{"@attributes":{"version":"2.0"},"channel":{"title":"I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel:","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/","description":"I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel: - LiveJournal.com","lastBuildDate":"Sat, 02 Oct 2010 12:22:49 GMT","generator":"LiveJournal \/ LiveJournal.com","image":{"url":"https:\/\/l-userpic.livejournal.com\/36591064\/201253","title":"I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel:","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/","width":"100","height":"97"},"item":[{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/166206.html","pubDate":"Sat, 02 Oct 2010 12:22:49 GMT","title":"the jouissance of exploded limits","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/166206.html","description":"Leo Bersani is rocking my world.



excerpt on sex:<\/b>

(reformatted according to my whim and for max online readability)

The social structures from which it is often said that the eroticizing of mastery and subordination derive are perhaps themselves derivations (and sublimations) of the indissociable nature of sexual pleasure and the exercise or loss of power.

To say this is not to propose an \"essentialist\" view of sexuality. A reflection on the fantasmatic potential of the human body... is not the same as an a priori<\/i>, ideologically motivated, and prescriptive description of the essence of sexuality. Rather, I am saying that those effects of power which, as Foucault has argued, are inherent in the relational itself (they are immediately produced by \"the divisions, inequalities and disequilibriums\" inescapably present \"in every relation from one point to another\") can perhaps most easily be exacerbated, and polarized into relations of mastery and subordination, in sex, and that this potential may be grounded in the shifting of experience that every human being has of his or her body's capacity, or failure, to control and to manipulate the world beyond the self.

...

I want... to argue that a gravely dysfunctional aspect of what is, after all, the healthy pleasure we take in the operation of a coordinated and strong physical organism is the temptation to deny the perhaps equally strong appeal of powerlessness, of the lost of control.

Phallocentrism is exactly that: not primarily the denial of power to women (although it has obviously led to that, everywhere and at all times), but above all the denial of value<\/i> to powerlessness in both men and women. I don't mean the value of gentleness, or nonaggressiveness, or even of passivity, but rather of a more radical disintegration and humiliation of the self. For there is finally, beyond the fantasies of bodily power and subordination that I have just discussed, a transgressing of that very polarity which, as Georges Bataille has proposed, may be the profound sense of both certain mystical experiences and of human sexuality.

In making this suggestion I'm also thinking of Freud's somewhat reluctant speculation, especially in the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality<\/i>, that sexual pleasure occurs whenever a certain threshold of intensity is reached, when the organization of the self is momentarily disturbed by sensations or affective processes somehow \"beyond\" those connected with psychic organization. Reluctant because... this definition removes the sexual from the intersubjective, thereby depriving the teleological argument of the Three Essays<\/i> of much of its weight.

On the one hand Freud outlines a normative sexual development that finds its natural goal in the post-Oedipal, genitally centered desire for someone of the opposite sex, while on the other hand he suggests not only the irrelevance of the object in sexuality but also, and even more radically, a shattering of the psychic structures themselves that are the precondition for the very establishment of a relation to others<\/i>.... Freud keeps returning to a line of speculation in which the opposition between pleasure and pain becomes irrelevant, in which the sexual emerges as the jouissance<\/i> of exploded limits, as the ecstatic suffering into which the human organism momentarily plunges when it is \"pressed\" beyond a certain threshold of endurance.

...

This sexually constitutive masochism could even be thought of as an evolutionary conquest in the sense that it allows the infant to survive, indeed to find pleasure in, the painful and characteristically human period during which infants are shattered with stimuli for which they have not yet developed defensive or integrative ego structures. Masochism would be the psychical strategy that partially defeats a biologically dysfunctional process of maturation.... This self-shattering [becomes] a masochism to which the melancholy of the post-Oedipal superego's moral masochism is wholly alien, and in which, so to speak, the self is exuberantly discarded.

The relevance of these speculations to the present discussion should be clear:

The self which the sexual shatters provides the basis on which sexuality is associated with power. It is possible to think of the sexual as, precisely, moving between a hyperbolic sense of self and a loss of all consciousness of self.... It is perhaps primarily the degeneration of the sexual into a relationship<\/i> that condemns sexuality to becoming a struggle for power. As soon as persons are posited, the war begins.

-- Leo Bersani, Is the Rectum a Grave? & Other Essays<\/i>

<\/a>

Meta: despite my scholastically-imposed hiatus from livejournal, you can tell where I locate the real academy in my life.","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/166206.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/166034.html","pubDate":"Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:39:27 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/166034.html","description":"1. I have commenced my Master's thesis on slash fanfiction. I'm going to make a bigger, public post about that later to throw out some ideas, hopefully get some feedback, maybe some methodological advice.

I am simultaneously working on that, the Chaucer paper I never got written and a paper about comic book superheroes & lyric poetry. My mind is a thicket of overlapping excitements. I vacillate between panic and feeling like a teenage ninja driving around in a giant robotic dinosaur.

I've agreed with myself that as soon as I get the superhero poetry paper done, I get to:

(a) read the Paige\/Jubilee Generation X<\/i> story that Maggie wrote<\/a>, like, 100 days ago, oh my god, please
(b) watch Inception<\/i>, which I still haven't seen, everyone loves it
(c) drive to the beach before winter sets in

If I got to do all those things some Saturday, I don't even fucking know-- what would happen--

2. I heart this Dinosaur Comics guest comic by Lore Sj\u00f6berg<\/a>, although it must be hard to write a funny comic when the regular writer has taken a leave of absence for a death in the family.

3. And I triple-heart this rebuttal<\/a> to a tumblr list of why it's a great idea to date writers.

1. Writers will romance you with words.<\/b> We probably won't. We write for ourselves or for money and by the time we're done we're sick of it. If we have to write you something there's a good chance it'll take us two days and we'll be really snippy and grumpy about the process.
2. Writers will write about you.<\/b> You don't want this. Trust me.
6. Writers will offer you an interesting perspective on things.<\/b> Yes. Constantly. While you're trying to watch TV or take a shower. You will have to listen to observations all day long, in addition to being asked to read the observations we wrote about when you were at work and unavailable for bothering. It will be almost as annoying as dating a stand-up comedian, except if you don't find these observations scintillating we will think you're dumb, instead of uptight.
9. Writers can think through their feelings.<\/b> So don't start an argument unless you're ready for a very, very lengthy explication of our position, our feelings about your position, and what scenes from our recent fiction the whole thing is reminding us of.
<\/blockquote>And my favorite:

12. Writers wear their hearts on their sleeves.<\/b> Serious advice: if you meet a writer who's actually demonstrative<\/i>, be careful.<\/blockquote>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/166034.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/165860.html","pubDate":"Thu, 05 Aug 2010 21:50:11 GMT","title":"All is vanity.","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/165860.html","description":"1. Pastor Terry Jones, author of Islam is of the Devil<\/i>, and his Dove World Outreach Center are hosting \"International Burn A Quran Day\"<\/a> this September 11th-- a move so noxious that even the National Association of Evangelicals is raising its voice in protest. You can see Jones' promotion of the event on Youtube here<\/a>. I plan to spend some time between now and then selecting some of my favorite ayat for the occasion.

