THINGS COMICKAL AND RANDOM

random adventures in new computer, the first: in which microsoft is impressively evil

2019-12-02T01:03:08Z

This is not the saga about buying a new computer, about which more later, maybe. (Short story: Microcenter.) (... Well, I said it was short!) No, today's story (which should also not be hugely long) is ... Microsoft. All about Microsoft. And their attempt to force each and every person to use Office 365, whether they want to or not.

So. New computer is mostly set up. After a couple days of getting things going, I realize that I forgot to pay my November bills. So I do what I usually do, go in to the vendor in question in a browser, pay the bill, get the receipt, and ... then realize that I forgot to install Office 2019, so Onenote may not be here. But! I remember reading that Windows 10 has Onenote as part of the OS, so maybe things will work!

... Yeah, not so much. There's a version of Office 365 on the system, but the one thing I absolutely Do Not Want is to have my bills online, and while the system recognizes that these are Onenote notebooks, it won't let me open them without establishing a Microsoft account.

But! I remember that Onenote 2016 is free, and available, and still supported for a number of years, so I can do that instead! So I download and install Onenote 2016, and the system rather understandably complains about some conflicts. So I uninstall the bits of Office 365, and also the bits of Office 2019 that seem to also have come with the system (weird, that) along with OneDrive, restart, reinstall Onenote 2016. So, SUCCESS! ... right?

Actually, no. Turns out that even attempting to open the files -- which it wouldn't let me do without an account, mind, and I didn't create one -- converted them from Office 2013 format to Office 365 format, and now it won't let me open them at all without a valid Office 365 account. Which will NEVER EVER HAPPEN because there's no way in hell I'm putting that stuff online all in one place for Microsoft to plunder at their leisure. (Anyone who believes their privacy statement that they won't do such a thing is a fool. And even if they're honest about that -- and they won't be -- having all that online in one[...ish] place is basically a big fat target for hackers.)

Thankfully, my old computer is still around and working fine, so the information is available and usable. And hey, I can always just transfer them again to this computer and use them with Onenote 2016, right? ... well, possibly not. Turns out that Onenote 2016 is deliberately handicapped. If you have an existing notebook that hasn't been converted to Office 365, maybe you can open that. Maybe. But you can't create new local notebooks in Onenote 2016. It forces you to make new notebooks on OneDrive. (And once more with feeling: HELL NO!)

That is just ... really impressively, spectacularly evil. I'm impressed, baffled and infuriated.

Also, puzzled that the market at large didn't look at this and see a huge opportunity for people who don't want to have their stuff online; apart from exporting to Word and PDF, there doesn't seem to be any decent way to get Onenote stuff OUT of Onenote. (It may or may not be that Evernote can import that sort of information, but they seem to be having several of their own issues lately.)

So, for the time being, bills will need to be exported individually to PDF. Which also means that I can't use Firefox, because alone among the major[...ish] browsers, Mozilla declines to add a "Print/Save to PDF" option. And, weirdly, as I recall, adding Acrobat Reader to a system doesn't add those options to Firefox, either. (I have Sumatra installed; I'd really rather not install Acrobat, frankly.)

Complete sidenote: actually purchased Office 2019 -- I do need Office for those times when I have to bring that sort of work home, and while Libre Office's Word replacement does mostly well enough (unless I'm collaborating with someone else on a document), its Excel replacement just has had too many problems dealing with formulas and things for me to be comfortable using it for that sort of work. I did read that installing Office 2019 automatically converts Onenote 2016 to the entirely online Onenote App for Windows, so I'd thought that just not installing it would mean that I could use Onenote 2016 alongside Office 2019. (Reportedly, Onenote 2016 complains that you're not using the most recent versions of everything but it's still usable.) But honestly, unless I can bring over my old notebooks and use them on my local computer, I don't really see the point.

Really, just truly, astoundingly evil.

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today's unexpected life lesson, in brief (for once)

2019-11-28T23:43:49Z

First, have some entertainment!

And also, a post from the Tumblr site.

So.

Let's say you're doing something ... poultry-related of a day. You know, as one does.

Let's also say that you're thinking that tarragon would be a good thing to add on. Tarragon likes poultry, poultry likes tarragon, it's not a bad idea!

Let's also say that you discover that you haven't bought tarragon in a while (quite a while, as it turns out), and it's old. Tarragon fades quickly, so when you open the cannister, instead of the in-your-face blooming floral scent you normally get, it's just the teensiest faded shadow of itself.

Let's also say, it's a holiday of some sort. Stores are closed, and even if they weren't, running out just to get tarragon would be silly. So you figure, I'll just use a whole lot to get the taste to where I want it. Shouldn't be a big deal, right? And you do that, plus the other stuff you were planning to do.

So.

Turns out that (1) ancient tarragon, plus (2) moisture, both from the poultry and in the form of added butter, plus (3) heat, equals (4) EXTREMELY REVIVED TARRAGON!

It was so strong that, about two thirds of the way through cooking, I kept wandering into the kitchen, trying to figure out what was smelling so sweet. (As in sugar, not as in "niiiiiice!" Although it was that.) It took me ages to realize that it was the tarragon coming back to life. (The sweetness being also aided by the raw sugar in the brine.)

Also, the first time I've ever brined something that wasn't a vegetable, and which didn't use vinegar.

Everything is fine, it was just ... unexpected.

Other than that, life is mostly good. New computer, more about that later.

Hope all is going well for everyone else!

(Hey, I said that this was "in brief". And it is! for me.)

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eurovision! 2017 grand final!

2017-05-13T21:14:27Z

Well, why not. Let us liveblog!

The US announcers this year are Michelle Visage and Ross Matthews, which one hopes will be a refreshing change from last year's. (Ask me again at hour three.)

Sadly, Montenegro didn't make it through to the final.

We start with the parade of flags (entirely without physical flags), in which the finalists are introduced only by country name.

Our first contestant: Imre from Israel! And we get underway in full Eurovision style, with a power pop dance song, with a very impressive light back drop, blinding low power laser spots, and flames. As one does. It's ... fine? (Oh, up until Mr Israel hits a very very flat note indeed. Recovered well, though.)

Kasia Ros of Poland, with a song called "Flashlight", and a dress with an unfortunate case of the sheers. Power ballad, and she has a very strong voice, although she also hits a very flat note near the end, just as the word "Freedom" forms out of video smoke behind her which then dissolves into a flock of doves.

Belarus, performing a jaunty song actually in Belorussian. Honestly, I like the sound of it a lot. No idea what's happening on the video behind them. 800 years of buildings zooming past, I think. Oh, and they've got a floor motif ... that nobody in the room can possibly see. And then they end with a deep, tonsil-washing kiss. (Michelle: "... Well, I guess they're not brother and sister.")

(Side note: already, I want to find the producers and tell them that when it comes to extreme camera movement, less is definitely better. More is nauseating.)

Nathan from Austria, "Running on Air". He would do very well on the Voice, one suspects; he has some talent, and he's got the Voice Look. Doing his number standing in a giant sequin prop moon. As one does. The song is ... surprisingly low key for Eurovision. Midtempo balladesque songs don't seem to make an appearance much. Ah, and he's getting shouty at the end to compensate for the low-key aspect. And also going flat as a result; a surprising number of people going off at this point. They've all recovered, but it is notable.

Artsvik of Armenia, "Fly with Me." Another mostly low-key number, and their lead singer had difficulty holding the key throughtout. Apparently, 'tis to be a theme. Some key issues aside, I'm not at all sure why they would bring this song to Eurovision; it wasn't powerful enough to be a power ballad, not dance enough to be a dance ballad ... it was sort of just there.

Ogene of Netherlands, "Lights and Shadows". A song written by their father in tribute to their mother who has been fighting some sort of blood illness for a long time. Some really lovely harmonies. The words "Cry no more" on the video back. I have to admit, I'm impressed that they maintained harmony throughout, even with tempo changes. It was very nice.

