Oh look, it's Dietrich

regyt asks why the world doesn't have a meme where everyone leaves screened comments with what they want to say to to the poster but haven't yet for whatever reason -- and I say, indeed, why not? So! Tell me anything you want me to know - about me, about you, about your mom, whatever you like.

Anonymous comments are enabled, and everything is screened. Tell me something you want to tell me, anonymously or not. If you say you want me to unscreen, I will, happily.

Then do the same, and I will tell you something!

[My own edit, in advance: be nice. By which I mean, tell me difficult things if you wish, but let's keep it civil, mmmkay?]

Meme from hahathor:

Comment in this post, and I will try to come up with an obscure reference that (at least among my LJ friends) only you and I will understand. Then, as in the way of all memes, copy this text and post in it your LJ.

(ETA: Emphasis on "try." Also, commenting yourself with obscure references that you think only you and I will understand is welcome.)

It's ask a question month on LJ, and I have an ask-me-anything post up in addition to the kinky question post. It's here.

So far, only one person's made use of it. If you comment, your question will be screened, and I'll do my best to answer it as honestly as I can, in a separate post.


What is a love of yours that other people seem to have a hard time understanding what the big deal is about? It could be anything from food, to a pastime, to a movie star...

This is going to sound untrue, but choral singing. I have been a choral singer since I was 12, and I have always loved it almost unreasonably. I love the experience of singing in a big group (or a smaller one), feeling it when the harmonies come together just right, being exposed to music that I probably wouldn't be in any other way. Being challenged. And especially, working with a great conductor - in this case, Scott Allen Jarrett. The last conductor I felt this strongly about was Garyth Nair of my Drew University undergraduate days, and the feeling of working under conductors like them is incredible. I feel incredibly driven to do well in such healthy choral environments: these conductors are powerful, talented, gentle but strong, and utterly devoted to beauty. They will accept nothing less than your best. And they will get it out of you in the most joyful and playful way possible. I don't know how to explain it except to say that I long to *please* these men - and I say men because unfortunately, I've not yet encountered a female conductor that evokes the same response from me. (Sorry, wavyarms - you're immensely talented and I love singing for you, but for me this quality seems to be contained chiefly in men. Go figure, and psychoanalyze that as you will - I know I have.) I love the feeling I get when we do something really right, especially in performance, and the conductor smiles in that particular way. I love when the chorus is so in tune that harmonics ring off the rafters. I love it when a movement dances and the choir figures that out and dances it. I love the way some music hurts. There are pieces ("Sure on this Shining Night" by Barber and "Take Him, Earth, for Cherishing" by Herbert Howells are two recent ones that come to mind) that seem to have a direct line to my tear ducts, and when I first encounter such things in rehearsal, I sometimes actually have trouble getting through them because of being choked with emotion. Then there are movements like the "Qui Tollis" in Mozart's Great Mass which are so powerful and intense that I blow out my vocal chords singing them when I still have half the mass left to sing. (Oops.) That's how I am about these things.

I have loved ones who come and see my concerts. I even have some friends (none super-close) who know music well. But I feel like I rarely encounter someone who really understands this passion of mine in the same way than I do. (Probably fanw comes closest, but she's so busy, well, singing a bunch of choral music that I rarely see her these days. ;)

This is a good one! From regyt:
1 - Go to Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article title that you get is the name of your band.
2 - Go to The Quotations Page random quotations:
http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 - Go to Flickr and click on "explore the last seven days"
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 - Be creative. Post it.


Here's mine:

Beautiful Game Studios
Stand Like a Rock

A while back some folks were doing a meme in which they named fictional characters they wouldn't kick out of bed for eating crackers. I kept meaning to do this, but it's only in the last few weeks that a bunch of them have come to light for me at once. For others, I'd have to do some digging in memory, but I might do so yet.

All that said, the characters below aren't necessarily characters I'd want to have sex with as they are characters I have major crushes on - intellectual, spiritual, sexual or otherwise.

