Pepper Brooks feels shocked that Clio is actually posting.

[jlh]

To bring you up to date, in the last couple of weeks since I left my mother's house in Maine I:

• Hung out on Cape Cod with ali_wildgoose and emsariel
  
• Went to theoblack and blackholly's awesome New Year's party, which was followed by a gift exchange with good friends
  
• Saw Evil Dead the Musical with bhanesidhe and her friend Simon (Val, he does have an LJ, right?)

I know I haven't been posting much over the past two months, which is mostly due to a horrible case of writer's block that has metastasized from schoolwork to fic to LJ posts to emails. I have thoughts but I keep stopping before I actually write them down. The rants you have been spared in the past two months include:

1. Something on race, fueled by my outrage that no one on my flist mentioned the passing of James Brown, (particularly given that if you listen to pop, hip hop, or soul you are listening to music that was fundamentally changed by him) and thoughts about "White and Nerdy" (can you be black and nerdy? Does being a geek = white, and is that why geek culture is so hostile to conversations about race?). I didn't post it, and I won't, because when I post about race no one says anything. Now, on the one hand I could decide that I should keep talking about it even if none of you care, but that's what my regular life is like and sometimes I get tired of that burden of the only colored person in the room and I don't want everyone to defriend me because I've become the Uppity Negro of Fandom, because wouldn't that be tiresome? Oh my, yes.
   
2. Sexuality and slash, after reading a lot of metafandom. But the thing about metafandom is that if you read something that makes no sense, you just wait and someone else will post the sensible thing.
   
3. Hegemony and power in fandom. I've been on the outside and I've been on the way inside, so I may have some actual thoughts about this that might make some kind of sense, but I'm a little reluctant to lay it out for various reasons including wondering if anyone actually cares and also wondering if what I would say would actually make any sense.
   
4. Humor and gender, with particular attention paid to that hack Christopher Hitchens' assertion that women are not funny (or at least the women he finds attractive are not funny) and Borat, whom I never find funny, and how the gendered role is for men to be funny and women to laugh, such that women almost are not allowed to decide what is or is not funny for fear of being judged "humorless" which is code for "needs to get fucked" and how feminists of course are nearly always labeled humorless.

As you can probably see, one of my ongoing issues with this journal is what its purpose is and who its audience is/should be. Most of you that I've friended are old pals from HP days, not to say that I've left those days behind because I very much haven't. But this journal has been about more than HP for quite a while now, and also hasn't been about my personal life since I created a personal LJ and decided that I wanted jlh to be as free of f-locked posts as I could make it. Also, I really don't want to post about school, and school eats my head on a fairly frequent basis. Not to mention that posts about my academic work not only would make everyone's eyes roll back in their head, but also feel inappropriate for this space (not to mention a little too personally identifiable).

For about a year now, I've been posting a lot about television and movies, which is fine, except that I'm not sure that other than American Idol I'm watching the TV y'all are watching, because I'm not a SF TV fan. (And note, please, that not really liking speculative fiction makes me feel sort of bad, in that maybe I'm not the right kind of fan, or I'm one of those girly girls who likes the humanities more than the sciences, in the same way that I don't like video games all that much because I don't care about shooting things, and I don't like shonen manga because I don't care about competition in a more general manner, and I'm always ambivalent about things like that being gendered because I reserve the right to be girly and not have that mean that I am a discredit to my gender just because I don't like war movies. Or maybe it's just another version of humorlessness, in that one reason I don't like some kinds of speculative fiction is that massive historical inaccuracies (not minor ones that you always find in fiction) make my head hurt, and I have never had the stomach for alternate history what-if-Hitler one stuff because there are Big Reasons why he didn't win, so you'd have to change so much to make it happen that it doesn't make any sense, and having all those objections makes me sound like I'm taking it all too seriously, which is the same as being humorless, but I just can't enjoy it due to the head hurting. I have never really cared about competition and who wins what and who gets to punch who and all of that. I don't seem to have an inner 12-year-old boy, and I have a vague suspicion that this makes me a not-very-good 37-year-old woman, at least where fandom is concerned.)

