Fan-boy Wankery*

Rumors of Davros returning to the new Doctor Who have been floating around for a while now, so the pictures of him -- looking surprisingly like his old-series self -- are not, in fact, very surprising.

What *is* surprising are images of new, red Daleks.

Red... daleks. I love red. I love Daleks. The effect of the idea of Red Daleks on my person is shameful to admit. But not quite as shameful as admitting just how much my imported, 18 inch, radio-controlled movie-version red Dalek cost.

And I will hug him as I watch the up-coming series finale.

*Literally. By all that's holy, did you see Colin Morgan in "Midnight"? It's a singing testament to RTD's writing I even noticed /a/ plot, let alone the greatest plot in new Who. Forget Edward Cullen when there are actual people who look like that.

Breezes and Surf. But the Wrong Kind.

I just found out I'm going to the Midwest for 10 days, starting next week.

Do I know anyone in Chicago besides Ross "I'm working a fecking cruise ship in the Med and the Baltic and hence unavailable till Fall" Bryant?

Pour Emily

see more hipster robot webcomics and pixel t-shirts

You know, I've spent most of the past decade (or longer) thinking Rivers Cuomo is gay.

He's not -- although he does have an Asian girlfriend, so five years ago he could have been bi, since all those "bi-curious" hipster boys of a certain type have all moved on to Asian chicks. Although it is pretty generous to include Cuomo in the "hipster" category.

I'm trying to remember just what put it in my head he was gay, and for some reason I think I remember reading that in an interview in Abercrombie and Fitch catalog. But that makes no sense -- I never stopped to /read/ anything in one of those. I don't think anyone did.

All the Umbrellas of London

If I make it tonight, it'll be all right.
It'll make a good song or something
I've been trying to give myself reasons to live
But I really can't think of one thing

I drive around, I walk around in circles
'Cause I've got no sense of direction
And I guess I've got no sense at all

[chorus:]
All the umbrellas in London
Couldn't stop this rain.
And all the dope in New York
Couldn't kill this pain.
And all the money in Tokyo
Couldn't make me stay.
All the umbrellas in London
Couldn't stop this rain.

I don't cry anymore, I go out the door
And I usually keep on walking
I will sit in the bar where the cocktails are
But I really don't feel like talking

I lie around and let the darkness fall
'Cause I've got a sense of perfection
And nothing makes much sense at all

I've been thinking a lot about the relationship of lyrics to music, and I've come to the conclusion that, at least, in pop music, there's something odd about them. I think most people would be hard pressed to describe -- to even think of -- lyrics in situ as poetry. But they are.

I think the upshot of this is that that fact hits home every once in a while and get you get struck by this new appreciation of a song you've heard a thousand times. This has happened to me several times recently, and did again tonight when I heard the above song. I don't really know where to go with that, but it seems odd to me that music can have such a masking quality.

(Brecht, of course, was aware of the phenomenon, and used it to his advantage, making happy, cheerful tunes out of black deeds. "Mack the Knife" is a jaunty little tunes about child rape, murder, theft, whores and burning down occupied orphanages.)

In other news, I had a dream about Billie Piper last night. Well not /about/ her but with her in. Which is oddly appropriate as her series The Secret Life of a Call Girl premieres in the US tonight.

We were in a van with several other members of my family, crossing the Rocky Mountains when the van wrecked. There was more to it, involving a kitsch 70s-style hotel, but I don't recall that in detail. I do remember thinking, "How odd to be dreaming of a Doctor Who girl instead of the Doctor himself." I've only done /that/ once, when I dreamt I was racing along in Bessie with the Third Doctor. Even if it was the Best. Dream. Ever., it was still yonks ago.

All in all, I was just pleased it wasn't a tooth dream after last night's Britain's Worst Teeth doc.

For When "Big Mouth Billy Bass" is just *too* classy.

America Has Failed.

Don't get me wrong: I love the system of American government. It is an elegant tribute to a generation of men with wisdom, foresight and dedication to their ideals. It is a testament to even more generations that their system has grown and developed with a fervent dedication to the Enlightenment ideas of liberal democracy.

But this isn't about America as a political entity. This is about America as cultural institution. We have failed. Miserably. It's time to up stakes, wash ourselves clean and try a completely new paradigm.

Jingle Jugs: The Jugs that Jiggle to a Jingle.

This is why the rest of the world hates us: Jingle Jugs and Justin Long.

Note to self:

The person who consistently dreams of his teeth falling out, and who constantly worries the chipped tooth he can't afford to have mended probably shouldn't have watched "Britain's Worst Teeth".

Big-Head Want Dolly!

So, I have this irrational hatred of Justin Long. And I'm not sure why, really -- most people I hate, I know /why/. But he fills me with an inexplicable loathing. I would love to see him forced to participate in the most disturbing, degrading sex acts, of the type that women justly use to condemn the worst excesses of pornography. With John Hodgman, as payback for those damn Mac ads, even if Hodgman did include a humorous picture of the Cybermen in The Areas of My Experise, under the caption "Typical Cyborg Mischief".

Sorry. I watched Waiting this weekend and my anti-Long feelings have been percolating around.

Other than that, it's been a reasonably good birthday weekend. There were some nice touches from on high -- Tivo recorded (out of the blue, as far as I can tell) my favourite episode ever of Gilmore Girls ("Emily in Wonderland", if you're interested) and there was a question about Faulkner's Snopes trilogy on Friday's Jeopardy!

I spent Saturday night watching a little Doctor Who marathon -- this series is the best yet, by far, so I watched the three latest episodes over again. Alex King was the guest star for the recent Steven Moffat two-parter, so I was a little confused by having Charlotte Corday from ER sniffing around David Tennant. (For a little present -- the only present I got except for Laura Llew's books -- I got myself the DVD of "Timelash". "Timelash" is without question the worst episode of the series original run and should only be watched under the influence. And so I did. It helped immensely.)

The real treat was my trip over to the local Human Society. My father underwent eye surgery recently, turning me into a chauffeur. Which is nice, because I don't have a car and, consequently, don't get about much. On one trip, I took us over to see a basset hound they had at the Humane Society's huge new complex.

His name is Stetson. He doesn't look very basset-y hound-y in the pictures, but he does in real life. I was able to take him outside and play with him for a few minutes -- he was very active for a basset hound. Meaning, you know, he was actually in motion for a few moments. Like most bassets, he didn't particularly care whom he was with, as long as he could smell things, so he wasn't very interested in me.

Typical.

The day before my birthday is the end of the world.

My close associate, Noes the Apocalypse Kitteh, and I have decided to start drinking heavily at 5 pm and not stop till the end of the world, just in case.

Nobody Writes Them Like They Used To, So It May As Well Be Me

I should mention that I finished the first draft of my play last night. I should be far more excited about it than I am, considering how long and how hard I've worked on it, but it's almost exactly as long as it should be (110 A4 pages) and actually hits the mark I wanted to set for it -- beginning with normal dialogue and slowly changing into the iambic pentameter of the source.



There aren't any songs (except one) beyond the first act, but I have a fair idea of what songs I want and where they need to go. It needs lots of work, but it's off to exactly the sort of start I wanted.

I need to get people to read it. I'm not ready to post all of it here, but I did want to post some pictures. They're snagged from all over the internet, and I used them -- provisionally as scene backgrounds. They're in no real order.

Clockwise, from top left: The Dungeon where Daniel is executed; castle interior 1; the forest where Michael is killed; the meeting-place of the barons.

I have a few more I might post.

Today's Episode in One Act.

No. 4 in my list of possible birthday presents: Ira Glass.

Ira is the host of NPR's This American Life with the velvety-smooth voice. That alone is a selling-point; the fact that he's reasonably hot is secondary.

Actually, his response from his show getting named-checked on The OC -- I believe the quote went something like "Is that that show by those hipster know-it-alls who talk about how fascinating ordinary people are? -- is more than enough to swoon over.

Best. Doctor Who. Companion. Ever.

No. 3 in my list of possible birthday presents: Philip Olivier.

Since the last two pictures haven't been that exciting, I figured a little beefcake never goes awry.

Olivier was on Brookside and Bo Selecta. He also starred in several of Big Finish's Doctor Who audio plays, though it seems to me that most of his obvious talent didn't get used.

In the productions, anyway.

