Emily

brooklynmili, cancer!Phile extraordinaire

2009-08-09T22:48:08Z

This was my week over at trustno1_redux, as we rewatched Leonard Betts. If you aren't the type of Phile who can instantly remember every XF episode by title (I get mocked for this ability frequently at home), this is the one that kicks off the cancerarc in season four, featuring the guy who is MADE OF CANCER. It is pretty epic fucking win, as I did not remember until I curled up with it to write my recap and meta. It's scary, and creepy, and gross, and has great special effects that don't look at all cheezy, and it's funny, and brilliant, and then kicks you in the fucking gut in the last three minutes. It's amazing.

Anyway, my recap is here:

The intern puts on his Walkman and does paperwork. THUMP THUMP THUMP from the body lockup bit. Intern gets creeped out, as I would EVERY FUCKING DAY if I worked in a morgue, seriously.

and my meta, called "Cancer as Metaphor," is here:

Cancer lurks in secret, invisible until the end, and then destroys you.

I think I may need to make this photo my new baby-relatedicon:

2009-07-09T03:50:57Z

The hilarity of Xander-in-a-sweatband: IT DOES NOT STOP.

(Fourth of July picnic photos are here. They are cute.)

You might notice that in this photo, you can see two shiny little teeth, which have been the bane of our existence lately. He's cranky. He's not sleeping well. He doesn't want to eat food (not even more than five bites of applesauce, and he'll eat a gallon of applesauce normally). He doesn't want to nurse right, and he bites Mama nearly every nurse. There are probably more teeth coming, God help us all.

More substantive update soon. Just right now: crazy eyes Xander.

book reviews

2009-04-17T00:33:39Z

I just put my first post up to 50books_poc , which is a community that came out of this year's RaceFail, which was an ongoing discussion about race, cultural appropriation, and racism in the sci-fi and fantasy communities. It's a great place for book recommendations by authors you may or may not have heard of; I'm totally excited to, when I am picking my next book-for-fun, go through and find more genre works by people of color, since I tend to read very internationally/ethnically mixed in my literary fiction choices, but quite white for genre work.

The post is here, and is a review of Rabih Alameddine's The Hakawati and Steven Salaita's The Uncultured Wars.

The other initiative I'm following that came out of RaceFail is verb_noire , which is a new press dedicated to publishing genre work about characters of color, queers, and disabled folks. I'm really excited to go buy...basically whatever they publish. I figure, I read sci-fi and mysteries, and Kate reads fantasy and mysteries (and totally used to read romance back in the day! Oh, all those books I sold on eBay...), so we're a guarenteed market.

Signs of the Apocalypse

2009-04-15T20:08:21Z

Years ago, my dad started reading my Livejournal. That was fine, because back in the day I didn't really post much. But it was kinda funny.

Today, I checked Kate's email to find...a Facebook friend request from my mother.

Has my mother friended ME on Facebook? Of course not.

Now my dad is talking about joining Twitter...though he acknowledges he's not sure what he would tweet about.

WHY ARE MY PARENTS TRYING TO JOIN THE FUTURE? This is just wrong.

My Real Job

2009-04-02T04:40:56Z

For anyone interested in my research, both of the papers I'm giving at the Midwest Political Science Association conference this coming weekend are available online. They are:

Wills, Emily. "The Making of Arab New York: Discourse and Politics in Bay Ridge" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association 67th Annual National Conference, The Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, IL, Apr 02, 2009 Online <PDF>. 2009-04-01 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p360962_index.html>

Abstract: This paper uses ethnographic research in the diverse Arab communities of New York City to develop an analysis of the new forms and ideas in political discourse that are developed in diaspora. My research, like much theoretical and empirical work on discourse, makes simultaneous use of both the Foucauldian sense of discourse, the set of linguistic signs and practices that are used to create and structure meaning in society, and the processural sense, the act of speaking to and listening to fellow members of a discursive community. I want to use the set of signs and meanings that we use in everyday life to analyze processes of social contestation. In this paper, I isolate a single area of discourse in the second sense, the process of developing, justifying, and legitimating a notion of what constitutes "the Arab community" in New York. From this single topic of debate, I will demonstrate the way different thematic discursive foci, particular democracy, gender, and Middle Eastern politics, are developed in connection with each other in the actual practice of political debate, via an analysis of how these debates are shaped by engagement with multiple hegemonic formations that surround Arabs in New York.

