Fans, books and plays; or, a weekend in New York

[bironic]

Just back from a weekend in NY to visit my dad for Father's Day. Thanks to a happy coincidence of travel along with a little coordination, I was able to meet mer_duff too! She is totally lovely and fun, and aside from the blinding peek-a-boo sun and occasional surreality of having a conversation with the author of so many of the best House fics out there, whom I'd known online for 5 years but never met, while eating burritos, it was a fabulous afternoon.

We were able to catch a matinee of The Normal Heart, Larry Kramer's drama about the frustrations and disagreements tearing at the NYC gay and medical communities as AIDS emerged in the early '80s, as seen through the lens of one activist's experience. A deserving winner of three Tonys for best revival of a play and best featured actor and actress (though strangely not for an excellent Joe Mantello, who the Playbill says came out of acting-retirement to play this role).

Ellen Barkin's monologue has gotten a lot of press and explosive ovations, but two other ones stood out for me in particular: a tear-jerker delivered by Lee Pace (any Pushing Daisies fans around?) and one by I think Patrick Breen that neatly and passionately conveyed the conflict between gay men's hard-won right for free love and the new pressure to abstain from physical intimacy entirely until the cause of the deaths could be found.

Solid performances all around, with some of the topics happily dated but too many others still potent.

*

Turns out D.C. isn't a total failure when it comes to theater. alpheratz and ellen_fremedon and I will be going to see Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving (!) in Uncle Vanya this summer. Very excited. There is also a run of Venus in Fur this month that I forgot about until this morning. Hm.

*

I brought Mark Twain's Letters from the Earth to read on the train. The beginning was all right, but he lost me somewhere in the Methuseleh diaries,* and the second half of the book didn't hold my interest. His essay lambasting James Fenimore Cooper's wasteful writing "style" cracked me up, though. Footnote says I need to check out How to Tell a Story.

*Biblical characters describing a baseball game: not really funny in the execution, for some reason, but maybe remarkable if it was among the first published examples of that kind of premise, in the same way you're supposed to appreciate Citizen Kane even though it's no longer thrilling because everyone has copied it? Not sure.

For the ride back, I picked up a book of essays by John McPhee because I should know more of what he's written. The first, titular one, "Silk Parachute," was short and eh, so I got worried, but then there were longer pieces about Cretaceous chalk and lacrosse (separately), and, seriously, putting those together with one I'd read a few years ago about roadkill in Georgia, I can concur with everyone who says that McPhee has a singular talent for making you want to know all about whatever he's set his sights on even if you had zero interest in it before. Plus the enviable New Yorker staff writer skill of making a 4,000-word article breeze right on through to the end.

*

Bend It is complete at 28,000 words, and praise can now be directed to a de-anoned butterflythread. I want to talk about it, but if I get started right now I will end up with a TMI meta about virginity fic, so I think I should just go write a TMI meta about virginity fic.

Comments

[deelaundry.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I would love to see Venus in Furs if possible. Can you email me where/when?

Wish I could've gone with you this weekend, so so disappointed I didn't meet Mer. : (

PS. Still haven't received pics of Shiny. Did you send some to Mr. L and I missed it?

[bironic.livejournal.com]

No, I have not sent - among other reasons, I managed to only pack half of my phone charger this weekend so was conserving battery power.

And yes, you will be emailed about the play! As will anyone else who happens by here and is interested.

[damigella-314.livejournal.com]

You. Met. merduff. And you're friends with deelaundry. You know I hate you, don't you? I'm GREEN with envy!

Bonus complaint: I now got hooked with the Bend it fic, despite not having a clue who anyone is.

And to top it all up, the fic I started after reading your essay on consent has now hit 40K words. Well, On the other hand it is also finished - except I'm already writing a sequel.

I'm looking forward to your TMI meta about virginity fic. Hoping that it won't have such dramatic effects.

Thanks for your post. I tend to like everything you write, whatever it is.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I now got hooked with the Bend it fic, despite not having a clue who anyone is.

See, I don't think that's really a problem with a lot of Inception fic, especially the AUs. :) Glad you're enjoying the fic! I think it's just wonderful.

And, heh, I'm still sort of not sorry about the consent-inspired story and look forward to seeing it.

Thanks for the kind words. It's nice to have support in advance for the virginity fic meta, in whatever form it ends up taking; I'm much more self-conscious about talking about that than about discussing the noncon kink thing.

[damigella-314.livejournal.com]

Update: I stayed up until midnight reading Bend It. Wow. Just wow. And I'm such a wimp that I was all sad at him leaving for college.

I'm already publishing (http://damigella-314.livejournal.com/45078.html) my story, but you can't see it because it's f-locked. It involves (like Bend It) sex with minors, and it turns out that there are countries where even reading about sex with minors, with no images of course an (obviously) no actual minors involved is illegal. Well, that and it has a very, very different tone than Bend It. Also, there's too much BDSM in it - it's very unbalanced, not well-written like Bend It. I didn't feel like I could ask anyone to beta read it, and BDSM is used partially as itself and partially as a metaphor (which I hope partially justifies why it's so horribly bad).

