We have overcome.

I am not in DC for the inauguration. I am not in DC for the inauguration, because my ride left without me. My ride was with my parents. How's that for pathetic?

But I went to BAM's screening of the festivities and watched in a big happy crowd of semi-employed hipsters, complete with enthusiastic cheering at every mention of Bush leaving, and mass waving at the departing Marine helicopter. Buh bye!

Anyway, some thoughts about the inauguration. Predictably(?), they are almost all about the music.

• It's a little bit sad that John Williams is the closest thing we've got to a national composer.
• That being said, his Simple Gifts arrangement was 1) less annoying than Copland, and 2) significantly better than that of Aretha's song. Seriously, wtf was that? The hat made it okay, though.
• Hail to the Chief ain't got nothing on Domine Salvum Fac
• and relatedly, anyone else notice that inauguration is just Harvard commencement on steroids?
• OMG playing reed and brass instruments in 11 degree weather. Ow ow ow.
• The folk who own Yo Yo Ma's cello probably weren't too thrilled either...
• I have an entirely irrational love of Stars & Stripes Forever. I know, wtf right? But I hope that, somewhere, John Philip Sousa is happy that his tunes are still the default for anything patriotic and/or outdoors.

Joking aside, it's so rare that we have an opportunity to actually feel patriotism - and even rarer if you omit patriotic feelings inspired by by 1776 or an episode of West Wing. Today, when the CNN camera swooped past an old black woman holding a WE HAVE OVERCOME sign, I felt that shiver of glee that's usually reserved for fictional or historical politics.

Thank you, President Obama, for making it okay to like our country again.

Nerdy neckwear

This fine lady is knitting me a Doctor Who scarf! Okay, well, technically I suppose she is knitting my sister a Doctor Who scarf, to use in an act. My sister is the Mama Rose of Alpha Psi Ecdysia, the SUNY New Paltz burlesque troupe (yes.) and in her nascent fandom, she has latched on to the idea of developing a Doctor Who act. Which would be understood by approximately nine people in all of New Paltz, but, whatever. Maybe they can do a tour to Old Paltz - that's probably somewhere in England, right?

Anyway, Jess is knitting us a 4th Doctor scarf (season 12, for those who care about such things), which Jenny will use in an act, and which I will then get to wear.

I have decided that scarves are truly the way to go in terms of under-the-radar nerdiness displays. I already have a Gryffindor scarf (or at any rate, a red and yellow scarf that I declared a Gryffindor scarf long before "official" such things existed). And my sister has, yes, a RENT scarf. And when Madame Nostradamus is done, we will have a Doctor Who scarf. That is three nerdy-reference scarves. Three equals a collection.* So now we must accumulate other nerdy-reference scarves.

Problem is... we can't think of any other fictional characters with distinctive neck wear. Help?


*other things I have three of, and therefore constitute collections:

• times I have performed in public on instruments I do not know how to play
• recordings of great works of American literature that should not have been made into operas
• friends named Ben who play the ukulele

Well, I've written a play.

It doesn't have a title yet, and it is still at least two full rewrites away from performable. But Draft 1.5 is done enough that I made Columbia's deadline last night, by the skin of my teeth (I love you, 24-hour emergency window at the big post office by Penn Station!), and it should be a real second draft by my next deadline on the 9th.


Things I Learned About My Writing While Working On This Play:

1. I cannot write in a vacuum. This was by far the biggest project I've ever undertaken that did not involve either collaboration or feedback from a workshop. It is MUCH harder alone. And also much less fun.
   Conclusion: don't write in a vacuum. Things improved exponentially when I finally showed my sister a draft, and I should have involved her earlier.
   
   
2. I am incapable of not writing jokes.
   Conclusion: Lampshading it by having consciously joke-making characters is working so far...
   
   
3. I am very good at ending scenes. I am okay at starting scenes. I am rubbish at the middle parts.
   Conclusion: You know what has lots and lots of short scenes? Television.
   
   
4. All of my characters sound vaguely British.
   Conclusion: I watch too much British television.
   
   
5. My plots have a tendency towards the "slow reveal of a complicated backstory" style because I get too into world-building.
   Conclusion: Uhh... Work on that?
   Alternative: Become a tv show-runner.
   
