bironic

Poked through the Yuletide 2012 archives and explored the small percentage of fandoms I'm familiar with and interested in reading fic for. My favorite by far is Springtime Will Kill You, a brilliant noir retelling of Orpheus' journey to find Persephone in the underworld. Riffs on Greek and Roman mythology, and on Hades/Persephone in particular, are always a treat when Yuletide comes around, and toft_froggy pointed out in her own rec that "noir is the perfect genre for the incestuous, alcohol-riddled, tragic, horrible plots of Greek myth to unspool." It's so clever and well written. I'd say more, but it would spoil the delight of the story unfolding.

Second favorite would be a series of diary entries in which Tim Gunn critiques various locales and personages he encounters during a day in New York City.

Also enjoyed the meta found poem constructed from AO3 Yuletide tags. The popular The Bar at the End of Fandom is witty and creative, but, I dunno, I guess its heart is not my heart. Same deal for me as some of astolat and ces's meta-fannish and meta-vidding vids. We celebrate ourselves, we laugh at the in-jokes we understand, and that's awesome and deserved, but separate from the ability to appreciate those fanworks on a cultural/artistic/intellectual level, not every LJ/DW/AO3/etc. fan has or loves the same experiences.

There was also a quiet future fic for Cairo Time, and a couple of stories involving the Gashlycrumb Tinies (a clever but long drabble set depicting a less than flattering backstory for each child and one where Wednesday Addams uses the form to write her family history). And another modern version of Persephone/Hades & Orpheus/Eurydice, raw, unsentimental, feminist. But the noir version was the one that held me rapt all the way through.

I might've enjoyed the Borgias in the Hunger Games historical fusion if I knew more about the Borgias. I liked the concept of Indiana Jones and Alan Grant Walk into a Bar but confess I skimmed.

Keeping an eye on other people's rec lists for more.

Thanks a lot, every insurance company I can find in this county, for refusing me two months of health coverage to fill a gap between school and work in case I get hit by a car or stricken with swine flu, all because I had a kidney stone and a scan for what turned out to be a benign growth two and a half years ago.

This is especially irritating coming as it does a day after Obama's speech about the ideal healthcare environment in this country. It may have wanted some substance to back up its ideals, but the moral motivations can't be faulted. Also, he's an excellent speaker.

/politics

Working a lot this week. Tired. A bit demoralized. Have more to do tonight. Dreading an interview tomorrow at which I'm almost certain I'm going to be offered a job. Dreading because I don't know if I want it and I haven't been able to figure it out since this became a possibility more than a month ago. Am probably going to take it anyway, and then deal with whether it's a good fit or not -- and telling my current supervisor, who is expecting me to be around for another several months yet.

But: synn is coming tomorrow for the weekend. There may be a Tim Gunn event in person next weekend. And tonight is the premiere of The Vampire Diaries, which looks just as terrible as every other TV show that utterly misses what makes vampires compelling, but I was obsessed with L.J. Smith for about a month in high school, several years after I knew better, and it'll be really cool to see those characters in whatever mutated hypersexed teenage incarnation on screen.

("I'm going to eat you, Salvatore.")

For various reasons, I am not suffering from the post-vacation blues. Yet I feel the need to compile this list.


Things I am looking forward to in the near future:

• Meeting a new LJ person tomorrow! (I would be more specific about who, only I don't know if it is a public-knowledge sort of thing.) Er, that is assuming my phone does not freak out and keep disconnecting like it did last night when I tried to call her.


• Fangirl brunch & Dark Knight on Sunday.


• Organizing and posting Israel photos/recap, whenever I get over this limp-and-useless-in-the-evenings post-trip phase.


• SGA season 4 DVDs. I completely forgot they came out while I was away. Maybe will pick them up this weekend. What will it be like, I wonder, to watch "Doppelganger" without Sci Fi's bizarre speeding up/slowing down digital broadcast errors?


• My birthday in a week and a half. No plans yet, but it's something on the calendar at any rate. There may be sushi. Also there may be presents. (I have been debating whether to ask various family members for the original Star Trek on DVD or hotel/airfare assistance to go see synn if the logistics work out, or something else, since I'm not accustomed to requesting anything expensive. Hm. Maybe ladyjaida & danibennett's Havemercy; anyone read that yet?)


• Fireworks at a local fair tonight, and hopefully finishing Mary Roach's Stiff (funny, quirky and informative; recommended) while we wait for them to start.

