brightly_lit

I MAY have made last night's series of posts in a state of manic giddiness that has now been followed by a crash of ongoing wakefulness and threatening illness, but hey, you take whatever leads to productivity when life's been sitting on your neck punching you in the head ... or at least dramatically demonstrating doing so, WWE-style.

So I really like watermelon. There's this thing they sometimes do at the store that they call a "premium cut," which I call a "watermelon filet" because it looks and is packaged exactly like a steak, in the styrofoam tray, with even the absorbent pad at the bottom. So after I ate it, it looked like I left a rotting tray of blood sitting around in my room. CLASSY.

Another thing we bought during our epic outing last night was lipstick, something I haven't bought in approximately 1.87 billion years. Not because I don't like lipstick--there was a time when I put some on every time I went out, particularly this one color I had that seemed like it shouldn't work and was really sparkly but also subtle and somehow worked really well. I got that lipstick from my mom, who loved buying Clinique stuff (one lotion in particular), which is so ^&*($# expensive that they pretty much always gave you a free gift when you bought something, which she often passed along to me. This lipstick was one of those freebies. I just wore it 'cos I had it and it wasn't hard to wear like so many of them are, requiring lots of blending or whatever (I'm lookin at you, Wet 'n' Wild); just put it on and go.

And I tell you what, this lipstick lives on. Though I haven't laid eyes on such a color in decades, it inspired then, and continues to inspire. Multiple people, after regarding it a while, would finally conclude they really liked it (that seemed-like-it-shouldn't-work thing), that indeed, it had some sort of mysterious, intriguing appeal. My sister, who had never been a lipstick or even a makeup wearer, started experimenting at that point. More pertinently, P never particularly liked lipstick until recently, and she's now a good-lipstick fiend, and when I brought up that lipstick that was the main lipstick I wore, she said it's the whole reason she's into lipstick now! Which is finally coming full circle, as she's getting me back into lipstick again after all these years.

So never let anyone tell you you amounted to nothing, because maybe you wore a free lipstick or something that had consequences that are still manifesting in multiple variations twenty years later. I AND MY LIPSTICK, WE STAND TALL.

Before I joined Tumblr, I had the impression it was a bunch of bitchy 15-year-olds barely interacting and reposting innumerable pictures of hot guys. After I joined Tumblr, I discovered I was exactly correct. Still, barely interacting is easy, I like looking at hot guys, so it's been all right, although after you see approximately 15,000 pictures of Sebastian Stan, you actually start feeling like maybe you never need to see another.

There are good things about Tumblr, namely that if there is any news whatsoever about someone you're into, THOSE PEOPLE ARE ON IT. Every single photo that may appear anywhere on the internet is on Tumblr within minutes, being passed around, hashed over, and thoroughly analyzed. It's like instantaneous fandom-news central, which is surprisingly gratifying. Now if only real news could be as accurate and immediate.

Anyway, I think maybe I know the reason why I finally felt compelled to join Tumblr when I did: very shortly after, lo and behold, one of the few people I follow cooked up the great idea to have fans submit songs for a fan tribute album of one of my favorite band's great albums (which is set to be re-released soon for the tenth anniversary).

This is sort of a dream come true for me. Not that anyone will listen to my song, but just to get to do that, to have an excuse to record a cover, to get to delve deeply into one of my favorite band's songs, to record music at all anymore (I self-released a couple of albums, but it's been a long time since I recorded a single note), has been soo so awesome and so inspiring and fun. I'm so grateful to get to be a part of it, even though it's fucking hard work! And lots of technology-related frustration, as ever. Maybe someday I'll be able to get my electric guitar to be audible through one of my interfaces, but today is not that day.

Anyway, so that's what I've been up to. I've been missing you all and trying to find a way back into interacting on lj, but it's taken me until TODAY to finally catch up after gishwhes. (YES REALLY.) Hopefully more posts and more responses to your comments to come soon. <3

Dear Women of Letters who are denizens of spn_bunker,

I love you. I love you anyway, but this post and all its comments fill me with such great adoration for the people you are. Thank you for telling the stories of the libraries that helped shape you.

<3 <3 <3

SUMMERGEN IS BACK. YAAAY!!!

My favorite book for a time as a kid was The House of Thirty Cats. Well, septembers_coda found it for us at the library and we're reading it aloud right now. It's really quite good, and almost distressingly me. Like, was I already like that and that's why I was so attracted to that book? Or did it significantly form me? It's a bit disturbing.

