{ split subject }

I just wrote this entire post and then xjournal crashed somehow without saving it. technology = angst and woe!!! reconstructing...

i. OK, so I utterly FAILED to finish my (going on three weeks late) getyourtoaster fic today (I succeeded in starting it, at least). hopefully thenewhope won't put me out the airlock! this failure may result, through a procrastinatory chain reaction of apocalyptic proportions, in me never finishing my PhD. because now the writing on the wall states that I'll work on the fic next week instead of starting my field lists for my exams, which means I won't start the field lists until, uh, late june? alternately, I could return to providence AGAIN after memorial day weekend on long island, quietly start the field lists without informing any of my oh-so-distracting friends (except the ones who read this journal or check plazes, apparently) that I'm in town, and then go straight from here to Laguardia to catch my plane to California. which is ridiculous, but perhaps not as ridiculous as not starting my field lists until late june. but would also mean that I won't get to meet with the brain trust Quorum of Five for GYT round Six, oh noes! this weekend, however, is dedicated to the birthday of clyde_man! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

ii. having the desire to write this story hanging over my head has been filling me with anxiety, I tell you (WHY, I ask, do I have to complete meaningless tasks like final projects and grading when I could be working on life-enriching fanfic?!?) -- and my unconscious has offered up the dreams to prove it:

( what would Freud say? )

iii. speaking of fanfic, those of you who watch Bad Girls MUST read mandysbitch's story Just Another Word. you don't need to know West Wing. it's an AU about Nikki, and it's spare and angst-ridden and lovely.

and while I'm here, a little SSP: I don't think enough people read my last ever Janeway fic. it's a pretty good story, imnsho. my take, finally, on J/7 post-DQ, with a guest appearance by Seska and a warning for non-con (I'm always so MEAN to Janeway!).

iv. and speaking of Bad Girls, do any of you still have interest in torrents of any portion of S.1-3 and/or my proposed Gay Girls S.2 Helen/Nikki compilation? the former is down because I some of the files were lost, and the latter is perpetually half done. I'd probably have to start over by re-ripping everything to move the project forward, and I'm not going to do that if your lives are all complete without it.

v. do you (uh, cathexys?) know any smart and fabulous person with a PhD who wants to come teach two TV studies classes at Brown next year? could be one each semester or both one semester; pay probably typical adjunct, not stellar. ideally said person could teach something other than what ljconscript and I primarily do (that is, not gender/sexuality and TV+digital/fandom; perhaps global TV, TV and race, TV history, reception studies) -- topics negotiable. I don't think they're posting the job officially, but I'm supposed to ask around.

booked my NJ-LA ticket -- I'm scheduled to arrive at LAX exactly 2.5 hours before my flight to Australia leaves, which I sincerely hope isn't cutting it too close. cross your fingers for me. I'm leaving LA at 8:15 friday morning. hey, sorlklewis, wanna drive me to the airport? :P

booked my ticket from Melbourne to Sydney -- leaving at 3:15, arriving at 4:35 (tuesday 1.10). OK? only $81!

*

haha, I totally picspammed today. here's the legend to the stop sign series:



also, from kore, Stephen Colbert fanfic!!!

*

Bad Girls S.2 disc 1 torrent // (go here for S.1)
sorry again about the awkward breaks between the files (the first one at least is particularly bad) -- if anybody can figure out how to join the mp4s (or has Quicktime Pro), let me know.

more of S.2 soon. also more on how Bad Girls (that is, Helen Stewart) broke my heart. weepweep. I still need time to process.

now watching South of Nowhere, which is teh roxxxorz!! (mmmm, barely legal, mmmm)

ack! I need to stop posting because it makes me so behind on comments. BUT. you should know a few (more) things. in baby roman numerals for pene:

i. I do adore hanging out with _plasticity_, which if you knew us you'd probably find odd. I was telling him all about Bad Girls, and he was like "dude [he doesn't actually say that -- I'm paraphrasing here], if I were going to try to create a show ESPECIALLY FOR YOU, that's exactly the concept I would go with." so true. thoughts about Bad Girls S.1, as pondered while I was supposed to be doing homework at various times since I finished watching on tuesday, and doodled in my seminar notes today:

