A Celebration of Doctor Who-Boy Was That Fun!

This past weekend (Saturday, May the 4^th, to be exact) I spent my day celebrating!  I was not, however, celebrating the franchise you might guess based on the date.  Instead, I was celebrating the franchise you’d guess based on knowing me even just a little bit.  That’s right, it was A Celebration of Doctor Who!  Paul Booth of DePaul University organized a truly lovely event.

I spent my day surrounded by Doctor Who fans.  What could possibly be better?

There were two tracks going simultaneously.  One room was for screening Doctor Who episodes.  Sadly, I wasn’t able to make it over there at all, I was so busy with the other track—the roundtable discussions.  These were fabulous—and not just ‘cause I was on two of them.*  I got to talk about “The Long Appeal of Doctor Who” and “Doctor Who Fandom.”  Both were fun discussions with lovely and intelligent people.**

After the roundtables, Robert Shearman did a live commentary of his episode “Dalek” and a Q&A after.  He was as hilarious and informative as always.  He even did a short reading from one of his stories.  It was delightful!  (…if disturbing—he excels at disturbing!)

A particular highlight of the day was getting to meet so many Verity! fans.  I lost track of the number of people who approached me between panels to tell me they liked the podcast.  I couldn’t be more chuffed.  Thank you to everyone who made me feel so so special.

Here are some other highlights in no particular order:

• I bought a book and a Big Finish audio adventure!***
• My heretofore twitter-only friend Mel Heeres brought me a gluten-free donut!
• Rob Shearman drew a Dalek for me.
• Jody Lynn Nye showed me her fabulous photo album w/pictures of John Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Lis Sladen, Ian Marter, Janet Fielding, and probably more I’ve forgotten.  It was SO. COOL.
• I got to hang out with friends I don’t get to see often enough: Lynne, Michael, Caitlin, and Felicity!
• Mary Robinette Kowal gave me advice on shoes.
• My parents came along with me and enjoyed it thoroughly.   They saw almost every single panel and had a blast!
• Jody Lynn Nye brought Jelly Babies (in a TARDIS lunchbox) and passed them out to our panel—and the audience!
• I had lunch (and then coffee) with Carole Barrowman, who is as lovely and entertaining as her brother.
• The Well-Tempered Schism provided some lovely Who-themed music during the reception after the events.

I could probably go on and on about how awesome it was, but I shall stop here.  If another event of this sort happens while I’m still in the USofA, I will most definitely make it a point to attend.  I encourage anyone in the Chicago area to keep your eyes open and do the same.

As a matter of fact, if you’re a Doctor Who fan, look around and see if there are any local Who-themed meet-ups or events.  There’s something magical about gathering in person to celebrate something we love so very much.

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*I even moderated my first panel EVER.  Scary.  And, as it turned out: Fun!

**One of those people was my Verity! cohort Lynne!

***Yes, ME.  I bought an audio.  Even I’m not sure what to think about that.

Watch This Space…Maybe

 

Hello world.  I’m still here!  Well, not here.  But I’m out there somewhere.  Doing things.  Lots of things actually, thus the bloggy silence.  Some of you may know that I’ve been busy as a beaver* over at VerityPodcast.com recording and editing podcasts and posting blogs about new episodes of Doctor Who and such.  That’s a big part of why I’ve been so quiet here.  So for a change, it’s not plain old laziness.

Sooo….  With so much creative work going on in that realm, updates here may remain few and far-between.  Or perhaps this space will become a bit more like an online journal rather than a grouping of articles about geeky things and stuff.  Or maybe I’ll have a crazy blast of creativity and write a buncha stuff here, who knows?**  I will, however, try to remember to at least post a link over here whenever I write anything substantial on the Verity page.

To that end, you may want to mosey over there and check out what I’ve been saying about series 7b of Doctor Who!  To get the full effect, I highly recommend listening to each episode of the podcast first.  It’ll make more sense, and it’s fun! 

“The Bells of Saint John”
Podcast
My Last Word 

“The Rings of Akhaten”
Podcast
My Last Word 

“Cold War”
Podcast
My Lasst Word*** 

“Hide”
Podcast
My Last Word

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*Or a bee.  Or maybe a beaver crossed with a bee!  The busiest creature of them all: the beever!  Sorry.  I’m getting carried away.

**I would not recommend holding your breath waiting for that possibility.

***That was an honest typo, but I thought it was so fitting (Ice Warriors!) that I left it in.

Giving Top Chef the Top Shaft

WARNING!  Spoilers ahead for season 10, Top Chef Seattle.  You have now been warned.

