doctormav

continuing a meme...

When you see this, quote Douglas Adams in your journal.

"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."


That's one of my favorite descriptions of anything, and randomly runs through my mind often. That and P.G. Wodehouse's description of a secondary character in a Jeeves story: "He looked like a cross between a comedy juggler and a parrot pulled backward through a hedge."

I can't quote it precisely, but another favorite Adams quote from one of the Hitchhikers, goes on describing a character (and I paraphrase) "in an unconventional way, but the image of which, his friends would find oddly accurate. If you put one David Bowie on top of another David Bowie, and then connected one David Bowie dangling off each side of the top David Bowie, you would get an idea of what [character] looked like. He was tall and he gangled."

[I tried posting this a few days ago in a comm, but it got lost in the mod queue. Not sure if I'll bother trying again, so I'll just post it here.]


One day Batman and the Joker were on top of a building engaging in some action figure action...

[shot on top of the IMAX roof. fitting.]



( story continues under the cut... )

I am a student again.

A medical/health student, so I'm going to have to learn quillions of terms and functions for every muscle, bone, and nerve that exists. The facts of studenthood are not bothering me so much as the fact of having to work full-time while taking the full-time course load.

I'm not sure what to expect for what's left of my free time, but if my Internet life suffers for it, believe me, I'm sorry. Actually, I doubt you'll notice much difference, but I've been enjoying fic-writing for the first time in three years, and that'll probably have to get cut way back. *is cranky about that* Just when I need that fun the most, too.

But I need to prep for a new career and an improved life in general, so it's all right.

In fandom news,
I bought The Killing Joke because I couldn't NOT have it for one more hour. I will not touch it with my bare hands. Oh yes, I'm turning into a real comic books geek.

My mother cracked a great Batman-Brokeback Mountain joke yesterday (almost unsolicited by me).

And I have a fantastic piece of fanart to show you, if I get permission from my new friend

This was making me laugh the other night far more than it probably should have:
(Darth Vader being a dick to commander whats-his-name:)




And this one I just admire all over. Especially the Christopher Pike and Trelane bits:
Monty Python "Knights of the Round Table" soundtrack with ST video:




And 20 years on....Data is STILL the love of my life...
The positronic pimp built by Noonian Soong

A quickie Action Figure Theatre because I needed something to do this evening.
And because I miss using the boys. It's been a long time.

Title: Extra Credit
Starring: action figure!Snape and action figure!Harry
Rated: suggestive for plastic oral



( apologies, as usual. just silliness )

I'm looking down from the window now at another sold-out showing of The Dark Knight. Everyone has their feet up on the backs of each others' seats.

In one month, Dark Knight has already grossed more (at this theatre) than the last Harry Potter film did in its entire four-month run here. I've never had an interest in following the takings of any film anywhere, (rather the opposite, actually) but that fact puts it in perspective for this little theatre!

According to the Daily Telegraph, accounting for inflation, it would still need to do $900 million to match Titanic, and $1.2 billion to match the original Star Wars. That puts it in perspective historically.

I've been digging having a full theatre. If I have to be here till 1:30 a.m., I'd rather be showing a film to 200 fans rather than 7 drunk people who needed something to do.

Anyway, my new favorite inconsequential character in The Dark Knight --? The bank manager. Mr. "What do you believe in, huh?!!!" Not because of his moral fortitude, but because he's such a bad-ass with that gun.


But sadly I do not have a picture of him being bad-ass; just one of him being a bit wussy, holding the Joker's grenade thing in his mouth.

I also kinda like Brian the Fake Batman because of the way he whimpers.

In researching this whole Half-Blood Prince fiasco, I came across this amusing little article. Perhaps there will be something to look forward to in Deathly Hallows --



Daniel Radcliffe has revealed he will appear naked in the next Harry Potter film.


My instinct was laughter, but it would be fun if it's true.

Terminus 3 -- the full (and final) report

Feel free to skip over unless you were there. This is probably more for my own record-keeping than anything else.

( lots of pics and words )

"HIT ME!!!"

When fandoms collide.

I signed up for Terminus months before I knew that The Dark Knight would be rocking my world. In the few weeks leading up to the con, I started realizing, "Hmm, much of TDK was shot in Chicago. I must just go visit a few locations, like a good nerdy fan."

