yonmei

07:14 am: At the Worldcon: Day Two
There's another fannish couple now staying at Gingerbread Manor (the woman, an early riser like me, expressed surprise at the coincidence, and I pointed out that we both probably used the same search criteria: easy walking distance from the con, good Metro route back, and a very nice place to stay) and so we discussed C. J. Cherryh over breakfast.

But I got out of the house before nine, because I had to get to the WSFS Preliminary Business meeting by 9:45 with the 200 copies of the amendment discussed here and here. Which I was - even stopping on the way in Cafe Momus for an espresso.

I had never been to a Worldcon business meeting before Friday, and it was more interesting than I expected, though I don't believe I'm likely to go again. Kevin Standlee made a splendid chair, running the meeting with the formality required to get everything done in time but with the fannish leaven of humour. I discovered that Worldcon has a standing committee with the charming name of Nitpicking and Flyspecking. From my particular interests, the process that WSFS is going through to ensure trademark protection for various aspects of Worldcon and the Hugos, were quite interesting in and of themselves.

I didn't do a count (and of course there were no diversity forms to fill in), but I believe that the majority of WSFS members who attended the preliminary were male: I think all of us were white: I don't think many were under 30, let alone under 25.

There were two interesting and contradictory motions which got treated in interestingly contradictory ways: The first was a couple of boyfans who had proposed a motion to get more boyfans to the Worldcon: promoting the idea that concommittees should go to conventions were young male fans are more likely to hang out and to promote the Worldcon there. (What was said explicitly, in defense of this motion, media fans like myself are not welcome: we do not read books, apparently, and so are not wanted at Worldcons.) The motion was expressed in terms of "let's get more young fans coming to the Worldcon" and there appeared to be general agreement that this would be a Good Thing (providing they are the right kind of young fan, of course - hundreds of media fans would not be welcome....)

The second was a motion that concommittees should be required by the constitution to sell memberships at a considerable discount to young fans. This motion got pretty much wiped up and thrown away. The plan would have allowed parents to plan Worldcon attendance with all their children: would have let teenagers go to the Worldcon either with their parents or alone and still get to vote: would have let people between 18 and 25 get what would have amounted to a student discount. The motion would, in other words, have provided the practical means of getting young fans to the Worldcon. It wasn't quite killed; it was amended down to a vague resolution that discounted youth memberships should be recommended to future concommittees, with one man proposing that it would be much simpler if parents were only allowed to stand in queues with their kids and buy the discounted memberships on the door, rather than being able to book well in advance.

So, well. I mentioned this last debate to the woman running the Worldcon Volunteers table a bit later on in the day, and she looked at me with a feminist kind of shrug and said "Men," in that way you do.

Anyway. I thought I was going to have to run from the WSFS Prelims to my first panel at 12:30, but in fact the resolution you have all been waiting for came up at the very end at 12:05, and... was, by a large majority, killed promptly without debate. That is: the membership present read the resolution, concluded they wanted to hear nothing more whatsoever about it, and voted to "Postpone Indefinitely". I shall (post Worldcon) write up the detailed explanation and defense and post to feministsf, but in the meantime, the business meeting ended at about five past and I went to the greenroom to thank the greenroom manager for bringing me much-needed coffee (I had gone there during recess hoping to get coffee/food when it looked like the meeting would stretch out till 12:30, but the delivery of fresh supplies had not then been made) during the Prelims meeting.

( image-heavy post under cut )

Tags: doctor who, star trek, worldcon

10:14 pm: Zulu said Fred
1. What is your greatest ambition 1) for today, 2) for the month, 3) for the year?

1.1 For today: to compile the email bulletin. 1.2 For June or for July? I could be perverse and say June, which would be the same as for today, wouldn't it? For July: to launch my new website effectively, and to finish writing the latest fanfic. Or I'll get killed. 1.3 To get my photoblogging back on line and to cope with work without losing track of home.

2. You can change one law. What is it, and what does it become?

I would amend the 1975 Marriage Act so that same-sex couples could get married. Oh, that's awfully serious. I would change the Hollywood Law that makes it impossible to have two women talking to each other about plot stuff instead of teh menz, and so from now on all films and TV series would pass the Bechdel Test. Is that too frivolous? I think I want to repeal the law of gravity, so that we can all fly whenever we want to.

3. What's your favourite website to visit?

I wondered how to answer this one. xkcd because it always makes me smile? www.guardian.co.uk because I habitually turn to it for news? insanejournal.com or redbubble or feministsf - the blog for obvious reasons?

No, I think in all honesty it's much simpler than that: www.google.com. Sorry.

