[we're the same strange animal]

I aten't dead.

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:05:39 GMT

But just barely. You know how everything invariably comes together all at one time, rather than spreading itself out into convenient bite-sized chunks? Yeah.

kleenexwoman and I went and saw Crispin Glover's new-ish movie, It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine!, on Saturday at Oberlin. She came and picked me up, because I don't really trust my car over long distances and also it's not very pleasant to ride in because it leaks when it rains. We saw an attractive blond daddy with glasses at the rest stop on our way up. (That's not important at all, he was just cute.)

So Crispin's thing was playing at Oberlin College, which is a private school that is both snooty and incredibly liberal. (No offense meant to Oberlin, as what I saw of it was very nice, but I go to Kent State and so it was a bit of a culture shock.) What we saw of it was basically white liberal guilt personified, made flesh, bone, and science building, and it was sort of amazing. I was so impressed that I snagged a couple of copies of the student paper because it was hilarious (and gave one copy to hortonhearsawho because, in her words, they are "her people!")--and, of course, when talking about Crispin's event, it called him crazy. College kids are huge snots, basically. There was some kid who wrote about how he wanted to ask Crispin what the hell "Clowny Clown Clown" was, and I swear he sat next to me because I heard him talking about how he was totally going to ask (except he didn't, because he left after the slideshow).

But anyway, the slideshow was great, as always. Highlight was when Crispin actually stopped, ran up the stairs into the audience, and took some kid's phone because he was texting or recording or something. He said in his soft, high voice, "You have to stop that. Get it back after the show" or something similar, and then gave the phone to the AV guy. It was great and slightly uncomfortable, like watching a teacher do the same thing in class. This feeling was enhanced by the fact that the slideshow and film were being shown (for free!) in a lecture hall in the science building. It was pretty badass, though. Crispin Glover will take your phone.

But yeah, the slideshow was great. I want him to publish Round My House so, so badly. I even asked him, afterward, whether he ever would, and he said probably someday. Put the pressure on him! I love that book, I can't even describe how much. His reading adds to it, of course--and his GESTURES--but I do love it and want it to reread at my leisure.

The movie was okay, but Crispin was showing it as a digital file from his laptop, projected up onto the screen, and apparently it was missing an extremely crucial reel. Which, given that it was one of Crispin's movies, you kind of couldn't tell until he said anything. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt here and assume that it was important, though, because he was really distraught over having lost the info or whatever happened. Poor guy. You could tell that he really just wanted to figure out what had gone wrong, which I totally understand. But instead he had to stand around and talk to us, so he spent a lot of time apologizing and looking at his shoes. I really do love him, in all his fussy aspie glory, but everyone in the audience was kind of like "Um... :/" so it was an interesting experience and not as lively as some of the Q&A sessions I've been at. It does seem like he's refined what he's saying about his work--like he's ditched the term "pro-cultural," thank god. Also he said he's been listening to choral music, which I'm happy to hear. It doesn't all have to be Beethoven and Tchaikovsky (though that is pretty much the soundtrack for this film, but okay).

I'm holding off on doing a review of the actual movie because I didn't see all of it, but what I did see was very '70s and often very funny, if not quite as bizarrely cerebral as What Is It? Crispin's parents were both in it and they were both awesome, of course. And there were some very effective moments with Steven C. Stewart, although probably it's all the background information that is the most affecting--see kleenexwoman's entry, she wrote more about that.

Anyway, afterward Rachel and I hung around and flipped through discarded journals of bacteriology (is that what they were?) and looked at a display of blinking red and green lights that showed how much energy the dorms were using. I blathered on about stupid/funny things that happened in Medieval Drama, because that class has generated lots of drama and lots of anecdotes all on its own. When we saw Crispin he was very sweet, as always, and he did remember us from before with no prompting, even though it's been like a year and a half since the last time we saw him. His memory is freaking amazing. Either that or we are exceptionally memorable nerds. So he answered my question about Round My House, which was mostly what we had, since we didn't buy anything or give him anything to sign. (Print Round My House and I will buy it!) We told him we hoped he was able to figure out what went wrong with his digital print and get it fixed, he asked us if we'd come to the showing in Cleveland the night before, we said no... so he'll have to come back around. Basically, I don't know. Like kleenexwoman I just wanted to give him a big hug and tell him it's okay.

So then we were driving home. We stopped at a rest stop for some food, like after midnight, dawdled some, came out, and were just getting in the car when I spied a kitty walking by. I went up to it and he was talking to me but being standoffish at first, then after a minute he let me pet him some, pick him up, and take him into the vestibule inside. He and I sat together while Rachel went and asked the lady in Burger King whether she knew anything, but apparently it was a popular area to dump cats. :( I didn't know what else to do, so I had Rachel get a blanket and we wrapped him up and I got into the backseat with him and drove home. He's been in my room since then, except for when we brought him out for his excursion to the vet yesterday evening. We're calling him Jules because, like Crispin's character in Fast Sofa, he was found outside a rest stop/fast food place. Rachel has another picture up in her entry, which you should also read because it's a good account of the evening.

Still trying to work out what to do with Jules. I have four cats already, you see, so if you would like a very friendly kitty, I'm sure we can work something out...

P.S. Thanks to anyone who has already said they would take him in if only they could. I wish you could! But I know when things are not possible. And thanks to those who have been campaigning to try to find him a permanent home. :)

UGH

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:08:25 GMT

So much hate for how people are treating Caster Semenya. How nice to see that it's something that keeps cropping up. Obviously the problem isn't with the athletes, it's with society's dumb gender binary bullshit.

People are assholes. Gender and body bullshit is making me angrier than usual.

Sometimes it bothers me that people have such ridiculous opinions on things or get all surprised about things that absolutely happen just because they've never had to experience them. You lucky little shits, get the fuck off of my back.

The sad thing is that I'm thinking this about people who are basically my friends. :(

People are such good for nothing, worthless fuckers.

EDIT: In case you have maybe misread me over the years, somehow, I will not tolerate disrespectful treatment of anyone for being transgendered or intersexed in my journal. If you must be disrespectful, you can go do it in one of the millions of places where assholes will agree with you.

Updated with stuff

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:41:59 GMT

Not a lot of stuff, mind you, but some limited stuff. Which, given my current time constraints, is not a bad deal.

First off, I reposted my old Re-Animator essay here, with some minor edits. I hadn't realized that it had been nearly five years since I first posted that. God, that's insane.

And this is from a few weeks ago, but it's a corny Pendergast/D'Agosta sketch that I just didn't remember to post. I think I didn't post it, anyway.

Otherwise I survived the first week of school, but barely. At least the days of working until nine in the evening are all done with. Now it's going to be all about reading, writing, and doing fun stuff like transcribing video and using the microform readers, etc., etc. I keep telling myself I can do it, but holy god, it's a lot of work. I'm just hoping to stay organized and on top of things, for once in my life.

When life gives you academics, uh...

