Everything & the Kitchen Sink Post

[neadods]

Literary News
The National Book Festival will continue! It was announced today that the Festival, a Laura Bush initiative, will continue with the sponsorship of the Obamas. The next Festival will be September 26 on the National Mall.

Fannish News
My Firefox News article on the Who animated and the SJA casting spoiler is up.

Speaking of FFN, Tara's got a great article on Reboot Trek, feminism, and refrigerators..

I'm enjoying the book Harry, A History about Potter fandom, but every now and then the author's unfamiliarity with any fandom outside her own grates. At one point (page 93), Melissa Anelli writes: though there were already vocal online fandoms for other works, none were so big or had so many members testing the outer limits of an author's permission.

Hear that phone ringing? It's George Lucas on line 1, Paramount and the Roddenberry estate on line 2, Dame Doyle on line 3...

Personal News
I will be in NYC on June 6. Still not a clue what I'll be doing with myself up there, but I'm still planning on taking the trip.

I'm still working on an effective method of time control... I'll let you know how it goes. Right now I'm treating time like we're told to treat food on a diet - writing down EVERYTHING I want to work on.

And that, I've decided, includes reactivating the missionary project. For those who weren't reading in 2004/5, this isn't about me actually going out and trying to convert people. It's about researching and writing the story of the first Christian mission to Hawai'i, a truth far more juicy than Michener gave any kind of justice. Basic details & people are here, but to summarize, it's a little bit about societies in flux - how the mission was created as a PR move from a church in crisis and about how the mission lucked out by arriving at a time when King Kamehameha II (nee Liholiho) and his co-"king," Kamhemeha I's favorite wife Ka'ahumanu were already rewriting Hawai'ian culture. And it's a lot about how the group of people supposedly displaying the inherent superior virtues of white, Western Christianity ripped itself apart into acrimony, shunning, excommunication, and lawsuits.

There are also side stops on feminism, because it's hard not to when you've got people like Ka'ahumanu (ended Hawai'ian religious restrictions), Lucy Goodale Thurston (protofeminist & teacher), and Lucia Ruggles Holman (first woman to circumnavigate the world, although she was probably too seasick to want the honor). And some color will be provided by other events of the time, such as the Essex... the whaleship sunk by a whale, whose crew tried to avoid cannibals only to run out of food and eat each other.

The travel part of research isn't happening for several years, but but I think it would be a good exercise to start looking over what I've got and making sure the timeline's in order.

And in future, I'll cut-tag this stuff.

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I vaguely know that Potter author. She really is a bit clueless there.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

She knows one fandom really well, I'll give her that. But Potter fandom isn't entirely the unique thing she thinks it is.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

That's the trouble with some people though - they think their fandom is moar speshul and unique than anyone else's, and really it ain't, 'cos people are people everywhere.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

people are people everywhere

Exactly!