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May 16th, 2008
chadu
 | 02:13 am - [dfrpg] Who's Who
Work Journal: Updated entries through Elder Brother Gruff (AKA "Tiny"). That includes the complicated Dresden write-up. (+851 words; running total 3163 words)
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theonionfeed
| 01:00 am - San Diego Zoo, Prison Merge
http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/291428329/san_diego_zoo_prison_merge http://www.theonion.com/content/node/79443 SAN DIEGO—The new ultra-efficient complex is open to schoolchildren on field trips, family members of convicted felons, and state-appointed defense lawyers.
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theonionfeed
| 01:00 am - Vatican Okays Space Aliens
http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/291428330/vatican_okays_space_aliens http://www.theonion.com/content/node/79690 Vatican chief astronomer Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes stated that belief in extraterrestrial life is not contradictory with church doctrine because aliens...
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theonionfeed
| 01:00 am - That's What Host Of 'Showtime At The Apollo' Talking About
http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/291428331/thats_what_host_of_showtime http://www.theonion.com/content/node/79441 NEW YORK—Early reports indicate that yes—yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes—exactly what Showtime At The Apollo host Capone...
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gadge
 | 03:56 pm
Dear start of The Pelican Brief,
Feel free to be repeated in real life. My choices are Scalia and Brown.
Thanking you in advance,
Jules.
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bbcnewsworld
| 05:09 am - Lebanon leaders to meet in Qatar
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/7404034.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7404034.stm Lebanon's rival leaders are to meet in Qatar for talks aimed at pulling the country back from the brink of civil war.
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bbcnewsworld
| 05:47 am - Chinese leader visits quake area
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7404047.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7404047.stm Hu Jintao flies to Sichuan Province, where it is feared up to 50,000 people may have died in Monday's earthquake.
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wolodymyr
 | 09:37 pm
Last night I watched The Madness of King George again, with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) firepower. And realized that it's right up there with The Claim in terms of being a kind of dream-remix of my life. It expresses just about every horror and every wish I have coming out of my home life.
It features a terrorizing parent, united with his wife in open hatred of and vituperation towards their eldest child (who! ha! is secretly married!)
This is both truth and wish fulfillment. Both my parents seemed to hate me and insulted me a lot. But usually they traded off, and frankly they had a kind of flirting between them that consisted in one of them being awful to me and the other one being all coyly, ineffectually, "Oh, Stop!" Or telling me confidentially how the other parent had raged against me to him/her. The movie presents the relief of a unified front. Also, the relief of the child being the only problem. My folks also hated each other.
But the terrorizing parent is crazy.
True!
And everyone finds out.
Wish fulfillment.
When everyone finds out, the hated child stages a public show in which the father's murderous hatred for the child is made publicly clear.
Oh, damn, intense wish fulfillment there. People have had stomach aches/headaches/general physical malaise after dealing with my mother, because she's upsetting. And then sometimes, even after that, they get all "but she's your mother and she loves you!" on me. It was very much a wish to have the lie of that made clear.
At the same time, though, I also feel very much for the parents in that scene, because they've been set up. And I'm very familiar with the sense of being set up, in some family scene, to be put in some public position where my reaction is inevitable and will be punished, and that's the point. So I hate the son for doing that. And that feeling is very familiar, because I find hating myself very familiar. Fuck it, what's more familiar to an abused kid than going with the flow and hating oneself too? (I'm reminded also of Marla Singer in Fight Club, the relish Helena Bonham Carter takes in saying, and I take in hearing, "Good luck trying to save her. She used to be such a nice girl, we don't know what happened." It's the glottal satisfaction in the "her" that does it.) So, the hated kid accomplishes this thing I always longed to do, and I hate him for it, and feel for the abusive parents, which is a really safe feeling, that's who everyone feels for. And it's also sincere: I FEEL for them. And I totally do. I love them. I've imagined rich emotional connections to these people that exist only in my head. But it's so nice to feel gratified by the narrative for having made them!
Which brings us to:
When the abusive parents are outed as crazy, and power shifts, the general public at once deserts the parents, who have based all their authority on power rather than relationship, and so now are utterly alone.
Truth and wish fulfillment again. My relationship with my parents was based on nothing but power; that was it. So the without-power-there's-nothing of it was visceral. At the same time, though, it fills me with immense fear and sympathy. Because here's the thing: my mother was a very unhappy woman. Really, deeply unhappy. And no-one gave a shit. Her family mocks her - and only sometimes bothers to hides it. My father puts her down all the time. Her supposed friends don't really care about her. She strikes me as deeply and fantastically lonely, and vulnerable. All she has is some very thin illusions of power. Or she had them, over me. I have wanted intensely to rescue her from this. So when it comes up in the movie it's both a horror and a relief to have that danger - of being abandoned when you lose power - made clear.
Or is it only gratifying to see it in the movie, and imagine myself a willing rescuer?