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:39:28 GMT

Oh my god, Venture Bros. Season 4 preview. Orgasmmmssssss, I am seriously not even joking. I am very very excited. Orgasmically excited. I love Venture Bros., I'm constantly being reminded of what an awesome show it is, and this just makes me happier than anything has in a while. Which is a little bit pathetic, maybe, but do I care? Sometimes you want to be happy and excited for the sake of being happy and excited. I mean, sure, I can be excited about the classes I have this semester too, but that comes with the condition of having to do a huge amount of work.

Oh god, so much work. And the first week of classes is going to be insane because when I don't have class I'm... working! In the bookstore! Freshmen started moving in on Thursday, so as you can very well imagine it was a madhouse and a ten hour work day for me. Not as bad as Crown Shoes, however. Never that bad. But pretty bad. Oh boy, standing at a cash register for hours on end! There are far worse jobs, though, and worse people to work with. Also, I keep going to work and buying posters of James Dean because they're cheap and I am weak.

Went and saw Inglourious Basterds last week with hortonhearsawho. It was awesome and funny and I pretty much loved it. Yeah, all the dialogue does get tedious at times, but then you have scenes that just punch you in the face and start running. I kind of like the dynamic tension between the slower scenes and the faster, more action-filled ones.

Everything else has been centered on school starting and getting ready for classes (lol I bought over 30 books for this semester :D:) and the writing club we're trying to get started this year. It's not boring at all, but that doesn't come across in writing. Oh well, here are the classes I'm taking:

Dada and Surrealism (Art History)
The American Hero (an English class about superheroes and the hero's journey)
Seminar: 20th Century Southern Writers
Colloquium: Medieval Drama (a year long class focused on producing and performing several plays from The Chester Cycle for a Medieval drama festival in Canada)

And then here's my independent study/undergrad research assistantship thing that I'm doing on Victorian medicine. So, life is basically full up, I guess.

Just a hodgepodge of life stuff.

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:42:48 GMT

Well, I got an A in my literature class. Good, dammit. Then I had to decide whether to sign up for a seminar on modernism or one on 20th century Southern writers. I wound up choosing the Southern writers, although it's early in the morning while modernism is in the afternoon. It'll be a lot of reading and writing, which makes me nervous given that I already have a full schedule which I'm a little unsure about, particularly the undergrad research assistantship I signed up for. I'm not sure yet how much work that's going to entail. I've also got a temporary job in the student bookstore and had my first day on Wednesday. That probably won't go beyond the first week of classes... I think. As long as they need the extra help, I guess. It'll be a little bit of extra money, anyway. :/ Which is good for oh so many reasons, most of them depressing and car-related.

Also I bought t-shirts, which I probably shouldn't have although I can always use more options for clothing myself. And I went to the doctor, got blood drawn to find out whether I might be anemic (apparently I'm not), and found out that I didn't really lose all that much weight even though my pants are much baggier now.

Lately I've also gotten more and more interested in learning how to knit and/or crochet. Or relearn how to crochet, at any rate, and learn how to do more than make scarves. I don't know. I'm ambivalent about it, because I've been browsing etsy and so many of the crafty-type things people make are just bad. But some are cool. I'd like to learn how to do cool things, but then I'm not sure what things I'd like to make. Exactly. I don't know. I like stuffed creatures like this, but that seems a bit advanced (although if anyone ever wanted to buy me one of those, I would have to love you forever). I have some limited hand-sewing skills (thank you, grandmother). This is a nice pillow. I don't know, I guess I'd like to learn/relearn some sewing machine skills and all of that, but I'm not sure where to start. Also tiny sculpture skills. Maybe I should just buy some sculpy.

Anyway, if anyone has any links to good references for this sort of thing or any good tips, I'd appreciate them.

One class down, one to go for this summer...

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:51:26 GMT

I got like two hours of sleep last Wednesday night because I stayed up till forever trying to finish the work for my English class, which was one major essay and four mini ones. Then I had to go in in the morning to complete the in-class portion of my final. One class down! I'm in an intro to anthropology class now, which will fulfill a liberal ed. requirement. I'm hoping/assuming it will be easier. I concluded that my literature class was, like, senior-level expectations for a sophomore level class. I had a job interview at the bookstore Wednesday and the guy asked me my major, then asked me if I ever had this particular professor. I said yeah, I had him at the moment, and he said, "Oh yeah... I've heard he's tough." He was tough. I'm hoping for an A or a B though.

Then I watched the second season of Venture Bros. with commentary on, which is making me want to get people together and make low-budget movies. My dad gave me a point and click digital camera! We could totally do this!

I'm so bored by life at the moment. It's a bit stupid. I keep fantasizing about going places and doing something, when really mostly what I've done is write essays and go and see Public Enemies (which was a wonderful, hilarious movie for how terribly it was put together; also, Billy Crudup played Hoover as totally gay, and that was awesome). And tonight I finally saw Half-Blood Prince, so go me. I'm mad because Draco was actually attractive/interesting in this one, and I've never really found him interesting or attractive before. This is grossly unfair. Also, I need more Remus. As always.

But overall I liked it.

So the celebrities are dropping like flies...

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:08:19 GMT

Ugh, I keep meaning to start an lj post and then just drifting off to something else. Oops?

I have a summer class--Lit in English II--at the moment. It's one I'm retaking, due to previous fail, and oh my god this professor. He's an older gentleman, for one, and so he seems to be more New Criticism oriented (New Criticism is the boring way to read things), which kind of sucks. We've spent a lot of time on philosophy stuff, because he tends to go on and on and on talking about stuff that I'm fairly certain could easily be summed up in 15 to 30 minutes. Arrgh, I don't need a ton of examples, just tell me the basics. I'm really appreciating the woman I had the first time I tried to take the course, since she was concise and generally interesting, even if I did have to hear a lot about Wordsworth maybe banging his sister. Dammit, I wish I could've gotten this done the first time around.

Then I'm sort of depressed at the moment just because I'm doing so little beyond that class. I've had so little energy, and that sucks a lot and drives me up the wall. Plus I've half-heartedly tried getting in touch with people, but the problem is that neither I nor any of my friends are good at coming up with things to do, so we tend to just waffle around for ages and not get shit done and then eventually give up and see a movie. :( I am not good at being social. Also, there's not much to do here.

Oh, and I got a new car!

The old car. I called her Squeaky, after Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme:

The new car. I'm calling it The Yellow Dart, even though it's more of a champagne color:

The brakes are already failing! It doesn't even have a real license plate, yet! How lucky am I? :( lol $2500 used car.

Finished Cemetery Dance...

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:33:53 GMT

Actually, I finished Cemetery Dance like a week or two ago. But things have been all over the place, so I'm only now blathering about it.

