Friends

Almost forgot--got my hair re-dyed on Thursday!

I couldn't get a decent light source for my webcam, so you can't see how fluorescent red it is. But here it is anyway:

It's finally getting long!

Follow-up to this post. Because I flailed a lot about how Coelio and Octave are totally Enjolras and Grantaire, if you take the interpretation that Marianne is an allegory, but I did not provide a whole lot of backup. But tonight I was flailing over IM to mmejavert, dug the play up on Wikisource, and did some on-the-fly translations. They are crappy and awkward, but they get the job done.

Glancing at the previous post is recommended if you aren't familiar with the plot at all.

( Coelio and Octave's first scene together )

( Octave gets a drunken ramble! )

( Last scene: Super-spoilery angst )

( Spoilery angst NOW WITH EVEN MORE SLASH )

...now picture all that with a couple of actors who randomly hug each other, kiss each other on the forehead, and give each other the "I am undressing you with my eyes" stare. (And a really hot, feisty Marianne who probably wouldn't have been happy to be interpreted as an allegory.) AND Coelio being draped in Marianne's scarf for the entire last scene, looking like he's covered in a flag. ALL THAT is what caused my "must not fangirl, must not fangirl, must not--holy crap this is really gay" reaction.

So tonight toi_marguerite (AKA Elyse) and I went to the theeeatre to see Musset's Les Caprices de Marianne.

I was resolved to turn OFF my fangirl brain for this. No, I told myself, Marianne is not an allegory for France. She is a teenage girl who was raised in a convent and immediately married off to a creepy old judge. This shit was written before Les Mis was a gleam in Victor Hugo's eye; Coelio is not Enjolras; Octave is not Grantaire. No, I told myself in the middle of the first act, stop trying to slash them, this is a plot in the general mold of Cyrano de Bergerac. Coelio is madly in love with Marianne and can't talk to her, so he sends Octave to make his intentions known; Marianne falls for Octave instead. Simple.

Ha ha ha.

See, Coelio is a beautiful, poetic, pure, vaguely ethereal soul who has devoted his entire existence to Marianne. Who is totally not an allegory for France dammit. Octave is his scruffy, drunken, womanizing best friend. Coelio is repeatedly referred to as Octave's, for lack of a better translation, better half. It didn't help that the guy playing Coelio was pretty and blond, and the guy playing Octave looked vaguely Minarik-ish, and the two of them had more chemistry together than either of them had with Marianne.

It gets better: ( Spoilers ahoy )

It's BEGGING for an allegorical interpretation. Marianne is France! The jealous old husband is tyranny! Coelio is the Republic! Or Enjolras. Or something. And Octave is totally Grantaire.

Wiki informs me that Les Caprices de Marianne was written in 1833 and first performed in summer 1851. I am not going to outright come out and SAY that Hugo saw it, put an allegorical spin on it after Napoleon III's coup d'état, and put it in his novel, but... oh shit, I just outright came out and said it.

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

*facepalm* So I was going to write a deep meta post about the evolution of the Les Mis musical from 1980 to the current version, the weirdness of the official OFC recording, the symbolic role of the chorus, and other Srs Bsns things.

Instead, I created an anonymous kink meme for Les Mis.

Go post. You don't have to be a member of the comm to participate. Even if you just make a request or respond with a drabble or something, please help keep this silly thing alive. XD

elyse24601 and I spent Halloween dressed like refugees from the Battle of Hernani being total bohemians. We attempted to get last-minute cheap seats to a Molière piece at the Comédie Française, with the vague intention of hissing the classicists, but there were none left. Then we went to the Victor Hugo museum, looked at the new exhibit, got snapped at by an employee for tagging along with a (probably paid) tour, and got a DVD of the 1982 movie version of Les Mis. Then--in the slightly more modern tradition of broke-ass Parisian students--we had kebab for dinner, and headed off to the opera to try to get last-minute cheap tickets for La Bohème. Again, none left, not that we were expecting anything since it was (1) a Saturday night, (2) the day after the premiere, and (3) OMG Natalie Dessay as Musetta.

So we wandered off to the Café Procope for absinthe, got glared at by the bartender because we were the only ones there dressed weirdly, and went back to my apartment to watch the 1982 Les Mis over rum and cokes.

We didn't really get to do anything we planned to, but that's okay because we had a fabulous time anyway.

Also, I recently reorganized my bootleg list and realized I'd lost cast info for a bunch of rare shit. And where do you go to find cast info for rare shit, if not the tradelists of people who specialize in rare shit? This is how I found out that a soundboard of the original 1980 Palais des Sports production of Les Mis exists.

I gave up hope almost immediately, since people who specialize in rare shit are probably not going to be interested in my collection, and the particular person who has it is rather picky and elusive about trades. Then, in some massive stroke of celestial fortune, the same exact person contacted me out of the blue* asking to trade. Apparently a recording of Lausanne Les Mis was sufficienty rare and interesting.

So, long story short, I HAVE SHINY** and there will probably be a tl;dr LJ post coming up about the OFC production and the development of the show.


* I mean, not entirely out of the blue, I'd just reorganized my list and reopened it to trades, and requested some recordings on an LJ comm. But of ALL the people who could've followed up on that post via email, the ONLY person to do so was the one who had the 1980 soundboard. I feel like I need to buy Lady Luck a drink or something.

** Please do not comment asking for shiny, as this is a public post. My email's in my profile.

EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side.

Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station.

Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be.

---

Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in.

Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :(

Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work.

( tech details )

status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D

bt

In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases.