Aw, one of the hosts goes out and guides the Norway section of the audience in a "Volare" sing-along. (I am not going to be able to keep these hosts straight, I can tell. They look like a Ukranian boy band.)

From Moldova, the Sunstroke Project (?) with "Hey mamma". Oh, hey, bleached blond buys in tuxes. With backup singers with microphone bouquets. Of course. (Also, if the sax player was really playing, I am very impressed; that's a lot of movement to be maintaining some sort of breath control through.) Oh, now the backup singers' dresses convert to wedding gowns, as we were warned would happen. And then they toss their bouquets into the audience. It was ... fun, but also just fine.

Hungary, Joci Papai with "Origo". Apparently he's the first of the Rom to compete for Hungary at Eurovision. Singing in either Hungarian or Romani, I know not which. Oh, and a rap section in the middle, why not. And dancing with his co-performer (well, she's not singing at all). Who then kind of gropes him at the end. Well, why not. Honestly, I liked the sound of this a lot. Not sure it has ... whatever it takes to win Eurovision, but it was really good.

Italy, Francesco Gabbani with "Occidental's Karma". Sung in Italian. I'm not sure how to describe what's going on with the video, exept that it's very colorful, involves evolution,chakras, and a guy dancing in a gorilla costume with a diamond bowtie on. As one does. (Yay! Our first low-key Eurovision WTF moment of the evening!)

Denmark, Anja (who is apparently Australian) with "Where I am". And a few small key issues right at the start, but then she stabilizes. The fireworks fall behind her was nice (and horribly dangerous, one suspects, with all that chiffon), but other than that ... it was fine.

(Huh. Apparently we're having a viewing party somewhere. Oh, well.)

Portugal, Salvador Sobral. Michelle and Ross said that his delivery was rather like Edith Piaf and ... it actually is. In Portuguese and very plaintive. EXTREMELY low key for Eurovision, but from the way the crowd is reacting, they seem to know what he's saying. And they're mostly being quiet enough to let him get this song over, which is astonishing. It was surprisingly lovely, even allowing that I understood not a word.

Aw, the Ukrainian boy banders are making fun of one of the guys' hair.

Azerbaijan, Di Haj with "Skeleton". Singing in front of a large chalkboard with a bunch of stuff written on it. Indluding "drum drum drum". Oh, and there's a guy in black with a horse's head on, standing on a ladder next to her. Well, sure, fine OK. Honestly, despite that -- and, yes, OK, the bit where she was writing on other people's backs with chalk -- it was kind of boring.

Croatia, "My Friend" by Jacques Houdek. (And, in one of the signal and much appreciated differences between this year and last, Ross got through a comment about Jacques being one of the biggest stars in Croatia without even coming close to making a joke about him being heavy. Carson would have gone for it.) I like Jacques switching between pop-tenor and operatic-baritone, and we have demented strings and exploding sparklers, as one does.

Eurofied Australia, Isaiah (he's 17! and eurofied Australia's first Indigenous contestant!) with "Don't come easy". The video backdrop is mostly just ... him in various colors and poses. (I think he may be experiencing the curse of the Video Wall. I do get the impression that a lot of contestants feel like, well, it's there, they have to do SOMETHING with it.) Oh, and he gets the shooting flames AND the sparklerfall. Which are not at all appropriate to this song. Which (oh, apart from that one dreadfully flat moment right before the end) was rather ... dull. He's got the voice, but I'm not sure that was the best song.

(The Ukranian boy banders take us on a tour of the contestant pods section. They're also experiencing the angst of making jokes and small talk in a language they do not speak. It is not, overall, going well.)

Greece, Demy, "This is love". Her intro bit featured her walking along the colonnade with a bunch of shirtless guys as well as a few other people. And ... OK, this really is a theme. I mean, I get that it's live, but I don't recall last year's Eurovision having so many people with key issues. Granted, I think she's trying something a little different with the key - I think she's trying to flex into a minor key here and there, on purpose -- but it's coming off flat. (And the shirtless guys in the colonnade were because she has shirtless guys splashing in a pool on stage. Aw, and then they form a heart with their arms behind her at the end.)

Spain, Manel Navarro, "Do it for your lover". It's very ... beach. Laid back, easy going, video of surfboards, everyone wearing Hawaiian-style shirts. And, well ... meh. 90% of the song was just them singing "Do it for your lover."

Norway, Jowst, "Grab the moment." but will they? WILL they grab the moment? Let's see. DJ has an LED mask so he looks like disco Dr Doom. We also get video effects actually fed into the broadcast camera rather than just on the video wall, which is mildly annoying. I'm really curious about what the audience is seeing, because from what we can see, the video effects are not on the video wall, which means that in the auditorium, they don't get part of the performance. Which ... OK, nobody in the auditorium is voting, so I kind of get it, but it's odd. (Ross and Michelle mentioned that Norway came in as decided underdogs but have become the favorites. We shall see.)

(The Ukranian boy banders spent the past week learning English by watching Friends and lessons from Vitaly Klitchko. Well, that's different. And hey, Mans from last year came to give hosting instructions. In a tux. Well, it makes sense that after last year's perfect Eurovision winning number, we'd have the instructions for the perfect Eurovision host. And Mans really does wear a tux well. Also gets stripped out of it rather well, but that was last year, not this year.)

UK, Lucie Jones, "Never give up". Sings the entire song in a ... mirrored clamshell? Song is a very sweet ballad that she's making more than it is by the sheer power of her voice. And more shooting flames, of course. One of the few numbers where you really see that the video wall extends out to where the proscenium would be, if it were that type of stage -- it's a LOT of video wall is what I'm saying.

Cyprus, Hovig, Gravity. Oh, audience chanting for him; I don't think we've really had that this year. This one ... feels very like Imre from Israel's number, in tone and presentation. Less dance-pop-like. Same black clothing. Same haircut. Same scruff. It's ... fine, I guess?

Romania, Ilinca feat. Alex Florea. "Yodel it." Well, OK, then. A mostly rap/pop song with yodeling. With a colorful music bar and notes on the video wall reading "Yodel it." YES! And gittering cannons on the stage for no reason at all, because why wouldn't you yodel with cannons! This Is The Eurovision Experience I was waiting for! (It's got no chance, of course, but it was ridiculous fun.)

Germany, Levina, "Perfect life". Generally low key use of the video wall for a high-energy rock-ish song. Fully deployed shoulder pads and very very neutral clothing overall.

(Eurovision amateur choir of the year competition in Riga, Latvia. It's either going to be relentlessly buttoned down, or utterly insane.)

Ukraine, O.Torvald, "Time". And a giant head on stage with them. As one does. (The head has its own video effects; I was originally not sure whether it was a prop -- as it is -- or part of the video wall.) And they rock OUT! Could not be more of a contrast with last year's contemplative, pointed song from Ukraine.

Belgium, Blanche, "City Lights". "She can move one of her toes telepathically." OK, then. I was not expecting that deep voice from the ethereal-looking person in the package bit. Those few times when the camera stopped swooping throughout the room and focused on her face, she looked absolutely terrified; she didn't loosen up until near the end. The song itself has issues with being both very limited in dynamic range and very limited in emotional range. Dynamic range was revealed to be a deliberate choice, since she went way up high (with a very tiny voice) for the next-to-last verse. (Well ... such as the verses were. Another song with very few words.)

(The Ukrainian boy banders are having a smile-off. OK, why not.)

(Ross and Michelle note that Ireland didn't break to the finals this time. Oddly, Ireland is listed on the finalist participants page as of this writing. Wonder what happened?)

Sweden, Robin Bengtsson, "I can't go on." Boybander fashionistas on treadmills. Seriously. And, once again, a song with seriously limited lyrics. "I can't go on because you look so freakin' beautiful." Really? Why can't you?