So this post isn’t about strictly “geeky” TV, but cooking has its own kind of geekery, and indeed, I know not a few chefs who are big sci fi geeks in their own right.  Alton Brown’s love for Doctor Who is well-documented.  Every time I see him on Iron Chef America wearing a bow tie I smile slyly to myself and think “bow ties are cool.”  So I apologize for my lack of geektastic blogging of late, but this is the first thing I’ve felt compelled to write about lately, which is probably unsurprising because I have something else I should be writing, and several dozen other things I should be doing.  Inspiration is a devious bitch sometimes.

Anyway, on with the show.  The show in question is Top Chef, a show I usually love.  One of the things I love most about it is that for being a reality show, it takes pains to focus on the truly important things–the food and the talent and creativity of the chefs creating it.  Yes, the show sprinkles in a liberal helping of drama, and I don’t mind that.  On the contrary, I like it.  It helps me feel I’m getting to know the chefs and joining them on their journey.  So I have no complaint about a little (or even more than a little) behind-the-scenes melodrama.

What I do have a complaint about is when they go too far.  This happens rarely.  Like I said, they generally do a great job of keeping the focus where it matters.  In episode 15 of season 10 however, they went too far, and I mean way too far for me.

One of the tidbits of non-culinary excitement they fed us this season was the pregnancy of contestant Josh’s wife.  During the last challenge before the two-part finale, she was ready to give birth at any moment.  Exciting!  I really felt for Josh and his wife and wondered how it would affect his cooking and his focus during the competition.  This added “storyline” did exactly what it was supposed to–it kept me hooked.

…until…

This is where I get complainey.  The last phone call between Josh and his wife was just too much for me.  The poor woman was in the middle of labor!  She was at possibly the most vulnerable she’ll ever be in her life.  She was crying.  She missed her husband.  I did not want to hear that.  At all.

And yes.  I 100% understand how TV works and that they both signed documents giving Top Chef the right to use that footage and audio.  Top Chef is not in the wrong in that way even a little bit.  But the producers and editors of the show still have the ability (and perhaps responsibility) to make a taste-based decision about which parts they air.  I have no doubt they left a lot more of this type of thing on the (nowadays virtual) cutting room floor.  Perhaps they thought they trimmed it down enough that it still landed in the realm of tasteful.

They did not.  It did not.

Now before you accuse me of too much bias here, let me say that I do not have kids.  I’ve never gone through labor.  I never want to.  I don’t like kids.  Not even babies.  So I don’t think I’m bowing to sentiment or any kind of “feminine solidarity” when I make these complaints.  I simply found it distasteful to peek in on someone experiencing that kind of personal and painful experience, whether that person gave permission for it to happen or not.

Giving permission for your life (and possibly dirty laundry) to be aired in front of millions of viewers is standard for the reality TV industry.  And I recognize that capitalizing on this by displaying the most tawdry, base, gut-wrenching, and personal moments is a staple of many reality TV shows–but not mine.  My shows are the ones that stay on this side of the line of decency–the Top Chefs and the Project Runways.  The shows where contestants are creators honored for their creativity, and the interpersonal drama is incidental to the primary drama of the creative process and the creations themselves.

Ok, so I’m not really giving Top Chef the shaft.  I’m gonna keep watching it, but I’ll be watching it with more of an eagle-eye than ever for these kinds of poor-judgement production decisions.

You’d think on a show about chefs, they’d have better taste.

The TARDIS as Maternal Mastermind?

I’ve just been re-listening to Verity! Episode 2, and something just occurred to me.  (If you haven’t heard it yet, you probably should.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.)

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Pretty good, wasn’t it?  (…she says with no false modesty…)  Anyway, on to my revelation!

Tansy points out that in “The Eleventh Hour,” it’s not so much the Doctor’s fault that Amy grows up a bit damaged, but that it’s really the fault of the TARDIS—its explosion causes the crack in Amelia’s wall, and the fact that the Doctor is 12+ years late to pick her up could be chalked up to the TARDIS as well.  Upon first hearing that, I thought it was an amusing theory.

Now that I’ve heard it again, something much more far-reaching has occurred to me.  What if that’s all true, and the TARDIS did it on purpose?  We still haven’t really learned why the TARDIS explodes, and we don’t know for sure if the Doctor mis-set the controls for his “5-minute” jaunts, but what if it really is the TARDIS, and those things are deliberate?

