Ahhhhhh, Jersey :)
Monday, March 2, 2009
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Yesterday and Today
I took a day off from damn near everything yesterday....I picked out some later panels to go to, so I got to enjoy a lovely side trip to Old Town. Which is in the middle of a really NJ-looking area. Until I got into a grotto of mini galleries and boutiques, I was kind of unimpressed, to tell the truth.
This was one of the first things I saw, which struck me as really funny:
Too bad the conference hotel wasn't on a street so aptly named...
After that I did a little bit of economy-stimulating! Just a tad, cause you kinda have to, really....Since there were so many little galleries and such, I didnt' want to snap too many photos, since I'm sensitive to the troubles of artisans...but here's a fountain and a pot!
I found something pretty cool there - an artist's coop, Yucca Gallery, with some really really neat work for sale. Most of it was either too dear or to hard to transport, but gorgeous! I particularly recommend the papercraft of Judy Luttrell. In more of the roadside shops, there was more of the touristy style stock, but if you looked hard enough, you could find local artisan goods and generally cool things - handmade retablos, non-kokopelli jewelry, and some really original multimedia, such as this little notebook I found for a couple bucks (and justified because my bookmaking skills are subpar at present!)
Got some awesome craft inspiration, though....
As for the conference, I did one panel that day, for the following talks: "The Passion of Superman: Why Christian Metaphors Failed the Man of Tomorrow" and "They Came from Outer Space and Stayed for Breakfast: How 1050s Science Fiction Bought Passing Anxieties Home".
First off, the Superman talk - cool! Among the many other thigns on my plate, I'm looking interestedly at the cultural uses of superheroes, as well as their roots in Judaism, so this got me thinking, since I'm starting to concieve of the typical American superheroes in terms of Golem/Maccabee type stories. Which is valid, but I didn't recall a lot of Christianity in the last Superman movie. Turns out I missed a lot, since I mostly watched for Brandon Routh. (I can't be academic all the time, can I?)
Jeffrey Moulton, who presented this one, pointed out parallels between this incarnation of Superman and the Christ story listed far-fetched to "ok, i'll buy it right off" :
-Kevin Spacey's Luthor "staged" similar to ???'s Lucifer in Passion of the Christ and Parker Poesy as Mary Magdalen,
-Cruciform postures of Routh
-Empty tomb/empty hostpital bed
-side spear/kryptonite stab
Moulton's thesis, as far as I can see, is that the Christ metaphor fizzled, since Superman spent an awful lot of his time getting his butt handed to him, and "won" but couldn't be with Lois or their son. And that one was the kicker for me - giving a superhero painted as a Christ figure a kid ticked off many people because it aligned him with humanity. In addition to the whole history/use of superheroes thing, I'm impatient with a lot of the cultural depictions/performances of religion anyway, especially Christianity, so this was a cool talk for me to hear!
The next talk that got me going was the alien one, since the speaker, Megan Kelley, examined several 50s B pictures for anxieties related to "passing" of aliens for human - as well as people in terms of sexuality, race, and politics. I took several pages of notes on that one....She mentioned among other things, the modernist nature of these "they came from XYZ" films - the fragmentation, alienation, self-fashioning idendities. The final point I'll yammer on about is the start of "paranoia horror" as I think she called it, which I see as paving some of the way for my beloved zombs.
I'll be back after dinner with an account of today, as well as an entertaining scribble!
This was one of the first things I saw, which struck me as really funny:
Too bad the conference hotel wasn't on a street so aptly named...
After that I did a little bit of economy-stimulating! Just a tad, cause you kinda have to, really....Since there were so many little galleries and such, I didnt' want to snap too many photos, since I'm sensitive to the troubles of artisans...but here's a fountain and a pot!
I found something pretty cool there - an artist's coop, Yucca Gallery, with some really really neat work for sale. Most of it was either too dear or to hard to transport, but gorgeous! I particularly recommend the papercraft of Judy Luttrell. In more of the roadside shops, there was more of the touristy style stock, but if you looked hard enough, you could find local artisan goods and generally cool things - handmade retablos, non-kokopelli jewelry, and some really original multimedia, such as this little notebook I found for a couple bucks (and justified because my bookmaking skills are subpar at present!)
Got some awesome craft inspiration, though....As for the conference, I did one panel that day, for the following talks: "The Passion of Superman: Why Christian Metaphors Failed the Man of Tomorrow" and "They Came from Outer Space and Stayed for Breakfast: How 1050s Science Fiction Bought Passing Anxieties Home".
