A late September made of disparate lines

[bironic]

I know it would be healthier to reduce my need for external validation, but today a professor who's famous in his field gave my work an extended compliment, and I hadn't realized how much I needed that.

The Vampire Lestat graphic novel adaptation from 1991 has a lot of well-muscled bare male butts. Like, a lot. It is quite funny at this ~halfway point how often they appear on page. I am glad the illustrator got to linger on what he enjoyed. (I can only assume.)

The anticipated post-travel, post-move mood crash has arrived. I have been feeling sad a lot, and flat a lot, and for most of the last month I've woken up after a full night's sleep feeling like I haven't rested. Plus side: I've been churning through books and listening to music, and I watched a couple of TV seasons. Minus side: That's because the day-to-day often feels empty and my compulsive tendencies are kicking up -- I play the songs on repeat, and the books are driven by a perhaps unhealthy need to fill out my Bingo card for the local friend group's fall reading challenge. And I may be overcompensating at social gatherings by talking too much? Filters lowered? Not sure.

Could be a simple hormone/meds thing. TBD at a doctor's appointment tomorrow.

Season 3 of True Detective was good. Maybe not as smart as it tried to be with its braided-timeline format and memory theme, but still good. I haven't seen the earlier seasons despite high praise for season 1, but Michael Greyeyes had a small role in this one and it looked like each season stands alone, so I started here. Mahershala Ali's performance was as great as people said. Co-star Stephen Dorff alternated between looking like Dennis Quaid, Jack Nicholson and someone else I've already forgotten. Christian Slater, maybe.

Is dipping back in to the old Vampire Chronicles love to blame for how, in the middle of the meeting with that professor today, I took in his shorter-cut salt-and-pepper hair and new beard and tried to articulate what it evoked in me and realized the word I sought was "sexy"? These are moments that make me think "gray ace" is more like "het in hibernation." Except it isn't like I would act on it, even if he weren't unavailable. So back to wondering.

At fanworks last month, bethofalltrades gifted me one of her Space Ace pins. She remembered the last time I posted a glancing reference to the question. That meant a lot. Also: space.

I watched the Deep Space Nine documentary on DVD. I'd expected it to elicit deep feelings about the show and what it was like to watch it for the first time. Instead, I mostly felt distaste at listening to and learning more about the bunch of dislikeable straight white dudes who ran the show. It hadn't sunk in until then just how straight-white-dude the whole thing was. They did so much I loved loved loved, yet it also explains many of the show's shortcomings. They don't seem to have internalized any lessons about the value of diversity in the intervening years, given, for example, the proportion of dude fans they gave screen time to, most of the women fans having been relegated to the section about being grateful for Kira and Dax. The writers' brainstorm about a season eight plot managed to make me glad they never produced one. They also didn't spend enough time on most topics, even though the whole thing ran almost two hours. Too broad a scope for that, I suppose. But it was nice to see the cast, filmed not long after ignazwisdom and I saw them at the NYC con; Armin Shimerman remains a class act; Alexander Siddig remains unfairly handsome; Andy Robinson is obviously glad to be able to declare the carnal nature of Garak's interest in Bashir to all who will listen; and it provided some amusing anecdotes, such as how Avery Brooks socked Marc Alaimo while they were filming their fire cave fight and Alaimo had to go to the hospital in full Dukat makeup.

We got a new director at work this month, out of the blue. Within a few hours, boss's boss gone, new temporary person in place. It remains unclear whether boss's boss got promoted or put out to pasture in her new role until retirement. Either way, we all know the temporary person and she is great. Already, things are improving. It's amazing what good management looks like after six years of... not that.

My favorite poem so far from this collection of Joy Harjo's poetry -- How We Became Human, 1975-2002 -- is called "Grace." I am forever a sucker for prose poems that sound like sestinas. Here is the text, and here is Harjo performing it.

This is a weird post. Hm.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

It's a you post.

Also, I still owe you a housewarming gift. And you are allowed to enjoy validation. We are social animals.

*gentle hug*

[bironic]

*hugs you back*

And you don't owe anything, silly. What we should talk about is whether our next dinner makes sense near your workplace since I now live close by, I think!

[minoanmiss]

OMG YES THAT WOULD BE AWESOME

[skygiants]

I still can't believe the first thing they decided to do in Season 8 is KILL OFF NOG, the only character I want to see star in a continuing series!

All that said, despite my mixed feelings about the documentary, it achieved its goal in that it very much made me want to go back and watch a bunch of Deep Space Nine -- and I'm glad they did give some space to talk about the ways in which Avery Brooks had to fight for his character, and how they all failed Terry Farrell.

[bironic]

What kind of message does it send to kill the character who trailblazed the way for his people into Starfleet, and without appropriate weight given to the incident, either? Not classic Trek sensibility at all.