Bulgaria, Kristian Kostov, another 17 year old, "Beautiful mess". Slow build song that soars way up high in places. First person to really interact directly (if briefly) with the video wall. A lot of emotion in the song, so that may help as well.

France, Alma, "Requiem". Starts in French, jumps into English for the beginning of the chorus, then back to French. It's a fun song; the impression, coming after Kristian's emotional ballad, is that it's rather slight as well, which may be unfair. Lots of video wall and video floor work with Paris as the city of lights. We were told there would be yodeling, however, and I feel cheated.

(Ukranian boy banders are giving instructions in two languages which they do not speak. I feel so undereducated.)

Oh, Zverka! I remember these people from last year! They gave the Ukraine jury vote! They're very very ... Ukranian. Being wheedled by the Boybanders to open voting. It's very precious and charming.

I don't know. Last year, there were people who stood out because of performance, or because of staging, or because of emotion in the number, and this year ... not as strongly. I would guess that Netherlands and Bulgaria would make top five, and hopefully Hungary does as well. Portugal has a very good chance, I think. Beyond that, I have no idea.

Updates forthcoming as voting and other business warrant.

Ruslana singing "It's magical" in ... whatever her language is. (Michelle: "An interval act, akin to our half-time at the Super Bowl.") And another from Ukraine with a very long, but generally pretty good, number. (A notable difference this year: so far, the interval acts are just ... acts. Last year, they were very social, with an act dedicated to the refugee crisis, among other things. Completely absent this year so far. Maybe they decided that having Eurovision in an occupied and effectively partitioned country was social enough.)

The 13 year old winner of Junior Eurovision from the Republic of Georgia speaks perfectly idiomatic English. Because of course.

Jamala, last year's winner, singing a very strikingly jazz-pop number called "I believe in U [sic]" that could not be much mroe different from last year's pointed political number. And at the beginning of her number, a streaker from the audience wearing an Australian flag got up, ran around her, and showed his bare butt to the camera. She handled it with great aplomb, ignoring him completely, and then he got tackled by security.

Jury voting begins! In early voting, Portugal is emerging as a strong performer; it hasn't been lower than second on any of the first five ballots, and won four of them. (Unexpected announcement at the top of the vote: the Israeli broadcaster of Eurovision is apparently shutting down and will no longer carry the broadcast.) Further on, it hasn't been lower than fifth or sixth, but Italy is moving up strongly. Bulgaria is holding second fairly easily at the moment. (Some adorable byplay between the Ukranian boy banders and the French judge.) Greece, somewhat astonishingly given politics, votes for Cyprus. At the midway point, a highly stratified vote, with Portugal well out in front, Bulgaria well out in second, and then a clumped ballot. If current trends continue, Eurofied Australia is on the verge of falling out of the top five for the first time in its three year Eurovision history.

And then we have a break for Ukranian comedy. As one does.

After the jury vote midpoint, Portugal continues its European domination. For the most part, it hasn't been out of the top five on many ballots, and only two or three have left it out of the top ten. Interesting thing: as this year's jury vote goes on and the shape becomes more obvious, you can generally, but not always, tell who their 12 points are going to. If Portugal isn't in the nine other ranked countries, it's getting the 12 points. If Portugal is in the other ranked countries and Bulgaria isn't, then they're getting the votes.(It's going to take a really relentlessly interesting public vote to knock Portugal out of the top spot, at this point. If they can get consistent points from the public vote, I can't quite see how it would happen.)

For no reason whatsoever, the Georgian juror greets the Ukranian boy banders in Japanese. And in the reverse peculiar politics moment, Greece takes Cyprus' 12 points. Followed by a weird glitch where the Boy banders mistakenly introduced Hungary's jury and then had to do a quick reverse to correctly introduce Romania's jury, and THEN Hungary. (At this point, they're showing Sobral of Portugal with almost every vote, and he looks increasingly tense as the vote goes on, unsurprisingly.) (And the boy banders make the UK judge just a touch uncomfortable by mentioning that they were born the year the UK judge won Eurovision.)

With the conclusion of the juried vote, Portugal leads Bulgaria by 100 points. Eurofied Australia is hanging grimly on to fourth place by five points, and not far enough from sixth place to feel even vaguely save in that top five berth.

The public vote is tallied separately by country, ranked, then bundled. Australia gets utterly clobbered in the public vote, finishing next to last in the televote. Hungary finished very strongly in the televote, knocking Australia from fourth to fifth, and vaulting from something like 20th place to do so. Italy gets another strong vote and knocks Eurofied Australia out of the top five. At this point, it's purely a question of margins. Moldova and Belgium are likely far enough back that even winning the televote probably can't win them the contest -- and a very strong fourth place put Belgium's combined jury-televote 15 points behind Portugal's jury-only vote. Moldova's very strong televote also left them finishing behind Portugal's jury-only vote. Absent an absolute landslide, Portugal getting almost anything at all wins the contest. And in fact, Portugal won the televote, so it was academic.

In one of those weird moments having to do with how it was announced, Sobral clearly thought he'd actually lost, and it took a few seconds for him to catch up with the mathiness of it all. His very brief winner's speech was ... well. It's pretty hard to read "Music is not fireworks" as anything other than a fairly pointed remark to the "we never saw a firework we didn't like unless we couldn't use it because the fire code wouldn't let us" Eurovision. Which is really odd. He then brought the song's composer up on the stage with him for his winner's encore, which was rather sweet.

Strikingly atypical songs winning Eurovision in back to back years.

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So ....

2017-04-09T20:33:25Z

I'm not going to delete my LJ -- yet -- but after this entry, I am ending all crossposting.

And for those who, like me, may have been away from the right corners of the internet and sat there being mystified at the sudden rush of people to Dreamwidth again, and confused about why everyone is so furious:

LiveJournal, Now Based in Russia, Bans “Political Solicitation” in New User Agreement

Note that "political solicitation" essentially means "anything we don't like". Note that all trans or gay content would be explicitly illegal in Russia, and theoretically subject to some censorship or deletion.

The only thing that baffles me about this is that I got NO notice. Nothing in email, no message sent as LJ News, nothing. Under US law, changing a user agreement with no notice to the user would be ... legally questionable, at best. I suspect, under Russian law -- and LJ is now explicitly subject to Russian law in ways that were ambiguous before -- changing things without notice is a-OK! (Yes, yes, I know, clearly people did receive some sort of notice, or Dreamwidth wouldn't be getting slammed with yet another wave of migration. Doesn't change the fact that I saw nothing in any of the regular channels for this.)

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is there no place like home?

2017-03-22T06:55:55Z

Another EXTREMELY EXTREMELY long review, this time with multiple embeds and links! Sorry about that. But this time, I'm going to remember to use an entry cut, so that when things start getting long and detailed, you can run away! run away! (Unless you're doing this via RSS, in which case, again, sorry about that.)

So this is something I've vaguely meant to do since last year, as will become obvious almost immediately. That said, it turns out that doing it now has a certain point, as will also become obvious.

The question starting today's entry isn't entirely rhetorical. It's pretty much the question that's the core of The Wizard of Oz, if you think about it, and the question more explicitly at the core of Straight Outta Oz, the version that Todrick Hall created. Straight Outta Oz is essentially a musical retelling of his early life and his first and possibly his second trip through the Hollyweird meat grinder. (His current career is his third, I think. As far as I can tell, one phase ends before he was really able to gain any traction; the second phase ends when his MTV show was unexpectedly and unceremoniously dropped by the network. Which, when you consider that he's only about 30, is a lot to have done already.)

