rsadelle

Today I'm thankful for everything I haven't mentioned yet. I'm thankful for my family, for my health, for having a place to live. I'm thankful for fandom and everyone in it. I'm thankful for bandom, Fuck City, and the Jonas Brothers. I'm thankful for Mercy, FlashForward, So You Think You Can Dance, and Friday Night Lights. I'm thankful for YouTube, LiveJournal, Facebook, and Twitter. I'm thankful for Jezebel, Penny Arcade, PostSecret, and Cake Wrecks.

For the past two years, I've been posting one thing I'm thankful for each day from November 1 to Thanksgiving. As I got out of the shower this morning, I realized we're already four days into November and I'd completely forgotten about this. So today will be four things I'm thankful for, and then I'll do one a day from tomorrow through Thanksgiving.

Today, I'm thankful for my writing group's write-ins. I always get a fair amount written, but today felt especially productive.

I'm thankful for leftover Halloween candy, of which I have only a reasonably small amount because I gave away most of the leftovers.

I'm thankful for Castle being even better this season than last, and for the way they portrayed Alexis being a fan of a musician in a respectful and non-annoying way.

I'm thankful for iTunes' repeat one song feature. Today's song of the day is Butterfly Boucher's "Another White Dash."

I loved the first ep of Glee when it first aired. It was quirky, Jane Lynch is amazingly funny, and I love a good musical number. The rerun of the first ep, though, didn't charm me quite as much. In part, I think this is because in the intervening time, I dived myself into two different RPS fandoms, which means (a) I have a different relationship to TV at the moment and (b) I found Brendon and Fall Out Boy's version of "Don't Stop Believin'" more charming than Glee's.

By the second ep, I had a real problem with Will's wife. She has no redeeming qualities, which means I don't understand why Will married her in the first place and see no reason why he's still with her now. I also found the second ep less fun than the first.

Then between the second and third eps, I stumbled across stardustonsable's post in which she and the commenters talked about the way all of the characters are stereotypes. I think that was in my head - and it's probably telling that I only know the names of three characters (Will, Rachel, and Sue Sylvester) - as I watched the third ep last night. I was bothered by the way the black girl went from being not only the stereotypical black girl to being the stereotypical black girl and the stereotypical fat girl: ( spoilers. ) That in itself might not be quite enough for me to break up with it, but that combined with the way I found it less charming and the way I find that I'm not connecting with the characters means we're going to have to part ways. I do love musical numbers, so I may go back and watch those online the next day, but I can't promise anything - the times I've been using to watch TV online (cooking, lifting weights) are now times I'm using for things related to my new fandoms, namely catching up on Fuck City podcasts and occasionally watching interviews or performances.

I picked up Mary Roach's Spook: Science Tackles The Afterlife off of the "what people are reading" display at the library. I wasn't particularly interested in the subject, but I remember hearing that she's a good writer, and everything I felt like reading off my Amazon Dewey Decimal Project wish list is in the 300s, and I've already covered those this year.

Having read the book, I'm still not particularly interested in the subject, but Mary Roach is a hilarious writer, and I would definitely read something else by her. Of course, some of the funniest parts of the book are her asides and footnotes.

A surgical technique recently perfected at the Swallowing Center at the University of Washington* stops rumination in its tracks.

*As opposed to the Swallowing Center at Northwestern, or the Swallowing Center at the University of Southern California, or the one at Holy Cross, or the Rusk Institute, or the Nebraska Medical Center. Of course, the original "swallowing center" is a chunk of your brainstem that coordinates chewing, gagging, vomiting, coughing, belching, and licking, all with minimal fuss and no funding from the NIH.

A later footnote tells us:

Further Ometer abuse comes from the Centers for Disease Control (the Flu-O-Meter), the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds - their Splatometer tracks the abundance of flying insects, whose decline spells trouble for birds - and Gary Ometer, former Director of Debt Management for the U.S. Department of the Treasury. I was hesitant to phone Gary, for his title led me to expect a man of, shall we say, high scores on the Shirley Stiffness Tester, but he was a good sport about it. Gary blames shabby Ellis Island bookkeeping for his family's contribution to the Ometer situation.

