Date:	2008-05-13 20:50
Subject:	Fandom meme
Security:	Public
Mood:	calm

*cue Tom Lehrer*...Tango got it from stefanie_bean, who got it from sparklybee, who gave it to...

My fandoms:

The one who seduced you and fucked you over and broke your heart in a million pieces and laughed about it: Can't think of any fandom I'm that bitter about. Good start, no?

The old flame you don't see very often any more but whom you still really enjoy getting together with for a few drinks and maybe a pleasant nostalgic romp in the sheets: The Beatles. I went through a major beatlemaniac phase at the age of 11 or so, and although I recovered, I'm still deeply fond of their music, and I treasure the memories of being a total fangirl. :D

The mysterious dark gothy one with whom you used to sit up talking until 3 a.m. at weird coffeehouses and with whom you were quite smitten until you realized he really was fucking crazy: Greek mythology. I was fanatical about it as a kid, ever since I read the ubiquitous and exceptionally well-researched Russian book on Greek and Roman mythology (Kun's "Myths and Legends"). I didn't really get over it, but I did eventually learn a bit more about the history rather than the mythology, which provided something of a reality check.

The one you spent a whole weekend in bed with and who drank up all your liquor, and whom you'd still really like to fuck again although you're relieved he doesn't actually live in town: Bazhov's "Malachite Casket", "Mistress of the Copper Mountain" and other stories -- a series of interconnected folk tales centered on the artisans of the Ural mountains, written in the 19th century. I had it *bad* for this book for years, again as a child, and in a fit of nostalgia located it in my university library in Sydney last year and re-read it. And the terrible thing is, it still pulls me in after all these years. I suppose these days it would be described as magic realism: naturalistic, dark, gorgeous and occasionally terrifying stories set in the mundanity of 19th century Russian countryside.

The steady: "Xena" of course, and I guess also POTO, though "Xena" is somehow much closer to my heart; it's the one I know all the way through and love despite (or because) of all its faults. It's not just the "steady", it's pretty much marrying your high school sweetheart. POTO is fun and beautiful and incredibly interesting because of its setting and connections to all kinds of other things I love (ballet, impressionism, theatricality), but I don't "love it for itself" like I do "Xena".

The ex: "Lois and Clark". I loved it madly, it ended, I was sad, I got over it.

The alluring stranger whom you've flirted with at parties but have never gotten really serious with: Leroux's "Phantom". It has a lot going for it as a fandom, but ultimately it just doesn't push the right buttons for me. Ditto "House" -- maybe if there was a Cuddy/House relationship involved, I could swing in that direction... but these days the writing is just too transparent anyway, you can see what the writers are doing from a mile off. Being able to see the bones of the framework is a major turnoff for me; I want to be able to suspend my disbelief.

The one you hang out with and have vague fantasies about maybe having a thing with but ultimately you're just good buddies 'cause the friendship is there but the chemistry ain't: The BBC "Robin Hood" series -- the Guy/Marion ship just didn't sail for me, but the show was fun to watch. Shame it's over.

The one your friends keep introducing you to and who seems like a hell of a cool guy except it's never really gone anywhere: "Harry Potter". Everyone is into it, and I really enjoy the books, but it doesn't make me a true fan. I do enjoy discussing it, though.

The one who's slept with all your friends, and you keep looking at him and thinking, "Him? How the hell did he land all these cool babes?": Anime. All of it, the whole genre. I just lack the gene for comprehending what the hell is going on and why I should care. At best it looks pretty, at worst it creeps me out.

The one your friend has fallen for like a ton of bricks and whom she keeps babbling to you about on the phone for hours, and you'd be happy for her except you just know it's going to end badly: Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials". Cathy (LadyKate) fell in love with the first book, couldn't stop gushing, and then gave me the books as a present. I started reading, and realised that this was going to be one of those Idea Novels, where the writer ultimately sacrifices character and plot for the sake of his pet agenda. By that stage Cathy had cooled off on the series as well, so my lack of enthusiasm didn't test our friendship too sorely :D.

Date:	2008-04-26 02:30
Subject:	Carlotta vs Christine
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

All this talk in the other thread about POTO made me nostalgic, so I started digging through youtube... And found the perfect combination. (And also the perfect explanation why I prefer the film version). Since my LJ is turning into a video collection anyway, I figured I'd share.

Sarah Brightman, "Think of Me" (or else...):


Emmy Rossum, "Think of Me":


:D

POTO meets American Idol (or vice versa) -- fictionreader has the videos.

