back from Otakon
Aug. 2nd, 2011 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksI am back from Otakon! I have a terrible cold! I have no idea if crossposting works anymore!
Otakon was pretty awesome, actually, in that way where I have spent the last x years learning to do things anyway despite being totally physically miserable. I discovered when I went to Japan some years back that if I am physically capable of making myself do things anyway, I should, because even when all I can think of at the time is 'oh god ow', what I will remember later is the actual activity/opportunity/place/people. So this was one of those cons I will remember fondly, but which was a total bitch at the time. There's a certain kind of overloaded tired I only get at Otakon, the kind where I get actual vertigo and interesting muscle twitches. Still in the phase of waiting to remember consistently which way is up, so reviews start again tomorrow, though I think I'll go through later this evening and deal with the situation where a whole bunch of things failed to make it onto LJ that got onto DW.
Otakon highlights: AMV contest: surprisingly good! The last couple of years it's been lackluster, but this year it was mostly very engaging. There was one of Great Spaceflight Moments In Anime to Carl Sagan's autotune of 'A New And Glorious Dawn Awakes' that was one of the better this-is-why-we-go-into-space works of art I've seen in awhile, and there was a Satoshi Kon tribute as there had to be. And an utterly adorable Azumanga Daioh vid about that one girl and her cat, and I usually hate Azumanga Daioh vids. And there was a Princess Jellyfish vid, although unfortunately it was terrible. But it existed.
Cosplay stuff: I seem to have been one of only about three Twilight Sparkles. There were a fair number of ponies, but ninety percent of them were Rainbow Dash. Note to self: if cosplaying something that is big on 4chan, remember that they come out at night, and that they will say whatever the hell they feel like, because they assume that anyone also interested in that must also be from 4chan (not the case). One of the people on my panel asked how the costume had been going over, and so I told him (mostly pretty well, but here's what some people have been saying) and he blinked and said "... I officially apologize on behalf of the entire male gender." Odd that the year I've gotten the most of that has also been the year in which my costume was clothes.
Other cosplayers: most obscure/never seen that before award goes to the guy who was doing Kiki's best friend from Kiki's Delivery Service. Recognizably. Most technically impressive goes to either the Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist who was halfway through shapeshifting out of military uniform, or the thing from Summer Wars which was trying and failing to eat Alucard from Hellsing (yes, that was one costume, and you could tell exactly how the fight was going, and parts of it glowed).
Most thought-provoking goes to the group of Hellsing cosplayers who realized that, though accurate, having swastikas on their armbands was a bad idea. They had stars of David. I... am not sure this helps? I mean, it indicates historical awareness, but the villains of Hellsing *are Nazis*. I have the vague feeling that identifying said villains with the group they historically were nastiest to is bad, you know? On the other hand, usually Hellsing cosplayers, if teenagers, have to be informed that We Do Not Wear Swastikas In Public, sometimes by con security. I don't know what to think about this as a step away from that. (If I were ever cosplaying a villain from Hellsing, I'd use the show logo instead of a swastika, I think.)
I am still very tired. Have an interview meme fromdorothean.
1. (thinking of Morwen) What are the pros and cons of being able to understand what your cats are saying? (Not actually sure if you have any cats, but take this question in whatever spirit most amuses you.)
Yes, there are cats. Two who are at least partially mine (they are tuxedo cat types, brothers from a New York City alley) and one where I am presently staying (an orange-and-white queen my boyfriend brought from Pakistan and named Ishtar because she is a goddess). I do know what mine say. I kind of know what Ishtar is saying, but she's a very talky cat who learned her words in another country among cats who speak differently.
The greatest advantage to knowing what the cats are saying is that you know what they would like you to do. The greatest disadvantage is that if they know you know, they then expect you to do it. I think Ishtar has realized that if she backs up, speaks slowly, and uses words of one syllable I will get there eventually; as with all cats, she refuses to recognize the distinction between 'I do not understand' and 'I understand but I am not going to do it'. This means we get a lot of her staring up at me and repeating things, and me trying to say that no. Following her about and catering to her every whim is my boyfriend's job, and it's a lot of what he does when he's home; I cater to her somewhat, but I am a bigger and a meaner cat and am not willing to cede territory, so I'm not going to follow her around. My own cats get this. I am sure Ishtar will eventually.