There was only one spot I felt compelled to see, though. That would be LaSalle Street, where the Joker's truck flips over in the street. You know, the "HIT ME!" scene. It was an easy walk from the hotel, so one evening loony_lucifer and I stopped by for a photo shoot. It was research! We needed it for our respective fandom activities!

( CLICK ME!!!!!! )

Terminus was an utter joy.


It was like coming home to spend a few days in the company of hundreds of costumed wizards. I ran around in Snape's clothes and hung out with Snarry slashers. I got to spend time with one of my best LJ friends and met my favorite fanfic writers. We watched a quidditch tournament and visited The Dark Knight filming locations. If I can't actually be a fictional character, then that's the fan life to live.

I'll probably post a few times about the con, but here's a start. Some highlights and photos.





Come along, Potter.


( many pictures )

There is water on Mars.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jul/31/mars.spaceexploration

I'm just chuffed to pieces about this news. Seriously, I almost got teary-eyed.

OK, so the other day the first season of Freakazoid cartoons was released on DVD. The only college student to get up on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons, I always watched it as part of the line-up after Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain. I loved Freakazoid and, well, all those shows, for their utterly insane, disrespectful wackiness. Paul Rugg, man. All my favorite Animaniacs bits were ones that he wrote. I was thrilled to see him "spun off," as it were, to his own cartoon.

Here's one piece of Freakazoid I like -- "Handman." The honeymoon scene at the end is positively lewd. I chuckle to myself to think of the animators sitting around sketching their own hands, acting it out. (clip also features my pal David Warner - who can do no wrong - as The Lobe.)







EDIT:
Oh my goodness, you must take 10 seconds and watch this one. Skip the other one and watch this. What a great joke. This is why I love these shows -- hidden adult humor in kids' shows.

[I have been failing. Keep forgetting to cross-post journal entries here from LJ. Doing it now]


Here's an easy quiz about me.

What am I thinking when I see this? ------



Yes. Correct.


( cut for Dark Knight fan-rambles )

[I've been failing. Keep forgetting to cross-post here to IJ. Doing it now...a week or so late]


I am one happy projectionist.

It's not a lifestyle I would wish on anyone, but occasionally the job does manage to redeem itself. It's been quite a week. The Dark Knight has had me all wound up like I haven't been since CatCF. Well, I've been excited during the Harry Potters, but that manifests itself in different ways. For CatCF, it took the form of compulsive fanfic-writing. I don't know what will happen to me during the rest of Dark Knight's run, but so far it's been taking the form of a slight infatuation with clown make-up and a desperate need for a Joker action figure.

I went in last night off-duty to hang out in the lobby before the midnight show. This is when all the die-hards come out, of course, so it's a charged atmosphere. It didn't yield as many costumes or games or anything like the Harry Potter first showings do, but it was still fun.

( some photos under the cut )

Fandom overdose can make me have very odd reactions. I've been watching far too much Doctor Who lately. I think I believe in god again. I think god is The Doctor.

(non-spoilery. don't worry.)

I know that most people don't have easy access to IMAX theatres, but if you do, I'd like to recommend the IMAX option.

Not every Hollywood film is cut out for transfer to the giant screen. A close-up of a person's face 50 feet tall isn't always flattering. Fast-cut action can make you dizzy. However, for TDK they shot portions of it in 70mm...to excellent effect. These scenes take up the entire screen, not just the letterboxed middle. Oh my oh my oh my. What a spectacle. And you can feel the soundtrack booming through your chair. </imaxpimp>

And thank you, Heath.

Turn the volume up high so you can hear Lucius.

*big big grin*

I like Joyce. She seems like such a nice lady.

Most of the album covers are far more confusingly horrific. "Julie's Sixteenth Birthday," for example. Enjoy....


the rest of them

I’ve been wondering again about the arguably subjective nature of pensieve memories. Several times within fanfics I've seen recently, the final memories Snape gives to Harry are used to clear Snape’s name (…in varying degrees, canonical and otherwise. Sometimes at Ministry hearings, sometimes just for Harry’s own edification. Sometimes posthumously, sometimes not, depending on the AU nature of a story. Sometimes they’re just used as the basis of Harry’s own campaigns and testimony when he feels it would be a betrayal to share the memories with others.)