Now, this isn't about comments, because we none of us comment on everything that we liked reading, but more a vague sense that not a lot of you are watching Top Chef or Studio 60 and while everything I write isn't going to be profound I don't want to end up off the filter because I'm yammering on about not much. Also, you know, you just sort of get out of the habit and then it's like, why would anyone want to hear my thoughts on yaoi, anyway? So anyway, this is an incredibly apologetic post just to clear things out and get myself back in the swing of things, and today I'm going to poke at some fic to see if I can't get the juices flowing again, get kick started, so that sometime next week I will actually be able to, horror of horrors, get some fucking work done around here. I end with a poll, to make myself feel a little better after all that insecurity, and to reward you for sticking around through all of this, because you all rock, whether you ever comment or not. Seriously.
[Poll #901713]

Comments

Addendum to vote!

[tropes.livejournal.com]

Also I am being selfish because I like talking to you but I generally have no coherent response to rants of any kind other than, "Mmmmmmlarf."

Which is ironical considering how many times I go off, myself.

There's something to be learned here, I fear.

Oooh.

[dizzledee.livejournal.com]

Poke! Poke!

:D

Good for you, babe.

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

I am interested in all your rants, particularly the one about race and geekery. Notably, when I was at ComiCon last year, I noticed how much more diverse it was than, say, that Harry Potter con I attended or sf/f cons, but I have no idea why.

Hegemony and fandom power sounds fascinating too. And gender and humor (so true! i thought i was humorless for so long!)

Also, had a lovely time with you at the party. Hope you come visit.

Re: Addendum to vote!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I feel that mmmmmmlarf is a perfectly acceptable response, actually.

Re: Addendum to vote!

[tropes.livejournal.com]

Muah. Then I win.

[greyandgrey.livejournal.com]

I'm always interested in hearing people's thoughts on any issue, and the ones you mentioned here sound very interesting and have the potential to spark some really great discussions.

I have to say, I didn't even notice that James Brown's passing wasn't mentioned on my flist because I've had so many discussions about it IRL and seen it in my NY times headlines. Now that you've brought it to my attention, it does seem odd because he was so influential and the news coverege on his death rivaled that of President Ford (though that's probably because I was abroad the week he died and was only watching BBC World - I also heard a lot more about Asia's internet outage than any of my friends)

It was odd, though. I was half involved in a discussion in which my dormmate wondered why everyone was making it such a big deal - after all, he did drugs and was therefore a bad person so it's the same as if we still reviered OJ for his sports skillz despite his (not?) killing his wife. The comment was generally met with a 0.o face, but still, someone had that thought, which I found odd because she was the first person to not say "Oh, he was a legend!"

[wednesdayschild.livejournal.com]

I really love it when people on my flist write big, long rants/meta about--well, I don't really mind what they're about, because I find it fascinating to find out what other people think about things (I usually know what I think about things, although that's not always the case.) Sometimes they're things I agree with, sometimes they're things I disagree with, and sometimes they're things I've never though about myself.

Rants are, though, one of the sorts of posts that I'm least likely to form a coherent response to. I'm more likely to reply to a picture of your cat, say, than a post that made me go away and think very hard about my own views for a week. I usually try to make some response, but it seems inadequate so I don't post it, and then I perhaps think about making a whole post in a response when I have the time to really sit down--but I don't have time to do much of anything, at the moment, even things that take far less time and effort than making a post like that would.

Your rants and meta-posts are, by the way, some of the most enjoyable and coherent that I ever read.

[longtimegone]

You know, I didn't notice there weren't very many mentions of James Brown's passing on my flist, though, as someone said above, I talked about it a lot offline with folks, as well.

I've also been kind of tenatively connected to LJ of late, because work is really busy, and I can't face my computer at home lately. I have lots of thoughts on lot sof things, but for some reason, I don't post them. Hmmm.

All that being said, all four topics you've mentioned sound extremely interesting, and I would like to read your thoughts on them. Number 4 sounds particularly interesting to me.

Regarding comments about race... I honestly...I don't feel..."qualified" to comment generally. That's probably a lot in my head, and probably part of dealing with some hostility in the past regarding voicing an opinion regarding race (basically being told I was a rich white girl and thus didn't get to talk about it....not by anyone here), so I generally just don't say anything.

[amyamy.livejournal.com]

I would really love to see what you have to say about any and all of these topics, or just about anything else. I enjoy your writing and, shockingly enough, always have, and I really miss talking to you about random stuff. You would have to go off the deep end and start insulting my family personally, I think, to end up off the filter. That said, though, I must admit that I don't read tv posts by anyone, because the tv that you all can watch is just not available to me here, for the most part without a lot of downloading work. And so I'd be doubly interested in other things, if you felt like writing them. That even includes academic stuff. If nothing else, reading about my friends' academic lives is prodding me into trying to make a decision about whether or not I'm ever going back to school, and what I'd do and where I'll go next...

