Petronia

Went to see it twice: once with group of friends (Trekkie), once with sororial unit (non-Trekkie). Will write it up for the weekly read/watch meme, probably.

( Spoilers, but everyone who means to has seen it methinks. )

OK, there is this (seen in various places):

I have 32 works archived at AO3. Pick a number from 1 (the most recent) to 32 (the first thing I posted there), and I'll tell you three things I currently like about it.

1) Montreal Comiccon. That was before-last weekend. I'd managed to muddle my dates despite looking forward to the thing and didn't make it to the Palais until Saturday afternoon, so no, couldn't find the middle volume of the Deadpool and Cable omnibus. On the other hand, totally discovered there is a reboot of Red Sonja and it doesn't suck! ( That and some other stuff I bought. )

Other than shopping I sat in on Star Trek celebrity panels. I wanted to live tweet but Twitter was locally down because of everyone else doing the same. The thing that nobody ever explained is that listening to William Shatner and Patrick Stewart shoot the breeze and take questions live is a sonically beautiful experience. Also, Shatner does better with a tsukkomi to play off of. Supposedly on the Friday evening they went for a caleche ride in the Old Port with their SOs... I could transcribe more salient points but I'd be here all night.

2) Karaoke. On the Saturday night I went to karaoke with my sister and a friend for five hours straight. I continue unable to sing in a language I don't read, which eliminates all the K-pop. Puzzlingly, I remember the rap in "American Boy" far better than the sung tune.

3) Pop Montreal. stayed in and slept on Wednesday. Elite Gymnastics and Grimes on Thursday (dancing on the balcony in Club Soda). David Byrne and St. Vincent on Friday (dancing on a pew in St. Jean Baptiste church), followed by Bertrand Burgalat (dancing on the stage at Cabaret du Mile End). Blew budget at Pop record fair and flea market on Saturday. Then Woodpigeon and Patrick Wolf on Sunday (sedate and sit-down at L'Astral). More comprehensive reviews on Tumblr at some point, most likely.

4) Books and movies. Reading The Constant Gardener, which is OK except for how awful the (dead) female lead is, and any time Le Carre pretends the setting is this century. Watched the film version of Less Than Zero, after sororial unit bugged me to do so. It's a memorable movie with ( some obvious strengths and flaws. )

There is some proper nerdy conceptual stuff in there. Moffat and Gatiss talking about power balance in the Holmes-Watson relationship as a chain of command thing, for instance - ship's captain and ship's doctor (who overrules the captain on certain issues). Kirk and Bones. ...Aubrey and Maturin? One suddenly realizes this is its own instantiable class. Also, this made me ping that the BBC version of Dr. Watson is just like Bones with the ladies, although he probably doesn't hate the universe as much. It's not a usual thing, Bones's way with the ladies! I wonder. XD

Moffat really does state that Holmes is asexual,** and Eleven tends in that direction, although Ten doesn't. It finally crystallized for me today, reading a fic by dira on the topic of Jack Harkness and Aral Vorkosigan XD;; and thinking, what's interesting about this story is that Jack plays in it the same micro-role as his most effective macro-role in the Wmedia fanfictional multiverse i.e. vanishing mediator between the 1980s+ cultural mores/pressures that created slash and those of the Moffatian 50th century AD (as often happens, an object closer than it appears in the SF mirror)... So here you have Russell T. Davies, whose basic tendency (one of, at least) is to normalize - such that the companions are delicately delineated mundane archetypes with vivid mundane Earthbound support structures, and the Doctor himself is more human than he's ever been - and therefore his Gay Agenda(tm) is ppl who just happen to be, dotted here and there unremarked in the landscape; but subject to an unconscious normalcy bias nonetheless (m/m singles and couples, fewer f/f, trans and other nonexistent); whereas Moffat's basic tendency is to exceptionalize - Amy, at the point you meet her, is inherently special already - he is a het dude who on a really fundamental level does not see the world in a queer way or instinctively populate it with Muggle gays, but he will write characters whose sexuality are part and parcel of their extraordinariness: the omnisexual futurist (Jack and River), the asexual genius (the Doctor and Holmes); if he writes a trans or gender-fluid character in future I'd be less than surprised. Moffat's out in the double ring of the dartboard, IOW, where representation is a matter of pointing out that these options exist at all, rather than are not weird. But he's interested in them because they present as weird, to him.