Super-tweak for Yandex search

Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.

Postcards from the edge

Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.

Conquer Writer's Block

Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?

1. I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
2. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
3. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
4. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
5. Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
6. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
7. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
8. I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
9. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
10. Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!

Spotlight community of the week

We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.


halloween_fan

Photos of the week

We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!

shutter	pancetta	ilya_gorokhov

Curtains

Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week.

www.robinwasserman.com/ Egads. Lately, I feel like I've been shot out of a cannon and am waving my arms wildly in order not to hit the ground. I'm doing a quick round-up and hope to FINALLY post notes from these events next week. (Sorry, Camp Awesomeness 2009. Thanks for your patience.) 

In the past month, I've been to the Ivy Bookshop, Baltimore Book Festival, Anderson's YA Conference, Naperville and Woodstock, IL, Doylestown, PA, the Brooklyn Barnes & Noble, and The Austin Teen Book Festival. On Sunday, I fly to Austin again, just for the day, to do the Texas Festival of Books. I've written two speeches, done three school visits, and need to get my act together for the Book Notes series that will be happening with Lev Grossman (The Magicians) levgrossman.com/ at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on Sunday, Nov. 8th. (Sadly, the link to this event is showing a server error. *frowns*) Lev and I will talk about the music that inspired our books and read a bit. Here's a feel for what it is: www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2009/10/book_notes_libb.html 

Meanwhile, I have a short story due in January and a novel due in December. Yeah. That. Desperately need some writing time, especially since my new novel seems to be turning into a Pedro Almodovar film before my eyes. Honestly, I set out to write a straightfoward little book and once again, I'm veering off into bizarro land.

Anyway, Tomorrow, David Levithan www.davidlevithan.com/ & I drive up to Wellesley and the Wellesley Bookshop for an event at 6:30 PM: wellesley.booksense.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp;jsessionid=bacPqk5Gp_l479qECDBss
And then we turn around and drive right back to NYC, singing along to whatever songs will keep us awake. Because we're insane like that. 

Next week, on Thursday, Nov. 5th at 7:00 PM, I'll join the wonderful Robin Wasserman www.robinwasserman.com/  & Carolyn MacCullough www.carolynmaccullough.com/main.html at Word Bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for an event called, "Sex, Drugs & Vampires: Everything You Secretly Wanted to Know About YA but Were Afraid to Ask. wordbrooklyn.wordpress.com/events/

***But TONIGHT--TONIGHT, PEEPS, I AM LIVE ON YOUR INTERNETS AT READERGIRLZ readergirlz.blogspot.com/
That's tonight at 9:00 PM EST/6:00 PM PST. Come join the conversation. I will answer all your burning questions. Unless your burning questions involve Neosporin and a Band-Aid. 

And now, I must do two things: Have lunch with my German publisher, whom I adore, and shop for cheap costume stuff for Halloween. We have decided to go as Plants Vs. Zombies, and now I can't get this tune out of my head. www.youtube.com/watch

"There's a zombie on your lawn...
there's a zombie on your lawn..."

Les Misérables
London
7 October 2009

David Shannon (Valjean), Earl Carpenter (Javert), Rebecca Seale (Fantine), Nancy Sullivan (Eponine), Alistair Brammer (Marius), Katie Hall (Cosette), David Thaxton (Enjolras), Martin Ball (Thénardier), Lorraine Bruce (Mme Thénardier)

DOWNLOAD IT WHILE IT'S HOT. http://www.sendspace.com/file/kvtwu2

Notes:
- One of the best casts I've seen in a good while
- Quality is generally not bad; the singers are occasionally overpowered by the orchestra, especially the brass section
- Feel free to pass it around, trade it, put it on YouTube, hand out copies at the stage door, whatever floats your boat.

I really need to stop buying books faster than I can read them. FFS. If it turns out that the cheap surface-mail option for shipping books from France is a hoax, I don't know what I'm going to do--probably corner people on Barricade Day and strongarm them into smuggling my books back into the US in their luggage.

However, "I need to stop buying books" is a general statement. In the specific case of this beautiful edition of Les Travailleurs de la Mer, I regret nothing. 8€ and free shipping for a beautiful beautiful edition of a Hugo book I haven't read yet, with illustrations by Gustave Doré? I regret nothing.

Reading Quatrevingt-Treize right now. I'm right at the beginning of the Paris section, the chapter where Robespierre and Danton and Marat are hanging out in the back room of a café. Is it just me or is this book really geeky? It's like the Friends of the ABC in Les Mis were preliminary character sketches for what Hugo wanted to do in Quatrevingt-Treize, and now he's expanding on those ideas and indulging his historical geeky side. At the same time it's very Hugo: the characters are absolutes, without coming off as stereotypes.

Or at least, thus is my impression so far. I still have 250 more pages to read.

In other "currently reading" news, Eugene Sue has one up over Hugo: when someone in Mysteries of Paris is blatantly someone else in disguise, or there's a "X is Y's long-lost daughter!" plot twist that's easy to figure out, Sue pulls a "the reader will no doubt have guessed by now..." at exactly the moment it becomes obvious, instead of keeping up the pretense for hundreds and hundreds of pages god damn you Hugo. Kind of like the Jane-Rochester romance in Jane Eyre: Bronte knows that neither her heroine nor her readers are dumb, and only gives them one Juicy Juicy Subtext And UST Up The Wazoo scene before it's made explicit. I mean, there's something to be said for suspense, but there's also a lot to be said for not dragging it out too long.