The alley, from my back landing. The garbage truck reads THINK GREEN.
It's 14º this morning, but Saturday was warm enough to rain, and then snow on top of that, so the streets are horribly icy.
I want to bike, but I don't want to slip and fall, so it's another city bus day.
It was great to have most of last week off.
I'd thought I'd do a lot of useful stuff, but when I was home, mostly I watched Person of Interest.
That was the best thing, actually.
For almost a year I've thought about little but the store, and thinking about something else helps restore my balance.
The show isn't great, but it's enticing. As I wrote yesterday, for most of season 1 the set design is better than the writing.
"Weren't we supposed to be tackling some Big Ideas here? Maybe if we put in some books?"
The books are set dressing, but not throw-aways:
the makers know viewers like me will do just what I did: stop and explore the scene.
Finch (the nerdy one with the glasses) brings Reese a pile of books to read when Reese is recovering from gunshot wounds––there's Sinclair Lewis again, but Finch doesn't lend out his first edition--he brings Reese new paperback copies.
This reminds me to put de Tocqueville's Democracy in America on my reading list––I've only read excerpts.
My father taught political science, so I mostly avoided the field until I started writing geography books for kids in my forties.
The books we see aren't mentioned, or just in passing––Mr. Finch on The Trial, "I collect first editions".
That's Reese, above left, idly reading the opening pages of Crime and Punishment (in Finch's office while he waits for Finch).
Reese's gleaming white dress shirt is almost always free of blood spatters (and sardine oil).
That's not a criticism--I love that magic.
I was just saying the other day that I'd like to wear white shirts more often, but I would quickly stain them with coffee and book grime...
Clothes are part of the show too:
Reese dresses like James Bond, and Finch is a dandy.
At one point Finch chastises Reese who is going to an classy do, saying that the hem of his formal pants are supposed to "shimmer on the shoe top, not break."
I don't ship Reese & Finch (see them as a couple) myself, but that's a popular ship in fandom, and I love this fanart, "Love Me Like You Do" by @fromchive.
REESEXFINCH = all about the clothes:
(Though Finch does have two legs.)
I'm off to work in a few minutes.
My intention is to lay low there--I don't like that I've gotten into some management roles there. I'm not a leader and I don't want to be.
Even though that meeting I'd called went well, there has been some grumbling and push back, as I'd feared there might be.
I don't want to be in that position--taking flak for other people's insecurities.
I'm thinking about resigning from the new store committee too.
I hate committees and this is as dysfunctional a one as I've ever encountered. I also find myself getting roped into some fundraising-lite.
I'd told my boss I don't want to be a manager, a fundraiser, or a committee member, but here I am.
Big Boss is silky that way.
But it's not too late for me to back out––and I certainly have every right to. This all is waaaaay above my pay grade.
I'm sticking with books and vintage.
It's 14º this morning, but Saturday was warm enough to rain, and then snow on top of that, so the streets are horribly icy.
I want to bike, but I don't want to slip and fall, so it's another city bus day.
I'd thought I'd do a lot of useful stuff, but when I was home, mostly I watched Person of Interest.
That was the best thing, actually.
For almost a year I've thought about little but the store, and thinking about something else helps restore my balance.
The show isn't great, but it's enticing. As I wrote yesterday, for most of season 1 the set design is better than the writing.
"Weren't we supposed to be tackling some Big Ideas here? Maybe if we put in some books?"
The books are set dressing, but not throw-aways:
the makers know viewers like me will do just what I did: stop and explore the scene.
Finch (the nerdy one with the glasses) brings Reese a pile of books to read when Reese is recovering from gunshot wounds––there's Sinclair Lewis again, but Finch doesn't lend out his first edition--he brings Reese new paperback copies.
This reminds me to put de Tocqueville's Democracy in America on my reading list––I've only read excerpts.
My father taught political science, so I mostly avoided the field until I started writing geography books for kids in my forties.
The books we see aren't mentioned, or just in passing––Mr. Finch on The Trial, "I collect first editions".
Reese's gleaming white dress shirt is almost always free of blood spatters (and sardine oil).