2. I just put a line in my Herman Melville paper stolen from an old Jesus\/Little Drummer Boy fic. It used to be about Jesus Christ; now it is about Melville. Is that weird? Or awesome?

3. On a personal note, I am taking a fucking dive here in the Heartland. Stress from work and school has made a hard knot in my chest. I've been working for weeks on this Melville paper, out of time and money, simultaneously trying to fulfill my responsibilities as a friend and a sister and daughter; my rent is late; and I know this paper is an unforgivable indulgence, but I need it. Such that I have sussed out an endless feedback loop of guilt --> low self-worth --> defensive vanity --> stress --> guilt. Knowing I need to let go but unable or unwilling to change my behavior. Thinking, please let me just do this. I've already made too many ethical compromises, failed at too many things, etc. I'm already not good, but this<\/i> can be good.","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/165860.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/165580.html","pubDate":"Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:43:33 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/165580.html","description":"All you genius educated ballers-- can anyone translate this into English for me?

Aloysii Ivglaris ...: Christvs Iesvs, hoc est Elogiorvm pars prima, divina continens<\/b>






(if I owe you any kind of correspondence, jesus, I apologize; I have been engaged these last two weeks in slowly killing myself with Herman Melville, dried peaches and amphetamines, soon to deliver scholarly hustle unto the world.)","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/165580.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/165031.html","pubDate":"Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:00:42 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/165031.html","description":"So after nearly 30 yrs of doing things my way and just bitching all of the time, I have started taking amphetamines-- for the immediate purpose of writing term papers but possibly out of the weeds and into the rest of my life as desired. After several months of abusing my body with alcohol and Red Bull, I feel pretty okay about it; only I do feel residual superstitions about, you know, mucking around up there in the brain area with something potent enough to require a prescription.

I want to write about it both to invite anyone's input and to self-monitor for any of the psychological side effects listed on Wikipedia: euphoria, anxiety, increased libido<\/b>, alertness, concentration, energy, self-esteem, self-confidence, sociability, irritability, aggression<\/b>, psychosomatic disorders, psychomotor agitation, hubris, excessive feelings of power and superiority<\/b>, repetitive and obsessive behaviors, paranoia-- although, let's face it, that's kind of me already.

Well, accept for the ability to focus. Clearly.

Starting last Friday, I've been taking 7mg a day with not much in the way of results, except for the first day, when I experienced feelings of EXTREMELY SOOTHING COMPETENCY. Notable side effects:

* the weird dry mouth thing (which has the advantage of making me drink more water, which I wanted to do anyway), and it's only horrible when I'm stuck on the metro;
* decreased appetite like whoa-- the first day it did not occur to me that I should<\/i> eat until sometime in the evening, which is not healthy and also it makes my stomach hurt badly, so I will need to be careful about eating regularly and sufficiently;
* insomnia-- like last night, when I was typing this list at 3AM;
* <\/a>doqz<\/b><\/a><\/span> has grown a beard, possibly as an act of beat poet solidarity.

So far it has not really helped me write my Melville paper. Today I start 10mg a day, but that's not really going to change the essential fact that Herman Melville was nuts.

Here are some quotations:

In humans, however, there is no systematic evidence of the development of behavioral sensitization to amphetamine after acute or chronic amphetamine treatment when the drug is used in the therapeutic dose range (i.e., is not abused).
-- http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Amphetamine_dependence<\/a>

During World War II amphetamine was extensively used to combat fatigue and increase alertness in soldiers.
-- http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Amphetamine<\/a>

About four fingers of king-hell Crank would do the trick, but I am not optimistic.
-- Hunter S. Thompson<\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/165031.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164662.html","pubDate":"Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:28:33 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164662.html","description":"Like pears closely packed, the crowded crew mutually decay through close contact, and every plague-spot is contagious. Still more, from this same close confinement-- so far as it affects the common sailors-- arise other evils, so direful that they will hardly bear even so much as an allusion. What too many seamen are ashore is very well known; but what some of them become when completely cut off from shore indulgences can hardly be imagined by landsmen. The sins for which the cities of the plain were overthrown still linger in some of these wooden-walled Gomorrahs of the deep.<\/i>

-- Herman Melville, White-Jacket<\/i>, 1850

*

Through all [Melville's] wild and reckless adventures, of which a small part only got into his fascinating books, he had been unable to rid himself of a Puritan conscience; he afterwards tried to loosen its grip by studying German metaphysics, but in vain. He was restless and disposed to dark hours, and there is reason to suspect that there was in him a vein of insanity.

...

He conceived the highest admiration for my father [Nathanial Hawthorne]'s genius, and a deep affection for him personally; but he told me, during our talk, that he was convinced that there was some secret in my father's life which had never been revealed, and which accounted for the gloomy passages in his books. It was characteristic in him to imagine so; there were many secrets untold in his own career.<\/i>

-- Julian Hawthorne, Hawthorne and his circle<\/i>, 1903","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164662.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164488.html","pubDate":"Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:21:56 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164488.html","description":"1.

2. My little sister sent me this email yesterday:

who is this the manchild of.<\/b>

\"Henry Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He composed heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands of the infidels.\"

Ignore the part about him being the son of a merchant of Geneva. Who are the parents of Henry Clerval?





hint: mpreg<\/blockquote>I can only assume this is a composite Frankenstein<\/i>-Merlin<\/i> joke that I don't understand.