Unfortunately, he's taken down the original version of Straight Outta Oz, put up back in 2016. Unfortunate, both for comparison's sake and because it hangs together as a coherent whole slightly better than the current version. Mind, that isn't to say that the original structure didn't have problems, which I'll get to -- and which remain, in fact -- but that the integration of the retrofits doesn't feel entirely seamless. How much of that is due to the fact that I know what it looked like before, I'm not sure.

( Excessively Detailed Musicals Wonk stuff begins ... HERE! )

Very vaguely apropos of today's entry (VERY Vaguely.), you might consider this earlier entry. You don't need to listen to anything in it -- although I will note that as part of cleaning it up and updating links after the entry's transition to Dreamwidth (embeds fared very badly indeed), I found an extra item I hadn't run across before. The new item isn't relevant to today's entry, but it may be amusing.

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a moment of melancholy

2017-01-18T07:01:37Z

So I think it's perfectly obvious at this point that Twelfth Night didn't happen this year.

What I'll probably do -- hopefully before the month is completely over -- is maybe do a quick rundown of musical things I ran across last year.

This ... is not that.

This is purely something I ran across that I'd totally forgotten had ever existed. As I recall, it was done at a point in their careers where they were both struggling to become musically relevant again. It was recorded as a new single for her greatest hits double album in 2000. Sank like a stone here, and in most of the world. (Except, oddly, Poland.)

If you'd told me back in 2000, when this was recorded, that less than 20 years later, they'd both be dead ... I'm not sure how surprised I'd have been.

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just wondering....

2015-02-12T03:31:01Z

is anyone else having issues with LJ being (a) glacially slow, (b) not allowing you to change the security level of an entry and (c) not allowing you to actually post an entry? I'm having all of the above. The only way I was able to get this to appear -- assuming it does -- was to crosspost from Dreamwidth.

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comickal: milestone

2015-01-22T02:47:23Z

All I have to say is, I hope this works. And I hope they can manage to disentangle the intellectual properties from DC. (Pretty sure that Static Shock can't come back to Milestone any time soon, but maybe the others can. DC didn't really do anything to integrate Hardware or Xombi or any of the others, even before the nu52.)

EXCLUSIVE: Milestone Media rises again. Hudlin, Cowan and Dingle will revive company with eye toward characters of color

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comickal: the new PG

2015-01-14T21:05:45Z

DC’S NEW POWER GIRL DITCHES THE BOOB WINDOW, LOOKS AMAZING (hitfix.com)

I'm ... astonished, really.

Mind, that second paragraph is a touch confusing. Earth-2 IS the original Power Girl's own universe, in the nu52 (and pre-pre-crisis DCU, for that matter) During the time I was reading "World's Finest", she and Helena (Huntress) were working on ways to get back to their own universe, something that Mr. Terrific found by accident. (I stopped reading because it was ... boring, really. A really huge chunk of the titles that DC put out after the last universe reboot were amazingly dull. There's just so much interchangeable ultraviolence with costumed weirdos you can read before it all kind of melds together, you know?)

To be sure, I don't hugely care, although I should. The only DC titles I read now are Batman, Batgirl, Astro City (which isn't any flavor of DC Universe) and Secret Six. And I only kinda sorta sometimes read the first two. Oh, and Gotham Academy, which is weird fun aimed at a somewhat younger audience. (In comic book stores. Yeah, that's going to work real well, that is.) I can only take so much grimdark/grim/grimmer/grimmest/positively-grimy ... especially since, once upon a time not that long ago, DC wasn't ALL that way.

But still. It'll be interesting to see how the audience reacts. "How can SHE be Power Girl? She's too young! The magickal boob window is gone -- along with the magickal boobies! And she's ... not blonde!"

(Purely a side note: Afro puffs. She has Afro puffs. In this day and age. DC, sometimes I really love the way you think.)

Also, the comments thread on that article is a hoot. (I think one of the artists may actually comment about the costume at one point, though I'm not sure.) Mind, I kind of agree with the general sentiment of "Why retread an old name with someone different? Why not come up with a new character name for a new character?" But then, there are a number of reasons why DC wouldn't do that. They wouldn't want the character name to fade away once she was in some other universe, they wouldn't want the name to fall into public domain (granted, they'd need to wait about 75 years from now for that to happen), they'd want to emphasize what connection there is between new and old, etc.

And, of course, the other thing is that if the audience emphatically rejects her early on, they don't have to stick with her all that long. "Convergence" this spring -- what DC is calling their next universe-reshaping event, as they've retired the term "crisis" -- will no doubt offer the opportunity to make all sorts of course corrections. (I plan to serenely ignore it until it's done and they've either restarted everything with new number 1 issues, or -- and I suspect this is more likely for some titles at least -- returned to the pre-Flashpoint numbering. It wouldn't surprise me at all for Batman, Detective, Wonder Woman and maybe Superman to return to the old numbering if they resurrect the old universe in any significant way.

But we shall see, I suppose. Alas.

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"do i make you drool?"

2014-08-29T21:33:09Z

Just a vaguely random moment.

Did you ever have something so firmly in your memory that nobody else you knew had seen or remembered, and then, oddly, you finally come across evidence that it was a real thing?

Patty Duke, many a long year ago, was in a made-for-TV film called "Before and After" in which she uttered the immortal line quoted in the title. Weirdly, that, and how that scene turned out, were all I remembered of the film.

And then, today, I happened to stumble across that very film while searching for something else. Alas, it's not set to allow embedding, but if you click on the link below, it should take you to the very point in the scene where she says those deathless words. If you go through the next minute or so of the film, including the brief tiff with her mother and the concern about her friend who developed anorexia, you'll see the waiter's response.

Before and After, the party scene.

I also remembered the waiter in the scene, in part because he'd been in a few other things around that time, none of which have made it to IMDB, not surprisingly, and I had a certain fondness for his ... eyebrows. (Seriously, those are some mighty mighty eyebrows, those are. He also had a very hairy chest. Seems he's aged rather well ... though, oddly, the eyebrows kind of haven't, if the photos are to be believed.)

You will need to see the beginning of part 7 to see how the party scene turns out. (SPOILER: She totally Does It with the waiter on a baby grand, after he listens to her go on a bit. I'd forgotten how totally toasted she gets.)

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apparently, jail continues to be the appropriate penalty for poverty

2014-07-15T21:24:47Z

Mom Jailed for Letting 9-Year-Old Daughter Play at Park Near Job (theroot.com)

The part I love best about the article is the very last quote:

"I understand the mom may have been in a difficult situation, not having someone to watch the child, but at the same time, you've got to find somebody," Lesa Lamback told ABC 6.

I just want to ask that woman to replay that comment in her head. You don't have anyone, you're making just above minimum wage so you really can't afford any sort of day care, but you've got to find someone. It's not even that it's not true; it's that there's no real way to square that circle. If she'd known about better options she could afford, she'd have used them.

The original article notes that the state's dept of social services has several programs and services. I do wonder how anyone is supposed to know about them or apply for them ... or why anyone would assume that the state had those programs. Quite honestly, it would never have occurred to me that the state had programs for child care. (Which, in fact, we do. The form for applying is a bit confusing for something so brief. If you do the calculation, the estimated copay, for someone making just a shade above Illinois minimum wage, is $110 per month. Which isn't huge, but ... if you're making just above Illinois minimum -- roughly $20,000 per year -- I wonder where that $110 per month is going to come from? [The cost does drop for school age children, part day ... but then, in the summer, school age children that age aren't part-day care, are they?] And, of course, many food service jobs are exempt from actually paying minimum wage, because they assume you're going to get tips, even if you're not in a position where you can get tips.)

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genius. and squee. as one does. bring earplugs.

2014-07-08T01:18:39Z

Ahem.

.... SQUEEEEEEEEEE!

I have been waiting for this series for six years, people! Six! Years! Ever since it came from behind to tie for the win in the Top Cow competition for that year! And then it just vanished into the ether. But now! UnVanishing accomplished!

