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shadowkatMomster: Barabara Billingsly died today.
Me: Who?
Momster: Mrs. Leave it To Beaver - you remember?
Me: Wasn't she already dead?
Momster: No, she died at 94. You should remember her - you actually saw her and Tony Dow in person in high school drama class. It was Max Brown's class. You came home and told me all about it. About how she always wore pearls and it helped put her in character?
ME: Uhhh...I have no memory of this. (Struggling to remember...the best I can do is come up with a foggy pic of two people sitting on stage answering questions, but that's it.) Sure it wasn't Junior High?
Momster: No, high school. I remember you telling me.
Me: okay. You are doing a great job keeping track of all these old tv and movie stars and their deaths. While I'm keeping track of well the younger ones. What a pair we make.
Kidbro was a huge fan of Leave it To Beaver, watched it endlessly. We used to fight. I wanted to watch Battle of the Planets, he wanted to watch Leave it To Beaver. Kidbro's taste continues to
blow my mind. And of course we are both highly opinionated people, argumentative, self-deprecating, and with a dry wit (which we inherited from dear old Dad.) Kidbro also likes Three's Company, Bangle, Angel the Series better than Buffy (although he did watch both and to my incredibly embarrassment, had a friend compliment him on having a sister who wrote a massive amount of meta on the topic. I don't think anyone (who hasn't gotten paid for it) has written more. What can I say? Too much frigging time on my hands? Yep. Oh well, I met some really cool and smart people through it. Was also on a rather sane board - ATPO - our fights usually went off on sub-tangents about Shakespeare, 18th Century History, Zen Buddhaism, Indonesian mythology, and biological selection. We also had a knock-out, drag-out fight over Campbell and cultural anthropology. And an interesting battle over whether women could be effective firefighters and police officers. Much more productive than the shipper wars and Spike wars - which appear to be going on ad naseum. Seriously, people are STILL fighting over this stuff. Different players, same words. Highly amusing, and aggravating - at the same time.
Speaking of fights. My father (Popster) has the same tendency I do. Here's what happened at his small group ministry this past week.
Question: In one sentence, how would you describe Jesus Christ?
Popster: An illiterate Jewish peasant.
Me: So how did that go?
Popster: Not well.
Me: You answered the question from the perspective of an historian.
Popster: Pretty much.
Me: I get the feeling that was not the response they were looking for.
Popster: You know what they had under my high school photo in the year book?
Me: What?
Popster: Skeptic and frank with words.
Me (sigh): So, what you're telling me is the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree?
(Like it or not, folks, we are our parents children. My father's father was a skeptic, not religious, and frank with words - he had a very dry wit and was critical.)
See? Is it any wonder that my favorite character is a snarky vampire who makes fun of things including himself? I don't mind snark - as long as the writer mocks themselves. I mock everything about myself. My pseudonyme. My interests. I don't see my taste as sophisticated. I watch daytime soap operas, hello, and enjoy weird shows that no one has heard of. I criticize myself before anyone can get there - which may explain why I hate criticism. IF you are highly self critical, you tend to see the criticism coming a mile away and are hyper wary. I see all the negative responses to posts, before the positive ones. I delete and edit my snark. (Yes, I'm snarkier than you actually see. In my last review I kept deleting things that I knew some of my readers would take the wrong way. I always am. I edit as I write. And if upon re-reading a post that I've posted, I see something that will or could be misinterpreted (and trust me if I've learned anything about net posting, people always misinterpret what you write, there will always be at least one person will read what you wrote in a way you never ever imagined or intended. And trying to convince them that they read it wrong ...ends in a game of :yes you did, no I didn't, yes you did, no I didn't. ). Best you can do - try to fend that off.
