Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose

This is Teddy Roosevelt riding a moose across a river.



Obviously he is the biggest BAMF that ever lived.

When lust shuts down your brain

Pondering some things lately that I want to explore here. I've been having thoughts on standards of beauty and dynamics of attraction again, spurred by certain things I've been finding lately in myself.

When women are objectified, they tend to be objectified as sex objects-- that their value lies in their sexiness. When men are objectified, they tend to be objectified as success objects-- that their value lies in their monetary and career success. I get that men get stuck with that lot because society expects them to be providers, but what I wonder is why they get away with being sexually objectified so much less frequently. Women have sex drives and eyes just like men do-- why don't they provide enough demand for pretty men to show up in the media?

I hate to say it, but it seems like in most cases they don't. One thing that's always troubled me in my pondering gender equality is the fact that in my personal experience I have found women to be significantly less invested in the physical beauty of men than vice versa. I know that of the men I have been most attracted to, it wasn't necessarily because of the way they looked, and how far, far more often I have seen couples where the girl was significantly more attractive than the guy than the other way around.

This bugs me because it supports those unequal expectations of beauty that I wrote about once before. It seems to verify the idea that women need to be more beautiful in order to be attractive to men, while men can be less beautiful and still be attractive to women. Which leads to women having to work harder on their appearance, to stay fit, to work on their hair, to dress better, to "put on their faces," while men can get away with putting on weight, or presenting themselves with less polish. That's really unfair, and it encourages women to think that desiring male beauty is basically pointless-- or worse, that there's something weird or unnatural about desiring it.

But still-- it does happen. Maybe less often, maybe less universally, but it does happen. On the rare occasions I DO find myself really, really struck by a man's physical beauty... the feminist in me is kind of happy. Yeah, I know nobody should sexually objectify anyone, it's definitely not feminist to do so, but I must confess I feel weirdly pleased when I find myself drawn to do it. It supports the idea that women and men AREN'T all that different after all, that it probably happens to all of us in differing amounts, and maybe women are just socialized not to do it as often as men are allowed to.

Right now I really really like Chris Evans Captain America. Like, whoa, a lot. Like I'm wasting entirely too much time browsing for NSFW photo edits on DeviantArt I like him so much. I like pretty people, sure, but frankly, any feeling of attraction based solely on appearance occurs rarely for me. Hell, there aren't that many people I feel attracted to at all! What's funny is that with me, there must be a perfect storm of little details about a man's appearance for that to even happen. I couldn't care less about Chris Evans when he looks like this...

But when he looks like this, it knocks the breath out of me. :-)

It's not that I can point to anything in particular, like, oh, I like him clean shaven or whatever, because that's not it. It's just there's a particular confluence here that works for me in a big way, helped along by the "I am a super good guy but also a little awkward" built into the character he's playing. Actually, that's one of the reasons why I don't think it's fair to us straight ladies that guys get to toss off how they present themselves, because sometimes sometimes little details as small as how somebody dresses or parts their hair (see above, heh) that can make the sexy difference.

What's also funny-- or creepy --is how much it makes me lose my mind. I can actually feel it pushing out higher thought. I have heard of this phenomenon, men are accused of giving in to it all the time, but it's a relatively infrequent experience for me. As I said, I'm attracted to very few people in general, much less to the point where I find myself objectifying them. So it's kind of freaking me out how strongly looking at Chris Evans Captain America threatens to push me into thinking like an absolute pig-- to let the feeling in my guts and elsewhere completely overtake the working of my brain. I am at the point where I can't even watch the ads for the Avengers without being all, "Fuck this noise, just take off your shirt and stand there." That, my friends, is pretty much textbook sexual objectification. Who even am I, that that's something that I do? Jared has actually been kind of weirded out by this, saying things like, "What if I did this about Scarlett Johansson? Wouldn't you think I was being tacky?" Hmmm, maybe I would. More likely what I'd think is, what's the big deal? Why so strong a reaction? And yet here I am, having my sensibilities and my good taste swept away by something that in normal circumstances wouldn't be that big a deal for me.

And yet... and yet. Lousy as it is, I am glad that it can happen. I'm glad for the proof that this is something I can experience. There's this one ad for Marc Jacobs cologne that looks like... well, I guess I'll just post it, despite what its presence may do to my blog traffic.

I mean, look at that. Wow, that's... unsubtle. I have a very complex reaction to it.

It's sexualized so blatantly. The man is ripped, naked, and oiled up with just some fake cologne bottle hiding his junk. On one hand, it's tacky. I tend to dislike such unsophisticated, nuance-free depictions of sexiness, and find them more gross than appealing. But being of an idealized standard of beauty and put on display to appeal to sexual interest, this sort of depiction is a rare example of a man being sexualized in a way that is usually reserved for objectifying portrayals of women.  I am very very pleased to see something equalizing in that manner, as well as something that tries to appeal to the female gaze for a change. (Presumably. I have a vague memory of reading that cologne is mostly bought by women as gifts for men.)

Also, I have to say... I find it kind of hot. I really shouldn't, see above about how such depictions are usually gross instead of sexy to me, but for some reason I do. I'm embarrassed to be taken in by such a display. I wonder if this is what it's like when men don't really find exaggerated porn actresses with fake breasts and stylized faces attractive, but are turned on enough by them anyway. But at the same time, for reasons of equalization there's a part of me that is pleased that I am. The argument that men aren't sexualized because women don't like them to be falls flat.

I'm curious-- how often does that happen to other people? When you gauge someone's raw attractiveness largely divorced from their actual self, how often does anyone experience that feeling of lust that you feel it pushing out your higher thought (whether you allow it to or not)? Does it happen to men as often as we seem to think it does? And does it happen to women as infrequently as we think it does? As with the stereotype, I will admit that it happen to me very rarely. But sometimes, one rare occasion, it definitely does happen.