My basic reaction is torn between :DDDD and DDDD: or >:( because... Smithback, nooooo. Also, the whole damn plot makes very little sense and is the definition of needlessly complicated. But I was hoping for Pendergast and D'Agosta being detective bffs, and so they were. So I'll do what I usually do with these books, and ignore the bits I don't like. In fact, the Pendergast/D'Agosta exceeded my expectations, so I was super-pleased. It was like a special birthday present! (My birthday was on May 18th. I forgot to post this year. I was all out of sorts and not feeling well.)

Gotta love Pendergast reading Mademoiselle in the waiting room and being creepy about it. Oh, Aloysius.

Anyway, I stuck edited versions of all my Pendergast one-shot fic up on Dreamwidth.

In less happy news for me, my car abruptly started making a very worrying noise and not really wanting to go above 35 mph. Not a good sign. So that, plus a day of forgetting my medication and a stressful doctor's appointment triggered a really bad depressive episode. I've been grumping around the house, basically, rereading The Cabinet of Curiosities and hanging out with my cats, who are always delighted when I spend all day in bed. I, however, am less delighted. :/

[ETA: Okay, yeah, I'm a huge nerd, but you know who I have mentally cast as O'Shaughnessy in CoC? Tim Omundson aka LASSITER. Destined to play an Irish cop forever, if I were to get my way.]

Hey, check this shit ouuu-uuuu-uuut!

Mon, 25 May 2009 22:25:03 GMT

This is my big painting picture post. Keep in mind that all of these look so much better in real life.

A sharp picture with the flash and a blurrier picture without. Using this painting's color scheme.

This is my master copy of a portion of this painting

This is the nude from an in-class model. You can see I concentrated more on the figure than the background.

This would be my final, which was done from a collage of my own photographs. It's 40"x40", which is pretty sizable. You can see that the top right and center right are less finished, and that's because I did work on this for 5 to 6 hours before our final critique and... some stuff just didn't get done as much as I would have liked. Maybe someday.

Close-ups.

End of the year claptrap, blah.

Fri, 01 May 2009 06:40:22 GMT

School sucks, aaaaah. Final stuff is coming up on being due, so that's why lj replies and whatever are going to be... slow.

Things I should be ashamed of but cannot find the heart to actually feel shame for:

- I have watched High School Musical and enjoyed it.
- I saw 17 Again and enjoyed it. (You shut up, I like Matthew Perry.)
- I'm finding Zac Efron attractive. (Okay, this is worse.)
- I'm also finding Rick Astley mildly attractive, but that's unrelated to the other stuff.

Blasphemous, I know.

I also did stuff like taking pictures at the English awards ceremony and judging skits for Future Problem Solving and also reading a scenario at their awards ceremony. But I've also been having issues with my medication, which translates to struggling with school. Still, the semester will be over soon. I have a Shakespeare performance to do Monday (I'm Iago in a scene from Othello) and a revision to turn in for nonfiction writing on Tuesday, so I'm hoping getting those done will relieve some stress. But I also have this massive painting to finish for the 14th, which has been freaking me out. Especially since I've been missing class.

So that's my status and the reason I never update. Fascinating stuff. [ETA: Oh, also I have a dreamwidth account now. What I'll do with it, I have no idea, but there it is.]

On art and drive-by freak culture and what Crispin Glover taught me.

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:59:50 GMT

Today was Crispin Glover's 45th birthday, so a happy birthday to him, wherever in the world he may be.

Last night kleenexwoman and I had a surprisingly involved conversation about Crispin in which I realized how my feelings about him and about art in general have changed throughout the years, probably in such a way that they've become less fun but more artistically mature. On some level all this may sound very pretentious, but of course it's arising out of my own education in academia and in various cultural and artistic studies. If you don't care or if that's not your bag, I'm sorry.

What I began thinking about was Feral House and similar ventures, the status of the "atrocity tourism" industry, and the subculture's basic hostility toward "the other" even as they remain fascinated by it. The original train of thought was based upon the question of why a subculture centered around strangeness would be so hostile to members of outsider groups. But of course, in objectifying strangeness, it then becomes imperative that the observing group is as normalized as possible in comparison--aside from the whole gawking at strange or morbid things business, of course.

Which is an interesting little tidbit, especially since atrocity tourism sites (e.g. Portal of Evil) and publishers seem to be drifting off toward irrelevance as the Internet itself grows wider. It is somewhat telling that Apocalypse Culture II (which is the book that also contains Crispin's short essay "What Is It?") has an article on slash fiction called "The Pornography of Romance." It was written by Adam Parfrey of Feral House (also the editor of the book) and it describes slash writers as "middle-aged women, the kind you're likely to see pushing a cart at a Target outside of Des Moines" (147). The book's copyright is from 2000, and the convention he attended was in 1998. So, in this case, you can see that his concept of the subculture was woefully out of date even when he wrote it, as by the year 2000 young women in their teens and twenties were already dominating the slash and yaoi subcultures. They just didn't go to this sort of con. Gotta keep up, Parfrey.

So atrocity tourism has become not just less cool, but less meaningful and less socially relevant. How does this connect to Crispin Glover? The fact is that Crispin necessarily socializes with and gets lumped into the atrocity tourism subculture, because he often deals with the same images and appeals to a similar pool of viewers/consumers. Moreover, I think that for some people the act of atrocity tourism is as much about confronting the strangeness within ourselves as it is about confronting the strangeness in the world around us. I would venture this is how Crispin operates, rather than being a passive consumer of horrors. Well, I hope, anyway.

I'm not denying the cultural influence of underground publishing like Feral House, but I find it interesting to see how their era seems to be ending. What is the future? I don't know. Interestingly, this line of thought originally came up because I noticed that Crispin Glover--weirdo, crazy, out there, strange guy--has never had an actual gay role. And yet his father, Bruce Glover, absolutely and unambiguously did, when he played a gay hitman in Diamonds Are Forever. It's especially funny because it made me think of something an article said about Crispin: "Besides, in the age of AIDS, when most young male actors are trying to establish impeccably macho, more heterosexual-than-thou credentials (viz Tom Cruise, Charlie Sheen, et cetera), Glover's sexually ambiguous characterizations take guts." (Here.) Sexually ambiguous, really? Okay, Layne is. Sort of. And he did dress up as Olivia Newton-John for The Orkley Kid. But both roles are less gay than than his dad as Mr. Wint holding hands with Mr. Kidd as they walk off into the sunset in 1971. To me, that dichotomy really underscores the resurgence of homophobia during the eighties, even during a time of greater visibility. And let's not forget that Crispin played a character whose role was downright homophobic: his character, Lionel, in Where the Heart Is (1990), fakes being gay to get respect as a fashion designer. In the end, he's just another "nice boy," too shy to tell the girl that he likes her until the film's end. It comes off as a cop-out, as the character gets the girl he likes and appeases his obviously homophobic father. All conflict can be solved by being straight!

Then there's Crispin himself, in an interview done by Adam Parfrey (curiouser and curiouser): "There are people of this nature who are not into morbidity. Doesn't that sound gay? It's hard to say. Unusual? Not the norm? People who can see the absurdity of that which is considered the norm."