4. What's something you are or have been fannish about, and how would you pimp it?

Depends what it was. If Blake's 7, probably start with fanfic, and move on to episodes only when actually begged to do so. If Star Trek, probably begin and end with fanfic, plus maybe carefully selected bits of episodes that are genuinely OK, mostly because Spock and McCoy are gazing into each other's eyes. If ST:tng, I'd probably try to start off with "Chain of Command", because that's certainly what hooked me, or possibly just all the Picard/Q episodes. Especially the one where Q licks Picard's ear. Or the one where Q and Picard are tucked up naked in bed together. If The Professionals, same technique as for B7. If MacGyver, make them watch the Murdoc episodes until sufficiently convinced this is the primary pairing, then introduce them to the sincere yet limited M/M fanfic. If M*A*S*H... well, who could fail to melt at the thought of Hawkeye/Mulcahy? They're just too adorable.

5. Beanie caps: height of fashion, or accessory disaster?

Disaster. That was easy.

You know the rules: if you want to be interviewed, ask me!




Tags: bechdel, being queer, blake's 7, fanfic, fred, m*a*s*h, redbubble, star trek

09:42 pm: Whatho, said Fred
whatho asked me fred questions: 1. If had a double-decker bus all of your own, to what creative touring purpose would you put it?

Well, I would also need a driver. Or I couldn't tour it, I could only camp out in it. Hm. Okay. I will suppose that I have a bus driver. Or that along with running a bus, I hire a driver in each town or city to take me to the next one. Because I think that's what I would do: I would take out all the seats, and upstairs I would have a bed/sitting room/kitchen - it wouldn't need to be much of a kitchen, but enough to make tea and soup and so on - and then downstairs I would have a minature exhibition room, perhaps with a projector or multiple projectors so that instead of photos hanging on walls and people walking around, there would be changing photos on walls and on other people in the room. And I would go around from here to there and so on, taking photographs and having exhibitions. I would also have my laptop so I could write when the bus was moving. The main problem would be bathrooms. Perhaps I could have a toilet upstairs with a septic tank downstairs and get that pumped out every so often. I would need a big water tank, too, but it would be easier to plan stopping at camping grounds or swimming pools for showers.

2. If you could get an animal other than a cat, and assuming your two would for some inexplicable reason fail to object, what would be and what would you call it?

I would like to have a tortoise. This wouldn't go very well with two cats. But then neither does a double-decker bus. Tortoises eat clover, and live for a long time. I would call my tortoise Stone.

3. Why does Picard put on that RP accent? Did he maybe go to Rada?

Back in the late 20th century/early 21st century, there was an influx of English settlers into the South of France. Then after the British/American economy collapsed in 2012, they all stayed and formed an RP-English enclave, speaking RP-English to each other even though the children had to learn French to go to the state schools. Of course they grew more and more French and less English, even thinking of themselves as the Anglos of France, but they continued to pass on RP English to their children.

4. What do you reckon to Shah Rukh Khan thus far in your education?

He has a very pretty mouth, and a lovely voice. I also like his eyes. I am never sure about his acting, until I see him being a doofus, and then I think he can.

5. What is your absolute favourite television series of all time?

I can't answer questions like that. I don't have absolute favourites of all time. I really don't. Not for anything.

...at least not yet.




Tags: fred, nonphotos, star trek, tv addiction

06:10 pm: Just My Life Really
On Tuesday evening, which is cheap night at Vue, I went to see Star Trek. It wasn't good. It was the sort of kind of film where, having taken care to check how long it lasts, I keep glancing at the clock on my phone to establish how much plot there must be left.

There were three women in the film who had names and lines, and a fourth who I think wasn't named: an Orien green cadet who has sex with Jim Kirk and a few lines of dialogue and let Kirk see Uhura in her underwear. One of the women existed to give birth to Jim Kirk, and is thereafter never seen or heard again (she wasn't even allowed to be the voice on the product-placement phone telling Kirk not to steal the car and drive it to Arizona). One gives birth to Spock, and is thereafter used to make Spock go apeshit: she gets pushed into a metaphorical refrigerator fairly early on. One is supposed to be Nyota Uhura, and exists to be appallingly, skeletally skinny, be hit on by Kirk, prove that in the modern Starfleet men don't obey women officers (in that bar fight? If the real Uhura had yelled at them to stop the redshirts beating up Kirk, they'd have stopped), and to hit on Spock, thus (the director and scriptwriter and stockholders presumably hope) forestalling the slash fans taking hold and writing the K/S for this universe. Because these are het guys. Straight, straight, straight. Hell if it'll work: I say Uhura and Spock are totally cousins. The young Bones was OK even if the old joke got taken away from him and replaced by a new and much stupider joke referring to one of the few other women in this AU; Baby Sulu and Baby Chekov and Baby Scott were ... okay, I supppose: Janice Rand and Christine Chapel and Number One, the first First Officer of the USS Enterprise, were... absent. (See also: feministsf and jekesta being brilliant.)