And if they weren't used at all, then the people of Big Finish have a lot to answer for to the rest of Doctor Who fans who boldly live up to 90s stereotypes.

As an aside, there are very, very few people out there who inspire in me the same pillow-biting, immediate lust to get...

[cut scene of Roger Moore waving]

... uh, busy as Phil does.

I'll take "The Question is Irrelevant", Alex: Get to the Skin!

No. 2 in my list of possible birthday presents: Jon, from the Jeopardy Clue Crew. We'll just glide over the fact he's married and has kids. Oscar Wilde did, too.

[I reckon KJZZ is a joke unto itself here, and needs no further elaboration.]

[Later: It turns out KJZZ is in Salt Lake City, which is even more of a joke...]

Wrapping Not Necessary. Well, not all over.

Since I've made up my mind I'm not getting anything for my birthday Friday*, I have decided, O anonymous-silent-but-hopefully-still-extant audience, to give you a selection of appropriate gifts over the next few days. (If, that is, I don't decide to suppress any suggestion of celebration, which I have half a mind to do.)

No. 1: Nathan, from the Speaking of Sex Podcast. Yes, the picture is bad (it's the only one I could find at all). Fortunately, they're wrapping up a series of video podcasts to accompany their tour of the US, so you can download those and see better images. He's cute, smart, and funny. And I'm willing to bet (if he's retained even a tenth of what goes out in his podcast) one fine roll in the hay.

*I did get a package from Laura, though, so I did receive something. I'm just betting on nothing else.

Retraction

Yes, I know it's the middle of the say, so it must be a little disconcerting to see anew post pop up, but I thought the ending to that last post was a little mis-leading. On a little further reflection, I remembered one time recently I was quite happy, and -- truth be told -- I feel a little hangdog for skipping over it.

Probably the day or the day after the last hiatus here, I went to an It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia marathon at the home of Miss Laura Llew. That was a legitimately happy time, but the moment that stands out comes a little bit later.*

After getting terribly lost in upstate SC and narrowly avoiding a lynch mob down Bob Jones University way, I didn't get started back home till late -- late by my standards, which meant 3.30 am or so, I started back home. The sun rose about 15 or 20 miles from home, and by then I was punchy from lack of sleep and the last effects of some particularly good bourbon. My voice was a little scratchy from singing aloud various Belle and Sebastian songs.

But that moment reminded me of many, many other very happy moments, and not a few of them were under nearly identical circumstances, so it reminded me of an earlier period when I was quite happy, quite often.

Like times when I had to avoid a head-on collision with another car because the highway on-ramp and exit ramp were one and the same in this little town, which sounds terrifying (and was at the time), but now strikes me as hysterically funny, if not pointlessly symbolic.

Or like any number of occasions when I had to drive back from the Outer Banks or elsewhere and wouldn't leave till after dark and still faces a 6- or 8-hour drive.

So there. Happy.

*Anyone else and I might think that would be the suggestion of a poor hostess and not mention it, but I'm reasonably sure Laura understands.

More Hardy than Wolfe

You know, after last night's post, I went digging through my boxes of books (all 1440+) to find my copy of The Web and the Rock. I remembered that it started out with a reference to Old Catawba, the name of the river that runs by here. Turns out I was wrong, incidentally.

In the midst of rooting around in all those books, I found a journal I kept from my last vacation. I bought because it was a cute, recycled children's and I knew I would be online for the duration.

It wasn't in with my other journals. It had been tossed in a box with some other books from my bedroom, mostly Southern lit -- Faulkner, Judge Whedbee's ghost stories, Capote.

I made the mistake of leafing through a few pages, just skimming it over without taking much in, when I realized it was exactly a year ago. I didn't think it would bother me much, and I don't think it per se did. Well, not per se. Maybe ipsa re. It did eventually make me pretty sad as it made me reflect on my life then, as opposed to now.

I haven't been out of the house in... well, the last day of Forum, which was the 18th of May. And I literally can't remember the last time I was legitimately happy about anything. That shouldn't make me want to die, but it sort of does.

I suppose you could. It'd be very Faulkner-y, "The Snopes done come to meetin' "looking, though.

The above quote was from a discussion I had with Ms Llew about wearing China Doll Dresses and petticoats. If pressed, I'd probably say specifically from Sanctuary. I hardly ever quote myself for a title, but I thought it was funny.

I can't believe it's been over two months from my last entry. I was in a local community theatre production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum for much of it. It was just as pointless over-dramatic and fraught with disaster as you think. I may well get around to discussing it more (there were some legitimately funny things in it) but not now.

One of the reasons that I started with a Faulkner mention is that something about this time of year always makes me pick up one of his books, and then read several more. I started out this year with where I left off with The Hamlet last year*. That doesn't really work, so I started off from the beginning of it again and finished it within two days. I want to finish The Town and The Mansion before summer gets too far along.

I decided to hold back a bit and try something else. This may (appropriately enough) be the Summer of Southern Writers. Before moving on to The Town -- which I could only ever find in the last volume of the Library of America series, although Wikipedia shows that somewhere there's version to match the old school Vintage editions -- I decided to read Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel, especially since it's roughly contemporary to Faulkner on a few levels.

But it's far harder going that Faulkner. I don't want to say it's clunky, but... it lacks a certain evocative economy when compared to Faulkner. Wolfe is into minute detail and laborious description. Most strikingly, he tries to affect something akin to a literary montage -- an early-ish chapter on morning in Altamount comes to mind -- that attempts to pile incident upon incident to evoke morning. In purely visual terms, it would work. But a picture being worth a thousand words, the result in a novel is long-winded description for its own sake that doesn't achieve a lot. Stylistic masturbation?

I wouldn't be surprised. Wolfe himself was never one to decry his own talent; it's hard not to see that kind of ego in the prose and what it asks of the reader. It isn't quite so bad as to make me throw the book down (yet), but it requires of the reader a certain dedication that I'm just not sure is warranted.

What's really scary is that this is the /edited/ version of Wolfe's work. When he died, he left hundreds of manuscript pages that his editor just sort of hacked into his last two novels. I read bits of The Web and the Rock in college, and what I recall of it corresponds to my worst fears.

When Wolfe died, Faulkner called him the best writer of their generation. I just don't see that. Maybe by the time I finish LHA, I will.

*I think I started Absalom, Absalom! at least eight times before I finished it.

The Surviving Things

I wondered around the city for some time. I noticed the doors were quite small and rounded, not shaped for a human. After a while, I began to realized I was being guided. Doors were sealing off. Eventually I was bundled into a room that converted into a lift. I plummeted several stories. When the door opened, I went through, heavy with foreboding.

I knew I was being watched. I turned around. There, in front of me, coming towards me was... was...

I could only scream...

The BBC -- the Basset Broadcasting Corporation -- continues its new serial, the adventures through space and time of Poochles Poo.


Meanwhile, at the edge of the city, Poochles and I were growing tired of waiting for Ms. Daisy. "We'd better go look for her," I said. Poochles dabbed a handkerchief to his forehead. He was panting quickly and shallowly. "Yes. Yes, that seems best," he agreed.

We went through the door and into the corridor I investigated earlier, and found what looked to be a small lab. "Look at this!" Poochles exclaimed. "It measures something; look at the drum." I agreed, but wondered what it measured. "But, sir, it means the people who built this city were intelligent, scientific!"

"Well, clearly, Poochles..." I said as we continued to nose around the room. I heard an odd clicking noise and followed it over to a huge bank of computers. I quickly realized it was a Geiger Counter. "Uhh... Poochles? I found a Geiger Counter. And it's all in the 'Danger' zone."

Poochles trotted over to it and peered down. Almost conversationally, he said "Yes, that would explain quite a bit, quite a bit. We've got Radiation Sickness. But... Oh No! Look at this!" He was pointing to another read-out just below the Geiger Counter.

"This is a Ham-Detection Unit! And it's reading zero. We must leave -- leave at once. There might be no ham on this whole planet!" he looked at be a bit wall-eyed and marched towards the door.

I grabbed his arm. "But Poochles, what about Daisy? We've got to find her! And what about your fluid link? Don't you still need Mercury?"

"About that... I have to admit, that was a little sabotage on my part," he said sheepishly.

"I know. I watched you, remember? I asked you why you did that. And you ignored me!"

He again moved towards the door. "So I did. So I did. Well, I'm going back to the BASSAT. You can find Daisy if you like but..." As we crossed through the door, we saw Them.

