Dollhouse: c/o Buffyfest, a Buffy Blog

Trying to understand the "appropriate" Whedonite response to Dollhouse.

Look out below!

Because it took me so long to hammer out (and because I kept getting distracted by other posts), a...hmmm, unique review of a recent conference I attended is now available for viewing a few posts down.

Or, simply click here!

A cathedral of books: A nerd's wet-dream

Although I have a queue of drafted posts eagerly awaiting my (recently neglected) attention, I can’t help but compose this one, about the day I had at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, purposefully perusing the archived papers of Margaret Atwood and Dennis Lee.

I had never been to the archives at U of T (I was an undergrad at Queen’s and a Master’s student at McMaster). In fact, I had never been on the U of T campus, except, perhaps, casually, on this tour or that of the great (?) city of Toronto. Despite any misgivings I may have had about the university, I must admit; its resources are spectacular...at least what I saw of them, in my single, no-break day, sitting at the same desk in the same room, mulling over Lee’s editorial control (command?) of Atwood’s thematic guide to Canadian literature, Survival.

First things first: the extensive resources of said university unfortunately (or fortunately, if one takes into account the rapid progress I made today) do not include wireless access for non-students. I write this post in its original form as a Word document which I will later paste into my blog as if it were written there (though you now know it was not). Working without the distractions of Facebook and Hotmail and Blogger certainly provides more scope for the imagination (as Anne would say), and although I found myself tempted, at times, to pull out all of my hair, not knowing what’s going on with Brangelina, my work and my friends, I am inclined to conclude, upon reflection, that I—and my research—were better for it.

But it’s still a bitch to go a whole day without a single email check, a single status update.

Which is not to say that I didn’t have all kinds of fun of a different kind (insert nerd glee). As I mention above, the archives are impressive (if you’re impressed by that sort of thing) and as is alluded to in the title, resemble an awe-inspiring, sky-crowning cathedral of books as you gaze up from the ground floor to the many tiers of material stored securely above. It’s even ominously lit (though, as a frequenter of the mid-work nap, I always wonder why such places are dim with lamps when fluorescent light gets the job done much more successfully for me). Maybe it is for effect, to set the mood. If this is the case, it works.

(Not to mention—as a tangent-y side note—my day began with some non-archival awe of its own, as I, for what must also be the first time in my life, lumbered down Bloor St. with laptop and handbag in tow, passing jaw-dropping store after jaw-dropping store (it seems I have finally discovered where the beautiful people shop). Tiffany’s, Louis Vuitton, Prada. These places don’t actually exist in my mind, so to see them so casually was difficult to reconcile.)

I don’t really know what to say about the experience of working at Fisher itself, though it certainly left its mark. I had to check my coat and bags at the door, sign in all over the place; the boxes (seven of them) were waiting for me when I reached the research room. I spent my day reading through Atwood’s notes and Lee’s notes and drafts of manuscripts and chicken scratch speeches and was really quite thrilled about the whole experience. I discovered that Atwood and I share some oddities in our writing style (and re-writing and editing and re-writing), especially when I came upon pages composed of other bits of pages which had been stapled into a cohesive order to form a new page (a trick I adopted in my final year of undergrad). I found similarities, too, between Lee’s editing style and my own, as well as a shared sense of humour (one of the first editorial comments I read was the following on a drafted chapter, urging for a little clarity: “Would be neat if somebody besides us and a few readers out there realised what is going on in the fucking book”). How could such a discovery not make a person a little giddy?

Most importantly, I hope I found enough material for the publication which is supposed to emerge from this little venture (I will be sure to link to it if it ever gets written, ever gets approved and ever gets published). I think I did. Certainly I recognize my success in cementing my nerd-cred as a blogger, having seriously discussed Joss Whedon and Dollhouse, Watchmen and the Atwood/Lee papers within the span of only a few posts.