I'll get the really weird one out of the way first: Elphaba, the child Wicked Witch of the West from Gregory Maguire's Wicked. I'm still in the first half of it, but I just love her smart mouth and total self-awareness. Even as she's so obviously unpopular, she manages to make Galinda, future good witch and intolerable upper-class beauty, look like an idiot.

Next, and perhaps no less weird, is Sasha, the stunted, limping, huge-voiced and intense-eyed radical leftist from John LeCarre's new novel, Absolute Friends. I'm sure some of this has to do with listening to this book on tape, and the wonderful John Lee's rendition of Sasha's booming, self-deprecating German accent, but he's also just such a hilarious and uncompromising and larger-than-life character that it's partially fictive crush and partially simple admiring envy at LeCarre's abilities.

Finally, the motherlode: Damiel, the angel who longs to be human from Wings of Desire. Though I adore Bruno Ganz, this love is quite specific to the recent ART production starring Bernard White, who is totally my new boyfriend. This particular entry might also be cheating, as it's so completely a combination of Damiel and Bernie that I love, not just the fictional character alone. Damiel, as written, is an articulate, melancholy romantic who records the endless details of life from the very beginnings of time, while longing merely to touch human skin, smell sweat, taste coffee, see color, feel something truly. Bernie White, in the role, puts on a loud Hawaiian shirt for his transition into mortality, and when he gets there, throws chairs all over the place, marvels at the wonder of a handshake, and inhales deeply of his own shoes.

All right, I confess: maybe it's just Bernie.

I'm liking the short form of the interview meme that's going 'round. Seems to go something like this:

Ask me one question. I'll answer the collection I get in comments as best I can in a separate post. Once I post answers, let me know if you want me to ask you a question.

And the meme goes on...ladadadadee....ladadadadai...

I'll probably be sorry, but I give.

Please leave a one-word comment that you think best describes me.

It can only be one word.

No more.

Then copy & paste this in your journal so that I may leave a word about you.

I like the new version of this meme, wherein if you've done any of these things, let me know and I have to come up with a new one.

1. Was awakened by and witnessed an incredibly violent electrical storm at midnight, from a train car passing through Kansas.
2. Operated a turntable (also known as a revolve) on a show; was required to light candles on candelabras on the set walls before moving it into position.
3. Fed a rhea from my hand.
4. Held onto a dolphin's dorsal fin as she took me for a short swim.
5. Sang 'O Holy Night' in French. Met James Earl Jones in an elevator. (Imagine Darth Vader simply saying, "Hi.")
6. Petted an octopus in his natural habitat.
7. Competed in the Miss Teen New Jersey pageant.
8. Climbed the Acropolis. Climbed the winding, steep stairs to the top of the Alcazar in Segovia.
9. Directed two one-act plays and a musical.
10. Came within three feet of molten lava. Saw Spalding Gray perform in probably his last tour before he died.

Well, the second semester of my second year of law school has begun, and already I'm overwhelmed. I had gotten so used to the co-op situation, to working every day at the non-profit, that being back in classes is a bit of a shock. I must admit I prefer the practical experience. Sure, it was long hours, but I generally left the work at work. Now it's back to school-driven long-range deadlines, which I still, after all these years, manage to leave to the last minute.

Good news is, the firm might be interested in bringing me on once I graduate. They need someone specializing in alternative family structures, not to mention someone to stay on the edge of all the legislation that's beginning to result from the legalization of gay marriage. It might be a good place to start, but I have to admit I'm holding out a little for the lobbying group I'm looking at for my next co-op: legalize poly marriage or bust, baby!

I will say, given that last remark, that it's weird being single. It's years since I've had an apartment to myself, only my own voice answering when I ask the walls what's happening to me. But law school does have a way of eating your life. For now, at least, gone are the days of dating three people and going to *those* kinds of parties. There just isn't time, and anyway, sex isn't that important. My career is paramount; everything else can wait.

Okay, off to pick up my dry-cleaning...

[This post brought to you by Richard Adams, Lewis Carroll, and the numbers 1-27-05.]

From moominmolly:

Go to Google Image Search and enter a word or two words that remind you of me. Then select a picture from the first page or two of hits and post it as a comment.

(See the insanity here.)

Whee!!