** I suspect Gatiss is not ttly onboard, though he's careful to preserve a united front. XD; You can tell he picks and chooses which points to endorse outright in the commentary (and ahh debunks the whole Irene Adler romansu bit). Epigrammatically I'd say Moffat believes John is straight and Sherlock is asexual, and Gatiss believes John is bi and Sherlock is tsundere.

I need to find other people who have been blogging their Trek (re)watches. I mean, I personally know like five ppl who rewatched the whole TV series after the new movie came out, y'all are just lazy. XDD And the folks out there all seem to be obsessed with totting up the number of Significant Looks per episode between Kirk and Spock and concurrently sniping at babe o' the week, which is awesome and all, but there is so much other hilarity happening in this thing.

TOS S01E20 The Alternative Factor: for instance, my Significant Looks per episode at Spock's bum as he hunches over his space viewer thingy. I note in passing that they've improved the ergonomics of the bridge science station in the new movie, for definition of "improve" with which a million ZQ fangirls would beg to differ. Reboot Kirk doesn't know what he's missing, poor thing.

Other than aforementioned opening shot, this was a bona fide bad episode, the first thus far. You can sort of glimpse the germ of a cool idea that could have worked as a textual short story, but that becomes doubly incoherent when 1960s F/X limitations bump up against an event that's as intuitively representable in visual linear narrative terms as the square root of -1.

TOS S01E21 Tomorrow Is Yesterday: whereas this one is just like ROLLING 4EVR. Maybe because I'm a X-Files + Unsolved Mysteries fan of long standing; I mean, can you imagine if the Truth... that's Out There... is that... *TREK THEME STARTS* *cut to shot of USS Enterprise wobbling its awkward-swan way across the blue Midwestern sky*

It's just, yeah. Too much pop culture baggage, forty years of alien abduction scenarios and Star Trek both, but for once it's working for rather than against the intended effect. Looking at the FACE of the second guy they accidentally beamed up was like insert yr own gag re: anal probes and Mr. Spock. But that would be twice this post wouldn't it.

The ensemble dialogue and doing-stuff was brilliant too, including the Spock-McCoy interaction. It's kind of a fine line for me, I find - my close friends' circle doesn't do that kind of hardcore teasing/sarcasm, and I wouldn't be able to suck it up personally if they did, so half the time I'm like OMG NOT FUNNY DD:. But it totally depends on the episode (i.e. whoever's writing it). And lots of Sulu! Oh yeah and when Kirk was jimmying that door in the airbase I was like "...Sonic screwdriver! No wait, wrong series," and then IT TURNED OUT TO BE A SONIC SCREWDRIVER, BAWLING. I guess now we know where the Doctor goes to pick those up.

Still watching old Star Trek episodes, slowly. XD;

( S01E08 Balance of Terror - the Romulans cometh )

( S1E09 What Little Girls Are Made Of - the prospect of wardrobe malfunctions evidently )

( S01E10 Dagger of the Mind - 300 years and we haven't progressed past office Christmas parties )

( S01E11 Miri - Kirk visits Planet Loli )

( S01E13 The Galileo Seven - the organizational behaviour of Star Trek )

( S01E14 Court Martial - Starfleet JAG )

No episode 12 since I wrote a rambly essay on it weeks ago.

"Shore Leave" was not a fluke, Bones is deffo the smoothest one with the ladies. @_@ idek maybe this is stylistic preference, like Kirk's thing is he looks at you like he's completely smitten and generating this adoring glow (which I'm starting to suspect is actually one of the more arcane 60's lighting effects rather than something Shatner is projecting), whereas McCoy just puts across that you have brightened up his day considerably by being an attractive lady in his immediate vicinity. It's disarming because you don't get the sense he expects you to do anything, even when he asks straight out. Not gonna lie I can see how someone would marry then divorce this guy, the surliness doesn't show at all at the initial dating stage. XD;;

Very good ep *tick* with essentially nothing of the 23rd century about it. brb lol 4evr at all the COMPUTERS ARE INFALLIBLE flailing, gentlemen I would like to introduce you to a quaint 21st century artifact known as Final Cut Pro, you may have heard of it

Sailor fuku aside lieutenant lawyer chick's paisley thing was reasonably non-fug IMO, I'd wear it to a party. Lieutenant lawyer herself also entirely sensible vis relationship with Kirk which apparently constitutes an awesome lost weekend every 2 yrs 7 mths punctuating a high-flown career at Starfleet JAG.

