One of the things I am constantly encountering, in reading Les Miserables (look, reading a twelve hundred page novel is a very consuming thing, so it merits lots of posts), is discovering that Hugo's version of events frequently makes far more sense than the musical's. I keep going, "Ohh, that's why that happens!"

. . . of course, this is not always the case. Les Mis is, at heart, a melodrama that relies a lot on coincidence and dramatic events for the plot to run smoothly. Hugo takes the time to explain things (OH GOD, does he ever take the time to explain things) which helps a LOT in making everything believeable in the context of the story, but sometimes I just end up giggling anyway.

Take, for example, Valjean's confession of his identity and subsequent arrest/not arrest, depending on the version we're talking about.

In the musical, Valjean confesses to a courtroom that happens to contain Javert, which apparently was thought to make for simpler storytelling, or something. (Believe me, I understand that the musical's writers had to streamline a lot of the plot to make it work, and they did a great job with it. That does not mean that every decision they made makes sense.) Then he flees the building and runs . . . directly to Fantine's sickroom, which is an interesting choice given that he has to know that Javert is in hot pursuit and knows all about Fantine.

It works out, though, because apparently Javert thought that attempting to apprehend a man he knows to be almost inhumanly strong without bringing any reinforcement would be a great idea! So Valjean tries to reason with him, but then just knocks him out and goes on his merry way. Nice policework, Javert.

In the novel, Javert has left the courtroom before Valjean arrives, which means it takes time for him to hear about the confession, which means that Valjean (who, Hugo establishes, is in something of a state of shock, anyway) visiting Fantine makes more sense, because he's got the time to do it. Or at least it's logical for him to think he does. And when Javert does show up at the hospital, he has the sense to bring backup with him, so his attempt to arrest Valjean is successful and no one gets knocked out.

However. It also causes the following scenario to play out:

Valjean, at the courtroom: ". . . and so, as you can see, I am irrefutably Jean Valjean, the dangerous convict and recidivist."
Everyone else: *stares*
Valjean: "Yup, Jean Valjean, that's me. The whole kindly mayor thing is a total fabrication and I am the bad guy."
Everyone else: *stares* "W. T. F."
Valjean: "So, uh, whenever you want to get around to arresting me, I'm available."
Everyone else, including all members of the court empowered to make arrests: *stares*
Valjean: ". . . right. Okay. I'll, uh, be back in Montreuil-sur-mer, then. You know. For whenever you're ready to make the arrest."
Everyone else: *stares*
Valjean: *leaves*
Javert, from the next town over: "Am I the only person in this entire godforsaken novel who knows how to do my job?"

This makes more sense when you're reading it, since Hugo spends a lot of time playing up how "Monsieur le maire Madeleine" is a much-loved and worshipped pillar of the regional community, but then afterwards it's like, "Wait, did they really all just stand there and look at him?" And then I find myself thinking, "Man, Javert should have been there," and then the musical goes, "Nope, that wouldn't have worked either." And then I give up trying to make sense of a story that at one point relies on Valjean's ability to scale a sheer fifteen-foot wall and go on with my life.

Things that combine poorly:

* Reading Les Miserables, which may be a story of redemption, but it is also a story of the seriously shitty and terrifying things people will do to each other;

* Attending a talk from a prospective Senator (Go Tom Allen!) during which he addresses exciting things like the economy, which scares me, and the energy situation, which is just depressing;

* Being on the bus and looking out to see a line of people outside the soup kitchen, waiting for it to open.

Any one, or maybe even two, of these things? Fine. It is grim, but I will deal. All three of them working together in my brain to cast a BLACK SHADOW OF WOE? I am not so good with that.

Luckily, after a few truly dismal, despairing seconds, I realized that my MP3 player was helpfully contributing by playing the most depressing song from The Fix's soundtrack, and I just had to laugh at the overkill. I mean, it was either that or pitch myself under the wheels of the bus.

Uh. In the interest of lightening this entry up a little, a question: When you guys read books that take place in other countries, do you find yourself going around trying to pronounce every non-English word you see with that language's accent, even when you know it's a completely different language? EVERYTHING IS FRENCH RIGHT NOW. Also, I usually default to Spanish pronunciation, so when I came across the name "Austin Castillejo" IN Les Mis I very nearly had an aneurysm from the resulting conflict in the language center of my brain.