3. MONDAY<\/u>

-- renew library books; ancillary fight against despair<\/del>
-- meet with grammar student<\/del>
-- charge your phone<\/del>
-- remember to bring back testing materials from VA<\/del>
-- print volunteer orientation materials<\/del>
-- read The 'Nam<\/i> for comics class<\/del>
-- go to volunteer orientation<\/del>
-- go to comics class<\/del>
-- do NOT go to pub after class
-- keep on reading Bartleby articles, you are doing great<\/a>

4. Aries horoscope for today: Although it's summer vacation for many, you must stay focused and fulfill your obligations. You might need to exercise caution because you could get a crazy idea<\/b> today that is meant to save you time and increase your productivity. However, it is wiser to stick with the tried and true method now, even if it ends up taking you longer to finish.<\/i>

D:","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164488.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164122.html","pubDate":"Fri, 16 Jul 2010 04:40:35 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164122.html","description":"Gacked from <\/a>jbmcdragon<\/b><\/a><\/span>--

Repeal Of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Paves Way For Gay Sex Right On Battlefield, Opponents Fantasize<\/a><\/b>

As Congress prepares to allow gay individuals to serve openly in the military, those against the proposed change voiced their concerns Monday, warning the repeal of \"Don't Ask, Don't Tell\" could soon lead to strong, strapping American soldiers engaging in mind-blowing homosexual intercourse right on the battlefield.

\"We're sending our soldiers out there with a mission, and that mission is to protect this country,\" said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), one of many conservative politicians who staunchly oppose the change. \"If this is repealed, what's to stop all-night sex romps from breaking out while U.S. servicemen are hiding in a bunker, or crawling around an irrigation ditch bathed only by the light of the moon, or, say, the dozens of other situations I've already thought through in elaborate detail?\"

\"We can't allow this to happen,\" Gohmert added as beads of sweat collected on his brow. \"It's wrong. Sweaty male sex\u2014no matter how erotic and uninhibited\u2014is so wrong and so, so naughty.\"

Despite its support from the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the repeal has been condemned by many military officers who worry it could disrupt troop cohesion and endanger the lives of the taut young soldiers.... Others have argued that allowing gay soldiers to push their lifestyle on others, testing the limits of pleasure a man can take before he erupts in uncontrollable ecstasy, would seriously damage morale.<\/i>

and

\"The military should not be used to advance some radical, steamy, mouthwatering social agenda,\" said Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ).<\/i>

*

FRIDAY<\/u>

-- email student about PSAT homework<\/del>
-- schedule with SB<\/del>
-- contact incoming clients<\/del> whoa, that took for fucking ever, but I am def. a baller
-- do dishes<\/del>
-- make appt with campus clinic<\/del>
-- drop off present for beloved professor<\/del>
-- while on campus, go to HR and try to get a copy of your 2009 W-2, since tech support is not fucking emailing you back<\/del> sent email to a second person instead
-- AFTER 5PM, go to office and prepare\/mail JE's summer study package -- rescheduled for tomorrow so as to minimize illegal parking<\/b>
-- talk <\/a>doqz<\/b><\/a><\/span> into rolling two deep at McDonald's<\/del>
-- go grocery shopping<\/del> clearance steaks, wut!
-- buy a lottery ticket
-- make this Melville paper happen like the radical, steamy, mouthwatering literature professional you are
-- continue proofing vocab cards
<\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164122.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164045.html","pubDate":"Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:04:45 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164045.html","description":"1. So we all did the I Write Like<\/i> meme, and it was funny and already inaccurate, and I'm not going to shit on it, so just be patient.

I want to take a look at a frequently misunderstood argument about color-blindness and gender-blindness. It was pointed out by <\/a>teaberryblue<\/b><\/a><\/a>teaberryblue<\/b><\/a><\/a>teaberryblue<\/b><\/a><\/a>teaberryblue<\/b><\/a>this comment thread<\/a> on <\/a>teaberryblue<\/b><\/a><\/a>katieforsythe<\/b><\/a><\/span> of Sherlock Holmes<\/i> fandom fame just posted this anecdote that makes my heart sing:

recently I was on a plane, and a very sweet girl rec'ed me to myself. I didn't know whether to blush my face off, or say thank you and my name is actually Katie Forsythe by the way, or let my head roll under the seats, or simply panic and not say who I was, and so I did the last item. That was pretty cowardly of me.<\/i>

That is totally my fannish romcom wet dream.

Wouldn't it be great if they had hijinks and then fell in loooove? I wish someday that would happen to me. I guess I would have to write something first, and then travel by plane.","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/164045.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/163573.html","pubDate":"Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:41:43 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/163573.html","description":"An implacable nervousness has gripped our hero! I can feel failure happening right now<\/i>.

But here's the good news: yesterday, I saw a porcupine for the first time. Then later, I walked out my front door, and there was a buck deer standing in the flowers. Lastly, I was walking to my car at night in a torrential downpour, arm wrapped around the shoulders of my colleague and the owner of the one umbrella between us, and we stepped over a tiny little garter snake ribboning over the flooded sidewalk.

TUESDAY<\/u>

-- do dishes<\/del>
-- do laundry<\/del>
-- shoot the shit with <\/a>doqz<\/b><\/a><\/span>, who just heard I invented balling<\/del>
-- water the plants<\/del>
-- work out<\/del>
-- find out when is Lara the Catholic's birthday<\/del> okay, it is July 25th.
-- find state tax return documents<\/del>
-- walk to Safeway and purchase
* laundry detergent
* milk
* fuck, something I have already forgotten<\/del> It was hand soap.
-- if I read \"Bartleby the Scrivener,\" I am allowed to watch 2 episodes of \"Life\" OR go to sushi happy hour with Usha
-- call client L about summer\/fall scheduling<\/del>
-- go to staff meeting<\/del><\/a>

3PM ETA:<\/b> I am bored with doing the things on my to-do list. I'm starting to have mild hallucinations.","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/163573.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/163310.html","pubDate":"Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:11:10 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/163310.html","description":"

why does this picture make me laugh so hard","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/163310.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162839.html","pubDate":"Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:37:58 GMT","title":"NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162839.html","description":"
I write like
Chuck Palahniuk<\/span><\/div>

I Write Like<\/em> by M\u00e9moires, Mac journal software<\/a>. Analyze your writing!<\/b><\/a><\/p><\/div>


MONDAY<\/u>

-- email:
* incoming clients<\/del>
* client M.C.<\/del>
* underground theatre guy with my theatre likes\/dislikes?<\/del>
-- meet with GRAMMAR STUDENT<\/del>
-- meet up with A.L. on campus to get Beloved Professor's card signed<\/del>
-- deliver Beloved Professor's card\/present if it's not raining
-- make lunch<\/del>
-- do reading for tonight's comic book class (Wonder Woman, Ends of the Earth<\/i>)<\/del> You are a baller, Gail Simone, but that was fucking boring.
-- go to comics class<\/del>
-- post HILARIOUS rando panels from Wonder Woman TPB<\/del>
-- get class\/work schedule for fall pinned down
-- IF YOU FINISH READING BARTLEBY YOU ARE ALLOWED TO WATCH 3 EPISODES OF \"Life\" I WILL USE FANDOM AGAINST YOU WEIRDO

*<\/a>

I don't usually do this, but I want to pimp <\/a>doqz<\/b><\/a><\/span>'s The Last Caravan<\/a>, 999 words, pan-fandom meta that makes my brain feel crazy. Comicfic peeps may remember Subreality from back in the day, but there's no continuity, so to speak. Featuring guest star George Luz<\/del> Rick Gomez<\/del> George Luz.

