tavie.com

This may be my favourite blog entry of mine, ever. Or not. But I was looking for old posts about Lynne Thigpen, and found this on one of the pages. The background is, my darling friend Matt wrote an incredible monograph about Hedwig and the Angry Inch as the ultimate postmodern fairytale, and it reached the eyes of John Cameron Mitchell, Hedwig's creator, who was so impressed with it that he invited Matt to have dinner with him. This is the post I wrote in response to it:

Wednesday, October 03, 2001
The thing about the whole JCM thing that makes me just thrum with happiness-- well, the MAIN thing, I think there are many very obvious reasons to be happy-- is that it isn't that it's a regular fan-idol meeting. It's not that Matt won a contest. It's not that JCM is meeting him as a favour, or as a kind act from a celebrity to his fan, because JCM wants to give a kid a thrill. It's not because Matt showed up on his doorstep and JCM feels sorry for him. It's not because Matt is the president of his fan club or writes him a million fan letters a day.

It's because Matt produced a brilliant piece of writing, and it was on the strength of this creation, of this product of Matt's intellect, on the manifestation of Matt's genius, that this godlike idol-figure felt compelled to contact him. It's a beautiful thing, almost beyond expression. It's an inversion of the normal processes of fan-relations; who is a fan of whom here? Who appreciates whose work?

I think about fandom a lot. There's lots of angst, lots of thumbings through Henry Jenkins' Textual Poachers. There's lots of self-deprecation and justification, of intellectualizing of fannish activities and theorizing about fan creativity and formation of communities. There's lots of mooning and sighing. Fandom is so much larger a part of my life than I ever would have wished that I can't help but continually analyze it and its place in the culture and subcultures in which I find myself, and wonder about its place in my own self-identification process. Therefore it has a large emotional significance for me, and so when something like this happens, it makes my heart so light.

So light.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:46 PM

This is why cyberanthropology is my field. It's all tied up in fandom and empowerment and charisma and everything that has made me a distintinctive personality. You can see the connections, can't you? They're shimmering in front of my eyes like spiderwebs, now. Something's happening.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 2:20 PM | shower me with attention

The Witch: Since when are you so squeamish? How many wolves have you carved up?

Little Red Riding Hood: A wolf's not the same!

The Witch: Ask a wolf's mother.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:44 AM | shower me with attention

Guess what: if you visit a blue-coloured webpage such as this and look at it for a few minutes (say, reading it or the like), and then come back to this web page you're reading right now, then your eyeballs explode.

Try it!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:37 AM | shower me with attention

Thursday, March 13, 2003

No! No!
Lynne Thigpen died!

I loved her. She was one of my favourite character actresses. She was too young.

She was in the movie of Godspell but I already loved her because of all the children's television she used to do.

This has been a sad couple of weeks for fans of children's television.

I was such a fan of hers. Me and Kirsten, we both loved her.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 11:52 PM | shower me with attention

She got a job! Way to go, sis!

No more being depressed!!!!!

Why are you in Tavie's head? 4:46 PM | shower me with attention

Try this mutha on for size:

...As Agre observed, "[s]o long as we persist in opposing so-called virtual communities to the face-to-face communities of the mythical opposite extreme, we miss the ways in which real communities of practice employ a whole ecology of media as they think together about the matters that concern them" (Agre 1999, p.4)... An online/offline conceptual dichotomy is also counter to the direction taken within recent anthropology, which acknowledges the multiple identities and negotiated roles individuals have within different sociopolitical and cultural contexts... offline social roles and existing cultural ideologies are played out, and sometimes exaggerated, in online communication. (from the Wilson/Peterson paper)

ThasswhatI'm, thasswhatI'm talkin' 'bout.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:11 PM | shower me with attention

Stephen Sondheim is writing a musical version of the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day.

Whaaaaaaaaa?

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:43 PM | shower me with attention

This guy is such a nerd. I like him. Check out his thesis proposal. Wish I'd thought of that. "The Role of Weblogs in Online Community Building". Hello. Hello!