You may want to read an essay (http://damigella-314.livejournal.com/47281.html) (also f-locked) where I explain my thoughts about sex with minors. It is disturbingly personal and was much harder to write than the fic. I can send you the post, but as usual most of the interesting stuff is written in the comments. [Oh, and before you faint, I never was involved in sex below consent age in RL. And yet, a very personal experience it is. Also, consent age isn't the same the world over.]

[sholio]

Regarding Letters From the Earth - hahahaha, yes, exactly. It's one of those books that is totally worth reading for just a couple of essays, mostly the Satan letters and his scathingly hilarious attack on Cooper. But the book overall is a few gems in a bunch of meh.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Ah, I feel vindicated! My hopes were high, but as I flipped through the second half without finding a chapter of interest, I thought I should have tried C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters instead.

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

WHAT. ELROND AND GALADRIEL, HERE, TOGETHER? I might have to catch this. Just might.

Oh, and I'm still down for ViF any upcoming weekend!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I know, right? I never thought I'd see Hugo Weaving in a play, and yet here they will be in DC on their only U.S. tour stop.

Sat mat/eve or Sun eve all OK for S/M play? Ditto July 4 weekend? I will try for tix, but my computer is being stubborn at the moment so I may need to call.

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

Saturday evening would be best for me!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Hey, just tried for Sat and the only tix left are way over against the wall. I could get those, but the box office staffer recommended trying for a different performance. Said it's been extended a week and there are more open seats then. What's your avail through July 10?

(can email me if it's easier; I think I still don't have your address)

[wldnst.livejournal.com]

JOHN MCPHEE, I LOVE HIM.

ahem.

that's all.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I have three favorite essays by him, now (roadkill, lacrosse, chalk), and I'm less than 3/4 of the way through the book. Any other par-tic-u-lar recommendations?

[wldnst.livejournal.com]

I really loved his book Encounters with the Archdruid, but one of my primary interests is environmental/conservation writing, so I tend to approach McPhee from that angle.

(weirdly enough, the other day at work--I work at a sort of nature preserve--a guy who came by for a hike and spoke with my briefly left me a note with a list of reading recommendations, and one of them was another McPhee book whose title escapes me right now.)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Hm, I'll have to keep an eye out for that one. At the Penn Station bookstore last night there was only Silk Parachute and one about transportation workers.

[anatsuno.livejournal.com]

I too am looking fwd to the virginity meta! :D
I hope Nellie ends up writing a DVD commentary on the writing of Bendy; she seemed to want to and I rly want to read that.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

You know, it's funny, for a while there when I first started reading in the fandom I confused butterflythread with butterflysfics or whoever I'm thinking of (you can understand why; also two or three other pairs or groups with similar names, like weatherfront and wakeyourheart and whiskyrunner) and thought I didn't like butterflythread. But boy, did I realize my mistake later!

Also: <3

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

a) I hate you, only not really. I HAD TICKETS to see Hugo Weaving and Cate thingy last December the week before my trip, which had been booked for months and months. Theatre friend and I were actually in town meaning to have lunch before the (matinee) performance when I was texted saying the performance had been cancelled, no reason given, but I think someone was ill. Later they rescheduled the performance for New Year's Day. When I was almost literally at the ends of the earth. And now you get to see them. Hmmph XD

b) I feel old, I saw The Normal Heart the first time around (in Sydney). It was amazing.

c) Sounds like a good weekend! With burritos, even better *g*

[bironic.livejournal.com]

a) Ugh! Oh, that sucks. And probably not worth a transPacific/transcontinental flight just to see it here, now. Although I was half-kidding around with Mer that we're waiting for RSL's next big play so you will be tempted over here, since that House con self-destructed so spectacularly.

b) You are totally old, hee. I think I was three when the play first came out.

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

b) Respect your elders, missy! XP

a) He needs to do a musical. Although he'd probably rather be slowly tortured. Or do another season of House. Possibly both simultaneously *g*

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Musicals... RSL + Philip Quast = spontaneous fangirl combustion?

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

Hee, that would be... completely bizarre, actually. The words 'waaay out of his league' spring to mind. I'd DEFINITELY fly around the world for that one though XD

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

LOTR actors are made of win!

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Indeed! Although I love Hugo Weaving in pretty much anything.

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

I'm dying of envy: your weekend sounds wonderful (especially the opportunity to meet mer_duff), and you're going to see Hugo Weaving perform in person (in a Chekov play, no less)! Can we switch lives?

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I was so surprised and thrilled to see his name come up in a summer theater preview, and to read that DC is going to be the play's only U.S. stop. Amazing.

There is sleeping space available here if you are ever up to taking the trip... :)