But hey, that was in 1992. People change. One of the wonderful things about being human and being observant is that you are allowed to change your mind over time.

I moved away from following Crispin too closely a couple of years ago as I started to realize that it's far too easy, as an artist and as an observer, to remain in the shadow of others. Artistically speaking, I don't want this. Sometime I feel like a child who is playing at being serious about the future when I talk about this, but I do think and I do produce art and writing and I do have ideas about what I want my future to be. I stopped following Crispin closely because I stopped feeling challenged by what he was doing. I outgrew him. It happens. But, looking back, I realize there are aspects of him and of What Is It? that I do find problematic, and did find problematic at the time.

I feel like, aside from the problematic use of the disabled in What Is It? and It Is Fine! (something I recognize as being potentially problematic but, really, have no firm opinion on), what is most lacking in the movies he's made is a kind of communication of depth and breadth of thought. Keep in mind, I'm coming out of art history classes, now, that are looking at modern and post-modern artwork. I feel like his emulation of art films and conceptual art in What Is It? basically lacked the kind of rigorous and central idea that more mature artwork has dealt with. In a way, it's almost discomfiting because the film almost resembles outsider art; but while Crispin may be something of an outsider to the fine arts culture, his Hollywood status assures him that he can never actually have that outsider artist identity. Perhaps it's not fair, but coming out of Hollywood the way he does imbues what he's doing with a different meaning, because of what Hollywood is, and I think this is an issue he needs to address and deal with in some way.

I'm also bothered by his coyness when talking about meaning or intent. He seems most interested in watching people's reactions to the film, which would be fine except that, by way of its subject matter and inherent strangeness, the film then hearkens back to the phenomenon of atrocity tourism or even "shock" images. Yes, trying to stir a reaction in the audience can be legitimate, but is it only meant to see who gets shocked and who projects meaning onto it? I would be more comfortable with it if in a lot of ways it didn't seem like he just wanted to push boundaries for the sake of pushing them. And I do think he has a cohesive meaning in What Is It?, but that's not what he chooses to discuss.

I've also been bothered by him referencing Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil and then admitting that he'd never actually read the work (this was at a Q+A). With something of this scale, you really need to do the research and be firm about your plan and your meaning. At the same time, I feel that what's he really interested in are the images he's taking--and there are some lovely shots in What Is It? But if that's the case, I want him to come out and say it, not obfuscate it with this "What do you think it's about?" nonsense. It's like he's trying to have it both ways, having a certain "depth" while at the same time remaining shallow enough for viewers to imprint upon, and it's the fence-straddling that comes off as amateurish.

As far as I know, Crispin never went to university or college (if I'm wrong, tell me). Being self-taught, then, and able to realize a project like this one is admirable, but at the same time I think he's hampered by not having gone through a formal art or film program of some kind. Or just a liberal arts education. Maybe this is my own academia bias or classism showing--although hell, you know he'd be able to afford it. Besides, Crispin has always been good for class-related pretension and snobbery. As in: "I feel that any music that has stanzas or refrains is procultural because it comes from a proletariat working class history that started at least from the serfs in the Middle Ages when they would sing in that fashion. It represents a middle class point of view and it makes people feel emotionally feel good about being a working class person. I feel that rock music is all procultural and people tend to get really mad about it." From this interview. Of course, Crispin's definition of "procultural" is often nebulous, and hampered by a lack of definition for the polar opposite: is it "counterculture"? "Anticulture"? What? Without strong, specific definitions, the term is meaningless.

I'm still loyal to Crispin, because he's been with me as I've grown up and he's been kind to me on the occasions when I've spoken with him in person. I have a lot of good memories centered around my enjoyment of his movies, books, etc. But life moves on, I guess. The people you had as heroes at age eighteen shouldn't be your heroes forever. I suppose that's the most meaningful thing Crispin taught me (though unwittingly)--aside from the fact that I'm not alone in my strangeness. And for that much, I do thank him and wish him well.

Fanmix: All Those Dreadful Little Cuts

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:00:55 GMT

Title: All Those Dreadful Little Cuts
Disclaimer: Files are mp3s of varying (mostly low/medium) quality and are meant for previewing purposes. If you like a song, check out the artist and support them! If it's possible, I mean. Some of these songs are harder to find than others. If you are interested in trying the books, the first five are here. Again, please purchase the books if you like them!
Notes: The songs on this are mostly a mix of punk, cabaret, and goth, which is intentional. That's Pendergast in a nutshell, as kleenexwoman said.

The back cover is presented as a smaller thumbnail because the content of the photo may be disturbing to some.

Download! Part 1 (58.31 MB) Part 2 (55.43)

Predator
[Carnivore]

For the Mbwun and Relic.

I sense that living human beings dwell below my feet
an important source of protein, you are what you eat
post Armageddon, neo-barbaric, the nuclear warriors due battle
to satiate our hunger we breed human beings as cattle
hunting in packs
ready for the attack
we eat our prey raw--rabid animals
frothing and ripping the carcass
we`re stripping our own, yes we're cannibals
eat or eaten
beat or beaten
I am on my life
rest assured
a predator

Museums
[Wall of Voodoo]

You'd think people would eventually catch on to how unsafe the Natural History Museum is and stop going. But you'd be wrong.

See the Rexes
When they hear the time
Bright lights are flashing
Keep your arms in line
We'll wander through the bones alone
Capture the beliefs of another god's world
In museums full of teachers on their field trips
Or so they say
At museums we can meet once more
And believe our lies
In museums

New York State Police
[The U.K. Subs]

It should really be the NYPD, since the state police are totally different. But that would sound less cool.

Headlights flashing me
It's the New York State Police
Slow down buddy, pull over there
It's the New York State Police
Where you come from, are you putting me on
It's the New York State Police
Come on boys let's go downtown
It's the New York State Police

Mr. Reporter
[The Kinks]

Both law enforcement and journalists tend to play major roles in every Preston and Child book, hence the inclusion of this track and the previous one. Of course, when we say journalists, we really mostly mean Smithback.

Hey, Mr. Reporter,
How 'bout talking about yourself?
Do you like what you're doing,
Or is it that you can do nothing else?

Underground
[Tom Waits]

For the Mole People and the Wrinklers in Reliquary.

Rattle Big Black Bones
in the Danger zone
there's a rumblin' groan
down below
there's a big dark town
it's a place I've found
there's a world going on
UNDERGROUND

Horrors Theme
[The Horrors]

For the Surgeon and Leng in The Cabinet of Curiosities.

Oh Doctor get up get up get up get up get up too long you've been asleep
A carcass in the bedroom, a carcass at the table, and this is all quite upsetting.
Presents for you all,
a flower for your mistress,
a complete denial of what's been done done done done get up get up.
Doctor put your gloves on, they may protect you from the stains,
tell the world you love her and tip from the jar the brain.
Climb to the top of the stair, pausing to reflect on the nature of your disgrace
Doctor, what did you expect? Get up get up.