2. How do you dress as a My Little Pony?
I'm hoping to get con pics and put them up fairly soon. The goal was to be recognizable without going to a huge amount of work/expense, so we're not talking fursuit here. You can see a pic of the character in the icon I'm using on this entry. The basic description of the costume is that I got a tank top the color of her hide with the appropriate cutie mark (you know, those patterns on their butts) from Zazzle (it needed touchup paint, which Ruth very kindly did for me), and then I bought pants of a harmonizing shade of purple (which I will also be able to wear around as pants). Since Twilight Sparkle is basically a grad student I wore my terrible disintegrating sandals I wear anyway. Purple wig with extensions clipped into it to make the stripe, and I borrowed from The Last Unicorn movie, where after all a unicorn turns into a girl for a while, and did the horn as a bindi-- glass jewels dug out of a plastic princessy tiara and stuck on my forehead with the glue people use for fake nails. And because it happens in the series I carried around a lab coat to wear when I got cold. It worked beautifully; I was recognized frequently and got a lot of compliments, but also got to wear real clothes that didn't hurt or overheat or need special care to walk in. Total cost of costume well under $50 and I will be wearing both the pants and shirt in real life. Ruth was Rainbow Dash, so hers was a little more complex and expensive, but the principles were the same-- shirt, track pants, blue Converse with rainbow laces, rainbow wig, wings bought off the internet. She took the time to get a really good wig and really good wings and was the nicest-looking Dash I saw at the con.
3. Every time you mention that you have a degree in CITIES I get excited. What is that all about? What kinds of things did you study? Do you have any recommendations for learning about the history of infrastructure (i.e. when towns got drains, subways, etc.)? *flails* Er, pick and choose from that as you like.
The name of the program at my college was the Growth and Structure of Cities. I double-majored in that and in Classical Studies, which meant there was a slapfight when the Archaeology department tried to claim that meant I belonged over there, which I didn't. I did my Cities thesis on the changes in the Vatican City and surrounding architecture and infrastructure in Rome under the Renaissance popes, especially Innocent VIII, with the theory that the onset of humanism produced a change in the papal approach to architectural planning which reflected the new humanist ideals (but which the popes thought of as a return to Greek and classical thought). Of course I now realize that this was secretly a dissertation and needed about six years of fieldwork and three more languages, and it was graded to reflect the lacks, and I can't see how to go back to it. *sigh*
Anyway, the basic courseload of the major could be pre-architecture if people wanted (but I didn't because I'd have needed another four years of calculus, gah), and involved architectural history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and economics. My class titles were things like Comparative Urbanism, which was a compare-and-contrast on London and Beijing in 1700, History of Philadelphia which did what it says on the label and involved terrifying fieldwork in South Philly, Twentieth Century Architecture, Japanese Architecture. I can't remember the names of the survey courses which were basic urban planning theory. We were encouraged to look at cities throughout history and also encouraged to get away from a Western European-centered mindset; one of my professors is an expert in recent city-structure shifts in Hong Kong (since the expiration of the British lease) and would go over there pretty frequently and bring stuff back, like photographs of the changes in the Kowloon area. It was a really inclusive major and I learned a lot. Traffic flow patterns. Theories about what makes a landmark. Zoning laws and what they do and don't do. The layout and the reasons behind the layout of the world's largest and/or most interesting cities at a number of points through history. Why the NYC skyline looks the way it does. The valid ideological reasons I hate Philadelphia (it is intentionally designed as a feudal-oligarchical hellhole which is literally two different cities for the rich and the poor, and there is an Old Families structure which still operates).
It was basically five years of sheer awesome and whenever I got tired I'd go run off and read something unrelated in Greek. This is why I double-majored; each major was a break from the other one. I kind of wish I could figure out how to parlay it into some Ph.D. program somewhere.
