I want a thousand guitars, I want the pounding drums
Thank you guys for your warm weather recipe recommendations! They all sound DELICIOUS. I am actually not in a position to whine too much about the heat because I have air conditioning at work and at home (and you can all mock me when our electric bill is a million dollars). Our power did go out last night, which was annoying-primarily because I just went to the grocery store on Tuesday and I was worried about all the food in the fridge, and ALSO because it went out during SYTYCD, meaning I now have to acquire that via OTHER MEANS, and Leverage, too-but it was only out for a few hours and it was late enough at night that the house stayed relatively cool, so. No harm, no foul.
ANYWAY. The fannish grab bag for today:
- I think the entire internets has seen this already, but just in case, I would like to recommend this excellent post by rawles, regarding the significance of Uhura's characterization in STXI from a racial perspective. Linked in the comments there, I also found this excellent post by liviapenn, which is another side of the same coin, focused mainly on the significance of Uhura's characterization from a story perspective (i.e., the way the movie takes the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triad from the series and turns it into a Kirk/Spock/McCoy/Uhura quadrangle-SO COOL). Really fascinating posts, both of them, and they totally schooled and excited me on a number of levels.
- BEING HUMAN. NOW ON BBC AMERICA. YOU NEED THIS IN YOUR LIFE. Premieres on Saturday nights, and this week is episode two, though I believe they're re-running episode one several times, including TONIGHT (8 pm and 11 pm). It actually looks like there are LOTS of rerun opportunities, so you have no excuse for not watching if you get this channel! It's SO GOOD, all friendship and humor and angst and banter and tight writing and interesting philosophical stuff and extremely attractive people who can be paired up in various ways and lots of scope for fic-basically everything you could ever want! And it's only six episodes (with a second series in the works)! WATCH IT, IT'S SO GOOD.
- The best Hugh Dillon interview I've seen in quite a while. I love when people actually know enough about him to ask some decent questions, and he talks about the Headstones a bit, and he waxes rhapsodic about basically everyone he's ever worked with (especially Bruce McD, and a totally gratuitous Callum mention), and it's a Canadian interview so he gets to say "fuckin'" a lot, and he also says "acquiesce" about five times, so, hey. One interview, five orgasms! BARGAIN.
- While danceswithwords was in town a couple of weekends ago, I was a very willing victim to her pimping of Deadwood, so we watched the first five episodes, and wow. I had high expectations for this show, and they were completely met. Even after only five episodes, I'm shocked at how invested I am in the characters. The actors are all fantastic, and the language is gorgeous (I love how the profanity just adds to the tapestry, too). Honestly, I keep thinking of Shakespeare-historical speech patterns elevated into poetry. It's fascinating. And it's a brutal, rough world without being a hopeless one-there are these little oases of kindness and goodness and surprising connection throughout. And did I mention how much I love the characters? I find Seth totally fascinating (and HOT, holy cow, it is not right that anyone with that facial hair should be so hot, and yet, with the gun belt, and being all intent and justice-y? RRROWR), how he's not a nice man, but he's a good man, or at least he's trying to be. And Sol is both nice AND good, which… he is such a balm on this show, and I think he only gets away with being so nice because he works in the background, he's not a leader the way Seth is, and thank goodness for that. I also find Alma totally fascinating (though, my god, Molly Parker WHY WITH THESE INCREDIBLY DEPRESSING CHARACTERS, YOU ARE KILLING ME), and I love the way the show deals with their female characters-despite being culturally trapped in many ways, they still have so much agency, and their connections with each other are surprising and gorgeous (like Trixie refusing to nudge Alma back toward the laudanum-that was a brilliant writing choice, IMO). (Suck on THAT, Theodore Dreiser/Kate Chopin/et al.) And of course Al, who has the HARDEST LIFE ANYONE EVER HAD. *giggling* I don't understand how he can be such a complete unrelenting BASTARD and yet be so fucking hilarious. It's amazing. And I love how he's not really evil, he's just unflaggingly pragmatic and self-serving; it's not PERSONAL, the horrible shit he does, it's just BUSINESS. So fascinating. And Calamity Jane, who's just… she's like a walking open wound, and it's SO HARD to watch, but I absolutely adore her and I want to hug her SO MUCH. Gah.