First off, the Superman talk - cool! Among the many other thigns on my plate, I'm looking interestedly at the cultural uses of superheroes, as well as their roots in Judaism, so this got me thinking, since I'm starting to concieve of the typical American superheroes in terms of Golem/Maccabee type stories. Which is valid, but I didn't recall a lot of Christianity in the last Superman movie. Turns out I missed a lot, since I mostly watched for Brandon Routh. (I can't be academic all the time, can I?)
Jeffrey Moulton, who presented this one, pointed out parallels between this incarnation of Superman and the Christ story listed far-fetched to "ok, i'll buy it right off" :
-Kevin Spacey's Luthor "staged" similar to ???'s Lucifer in Passion of the Christ and Parker Poesy as Mary Magdalen,
-Cruciform postures of Routh
-Empty tomb/empty hostpital bed
-side spear/kryptonite stab
Moulton's thesis, as far as I can see, is that the Christ metaphor fizzled, since Superman spent an awful lot of his time getting his butt handed to him, and "won" but couldn't be with Lois or their son. And that one was the kicker for me - giving a superhero painted as a Christ figure a kid ticked off many people because it aligned him with humanity. In addition to the whole history/use of superheroes thing, I'm impatient with a lot of the cultural depictions/performances of religion anyway, especially Christianity, so this was a cool talk for me to hear!
The next talk that got me going was the alien one, since the speaker, Megan Kelley, examined several 50s B pictures for anxieties related to "passing" of aliens for human - as well as people in terms of sexuality, race, and politics. I took several pages of notes on that one....She mentioned among other things, the modernist nature of these "they came from XYZ" films - the fragmentation, alienation, self-fashioning idendities. The final point I'll yammer on about is the start of "paranoia horror" as I think she called it, which I see as paving some of the way for my beloved zombs.
I'll be back after dinner with an account of today, as well as an entertaining scribble!
TeeHee!
This was too precious not to share:
A certain young man presented me with this creation last night, in celebration of this whole conference shindig. The little hairdo really makes it for me, second only to the homeostasis line ;)
More to come - 'cause I took last night off to shop and generally unwind. Today shall see more panels, homework and blogging of yesterday's panels.
A certain young man presented me with this creation last night, in celebration of this whole conference shindig. The little hairdo really makes it for me, second only to the homeostasis line ;)More to come - 'cause I took last night off to shop and generally unwind. Today shall see more panels, homework and blogging of yesterday's panels.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Day 3
We started by breakfasting, then headed to the Hyatt to panel to our heart's content. I found several today that looked nifty. The first was "General Film II", and I really went there for a paper titled "Post 9-11 Zombies: Unpredicatbility and Complacency in the Age of New Terrorism as Seen through Dawn of the Dead (04)" - this talk was almost embarassingly close to mine *at first*, as the speaker began with ackowledgement of several different filters for recent zombie cinema, and she mentioned epidemic disease in there. But then she went into post 9-11 American culture (complete with security theater and color-code paranoia stimulators) and wove it with the 04 Dawn. Really cool - I took some notes, for the heck of it - her tack didnt' go near mine, but I love hearing more interps than I can come up with.
I stayed for the whole panel, which consisted of two other papers, one dealing with the portrayal of Asian males in "Back to Bataan", and what I believe was the interplay of modernity and local culture in Latin films. Aside from the film aspect, I don't see how these 3 fit together, but I liked them.
Next up was a bigger departure for me, a panel on "Classical Representation in Popular Culture" - I'm not terribly into Classical studies, but life's short and my attention span's pretty forgiving. I was lured into that one by the second paper presented, titled "Echoes of Virgil: Pastoral Melancholy in Pan's Labyrinth" - a movie I'm in complete love with. I learned enough about Virgil to get by in high school, but this was new territory for me, and really cool - the speaker paralleled/contrasted the land/scape-related melancholy in the Eclogues with Del Toro's. Her thesis was so cool I must re-create it here (if not thesis, than one of the more salient points) - basically, she held that both texts concerned themselves with the place of creativity and imagination at times of civil war, and that Virgil depicts art as loosing to strife, while Del Toro, for all the sadness in his film's ending, leaves something of a place for it - eg, Ofelia's dream sequence/death scene as creativity continuing in the face of disaster.
I'll spare you the other two talks - neat as they were, I didn't take notes for them. I'd love to do something on Del Toro's work, so I was all edge-of-my-seat there ;)
After that came lunch at a tasty little cafe across the street in what I must assume is a mall of some sort. There's a nice open noshing area, so I had my handmade bread-and-roast beef/pesto pasta salad side in peace in the shade. There were fountains:
Nice smokestack look....And there's my other complaint about the esthetics:
So beige! So flat! I like the lack of billboards and such, but I dunno about the monochrome. Anyway....