If you are interested in learning about the history of infrastructure, you need to start by figuring out which city you're looking at, because it is a highly individualized field, and no two cities are alike. There are some regional similarities, but cities are incredibly idiosyncratic. Once you know which city you're curious about, find a well-regarded popular history of that city, and look at the bibliography. There should be at least one book in that biblio on the logistics of some aspect of the infrastructure-- water, sewer, something. You want a really specialized book, something along the lines of 'The Sewers of Ancient Cairo', because that book will have the books on the other aspects you want in its bibliography; it will depend on and refer to them for everything it isn't covering. Apply the usual tests to see if the books are well-regarded, and just keep cross-checking bibliographies; by checking them against each other you should be able to come up with a slate of the material that is considered most foundational on any given city in a couple of sessions with a good library. (You probably need a university library.) Caveat: this is one of those fields where theories change dramatically over time. Make sure it's a recent well-regarded popular history that you start with, and check the dates on things you drag out of the bibliographies! Things from before the nineties are going to be superannuated. Oh, and if the city you are interested in is too small to have a well-regarded popular history, that means it's small enough for you to be able to find any relevant material by throwing 'x city infrastructure' into JSTOR, because you'll get like five results and that will be all that's been done. For the really small places you would need to go there and sit down at the historical society, where they would hand you everything you need and be delighted to see you. I recommend doing this with a small town sometime. It's fun!
4. Describe a really good meal.
A really good meal should be the food one is in the mood for, in the place one is in the mood for, with the people one wants to have around. This varies a lot, of course. In general, when I'm cooking I have different goals than when I'm eating. When I'm cooking I'm either cooking for a lot of people, in which case a good meal is tasty, plentiful, and has vegetarian and vegan options; my current go-to is a quadruple batch of bao, with char siu pork filling, fake meat char siu pork filling, tofu vegetable filling for the vegans, and custard bao for dessert. Plus a salad. Or I'm cooking for a few people, in which case I'm showing the heck off and it will be something out of Julia Child and I'll be trying to follow the Japanese five-colors five-tastes thing to keep it balanced.
When I'm eating, it depends entirely. Today I have an awful sore throat, so lunch is going to be a chocolate milkshake, by myself, in a park, with a book, and it will be awesome. I like most food, though I'm allergic to onions and I hate high-class French; too rich. The most memorable meal that comes to mind right now is when Ruth and I went to see Thrud in Italy a few years ago and after a long exhausting grimy redeye she met us at the airport in Rome with prosciutto di Parma, fresh spring greens from the market that morning, a large loaf of crusty bread, salty butter, bitter chocolate, and immense quantities of water. We ate it right there in the airport.
5. What's something in the public domain and available online (through Project Gutenberg or whatever) that you think should be more widely read?
It's not in the public domain, but Geoff Ryman's 253 is free and available in its entirety online and is one of the few examples of the hypertext novel I can think of that actually works. You can read it in a whole bunch of different orders. Warning: moderately depressing.
As far as in the public domain, did you know that at Project Gutenberg you can get basically all of George Macdonald? More people should read both 'The Golden Key' and 'The Day Boy and the Night Girl'.
Otakon was pretty awesome, actually, in that way where I have spent the last x years learning to do things anyway despite being totally physically miserable. I discovered when I went to Japan some years back that if I am physically capable of making myself do things anyway, I should, because even when all I can think of at the time is 'oh god ow', what I will remember later is the actual activity/opportunity/place/people. So this was one of those cons I will remember fondly, but which was a total bitch at the time. There's a certain kind of overloaded tired I only get at Otakon, the kind where I get actual vertigo and interesting muscle twitches. Still in the phase of waiting to remember consistently which way is up, so reviews start again tomorrow, though I think I'll go through later this evening and deal with the situation where a whole bunch of things failed to make it onto LJ that got onto DW.