These are all the posts about the upcoming release in Bernardin's Tumblr.

Plus! Plus! In an interview at Comic Book Resources, there's this bit at the end:

Bernardin: And we just reacquired the rights to our first graphic novel, "Monster Attack Network" -- we hope to be able to announce a new home for it, as well as more kaiju-happy stories, in the coming months.

More Monster Attack Network (possibly)! SQUEEEEEEEEEE! (And so on.) You may remember that I loved the first volume with a love that was mostly pure, and I have been very sad that there was no more. But now there may be! WOOT! (I can but hope that Zeke, the black gay monster fighter, also lives through volume 2. And also that maybe he gets some. Mind, I'll settle for a profound lack of noble self sacrifice on his part.) (But seriously. He should get some. Why should the inappropriate sexual interlude be limited to the straight guy? Plus, when last we saw him, the straight guy was in an only-mildly-improbable relationship, so hopefully he's still off the playing field. [The woman with whom he was canoodling seemed, for various reasons, unlikely to share.])

Is it August yet? I need it to be August RIGHT NOW. (...And I need to figure out if I can do a very late order, because I have been paying less than no attention to Previews lately, what with my pull list dropping from over $50 per week -- I know, I know -- to something like $50 per month. Hmm.)

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whoda thunk it?

2014-07-03T21:14:33Z

So as long as I'm not going to get meself a Tumblr (at least, I hope I'm not), I might as well make this more tumblresque sure fine why not, right? Maybe that will work to prod some activity here and there.

Interesting when you find out something about someone you'd never known before. For example, while I neither read, deify, nor admire him, I hadn't before heard about Lovecraft's ... interesting views on race.

Racialicious: The ‘N’ Word Through The Ages: The ‘Madness’ Of HP Lovecraft

...Seriously, he gave his cat THAT word for a name! I mean ... WHAT? (Also, I'm guessing he didn't much like cats, either.)

Similarly, I hadn't known that Norman Rockwell painted anything but genteel portraits of a bygone white America. And yet, it turns out that he had.

Norman Rockwell and the Civil Rights Paintings
By Angelo Lopez
February 11, 2008

"Southern Justice" is a genuinely shocking painting, even more so when you consider that it came from Rockwell. Granted that it seems to have come after "The problem we all live with", it still had to be one hell of a shock to his normal audience. (For some reason, I'm seeing a variety of dates for "Southern Justice", either 1963, 1964, or 1965 so far. 1965 seems to be authoritative.)

No trenchant commentary or observations. Just seems to be the season for hearing things about artists in various realms that you hadn't known before.

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just for the hell of it

2014-06-17T05:57:09Z

Also, aten't ded yet.

The first via Richard at sturtle. (And it's not quite what you might think.) The second because, much as I love him, Jimmy Sommerville is sometimes insufficiently fabulous. The third for the hell of it.

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because if I have to suffer, so do you

2014-02-25T17:13:20Z

I listened to a podcast on Susan B. Anthony and the women's suffrage movement earlier today, and now I can't get this out of my head. So here, have a generationally-specific earworm.

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weird earworms and very weird synchronicity

2013-10-11T18:32:25Z

So I got this email from a vendor that I have done business with, advertising a huge font package for a low price, and I open the email and take a look because I am a typeface junkie. (NOTE: junkie, not nerd. This means that I don't actually know all the history or proper and improper usages and all that stuff that the typeface nerds know -- which, honestly, I find kind of fascinating from time to time. "Junkie" means that I have admitted that I am powerless in the Face of Fonts, but having admitted my powerlessness, I now am occasionally able to resist. Also, once you get beyond a certain point, it slows your system so much and so massively inflates the RAM it uses that it's just not worth it. But I digress.)

Anyway, I'm looking through the list of fonts, and one of them is ... Falkencrest. And I am immediately taken back to an earlier day and time. A simpler time. A time when evening soaps ruled the televisual landscape. A time when people actually watched television on Fridays, and you could get a top ten rated show anchoring your Friday lineup. A time of over-the-top excess, bitchiness triumphant, and shoulder pads that could decapitate a roomful of people. A time when a two-minute long (or longer, in some cases) credit sequence was not at all unusual, and wind instruments ruled the credits auditory landscape.

(And, in case you were wondering, "Falkencrest" the font kinda sorta vaguely looks like it might have been in the same family with the type used in the "Falcon Crest" credits, but then they decided that they weren't speaking any more and went their own separate ways. You can see it in the second section of fonts, under "PLUS, 25 new font families added..." on this page)

I didn't even know I remembered this show at all, let alone the credits, until that weird earworm got triggered.

Interesting to see how people cycle in and out of prominence, if that's the right word. I mean, Jane Wyman has every reason not to be working these days, what with having been dead for a few years. Everyone else in that cast is still around, I think, and still relatively hale and hearty, but I haven't heard of most of them in years. Susan Sullivan is playing Nathan Fillion's mother on "Castle" (I still can't quite wrap my mind around the concept that she's old enough for that -- then again, according to IMDB, she's easily old enough to be MY mother, so she looks very good for her age). Lorenzo Lamas is doing ... stuff. (Seriously, I have no idea what most of the things on his IMDB page are, with the exception of the voice of Meap on "Phineas and Ferb". This also means that he spends about two thirds of his time on that show saying "Meap!" in a very high pitched voice that I wouldn't think he could manage without someone doing something very unkind to his nethers.) William (formerly "Billy") Moses has been doing a lot of one-off guest shots, and a few longer term things here and there. David Selby has also done a lot of one-offs and guest shots since Falcon Crest. Jamie Rose, the same, apart from a brief one-season stint on "In2ition" (series canceled after 9 episodes). And so on.

When I went to IMDB to check out the cast and see who's doing what now, this popped up, fresh out of the TV news today:

'Falcon Crest' reboot in the works, according to former stars

As bob is my witless, I swear that I had no idea about that before today, until after I started this entry.

I must admit, I'm kind of astonished. First, Falcon Crest was generally fourth among equals, shall we say. Dynasty and Dallas duked it out for the top (sometimes with actual duking and actual dukage), the Dallas spinoff "Knots Landing" generally seemed to be third, and then Falcon Crest was fourth. Mind, still a top-ten or top-fifteen rated show kind of fourth, but still fourth. And it never had the sort of over-the-top characters that grabbed the imagination or attention like Joan Collins' Alexis Carrington from Dynasty or Larry Hagman's JR from Dallas. Jane Wyman's Angela was properly conniving and somewhat self-serving, true, but she really did generally tend to do things she thought were for the good of her family, as opposed to herself. They just happened to be sort of ... incidentally evil, maybe? Not necessarily done with malice aforethought -- although if malice came into it, that was a nice little lagniappe.

Susan Sullivan says that if her character is involved, it would be as a ghost in the minds of others, since her character was killed off during the series. The problem with that, one would think, is that she's now 30 years older. People who are ghosts in your mind don't age; they stay as they were when you last saw them, for better or worse. So I'm by way of thinking that unless they get archive footage and stick new soundtracks on it, her participation might be deeply problematic.

It is truly weird that these quintessential 80s soaps are experiencing a revival these days. At the time, they were all about the celebration (and occasional bringing-down) of wretched excess -- with roughly equal emphasis on both the "wretched" and the "excess". Most of the people had tons of money, but weren't at all happy. And the people without money were usually involved in revenge schemes against the wealthy people they thought had kept them from being wealthy. Nobody got to be happy for more than an episode or two. And now we're in the lingering aftermath of the Great Recession (and toying with a Greater Recession, thanks to politics), and ... well, it seems like the sort of thing that would go over like a lead balloon. Particularly tone-deaf, in a way. And yet, the revival of "Dallas" seems to be popular.

Strange. Really, very strange.