You know what makes an awesome, awesome chaser to a Presidential debate?

This song.

Yes, it is from The Fix. There's some stuff in the beginning that is excellent but not overly relevant to the topic at hand, and then the Political Lessons begin.



GRAHAME

Now Cal, you are going to limit yourself to three topics.

LESLIE PYNCHON

And only three.

GRAHAME

The public can digest no more.

THE ECONOMY...
CRIME...
TAXES...

Say it with me.

GRAHAME & CAL

THE ECONOMY...
CRIME...
TAXES...

GRAHAME

Very good. They're safe, you see. Not too extreme, not too abstract. You must stay away from big
words.

And from there it just gets better. McCain kept saying things that kept forcing me to sing bits of the song under my breath, and once I even had to skip ahead to "I See the Future," which is about what title says and is every bit the forced, sappy bullshit you would expect.

I'm not saying I base my thoughts on the debate on a political satire musical. I'm just saying: McCain, dude, you never had my vote and you never will, but I might stop laughing at you if you stop sounding like Grahame Chandler attempted to run your campaign and then gave up in disgust.

Oh, Sarah Jane Adventures. I am so pleased with how this season is shaping up.

( 2x03 - Day of the Clown, Part I )

Oh my god, I haven't posted in almost two weeks. How did that happen??

I ATEN'T DEAD.

Things I have done in the past two weeks:

* Written two awesome papers and one crappy one.

* Accurately pegged a fellow classmate as nineteen based entirely on his world-weary disdain for the vast majority of society. I told him he reminded me of a cross between Chuck Bass (world-weary disdain etc) and Dan Humphrey (sense of intellectual superiority). I have a good feeling about his future self, though. He does, after all, have the taste and intelligence to dislike The Catcher in the Rye when he could just as easily go in the opposite direction and identify with it. *shudder*

* Spent two hundred bucks at Amazon on my textbook for the semester. The most expensive one was a bit over fifty bucks. And I didn't even buy them used. Let's hear it for a) being an English major (no expensive math or science textbooks!) and b) having budget-conscious professors!

* Part of that order was the latest translation of Les Miserables. You guys, I have finally found a translated novel that I can enjoy reading. I am very wary of translations. So often something goes wrong and the book ends up feeling detached, like instead of reading the story, I am reading about the story. This is a really good one, though; the translator, Julie Rose, has updated some of the language and used idioms to make it more accessible and genuine, but has still kept the feel of a novel that takes place in early-ish nineteenth century France. I don't know much about translation, or about Les Mis, but the quotes on the book jacket tell me that she has given the novel "the captivating tone Hugo would have struck for his own contemporaries." This makes a lot of sense to me. Older novels can be such dry going for modern readers, but they wouldn't have been back when they were published, would they? (I mean, unless they sucked.) So, anyway, I'm enjoying the book a lot, and I know I have Julie Rose as well as Victor Hugo to thank for that. You can be reading the most amazing book in the world, but if the translation is crap, you'll never know it.

* TV! Gossip Girl and Supernatural and Dexter and House and The Sarah Jane Adventures! I should probably get back in gear and start writing post-ep reactions again. And maybe I can even keep them below the epic length that my Doctor Who series four ones tends to reach.

OH I HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION. Ugly Betty people! I got irritated and disillusioned with the show last year for starting to rely too much on easy jokes and contrived, cheap crap. I made it through the entirety of season two and decided not to continue for season three, but - the episode blurbs are making me curious. So, has it gotten better? It is anywhere near the standard of awesome that the first season set? Or should I just let it go?

* Ridiculous things in Milliways that I won't specify here because the five people on my flist who care are fellow Milliwaysers and already know. For the most part. But trust me, they are ridiculous. (The things. Not the people.)

* Whiling away boring lectures by writing terrible Les Mis slash. I think I might be able to turn it into something that doesn't suck, but right now, I would not show it to another human being.



So! That's what I've been doing. Uh. I will try not to let another two weeks pass before my next post. :D?

Poll #1264858 I am not asking this because I have it on my MP3 player. Shut up.
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

John Barrowman should cover "Livin' La Vida Loca," Y/Y?

