snow snow snow snow!!

EDIT: non-locals, please be as amused by the current posts in damnportlanders as i am.

Yuletart recs:

. hobbit wonderland | lord of the rings - it looks like felted Hobbit art, all cheery and homespun!

. what do stars do best?! | stardust - Don't know the movie, but it made me laugh!

. citadel | world of warcraft - This is just lovely -- such delicate and evocative watercolours, which I absolutely didn't expect for this fandom.

. the justice society of tadfield | good omens - a great example of how simple pencil sketches can convey so much personality and life.

. a logical solution | star trek reboot - Delightfully silly, and I like the comic-book style to it.

. another illyria | angel - You all know how I felt about the whole Fred/Wesley thing, but this art almost makes up for it. Icy and fantastic.

. batjack and captain robin | the marvelous misadventures of flapjack - Don't know the book, but both of the arts for this fandom have been adorable!

. thorns | merlin - winsome and filigreed, full of breathtaking charm.

. the final flight of the boomerang | avatar: the last airbender - I'll admit, the notes and whatnot made me laugh almost as hard as the actual and fabulous comic strip art!

comments over yonder on http://bossymarmalade.dreamwidth.org/490139.html, y'all.

I forgot to mention in the last post that Lori and I watched the 1978 teleplay of Little Women, which was inconceivably bad. They rewrote shit to concentrate more on their Laurie's whiny-ass manpain life and problems, Marmee was incapable of making a decision and yammered endlessly about how she wished Mr. March was there to lay down some patriarchal wisdom and discipline, Beth ran around like she was an Olympic athlete and talked to anybody who moved, Meg spoke at a pitch copyrighted by Nagging Fishwives Inc., Amy was a galumphing awkward idiot, and Jo had all the nuance and appeal of a handful of rancid cornmeal. When William fucking Shatner shows up and bludgeons people with the ham sausage of his "German" accent and it's the best thing that's happened in your movie, you have problems.

Now, Yuletide! I'm a bit sad I can't just go down the list by recipient anymore, because I liked getting the fandoms in no particular order, but oh well. Instead, I started at the alphabetical bottom:

gentlemen | young guns - Okay, I never expected or wanted fic in this fandom, but this one gets across the same sense of urgency and unsureness as the movies while simultaneously being more thoughtful and nuanced.

and we had to shoot it to pieces | young avengers - The whole thing is good, but the bits with Kate and Eli especially; introspective without being melodramatic, which is lovely.

casus belli | young avengers - Kate & Cassie ditch the boys and talk about Civil War(s). The patter between the girls is great, and for the bits where the boys show up it's all written very deftly and with a sense of humour.

things half seen | the worst witch - Most of what I remember of this show is the hilariously shitty movie and occasional glimpses of the tv series. And yet I loved this fic like nobody's business. Seriously, you don't even need to know the show at all; read it anyway. It's tender and tense and hopeful and dreadful, and if it's brutal in its honesty -- well, learning never goes to waste.

the play | withnail & i - Fear not, it's got a happy ending! While keeping the characters recognizable, which is quite a feat.


Next up: Yuletart!

comments over yonder on http://bossymarmalade.dreamwidth.org/489875.html, y'all.

I know I may have missed thanking people individually, but thank you all so much for the happy birthday wishes! I really needed them this year due to having a huge and stressful fight with the parents on my birthday, which turned out best in the long run but was still pretty draining to have on Christmas Eve, as you can imagine.

I hope you're all having a lovely time with however you're spending it! I have played a lot of Beatles Rock Band, eaten and drunk with abandon, tasted a princess cake for the first time, and finally seen the Twilight movie. Y'know, I expected to be uninterested in the story (I was stupid in love with Anne Rice's vampires as a teenager, and once I stopped giving a shit about them that was it for me and vampire love stories), but I didn't expect the actual movie -- like, script and filming and atrocious sound -- to be so unrelentingly awful as well! WOW.

Anyway. Have some popslash MTYG recs!

. will you be - nick escapes from his ugly childhood life by doodling a superhero, and doesn't quite grow out of it. The story starts off well-written but rather familiar, and then it turns out that you didn't see that ending coming at all, which I quite like.

. to love, to grow, to hide, to show - I confess I like older!Briahna in a story rather than baby "adorable" versions. And this one includes her in a well-chosen way, which makes sense because it's a nice gently rollicking yarn about reconnecting.

. mistletoe man - the only thing I don't care for in this story is the title. *g* Seriously, this is the year for mild romantic stories that slyly become something a little different, and I'm really enjoying it! This one is written with just the dashes of intriguing character backstory that I like, not to mention the flawless dialogue.

. hold up, cowboy. - JC is working on his thesis, and AJ is working on the rodeo. Very nice character interaction, with just enough pepper to make things really interesting. I know shit all about rodeos, but I know a wee bit about academia and JC needs to read some more Fran Markowitz and put his mind at ease, poor boo. *g*


Yuletide recs soon. But for now, go check out operation 80, a super-awesome challenge wherein we re-write classic Star Trek episodes with the Rebootverse characters. I am doing The Changeling!! Although really I should have chosen Gamesters of Triskelion, and written that green-haired Shahna chick as Lady Gaga.

comments over yonder on http://bossymarmalade.dreamwidth.org/489689.html, y'all.