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Something on race, fueled by my outrage that no one on my flist mentioned the passing of James Brown

:( I was very sad about James Brown. Sorry I didn't mention it on my own LJ - I think it was Christmas Day and I was stressing about getting ready for our vacation. I grew up on James Brown's music, literally. He played an amazing concert at my college in the 70s. He was called the Godfather of Soul for a very good reason. Personally, I still relate to Motown music very viscerally, because it was part of the soundtrack of my younger life, whereas I have no interest in or feeling for neo-soul, rap, hip-hop etc. It just doesn't speak to me, whereas James Brown, the Temptations, Smoky Robinson, et al, really did and still do.

Re: Oooh.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

What is that in your icon?

Oh, I got your package! They hadn't sent it back so I picked it up the other day and yay! Thank you so much. Did Elise decorate the outside? She did a great job! It's funny, I bought the matching sleep pants when I was in Portland, and I haven't had a robe in so long that I hadn't really thought about getting a new one but it's nice to have one now! Thanks again!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I wasn't planning to vote for all of them, but then I couldn't choose. Maybe especially the race one, if just because it seems like the only time the subject comes up is when somebody--negro or not--decides to get uppity.

I don't watch a lot of sf TV either besides XF, which I never really watched for the sf-ness.

Re: Oooh.

[dizzledee.livejournal.com]

Yay for present! :D

And it's a hamster. He amuses me.

[phoenixsong]

Hey, if you've got something to say, say it!

I didn't say anything about any of the public figures who died since I was already dealing with a much more personal death with the future-in-laws, and I figured those who were already posting about them were far more eloquent than I could be on the subject. I'd especially enjoy the geek and/or gender rants, if you're up to them, but that's just me.

Re: Oooh.

[dizzledee.livejournal.com]

Oh, and yeah. She totally did that. :P

[evil-erato.livejournal.com]

I think that you should focus on the future and not so much on the things that have happened in the past. If you find that, going forward, you still have something to say about any of the above then you should post it.

That said, I always enjoy reading what you write. I just generally suck with the comments/coherent replies.

[dizzledee.livejournal.com]

Regarding comments about race... I honestly...I don't feel..."qualified" to comment generally.

Wait a minute, here! I have seen your hair! Not to mention that baby got back. (Time to have that long overdue conversation with your Mom regarding the pool boy....)

*runs and hides*

[aome.livejournal.com]

You should rant if you want, on any of those subjects, or move on if you'd rather just move on. It should be more what you want. I'm always interested in your discussions - always well-thought-out and intelligently presented, whether or not I agree with it.

Can't comment more on TV - I think a lot of the shows you watch are reality shows, and I don't like them. I watched the first few eps of Studio 60, but was having trouble finding time to watch taped eps (on way too late at night) and it just didn't charm me enough to keep up the effort, even though I didn't dislike it. Also, we don't get most cable networks at the moment, so I couldn't watch some of those shows even if I wanted to. :P

[longtimegone]

AHAHAHAHA You speak truth. *dials Mom*

[emsariel.livejournal.com]

Your rants and meta-posts are, by the way, some of the most enjoyable and coherent that I ever read.

I totally agree. And when I disagree with you, I usually end up getting totally trounced. I like reading your rants because they usually prove me clueless or wrong, and I prefer that to having those be true but not proven.

For instance, I have a gut reaction that the "White and Nerdy" is "White" because Weird Al is directly parodying a song by/for a very non-white, very non-nerdy group of people, and the humor is in the juxtaposition. I don't think that it asserts that nerd-dom is the sole domain of white people any more than Irkle, horrible as that character was, asserted that nerds couldn't be white. However, I will bring this up here and then hope that you decide to write on that topic because you will have numerous other examples and will articulate them very well.

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

Everything I typed, while making sense in my head, wasn't so sensible sounding in text. So I'm heading back to bed. However, it is my plan to pound out an actual and useful response to this entry after work tomorrow.

...I think I traded my inner twelve year old boy in for an inner fiver year old tomboy and a seven year old glamour puss.

[calloocallay.livejournal.com]

I'd like to read your thoughts on race and geekery, since I have had several conversations with kalichan about that topic - most notably about how fantasy books assume a white charactership and readership. And I do so say things when you post about race, lady. Also, I think you appreciate competition in fiction. Many of your favorite plots seem (to me, at least) to be fascinating because they reveal bits of personality when characters are in competition. I also think war stories are often boring, but what would "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" be without competition? Also, I'm sorry, your band sucks.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Wow, equating doing drugs with killing two people is a much bigger leap than I'm prepared to make.