One last treat for those of you still reading:

In a letter (dated November 10, 1973) from Peggy (Atwood) to Frances McCullough, a representative with the American publishing house of Harper & Row, Atwood considers the merits of ‘turning the whole thing (Survival) into a poetic epic’ and concludes her letter thus:

“In Canlit’s Fields the footnotes blow
Between the glosses, row on row....”

At least I can rest soundly knowing that, while I may be an incredible nerd, Margaret Atwood will always be nerdier.

Watching Watchmen

Eventually I will take the time to discuss my Watchmen movie-going experience in-depth (and offer my thumbs up or down, if I can ever get the damn thing to stop hovering somewhere in the middle), but for now here's a pretty solid review (surprisingly) from Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman.

I agree with almost everything he has to say, though, as mentioned, I do hope to nuance some of the suggestions with my own review (in time...).

"...even Watchmen fanatics may be doomed to a disappointment that results from trying to stay this faithful to a comic book....[Snyder] doesn't move the camera or let the scenes breathe. He crams the film with bits and pieces, trapping his actors like bugs wriggling in the frame."

"On the page, Watchmen was a paranoid, mind-tripping pastiche...What gave the graphic novel its hint of metaphyiscal cachet is the way that it collapsed chronology...A no-future nihilism bled from the very grain of Moore and Gibbons' pop vision of the 20th century."

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20262574,00.html

Lamest. Riddle. Ever.

So, all the blogs and posting boards are talking about Britney's new single and how it's so obscene.

I did not understand so had to look on further blogs and posting boards in order to find this little shocker.

Apparently Brit's new single, "If You Seek Amy," is a cleverly (?) disguised obscenity (get excited).

Still no idea?

That's right! All the posting board kids have noted how "If You Seek Amy" is a lot like "F. U. C. K. me" when sung.

......................


Really? Scandalous.

(This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. You're not even saying fuck. You're just spelling it. Just spell it properly in the lyrics and name the song something different. Or don't. Name it "F. U. C. K." Name it "Fuck Me." Why am I still even talking about this?)

Inspiring from within

No joke. That was the name of the conference I had the pleasure (?) to attend all day Friday (February 27th).

Inspiring From Within
"Ready, Set, Grow!"

I did not pay for this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Someone else in my office was supposed to go and when a deadline forced her to remain at the office, I was the lucky duck selected to attend in her place. Before I proceed to rip to shreds every last conference-y minute, allow me to first note that a day out of the office is a day worth celebrating regardless, and having emerged with a pot of mint, a bag full of goodies and my own artistic creation (see photo below for the prettiest art of all the art), as well as a tummy full of free catered food, I really have nothing to complain about.


Of course, if I actually had nothing to complain about, then I wouldn't be able to blog about it and you would have nothing to read.
So, hurray for you. And me.

I was a little late getting downtown to the hotel at which the conference was being held. You see, I refused to leave any earlier than I would have left for work so it put my arrival time about 10 minutes before the opening remarks, when, according to the program, it should have been 40-50 minutes before that. When I finally arrived and registered, picked up some coffee and breakfast and entered the main ballroom, most people were already seated. Most had already consumed their free breakfasts (muffins, muesli, pretentious-looking fruit/vegetable drinks, COFFEE). Most evidently judged my almost-tardiness. (Most were approximately 20-30 years my senior.)

As the conference officially commenced, it didn't take me long to make the most significant observance I would make of the entire day: middle-aged working women are incredibly rude.

Whoa! How dare I indulge in such a generalization! (Especially since I will go on to criticize equivalent generalizations made throughout the event.) Well, given my age (24 years) and background (this is my first year working full-time, having formerly been in pre-, elementary, high, undergraduate and graduate school with no breaks until September 2008), my conference experience (before this gem, anyhow) consisted of science/technology and student leadership conferences in high school and an arts and business conference I attended two years straight at Queen's University. This was my first big kids conference and I therefore consider myself uniquely equipped to empirically recount observances of the unabashedly generalized kind.

