What's different about me, empirically, is you.
Hello internet! My life lately has consisted significantly of a) work and b) worrying about work, so I have not been the best online citizen, for which I apologize. But we have a major system rollout happening in early August and almost everyone else on my team has at least a week of vacation between now and then (including MY BOSS, who will be gone for two and a half weeks and then come back the week before the rollout), so we’re going to be short-handed anyway, PLUS this happens to be the time when my biggest solo responsibilities in all this (i.e. conducting user training) are coming to a head, PLUS we are still supporting our current system. So basically I’m going to be stuck at work for the next month dealing with significantly increased workload of my own, plus covering for other people, plus whatever unexpected shit might happen--either with our current system or with the new one, which is not at all stable yet--all with limited resources and backup, and I am REALLY anxious about it. And I’m supposed to start training next Monday--to hundreds of users--and I haven’t even really been able to start on my training materials yet because the stuff that I’m training on isn’t finished yet. And I can’t put in any last-minute hours this weekend because I’m in my friend R’s wedding, and we are basically camping out on an island, so it’s not like I can sneak any work in around the edges. (I am super excited about his wedding and I am of course very honored to be in it, it’s just really freaking me out knowing that I really just have THIS WEEK to get all my shit together for this massive training initiative, and there are still so many unknowns, and aaaaaaagh. Plus I am nervous about silly things like my hair and makeup for the wedding, etc. EEP.)
So I am just feeling generally unprepared and kind of terrified and also RESENTFUL that I am stuck dealing with all of this more or less by myself, and I’m having tons of anxiety dreams and waking up with my teeth clenched and I just want to be enjoying my fucking summer and it SUCKS. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
In happier news, I went to see Joss Whedon’s Much Ado recently with a friend from work, and though I have some notes, overall I really enjoyed it. I felt like the first third or so of the movie had more than a few moments that just felt off, like it was strangely paced or people weren’t really picking up their cues or whatever. And Alexis Denisof, in particular, didn’t seem QUITE comfortable in the early going; I LOVE him and I think he’s brilliant, and his physical comedy was AMAZING, but his early sparring with Beatrice and some of his monologues really felt like he was underplaying them to a degree that made them seem very vague--I really lost the intention and emotion behind them, and they didn’t have a lot of levels, so there wasn’t much for me to hold on to. I don’t know if it was that stereotypical American thing of playing Shakespeare like it’s generic modern language, or if he was just trying very hard not to copy Kenneth Branagh (which would be VERY DIFFICULT), or what, but it didn’t quite settle in for me till they got to the wedding scene and he could really sink his teeth into the drama, which I thought he did excellently.
I really really liked almost everybody’s performances; Clark Gregg was great, the guy who played Don Pedro was fantastic, the woman who played Conrad was amaaaaazing, Sean Maher was RIDICULOUSLY sexy (that is such a valid way to go with Don John, IMO, make him so distractingly hot that it obscures the fact that he’s one of Shakespeare’s least interesting villains, WORKS FOR ME), the woman who played Ursula was awesome, the people playing Hero and Claudio did well with relatively thankless roles, and of course Nathan Fillion and Tom Lenk were SPECTACULAR. I have read that Nathan Fillion was very intimidated because he’d never done Shakespeare before, but OMG, he does officious and bumbling SO WELL, and the language seemed to flow so easily for him, too. That little monologue he has after they’ve carried off Conrad and Borachio--that has NO BEARING on the plot and it often gets cut, and I would bet MONEY that the only reason they left it in there was that he did it so hilariously. And I will say that Tom Lenk’s mustache did about 50% of the work for him, and his wardrobe--like he got dressed in a 70’s cop movie--did about 25% more, but even so, the 25% that was left to his performance was great. Really the only performance that didn’t work for me at all was Ashley Johnson as Margaret; I’ve liked her in other things, but I thought she was painfully awkward in this (which made me especially sad because I played Margaret in our high school production of Much Ado, and had tons of fun doing it).