Amy grows up to be the person she is, in great part, because of these events.  The person that she becomes travels with the Doctor, and later brings her fiancée/husband along.  Then they play in their bunk beds, and Amy gets pregnant.  Her child (River) is referred to as a “child of the TARDIS.”  What if that nickname is quite literal indeed?

Is it possible that the TARDIS engineered all of these events—set everything in motion—in order that River would eventually exist?  And if so, why?  Does the TARDIS have some maternal (or at least, parental) instinct that it wanted to play out?  Did it create a companion/lover/wife for the Doctor because it sensed that’s what he needed (or would need eventually)?  Did the TARDIS, seeing all of time at once, just know that this is how things were supposed to happen and ensure that they did?

This idea takes on even more plausibility given “The Doctor’s Wife” and the revelation that from the TARDIS’s perspective “she” stole the Doctor, and she’s the one that takes him places, rather than the other way ‘round.

I have just two words for this:  Mind. Blown.*

That said, let me be clear here: I hate this idea.  I’d like to choose not to believe it even one tiny bit.  I simply thought it was interesting and worth mentioning.  Feel free to completely disagree with me (I do!), or on the other hand, you can take this idea and run with it.  Either way, it makes for some interesting cogitating.

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*Apologies to anyone who’s already had this idea—I’ve never come across it, and it just occurred to me!

New Podcast for a New Year (A Verity-able Bounty of Goodness)

Holy crap, it’s almost 2013!  Where does the time go?  Clearly not to blogging, ‘cause I’ve been rubbish at that lately, but I SWEAR I have a really good excuse.  If you’ll point your browser over to veritypodcast.com you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Yes, that’s right, I have finally started a PODCAST.*  Of course it was only a matter of time, and I’m sure this surprises no one, but I am thrilled to the gills at the way it’s taking shape.  I get to talk Doctor Who with five smart, fun female Doctor Who fans.  What’s not to like?  And what’s even better is I get to do most of the technical, fiddly bits.  This has been an excuse to dust off my old editing skills and upgrade my software.  I spent much of this weekend putting together an introductory episode along with our first proper episode, which drops Wednesday.  I also get to play with a new Twitter account and Facebook page.  Fun fun!

So anyway, I suppose I should share the details.  The new podcast is called Verity!**  The inestimable Deb Stanish (coeditor of the fantastic Whedonistas! and Chicks Unravel Time) and myself will be joined by a rotating group of stellar contributors including:

• Katrina Griffiths – my good friend and host of the sadly-defunct Bridging the Rift Doctor Who podcast, cohost of the current Across the Planet Comics podcast
• Liz Myles – lover of Patrick Troughton, coeditor of Chicks Unravel Time, and writer whose work has appeared in places like Reflection’s Edge, Every Day Fiction, and Big Finish’s Doctor Who anthologies
• Lynne Thomas – librarian extrordinaire, coeditor of Chicks Dig Timelords and Whedonistas!, and cohost of the SF Squeecast podcast
• Tansy Rayner Roberts – Tasmaninan fantasy author of such works as the Creature Court fantasy trilogy and the short story collection Love and Romanpunk and cohost of the Galactic Suburbia podcast

It would be fair to say I’m a bit intimidated by the company I’ve been keeping lately.  Sheesh.

So as I prep for a new arbitrary grouping of days (hello 2013!), I’m thanking my lucky stars for all the wonderful things that happened in 2012 and getting really REALLY excited for what’s next.  Judging by what’s already come together, I think it’s gonna be GREAT.  I posted a two-minute teaser a week back, and I thought that was great.  Then I stitched together our Episode 0, and dang if we don’t sound pretty darn interesting.  I can’t wait for you all to hear our first regular episode.

Come to think of it, there’s a lot I’m looking forward to right now.  I think it’s gonna be a good year.

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*Sorry for all the yelling, but I am EXCITED

**Yes, the exclamation point is part of the title.  It’s important.

Yes, I Have, in Fact, Been Knitting

Well lookie who’s gotten lazy about blogging!  The truth is I’ve been working on a secret project which I’m very excited about, so that’s been stealing most of my creative energies.  I’ll be able to say more about that soon, and I can’t wait to share!  In the meantime, here’s a quick post about knitting!*

Note that it’s technically on backwards here, with the seam in the front.

Believe it or not, I have been working on my season 18 scarf a bit, but that’s not what I’m here to tell you about today.  My awesome boss** just had an adorable little elf of a baby, and I decided to try my hand at knitting a baby hat!  I’d never done one before, so I spent a good deal of time scouring the web for a free pattern that I didn’t hate and that didn’t require knitting in the round.  I have simply never gotten good at that.