Of course I love this idea. Thematically, I love that Harry is the one armed with Snape’s deepest secrets. I love the obligation he feels to set the record straight between Snape and the world, now that he has the truth straight with himself. Within the last three books of the series, disembodied magical memories are always treated as empirical truths (except one of Slughorn’s, which was tampered with…but I’ll come to that later), but does not the memory record Truth as something more complicated? -- such as it being “the truth” as far as the owner of the memories is concerned? Ten people can be present at the same event, and interpret it ten different ways. Does not one’s experience of an event reflect upon how one recollects it?

[This is just a bit of meta fun. I’m sure JKR means for us to take magically replayed memories as accurate accounts. Contextually, one assumes they are the truth. Otherwise, Snape would not have been able to carry out his final duty -- to let Harry know that he’d have to sacrifice himself. If memories were flexible or incorrect, Dumbledore’s horcrux research may have been led astray. If memories could deviate from the truth, it would mean Snape’s final moments were an outright lie to Harry -- the person Snape had lived his life to protect, the person who deserved the truth above all others.]





( a long talk on the subject... )

I should probably mention that The Joker is triggering every fan reflex I have, and I'm again eagerly anticipating The Dark Knight.

Thought I’d write about some good live entertainment I’ve seen lately. First was Mike Doughty. It was amazingly hot in the venue, but I sweated my way through it because hey, he sounded great. He did all his most popular songs, himself on acoustic, and another guy on electric guitar. I left after their set, but ran into a friend coming in as I was going out. She had big hair and major eye shadow, having just come from dress rehearsal for this season’s Shakespeare in the Park.

It was one of the Comedies, and this particular production was 1980s-themed. Quite John Hughes-esque. I wonder what Shakespeare would have thought of this kind of interpretation. Actually, it worked just fine, and certainly there’s been much more outlandish artistic license taken on him, I’m sure. Seeing Shakespeare in the Park is as much about the event itself as it is about whatever play they’re doing. It’s outdoors (obviously), and a nice picnic-y BYOB sort of affair. I’ve been to most of them over the last 12 years, so it’s tradition. Oh yeah, plus, seeing friends in the cast and crew is nice.

But now I’m head-over-heels in love rekindled due to the city’s theatre group’s production of The Mikado. It’s my favorite Gilbert and Sullivan operetta by far, and I’d been looking forward to this one for months. I was impressed by everyone’s voices, because, of course, the pieces are challenging. Wow, they were good. Just wow. And Pooh-Bah, my favorite character, was spot-on and on the verge of stealing the show... as he should be. I was so happy. The other side of the building where I work is the performance theatre, so I made sure to wander around a lot backstage today to tell them how great they were… (plus, to sneak in the theatre for a few minutes in between my shows to see some of theirs again!) Fangeeking on the local talent. Yeah, that’s me.

Roaring for more now. Hope the next thing comes along quickly.

This morning on NPR I heard a (pardon the word) fascinating story about the character of Mr. Spock and his place in culture. As well as a chat with Mr. Nimoy, they interviewed Henry Jenkins, author of the amazing fan-culture participation study Textual Poachers. I've recommended this book before, and I'll do it again. Though a bit outdated, (i.e., written before the Internet influence upon fan activities), it's so all-encompassing, and such a great history. What I like best about his studies is that he looks into the reasons why fans latch onto certain attributes of a character -- what the character represents to them beyond the canon context of the show/film/novel/whatever. I find this of particular interest in his chapters about slash -- the dynamics between these subtextual invented relationships, and why fans choose to see them.

Anyway, now I'm all melty again about being a fan and about Textual Poachers and about Star Trek - to which I owe my intro to fandom when you get right down to it.

Ah, found it. You can read or listen to the report here.

Spent the long weekend driving across five states helping someone move. Kept hearing this new song from The Cure. I'm a fan, so the repetition was a good thing, but by now I'm totally haunted. One disc jockey commented that it makes him feel violated. Yes, the wordplay isn't at all subtle :)

The Only One - The Cure

My mother, or "Mummy Potter" as my local friends know her, emailed me this picture a week or so ago. It must have been making its rounds at Mother's Day. Not sure what she meant by sending it to me ;) but I love it.


HOW TO TELL IF YOU'RE MOM'S FAVORITE........

http://img292.imageshack.us/my.php?image=luciocx8.jpg

Poor Lucius. Nice to know that prison life has not effected his fantastic hair.

(Cut scene from OotP)