Positive Influences in Eyeliner

So I was looking at things on Tumblr earlier and it was giving me all of these positive feelings about Davey Havok, who isn't someone who comes across my radar very often anymore, but who is really great. He wears glitter and has great hair! I didn't have the same understanding of stuff in middle school that I do now but his whole persona is very queer and enticing. Also, it was this tiny little Q&A he did with Rolling Stone that a friend pointed out to me that introduced me to Straight Edge, for which I am incredibly greatful.
I think what my point is that we don't have to grow out of our heroes. It's true that I don't listen to AFI as much as I did when I was fourteen, but that doesn't mean they I don't care. We can carry our heroes with us. There's one impulse to leave behind "childish things" as we move on, but I think it makes more sense to keep them around. They may not mean the exact same thing, but they still mean something special to us.
So thanks, Davey Havok. When I was fourteen you were the best thing ever, and now that I'm older, you're still pretty great.

i am the worst at blogs

like really, I am. I have good intentions, but then I don't do anything, and then I feel bad about doing nothing so I do more nothing.

but i'm gonna do better this time, I swear. something here everyday, even if it's something dull. better than nothing, right?

Picture of the day

this is already creepy, but I'm sleep deprived so it is the most terrifying thing ever. for real.

Picture of the day

This is Seneca Crane from the Hunger Games movie. Look at his beard and be awed.

I want a hockey player to attempt to recreate this as a play off beard, because that would be EPIC.

Everything about his beard is epic. it is the best beard in the world. 

or, ahem, the best beard as in facial hair.

INFO-GRAPHIC WIN~

poetry

I don't have much to say right this moment, but I've felt like a bad blogger, so here is a poem I've been enjoying lately.
It's by Alex Dimitrov, my new literary gay-boy crush.

YOU ARE THE PARTY I WANT TO GO TO

Dottie Lasky, it’s so funny how we met at a party
and we both hate parties and we both love
men who talk about their feelings,

especially if we talk about them to each other,
not the feelings but the men,
those men, they’re best when hopelessly

in love with us and crying
with their little mouths wide open.
I love a woman who can make men cry.

Well, it’s true, I want to have a thousand dinners with you!
And it’s true, I hope we’re never cool,
I hope we call each other just to gossip always.

Dottie Lasky, it’s the beginning of a story,
of a friendship, of celebrations without parties.
You are the party I want to go to, baby.

link

It's such a friendship love poem, and I love my friends, and don't like parties, but having friends is like having parties, even when we're doing nothing, and just....hearts. yeah. sure.

nothing to be afraid of

I just read Fear Itself, Marvel's latest super event, and I was really pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed it. There were themes. I felt emotions. The art was good. It made sense. You can't count on those things in events. It made me a little bit less cynical about the whole thing for a moment.

...but then again, they've got X-Men vs. Avengers coming up next, and I really don't see how that won't be a disaster.

comics?

Last year I was crazy into comic books. It was part of my weekly routine. I picked up probably at least three books a week. Now I don't think I've been in a comic book shop since this fall.
There are outside reasons for this, like the closure of my favorite store (Double Danger R.I.P.), being in college, having less money and time, but most importantly the things I cared about disappeared.

This mostly has to do with DC comics and the New 52. (I have mail subscriptions for the Marvel titles I love, and am actually happier reading creator owned comics in trade.) Before September I had been reading Birds of Prey, Secret Six, and Batman Inc. New 52 happened and those books stopped, or changed dramatically. A lot of the New 52 titles look really great, especially Batwoman, but I never got in the habit of picking them up. I didn't feel like reinvesting in a universe that was liable to suddenly reinvent itself.

Here is what this comic reader is looking for: consistency. I want to see characters behaving in ways that make sense for them. I want the to develop and grow. I love how comics are long-long-long form serialzed storytelling, but this doesn't matter if the world gets restarted every few years. I don't care if characters get old. I would rather see them deal with their past than have events I care about get erased.

There are other reasons to be annoyed about comics, especially the representation or lack of women, people of color, and queer people, but that isn't why I stopped reading comics. If anything wanting to support good representations is part of what got me following certain comics to begin with. I get invested in characters, but then when they: disappear, get retooled, get ignored, forgotten, dismissed, etc, I have to step back, and keep my money in my pocket.

Comic companies need to realize that getting new readers isn't there only concern, and stop being dicks so they keep people who are already fans.

tackling big things

I just started knitting a sweater. It is very frightening. It's going to eventually be an actual garment that a baby will wear. I know all of the stitches but the whole concept/assembly/thing is much more complicated. It's stressful and exciting.
yay!
sweater!

for broken ears

I've been doing quasi-academic writing about fandom!
happy tuesday!