Four of them glided over to hem us in, their noses twitching. Imagine a pink pepper-pot that someone put bunny ears on, and a little plastic bunny nose. From the top dome, an eyestick stuck out, and two appendage stuck out about half-way up the pot, one a pointy stick and the other a gun. I briefly wondered what the pointy stick was for, but then noticed the bottom half of the things were covered with parti-coloured Easter Eggs.

They looked... oddly festive. And aggressive. Like they were going to foist an Easter Egg hunt on us, whether we wanted it or not.

"Stop!" one of them said. "You-are-our-prisoner," they told us in a matter-of-fact way. Its voice was synthesized, harsh and metallic and irritatingly high-pitched. Its ears glowed with each syllable. "Follow."

This, I thought, was increasingly stupid. I walked towards the door. One of them glided over to me very quickly and poked me with its stick. "Ow!" I said. "That kinds hurt!"

Apparently, they thought this took all the fight out of me, and they shepherded Poochles and me into a bare room they seemed to be using for a cell. Inside, Daisy was lying on the floor.

" 'Lo," she said, not looking up.

The creatures left.

"So here we are again, imprisoned." I said, fingering the place where I was poked. "I do hope this doesn't become a regular thing."

Poochles looked dubious. We sat there for a while, playing 20 Questions and growing sicker. Eventually, one of the things came back and took Poochles out of the cell.

Poochles later told me they dragged him into their pastel yellow headquarters. Muzak version of "Your Easter Bonnet" and "Here Comes Peter Cottontail" endlessly piped in. Four of the creatures interrogated him, asking him if he was a Thrall.

He wasn't. He didn't even know what one was.

"Oh." said the thing. He then launched on a long speech how how he was a Bunlek, and how the Bunleks had been at war with a group of Christmas elves called the Thralls. The war had gone nuclear, and the Bunleks, who originally were Easter-loving bunny-suit furri enthusiasts, built the metal suits they wore for protection and retreated into their city. The Thralls stayed out in the open, no doubt to become hideous mutants. But they had a nifty anti-radiation drug.

"Oh," said the Poochles. "Yeah, they gave us some, I think."

The Bunleks gave him a few menacing pokes with their sharp sticks and told him he had to go get some. He agreed, but pointed out he was too sick to go.

He told me all this back in the cell, as a preface to my own trip back to the BASSAT. The Bunleks were getting antsy; one poked me right in the butt and said "Get-going. Bring-us-the-drug."

So I went. The trip back wasn't that long, so I ran around in circles several times through the woods. I even ran in place for a while, and let some floor technicians hit in the face with some branches. The forest wasn't that large, and it was difficult not to run into the shirtless guy following me.

When I got to the BASSAT, it had just started to rain. When I had grabbed the box of vials from inside the console room, I opened the double doors to a roll of thunder. It wasn't very scary,
but I had noticed almost 24 minutes had elapsed...

Next Week: Escape to Danger

Dreams of Lost New York

I'm coming to the end of another cycle of insomnia: that is, I've spent the past two weeks or so getting by on two or three hours of sleep, so tonight I'm going to swallow three or four sleeping pills and crash. Well, have taken, so if I begin to become incoherent, that's why. And if problems ensue, I'm saying the only reason I did it was because I heard it on Stephen Fry.

If there's anything good that can be dragged out of sleepless nights, it's that the dreams I have are proportionately more vivid. Some people claim to only dream in black and white; not me. I always dream in colour, and insomnia seems to guarantee Technicolor and extra vividness in recollection.

About a week ago, I dreamed I was coming home on the subway, but for some reason, I missed my stop. I was going to get off at the next stop and catch a train in the opposite direction to get back. But for some reason the next stop was Coney Island. Now, since I lived on the D line, my stop was the Ninth Ave. station at 39th Street: Coney Island was another 12 stops away. (To put this into perspective, it was 10 stops to work in Manhattan, and a lot of those were short Manhattan skips apart, like between 50th Street at Rockefeller Center and 53 St at 7th Ave. Brooklyn stops are much further apart.)

And this wasn't the fancy new Stillwell Ave terminus. In my dream, the Coney Island station was on a huge pier: at leats a mile wide and quarter mile across. The pier was made of blond wood and the two tracks (The Stillwell Ave station ends three lines, so there must be tracks in real life. I wouldn't know for sure since I've never been there) that were right in the middle of the pier, leading down into the water. There was also a ferry service back into Manhattan. The sea water was a brilliant turquoise of far warmer beaches.

There were kiosks like arcades and food booths all up and down the pier, and a few rides, like a ferris wheel, and a roller coaster. I was shocked to see the kiosk nearest me was some sort of Dalek game, with them painted garishly all over the stand, and a row of prizes that included pint glasses with daleks stencilled on. I don't actually remember the game you played.

It made me very sad to be there, I remember, and I was grateful to the daleks for making me happy. I decided to leave, and thought about taking the train back. There were two in the station, but they were both N trains, parked and waiting, just like at the other end of the line in Astoria, and they didn't stop near where I wanted to go. I decided to take the ferry instead, even though that went into Manhattan.

The ferry was sort of a sub when I got in, and launched itself under the water, with lots of bubbles floating up to the surface. There were two bubble-shaped window at the front, where two pilots were, and maybe about a dozen other people in the car. The interior was dark brown, more like a helicopter than the ferries or train cars. There were also rows of windows down the sides, and through them, we could see two or three Orcas swimming and playing. I determined that I was going to go to Jim Halliwell's Comic shop on 33th Street, which is across the street from the Empire State Building, and where I used to get some Doctor Who books.


And then I woke up.

I also had another dream about having a rent boy, but I was living in my grandmother's (now vacant) house. I will not go into torrid details of the first part, but later on I was worried because I had spent more time than I thought -- three hours -- and it was more than I could afford. The bill was $379, and I was worrying if I could cover than AND a tip. In the end, I think I could.

I pushed the poor guy into a bathroom because other people were coming in. Family, I think. In the end, he came out and I introduced him as my boyfriend, and he totally went with it. I really remember the guy, though: all tall, dark and curly and more built than I usually like, but not anybody I had ever seen before.

Oh well. The pills are really kicking in now, so I 'm going to scoot.

Where did I pull that title from? I googled it, but it doesn't come up, and I'm pretty sure it's not one of my own terms. Conjures up sort of a sub-par version of Benet's By the Waters of Babylon.

Beat the Qu... Heat. The Heat.

It's hard not to view this place as a backwards hell-hole sometimes. And by this, I mean not this lovely blog, but the place where I currently... abide. Endure? I hesitate to say "live", since that suggests some non-existent complicity in the matter.

It's not there aren't some nice people; there are. Somewhere. I think. I'm frequently reminded of -- and no doubt shall be greatly again in a few weeks -- of Margaret Cho's crack about the South: "It's not the hate, it's the stupidity."

They still beat queers here, you know. And while /obvious/ support of this is on the wane, clearly the undercurrent that's it's okay to do so is clearly alive and well, as this week's news proves. The local "big" city's school system Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools passed, with great controversy, a no-bullying policy.

Why the controversy? It included a clause that listed homosexuality specifically as something protected (along with other things like race and religion).

The local Christian fundamentalists turned out to decry this as an advance of the mythical-yet-deeply-cherished concept of The Homosexual Agenda. I hope, dear reader, you could hear those capital letters. People apparently think that the school merely admitting gays exist is ripping all sexual education out of the hands of parents and is tacit support of a menacing political agenda.

The upshot that can be gathered from this? Apparently, the people who oppose the bill want to put out that either gays don't really exist, and if they do, it's okay to beat them at school.

Fortunately, the anti-bullying program passed through the CMS school board, but the local newscasts all made sure to show various people shaking their fists, vowing to continue fighting for the children's right to beat up people. *That* wouldn't be an approving, subtle little nudge to the viewing audience, at all, would it?

In happier news: Diesel Sweeties is coming up on its 2,000th strip, and is releasing all the strips in torrent collections for free! Yay! As a part of the general celebration, a few of their classic t-shirts are on sale for $10. I love all their stuff, but right now, it's just too pricey. While none of the reduced shirts are my favourites (Herschl the Hook-Up Hare!), I couldn't resist the opportunity to pick one up. Though the "It's fun to use learning for evil" was a contender, I eventually went with the "We Are Not All Jerks" one. It's a mark of my utmost respect that one of the characters in my play wears Red Robot Pixel Socks in the first scene. Not that anyone would notice that, but it's a character point, dammit. (In related news, the fine folks over at Octopus Pie -- well, Meredith Gran to give credit where it's due -- has come out with a Brooklyn Spring shirt I pine for, too.)