Oh, man. I didn't know this until now, because I've been downloading Gossip Girl, but out CW affiliate has gone digital-only. This means that people like me who cannot afford cable are shit outta luck. Again. Some more.

More to the point, it means I'm going to be a day behind on GG and Supernatural ALL SEASON. ARGH. I don't mind so much with GG, since I don't know a lot of people who watch it, but having to wait to read all the SPN reactions on the flist is going to KILL ME. This is only supposed to happen with the BRITISH shows I like!

Life is pain, you guys.

So I found a voice mail from my mom at quarter of three this morning just saying, "Call when you get this, I have to tell you something."

We all know what a message like that means. I didn't call until this morning, because if it was a crucial enough situation for a phone call at quarter of three in the morning, I was on AIM all night. Someone would have IMed me.

But yeah. I spent some really entertaining moments before I fell asleep speculating on who had died. Turns out it was my Uncle Lee. He and his family are out in California, and I only ever met the man a couple of times, so there isn't a big grief here like there was with Grandpa. This was my biological father's family, though, and he died when I was a baby. I'm more worried about Nana. That's two of her children she's outlived. I haven't seen her in a couple of years, since staying in contact with her is a pretty one-way thing and I got tired of making all the effort, but obviously some things are more important. So I called and left a message for her to call me when she's up to it.

Anyway. Macabre highlight of the conversation with Mom, ie, Humor: A Coping Mechanism.

Mom: "It was - have you heard of sarcoidosis?"
Me: "Yes. I watch House. I've heard of it in every episode."

Mom also watches House, so she was just like, "Oh, yeah."

I don't know exactly what sarcoidosis is, but it is apparently something white men don't tend to die from. Which, if you knew how quirky that part of my family, and Uncle Lee in particular, has always been, you would agree with me is somehow appropriate.

Chuck to Blair in the latest episode of Gossip Girl, regarding her British lord boyfriend:

"You can't tell me Bertie Wooster is satisfying your needs."

A: BAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

B: See A.

C: It's been way too long since I wrote any exceptionally absurd crossover snippets, hasn't it? Man, Jeeves would have his work cut out for him getting rid of Blair Waldorf.

I love you, Chuck. Especially since now I have this awesome image of you sneaking reads of PG Wodehouse when no one is around to see you voluntarily opening a book.

MY BRAIN. Is a muddle. Here is what my day has contained.

* The Torchwood audio play. Yes, yes, I know I have very loudly quit Torchwood, but I have a weakness for audio stuff. And I knew it would be hilarious. And I was not wrong. I'm going to have to listen to it again soon. CANDYFLOSS.

* As per a deal I made with maggiesox, I am listening to Les Miserables in its entirety, start to finish, for the first time. Ever. I know quite a few of the songs, because we sang a medley in chorus when I was in eighth grade (mmm, uplifting) and I was still young enough then so that I now, eleven years later, still know every word. I even bought the Broadway soundtrack at that time, but being young and free of any sort of taste in music, I didn't really care much about any of the songs I didn't already know.

So. I mentioned that in Maggie's presence, and a deal was brokered: I would listen to Les Miz if she would finally listen to The Fix. I am holding up my end of the bargain, which is not exactly a chore, because I am of course enjoying it immensely.

And I just HAPPEN to have the recording with Philip Quast as Javert. Quast also plays my favorite character in The Fix, one Grahame Chandler. Total coincidence, really!

* And then there is the paper on Hamlet. We're reading Hamlet in my literary-analysis-or-whatever-the-hell-it's-called class, and had to do a "close reading" of a selection, which basically means "write at least three pages on ten to fifteen lines." I picked one of Claudius's, because I have a weakness for sympathetic villains. (See above in re: Grahame Chandler. Also, I bet we can all guess who is going to be my favorite Les Miz character.) (Incidentally, I believe Philip Quast could play an excellent Claudius. Grahame practically IS Claudius, just with polio and being in love with his nephew instead of his sister-in-law.) (See what I mean about my brain being a muddle?) Plus, it happens to contain one of my favorite selections in the play: "Do it, England/For like the Hectic in my Blood he rages/And thou must cure me." Grahame is so not the only one with a thing for his nephew.