Intercon is nigh

Intercon is just a few days away. I am excited, but also a little regretful. Titus is also premiering this weekend, and I won't be there for a lot of it. At least I'll get to see the Thursday and Sunday shows.

I am a little unsure of what to expect from my games this weekend. I'm afraid that of the two that I'm playing, one character sheet seems pretty bereft of plot and things that translate into in-game action, and the other one is of awkward and amateurish construction. The second I'm not so worried about, I've been in plenty of games that were poorly written that still played fantastically-- funny thing about larp --but I confess to being a wee bit disappointed. Still, with my positive outlook for Lent, I am determined to make my own good time one way or another. I am currently brainstorming my own plots and directions for the first character to be implemented if I find myself without a lot to do, and for the second I plan to just go with whatever happens. I at least like the IDEAS behind my two castings, so I can run with that alone if I have to and make up the rest as I go. And there will be Resonance to run, a game that I am proud of that I enjoy putting on. It's going to be a good con, I'm sure.

I have to get packing this week. I've already drawn up my list so as not to forget anything, as is my habit when going away for a weekend. :-P I also need to figure out what food I want to take. I was pretty successful with my picnic basket strategy last year, so I may just want to cook some meals that can be eaten cold and put them in a cooler to take along again. Better get on that, there's not much time let to get it all ready.

Sewing project: ballet skirt

So I finished the ballet skirt I've wanted to make myself for a while now. I found a pattern drafted by the talented and hilarious blogger The Selfish Seamstress, printed it out, and taped it together. The fabric I chose was a black polyester georgette with a magenta and tan rose print on it. I liked the look of it and it would match two out of my three ballet leotards. I cut out what was basically a large half-circle of the fabric, then I double-folded the waistband over a length of grosgrain ribbon and pinned it in place, which was tough because of how shifty the georgette is. But when I sewed it, it came out okay.

Then I sewed a zigzag stitch near to the bottom edge. The fabric is ravelly and I wasn't sure how to hem something of this shape, so I thought I'd make a border and then trim it.

The stitching seems to have pulled together a little too tightly, but I actually think that's a good thing because now there's raised line at the edge that kind of feels like cord. It made it easier to trim the excess without cutting the thread.

It came out okay except that the stitching prevents one corner of it from laying flat. But it's not that noticeable. This is how it looks on Adelaide, the name I finally picked for my dress form, who is currently fashionably wearing a see-through skirt with an ostrich feather hat.

I will wear it to ballet this Tuesday and see how it works. :-)

Tested and sewing for Titus

Spent my first full day of testing my Lenten resolution to not let things get me down. It was shockingly hard, and that in itself was sort of upsetting. Do my emotions and well-being really crash so easily? Is it really so tough for me to not spiral when things don't go my way? I'm sort of disgusted with myself. But I did a pretty good job of moving forward and not getting dragged down, so I guess with effort I can break this cycle. That's the idea behind committing to do it for the entire forty days.

I've been going in to help with Titus stuff in the afternoons of this week. I have mostly been assisting Walker, the costume designer, with costume construction. He's sewing and otherwise building the entire wardrobe, which I am quite impressed by, but it's a lot of work so I was happy to take a little bit of the burden off of his shoulders. I am actually really glad to have something getting me to practice my sewing, and the chance to hang around chatting with Walker has been pleasant as well. He is extremely intelligent and a very interesting person. Under his direction I made two half-circle capes, a purple imperial robe for polaris_xx*, a toga by attaching two white linen curtains together and putting a stripe of blue silk along one edge, and a red military tunic to be worn by Prentice. I hope to go back in and do more sewing today, and if it's possible for Walker to assign me something I may take some projects home and work on them over the weekend. I've been meaning to work on something anyway, so if it would take some of the load off of him, I would be happy to get the practice.

Health for Lent

My equilibrium is so fragile these days. My frustration tolerance is practically nil, which just throws everything off. But yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the day we remember our mortality and the human struggle. We are but dust and to dust we shall return. So I am doing what I can to let it all go.

For Lent this year I am not going to take my usual approach of just giving something up. I am going to frame it in terms of sacrificing indulgence in the form of wasting time and energy on useless actions and unhealthy negativity. I want to give myself some assignments to stick to in order to improve my physical and emotional health. I haven't been taking very good care of myself lately-- not my body, not my mind, not anything. So I am going to impose a healthier routine on myself to see if it doesn't improve how I feel, and therefore how I am as a person. This will include:

- no junk food of any kind
- exercise at least three times a week, preferably five
- drinking more water
- scheduling time for activities (writing, sewing, etc) to make sure I actually do them
- letting things roll off my back rather than get upset and ruin my whole mood and outlook
- checking myself when I get unkind or excessively judgmental
- getting in the habit of saying daily prayers

I have a very good track record of sticking to the resolution I make for the period, so maybe if I resolve to better habits I will actually stick to it. That's kind of a tall order, but it never hurts to try. I could use a little better balance. I'm tired of feeling so off all the time. My reasoning is that if I feel stronger and more serene, I will be able to be a better human being to other people. Which I would hope is in the spirit of Lent.

Family pictures

Some family pictures my parents sent me just now.

This is my mom with her dog, Merlin, on the right and her friend's dog, Buster, on the left. She loves dogs.



And this is a picture of my paternal grandparents, Gertrude and Arthur Roberts, on Valentine's Day.