Otakon highlights: AMV contest: surprisingly good! The last couple of years it's been lackluster, but this year it was mostly very engaging. There was one of Great Spaceflight Moments In Anime to Carl Sagan's autotune of 'A New And Glorious Dawn Awakes' that was one of the better this-is-why-we-go-into-space works of art I've seen in awhile, and there was a Satoshi Kon tribute as there had to be. And an utterly adorable Azumanga Daioh vid about that one girl and her cat, and I usually hate Azumanga Daioh vids. And there was a Princess Jellyfish vid, although unfortunately it was terrible. But it existed.
Cosplay stuff: I seem to have been one of only about three Twilight Sparkles. There were a fair number of ponies, but ninety percent of them were Rainbow Dash. Note to self: if cosplaying something that is big on 4chan, remember that they come out at night, and that they will say whatever the hell they feel like, because they assume that anyone also interested in that must also be from 4chan (not the case). One of the people on my panel asked how the costume had been going over, and so I told him (mostly pretty well, but here's what some people have been saying) and he blinked and said "... I officially apologize on behalf of the entire male gender." Odd that the year I've gotten the most of that has also been the year in which my costume was clothes.
Other cosplayers: most obscure/never seen that before award goes to the guy who was doing Kiki's best friend from Kiki's Delivery Service. Recognizably. Most technically impressive goes to either the Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist who was halfway through shapeshifting out of military uniform, or the thing from Summer Wars which was trying and failing to eat Alucard from Hellsing (yes, that was one costume, and you could tell exactly how the fight was going, and parts of it glowed).
Most thought-provoking goes to the group of Hellsing cosplayers who realized that, though accurate, having swastikas on their armbands was a bad idea. They had stars of David. I... am not sure this helps? I mean, it indicates historical awareness, but the villains of Hellsing *are Nazis*. I have the vague feeling that identifying said villains with the group they historically were nastiest to is bad, you know? On the other hand, usually Hellsing cosplayers, if teenagers, have to be informed that We Do Not Wear Swastikas In Public, sometimes by con security. I don't know what to think about this as a step away from that. (If I were ever cosplaying a villain from Hellsing, I'd use the show logo instead of a swastika, I think.)
I am still very tired. Have an interview meme from
dorothean.1. (thinking of Morwen) What are the pros and cons of being able to understand what your cats are saying? (Not actually sure if you have any cats, but take this question in whatever spirit most amuses you.)
Yes, there are cats. Two who are at least partially mine (they are tuxedo cat types, brothers from a New York City alley) and one where I am presently staying (an orange-and-white queen my boyfriend brought from Pakistan and named Ishtar because she is a goddess). I do know what mine say. I kind of know what Ishtar is saying, but she's a very talky cat who learned her words in another country among cats who speak differently.
The greatest advantage to knowing what the cats are saying is that you know what they would like you to do. The greatest disadvantage is that if they know you know, they then expect you to do it. I think Ishtar has realized that if she backs up, speaks slowly, and uses words of one syllable I will get there eventually; as with all cats, she refuses to recognize the distinction between 'I do not understand' and 'I understand but I am not going to do it'. This means we get a lot of her staring up at me and repeating things, and me trying to say that no. Following her about and catering to her every whim is my boyfriend's job, and it's a lot of what he does when he's home; I cater to her somewhat, but I am a bigger and a meaner cat and am not willing to cede territory, so I'm not going to follow her around. My own cats get this. I am sure Ishtar will eventually.