Speaking yes/no arguments? That's my frustration with fandom. 89% of the arguments are basically yes it is, or yes he/she/it did vs. no it isn't, no he/she/it didn't. So I will state this as loudly as I can: IT BEHOOVES US ALL TO TOLERATE OPINIONS THAT ARE THE OPPOSITE OF OUR OWN AND REALIZE THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE TO INTERPRET BOOKS, FILMS, TV SHOWS, AND THEATER IN A VASTLY DIFFERENT MANNER THAN WE DO, AND ADMIT THAT OUR VIEW IS NOT THE RIGHT, THE ONLY, OR THE CORRECT ONE. IT IS EASY TO BE FRIENDS WITH PEOPLE WHO AGREE AND SEE THINGS THE SAME WAY WE DO, IT IS FAR HARDER TO BE FRIENDS WITH THOSE WHO DON'T.
I think what I said above is very hard to do. Speaking for myself - I wrestle with it every day.
I've lost count of the number of times I wanted to tell someone they had bad taste, were a complete idiot, and how in the heck could they not see that - duh! But. Once I calm down, I realize...from a perspective and experience different from my own, it looks different. It's well like the scene of an accident or anything actually - ask a bunch of your friends about their memories of an event you all attended - I'm willing to bet you that they provide vastly different and contradictory reports of it. Our unique perspective makes us human. Interesting. But it can also be divisive. Frustrating. It's why we have wars. And wars are often over dumb things.
And we all want everyone to like and love what we do. I got very lonely last week. And part of that was this feeling of being an outcast, not a part. Disenfranchized. Half of the things I love - I can't find any one else who does.
I don't tell ANYONE in my personal life that I buy comic books. I hide them in my purse. I'm embarrassed to go in the store. And when I let it drop to Momster, there's a pregnant pause. Where she tries not to say...I thought you finally grew out of that phase. Comic books is something the mainstream pokes fun at. People on my flist have - they've poked fun at comic books and soap opera watching, as if it is somehow beneath them. I remember defending soaps to a guy in law school, stating it's no different than watching football. It isn't. Football is no loftier a past time.
They both serve as a means of escape from stress and daily lives. That said? I mock soap operas.
And the crazy fans - sigh, soap fans are as bad as football fans, they make Buffy fans look remarkably sane. Then again, maybe they are all the same.
I'm rambling again. And most likely pissing people off? Can't tell. Hope it doesn't sound didatic?
It's hard to tell how someone else will perceive you. And I tend to write stream of consciousness, unedited, streams of writing, unplanned. Raw. Sometimes it strikes a chord, sometimes not.
I think we like to make fun of that which we don't understand? I noticed a trend in the Not My Fandom fanficathon. Everyone was writing drabbles that essentially made fun of or poked fun at television shows they hadn't watched or watched just a few episodes of. My favorite prompt - was the Buffy one - where the prompter stated: a cheerleader, a slacker, a nerd, and a librian fight supernatural happenings in a small town, while their lives dissolve into a soap opera, and love ones die frequently. I laughed my head off. It does, and it doesn't describe the show. It would be like me describing football thusly: a game in which two teams of men attempt to kill each other over the possession of a pigskin ball. It does and it doesn't describe the game.
We belittle each other. We belittle ourselves. It's funny today, I listened to a speech about Caritas. Charity. And the ending point, was our society is moving further and further away from charitable acts or Caritas. We are becoming increasingly critical of those who aren't self-reliant, increasingly critical. I see it in myself. I see it in those around me. And I know due to my frustrations with work and personal issues, I'm increasingly snarky. What I want is people to join in the snark, but it never quite works out that way. I actually get better responses when I don't give in to it. I'm proud of the snark, yet also at the same time, not. Really not.
The one place I'm not snarky or critical in any way - is church, this new little Unitarian Universalist church that I've found or was lead to in a round about way. There I let myself be vulnerable. I let down my guard. The witty self-defense comes down. I find myself surrounded by people who share similar views, and I'm not terrified of walking on eggshells quite so much.
Or being branded self-righteous or politically correct.
I'd say I'm free to be me here. But that's not true. I'm not sure we are free in that way anywhere.