I was also amused by her description of meeting Alison DuBois:

Perhaps because I'd been reading a biography of the slovenly and bellicose Helen Duncan on the plane to Tucson, it did not cross my mind that a medium could look like a beauty pageant winner. DuBois has long, obedient rust-red hair that turns up just so on the ends and complements her coppery lipstick. Her blush and foundation could have been applied by airbrush, so perfect is the blending. She manages to look made-up at the same time as she looks completely natural and beautiful without device. I can no more understand how a woman does this than I can understand how a woman communicates with dead people. DuBois is paranormally good-looking.

I have to say that the first time I ever saw a picture of the real Alison DuBois, I was shocked by the way she's much, much more glamorous than her TV counterpart.

The weakest chapter in the book is the one wherein "The author enrolls in medium school." I got the sense that she didn't get much out of it but had to say something about it because she'd put in the time and money to attend.

For all that her writing is wonderful and many of her asides are entertaining, there's a spark of irritation in much of what she says about her own experience that made me think that as much as I might like to read Mary Roach's writing, I might not like spending time with her. I was also fascinated by the occasional British-sounding turn of phrase, since she's solidly American.

You have no idea how much I hope they're canceling this show. So we have this season-long mystery about the mysterious Alpha, and ( Spoilers. )

I'm also severely disturbed by the way the finale just dropped any pretense at dealing with the rape issue (which they haven't really been dealing with at all so far). ( Spoilers. )

The only thing I liked about this week's ep was Amy Acker. I love her, I think she's a good actress, and ( Spoilers. )

This is the part where I talk about this entry.

To preface this entry: I don't know if this is everything I want to say, or even how I want to say it. This doesn't flow as smoothly as I wish I could make it go. This feels, to me, more like thinking via my fingers than the actual essay someone else might make out of the same ideas.

I also think I should note that I spent much of the morning being teary-eyed about Sarah Connor Chronicles. Just so you know where I'm coming from.

You should also know there are spoilers in this entry. I've put them behind a cut, but if you've come here via a link that takes you directly to this entry's page, you might not notice the warnings.

This is the part where I talk about women.

I've been saying that all my reading about race, racism, and anti-racism has resensitized me to issues of sexism, but that's not really true. My resensitization started before that, with Leverage's "The Stork Job." ( This part of this entry has Leverage spoilers. )

( This part of this entry has Dollhouse spoilers. )

norwich36 pointed me to a pair of coffeeandink's posts about Sarah Connor Chronicles. ( This part of this entry has Sarah Connor Chronicles spoilers. )

I think it's worth noting that SCC and Dollhouse are both the brainchildren of men: Dollhouse is Joss Whedon's and SCC is Josh Friedman's. I skimmed the list of writers on IMDb's full cast and crew pages for each of them, and Dollhouse has more women writers than SCC, both by numbers and proportion. Extra interesting to me is that the two pieces of SCC fan fic that I've read that were absolutely incredible (I have to admit to not having read much, just most of the things at Yuletide and a handful of other miscellaneous things, and most of it tends to blend together) were both written by a man: "Cinderella, Made of Steel" and "Seven Sunday Mother-Daughter Mornings," both by David Hines. You can't end oppression without involving the oppressors. The Egyptians are God's people too. (Happy Passover.)

For me, in some very real ways, the season finale of SCC marks the end of this TV season. With that done for the season (or possibly forever), there isn't anything I'm going to look forward to in quite the same way. But I've also been busying myself with watching the first episodes of a bunch of midseason shows.

This is the part where I talk about lgbt people.

One of the shows I watched the first two episodes of was Cupid. I have vague memories of seeing the ads for the Jeremy Piven version, but I don't think I ever watched it. I thought I'd watch this version because I really like both Bobby Cannavale and Sarah Paulson. Then the first episode had both Sean Maguire (I had no idea he was actually British) and Marguerite Moreau, both of whom are pretty and I like. ( This part of this entry has Cupid spoilers. )

I've been thinking about characters who are retconned into being straight, both because it's one of the things that happens to the lgbt superheroes on Perry Moore's list and because minkhollow brought it up in brown_betty's book discussion. ( This part of this entry has Supernatural spoilers. )

( This part of this entry has Kings spoilers. )

( This part of this entry has Sarah Connor Chronicles spoilers. )

One of the midseason shows I watched the first ep of this week is The Unusuals. If I could choose only one midseason ensemble cop show about a rich kid who became a cop, it would be this one (over Southland, but I'll watch another ep or two of that because Ben McKenzie did sell it at the end and Regina King is hot), although that's not much of a rec. It's not as funny as the ads made it look, and Amber Tamblyn is the kind of cute-pretty that they should be doing something with (in terms of the character) rather than ignoring. ( This part of this entry has The Unusuals spoilers. )

As you probably know, I like sci fi. Octavia Butler is pretty much the classic PoC sci fi author. Aside from this, all I knew about her was that she writes vampire books and she wrote Kindred. I did not read anything about Kindred before I requested it from the library. I kept waiting for the vampires to show up, and only realized 35 pages in that it was not, in fact, a vampire book. D'oh!