2. How do you dress as a My Little Pony?
I'm hoping to get con pics and put them up fairly soon. The goal was to be recognizable without going to a huge amount of work/expense, so we're not talking fursuit here. You can see a pic of the character in the icon I'm using on this entry. The basic description of the costume is that I got a tank top the color of her hide with the appropriate cutie mark (you know, those patterns on their butts) from Zazzle (it needed touchup paint, which Ruth very kindly did for me), and then I bought pants of a harmonizing shade of purple (which I will also be able to wear around as pants). Since Twilight Sparkle is basically a grad student I wore my terrible disintegrating sandals I wear anyway. Purple wig with extensions clipped into it to make the stripe, and I borrowed from The Last Unicorn movie, where after all a unicorn turns into a girl for a while, and did the horn as a bindi-- glass jewels dug out of a plastic princessy tiara and stuck on my forehead with the glue people use for fake nails. And because it happens in the series I carried around a lab coat to wear when I got cold. It worked beautifully; I was recognized frequently and got a lot of compliments, but also got to wear real clothes that didn't hurt or overheat or need special care to walk in. Total cost of costume well under $50 and I will be wearing both the pants and shirt in real life. Ruth was Rainbow Dash, so hers was a little more complex and expensive, but the principles were the same-- shirt, track pants, blue Converse with rainbow laces, rainbow wig, wings bought off the internet. She took the time to get a really good wig and really good wings and was the nicest-looking Dash I saw at the con.
3. Every time you mention that you have a degree in CITIES I get excited. What is that all about? What kinds of things did you study? Do you have any recommendations for learning about the history of infrastructure (i.e. when towns got drains, subways, etc.)? *flails* Er, pick and choose from that as you like.
The name of the program at my college was the Growth and Structure of Cities. I double-majored in that and in Classical Studies, which meant there was a slapfight when the Archaeology department tried to claim that meant I belonged over there, which I didn't. I did my Cities thesis on the changes in the Vatican City and surrounding architecture and infrastructure in Rome under the Renaissance popes, especially Innocent VIII, with the theory that the onset of humanism produced a change in the papal approach to architectural planning which reflected the new humanist ideals (but which the popes thought of as a return to Greek and classical thought). Of course I now realize that this was secretly a dissertation and needed about six years of fieldwork and three more languages, and it was graded to reflect the lacks, and I can't see how to go back to it. *sigh*
Anyway, the basic courseload of the major could be pre-architecture if people wanted (but I didn't because I'd have needed another four years of calculus, gah), and involved architectural history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and economics. My class titles were things like Comparative Urbanism, which was a compare-and-contrast on London and Beijing in 1700, History of Philadelphia which did what it says on the label and involved terrifying fieldwork in South Philly, Twentieth Century Architecture, Japanese Architecture. I can't remember the names of the survey courses which were basic urban planning theory. We were encouraged to look at cities throughout history and also encouraged to get away from a Western European-centered mindset; one of my professors is an expert in recent city-structure shifts in Hong Kong (since the expiration of the British lease) and would go over there pretty frequently and bring stuff back, like photographs of the changes in the Kowloon area. It was a really inclusive major and I learned a lot. Traffic flow patterns. Theories about what makes a landmark. Zoning laws and what they do and don't do. The layout and the reasons behind the layout of the world's largest and/or most interesting cities at a number of points through history. Why the NYC skyline looks the way it does. The valid ideological reasons I hate Philadelphia (it is intentionally designed as a feudal-oligarchical hellhole which is literally two different cities for the rich and the poor, and there is an Old Families structure which still operates).
It was basically five years of sheer awesome and whenever I got tired I'd go run off and read something unrelated in Greek. This is why I double-majored; each major was a break from the other one. I kind of wish I could figure out how to parlay it into some Ph.D. program somewhere.
If you are interested in learning about the history of infrastructure, you need to start by figuring out which city you're looking at, because it is a highly individualized field, and no two cities are alike. There are some regional similarities, but cities are incredibly idiosyncratic. Once you know which city you're curious about, find a well-regarded popular history of that city, and look at the bibliography. There should be at least one book in that biblio on the logistics of some aspect of the infrastructure-- water, sewer, something. You want a really specialized book, something along the lines of 'The Sewers of Ancient Cairo', because that book will have the books on the other aspects you want in its bibliography; it will depend on and refer to them for everything it isn't covering. Apply the usual tests to see if the books are well-regarded, and just keep cross-checking bibliographies; by checking them against each other you should be able to come up with a slate of the material that is considered most foundational on any given city in a couple of sessions with a good library. (You probably need a university library.) Caveat: this is one of those fields where theories change dramatically over time. Make sure it's a recent well-regarded popular history that you start with, and check the dates on things you drag out of the bibliographies! Things from before the nineties are going to be superannuated. Oh, and if the city you are interested in is too small to have a well-regarded popular history, that means it's small enough for you to be able to find any relevant material by throwing 'x city infrastructure' into JSTOR, because you'll get like five results and that will be all that's been done. For the really small places you would need to go there and sit down at the historical society, where they would hand you everything you need and be delighted to see you. I recommend doing this with a small town sometime. It's fun!