Many of us use the net as a shrink's coach, I know I have...at different points, as I'm sure many on my flist can attest to. And their charitable good will has at different points pulled me out of the abyss. But by the same token, I try to protect myself. I don't tell you everything. I do protect myself. We all do. And often through the viel of fandom, or tv shows, and characters, we discuss those things we deeply fear to state about ourselves. It's why I think there are such huge blowups. Why people get so angry over something that to an outside observer seems silly and minor - they aren't talking about Spike and Spider (eww, aranchnophobe here), or spacefrakking or a soulless vampire's horrible acts - but something else bubbling beneath the surface. It's what isn't said that we should be listening for. Looking at. What are they not saying? Why did our friend get so upset at a comic. OR so upset about what we said about it? To the point they felt the need to post a response to our glowing review? And why did we get so upset at their response or for that matter why did we react the way we did? Sometimes there is no explanation, but when the emotion is raw and intense, there's usually something bigger and completely unrelated to the comic or tv show or book.
This post is for me more than you. Through it - I'm hunting for my better self. My charitable self.
My ability to see a side other than my own. It is through writing that I cope with my world. It is through writing that I understand myself and those around me. That I can see my own contradictory and conflicting thoughts. It is through writing and always has been and hopefully always will be that I deal with the shadows, nightmares, dreams, and chaos that is both internal and external, and part of my life.
As final word on this very long rambling letter post...I had a nightmare last night. It was quite vivid. I was at a nightclub or bar, with members of my flist/fandom, and Joss Whedon had come to see us, along with two other producers and writers. I had a manuscript I was going to show them.
Part of the dream was me frantically hunting it. The worst part though was finding it and reading my poem or story or what not to them, and having Whedon rip it to shreds. Tell me how horrible it was, how amateur, and shrug off. Ignore me. It was so real. And I hated him. And in the back of my mind...which forced me awake, I wondered why I dreamt it. And thought thank god, it's just a dream, only a dream, and never ever will happen.
Me: Who?
Momster: Mrs. Leave it To Beaver - you remember?
Me: Wasn't she already dead?
Momster: No, she died at 94. You should remember her - you actually saw her and Tony Dow in person in high school drama class. It was Max Brown's class. You came home and told me all about it. About how she always wore pearls and it helped put her in character?
ME: Uhhh...I have no memory of this. (Struggling to remember...the best I can do is come up with a foggy pic of two people sitting on stage answering questions, but that's it.) Sure it wasn't Junior High?
Momster: No, high school. I remember you telling me.
Me: okay. You are doing a great job keeping track of all these old tv and movie stars and their deaths. While I'm keeping track of well the younger ones. What a pair we make.
Kidbro was a huge fan of Leave it To Beaver, watched it endlessly. We used to fight. I wanted to watch Battle of the Planets, he wanted to watch Leave it To Beaver. Kidbro's taste continues to
blow my mind. And of course we are both highly opinionated people, argumentative, self-deprecating, and with a dry wit (which we inherited from dear old Dad.) Kidbro also likes Three's Company, Bangle, Angel the Series better than Buffy (although he did watch both and to my incredibly embarrassment, had a friend compliment him on having a sister who wrote a massive amount of meta on the topic. I don't think anyone (who hasn't gotten paid for it) has written more. What can I say? Too much frigging time on my hands? Yep. Oh well, I met some really cool and smart people through it. Was also on a rather sane board - ATPO - our fights usually went off on sub-tangents about Shakespeare, 18th Century History, Zen Buddhaism, Indonesian mythology, and biological selection. We also had a knock-out, drag-out fight over Campbell and cultural anthropology. And an interesting battle over whether women could be effective firefighters and police officers. Much more productive than the shipper wars and Spike wars - which appear to be going on ad naseum. Seriously, people are STILL fighting over this stuff. Different players, same words. Highly amusing, and aggravating - at the same time.
Speaking of fights. My father (Popster) has the same tendency I do. Here's what happened at his small group ministry this past week.
Question: In one sentence, how would you describe Jesus Christ?