Also in happy news, Stephen Fry has started his own podcast. The first one, detailing how he broke his arm, was done under the influence of sleeping pills and was 25 uncut minutes of him complaining. It was better than 99% of, well, every other media, and personal proof (yet again) that there's no pointing in me whining on when there are others so very much better at it.

Show Me Some Skin. Or Don't.

You may know they've started showing Newsnight on BBC America. It isn't the proper, week-nightly one, but a cobble-together of Monday to Thursday's most interesting
or important stories, aired here on Friday nights. So while it's not as comprehensive, it is more Paxman-intensive, so you can see him tear into more people per episode. Which is part of the fun, really, and since everyone falls equally under him, it's much more balanced than 99% of American news. And almost equally more intelligent. Katie Couric *is* a perky little thing, and we all like to watch her over on CBS, but her idea of hard-hitting question does tend to be: "Is it as hard as I think it is to be so busy, Mrs Obama...

Anyway, Madeline Holt, the Culture Correspondent for Newsnight did a story last week I can't imagine getting aired here. It was about gay porn models (I'd love to call them actors, really I would, but thankfully enough reality has set in in the industry that they all are supposed to be called models now. I think that's much better. I mean, these are trained professionals working under uncomfortable circumstances. Calling them actors makes them sound like ought to be "ferrying hamburgers somewhere on the North Circular Road"*...) porn models, as I said, contracting HIV whilst making bareback videos.

Apparently, three videos have been pulled from shops because they feature a scene made by Icreme productions (of which I can find no web presence) and featured in at least one Eurocreme movie. They never said which ones, though, although I was surprised to see to see Bareback Thrill Ride** zoom across the screen at one point. Although I have to point out it was during a film segment which was probably just about the popularity of bareback titles.

Then they chuffed out some PSA with Chi Chi LaRue talking about how much the gay community has gone through and now people are getting AIDS for porn. Don't get me wrong, I agree with him completely in theory. ( I was going to post the ad here, but I just can't bring myself to foist Chi Chi LaRue on potentially innocent victims, gay or straight...)

But it's complicated.

Are people who watch bareback porn complicit somehow in these boys' getting HIV? To a degree, I think they are. They create a market where bareback videos have a demand, certainly, and without that demand the videos wouldn't flourish. And porn producers (sadly) are not always not known for their virtue.

What wasn't touched on at all, really, in the newscast was that a lot of this bareback trend can be traced back to really scummy producers taking advantage about a decade ago of very poor, very desperate boys in post-Communist Bloc (there's a pun for you Eurocreme fans) countries. A lot of the current crop still takes advantage of under-privileged young men from Central and Eastern Europe. Knowing a bit about the history of bareback, the net effect of this newscast's was "OMG, now it's happening to good English boys".

That's not to say there aren't thoroughly decent porn producers and production companies, who take care of their models. The crux of the Newsnight story was that the particular company mentioned wasn't meticulous in keeping up with their models' blood-tests and their laxity in enforcement directly led to the models' HIV status. Presumably -- hopefully -- most companies do keep up being meticulous.

But... just how responsible are these companies, anyway? Don't their models have enough sense not to have unprotected sex? Aren't they responsible for themselves? How can you grow up after 1985 or so and not know the dangers of unprotected sex (and not be from the South)? For me, anyway, it's hard not put some blame on the models themselves.

What really smarted was the one of the boys they got to go on camera. When Holt asked him what he felt about the repercussions of his actions -- and remember, in the UK, one of those repercussions is that the general public is footing his incipient treatment and (not to be coy about) protracted, messy death -- he grinned a self-satisfied grin and said "Dunno". A nation of queers over the age of 23 or so rose up as one with a desire to smack him.

Another point in the articles was "Are people going to do this at home?" And many of the same questions apply. And most of the "how stupid are you to fuck bareback" retorts apply. And all these videos, to be fair, are rife with "This is well dangerous" labels.

To be honest, one of my concerns with this is personal. I've got a bareback video on my PC. I watch it. Am I indirectly supporting this side of the industry? I'm not actively supporting it: my choice for a video has never yet been determined by whether or not condoms are used. It's virtually immaterial to me. But I am looking at the videos, so I am influencing things. In the end, I probably won't watch any more bareback films to ease my own conscience. But questions about how responsible each boy is for himself will still be around.

But it's not like I'm going to fuck bareback, but then I'm not really given much option, either.

*Quote taken from Robert Holmes, beloved Doctor Who writer, from one of Peter Haining's virtually identical books on the series... probably the one in The Doctor Who Files and probably the article about his wife perforating an ulcer in Germany.

**I really hope my conscience won't stop from watching this hot -- hott -- movie.

First, a few questions:

1) Am I the only one who had to look up what an Oxford Comma was?

2) Who are you people? I have a few repeat customers, as it were, of whom I have little knowledge. For instance, person from Louth, who are you? Person from Tempe, AZ, who are you? The people streaming in from various Middle Eastern places to look at (presumably) soft-core boy-kissing because their web-nannies ward them off from real porn -- this I understand. People looking for Furri porn -- this I *don't*understand, but I'm too lazy to track down one errant image that summons ye as hogs to slaughter-blood. Regular hits from other places (including Ile-de-France) confuse me. Identify yourself. Cookies may ensue. Actually, I fear that you are someone I know and haven't recognized moves me, so sing out... Feel free to use the nifty Guest Map.

Next, an observation:

I saw a coyote the other day. At least, I'm reasonably certain it was. My first though was that it was a wolf -- having spent more than my fair share driving through the swampy woods of NE North Carolina, I have seen Red Wolves -- typically dead on the side of the road, to be fair -- and I have seen Gray Wolves, and this was not a wolf. Nor was it a dog.*

Next, an exultation:

I got a random check from my (ex-) health insurance company. I used it to get a DVD set and book I've wanted for months. The local Barnes and Noble (and before you give me crap, it's the only bookstore with 30 miles. Yes, the only one. ) has a copy of Stephen Frye's The Liar. Judging from its shelfware, it's roughly contemporary from its 1992 publishing date, and certainly no-one else in these parts would read it. And it is lovely. It's literally hard to put down: erudite, cheeky and quite queer. The first part is -- deliberately, I'm sure -- like a cock-eyes Another Country, so clearly I'm enamored of it. I burn night-light praising it now rather than reading it.
The DVD set was It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia -- a returned-to-the-store copy and consequently cheap, but I've yet to find any problems with it.

Progress of the Rake?

You're the Tortured Intellectual!
Take What sort of Hipster are you? today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

You're sensitive, you're emotional, and you wonder why everyone else in the world exists on a different plane. You cannot eat, breathe, or sleep without analyzing each action to death. You're usually sombre, depressed, lethargic, but you can be nearly glad from time to time. You wear whatever you can find on your cluttered bedroom floor. You carry books, notepads, reading glasses with you wherever you go. You have friends, but only a few who truly get where you're coming from. You frequent coffee shops, libraries, and the less crowded bars. You're obsessed with past people, past ideas, past lives. You wish you could die and be reborn as Jack Kerouac.

A) I'm not a hipster, but I'd sure write over-wrought prose to get between that model's pages.

B) Except for the Kerouac thing, it's pretty right-on. Compare this to a few years ago.

I haven't got a clever name for this one

I'm not sure exactly what's up with the spate of youtube videos lately, other than it's nice to have some video content to back up whatever I'm on about. This'll be the last for a while, hopefully.

You may notice I hardly ever talk about my personal life right now. Quite frankly, it's not entertaining in the deeply venial, mostly-comic style I usually evoke. And one of the... well, not benefits, really but... results... of thinking about and writing about tragedy as a genre is the sure knowledge that however pathetic your personal life is, the cards are stacked against you that it will ever rise to the level of tragedy. And if perchance does, the US will never appreciate it.

Which is just as well -- it' a bit harsh, but it keeps you wallowing too deeply in self-fear and self-pity. (Heh heh. *That* is a little criticism joke for you!)