My thoughts:

1) ALW saying "Imagine I'm a beautiful 17 year old girl" conjures some seriously disturbing images. :D

2) MOTN, no matter how beautifully sung, will never be a great song. (Discuss. :D)

3) "Think of Me" as a boyband anthem -- well, Cleolinda did call it an "overwritten pop ballad" in "POTO in 15 minutes"... ALW doesn't look impressed, but that's probably because he's come to see the truth of this. But hey, if Elvis could turn opera into rock-n-roll, turning musical theatre into boyband material should be a piece of cake!

4) And once again I have a warm fuzzy appreciation of just how deeply I love the film version of these songs.

Continuing the recipe-dump. It's Pesach at the moment (aka Passover). Traditionally, this means having a seder: a ritual meal for the first and second night of the eight-day holiday. That's always fun, but it really doesn't work without lots of family around... So, this year I have contended myself with chicken soup and matzah kugel. I don't just make these on Passover, but they are genuine gold-standard traditional dishes, and the best part is that they are really, really easy to make.

Matzah kugel (known in Russian as babka or zapekanka) is one of those things people make into complicated dishes -- when in fact, this is a perfect example of less being more. It's a sort of cross between an omelette and a pancake, and can be served any way you like: hot or cold, savoury or sweet, with fillings or with condiments or with nothing at all. It goes really well with chicken soup. It also goes really well with nutella, though not necessarily at the same time. :D You can use it as stuffing for chicken; you can make it as individual little pancakes, or you can do what I do and have it exactly as it is.

Matzah Kugel (serves 2-3):

6 sheets matzah
3 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
boiling water (1/2 cup or thereabouts, depends on how dry the matzah is)

Break matzah into rough 1-inch pieces into a bowl, pour a bit of boiling water over this and shake the bowl around until all the pieces are damp. Cover the bowl with a plate and leave for a couple of minutes to allow the water to be absorbed. Meanwhile beat the eggs in another bowl with the salt. Heat a frypan (ideally a shallow non-stick one with a lid) to medium, optionally with a bit of oil. Add eggs to the softened matzah, mix, and pour the mixture into the frypan. Turn the heat down to medium-low, and cook, covered, for at least 10 mins. After this time, the bottom will be golden and the sides should look set, a bit like a pancake, though the middle will still be wet. Here's the fun part: flipping it. If you have a very wide spatula, you could use that (carefully), or just slide the whole thing from the frypan onto a large dinner plate. With both hands, flip plate over so that the matzah flops onto the frypan wet side down. (If this is difficult, use the spatula to hold the kugel in place as you turn the plate over the pan). Leave it alone for another 5 mins, after which you won't be able to help yourself and will continuously check if it's brown yet. Don't be tempted to turn up the heat, you'll just get soggy matzah in a burnt shell. When it's nicely browned, slide it onto a plate and serve. Enjoy!

Date:	2008-04-13 13:26
Subject:	Time for an ad break
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

"Unfortunately, without your favourite warrior..." :D Brilliant!

One of the most inventive fan videos I've encountered -- I wish more video artists had the creativity to use footage from elsewhere. Now if only this had been the "Moonlight Sonata"... :D

Date:	2008-04-04 21:24
Subject:	Buckwheat FAQ
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

I could write about how I went to Amsterdam on the weekend (on the bus... 12 hours each way...) or how my computer at work has been reborn as a Linux box (... which, compared to XP, feels like I now have to do everything backwards and in high heels) -- buuuuut both of these require brain power, and that is something I currently lack.

So, instead, here is yet another cooking post -- and it's not even for dessert. Well, not entirely. :D I did promise a few people that I'd explain how to cook buckwheat, so here goes.

( BUCKWHEAT FAQ )

It may be called the Easter long weekend, but this year it was also Purim, which has what I think is the best holiday food ever: hamentaschen!

Since I promised to make some food-related posts a while back and then never delivered anything except soup, I figured now is the time to share a recipe. Besides, sharing food is a Purim tradition (for reasons that seem obscure to me, but who needs a reason, really?), so think of this as my virtual food-sharing.

Hamentaschen, for those not in the know, are triangular shells of sweet pastry, traditionally filled with poppyseed. You can, of course fill them with anything you like, from nutella to cheese, but none of these things will approach the yumminess that is the genuine article. Also, there are many variations of the dough recipe floating around cyberspace, ranging from cookie dough to yeast-based dough to phyllo pastry... While all this can be accomplished with varying degrees of success, it's still simpler and much, much nicer to make them the traditional way.

Here is what they look like -- this is an old photo of mine, this year's batch are prettier, but I currently don't have any way of getting my photos off the camera and onto the computer, so you'll just have to take my word for it.