I also had some things to say about Ford, but they weren't nearly as forthright and were mostly about the inanity of Whip Inflation Now!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, the last time someone wrote a coherent race in fandom rant, they were a comic fan talking about comic books. I sense that there, there's some traction, not to mention a certain ability to affect product which certainly is not true in SF TV, and hasn't really happened yet elsewhere, which is a fault on both sides, I think.

You are so not humorless! You are very funny, actually.

I am not only coming to visit (in March or April) but I am more than likely bringing a Val along with me. ^_^

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Oh, and my favorite was 58, the one about how many combinations of three there were in a deck of cards, though I was already biased toward the ones that had nothing at all to do with Val but were actually just some ongoing conversation between Kaye and Roiben anyway. Though I have a love for 11 just for the line, "like omg becky look at her clothes" which is awesome in its own way.

[alissomora.livejournal.com]

You should rant if you want, on any of those subjects, or move on if you'd rather just move on. It should be more what you want. I'm always interested in your discussions - always well-thought-out and intelligently presented, whether or not I agree with it.

I couldn't agree more. If you feel it's something you should get off your chest, then by all means post it. This is *your* LJ, so you should say whatever you please. I always read and you always make me think, and that can never be a bad thing :-)

Am glad you posted something and that we got to chat for a little. ♥

[greyandgrey.livejournal.com]

yeah, that's pretty much what I said, but then the conversation took the absurd turn of "Well, just like James Brown will always be a music legend OJ will always be a football legend and no one can take that away from him" at which point I decided that boys+sports=far more dangerous than I previously thought.

I feel bad about it, but I actually didn't know much about Ford's presidency until watching the coverage of his funeral. And I feel that's a rather biased report and therefore not sufficient to make a judgement about his presidency - good or bad

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Ah, Dionne.

You know, I think that a lot of damage gets done by arrogant 19-year-olds who don't know how to listen. There are things people said of me long ago that still ring in my ears, too. But I would say that you are always qualified to talk about race from your perspective on it, and as long as you don't try to speak for any group that you aren't a member of, which you would never do anyway, I don't know why anyone would get offended.

I think I just need to get used to Posting My Thoughts, yeah.

[elements.livejournal.com]

Someone else might write the sexuality and slash one, but you're our best hope for the other three. I'd love to read 'em.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Thanks for these complements! I'm so flattered!

I'm more likely to reply to a picture of your cat, say, than a post that made me go away and think very hard about my own views for a week. I usually try to make some response, but it seems inadequate so I don't post it

Yeah, I used to be glum until I saw isiscolo's post about how of all her posts, the one with the most comments was the one with pictures of her cats. I think that you know, no response is inadequate. From my point of view, I'm making the posts hoping that if part of it is bullshit, someone will poke their finger through that hole so my thinking can be more complete; I never think that they're completed thoughts. It's a conversation, really, or I hope it is. Otherwise I reckon I'd just be blogging. But every response you've made that I can think of has been interesting and thoughtful and sometimes has even led to an entirely separate conversation going on in the comments which is always pretty cool.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Trounced! Gosh, I hope I'm not that bad.

Weird Al is definitely doing something specific, but it's less that than the things that he's playing off, and the undercurrent of the very narrow definition of what it means to be black that comes from the community itself just as much as from the dominant culture. So through that, I was musing about other things, though the fact is, I didn't have that identification moment with the song that so many of you had, not because I didn't recognize the behaviors but because I'm just not white, at the end of the day. And I'm not sure what that means.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I made an LJ for if/when I ever want to post academic things, and whenever that happens, I'll let you know. ^_^ Right now, it's just a name placeholder, really.

I miss talking to you about random stuff, too! I don't even know what my random stuff is anymore, actually. I'm sort of all over the place all the time. But I think that forcing myself to post is already making me feel a bit better so hey!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I'm far from calling anyone out for not posting about it, because I know for many of us the holidays was not a big time for posting. It was more, wait, NO ONE is talking about this? But that's sort of, my knee jerk reaction of expecting people to post about, at the very least important cultural moments, which is silly, because folks often don't, and that isn't a barometer however much it seems like one.