But I was most excited about seeing Amy Acker play a role like this, because I think she’s so ridiculously talented and deserves much more recognition than she gets, and she just basically MADE MY LIFE with how incandescently amazing she was. I also think it would be very difficult to play that role without echoing Emma Thompson, but she found a way, and she was bright and sharp and sparkling and goofy and heartbreaking and kind and EVERYTHING I could have asked for and more. And the chapel scene (dining room scene)... that is one of my very favorite scenes in all of Shakespeare, and both she and Alexis played that SO BEAUTIFULLY, so passionately and perfectly that it made me hold my breath even though I have seen that scene a hundred times and literally have it memorized. Just... amazing amazing amazing. Hollywood, PLEASE CAST AMY ACKER IN EVERYTHING NOW, because she is SO GOOD and I want to see her in all the things.
Overall, I thought Joss (I assume) made some really interesting choices, too--the biggest thing was that it really seemed to me here that while Don John is whispering in his ear, it’s Claudio’s willingness to believe he’s been betrayed--TWICE, in both cases based on very little proof--that’s the real villain. It makes the ending that much more uncomfortable, because while I’m really happy for Beatrice and Benedick, I’m EXTREMELY DUBIOUS about Claudio and Hero, and in this version even more so than in others. And I’m honestly not sure how you deal with that, as a director--I assume that Claudio is supposed to learn his lesson by humbling himself in front of Hero’s grave and by being willing to marry Leonato’s “niece” sight unseen, but there’s just not enough there in the text for me to feel like he really deserves her by the end. Yet the text makes it difficult to have TOO much wariness from Hero at the end, either. Hmm. I don’t know how I’d fix that, if I were directing it, but it would be interesting to try--you could do SOMETHING with looks and gestures, I think, though I’m not sure what. Hmmmm.
On a more minor note, I loved that they played it as Borachio being in unrequited love with Hero; I’ve never seen that before, but now that I have, it makes so much sense that I wonder that anyone plays it any other way. It’s the perfect context for both his willingness to shame her and his repentance later, and having him played by such a young actor was an interesting touch, too--it made for a nice division between the sort of youthful folly of him and Margaret and Claudio and Hero, and the slightly more mature, world-weary (world-wary) wooing of Beatrice and Benedick. Nicely done.
So. I have been wanting to see this foreeeeeeeeeever--since I first heard they’d done it, which had to be over a year ago--and it did not disappoint. YAY FOR RANDOM WEEKEND SHAKESPEARE READINGS. \o/
Also, at Mr. McK’s urging, I finally started watching Elementary, and now I am COMPLETELY in love with it. So, I have not been able to share in most of the Sherlocks-related squee that has happened in fandom in the past few years because I... generally kind of don’t like Sherlock himself? Particularly the BBC version, who is a character type who just pushes my buttons in a bad way. So while I love Martin Freeman’s Watson, I just can’t get into that show because I can’t get on board with either Sherlock himself or with the dynamic of their partnership.
With Elementary, though, I love both Sherlock and Joan SO MUCH. I mean, Sherlock is still brilliant and strange and impatient and sometimes thoughtless, but he has so many small moments of kindness--and not just to Joan, but to strangers (which I like even better, because the whole “I am a jerk to everyone but you, one special person” thing also pushes my buttons)--and while he believes that he’s smarter than everyone else, objectively, he usually isn’t condescending about it. Not to Gregson and Bell, and certainly not to Joan, which makes their whole investigative relationship really work for me, because he’s teaching her what he knows in a way that still respects the things that SHE knows, and her own areas of expertise. Certain types of criminals make him particularly angry, but he’s not usually judgmental (except in the way he talks about sex workers, which is always very jarring to me--I don’t know if the writers just think it’s fun to hear JLM say things like “whore” and “strumpet” or what, but Sherlock is disproportionately dismissive/disrespectful of sex workers in a way that makes me especially uncomfortable given that he semi-regularly employs their services; it’s a very weird blind spot that sticks out enough for me to blame the writers more than the character). And while he’s certainly very emotionally guarded, he can also be surprisingly generous with his emotions, and not just in times of great stress or great need, but in the smaller moments, too--once he learns to trust Joan, he tells her how important she is to him, and tells her pretty often, really. Ditto Gregson, though less often and less effusively, but even so, it’s there. For all that he’s isolated, he’s still at least aware that there are other people in the world, and that their wants and needs are also important. And while he may not speak the same emotional language as the average person, he makes the effort to translate where he can, when he can. He’s just generally a bit kinder and gentler, and while I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, it gives me a toehold to loving him the way I haven’t been able to in any other modern adaptation. (Jonny Lee Miller is also a MUCH better actor than I’d realized; I knew Lucy Liu was amazing, but while I’ve had a crush on JLM since, like, Hackers, I did not know he was capable of some of the moments he’s had in this series. Just, WOW.)