Anyway, typical of me, it's extremely obscure. I somehow managed to convince my teacher to read it aloud to the class, and everyone was so bored and not into it that she stopped after only a few pages, no matter how much I lobbied the whole class to keep it going and insisted it got much better after the first chapter (which it does, adult-me can confirm!). Those plebeians in my elementary-school class didn't know great literature when they heard it! But s_c is lovin' it. :-) I'm always delighted when I find something I loved in my youth holds up later on, because Bill and Ted ... not so much.

Today I thought, maybe I will be the person who writes the first House of Thirty Cats fanfic and puts it on the internet. And then maybe someone who likes my other fic will see it and give it a try and it'll bring a little more attention to this strange, brutal, vivid, wonderful novel.

... And then I see that my favorite musician is tweeting about the notorious "milk fic" and encouraging his fans to write the most horrifying fic about him they want, that he dgaf.

I got my second (hopefully last) root canal this morning, and learned that these abcesses have been weighing on my immune system a very long time. When you walk out of the endodontist's office feeling better--like, all over--and then you run an errand you meant to run eight months ago and you get to drive around in a different car from usual hearing new music and it's all rainy and your favorite musician is tweeting about obscene fanfic featuring himself ... it's a good day.

The February Fandom Fest put on by selenic76 is all about expressing your love for any fandom however you see fit (one of the hopes being that others will find a new show to love). I’ve already seen some really cool entries! (Go here to see them all, and if you’re interested in participating, sign up!)

I already do a lot of this. I gushed about Captain America: Winter Soldier here (with some incidental love for Thelma and Louise that found its way into that post), MCR here and here, Men Without Hats here, and I’ve expressed my great love for Princess Tutu countless times, including writing an SPN crossover. I love those shows/band so much, I had to make myself some usericons for them, as:

Winter Soldier: MCR:

Indeed, Princess Tutu is the source of my default usericon (see this post)! But I guess I’ve never really gone into what makes the anime so great.

First, yeah, I know, worst name for a show ever. I couldn’t help but tease my (quite macho) anime-lovin’ buddy when I saw it on his shelf. He laughed sheepishly, but said, “It’s actually a good show.” He has excellent taste, so I suggested we watch it, and the rest is history.

At first, you’ll think you know where it’s going. Well ... kinda, because this is an anime that makes perfect sense upon viewing but is hard to describe without sounding like you’re dropping acid. So, here’s the acid-drenched version: A duck falls in love with a prince who practices ballet at her lake. The storyteller from whose story the prince escaped offers the duck the chance to play a tragic but important part in the story, and of course she jumps at the chance to be near her prince, and to be human ... but if she ever confesses her love, she’ll turn into a speck of light and vanish, so there’s all the delicious angst of her getting to be close and yet so far.

The whole town has come to revolve around the story the storyteller (his name is Drosselmeyer--it takes place in Germany) is manifesting in the real world, which he can do because his authorial power was so great in life that it continues beyond the grave. (I see a lot of metaphors for God and the human condition in that aspect of the show, as Drosselmeyer literally uses people as puppets, manipulates events and calls it “fate,” rages when anyone revolts and exercises free will, and lives “behind the curtain” where the gears of reality are at his command.) Countless moments of genius are sprinkled throughout the show regarding authorial power and choice, which I think writers might appreciate, so if you write fanfic, this might be just your cup of tea.

It sounds like a fairy tale, but it’s more of a ballet, using famous ballets and classical pieces to tell the story, from Swan Lake to the Nutcracker and everything in between. (One of the joys of the show is hearing the EXCELLENT orchestral performances of all these classical pieces. I’m picky about this kind of thing, and truly, I can’t imagine better versions of any of these beloved classics.) One of many strokes of genius in this show is that it’s “staged” like a ballet. Crows figure heavily into the story, but usually they’re human male and female figures performing ballet with giant crow’s-head masks. Spotlights appear on the performers, like so:

( cut for gif )
Meanwhile, Duck, the prince, and the other main characters study ballet at an old, venerable school, so it has all the fun and drama and romantic intrigue of a high-school anime, too.

It DOES also have a strong fairy-tale quality--the prince’s name is Mytho, and there are numerous animal characters--as if the creator tapped into something deep and archetypal that lives deep in our collective unconscious. Strange and unpredictable and modern, it at the same time nevertheless feels classic. I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of all the layers, metaphors, and meanings in this thing.