I tend to make these in quantity, because it's a pity to put in all this effort and not have enough hamentaschen to feed an army at the end. They keep well, so it's really not a problem to have them sitting around for a few days. This recipe makes about 80 hamentaschen, more or less depending on how large you make them and how thin you roll out the pastry.

( RECIPE )

Date:	2008-03-17 23:00
Subject:	Geographically yours
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

Hilarious (and unfortunately short!) "All I Ask Of You" parody by the multitalented amateur actress/singer Amy Walker.



Her other clips are worth a look too, actually -- everything from St Joan, to 21 accents in 2 mins (the Russian one is spot-on, the Sydney one less so), through to Ursula from "The Little Mermaid". :D

Date:	2008-03-08 17:12
Subject:	Superwoman
Security:	Public
Mood:	stunned

I found out today that my ballet teacher is six months pregnant. None of us in the class even noticed -- but more importantly, she can do all that when she's pregnant?! I don't know how many classes a week she teaches, but it's a lot, several a day, including the weekends. And I saw her perform recently. And looks amazing. And and and... six months!!

Frailty, thy name is ... something other than woman, clearly.

Happy Women's Day to those who celebrate it. *walks off, shaking head in wonder*

Thanks to oblomskaya for finding this little gem:

REVERENT QUIZZES

Quizzes on things that really matter: like can you tell great art from the scribbles of an ape? Or how about Dickens from the "worst writer in history"?

In answer to the latter -- I couldn't. In fact I think I got about 2 right (they are all appalling!). And even more sadly, the quiz author's anaylsis shows I'm far from alone... My childhood hatred of Dickens now has a pseudo-scientific basis. Ha.

I did far better on the art questions and the furniture ones. I'm sure that says something important about me. Or about Dickens. :D

Date:	2008-02-29 22:55
Subject:	Best POTO joke ever
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

From a Russian POTO forum (excuse my translation; original by Karis):

Christine wakes up at night in the cellar of the Opera House.
"Angel, I'm cold!"
The Phantom reluctantly tears himself away from his music, goes and gets her a blanket.
Half an hour later: "I'm cold!"
The Phantom manages to find two more blankets.
Christine: "I'm cold!!"
The Phantom brings all the covers he can lay his hands on, and returns to his composing.
Christine: "You know, when I was little, on cold nights, my late mother would warm me with the heat of her own body..."
The Phantom: "It's five in the morning! I've had a hard day! I'm not going to the cemetery right now to dig up your mother!!"

( original in Russian, especially for XenaAmber )

Date:	2008-02-14 21:04
Subject:	Russian feminism, joys of
Security:	Public
Mood:	quixotic

Valentine's Day seems like a perfect occasion to remember the victims of the gender-equality struggle. *Bows head* And on that note...

If you ever wanted to learn all there is to know about gender relations in Russia, and understand why feminism there has been short-circuited for a century, you could hope for no better find than the following terrible poem. A Russian girl recently posted this (in translation) on the Lucy Lawless fan list, apparently because she believes it's "beautiful". The author, discovered by ladykate63, is one Natalia Shevchenko, whoever she may be.

It's not just the cliches and triteness that are so awful, it's the sentiments: the ridiculous mystification of femininity (did you know God chose women? what for, may I ask?), the idea that a woman is always suffering and enduring and working her butt off while the man goes around doing whatever men do, and that this is as it must be, and there is virtue in all this.

The translation I saw on the forum was incomprehensible, so here's a translation I made. It was a painful exercise to translate this rubbish, so I fear the English is a bit better than the original deserves... I kept veering into parody, because it's hard to write this with a straight face. :D Actually, there is a 'male chauvinist response' to this floating around the net, but that's quite deliberately tongue-in-cheek, whereas this (sad to say) is not. There is also a different translation of this by LadyKate.

Read it and weep...

I am a woman, and that means an actress,
Who hides a hundred faces and a thousand roles.
I am a woman, and that means an empress,
Beloved of all the princes of the earth.

I am a woman, and that means a scapegoat
Who's known the taste of many a bitter hurt,
I am a woman, and that means a desert,
That will devour you in its blazing heat.

I am a woman, I am strong - I must be,
Since life is struggle... But, do not forget,
I am a woman, aching-tender, gentle,
Yet I am woman, and that means I'm Fate!

I am a woman, a bright burst of passion,
Yet mine must be endurance and hard work,
I am a woman: I'm the joy untreasured,
The chance at happiness, and all that never was.

I am a woman, dangerous by nature,
Within me ice and fire live as one.
I am a woman, beauty that is ageless,
Eternal from the maiden to the crone.

I am a woman; every road you walk on
Brings you to me, to me and not to Rome.
I am a woman, and divinely chosen --
Though by the same God's hand divinely cursed.