( about eye candy; only minor spoilers )

ii. today's quotation is for all you doppelcest fans out there:
the specular image seems to be the threshold of the visible world, if we take into account the mirrored disposition of the imago of one's own body in hallucinations and dreams, whether it involves one's individual features, or even one's infirmities or object projections; or if we take note of the role of the mirror apparatus in the in the appearance of doubles, in which psychical realities manifest themselves that are, moreover, heterogeneous. (5)
he also says:
At this intersection of nature and culture, so obstinately scrutinized by the anthropology of our times, psychoanalysis alone recognizes the knot of imaginary servitude that love must always untie anew or sever. (9) [which I thought was pretty]
~ Lacan, "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function" in Écrits [new translation by Bruce Fink]

iii. is a PSA: please educate yourself about HPV. I was going to try to do a more extensive resource post, but that link (the first I clicked on), seems to be concise, coherent and comprehensive (but what's up with the emo girl photo?). I'd like to emphasize:
• cervical cancer is preventable! this is why it's crucial to get regular PAP tests and to have follow-up treatment if necessary.
• current guidelines about how often you should get a PAP test vary -- you could consult your doctor about what she'd recommend for you. because precancerous symptoms can show up years after infection, it's important to get tested regularly even if you're in a monogamous relationship.
• the PAP test does NOT test for HPV -- it tests for precancerous cells. most people who have HPV have never had any symptoms and don't know they have it. once you are infected with HPV, you are a carrier of the virus for life and there's a risk of passing it to your sexual partners.
• however, since HPV has no lasting health consequences if you are responsible about testing and treatment, this is perhaps not such a big deal.
• "by age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital HPV infection"
• bonus factoid about herpes: "most" people are infected with HSV-1 (oral herpes, i.e. cold sores) by their 20's (this fact sheet gives the figure for Australians at 70%). while HSV-1 more commonly occurs orally and HSV-2 more commonly occurs genitally, they both can go either place. there is a low risk of transmitting herpes if you are asymptomatic, but it's possible. please keep this in mind re: kissing and especially oral sex.
next time in Viral STIs... Hepatitis C

iv. I need a fourth thing, right, since five is the magic number? I'm off to nyc (but I'll be working on monday's presentation all weekend, if I know what's good for me). thus I won't be seeding Bad Girls over the weekend. I had the brilliant idea that I'll call my mom's travel agent to work on a Sydney ticket for me, which is far less time consuming than doing it myself.

v. this call for submissions rocks and needs to get around:

Realness Is Overrated: Rejecting the Requirement to Pass

( Read more... )

1. current notes for my online identity/community lecture:
it's coming after a week on surveillance, where we'll be discussing Foucault's panopticon, Virilio's doomsday scenarios, and the pathology of camgirls. so my plan is to begin with a critique of the pessimism of these perspectives, which identify important phenomena but color them with regressive clutching at disintegrated stabilities like "real," "private," etc. I do want to assign Cyborg Manifesto, though it's not related directly to the topic at hand, because I adore it and I want the kids to read it. so I'll then outline the article as an alternative politics that proposes new possibilities for agency and connection/affinity from within a system of publicity and surveillance. via a nod to the broader field of cyborg theory, I'll segue (possibly using museumfreak's "we're all cyborgs here" icon, if she doesn't mind) to the ways online identity/community in particular can be understood through this lens. I'm not sure how good my summary of this will be since I don't know any of this material -- help/references would be appreciated. I'll take livejournal as a sort of case study, possibly walking them through BSG fandom as an example of the forms of centralized/decentralized networking and community that this technological architecture can provide a platform for (with the bonus of canonical cyborgs). since in the following class we'll be looking at some of the erasures and breakdowns of this model (e.g. wank, racism), I may close by touching on some of the ways that lj is far from utopian (e.g. ljdrama).

I don't have to assign them a second article, but if you can think of one that would complement Haraway, but is perhaps more specific to online community/livejournal, I'd be much obliged. my one stipulation is that it be critical theory rather than social science/ethnography oriented (i.e. not like this article) -- I think this work can be tremendously interesting and useful, but it isn't disciplinarily appropriate to the class. I'm planning to look through these at some point for fodder, but I'm not optimistic. (and I was poking around delicious, and noticed that ao, femslash, and svu are among the few tags listed as related to livejournal -- HEE!)

alternately, I could give the students various non-academic articles/meta/sites -- and this, dear flist, is mostly what I'm here to beg for your suggestions about, in your far vaster wisdom and experience. do you have links for me, pretty please? actually, in going through my memories, I found a whole bunch -- but I'd welcome more or just your input on how you'd frame this. there's plenty of material about the LJ/Six Apart merger, but I think I'd rather go in the direction of collective practices rather than of the question of how they interface with an techno-economic system. I could discuss Bloggers Need Not Apply but that's more about identity/privacy and not community. musings about lj by fans / how lj has changed fandom could make up a big part of it -- yet again I owe a great debt to cathexys for being such an intrepid archivist. coffeejunkii, do you still have the list of links you gave your students? -- I lost them. this isn't a lecture about fandom, though -- it takes up lj and specifically fandom as one permutation of the topic of online identity/community.

