Wednesday Roundup

[neadods]

I bought the all-star cast reading stories from "House on Pooh Corner" at Stratford (Fanfare Books, they had at least one more copy of both CDs) because it had Judi Dench (Kanga) and Stephen Fry (Pooh) on it, but the one who makes me laugh like a loon every time I hear him is Geoffrey Palmer's sardonic Eeyore. Highly recommended.

In honor of the Bollywood discussion the other day, I made a Bollywood exercise mix. The pace is quite slow - I did barely over a mile in 25 minutes - but it's a nice way to ease back onto the treadmill after a vacation. Only four songs, because Bollywood doesn't do short numbers:

1 - Kahin Aag Lage (Taal soundtrack)
2 - Chale Chalo (Lagaan soundtrack)
3 - O Rey Chhori (Lagaan soundtrack)
4 - Chaiyya Chaiyya (several soundtracks; mine came from Bombay Dreams)


FLIST ROUNDUP:

Fabulous Doctor Who Vid to "This is Not Your Year." Images for all new seasons. Downloadable here.
The Time Princess Sweet fluff of the Doctor telling his daughter a bedtime story.
Dark Aegis has a nice Britpick post for those of us who keep forgetting that there is no "gotten" in British English and that "pants" is considerably ruder on the other side of the sea.


THE LATEST LJ ANGST:
BubbleBlunder's open letter articulating the problems and questions the fans have with LJ
LJ's latest clarification/response (specifically mentioning the letter)

Nea's comment on the whole thing: nobody's really in the right here. LJ's team has done some real boneheaded things, *particularly* knee-jerk banning of legitimate expressions (breastfeeding icons) and in not warning and permitting people to take down stuff before lowing the banhammer. That one of their own has been mocking people is just the icing on the cow cake.

On the other hand, fandom by nature infringes on copyrights and trademarks, and "we've always done this sort of legally questionable thing and nobody complains" is not, in fact, a legal defense, nor is it an accurate statement. Cease and Desist orders were winging at fans who went over the line well before there was a world wide web; if the actors/copyright holders/Powers That Be bothered to dig us up when we were underground in the 70s and 80s, then it's all the easier for them to find stuff that's out in the open on the Web.

Do I think there ought to be a fandom exception? Hell, yes, I am a fan - I create and consume exactly the sort of things that they've been C&Ding and striking out for most of my life. But my "I want" doesn't change the law, and if I want it to, then I need to put my effort into *changing the law,* or arguing for a change in the rules based on specific precedents (of which there are many in the whole 6A thing; I knew the first set of strikeouts wouldn't stand because I'd been through the exact same thing with AOL back in the early 90s. The only difference is that the 6A thing happened faster than AOL's "ooops, we went too far" backdown.)

As for the seismic shift to other LJ-like forums... I'm not going anywhere. First, because I've paid to be here and I want my money's worth. Second, there is absolutely no guarantee whatsoever that GreatestJournal and InsaneJournal and Journalfen and whateverjournal won't do *the exact same thing.*

ETA: The Terrible Secret of Livejournal, a post that repeats much of my point. The terrible secret of Livejournal is that a lot of fandom material is illegal.

It's not just incorrectly classified as illegal. It doesn't just "appear" to be illegal to people who don't understand. It doesn't just "resemble" illegal material. It isn't just "illegal to show to minors but perfectly okay as long as you card everyone." It's not "arguably" illegal under hypothetical assumptions that haven't been tested in court. It's not just against Six Apart's terms of service. It's not just disfavoured by Barak Berkowitz's personal taste. There exists material that may be in a grey area, but a lot of it isn't. A lot of fandom material really is definitely illegal to distribute; sometimes even illegal to possess.

Comments

Re: LJ and Fandom

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

No. That came later. This was in either 1978 or 1979, when the fan putting together the first B7 adult zine (which was passed around set, by the way - all the first zines were) was buying Gareth Thomas drinks after a theatre performance. She told him about the zine (more than I would have done) and he asked, "Who does Blake get?" (and you would.) She said, "Well, in the one story I've got so far - Cally." Sez GT: "Why not Jenna?" The editor retorts that he should think himself lucky because if B7 fandom went the same way as Trek fandom it would be Avon. She then spent the rest of the evening buying him G&Ts and reassuring him that she wouldn't let that happen. She then spent the next few days ringing her friends and telling them. (Which was how I first heard about it.)

You have to remember that, at that time, B7 fandom was extremely small, and active fandom was very close to the set. David Jackson was spending most of his free time at the flat shared by the committee members of one fan club - one of whom he later married. David Maloney's secretary was very close to the committee of one of the other two clubs. One of the cameramen was an active fan, and one of the FX men was close to fandom. Mike Keating and Peter Tuddenham viewed fandom as source of drinks and wild parties. The fans often saw scripts during filming. Maloney encouraged fans, to the extent of said zines being circulated.

We didn't actually think that GT would do anything to us if we did write slash (being a pretty laid-back sort of guy) but the impression we got from those members of the cast we did know, particularly from David J, that there were others who were, in his words, "puritanical". However, the fan editor involved had a rep for being fierce when crossed (there is a story about a hotel room and a sword) and UK fandom was too worried about keeping its relationship with cast and crew to put it in jeopardy by publishing slash.

I'm sure people were writing slash in secret. I wrote my near-slash sotry "Mindfire" around this period, but it was not published, though for personal reasons rather than fear of fannish wrath. However, I was pretty out of the B7 fandom by the time my last B7 story was published, by Peter Anglehides (I never could spell Pete's name!) a short time after the end of fourth season (which I loathed.) By then I was working in other fandoms.

Re: LJ and Fandom

[neadods.livejournal.com]

B7 fandom was extremely small, and active fandom was very close to the set.

That can be both a blessing and a curse - a blessing because you get the perks of a close relationship with the actors and all, and a curse because they're keeping tabs on you!

On the other hand, it's foolish to put some things openly up on the web on the assumption that TPTB *won't* find it in all the noise.

Re: LJ and Fandom

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Personally, I prefer to keep my distance from both set and actors, which leaves me free to say what I think without fear of offending any of them. I'm not sure that Chris Boucher remembers the vitriolic exchange of letters we had towards the end of third season, but I prefer not to be asked to tell him how wonderful I (don't) think he is.

On the other hand, David J and Anne H fell in love almost at first sight, and remained so until David's death last year, so at least one good thing came out of the close connections between B7 fandom and the set.