Things I am not looking forward to:

• Two dentist appointments in the next two weeks, in which I will be stuck with much local anesthetic and thoroughly de-plaqued.

Things I am intensely ambivalent about:

• Delivering some news at work on Monday. Details TBA.

How about you?


Title quote, btw, from Tim Gunn in the preview for next week's Project Runway, commenting on one designer's pink something-or-other.

After much happy anticipation, Tim Gunn's Guide To Style (Bravo, Thurs. 10 p.m. EST) premiered last night. A fashion makeover TV show, it stars my future gay celebrity husband, Tim Gunn, former Chair of Fashion Design at Parsons/The New School in NYC and mentor of the designers of Project Runway. It was great! I knew I'd love it for the sheer volume of Tim Gunnity, regardless of show quality, but it really was enjoyable to watch. And not just because of all the opportunities to gleefully cry, "I love you, Tim Gunn!" and offer running commentary on behalf of the contestant such as "Tim Gunn is coming to my apartment!", "Tim Gunn is averting his eyes as his co-host goes through my underwear drawer!", "Tim Gunn just accidentally tugged down my dress as he explained where the hemline should fall!" and "Tim Gunn is dabbing away tears at our emotional conclusion!"

In the tradition of What Not To Wear, the premise of Tim Gunn's Guide To Style is that each week, Gunn and supermodel co-host Veronica Webb select a candidate (I believe they're self-nominated) in need of help with her clothing style (or lack thereof) and teach her how to choose clothes that suit her figure and personality, in addition to providing her with a few pairs of shoes, money for the initial Manhattan shopping trip, a haircut and makeup instructions. If future episodes resemble last night's, TGGTS goes a little further by first taking the guest for an undergarment fitting and later bringing her to one of Tim Gunn's many fashion designer friends so she can select a high-end dress for herself (Sifting through the racks with a contagious grin on her face, last night's contestant exclaimed, "I've never been in a store like this in my life!").

This is all part of a self-esteem-building process intended to help the contestant feel comfortable in her body so she can wear her new clothes—or any clothes—with confidence. For at least the first episode, that includes attending a session with a Ben Affleck-esque "life therapist" (no, not therapist, but I can't remember the term they used) in which the guest dons a belted garbage bag, does a runway walk and recites, "I cannot control how I am perceived. I can only control how I am presented" while looking at her reflection in two distorted mirrors and one regular full-length mirror. ... Yeah, that was the weird part of the hour. But it seemed to work for her.

The comparison to What Not To Wear may not be fair, but since it is unavoidable and TGGTS comes out ahead in every way, I'm going to continue in bullet-point format with ( 1,200 words of Things I Like Better About This Show Than What Not To Wear: )

The end was also lovely, when the contestant came out for a private little fashion show with her husband and family. The show chipped in and got her husband a platinum-and-diamond ring to give to her, since they married young and their money was tight. He gave a little speech when he handed it to her, talking about how wonderful it was to see her so confident and happy, and everyone in the room teared up. Because of the way everything had been handled on the show leading up to this, it felt fairly true rather than forced or sudden or overdone. (Then they flew her mother in who'd just had surgery, and everyone really lost it.)

I freely admit that I am one of the fashion senseless.* I never learned how to put together outfits beyond "shirt + pants + shoes = leave the house," I don't shop in expensive clothing stores, and it's only because of occasional viewings of WNTW that I'm now learning what kinds of things might look best on me and what might be considered too young a look. So I identify with a lot of the contestants, and that is probably part of the reason I take offense at some of the things that are said and done to them on these types of shows (by which I mean WNTW, because that's the only one I've ever seen before TGGTS). And last night, I felt that I would've nominated myself for TGGTS if I could've (I think they've filmed them all already and are just airing them now before the new season of Project Runway starts). Not only was the contestant treated better, but I'd love to have the opportunity to sit down and see things on a computer model and consider celebrities with my kind of figure and have personal expert shoppers explain things to me in a dressing room for a day. Point is, if I were on a fashion TV show, I'd want it to be this one.

*Keep this in mind, deelaundry, when I snap a photo of my favorite outfit for the meme. :)

And, yes. I taped the show because I didn't think I'd be able to stay awake through it, but happily did, and now I'm glad I recorded it because I think I might actually want to watch it again, which is more than I can say for any episode of WNTW. And I will be watching next week to see if the quality remains high. The end.