Then there’s Joan, and not just Joan, but the way the show treats Joan, which makes me UNBELIEVABLY happy. Not only is she intelligent and talented and snarky and brave and curious, but I love that the show makes clear repeatedly that she loves the work itself, as well as loving Sherlock. Even when she’s living in his house and glued to his side, she’s still her own person, doing what she’s doing for her own reasons. And she calls him on his shit as well as putting up with it, and she gets to be right sometimes, and she gets to save the day sometimes, and she gets to teach Sherlock things, too, both emotionally and intellectually. They’re equals, explicitly, and while they have different skill sets, neither one of them is really privileged over the other. The show isn’t just about Watson discovering how shiny and special (and broken) Holmes is, it’s about them discovering what’s shiny and special (and broken) about each other--“I think what you do is amazing,” oh my HEART--and how they can be even shinier and specialer (and less broken) together.
So when it comes to their partnership, I am DEAD AND GONE, basically. I like that they’re not explicitly romantic, and I actually hope the show never goes there; I like having the door open, but I don’t want them to walk through it--not for any bullshit Moonlighting reason, but because it would feel cliche, and this show has done such a nice job of avoiding so many cliches. (I am finding myself feeling this way about fictional partners more and more these days, actually--Holmes and Watson, Clint and Natasha, even Jules and Lassiter on Psych--where I certainly wouldn’t MIND if they made out, but mostly I’m just really invested in their partnership, and the making out is kind of incidental to that.) I mean, it’s my kryptonite, really: two people who are capable of going about their lives without each other, but who are better and happier together than they are separately. And I love the way the show is building their relationship, too, all of these small and large moments that add up to a completely believable and largely functional whole. And it’s all delightfully gilded by this genuine joy of discovery, like all this time Sherlock thought he was alone in investigative fandom, and now he’s found someone else to be in it with him, and he’s SO EXCITED to share it with her, and Joan is so excited to learn about it, and she’s able to make her own unique contributions, and it’s just SO GOOD and SO SATISFYING and it makes me SO HAPPY.
All that AND great supporting characters--I love Gregson and Bell a LOT, and Ms. Hudson is absolutely lovely and I hope we see more of her--and interesting (though shenanigans-filled) mysteries, and a worldview that’s more about the light in people than the darkness, even though the darkness is all around. YES PLEASE.
So I’m so happy to have found an incarnation to fall in love with, and I have the books on my Nook, and am looking forward to reading them!
And finally,
belmanoir and mrs_laugh_track showed me Newsies this weekend, and OH MY GOD. LIFE. CHANGED. WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE? How did 14-year-old me miss this movie? FAIL, 14-year-old me! FAIL. (Though 14-year-old me would not have been able to fully appreciate the extreme, beautiful slashiness, so there is that.) It is possible I watched it again yesterday. And also several of the special features on the DVD. (Kenny Ortega’s HAIR. OMG.) There are many many delights to this movie, but I cannot help but keep wondering why David Moscow never really happened, because OMG SO DREAMY. HE’S SO DREAMY IN THIS MOVIE. No one wanted to make use of that dreaminess afterward? COME ON. OPPORTUNITY WASTED, HOLLYWOOD.
