Entry tags:

reflection

in conclusion, age is a number

Stupidly, I keep referring to my age without meaning to in conversation, then catching it only afterwards. I already know I'm a bit insecure about the age I turn this calendar year; it'd be fine if my mouth would quit confirming it, repeatedly.

OTOH, though I still can't go for a walk without detectable negative consequences, core strength remains approximately intact: I've just carried one microwave across two rooms and a doorway gate (the one that keeps tiny housemate in the kitchen---her paws reach the top bar if she lunges upwards, and on me it's between knee and hip height), then carried another microwave the same distance in the opposite direction. ( short and boring )

*tilts head* That seems to be enough words. Far fewer than I used to lob at related topics.

Entry tags:

language

obviously

When I was a kid, it was expected that the school-day began with the whole class standing to recite the pledge of allegiance. It was nearer the McCarthy era, and the Cold War was still a thing. One effect of doing this in greater Los Angeles is that when Spanish class was first period (the start of the day), obviously we recited the pledge in Spanish.

After Latin, dead French, and other dead languages with only intermittent use of diacritics, my sense of modern Spanish orthography is a bit impressionistic; I'm not checking where the acute accents would go. But my inner 12yo holds the sounds:

Juro fidelidad a la bandera de los estados unidos de américa y a la república que symboliza---una nación, dios mediante, indivisible, con libertad y justicia para todos.

We landed hard on the first word, such that it sounded like juró, "one swore"; and dios mediante is for "under god" in English, but they aren't quite the same, are they. Anyway, para todos: sí.

Entry tags:

reading

current reading

At this very moment I'm reading what may be my last necessary (assigned) chapter from Principles of Economics, 4th ed., by Dirk Mateer and Lee Coppock---introductory macro- and microeconomics. Its microecon chapters are well done as textbooks go (no idea about its macroecon coverage).

Special Pre-Tony Awards Post

Posted by fanhackers-mods

https://fanhackers.tumblr.com/post/785813617412046848

Special Pre-Tony Awards Post

OK, a little bit of a self-plug here, but there’s so much great work in Theatre Fandom: Engaged Audiences in the Twenty-first Century (2025), edited by Kirsty Sedgman, Matt Hills, and me. Theatre Fandom is the first book to really cross audience and fan studies and think of theatre fans as fans in a fandom. It’s part of the University of Iowa’s Fandom and Culture Series, which includes books such as Bridget Kies and Megan Connor’s Fandom, the Next Generation (2022), Katherine Anderson Howell’s Disability and Fandom (2024) and Rukmini Pande’s Fandom, Now in Color (2020). In addition to more theoretical essays about what fandom and fannish behavior looks like in theatre as opposed to TV or film, there are also essays on particular theatrical fandoms from a broad array of scholars from the US and the UK. Ruth Foulis writes about how Harry Potter fandom was extended by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and Louie Lang Norman writes about A Very Potter Musical. Sarah K. Whitfield has an essay on Hamilton fandom as a site of bisexual representation, and Emily Garside writes about being a Rent fan for decades. Laura MacDonald writes about East Asian fans who reproduce and cosplay their favorite Western musical theatre shows, and playwright Dominique Morisseau talks to Kirsty Sedgman about how black fans in particular are policed as theatrical audiences (sadly relevant this week with the Patti LuPone/ Audra McDonald/Kecia Lewis fued flaring up again.) (IYKYK.)

And that’s just some of what’s in the book. All the scholars involved hope that this book will generate lots more scholarship on theatre and fandom. Everyone knows that theatre kids (and theatre grownups!) are hugely fannish (this was absolutely why Glee was pitched to media fans), and yet there’s so little scholarly literature about fandom in theatre. What there is is mostly in Shakespeare studies: books like Shakespeare’s Fans: Adapting the Bard in the Age of Media Fandom (2020) by Johnathan Pope and The Shakespeare Multiverse by Louise Geddes and Valerie M. Fazel. Agata Luksa has written about Polish theatre fans in the 19th Century. Nemo Martin has written about the construction of race in online Les Mis fandom. Trevor Boffone is writing about musical theatre fandom on TikTok. But we need more, much much more!

As we say in the book’s introduction:

Where, you might be wondering, is the chapter on Phans? What about the Hedheads (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), the Fansies (Newsies), the Fun Homies (Fun Home), the Maggots (Matilda), the Jekkies (Jekyll and Hyde), or the Ozians (Wicked)? Where is the fringe show cum hit BBC TV series cum celebrated theatre production Fleabag? Such absences may inspire future work, we hope, and we certainly call for it.

I mean, Sondheim is totally a fandom, right? (Sing out, Louise!)

–Francesca Coppa, Fanhackers volunteer

https://fanhackers.tumblr.com/post/785813617412046848

Entry tags:

reflection

back to school, 5/?

hmm 12 (to pick up from post 4/?) I had a vague sense in grade school that word problems and I didn't get on. ( Read more... )

13 I've chosen to take an additional class from each of two instructors, and to avoid an additional class from a third instructor---a novelty compared to the chronic overenrollment of my original undergrad classes, whereby one did not choose so much as roll dice against the enrollment slot, one's requirements, and unseen forces (which I realized in grad school were partly administrative, such as who was on leave during a given term). Anyway, the instructor to avoid for the fall had a synchronous lecture via Zoom for spring and advertised several times for his fall class. I see why, now---only 15% of its seats have been filled.