Possibly one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever heard..
[and I thought the original was amazing..but this version puts Sufjan on an entirely new level]

I was watching "the Siege" the other night, with subtitles while jogging on a treadmill at the gym.  It's with Annette Bening and there was just this one scene where she really reminded me of Björk, somehow.  ...visually, I guess.  Of course I never noticed it before because she (Annette Bening) usually has more make-up on.  But in this one scene, she was more natural, and it just struck me that they looked very similar.  Come to think of it, maybe it's just the noses...  And I can't find a picture online from that scene.  It was the scene where Denzel Washington was in the car with her, and she was sort of frightened and tired and emotional (and her character was owning up to the fact that she was part of the terrorist plot) and there was just this fleeting moment where there was this sort of honesty in her face, that really struck me to be very Björk-like.  These two pictures probably aren't going to show what I'm talking about, but sort of.  It's just a feeling that flew by during that movie.

          

ok, so seriously, che? soderbergh? what the hell were you thinking? i should've figured, but seriously, semi-engaging cinema verite aside, um, i can't believe i fell for it. eager to hit the 2:14 mark and just be done with it, i became uncomfortably aware that all i'd actually conquered was "part one."

whenever i see a biopic or historical drama done poorly, or heavy-handedly, all i want to do is just hold the director by the shoulders, spin them around, and point them towards good night, and good luck.

a good day. I needed this.

Poll #1504494 calendar girl
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 19

when viewing a given week or month on a calendar (say, google calendar, that gives you this option), what day do you prefer to "begin" the week?

let my christmas go well; let my mustard turn out as it should; let my lingonkaka be the one pastry that has failed to betray me. let my awkwardness and nervousness desert me; let my stupid comments stay unspoken; let my emotions remain stable. let the victories and not the defeats of today carry over; let everything I have tried to teach myself over the past nine months remain at the forefront of my mind.

let me not mess this up. please.

2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2003 | 2002

top 3 concerts/shows of 2009:
1. cocorosie @ aladdin
2. patrick wolf @ WUK
3. sundance celebration of music @ sundance house
honorable mention: m. ward @ aladdin

top 3 songs of 2009:
1. big pink - velvet
2. edwarde sharpe & the magnetic zeroes - home
3. tie: lily allen - not fair; cold cave - love comes close

top 3 albums of 2009:
1. dark was the night
2. the horrors - primary colours
3. tie: edwarde sharpe & the magnetic zeroes - up from below; the raveonettes - in and out of control

top 5 films of 2009:
(not counting SFF, i saw 3 films in the theatre this year--watchmen, the new star trek, and where the wild things are--so this is going to be a list of my favorite 5 films that i "saw" in 2009)
1. push (currently released as precious)
2. head-on
3. where the wild things are
4. let the right one in
5. branagh's as you like it

top 3 obsessions of 2009:
1. all things carny. circus school & aerial acrobatics, freak show history, sideshow banners, LOVE, coney island, aerialists, you name it.
2. reconnection
3. la plantation du paon

3 "good things" of 2009:
1. tie: la plantation du paon, my job
2. travel destinations (10 of 'em), traveling visitors to portland (11+ of you!)
3. starting up yoga, circus school; cycling regularly
honorable mention: turning thirty

3 "bad things" of 2008:
1. spilling water on my laptop
2. missing my flight in amsterdam
3. swine flu
honorable mention: 100 proof

trips of 2009:
1) park city UT
2) san franny CA (x2)
3) seattle WA (x2)
4) vegas NV
5) demiworldtour (orlando, london, amsterdam, vienna, prague, nyc)

2009 booklist:
1) three cups of tea - greg mortenson and david oliver relin
2) the sexual politics of meat - carol j. adams
3) how we are hungry - dave eggers
4) a room of one's own - virginia woolf
5) hot water music - charles bukowski
6) the road - cormac mccarthy*
7) becoming a man - paul monette
8) virgin suicides - jeffrey eugenides*
9) listen up: voices from the next feminist generation - barbara findlen*
10) the catcher in the rye - j.d. salinger
11) cunt: a declaration of independence - inga muscio
12) the people look like flowers at last - charles bukowski
13) de profundis - oscar wilde
14) lullaby - chuck palahniuk
15) nerve: literate smut - genevieve field and rufus griscom (ed)
16) portland noir - kevin sampsell (ed)
17) rubyfruit jungle - rita mae brown
18) the missouri review: haunted
19) just as i thought - grace paley*
20) the whalestoe letters - mark z. danielewski
21) into perfect spheres such holes are pierced - catherine barnett*
22) martin and john - dale peck*
23) second nature: a gardener's education - michael pollan
24) oh my goth! version 2.0 - voltaire
25) spy in the house of love - anais nin*
26) by a slow river - phillippe claudel
27) school of arts - mark doty
28) look both ways: bisexual politics - jennifer baumgardner*
29) the secret history - donna tartt*
30) the death of bunny munro - nick cave
31) twitterville - shel israel
32) the b book - brian randall
*favorites

unfinished:
collected poems - dylan thomas
the filth - grant morrison, chris weston, gary erskine
temperament - stuart isacoff