But in contradiction to what I just said -- and without going into particular detail -- the past few weeks have been the worst of a bad time. Insomnia doesn't help. I've never really suffered from it before, but over the past months, I've developed a healthy respect for it. I'm sure it's stress-related, but I haven't gotten more than 3 or 4 hours a night for ages. Generally, after a week or two of listening all night to trains whistles from miles away*, I get desperate enough to swallow a few sleeping pills, and that's where I am right now. It this post disappears tomorrow, you'll know that it didn't pass the right-mind test. Heh.

Anyway, the point of the post is this: music helps the soul. There's nothing better than hearing a song someone else sings that describes the way you feel. The above song is mine right now. And yes, purists, I know it's his uncle who wrote the song, but I like Rufus' version better. I like that extra little bit of frisson his sexuality gives it, and I just think he's lived it better. It's one of the few songs he sings that I can forget how... slimy he is personally (yes, I have met him so I can say that with some level of authority) and just for once go with the song. Since I always like something to look at while I watch videos -- closed captions and subtitles, how I love thee -- below are the lyrics.

One Man Guy
Rufus Wainwright
from his album Poses (Dreamworks, 2001)

People will know when they see this show
The kind of a guy I am
They'll recognize just what I stand for and what I just can't stand
They'll perceive what I believe in
And what I know is true
And they'll recognize I'm a one man guy
Always was through and through

People meditate
Hey that's just great
Trying to find the inner you
People depend on family and friends
And other folks to pull them through

I don't know why I'm a one man guy
Or why I'm a one man show
But these three cubic feet of bone and blood and meat are all I love and know

'Cause I'm a one man guy in the morning
Same in the afternoon
One man guy when the sun goes down
I whistle me a one man tune

One man guy a one man guy
Only kind of guy to be
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy is me

I'm gonna bathe and shave
And dress myself and eat solo every night
Unplug the phone, sleep alone
Stay way out of sight
Sure it's kind of lonely
Yeah it's sort of sick
Being your own one and only
Is a dirty selfish trick

'Cause I'm a one man guy in the morning
Same in the afternoon
One man guy when the sun goes down
I whistle me a one man tune
One man guy a one man guy
Only kind of guy to be
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy
I'm a one man guy is me

*Yes, it is very "Blues in the Night". The nearest trains tacks are 4 or 5 miles away, but the whistles come in clear and low. Oddly, it's much more depressing a sound that the ships' horns from Upper New York Harbour I could hear in Brooklyn.

Survey Confirms...

...What we all knew anyway. Go get a haircut, Justin Long. Or a blowjob. One or the other.

I Feel Bad...

that no-one told the producers of Never Back Down that gay porn typically has a crappy techno soundtrack.

The Kid's All Right

The problem of youth has one other sort-of-tangential problem for me: class.

My first thought is to make the Edward figure (Daniel, from here on out) to be the son and heir of a CEO of a big company who dies early on in the play, or even before it begins. But that gets rid of lots -- lots -- of the weighty material of Marlowe's work. Actually, the more I think of it this way, the less I like it. I think Daniel will have to be a young king. I mean, there /is/dramatic precedent for that (cough cough Henry IV 1, Henry IV 2, Henry V cough cough). And it does give a certain frisson in the relationship between Daniel and some of his nobles: in Marlowe's version, I think there's a certain petulance and conception of Edward's inexperience by the nobles that's difficult to respect in a man the age of the historical Edward II, but completely in keeping with someone 18 or so.

After all, it has been argued that this kind of generational conflict is a big theme in the work (I think the editors of the New Mermaids version [the 2nd edition] of the play bring that up), and I kind of like the idea of the older generation of rebels (Mortimer Senior, Warwick et al.) being infirm in some way: morbidly obese, with an oxygen tank, in a wheelchair... Remember, the characters aren't on an even playing field, so of course these lot get the short end of the stick.

Which leaves the problem of the Gaveston-character's age (Michael, from here on out). Gaveston is a well-written character in Marlowe, so there are several ways he can be played by an intelligent actor. Very often, he gets played as an opportunistic schemer who takes advantage of Edward (Derek Jarman's Edward II film shows this to a degree); this usually shows Gaveston as older and wiser than Edward. There are also versions (like Brecht's play) that show him as the object of Edward's unreasoning passion, where he often is shown to be younger than Edward.

I think, though, there are problems with both interpretations. Each version gets played by reducing the agency of the opposite lover: the more manipulative Gaveston, the less canny Edward and vice versa. I think the best path is to go in between. There's a great scene in Brecht's version where Gaveston runs away from a battle that really doesn't work in his vision of the relationship. It's a scene that's touching on its own, but doesn't ring true for that mise-en-scene. (My thought is that it's some unadulterated Lion Feuchtwanger, but I've got nothing at all to back that up.)

All in all, I think Michael should be a little older than Daniel; the real Gaveston met Edward when Edward I was impressed with Gaveston's character and recommended him to Edward II as a companion. Being a little older keeps that idea going, but also helps play up the historical idea that Edward I later repented himself when Gaveston turned out to be a bad influence. And I think bad influences are sexy.

The Problems of the Youth

I believe (at times, anyway) very strongly in the idea of "give the people what they want". In the past few hours, I've had three people wend the Jaylemurph way under the Google Search "hunter brown gay jeopardy", which is comforting. It's not just me who thinks it, then.

Sadly, he will not be going on to the Finals round. And to be fair, he was legitimately beaten in competition, although I do invite humorous "spear carrier" comments. [Alas, he is not technically in my dating pool* since he only measure up to 5'11"...]

Anyway, I feel like I've been unduly beating around the Edward II bush the past few days. God -- how many mixed metaphors is that? Anyway: topic the first -- the central conceit of the work.

It's a version of Marlowe's work as envisioned by a 17 year old. A smart one, and a gay one, obviously, and one of the Kids. Right now, my vision is that he's a fairly regular high school student who projects himself and the people around him at school into the world of the play. He becomes Edward, his crush becomes Gaveston, and so forth. Also currently (and I admit this might change), I'm really into the idea that as the play progresses, it becomes more and more Marlowe's play and less and less the vision of the reader. The idea being that early on, you can have scenes that show Edward and Gaveston meeting and falling for each other, which are completely absent in Marlowe but end up in roughly the same place. I'm not going to be coy about the ending; it will be different. Sort of.

I think that almost the same sequence of events can happen, even with Edward being murdered, but with it not being about giving up dignity and pride. I think, for instance, that Edward can give up his crown without giving up his sense of self, or his sense of desire. (See what I will later say for my idea of the last scene.) But I get ahead of myself.

For me, this immediately brings up two problems. The first one seems to me the lesser of the two. If it's handled intelligently, I can't help but feel, it will ultimately be a positive point rather than a liability. It's age. The age of the characters.

There is something adolescent in the writings of Marlowe. I don't see this as a fault, but it seems hard to me to describe it as anything else. Read his plays: in the cockiness of his heroes (Tamburlaine, Faustus, Edward) is something undeniably so. I have two theories about this.

Theory One, part one: A big part of me thinks that Marlowe never reaches an emotional level of maturity. Maybe because he was never able to. And yes, I'm well-aware of the dangers of reading into the author the passions of his works. But I don't think that someone in his period so strongly identifying with same-sex desire could come to an adult understanding of emotional or sexual maturity -- he never even had the opportunity (or so it seems) to be in a deeply committed, long-term relationship. If that's the case, it does seem unlikely he produce a fictional version of one. What he can -- and does often and well -- is convey the fleeting, conflicting passions of an infatuation: the pursued and the pursuer, the frustrated and the victor.

And to his credit, he doesn't ever really supply the goods of a purely heterosexual relationship. As far as I know (and I'd love to hear a dissenting view) the closest he gets is Hero and Leander -- and the guy Leander is practically raped by Poseidon while swimming.

Theory One, part two: the basic element of his dramaturgy doesn't support this. Marlowe's plays are, in some sense, always about people who get what they want and then suffer. Compare this to Shakespeare's characters, who dither about getting what they want (look at Hamlet). This idea of going after and getting what you want without considering the consequences strikes me as adolescent in a way Shakespeare never is.

*Let us not forget Laura's idea of a Hallowe'en costume: a post note above my head that says you must be "6' 0" to ride this ride".

Hold onto your Package, Hugh

It seems the news is allowing me an unprecedented level of topicality.