That's not a criticism--I love that magic.
I was just saying the other day that I'd like to wear white shirts more often, but I would quickly stain them with coffee and book grime...
Clothes are part of the show too:
Reese dresses like James Bond, and Finch is a dandy.
At one point Finch chastises Reese who is going to an classy do, saying that the hem of his formal pants are supposed to "shimmer on the shoe top, not break."
I don't ship Reese & Finch (see them as a couple) myself, but that's a popular ship in fandom, and I love this fanart, "Love Me Like You Do" by @fromchive.
REESEXFINCH = all about the clothes:
I'm off to work in a few minutes.
My intention is to lay low there--I don't like that I've gotten into some management roles there. I'm not a leader and I don't want to be.
Even though that meeting I'd called went well, there has been some grumbling and push back, as I'd feared there might be.
I don't want to be in that position--taking flak for other people's insecurities.
I'm thinking about resigning from the new store committee too.
I hate committees and this is as dysfunctional a one as I've ever encountered. I also find myself getting roped into some fundraising-lite.
I'd told my boss I don't want to be a manager, a fundraiser, or a committee member, but here I am.
Big Boss is silky that way.
But it's not too late for me to back out––and I certainly have every right to. This all is waaaaay above my pay grade.
I'm sticking with books and vintage.
I can't blame you for not wanting the leadership and fundraising (ugh!) roles. What is this term you use -- "ship"? That means to see two characters as a couple? I've never heard that, although I stumbled onto some fairly peculiar slash art not too long ago envisioning (shipping?) Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork as a couple. "TorkSmith," I believe they were called. At least in the artist's imagination.
ReplyDeleteSTEVE:
ReplyDeleteThanks for understanding about leadership & fundraising:
Ugh, indeed!
Ooh, a fandom question! Yay!
(I wrote a school-library book on participatory fandom for teens.)
"Ship" is a fandom terms that comes from "relationship" that means, yes, to envision people in a romantic relationship (who are not in that relationship in their story or in real life).
It's a verb: "I ship them", and a noun––"They're my favorite ship."
"Shipping" is old, of course--people pairing fictional couples--but the term itself comes from the X-Files fandom,
where it was hotly debated whether Mulder and Scully were or should be in a romantic relationship.
Fans most often ship fictional characters, but sometimes real people too––often musicians, as in the case of Torksmith (new to me)--
or, hmmm... are those fictional characters?
Hard to tell with musicians, who use their real names but are often playing roles...
The term "slash", you may know, comes from one of the first big media ships: Kirk/Spock--named for that punctuation between the names.
(They're the most famous, but fans point out that Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin slash from "The Man from UNCLE" was earlier.)
Some ships skip the slash and use portmanteau names, like Torksmith or "smoosh" names like "Rinch" (Reese & Finch from Person of Interest--I don't ship them, as I say, but I don't object!),
or JohnLock, for John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.
Here's a serious/funny article "A Linguist Explains the Grammar of Shipping":
http://the-toast.net/2015/09/30/a-linguist-explains-the-grammar-of-shipping
OMG. That is FASCINATING. I know very little about this kind of fan fiction but it's so interesting to consider the language and motivations. I had a friend in high school who used to write Star Trek erotica -- I thought it was pretty bizarre at the time (early '80s) but I've since learned how commonplace it actually is!
ReplyDeleteHi, Steve!
ReplyDeleteI find it fascinating too!
There's a lot written about slash--and a lot of it--
as you say, it's become commonplace (though some flavors more than others!).
This is an interesting article about slash and women's language and motivation (most people who write slash identify as female),
from the Economist's 1843 magazine:
https://www.1843magazine.com/features/to-boldly-go
Do your students talk about their fandoms & fanworks?
You know Tumblr--I think that is more popular on a day-by-day basis with fans but if you want to read/see more fan works, AO3 is a huge (more than a million users) fan-run noncommercial archive--
you can search by your fandom, etc, here:
https://www.1843magazine.com/features/to-boldly-go
Whoops--wrong link for AO3!
ReplyDeleteIt's here:
https://archiveofourown.org