Kindred is instead the story of Dana, a black woman married to a white man in 1976, who keeps traveling back to the nineteenth century at moments that allow her to save the life of her white, slave-owning ancestor Rufus.

I read the first thirty-some pages on Monday, another forty-some pages on Tuesday, and the rest of the book in one sitting yesterday, a sitting where I kept thinking, "At the next section break, I'll get up and do my weight lifting," but didn't. That's a pretty good sign that it's an engrossing, compelling story.

I have this idea in my head that Octavia Butler is a Serious Writer who deals with Serious Issues, which she does. The book clearly tackles both the issue of white slave owners fathering children with their black slaves via rape and the issue of how easily people adapt to their circumstances, even if those circumstances mean they become slaves. The Serious Issue that seemed hinted at but not directly addressed is how their time in the past changes Dana and Kevin's relationship in the present of 1976.

Some of the dialogue is a little stilted, and not the nineteenth-century dialogue, either, but the 1976 dialogue. I suspect most of that is simply the formula of writing in the 70s (I can't remember the last time I read a non-children's book written before 1990, so I don't really have anything to compare it to), but there's at least one spot where the message is showing a little too clearly.

In terms of broadening my experience of the world, I have to admit that I had a hard time really accepting how easily Dana adapted to being a slave. I'm not sure how much of this is the writing not pulling me far enough into her head and how much of it is my white privilege that means I've never had to think about what it would be like to be a slave, which is clearly something Dana lives with even before her time travel experiences. I was skimming Racialicious earlier today (is anyone talking about last night's ep of Better Off Ted?), and in recounting a discussion about BDSM race play, Andrea Plaid says, "Personally, I think of race play and, yeah, I feel the body memories of slavery, too," which makes me more convinced it's my white privilege showing.

Two weeks ago, I said to archivecats (in a forum other than LJ) in response to a comment she made about feminist Joss fans finding the treatment of women on Dollhouse problematic:

As a feminist Joss fan, I don't think the treatment of women is its biggest problem - it's certainly problematic, but Joss has said it's supposed to be disturbing, so I'm willing to entertain the possibility that it's going somewhere. The three biggest problems I see with it:

1. They haven't made me care enough about any of the characters to care very much about what happens to them. I sort of care about the doctor, but that's less about her and more about the fact that I adore Amy Acker.

2. It's not funny. I can't understand why Joss would make a show without humor.

3. It suffers in comparison to Sarah Connor Chronicles. I actually liked this week's ep a lot better than any of the others, but I think that's less about the ep itself and more about the fact that I wasn't home last night and watched it this morning, while I'm saving SCC for this afternoon.

Last week's episode was better, this week's episode was even better, and next week's episode looks to be really good. Part of what made the last two episodes good was that Joss finally started writing them, and they were consequently funny. The ( Spoilers ) were the funniest things I've ever seen on this show, and ( Spoilers ) nearly made me do a spit-take all over my keyboard. The humor helps with the comparison to SCC, too, because it means there's enough of a shift in tone that it's not such a direct comparison. They still haven't made me care about anyone, though, and that's a real problem.

I also have an issue with how they've handled the set-up/payoff of Joss writing. There have been interviews and whatnot for weeks saying, "Well, it really gets good with the sixth episode where Joss takes over." To me, this reeks of petulance: "You won't let me do what I want, so I'm going to give you a crappy show until you do." It's also a little cultish in how it treats the audience: "WHOSOEVER believeth in JOSS shall be REWARDED with a quality TV SHOW."