Date:	2008-02-09 17:35
Subject:	POTO video
Security:	Public
Mood:	calm

Ah, yes. That most unusual of occurrences - finding a POTO video I like! And I like this one very much indeed. Nothing like a bit of hyperbole, angst and drug metaphors to get to the heart of the sort of E/C I dig. The hallucinogenic effects are particularly apposite. :D (The same author also has some other nice videos, worth checking out.)

So, I finally saw the infamous Tom Cruise Scientology video -- and you know what? I don't understand why everyone feels they have the right to bag him out for what is a video just like any other religious video I've ever seen, and probably less weird than most.

Replace the terminology with your cult/religion/group of choice, or even some political movements, and you will undoubtedly see what I mean. Substitute the Bible for KSW, unbeliever for SP, and tell me you've never heard a religious video claim that their particular stream of their particular religion is special, and compels people to "make a difference" and "stop at an accident and help".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Tom Cruise and I couldn't care less about Scientology. But I find it darkly funny that far fewer people dare to say these things out loud about what they perceive as a legitimate religious movement, or political party, versus what they perceive to be a cult.

Perhaps it's being brought up under the remnants of Russian communism, but I remember all too well the people mouthing similar feelings about Marxism-Leninism. And, dare I say it, it doesn't sound all that different now when they talk about Putin.

You can't have it both ways. If you think Cruise with his er, religious persuasion is off his rocker, then you have to extend the same degree of (in)tolerance to virtually every religious movement and quite a few secular ones into the bargain. And the reverse is also true -- if you want others to treat your religious beliefs with respect, or at least tolerance, then you have no right to apply a double standard to someone else's.

Turns out it's not just poor old Lucy Lawless who has been a victim of what I propose should be termed the Toxic Fan Syndrome (TFS). Symptoms to look out for are a pathological belief that the object of one's affection owes one something (an autograph, a date, money...) and an unshakeable belief in one's own power to terminate the uncooperative object's career by claiming to leave the fandom. Check out TFS in action at Emmy Rossum's fansite, in response to some new photos of a Dragonball conference she did. A typical example:

"[She] looks awful and the movie is still a silly choice. I am glad so many fans at fan.com dropped away and here,too. I am sorely disappointed in her and her people. She has let us down too many times. Marnie wrote a great posting at fan.com but I agree with everyone who has left. It is too late as far as I am concerned. She could care less about anything but her small movies, small career, small BF and small mgt. Small life. She does not care about her fans unless she sells something. Really sorry she is like ES said. Or she changed a lot. Either way. Her BF can have her. He may be all she has. Bye."

I have finally managed to locate a copy of the research book I need for "Solo", and it's even in my local library! Woo-hoo. Now, to find the time to use it...

After catching the last 20 mins of POTO on TV this evening (much to B's dismay -- he wanted the football), I decided to find out what the film cast is currently up to. In the process, I stumbled on this:

Little Emmy, all grown up

That, ladies and gentlemen, was Emmy Rossum singing "All I Ask Of You" at a charity event for some kids (followed by all of them singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow). And despite the terrible quality of the recording, I have to admit I was stunned -- she's amazing! She has always had a strong lower register (which instantly won me over in POTO), but now she soars up to the high notes, too -- as madradish always said, it was just a matter of her voice maturing. Ha! Wonder if ALW has heard it yet? :D

Anyway, inspired by this, I went and found the videos for her recent Christmas release, and managed to locate a couple of other live recordings, of Holy Night and Merry Little Christmas. Yep, the girl can sing! There is also a studio version of the former floating around on YouTube.

But the best of the lot, I think, is her version of Carol of the Bells, recorded in the same style as her album. Little as I usually care for Christmas music, this one is a very rare exception.

Enjoy! :)

As girlie and ridiculous as it is fun -- Marie Claire's virtual makeover.

You can mess with one of the default photos, or if you register, you can upload a photo of yourself or some other unfortunate victim, and try on various (mostly subtle) make-up and (not-so-subtle) hair modifications. It actually works surprisingly well -- reminds me of being 13 and experimenting with unfortunate eyeshadow colours. :D

I have a sizeable quantity of leeks courtesy of the veggie box delivery this week. Does anyone have an Ultimate Best-Ever Leek Recipe that uses at least 3-4 large leeks? Not soup, though, as I have plenty at the moment. And preferably not the obvious, ie roasting it or adding to mashed potato.

(For bonus points, if you manage to include swede, parsnips and/or beetroot in your suggestions I would be particularly grateful -- that's the other stuff in my veggie box at the moment.)