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Friday, May 17, 2002

A while back, someone (can't remember who), in a blog or LJ, posted a list of "Things I Can Remember Not Existing." The person in question was relatively young (by my standards), and so the list included expectable things like personal computers and cell phones and so on. But it got me thinking; I started my own list, and then added to it, as I moved through the day, noting down all the mundane phenomena of daily life that I take for granted; and I ended up with my own list, which is long enough that I've stored it separately, here.

Note that some of the things listed certainly did exist during my lifetime, had been invented (e.g. color TV) or were common in other parts of the country or world (e.g., Vietnamese food). The list would probably be somewhat different for someone of my age who grew up in, say, Manhattan or San Francisco. But my list represents what was accessible, real, to a person born in 1953 of upper-middle-class reasonably affluent parents, in a typical midwestern US city.

It's illuminating to go through the list, slowly, and mentally subtract out, one by one, each of the items listed, from one's daily life. Some I can let go of easily (pantyhose? who needs 'em?) (well, until you realize that stockings and garter belts were the only alternative, because you didn't wear pants, except around the house). Others boggle me. I mean--how did anyone cope before there were ATMs?? (I can remember, sure; I can recall the crisis of running out of cash on the weekend. That's why you had friendly neighborhood merchants who'd cash a check for you. Those merchants are gone now, of course.)

An interesting exercise, anyway. I feel very old now; as if, even though I can program a VCR and write HTML, only a thin veil separates me from my namesake, my great-great-aunt Katherine who died in a prairie fire in the Dakotas in 18-something-or-other. [more]

Posted by jones059 @ 11:30 PM CST [Link]5 comments

Woo-hoo! The lovely and hilarious Beth H. has a lovely and hilarious new story up! It's funny, it's sweet, it's sexy, it's snarky, it's got some great ensemble stuff. Take a bow, Beth! Lordy, good new dS stories -- I'm as happy as a little girl.

Posted @ 08:12 AM CST [Link]3 comments

One thing I love about having a ringside seat at the blog/LJ circus is getting to watch the way particular cool links or themes spread throughout the community, like brushfire through dry grass. The "first sentences" thing, for example. Today's case in point -- Rob's Amazing Poem Generator -- is an especially interesting one, because if I'm tracing the chain of contagion correctly, the original propagator (Patient Zero, as it were) was in fact ... [drumroll] ... Lynn! Who doesn't even *have* a blog, but who posted the link on a mailing list. By the end of the day I think that half the list membership had gone to the site, tried it out, and posted some of their results; then Anna put hers in her blog; and within perhaps 36 hours it was all over the place.

(I wish there was some technique by which we could actually map out the spread of such things. I guess one could if one went through blogs/LJs and noted time-stamps of postings. One could if one were not bone-lazy, that is.)

I shall refrain from posting the results of the hours I myself have frittered away at this site, except that I can't resist sharing the last three lines of a remix of one of my short XF stories --

"Disclaimer: Characters
herein are spilled
onto the insanity. "

-- which I think I'm going to make my standard disclaimer from now on.

Another interesting thing I came across lately is Creative Commons. What an extremely cool concept; a forum for people to find, and share, creative work that has been deliberately placed in public domain. Fanfic writers, and vidders, will find the section headed "The Public Domain," under the "Concepts" link, particularly interesting. Check it out.

Posted @ 07:47 AM CST [Link]3 comments

Thursday, May 16, 2002

P.S.--Meant to add, when I was writing the blither below, that aerye has some extremely intelligent comments on Speranza's story. Note to those of us who keep yammering about "Why isn't there more good intelligent critique of fanfiction" -- here's an excellent example. (Mind you, I'm still too effin' lazy to write this kind of thing myself...)

Posted @ 08:49 PM CST [Link]2 comments

My pattern of late with this blog is (1) get all excited about some train of thought sparked by others' entries or by episodes of shows; (2) sit down and start a long convoluted essay; (3) get tangled up in the snarl of my own prolixity and muddled thinking; (4) set essay aside with resolution to get back to it later; (5) fail to get back to it later. (sigh) For some reason, though, I feel more comfortable here (as opposed to on lists) with the prospect of coming back to older stuff, at some future date, which means that someday you may all be gifted with my so-profound insights on the topics of Moral Judgments of Fannish Characters, and Why Buffy Was Going to Leave Dawn With Spike, and Happy vs. Dark in Fanfic. I know you're all quivering with anticipation, yes, right.

In the meanwhile, Brighid's got an interesting entry, following up on her reading of Eight Sessions, titled Why I'd Kill Fraser, which is about Fraser's passive-aggressiveness, his gift for deflection and avoidance (as evinced both in the story and, I think, in canon), and how frustrating that is--how that would indeed make him the Worst Therapy Client in the World.

On one level, and speaking as an ex-sort-of-therapist, I can see this. (Although actually I'd say the worst therapy clients in the world are the Borderline-Personality-Disorder-ish sorts; those people with tremendous need, tremendous anger, and no boundaries whatsoever. "My whole life is a disaster, everything is fucked up, and none of it is my fault, it's because of all those other people who don't really love me, who have betrayed me and let me down, all of them -- except for you, doctor, because you're different, right? you won't betray me, you'll show that you really love me, right? by letting me do this, by letting me do that, by letting me call you at two o'clock in the morning -- you won't? You bastard! You asshole! You're just like all the others! I hate you! I want to die!!" ... followed by highly dramatic suicidal gesture. Gaaaahhhh. Those folks are the real therapeutic nightmare.)