Of course, the downside for Joss of the show being better in other ways is that my focus is now free to pay attention to the problematic treatment of women. I've been reading a lot of discussions/resources about race, racism, and anti-racism recently (partly because I was leading my [all white] writing group's craft chat about writing race/ethnicity and partly because of a the link to debunkingwhite I followed from the discussion on hederahelix's post about anti-racism work and white allies), and, to attempt to connect oppressions without playing Oppression Olympics, it's having the side effect of resensitizing me to issues of sexism. I'm having a real problem with violence against women as entertainment. Part of it is that I don't have the stomach for violence I used to. (Although Supernatural's violence and gore doesn't bother me at all. I think it's because it's kind of cartoonish in my mind.) But part of it is specifically about violence against women.

Dollhouse is, in some ways, all about violence against women, so why is the violence bothering me so much? There are two specific instances from the last two episodes that I'm having the biggest problem with: ( Spoilers ) In both those instances, the violence is presented as-is, with no commentary in the text and no sense that it was anything other than just another plot point. If Joss is trying to make some point about violence against women, he needs to make it instead of dragging out instances of violence across episodes. I'm also troubled by something I remember reading in a women's studies class long ago (so long ago I don't remember specifically which class and don't have a reference for it) that cited a study that found that people with racist views/actions found any portrayal of racism/racist acts on TV (I think; possibly TV and movies), even in a clearly negative context, to reinforce their racist belief/conviction that their racist act was okay. This is what's in the back of my head, making me cringe, every time I see Joss (or anyone else - a recent local theater production is also a grave offender) just showing us violence against women.

In a more subtle bit of problematic treatment of women, the creepiest line of dialogue in this week's episode was ( Spoilers ) It's the kind of line that, in the right context with the right delivery, could be romantic/sweet, but came across to me as seriously creepy, especially since ( Spoilers. )

Can I tell you that I really wanted some interaction while watching this? You can tell because I made a whole bunch of Facebook status updates about it. They're posted below, in reverse chronological order because it's bedtime and I didn't think to do this until just minutes ago.

( No spoilers, but possibly boring. )

My yoga class is off for three weeks, so I went to dance last night instead of watching How I Met Your Mother and Summer Glau's episode of The Big Bang Theory, so I caught up on those and the premiere of Nathan Fillion's Castle today.

The Big Bang Theory

I know several people who've told me how funny this show is, and I've never been able to get into it. Since longsufferingly wrote Tractorbeam, a J2 Big Bang AU, I've thought it was the only good thing to come of the show. However, the lure of Summer Glau as herself was too much to resist, and I found myself pleasantly surprised by the show. It was actually funny. I don't think it speaks well of the show, however, that what made it so funny was that it didn't have anything to do with the Leonard and Penny relationship.

How I Met Your Mother

I've been thinking that this show has lost its way recently. It got popular fast, so they don't have to stick to the how Ted met the kids' mother story as closely for fear they'll get cancelled soon. This means that they just keep going on and on with miscellaneous plotlines. They also decided Barney should be in love with Robin, which totally ruins Barney's character.

This episode was much better. They still haven't gotten back to the how Ted met their mother part of the story, but they let go of the Barney/Robin plotline, and it was a great return to the all five of them sitting around their booth at the bar telling stories structure.

Castle

There are things I really liked about Castle:

• The premise of a famous author helping out the cops and treating the case like a story that needs to be plotted.


• Stana Katic does a lovely job as Detective Beckett.


• I loved Castle laying out why Beckett is a detective.


• ( Spoilery )


• Rick's family - Molly Quinn as his daughter and Susan Sullivan (Greg's mom from Dharma & Greg) as his mother - is wonderful, and I really like his relationships with them.


• I love it that Rick has a poker game with other famous writers, two of whom were played by themselves, and one of whom was a woman who perhaps was only supposed to be the dealer since she didn't get a name, and that they help him solve the crime.


• The other two detectives are also hilarious.


• The color palette is fantastic. You've never seen a squad room that looks like this.

For all the good things, and the way I laughed out loud several times, the show has two issues. First of all, it feels a little flat in the crime solving parts, which have really predictable dialogue, where the scenes with his family pop. But the bigger problem is that they're underusing Nathan Fillion. He's a stronger actor than the material and what they're having him do.

I've now had two email conversations about this week's New Yorker, even while the issue sits on the desk in front of me so I can write about it, so I clearly need to just make a post about it and be done with it.