Overwhelming Charm

I watched the entire first season of Justified today, and over all, I really enjoyed it. It was well made, compelling, structurally sound television with great acting. This conclusion is in no way radical. Neither is my main quibble, that it is so focused on it's hero to a point that all other characters are neglected.

Spoliers to follow.

Raylan is really awesome. I completely buy into the belief of his general awesomeness, which is the main hook for the show. Every member of the audience wants to be him or screw him or both. He's a nuanced anti-hero and obviously the leading man.
The problem is that in his shadows smaller characters don't grow so well.
Raylan's love interests Ava and Winona are both a little flat, and are only ever shown in relationship to their involvement with Raylan and other men.
His colleagues Tim and Rachel are intriguing, but unexplored. His boss, Art, has more screen time and development than the other too, but could still use fleshing out.

It's a rare breed of show where one off characters have chances to become more nuanced than returning supporting players. I appreciate the depth in the weekly stories, but it's puzzling, and I'd expect that character who reappar would get their time first.

The one character who really compares to Raylan's presence is Boyd, who is a wonderful balance of psychotic, confused, idealistic, and nuts. Boyd is awesome.

I hope that season two does more with the existing characters.

!!

Is watching slash vids for school. This is why I love college. Because vids! Kirk and Spok and Firefly! This is already what I am thinking about! Now I get to think about it for a grade!

love love love love love = my brain on coffee and fandom

Fairy Tales

So, I started watching Once Upon A Time, and am now caught up. Thoughts. There shall be spoilers.

• I like how there are lots of female characters and they all manage to be fairly badass. Still, they talk a lot about boys, because Henry is a boy, so I'm not entirely sure if it's a Bechdel pass. Still, just the amount of female characters makes me happy.
• There are also boys! Graham had such an amazing accent, then he died, and I was sad, but then Eoin Bradley from Band of Brothers showed up and I was less sad. Go shows that have cool women and cute boys!
• About Graham's death: did not want. Not just that I'm sadened, but it seemed like a waste. I don't believe in killing characters when they could still to something interesting. His death seemed wasted as a plot point, unless they're planning on bringing him back. Which would rock, but would be hard to explain.
• Also Graham's death wrecked what I wanted from the fandom, which is lots of fluffy stories with summaries like "Henry has two Mommies, and they have a Sheriff, and he has a Wolf." So it's probably a good thing I don't write fic?
• Regina needs to be eviler. I think that she's evil in sort of a shallow way. Like, seriously evil, but we don't really see much, because, well, it's a family show.
• It really is a family show, but only for biological families. I am actually upset at how this show continually values genetic connection and disregards the ideas of found families. That just isn't how I operate, and also feel that it's slightly offensive to all of the wonderful blended, unconventional families that are around.

take good care of yourself

Back at school tomorrow, argh. classes don't start til tuesday but have to do the whole re-moving/settling/locating/textbook thing. not excited.
Well, yes excited, but skeptically. If given another week would probably be prepared to murder the parents, and that's not good. So, excited? It's all in the question mark.

This is me giving my self some advice for the next semester because I learned a lot since September and need to get my thoughts organized. It's good advice in general though, and I'd advise considering following it even if you aren't me.

ADVICE

• take care of your skin and your hair and your body. It's the only one you get.
• Don't spend time with people you don't like very much because it's convenient. I've met some great new people and have best friends who I love with all my heart, but there are also a lot of people who I don't need to share my time with. As an introvert I need to recognize that there is nothing unhealthy about being alone and that it's definitely preferable to being with people I don't like.
• Speak up. Be yourself. This ties directly into the item above.
• Don't go on dates with boys who could vote Republican. See above.

Also, fuck my wrist. I've been knitting a lot and using my computer at stupid angles and then babying it at different odd angles and it just sucks. I am like Queen sXe uptight about medication but really think I am going to take some pain killer before bed because it hurts like a motherfucker.

You can tell I'm in pain because I'm swearing more. Actually, I just want to cuss at my wrist like my dad does when the kitchen drawers attack. Only I'm afraid it will scare the cat, and we wouldn't want that.

I will miss her so much when I go back to school. She is my baby. She was created for me to pick up and carry around. Absolutely. Don't listen to anything she meows to the contrary. I am the person in this situation so I know what is going on.

Now my wrist is making me type weird, so that's all.

Stay beautiful!