After lunch, I scoped out the Grand Pavilion hallway (the room I was going to present in was a Grand Pavilion room. Not that grand, really, but the name's funny.)
Came out a little blurry, but hey! There were pretty pots, though:
Felice - if you're peeking in at all, you'll love these!
Gotta love the "under glass" setting on the camera...
At this point, I settled in for a panel of all Romero, all the time. There were 3 talks, all on Living Dead films (titles snipped)- one was "Zombies with a Conscience: Historical Perspectives" for Night of the Living Dead; another was "Media and the American Dream" for Dawn and Diary
; and "Media Democratization and Perceptions of Reality" for Diary. I was too caught up to take many notes on these, sadly. I liked the commentary on the problem of the American Dream, and what it does to those pursuing it, how it jars with reality, and of course how it all plays out on film.
The third paper was delivered in wonderfully cranky, near Louis Black style, railing against the "zombification" engendered by the orgy of media outlets we're surrounded by - the dependency, the egoism, the general adoption of relativism which almost becomes nihilism, and yet the yammering about the preciousness of truth and trust.
Quite, quite fun! :) And a good way to warm up, as our presentations were right after. Those went really well. I of course tripped over my own tongue a couple times, and had to sacrifice two non-essential paragraphs for the sake of timing (we had more time than I planned for, so I slowed my speech rate and ended up filling my 20 minute slot!) Dr. Sutton went next, and his went over well - lots of poise, better intonation, and laughs thanks to the Harry Potter fanfic connection. Our panel chair wrapped up for us with "Zombie Sociology and the Politics of Survival" and we had a nice Q&A period after. Dr. Sutton was nice enough to steer an audience question towards me fairly early on, then we all three of us had a nice volley going. I feel like I redeemed myself there - actually felt more relaxed there than presenting. I figured i'd stammer at any direct query, but all was well. No pissy replies, no attack questions - good vibes all round!
I shall wrap up with snaps of the victory dinner. Dr. Sutton treated me in celebration - it was a Brazilian place, so we were happy with meat on sticks. I got some bananas and rice'n'beans on as well....After that we pretty much rolled ourselves back to the hotel to digest.
A wonderfully politically-incorrect salad (well, maybe not that bad - corn, beans, cheese, field greens, spinach...honey mustard dressing;)
Rice, beans, pineapple - awaiting the young men with the giant meat skewers....
The turning of the meat indicator was quite an event....
*UURRRRP!*
The bill was delivered on what I thought was a thick plastic tray, but ended up being this calculator looking thing with a survey on it. I found the questions too funny, especially this one:
In the interests of propriety, I kept the barrage of double entendres to myself, but I did not restrain a single Beavis and Butthead chuckle at this one ;)
I stayed for the whole panel, which consisted of two other papers, one dealing with the portrayal of Asian males in "Back to Bataan", and what I believe was the interplay of modernity and local culture in Latin films. Aside from the film aspect, I don't see how these 3 fit together, but I liked them.
Next up was a bigger departure for me, a panel on "Classical Representation in Popular Culture" - I'm not terribly into Classical studies, but life's short and my attention span's pretty forgiving. I was lured into that one by the second paper presented, titled "Echoes of Virgil: Pastoral Melancholy in Pan's Labyrinth" - a movie I'm in complete love with. I learned enough about Virgil to get by in high school, but this was new territory for me, and really cool - the speaker paralleled/contrasted the land/scape-related melancholy in the Eclogues with Del Toro's. Her thesis was so cool I must re-create it here (if not thesis, than one of the more salient points) - basically, she held that both texts concerned themselves with the place of creativity and imagination at times of civil war, and that Virgil depicts art as loosing to strife, while Del Toro, for all the sadness in his film's ending, leaves something of a place for it - eg, Ofelia's dream sequence/death scene as creativity continuing in the face of disaster.
I'll spare you the other two talks - neat as they were, I didn't take notes for them. I'd love to do something on Del Toro's work, so I was all edge-of-my-seat there ;)
After that came lunch at a tasty little cafe across the street in what I must assume is a mall of some sort. There's a nice open noshing area, so I had my handmade bread-and-roast beef/pesto pasta salad side in peace in the shade. There were fountains:
Nice smokestack look....And there's my other complaint about the esthetics:
So beige! So flat! I like the lack of billboards and such, but I dunno about the monochrome. Anyway....After lunch, I scoped out the Grand Pavilion hallway (the room I was going to present in was a Grand Pavilion room. Not that grand, really, but the name's funny.)