   
6. I am excellent at banter (see #2) and casual or casual-seeming conversation. And pretty good at pacing big reveals. I am very self-conscious at Talking About Feelings, and generally make someone leaven it with jokes (see #2) because, well, I don't like Talking About Feelings.
   Conclusion: Get used to it.
   Alternative: Sitcoms.
   Second alternative: Musicals. The feelings are the lyricist's problem.
   
   
7. It is much, much easier to write two-person scenes than any-other-number-of-person scenes.
   
   
8. I tend to forget that in non-musical plays, you can have things like protagonists with vague motivations (no need for an "I want"!) and you don't need "finales" or any of that jazz. But that does mean you need to replace the 11 o'clock number with an 11 o'clock Scene of Awesomeness That Keeps People Awake, which is harder without dancing and trumpets. And sadly, you have to take care of the emotional stuff yourself, instead of letting it be the lyricist's problem. (see #6)
   Conclusion: The fact that I'm in a librettists' workshop and read/see far more musicals than plays probably isn't helping my effort to not default to musical format...
   
   
9. I am very good at writing my way out of corners.
   Conclusion: More corners.

I will probably add to this list as I think of more lessons learned.

Oh yes, the story! It's about two young graduate students working in a lab in the Netherlands, developing a Large Hadron Collider-style particle accelerator that, according to one guy, might accidentally invent time travel. And might also accidentally destroy the world.

Here's an impressive picture of the real Large Hadron Collider. I don't expect my set to look like this:

Next stop Willoughby

Rather than any customary festivities, I am write write writing my way into the new year. This is because I have a play to finish by Friday.

I'm going to consider this a good omen for 2009's productivity, rather than a poor one for its socialness.

My new year's resolution is to do my work tomorrow instead of watching the Honeymooners and Twilight Zone marathons. Long-term resolutions never last past Jan 1 anyway - might as well give them a built-in expiration date.

Profound thought

I hate straight plays. They don't have any songs in them. The characters have to actually talk about their feelings and shit, when a dance break would get the job done perfectly well while being much less embarrassing for all involved. Grumble.

Back to work.

Sober Train

I spend a lot of time on the Long Island Rail Road and, as such, I am constantly running for trains and dodging random high school acquaintances who somehow always seem to remember significant details of my biography. Sample conversation:

Person I've Never Seen Before In My Life: Oh my god Liz [Surname]! How was Harvard? Do you still play the cello? I heard you went to South Africa awhile back, how was that?
Me: Hey... you.

I appear to have been inexplicably famous. Or just really, really recognizable (the hair's usually a giveaway).

Anyway, there is a benefit to my LIRR dependency - namely, the Saturday night 1:42 am train out of Penn Station. Because it is hilarious. Much funnier than the 3:07, by which point everyone's sobered up in an hour of waiting around the train station, the 1:42 provides endless amusement in the form of underage intoxicated persons sharing their wisdom with those fortunate enough to share their train car.

I present you with a rough transcription of the highlight of a recent ride home:

A young man, probably 18, is standing at the head of the car. A half dozen of his friends, representing various levels of consciousness, lie in the surrounding seats. Our hero is singing.

YOUNG MAN
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Eeeven thooough I'm a Jeeeew!

I shall spare you the remainder of his song, for it would be impossible to fairly transcribe his truly impressive feats of "making six words fit in the the space of one". Suffice to say, after several minutes, he ran out of the song, and began extemporizing instead. I wasn't ever quite able to hear the responses from his more lungpower-deficient companions - our hero, however, never failed to maintain a more than satisfactory volume.

YOUNG MAN
You didn't know I was Jewish? Oh man I am so Jewish. I don't believe any of that shit though, like the God stuff.

FRIENDS
[inaudible]

YOUNG MAN
Yeah, that's right, I'm an atheist. Total atheist. Ayyyyyyyyyyyy...theist. I like being neutral, you know? I don't just pick a side to be controversial or whatever, I look at both sides of an issue. I don't wanna say I'm a Republican or a Democrat, I'm neutral, i'm an Independent. And I'm not religious, I'm an atheist, cuz I'm fucking neutral.
My religion has a first name, it's A - T - I - E - "Est"!

FRIENDS
[inaudible]

YOUNG MAN
What? Oh yeah, of course I believe in God. Whatever. I just don't care about that religion shit, because it's shit! I don't like picking sides, you know? I don't, like, think there's no god or anything, I just don't want to be part of any religion, so I'm an atheist.