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derailments and delays

2013-08-28T23:24:05Z

I cannot describe how true this is, of late.

(Click for link to original; if you click the image there, you can see it larger.)

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time passages, so to speak

2013-07-12T17:09:46Z

Was looking for something else, and ran across the second one, so here 'tis. Just because.

1984

2012

Time has mostly been pretty kind to her, although she clearly has less voice than she used to, but that's pretty much to be expected. As far as I know, she remains the only person ever to be seen singing the title song in a Bond film credits.

For bonus ... something:

Yeah, so .... both of those songs read very oddly without Prince/His Royal Dingbattitude, and they read VERY oddly when you realize that she's singing about her sugar walls to an audience composed primarily of gay men.

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"...there are zombies! in atlanta!"

2013-07-04T18:20:17Z

Again, mostly for Col, though others will hopefully enjoy.

I'm not entirely sure the world is ready for a completely unVictoryRolled Janelle Monae.

I'm getting really curious about what The Electric Lady is going to be. Both releases so far have seemed very tied to the Archandroid concept, but at the same time, as songs, they seem to stand alone possibly a bit better than anything from "The Archandroid" or "Metropolis: The Chase Suite" did.

I'm also curious as to what sort of package it's going to be. The expanded version of "The Archandroid" included not only music, but music videos, behind the scenes videos, interviews, and PDF liner notes. It was also something like 500MB at a point in time where Comcast was enforcing a 2TB limit, and download speeds were much slower -- and you couldn't find out anywhere on iTunes exactly what was in the download or how big it was. Very vexing, that was, although ultimately worth it.

Allegedly, The Electric Lady drops on September 10. I say "allegedly" because release dates are notoriously flexible, and in my admittedly limited experience, items dropping on their original release dates are far more infrequent than items dropping weeks or months later. (The aptly titled next Anita Baker album, "Only Forever", has, to date, slid epochally from March 2012 to ... possibly August. Or maybe October. I don't know. Neither does anyone else.)

And, yes, in theory, there will be updates of slightly more substance in the vaguely near future. In theory. Slightly.

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"oh, no, the booty don' lie"

2013-05-09T00:54:51Z

Mostly for Columbina, although others might/hopefully will enjoy. (Someone should poke him to get him to look this way.)

Reportedly, this is the first single off her follow-up album, The Electric Lady, which is supposed to complete her Archandroid/Metropolis concept. It doesn't have a release date yet. It's going to be interesting to see how this song fits into the concept. I mean, yes, there are some really obvious hooks, but how does Baduism fit in? (Also, Ms. Monae's Victory roll is looking considerably less victorious these days -- in fact, at moments during the video, she looks positively Supreme.) (... Nope. Not apologizing for that one.)

Just be warned that I'll be having periodic Veruca Salt fits for the next six months or so. (No, no, not the band. THIS Veruca Salt. Preferably with less falling through chutes.)

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"delaware says yea."

2013-05-07T22:11:43Z

I'd have posted this at TUS, but TUS is tossed for the moment, and I think I'm content to let the weblog be moribund for now, so:

Delaware Senate OKs marriage equality; state's governor immediately sign into law

Just after the Delaware Senate passed marriage-equality legislation, Gov. Jack Markell signed the bill into law.

That will make Delaware the 11th state, plus Washington, D.C., to legalize gay marriage...

That does make me even more curious about what's going to happen with the various pending Supreme Court decisions. I really don't think they're going to hit the big picture issues that the administration (and many people) would like, and that there will be some level of turfing/punting/shoving the issue back to lower courts so they can ignore it for a year or two longer. But there may be a shade less of the turfing and punting than there might have been a few months earlier.

Next on the board: Minnesota! (probably) Minnesota House to vote on same-sex marriage proposal Thursday.

Sadly, Illinois will likely not be on the board any time soon. "Illinois GOP chair resigns, cites support for same-sex marriage as a reason." Yep, his own party forced him out, but only in small part because he wouldn't block legislative consideration of same-sex marriage. Mostly, the issue seems to have been that even in traditionally Republican areas, the GOP took a major hit in Illinois. That said, socially conservative politicians on both sides of the aisle in the Assembly are blocking the vote in the lower chamber, while it has already passed the Senate, and the governor has said he will sign it if it reaches his desk. However, the legislature adjourns at the end of next week for the summer, and with no signs that it's going to come to a vote, they'll need to start from scratch when the new session begins.

For what it's worth (very little): seven of the original Thirteen Colonies now allow same-sex marriage: Delaware, Connecticut, Massachussets, Maryland, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island. With the vague possibility of New Jersey, none of the others is even the tiniest bit likely to pass same-sex marriage any time soon. New Jersey's people are relatively liberal, but their governor is not, and may also be considering a run for the roses -- er, that is, the White House sometime in the future, and approving gay marriage is Simply Not Done In the Haut GOPoiserie. Pennsylvania and North Carolina are both in the "moderate, tending to conservative" camps. And the others are bedrock conservative. Virginia is even now getting snotty about the fact that they're not being allowed to keep their sodomy law, which was effectively struck from the books years ago. The state argues that it's needed to govern said acts between adults and undaraged minors. (There is the rather puzzling question of why Virginia would need any sodomy law for that, since they have laws governing such behavior already.)

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It's just that sort of day, somehow

2013-04-30T19:13:22Z

Also, aten't ded yet.

(I have actually told more than one person that they have splinters in the windmills of their mind. Sadly, few of them are old enough to catch the source reference -- not this skit, but where the line came from. However, they usually manage to figure out what I mean.)

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random: "as evil as a wet hen ever since", or, six minutes of AWESOME!

2012-09-17T18:27:42Z

So, OK. "Maybe" by the Three Degrees is probably my favorite song of theirs ever. It's a sound that most poeple don't associate with them, because they were much more broadly popular in the later stages of the group's career, which was all about the (really pretty good) disco. "Maybe" is pretty much straight up old-school soul, released probably just a bit late for the sound to still work commercially. Not only is it musically pretty spectacular, but the prologue is one of those things you just don't hear any more. And didn't hear much then, either.

So anyways, I was feeling in the mood to have a listen, and what with not being anywhere near my music collection, I had a search on Youtube. And I came across what you may see below. And, apart from the actual song, which is AWESOME, there is the video. Which is also AWESOME, if perhaps in an an entirely different way than that term is usually meant. (The bit at the beginning of the song proper, when they recreate one of their traditional album cover poses, is particularly AWESOME.) I mean, I love me some Three Degrees, but they clearly had not quite gotten the hang of the whole "lip sync so it looks like there's at least a reasonable possibility that you might sometime have actually considered really singing that song on camera" thing. And then there's the drama of the prologue. OH THE DRAMA.

Anyway. For your edification and enjoyment. (And, hey, if the video is too distractingly AWESOME and cheesetastic, you can always minimize the browser and listen to the genuinely AWESOME song. Which is AWESOME. I mentioned that, right? Just checking.)

And, just for the hell of it, one of their late disco era songs, which is also AWESOME, with video from a Dutch (I think) show, in which I believe they are Actually Singing -- the song recordings don't quite sound like that, apart from the backing tracks. It's weirdly short, as well -- recordings vary from what seems to be the original length of about four minutes to the epick remix length of 12-15 minutes -- and then segues into people dancing to "That's the way I like it". I think this was that country's version of American Bandstand, more or less. (Weirdly, almost every version of this I'm running across is a performance video, and they all start with the Three Degrees essentially doing a Catwoman move. Very odd.)

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c2e2 2012: the barrowman experience

2012-04-15T00:34:53Z

And it IS an experience, let me tell you that right now.

(Click the image above to be taken to a small set of images from the session.)

OK, so here's the way it worked. After much hemming and hawing, I went ahead and got a one-day ticket to C2E2. I wasn't sure I wanted to go this year, except that Barrowman would be doing a question-and-answer thing, and his sessions at cons are legendary for their spectacular inappropriateness.