And then I went back and rewatched the Newsies performance from the 2012 Tony Awards, which I enjoyed at the time primarily for the “spot the SYTYCD alum” factor, and which was even better in context. And now I reallyreallyreally want to see that show. SIGH. But anyway: LIFE CHANGED. If anyone has any Jack/David fic recs, I would dearly love to have them.
Okay. Work time. We who are about to die salute you. *grits teeth*
This post is also at Dreamwidth! http://brynnmck.dreamwidth.org/296008.html Comments at Dreamwidth:
So I am just feeling generally unprepared and kind of terrified and also RESENTFUL that I am stuck dealing with all of this more or less by myself, and I’m having tons of anxiety dreams and waking up with my teeth clenched and I just want to be enjoying my fucking summer and it SUCKS. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
In happier news, I went to see Joss Whedon’s Much Ado recently with a friend from work, and though I have some notes, overall I really enjoyed it. I felt like the first third or so of the movie had more than a few moments that just felt off, like it was strangely paced or people weren’t really picking up their cues or whatever. And Alexis Denisof, in particular, didn’t seem QUITE comfortable in the early going; I LOVE him and I think he’s brilliant, and his physical comedy was AMAZING, but his early sparring with Beatrice and some of his monologues really felt like he was underplaying them to a degree that made them seem very vague--I really lost the intention and emotion behind them, and they didn’t have a lot of levels, so there wasn’t much for me to hold on to. I don’t know if it was that stereotypical American thing of playing Shakespeare like it’s generic modern language, or if he was just trying very hard not to copy Kenneth Branagh (which would be VERY DIFFICULT), or what, but it didn’t quite settle in for me till they got to the wedding scene and he could really sink his teeth into the drama, which I thought he did excellently.
I really really liked almost everybody’s performances; Clark Gregg was great, the guy who played Don Pedro was fantastic, the woman who played Conrad was amaaaaazing, Sean Maher was RIDICULOUSLY sexy (that is such a valid way to go with Don John, IMO, make him so distractingly hot that it obscures the fact that he’s one of Shakespeare’s least interesting villains, WORKS FOR ME), the woman who played Ursula was awesome, the people playing Hero and Claudio did well with relatively thankless roles, and of course Nathan Fillion and Tom Lenk were SPECTACULAR. I have read that Nathan Fillion was very intimidated because he’d never done Shakespeare before, but OMG, he does officious and bumbling SO WELL, and the language seemed to flow so easily for him, too. That little monologue he has after they’ve carried off Conrad and Borachio--that has NO BEARING on the plot and it often gets cut, and I would bet MONEY that the only reason they left it in there was that he did it so hilariously. And I will say that Tom Lenk’s mustache did about 50% of the work for him, and his wardrobe--like he got dressed in a 70’s cop movie--did about 25% more, but even so, the 25% that was left to his performance was great. Really the only performance that didn’t work for me at all was Ashley Johnson as Margaret; I’ve liked her in other things, but I thought she was painfully awkward in this (which made me especially sad because I played Margaret in our high school production of Much Ado, and had tons of fun doing it).
But I was most excited about seeing Amy Acker play a role like this, because I think she’s so ridiculously talented and deserves much more recognition than she gets, and she just basically MADE MY LIFE with how incandescently amazing she was. I also think it would be very difficult to play that role without echoing Emma Thompson, but she found a way, and she was bright and sharp and sparkling and goofy and heartbreaking and kind and EVERYTHING I could have asked for and more. And the chapel scene (dining room scene)... that is one of my very favorite scenes in all of Shakespeare, and both she and Alexis played that SO BEAUTIFULLY, so passionately and perfectly that it made me hold my breath even though I have seen that scene a hundred times and literally have it memorized. Just... amazing amazing amazing. Hollywood, PLEASE CAST AMY ACKER IN EVERYTHING NOW, because she is SO GOOD and I want to see her in all the things.
