Fandom

Travel – Star Trek Original Series Set Tour, Ticonderoga, New York

Standard

It hasn’t been a week since my birthday surprise, and at times I feel as if it were just yesterday or a year ago that we took the long drive to Ticonderoga, New York to visit the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour.

It was all the more wonderful to celebrate my 50th birthday among the stars that had been in our world for those same fifty years.

I was completely speechless and wide-eyed. I had no idea that this place existed. Upon entering and checking in (we’d bought our tickets online), we were led into a large warehouse space. The modern displays and wooden walls stamped with Desilu Studios 9 were wonderfully deceiving.

Continue reading

Fandom Patriarchy – The Walking Dead Edition

Standard

I was watching The New Rockstars on YouTube, and they were reviewing Season 7, episode 3 of The Walking Dead, The Cell. They are one of the good reviewers/commentators to watch for a lot of their analysis. They have good ideas, good observations, and ask good questions to keep in mind as the season progresses.

In The Cell, we get a glimpse of Negan’s world in Sanctuary, his home base. We see the men and women who he trusts, the ones who work for points, the security, the loyalty, etc.

Make no mistake: Negan is G-d. He made that clear in the premiere episode by giving Rick the same sacrificial request as G-d gave Abraham in Genesis. I wasn’t the only one to notice this. Then there’s all the kneeling and head bowing. He not only runs the show, as he says, his is the only way. He’s the only game in town. And if you cross him, he exacts revenge. Death might be better in some cases.

In the comic books, the episode, and the New Rockstars video, there is much said about consent in having sex with the women.

There doesn’t seem to be any room for non-cis, non-straight people. If there are any, they are very firmly in the closet; at least, that’s how it appears at the moment.

One of the rewards offered to Dwight by Negan is his choice of any of the women. Except his wife, of course. Dwight can have sex with any of them, but only if he has consent, only if they’re willing.

Which sounds like a very enlightened attitude for the sociopath that Negan is.

The comments were made that the point of offering Dwight a night with his wife who went with Negan to save Dwight’s life was a way to hold it over Dwight’s head and show him who was in control. It also reminds Dwight that his wife went with Negan willingly. Kind of. So, yes, technically she consented, but really she didn’t have a choice. She was coerced. And the whole trying to get her pregnant thing with Dwight being encouraging… –  not cool.

The entire commentary is on the emasculation of Dwight where there is no mention of the continued rape of Sheri or of the other women.

It doesn’t surprise me that Negan, the narcissist would focus on the man pain and have no regard for the autonomy of the women, while at the same time feeling that he’s a good leader by giving them a false choice. I’m just not sure if this is a plot point or a latent bias by the writers to ignore the women except where they relate to the men.

I also realize that a zombie apocolypse would bring us back to basics, but I’m just not sure that the equality that women have earned is something that would just disappear overnight.

We do see women in positions of authority, carrying guns and giving orders, killing, being leaders to the men, but I have a feeling those are not the same women offered into sexual encounters as rewards for the men in authority.

If you’re offering youself sexually to save your life, or to protect your spouse and/or children, there is no valid consent. Denial would be enough to lose privileges and risk your life. Coersion is not consent.

Thoughts?

50-40 – Collections

Standard

I have always been a collector. I’m not quite at the hoarding stage yet, but it’s not that far off, so I need to be ever vigilant and aware so I don’t end up on the nighttime news when they come with a shovel.

Our whole family collects something or other. My oldest son collects fire department memorabilia and history, books and pictures. My husband and middle son collect comic books and action figures. My middle son also collects Lego. He loves to build them and display them. He also continues to play with them. My daughter collects clothes. She wants to be a fashion designer and she loves putting new outfits together and seeing how she can make something old new again.

In my basement, I have videotapes and newspaper articles, magazines that I wanted to keep forever. I have the newspaper when NY Yankee Thurman Munson died. I have magazines when Princess Diana was married and I saved the newspapers somewhere for President Obama’s inauguration.

I have a collection of pewter pieces, primarily on the medieval theme, but also groupings of griffins, my favorite animal. Yes, of course, it’s a real animal.

I collect some stamp sets and sheets, usually the ones that my kids would want to have when they’re older. I’ve showcased some of them on here recently.

I collect coins. Not anything really worth much, but just a remembrance of where I’ve been or gifts that I’ve been given. I’m not sure where they all are, but I have German marks and French francs. A shekel and a Scottish paper pound. My friend sent me New Zealand money from his home and my husband brought me coins from the Philippines when he was there for his work. I almost always have Canadian money on me somewhere. We just went over the border this past summer for a couple of days vacation.