A reputation well earned, let me tell you right now.

So I got there about half an hour early, and I thought, Hmm. Should I go to the session area and hang out for half an hour, or should I go take a quick look at the con floor? After all, it's a big room, lots of chairs ... nah, let's go to the session early. Which turned out to be a sort of good idea. I didn't want to sit in the middle of everything, because, well, it was the middle of everything. People were cosplaying right left and center. There were more people dressed as the TARDIS than you could shake a stick at. (No, not as the Doctor. That goes without saying. As the TARDIS. Complete with functioning flashing lights on their head. As you can imagine, this gave them a certain ... height. As they were mostly clustered in the middle of the room, staying away from the middle looked to be a good idea.)

There was a small momentary stampede near the beginning of the talk. Apparently, they'd been holding a block of seats for some VIPs who never showed. The seats were released, and there was this sudden baffling surge to the front. But eventually everyone settled, and it was time to start!

First, there was someone from the Reed Conventions staff to introduce the introducer, Misha Davenport, who does a lot of TV and genre column writing for the Chicago Sun-Times. Misha came on stage to introduce Barrowman, a wonderful fulsome introduction that made much of his history having been born and brought up in the area. And then Barrowman came skipping out to take the stage!

...No, that's not an exaggeration. He was skipping.

Approximately two seconds after Barrowman took the stage, Davenport completely lost control of the situation, if he'd planned to even try to exercise any. First, Barrowman started sort of flirting with some guy in the front row, then brought him up on the stage so they could compare biceps and show them off to the audience. There may or may not have been an indecent proposal, which Guns Guy's girlfriend may or may not have urged him to accept. (This was something of a theme, by the by.)

Shortly thereafter -- you know, ten, fifteen seconds later -- Misha started asking a few questions that had come in through the Sun-Times or C2E2 website. The whole gay thing came up, via a question asked by a woman, and he was talking about being out and proud and glad that he could be so, and proud to be a "gold star gay" (look it up if you don't know, that's all I'm saying) at which point I'm thinking , Oh, BOY, is this going to be a RIDE!. Somewhere in there, he talked about clothing, and that even though he wasn't dressed up, he was still gay enough that he had to wear something sparkly, and he stood up and showed everyone his silver and (I think) rhinestone-studded belt buckle (and, perhaps incidentally, his groinal region), and, well, we'd been off and running since he got in the room, so... (He also apologized for using the F word. No, not THAT F word ... which, in fact, I do not believe was mentioned -- he even said "frickin'" a couple of times, believe it or not. No, he apologized for calling himself a theater fag, but, as he put it, "I am one, so I say it a lot.")

That said, I think there may be some method to his madness, although I'm not entirely sure how intentional it is. After all, he manages to completely blow you back with WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE MATERIAL in the first few minutes (another question was about how much Cap'n Jack stuff he has, and does he play with them, and he said something about playing with his six-inch action figure, and sometimes his twelve-inch action figure, and sometimes one turns into the other, depending on how often he plays with them in a day), so when he starts being a bit more serious, you're more than ready for it.

THAT said, I wonder if maybe it's gotten a bit out of hand. People were asking questions -- not specifically about his sex life, but close -- that were really a bit ... much, and having started out there, he could scarcely decline to answer them. (At some point, his husband disappeared, I think because John kept referring questions of that nature to him to answer, and he wouldn't. Granted, most of the questions of that nature were women volunteering their men for sexual services, and he kept saying they'd have to ask Scott if he could accept.)

During the more serious portion, he talked a bit about his upbringing and his career, as expected. He mentioned that they've filmed the pilot for Gilded Lilys, and he'll find out about 10 days after he goes home from this tour -- he's doing a couple of other things after this, I gather -- whether or not they're picked up to go to series. He says the character he's playing is technically a bad boy, although he doesn't see the guy that way, and that, well, "he was not a stretch, let's say that." He's hoping that Cap'n Jack gets to meet Matt Smith's doctor (there were several questions about the possibility of him kissing Smith's doctor, since Smith was in Christopher and his kind and seems to have said something about kissing boys being quite enjoyable), but there's nothing planned as yet. It also seems that, while they're planning to have a big thing about the 50th anniversary, that it is not yet planned, and they don't know what it's going to be. He hasn't been contacted about being in it yet, but he has hopes.

Regarding Torchwood: Starz itself recently said that they'd be open to another series. (Really? I mean... really?) However, because Davies has kept control of Torchwood and is currently distracted by his partner's cancer -- about which Barrowman declined to say anything at all -- and other work, there's nothing on the table. That said, he and his sister have written a sequel novel that is scheduled to come out late this year, giving one possible post Miracle Day option. He thinks it would make a great movie, but nobody's thinking about those options right now. He thinks it's called "Access Code" currently, but as he noted, it's changed title five times, and plot points keep changing, so whenever he has a meeting about it and starts saying something, his sister leans over and says, "Pssst! We changed that bit."

He and his sister have also written a novel called Hollow Earth (due out here in October, but already on sale in the UK), which is apparently being marketed in the UK as a children's/YA book, which ... well, this is the part that gets confusing. On the one hand, he said that that wasn't the original intended audience; on the other, he said that they wrote the sort of book they'd like to have read at the age that the protagonists were, and they're both in the 10-12 age group. Either way, it sounded pretty interesting, so I'm looking forward to seeing it when it comes out here.

During the question-and-answer portion, he steadfastly refused to answer questions about which roles or productions or songs were his particular favorites, because he didn't want to slight anyone. He did, however, talk about pulling pranks on the set, although he didn't get specific, with the exception of one thing. During the shooting of Miracle Day, for the big romantic scene with Angelo, the other actor had never kissed a man before. As Barrowman put it, "I've kissed men, I've kissed women, I've kissed everyone and I don't have a problem with it, so I asked him if there was anything I could do to make him more comfortable, and he said he was fine." The actor's girlfriend was on the set that day for moral support, I guess. So he would have this makeout session with John, and then between takes, he'd go over to kiss his girlfriend. John and the director conspired to have take after take after take, and as he put it, "That poor woman's face was completely chapped by the end of the day."

He also talked, unspecifically, about doing things to crack up Eve Myles during the close-ups where they're shooting over his shoulder to focus on her face during a conversation, and how that had an unintentional payoff. He was in the audience during her play with Zach Braff, and one of the lines was about Charlton Heston, only the character mixes things up and calls him "Charlton Moses." This, for some reason, struck him as incredibly funny, and he started laughing, and he was close enough to the stage that Myles could not only hear him, but could tell who it was. And for some reason, that got her going, which kept Barrowman going, and poor Braff is trying to deliver this deadly serious speech, and she's laughing her head off. She later told Barrowman that now she can't look at Braff during that speech, because she keeps remembering that, and it'll get her started again.

(He did NOT talk about the "brown eye" incident. Given that this audience had pretty much been given carte blanche to go any damn place they wanted, I suspect that most people either didn't know about it, or felt that talking about it would be a bit much even for them. So they offered their husbands to him instead.)

There were a lot of questions and comments about gay rights and issues, as well as charitable causes he was interested in. (He does a lot for a trust that rehomes dogs, and mentioned that he is now forbidden by both acts of Parliament and of Husband from going to any shelters, because every time he goes to a shelter, he comes home with a dog. He also talked a bit about his dogs, their very gay spaniel, the one that he described as friendly but kind of ... not very bright, and the Jack Russell that's a complete brute and owns the place.) In the statement he said was going to get him in so much trouble, one of the things he liked about Jack was that he was a sort of gay guy that you don't see on TV in the states much, an action-adventure hero type.