<3

Leisurely week

This should be a good week. It had a great start with my day trip with Jane and a nice President's Day with Jared, and looks to be good from here on out. I finished my first assignments for both screen writing and science fiction and fantasy, which means I have about three weeks until the next ones are due and therefore no particular pressure to spend all my time on them. My plan is to go to help out with Titus build in the afternoons and then have nice leisurely evenings. I'm not going to ballet this week because the schedule is altered and there won't be beginner classes offered, so I have more time Tuesday and Thursday nights. My plan is to cook healthy and delicious dinners, work on homework but not spend all night on it, maybe get a workout in, and continue on through my sewing book. That will keep me productive but still allow me to take it easy. It's not often that happens for me for a solid work week.

Newport with Jane

Had one of the nicest weekends I've had in quite some time. Saturday I went to Newport, RI to meet aurora_knight* and have a great time walking around through the city. That was a great trip. I'd never been there before, but I knew it was a pretty town by the sea where lots of Gilded Age millionaires built their summer homes. We went on a tour of two of the grandest, The Breakers and The Elms. The Breakers in particular was opulent, seventy rooms all styled like high French aristocratic chateaux, designed by the famous Vanderbilt family. The ceilings were all crenelated with carvings of animals, mythology, angels, and fruit, and covered over with painted murals. The gilt covering the moldings and the furniture was made of actual gold. The billiard room was walled entirely in marble. There was a fountain under the staircase. It had ballrooms and sitting rooms and dining halls and a breakfast room and dozens of bedrooms. It was grand and gorgeous but honestly rather overdone. It was rather too much for my tastes, and honestly did not seem liveable by modern standards. I was trying to imagine rolling out of bed, padding down that giant staircase in my pajamas and walking across my cavernous hall to eat my breakfast in my opulent breakfast suite. It made me kind of uncomfortable, honestly. Maybe it works better if you're expected to be fully dressed in elegant clothes and have servants waiting on you and making everything happen, but Jane said that even for the age it was considered over-the-top. I like the say I could expand into any amount of space you gave me-- throwing parties and hosting dinners and running larps and having rooms for sewing and gaming and maybe even a performance space --but I found the Breakers to be just too much even for me. My favorite part of it was the butler's pantry, a place like a kitchen except without fixtures like a stove or anything, which was elegant in the simplicity of its very fine dark wood cabinets and endless counter space. By contrast, the other house, The Elms, of the coal family the Berwinds was very fine and grand but more tasteful and liveable. I'm sure I could move in there just fine. :-)

Overall it was a lovely trip, walking around and chatting with Jane, who is always lovely company. I'm so glad she invited me. Thanks, dear! Here is a nice picture of Jane in one of the Newport shops we browsed. Her hair looks very pretty.

Piglet baby

I am now obsessed with this picture.



Look at that snoot.

It is now my Twitter avatar and the background on my phone.

Piglet baby. <3

Musing on body image drawn out of an unlikely place

A couple of years ago, Jared introduced me to an Internet reviewer of movies and video games who calls himself Spoony. He's pretty funny and has a good eye for evaluating media, so I've come to be a follower of his site, The Spoony Experiment.

For a while, he was dating a woman who helped him produce his videos during the course of their relationship. Spoony projects an air of being a lonely, horny gamer geek as part of his reviewer persona, so I hadn't been aware that he even had a girlfriend for most of the time I've been watching. Apparently a lot of his fans developed a distaste for her, I'm not sure why. I guess some of them started disliking things Spoony began doing in his work, and in typical misogynist Internet troll fashion, they started blaming her influence despite her probably having nothing to do with it, calling her "Yoko," because of course they couldn't just disagree with their hero's artistic choices, it had to be the fault of that harpy in his life. And of course, they starting running down her appearance because you can't criticize a woman without bringing that up. She showed up in one of his videos once, and was immediately met with a flood of comments about how fat and ugly she was. There are not too many images of her on the web these days, I gather because of a purge in response to that outpouring of cruelty. They are no longer together now, but I only just heard about this stomach-turning little saga. Which has gotten me thinking about something tangentially related that I want to talk about now.

I will say that the woman is not beautiful, at least not to my tastes. Coarse features, a little too heavily made up, and kind of a blocky build. I am not bringing this because I am in any way suggesting that they way they treated her was acceptable. It's one thing to hold a private opinion, it's quite another to treat someone like they've committed a trespass against you simply for daring to appear in public when they don't conform to your personal aesthetic. She's not here to decorate your world, assholes.

The reason I bring it up is because, also as part of the lonely, horny gamer geek persona, Spoony spends a decent chunk of time going on about how hot various female characters are in the course of his reviews. And in general, given that these are media figures and artists' renderings, those characters tend to conform to the very mainstream notion of beauty, suggesting that slavish devotion to the ideal that makes so many women feel like they can never possibly measure up. And yet, for as much as he goes on and on about characters that look like that, he was involved, and apparently happy, with a woman who was in no way like that ideal.

The extremity of that contrast has got me thinking, and this is the reason I'm writing this entry. Because of the omnipresence of the tall thin stacked woman with delicate features held up as the beautiful ideal by the media, a lot of women struggle with the notion that this really is the best kind of beauty. This is something I certainly wrestle with myself. I have a hard time letting go of the notion that the current beauty ideal has attained its primacy because that's what people, at least most people, genuinely like best. And that if I don't conform to it myself, then at best someone who wants me is "settling" for being less attracted?

And yet. How often do we encounter people attracted to woman who drool over media figures and yet are in a relationship with a more average-looking woman who they clearly adore? Where does that come from? That's not the message we have driven home all the time.