Wills, Emily. "The Political Possibilities of Fandom: Transformational Discourses on Gender and Power in The X-Files Fandom" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association 67th Annual National Conference, The Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, IL, Apr 02, 2009 Online <PDF>. 2009-04-01 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p362928_index.html>

Abstract: Radical messages in pop culture texts are often entangled with conservative or even reactionary discourses. What is the real potential for dissent within popular culture? Is it located in the texts themselves, or, rather, in the practice of a viewing public? Much analysis assumes fannish practice has political potential because it allows a different reading for each reader and holding them all up as legitimate, refusing a single meaning in a text. I argue there is another way fandom is political: in its content, which can rearticulate and transform the conservative and reactionary discourses in its core texts. In this paper, I examine these questions as they pertain to the fan culture organized around a single text, The X-Files, and a single area of thought, the relationship between roles gendered as female, and authority and agency. I argue that, through the character of Dana Scully, the canon text of The X-Files sets up an unmistakeable association between adhering to socially normative femininity, especially the roles of abductee, sexual victim, and mother, and a steady loss of authority. However, fan discourse names this association, criticizes it, and resignifies those roles as authoritative.

To get these papers you can:

1) Go to the links provided in the citations; click on the All Academic link at the bottom, or use the html function towards the top.

or

1) Go to the MPSA Paper Archive here.
2) Select Search Papers (third tab)
3) Search by author, and put in "Wills."
4) My two papers, along with one other one, pop up.

Feedback appreciated, from fangirls with thoughts on the content of the XF paper, or from other readers interested in either topic.

In Octopus News

2009-03-19T14:08:43Z

Hey emily_shore :

Octopus Fossil Found

Xander Photos...and thoughts on friendslock

2009-02-16T02:54:14Z

I put a few new ones on Flickr. I love this photo so much.

There are many good things right now. Xander is doing so much more every day; he's just more of a person. My work is coming along well, even if there are frustrating moments. Kate and I managed to find some time to ourselves on Valentine's day, which was much needed and well-valued. We found a really great restaurant that is, well, not quite in our neighborhood but not so far away.

But there is some serious suckage, which I can't really talk about in public on the intarwebs until we decide what to do. Sorry. So we're a bit down around here at the moment. If you try to catch us, and we're sulky or whatever, that's why. Nothing about you.

I'm also trying to decide whether to take this journal substantially friends-only. I'm not shy about what my real name is on here. I'm also about to list a link to this journal in a publication, now that I'm dipping into fandom studies. I'm just thinking perhaps the fannish stuff, and some not-so-important stuff, should be the only public things.

IDK; what do you think? What choices do you make about being public or not public in various capacities on your journal? What do you lock, not-lock, etc?

Let us go then, you and I.

2009-02-04T03:28:30Z

Meme from bonne_a_rienne .

When you see this, post your favorite poem in your journal.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T.S. Eliot
(full text and notes here

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
      .      .      .      .      .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
      .      .      .      .      .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
      .      .      .      .      .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

In Honor of MLK Jr Day...

2009-01-20T03:00:30Z

Some crazy shit w/r/t queers and womens.

1). One of the brides in this article is the sister of a friend of Kate's via the internet. As you can tell, they're getting a lot of bullshit posts. Her sister's trying to get folks together to say nice things to outweigh the shitty comments. You have to register, but it's a nice thing to do.

2) This is the most WTF essay on why gays shouldn't be in the military. It makes the following arguments: a) gays are WEIRD. b) gays only join the military to have sex! there's no place for gays to meet other people of the same sex outside of the military. c) gays RAPE people (because no servicewoman was ever raped by a serviceman). It's pretty amazing.

3) In good news, Rick and Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in the World is my new favorite television show . Logo page; E4 page, which has episodes. It's like if Robot Chicken and Family Guy had a gay baby. And it's written by a Filipino, and has lots of good non-white characters, and at least one hilarious episode about race, which is not so common in queer media. Anyway, totally worth watching/downloading/buying for actual money (I'm thinking of buying it with my iTunes money I got for xmas).

4) Krispy Kreme donuts: free tomorrow. Some crazy anti-abortion folks think that means that Kripsy Kreme kills babies. Yeah. I'm eating some donuts tomorrow, how 'bout you?

Have some justice or something.

I'm taking a poll

2009-01-07T19:17:49Z

What percentage of my dissertation research/writing will be done while standing in the kitchen, computer on the sideboard because it's the only thing at the right height to stand and type, baby sleeping in snuglee?

dismissed

2009-01-05T21:37:48Z

No jury duty for eight years, whee!