How about, "Usenet as a Template for Virtual Community Interaction". Study of the social power structure of newsgroups. I bet it's been done. But, but I could study myself. Wouldn't that be the ultimate example of the self-obsessive tendencies encouraged by this form of communication?

I need a good research proposal and I need one now.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:06 PM | shower me with attention

My excitement mounts. Cyberethnologica is a fantastic blog linking to various items, scholarly and lay, about topics in Cyberanthropology.

I am practically drooling.

Hmm, this book looks good.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:27 AM | shower me with attention

Shelob has appeared and disappeared. Frodo appears to be dead. I am tempted to stop now and not read on, to maintain this deliciously tragic illusion. After I read on, I will never again not know whether or not Frodo dies. I am relishing not knowing. I am relishing sharing in Sam's despair.

You can never never-have-read a book again, once you've read it. It's exciting.

But I'm four pages away from the end of this volume, and then I'll be up to the last volume, and then there'll be nothing left of this that I never-have-read. Kind of sad, that. Although it's been a really long journey, in terms of slogging through Dead Marshes of Tolkien's ridiculous verbosity. It's just exhausting, how much description that man shoved into each scene. I mean, really. Were there no editors in his day?

I've been on this book for two months. It never used to take me this long to finish a book. Back when I had time to read for pleasure.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:05 AM | shower me with attention

Wednesday, March 12, 2003

Look what Yvonne found: An Official KITH site that seems to actually be up-to-date. How awesome would this be if this actually remains up to date? We might actually KNOW about their appearances beforehand...

Why are you in Tavie's head? 2:35 PM | shower me with attention

This is very close to what I had in mind.

And yet further paydirt (link is to a .pdf file, I warn you.)

This is excellent. Now I have to get more specific, that's all.

Easy as pie...

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:49 AM | shower me with attention

Why can't I load my site?

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:25 AM | shower me with attention

Tuesday, March 11, 2003

Perhaps I should broaden my approach.

How does one define an online community?

I am perversely thrilled to find myself so interested in a topic. Yes, be more nerdy! Yes! Yes!

And this is exciting: An actualy research project in the field of cyberanthropology. So it is possible to come up with a good question! I'm just not ~~smart~~ informed enough to do it myself.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 5:56 PM | shower me with attention

Yesterday morning at 8:30 am: Very very very sleepy. So sleepy it hurt.

Yesterday afternoon at 3:30 pm: So sleepy. So very sleepy. More coffee for the sleep-meister.

Yesterday evening at 6:30 pm: Practically falling asleep in class. Will bedtime ever come?

Now at 2:30 am: Wide awake.

Mother fucking cunt bitch ass shit damn hell piss cock crapsucking fuck fuck fuck.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 2:14 AM | shower me with attention

Beware the Ides of March: when I was younger I used to think Socrates ate shamrock and was poisoned and I thought, what's so lucky about that? Like, I'd get hemlock and shamrock confused in my head.

That's not even cute, but it's true.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:24 AM | shower me with attention

Monday, March 10, 2003

But, boy, if Cyberanthropology is a field, then I know what I want to be when I grow up.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:51 PM | shower me with attention

I need help with this one. I need to devote the rest of the semester to designing my research proposal for my anthropology class. I don't have to actually do the research, just design a proposal; that's the goal.

I have an appointment next Monday to meet with the professor and present my research question/hypothesis to her.

I still haven't nailed it down. I know this much: I want to do something with online community participation and social performance. Something along the lines of, "What effect does online community participation have on (offline?) social performance?" or, you know, if it's a hypothesis, "Online community formation has a positive effect on (offline? What word am I looking for?) social performance". Or "Does online community participation lead to success in face-to-face interaction?" (Or possibly, negative. That's what my hypothesis would test. Then I have to define "success"...) You see where I'm going here. I haven't figured out the wording yet.

The problem is, if you look at this question, it's really a psychological hypothesis, not anthropological. I've wandered off into another discipline altogether. So, how do I make this relate to anthropology? I can't conentrate on any particular ethnic group, nationality, linguistic (mainly-- I do have a copy of Crystal's Language and the Internet) or geographically-based (sub)culture because the internet generally transcends those boundaries. Online communities are something else altogether. But I have to have some group to measure the effects on. I'm so frustrated.

