handful_ofdust (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
handful_ofdust) wrote2005-03-27 01:02 am
handful_ofdust) wrote2005-03-27 01:02 am
Entry tags:
Ugh
It’s been one of those days—not terrible per se, but a blind rush from start to finish, with not much that seemed rewarding except in hidsight. On the one hand, I suppose it’s sort of great that my six-month-old son is now trying so hard to learn to crawl that he rarely seems interested in anything else; on the other hand, he’s making himself more than usually nuts with it: Refusing to lie on his back, constantly flipping over/lunging/squirming and yelling, refusing to got to sleep unless he screams himself there (which he’s doing right now, while Steve watches our new copy of The Incredibles on DVD, and I try to ignore Cal long enough to write this). I know he’s okay, but it hurts to hear him like this, and it hurts to know it’s just going to go on and on, at least until he masters it. God damn, he’s determined. No idea where he gets that from.;)
This morning we had our tax appointment to go to—this turned out well in some respects (it seems that not only do I not owe the government back GST, but they probably owe me a substantial refund), not so much in others (I’ll have to settle this GST bullshit before they’ll honor my normal tax refund, and no, IAODT did not send me a T-4 for 2004, which I only realized while tallying up receipts last night). We then walked from Bloor and Spadina to Bloor and Yonge, put that cheque I was owed for The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 15 in the bank, and bought goodies at Sunrise: Regatta de Blanc by the Police, Robbie Robertson by Robbie Robertson, Hooper’s Toolbox Murders, the aforementioned The Incredibles. Afterward, we walked home down Yonge, picking up two A. Merritt pulps and a Timeline of History at ABC Books, and ate dinner with Mom, who’s leaving for Florida tomorrow. I fell asleep on her floor, and decided (once it was obvious Cal wasn’t going down easy) to treat the hike as my exercise for today: Annoying, but there it is. I’ll do toning tomorrow, and maybe yoga, to make up for it.
All of which means no writing, aside from this. But I made a couple of decisions regarding the next section, and I’ll be able to concentrate on catching up tomorro--we were supposed the go to Easter dinner at the Barringers’, but my neice-in-law got sick, so it’s been postponed. Smart move: The last time we were all together, Steve, his Mom, his Dad, Cal and I all caught something off my nephew-in-law, and were down for a week. The joys of close contact with tiny little living dsiease vectors.;))
All right. So: On to the really important stuff…the answers to last entry’s ship meme.
First off,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marinwood asked me about Unit C’s favorite ship, Beecher/O’Reily--and though I’ve never yet attempted to write it, I must admit that this one holds a special place in my heart. Anyone who goes back and checks can see that Ryan and Toby really did strike viable sparks during their brief Season One flirtation, first bonding over drugs, then the culminative riot. Granted, Ryan cheerfully used Toby as a weapon against Vern, but being used by the Lord of the fuckin’ Dance doesn’t have to be a negative/insult; he seems genuinely both disturbed by and respectful of Toby’s transition from beaten bitch to full-on berserker, and the season finale leaves us with the impression that this is a "beautiful friendship" which could—and will—be elaborated on.
But then, as we all know, it’s not: Ryan has his brush with cancer, and his vulnerability blossoms into the black rose of obsession with his personal toxic "soulmate", Dr Gloria Nathan; similarly, Beecher hooks up with Keller, and the rest is history. But my initial impression remains the same, through every twist and turn Tom Fontana throws at us—I maintain that a sexual OR non-sexual relationship between Beecher and O’Reily, however skewed (at their worst, Ryan’s an innately untrustworthy master manipulator, Toby a self-hating, passive-aggressive skank) or survival-oriented, would have been a million times more potentially healthy for both than the ones they continue to pursue until the series’ oddly anticlimactic end.
And it’s not like there’d’ve been NO inherent drama in such an idea, either, what with Ryan’s teflon Mick gangsta image vs. Toby’s unimpeachable slut/outsider status, or Toby’s pattern of offering sex for protection vs. Ryan’s dislike of accepting anything he thinks will put him in somebody else’s debt—just a different sort of drama, though one in perfect keeping with the tone and continuity of OZ as a whole. It’s both a missed opportunity I’ll always mourn, and a perfect motive for a cool-ass PWP or A/U.