Atlas Sound

So I just read the new Atlas Sound interview over at pitchfork, and my reaction was like, whoah, this boy needs a hug. I never realized my love for Atlas Sound and Deerhunter match up for my fondness for boys who clearly need hugs.
Atlas Sound has always meant a lot to me. I heard the first album, Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel sometime in the winter of my Freshman year of high school, which was not a super pleasant time. I have really strong memories of listening that album repeatedly on my headphones during school.
My discovery of Atlas Sound is strange in that it didn't start with the music. It started with another pitchfork interview. I read that and it was like, yeah, this sounds cool, I should check it out. I think I had heard Deerhunter at some point earlier, but it hadn't really clicked. The way he talks about Lockett in that interview was very relatable, something I recognized in my own relationships, or at least something I could project onto.
whatever.
I love Deerhunter, and I love Atlas Sound, but in very different ways. Atlas Sound is headphone music, or good for playing late at night when the rest of the house is asleep. Deerhunter is more rock'n'roll. It isn't as intimate. Deerhunter wouldn't be out of place playing the background when you're hanging out with friends.
I guess that's all I have to say. The new Atlas Sound album Parallax is really good.

Nov 22

I woke up and 8 to register for classes, but really I was awake before that, because I have roommates, and they have electronics, and my clock said 6:58 and that is my idea of hell: Any time before seven.
But whatever. I have classes, and they are awesome. (I also maybe have class, but that is not up for debate tonight.)
What's changed in registering while having actual college experience is that I think about meals while making my schedule. What does this mean about my choices to eat things? It's an important question to ask. I am all for thinking with your stomach. My stomach is smarter than a lot of my other parts.
Like the part of me that decided getting a small mocha from Starbucks in Coffman was a wonderful idea. Because my hands were cold, but they are always cold, even in the summer. It's probably poor circulation, and coffee won't do anything to cure that.
It will fuel staying up late and writing, which is what I want to do tonight. Wednesdays are always tiring, but I don't care. I've just deiced to say fuck it, and struggle through tomorrow in favor of kicking back tonight.

yeah.

the past week and half have been both really stressful and really exciting. a lot has been happening. things in my life that aren't normal yet. that could be normal in the future, but are for now still exceptional.

it's damn odd how college didn't feel like a major shift. it just seemed like the logical next thing. I think maybe I was too busy to over think it.

I can try to be excited about finals because it will stop me from over thinking things. yea!

words

this is a note that goes along with the previous blog on justice.

I looked though some news stories before writing this, and none of them called bin Laden's death assassination, though I think that's what it was. I also think that western media isn't calling it that because it's assassination carried out by "the good guys," here meaning Navy Seals backed by the US government. Assassination is the realm of crazy loners and Serbian underground groups.

just a thing to think about.

"Justice has been done?"

this blog was written for my class Engaging Justice, but I am really happy with it and decided to repost it here. It's not my usual thing, but whatever, whatever.

In class last week we talked briefly about the killing of Osama bin Laden, and how in his speech announcing this development President Obama used the phrase "justice has been done," and how that's just a really odd thing to say. The whole line was, "And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda's terror, justice has been done." It's an awkward line, and overall not his most eloquent speech, but he has the excuse of not knowing for sure that bin Laden was dead until after it actually happened. (Unless presidents write these things ahead; maybe he has a drawer of speeches prepared for every occasion, which can be brought out and polished as need be, much like how newspapers have pre-written obituaries for people they think are going to die.)
In saying that "justice has been done," Obama used justice to refer to punishment. It was punishment he referred to in the same speech when he said that he "authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice."
However, this punitive form of justice doesn't encompass every nuance of the word. In many cases justice means fairness. It means that everyone gets the respect and resources that they deserve. An argument could be made that because bin Laden was a terrorist getting what he deserved meant being killed by Navy Seals. But for ordinary people, especially minoritized people, justice means being allowed access to resources they've been deprived of and respect they've been denied. It seems that it is this second, social meaning that we're exploring in class.
I don't know if America's killing of Osama bin Laden was just or not. I read a lot, but don't feel that I am informed enough about global politics to pass judgement. My feeling on bin Laden's death are well explained by political commenter Nate Fick (who's name you may recognize from the book turned HBO miniseries Generation Kill). Fick wrote that "His death allows the United States to focus on other core interests - restoring America's economic strength, developing and implementing more sensible energy policies, and reinvigorating America's relationships with emerging powers around the world." Now that bin Laden is no longer a direct concern maybe we could move further away from panic and conflict and refocus our attention on issues like education and the economy. Now that "justice has been done" for those hurt by 9/11 maybe now, a decade later the government can start serving up another kind of justice for the oppressed within America's borders.

3/4 mark check in, preliminary best releases of the year so far

• Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
• James Blake - s/t
• Dum Dum Girls - He Gets Me High
• John Maus - (really long tittle)
• tune-yards - whokill
• Grieves - (i don't want to look it up)

I can't wait to hear

• cymbals eat guitars
• Girls
• Atlas Sound