek translations are helpful, for we speak neither of those. He dumbed the course down. Now the translations are all in French. \o/

The best years of my life: exorcisms in dead languages and Chinese takeout. My life is awesome beyond my powers of decription.

Two holidays make a post :)

1) This year, I'm grateful for my adventure in transcontinental PhD-ing. I might have learned a lot of the academic stuff I'm learning here anywhere else, but I wouldn't have met these awesome people from all around the globe at any other university. Also, the one thing I couldn't have learned back at home, because you do need to be taken out of the home context to realize something like that, is just what amount of low-grade paranoia, anger, and general "do not stick out" attitude one can amass while growing up as any minority group in a posttotalitarian country. Not everybody is like that, sure, but many are, and I am. I'm taking baby steps towards overcoming that, and I'm grateful to people who put up with my emo :) Why had nobody ever told me that moving away from my homecountry will be like adolescense all over again? *facepalm*

2) Today is the Ukrainian day for remembering the victims of Holodomor and political repressions. While I have a strong knee-jerk reaction against the concept of national identity based on shared victimhood (which we Ukrainians often do do - I said "do do", yay!), here, away from home, away from the people lighting candles in memories of all the relatives they never got to see, I suddenly felt the need to light one too. So there.

I missed the earthquake by sitting on the lawn with a book. I could read my way through a zombie apocalypse, should it ever happen XD

Looks like I have not screwed up any formalities (yet: the voices chime in), and so, starting August 20 and ending at some point several years onwards (minus vacation time), I will be living in Boston. I know it's a long shot, but maybe there's somebody fannish on my friendslist who might want to hang out?

Argh, I have not been able to access lj since Monday!
+: less procrastination
-: ditto, which is bad when one is struggling with a nightmarish translation.

Ever since I got accepted to one of the Ivies, I've been wracking myself with anxiety: what if I fuck up the dorm application? or the immunization forms? or the visa? or something else entirely that I don't even know about? And what if I don't, and then I'll have enormous opportunities to fuck up the taxes, or my thesis, or whatever. And what if I don't, and I come back after some 5 years, all Odysseus-like, and nobody remembers me but the family dog? I do realize that it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I'm properly excited, of course, but a host of exciting neuroses is getting the better of me :-/

Criminal Minds, which had been my comfort show for quite a time, seems to have jumped the shark in S6 :-/ Either I'm too stressed to appreciate anything at all, or the episodes had turned into a pile of cliches that most often surface in fandom drinking games (Morgan calling Garcia "baby girl"? check; Reid questioning his sanity? check), delivered with all the subtlety of an anvil. That, coupled with casting spoilers = one more show off the watching list.

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The Good Wife, meanwhile, is awesome. It is a legal drama show about manipulative ruthless tricksters whom other people rely on to save their lives; I'm a bit worried that it might veer off into soap opera territories, but still. Also, it casts women in tropes which are usually reserved for men (an investigating duo, etc.). Wish there were more vids for it.

Axolotls are cute. In the spirit of English collective terms for birds & animals like "the parliament of owls" or "the pride of lions", axolotls totally deserve "the cuteness of axolotls".
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Geek Test.
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A while ago, I found a collection of poems read by their (mostly dead, mostly white) authors.
"In Memory of W.B. Yeats" as read by W.H. Auden himself is stunning.

The Habitation of the Blessed by Catherynne M. Valente comes out today, and, judging by the sample chapters, it is beyond awesome. Not to mention that Prester John had been one of the favourite myths of mine ever since I read Eco's "Baudolino" (so, for some 7 years?) - yay for medieval political propaganda XD. Can't wait to read the book!
Official website with sample chapters and bonus goodies.
A video retelling of the prester John story (with bonus action figures!)

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"Boneshaker" by Cherie Priest is also awesome - I've read half the book & just have to rave about it XD Most fantasy novels (esp. of the YA persuasion) tend to deal, more or less explicitly, with one's contacts and conflicts with tradition, and tradition is most often personified as a father figure. Here, instead, there's a mather, a fierce, protective, stubborn woman who resents being defined by the men in her life (both her father and husband were notoriously ambiguous iconic figures), way more interesting than the teenage protagonist. Besides that, it has many of my favourite things: steampunk & aircrafts & zombies. I'm so glad that I only took up reading the 1st novel in the series after the 2nd came out! The withdrawal might have been a bitch.

This Friday, I'm giving a speech on comic books at a conference. As I'm writing about ways authors conceptualize their genre of choice, I've named the speech "Comic books: the poor relative of "serious lit"?" That question mark? Vanished into thin mist in the printed program. Which is a clear misrepresentation of my views & probably a good summary of the organizers' views. Well, at least that would suit as a good concluding joke for the speech, I guess? XD
Half-tempted to don a Batman T-shirt XD

I love-love-love English collective terms for birds & animals. For the longest time, I thought those were just similes-gone-cliche, but now that I know the truth, they have become ever so more awesome XD The murder of crows! The unkindness of ravens! The flamboyance of flamingos! The parliament of owls! "The pride of lions" insinuated its way into Ukrainian as well, but I somehow never thought about its etymology before.