Doo-doo-doo-doo-dee-dooooo....

[icepixie]

Today, for some reason lost in the mists of my short attention span, I went looking for X-Files music vids. One site also had Farscape vids, which of course I had to peek at. And naturally, now I want to rewatch both shows from the beginning. Well, minus most of S8 for XF...and some chunks of S7...maybe a couple episodes from S6 as well... (Nearly ten years later and I am still pissed off about that "children of starlight" crap. BOO, CHRIS CARTER, BOOOOOOOOOOO.) There are a few S4 episodes of Farscape I could skip as well...Lobster of Truth, anyone?

Yeah, now I'm wishing I hadn't canceled my Netflix subscription. Although if I watch TV, then there's less time to write and read books... Decisions, decisions.

(I think I would get twice as much out of TXF now that I've got both an academic education, courtesy of college, and an innuendo education, courtesy of fandom and ballroom.)

Anyway, I realized three things while watching said vids:

1. First-season M&S are so young OMG. They both look like kids. Gillian Anderson was only 24 when she took the job. SHE WAS ONLY A YEAR OLDER THAN ME. I...what?

2. M&S really spent quite a bit of time touching each others' faces, especially in the later years. And the Doctor and his various companions have been given a run for their money on the hand-holding front.

3. Either there are very few good vids out there, which I find exceedingly hard to believe for a fandom of this size, or I'm no good at Googling today. Anyone got recs? I'm partial to humor, Mulder/Scully, character study, and--should there actually be any beyond the three I've seen--Doggett/Reyes vids, but anything well-done good.

Comments

[icepixie]

Yay for being older and wiser!

(Except not so much yay because OMG GA WAS ONLY 24 WHEN SHE GOT THE JOB WHY HAVEN'T I BEEN THAT SUCCESSFUL YET?!?!?)

[serendipityxxi.livejournal.com]

LOL Amen to that!!!! Makes a regular girl feel lacking it does. :)

Hey, random question, can you recommend a contemporary american poet? Someone whose stuff isn't trying so hard to be poetry it's practically got a flashing light that says Poetry!!!!!1 over the title?

[icepixie]

Well, my first thought is Billy Collins, about whom I have a big ol' love-and-quotes post here (and I see you commented on it, so probably you remember him).

Linda Pastan is excellent, and I got really into her towards the end of high school. I was really struck by one of her sestinas, the title of which I unfortunately forget, although I'm 99% sure it's in the Carnival Evening collection. It's kind of a creepy one, about a shadowy house and a shadowy family (house and shadows were two of the repeating words, I remember).

I also quite like Li-Young Lee. He has a very delicate touch to his writing. Not a word is out of place.

Marilyn Hacker is more hit-or-miss, but has some good stuff.

This is a great place to get a sampling of many, many contemporary American poets. Definitely browse through.

(If only you had asked about contemporary Irish poets, then I could help you out a bit more. Or the old stuff. I'm good witht he old stuff too. *g*)

[serendipityxxi.livejournal.com]

I had forgotten all about Billy Collins! Thanks for reminding me of him and I like Linda Pastan too "To a daughter leaving home" is my favourite of the 10 or so I've read of her so far :)

Alas, my class (and 20-25 page paper) is on Contemporary American Poets :) The sampling we had in our text was so atrocious I promptly forgot there were any GOOD contemporary american poets! We had to read Sharon Olds, and Mary Jo Salter who tries so hard to wite poetry she might as well have a great big flashing sign saying "Hello!!! Poem!" pointing at the page and an entire book from Komunyaaka who granted is a good poet but one can only read about war and blowing shit up and seeing whores for so long!

[icepixie]

Hmmm. Mary Jo Salter is all right--not my favorite, but okay--and I know I've read some Sharon Olds, but I have absolutely no memory of the poems themselves.

One suggestion I have: got to the library and check out some current or back issues of literary magazines. I really like Tin House and The Paris Review for poetry, and the monthly Poetry has some good stuff as well. And, not showing favoritism or anything ;), but The Kenyon Review usually prints interesting poems. (And that's just the ones they print...I saw some great stuff I had to reject because it wasn't quite great enough, if you know what I mean.) The fiction is impossible, but the poetry's good.

Out of those, Poetry prints more new and emerging poets, so for a 20-page paper, you're probably going to need to go to the famous, established journals that print lots of famous, established poets. Unless you're tracing a particular theme or motif through the work of several poets, or something like that...