That's good about reawakening a desire to watch the show, though. Some of the stuff about Brooks was fascinating, including the anecdote about the depth to which he sunk into his character in Far Beyond the Stars and, if Behr et al can be believed, how long it took the showrunners to win a fight against the network to let Brooks go shaved-head-and-goatee. I guess I assumed it was Brooks vs. the showrunners, or something.

Was it me, though, or did the two minutes they spent on Farrell's departure not actually clarify anything??

[skygiants]

IT'S THE WORST. Nog's journey was literally just beginning at the end of the show, it's really frustrating that they think killing him off for shock value is the best thing that they can do for that entire avenue of narrative possibility for Nog and the Ferengi.

It super didn't clarify anything, but honestly -- this may tell you how low my bar was set -- I was just amazed they let her talk about it and how upset and angry she was at all.

[sovay]

Armin Shimerman remains a class act; Alexander Siddig remains unfairly handsome; Andy Robinson is obviously glad to be able to declare the carnal nature of Garak's interest in Bashir to all who will listen; and it provided some amusing anecdotes, such as how Avery Brooks socked Marc Alaimo while they were filming their fire cave fight and Alaimo had to go to the hospital in full Dukat makeup.

I am glad to hear all of this.

I'm also glad to hear you got complimented by someone who should know.

[bironic]

Aw, thanks. And glad to share those highlights.

[timespirt]

Does not the Deep Space 9 docu remind you of the dudes that were producing SGA. Same mind set!

Hope your doc appt. goes well ho.

"HUGS"

[bironic]

Ugh, you're not wrong. I guess the difference there was that I never thought SGA was a good show, and it was clear what sort of people were making it, whereas DS9 (when I was younger?) had such great character development (for a while, in many cases, anyway) and tackled thoughtful themes that I didn't think much about who was behind the scenes!

[timespirt]

SGA had great potential but the jerks running the show had a hard time getting their ego fat heads through the door when they went to work. Fanfic writer did and do a better job of writing than they ever did! All of Trek had thought provoking writing and tackled many things in everyday life in there times.

[purplefringe]

omg, I backed the DS9 doc when it first started fundraising and so watched it on the early release a few months ago with usuallyhats & carawj & cosmic_llin and we felt exactly the same as you about it all! There was maybe...20 minutes of actually good content?? (Mostly from Andrew Robinson and Armin Shimerman I seem to remember) And a LOT of self-congratulatory white dudes who had somehow made this WHOLE SHOW without understanding anything at all about what they made. The things they chose to focus on were really weird. The pacing was odd. The 'Season 8' was so terrible. They left in some really uncomfortable things (did we really need Mark Alaimo talking about Nana Visitor like that, at the expense of something...not that) But nobody else seems to think this?? Going from what people have been saying on twitter / elsewhere online, most people seemed to love it :/

[bironic]

Yes, yes and yes! We did not need those comments from Marc! Nor did we need those comments about Salome Jens from Rene Auberjonois, from whom I would have expected better!

Wow, was response super positive elsewhere? All I remember coming across from friends on Twitter were transcript snippets of Andy Robinson's "At first, Garak just wanted to have sex with him."

[purplefringe]

Ugh, omg I had forgotten Rene Auberjonois did it too /o\ whyyyyyyyyyy??? And it's not as if those remarks were kept in the doc so they could be examined critically! They were just...there. When they could have been cut for some MORE INTERESTING THINGS.

I went looking on twitter when I first watched it, and then again when it was first shown in cinemas, because I wanted to know what people thought - and yeah, allllll the responses were super positive!! It was really weird. And there were very enthusiastic reviews of it on all the pop culture websites. It all felt a bit Emperor's New Clothes.

But yes, the Garak moment was a GIFT. I screencapped it and put it on twitter as soon as the spoilers embargo was lifted, and it's the most popular thing I've ever tweeted XD https://twitter.com/purple_fringe/status/1128387744475095040?s=20

[moon_custafer]

Sounds like the time years ago when Andrew and I rewatched Conan the Barbarian (1982) with the director’s commentary turned on, and came to suspect that all the good parts of the movie (which are many) should be attributed to the actors and to the art director, Ron Cobb; because John Milius just went on an on about Sandahl Berman’s figure, and the weird initial script Oliver Stone had provided.

(Schwartznegger’s commentary track, IIRC, was mostly him cheerfully pointing out every bit where he stumbled on location, got bitten by the dogs, etc.)

[bironic]

Yikes. Never look under the hood, huh? Schwarzenegger's commentary does sound fun, though.

[seascribble]

Hi. *hugs*

[bironic]

Hi! Good luck going through the rest of this physical and emotional arc yourself.

[selki]

Bookmarked that pin store.

DS9: I really liked *A Stitch In Time*, about Garak and Cardassian reconstruction, written at least in part by the actor.