Update: I was writing Band of Brothers<\/i> fic while watching Life<\/i> last night, and it really helped, and it makes me feel better that I'm zero'd in on Damian Lewis<\/i> when I'm writing my amateur fictions of questionable taste.

ETA:<\/b> To anyone who has tried to watch the shockingly bad clip<\/a> from The Last Airbender<\/i>, it is actually not bad with the vuvuzela option on. Exciting!","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162839.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162814.html","pubDate":"Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:44:05 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162814.html","description":"Was trying to lull myself to sleep last night-- knowing I had to get up earlier than usual for work-- by watching Shakespeare Retold: Much Ado About Nothing<\/i>. It was:

(a) not sophisticated, but very charming and funny and hot;
(b) wonderfully acted by Sarah Parish, who is one of my favorite actors ever, jesus, also I would like to marry her, and Damian Lewis, who, you know how I feel about him; and
(c) available for Instant Watch on Netflix.

Te lo raccomando, but not as a way to fall asleep. Also, I wish everyone would have a British accent, except for <\/a>doqz<\/b><\/a><\/span>.

*

Love's just one of those things a man grows into -- like jazz or olives.<\/i>
-- Benedick, Shakespeare Retold: Much Ado About Nothing<\/i>

*

-- drink coffee forever<\/del>-- finish up proctoring, grade practice test(s)<\/del>
-- feed roommate's cat<\/del>
-- return 1776<\/i> to the movie store already a day overdue, goddammit<\/del>
-- continue proofing vocab cards
-- continue reading \"Bartleby the Scrivener\"
-- email rando guy I met on Thursday while wearing boxer shorts on Dupont Circle about DC underground theatre scene (whoa)<\/del>
-- pick up some wine for dinner<\/del>
-- do dishes<\/del>
-- look up Mexican recipes<\/del>
-- go grocery shopping<\/del>
-- take a nap
-- create masterful Mexican dishes<\/del> ahhaha, kind of
-- rock the shit out with <\/a>incandescently<\/b><\/a><\/span> for her 25th birthday<\/span> extravaganza<\/del>
-- feed roommate's cat again<\/del><\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162814.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162392.html","pubDate":"Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:44:03 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162392.html","description":"In the 'hood, summertime is the killing season.
It's hot out in this bitch; that's a good enough reason.<\/i>

-- 50 Cent, Heat<\/i>

THURSDAY<\/u>

-- take car for oil change (woo, free parking in the city!)<\/del>
-- call incoming client<\/del>
-- meet with beloved summer student<\/del>
-- do reading for tonight's Theory Reading Group<\/del>
-- put away folded laundry
-- make a comic of myself being attacked by a bear<\/del>
-- compile list of awesome things <\/a>incandescently<\/b><\/a><\/span> could do for her birthday<\/del>
-- answer lj comments & fb messages<\/del>
-- do more dishes<\/del>
-- clean up car so I am not mortified to show it to automechanics<\/del>
-- look at photos of Damian Lewis, why so British and fine Damian?<\/del>
-- look at photos of Ron Livingston, you have a sloped face like mine, Ron, only you make it look good with your soulful eyes, if only I had thicker eyebrows and was a dude, I would be so fine<\/del>
-- finish your BoB fic so that you can do any fucking thing else
-- re-read \"Bartleby the Scrivener\"
-- eat lunch<\/del> does it count as lunch if I stuff my face with cereal on the car ride to work
-- eat two popsicles
<\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162392.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162057.html","pubDate":"Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:57:40 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162057.html","description":"

WEDNESDAY<\/u>

-- read Batman comics for COMIC BOOK CLASS TONITE SHIT YEAH
* Batman Chronicles, Vol 1<\/del>
* The Dark Knight Returns<\/del>
* Child of Dreams
-- do dishes<\/del>
-- put away folded laundry
-- work out<\/del>
-- launder my self<\/del>
-- re-read \"Bartleby the Scrivener\" with bonus option of sipping cool, refreshing sauvignon blanc while you do it
-- make appt to have oil change tomorrow<\/del><\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/162057.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/161612.html","pubDate":"Sat, 03 Jul 2010 18:35:11 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/161612.html","description":"This<\/a>:

I've seen some posts talking about being tired of [discussions of fail]. For what it's worth, I kind of feel like fandom has made me wiser this last year or two, or at least given me a lot more things to consider, and that hasn't always been true.<\/i>

-- <\/a>tieleen<\/b><\/a><\/span>

*

So, another night of drinking too much-- woke up in my own bed with my arm folded painfully under me, with my car parked across town and a feeling of complete sedative calm.

I think it's a good thing that I'm doing all of this now instead of having done it in my early twenties-- then, my commitment to adventure was less tempered by material concerns. I now kind of have an idea of what I want, and then I didn't; I felt only the lusts.

Anyway, there was this dude at the party--

If he were less subdued and more about god, he'd be Jack Kerouac's wet dream: a writer, a hipster, a smoker, a musician, a self-identified misogynist, handsome, contemplative, discontent.

On his arm he has the tattoo \"And don't you know that a man feels no pain.<\/i> -- Ernest Hemingway,\" even though googling portions of that sentence turns up no such quote, so I almost wonder if he made it up. He hooks up with a lot of rando women, some of them pretty skeevy. He has been known to lament to our literature professors, \"What ever happened to the straight, white male?\"

The first time I met him he was a guest in my home, sort of cementing a solicitousness between us. As a result, we have a weird relationship-- he's always polite and friendly and he watches me contemplatively, which is so incongruous with what I know about him that I watch him with corresponding curiosity, and now we trade hugs when we see each other, circling in this endless feedback loop of academic interest.

that story was going somewhere, but I'm starting to feel a little queasy, so I'm going to stop talking about circling.



<\/a>

SATURDAY<\/u>

-- re-read Herman Melville's \"Bartleby the Scrivener\"

-- answer lj comments<\/del>

-- email
* lady about volunteer work<\/del>
* e in atlanta<\/del>
* students as scores come in<\/del>
* praxis student<\/del>

-- proof vocabulary cards for work (this will take a long time)<\/del> slow and steady wins the race.