Home again, taking my turn with teh baybee. Who has been annoying the shit out of his mama all day, but is suddenly all sweetness and light when I get home. I HAS THE BABY MAGIC apparently.

While doing dissertation translating in the juror waiting room, met a Palestinian, chatted for a bit about Arabs in the city. My dissertation is everywhere.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Excused.

2009-01-05T19:54:59Z

From that case at least. My dead brother in law, let me show you him. Best get out of jury duty card evar. Silver lining tiems. Oh, my sense of humor is so wrong.

Back to translating.

Falafel matters.

2009-01-05T18:59:21Z

Voir dire. I may be picked. I really hope not. Wireless really shitty in this room. Went to fave Yemeni restaurant for lunch. Took forty minutes to get falafel sandwich. What, did they have to grow the chickpeas? But it was the best falafel I've ever had, so, you know, balance or some shit. Time to be bored more now. Sigh.

Jury blogging

2009-01-05T14:13:22Z

there are no words to describe the awesome of the new York state jury video. Hosted by Ed Bradley and diane sawyer. It starts with a reenactment of a mideval trial by water. That's right, bitches. New York is cooler than you.

Other things that are awesome include my iPod touch. Which used to be Jesus's.

Oh, and I chose e.

I get paid $40/day to be here, too. (I checked, Kate, and the state pays "unemployed" folks like me. Hey, I wonder if I'm eligible for unemployment?)

Ok, things are starting.

So...

2009-01-04T06:49:28Z

Which of the following things will help me get out of jury duty on Monday?

A. Arabic dictionary, stack of Arabic/English newspapers to translate, yellow legal pad full of scribbley Arabic notes
B. Book on Arab-American women through history
C. iPod full of downloaded podcasts from Radio Tahrir
D. None of the above; there's no racism in jury selection in Kings County! And Arabs aren't scary!
E. All of the above, and do you have a t-shirt saying you're a lesbian anywhere?

Christmas Morning!

2008-12-25T17:13:18Z

Xander is not having the best Christmas ever. Yesterday was his two month check-up, which is the first round of vaccinations. Of course, he got a fever, and spent last evening alternately screaming (which he just doesn't do) and sleeping. We dosed him heavily with baby Tylenol. He's still a little off this morning, but doing better.

My parents and brother came up last night to celebrate. They got Xander some lovely clothes and books, and gave Kate some earrings and music, and me the XFII DVD and Beatles dubs, and the whole family a puzzle to take to the beach. My brother got me iTunes money and Kate headphones, which was exciting. We also gave my dad the iPod we bought him (a shiny lovely gold Nano). Then we ordered Mexican food, since we couldn't go out because of screaming baby, and watched Noel (the best of the Christmas West Wing episodes), and a Simpsons episode, and one of the Futurama Xmas episodes. Then we sent them home, Xander fell asleep, and I set up Christmas.

I didn't realize until I was married to Kate and we were talking about holidays how seriously we took Christmas when I was a kid. There was special breakfast stuff (donuts or sweet bread or danish or whatever), and the kids had to wait upstairs until my folks had lit the tree and set up the cameras. We opened presents right away, took turns, photographed each other, etc. We still do some version of that, though there's less desperate press to get to the gifts considering that we're all grownups. But Kate's family never did that; her mom always spent the morning wrapping gifts, and there was no big deal made. So, I'm in charge of Christmas, I've decided, because I want us to have serious, fancy holidays. For next year, my mom brought us our advent wreath and our creche. We'll do it very big when he's old enough to remember it.

Photos of this morning at the Flickr set. Once I make Christmas dinner, I guess I'll photograph that too.

Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and happy any-other-day if you don't.

Essay on Disability and TXF

2008-12-25T03:26:49Z

In case any one wants to hear me rant about my experiences as a disabled person in conjunction with a really mediocre X-Files episode, I wrote a meta at trustno1_redux called "Normalcy vs Capacity" about "The Walk." You remember it as the one with the astral-projecting quadruple amputee. Or you don't remember it at all, more likely. It does contain some lovely subtle acting by Gillian Anderson, though, who gets the nuances of Scully being a military brat (and therefore highly interested in justice within the ranks) very, very right.