Laughing Bloody Murder
[Cinema Strange]

Another for the Surgeon.

This is my indoctrination! Henceforth the tendon's cut!
The times when muscle fell from hard bone
The time has come for surgery!
I'll drag you down with me, too!
I'll make you drown with me!
I'll drag you down with me, too!
I'll make you drown with me!

The Fine Art of Poisoning
[Jill Tracy]

You can read this as being for Aunt Cornelia or for Leng, really.

It's quite an elaborate scheme
The fine art of poisoning
The dose to comatose
Slyly administered

Not for the frail of heart
The vengeful must play their part
A friend to the bitter end
Or so they say

Nice and slow
Misfortune will flow

People Ain't No Good
[Nick Cave]

This one is definitely for Leng and his misanthropy, though.

It ain't that in their hearts they're bad
They can comfort you, some even try
They nurse you when you're ill of health
They bury you when you go and die

It ain't that in their hearts they're bad
They'd stick by you if they could
But that's just bullshit
People just ain't no good

Murder of Birds
[Jesca Hoop ft. Guy Garvey]

For Job and for the crows, naturally.

I'm not a bird I'm a murder of birds
Shifting my shape when your tongue forms the words
Like I hate you when I love you the most, love you the most, love you the most

Song of the Stars
[Dead Can Dance]

I was listening to this CD when I was reading Still Life With Crows and it made a great soundtrack.

We are the stars which sing
We sing with our light;
We are the birds of fire,
We fly over the sky.
Our light is a voice;
We make a road for the spirit to pass over

Art Snob Solutions
[of Montreal]

For Brimstone, obviously, and Pendergast's snobby tastes. <3

Come on artists, the day is here!
And your mission is very clear
Put an end to the bourgeoisie
And death to everyone who’s never heard of me!

Tarot Americaine
World/inferno Friendship Society

For Diogenes and his tarot obsession.

I believe in a world of endless possibility
The queen of slaves, the mistress of misdeeds
The ripped dress debutante
The stuttering fool
I believe I am going to fuck you up
Oh yes, I do
Oh shit
God damn
I will kill you if I can
Oh yes
Oh man
Maybe far away or maybe real nearby, I am going to break your fucking back
Spread the tarot American and tell me what it reads

We're All Mad Here
[Tom Waits]

The Pendergast family is bugfuck insane, as we learn more and more in Brimstone and Dance of Death.

And you'll die with the rose still on your lips
And in time the heart-shaped bone that was your hips
And the worms, they will climb the rugged ladder of your spine
We're all mad here

Runs in the Family
[Amanda Palmer]

And insanity runs in the family! With the references to being knocked up, this also foreshadows what will happen to Constance. Who is, at this point, an honorary Pendergast. She's crazy enough, anyway.

Mary have mercy, now look what I've done,
but don't blame me because I can't help where I come from.
And running is something that we've always done well
and mostly I can't even tell what I'm running from.
Run from their pity, from responsibility.
Run from the country and run from the city.
I can run from the law, I can run from myself.
I can run from my life, I can run into debt.
I can run from it all, I can run til I'm gone.
I can run for the office and run for the cause.
I can run using every last ounce of energy.
I cannot, I cannot, I cannot run from my family.

Little Viola Hidden in the Orchestra
[of Montreal]

Oh Pendergast, your taste is so discerning and yet so horrible. I love how singsongy this is because, well, Viola is so creepily childish, especially in Dance of Death.

I will be a good boy and never tell you
The bad things that I think about
The nasty little things
I'll keep them to myself
I will be a good boy and never tell you
The bad things that I think about
The dirty little things
I'll keep them to myself
I will be a good boy and never tell you
The bad things that I think about
The sinister things
I'll keep them to myself

Girl Anachronism
[The Dresden Dolls]

Because Constance is the literal girl anachronism.

I am not so serious
This passion is a plagiarism
I might join your century
But only on a rare occasion
I was taken out
Before the labor pains set in and now
Behold the world's worst accident
I am the girl anachronism

Dance of Death
[Andrew Bird]

Duh.

[Instrumental]

... A Psychopath
[Lisa Germano]

Poor Constance, getting tricked by Diogenes in The Book of the Dead.

A baseball bat
A baseball bat beside my bed
I'll wait around and wait around
And wait

I hear a noise, I hear a noise
Well, I hear something
I am alone, you win again
I'm paralyzed

Cruel
[Tori Amos]

For both Pendergast brothers and their thoughtless (or thoughtful) cruelties.

Dance with the Sufis, celebrate your top ten in the charts of pain. Nah...
Lover, brother, bogenvilla, my vine twists around your need.
Even the rain is sharp like today as you sh-sh-shock me sane.
No cigarettes only peeled Havanas for you.
I can be cruel, I don't know why.
Why can't my bal-la-loon stay up in a perfectly windy sky?
I can be cruel, I don't know why, I don't know why.

Diabolical Streak
[Jill Tracy]

Diogenes and Aloysius are more alike than either would like to admit. For the diabolical in both of them.

Slave to good intentions
Mastermind the great
A victim to the culprit
Of finding out too late.

So I linger in the hallway
One story down below.
Longing for a .45 revolver
And a 62' bordeaux.
But you're the only one who can please me.

Mandala
[Ego Likeness]

And finally, in keeping with the pseudo-Tibetan themes of Wheel of Darkness...

These things once locked in silence
Now return to me
These things once locked in silence
Now return to me

Stoned and sold and left for dead
In a circle held in place in time
And if I choose to fall again
At least I know the choice is mine
At least I know this voice is mine

----

Covers made using:

- Olho de Boi and Dead Secretary
- a photo taken from a fashion magazine
- photos by the incomparable Joel-Peter Witkin

I didn't mean to disappear, honest.

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:53:33 GMT

Haven't posted for a while because I got sick on the very first day of my spring break. :( Isn't that always the way? Isn't it? Life: aggressively unfair. I think my body actually waited until it sensed that I had a break so that it could rampage through my weakened defense system. Nice! Also I went to the doctor and got some medication for a sinus infection, but it was Amoxicillin and I kind of think it did absolutely dick. So I have to go back. :( Argh, annoying.

Anyway, I'm working on getting things in line for the summer and the fall semester. School, aaaaaaaaah. It wound up even more overwhelming because I was sick and spent about half my break totally passed out. I'd planned to get stuff done over break, and so that didn't happen. So I spent the last couple weeks catching up and trying to research/write my art history paper, which I finally finished last Friday (it was due last Tuesday). And just, argh. Luckily it was a three page paper, so it's not like it was some massive undertaking. But now I have to write a couple of pages about a movie we watched. :/

Okay, anyway, I took pictures of my self-portrait that I did from one of those photos and with the Odd Nerdrum palette. It's not really finished, and I need to try to go in and do some touching up and etc., but here's what I have so far:

It needs to get lighter, basically, in the skin tones. I'm always a little too tentative about pushing value contrast. Overall, though, I'm pleased with where it's going. Also, I love oils. And applying paint with a palette knife. Oh, also, we're painting a model in the studio. It's going well, although again I'm too tentative with value so when my professor put a color that was almost white onto my canvas, I about had a heart attack. It looked better though. :/

Also hortonhearsawho and I went and saw Watchmen. And our non-fiction writing class is full of idiots, but that's nothing new.

