Five... Five? Five! 5 five
May. 18th, 2012 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capri0mni1) A thought which came to me, recently, about why sports fan enthusiasms are publicly celebrated and applauded (stripping off all your shirt in February, and painting your torso in your team's colors is terrific and will get your mug on TV, and the local paper!) but geeky enthusiasms are publicly derided (dressing up in a Third Doctor costume, accurate to a specific episode, and being able to name the costume designer who came up with it and why means you must be psychologically broken, and you probably still live in your parents' basement) --
"Geek," at root, originally meant "village idiot." Thus, it's someone who does not understand, nor values, the commonly held biases of the overarching culture. This makes "Geeks" suspect, especially by those who have a vested interest in maintaining the social status quo.
But Sports act as a proxy for society -- loyalty to "your team" equates to loyalty to your city (or high school, writes she who is currently living in the part of USA where high school football gets twenty minutes coverage on the news, every Friday night). And so this does not raise suspicion.
Geeky enthusiasms (gaming, comics, "genre" television and lit., etc) tend to be things where individual devotion and study yield as much or more satisfaction than organized group activities like sports.
Now, what this means in regards to Geek becoming "chic"... I don't know...
2) My cat Trixie has recently decided that my lap is the center of the universe, and she must be attached to it three-quarters of our mutually waking hours. As much as I love her, and enjoy having her flump over one forearm or the other... it does tend to slow down my typing...
3) Speaking of which, June and Camp!NaNoWriMo is coming, sooner than I was expecting... But I did buy a box of mini-bunny shaped cookies in preparation (to have on hand to give myself rewards for reaching word goals).
4) Semi-randomly: here's an eleven minute video on YouTube that made me so happy this week, I almost cried: Trevor Nunn Coaches David Suchet on Shakespeare's Sonnet #138 (Thank the gods and muses for unscrupulous publishers who want to profit off a playwright's fame!)
5) Regarding the Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss reboot of Sherlock Holmes: The problem with being familiar with the source material is that the titles alone can be spoilers... So -- does anyone know if there will be a third season?
"Geek," at root, originally meant "village idiot." Thus, it's someone who does not understand, nor values, the commonly held biases of the overarching culture. This makes "Geeks" suspect, especially by those who have a vested interest in maintaining the social status quo.
But Sports act as a proxy for society -- loyalty to "your team" equates to loyalty to your city (or high school, writes she who is currently living in the part of USA where high school football gets twenty minutes coverage on the news, every Friday night). And so this does not raise suspicion.
Geeky enthusiasms (gaming, comics, "genre" television and lit., etc) tend to be things where individual devotion and study yield as much or more satisfaction than organized group activities like sports.
Now, what this means in regards to Geek becoming "chic"... I don't know...
2) My cat Trixie has recently decided that my lap is the center of the universe, and she must be attached to it three-quarters of our mutually waking hours. As much as I love her, and enjoy having her flump over one forearm or the other... it does tend to slow down my typing...
3) Speaking of which, June and Camp!NaNoWriMo is coming, sooner than I was expecting... But I did buy a box of mini-bunny shaped cookies in preparation (to have on hand to give myself rewards for reaching word goals).
4) Semi-randomly: here's an eleven minute video on YouTube that made me so happy this week, I almost cried: Trevor Nunn Coaches David Suchet on Shakespeare's Sonnet #138 (Thank the gods and muses for unscrupulous publishers who want to profit off a playwright's fame!)
5) Regarding the Steven Moffat & Mark Gatiss reboot of Sherlock Holmes: The problem with being familiar with the source material is that the titles alone can be spoilers... So -- does anyone know if there will be a third season?
no subject
Date: 2012-05-20 01:01 am (UTC)Both of these sonnets are as juicy, tart-sweet, and satisfying as a ripe plum!
In Elizabeth Barret Browning's verse, I love, especially:
"I love thee with a love I seemed to lose/With my lost saints ..." particularly since that thought finishes before the end of the line. That's where form echoes meaning, by my figuring.
And, Dear old Will! Such a tease! He keeps going on about how his verse will make the person he's eulogizes "immortal," but never once does he even give the person a fictional name. ;-)
(And I also love "delves the parallels" -- clever word play on "furrowed brow" [heh], which foreshadows Time with his scythe... Why do I get the feeling that the poet is teasingly winking at us in utmost sincerity?)
BTW, did you ever see the report of this news, about a possible (probable?) Shakespeare life portrait?
no subject
Date: 2012-05-21 10:43 pm (UTC)Nah, I'm not much interested in celebrity "news", heh. ;-P
no subject
Date: 2012-05-21 11:49 pm (UTC)However, I was interested in the science and cultural detail of how it was decided to be an authentic portrait (dating it by matching up the tree rings in the wood panel on which it was painted to seasonal global weather patterns, and also pinpointing the year, based on the fashion style of the collar he was wearing in the painting, and the fact that those two dates lined up...).