Replacing the mostly attentive, incredibly enthusiastic (if a bit mischievous) high schoolers were ignorant, inattentive, rude-ass individuals. No one held doors, politely got out of the way if necessary or excused themselves for getting in anyone's way when that was the case. In any workshop at least half of the group could be overheard blatantly talking over the presenter, with no self-remorse or self-awareness. One woman was so determined to demonstrate to all twenty or so (completely disinterested) workshoppers that she knew more about herbs (yes, there was a workshop about herbs) than the guest speaker that I was truly concerned her head might snap off for its overzealous nodding. Another noted my planting of a second herb (for the colleague who was forced to be M.I.A.) with the greedy stare of a five year old child who has discovered another child's sucker is bigger than her own. You could see her bursting to tattle, until, finally, determining she could not go a second longer without having a comparable sucker of her very own, she plucked a second herb from the table and settled the score, narrating the whole experience ("Well, I didn't know we were allowed to plant two. Is everyone allowed to plant two? Well, I'm planting two. It's only really fair if I plant two"). She was approximately 50-60 years old...give or take 50 or 60 years.

Searing looks abounded, nothing was good enough, each individual knew more than every single presenter and everyone was too cool for school. Remember, like, grade five? Like that, except with no discipline or repercussions in the event of a misdemeanor (or several).

Well, they got one thing right. Nothing about this conference was good enough. Except my definition of "good" and theirs differ considerably.

Even universities have to face the realities of a recession (perish the thought!) and I continue to lose sleep at night knowing that each department spent at least $300/head so Mac employees could play with glue and magazine cuttings and plant two herbs (other activities included a yoga session and beet-cooking demonstration). The thing is, I'm entirely pro-conference and believe in team-building activities and all that crap but I don't think the planning committee could have possibly conceived a bigger and more expensive waste of time if they tried. Yep, it was pretty. Yep, it was shiny. But yep, we might as well have taken $200,000 and set it alight.

And that estimate is, in all likelihood, considerably low.

The worst part is this isn't the worst part. The opening keynote was unapologetically targeted at working mothers because apparently non-mother working women (and men, for that matter) do not exist. And when said keynote trilled the following anecdote (paraphrased), mine - as far as I could tell - was the only jaw to drop. I guess the original title of her book (because of course she had a book, available for sale in the lobby but please, she has requested no photographs be taken) was something like Inside Out: Straight Talk About Dealing With Cancer (roughly). But, oh no! Mere weeks before the book's publication her publisher phoned her in a tither, terrified at the prospect of having named a book by an upper-middle class, middle-aged, white working mother in a bone-chilling-ly similar way to a very different book by a homosexual man. Mark Tewksbury, as it turns out, had just published his own book, entitled Inside Out: Straight Talk from a Gay Jock. OMFG. What if, in their online, haphazardly clicking fervour, middle-aged working mothers across the nation accidentally ordered this (abomination) instead of hers? Imagine their HORROR (I really wish I were exaggerating this particular choice in wording but I really don't think I am) when they opened the couriered box and found that staring back at them.

I should have been less shocked to have found such proliferated closed-mindedness in such a venue and with such a group (generalization! I should really mark them in parentheses like this) and I probably shouldn't be so hard on a cancer survivor. After all, I'm not in the graduate seminar room anymore and the real world outside the Ivory Tower (sorry, kids!) is a very different place than the one we theorize. Hailing from a small Northern Ontario community, I, of all people, should have known that (again!).

So that was my day at my first work conference. Life-changing. I've probably been a little too brutal but I almost feel responsible for counteracting the complete hegemonic obliviousness of everyone else. And don't worry. These thoughts were recorded in detail for the planning committee to unceremoniously throw out. In fact, these comments could have won me a 13" flat screen TV. All I would have had to do is write my name and contact information...ON THE FEEDBACK FORM. Class, my friends. All the way.

Penny Arcade! shares my sentiment

A friend passed these links along after reading my previous post. Very apt.

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/2/27/

http://penny-arcade.com/2009/2/27/