Afterwards I wandered home and Bob was missing and it turned out a neighbour had accidentally shut her into his bike shed, because late at night when the street was quiet I went out again and heard her yell and it was too late to wake up my neighbours, so I left notes in their door and on their fence, and went to bed and slept badly. My Twitters are full of me Not Panicking. She got let out first thing the next morning, and is fine, though very clingy: but the part where it turned out I have the nicest neighbours in the world?

The neighbour who had shut her in the shed (by accident! I know he wouldn't have done it on purpose!) came round on Wednesday evening with a card and a bottle of white wine to apologize. Which I found myself without a polite way of refusing, though the bottle of white wine is still lying on the couch where I put it (the card is on the mantelpiece) and fills me with helpless rueful giggles whenever I think of drinking it. Because, after we were dialoguing on the step and he was saying how sorry he was and I was saying "Thank you for letting her out!" (it was actually his partner who had slipped down first thing and let Bob out, as soon as she saw the note) and then Bob wandered out. And I picked her up (she feels terribly light and thin these days, which I'm worried about, because this reminds me of Cally, but she's still eating....) because I did not want to let her go wandering again... and my neighbour started chucking her under the chin and apologising to Bob. So I accepted the card and the wine, and still think I have the nicest neighbours in the world.

Thursday I had a meeting in Glasgow, and after the meeting I went to the SH[OUT] exhibition in GOMA, which was absolutely fantastic and I want to go again. Maybe I can persuade Ajay to come with - it had several things I thought she might like, especially a picture of a Thai man, a prostitute, standing on a stage, not quite looking at his audience - but the whole picture was so richly painted, and the frame was ornamented, and it looked as if he/his image was a gift to us. The other I remember vividly was a picture of two older women, who had been burlesque artists in their youth, painted as they lay holding each other on their bed. It was the kind of oil painting that looks more real, has more depth, than any photograph could. But, speaking of photographs: the Mapplethorpe photo. I'm told there was some dispute about including it, and its inclusion was probably the main reason the exhibition has been banned to children under 12. But I am so glad to have seen it. I had read about it - it's a famous photograph, politically as well as artistically, the depiction of a standing man pissing into the mouth of a kneeling man, which a court case formally established as having artistic merit and therefore (in the US) protected under the First Amendment. But words and reproductions do not do the photo itself justice: it is an extraordinary work of light and shade, balanced images: it is simultaneously a depiction of a sexual act in pornographic detail and it is a work of art. In many ways the exhibition felt like a series of windows into other exhibitions, that I wanted very much to see as well - if there had been money to produce a catalogue, I would have bought it.

After I had looked round the exhibition, I wanted to see if I could get my T-Mobile dongle to work, and after trying unsuccessfully and calling the helpline, it appeared that the problem was I'd put the wee card in the wrong way round - and it was fairly jammed. So I asked the helpline to find me the nearest two T-Mobile shops in Glasgow, and set out to find the one in Buchanan Street. (On the basis, as I told them frankly, that if someone were going to break the card getting it out, I had rather it was someone working for T-Mobile than me.)

The T-Mobile shop was in the Buchanan Street Galleries, which are just above the Buchanan Street Tearoom, where one can get a very nice cream tea for £2.50. So, after I'd got my dongle working (oo-er) I went there and had tea and a scone with cream and two sorts of jam, and it was very nice. (They supplied me with butter as well as jam: I ask you, what kind of person puts butter and cream on a scone?

Then I walked round the GOMA exhibition again, to fill my eye with it a second time, and caught the 4:15 train back to Edinburgh (safely in the cheap zone) and surfed the net and wrote a bit on the way home. I was due to meet my parents and the young man who is helping them clear out their flat (a bit) at the Ann Purna that evening.

We had a nice meal: my mum told me about seeing a sign in Bakewell, where they'd gone for their holiday, about marriage between a man and a woman being the law of the land, and she said she'd wanted to add a sign about civil partnership but hadn't had paper/tape to do it. Still. It was nice of her to want to.

Friday has been a fairly ghastly muddle, in which I got not enough done and that too late. But I am drinking wine and eating nice food, and TGIF: it's the weekend now.



Tags: bob, glasgow, i want a cup of tea and a tonne of sympa, just my life really, scones, star trek, yarg

09:23 am: Wednesday morning lists
1. Bob's home! Yay.
2. Have important meeting to prepare for tomorrow.
3. Made rye bread with cocoa nibs.
4. Also made more rye bread without cocoa nibs.
5. Saw Star Trek and Wolverine (not the same evening). Star Trek is better technically but Wolverine is more fun. Both have ( spoiler ) Also, which is not a spoiler, Nyota Uhura was a good-lookin' woman at any age: she was not Walking Skellington. Also - Skellington though she was, I could believe she was The Best Xenolinguist Anywhere: she had that attitude. But the other fubsy li'l Baby Officers, who kept appearing while I said What? WHAT? WHAT? (silently) - they did not.
6. Also, lack of chemistry. If they want to expand the franchise from now to eternity, they've really, really got to look for actors who feel like they're comrades and friends and lovers.
7. Also, help my baby cloud dragon not die! Give clicky! Thanks.