What's likely to be the body of Sir Hugh Despenser the Younger -- better known to Edward II fans as Spenser Junior-- has been identified.

It seems like the body is an appropriate age; the carbon dating roughly confirms its period; and it was found on what was family property at the time. The body also bears evidence of having been drawn and quartered. The title for this post comes from this: part of the elaborate process of drawing and quartering involved castration and burning of the genitals in front of the victim.

Now, I would've written more, but I got distracted by being the one to update Wikipedia's article on Despenser with this information. (To answer the question, just this update and the first version of the article on Ingram Frizer, Marlowe's murderer.)

Dogs, Cats and NPR

So it probably comes as no surprise I listen to NPR. It might be marginally more interesting that my current little slice of heaven has it's own NPR station. (Actually it doesn't, really. There is a transmitter that repeats the signal from the Charlotte NPR affiliate, WFAE.) I'm sure I'm one of literally dozens of people in the area who listen in.

For instance, two weeks ago, they re-broadcast my favorite ever This American Life story, which includes the story of Roger Dowds on the Irish version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? It's the best piece of radio, ever. This is a picture of him from the gameshow. There's another picture of him floating around teh internets that I'm not convinced is really him, for my own vain reasons.

Yesterday, however, I caught something new. It was a story on Weekend America about Abraham Lincoln as a fag. Not that that of itself was that odd, but the slant the story, and the place it ended up was very much like my own current research. Which was odd for me; it's not like I think my topic is particularly abstruse or irrelevant, it's just that it doesn't get a lot of popular exposure. And okay, it /is/ NPR, but still...

Basically, it had two historians on who said: "He couldn't have been a homosexual because that kind of sexual identity hadn't been created yet." Which is true; the word 'homosexual' wasn't coined until 1869, so it could never have been chosen my Lincoln to describe himself, even if he was frequently sharing beds and swapping night-attire with his umm, "bodyguard."

It briefly touched on gender stereotypes and how they change, as well, even if it didn't use the terms. They did point out that it wasn't that odd for men to exchange fairly intimate compliments. They even went so far as to point out how the first decades of the 20th Century changed this.

What they didn't really expand on was the sort of pre-1869 default setting for what we would call "same-sex attraction" got lumped in the category "sodomy" along with (depending on exactly where and when, but generally) sorcery, treason, marital infidelity and blasphemy. The real horror of sodomy, since it wasn't a particular way of defining one's self, was that it could happen to anybody. (Cue the ominous chords...)

Another part of that is that the whole modern conception of sexuality as a polarity between strictly homo- or strictly heterosexual (with, of course, the complete amelioration of one at the expense of complete peiorization of the other) is a fabrication. People's desire generally is on a continuum that intersects with a contemporary society's mores.

Anyway, these generally are the assumptions that underpin what is called the New Historicism, and the starting point for my thesis on Marlowe. And, consequently, my writing project on Edward II. If you anything about Marlowe, then you know he fits poorly at best in the modern conception of either "straight" or "gay" and just as poorly into Elizabethan attitudes towards sex. Choosing to understand sex and desire as a meeting point personal identity and socio-political pressure (I hope. I really hope.) offers a new way of evaluating his works.

...Also, I feel like pointing out that I found out while listening to the above story that there is a basset hound who lives on the way to the local BBQ shack. He lives about two or three blocks from the house where I grew up, and it was all I could do not to pull over and pet him.

For some reason, he reminds me (maybe in the set of emotions he rises up in me) of my first friend in New York, Sniffle-Kitty.

The Dead Hamlet

But back in the control console, the needle was twitching on the ham detector. It slowly swung down into the lower readings until it came to rest at "0". A warning light began to flash on and off, but there was no one left to notice...

Jaylemurph and basset hound Sebastian K. Poochles star in an all-new adventure in space and time this Saturday at 5.15 here on BBC-TV's new serial, "Poochles Poo".

We re-emerged in the console room a short time later. I was feeling much more prepared in a nice cardigan and some sensible shoes, and the Poochles had replaced his lost Astrakhan hat with a straw panama. Completely ignoring the safety monitors, we walked out the doors...

And I blinked. "Is it just me, Poochles, or has it gone all over-exposed?" I asked. "It is a bit bas-relief," he said. To make sure, we both gave our heads a good shake. That seemed to clear things up.

Looking around, we were in a kind of still, creepy wood. Poochles already had his nose to the ground, sniffing. "Look at the soil," he said, letting a palmful of it run through his paws. "It's all burned into ash and sand. The heat must have been indescribable!"

I realized there was a fairly stiff breeze blowing but none of the branches were moving. I touched one. "Hunh. It's like stone," I said "Very brittle stone." But Poochles was ignoring me. He'd found a little pink flower. "It's kept almost all its colour," he said.

I wasn't listening. I saw what could only be called A Thing. As I backed up, I ran into his flower. "Sir!" he said indignantly. But he soon saw The Thing and trotted over to it. "It's A Thing," he said, helpfully.

I waved my hand at it in the fiercest way I knew. It didn't move, so I assumed it was as dead as everything else around. "It's stone," I said. Poochles gave me a withering look. "No, I think it's metal. It's a metal ham." He was right -- it certainly looked like a ham. Poochles gave it an exploratory chomp. A little piece of his tooth sheared off. "Not juicy," he said.

"Oh my god, Poochles, are you okay?" I asked, concerned. "It's nothing, sir, nothing. I can only imagine it's held together by some magne...." he kept rattling on, but when I saw his was okay, I wandered away, bored. I went over to the edge of the jungle, about 6 and a half feet away.

"Look at that, Poochles! A city!" Sure enough, a few miles away from us, a city bloomed up from the foothills of a mountain range. It looked like nothing as much as a stacks and stacks of washing-up liquid bottles with some dry ice fog floating over it. When we looked again, it was clearly different: much more complex and defined.

Poochles frowned. "Too bad it's 9.56," he said. "All the lights go off in four minutes. We'll have to come back tomorrow. Let's go back to the BASSAT and rest."

On the way back, I saw another of the flowers Poochles had found. I stopped to pick it up as Poochles nosed ahead through the forest, but as I was picking the flower, I felt a hand discretely touch my shoulder and heard a plummy voice cough and say "Pardon me, sir, but..." Naturally, I panicked and ran screaming all the way back into the BASSAT.

The Poochles looked at me funny but didn't say anything.

As we walked through the Ship's double doors, Poochles remembered it had been days since I had eaten. "You probably need some foods. Besides, they've built some nifty sets for the next serial: let's go see them." We went through a pair of roundel-ed double doors at the back of the console room I was sure hadn't been there before. Behind them was what could only be called a big, clunky Space-Age machine.

"What would you like to eat, then?" Poochles asked. I thought about it briefly and said "A chopped barbeque sandwich would be nice, and some french fries." He looked at me dumbly. "An aspirin, then? I've got one hell of a headache all of a sudden." Without missing a beat, Poochles looked at me and said "Ham and Eggs it is then, sir." He turned a dial or two and cranked a lever. What looked like a aged Mars Bar was excreted. "Eat up, eat up!" he said. I took a nibble. It was the best-tasting tuna casserole I ever tasted. We finished nibbling our bars, only to leave the mess behind us as Poochles marched back into the console room.

"Well, you'll be wanting to get back to 1960s London, I imagine," he said, forgetting I didn't actually come from there. I didn't say anything, as he had a TV and VCR in the ship. I thought I might try to record an episode of TV or two, figuring the BBC would have wiped it by my time. Who wouldn't want a lost episode of Doomwatch, I thought?

As he spoke, though, a thick blanket of smoke filled the room.

"Do you think I didn't see you mess with that control?" I said. "You yanked it right out!" The Poochles ignored me, holding up the little component and squinting at it. "This fluid link is empty. We need to fill it up before we can take off again. We can only find the necessary Mercury in the city we saw!"

"If you wanted to go there, why not just say so? It seems a bit more interesting than pre-Swinging London," I said.

"Yes, we'll just have to risk it. We'll just have to risk it," he said as he operated the door controls and walked out.

A few hours later found us at the edge of the City. I was sweating profusely and he was panting to beat the band. "It's no good," he said. "I'll have to rest."

"I need to use the Little Time Traveler's Room," I said. "I'll be back here in 10 minutes." It was a lie, of course. I had to heave, big time. I opened one of the little electronic doors and went through into the city.