Someone else asked him what, if anything, he'd taken off the Torchwood/DW sets. He mentioned that he may have (ahem) "borrowed" one or two things that just happened to follow him home, and that he also had a copy of Jack's "hero coat" that he had made. Turns out that he and Tennant both went through several of the coats in a season, because their coats were so long that they kept tripping on them and falling and ripping them. But for both of them, there was something called the "hero coat", a very specific length and weight, designed to blow in the wind like a long cape. He'd had one of those made, and it was apparently VERY expensive; he also had a couple of weapons, one he'd taken from the set and then gotten given a replica. He also had every magazine with him on the cover, as well as every action figure.

He also talked about being in the film of "The Producers" (he came in singing "Springtime for Hitler", of all possible things). He mentioned that he'd gone blond for that, though apparently that was a wig. It was being filmed at the time when Torchwood was beginning to hit, and he was attracting unwanted attention when he went out, and they let him keep the wig during production. So he'd pop on the wig, pop in the blue lenses and go out in to the world unrecognizable, and he says that it's true that blonds have more fun, and for more information about that, we'd have to ask his husband. (This was the point at which he'd realized that Scott had left the area.)

Near the end, there was one terribly sweet moment. A woman came to the microphone to ask Barrowman if he remembered doing "The Dreamer's Academy", and if he'd done anything like it since. Apparently, when he first started to make a name for himself, Barrowman would come back to his old high school and do a two-week academy for performing artists, focusing on dramatics and song. He actually remembered the woman herself from the academy, and how well she'd done, and asked after her, and it was just one of those really nice moments.

And then at the end, he sang a rousing chorus of "The Doctor and Me".

To be sure, I wasn't -- and am not now -- a Barrowman fanboy. But, that said ... he does come across as the sort of person you'd like to get to know.

By the by, if you were wondering, his favorite superheroes are Captain America, Iron Man and Superman.

"i always wondered if the carpet matched the drapes. Now I know."

...Eh. The rest of the con was OK. After all, I only had the one day pass, and didn't attend any other sessions, so it was just the con floor and artists alley, in addition to the Barrowman thing.

One truly weird thing: people kept wanting to take pictures of me. (Well, ok, three people, but still, that's more than at the last two combined.) I honestly have no real idea why. Apparently, it's slightly related to the coat I was wearing. Apparently, it's somehow A Thing. I forgot to know this. People would ask to take my picture, and the first thing I'd say was not , "Thanks", but "WHY?" I don't think I'd have let anyone else if asked.

I've noticed that, entirely without intent, my buying habits at the con have fallen into loose themes. The first year, it was "weird comics". (Which led, as you might imagine, to spending a LOT of money.) Next year, it was a few weird comics and a LOT of gay comix. This year, it was mostly comics by minorities. Not sure why, but that's the way it worked out. (Kind of glad, actually. Not that I wouldn't have wanted to purchase stuff, but, as is now usual, almost all the gay comix were in the Prism Comics booth, and Prism has behaved Very Badly Indeed of late, so I'm kind of glad not to have had to thrash between giving them money and being too pissed off to give them money.)

There was also one really notable exhibit in Artists Alley that I'm kind of surprised was allowed to stay up. Artists display different art pieces to get you to come buy their stuff. (There was one guy who, if the pieces had been anything other than weird pinups, I'd have loved to buy. Lovely art nouveau styled stuff. Unfortunately, I didn't see it until after I'd seen "Boobs! and Babes" and "Booty Babes" and "Barbarian Babes with Boobs and Booty" [and so on and on and ON] sketchbooks everywhere, and I just could not even try to deal any more. Artists Alley is quite quite breastacular. But I digress.) This one guy had a drawing of Barbara Gordon .. as Robin. With a thought balloon saying, "Boy wonder, indeed!" Um ... OK, whatever. But that wasn't the notable part, oh no no no. NO. No, the notable part was that the costume had been ripped to shreds. She was holding it so it just barely hid the nipples. It was also ripped lower down so that it revealed ... how to put it ... well, just read the section title. That's what one of the con-goers said when they were staring at the image.

Now, I'm not one of those people who thinks that everyone should be protected from sex and nudity ... but that said, there is a time and a place, and that didn't feel like either. I'm surprised that neither the con organizers nor the DC people (they had a booth for signings) came over and said, "Yo, dude, not cool. Everyone else has managed to be pubes-free for their public display pieces, so why can't you?"

Anyway, that aside, an interesting day, and I'm glad I saw Barrowman speak. And I picked up a few -- just a few, for a wonder -- intersting things that I'm looking forward to reading.

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video: original sin, youth and fun!

2012-03-13T21:27:09Z

Just having the annual Jim Steinman/Streets of Fire/80s Power Pop fit. This too shall pass. But not before being shared!

I did not know the above song existed before last week. (Thanks, AfterElton, for kicking off the current nostalgia fit!) However, as soon as I heard it, I knew it was a Steinman song. Nothing else sounds like him. (I cannot imagine any circumstance in which that song was a remotely appropriate fit for the period piece "The Shadow", but then, credits songs frequently have nothing to do with the movie to which they're attached.)

It's worth noting that Fire Inc -- the nominal group responsible for the above two recordings -- had two different women singing lead, Holly Sherwood and Laurie Sergeant. I'm pretty sure that each one of them had one of the "Eileen Aim and the Attackers" songs, because those really do sound like they're sung by two entirely different women.

Weird casting notes: Diane Lane's part was originally written for someone nearly twice her age -- or, in other words, someone slightly younger than she is NOW, which would have made the throughline of that film even weirder than it was -- and Amy Madigan's part was originally meant for a "grizzled war vet type", both male and older. Oddly enough, reportedly, they didn't do much rewriting for her character.

Weird musical note: both "Tonight is what it means to be young" and "Total eclipse of the heart" (not linked here, find your own 80s power pop!) were rewritten for Steinman's musical bomb Dance of the Vampires. Which explains one hell of a lot about the latter song, actually, if he had that in the back of his head when he was writing it. (Well ... "rewritten" -- "Total Eclipse" retained its title and most of its lyrics, although it became a duet [which makes a bit more musical sense, actually], and "Tonight is what it means to be young" became "Dance of the Vampires", which ... didn't really help that song. Not at any level. Seriously, just start playing the video, put it in the background, and follow along with the lyrics. There are some places where, clearly, the tune structure changed a bit, because there are words that don't match up with the song structurally. But still, I can't quite imagine that song in context. In ANY context. Though I do love the lyric change from "If I can't get an angel, I can still get a boy, and a boy would be the next-best thing" to "If I can't get a vampire, I can still get a boy...")

EDIT:: Someone out there has put the revised version on Youtube! It's very ... um ... yes. Very. (Seriously, who knew you could make a Steinman song worse by taking the bombast out?)

So, that was ... that. Yes. It was.

The only commercially successful song from the film. Oddly enough, NOT the version briefly heard in the film; that one has never gotten a commercial release.

I love this song in an entirely unironic way. Mostly because when it first came out, I was actually young enough to BE The Young. So to speak.

And now, for your Moment of Modernity:

One of the things I also love about songs about being young, in perhaps a slightly ironic way, is that essentially they're all "We are young and we are stupid because this is the time for being young and stupid so let us be young and stupid."

What I love about this version of the song, in particular, has nothing to do with the song per se. It's that they hired Janelle Monae to, as far as can be told, sing exactly four lines. Or the same line four times, depending on how you look at it. Except when you watch the video, you realize that they weren't so much interested in her singing, but in having her physical presence in the video. In the past three or four years, she's created such a visually distinct persona that it was worth putting her in just to Be Janelle Monae, an oasis of stylish calm in the midst of all that Gallagher-inspired chaos. That's weirdly impressive.

That said, the acoustic version of the song makes it a bit more clear why she got a "featuring" credit (and frankly, I like it a whole lot more -- although, oddly enough, it comes across as a much more melancholy song this way):

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