Tags: bread, lists, star trek, work

07:12 pm: The character list meme
The list of characters





( Copracat asked: Why do birds sing? )

( Copracat asked: Don't you regret betraying her? )

( Magpyr asked: If 3 could go back in time, what is the one thing they would change about their life? )

( Magpyr asked: What is 5's favorite food? )

( Magpyr asked: If 7 were to be a dog, what breed would they be? )

( MuninnHuginn asked: Number 13, what is the length of a piece of string? )

( MuninnHuginn asked: Number 6, was it 'in the greenhouse with the conductors baton' or 'the downstairs loo with a grand piano'? )

( EileenLufkin asked: 2&11: do they fight each other, fight crime, or have hot sex? )

( EileenLufkin asked: Question for number four; 1, 8, and 9; cliff, marry, shag? )

( Ruthi asked: 1 and 7, how do they save the world, and from what? )

( 12, 14, and 15, on finding themselves ignored )

Tags: babylon 5, blake's 7, books are what i read, dr who, highlander, house md, m*a*s*h, macgyver, shakespeare, slash slash slashity slash, star trek

07:45 am: Nichelle Nichols remembers
Avedon Carol linked to a video of Nichelle Nichols explaining why she stayed with Star Trek after the first year. It's good: go, watch.

( Beyond Uhura )

Tags: star trek

01:02 am: 10 flash fiction stories - late, argh!
Yes, yes, I suck. Sorry. I got distracted Christmas Day and couldn't focus to do flashfic, and with one thing and another have been getting distracted ever since - until tonight, when...

As requested, following a longstanding tradition:

( Moonflowerz, Xena, familiar )


( Jekesta, M*A*S*H, frame )


( Whatho, West Wing, headache )


( Melancharisbron, Mary Sue )


( Plasticsturgeon, ballad, heather )


( Bubosquared, Mickey/Jake, rain )


( Strangerian, Georgette Heyer, stranger )


( rainherder, Lord of the Rings, femur )


( solar_boat, Blake's 7, Library )


( ruthi, Ninth Doctor, duck )

Tags: blake's 7, brokeback mountain, christmas day stories, doctor who, dr who, flashfic, georgette heyer, m*a*s*h, star trek, tolkien, west wing, xena

10:13 pm: Fantasy Pirate League
jekesta did it, and she got it from tiniago. We should all do it and then we'd have a Fantasy Pirate Fleet. Which will sail round livejournal being swashbuckling and everything and talking pirate talk and taking prisoners and loot and everything!

( My Fantasy Pirate League )

Tags: blake's 7, discworld, georgette heyer, jane austen, m*a*s*h, macgyver, pirates, running away to sea, silly memes, star trek

11:25 pm: 10 flash fiction stories
As requested, following a longstanding tradition:

( Spacefall, Blake's 7 )

( Foreverdirt, West Wing/Star Trek/Drop the Dead Donkey )

( Nerdcakes, Star Trek )

( Shoshanna, Highlander/Next Gen )

( Derryderrydown, Professionals )

( Whatho, M*A*S*H )

( Angelofthenorth, Harry Potter )

( Melata_fic, Discworld )

( Thette, Buffy the Vampire Slayer )

( Coyotegoth, Harry Potter )

( Bugshaw, hamster )

Tags: bible, blake's 7, christmas day stories, discworld, flashfic, harry potter, m*a*s*h, professionals, star trek, west wing, write write write, yuletide

01:08 pm: Meme: Five Characters
Five Characters I Want To Punch in the Face. Or rather bitch-slap, since it seems more appropriate somehow. (nicked from snowgrouse)

The one thing all five of these characters have in common is a smug self-satisfaction - a certainty that they're in the right and they are the centre of the universe. *eyes the line-up* Some of them, of course, with more justification than others. And any pain they might cause is nothing because they didn't feel it themselves.

None of them are outright villains. I tend to find outright villains either not interesting enough to slap around, or so painfully interesting I want to vivisect them slowly and in public, not just bitch-slap.

( my five )

Tags: blake's 7, buffy, house md, i watch tv obsessively, lists, m*a*s*h, meme meme meme, star trek

11:18 pm: Top fannish viewing moments
eliade just started what I think is an absolutely brilliant fannish meme: ( top fannish viewing moments--moments that stand out in memory, or that shaped my response to a show in some powerful way )

Look, this is fannish stuff, okay. Either don't click or deal with it.

Tags: blake's 7, buffy, fannishness, highlander, meme, professionals, star trek