(And yes, I managed three pages out of eleven lines effortlessly. I talk too much. If you had not noticed this, then hi, I'm Cathryn, nice to meet you.)

Also, somewhere in all that, during my play analysis class, was some brief discussion of Augustus Wilson's The Piano Lesson, which I saw last year for my Intro to Theatre class and you should totally go see it if there is a production in your area, because it's pretty awesome.

But anyway. Torchwood and Les Miz and Hamlet and too many parallels with The Fix in both casting and theme and if I DON'T have seriously strange dreams tonight, I will be very disappointed in my brain.

You know what's weird? Regional foods. Especially things that seriously should not be regional because wtf.

Like, I understand about Moxie soda being regional, because it has a very distinctive flavor that people either love or hate. There is no "meh" about Moxie. People don't say, "Okay, I guess I'll have a Moxie, then," when it turns out that a restaurant doesn't have their first choice of soda. I can appreciate that it wouldn't catch on on a national level. It used to be wider spread, but now it's just a Maine product.

But things that should not be regional:

* Italian sandwiches. People, it is cheese, ham, pickles, onions, olives, tomatoes, and green peppers, with salt, pepper, and oil on top. (NOT lettuce. Add lettuce to your Italian and it is no longer an Italian.) This is not exactly a sandwich filled with mystical ingredients that are hard to find outside of New England. Apparently, however, you can't get the right kind of rolls to make them with. I don't. Get it. It's like a hot dog roll, but bigger! How hard is that?

* Red hot dogs. I mean bright red. Dyed. They are more savory than brown hot dog and the skin snaps when you bite into them. Surely bright red hot dogs are not too weird for the general populace. They are, however, manufactured exclusively by a regional meat company, Jordan's. Perhaps the mystery only goes as far as Jordan's holding the patent.

* And the one that inspired this post, that I just found about yesterday: whoopie pies. WHAT THE HELL. Wiki tells me that these have at least spread out to a certain extent and can occasionally be found in restaurants (which, a whoopie pie is not a restaurant dessert, I am sorry), BUT STILL. I don't even like whoopie pies very much and I am appalled. A whoopie pie is two round pieces of (usually) chocolate cakelike pastry held together with a whole bunch of frosting. (I've never been much for frosting. Yeah, I know, shut up.) How is this not a national treasure?

I am curious to hear from people outside New England, about their regional foods or if they have found the stuff I am talking about in their area. Or if it's just called something different.

I would just like to offer a hug to everyone on my friendslist who is having shitty workplace karma, whether it's your boss using your drinking straw to clean his nails, getting yelled at on your day off for missing a shift due to circumstances beyond your control, or getting fired for dropping a pan of food. You are good workers and good people who deserve better than that bullshit.

I'll just be over here being quietly grateful that the worst thing about my job is having a manager who likes to explain everything fourteen times in a row as though I am a small, retarded child.

. . .

Work sucks.

Today, as I probably note every year, is my grandmother's birthday. I called her and she was telling me about all the cards and phone calls she's gotten today. She said it was nice to be remembered and loved. It's her second birthday since Grandpa died, and the first was only a month and change after the fact. Last year we made a point of having a party; this year I guess people were still thinking of her a little more than before. Either that, or she noticed it more because living alone after fifty-plus years of marriage probably never quite gets comfortable.

Moving on. Let us now discuss things that are awkward!

* Sitting in class watching a 60 Minutes feature on some work your professor did because that is what she is teaching about, and in the feature she starts crying, and she IS SITTING RIGHT THERE SHOWING US THIS. I think I was blushing. She obviously did not mind, but - I did.

(This class is cool - it's about how sign language came into existence as a true language in 1990s Nicaragua. There was no sign language in Nicaragua before that. My professor played a major role in studying and documenting how it came to be. Very awesome. But WITH THE CRYING and the BEING IN THE SAME ROOM and AUGH.)

* I don't know if I'm going to survive my play analysis class, guys. We did this insane exercise where people came up with words to go with their names that matched the phoneme - oh, whatever, let's just go with first letter. Close enough for purposes of description here. But we had to do that, and we had to come up with a gesture to go with it, AND we had to repeat the names and gestures back at people, and OH MY GOD.