Popster: An illiterate Jewish peasant.
Me: So how did that go?
Popster: Not well.
Me: You answered the question from the perspective of an historian.
Popster: Pretty much.
Me: I get the feeling that was not the response they were looking for.
Popster: You know what they had under my high school photo in the year book?
Me: What?
Popster: Skeptic and frank with words.
Me (sigh): So, what you're telling me is the apple really doesn't fall far from the tree?
(Like it or not, folks, we are our parents children. My father's father was a skeptic, not religious, and frank with words - he had a very dry wit and was critical.)
See? Is it any wonder that my favorite character is a snarky vampire who makes fun of things including himself? I don't mind snark - as long as the writer mocks themselves. I mock everything about myself. My pseudonyme. My interests. I don't see my taste as sophisticated. I watch daytime soap operas, hello, and enjoy weird shows that no one has heard of. I criticize myself before anyone can get there - which may explain why I hate criticism. IF you are highly self critical, you tend to see the criticism coming a mile away and are hyper wary. I see all the negative responses to posts, before the positive ones. I delete and edit my snark. (Yes, I'm snarkier than you actually see. In my last review I kept deleting things that I knew some of my readers would take the wrong way. I always am. I edit as I write. And if upon re-reading a post that I've posted, I see something that will or could be misinterpreted (and trust me if I've learned anything about net posting, people always misinterpret what you write, there will always be at least one person will read what you wrote in a way you never ever imagined or intended. And trying to convince them that they read it wrong ...ends in a game of :yes you did, no I didn't, yes you did, no I didn't. ). Best you can do - try to fend that off.
Speaking yes/no arguments? That's my frustration with fandom. 89% of the arguments are basically yes it is, or yes he/she/it did vs. no it isn't, no he/she/it didn't. So I will state this as loudly as I can: IT BEHOOVES US ALL TO TOLERATE OPINIONS THAT ARE THE OPPOSITE OF OUR OWN AND REALIZE THAT IT IS POSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE TO INTERPRET BOOKS, FILMS, TV SHOWS, AND THEATER IN A VASTLY DIFFERENT MANNER THAN WE DO, AND ADMIT THAT OUR VIEW IS NOT THE RIGHT, THE ONLY, OR THE CORRECT ONE. IT IS EASY TO BE FRIENDS WITH PEOPLE WHO AGREE AND SEE THINGS THE SAME WAY WE DO, IT IS FAR HARDER TO BE FRIENDS WITH THOSE WHO DON'T.
I think what I said above is very hard to do. Speaking for myself - I wrestle with it every day.
I've lost count of the number of times I wanted to tell someone they had bad taste, were a complete idiot, and how in the heck could they not see that - duh! But. Once I calm down, I realize...from a perspective and experience different from my own, it looks different. It's well like the scene of an accident or anything actually - ask a bunch of your friends about their memories of an event you all attended - I'm willing to bet you that they provide vastly different and contradictory reports of it. Our unique perspective makes us human. Interesting. But it can also be divisive. Frustrating. It's why we have wars. And wars are often over dumb things.
And we all want everyone to like and love what we do. I got very lonely last week. And part of that was this feeling of being an outcast, not a part. Disenfranchized. Half of the things I love - I can't find any one else who does.
I don't tell ANYONE in my personal life that I buy comic books. I hide them in my purse. I'm embarrassed to go in the store. And when I let it drop to Momster, there's a pregnant pause. Where she tries not to say...I thought you finally grew out of that phase. Comic books is something the mainstream pokes fun at. People on my flist have - they've poked fun at comic books and soap opera watching, as if it is somehow beneath them. I remember defending soaps to a guy in law school, stating it's no different than watching football. It isn't. Football is no loftier a past time.
They both serve as a means of escape from stress and daily lives. That said? I mock soap operas.
And the crazy fans - sigh, soap fans are as bad as football fans, they make Buffy fans look remarkably sane. Then again, maybe they are all the same.
I'm rambling again. And most likely pissing people off? Can't tell. Hope it doesn't sound didatic?
It's hard to tell how someone else will perceive you. And I tend to write stream of consciousness, unedited, streams of writing, unplanned. Raw. Sometimes it strikes a chord, sometimes not.
I think we like to make fun of that which we don't understand? I noticed a trend in the Not My Fandom fanficathon. Everyone was writing drabbles that essentially made fun of or poked fun at television shows they hadn't watched or watched just a few episodes of. My favorite prompt - was the Buffy one - where the prompter stated: a cheerleader, a slacker, a nerd, and a librian fight supernatural happenings in a small town, while their lives dissolve into a soap opera, and love ones die frequently. I laughed my head off. It does, and it doesn't describe the show. It would be like me describing football thusly: a game in which two teams of men attempt to kill each other over the possession of a pigskin ball. It does and it doesn't describe the game.
We belittle each other. We belittle ourselves. It's funny today, I listened to a speech about Caritas. Charity. And the ending point, was our society is moving further and further away from charitable acts or Caritas. We are becoming increasingly critical of those who aren't self-reliant, increasingly critical. I see it in myself. I see it in those around me. And I know due to my frustrations with work and personal issues, I'm increasingly snarky. What I want is people to join in the snark, but it never quite works out that way. I actually get better responses when I don't give in to it. I'm proud of the snark, yet also at the same time, not. Really not.
The one place I'm not snarky or critical in any way - is church, this new little Unitarian Universalist church that I've found or was lead to in a round about way. There I let myself be vulnerable. I let down my guard. The witty self-defense comes down. I find myself surrounded by people who share similar views, and I'm not terrified of walking on eggshells quite so much.
Or being branded self-righteous or politically correct.
I'd say I'm free to be me here. But that's not true. I'm not sure we are free in that way anywhere.
Many of us use the net as a shrink's coach, I know I have...at different points, as I'm sure many on my flist can attest to. And their charitable good will has at different points pulled me out of the abyss. But by the same token, I try to protect myself. I don't tell you everything. I do protect myself. We all do. And often through the viel of fandom, or tv shows, and characters, we discuss those things we deeply fear to state about ourselves. It's why I think there are such huge blowups. Why people get so angry over something that to an outside observer seems silly and minor - they aren't talking about Spike and Spider (eww, aranchnophobe here), or spacefrakking or a soulless vampire's horrible acts - but something else bubbling beneath the surface. It's what isn't said that we should be listening for. Looking at. What are they not saying? Why did our friend get so upset at a comic. OR so upset about what we said about it? To the point they felt the need to post a response to our glowing review? And why did we get so upset at their response or for that matter why did we react the way we did? Sometimes there is no explanation, but when the emotion is raw and intense, there's usually something bigger and completely unrelated to the comic or tv show or book.
This post is for me more than you. Through it - I'm hunting for my better self. My charitable self.
My ability to see a side other than my own. It is through writing that I cope with my world. It is through writing that I understand myself and those around me. That I can see my own contradictory and conflicting thoughts. It is through writing and always has been and hopefully always will be that I deal with the shadows, nightmares, dreams, and chaos that is both internal and external, and part of my life.
As final word on this very long rambling letter post...I had a nightmare last night. It was quite vivid. I was at a nightclub or bar, with members of my flist/fandom, and Joss Whedon had come to see us, along with two other producers and writers. I had a manuscript I was going to show them.
Part of the dream was me frantically hunting it. The worst part though was finding it and reading my poem or story or what not to them, and having Whedon rip it to shreds. Tell me how horrible it was, how amateur, and shrug off. Ignore me. It was so real. And I hated him. And in the back of my mind...which forced me awake, I wondered why I dreamt it. And thought thank god, it's just a dream, only a dream, and never ever will happen.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-19 01:14 am (UTC)Fandom, regardless of what it is - sports, Buffy, Doc Who, etc - has it's fights. People see things differently and get really frustrated that not everyone sees it the same way they do.