-- think about doing a Band of Brothers<\/i> recs\/resources post

-- work on Band of Brothers<\/i> fic<\/del>

-- eat a relaxing, inoffensive lunch<\/del> mmm, white rice and carbonated water.

-- water the plants<\/del>

-- do not flinch at sunlight<\/del>

-- make pesto pasta salad<\/del><\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/161612.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/161016.html","pubDate":"Wed, 30 Jun 2010 04:24:50 GMT","title":"I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/161016.html","description":"I did not do great on my to-do list today, but I've decided to view this as an opportunity to practice working hard, even in the face of discouragement and alarm, which will definitely be relevant factors for the rest of my life.

yeah!

Actually, what happened is that I ended up doing a lot of things that weren't on my to-do list, like calling Verizon to see if FIOS is available in my neighborhood and making buttermilk biscuits.

Also it took me 1.5 hrs to compose a single email to one of my clients, and everything in my life is fucking boring.

Anyway.

I have a good attitude. Sometimes when I'm feeling discouraged, I stop being discouraged and be awesome instead<\/span>.

WEDNESDAY<\/u>

-- make oil change appt with auto-mechanic

-- find tax documents that I neglected to photocopy and send in with my state tax return (MARYLAND MY OLD NEMESIS)

-- work out<\/del>

-- shower<\/del>

-- cook a steak!<\/del> Holy shit, that was a good steak. goddamn, I am awesome.

-- read today's Dinosaur Comics<\/i><\/del>

-- submit registration inquiry for Red Cross volunteer work<\/del> ahhaha, I know, right, but I will do work that is for a good cause and not for my own maintenance

-- drive to McLean and pick up student's diagnostic, review that diagnostic<\/del>

-- email:
* incoming students<\/del>
* students as they get back to me with their ACT scores<\/del>
* financial aid office<\/del> called instead; we good.
* e in atlanta

-- reply to FB messages<\/del>

-- answer lj comments to this entry<\/del>

-- CALL GIDEON

-- stop by wine store, buy 4 bottles<\/del>

-- re-read Herman Melville's \"Bartleby the Scrivener\"

-- sip on some wine<\/del>

-- work on BoB pwp<\/del>

-- continue trying to clean my room; take out the, like, 20 empty wine bottles lying around

-- make mix cd for friend whose birthday is today<\/del>

-- proof vocabulary cards for work (this will take a long time)<\/a>


1. I am interested in hearing if the Wonder Woman reboot<\/a> is any good, if anyone knows anything about it.

2. <\/a>thefourthvine<\/b><\/a><\/a>bookshop<\/b><\/a><\/a>

I stared at restored antebellum houses, black-and-white photos, giant naval ships, yachts, sailboats and seagulls for about 36 hours until my passionate longing dissolved inevitably into that old refrain: Jesus Christ, I gotta get some money<\/i>.

Though the truth is that I could live in a small coastal town in a drafty restored building with wireless internet for a whole lot less than it costs to live in DC.

The world is full of possibilities.


2.<\/b> The secret language of comics is the argot that comes from the experience of searching for gems together in a huge pile of rubble.<\/i>

-- Douglas Wolk, Reading Comics: how graphic novels work and what they mean<\/i>


3.<\/b> The Defenders #127, pg. 16:

<\/a>

<\/a>marlowes_ghost<\/b><\/a><\/span>: HANK HAS A PUPPY. I'm going to start a fan site for that puppy.

<\/a>alestar<\/b><\/a><\/span>: Wait, what-- did Hank steal Bobby's family's dog? IS THAT WHY MRS. DRAKE WAS CRYING

<\/a>marlowes_ghost<\/b><\/a><\/span>: No, Hank has the puppy in previous issues (my research into when exactly he acquires it is still ongoing). He apparently just took it to the Drakes' house for dinner.

<\/a>poilass<\/b><\/a><\/span>: PUPPY! I loved the New Defenders so much. If I could remember where I'd filed them, I'd reread them. Do you remember when some villain sabotaged the gym equipment so it burned THE HEAT IS ON onto Bobby's chest?<\/a>


4.<\/b> So, the to-do list last week had its advantages and disadvantages-- the sense of accomplishment I felt at completing the items on Monday's list allowed me to coast through the rest of the week, doing really nothing other than watch BoB and read & write BoB fic-- but I'm going to try it again.

Mostly because this is my horoscope today:

Hard work combined with attention to details should have the desired impact today, but you may have a difficult time staying focused. You keep looking around, searching for something that's more enjoyable than your current responsibilities.<\/i>

TUESDAY<\/u>:

-- pay bills<\/del>

-- mail rent check<\/del>

-- proof vocabulary cards for work (this will take a long time)

-- do dishes<\/del>

-- do laundry<\/del>

-- work out<\/del>

-- email:
* students whose ACT scores came back yesterday<\/del>
* incoming students
* financial aid office
* landlord about switching internet providers<\/del>
* boss about delay on vocab cards proofs<\/del>
* e in atlanta
* <\/a>poilass<\/b><\/a><\/span>

-- drive to mclean and pick up student's diagnostic<\/del> buhhh, it is not here, goddammit<\/b>.

-- look over this weekend's diagnostics (there are two)<\/del> okay, one of them is MIA, but at least it's someone else's fault; looked over one<\/i> diagnostic

-- re-work old PSAT<\/del>

-- re-read Herman Melville's \"Bartleby the Scrivener\"

-- find tax documents that I neglected to photocopy and send in with my state tax return (MARYLAND MY OLD NEMESIS)

-- continue trying to clean my room; take out the, like, 20 empty wine bottles lying around

-- make mix cd for friend whose birthday is tomorrow

-- do not despair; horoscope says desired impact<\/i><\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/160737.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/160303.html","pubDate":"Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:09:23 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/160303.html","description":"It's like they've already woken up in each other's sweaty clutches and aren't sure how to handle the subsequent feelings of neediness.

-- Heathen, Television Without Pity, recap of Band of Brothers<\/i><\/a>, on Winters and Nixon.