Finally, I love this anime because I feel like it tells a story I lived, with parallel characters and events transpiring obviously very differently from in the show, but on a fundamental level, it resonates for me profoundly ... yet nothing about this anime suggests it’s a common story, so I doubt anyone else in the world (except the amazing woman who created it) feels the same. As you can imagine, I’m grateful to have a show to reflect that experience for me and help me understand and analyze it.

Princess Tutu seems to have been strongly influenced by another great anime, Revolutionary Girl Utena, which is a good deal more popular than Princess Tutu, so if you saw and liked that one, you’re likely to like Princess Tutu, as well.

I often suggest watching an anime in Japanese, but in this case, the English dub is so carefully done and so energetic and inspired, I recommend the English. Besides, if you don’t watch it in English, then you’ll never see TJP’s performance of Mr. Cat, and I pity anyone who doesn’t get to experience that in their lifetime. ;-)

Here is an amazing fanvid I found while looking for clips to gif (good Tutu gifs are hard to come by, I’m finding). For your reference, Duck/Princess Tutu is the redhead, and the prince has white hair. (The show most enjoyably ships all pairings, including the other two main characters, both dark-haired.) I’m not sure if any measure of the show’s true glory will come across to anyone not already familiar with it, but many of the themes and visuals I’ve described are present in this vid, and it’s a fantastic song, as well. SPN covered “The Red Shoes”; well, so did Princess Tutu, and you get a sense for that theme in the vid, too.

I'm with milly_gal--I think everyone should do a Top 16 list for 2016, via spn_bunker! Here's the original post, and here's my top 16 today:

1) septembers_coda
2) A great SPN watch party with fans last weekend, complete with food so good I was literally full for days.
3) I made a font of my own! And I think I'm pretty satisfied with it!
4) Hot guys exist.
5) The outlet of art of all kinds.
6) Orphan Black's newest season (the one that's out on DVD, anyway), and the glory that is every actor on that show--not just Tatiana Maslany's incredible performance, but Donnie! Art! Felix! VIC!!!
7) HIMYM.
8) Parks and Rec.
9) The wonders of technology that make this post possible.
10) spn_bunker
11) tricycleman
12) Feeling better in general, even if I have specific health worries right now.
13) Astonishingly, I too now seem to have an actual social life!
14) Ping Pong: The Animation
15) MCR
16) Captain America: Winter Soldier



... Which reminds me--I suppose it's time to tell the story behind the Top 5 post every Monday at spn_bunker:

When I was in college, I was fortunate to live in a dorm one year where we were all a bunch of freaks who got along great and were all good friends, forever hanging out in each other's rooms or in the hall, going places together, etc. You never had to walk into the cafeteria and eat alone, because there was ALWAYS a friend from the dorm there to eat with. I only had that (part of) one year, but it was fantastic while it lasted.

Anyway, one of these friends was fond of drawing pictures of a clown in place of various historical figures (he even put it on a cross--yes, we were all artists, and would do anything, no matter how outrageous). He would draw one every now and then to everyone's delight, make several photocopies, and hand them out to everyone. I drew comic strips about rock stars. We sometimes gambled (NOT REAL MONEY) on a ridiculously bad-graphics, boring-ass horseracing computer game. There was all kinds of weird stuff like that.

But something not so weird was the Top Ten. At random intervals, but usually at least every other day, people would whip out a piece of paper and begin detailing their top ten of the day, or of the moment, or related to some particular subject of interest; any kind of top ten on any subject. They got really into it, poring over it for a long time, sharing items on the list with one another as they went, perfecting it, and keeping their list when they were done, sometimes making a copy of it for someone else, sort of a way to commemorate that day of their lives. I thought it was beautiful.

So when I was trying to come up with a new event to fill in some of the gaps at the Bunker, I remembered this, remembered how at other times in my life people have said making a list of positive things going on in their lives really helped them feel better when things were bad, and the Top 5 was born (on Monday, the worst day of the week for many).

Please feel free to participate over on spn_bunker any Monday, or for that matter, any time you need to make a list! You can just go to that week's Top 5 post to make your list. Don't hesitate to make more than one list, either (and don't limit yourself to only five items)! You can do subject-specific lists, a list every day of the week (or every other day, like my college friends); whatever you like. Maybe you could share it on your own lj, too, to let your friends know what's going on with you. I always enjoy reading people's lists, even if I don't end up making one myself that week, and I think other people enjoy reading them, too, so don't be shy! The Bunker don't bite. ;->

Something straight-up magical happened today. I took a nap afterward, and when I woke up, I was like, did that really happen, or was that a dream? BUT IT REALLY HAPPENED.

( The ramblings of a hardcore lifelong music lover. )