Ariel Levy's Lesbian Nation (abstract only available online) is one of those articles that I might have read anyway but definitely remembered to read based on the fact that there was a Jezebel post about it. The article is an interesting look at the history of the Van Dykes, lesbian separatists who traveled around the country from Women's Land to Women's Land in the 70s. It reads much like any other similar story: a charismatic leader inspires a revolution, a new idea comes in that divides the community, eventually the community falls apart and people go their separate ways, and the charismatic leader ends up leading a relatively everyday life in the current day. Specific interesting points from this article:

• The first expert she quotes is a man, Todd Gitlin, author of The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage.
• "The feminist Ti-Grace Atkinson went so far as to claim that her brand of celibate 'political lesbianism' was morally superior to the sexually active version practiced in her midst. Atkinson was not alone in this martyred line of reasoning; a 1975 essay by the separatist Barbara Lipschutz entitled 'Nobody Needs to Get Fucked' urged women to 'free the libido from the tyranny of orgasm-seeking. Sometimes hugging is nicer.' This argument was never particularly compelling to the lesbians in the movement who were actually gay."
• Lamar Van Dyke, the charismatic leader in question, says, "If you look at me, there's no question about it: I'm a dyke. I am gay. If you don't think so, there is something really wrong with you." I'm really bothered by this, and I'm not sure exactly how to articulate why. It's something about you can't know that about people just by looking at them. I think it's also part of the generational difference. "'Your generation wants to fit in,' she told me, for the second time. 'Gays in the military and gay marriage? This is what you guys have come up with?' There was no contempt in her voice; it was something else - an almost incredulous maternal disappointment."
• The new idea that divides the community is BDSM. I'm actually surprised The New Yorker went there. I think of them as being fairly staid, but maybe they're not so staid as I think of them being.
• Lamar now works for Speakeasy in Seattle, "and she had just bought the first new car of her life, a black VW bug. Van Dyke also owns her house, but she doesn't use credit cards. That would cross some kind of line. 'I don't want to be a capitalist pig,' she explained."
• The article is an interesting historical counterpoint to a Jezebel post about lesbianism as a political choice from earlier this month. The most striking thing missing from the history lesson that shows up in the modern discussions is the way these kinds of communities look down on and exclude trans folks. The other thing that gets left out that I saw in the Jezebel article and discussion is the idea that men are half the population of the world; any solution to the world's problems needs to include them.

The second interesting woman-focused article is Rebecca Mead's profile of opera singer Natalie Dessay (abstract only available online). I particularly like the way she treats the push and pull between acting and singing in the opera world - increased theatricality bringing in more money versus the wish to keep opera pure to the singing - and her acknowledgment that opera plots are notoriously thin. I also like it that Mead mentions the way Dessay's job keeps her away from her family - "she can sometimes go a couple of days without even talking to her children on the phone" - without going into any kind of hysterics about her being a bad mother, or even, really, much more detail about it. The focus is on Dessay as an artist, not Dessay as an example of motherhood, good or bad.

The third interesting woman-focused article is Nancy Franklin's TV column about Dollhouse and the DTV transition. My mom said the article "adds nothing to the chatter, but Nancy Franklin writes well." She's right on both counts. Franklin says, as the rest of us have been saying, "Only people who are willing to cut Whedon endless slack could find anything much to draw them in to this show . . . at the core of the series is an unpromising performance by Eliza Dushku." She also says of Eliza, in my favorite part, "the primary qualification that Dushku brings to the part is that she graduated with honors from the Royal Academy of Cleavage." Quite frankly, I think Eliza, or at least the folks at NBC Universal, know this; the best part of Eliza's Hulu ad is the part where she says, "eyes glued" just as her movement focuses your attention on her breasts. I also very much liked what Franklin has to say about actresses in general: "In terms of gender studies, it is notable that Dushku's demeanor as a zombie is much the same as the demeanor many actresses her age resort to when trying to project an image of themselves as unthreatening and 'feminine': a slouchy walk, a bobbly head, and ever-parted lips. Would someone please show these actresses a movie starring Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Irene Dunne, Bette Davis, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, or Judy Davis?" Both norwich36 and I were struck by the inclusion of Cate Blanchett in that list. Like many people, I'm sure, I first saw her in Elizabeth, where she just blew me away. It turns out I've actually seen her in five other things and I have a number of her other movies in my queue. The only bad things about Franklin's column is that it makes the writing in Denby's movie reviews on the next page seem particularly uninspired in comparison.