*

Let me tell you something about Sherlock Holmes. We were best friends when I lived at 221B Baker Street. I know<\/i>, right? It's so embarrassing. I don't even... Whatever<\/i>. So then in 1891, I started going out with this governess, Mary Morstan, who was totally gorgeous, and Holmes was like, weirdly jealous of her. Like, if I would blow him off to hang out with Mary, he\u2019d be like \"Why didn\u2019t you send me a telegram back?\" And I'd be like, \"Why are you so obsessed with me?\" So then, for my Diogenes Club party, which was an all-gentlemen gathering, I was like \"Holmes, I can't invite you, because I think you're gay.\" I mean, I couldn't have a homosexual<\/i> at my party. There were gonna be men smoking their pipes in their dressing robes<\/i>. I mean, right? He was a HOMOSEXUAL. So then his police friend Lestrade rung up my wife and started yelling at her, it was so retarded. And then he dropped off a cliff at the Reichenbach Falls because no one would talk to him, and he came back from the \"dead,\" all of his hair was cut off and he was totally weird, and now I guess he's on CRACK.



-- evilcomma@tumblr<\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/160303.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/160244.html","pubDate":"Wed, 23 Jun 2010 18:42:59 GMT","title":"getting older","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/160244.html","description":"I just hurt my lower back working out. And I've realized that the strain of writing (empathy) is digging a thick line between my eyebrows.

In other news:

Me to my beloved professor: Clearly you are my guiding star in everything on this earth.

My beloved professor to me: The funny thing about guiding stars is how many there are out there, which rather confuses the whole guidance issue.","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/160244.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159855.html","pubDate":"Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:30:35 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159855.html","description":"1.<\/b> This afternoon I had mediocre Italian food with <\/a>thatpalebluedot<\/b><\/a><\/a>greenygal<\/b><\/a><\/span>, <\/a>kkglinka<\/b><\/a><\/span>, <\/a>smittywing<\/b><\/a><\/span>, Mara whose lj name I don't know, and West Coast crowd-pleaser <\/a>kerithwyn<\/b><\/a><\/span>! Those guys are ballers. <\/a>doqz<\/b><\/a><\/span> and I walked in late, and first thing <\/a>kkglinka<\/b><\/a><\/span> pointed and said, \"Handles?\" I like that. Being on the Internet is cool. Having a codename is cool! Aja, Jen, Laurens, you guys don't even know.

I also like sitting around while people talk knowledgeably about Torchwood<\/i> and Justice League<\/i>. I am not familiar with those things, but hearing them discussed was soothing. Later, <\/a>thatpalebluedot<\/b><\/a><\/a>kerithwyn<\/b><\/a><\/span> taught me about how it sucks that we're both super busy and never hang out.

2.<\/b> <\/a>doqz<\/b><\/a><\/span> is also a baller. We are besties. After dinner, we went on a horrible adventure of getting lost in Northwest DC, where we went through a thousand roundabouts.

3.<\/b> Here's an exciting, weird, unexpected thing:

I recently submitted an abstract for a nearby academic conference in October; the title of my proposed paper is \"Batman's safe paper heart:\" Superhero Comics & Lyric Poetry.<\/i> As you can imagine, this paper investigates the phenomenon of poems about superheroes, of which you can read many<\/a> right here<\/a> on my livejournal.

So I did some research and typed up the proposal, plus my very first curriculum vitae<\/i>, and got all set to send them to the chair of the Comics, Cartoons and Video Gaming panel, when what should I discover?

That the chair of the panel is none other than the playwright from this lj entry from February 2007<\/a>.

That's right, friends, it's a small motherfucking world. I think this is a lesson from God about keeping my mouth shut. Or maybe not, since my paper was accepted.

Perhaps I should postpone judgment until October, when we see if he recognizes me.

4.<\/b> Fresh from the successful pimping of Hyperbole and a Half<\/a>-- which, Allie Brosh in my #2 wish wife after Janelle Monae-- I further submit a link to a very different sort of meditation on the Internet, gacked from <\/a>penknife<\/b><\/a><\/span>, my new very favorite thing, this sex photo blog<\/a>. This tumblr is super absolutely not worksafe, as most of the pictures are actual sex photos, some of them explicit, but all kind of gorgeous and inspiring. I'm going to look at them from now on when I'm stressed so that I can remember how life is hot and corporeal and awesome.

5.<\/b> In the last few weeks, I have mostly been (a) reading, (b) staring contemplatively and (c) drinking heavily, aside from some hours for posting things on the Internet, and all of this has led to some severe productivity issues.

Therefore, I'm going to take a leaf from the livejournal book and post my to-do list. Something about the publication of my responsibilities makes them a little more engaging (to me) and not as horrible. More like a meme and not like my boring life!

SUNDAY\/MONDAY<\/u>

-- Proof <\/a>doqz<\/b><\/a><\/span>'s cover letter.<\/del>

-- Email my panel chair to thank him for my acceptance.<\/del>

-- Reply to Facebook comments.<\/del>

-- Find my vehicle registration card & tag stickers. If necessary, go to the MVA and hope that shit works out. Take a book. Okay, the lady from the car dealership never called me, and the MVA closes at 4:30PM, so I'm off the hook for this one until tomorrow.<\/b>

-- Email my tutoring clients.<\/del>

-- Work out.<\/del>

-- Make order in the shit-storm of papers and clothes that is my bedroom. Oh my god, this is the most boring thing I've ever done in my life. I wish I did drugs.<\/b>

-- Mail $55 check for parking ticket I got because my tags are expired; motherfucker<\/i>.

-- Call my Uncle Harlin, who will yell at me for not calling more often.<\/del> He didn't yell, but he did inform me that my cousin's wedding is on Aug 13. Damn.<\/b>

-- Find out if my university healthcare plan covers dental.<\/del> It doesn't.<\/b>


If I do all of these things, I am allowed to:<\/i>

-- Drive to McLean, VA, and buy two bottles of wine (one white, one red).

-- Drink wine while I read three chapters of Peter Barry's Beginning Theory<\/i>.


If I do all of those things, I am allowed to:<\/i>

-- Read Melville non-fiction or Michael Snediker's Queer Optimism<\/i>.

-- Spend up to one hour reading Band of Brothers<\/i> fic.

-- Scroll through this<\/a> forever.

-- Jump, jump, jump around. Jump up, jump up and get down.<\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159855.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159690.html","pubDate":"Wed, 16 Jun 2010 06:43:31 GMT","title":"the apology","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159690.html","description":"Hey, friends-- I want to say a word or two about <\/a>asteroidbuckle<\/b><\/a><\/span>'s Jensen Ackles\/Jared Padalecki Big Bang AU<\/a>.

