Contrariwise

You know that thing where your mp3 player of choice is set to shuffle, and it tosses selections at you, and your pattern-loving human brain insists on going "whoa! freaky!" ? Yeah, that happened to me this morning.

If I encounter a good fanvid to a piece of music, I have to seek out the music and add it to my collection; and I'm also unable to hear the music any more without thinking about the vid, of course. (Fortunately, in a few cases I've managed to excise memory of a bad vid set to a piece of music that I really like. :P) Case in point: am driving to work this morning, and the ol' iPod tosses Billy Joel's "And So It Goes" at me, so I let it play. I was certainly familiar with this song before (yes, I own a lot of Billy Joel, shut up), but then I found Carol S. & Destina's SG-1 vid for it (Jack-centric & J/D) and OMG!!! *loves to bits* Anyone familiar with the vidders won't be surprised to hear me say that the vid is magnificent, and now when I hear the song I get all teary about it. (Note: okay, so I get teary at a surprising number of songs, anyway; but that is to take nothing away from the fact that Destina is *often* able to make me tear up and get me right in the gut with her vids.)

The timeline of the vid runs up through "Meridian", so it was with some humor that my iPod followed up that song with Apocalyptica's "Path", which was made into a vid compressing the SG-1 S6-ending episode "Full Circle", and which I also love. (Arguably, that duology of songs/vids could only have been more apropos if I knew of a vid *about* Daniel's S7 return, but I'm not sure I do; I'm sure they're *out* there, but I don't think I've seen one...).

At any rate, a lovely chance to revisit those vids in my head, at least, and to rewatch them when I get home.

See links at the bottom of the page if you aren't familiar with either of them and would like to see them yourself.


Anyway... speaking of vids, this reminded me of my experience yesterday morning, when the iPod threw at me a song that I happen to like that I perennially think would make a really cool multi-fandom vid, but I always manage to forget about it later. (My brain does that with a handful of songs: that happens to other people, too, right?) Still, I figured I'd ask to see if any one knows if a vid *has* been made for it, because if it has, I want to see it. The song is: "Girls with Guns", by Tommy Shaw (SHUT. UP. ...with a tip of the hat to the discussion going on in greensilver's latest post about songs you are vaguely ashamed that you enjoy unironically).

I mean, seriously, how would that *not* make a fantastic vid about all the kickass women in genre shows whom we know and love? I confess that my brain always starts thinking of Farscape's Aeryn Sun, when that song comes on, but it soon moves along to Firefly's Zoe and Sam Carter and... well, feel free to shout out in comments about who *you* would include in such a vid. Who knows, if it doesn't exist already somewhere, maybe somebody will be enticed into making it someday...


"So it Goes" by Carol S. and Destina can be found here (you'll need to write to request a password): http://triptychvids.com/

"Full Circle (Path)" by SE can be found here (bottom of page): http://www.solvi.bravepages.com/sg1.htm

(if I've mucked up the etiquette of posting links to where vids can be found, please just let me know and I will correct the problem)

http://greensilver.livejournal.com/397791.html

Hey, folks on my flist who would care about the subject line! Just a reminder that, if I am correct, today is the last day to sign up for the 4th Annual J/D Ficathon, being run by the estimable Greensilver. Come sign up! *plans to head over herself*

Thank you to everyone for the well-wishes. Am having a pretty good day. There have been things to SQUEE over. Later, there is going to be bowling and swanky cocktails. And tomorrow, going up to NH to visit with some old, dear friends, and go to the Revels North Solstice celebration.

[Geek alert.]
Special mention has to go to raqs, who is the bestest fic-monkey ever. :D I've always secretly desired that someone would write me fic for my birthday, and raqs came through with the sequel to her epic "Two Sides of the Coin", which I love, and that I've been bugging her about since she finished that story. (I still remember fondly how extremely smug I felt when we were debating the matter in the car, and she was all, "How could I do a sequel and bring Shigeru back, without having Jack actually cheat on Daniel, which you don't want and I don't want?" And I said, "Season six; Daniel-is-Ascended angst." And she said, "damn you, you bitch", and I knew I had won. Hah!)

So she posted "Coin on Edge" in the wee hours, and OH MY GOD I AM SUCH A FANGIRL, and I do love it so. It's in two parts:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/raqs/233719.html?#cutid1
http://www.livejournal.com/users/raqs/233910.html?#cutid1

SQUEE!

[/Geek alert]

Hum de hum. Is it time to go bowling yet?

It would appear that some kind of Xmas-y post is de rigeur for LJ, so...

