And We Shall March

I, For One, Love It When China Mieville Gets Irritated Enough With Someone To Take To His Keyboard With Furrowed Brow

and calmly pummel them into the earth.

(I swear I'll be back around here, soon. Ish.)

Goodbye, Google+

Quick update. If you read me over there, and you probably don't since all I ever do over there is romp around at random, you won't be reading me over there anymore because they got me! G+ doesn't like the name I have been using all over the place for like, forever, and they just now noticed that I'm using it there, and so they have suspended my G+ profile. Which I figured would happen eventually.

I don't know what a suspended account looks like to readers. Best suggestion I can give is to update your Circles by removing my so-called "name" to avoid problems looking at your stream. I think. I don't know.

Gmail still works. I think. I'm about to find out! Dunno what the impact will be on my YouTube account, which I need for other reasons.

I'm still Mostly Away. Regular blather will resume around here soon-ish!

 

"I Sing Because I'm Happy. I Sing Because I'm Free. His Eye Is On The Sparrow. That's The Reason That I Sing."

This is a backstage moment from a production of The Scottsboro Boys, a play using the format of the traditional minstrel show, complete with blackface at the end, to comment on modern day events.

During the play, the two guys in the tails take on the Office of Tambo & Bones, and the white guy seen at the end takes on the Office of Interlocutor. These are very important Offices in the structure of a traditional minstrel play. I'm mentioning this in a helpful guide sort of way.

Last year it killed me that I not yet the sort of person who can afford to get on a plane and fly to NYC to see a Broadway show at the drop of a hat. The show is now on tour, rumors are that it will hit the west coast, and I'm already scheming Broke People Figure Out How To Do Things All The Time ways to be in an audience if this comes anywhere near LA.

I must to see this play. I must to see this play. OMG I must figure out a way to see this play if it comes anywhere near me. I want to see it even though I'm afraid I'll end up sobbing wildly in the theater, unable to get out of my seat and thus blocking the exit for other people in my row, as happened when I went to see The Ballad of Emmet Till at the Fountain and ended up being comforted in the arms of what turned out to be that play's director which was so so very embarassing because that is a woman creator I revere and the first time I manage to meet her is in a moment of weakness curled in her arms as she told me It Will Be Okay? OMG. Once I got my shit together, I basically fled from the theater, past the cast assembled on the sidewalk to talk to folks, past her standing there to do the same, and to the car I had at the time for the sanctuary that is Home.

Which you probably don't care about, but I Know Myself, and I have a pretty good idea of what will happen if I manage to see see this play about the Scottsboro Boys which uses minstrelsy to tell the story.

Anyhoo.

I like this backstage moment for a bunch of reasons, the biggest one being that you hear stories of what actors in an ensemble play do to bring themselves into the same emotional space before they throw down live in front of us, but you rarely get to see it. Watch the video - that's what's happening in the clip. These men are about to go onstage to do something enormously difficult at many levels due to the content of this play, its historical landscape, and its format, and they are checking in with each other first. They are creating the Group Mind, and they are feeling it. That's what you're seeing hapen. It is amazing. Normally we don't get to see this.

(If you don't know what the Scottboro Boys case is about, or understand why using that particular case as base for a traditional minstrel show is an issue of Stratospheric Controversy, please don't ever talk to me again because at this moment of typing my tolerance for America 101-level discussions is lacking. I might get back to my normally Mostly Tolerant self next week though, so check in then!)

While I Sit Here In My Awesome Avengers Movie T-Shirt (Even Though I Don't Actually Care About The Avengers Movie) Enjoy This Thandie Newton Talk Until I Get Back

Back soon!

Catching Up On The Catching Up Post-Fringe With Jay Smooth

The Gil Scott Heron tribute mix by DJ Monk One, via Jay Smooth's radio show in NYC.

The Gil Scott Heron mix by jsmooth995

This Is How Much I Hate Fantasy Fiction Which As You Know Since I Am A Woman I Hate SO VERY MUCH

I hate fantasy fiction SO VERY MUCH that on Saturday, due to an alert from LA-ist, I abandoned work, slathered Nair on these neglected armpits, jumped in the shower, tore apart my closet and accessories in search of just the right outfit for the Iron Throne (while quoting random passages from the books in my head), then got on a bus for a 45-minute ride followed by a 1/2 mile walk down Hollywood Boulevard carrying my assagai, JUST SO I COULD SIT IN THE THRONE OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS.