Also, in the name of catharsis: I was really, REALLY devastated by Hickok's death. I was struck by him the minute he came on-screen-Keith Carradine has an astonishing amount of presence-and I don't really know anything about the real Wild Bill Hickok (hey, in my head, he's still sorta played by Josh Brolin), so his death was a complete shock to me. And I LOVED him. I loved the quiet tragedy about him, and his humor, and his ridiculously intense friendship with Seth (I waited TWO WHOLE EPISODES before asking SDW if there was fic about them-hee; but omg, total Brynn-kink-fest, right down to nickname usage), and his fundamental gentility, and I loved that he was trying so hard to be a good man, despite the weight of so many years of mistakes and compromises and failures. The way his death sequence was constructed was so beautiful-how they set up (in, what, the second episode?) the fact that no one gets the drop on him, so his death is very clearly suicide-by-crazy-guy, and the bleak simplicity of his farewell to Charlie ("just let me go to hell in my own way," wow, normally I hate that sort of thing, but in this world, in his position, it just made me terribly sad for him), and the quiet deliberation in the way he dressed himself for that last poker game, and the devastation on Seth's and Calamity Jane's faces afterward, the way they each get so tangled up in their own ways, and Seth, who keeps getting roped into these funerals that he doesn't care at all about, going to a funeral he cares very deeply about, and Jane watching from a distance… gah. It was beautifully done, but I still wanted to FIX IT, to make it not true. Sigh. STUPID HISTORY.
Anyway. I'm excited to see more!
- Leverage! I am a week behind, but I did thoroughly enjoy last week's episode, and one thing in particular caught my eye about it (besides the fact that I LOVE HARDISON SO MUCH). I really loved the choice to have Eliot's… confession, shall we say? be to Sophie. In a way, it's an obvious choice, since Sophie is sort of the maternal figure, but I also really liked that a) Eliot is in a place where he's comfortable expressing that sort of thing at all (and not just the anger/frustration, but the gentle smile at the end, poking fun at himself, "And yeah, it's about guys beating each other up"); b) Eliot is comfortable expressing that sort of thing to someone who isn't Parker or Hardison (since he seems closest to them, at least in the sense that he seems to let his guard down a little around them); and c) Eliot is comfortable expressing that sort of thing to Sophie in particular, given that he seemed the most hurt by her betrayal at the end of last season. So it demonstrates the extent of Eliot's feelings toward the team as well as Sophie's full acceptance back into the team. It was a small moment, and it was necessary for setup and exposition, but choosing to play it out in that specific way was a lovely choice, I thought, and did a lot of character work in a small space. Well-played, Leverage!
Also, Parker merrily choking the hell out of Hardison, and his ensuing periodic pleas for help while the other three discussed the plan, was COMEDY GOLD. <333
- And finally, in AI news (no, I am not over this yet)… there's so much going on that I could easily do a daily roundup of awesome (and in fact, SDW did that very thing for me while I was gone this past weekend, for which: ♥ ♥ ♥), but I will just pick a few highlights from the past week or so. So here, have a seriously adorable interview with Kris and Allison. AWWWWWW. And some Kris/Matt Twitter shenanigans (actually, Kris + Twitter in general is pretty amazing). And a fairly epic, innuendo-laden Kradam interview, in which Kris mentions his desire to ride in Adam's Mustang (watch Adam's and the interviewer's faces go O.O right before Kris says "Mustang," it's HILARIOUS), Adam gallantly tries to pretend he wants to drive the Fusion ("Don't lie to me," Kris says, in the most sexadorable tone ever)… it's really, REALLY good times. And then one of my greatest joys on this tour so far, the random BubbleTweets: first and still my favorite, in which the boys are all very dorky, and Adam says "motherf--" while making the cutest face I have ever seen, and he also somehow manages to look completely gorgeous even when upside-down and six inches from a crappy webcam. IDEK, he is an alien. The second, in which there is more dorkiness, and also Kris playing "Blackbird" on the guitar in the background a;sldkfja;sldfjkas;ldfkja;slkgj. And the third, in which Matt refers to Adam as "the queen of the hour," Kris wears a hat that I thought at first was Adam's bedazzled trucker hat but then turned out to be Sarver's hat (DON'T MAKE ME THINK ABOUT YOU AND SARVER LIKE THAT, KRISTOPHER), Adam continues to refer to Tweeting as "twatting" and also makes the cutest noise I have ever heard at the end, and I start to suspect that Matt and Megan are Totally Doing It.