Jared's take on it was that, at least for him, there are many kinds of beauty that he finds attractive. Yes, Airbrushed Skinny Stacked Celebrity Woman is definitely appealing. But she's just one kind of appealing, perhaps one that he is less likely to encounter in real life and so much be enjoyed in her media context. But she's not better than the other kinds of appealing that women can be. He just enjoys her as well as all the other kinds.

That's it for Jared, anyway. I'm sure it's different for other people. But I do think a fairly universal truth of it is, as much as the media and advertising may suggest to the contrary, I think most real people genuinely don't hold up one notion of beauty as the "best" or "most desirable." And even if a person does find a "more idealized" appearance technically more attractive, appearance becomes genuinely less important in the wake of more the more significant qualities of personhood. It may be that we don't actually need to teach each other to stop fixating on unattainable beauty, because we're not actually all that fixated on it. We just need to keep from internalizing the idea that that's actually what others want and expect us to be.

No one in my life thinks I'm not good enough the way I am. So I need to stop being afraid of something that's not there.

It's not a new idea I'm talking about here. It's just a hard one that I, and I think other people as well, have a hard time holding in my head. But there's evidence of it everywhere, if we just believe the evidence of our eyes.

Festival signups and Titus build

Both of my games at Festival, The Stand and Paranoia, have now filled. The Stand will be interesting because this time it seemed I was getting a lot of female players, so in order to accommodate them I opened up a few neutral slots. Now I have thirteen men and twelve women to play seventeen male and nine female characters, which is more skewed to the female than either of the previous runs were. If any of these lovely ladies are willing to be cross cast that will make everything a snap, but if not enough of them are, I will have to consider what currently male characters I can gender swap. Given the setting and historical time period, it's a pretty gendered game, and while there are plenty of people stepping outside of their proscribed roles, it's usually pretty significant to their plot. Still, that should actually be a fun and interesting challenge should the need arise. Festival looks to be a good con overall; it's a good roster of games at this point, and they're almost all completely full. Well done, ninja_report*, for making this happen!

Build for the current HTP show, Titus Andronicus, has begun. Though the show is still several weeks off, their unfortunately early performance dates mean there is no show in the theater before them, so they were able to move in and get started. I hope the extra time proves to be of benefit to them. I went by the last couple days to lend a hand here and there where I could. I really enjoy helping with build week. With work and school I spend so much time doing mental, sedentary work that my body craves a chance to pit itself against physical work of some kind. And It's not often that I get a chance to build things. Carpentry is one of the many things I'd love to learn if it weren't something that required a significant money and space investment, so it's nice to have an outlet every now and then to experience it. And I like the challenge to my body to do that kind of work.

I could be bonded in a nutshell and consider myself a king of infinite space...

It's rare that I remember my dreams anymore. I've heard that recalling them is often an indicator that you've not slept long enough to enter deep sleep, and since I tend to go to bed early and as soon as I get tired that's not usually a problem for me. But even if I do remember dreaming about something, once I wake up, knowledge of the substance slips away from me almost immediately. The only thing I am usually left with in that case is what I guess is the way I was feeling in the dream becoming the way I feel now that I'm awake.

Occasionally I have a nice feeling or an idea of a nice dream. Sometimes I even get inspired by whatever I dreamed of-- I am still delighted to think that when I needed an additional plot for The Stand, I had a dream about running a version of the game that included a storyline I hadn't already written in. And when I woke, I remembered what it was, and was able to use it to enrich into the actual game. That was cool.

But much more often I have bad dreams if I had any dream at all. And they are almost always about things that worry me, stress me out, or would be the worst thing ever if they actually happened. Not always things that I actually worry about in my real life because I know they're not likely to occur, but the things that would hurt me worst if they did. So sometimes, even if I don't remember them, I wake up upset with some worry or other that probably means that was the substance of the bad dream. And that happens a lot, far, far more than I ever have good dreams.

Productivity machine

I was a productive little worker Bee over the last few days. I set several goals for myself to accomplish this weekend and I believe I managed every one of them. What I have done includes:

- Finishing my first assignment for screenwriting
- Writing an additional scene for Tailor
- Incorporating ten thousand steps of walking into my routine
- Making headway into my sewing text
- Starting the first Hipster Feminist plot line
- Cleaning my room

I have also consumed several gallons of apple cider in an effort to stave off my chronic dehydration, but that's probably not an accomplishment so much.

Still that leaves a number of things. First and foremost, I need to do my first assignment for science fiction and fantasy. Unfortunately I put this off a lot in favor of the screenwriting assignment, so I don't have a ton of time left for this. I'll chunk this out better for the second round of assignments.

I also really have to edit that additional scene for Tailor. In my desire to just get it done, I broke with my usual pattern of tweaking as I go and instead just banged out the scene from start to finish. Jared and Kindness were the first to read it, and they both gave the extremely spot-on criticism that there isn't enough conflict in the scene. There needs to be more of a struggle for the information to come out, as it is information Kenneth would want to conceal. Plus, conflict raises tension, always necessary for drama. Kenneth is the character Jared is playing, and in the course of developing his performance he tends to internalize a very well-defined idea of who his character is, and Kenneth just spilling his guts wasn't in the conception he'd gotten of the man. Kindness is a man of excellent artistic taste, who I thank for being Palamon-like enough to give it to me straight, both on the positives and the negatives of what he sees in my pieces. I was lucky they were my first responders to the scene, because now I know what I have to do to fix it.

Now that I've taken the plunge and begun the first-ever tweet chain plot for Hipster Feminist, I need to be on top of where the action's going. I am now two tweets in, so there's no going back. ;-) I haven't done as much working out of the storyline or the tweets illustrating thereof as I would have liked, so I have to get on it. They tend to come out funnier when I come up with them in advance and I can tweak them into optimum shape.