Anyway, I'm thinking of that scene where Charlotte has been informed she's to be separated from George, and in a rage goes down to her son, who's basically gloating in front of a bunch of new courtiers, and he basically calls her a slut, but in a punning way so everyone laughs, and she reacts, and she slaps him. And then he's "So Offended," and everyone laughs again, and her rout is total and complete. And my heart is on absolutely every side of that - or no, more upsettingly - my mind, and my mental recognition, are with the child, and my emotions are with the mother.
Why? Because I'm a woman? Because I don't know how to side emotionally with my own experience? Because I'm only familiar with losing and not winning? Because the visceral experience I'm reliving - being desperate, and being derided for it and laughed at - is the depicted experience of the mother and not the child?
And then let's not forget -
Charlotte is basically rescued by her lady in waiting, who with PERFECT COOL appears, collects the Queen, and gives George Jr. that slightly lidded look of warning and inevitable victory?
Wish fulfillment.
That's not where the wish fulfillment attached to Lady Pembroke stops.
Throughout the king's madness, he sexually assaults Lady Pembroke, who through her bearing and behavior successfully conveys she doesn't like it, while simultaneously making it seem like it didn't happen, and so Charlotte, who spends a lot of time watching her husband jump all over this younger woman, and who loves her husband, NEVER ACCUSES THE YOUNGER WOMAN OF A SEXUAL TRANSGRESSION.
Jesus, did a day go by without my father suggesting that the relation of all women to all men is best described by a Benny Hill video, and without me mother accusing me of being a whore? With regard to that, this storyline is the pure unadulterated calamine lotion of fantasy. It's amazing! I could pop it back in the DVD player RIGHT NOW. If it was liquified, I'd shoot it. I can't handle needles, but fuck it, I'd LEARN.
And then there's the way in which this movie presents every type of son.
Anyway, my point is, watching it again, it got me, not because it was witty, or cleverly shot, or because I liked the costumes, or think it's nice to see what else Freddy from Room With A View got up to. It's because it speaks to me, personally, me, in all kinds of thick and immediate ways.
And yet I'm sure much of this recounting has been boring, or would elicit acid dismissal if brought into any kind of polite discussion. We don't talk about the ways that the echoes of art are distinctly personal. We don't talk about how much the meaning is tied to what we bring in. We pretend that the art itself contains something, or that if we share something in the experience we share something general. We want the the feeling, but avoid, avoid, avoid seeing ourselves.
That, argentla, is what I meant.
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overheardnyc
| 12:00 am - The Emotional Distress Alone Will Cost You Four-Weeks' Allowance
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/014682.html Little boy #1: I'm going to smash your bike!
Little boy #2: Well, if you smash my bike, I'm going to get a lawyer and sue you!
--Central Park
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pope_guilty
 | 01:03 am - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
So I got the slot on WIUX and, starting the week after next will be playing goth, darkwave, industrial, and a splash of good old-fashioned punk rock every Wednesday night from twelve to two.
So that's pretty much exactly the slot I wanted. Shiny.
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demiurgent
 | 12:08 am - The Twits.
These are the twits I twitted.
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kinesys
 | 11:51 pm - Led me down a river of perfumed limbs. Sent me to the street with the good time girls.
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thebitterguy
 | 11:10 pm - That sort of explains that
Okay, the LJ Comments thingy? The XML file that LJ produces is apparently only able to handle 10,000 comments. So, yeah, my first 10K comments will probably be reflected in that, but will also explain why there's a lot of comments missing.
The guy who created it was quite nice about the whole thing.
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drjon
 | 12:46 pm - Birthday Partees!
Keep Sunday arvo, May 25th free. I've booked the Alibi Room's downstairs Tiki Lounge from 4-8pm.
The venue can hold up to about 50 people, but I anticipate less. But let me know if you're coming, if you could.
Your presence would be the best present. If you do want to get me something, there's a link on my profile page, but the best thing I ever got for a birthday present was absolutely free, and I love Art. Especially Art made by my friends.
The menu is here. They do some very very nice vegetarian dishes.
Looking forward to seeing you!
(ED: I've invited a swag of peoples on Facebook, but if there's someone local I've forgotterated, please do let me know.)
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bbcnewsworld
| 02:23 am - Burma storm aid frustrations grow
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7403997.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7403997.stm Top aid officials ramp up pressure on Burma, as the military government insists it has cyclone aid under control.
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bbcnewsworld
| 02:15 am - US 'cyber-bully' mother indicted
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/americas/7403957.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7403957.stm A US woman whose daughter's friend committed suicide after she allegedly bullied her on MySpace is indicted by a Grand Jury.
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overheardnyc
| 10:00 pm - If Not, It Didn't Officially Happen
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/014681.html Hipster girl: When I was sixteen I dated this Jewish bisexual guy... He was so Jewish he wore a yarmulke.
Hipster guy: Did you blog about it?
--Central Park
Overheard by: Fixed Rider
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