Do you find yourself liking other music that has been made since then? I'm surprised you don't like neo-soul as I think a lot of it is great and has a similar feel, anyway; you might want to check out Jill Scott.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

You have to hear it all in chat, though. See, this will help alleviate that as I will be talking to so many more people. That might have been my trouble, this year, that I had such a trust overreaction that I really constricted who I was ever talking to, and that left me sort of paralyzed. So I'm trying to branch out, and I think it's starting to help.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

So many people couldn't choose, it's true. You've heard the sexuality and slash one anyway, at dinner, so I might just breeze past that one.

As for race, you'd think by now I'd be used to being one of the only people of color in the room but sometimes I just get annoyed that you have to be a person of color to see this shit, because hello? I am not a race woman; I was adopted by white folks and grew up in Maine for pete's sake. So I suppose I get even grouchier because I'm like, dude, if I can see it, a white person should be able to see it. Seriously. And then the conversation always gets all, "But I'm afraid of the black people getting mad" which I'm so over, I can't even deal.

So I guess, yeah, I'll go ahead and be uppity. It's just not my nature! I'm a lover, not a fighter!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Oh, sweetie, I wasn't calling anyone out, and certainly not YOU. I am so sorry for your loss, especially since the time was so chaotic generally with people trying to get here and there.

The race thing is likely to show up because folks seem to want it, and the gender thing because I strangely dreamed about it last night. So there's that, anyway.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

If you can give me more recs re: neo-soul I might try to check them out. Anything that sounds or feels like original Motown would probably win me over :)

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Plu, I really appreciate that!

Do I mostly watch reality shows? *checks TIVO* I guess I should talk about How I Met Your Mother and Veronica Mars and Studio 60 and Ugly Betty more often! I don't think of AI as a reality show—it's a talent contest/variety show, and the reason I make that distinction is that there isn't any interpersonal drama at all, no backstage footage, just people singing. I agree, Studio 60 had a slow start, and a lot of why I stayed in the beginning is love of Matthew Perry, but the episode before the Christmas break was fanTASTIC and since they got a full season order I have some hope it will get better. If not, well, it will end with Jordan having her baby and be adorable.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

*waits very patiently*

Ooh, I do have an inner tomboy, but I think my inner little girl is about eight and mostly very, very silly and prone to giggling.

[aome.livejournal.com]

How did they work her pregnancy into the show?

Matt Perry and Bradley Whitford were the highlights for me, too.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Since you saw the first ep this will actually make sense: Remember that ex-bf of hers that gave her the leak from the insurance company about Danny? He's the biological father. So they've speeded up the Danny/Jordan and he's basically insinuated himself. She told him first so he wouldn't give her one of the B-12 shots that the cast was getting to fight a flu outbreak, and so in the Xmas ep he accompanied her to the OB, and later in the show said, "I'm coming for you, Jordan." It was both cute and kind of creepy, though what WAS cute was Matt figuring out that Danny liked Jordan before Danny had really admitted it to himself and then teasing him the entire episode with the phrase, "Say it!"

Also, I think you can watch the episodes on nbc.com should you desire.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks. It's always excellent to talk to you. How was the movie?

I feel like I've been silent for bizarro internal reasons having to do with not thinking anyone wanted to hear what I had to say, and yet, wishing I could say all sorts of things to people, and I've just pulled myself out of that funk and it's weird how much better I feel making all these posts and comments and things. It's like I popped my head out of a hole.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

You absolutely always say things when I post about race. It is so.

Hmm. I dunno, it's like HItchcock films where the actual plot isn't really the point; the point is the ride you're on. I do love mysteries, but I don't really care about boy's adventure tales, like, at all. Which includes the war thing, the hero of how-many-faces-you-got, and the sports stuff (you know, if Go is a sport, which is debatable). But I'll cop to less than specific speech, here.

My band ALWAYS sucks, forever 'n' ever amen.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks! Well, someone HAS written about sexuality and slash, so I guess it would be more of a reply. But the others, yeah, they're coming after all, I think.

[alissomora.livejournal.com]

I didn't like the movie, truth be told. Sure, it had some funny moments, but it was very heavy-handed and too long for my liking.

Where you are now is where I was a month ago. I'm sorry you've been feeling so low -- I'm always only an email away.

[amyamy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I find, when I remember to look for answers. Getting the random crap out of my head, even if it's only to put it up into etherspace... it helps. But then, I'm very prone to running over the same six lines of thought twenty times in half an hour, and so stopping with the brooding is always good.

But yes, do please to let me know if you ever start using that other lj. :)