minor events of late

Long time no post. From before Thanksgiving weekend through about midnight Monday I was busy with that stack of fandom/fanfic reading and concurrently agonizing over the decision of whether to go to Albuquerque to participate in a panel at the four-day Pop Culture Association conference in February. Outcome: a decidedly ambivalent negative. The area chair and I are both disappointed about that, as I think is synn (though we haven't seen each other in weeks thanks to schedule conflict), but he said he'd gladly put out a flier for us at the conference, so that's some consolation. Honestly I never thought I'd see the day when I'd turn down an offer to have a book chapter published.

Also popped up to Boston for less than 24 hours over the weekend in the middle of all this to see my friend Ellen in her latest theatre production, Ibsen's "A Doll's House." She had the lead role, Nora, which meant she was onstage for all but 10 minutes of the 2 1/2 hours (minus intermission). Not bad, though not my favorite of hers so far; I think I liked her Thomasina in "Arcadia" best. She was completely surprised to see me there. Overall it turned out to be a pretty good weekend for such a last-minute decision -- only heard about it from her via mass email on Thursday and decided Friday afternoon to go -- got to scour the Cambridge bookshops (though none had any of the things I needed) and walk through the town all decked out for the holidays; enjoy decent conversation, Star Trek, Liszt and baking with Steve; finished copperbadge's "Stealing Harry" and most of Jenkins' Textual Poachers on the bus; revisited the Garment District and had another scarf-induced Potter conversation with a stranger, this one a male cashier insistent on conveying that he is not one of those very dedicated fans; and was treated to a pretty dusting of snow.

Some of you may share my joy in learning that Ellen was cast in an episode of Showtime's upcoming series "The Brotherhood," starring Jason Isaacs, and while they didn't share a scene she did get to chat with him in the makeup trailer. She mentioned this in an email a few weeks ago amidst an uncharacteristic but understandable flurry of exclamation marks. It's one thing to meet a celebrity you adore as a fan; it's another to meet him/her on relatively equal ground. I expect this is the first of many such encounters for her.

The imminent release of Brokeback Mountain is starting to generate Thoughts. Beware. This article is pretty funny.

And finally, "Boston Legal" continued its patterns last night; am working on that post about all the insinuations. It is sizeable. More soon.