So remember what I said about how Friday Night Lights was hard to watch and I wasn't sure if I could watch more of it? Well, you should ignore me when I say things like that. In the twelve days since that post, I've watched the other 48 episodes of the show. (Note: NBC has only aired and posted to Hulu the first six episodes of season 3, but all thirteen episodes apparently aired on DirecTV, so I was able to find them online. This post may contain spoilers all the way through that thirteenth episode of S3.) I think marathon watching was actually the way to go - the impact isn't quite so startling when you watch them at a stretch. Also, I was going to move on to something else when I was done, but I can't. Instead, I'm rewatching the bits I really like from previous episodes.

( Spoilery )

I'm now ready for some fic recs, especially Jason/Tim/Lyla or Tim/Lyla or really, anything with Tim. Some recs from me:

40 Miles North of Presidio by Jae Gecko - Lovely Tim/m story.

Five Things Jason Street Was the First to Say by hth_the_first - Nice Jason/Lyla/Tim story.

Hotassery is Not Special Dispensation to be an Ass by hackthis - Amusing and nicely done Tim and Landry gen fic.

The Pursuit of Happiness by brandil - Awesome Tim/Lyla/Jason set during "Let's Get It On."

Riggins & Winchester by thisisbone - The most amazing FNL/SPN Tim/Dean crossover. Oh, I loved this story.

Texas Forever by Ishafel - I don't know if this is supposed to actually be a happy story; I found it sad.

Texas Forever by t_fic - Excellent gen Tim future fic.

Sarah Connor Chronicles rocked my socks off! I'm in the habit of watching each episode twice before the next one airs (I was doing that with SPN, too, but I kind of lost some of my interest in the Winchesters), and I'm totally excited to watch it again before next week.

Dollhouse is another matter. If it weren't a Joss Whedon show, I would have stopped watching halfway through the episode, and even with it being a Joss show, it only gets another couple of episodes to convince me it's worth watching. There was an interesting comment on an io9 Dollhouse post where the commenter was proposing that Joss ought to do a show that doesn't really exist - there could be spoilers and reports of trouble on the set and controversy without there actually being a show - and so far Dollhouse might have been better like that.

Both shows, however, were made extra enjoyable by real-time emailing with norwich36. It's been a long time since I watched something with someone over the internet, and I'd forgotten how fun it is! It was also hilarious when we sent nearly simultaneous emails mentioning how much the Summer Glau-Eliza Dushku promos they kept showing suck. Seriously, they almost made me not want to watch either show.

So way back in December, when Sarah Connor Chronicles went on hiatus for two months, I decided I needed some projects to get me through the time without it. I actually completed those projects quite a while ago, but keep forgetting to post about them. Since the show starts up again tonight, I figured I should write about them today. (Although if I'd done it earlier, I would have more to say in more detail. Consider this more in the way of a long overview.)

Project 1: The Wizard of Oz

I'd never read L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz before, although, of course, I've seen the Judy Garland movie version. Sarah Connor Chronicles references it fairly often, so I thought I would read it. I ended up getting The Annotated Wizard of Oz (1973 edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography by Michael Patrick Hearn from the library. The annotations were actually fairly interesting and often amusing (he spends a surprisingly large amount of time seriously considering the location of Oz), but I think I probably should have read the book without them first so I could really concentrate on the story. I think I remember more about the eighty-page introduction and the annotations than about the story itself. Amongst other things, the introduction includes a fascinating look at Baum's involvement in the early days of motion pictures that's certainly worth reading. It's also fascinating to note how much legwork Hearn had to have put into it that would be so much easier now with the internet.

The book holds up really well as a children's story, especially when you compare it to the story from the same era in the Denslow Appendix. (W. W. Denslow did the original illustrations for the book. Apparently there was later strife between him and Baum, and at various points, some of Denslow's Oz character illustrations were published with other stories written to go with them.) There's almost nothing that's confusing to modern ears, probably because most of the story takes place in the magical world of Oz.

I was also trying to make the analogy to the show, and it works in an interesting way. You would think John should be Dorothy, but he's not. In terms of experiences, Derek's Dorothy: he's the one who travels to a different world, and if you think of Jesse (or even Kyle) as his home, he does want to go home. Cameron's obviously the Tin Man: she's built without a heart, but she does learn to care and think of others (sort of, at least). Sarah's the Cowardly Lion: she started out not knowing what she's doing and she's scared to death, but she keeps going anyway. And John's the Scarecrow: he doesn't know anything/enough, and yet he's the leader and he's making choices and choosing strategies.