2. I was admonished for not blogging legs and eggs. hello, my name is projectjulie, and I LOVE STRIPPERS. also, the 3 first-year girls, who were excellent sports -- if not quite as deliriously drooling as I. the breakfast buffet left much to be desired, but was more than made up for by the legs portion of the event. (except for one, who wouldn't even look at us) the strippers were all totally sweet and HOT and got a kick out of us being there. our favorite insisted, with delightful enthusiasm, on going down the line and rubbing her breasts over each of our faces. bliss! and the conversations were fascinating -- one stripper said that most women who come in are scoping out a potential workplace or dragged in by men and tend not to engage, but another said that women customers are more able to have fun and interact (vs. the men who just sit there all stoic and predatory).

3. I wrote Cainslash (which is spoilery for Battlestar Galactica 2x10). why can't I just write fic all the time?? I have so many drabble ideas that I don't know what to do with myself. I cooked up an alphabet soup challenge so I can live vicariously through others -- any and all pimpage would be much appreciated. and aeonian is my WHORE at ficsforcharity, which leaves me just beside myself with joy. I'm all about the delegation of kinks and bunnies, yes.*

4. and now I bring you a mid-semester update on my TV-viewing habits -- because after all, TV is my LIFE. now with LJ communities!

the lineup
• dear lord, Bad Girls! I rather hate that I (and my ilk) are so predictable, but I was instantly head over heels for it. lesbians in prison = GUH TO THE NTH POWER. ergo I have adopted this popular sparklebunny icon, which is apropos. if you like dykes, run, don't walk, to netflix or tvtorrents or digital cable -- I'll bet you favors of your choice that you'll be hooked after approximately 2 eps.** if you're a girlslash writer, consider watching it to be a personal favor to me. so yes, I'm joining the mass exodus from SVU to badgirlsslash (fic) and the_pottingshed (drabbles) -- and I should really catch up on your writings there! (there's also badgirls_tv, but I'm concerned about spoilers, as the brits are up to season 7 -- don't spoil me!!)
• speaking of the devil, I'm pretty zen about the state of SVU.*** is it just me, or did Olivia's hair get rather shorter in the second ep and then go all shaggy again? the shorter I thought was bearable. meanwhile, the snarky meta (thank you, ob_fangrrl!) makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. and it was always a crap show whose primary pleasure beyond eye candy consisted in deconstructing its reactionary sexual politics, and that hasn't changed (count on svu_cort, though it's been quiet of late). mini rant: I love how gay men's sexuality is TV-friendly because it can be spectacularized as dangerous, edgy, and criminal, whereas lesbian sexuality is all about womyn rubbing gently up against one another in a frenzy of nurturing female bonding, and thus is clearly an inappropriate subject for TV drama. *fumes* I'm subbed to (and sporadically reading) svu100, lawandorderfic, casey_olivia (I'm unapologetic), and svu_rpf for fic, and taking over olivia_mariska_ is a pet project.
• ( and the rest )

just a miscellany of bulletins for you, my friends, entirely devoid of personal interest. it appears phoneposting is finally working again, but during the hiatus much was irretrievably missed (notably two weekends of debauchery). I'll try to get back into the habit.

1. I'm coming to Sydney. except I don't yet have a plane ticket, and I suppose it won't be 100% certain until that happy event. but I've decided that money is no object, and I'm coming even if clyde_man can't. I'd still like to wrangle a cheap not exorbitantly expensive ticket, though -- any suggestions? my dates are flexible in the range of the first three weeks of January (mandysbitch, you can have your pick of the weekend of the 7th or of the 14th). I have to look into Priceline, consolidators, etc.

2. I'm burning DVDs on my computer for the first time in like 5 months!!! it was a matter of getting my hands on 4x DVD-Rs (and of figuring out that this was the problem exactly, which also took a while) -- I ended up having to order them from a special store online that sells bulk media. curse rapid technological innovation. anyway, I will now be able to share TV with people. in this vein:

( like Oz, but with lesbians )

3. meanwhile, I've also (finally) upgraded to Tiger! I *heart* Dashboard! my basic setup:

( organization turns me on )

all of these came from apple.com -- more info on request. rec me widgets!

4. I'm calling this genre Gnomic Spam:

( from Sonny Beatty, Re: News )

[there isn't even a link in this email ?!?]

5. I know I've already talked about my bourgeois guilt, but just for the record:

( my VERY EASY life )