Meanwhile,kitestringer asked me about Keller/Schillinger, which I actually have written (albeit sidelong, as part of a far longer narrative). And though I maintain that Schillinger and Beecher are perfect for each other—in that karmic car crash sort of way, when both parties get what they need rather than what they want, and still refuse to learn anything from it—if I accept that thesis, I also have to accept that Keller will always form a point of this particular triangle, just as Beecher will always be the overlap where Vern and Keller meet.
To my mind, Vern starts out seeing Keller as the perfect prag, somebody who was apparently previously fine with being used, and should therefore be all too willing and pleased to be used again; he sets Keller against Beecher without ever, I’m convinced, believing that Beecher will become more than a mark for this man he sees as a born slut who’d rather fuck than work, not recognizing that Keller is just perverse enough to take on the job and start enjoying himself too much to walk away clean when it’s done. And Keller? He sees Vern as a former trick, somebody he thought he understood well enough to know which way he was likely to jump under any and all circumstances…except the ones they now find themselves in. It seems to me that part of his initial fascination with Beecher may well hover between admiration and envy over Beecher being able to break free of Vern’s ownership (which may not ever have occurred to him as an option), plus the impulse to find out why THIS bitch’s refusal to knuckle under is so disturbing to Vern (and, by extension, why his own behavior never was).
But in my opinion, neither of them will ever be as interested in each other as they are in Beecher, and both of them know they can only affect each other through Beecher. It’s like this "relationship" they had wasn’t a relationship at all, but they’ll both always find themselves tarred by the same brush—they’ll never entirely get away from their former association. Not to mention that by his own admission, Keller thinks he learned something from Schillinger, but Schillinger doesn’t seem to have thought enough about Keller to learn anything from him—-this can be seen either as Keller’s triumph over pragdom or a secret wound, depending on how you want to play him.
If this all seems a bit free-associative, I guess it might be because I still don’t feel I understand Keller as well as I understand Vern or Beecher…or that I ever will. So there ya go.
Finally,rustler kindly asked me to explain the "logic" behind my new antagonistic ship of choice, Bill the Butcher/Priest Vallon, from Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York…and though logic so rarely factors into these things, I’ll start by pointing out that canonically, Bill’s fight with the Priest (which opens the film) is the single most important thing that ever seems to have happened to him. By killing Priest, he not only secures his status as head Nativist gangster in the Five Points, but he also pre-determines the entire Hamlet-gone-wrong spine of the film itself, pointing Priest’s son Amsterdam towards himself like a long-distance opportunity for honorable self-euthanasia in battle.
The Priest’s picture holds a place of pride on Bill’s mantle, as Amsterdam is surprised to find out, and the victory at Paradise Square is celebrated every year mainly as an opportunity to fete and acknowledge "the only man [Bill] ever killed worth remembering." Not to mention that he’s almost crying when he finishes Priest off, and almost cries again while telling Amsterdam about it. This ain’t your normal "you killed my fatha, prepare to die" scenario, especially when you factor in Amsterdam later falling for Bill’s former lover/adopted daughter (also Irish), or the fact that getting close enough to try to kill Bill results in Amsterdam eventually feeling closer to him than he ever has to his own dead, heroic father. (Amsterdam really does have two daddies.)
What is it that killing the Priest seems to mean, for/to Bill? He tells Amsterdam that the Priest gave him "the finest beating [he] ever took", humiliated him publicly, and therefore taught him the true meaning of honor and toughness—that not being afraid to die in battle would be the key to victory, and that it was better to cut out his own eye for being weak than it would be to tolerate having a daily reminder of his "weakness". So to Bill, a barbarian chief in a stovepipe hat, Priest represents a sort of ideal that he must destroy in order to live up to, then worship from afar forevermore; he’s also someone Bill must have had an immediate connection with—he’s certainly far more "like" Priest than he is like anyone else, especially as he moves into an era in which his berserker zealotry is quickly becoming outdated—but was "forced" to deny, mainly because the Nativist creed Bill defines himself damns all Irish as barely-human interlopers on American soil. They couldn’t co-exist, in that world…but what if they had been able to, or had a compelling reason to try to? Or could co-exist together again, somewhere else, after the film’s bloody end?