I wondered around the city for some time. I noticed the doors were quite small and rounded, not shaped for a human. After a while, I began to realized I was being guided. Doors were sealing off. Eventually I was bundled into a room that converted into a lift. I plummeted several stories. When the door opened, I went through, heavy with foreboding.

I knew I was being watched. I turned around. There, in front of me, coming towards me was... was...

I could only scream...

Next Week: The Surviving Things.

On another note...

Did anyone see tonight's episode of Jeopardy! ? It's Teen Tournament time there, which is always good for a wheeze. Last year, there was the so-pathetic-it-was-cute (or maybe vice versa) crush the adorable gay boy had the other, smug gay boy. Seriously, he did everything but write "Pleeeeeze let me blow you"* for a Final Jeopardy question. Which is funny, because this year in college, I'm sure he hasn't got any need to beg anybody for sex.

Well, this year's resident boi, Hunter Brown, promises to be just as amusing, but not quite as pitiable. He and the other contestant got pretty well trounced in the first round; he was in third place, so got to go first in Double Jeopardy. His category of choice? "Broadway". He pretty much ran through the category.

What really sold it was the look of mixed grim determination to fight mixed with the look of slightly-smug "Queer Powers: Activate" pride. He didn't win today's match -- rather impressively, he risked everything on the Final Jeopardy question, got it right, but lost by $2 -- but I'm sure he earned enough to make the Wild Card spot.

*I think when he lost one of the final matches, he even went through a shoe-staring, googly-eyed "I'm glad I lost to such a great player" speech. It was heart-rending it was so sad.

The Roses of Heliogabalus or, The Un-Valentine

Pretty isn't it? You can see the title above, it an 1888 canvas by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. Why mention it? I think it's the influence for Act II (of three maybe?) for the Edward project I'm doing.

I've been reading (an abridged, but still 1,000+ page edition of) Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It's one of a handful of books that I've ever read that lives up to its reputationL it's immensely well-informed but still highly readable. It's almost an obligation for anyone seriously interested in history -- and especially for those interested in writing about history -- to read.

But old Edward is a bit of a prude. Any non-standard sexual activity by a man (and hoo boy, do those Romani get up to it) gets labeled "effeminacy" and glossed over. Which is disappointing since that's part of while people read about the fall of Rome. Never fear, Suetonius is always glad to help out with a dirty secret or two and there are plenty of other fine Roman historians to fill the gaps.

And Elagabalus (for some reason often erroneously called Heliogabalus) was one of the interesting ones. Even reading Gibbon's version was enough for me to start sniffing around history to find out more. He came from a royal family of Rome (no point in going into detail here since these things get fuzzy for the Romans), and was at an early age a priest of the Syrian sun god Elagabalus. When he became emperor, he adopted the name as his title. And started the fun:

"When Hierocles, a charioteer in the arena, was thrown in front of the emperor's box, his blond hair spilling out from under his helmet, Elagabalus immediately had the youth escorted to the palace, where he was found to be even more captivating. Calling him "husband" and contriving to be caught in adulterous trysts, Elagabalus proudly displayed the black eyes he insisted on receiving. But there was to be a rival. Frequenting the wharves and public baths, agents sought out others who might please the emperor, especially those who were well-endowed. Another handsome athlete, Zoticus, was discovered who surpassed all others in the size of his membrum virile. Hastened to Rome, where he immediately was made court chamberlain, he greeted Elagabulus with the usual salutation "My Lord Emperor, Hail," only to be admonished, "Call me not Lord, for I am a Lady." That night, Elagabalus was to be disappointed, when Zoticus could not perform as expected. Hierocles, fearful that he would fall out of favor, had the cup bearers drug the wine and Zoticus, humiliated and deprived of his honors, was exiled from court."

This is from Cassio Dio, quoted on this excellent site.

The picture above is a rendering of this story from of his life:

"He [Elagabalus] loaded his parasites with violets and other flowers in a banqueting room with a reversable ceiling, in such a way that some of them expired when they could not crawl out to the surface."

Scriptores Historiae Augustae: Antoninus Heliogabalus (XXI.5)

Anyway, the link between the painting and Edward is this: the scene where the Edward-character and Gaveston-character first interact in a meaningful way after Gaveston's return from his (first) exile is in a scene set in a dance club, to the song "Michael". As the two dance* on the floor, everyone else's dances become equally sexy and roses, violets and other prettily-smelling flowers fall from the ceiling.While the other boys begin what is essentially an orgy (tho' their decorum be covered by petals), Edward and Gaveston leave to fuck alone.

Right now, I think the Gaveston-character will be called Michael -- for an obvious reason --and the Edward-character Daniel. I think that's enough for right now. Attentive readers can already see a few sticking points --"How old are these characters?" is one. The implied connection I've made between Elagabalus and one of the two characters (clearly Daniel as Edward) brings up the question of class -- which is a huge point in the original.

My next entry will detail the central metaphor I'm using for the work. I think once that has been laid out properly, I can return to the question I raised this time. I just wanted to start with this image, for its topicality, and because it's one of two relatively-thought scenes. (The other is Edward's death scene , with "40' " as the soundtrack.**

*Yes, all right, that's Shakespeare, not Marlowe.

**Do forgive the line spacing changes half way through the post. I meddled with Blogger for 20 minutes or so to fix it. Fortunately, it's somewhat masked since it only appears after the block quote: surely no accident, stupid cheap Blogger text editor!

"Fifteen pounds of fuck-puppy in a 10-pound bag"

So how, one may ask, do you fill your lonely hours of late, Jay? Well, despite spending a big hunk of each day writing a dusty thesis, I write. The only negative thing I could say about being in New York was that I didn't write as much as I should. Even that's not totally fair, as I was writing for school a great deal, but as much inspiration as there was to be had in the big city, I can't help but feel now I wasted a lot.


However, I got a big breath of inspiration not too long ago, and (touch wood) it seems to be lasting and prospering. Not all moody Indie music lends itself to working out, but not too long ago I started listening to Franz Ferdinand's first album at the gym. I had sort of given up on them as far too mainstream, but coming back to them and giving them a good listen, I clearly need to go back and tell myself to get over myself.

Time was, I thought the sun shined out of their shapely and seemingly available bums:


"Artist: Franz Ferdinand Album: Darts of Pleasure EP
Label: Domino Records Rating: 5 out of 5 *s


Oh. Yeah. Boys.
Being the Boy With His Thumb To The Pulse Of The Scottish Scene (TM ;0) I had heard rumors of the band Franz Ferdinand: wonderful, extatic, nigh-swooning things. And they were all right.
Franz Ferdinand is exactly what the whole lo-fi garage thing tries and fails miserably to be (Suck it up: The White Stripes, Jett, The Raveneonettes, et al. blow): fun, dirty and original.
What does it sound like? The above bands with a spark, with touches of Bowie, Steppenwolf and a little added Funk. On top is some sharp but subtle political edge (track three is about the gentrification of their hometown, Glasgow).
What separates these guys from their Big Label Clones is probably not surprising to any Kid around: they may be as hip or self aware as, say Jett, but they don't take themselves so damn seriously. They have fun. They're irony-light, yo. Play it now. "

[This, of course, was from the defunct Jaylemurph Reviews. I've been reading a few reviews there lately, after having, for soon-forthcoming reasons, wanting to find out more about the band. The material stands up pretty well, and the style pretty well matches up with the subject. It makes me smile]

Clearly, I like what I'm hearing there, and do again. And it's nice to have an excuse to spend some time listening to their work since that and their first full album came out. And it's good. The song "Michael"...

...struck a chord. The sort of louche pan-sexuality the band and their music exudes resonates as a concrete musical example of the theoretical, critical dullness I've been writing about for my thesis. This article, by Rob Sheffield and from the Village Voice, does a pretty good description of it, and is also really good a putting a finger on their musical influences. This entry's title comes from the article.

But of course the band does a much better job themselves:



Seriously, don't you want to grab one (or potentially, a few) of those boys from IndieBoyz?*

But obviously, gentle reader, cheap titillation aside, I'm sure you're champing at the bit to see where I'm going with this and my non-academic writing. Okay.

I'm writing a musical adaptation of Marlowe's Edward II using the music of Franz Ferdinand.