Let's do a movie meme!

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:06:55 GMT

Took this from kleenexwoman. Let's play a game. Yay?

1. Pick 20 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie

1) ~~"The only blasphemy is to wallow in insignificance."~~ Bride of Re-Animator, lily_lemony

2) "So where we going, House of Pancakes or The Sizzler?"

3) ~~"Start over? I'm almost done!"~~ Willard, kleenexwoman

4) ~~"Call it my woman's intuition, if you will, but I've never trusted neatness. Neatness has always been the form of very deliberate planning."~~ North by Northwest, kleenexwoman

5) ~~"I don't remember a time when I didn't want to be a police officer... apart from the summer of 1979 when I wanted to be Kermit the Frog."~~ Hot Fuzz, elexandros

6) ~~"There are no happy endings because nothing ends."~~ The Last Unicorn, kleenexwoman

7) ~~"I'm a hawk!"~~ Fast Sofa, kleenexwoman

8) "This is fate we're talking about. And if fate works at all, it works because people think that this time it isn't going to happen!"

9) ~~"You think I was made in God's image? Take a look at me. You think He wears glasses?"~~ Love and Death, darkmistyday

10) "Of course, he was a Harvard graduate. That might be grounds for justifiable homicide."

11) ~~"There's a difference, you know, between not liking one's brother and not caring when some dumb Irish flatfoot drops him out of a window."~~ Die Hard With a Vengeance, kleenexwoman

12) ~~"I'm in the mood for a little vivisection!"~~ The Frighteners, kleenexwoman

13) ~~"But you have to remember that a worm--with very few exceptions--is not a human being."~~ Young Frankenstein, anna_salem

14) ~~"You see, you would have grown old while he remained young."~~ The Secret of NIMH, punch_ovaries

15) "Today is Thanksgiving Day for cats. But only if they came back from the dead."

16) ~~"Have you ever tried to persuade him that he wasn't Teddy Roosevelt?"~~ Arsenic and Old Lace, kleenexwoman

17) ~~"The normal question, the first question is always: are these cannibals? No, they are not cannibals."~~ Dawn of the Dead (original), punch_ovaries

18) ~~"Hey, hey, listen, guys. Look, I don't wanna mess with no reefer addicts, okay?"~~ Back to the Future, kleenexwoman

19) "Then, in the afternoon, we have a little treat. Dilaudid. Just because it's Saturday."

20) ~~"If only you coulda been my dad. We could have breakfast in the morning."~~ Rebel Without a Cause, kleenexwoman goddamn.

Please don't mock my terrible taste, lol. :/

I painted a thing!

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:11:50 GMT

No, not the self-portrait yet. Although I did start that one. And on the first day, when I had to stop at the end of class, I looked at it and realized that it looked disturbingly like Rorschach without his mask D: And I told this to hortonhearsawho and she was like, "You don't give yourself enough credit" but seriously. It did. I think it was the expression. It looks less like him now, thankfully.

It's a little bit okay, though, because kleenexwoman is girl!Nite Owl. Hooray?

Anyway, here's the painting of my still life in a shoebox:

So that's that. A B+ on that and I currently have a B+ in the class. :/ He's a freaking hard grader, but I guess that's good for me? I don't know.

Anyway, Saturday I went to the Detroit Institute of Art for my Late Modern art history class. It was good, except they didn't really have much of a selection of Late Modern art, which sucks because I have to choose one piece to write a paper on. Rachel met us there, eventually, and she was lucky because she missed the long and involved and deathly dull discussion of Rothko and Newman's color field paintings. Which included one girl who asked whether Rothko committed suicide "for the attention or because he had real problems?" Uhhhh. And we had a nice time getting to wander around after lunch and the little lecture. I'm good at making fun of the paintings. And the DIA has a decent collection of Impressionist-era works, so that was fun.

And then my mother called to wish me a happy Irish Christmas. Uhhh... okay, mom. :/

Pictures! And crud.

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:34:50 GMT

Ffffffff--okay. I have an exam in modern art history tomorrow, and I still have no freaking clue what I'm preparing for. TAs teaching this class, ahhhhh, it really kind of sucks a lot. :( But I felt like I'd done more for it, which is why I stuck with it. Fucking minimalism, what the fuck.

On the plus side, I finally managed to work out who it was that did some sculpture I remember liking when I took Sculpture 1 and was reading through the books Dylan brought in: Tom Friedman, and this is the piece I was thinking of specifically. I warn you, it's kind of gory, if you can call a paper sculpture gory. It is a "self portrait in a state of fragmentation produced by a motorcycle accident." And this is the other one I was thinking of: Erased Playboy Centerfold. Ha-ha and all that. I like the cleverness of his art and his sense of humor. People always scoff at that. Whatever, art is hilarious.

To illustrate that point, I have some pictures of myself that I took in preparation for a self-portrait based on one of Odd Nerdrum's paintings. This is the one I'm hoping to use, although there were some others that I don't have a link for, as they are in a book.

One with flash:

And here's a nerdy one of me attempting to emote with a towel around my neck for a different painting:

And if you're interested in seeing all of them, god knows why, the gallery is here. A lot of them look very similar though, so I figured posting them was just redundant.

Also I'm working my way through Watchmen. Liking Rorschach is a given, though I will always love the Question more... but aww, I think I like Dan the best. It's just, aww, Dan. :D

And now I am going to go paint... nnnnow. Yes.

When dancing is better than sex...

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:15:11 GMT

So. freaking. pretty. Yes, this is from the one where all the swans are male. I don't know why I remembered this a couple of days ago, but it prompted me to look it up on youtube. And that, in turn, prompted me to go buy the dvd on ebay. And I know, I know, it's very much a "Look at Adam Cooper!!!" production, but I find the guy playing the prince (Scott Ambler) to be very attractive also. I really love his... fragility, I guess.

I also uploaded what's probably my favorite Psych-out: Jules and Lassiter sing "Leavin' on a Jet Plane". Or try to, anyway. I love Tim Omundson's little leg lift. It's really super adorable.

And, I don't know. Just trying to keep up with school, for the most part. We just finished up A Midsummer Night's Dream in my Shakespeare class, we'll be starting Hamlet on Wednesday, and I got a 97% on my last test in that class. Still working on the second still life in painting. Non-fiction writing just got even more painful, since we started actually critiquing student essays.

In fan-type news, I got some very nice feedback on my vids, which prompted me to finally finish up a short one I'd had sitting around. Man From UNCLE, of course: nuclear war (on the dance floor).