Strapless white gown with net overlay; or, why Phoebe shouldn't be allowed in thrift stores anymore

So for three of the last four days I went on long walks where I got in the ten thousand steps they say you should shoot for to use walking as a form of exercise. I'm pleased with myself. I also ran errands in the process, including culling some unwanted articles of clothing and dropping them off at the thrift store. Unfortunately, I can't seem to enter a thrift store without poking around a little to refill the storage space I just freed up. Which means I brought home another fancy dress I didn't need and don't have nearly enough occasion to wear.

It's a white polyester satin with a tulle overlay that is wrapped around the bodice such that it overlaps in front and makes a neat split-petal effect on the skirt. The bodice has plastic boning in it to keep it in place. I've never owned a strapless dress before, but this fits nicely and stays up well. And it finally occurred to me to find a shot timer app for my iPhone so I could take pictures of myself that didn't block out my face. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to allow the camera to focus, which results in a much higher quality picture, but this isn't bad. I could see this as a great wedding dress costume, if I ever want one that is a little younger, more modern, and sexier than the real wedding gown I have that I think dates from the 70s.

Obligatory bodice shot. I really like the little gold branch details on the net:

I like it a lot, but I really have too many fancy thrift store dresses at this point. It's especially silly since I'm planning to start sewing stuff for myself. I have made a lot of progress through my text, Sew Everything Workshop, and am approaching the section where it walks you through actual projects, so the last thing I need to do is fill my closet with more clothes I don't need.

Ah, well. It's not like it costs me much, and I do get real pleasure from them. I guess I'll just have to throw another fancy party where I change outfits every hour to give myself an opportunity to wear them.

Biweekly Theater Writing Challenge #13.10 - Tom confronts Kenneth and learns who he really is

This is a scene for Tailor that I've had in my head for a while now, of Tom confronting Kenneth about his part in the mystery and learning who the poor old drunk really is. It's in very rough form right now, as I just wrote it last night and haven't edited it at all, but I'm glad I banged it out.

As I mentioned, the other night I recorded Plesser and Jared in their respective roles of Tom and Kenneth. They were so great I wanted to work on more of their interaction, so this long-awaited scene came into being. I am working on setting up a strong parallelism in the story between Alice and Bethany, and I want to echo it to a slightly lesser extent with Tom and Kenneth, that the older, broken man sees some of who he used to be in the intrepid younger man. I'm also glad to get a little more dialogue for Emma and Bethany in by way of the flashback. I loved the slightly sad, carefully controlled, weight-of-the-world tone rigel* used when playing Emma, so I think knowing about the style she was going to use informed how I wrote her here. Also, I am just excited to have more acting opportunity for Carolyn, who is shaping up so nicely and putting such amazing sincerity and passion into the part.

KENNETH: Jesus Christ! You!

TOM: What were you doing out that other night?

KENNETH: What? Let me go!

TOM: Not until you talk to me! When I ran into you on the road, what were you doing?

KENNETH: None of your business!

TOM: I was up at the Loring’s place, just like you said. And I think you were too.

KENNETH: What are you talking about?

TOM: You were the one who broke in, weren’t you?

KENNETH: Screw off!

TOM: You had your arm hurt just like the burglar. You were hanging around just outside the grounds. And you’re too hot after anything to do with that family.

KENNETH: Oh, you got no idea!

TOM: What do you have against the Lorings?

KENNETH: Plenty, boy!

TOM: Did you want something from them? Money? What did they ever do to you?

KENNETH: More than you’ll ever know! So leave me to my own business!

TOM: Tell me what you’re up to.

KENNETH: No!

TOM: I could have the police after you in a minute! You were real sore against Miss Emma, weren’t you?

KENNETH: So what if I was?

TOM: Because she’s dead, that’s what! Because somebody killed her, and I think it was you!

KENNETH: Me? I didn’t do nothing to her!

TOM: You broke into her house and went digging through her things. We know what you were after, Kenneth. We found Emma’s papers. She was looking into the death of Bethany Loring.

KENNETH: I know that!

TOM: What did you want with those papers? Did you have something to do with that too?

KENNETH: You don’t know what you’re on about!

TOM: Did you want to hurt that girl too?

KENNETH: I never! I wanted to marry her!

TOM: What?

KENNETH: You think you know everything just because that little niece let you in? Think you’re so damn clever! You don’t know a bit of what went on in that house! I never would have hurt that girl in a thousand years. Bethany and me… we were… we loved each other.

TOM: How did you know her?

KENNETH: We worked there. My old man was Loring’s valet. I was a stable boy. Her father had me give Bethany her riding lessons, and we got to talking. She was about my age, and such a nice girl… we fell in love.

TOM: Nobody ever told me about Bethany having a sweetheart.

KENNETH: We kept it secret of, course. We had to! Her father never would have stood for it. He had bigger plans for his baby girl than some ruffian minding horses. We didn’t know how we were going to be together, but then...

TOM: What changed?

KENNETH: Emma found us out.

(Flashback effect.)

EMMA: Bethany? Mrs. Warren told me you’d gone out to the stables. Bethany?

(Sound of footsteps. Pause.)

BETHANY: Emma!

EMMA: Oh, Bethany…

BETHANY: What are you doing here?

EMMA: Looking for you. I wondered why you were suddenly so devoted to your riding lessons.

KENNETH: Oh, please, miss…

BETHANY: Emma, you can’t tell anyone.

EMMA: Bethany, what are you doing?

KENNETH: Miss, you don’t understand.

BETHANY: I love him, and he loves me.

EMMA: I see. How long has this been going on?

KENNETH: Since last spring, miss.