I also collect Hufflepuffs. They are a rare find, so I’m pretty sure I’ve got everything sold in our local stores, including Hot Topic.

My biggest collection is my pins. I love pins. I buy them wherever I am, and I am sent them by frineds, although I usually have to ask. I have San Francisco and Las Vegas from a friend. I have a Hello Kitty from Japan and my son brought me an Eiffel Tower pin from Paris. He recently went to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and he brought me my newest pin from there commemorating the fire department. Another new pin is my 50th anniversary Star Trek pin that a friend got for me at a convention. I have loved Star Trek since I was a little girl, and I thought that since I was also turning 50 this year, I’d really like the pin. The picture below is what my jacket looks like currently, but I display my pins on corkboard and need to get a few more squares of it to get the rest of them on.

My collections remind me of things, whether they’re what’s depicted on the pins or they remind me of the person who gave it to me, or the adventure I had when I got the pin. That’s especially true of my Gettysburg Bike Week pin.

All of my collections remind me of who I am and the important things I’ve done and want to remember.

The pins currently on my jacket: from the top, clockwise: my RCIA cross, trio of crosses from the Shrine of the North American Martyrs, rainbow Pride, Gishwhes, safety pin, Niagara Falls, 9/11 Memorial, 50th anniversary Star Trek, Hufflepuff, Supernatural anti-possession symbol, Star Labs, Michonne and Daryl from The Walking Dead, Wales, Niagara Falls/Hard Rock Cafe, 9/11 Memorial larger version. (c)2016


Pewter, Top, clockwise: Griffin hatching out of an egg, Griffin, Ceirdwen, griffin, medieval table, Ladron, griffin. (c)2016


Hufflepuff, Coins, Stamps. Left, then top to bottom: Hufflepuff pin, Hufflepuff key chain, coins from Canada, UK, and US Bicentennial, Repeal of the Stamp Act stamp sheet. (c)2016

50-28 – Like a Birthday or a Pretty View

Standard

High school was a time for friends and music and concerts. I still feel the ramifications of standing too close to a speaker in a closed building listening to The Stray Cats. Now that was an experience and an amazing memory.

There was Berlin, the Thompson Twins and others, but none more important to my life as the five Brits known (and still known) as Duran Duran. Named for Doctor Duran in Barbarella. With their hair and their makeup, their synth pop. The three unrelated Taylors, Nick Rhodes, and Simon LeBon creating music that was danceable and singable, but also moving and inspirational, a creative catalyst for my writing and exploring what was barely in my mind’s eye, but that wanted to come out in ways.

My friends and I would go to the park, climb up on the big stage at the amphitheatre. They would play their air instruments, and I would take their pictures using my air camera.

Click, whirr is the sound a camera makes, and I was the paparazzi following them on tour.

We were 100 Club, and we opened for Duran Duran. We wrote creative fiction, not song fic, maybe closer to fan fiction. Mine was a murder mystery – Murder at the Odeon. and it was my second moment of fandom and writing colliding.

Duran Duran also contributed to our creativity with their videos – The Chauffer, Night Boat. Their videos told stories that encouraged us to tell our own stories.

My current text notification is Late Bar, one of my favorite songs from them, conjuring up holes in walls, drinking, and mystey. It influenced a poem I wrote for the yearbook called Spies, which in turn encouraged a new Dungeons and Dragons game that was called Top Secret that was role playing for secret agents and government spies.

Their Hungry Like the Wolf was very much like Indiana Jones and New Moon on Monday reminded me of those undercover agents sneaking around foreign lands.

Thirty odd years later and I still listen to them. They remind me of high school, and college but they also fill me with new bouts of creativity and writing inspiration.

The Post Office, Part 1

Standard

Starting at the top, clockwise: Lapel pin of America Responds stamp, Ornament commemorating 100 Years of Letters to Santa through the US Postal Service, America Responds stamp sheet, Harvey Milk stamp sheet, plastic mailbox to hold stamps or Valentine’s. (c)2016

Starting at the Top, clockwise: Baseball Sluggers, Sunday Funnies, Star Wars, Disney Magic, Super Heroes Chapter Two, Animals, Super Heroes Chapter One, Disney Romance, Star Trek. (c)2016

50-18 – TV Writers…Writers on TV

Standard

​Before I thought, or accepted that I was a serious writer with something to say, I read ferociously. I also watched television with the same zeal. I could literally sit down and watch the last fifteen minutes of a two hour television movie and be completely engrossed in it. I loved all genres then. We only had six, maybe seven broadcast channels, assuming the winds were right and the aerial was in its proper position. And of course, the only one who knew whether the aerial was positioned right was the aerial itself. It was never in the same position twice.