[ETA: There were a lot of freakings in the post. :/]

Life and also commentary on a TELEVISION SHOW

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 04:11:07 GMT

Oh boy, here we go, Psych finale! Let's see whether it's going to be as bad as the previews made it look! :D Last week's Friday the 13th episode was pretty amazing, for being as shit as it was, so I have high hopes.

So far, lessons learned: Shawn is frequently a dick, hooray for Willard references, what the fuck was that Morrissey reference? And then the rest of it was unremarkable. Except, oh great, more Shawn/Jules "will they, won't they?" crap. What the fuck, Psych?

The psych out was great, though. I love all goofy Lassiters.

Latest triumphs: I made my own canvas stretcher and finished my master copy (I used this painting--I covered a corner with part of the eye on the right--by Odd Nerdrum. Here are a few other paintings. You really need to see them huge). The master copy was tough, but came out quite well, I thought, for not being able to let the paint dry as I applied layers. I got an A- on it, and a B on my still life. Eh. :/ I also finished up the second round of scenarios I was judging with hortonhearsawho. And I've been able to keep up perfect attendance in three of my classes so far.

The bad part: I've decided to drop my Lit in English class, since I've almost never gone. :( Oh well. I also slept through today, which fucked up some of my shit. Oops. And I totally missed Meredith's BA show... opening... but not really, because I went in and looked at her paintings earlier in the week. I just missed the little party with food and stuff. :(

I also got a couple of calls from Wal-mart about being employed there, which I finally tried to return today, but had no luck. I don't know whether I should do it or not, though. Because the last time I tried to keep up a job and four classes it just went so well. Arrrrgh, but I need the money. But arrrrrgh, Wal-mart. :/

I PAINTED SOME TUPPERWARE

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:04:18 GMT

Look! Look at my tupperware!

The first is it on the easel, obviously, and the second is just closer. Sorry for blurriness, these are the shots without the flash.

The painting is not done, but I've pretty much run out of time. I'm going to try to get in there tomorrow and do some touching up where it needs it, but who knows if I'll be able to.

In less productive news, goddammit Psych, it has me all sucked in. I'm totally excited for the Friday the 13th episode. Also, I'm completely pissed that they have all the Psych-outs and bloopers on the site and at the end of the episodes and then they don't put them all on the DVDs. That's just cruel, come on.

Also, I'm going to watch Titus, and I get the feeling I'm going to love it. Oooh, the colors! Oooh, Alan Cumming and Jessica Lange!

Quick, quick, think of something interesting!

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:59:43 GMT

Don-John was all, "Don't miss the black humor in Titus Andronicus when you read it! If you think it's just ultra-violent and boring, you are reading it wrong! >:(" And I took like four pages of notes today, which is kind of insane, and my notes are a scribbly mess anyway, but still. I like to write down things that are interesting, okay. Now let's all watch some Shakespeare in Love and that one Doctor Who Shakespeare episode, and kleenexwoman's pastiche in which a bunch of characters eat Chinese and discuss gender. You know you love it.

Also, I wound up watching the first half of Beowulf finally, since I read it for Lit in English. I only really like Beowulf up until Grendel dies, but I'll stick it out till his mom goes down. But the whole dragon thing, no thanks.

Of course, Crispin played Grendel in the movie, which meant that Grendel was this whiny and pathetic loser monster... which I love. I love failure Grendel who runs home to his mommy. But then I start shipping Grendel/his mom, which is sort of weird because Angelina Jolie in spike gold heels. I do wish Grendel's design had been better, though. Keep the creepy weeping sore shit, but less human... still humanoid, but more monster-y. Less overgrown zombie. And what was with that shrinking bullshit?

I've also been watching episodes of Psych online, hurray. I guess. Psych was one of those shows where I'd seen a good chunk of the episodes but wasn't super into it... until "Lassie Did A Bad, Bad Thing," shame on me. I'm watching the episode where he shoots the Hummel figurines, which is pretty awesome. Oh Lassie. The episode also has the tranny plot, which is a little faily... but not nearly as bad as I expected.

And yes, Shawn is a psycho (generally) and extremely bi and Lassie is grumpy and faily and Gus would make an awesome boyfriend and Jules is adorable. And the fandom sucks. :( I was reading intellific last night and doing a lot of wtf-ing. Which was sort of fun, in a trainwreck-y sort of way.

Finally, I did write stuff. I wrote Re-Animator fic, which I haven't done in like forever but okay. Here's my Herbert/Dan one and this is, of course, the one that's sort of Herbert/the Bride. The one about Herbert and the Bride is probably the most straight-up unapologetically unsettling thing I've ever written and I went around being creeped out for like half an hour after I finished it. Extremely creepy Herbert, urgh.

There were a couple of other prompts I started working on, but didn't finish, and anyway most of them were drifting into less obviously sexy areas, so. Yeah.

[Fic] Re-Animator, "Piecemeal", Herbert/The Bride (sort of)

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:56:52 GMT

Title: Piecemeal
Warning: Graphic medical descriptions and something like necrophilia.
Notes: I'm sorry I'm so weird. This wouldn't fit in a comment over here, so... yeah.

The last woman Herbert West had touched so intimately had been seventy-two years old and the cadaver for his gross anatomy lab in his first year of med school. He had hacked off limbs--but gently--and split her sternum and held her heart in his hands. He'd been kind to her, the sort of deference that one gives a person whome they know is doing them a inconvenient favor.

He touched their girl the same way, except in reverse, pulling all her pieces together, bringing her new limbs instead of taking them away. Sometimes he put his hand over her heart and gave silent thanks to Meg Halsey for dying and giving him and Dan the opportunity to create something new together. At other times, he stared at the place where their girl’s head would be and remembered how it felt using the saw on the skull of the old woman, cutting vertically and exposing the labyrinth of sinuses, up to his elbows in chunks of brain matter and bone dust and choking on the formaldehyde. He had enjoyed that class.

He could imagine Dan in gross anatomy. Herbert was sure that Dan would have passed the saw off to a partner and held the hand of his cadaver during the worst parts without realizing it. Maybe he touched the heart and thought about the complexity of life, the inevitability of death. Maybe he just looked away, pretended to be jotting down notes or drawing out a diagram.

In the years between gross anatomy lab and the assembling of their life-sized doll, Herbert had dealt with patients, of course, and assisted in autopsies. But it was always something impersonal, a part of his job. He shied away from touching living, conscious patients, leaving the compassion and bedside manner to Dan whenever possible. Dealing with internal organs was one thing, but touching patients made them too personal, too close. When he looked at their girl, her pieces bare and wrenched together with metal rods and hinges, he could see the old woman that she would never be. The cadaver in his class had slack breasts that slid down on either side of her chest. Her vulva had been small and neat, topped with grey pubic hair.

Their girl's breasts were firm and rounded. Herbert often found himself with a hand cupping her breast as he made an adjustment to her torso or shifted the reagent-soaked gauze that covered her. He found that she was not unpleasant to touch--cold, yes, but yielding and pliable. Still flesh, but preserved and waiting patiently in limbo.