I just happened to see the new special on Ninjavideo - kind of a look back/clip show of this last season

http://www.ninjavideo.net/video/53993 (There should be a flash version up soon enough, I`d assume)

greetings, ye journalers and closet photographers.

this friday signals the beginning of a new year, and thus, for many of us, the beginning of project 365. some of you are already in progress, others are retiring, and others are starting anew.

let this be your invitation to join us in 2010 with a photo-a-day. and to make it easier, here's our support network of fellow photographers who are in it, hopefully, for the long haul:

project 365 in 2010 rollcall:
jupiterjuniper yours truly. took a year off after completing 2008. looking forward to a year of new images.
ph0enixinflight my partner in photographic crime. moderator of project365_2010.
firthofforth amidst documenting her 38th year on the planet.
madmarty a talented photographer who came on board via the power of suggestion.
project365_2010 a showcase for weekly favorite photos, as well as inspiration from other participants. join and watch.
(maybes: verybadhorse, mareeuh, muero_di_risa, reqbat, rockettestar and a handful of non-LJers.)

if anyone else is participating in project 365, please comment here and i'll add you to zee list.

--

i am actually really excited to begin again. 2008 taught me a lot of things about photography, and photographing something every day taught me a lot about my life. i used a fixed image shape--a square--for all images, and i was pleased with the uniformity and restriction of that template. for 2010, i've designed a template for portrait and landscape (which you'll see implemented soon enough), as means to also force uniformity but also give an overall coherency to the posts. like 2008, i plan on posting all photos at the end of the week (which means, one week from today, you'll be seeing my first 3 shots of 2010). i debated making these posts friends only or filtered, but decided instead to keep it public, so family, friends, and other non-LJ users can follow along. my entire 2008 set can be found here:

project 365 | 2008

as i often said then, to make this "work," you really have to define parameters that are appropriate for you. for me, it's this: a template; a weekly post; "day forgiveness" for dull weeks or particularly active days, wherein an image can be used for a different day as a placeholder for a photo-less day. that's me. it suits me.

i'm pretty excited to be shooting with 3 lenses this year, and if nothing else, am eager to get to know my new fisheye a little better. on many days i'm packing 2 cameras every where i go (a terrific point-and-shoot, canon digital elph, and my nikon D70). i've got so many ideas already for shots i want to take, but have been saving myself for 2010. and, well well well, wouldn't you know that it's about that time.

I won Gracie a Snuggie-for-dogs at the big Christmas party this year. Yesss.

Completely unrelated photo sets:

Scrapplefest at Reading Terminal Market

Franz Ferdinand in Providence, Rhode Island.

I'm late to the table with this, but after six months, here's a selection of photos from one of my favorite shows by the band. More, and larger, after the cut!

( Find me and follow me ... )

That's me, my big sister Amy, My Mom, My Dad and My brother Chris, the oldest. The only one missing from the picture is my older sister Megan, who couldn't make it from L.A.

It was really wonderful to see my family, after not seeing them for a whole year, and it was really hard to leave. Driving down the mountain away from them in the zipcar, I cried. I love living out here and going to school but sometimes I miss them terribly.

I worry most about my dad, who's now retired and growing bored. He was really happy to see me but I worry about him. My Mom was really happy too, but I can tell it stresses her out that my sister Amy will not make attempts to be close to my brother. She's so extremely sensitive and I feel bad for her, but her kids can read her like a book. Sometimes, she reminds me of my Mom when my mom was raising us.

My brother seems pretty happy, although we still don't talk too much. I chalk it up to time. Some relationships are harder to develop than others. I wish I could be a little closer to him and his girlfriend, she seems pretty awesome.

My grandparents are getting older too, and I hope I can spend more time with them when I graduate school, as well as my nephews and nieces.

I can't believe Sarah is having another baby, it seems like yesterday that Ana was born.

I hope I can spend more time with my family in the next year.

Well, I can now state definitively that, as advertised, my elf hood (link for you, sinsense!) does keep my hair dry in the rain. At least, the part under the hood was dry--the ends were still soaked, of course. ;)

Did the wince-inducing thing and reviewed all of my bank and credit card statements in the post-Christmas crash. Woof. I think I'll be okay, as I'm getting a cheque from a research study I'm finishing up, and payday is next week, but still ... lean weeks ahead! I've got to get a new job and get myself out of credit debt for good. Good thing is one of my requested and received gifts was a vegetarian care package - noodles, sauces, rice, tea, etc. Looks like the tickets for the Muse tour will have to be pushed back another month or so. Waah. Goodbye, decent seats.