Also, I totally cried at the three-minute ovation Kris got when they played Little Rock. You know what? I'm not even ashamed; THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL.
Sorry for the feast-or-famine nature of my posts lately. It's been a crazy month! August should be slightly more chill. *crosses fingers*
ANYWAY. The fannish grab bag for today:
- I think the entire internets has seen this already, but just in case, I would like to recommend this excellent post by rawles, regarding the significance of Uhura's characterization in STXI from a racial perspective. Linked in the comments there, I also found this excellent post by liviapenn, which is another side of the same coin, focused mainly on the significance of Uhura's characterization from a story perspective (i.e., the way the movie takes the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triad from the series and turns it into a Kirk/Spock/McCoy/Uhura quadrangle-SO COOL). Really fascinating posts, both of them, and they totally schooled and excited me on a number of levels.
- BEING HUMAN. NOW ON BBC AMERICA. YOU NEED THIS IN YOUR LIFE. Premieres on Saturday nights, and this week is episode two, though I believe they're re-running episode one several times, including TONIGHT (8 pm and 11 pm). It actually looks like there are LOTS of rerun opportunities, so you have no excuse for not watching if you get this channel! It's SO GOOD, all friendship and humor and angst and banter and tight writing and interesting philosophical stuff and extremely attractive people who can be paired up in various ways and lots of scope for fic-basically everything you could ever want! And it's only six episodes (with a second series in the works)! WATCH IT, IT'S SO GOOD.
- The best Hugh Dillon interview I've seen in quite a while. I love when people actually know enough about him to ask some decent questions, and he talks about the Headstones a bit, and he waxes rhapsodic about basically everyone he's ever worked with (especially Bruce McD, and a totally gratuitous Callum mention), and it's a Canadian interview so he gets to say "fuckin'" a lot, and he also says "acquiesce" about five times, so, hey. One interview, five orgasms! BARGAIN.
- While danceswithwords was in town a couple of weekends ago, I was a very willing victim to her pimping of Deadwood, so we watched the first five episodes, and wow. I had high expectations for this show, and they were completely met. Even after only five episodes, I'm shocked at how invested I am in the characters. The actors are all fantastic, and the language is gorgeous (I love how the profanity just adds to the tapestry, too). Honestly, I keep thinking of Shakespeare-historical speech patterns elevated into poetry. It's fascinating. And it's a brutal, rough world without being a hopeless one-there are these little oases of kindness and goodness and surprising connection throughout. And did I mention how much I love the characters? I find Seth totally fascinating (and HOT, holy cow, it is not right that anyone with that facial hair should be so hot, and yet, with the gun belt, and being all intent and justice-y? RRROWR), how he's not a nice man, but he's a good man, or at least he's trying to be. And Sol is both nice AND good, which… he is such a balm on this show, and I think he only gets away with being so nice because he works in the background, he's not a leader the way Seth is, and thank goodness for that. I also find Alma totally fascinating (though, my god, Molly Parker WHY WITH THESE INCREDIBLY DEPRESSING CHARACTERS, YOU ARE KILLING ME), and I love the way the show deals with their female characters-despite being culturally trapped in many ways, they still have so much agency, and their connections with each other are surprising and gorgeous (like Trixie refusing to nudge Alma back toward the laudanum-that was a brilliant writing choice, IMO). (Suck on THAT, Theodore Dreiser/Kate Chopin/et al.) And of course Al, who has the HARDEST LIFE ANYONE EVER HAD. *giggling* I don't understand how he can be such a complete unrelenting BASTARD and yet be so fucking hilarious. It's amazing. And I love how he's not really evil, he's just unflaggingly pragmatic and self-serving; it's not PERSONAL, the horrible shit he does, it's just BUSINESS. So fascinating. And Calamity Jane, who's just… she's like a walking open wound, and it's SO HARD to watch, but I absolutely adore her and I want to hug her SO MUCH. Gah.
