(no subject)
Of course after yesterday's lack of inspiration I have a number of things to write about. I've chosen one topic, and will save the others for later.
Last night I looked through old Yahoo group messages. Ahh, listservs! I think I've belonged to more than 15 of them over the years, with only two of them still active (Heyer and D E Stevenson). I remember how the David Strathairn listserv didn't have more than 20 members until Good Night and Good Luck came out. Suddenly we had over 200! But.. within a year or so the list shut down. Facebook had happened. No one wanted to get email.
Anyway (anyhoo), I ran across some emails about Without a Trace. I was a fan of Jack (Anthony LaPaglia), head of the department and very complicated fellow.
One thing I liked about the set-up was that Jack and Samantha (one of his detectives) had been in a relationship - while he was married - but they were no longer a couple. Here's what I wrote then:
"As part of my intro when I first joined, I gave my viwe of the Jack-Sam relationship. It's like this - I didn't start watching the show until sometime in the spring, so I didn't already have ideas about 'shipping' either for or against. When the 'reveal' happened, I practically rolled around on the floor laughing.
The reason is this.. no matter how it was planned, it neatly short-circuited a kind of "will they or won't they" agonizing that has run rampant in other fandoms (CSI, for instance).
This was: "yes, they did, but it's over." Now they can explore how it does or doesn't have repercussions in the present and future, for everyone.
I thought it worked well -- the fallout hasn't been heavy-handed. It hasn't totally dominated the show, the balance between (major) work and (slipped to us gradually) private life/history is still fine.
In fact I still think they were clever."
Reading the messages yesterday I see that it annoyed me when some list members ranted about Jack as though he were... a real person, rather than a character created by writers to react in certain ways that might sometimes be shady but sure can be interesting! :-P. And then the question of whether ALP is handsome? - said I:
"I would say --- ALP to me is sexy (in fact, very sexy), and sexy trumps handsome every time.
But sexy is in the eye of the beholder, so we don't have to agree with ranking these guys, it just ends up a matter of taste anyway. :-)"
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Last night I looked through old Yahoo group messages. Ahh, listservs! I think I've belonged to more than 15 of them over the years, with only two of them still active (Heyer and D E Stevenson). I remember how the David Strathairn listserv didn't have more than 20 members until Good Night and Good Luck came out. Suddenly we had over 200! But.. within a year or so the list shut down. Facebook had happened. No one wanted to get email.
Anyway (anyhoo), I ran across some emails about Without a Trace. I was a fan of Jack (Anthony LaPaglia), head of the department and very complicated fellow.
One thing I liked about the set-up was that Jack and Samantha (one of his detectives) had been in a relationship - while he was married - but they were no longer a couple. Here's what I wrote then:
"As part of my intro when I first joined, I gave my viwe of the Jack-Sam relationship. It's like this - I didn't start watching the show until sometime in the spring, so I didn't already have ideas about 'shipping' either for or against. When the 'reveal' happened, I practically rolled around on the floor laughing.
The reason is this.. no matter how it was planned, it neatly short-circuited a kind of "will they or won't they" agonizing that has run rampant in other fandoms (CSI, for instance).
This was: "yes, they did, but it's over." Now they can explore how it does or doesn't have repercussions in the present and future, for everyone.
I thought it worked well -- the fallout hasn't been heavy-handed. It hasn't totally dominated the show, the balance between (major) work and (slipped to us gradually) private life/history is still fine.
In fact I still think they were clever."
Reading the messages yesterday I see that it annoyed me when some list members ranted about Jack as though he were... a real person, rather than a character created by writers to react in certain ways that might sometimes be shady but sure can be interesting! :-P. And then the question of whether ALP is handsome? - said I:
"I would say --- ALP to me is sexy (in fact, very sexy), and sexy trumps handsome every time.
But sexy is in the eye of the beholder, so we don't have to agree with ranking these guys, it just ends up a matter of taste anyway. :-)"
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