Quick summary:

<\/a>asteroidbuckle<\/b><\/a><\/span> set a Supernatural<\/i> RPS fic in post-earthquake Haiti in possibly the least conscientious way<\/i> it could have been done, with cartoonish characterizations of the native people<\/a> and primary attention paid to the angsty romance of relief doctor Jensen Ackles & photojournalist Jared Padalecki while actual disaster recovery served as backdrop. So, that's clearly in bad taste-- in the same way that Cpt. Jack Harkness and the Doctor meeting up for a hot quickie in the falling Twin Towers would be in bad taste. But we've seen a lot of bad taste in fandom-- I have discovered it abounds in Band of Brothers<\/i> fic, for example, as you can totes imagine.

Almost immediately, <\/a>asteroidbuckle<\/b><\/a><\/span> apologized<\/a> for writing something that is in bad taste.

(For what it's worth, I feel bad for her. She seems like some dumb kid, perhaps because I am surrounded by loved ones to whom I turn everyday and say, \"what ignorant shit just came out of your mouth?\" And some of the comments to her fic are less than helpful, such as you're a thoughtless piece of garbage<\/i> and I hope you bleed out your ears you worthless cunt.<\/i> But that's fandom for you.)

So here's the thing-- <\/a>asteroidbuckle<\/b><\/a><\/span>'s apology is expressed in the language of effects. She apologizes for offending, for being selfish, for not considering how her story would affect her readers, for the hurt she has caused. Id est, she is apologizing for bringing outside what was inside.

That is what I would call the wrong take-away.

I think an important distinction when discussing this fic (as we should continue to do) is that the offense is not one of tact but of abstraction. Nobody but a sociopath would feel comfortable glossing over human suffering if it were real, and the fact that this writer felt fine about it, and that her sympathetic readers felt fine about it, is probably<\/i> related to the two-dimensional depiction of Haitians in her story.

What struck me most when skimming the fic and her notes (yeah, I didn't read the whole story, so take that as you will) was that <\/a>asteroidbuckle<\/b><\/a><\/span> was clearly going for realism. She researched the weather patterns (I mean-- she adjusted them, but she researched them in the first place and then enunciated the change); she didn't have to write Abraham's dialogue like Drunk Hulk, she added that for the sake of realism.

The problem is that she as a writer couldn't get over her conception of the Haitians as alien, so that in pursuit of realistic depictions she relied on tropes-- tropes informed by a tradition that, as <\/a>bookshop<\/b><\/a><\/a>asteroidbuckle<\/b><\/a><\/span> have done?

Set her story at the site of a disaster at least less remote in the memories of people who might read her story? DEFINITELY. Uh, acknowledge that race matters? DEFINITELY. Write a story expunged of people of color in order to avoid possible controversy, which is what 98% of fandom does? DEFINITELY NOT. With the crucial corollary that you have to care<\/i> about race, sci-fi writer Nisi Shawl says, \"Don\u2019t be afraid to make mistakes with them. Do your best, and you\u2019ll avoid the biggest mistake of all: exclusion.\"

On that note, here are some quotes:

1.

\"I'd never write about a person from a different ethnic background. The whole story would probably be full of horrible stereotypes and racist slurs.\"

Amy closed her mouth, and mine dropped open. Luckily, I was seated when my friend made this statement, but the lawn chair must have sagged visibly with the weight of my disbelief. My own classmate, excluding all other ethnic types from her creative universe!

I think this sort of misguided caution is the source of a lot of sf's monochrome futures. You know the ones I mean, where some nameless and never discussed plague has mysteriously killed off everyone with more than a hint of melanin in their skin. I wonder sometimes what kind of career I'd have if I followed suit with tales of stalwart Space Negroes and an unexplained absence of whites.

-- Nisi Shawl, Transracial Writing for the Sincere<\/a><\/blockquote>

2.
How to resolve this conflict?

Thoughtfully.

To begin with, we can reframe it. Rather than looking at a binary choice between (mis)appropriating a culture and avoiding its mention, we can consider a spectrum of roles it's possible for transcultural writers and readers to play.

We can examine works in which authors have attempted to write about, or extrapolate from, another person's culture for ways in which they succeed or fail.

-- Nisi Shawl, Appropriate Cultural Appropriation<\/a><\/blockquote>

3.
what I think a lot of people run into these days is less that they're getting superficial details wrong, and more that they're falling into cultural minefields. It can very often seem to be a \"damned if you do, damned if you don't\" scenario, because we're used to working within the roles cultural stuff (TV, movies, books, &c) have given us, which tend to be pretty black-and-white: you can either show a woman as a virgin or a whore; the Black Guy has to be either a street hoodlum or the president or something (or the Magical Negro); that sort of thing. You'll see an exception here and there, but the majority of what we're shown puts people into pretty strict categories, and if you're not really thinking about it, it's very easy to slide into these categories.

And since the categories have developed over decades- centuries in some cases- they're generally made by The Majority, and reflect the attitudes of The Majority, which tend to be something to the tune of, \"I'm normal, so I have to put on a hat to stand out. You come pre-hatted, so I don't have to do any work to make you stand out,\" where hat is understood to mean \"some extra defining trait,\" like \"nerd\" or \"hipster\" or \"obsessed with bugs.\" What this boils down to is that, while the Majority Types are thought to need extra stuff to make them \"interestng,\" Minority Types are considered to be already<\/i> \"interesting,\" just for being minorities. Which doesn't work out well, for various reasons.

-- <\/a>furikku<\/b><\/a><\/span>, on Writing Minorities<\/a><\/blockquote>

4. And an eerily prescient excerpt from <\/a>asteroidbuckle<\/b><\/a><\/span>'s fic:

Clicking open the People folder, he scrolled down to the latest ones, the ones he'd taken that morning. Opening the first one, he studied it. It was a photo of a little girl holding her mother's hand as they waited in line for water. Her face was in focus and filled most of the frame, the background blurred behind her. Jared remembered seeing her and being drawn to her huge eyes and tiny mouth. He'd asked her mother - or tried to - if it was alright to take her daughter's picture. When she hadn't understood, he'd reverted to pantomime, pointing at the girl, then at his camera. The woman had simply shrugged.

So Jared had knelt down in the damp dirt and gazed at the little girl through his viewfinder. She'd just watched him, her big eyes unblinking, her dirty face a sad and beautiful sight. He'd taken five pictures of her in quick succession. In the last one, she'd managed a tiny smile, the corners of her mouth curling up into a bow.