Anyway, my meta opens with this vignette:

When I was sixteen, I had this dream. I was driving my dad's car, a beat-up early-nineties Jetta, stick shift. I was driving down one of the hilliest roads in our town, which lead past where one of my best friends lived. I was terrified that I would be out of control, but somehow I managed to drive that car successfully around hairpin turns and down seventy-degree drops. For most sixteen year olds, a dream of driving would be unsurprising, but I was not most sixteen year olds. For one thing, I hadn't even started learning how to drive, and didn't really care. (In fact, at twenty-seven, I still can't drive.) Oh, and I'd just had major surgery on both of my legs, was one week home from a two-week hospitalization, slept and ate and spent my days in a hospital bed in the living room, could barely transfer to a wheelchair, and wouldn't be able to walk unassisted for another four years.

I asked a friend who knew about dream interpretation what she thought the dream meant. "Dreams of cars usually represent control," she said. "Most of the time people dream of not being able to drive the car, though."

The friend, if you were wondering, was lysistrata.

Anyway, tt's full of exciting!crippled!Emily!stories, including Tales of Places Emily And Katie Would Make Out In High School, and you probably don't need to have seen the episode to have it make sense.

Oh, also, it's Christmas. I suppose I'll post on that subject tomorrow.

Sometimes it's nice living with a professional photographer.

2008-12-15T05:12:26Z

Because when you say, we need a Christmas card photo of the three of us, he busts out the light umbrellas and the wireless flashes.

And because he's your best friend, you end up looking like a pimp.

We'll probably end up going with a less pimptastic one for the final card...but I think this is my favorite. Oh, and yes, Xander is wearing a vest. It's velvet. It has matching pants. And the shirt has buttons. And a collar. It's amazing how we torture our children.

(Duty to the photographer requires me to say this is before post-processing...I just fiddled with the exposure on iPhoto to make it brighter. Also that it's his photo and not mine.)

Actual Monologues Delivered To My Son While Watching Television

2008-11-19T04:20:59Z

--------

See? There's James Bond. He's going scubadiving with the lady who is pretty naked. I don't know why. This time James Bond is Sean Connery. If you're gay, maybe someday you can explain Sean Connery's appeal to me. I just don't get it. Oh, now he's being chased by sharks. See the sharks? They don't look like nice, friendly sharks. Now he's running away from the sharks. That's very smart of James. Would you like to go scuba diving someday? OK, we'll learn together. Now he trapped the sharks! I don't know why James Bond is fighting sharks. I thought he fought international terrorists. But, today, James Bond is fighting sharks.

(Never Say Never Again)

--------

Tonight the Knicks are playing the Celtics. They're playing in Boston. You can tell because the Knicks are wearing blue. See? The home team always wears white, and the away team wears colorful outfits. You can also tell they're in Boston because the floor is green. They're like that in Boston.

(Knicks v Celtics, final score 101 Knicks-110 Celtics)

------

See Cigarette-Smoking Man? Why's he going to the basement? Because he wants to check on his baby who works there! Who is CSM's baby? Can you guess? It's Mulder! Mulder is CSM's baby like you're my baby. Although I'd like to argue that I'm a substantially better parent already.

(Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man)

-----

In other news, Mr. Xander has his own Flickr, so he can stop clogging up mine. It's here. There is extreme cuteness therein. I'm also updating his youtube channel as we speak.

A Message From Our Newest Member

2008-11-02T00:14:53Z

DEAR INTARWEBS AUNTIES:

HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

I LIKE YAWNING.

LOVE XANDER.

Xander Is A Movie Star

2008-10-29T00:08:02Z

I made Xander a Youtube channel.

Good Morning, Son

2008-10-25T00:22:31Z

Good morning, son
Twenty years from now
Maybe we'll both sit down and have a few beers
And I can tell you
About today
And how I picked you up and everything changed
It was pain, sunny days and rain
I knew you'd feel the same
--Still Fighting It, Ben Folds

Input:

Thirty-six hours of labor after rupture of membranes
One round of Stadol
Twenty hours of Pitocin
One epidural
Three hours of pushing
Three applications of the vacuum extractor
One hour of post-birth suturing
No cesaerian section

Output:

Jonathan Alexander Rapoport-Wills
Born 10/22/2008, 4:42 AM
Six Pounds, Ten Ounces
Nineteen Inches Long

Xander was born at 4:42 AM, after 36 hours of serious, hardcore labor. He had been presenting funny, which made the labor very difficult. In part because of the difficulty and length of the labor, he had to go down to the neonatal intensive care unit for a while. This photo was taken right before he and I left Kate to get stitched up.