FRIENDS
[inaudible]

YOUNG MAN
Yes that is what it means! What, is there another word for it?

HELPFUL GENTLEMAN DOWN THE TRAIN
Yes, "agnostic."

YOUNG MAN
That's it! Thanks man! I love you! I'm totally agnostic!

ME
::facepalm::

Resistance is Futile

My sister watched The Next Doctor with me last night [verdict: best thing ever, as long as you don't think about it too much], and was totally floored by the dreaminess of David Tennant, so this afternoon I gave her my dvds so she could give the whole shebang a try.

I walk into her bedroom just now, and she's sitting there with tears streaming down her face.

Me: Jeez, up to Father's Day already?
Sister: No, I just... I can't...
Me: What is it?
Sister: He told Dickens his books are gonna last forever! It's like "and his music just left the solar system"* all over again! Did the real Dickens know?? He knew, right? Tell me Dickens knew!! Oh god the Doctor is amazing. [::cries more::]

Conversion complete. Heehee.


*West Wing, re Blind Willie Johnson

Errata

I just noticed that in a post a few weeks ago, I wrote the following:

Excerpted from a letter I wrote to Quentin this evening (so, Quentin, don't read this or I'll have wasted 32 cents.)

32 cents? Really? What decade am I living in?

The answer is "1995-1998." Seems appropriate, actually. And the price of stamps has gone up a dime in a decade? Well, that explains why y'all aren't getting Christmas cards this year. You know, that and other reasons.

And if I actually did put a 32 cent stamp on that letter to Quentin... well, he should probably pop into his DeLorean to pick it up in 1996 then. And maybe go to a Spice Girls concert while he's there.


[re the stamp in the picture: "Perry! I'm married now!" "Mary Ellen! I'm gay now!" Good times]

Hello, strangers.

I seem to have accumulated a rather significant amount of google traffic, thanks almost entirely to the "ate a violin" post and everyone's internet crush Randall Munroe. I made that post not actually to draw people to my blog - seriously, if that were the intent, I'd have more consistent content round these parts - but because I was curious how many people would read the XKCD blog, search the first term in that post, and then follow through to the resulting links.

The answer: a lot.

Hullo, xkcd fans! ::waves::

And while I'm getting all this random international traffic...

Can anyone recommend a graduate-level dramatic writing program in the U.K.?

I'd like to consider studying in the U.K., but my anglophilia does not extend to the university system and have absolutely no idea how to go about finding good programs. I'm talking to you, random Welsh stranger reading this - if you're thinking "well obviously she knows about the blahdiblah program, but I don't know of anything other than that", then you should leave a comment telling me about the blahdiblah program, because I in fact do not know about it.

In other news, the Doctor Who Christmas special airs in six days. (which is to say, there are six days till Christmas). This is excellent because:
1) new Doctor Who to reward me in the middle of my awful never-ending application slog!
2) spoilers, real actually spoiling-y spoilers, now abound on the internet, which means I have to avoid the internet, which means I am forced to focus on my awful never-ending application slog. Yay?

I am writing an awful lot at the moment. This is because grad school apps are due in two weeks. Cue panic.

The first fluff piece I write when I emerge will be a sketch about the Christmas substitute for a minister who has taken the holidays off. The sub will be a Jew. Because Jews always work on Christmas.

Ate a violin

The xkcd blog yesterday featured a list of phrases with no google hits, like "aww, a baby hooker!" and "unlike normal furries." At the top of the list was "ate a violin." How could there be no google hits for violin-eating?!

I sorta feel... jipped? In a way. That radio play I wrote senior year, it featured a space monster that ate a violin. It was a decent little gag. But if only there were a proper description of the radio play on the Pops website (and perhaps then they'd remember to sell it at concerts?), then I could have ever so briefly gotten Randall Munroe's attention! Which would be like winning the internet.

Follow-up: Hello, strangers!

I have no pictures of our violin-eating monster, since it was radio, but here's our man-eating viola:

Another io9 post! Hot Flashes: Ten Uses For Lightning That Ben Franklin Never Guessed

Writing these things is so very bad for me. The instant gratification is like crack! I cannot stop myself from obsessively monitoring the progress of my articles. Thankfully, they've been doing quite well, so it's happy crack, but still crack.

"Do you think you could find a Godzilla menorah for me?" - my editor