I am waiting for someone to write a fic about Spock playing FARMVILLE.

Wore a geeky costume for Halloween. I did do the Star Trek costume, and it was great: moves well, neither too warm nor too cool for late October, no danger of wardrobe malfunction because I am not Captain Kirk, and everyone knows what it is. Strangers kept giving me the Vulcan salute. ( Halloweek social calendar recap )

Did community radio. Basically I signed up to replace Ced when he took off to HK, although not strictly in his time slot as I speak Mandarin, and also have no idea what i'm doing. Thursday night was meant to be another "training session" but rapidly turned into "err half the volunteers haven't shown up, do you feel up to blithering about the Coco Chanel movie on air for a few minutes" orz. The other girls are cool, though, and I have been made arts correspondent because I am obviously "hip" and "plugged into the local scene" (community radio is supposed to play local indie music as a matter of policy; I gather Ced was handling this part as well). Chinese ppl being Chinese ppl the Local Attractions segment also includes restaurant reviews i.e. we have instituted a weekly foodie group, CANNOT LOSE. The technical aspect of the thing is fun too, for whatever reason I feel like I'm really taking to it despite being A/V equipment-onchi normally.

(I think I have mentioned this but ppl have told me I ought to do radio/presenting all my life. Finally after ELLEN FREAKING KUSHNER said this I was like, fuck, OK, I have got to try it. orz So that is 102.3FM Radio Centre-Ville, TTH 10:30PM, if you're in town.***)

Signed up for Yuletide. Are we allowed to post a final list of what we're offering? Or is that not kosher? I ask because I would like to spread the lulz around, but probably I'll take it to carnet (if I get someone I know there I would be astonished). XD; I was insanely picky about my offers and the Novikware probably hates me at this point but at least I'm confident of delivering the goods. Note that it took me about four years to come to terms enough with the idea of an anonymous pan-fandom exchange even to READ THE STORIES, and then during b-school forget it, of course.

NaSomethingWriMo proceeds apace, but more on that later.

EDIT -- Made Skittles vodka. Forgot about this one ahahaha. I first heard about this on the Peter Doherty fan forum lol it is all the rage. Great time of year for it of course (deals on bulk candy). However dude on Instructable was right, the red flavour is liable to taste like cough syrup particularly if you use unsmooth downmarket vodka. T_T

TONIGHT: Art loft party w/ open mikes and workshops! I'm bringing sketchbook and Skittles vodka, friends are bringing ukelele and musical saw.


** Halloween compilation CD, model's own ($1.50 at a clearance outlet). Will maybe rip and upload as it is boss.

*** And, uh, speak Mandarin. Hey, I figure it's trial by fire - if I can manage talk radio and DJing in Chinese an English podcast ought to be no problemo.

Session 1 of Star Trek: The Leadership Seminar. >_> Some of this is otm, some of it beggars belief in order to belabour the main point - it would be a wonderful thing indeed if acting in accordance with logic meant people/things other than oneself were constrained to act logically as well; Spock works with McCoy, though, so I'm not buying that as his initial hypothesis. In any case, Spock is only 1% of the dick that counsellor dude was. Srsly, you would think he was the one having a giant Neolithic stone implement shoved up his butt. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate, know what I'm sayin'.

Meanwhile there's no offending Scotty in his delicate emotions, but he's an engineer after all.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
There is no "I" in "team"; nor is there an "I" in "assraped by badly thrown spear."


***


On a different tip, I thought Shatner was really good here, even though the only thing he did for the entire episode was Look Worried. XD; That is sort of the thing, though: you see Kirk under emotional duress in previous episodes, similarly clamping down hard in order to keep going, but you don't get a moment where it all rushes to the surface. Here you get that, and it's quiet.

Because I expanded on them. XD;

NuWho S03E08/09 "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood": ( Yeaaargh )

NuWho S03E10 "Blink": ( I always suspected time-out dolls of this very ability )

TOS S01E12 "The Conscience of the King": ( S-suddenly Shakespeare )

fff I am skipping ahead to the Captain Pike Inna Box eps cos everyone keeps talking about it