Project 2: Terminator Movies

It had been so long since I last saw the Terminator movies that I was having trouble tracking any conversation about Sarah Connor Chronicles that referenced the movies. The answer to this was obviously to watch the movies again. (I also wanted to rewatch them all before Terminator Salvation comes out in May.)

The Terminator had me laughing in the first few minutes because pretty much the first thing you see that's not just a place is the governor's naked ass. (Remember, I live in California.) Given my penchant for reading/surfing the internet while watching things, I actually found it hard to watch this movie because it's so dependent on visual imagery.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the one that relates most to Sarah Connor Chronicles - the show takes place after it, and I believe the powers that be have said it's supposed to follow from T2. I was amazed, watching it, at how well Lena Headey is playing Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor. Between the first two movies, Sarah toughens up a hell of a lot, and I could see the roots for Lena's Sarah in Linda's. I could also completely see Thomas Dekker's John in Edward Furlong's. (Aside the first: his voice keeps breaking, which is at once both kind of distracting and probably part of the point - he's a human being with all that comes along with that. Aside the second: I think of "douchebag" as a relatively recent insult, but John uses it in this, which is from 1991.)

One of the things I really appreciate about the first two movies are the special effects. I find myself annoyed with movies where the special effects are the point. In both of the first two Terminator movies, the special effects are secondary to the story, and they're kind of cheesy to modern eyes. I like the cheesiness. They're not afraid to make a movie that's a movie with some shooting lights added in to give you the sense of what the terminators are like.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines has kind of a bad rap, but I liked it when it came out, and I liked it again this time around. It doesn't really connect to Sarah Connor Chronicles - Cameron jumping them years ahead completely changes the timeline - but that doesn't mean it's not worth watching. The most relevant thing about T3 is that Arnie's Terminator says, "You only postponed it. Judgment Day is inevitable." This is what I've been saying all season, and where I hope the writers are really going with Sarah Connor Chronicles. I want them to take a middle path: Cameron is teaching John that robots can be allies, and Ellison and others are teaching Weaver and John Henry what it means to be human. It doesn't have to be robots vs. humans; metal and skin can work together to make a future they can all live in.

A couple of years ago I taped the Friday Night Lights pilot when it was very first on. I think I was still getting The Sacramento Bee then and it was Rick Kushman's recommendation that made me do it. I remember thinking that it looked fantastic, but that there was no way I could watch it. It was on at a time when I wasn't home, and I thought that I would put off watching episodes because they would be so heart wrenching and then I would have several episodes at a time and there's no way I could watch very many of them at a stretch, which is also why I thought watching it on DVD would be a problem.

I've been rewatching my way through the first seasons of both The O.C. and One Tree Hill on Hulu as I lift weights, but they've now reached the end of seasons one and haven't started posting seasons two. I was browsing Hulu to see what else I could watch, and discovered that they have every episode of Friday Night Lights. (There are other shows I'd like to watch but am not willing to start in the middle of.) So I watched the pilot again. It's so good. And I wasn't sure if I could watch more of it. In fact, I've been putting off watching it. Instead, I've seen a couple of episodes of The Daily Show, and a few episodes of Arrested Development (even though I recently finished rewatching all the way through all three seasons for the second time in less than a year). Today, though, I decided to brave the second episode. It's so good. And I'm not sure if I can watch more of it.

Let me start with a seemingly unrelated story. We were chatting in belly dance last night about shows that get better (one of the women in the class said Lie To Me gets better after the pilot, and the current other fangirl in the class said someone tried to get her into Smallville by saying it got better in season 8, which I laughed at), and I realized that I forgot to turn on the DTV box, which means I taped static instead of Supernatural. I thought that it would be okay because I could just watch it online. So this morning when I was ready to watch while lifting weights and making lunch, I spent twenty minutes trying to find a watchable video. Of the two I could get to play, one of them had the audio so out of sync I wasn't willing to put up with it, and the other got all wonky and stretched out on full screen. (I'm sure someone will come along to tell me this could all be easier if I used BitTorrent, but that's not the point of this story. It would also be easier if networks would realize people will watch their shows on their sites with ads if they post them the next day, but that's also not the point of this story.) I finally got frustrated and decided I would just watch Burn Notice instead, since I also usually catch up on that on Fridays. So I'm watching this week's ep, and all of a sudden, "Hey, it's that guy!" That guy, in this case, was Joel Gretsch, who played Tom on The 4400. Here's where this story starts to relate. Push starts out with a scene that takes place ten years ago. Guess who's in that scene? Yes, that's right: Joel Gretsch, playing the father of Nick, our protagonist. Now here's where it relates even more: we also see Nick ten years ago. I was watching it thinking, "Wait, is that?" And then, "No, no, you're only thinking that because it's Friday and you usually watch SPN on Fridays." But, no, my first thought was right. Young Nick is played by Colin Ford, who also played young Sam in two SPN eps.