One way or another, the sparks Priest and Bill scrape off each other during the brief moments they’re onscreen together ring as amazingly icky, hot and dirty-wrong, and are only made the more so by Liam Neeson (Priest) and Daniel Day-Lewis (Bill)’s potent physical presences: For me, the lure of this pairing combines the sick thrill of seeing two super-hard men ram up against each other without mercy and the inherent swooniness of the implication that while Bill’s top dog in every other situation, he might have considered bottoming for Priest an honor as much as a punishment. Opposite in every outward respect ("race", religion, even Neeson’s grandiose hero-bulk vs. Day-Lewis’s whippet-slim viciousness), they nevertheless seem specifically made for each other—a double judgement by some vengeful god, perhaps. And it makes me grin with sheer, unholy glee.;))
Okay, done. I’m going to bed—let’s see exactly how long we can make it before Cal wakes up shrieking, yet once more.
This morning we had our tax appointment to go to—this turned out well in some respects (it seems that not only do I not owe the government back GST, but they probably owe me a substantial refund), not so much in others (I’ll have to settle this GST bullshit before they’ll honor my normal tax refund, and no, IAODT did not send me a T-4 for 2004, which I only realized while tallying up receipts last night). We then walked from Bloor and Spadina to Bloor and Yonge, put that cheque I was owed for The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 15 in the bank, and bought goodies at Sunrise: Regatta de Blanc by the Police, Robbie Robertson by Robbie Robertson, Hooper’s Toolbox Murders, the aforementioned The Incredibles. Afterward, we walked home down Yonge, picking up two A. Merritt pulps and a Timeline of History at ABC Books, and ate dinner with Mom, who’s leaving for Florida tomorrow. I fell asleep on her floor, and decided (once it was obvious Cal wasn’t going down easy) to treat the hike as my exercise for today: Annoying, but there it is. I’ll do toning tomorrow, and maybe yoga, to make up for it.
All of which means no writing, aside from this. But I made a couple of decisions regarding the next section, and I’ll be able to concentrate on catching up tomorro--we were supposed the go to Easter dinner at the Barringers’, but my neice-in-law got sick, so it’s been postponed. Smart move: The last time we were all together, Steve, his Mom, his Dad, Cal and I all caught something off my nephew-in-law, and were down for a week. The joys of close contact with tiny little living dsiease vectors.;))
All right. So: On to the really important stuff…the answers to last entry’s ship meme.
First off,
marinwood asked me about Unit C’s favorite ship, Beecher/O’Reily--and though I’ve never yet attempted to write it, I must admit that this one holds a special place in my heart. Anyone who goes back and checks can see that Ryan and Toby really did strike viable sparks during their brief Season One flirtation, first bonding over drugs, then the culminative riot. Granted, Ryan cheerfully used Toby as a weapon against Vern, but being used by the Lord of the fuckin’ Dance doesn’t have to be a negative/insult; he seems genuinely both disturbed by and respectful of Toby’s transition from beaten bitch to full-on berserker, and the season finale leaves us with the impression that this is a "beautiful friendship" which could—and will—be elaborated on.But then, as we all know, it’s not: Ryan has his brush with cancer, and his vulnerability blossoms into the black rose of obsession with his personal toxic "soulmate", Dr Gloria Nathan; similarly, Beecher hooks up with Keller, and the rest is history. But my initial impression remains the same, through every twist and turn Tom Fontana throws at us—I maintain that a sexual OR non-sexual relationship between Beecher and O’Reily, however skewed (at their worst, Ryan’s an innately untrustworthy master manipulator, Toby a self-hating, passive-aggressive skank) or survival-oriented, would have been a million times more potentially healthy for both than the ones they continue to pursue until the series’ oddly anticlimactic end.
And it’s not like there’d’ve been NO inherent drama in such an idea, either, what with Ryan’s teflon Mick gangsta image vs. Toby’s unimpeachable slut/outsider status, or Toby’s pattern of offering sex for protection vs. Ryan’s dislike of accepting anything he thinks will put him in somebody else’s debt—just a different sort of drama, though one in perfect keeping with the tone and continuity of OZ as a whole. It’s both a missed opportunity I’ll always mourn, and a perfect motive for a cool-ass PWP or A/U.