Overall, I thought Joss (I assume) made some really interesting choices, too--the biggest thing was that it really seemed to me here that while Don John is whispering in his ear, it’s Claudio’s willingness to believe he’s been betrayed--TWICE, in both cases based on very little proof--that’s the real villain. It makes the ending that much more uncomfortable, because while I’m really happy for Beatrice and Benedick, I’m EXTREMELY DUBIOUS about Claudio and Hero, and in this version even more so than in others. And I’m honestly not sure how you deal with that, as a director--I assume that Claudio is supposed to learn his lesson by humbling himself in front of Hero’s grave and by being willing to marry Leonato’s “niece” sight unseen, but there’s just not enough there in the text for me to feel like he really deserves her by the end. Yet the text makes it difficult to have TOO much wariness from Hero at the end, either. Hmm. I don’t know how I’d fix that, if I were directing it, but it would be interesting to try--you could do SOMETHING with looks and gestures, I think, though I’m not sure what. Hmmmm.
On a more minor note, I loved that they played it as Borachio being in unrequited love with Hero; I’ve never seen that before, but now that I have, it makes so much sense that I wonder that anyone plays it any other way. It’s the perfect context for both his willingness to shame her and his repentance later, and having him played by such a young actor was an interesting touch, too--it made for a nice division between the sort of youthful folly of him and Margaret and Claudio and Hero, and the slightly more mature, world-weary (world-wary) wooing of Beatrice and Benedick. Nicely done.
So. I have been wanting to see this foreeeeeeeeeever--since I first heard they’d done it, which had to be over a year ago--and it did not disappoint. YAY FOR RANDOM WEEKEND SHAKESPEARE READINGS. \o/
Also, at Mr. McK’s urging, I finally started watching Elementary, and now I am COMPLETELY in love with it. So, I have not been able to share in most of the Sherlocks-related squee that has happened in fandom in the past few years because I... generally kind of don’t like Sherlock himself? Particularly the BBC version, who is a character type who just pushes my buttons in a bad way. So while I love Martin Freeman’s Watson, I just can’t get into that show because I can’t get on board with either Sherlock himself or with the dynamic of their partnership.
With Elementary, though, I love both Sherlock and Joan SO MUCH. I mean, Sherlock is still brilliant and strange and impatient and sometimes thoughtless, but he has so many small moments of kindness--and not just to Joan, but to strangers (which I like even better, because the whole “I am a jerk to everyone but you, one special person” thing also pushes my buttons)--and while he believes that he’s smarter than everyone else, objectively, he usually isn’t condescending about it. Not to Gregson and Bell, and certainly not to Joan, which makes their whole investigative relationship really work for me, because he’s teaching her what he knows in a way that still respects the things that SHE knows, and her own areas of expertise. Certain types of criminals make him particularly angry, but he’s not usually judgmental (except in the way he talks about sex workers, which is always very jarring to me--I don’t know if the writers just think it’s fun to hear JLM say things like “whore” and “strumpet” or what, but Sherlock is disproportionately dismissive/disrespectful of sex workers in a way that makes me especially uncomfortable given that he semi-regularly employs their services; it’s a very weird blind spot that sticks out enough for me to blame the writers more than the character). And while he’s certainly very emotionally guarded, he can also be surprisingly generous with his emotions, and not just in times of great stress or great need, but in the smaller moments, too--once he learns to trust Joan, he tells her how important she is to him, and tells her pretty often, really. Ditto Gregson, though less often and less effusively, but even so, it’s there. For all that he’s isolated, he’s still at least aware that there are other people in the world, and that their wants and needs are also important. And while he may not speak the same emotional language as the average person, he makes the effort to translate where he can, when he can. He’s just generally a bit kinder and gentler, and while I know that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, it gives me a toehold to loving him the way I haven’t been able to in any other modern adaptation. (Jonny Lee Miller is also a MUCH better actor than I’d realized; I knew Lucy Liu was amazing, but while I’ve had a crush on JLM since, like, Hackers, I did not know he was capable of some of the moments he’s had in this series. Just, WOW.)