Like a bunch of my friends, I have been finding it hard to really feel Christmassy this year (right up to and including today). I don't really blame anyone; it's something as much inside of me as it is due to the fact that nobody seems particularly up for it. I've been having a fairly low-key and low-effort holiday, therefore.

-- Revels was lovely, as I've reported, and *almost* Christmassy, despite the way my description sounded. Almost.

-- I like my tree. raqs (who visited briefly yesterday, which made for a really nice day because we also had lunch at the Iguana with tafkarfanfic and her lovely husband; and then we watched three episodes of SG S3 that she had somehow never seen, and how can you *be* a Daniel fan and not have seen "Maternal Instinct"? But I digress...) pronounced my tree "pallid", which I think is fair, although I prefer the term "golden". Also, "cat-safe". It is nothing but golden-white lights and golden straw ornaments, which the cats are perfectly free to take down and turn into cat toys, since they can't hurt them; and which they do with great frequency. (I would post a picture except I don't think I can upload it to my webspace from here. Or at least, I don't know how.)

-- good lord. I just realized that I had a dream last night in which I caught the larger cat, Emily, actually jumping up and climbing up INTO the tree. This is something neither has actually done yet, to the best of my knowledge, although I did actually catch Emily standing up into the tree, so that only her hind feet on the ground were visible underneath it. Huh.

-- I watched "Sense & Sensibility", which is not Christmassy, but which is possibly my favorite movie and which makes me feel gooey inside. Last night, I also watched the 1984 George C. Scott "A Christmas Carol", which is my favoritest version of that story EVER, as everyone to whom I have ever subjected it knows. That *does* make me feel Christmassy.

-- And! It's not Christmas without a Christmas Miracle! In my case... I have this cassette tape that raqs and I bought in like 1992 called "Handmade Christmas Music", produced by this tiny little private folk-music place. I got the tape in the divorce. For years now we have been saying that we ought to try to get it digitized so that we can both have good copies. I tried really, really hard to do that this year, but that's another story (a comedy of errors about a bunch of hapless help-desk guys and an equally technologically hapless middle-aged woman on the day before Winter break). Suffice to say, I didn't get it done this year.

Last night, after I had taken raqs to the train station, on a lark, I typed "Handmade Christmas Music" into Google. Please understand, I have done this before. I think I did it only a year ago, without luck. Last night, however -- the first link that popped up was a link to the website of the guy who had recorded this tape, and lo and behold (cue choir of angels), not only was there finally a CD version of this album for sale, but ALSO, a SEQUEL. You do kind of have to really like instrumental versions of Christmas carols played on folksy instruments like hammer dulcimer and harp and banjo ("Duelling Jingle Bells" -- no, not kidding), to like these, but we do. I have now ordered them in the hope that they'll actually come soon, while it's still really the holidays, which makes up for my having been a moron and not doing this Google search on a lark a couple of weeks ago, say.

http://www.strumstick.com/html_pages/CDs.html

-- Tonight I will take my friends to the traditional Christmas dinner at a fine Chinese restaurant. And that will be nice. Then I will come home and read raqs's new draft of "Two Sides", because honestly, that story is probably my favorite Christmas present this year, and I don't care what anyone else thinks.

So, merry Christmas to all, whatever you're doing. I hope that no matter how you celebrate the holiday, or even if you don't, that it's a good day, the kind of day you want it to be.

Why is making LJ icons so darned addictive?

Why do all the "creativity"-related mood icons involving the little fox have it reading a newspaper? What is creative about reading a newspaper? Eh?

In support of another's creativity:

"Rough Trade" by dith

To be honest, I would not have said beforehand that I would be terribly drawn by an answer to the particular challenge that caused dith to write this story (#117 at Area52). Shows how much I know. I'm also not a big angst-o-rama girl, as a rule. (Not that I hate it, and I've read some angst I just loved, but on the whole I'm into happy endings -- which dith isn't.)

So what did *I* like about this dark, angstful, ouchy story? Jack in peril. A Daniel determined to save Jack. Two guys who love each other that much but still fundamentally don't *get* what the other is thinking. Hot sex. Foreshadowing. Trust despite the lack of understanding. More hot sex. Some lovely Jack-admiration. And yes, even the sadness of it, becomes sometimes I do find it more satisfying when a story eschews an ending that magically makes everything better when, as a reader, I have to doubt whether it *could* be made better, at least, better than the way it's left.

I don't think that's all there is to the story, others may get entirely different things out of it. I appreciate certain things because of my own particular preferences (which are, obviously, very Jack-oriented). It seems odd to say that such a dark and angsty story made me happy. But it really kind of did.