I still think it's a brilliant idea. Anyway, I've got the feeling this will be a profitable place for me to come to hammer out the details: I've got specific ideas for individual songs and how to use them, a general idea of what I'm going to change, and why, a general concept for plot, and -- best of all, if not the most useful -- as specific concept to build all these up on.

But I can get into those later. A lot of them are relatively complex dramaturgical issues that need more time and energy than I'm willing to expend this second.

One thing that is sort of tangentially exciting is that my good (and drop-dead gorgeous) friend** Jacob, who's finishing up his DFA at Yale, was the dramaturg for a production of Edward recently. Ish. I know I can bounce ideas of him, since we've worked together before, and I have the greatest respect for his knowledge and experience. His expertise is on modern theatre, but he has a solid understanding of the Elizabethans. And that's not praise I throw around a lot.

*Perhaps not completely incidentally, Eurocreme (well, technically their sub-studio IndieBoyz) has released Indie Boyz 2. The original is better (what sequel is ever as good? And no, don't say The Godfather...) but it's still hotter than 99.9% of the rest of the porn in the world. If this show ever gets on its feet, I'm totally giving small parts to the boys in these movies. It's only fair.

** Uhh... Maybe I shouldn't have said that, but I'm reasonably certain that a) he's never going to read this site, b) he knows I think that anyway, c) it's not at all mean and d) it's as true as anything I've ever said, if not more so.

Now Let Us Praise Famous Queers

For one reason and another, I haven't been listening to Dan Savage's Savage Lovecast podcast for the past several weeks, so as I was pottering around cleaning today, I listened to a few in a row.

Amusingly, in episode 66 (for 22 January) he bitches about Alexander Wolfe's hand-wringing complaint that because dull computer geek podcasts aren't the most popular ones, that podcasting is dead. And then Dan mispronounces Leo Laporte's name. Heh heh.
(If you don't know, Leo is in the contending for the dullest person on Earth, attended by a clique of poorly-washed, faux-hacker faithful who mistake technology for means of social interaction.)


Alarmingly, in episode 64, I'm reasonably certain it's my old friend Paulie from Brooklyn that's calling in, describing his girlfriend with a grammar fetish. And lying about it. Paulie's the guy who managed to sleep through shifts as a Renaissance soldier ("He had the night watch...") and who, after getting profoundly drunk, drew a "Mister Paulie's Stomach" smilie-face in indelible ink
and used him to talk for him for several hours. He's fascinating for being a drifter with whom you randomly run into in far-flung places: last time I heard from him, he was a bar manager in Asheville (giving Laura Llew completely the wrong impression of my ability to pull); before that, he was studying music in Poughkeepsie; before that, he was fleeing a hurricane in Raleigh (and no, that doesn't make any sense to me, either). Calling in to Dan Savage's show while high is oddly in keeping for him.

Here's an open Question...

Can you tell me why English infinitives have "to" in front of them?

I've never met anyone, anywhere who knew. It isn't inherent in the language -- Old English doesn't do it. As far as I can figure, it confers some idea of futurity, rather like the "to" in tomorrow or tonight. And the original form of those words often appeared as to-morrow and to-night as if the *to- was some sort of archaic enclitic, but I'm not aware of that form appearing anywhere else. Clearly, its function is purely grammatical, as that form of "to" carries none of the locative or dative functioning the preposition to has.

The Cave of Hams...

Or No Forest of Fear
Or The Fire-Basset

I woke up a few minutes later, feeling distinctly hung-over and confused. Then I remembered. I was aboard the Poochles' mysterious BASSAT, and he had kid-napped me away from my home. When I tried to escape, he had electrified the door switch on the control console and I had shocked myself trying to escape.

I remained fairly confident I had gone (at least temporarily) insane.

When I looked up from the chair I had collapsed into, the Poochles was hovering around the controls. Apparently, he had de-electrified them. "Hmmm now. That's odd. That's very odd. This yearometer seems reads '0'. It must be broken," he said, mostly to himself.

"So you think we've traveled, do you, Doctor Poochles?" I asked disdainfully.

"Poochles who?" he muttered, not looking up from the controls. Well, I thought, there goes a perfectly good title.

Aloud, I said with some disdain "I said, you think we've gone somewhere?"

This was enough to make him trot over. He looked me right in the eyes and said "I see. I know. You don't want to believe. But if you could taste an alien ham, and hear the cry of strange birds, and watch them wheel in another sky, would that satisfy you?"

"Yes," I said.

He went back to the controls and chekced a few read-outs. "Gravity, normal. Air, breathable. Radiation, nil. Let's see this new world, sir." He gathered up a few odds and ends and operated the door controls. They swung open to reveal a bleak landscape.

A few hundred yards away, a forest began, but all the trees were bare. There didn't seem to be a lot of movement within them. Closer to us, it was all sandy scrubland, with a few dried-up bushes and brown clumps of grass. It was dry, almost arid, and cold. It didn't look like an alien world. In fact, it looked suspiciously like a disused quarry. Needless to say, despite Poochles' poetic turn of phrase, there were no birds wheeling about.

Just then, there was a rustle from the trees. A figure was running towards us, dressed in furs that looked a bit tatty. It was a tall, leggy blonde with suspiciously long eyelashes and a full set of teeth. She was screeching and flapping her arms a bit. As she passed us, a flea landed on my arm. She kept going, and was soon out of sight.

"So... that was a cave woman, then?" I asked Poochles. He narrowed his eyes at me. "Clearly. And it suggests we've arrived at about 100,000 BCE. Now I had to leave your time in a hurry, without properly setting the controls. I'm going to sit, alone, here and take some measurements and make some calculations. With those, I'll be able to restore the proper directional setting back in the Ship. Now you go somewhere else. I'll be perfectly undefende... vulner... happy."

I left him as he settled down, cross-legged, and was lighting a big meerschaum pipe. I suddenly found one of the scrubby bushes immensely fascinating, and bent down to study it with my back turned to the Poochles.

After a few moments, I heard Poochles' ringing bite-bark. It sounds a bit like "Bwar-rar-rar-rowrf." My first reaction was an immediate "Oh, /that's/ what it sounds like when it's not me getting maimed. " I automatically rubbed my top lip. "Gee, it sounds awful."

Then the penny dropped. Poochles, I thought, he's alone, and been attacked!

I ran over to where he had been. His notebook had leaves strewn all over, and his pipe was smashed. His little Astrakhan hat was lying abandoned on the ground. Even the portable Geiger counter he had was smashed into ruination. Worst of all, there was a path of blood trailing away into the dark woods.

I stood for a minutes considering my options. I was no match for a vermin-infested cave man, let alone a tribe of them. Besides, who knew, I might get tangled up in a mind-numbingly dull primitive war of religion and politics.

But at the very moment, Poochles came walking out of the woods, tail wagging. And not oozing blood.

"Poochles," I said, "What's going on?" I suddenly felt like I might be saying that a lot more often from now on.

He was pretty nonchalant. "The gentleman needed some fire. He was hanging around earlier and saw me light my pipe. He tried to steal my matches, but I gave his ankle a savage nip. When he sat down to clean it, we had a little conversation. Turns out he's trying to become chief of the Tribe of Ham, but they've lost the secret to making fire. So I gave him a package of my nifty ever-lasting matches, and told him to teach the whole tribe how to use them. Problem solved." He looked pleased with himself. "Saved a lot of running around for us both, I bet."

I was a little put out. "Yeah, but what about all the character development, and metaphorical parables about nuclear weapons? And should you be meddling with history like that? "

He patted my head in a very irritating manner. "Nuclear weapons parable? You ain't seen nothin' yet, sir." He walked nimbly back to the BASSAT. "Shall we go? I was thinking of going somewhere Beyond the Sun."

I followed him in. He was already working his magic on the controls. Within a few moments, the central column on the control console stopped its rhythmic rise and fall. He told me to check the environmental read-outs. "Oxygen, okay. Gravity, normal." There was one he hadn't mentioned earlier next. "Ham, normal."

"Very good, very good!" he said. "Let's go get some food and a change of clothes." I agreed: " I could do with some knit-wear, you know. Maybe a nice cardie. And some sensible shoes." I followed him out of the console room.

But back on the control console, the needle was twitching on the ham detector. It slowly swung down into the lower readings until it came to rest at "0". I warning light began to flash on and off, but there was no one left to notice...

Next Week:
The Dead Hamlet