He flipped through the series, back and forth, back and forth, his eyes picking out the details. They were good shots, but were they good enough? What did they say? He sighed in frustration, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

\"What's the matter?\"

The sound of Jensen's voice startled him. He turned to find Jensen looking at him. \"Nothing,\" he said. At Jensen\u2019s raised eyebrows, he amended his answer. \"My photos. They're all starting to look the same. Which to me means they all look amateur.\"<\/blockquote><\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159690.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159249.html","pubDate":"Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:06:48 GMT","title":"more poems about superheroes","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159249.html","description":"
AMERICA'S FIRST AND FOREMOST BLACK SUPERSTAR<\/b>
Adrian Matejka<\/a>

Gotta be a frame: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire stuck
in Texas. Me-- luckier than any seven<\/i> dudes
you know-- left in a box, stashed in a jive-ass attic.
What's the beef, man? This ain't no shakedown,
but it smells like Seagate all over again: one cell
leads to another and the story don't never finish.
Who's hiring me in this box? Sure, them foxes
are here with me, but I never get at 'em unless
I'm bailing those broads out of one scrape or another.
And I still don't get no residuals. Christmas,
what's the point of being a hero for hire when you
give out more free shit than a schoolyard pusher?
I got bullet-proof skin and I'm meaner
than Jerome Mackey and<\/i> Jim Kelly in a paper bag.
But what good is steel skin if it bounce
the same blades and boots all the time?
I'll give you five to one it ain't fun. Let Cage
get at some of that Texas barbeque. Let Cage bang
some Southern heads on the way. Christmas,
let Cage change his threads. I've been sporting
blue pants and a yellow shirt since '71. Forget
this chain-link for a belt or the metal wristbands.
Dig it, I just want to step out for a minute--
I hear those black power muthas calling stereotype.
But they don't say nothing about that voodoo mixing,
corn-rowed chump, the Witchdoctor. They don't say
nothing about my boy the Black Panther. Man,
those boys at Marvel even gave me a white sidekick:
Iron Fist. A white boy who knows kung fu, winging
a black man. Ain't that something?<\/a>


WONDER WOMAN DREAMS OF THE AMAZON<\/b>
Jeannine Hall Gailey<\/a>

I miss the tropes of Paradise\u2014green vines
roped around wrists, jasmine coronets,
the improbable misty clothing of my tribe.
I dream of the land of my birth. They named
me after their patron Goddess.
I was to be a warrior for their kind.
I miss my mother, Hippolyta.
In my dreams she wraps me tightly
again in the American flag,
warning me, \"Cling to your bracelets,
your magic lasso. Don't be a fool for men.\"
She's always lecturing me, telling me
not to leave her. Sometimes she changes
into a doe, and I see my father
shooting her, her blood. Sometimes,
in these dreams, it is me who shoots her.
My daily transformation
from prim kitten-bowed suit to bustier
with red-white-and-blue stars
is less complicated. The invisible jet
makes for clean escapes.
The animals are my spies and allies;
inexplicably, snow-feathered doves
appear in my hands. I capture Nazis
and Martians with boomerang grace.
When I turn and turn, the music plays louder,
the glow around me burns white-hot,
I become everything I was born to be,
the dreams of the mother,
the threat of the father.<\/a>


THE FLASH REVERSES TIME<\/b>
A. Van Jordan<\/a>

DC Comics, November 1990, #44
\"Never Look Back, Flash
Your Life Might Be Gaining On You\"<\/i>

When I'm running across the city
on the crowded streets
to home, when, in a blur,
the grass turns brown
beneath my feet, the asphalt
steams under every step
and the maple leaves sway
on the branches in my wake,
and the people look,
look in that bewildered way,
in my direction, I imagine
walking slowly into my past
among them at a pace
at which we can look one another in the eye
and begin to make changes in the future
from our memories of the past\u2014
the bottom of a bottomless well,
you may think, but why not dream a little:
our past doesn't contradict our future;
they're swatches of the same fabric
stretching across our minds,
one image sewn into another,
like the relationship between a foot and a boot,
covariant in space and time\u2014
one moves along with the other,
like an actor in a shadow play\u2014
like a streak of scarlet light
across the skyline of your city
sweeping the debris, which is simply confetti,
candy wrappers, a can of soda,
all the experience of a day discarded
and now picked up
even down to the youthful screams of play
that put smiles on the faces of the adults
who hear remnants of their own voices
through a doorway leading back
to a sunrise they faintly remember.<\/a>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159249.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159181.html","pubDate":"Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:44:30 GMT","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159181.html","description":"
I'm obsessed with Batman. And a couple of other things, but Batman has been the obsession I've been nurturing purposefully in the last couple of years, to try to embody the book of Batman poems I'm working on. That hit home even more to me tonight when my parents invited me to the symphony with them, and, honestly, my first thought, to myself, was, \"Wow, that will help me emotionally ground myself in the part of the Batman myth where Bruce Wayne's parents are killed,\" followed by the thought, \"the fact that we won't be killed will help me ground the book in an autobiographical place of honest optimism.\" Walking to Powell Symphony Hall, I found myself thinking, \"Man, I hope we don't get killed; what kind of cruel world would it be if I brought some real-life version of the Batman story down on us?\"

-- Chad Parmenter, Chad-Diction<\/a>, 2\/17\/07<\/blockquote>

*

I've been trying to come up with haiku about Batman battling different popular figures, and wondering what Batman vs. Santa would be like.

Santa gives gifts, but
Batman takes out bad guys.

Maybe you can finish it for me.

-- Chad Parmenter, Chad-Diction<\/a>, 12\/23\/06<\/blockquote>","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/159181.html?view=comments#comments"},{"guid":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/158843.html","pubDate":"Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:23:28 GMT","title":"as never before","author":"alestar","link":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/158843.html","description":"So I have this thought that everyone I know is still trying to recover from an accumulated strain that has trickled down the generations, beginning with grandmothers and grandfathers who didn't know, 100 years ago, how to process what was happening to them. It's reductive; but I sense isolation and discontent everywhere, and I know that those come from ambivalence. And meanwhile, one side of the Earth is clutching for stability in the aftershocks of colonialism while the other side reverberates with the lingering trauma of WWI. Not only<\/i> the righteous search for alternate forms of order in a newly iconoclastic universe, not only the Age of Information, but global PTSD.

--

Died some, pro patria,
      non dulce<\/i> non et decor<\/i>...
walked eye-deep in hell
believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old lies and new infamy;
usury age-old and age-thick
and liars in public places.

Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
fair cheeks, and fine bodies;

fortitude as never before

frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.

There died a myriad,
And of the best, among them,
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization,
Charm, smiling at the good mouth,
Quick eyes gone under earth's lid,

For two gross of broken statues,
For a few thousand battered books.

~ Ezra Pound, Hugh Selwyn Mauberley<\/i>, 1920","comments":"https:\/\/alestar.livejournal.com\/158843.html?view=comments#comments"}]}}