Meanwhile,
kitestringer asked me about Keller/Schillinger, which I actually have written (albeit sidelong, as part of a far longer narrative). And though I maintain that Schillinger and Beecher are perfect for each other—in that karmic car crash sort of way, when both parties get what they need rather than what they want, and still refuse to learn anything from it—if I accept that thesis, I also have to accept that Keller will always form a point of this particular triangle, just as Beecher will always be the overlap where Vern and Keller meet.To my mind, Vern starts out seeing Keller as the perfect prag, somebody who was apparently previously fine with being used, and should therefore be all too willing and pleased to be used again; he sets Keller against Beecher without ever, I’m convinced, believing that Beecher will become more than a mark for this man he sees as a born slut who’d rather fuck than work, not recognizing that Keller is just perverse enough to take on the job and start enjoying himself too much to walk away clean when it’s done. And Keller? He sees Vern as a former trick, somebody he thought he understood well enough to know which way he was likely to jump under any and all circumstances…except the ones they now find themselves in. It seems to me that part of his initial fascination with Beecher may well hover between admiration and envy over Beecher being able to break free of Vern’s ownership (which may not ever have occurred to him as an option), plus the impulse to find out why THIS bitch’s refusal to knuckle under is so disturbing to Vern (and, by extension, why his own behavior never was).
But in my opinion, neither of them will ever be as interested in each other as they are in Beecher, and both of them know they can only affect each other through Beecher. It’s like this "relationship" they had wasn’t a relationship at all, but they’ll both always find themselves tarred by the same brush—they’ll never entirely get away from their former association. Not to mention that by his own admission, Keller thinks he learned something from Schillinger, but Schillinger doesn’t seem to have thought enough about Keller to learn anything from him—-this can be seen either as Keller’s triumph over pragdom or a secret wound, depending on how you want to play him.
If this all seems a bit free-associative, I guess it might be because I still don’t feel I understand Keller as well as I understand Vern or Beecher…or that I ever will. So there ya go.
Finally,
rustler kindly asked me to explain the "logic" behind my new antagonistic ship of choice, Bill the Butcher/Priest Vallon, from Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York…and though logic so rarely factors into these things, I’ll start by pointing out that canonically, Bill’s fight with the Priest (which opens the film) is the single most important thing that ever seems to have happened to him. By killing Priest, he not only secures his status as head Nativist gangster in the Five Points, but he also pre-determines the entire Hamlet-gone-wrong spine of the film itself, pointing Priest’s son Amsterdam towards himself like a long-distance opportunity for honorable self-euthanasia in battle.The Priest’s picture holds a place of pride on Bill’s mantle, as Amsterdam is surprised to find out, and the victory at Paradise Square is celebrated every year mainly as an opportunity to fete and acknowledge "the only man [Bill] ever killed worth remembering." Not to mention that he’s almost crying when he finishes Priest off, and almost cries again while telling Amsterdam about it. This ain’t your normal "you killed my fatha, prepare to die" scenario, especially when you factor in Amsterdam later falling for Bill’s former lover/adopted daughter (also Irish), or the fact that getting close enough to try to kill Bill results in Amsterdam eventually feeling closer to him than he ever has to his own dead, heroic father. (Amsterdam really does have two daddies.)
What is it that killing the Priest seems to mean, for/to Bill? He tells Amsterdam that the Priest gave him "the finest beating [he] ever took", humiliated him publicly, and therefore taught him the true meaning of honor and toughness—that not being afraid to die in battle would be the key to victory, and that it was better to cut out his own eye for being weak than it would be to tolerate having a daily reminder of his "weakness". So to Bill, a barbarian chief in a stovepipe hat, Priest represents a sort of ideal that he must destroy in order to live up to, then worship from afar forevermore; he’s also someone Bill must have had an immediate connection with—he’s certainly far more "like" Priest than he is like anyone else, especially as he moves into an era in which his berserker zealotry is quickly becoming outdated—but was "forced" to deny, mainly because the Nativist creed Bill defines himself damns all Irish as barely-human interlopers on American soil. They couldn’t co-exist, in that world…but what if they had been able to, or had a compelling reason to try to? Or could co-exist together again, somewhere else, after the film’s bloody end?
One way or another, the sparks Priest and Bill scrape off each other during the brief moments they’re onscreen together ring as amazingly icky, hot and dirty-wrong, and are only made the more so by Liam Neeson (Priest) and Daniel Day-Lewis (Bill)’s potent physical presences: For me, the lure of this pairing combines the sick thrill of seeing two super-hard men ram up against each other without mercy and the inherent swooniness of the implication that while Bill’s top dog in every other situation, he might have considered bottoming for Priest an honor as much as a punishment. Opposite in every outward respect ("race", religion, even Neeson’s grandiose hero-bulk vs. Day-Lewis’s whippet-slim viciousness), they nevertheless seem specifically made for each other—a double judgement by some vengeful god, perhaps. And it makes me grin with sheer, unholy glee.;))
Okay, done. I’m going to bed—let’s see exactly how long we can make it before Cal wakes up shrieking, yet once more.