Our televisions went from huge hunks of furniture to little tiny ones that I could bring to college and get one station in black and white, and now they’ve returned to huge wall hangings, mounted like a movie theatre.

One of the things that never left me from my childhood was noticing and watching all of the writers that appeared on television. I don’t mean the people who wrote the shows or the books that the shows were based on, but the characters who were writers.

I grew up wanting to be a lawyer – slash – private investigator – slash – reporter. I always had a notebook with me, jotting down things I’d see on the street, the way the colors hit the water or the street sign or the sound made when a car drives through a puddle. I don’t know why I needed this information, but I did and I would have it when I did need it.

When I went to my first therapy appointment, I noticed that the therapist had a print of a Renoir hanging on the waiting room wall. In my head, in my best Remington Steele accent, I said, “The wall safe is always behind the Renoir. Where’s the Renoir?”

In the writing in my head, I would insert myself into whatever the storyline was, sometimes more than one, and I would be the journalist or writer, much like Richard Castle who the police or PI couldn’t solve the case without. It gave me the chance to be a recurring, supporting character which is something I probably am in my own real life story, never the main character.

I know a lot of my love for journalism came from the movie, All the President’s Men. I was young and impressionable at a time that journalists were revered, both in real life: Woodward & Bernstein, Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and in fiction as well:

Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote

Ian Stark from Stark Raving Mad

Billie Newman from Lou Grant – my favorite of favorites

Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane of the Superman Adventures

Jake Sisko of Deep Space Nine

Ray Romano of Everybody Loves Raymond

Oscar Madison, another sportswriter from The Odd Couple

Murphy Brown – news writer and reporter

Chuck Shurley, aka Carver Edlund of Supernatural

Iris West of The Flash

Todd Manning of One Life to Live

John-Boy Walton of The Waltons

Richard Castle of Castle

Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza of Seinfeld

Carrie Bradshaw of Sex in the City

Maya of Just Shoot Me

Rob Petrie of The Dick Van Dyke Show 

Phoebe Halliwell of Charmed

And those are just off the top of my head.

Today, I have more respect for the real writers and the current ones who inspire me include Lin-Manuel Miranda, Adam Glass, Robbie Thompson, Bernard Cornwell, and Sharon Kay Penman. They are who I go back to time and again because they are just that good. Not to leave out Wil Wheaton who is truly an inspiration and one of the main catalysts to my beginning this blog. Watching him navigate through his own freelance career, adjusting to the markets and changing, rebooting his life, but always writing and contributing; being his own boss, but also his own motivation. Writer and artist, Norman Reedus who inspires me to break out of my comfort zone and experiment with my art. 

To call myself a writer, I belong to a family of writers, both fictional and real, and each one gives me something, and that makes me better.

50-15 – Bart Conner and Nadia Comeneci

Standard

Many of these begin with ‘when I was a kid’ or a teenager or in college, but so many of the things that I rmember are from those times. Sometimes they stand out because of the people I was with or I’m reminded of them because of a recent event or circumstance.

When I was in high school, I had a huge crush on Bart Conner. I loved watching all of the gymnasts – male and female – compete both at the world championship level and at the Olympic level. I was a big fan of the Olympics and u sed their subject for several papers and speeches throughout high school and college. I was a fan.

For a long time I followed the careers of Kurt Thomas – up until his retirement to coach, and Bart Conner. They seemed ot always finish one or two, but for the life of me, I can’t remember who finished where.

I got ahold of Bart’s address in college – the University of Oklahoma at Norman and sent fan letters, letters of congratulations and the like. He returned with a postcard and a Christmas card. The Christmas card is long lost. I have a photocopy of it from my friend, Susan who joined me on the Christmas card writing.

Many years later, after we’d moved to the upstate New York area, I saw an advertisement that Bart Conner and his wife, Nadia Comeneci would be signing autographs in the local mall.

How could I pass up this opportunity, not only to meet my crush and hero, Bart Conner while making a fool of myself reminiscing about our high school correspondence, but to meet Nadia Comeneci, the most famous international gymnast in the world. During the 1976 Montreal Games and at 14, she became the first gymnast to score a perfect 10 at an Olympic Games.

It was beyond thrillling.

If it occurred today, I would easily ask for a photo, but back then, about eighteen or so years ago, I felt I was intruding despite them being there for their fans in the first place. I was so intimidated with stereotypical jelly legs and stammering voice, but they were both kind and lovely, and someday I will find that autographed picture.

Meeting your heroes can be either a blessing or a curse. I’ve been lucky that in all my instances of meeting celebrities and sports figures, I’ve been very lucky that I have not been let down. It is a testament to their seriousness as role models in their fields.