Then there’s Joan, and not just Joan, but the way the show treats Joan, which makes me UNBELIEVABLY happy. Not only is she intelligent and talented and snarky and brave and curious, but I love that the show makes clear repeatedly that she loves the work itself, as well as loving Sherlock. Even when she’s living in his house and glued to his side, she’s still her own person, doing what she’s doing for her own reasons. And she calls him on his shit as well as putting up with it, and she gets to be right sometimes, and she gets to save the day sometimes, and she gets to teach Sherlock things, too, both emotionally and intellectually. They’re equals, explicitly, and while they have different skill sets, neither one of them is really privileged over the other. The show isn’t just about Watson discovering how shiny and special (and broken) Holmes is, it’s about them discovering what’s shiny and special (and broken) about each other--“I think what you do is amazing,” oh my HEART--and how they can be even shinier and specialer (and less broken) together.
So when it comes to their partnership, I am DEAD AND GONE, basically. I like that they’re not explicitly romantic, and I actually hope the show never goes there; I like having the door open, but I don’t want them to walk through it--not for any bullshit Moonlighting reason, but because it would feel cliche, and this show has done such a nice job of avoiding so many cliches. (I am finding myself feeling this way about fictional partners more and more these days, actually--Holmes and Watson, Clint and Natasha, even Jules and Lassiter on Psych--where I certainly wouldn’t MIND if they made out, but mostly I’m just really invested in their partnership, and the making out is kind of incidental to that.) I mean, it’s my kryptonite, really: two people who are capable of going about their lives without each other, but who are better and happier together than they are separately. And I love the way the show is building their relationship, too, all of these small and large moments that add up to a completely believable and largely functional whole. And it’s all delightfully gilded by this genuine joy of discovery, like all this time Sherlock thought he was alone in investigative fandom, and now he’s found someone else to be in it with him, and he’s SO EXCITED to share it with her, and Joan is so excited to learn about it, and she’s able to make her own unique contributions, and it’s just SO GOOD and SO SATISFYING and it makes me SO HAPPY.
All that AND great supporting characters--I love Gregson and Bell a LOT, and Ms. Hudson is absolutely lovely and I hope we see more of her--and interesting (though shenanigans-filled) mysteries, and a worldview that’s more about the light in people than the darkness, even though the darkness is all around. YES PLEASE.
So I’m so happy to have found an incarnation to fall in love with, and I have the books on my Nook, and am looking forward to reading them!
And finally,
belmanoir and mrs_laugh_track showed me Newsies this weekend, and OH MY GOD. LIFE. CHANGED. WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE? How did 14-year-old me miss this movie? FAIL, 14-year-old me! FAIL. (Though 14-year-old me would not have been able to fully appreciate the extreme, beautiful slashiness, so there is that.) It is possible I watched it again yesterday. And also several of the special features on the DVD. (Kenny Ortega’s HAIR. OMG.) There are many many delights to this movie, but I cannot help but keep wondering why David Moscow never really happened, because OMG SO DREAMY. HE’S SO DREAMY IN THIS MOVIE. No one wanted to make use of that dreaminess afterward? COME ON. OPPORTUNITY WASTED, HOLLYWOOD.
And then I went back and rewatched the Newsies performance from the 2012 Tony Awards, which I enjoyed at the time primarily for the “spot the SYTYCD alum” factor, and which was even better in context. And now I reallyreallyreally want to see that show. SIGH. But anyway: LIFE CHANGED. If anyone has any Jack/David fic recs, I would dearly love to have them.
Okay. Work time. We who are about to die salute you. *grits teeth*
This post is also at Dreamwidth! http://brynnmck.dreamwidth.org/296008.html Comments at Dreamwidth: