rusty_halo

Home from Wincon. Good to hug my cats. I will miss the nights of uninterrupted sleep, though. (Lucifer has me up at 6am for kitty breakfast.)

Sadly 10zlaine couldn’t come, but it was a lot of fun to hang out with soundingsea. We stayed in a lovely B&B, toured several historical buildings and took a ton of walking tours (I think 4? the cocktail tour was the best ;) and even managed to find decent vegan food (Wandering Buddha vegan Korean!). Oh, and we took a trip to the bayou and held a baby alligator. :)

The con was okay, but I was sad that so few people I knew were able to make it. It’s hard being a newbie at a con where everyone seems to know each other, especially when you’re an extreme introvert.

But hey, good to escape work for a few days, and wonderful to hang with soundingsea.

Oh and I loved the SPN episode, of course. :)

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Anyone else going to the Rally to Restore Sanity tomorrow?

I’m going alone and will probably be wandering around by myself until I find someone I know. (Luckily I know quite a few people who are going, so hopefully I’ll manage to run into at least one of them. There’s even a fangirl meetup although I don’t know if I’ll be able to find them.)

For some ungodly reason I decided to take a 6:45am train (!!!) and to stay over Saturday night instead of Friday night. Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking. Or what I’m going to do after the rally. Again, hoping I’ll run into someone who’ll want to hang out.

Then I’m coming back to New York Sunday morning and seeing the Dresden Dolls at Irving Plaza Sunday night. That should be a fun thing to do for Halloween. Although honestly I think I’d rather spend my weekend curled up on my couch watching Supernatural instead of all this traveling and going out. I’m just going to have to face up to the fact that I am a giant geek.

I should go to sleep as soon as I get home tonight since I’m going to have to get up at 5am tomorrow (*sob*), but nothing is going to keep me away from tonight’s Supernatural, so maybe I’ll pack, take a nap, wake up for SPN, and then go back to sleep. Hopefully that’ll work and I won’t be a complete zombie at the rally.

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My favorite day of the trip was the day we went to Fontainebleau. The weather was perfect, the gardens were stunning, and the palace itself was full of fascinating history. (These are also the best photos I took, so if you look at any, look at these!)

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Finally we get to the good photos! The first day of the Lymond tour in Paris…

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After seeing Hamlet in Sheffield on Saturday night, I headed to London on Sunday morning.

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Here’s my first post of vacation photos from my two week trip to Sheffield, London, and Paris.

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I’m home! Paris was wonderful. I woke up desperately missing my morning walk past Notre Dame and the river Seine, but very happy to be back with Lucifer and Angel. John Simm’s Hamlet was also fantastic–I thought he was incredible, very emotionally moving and darkly funny, actually better than Tennant, though the overall production wasn’t as good as the RSC’s. And I got his autograph and babbled like an idiot about how wonderful he was, and he thanked me for coming very sincerely with those gorgeous eyes. ♥♥♥ And then I got home and watched Supernatural–I liked 6×02 better than 6×03, but both made me happy. Both episodes had moments that made me either laugh or cheer out loud, which means I’m definitely still in the honeymoon stage of the fandom.

I don’t even know where to start about Paris. The Lymond tour was amazing, Fontainebleau and its gardens were wonderful, Versailles’ gardens with the fountains running were awesome, the Louvre!!! and the Cluny and the Orsay and all the walking tours and the stained glass and the old buildings and streets and the ridiculous glittering Eiffel Tower! I really loved it and will post more details/photos later.

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Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are hosting rallies in Washington DC. Click the link for details and clips. I am so totally going. Just booked a hotel room nearby to make sure I have one before they sell out.

( spoilers for the SPN S6 CW promos )

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So, I went to Vividcon over the weekend. It was fun. I met many of interesting people and learned a hell of a lot about the history, culture, and aesthetics of vidding. I also had the pleasure of hanging out with the lovely soundingsea for three days. (This is brief–I will probably write up a more detailed con report later.)

And then I went to Lollapalooza and saw Soundgarden–despite arriving late and missing their first four songs, I managed to get to the front, about 15 rows back, without, y’know, shoving anyone or being a jerk. It was loud and muddy and hot and FUCKING AMAZING, you guys, Soundgarden!!! Although I do have to admit that I’m not sure how much of my joy is organic to me at the moment and how much comes from imagining how happy my 14-year-old self would be. But whatever. Soundgarden! They played “Mailman” and “Like Suicide” and “Fourth of July”! And the view of the Chicago skyline was beautiful. I am happy.

Then I walked back to my brother’s apartment and hung out with him for a little while because he was generous enough to let me sleep on his couch. He has a fantastically swanky apartment–one of those condos that was built to sell and has gone rental due to the recession. Huge, new appliances, beautiful view… not that I’m jealous or anything. :P Although he’s going to have to move once the economy picks up, which is not something I’d want to deal with.

His dog, Darth, was the family dog when I was a kid. Darth is now thirteen, nearly blind, totally deaf, and with a funny little white beard. My brother communicates with him in sign language, which is actually pretty amazing to see–Darth clearly understands everything my brother is telling him and is just as enthusiastic and impatient as ever. It’s also funny because even though he’s ancient and tottering, he’s still the same old Darth, sweet and happy and totally opportunistic when it comes to food. I’m glad I got to see him again.

So then I managed to sleep for two hours, got up, went to the airport, caught my 6:30am flight (which due to delays ended up taking fours hours), slept very uncomfortably crammed into a middle seat, came home, slept all day, and am not adjusting so well to the return to work grind. *sigh*

VVC report and recs post coming soon!

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* New White Collar promo. It’s mostly old footage but it sure does make the show look sexy. (Where’s Elizabeth, though?)

* I GOT A SECOND ROW TICKET TO SEE JOHN SIMM IN HAMLET! :)

Now I just have to figure out how the hell I’m going to make a detour to Sheffield on my way from NYC to Paris (for the Lymond thing). It’s looking like I can fly from JFK to Manchester and take a train to Sheffield, see the play, take a train to London and spend a day there, then take a train to Paris. Icelandair is currently showing round trips from JFK to Manchester with a return from Paris to JFK for about $700 total–that’s a better price than I expected, although I’m a little iffy about the stopover in Reykjavik.

(Does anyone out there have experience with any of this–is that a sane plan or would you recommend something else?)

* jaydk and I went to see Metropolis at Film Forum. The restored footage was way cool, but the image would’ve been better if we’d waited for the DVD. Movie theaters have pretty much lost their allure now that I have a giant television.

* We also got tickets to see Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which is um, a political satire in the form of an emo rock musical? I don’t know, but it looks fun.

* Stone Temple Pilots are touring, but they’re not playing NYC proper. I don’t want to go out to Jones Beach, but maybe I’ll go to the Borgata in Atlantic City. Apparently there’s now a train that goes there from NYC, and the Borgata is a good venue–it’s small and GA and half the crowd leaves in the middle to gamble, which means I can usually get right up front (I saw Depeche Mode standing in the third row there). But on the minus side it’s a long trip, it’s expensive, and they have a new album which means I’d have to stand through a bunch of new songs that I don’t care about. Hmmm.

* I did get a ticket to see “BlackDiamondSkye” at Madison Square Garden, which is Alice in Chains and the Deftones apparently? I dunno, I couldn’t resist seeing AIC at MSG, even though this is probably too much dude music for me, and I really don’t like the new AIC songs.

* rm has been posting interesting thoughts on season six of BtVS and, man, thinking about that era brought back all these unhappy emotions from seven years ago that I didn’t even know I still had. I reassert my vow never to become so negatively emotionally involved in a fandom again. (Note my complete lack of posts about Moffat’s Who.)

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So, um, I kind of seem to have started watching Supernatural.

I’m afraid that jaydk is going to disown me as a friend.

We went to Ford Lauderdale for the weekend, which was fun. We got a cheap vacation deal–flew direct, stayed in a hotel on the beach with a decent pool and a pool bar, and basically just relaxed for three days. The weather was lovely. We got around via the water taxi, which stopped right near our hotel and took us downtown for only $7 after 7pm (where I managed to survive via that old desperate vegan standby, veggie sushi). The water taxi itself was quite fun, as it involved a narrated tour past the absurd, ostentatious, and often quite lovely mansions of the rich and famous which perch over the waterways. Aside from that, the public transportation was so terrible–every time I leave New York it hits me how absurdly car centric the city planning of most of the USA is. It didn’t have to be this way, and it’s sad, and thank god I live in NYC.

( and I started watching Supernatural (please don't read this if you don't want to read criticism of SPN or if you're going to lose all respect for me for watching it) )

Other stuff:

* I began a re-read of Dorothy Dunnett's Checkmate (the last book in the Lymond series) during vacation, since it's the one that takes place mostly in Paris and I'm headed to Paris in October for the Lymond fan gathering, LeSpit. (Talk about high and low art--going from Checkmate to Supernatural I literally felt my brain melting out of my ears.) Checkmate's never been my favorite--I think I've usually got Dunnett fatigue every time I've gotten to it before. Jumping into it with fresh eyes was a revelation--it really works much better if you treat it as a standalone, with the previous novels as background but with its own locations and characters and plot points. Instead of being frustrated with having to get to know new characters AGAIN when I really just want to know what's going to happen to the characters I already care about, I found myself enjoying this one in its own right for the first time.

* My cats were so happy to have me back. Angel sat on my lap for all eight Supernatural episodes, and Lucifer's been sleeping on my pillow with his arms wrapped around my head.

* I saw Hole at Terminal 5 last night. It was terrible--they played for less than an hour and seemed to put in very little effort. It was nice to hear a snippet of "Pretty on the Inside," but aside from that, they only played three songs from Live Through This (all singles) and nothing else from the olden days. Man, I'd kill to hear "Drown Soda." None of their new stuff was particularly impressive, and Courtney mostly seemed bored. (On a shallow level, her plastic surgery just bothers me. Her old nose was fine! I thought she was so hot when I was a kid. *sad sigh*)

It was also exhausting--to be in the front I'd had to stand for 2.5 hours through two opening bands (the first terrible, the second decent) and then put up with a batshit mosh pit (people kicking and hair pulling to get to the front, big guys trying to bodysurf over small women--to the dude who tried to use my head and neck as a springboard during "Doll Parts" [seriously, during "Doll Parts"?!], I hope you die in a fire, and also OWWWWW).

Oddly enough I was at the same venue, standing in the same position, for Alice in Chains a few months ago, and their moshpit was nowhere near as life-threatening. Since when are Hole crowds nastier than Alice in Chains crowds?

* Just bought tickets to the midnight opening night showing of Iron Man 2 in IMAX. OMG CAN'T WAIT.

* This fantastic Doctor Who vid has been all over my flist: Tenth Doctor: The Musical by

di_br. Awww, I miss Ten. (Thus far I haven't read anything about Moffat's Who that's made me want to watch.)

* This post about protagonist privilege by

londonkds is fascinating. I can see in it an explanation for a lot of my frustrations with BtVS (as someone who loved Anya and Spike and was incessantly frustrated by them being distorted and deprioritized in order to "teach lessons" to the "real heroes") and I can also sooo see this as one of the major flaws of the Lymond Chronicles, even though I love it to pieces anyway. (It's much more pleasant when your favorite character is the hero, which is a big part of why I don't allow myself to get fannish anymore about anything in which my favorite character is not the lead--it's just maddening to realize that your favorite can be ruined at whim in service of the lead character's "growth.")

* My favorite clip of Jon and Stephen on The Daily Show (the one with Prince Charles and the banana). I dug this up the other day for a friend who hadn't seen it and am posting the link in case anyone missed it--it's awesome.

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Puerto Rico is wonderful. :)

I’m posting updates and photos (like instant postcards!) via Twitter. If you want to follow along:
http://twitter.com/drinkthepoison

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I’m going to be in Chicago on Friday and Saturday for my brother’s wedding. I’m busy with wedding stuff in the evenings, but I’ve got the mornings and afternoons to do stuff. Any recommendations?

I’m staying downtown, here. I might end up defaulting to the one day Frommer’s thing but personal recommendations are always appreciated.

(If nothing else, I think I’ll have to go to the art museum featured in Ferris Bueller…)

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* Um. There’s an Edward Cullen bedsheet set. This might be the most disturbing thing I have ever seen.

* I watched the two John Simm Netflix DVDs that have been lying around my house for the past six months. The first was a TV show called Cracker, in which adorable young Simm plays a deeply fucked up young killer who just wants to be loved. Awww. You kind of want to snuggle the poor darling… and then lock him up for life. It was fun to watch, but nothing new; pretty much the same thing he did in Chiller (which was more fun because of the gay subtext with his evil imaginary friend).

Then I watched Wonderland… or, I should say, the first half hour of Wonderland, before I couldn’t take it any more and had to fast forward to only the Simm parts. It’s apparently a movie about a bunch of incredibly boring, miserable people, who go about their boring lives being miserable. I guess it’s supposed to be “realistic,” but it was just pathetic. Admittedly I only got part way through… maybe it got better? Simm didn’t have much to do anyway; he played one of the many boring pathetic losers, basically Danny Kavanagh without the spark. I don’t understand why people make movies like this. Even if some peoples’ lives are this dull, who would want to watch a film about it?

Between Wonderland and The Devil’s Whore, I am beginning to doubt the conventional wisdom that John Simm has great taste in projects. At least we’ll always have Life on Mars and Doctor Who. And I still haven’t seen anything as bad as the crap I endured during my Sean Bean phase.

* I had a peculiar weekend.

( Saturday I got way too drunk at my friend Livi's holiday party )

Sunday I had to drag myself out of bed to go to the Museum of Modern Art, because I'd bought a ticket in advance. I got there at 3pm and it closes at 5:30pm; the world is just not made for night people. Or hungover people. >:( But thanks to coffee and tylenol, I managed to enjoy the Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night exhibit. I know it's a cliche, but it really is so much more incredible to see an actual painting in person. They had both of my favorites, Starry Night Over the Rhone and The Starry Night. Which I also know is also a cliche, but... they're really popular because they're really amazing! It's stunning how beautiful they are, and how vivid the colors are when you see them in person. The exhibit was actually pretty small--something like 40 paintings--with a focus on how Van Gogh captured the light and the "spiritual qualities" of night. It was definitely worth seeing; I'm glad I finally made it there. (If you're going, buy your museum ticket online in advance and you're guaranteed entrance to the Van Gogh exhibit; otherwise you have to get a timed entry ticket, which they might sell out of before you arrive.)

Then I went to the Looking at Music exhibit, which honestly just seemed to be a bunch of stuff from the 60s and 70s randomly thrown together based on what had been donated to MOMA. However, they did have Bowie's "Space Oddity" video running on constant repeat, and I watched it through a couple times because I couldn't get over the novelty of watching a music video I like at a big fancy art museum. I wish I had thought to the use the "It's ART!" justification when trying to convince my parents to let me watch MTV as a kid. :P Oh, and I rather optimistically bought two tickets for the Bowie music video screening on Friday night. I don't know what I was thinking; now I have to find someone to take the second ticket. But I'm really glad I got one for me. Even though it's just music videos, it's music videos on a big screen! At a museum! Sorry, I just find it really amusing, in a good way. :)

* I'm trying not to panic about the holidays. Trying being the operative word. There is nowhere in the world I'd less rather go than Southern Indiana, but I owe my parents for helping me move, so I'm going. Wasting time and money I really can't spare to go be miserable out in the middle of nowhere, while my cats are left alone with a catsitter I can't afford and I have nothing to do and no one to talk to and nothing to eat and... just... oh my god I don't want to go. *sigh*

Current Mood: blah emoticon

blah

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( Things I miss about the UK )

( Things I missed about the US )

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Virgin America is having a sale. My Gallifrey One plane tickets are booked!

jaydk and I are arriving Thursday night and leaving Monday morning.

Hope to see many of you there! :)

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I never, ever, ever want to be offline for twelve days straight EVER AGAIN.

*hugs flist*

Pictures soon!

Current Mood: happy emoticon

happy &

sad

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Proof that the stuff I’ve been working my ass off on has some impact on the world:

* SuperVegan got a really nice plug from Ecorazzi yesterday.

* We announced Writercon! And tons of people already registered to appear on the attendees list. It’s actually happening!

* I finished the Freelance Project of Doom! Which is pretty much all I’ve been doing (aside from announcing Writercon) over the past five days. Now if I could just get the client to pay me before I leave for London… (*crosses fingers*)

I now have a giant to-do list of boring stuff like laundry, cleaning, and packing. Did I mention that I’M LEAVING FOR LONDON ON SATURDAY MORNING?!!!!!!

Um, so, what should I do in London? Who wants to meet up? What are the must-see things? I’ve been so busy trying to finish up everything before I leave that I’ve barely had any time to plan the trip.

( Vague plans so far )

And then (OMG!!!) Stratford.

Am I missing anything? What's the must-do stuff when you're spending nine days in London?

I think there are several people I need to exchange email addresses or phone numbers with... send me an email at laura@rusty-halo.com if you're one of them. :)

Current Mood: excited emoticon

excited

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( I went to the Candle 79 5th anniversary party last night )

Other things I'm meaning to do sometime soon:

* Van Gogh and the Colors of the Night at MOMA

* Gothic: Dark Glamour exhibit at the Fashion Institute of Technology

Meanwhile,

jaydk and I have booked our London hotel and are now planning the specifics of our trip (OMG! Less than a month!!!) and I think I've found a catsitter who is experienced and isn't going to charge me an arm and a leg to watch my cats (*fingers crossed*). There are no words for how much I'm looking forward to this London/Stratford trip; it's the one thing that's kept me going all year.

And... we booked a hotel and bought tickets for Gallifrey One, so I guess that means we're going. I remain wary, but I suppose it's worth trying it out once, and if it's awful I never have to go back. I did very much enjoy chatting with the new Who fen I managed to find at DragonCon, so let's hope it's worth it. Plus I really am curious to hear what the new Who writers have to say. :)

Current Mood: hopeful emoticon

hopeful

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Virgin Atlantic’s having a sale, so I JUST BOOKED MY FLIGHT TO LONDON.

OMG YAY!!!! :)

Current Mood: jubilant emoticon

jubilant

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Home from New Orleans

Anyone else going to the Rally to Restore Sanity tomorrow?

Vacation Photos – Fontainebleau

Vacation Photos – Paris!

Vacation Photos – Sun October 3/Mon Oct 4 in London

Vacation Photos – Saturday October 2 in Sheffield

I’m home!

Happy Things

My weekend in Chicago (Vividcon in brief, Lollapaloooza, family)

Linkspam & Random Updates

I kind of seem to have started watching Supernatural

hello from Puerto Rico

Two Days in Chicago

the weekend, Simm movies, and random thoughts

UK vs US

JFK to LAX for $289

Home!!!!

What Should I Do in London?

Out and About

It’s Really Happening!

rusty-halo.com

August 2018

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