Came out a little blurry, but hey! There were pretty pots, though:
Felice - if you're peeking in at all, you'll love these!
Gotta love the "under glass" setting on the camera...
At this point, I settled in for a panel of all Romero, all the time. There were 3 talks, all on Living Dead films (titles snipped)- one was "Zombies with a Conscience: Historical Perspectives" for Night of the Living Dead; another was "Media and the American Dream" for Dawn and Diary
; and "Media Democratization and Perceptions of Reality" for Diary. I was too caught up to take many notes on these, sadly. I liked the commentary on the problem of the American Dream, and what it does to those pursuing it, how it jars with reality, and of course how it all plays out on film.
The third paper was delivered in wonderfully cranky, near Louis Black style, railing against the "zombification" engendered by the orgy of media outlets we're surrounded by - the dependency, the egoism, the general adoption of relativism which almost becomes nihilism, and yet the yammering about the preciousness of truth and trust.
Quite, quite fun! :) And a good way to warm up, as our presentations were right after. Those went really well. I of course tripped over my own tongue a couple times, and had to sacrifice two non-essential paragraphs for the sake of timing (we had more time than I planned for, so I slowed my speech rate and ended up filling my 20 minute slot!) Dr. Sutton went next, and his went over well - lots of poise, better intonation, and laughs thanks to the Harry Potter fanfic connection. Our panel chair wrapped up for us with "Zombie Sociology and the Politics of Survival" and we had a nice Q&A period after. Dr. Sutton was nice enough to steer an audience question towards me fairly early on, then we all three of us had a nice volley going. I feel like I redeemed myself there - actually felt more relaxed there than presenting. I figured i'd stammer at any direct query, but all was well. No pissy replies, no attack questions - good vibes all round!
I shall wrap up with snaps of the victory dinner. Dr. Sutton treated me in celebration - it was a Brazilian place, so we were happy with meat on sticks. I got some bananas and rice'n'beans on as well....After that we pretty much rolled ourselves back to the hotel to digest.
A wonderfully politically-incorrect salad (well, maybe not that bad - corn, beans, cheese, field greens, spinach...honey mustard dressing;)
Rice, beans, pineapple - awaiting the young men with the giant meat skewers....
The turning of the meat indicator was quite an event....
*UURRRRP!*The bill was delivered on what I thought was a thick plastic tray, but ended up being this calculator looking thing with a survey on it. I found the questions too funny, especially this one:
In the interests of propriety, I kept the barrage of double entendres to myself, but I did not restrain a single Beavis and Butthead chuckle at this one ;)
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
First crocus of the season. So pretty...
I can't get enough of the decor - please bear with me! This is the staircase as seen from the front room.
And these are fresh baked chocolate chip cookies they leave for the guests. Say it with me now - OM NOM NOM!
Suddenly, I feel so "vanilla" with my topic....
I picked this up for Gramma - everywhere I go I try to get her something pretty.
Two blatant typos in the program! BWHAHAHAHAAA!
Plantage in the Hyatt lobby...
View up from Hyatt lobby...I just love that sky.
And, finally, free schwag. The "alibi" is offered free all around - it's an alternative newspaper. Which makes for a fun reading experience - I know know where I can buy "adult" footwear if I need to. O_o The Continuum thing is a free copy of a journal, which I consider a personal triumph, since all the print goodies are expensive - even on sale. Dr. Sutton advised waiting till the eleventh hour when the vendors are desperate to unload and get some tasty discounts going. There's 2 doll dress patterns in the middle, which I picked up because they provide interesting bases to sketch off of for steampunk-ish lady garb. And there's a totebag! Yay!
day two - good morning!
This is the view from my window - about 7:30 our time....not as fun as some sweeping green Jersey vista, but what a lovely blue sky! And I like the whole "in the attic" vibe - I was able to sleep with the window open...such luxury ;)As you can see here, I still didn't feel like getting my mojo going:
Once I made myself human again, Dr. Sutton and I had a lovely breakfast downstairs in the breakfast nook (a nook! yay!) and chatted with fellow inn-folk, after I knocked my bag over, spilled coffee on the tiny cafe table, and generally apologized all over myself. But life went on.
We're both catching up on some schoolwork, and then coordinating ourselves to get to the conference hotel for a book display. I can feel my reading list lengthening already!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
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