Also, in the name of catharsis: I was really, REALLY devastated by Hickok's death. I was struck by him the minute he came on-screen-Keith Carradine has an astonishing amount of presence-and I don't really know anything about the real Wild Bill Hickok (hey, in my head, he's still sorta played by Josh Brolin), so his death was a complete shock to me. And I LOVED him. I loved the quiet tragedy about him, and his humor, and his ridiculously intense friendship with Seth (I waited TWO WHOLE EPISODES before asking SDW if there was fic about them-hee; but omg, total Brynn-kink-fest, right down to nickname usage), and his fundamental gentility, and I loved that he was trying so hard to be a good man, despite the weight of so many years of mistakes and compromises and failures. The way his death sequence was constructed was so beautiful-how they set up (in, what, the second episode?) the fact that no one gets the drop on him, so his death is very clearly suicide-by-crazy-guy, and the bleak simplicity of his farewell to Charlie ("just let me go to hell in my own way," wow, normally I hate that sort of thing, but in this world, in his position, it just made me terribly sad for him), and the quiet deliberation in the way he dressed himself for that last poker game, and the devastation on Seth's and Calamity Jane's faces afterward, the way they each get so tangled up in their own ways, and Seth, who keeps getting roped into these funerals that he doesn't care at all about, going to a funeral he cares very deeply about, and Jane watching from a distance… gah. It was beautifully done, but I still wanted to FIX IT, to make it not true. Sigh. STUPID HISTORY.
Anyway. I'm excited to see more!
- Leverage! I am a week behind, but I did thoroughly enjoy last week's episode, and one thing in particular caught my eye about it (besides the fact that I LOVE HARDISON SO MUCH). I really loved the choice to have Eliot's… confession, shall we say? be to Sophie. In a way, it's an obvious choice, since Sophie is sort of the maternal figure, but I also really liked that a) Eliot is in a place where he's comfortable expressing that sort of thing at all (and not just the anger/frustration, but the gentle smile at the end, poking fun at himself, "And yeah, it's about guys beating each other up"); b) Eliot is comfortable expressing that sort of thing to someone who isn't Parker or Hardison (since he seems closest to them, at least in the sense that he seems to let his guard down a little around them); and c) Eliot is comfortable expressing that sort of thing to Sophie in particular, given that he seemed the most hurt by her betrayal at the end of last season. So it demonstrates the extent of Eliot's feelings toward the team as well as Sophie's full acceptance back into the team. It was a small moment, and it was necessary for setup and exposition, but choosing to play it out in that specific way was a lovely choice, I thought, and did a lot of character work in a small space. Well-played, Leverage!
Also, Parker merrily choking the hell out of Hardison, and his ensuing periodic pleas for help while the other three discussed the plan, was COMEDY GOLD. <333
- And finally, in AI news (no, I am not over this yet)… there's so much going on that I could easily do a daily roundup of awesome (and in fact, SDW did that very thing for me while I was gone this past weekend, for which: ♥ ♥ ♥), but I will just pick a few highlights from the past week or so. So here, have a seriously adorable interview with Kris and Allison. AWWWWWW. And some Kris/Matt Twitter shenanigans (actually, Kris + Twitter in general is pretty amazing). And a fairly epic, innuendo-laden Kradam interview, in which Kris mentions his desire to ride in Adam's Mustang (watch Adam's and the interviewer's faces go O.O right before Kris says "Mustang," it's HILARIOUS), Adam gallantly tries to pretend he wants to drive the Fusion ("Don't lie to me," Kris says, in the most sexadorable tone ever)… it's really, REALLY good times. And then one of my greatest joys on this tour so far, the random BubbleTweets: first and still my favorite, in which the boys are all very dorky, and Adam says "motherf--" while making the cutest face I have ever seen, and he also somehow manages to look completely gorgeous even when upside-down and six inches from a crappy webcam. IDEK, he is an alien. The second, in which there is more dorkiness, and also Kris playing "Blackbird" on the guitar in the background a;sldkfja;sldfjkas;ldfkja;slkgj. And the third, in which Matt refers to Adam as "the queen of the hour," Kris wears a hat that I thought at first was Adam's bedazzled trucker hat but then turned out to be Sarver's hat (DON'T MAKE ME THINK ABOUT YOU AND SARVER LIKE THAT, KRISTOPHER), Adam continues to refer to Tweeting as "twatting" and also makes the cutest noise I have ever heard at the end, and I start to suspect that Matt and Megan are Totally Doing It.
Also, I totally cried at the three-minute ovation Kris got when they played Little Rock. You know what? I'm not even ashamed; THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL.
Sorry for the feast-or-famine nature of my posts lately. It's been a crazy month! August should be slightly more chill. *crosses fingers*