A Fan's Playground

one

omg hello what if I stamp-printed designs onto fabric to make clothes with fun patterns instead of relying on manufacturers to make patterns I like

eg: https://www.dharmatrading.com/home/the-cameloozy-blouse-a-mad-mim-tutorial.html

I mean yes this would require me to pick up SEVERAL more crafting skills. but. do you see the Vision.

I could make myself so many bird-themed clothes! and dinosaur-themed! and more!!!


two

I haven't ever seen or read or studied Measure For Measure before, and having now done the first three acts with my zoom theatre troupe, I sure do see why it's so rarely performed! One of shakespeare's "problem plays" for sure.

Which isn't to say it's a bad play, because it isn't! It's just very.....oh boy.

content note: it's a play about sexual coercion and the use of power

I am playing the role of Angelo. As an actor this is a great role! A character doing a lot of mental self-deception to justify his own actions to himself, which is really meaty and fun to play.

Buuuut his choice to engage in sexual coercion is one of the main drivers of the plot of the play, and it sure is a lot!

My zeatre group is people I trust, so engaging with this theme with them is good -- but it is not the sort of play I'd imagine the average person would choose to go see for a fun night out at the theatre, and not the sort of play the average school board would think is a good choice to have teens study in high school, the two main ways people today might experience Shakespeare's works. I think relatively very few people today are familiar with measure for measure. I didn't even know what the play was about until I was reading up about it in prep for zeatre casting.

And it's too bad, really, that I didn't ever have previous exposure to it -- I bet it would be a very fruitful play to study and analyse! And a story that's remarkably relevant to today's politics in some ways too!

three

I enjoy buying things at international grocery stores that I have never cooked with before, to see what I think and expand my food options. This week: really enjoying something that the package calls "beancurd sheets"!

From a little research, this seems an ambiguous term that can mean multiple things, but the thing I have is tofu pressed into thin sheets, not a film lifted off the top of heated soy milk.

I tore some into strips and ate them with noodles for lunch and they are a lovely addition. I will definitely buy this again in the future, and would not be surprised if it becomes something I frequently have on hand!


four

Just started listening to a podcast about dragonriders of pern, a book series I was obsessed with when I was 12 years old, but haven't read any of for at least 15 years at this point. (I loved these books, but I cannot say they are GOOD books.) The podcast: Dragons Made Me Do It.

And in the first few minutes of the first episode of the podcast they already said something that goes a long way to explaining why I loved pern so much as a young person: it's a story very interested in the question of "when is legend legend, why is myth a myth." And in "exploring connections between history, myth, and present reality."

And stories that ask questions about the connections between stories and reality have always been extremely my shit!

(I mean. Also there are dragons who you telepathically bond with. That WAS also a draw for preteen Soph!)

Then the rest of the episode was a delightful discussion and analysis of the first pern book, excellent all the way through.

Even more excited to keep listening to this podcast now!

In case you're interested, btw, it's one of those podcasts you have to add to your podcast app via url, you can't just search within the app. Their website lists the rss subscription url, but to make it even easier for you, here it is: https://dmmdipodcast.neocities.org/rss.xml

one

it's wild to think how much of the span of my life I've been an internet/fandom person, in all the different ways I've done so over the years. I think I'm up to 24 years since I first got an account on a fannish forum!


two

something I would never ever have expected of myself from the first, like.....30+ years of my life. is that I'm enjoying finding ways of incorporating the colour pink into my wardrobe.

certain shades, and in certain ways -- it can really fit into the type of vibe I'm aiming for these days! I always avoided it when I was younger, and strongly disliked it as a child, because it was a "girly" colour and as a closeted-to-myself nonbinary person I was basically allergic to things that would make people see me as a standard-issue girl.

but there are ways to incorporate pink into outfits that don't make it read as "girl" but as "gay" and you know what. that's GREAT actually, it turns out!


three

bakkhai as translated by anne carson is SO MUCH FUN to put on in zoom theatre, highly recommend the experience


four

huh the master of demon gorge podcast episode about the chronicles of the eastern zhou kingdoms started with a history of the fiction genre in chinese, which is interesting to me because it comes quite directly out of a tradition of people writing down the stories they hear told in marketplaces and other informal contexts - which is to say, a tradition of folklorists. called the "school of small talk", and small talk is, I gather, still how novels are referred to today!

hello melding of my ur-special interest in folklore with my current interest in cnovels!!


five

this year's AOS announcement about bird species in north america has been released, and there's some big news! the common and hoary redpolls have been lumped into a single species! (along with the lesser redpoll)

from the various reading about redpolls I've done, I think this is a very good move, and I'm glad to see it's backed up with genetic analysis as well.

some of the other changes are very interesting too, but for me personally the redpoll news is the most exciting!