Now, I've come across some stuff about Cyberanthropology, which might help me figure out how to make this legit as an anthropological question. But I still don't quite have the question right.

Can anyone help? I mean, really. I need help. Should I abandon this question altogether, or is there a way to make this more... anthropological?

Addendum: Djin has stressed an important point: that I need to focus on the group rather than individual effects. Obviously, this would be my tendency, since this is basically an hypothesis extracted from personal experience. It's useless if I'm using myself as the variable. This is harder to keep in mind than you think. Objectivity, objectivity. Am I too close to the subject? But how do anthropologists get into anything unless they're somehow invested in the outcome?

The quest continues.

(And, by the way, if you think online community participation doesn't have an effect on offline social success, consider readers of my blog as part of an "online community", and the fact that I often engage in blog-based brainstorming sessions such as these, which help me achieve academic success. Whether or not academic success can relate to social success is another matter, of course. Smart kids get their heads flushed down the toilet, I hear.)

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:47 PM | shower me with attention

My hands-down favourite part of my job is when I get to do internet research for the Special Sales database. It's the best: paid for web-surfing. Web-surfing with a purpose!

Well, I was doing just that, researching for a book on anxiety disorders, and I came across this website containing a list of celebrities who have Bipolar Disorder. And Kevin is on the list!

Finally, KITH crosses over into my job.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:05 PM | shower me with attention

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Look, Linn!

(c/o sarah)

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:42 PM | shower me with attention

Hey, you know what I find more ridiculous than having a web page devoted to Dave Foley? Being an abusive lunatic who brutalized her kids all their lives, who practices poor personal hygiene and who's never had a real career because she's too lazy and yet thinks she can make judgements about other people and their families. That's what I find more ridiculous than having a web page devoted to Dave Foley, who, hello, contacted me first.

And, also, it's a web page, not a website. The website is devoted to me. Now that's worthy of ridicule.

So there.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:33 PM | shower me with attention

I am taking a gamble: I've bought a replacement LCD screen on eBay. It should arrive by next week, when I shall take it to Tekserve and have them install it. Altogether it won't cost more than $220, which is less than half than I'd be paying otherwise. So it's a pretty good gamble, but I'm nervous as hell anyway, because I may well be without a computer screen if it doesn't work. Or I'll have to shell out another $100 to have them reinstall the broken screen, I guess. But if this works...

Then, after that's sorted out, I'm sending the piece of crap back to Apple to have the ethernet fixed for a second time. At least that's still under warranty.

Son of a bitch, I tell ya.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:17 PM | shower me with attention

Divorce sucks.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:31 AM | shower me with attention

Sunday, March 09, 2003

Er?

Why are you in Tavie's head? 12:36 PM | shower me with attention

I got nothing.

In lieu of content, I present, A List of Broadway Musicals I've Seen. I invite you to make your own list of Things You've Seen That Are of Interest To You.

And now, the list:

The Secret Garden
How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Les Miserables (Thrice, the second two times under duress.)
Rent (Thrice of my own accord.)
Godspell (off Broadway)
Jesus Christ Superstar (off Broadway)
Into the Woods (the revival).
Into the Woods 10th Anniversary Concert with the Original Cast which was vastly superior.
Urinetown
1776
Miss Saigon
Beauty and the Beast
The Lion King
Flower Drum Song
Phantom of the Opera (yuchh)
Cats (I wish I had those three hours back)
Parade
Ragtime
Footloose (god-bloody-awful)
The Producers
A Little Night Music
and if I'm going to count the immediately preceding, which was actually a NYCO production, I can also count:
Brigadoon

And Gina says that Starlight Express in Vegas shouldn't count because it's not in New York or London. I would tend to agree. I also wouldn't put White Trash Wins Lotto in there (too off-off-off-off-off) or Forbidden Broadway, which just shouldn't count just because.

I wish I could put Cats in the "doesn't count" list, too.

That was fun. I think it's complete but then I keep thinking of more.

Now, to bed.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:25 AM | shower me with attention