Xander was on CPAP (not a ventilator, but lung support) for a while; at this point of this photo, he was off the CPAP, but still getting monitored.

Then they moved him from a warmer to an incubator, and took out all his tubes but the IV. (He eventually took out his own IV, because he is a badass little baby.) He got transferred to our room late last night, and we were all discharged this afternoon.

This is me with him while he was still in the NICU. It's possible he got a little sick of me by the end.

I'll update with more recent photos soon...just right now, I need to go become unconscious or something.

Um. Baby.

BABY EXTRACTION UPDATE

2008-10-20T22:50:32Z

1) Kate was in prodromal (i.e., long protracted headache) labor from Thursday until today.

2) Her water broke at 4:15 PM as she was in the chiropractor's office, just as I arrived to meet her.

3) As of our 5PM midwife check-in, she was 1cm dilated.

4) She's asleep right now. Her mom's on her way up. Jesús is home with us. I just showered and am all clean and squeaky.

5) They won't let the labor go more than 24 hours past water breaking. So Xander will be born tomorrow or this evening.

OMFG WHAT.

We'll update as soon as we can.

Remakes: UR DOIN IT WRONG

2008-10-11T05:21:43Z

(Baby news update: 21 contractions in three-and-a-half hours, which then petered out. But that's a pretty standard night around here lately. We'll post when we are headed to the hospital, if possible. Could be tomorrow, could be two weeks. Damn, babies are unpredictable.)

(Also, the following two things say something sick about me: First, the #1 song on my iPod right now is The Seed 2.0. Second, I'm watching Home while my pregnant wife sleeps on the couch.)

I loved Life on Mars on the BBC. I loved the premise: guy travels through time, doesn't understand it! I loved the characters: Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt were just awesome, almost awesome enough to push me into full-on fandom. I loved the vibe: Manchester in the 1970s. It was a cool show. My sci-fi geek self liked it, my Anglophile self liked it, etc, etc, etc.

Then I found out there was going to be a US remake. (From emily_shore , if I remember properly.) I was worried. A lot worried. There are so many ways it could be fucked up. But I was willing to withhold judgement. And then Colm Meany was going to be in it, and my inner Trekkie went w00t, and so I was happy.

I watched it tonight, and I despair.

Here are the things wrong with it.

1) New York≠Manchester. Setting it in New York makes it part of the generic landscape of US television. EVERYTHING is set in NYC. It gets boring after a while. Part of what made the UK version interesting was its setting somewhere outside of London--industrial Manchester, a city that is complicated and off the beaten path, a city that was struggling because of industrial collapse. The clear and obvious parallel is somewhere like Detroit. So why not Detroit? Why does every cop show EVER have to be set in New York? We have things here besides crime. And the fashion industry. And rich people.

What makes me more angry is that I did some googling, and apparently it was originally set in LA, but they changed it to take advantage of it being easier to film in NYC. WHAT. THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

2) It's a shot-by-shot remake. Literally. That produces two problems. The first is that I don't really see the point of a shot by shot remake. There is an original Life on Mars. Where's the creativity? Remakes are good when they're re-envisionings (see: Battlestar Galactica) or where they push the envelope in a new direction. But I just don't understand why anyone would want to make a shot-by-shot remake. The second is that it raises the inevitable comparison. And the original is, unsurprisingly, better.

Take these two scenes. The first is from the BBC version; it shows how Sam Tyler is transported from 2006 to 1973.

This link is to the American version, and shows the parallel scene. This is a preview version, not exactly how it was shown. The one difference is that, in the version that aired did play the song Life on Mars, but hacked down. The other thing I'll add is that, when he looks up and says "No way," at the end, he's seeing the Twin Towers. I'll admit, that moment is good.

I think it's clear how much better paced the first is in terms of the shot construction; there is also more mystery and excitement in the British version, I think. And the "jeep" line doesn't make sense in American English; we'd say SUV to describe Sam's car, y/y? When you do a shot-by-shot, line-by-line remake, you have to do BETTER.

There's also the terrible way they're trying to reference the original. When Sam enters the police station, someone says he's the new transfer from Hyde, which is where British Sam is from. Kate and I immediately turned to each other and said, "Where the fuck is Hyde?" Then Sam says, "Where the hell is Hyde?" And the guy says, "You know, upstate. They got a train museum." Of course, the place upstate with a train museum is HYDE PARK. Had they had him be from Hyde Park, it would have been, ha, a cute little wink at the original. But GETTING THE NAME OF THE PLACE WRONG is UNCOOL.