That seems like an auspicious beginning, and indeed it was. As far as sci fi goes, Push is not as awesome as Babylon A.D., but I still very much liked it. In fact, aside from a (not insignificant, I admit) point to be made about how our heroes are white and the villains are almost all poc, I don't think there was anything I disliked about it.

( Spoilers )

Wow. Just, wow. I loved "The 12-Step Job."

( Spoilers for The 12-Step Job and The Snow Job )

There's probably a time in life when you're supposed to discover Jeff Buckley's version of "Hallelujah." I think that, as with many things related to music, I missed that time. I'd heard of it by the time it was on The O.C. the first time ("The Model Home"), and I remembered it and therefore got the reference when I heard Imogen Heap's version over Marissa's death in "The Graduates," but I didn't know it particularly well or have much of an opinion of it. Sometime in the last year or so, Seth Roberts had a comparison of "Hallelujah" versions (some entertainment site/magazine, possibly Entertainment Weekly, did the same thing at about the same time), and I got caught up listening to it over and over again. I'm in a kind of melancholy mood today, so it seems appropriate.


Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley

(Dear imeem, Please tell me which things will embed the whole thing and which only clips. No love, Ruth You can also hear this with the video.)

This was amusing to me, so I took a screenshot for you. (This is what I feel like doing on a Saturday night.)

( Oh, My Fangirl Self )

(I am going to attempt to embed video here. I've never done this. I have no idea if it'll work or not. If not, check back later, because I'll keep trying to fix it. Also, if things start playing automatically and you find it annoying, you should install flashblock.)

Anyway, a few days ago, keepaofthecheez posted a hilarious video that needs to be shared, but I didn't know who I should share it with, which is why you all get to be shared with.

How To Give A Great Man To Man Hug


General Etiquette:How To Give A Great Man To Man Hug

Then, I saw a link to a Leverage behind the scenes sort of thing which asks cast members "Who is most like their character?" If you've been paying attention to me recently, you probably know where this is going. Whether you do or not, it's still entertaining enough to watch.

Leverage - Behind The Scenes: Most Like Character



(Also entertaining is the one where Aldis says he and Chris just wanted chairs with their names on them and they finally got them. This may explain why Chris looks so uncomfortable in the picture where Beth's in his chair. He just wants his own chair! Be forewarned that some of their behind the scenes vids are spoilery for eps that haven't yet aired.)

Even as I was entertained by these two videos and thought about posting them here, I thought, "But how do I connect them together?" And then I was watching/listening to videos of Kane live, and I came across a video of Christian Kane doing "Let Me Go" (which I love) live. The person taping was far enough away from the stage that there are people wandering in and out of the frame between the camera and Chris. Two of those people are a couple of men who have a man to man hug that is both quite long and also repeated. I'm not sure what the etiquette teacher voice from the first video would say about that.

Let Me Go (Live)



Now I'm watching Four Sheets to the Wind. Oh, Chris, why do you end up in these not that good, place-specific indie movies where you have sex scenes that last less than ten seconds? And more importantly, why haven't I learned that watching movies just because you're in them is not really a good idea?

I also just read through a transcript of an older Q&A (linked from dea_liberty's Steve/Chris Tin-Hat PARTY post) wherein Chris says, in response to a question about other skills and talents, "I normally cook on this whole thing, but Steve's an unbelieveable cook, so I can't take that from him, cuz when I learned, I learned from him. So I love to cook, I cook everyday, that's my favorite thing to do. But he [Steve] went to culinary school so...fuck him! You won. He's a really really good cook, so that's your thing Steve..." *swoon*

(I kind of want to ask if anyone's tried to make a Chris and Steve timeline for easy reference, but apparently there's been wank in the past over the whole Kane the band becoming Christian Kane the solo artist thing, and I don't know either of the communities I started watching well enough to know if asking is a good idea or not.)