EMMA: Oh, good heavens. I see we’re all such practiced secret keepers.

BETHANY: Father would never understand. He’d only separate us!

KENNETH: I swear, miss, I only mean to be good to your sister. I’d never bring her to any harm. I love her, miss.

BETHANY: Please, Emma.

EMMA: (Sighing.) Very well, dear.

(Flashback effect.)

KENNETH: I kept waiting for her old man or her big brother to come down on us, but they never did, so I suppose she kept her promise. She never spoke to us about it again until we found out about what Mr. Loring was planning.

TOM: The arranged marriage.

KENNETH: Yes. How do you know that?

TOM: It was in Emma’s papers.

KENNETH: She said she was going to help us. Help us get away, so we could be together. She hatched this plan for me to whisk Bethany away from her coming out ball and slip away into the night. She said she had something that if Loring ever came after us, we could make sure he’d stay away.

TOM: What was that?

KENNETH: I don’t know, Emma never told me. But I trusted her, that cold bitch, for all the good it did. So I did what she said, and waited for Bethany just outside the party. I waited for hours, it felt like. All night. Then I heard how they found her, all broken like that… I never got to see her again.

TOM: What went wrong?

KENNETH: That’s the devil of it! I don’t know! I was there at the garden gate just like we planned, but she never came to meet me.

TOM: Emma still blamed you.

KENNETH: For letting it happen. Afterward she chased me off. Dismissed me from my job and told me never to show my face at Loring’s End again. The hag didn’t know who to blame so she settled on me.

TOM: And you swear you didn’t have anything to do with it?

KENNETH: I was a stupid boy, Tom, just like you are. But I loved her, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t have done to keep her safe.

TOM: And not Miss Emma either?

KENNETH: I didn’t kill her. More like she killed me. Swear on poor Bethany’s grave.

TOM: Then… help me.

KENNETH: Help you?

TOM: Yes. Help me figure out what’s going on here. It may be the only way to ever know what really happened to Bethany.

KENNETH: And… you won’t turn me in to the cops?

TOM: If what you say is true, no, I won’t. Just work with me. We’ve got almost twenty years of secrets to dig through here. I need all the help I can get.

(Pause.)

TOM: And then there’s Miss Alice. She’s a real nice girl, Kenneth. She needs all the help she can get too.

KENNETH: For all the good an old drunk like me can do you… I’ll help you how I can.

TOM: Thank you. Listen, I’m sorry about how Miss Emma treated you. But I think she hurt just like you do. Whatever she was doing, I think she just wanted to know what happened too.

KENNETH: Might be.

TOM: She must have thought about her a lot. When she came to me, she wanted me to make a copy of Bethany’s gown. She gave me this picture of her.

KENNETH: Picture? Could I… could I see it?

(Crinkling as TOM produces the clipping and hands it to KENNETH.)

KENNETH: Haven’t seen her in years. Didn’t have no pictures of her. Afraid I was going to forget what she looked like. (Pause.) My God, she was beautiful.

TOM: I’m sorry.

KENNETH: Not as sorry as I am. Go on now, Tom. I’ll be seeing you around. Let’s make it in the daylight next time, with no more shoving.

Free on a Friday

For the second round of Festival I got into Folding the River. I was torn very much between it and High Rollers, but I'd already told the GMs I would be signing up, so I decided to let that decide for me. Neither Paranoia or The Stand have filled yet, but neither are in the time slots that people tend to prioritize, so I am hoping that once signups go open on Monday night we will get our full complements. Paranoia was in theory supposed to be modular, so it might be able to work if we have to excise parts, but frankly I think that fell by the wayside enough that we'd have to do a lot of fixing to make it work. The Stand is not really able to work without pretty much the entire cast-- I could maybe cut out two roles, max, without having to do major surgery --so I really really want it to fill.

In other news, I have finished my first screenwriting assignment and have decided to declare my afternoon and evening free. I am now making a list of things I'd like to do with that open time. I would like to take a walk into town, maybe run an errand or two, maybe just walk. It occurred to me recently that even if I get back to going to the gym as often as I did in undergrad, back then I was also walking across campus three or four times a day in addition, which I am definitely not getting now. So I am determined not only to make time for workouts, but also just get off my lazy ass and walk during the day. It means a significantly greater time commitment, unfortunately, but I think if I schedule correctly I can make it work. It would be worth it to shape up a little.

I want to finish another scene for Tailor that I've started but not yet made much progress on. It's the confrontation between Tom and Kenneth where we finally learn why Kenneth's been hanging around with so much interest in the Lorings. We recorded a scene between Plesser and Jared this week, which has inspired me. I would also like to have it for the Artist Meetup morethings5* and I have planned this weekend, where we use each other as accountability partners to keep us working on our artistic projects. Maybe I'll noodle a little on my short-quick-easy larp idea, since I'm feeling particularly engaged in larp production right now.

Finally, it'd be nice to make a little more progress with my new beginner sewing text, Sew Everything Workshop. I've gotten a little ways in and so far it's exactly what I was looking for. It starts with the basics and explains them very clearly. So far I haven't learned anything I didn't already know, but I like things that emphasize the foundation and confirm that I understand correctly before moving on to what I don't already grasp. I'm anxious to get to the part where it actually walks you through a sewing project, which is what I think I really need.

Oh, and one last thing. I recently decided that the first "plot line" I'd like to feature on Hipster Feminist is a story about Rhoda stalking an ex-boyfriend. Not sure how that's going to work yet, but I think it has the potential to be very funny. Maybe I'll do a little work figuring out the storyline and seeing how I can chunk it out into individually funny, one hundred and forty-character pieces. 