They need to make up their minds. If they're doing a new version that's targeted at fans of the old version, trying to bring in the fans of the BBC version, in which case they need to add new twists, make it more complicated, give it something bigger than the original or a really new take. But if you're doing a shot-by-shot with no added complexity, then fans of the original aren't going to tune in. They will, like me, be pissed off and haughty.

3) There's the inevitable dumbing down factor. Apparently, a lot of changes were made between pilot and what aired. First, COLM MEANY IS GONE. And I hate Harvey Keitel as Gene Hunt. He's just terrible, no charisma. I would have liked to see Meany play it; I think he would have been more interesting. I also don't like the woman playing Annie; I don't know if the other woman would have been better. This makes me think that it is being overmanaged, and probably not in a good way.

What worries me about this article is how it says it's making the mythology simpler and more satisfying. Part of the trick of Life on Mars (and this is the premise, so I'm not overspoiling) is that we are never really sure if Sam Tyler traveled through time, if he's insane, or if he's in a coma. The only way I can interpret this article is that they're going to pick one and announce it, or develop some other sort of mytharc. UM WHAT. No good. Do Not Want.

So what I'm saying is like this. I'm depressed and sad about the new version. I'm takin' it off the TiVo. BOO BAD REMAKES.

Writer's Block: Work Clothes

2008-10-03T00:47:18Z

Remember the bodysuit? Fashion designer Donna Karan, who changed the way career women dressed in the 1980s, turns 60 today. Office dress codes have relaxed since then, but every workplace has its own rules. What passes for appropriate where you work? Is there anything you can't wear to work?

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This is an excuse to talk about the difficulties of dressing this week.

So I get dressed in the dark for teaching. I'm not kidding; Pregnant!Kate is asleep in the bed. Also, it's always cold at 6:30 in the morning. Anyway, I've got one multi-hanger in the closet with all 5 of my blazers on it (silver/grey pinstripes, navy w/pinstripes, white denim, khaki, basic black). I reorganized my drawers so I've got one drawer with all my work-appropriate shirts. All I have to do is grab a shirt, a blazer that doesn't not-match, and a pair of jeans. It works.

The problem here is my fat jeans. So, I gained a bazillionty pounds (OK, 10-15) since January, because comparative exam+knocking up Kate+Kate actually getting pregnant+writing dissertation prospectus+running out of funding+everything=STRESS, and STRESS=ICE CREAM FOR DINNER. So, I had to buy some new jeans. I bought one pair that fit me at my heaviest, because all of my other jeans fell apart. They are a size 13. They are super low rise. They fit, and are very comfortable. The problem is, now that I've started losing a little weight, they're riding even lower. Even with a belt, it's hard to find shirts that come all the way over the waist. And I think it's bad form for the teacher to flash midriff, don't you? The thing is, the size 10 pants which are cut at a normal height and look great on me get a little frustratingly tight by the end of the day. Also, this week my metrocard was already in the size 13s. And, since I=lazy, I wore them today. Oh well.

But, that wasn't the real problem with my bigger jeans. That was when I decided to go do fieldwork on Tuesday, because it was Eid al-Fitr and I wanted to see what was happening in Bay Ridge on Eid. Then I got out of the train and realized I was wearing:

The large jeans
A ribbed tank top that, due to my ginormous weight-gain-induced boobage, cuts just at my belly button
A size-small hoodie that cuts just above the tank top.

Everybody knows I'm doing fieldwork in a majority-Muslim community, right? Right. Fuck.

I gamely kept tucking my shirt into my pants and zipped up the hoodie high enough to hide the cleavage. At some point, though, I said, fuck it, I'm obviously Whitey McWhiterson in Bay Ridge, there are plenty of...well, I could come up with a bunch of fucked up racialized things to say about Italian girls from Brooklyn, but anyway, my stomach is not going to kill my ability to successfully buy knafeh and count how many cops and cop cars it takes to respond to some sort of street incident in Bay Ridge. 10 cops is the answer. 2 cop cars, 1 traffic car, 1 cop van, 1 traffic van, 1 ambulence. No visible anything. 2-3 uses of the word 'fuck' by the cops.

Should I start a fieldwork LJ? ajnabiehfibruklin? anethnographygrowsinbrooklyn? Would you read it?