I found a pattern*** which looked easy enough, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.  It proved to be as easy as I expected, though it wasn’t really clear on exactly where to stop.  (On the knit row?  The purl row?  In the end, I had a larger bump under the seam than I like, but c’est la vie).  Then I just had to sew up the seam in the back—the most difficult part of which was making myself actually do it.  I had the darn thing completely knitted, sitting there on my coffee table for weeks before I could kick myself in the butt enough to start on the seam.  Of course once I started, I had it done in mere minutes and just had to weave in the ends.

It feels very nice to have completed an entire project, especially with that scarf hanging over my head all the time.  I must work on that more often.

Soon.

Probably.

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*That sound you hear?  That’s the sound of about 90% of my readers surfing right on to another webpage.  Now it’s just us knitters.  Who needs those other jokers anyway? :)

**No, I’m not just saying she’s awesome ‘cause she’s my boss and she’ll probably read this.  Though I’ll admit performance reviews are coming up soon…  (Hi Amanda!)

***I meant to link to it here, but apparently I never bookmarked it.  Unfortunately, that means I won’t be recreating this hat anytime soon–at least not unless I want to spend a buncha time searching the vast swaths of knitting sites out there on the interwebs.  Boourns.

This Is Not a Post About Rape

This is not a post about rape, though it was prompted by one–or two–sort of.

It’s not a post about Doctor Who or science fiction or fantasy either, sorry.  I’ll get back to my usual Who-centric musings sooner or later, I promise.  What this post is about is how adding negativity to something that’s inherently negative just gets us deeper into negativity.*  It was, in fact, prompted by a discussion of rape.

Today I read a post by Kristin McFarland that really got me thinking.  Her article was in response to a John Scalzi post that I read and RTed and shared on Facebook a couple days ago.  You should probably read both so you’ll understand what I’m talking about, though if you’re easily triggered, skip the Scalzi piece.  Really.

Go ahead, I’ll wait.

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Ok.  So McFarland’s piece really got me worked up.  It’s titled, in part, “How John Scalzi Pissed Me Off,” but it seems like maybe she’s less pissed at Scalzi himself and more pissed at the world in general for being the kind of place where white males have the podium instead of females, even when the issues discussed center around women.  As well she should be!  That’s the world we live in, and it does suck.  And hooray for everyone (McFarland and Scalzi included) who advances the discussion and does something to change it.

That said, I came away from the piece with a really negative feeling.  It seemed to imply that I suck because I enjoyed (well, that’s not the right word–appreciated is probably a better choice) and shared Scalzi’s post.  McFarland mentions a piece by Seanan McGuire that was shared around the ‘nets, but that didn’t get the high-profile views it deserves.  Well I don’t know who Seanan McGuire is.  She’s probably super-awesome.  Her piece is probably most excellent.  And I’ll almost certainly read it…someday.  Right now, my inner 9-year-old has taken over and she’s all huffy about being told I did something bad–that I’m in the wrong because I didn’t share a post by a person I’ve never heard of and because I did share one by someone I admire.  9-year-old E gets defensive easily and is currently saying “Fine!  I don’t care what you think!” and storming off to her room to read Nancy Drew.

So that brings me (finally) to my point.  When it comes to feminism and women’s issues and such, I agree we’ve got a long way to go before things are truly equal and fair.  I feel just as strongly that every single person who’s speaking out for that fairness and equality should be allowed their voice.  I don’t think any man speaking about women’s issues takes away my right (or anyone else’s) to do the same.

Should we help the less-heard women in the crowd reach a larger audience?  Absolutely!  Should that be achieved by silencing other voices who are speaking out for us?  I don’t think so.  I don’t even think that would work.  Silencing anyone scares me.  In my book it’s never okay to keep people from speaking their mind.  A world like that frightens me as much as a male-dominated one, if not more.  I feel that silencing men, especially when they’re on our side, is the wrong way to go about things–a step backward in fact.**  That’s the wrong approach.  Instead, we should work to make sure everyone is heard.

I think we all can and need to work together: girls and boys and men and women and the many good folks who eschew those labels altogether.  We’re all human beings, and we can and should all love and help each other.  Let our voices be heard.  All of them.  Let’s use the loud voices to lift up the quiet ones and use love and encouragement*** to make us all stronger.

All of us.

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*Hey!  Just like in math!

**Or perhaps just a step towards something scarier, like I said.

***With a healthy dose of discussion and amiable critique!  I laud both Kristin McFarland and John Scalzi for contributing to the cause and fighting the good fight, each in their own ways.