So close

So close to being done with my first homework packet for screenwriting. Just having a hell of a time buckling down. I have been pretty good about breaking the assignment down into smaller chunks that I work on over the whole period I have to do the assignment, which is something that is usually quite hard for me. But the last little bits are proving to be difficult to get done. I have the weekend still, which provides a buffer, but I just want to get this out of the way already. At the end of next week my first packet for science fiction and fantasy is due, and I've made significantly less progress on that, so I'd rather use the weekend for that.

Bizarre sewing whim - authentic priest's cassock

I have always been a fan of cassocks, the long, severe coats worn by priests outside of liturgical dress. I like how many different vibes they can give off; authoritative, modest, powerful, reliable, separated, even scary. If anyone ever saw that lame comic book adaptation Ghost Rider from a few years back, you may remember the way Peter Fonda playing Mephistopheles. My mom pointed out to me, "They have him dressed like a bishop." So they did, and I thought it looked incredibly creepy and cool.

Ever since seeing Andy Kirschbaum in his awesome black cassock at Venezia I have had a bee in my bonnet about having one. I'm not really sure why. Women don't really wear them, and it's not like I don't have enough coats, or an abundance of opportunities where it would be appropriate to dress like a priest. But I like the idea nonetheless.

I bought this pattern on eBay as a compromise, so I could eventually make my own one day that would fit me if I really really wanted. It came in the mail yesterday along with the costuming I ordered. Looking at it, the front is pretty simple but the back looks complicated, with lots of tailored placed and pleats in the folds, so it's probably too difficult for my current skill level. It also doesn't have the capelet like higher-ranking priests wear either, though that would be easy enough to draft. I don't know what I'd do with it if I did make it, maybe just take lots of weird pictures of myself as a girl priest or something, but now I have the option if it bugs me enough.

Jonathan Kindness as Rowan Loring

Last night I had the honor of having morethings5* over to record his part for Tailor of Riddling Way. Kindness is one of those actors that I will go out of my way to work with. Having cast him in Hamlet, To Think of Nothing, and now Tailor, I have included Kindness in more of my dramatic projects than any actor excepting only Jared and Steph. I like his style, and I like the way we click as actor and director. He's very receptive to ideas, but also inventive and able to extrapolate; when he is so inspired he springs off of what you told him in a way that makes the character more real to him, and thus gets a better portrayal from him. He has a way of GETTING characters, of absorbing all their complexities and blending them into a cohesive whole that takes them all in account and balances them. While most actors that I've worked with tend to shoot for a particular performance, he is more experimental, trying this and that to see what effect it has and how he feels about it before settling on his ultimate approach.

I wanted him for the part of Rowan Loring for two major reasons. First, the sound of his voice; he has a cultured, even-toned voice that I thought would convey a man of manners, breeding, and integrity. Secondly, it was different than anything I'd cast him before, which as you all know I love to do sometimes. His previous roles with me were Rosencrantz and Palamon, the first one played totally for laughs and the second one a humorous voice of satire. I liked the idea of having him play someone who made his point straightforwardly, but still felt bound by his personal code; Palamon, by contrast, is a truth speaker who uses jokes and irony to express himself, and does not feel obligated by convention. Rowan is my Honorable Man in this story whose only fault was that he stuck so closely to his code that had to place the needs of those he loved in the secondary position.

Jonathan did a fantastic job last night; I was incredibly pleased with the performance he gave. I found it interesting that he would mark his script to give himself cues as he read, delineating beats, transitions, and extremes. I'm always interested in process-of-the-artist stuff, so I thought that was cool. Also, best of all, he is an unusually good self-editor. He would record the piece, listen to it, and hear the places where he wasn't satisfied or where he wasn't feeling like he was giving me what I wanted. He would then use his observations  to improve himself on the second pass through. I've rarely worked with actors with that capability to critique their own performance. And of course, he is wonderful to work with, which makes me enjoy having him in my projects even more.

This is him at my fancy party, but he's kind of Rowanish here, I think. :-)

Larpocalypse signups begin!

Festival signups opened last night, and the flurry for game registration began! As I predicted, Jesriah filled within the first few minutes, but I was fast on the button and made it in. Glad I made that my first-round pick. Congratulations, morethings5*, lightgamer*, and ninja_report*! You win the brass ring for this Festival. The tiered system I think is really good, as nobody will get shut out of everything they want. There were some minor technical issues that some people observed in that some of the games didn't have a signup button appear even though signups were open-- both The Stand and Paranoia were affected by it. But our intrepid con chair and heroic webmaster were on it, and before long all issues were solved. We even got a few people making those two their first round pick! I am flattered that katiescarlett29* and nennivian* chose The Stand-- can't wait to cast them! --and there's also a young man I don't recognize but who appears to be a Brandeis student. Yay, new larping blood! In Paranoia we have, among others, Prentice and niobien*, Emily Baum, and Nat Lathrop. I am confident that everything will fill within the next few rounds, and I look forward to the final cast roster.

My next pick will be Folding the River, and if I don't make it into that, High Rollers. I want to play both of them very much so I won't be disappointed either way. Jared's going for High Rollers as well. Remember to be at your computer at 7PM this coming Thursday so you can get into the game you want before it fills!

Costuming for Ariadne and Irene!

The costume pieces I ordered for Ariadne and Irene Adler have arrived! I am extremely pleased with them. The Grecian-style gown is absolutely lovely, made of a lush crinkled velveteen in a sumptuous color. The straps are watered silk, smooth and luscious against the skin, and they work by crisscrossing behind the neck over the back and then wrapping around the waist. I like the detailing, and I feel like looks quite appropriate for an ancient Greek costume. It's actually a couture gown, BCBGMaxAzria, in new condition but bought off eBay for a fraction of the price. It's a wee bit big for me, despite being a size XS, but it still drapes nicely, though the bottom of the hem drags a little. I think it looks nice on me.