But anyway. What I wanted to say was that, although I can see how frustrating it would be to work with Fraser, therapeutically, at the same time I have enormous respect for the strength, the integrity, the intelligence of his defense mechanisms. They seem dysfunctional as hell to most of us, including Speranza's Dr. Berger, but only in light of a worldview that sees life as primarily about maximizing happiness--which is such a deeply-rooted belief in our culture that it's hard to see outside of it. But it seems pretty clear that nothing in Fraser's upbringing inculcated that particular worldview in him. And from his perspective, his "defense mechanisms" are simply an excellent toolkit for survival in a world that has no respect for, that can't even see, his understanding of himself and the world and his place in it. It's a very anachronistic worldview, very 19th century perhaps, but very valid for someone whose experience has taught him You don't have choices. Your happiness is irrelevant.

And it's notable that he maintains his defenses, his worldview, without self-pity or whining, and (much of the time) without proselytizing. He accepts that he's a weirdo, but that's not important, what's important is to Maintain the Right. And he's found ways of defending himself that enable him to keep soldiering on, to not wallow, to keep functioning purposefully and productively, despite whatever lack of happiness he might feel.

I love this guy so much. I respect him so much. I feel like all the attempts I've made and am making to write him just sort of flounder around the margins, but I'm driven to keep trying. And one of the things I love about Speranza's story is that, even while she's writing him through the eyes of a psychologist who sees him as a nightmare, a Diagnostic Category run amuck, she conveys the anachronistic integrity of his stance. He's ridiculous, and he compels respect.

And of course, because I am the product of my time and (way deep down) a big old sap, I'm happy that she gives him a way to finally start cracking open the door to his cage. One of the prime therapeutic directives is "Do not try to take away someone's defenses until there's something to put in their place," and the story gives him something to put in their place; it gives him Ray. Which makes me happy. Big old sap, yeah.

Posted @ 08:18 PM CST [Link]4 comments

Monday, May 13, 2002

So, the weekend brought a sharp sudden attack of depression; not the oh-god-I-hurt-so-much-and-I-hate-myself kind, but rather the empty-blank-anomic-voidoid-adrift variety. Today, in an abrupt and inexplicable 180-degree swerve, I'm back to purposeful good cheer. There's something disconcerting about feeling at the mercy of these random remixes of the brain chemistry, like being flung about on the goddam Mood-O-Whirl, but--ah, hell, as long as I don't get stuck for lengthy periods in Zombieville, I"m OK. Was pleased to find that I could soldier on and grind out sentences, regardless of inner blankness. Not good sentences, to be sure, but there they are, pixels up on the screen. Yay.

Have done desultory perusal of current LJ/blog muse-themed furor, with a certain sense of poignant nostalgia. There was a time, when I first started writing, when I'd often be jerked awake at 2 a.m. by zee voices een my head, muttering at me, feeding me lines, and would stumble to the computer and start typing, half-asleep, compelled, tranced. I haven't had that happen in a couple of years now; these days it's more a matter of plod plod plod, and that's fine, that's not a problem, but I sometimes miss that sense of visitation, possession. I still tend to think that there's someone in my head who's at least partly in charge of the writing and who is much smarter than I. I've never construed this as anything external to myself, Muse-like; the time I spent studying Ericksonian hypnotherapy left me with a healthy respect for the power of those sectors of my own brain that lie outside of the rational/conscious realm, and I assume that's who's coming up with all those connections and themes and metaphors that I'm not even aware of when I'm plunking the words down, that I only see when readers point them out to me. But I've also gained huge respect for the construction crew who show up more or less on time, more or less sober, who punch the clock and settle to work and swing the hammers and tack up the sheetrock and sand down the surfaces. They're the ones who're getting the job done these days; I think the Muse has buggered off to Belize, and is swilling Mai Tais and canoodling with cabana boys. Bitch.

A quick shout-out here to Speranza for her new story, Eight Sessions. OK, I know some people have Issues with her characterizations; I hear the mutterings, the jungle drums. But what I think is ... you know, one of the hoariest fanfic-discussion cliches is the bit about the power of A Really Good Writer. As in, "I usually don't like blah-blah-blah, but--" [and sing along with me here, people] "--a Really Good Writer Can Make Me Buy It." You know that one? Well, I'm here to tell you Speranza is that Really Good Writer.

I admit that I'm in love with this story, for all kinds of reasons. It's not her tidiest, most tightly crafted work; but god, it takes leaps. There's a bit in J.D. Salinger's Seymour: An Introduction where Buddy, the narrator, quotes a letter that his brother Seymour gave him about a poem that he, Buddy, wrote, that says something like "You take some big leaps here. I want to wake up the whole family and tell them look at my amazing leaping brother!" I love the way that the due South universe and characters seem to push Speranza into some amazing leaps. And I love the fact that this is one of the very few pieces of fanfiction which embodies depictions of psychotherapy sessions that I actually like, find convincing. [snipping long testy rant on the misuse of psychotherapy in fanfiction.] Just -- go read.

OK, and it's back to the plod plod plod. No big leaping for me just now, no Visitations by the Muse, but as long as I can keep hammering the boards together, I'm good.

Posted @ 07:14 PM CST [Link]8 comments