When Dan was away, working a different shift or out with that woman from Peru, Herbert would stay downstairs. Sometimes he worked on their girl, but just as often he would fiddle with his chemistry set, tweaking the formula for the reagent and keeping her company. They hadn't even found a head for her yet, but still he felt guilty when she was alone for too long. He never told Dan that he'd begun to think of her as something like a person.

He sat and mixed beaker after beaker of reagent, then tested each solution on dead cells that he observed through the microscope. As he did this, working methodically and falling into a pattern, he'd think about what would happen once they finished the girl. Assuming the experiment was a success, would he and Dan keep her? Would Dan want to exhibit her or keep her private and secret? As a pet? A child? A lover? That thought gave him pause.

He'd asked him once, as they were both bent over her, threading her with plastic veins. Dan had not looked up from his work, but his brow furrowed as if he’d never considered that there would be an end. "I don’t know," he said. "There’s no guarantee that it'll even work the way you want it to." Herbert had bristled at this, but said nothing. "I guess we’ll know when we get there."

The girl's legs were always spread open for the expediency of her assembly, and Dan had draped a thick piece of gauze between them for the sake of some imagined modesty. Herbert knew Dan had thought of her as Meg, ever since Herbert had put her heart into his hands. He imagined Dan touching her piecemeal body the way he touched Francesca, the way he touched Meg when she was alive. But the girl was as much Herbert's as she was Dan's, perhaps more so. He thought about both of them touching the girl in Dan's bedroom, continuing to experiment on her. He thought about touching Dan while the girl looked on, curious and uncertain. He thought of them hunched over her immobile and headless form, stitching and cutting and tightening screws and holding her flesh, their fingers pressing deep dimples into the waxy skin every time their eyes met for a moment over her breasts.

He lifted the gauze from between her legs and considered her pelvis. They had argued over the best way to ensure stability in the hips and legs, allowing for coordinated movement. Dan had wanted to leave her as she was, to see how she fared after re-animation and make adjustments if necessary. Herbert felt she needed something more, like the connections they’d already forged in metal and plastic. A harness, he realized as he stared at her parted labia. Hooked into the spine, to keep the torso from separating.

While he considered the logistics of creating such a harness, he ran one finger from the base of her labia to her clitoris. Herbert’s mind was full of straps and supports and, for necessity's sake--a zipper.

Spring semester so far: tiring.

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:47:39 GMT

So, yes, my big news is that I managed to get into the creative non-fiction writing class with hortonhearsawho, thanks to a certain undergraduate advisor who was astoundingly efficient. I was a little disappointed that the focus would be on memoir/personal essays rather than, oh, biography or history or science-writing. Although somehow I'm guessing those would all be a little too complex for an undergrad class. Still. :/

But then everything else is just part of the tangle of things I hate at the beginning of semester, where you have to run around constantly trying to pull things back together. I've got all these shit errands I have to run, but then I ran out of medication so I had to spend a couple of days getting that together and argh. Right now my most immediate worry is for my painting class, since at some point in the future I'm going to have to figure out how to build stretchers myself and... that'll be fun. Fucking shitty classes, not teaching me what I have to know later. >:( Also I'm out of practice working with actual physical paint, and that irks me. Anyone have any tips for oil painting?

Also, I'm frustrated because I'm sucking at doing my own stupid little drawings. Which reminded me that I never posted this: Want to see how my drawing skillz have progressed? I made a timeline that's more of a grid, hooray. The numbers are my approximate age in years when I drew the picture/s above. As you can see, RADICAL CHANGES.

And now I have to go to my Intro to Shakespeare class. I hope it's going to be awesome because the professor is ~*Don-John*~, and I already have a little professor-crush on him.

Wow.

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:48:45 GMT

I'm sincerely happier today than I've been in a long, long time.

Not only did I have a great day, where I felt like I could actually function like a human being, but my country had a great day. And I'm proud of both of those things.

Now I'm listening to this song over and over and I don't care how cheesy it is.

:'D

Rock on, world.

No, not school again!

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 05:36:40 GMT

So I have to go back to school on Tuesday. Oh joy! I had to get a crappy parking pass because I left it for too long. Oops. I may be able to exchange it later, though, so...

Anyway, my schedule is:

Literature in English I - MWF - 9:55 - 10:45 am
Abnormal Psych - MWF - 12:05 - 12:55 pm
Intro to Shakespeare - MW - 3:45 - 5:00 pm
Late Modern Art - TR - 9:15 - 10:30 am
Painting II - TR - 11:00 am - 1:30 pm

This may change! I would like to get into this creative nonfiction writing class that hortonhearsawho says is supposed to be awesome, but they're requiring that you have passed Lit in English I or II before you can sign up. Since I have not passed either, it won't let me sign up, though god knows that I am still more than qualified. :/ I am going to try to talk to someone on Monday, I guess, and we'll just see how that goes. OH WAIT. No we won't, because it's Martin Luther King Day. Dammit, dammit, dammit. I'm sorry, Mr. King, but your day keeps foiling my brilliant plans. :( I also had plans to get books early, but lol nope, guess not. Possibly Sunday, if the bookstore is open. OH HAY IT IS. \o/ Oh god, I just discovered the bookstore has online ordering and oh my books are going to be expensive this semester. D:

So Psych was pretty amazing tonight. Last night. Whatever. Lassiter wore casual clothes and there were actual Shawn/Lassiter type moments that made me sort of want fic, except I know most of it sucks. I know this for a fact. Stupid fandom tease. I just want the grumpy asshole cop and the sociopathic con-man to wisecrack at each other a little, is that so much to ask? (Yes.)

Also there's an interesting sexuality discussion with regard to Man From UNCLE here, tackling that thorny question of how (or why) do you write about mansex when the characters are shown chasing after girls? (The answer is that sex is fucking complicated.)

(Also I still want fic where Napoleon gets changed into a woman via crazy Thrush drugs.)

(Also David Cross is awesome.)

Sort of productive to cap off last year.

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:49:57 GMT

I had this thing I'd started typing about how HOLY SHIT IT'S 2009, but really... that says it all, I think.

So, I wrote a Man From UNCLE fic for that fic exchange thing. It's called "Eight Crazy Nights" and in it Illya celebrates Hanukkah. And isn't that all you really need to know? (The fic I got in return is here. It involves a puppy, as per one of my rather dumb requests.)

Then for Yuletide I wrote "For Science!", which is a fic for The Big Bang Theory. I don't think I've ever gotten so many positive comments on a single fic. I also wrote a real quick treat called "Between the motion and the act" which was one of the Pendergast fics. kleenexwoman wrote the other Pendergast fic, "Traces", which is awesomely weird and creepy. Her Man From UNCLE fic, "The Electric Espresso Acid Test" is similarly weird and creepy and wonderfully crafted.

Now if only I could be so productive with original work. :/