4. Describe a really good meal.
A really good meal should be the food one is in the mood for, in the place one is in the mood for, with the people one wants to have around. This varies a lot, of course. In general, when I'm cooking I have different goals than when I'm eating. When I'm cooking I'm either cooking for a lot of people, in which case a good meal is tasty, plentiful, and has vegetarian and vegan options; my current go-to is a quadruple batch of bao, with char siu pork filling, fake meat char siu pork filling, tofu vegetable filling for the vegans, and custard bao for dessert. Plus a salad. Or I'm cooking for a few people, in which case I'm showing the heck off and it will be something out of Julia Child and I'll be trying to follow the Japanese five-colors five-tastes thing to keep it balanced.
When I'm eating, it depends entirely. Today I have an awful sore throat, so lunch is going to be a chocolate milkshake, by myself, in a park, with a book, and it will be awesome. I like most food, though I'm allergic to onions and I hate high-class French; too rich. The most memorable meal that comes to mind right now is when Ruth and I went to see Thrud in Italy a few years ago and after a long exhausting grimy redeye she met us at the airport in Rome with prosciutto di Parma, fresh spring greens from the market that morning, a large loaf of crusty bread, salty butter, bitter chocolate, and immense quantities of water. We ate it right there in the airport.
5. What's something in the public domain and available online (through Project Gutenberg or whatever) that you think should be more widely read?
It's not in the public domain, but Geoff Ryman's 253 is free and available in its entirety online and is one of the few examples of the hypertext novel I can think of that actually works. You can read it in a whole bunch of different orders. Warning: moderately depressing.
As far as in the public domain, did you know that at Project Gutenberg you can get basically all of George Macdonald? More people should read both 'The Golden Key' and 'The Day Boy and the Night Girl'.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-08-02 07:19 pm (UTC)I think I might know of a program worth investigating? Possibly? If you're at all interested in thinking about it, feel free to get in touch off of LJ.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-02 07:24 pm (UTC)Also, I just finished watching FMA: Brotherhood, and would be interested to have a conversation about that at some point (assuming you also have seen it? I don't actually know.)
no subject
Date: 2011-08-02 07:37 pm (UTC)Yay!
the group of Hellsing cosplayers who realized that, though accurate, having swastikas on their armbands was a bad idea. They had stars of David.
*facepalm*
(If I were ever cosplaying a villain from Hellsing, I'd use the show logo instead of a swastika, I think.)
You should try this one year and see how long it takes for people to notice.
I'm glad you are, in whatever capacity, back.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-02 08:02 pm (UTC)I need to find that. Any hint of title/song/person?
---L.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 12:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 03:29 am (UTC)---L.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-02 08:05 pm (UTC)I feel like I ought to be offended, but instead I am laughing. Good try, Clueless Ones!
In India, where the swastika is an ancient symbol which predates Hitler by at least a thousand years, you still see them quite often in their original context. (Many people think only the counterclockwise version is the Hitler one, but both are ancient and still used.)
My Dad, who imported stuff from India to sell in his American shop, once ordered a bunch of place mats or something along those lines, with, in the original design, abstract patterns along the edges. To his annoyance, his suppliers once got creative and sent him a whole batch with an elegant border of... swastikas!
no subject
Date: 2011-08-02 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-04 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 02:56 am (UTC)What would you recommend as a starting popular history for DC?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-03 04:42 pm (UTC)But the world is wide, and perhaps some younger folk will have found something more utopian in the way of grad programs.
One piece of advice is as true in the new millennium as it was in the 1970s: Never take out loans for grad school in the humanities.