And the obligatory closeup on the bodice. Despite the fact that the gown does not really allow for the wearing of foundation garments, I find it rather flattering to my bust.

The other thing I ordered was a hat off of Etsy to finish my look for Irene Adler. I could not find any strictly Victorian broad-brimmed hats that gave me the look I wanted that were in my price range, so I widened my search to include Kentucky Derby hats and church bonnets, and found some reasonable facsimiles. I'm not sure the silhouette of this hat is totally accurate, but I like the way it looks a lot, and I think it captures the spirit if not literally the style.

I am well pleased with my selections, and hereby stop myself from spending any further money on costuming for Intercon.

Headache for three days and counting

Have had a mild headache pretty constantly for the last three or four days. Not sure what's causing it, it's got a lot of features that I'm not sure as symptoms or contributing factors, such as feeling eye strained and sensitive to light. I've been clenching my jaw a lot, out of cold and stress. And God knows I dehydrate myself too much. I'm trying to make good and certain I'm hydrated today and see if that helps anything, but I thought I was okay the last two days and no change. The doctor said my migraines may very well be connected to how much fluid I've had, and these symptoms are vaguely migraine-y but not really. The headache's not nearly bad enough. But I really don't know what to do about it, as the over-the-counter pain pills I've taken have had basically no effect. I am really really hoping it goes away when I drink enough. If it doesn't, I'm going to worry something's really wrong. I have another neurologist appointment on the books, but it's not for quite a while.

Blog rec: "This Is Not Porn"

I stumbled upon a photo blog yesterday that I wanted to share with you, This Is Not Porn. It is bizarrely named, in my opinion, as I think it's countering an expectation nobody is likely to have going in. What it is really is a collection of photos of famous people that were taken in informal settings while doing ordinary, normal-person things. Sometimes they are funny or silly things, but they are the sort of shots that people take of each other when they're hanging around enjoying themselves.

Unintentionally hilariously tragic photo of Marlon Brando hovering over an open fridge in a harbinger of morbid obesity to come


Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward


Elizabeth Taylor feeding the pigeons

I believe there's something holy in the ordinary, in the humble things and activities that make up the everyday of life. It's part of the reason I love homey things like crockery and linens and furniture. They are comforting to us, we all have need of them, and what they provide for us physically and emotionally is pretty universal for all humans-- plates and silverware enable the important ritual of having dinner together, linens make us feel comfy and safe in the beds we all sleep in, we all want to sit on comfy couches when we're hanging out in our living rooms. So I've always been interested by the ordinary details about people that are mostly decided to not be important enough to mention. I wonder what Julius Caesar's favorite food was. I wonder what games Abraham Lincoln played with his children. In that we all have and do and understand these things, they are in a way the most real things about us.

Harry Belafonte and Martin Luther King, Jr.


Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney washing dishes

I think we see celebrities as a breed apart from the majority of the human race in a lot of ways, and to a certain extent I think they are. They often get so much money and so much power that they can escape from a lot normal responsibilities like balancing their own checkbook or cleaning their own house or walking their own dog. But that's why I particularly like this one of Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney washing dishes together. It's so normal, so real, for two dudes whose lives became so rarefied and so separate from regular folks. It's like, why would Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney ever have to wash dishes? They're so rich and powerful they probably never had to do any chore they didn't want to. They could just pay their staff members to do it. But it's real-person logic that if you use dishes, they have to get clean somehow. Seeing them adhere to real-person logic even though they have the ability to separate from it in a weird way reinforces humanity to me. That as much as your circumstances may change you, your essential humanity is a tough thing to shake.

Finally, seeing that somebody even thought to take a lot of these pictures just warms my heart. Imagine you are married to, or the child of, or the parent of, or some other relation to some famous important person. That person is photographed constantly, under the best of circumstances, in images carefully composed with a team of professionals on hand to make sure they look their best. And yet, which such a proliferation of flattering images of this person available, you still feel compelled to take awkward, clumsy shots of them where they look silly and unbeautiful, just because you want to commemorate the moment you're in. This is your vacation, your hanging with your friends, your regular happy moment that you want to make sure you remember. Again, circumstances may change us, but there's a ton of commonality to simply being human.

David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed

Or it's just something crazy and awesome, like Sean Connery in a wedding dress or Salvador Dali walking his anteater.

  

Merely Players: The Larp?

Wow, after feeling like for ages there hasn't been much larp in my life, I sure have had it in the forefront of my attention this past week or so.

After laurion* suggested several scenarios for a light, quick larp in a contained space, being the meta-theater freak that I am, I latched onto the ideas of actors, maybe actors just about to go on stage, utilizing the lovely convention of the dysfunctional troupe who've got more drama going on behind the scenes than they do onstage. Eight or so character, two hours, trapped backstage hashing out their bullshit so the show can just go on already! Funny, silly, easy to run and hopefully to write.

It amuses me that I am basically thinking of writing Merely Players: The Larp. Well, not exactly. Similar plots and character archetypes to those I used in Merely Players, if not exactly the same people or plots as they existed in the show. But if I could take a PC and an NPC from The Stand and make a play out of their drama, why can't I take a piece of theater I wrote and use it to inspire a larp?

I think I'm going to noodle around with this, at least idly. Not committing to run it or anything, but it might ease my current malaise somewhat. At least it'll provide an easy, low-pressure alternative to the more serious work I am responsible for lately. Thanks, Chad, for tossing out the idea!