And I signed away all rights to the below for use by someone else's marketing campaign because THAT'S HOW MUCH I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE FANTASY FICTION.

Fuck you, NYT. Thank you, GRRM. By the way, sir, I'm still Pissed Off On Your Behalf over the whole "Doorways" "Sliders" thing, even though you probably don't care anymore and it's not like you'll ever see this post but I just wanted to say.  (A GRRM New Yorker profile. A GRRM tribute song answering the whiners amongst us.)

And by the way? I look damned good in these shots, if I do say so my own goddamned self. HBO had better use at least one of them, dammit! (Click to embiggen.)

Shout Out to the worker bees handling this Iron Throne's visit to Hollywood & Highland, who were so nice and did not freak out when I revealed that I was carrying live steel. One guy took shots with my camera, and the guy running the Official Camera is the one who said DON'T MOVE after the first shot, and then posed me for the other two shots. Thank you, fellow worker bees! I don't know if you are Mundane or Of The Tribe, but by your actions I know that you were quick-off-the-mark enough to recognize that a Geek Tribe member had shown up in the line, and you rolled with it in an Awesome way. Thank you.

 

For the record, I had a cover on my assagai, because you don't walk around in public with live steel that could actually hurt someone and/or alarm law enforcement.

And my LOATHING of fantasy fiction is so very complete that the ring on my finger is a Miskatonic University class ring, which I wear every day BECAUSE I HATE IT ALL SO MUCH.

And and AND the scuffed boots? Scuffed partially from GENERAL DAILY ASS KICKING, but mostly from fleeing invisible giant robots in downtown Los Angeles a couple of years ago.

Silly me. I forgot to point out that my feeling of DESPICABLE FOR ALL THINGS FANTASY OR GENRE HAS LASTED MY ENTIRE LIFE.

Attack The Block - O.M.F.G.

"We have to call the police."

"You'd be better off calling the Ghostbusters, love."

This is why I have an all-region dvd player. 'Cuz you know what? I completely doubt that the town that is making all all-white version of Akira will let this movie stand on its own over here. Or maybe anywhere.

Brought to my attention via inbox. Rock!

I Just Found Out Hollywood Is Making An All White Version Of Akira

And I'm off to move hell and high water to get a copy of the script.

The story takes place in the rebuilt New Manhattan where a leader of a biker gang saves his friend from a medical experiment. There are two major roles, and I'm told that for Tetsuo, Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy have been given the new script. For the role of Kaneda, the script has been given to Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix. The two leads are expected to come from that group of actors.

Yes, it's going to suck.

No, I'm not gonna go see it.

I've had enough of this shit.

So, You Know Those Anti-Immigrant Ordinances Backed By White Supremacistst That Somehow Become Legislation? Ever Wonder How That All Worked Out?

The San Bernardino ordinance was eventually voted down, but many other towns — Hazleton, Pa., Valley Park, Mo., Farmers Branch, Texas, and Fremont, Neb., among others — adopted their own versions of the California proposal. What’s more, in the aftermath of Arizona’s adoption of the highly controversial S.B. 1070 anti-immigrant statute, legislators in at least six other states and uncounted numbers of cities and towns are considering proposals for similar laws.

They may want to think twice. The towns that passed nativist laws in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Texas and Nebraska, along with the state of Arizona, have spent millions of dollars to defend them in court, and almost every judicial decision so far has gone against them. One community, faced with skyrocketing legal costs, had to raise property taxes, and another was forced to cut personnel and special events and even outsource its library.

That was just the beginning.

The link takes you to a summary of the findings, with the option to download a pdf of the full report over at the bottom right siderail. Clicky the download.

Related, I'm proud to be associated with an organization that played a key role in demolishing the San Bernardino attempt. All I did was edit the press release and write it up in the newsletter, but still.

"Balloon Head" Is My New Favorite Term

Sadly, YouTube embeds now won't allow me to include a pretty purple border. But that's okay, because this shit is hilarious.