You know how, in Enchanted, the big musical number breaks out and Patrick Dempsey has no idea what in the blue hell is going on? And he continues not to get it for the entire thing? And there's this one truly awesome shot where people are throwing their arms in the air, and he's got his sarcastically half-extended with, like, still-life jazz hands going on? That is how I felt. I was Patrick Dempsey with sarcastic jazz hands and I was the only one who DID NOT GET IT. I was so embarrassed. For me, for my classmates, for my professor, for everyone. I swear to god I would rather read a baseball RPS I wrote out loud to the class than EVER FUCKING DO THAT AGAIN. Is this because I am an English major and not a drama/theater major?

The moral of the story is, I have a sensitive embarrassment squick. (This is why I can never be a true John Barrowman fan.) The end.

Hey, does anyone remember a show called The Torkelsons? It lasted twenty episodes in 1991, then was repackaged as something called Almost Home, which was a baffling decision that involved moving the family to Seattle and erasing two of the five Torkelson children from existence. Most of its viewership, such as myself, came from when the Disney Channel picked it up in the mid-nineties and aired it non-stop.

Anyway, that's not my point. My point is that, in 1991, someone in the marketing department was clearly smoking the finest crack available, because the episode I am watching right now (god bless you, YouTube) has the mother, Millicent, hallucinating Elmo out of sheer exhaustion. Yes. That Elmo. WTF is this? Were they trying to boost The Torkelsons's ratings? Or was this at around the time that Elmo came into existence and this was part of some sort of multi-show promotional thing that, when taken out of context, loses all logic and cohesion?

Either way, this is the weirdest canon crossover ever.

You know what I love? The posts I'm seeing from people on my friendslist who don't care about politics, or have an aversion to politics, who are all fired up after the Democratic Convention. This is awesome. People need to care. Apathy helped bring us eight years of Dubya. But it looks like Obama is waking people up and making them think, and that's so exciting.

Obama is right. This country could be great, and believe me that is not a sentiment I am too familiar with after almost a decade of being embarrassed to be from here. It could be, though, but that's not going to happen unless people start caring. We need a President who can make people care.

I think I'm actually feeling optimistic. Cautiously so, but still. I can't wait for November fourth. I can't wait to vote.

Oh, man. I'm not usually so good at, like, sitting still during speeches. But my roommate had Hillary's speech on the radio in the kitchen and I wandered out to put away a fork, and I ended up getting stuck until the speech was over. It was excellent. Goosebumps and everything.

(Even if I did keep having flashes of The Fix, like, guess what makes it really hard to take politics seriously? Constantly listening to a political satire musical, that's what. I get the giggles at random moments whenever I'm exposed to the campaign. Election year was either the worst or the best time possible for this particular obsession, depending on your perspective.)

It is August twenty-first, and classes at USM start September second. I just finished registering and accumulating further debt in the name of education. How's that for last minute action?

I didn't entirely do it on purpose - today was the orientation. It started at wtf-thirty (look, eight-thirty is too EARLY for anything school-related that isn't a class, okay?), which is a bit earlier than I am accustomed to. How not to attend an orientation: on five hours' sleep (for the third day in a row) with no breakfast and a big coffee. It's time for me to face it. I'm twenty-five. Excessive sleep deprivation has ceased to be an interesting exercise in testing my limits. Now it just sucks.

But anyway! Classes. I'm so excited. I'd pretty much taken all the good classes at SMCC and I was getting bored there. (And my grades were showing it, oops.) I am not yet qualified for any of the really awesome classes available for English majors, but that's only a semester away. I just gotta take one more frigging class about how to analyze literature, which is something I do regularly for FUN so I think I'm all set there, and then I can start the cool stuff. Even so, though, I still get to take fun classes, like Acting for Non-Actors, Fiction - the Genre (which sounds like a low-rent sequel, but never mind), and another one I can't remember because my brain did not exist by the time I got to scheduling. The English department chair, who was there to advise on schedules, was really impressed that I'd finished mine more or less on my own. (Then he had to coach me on filling out a really basic form, because my blood sugar was in the basement and I'd kind of forgotten things like how to write words, but these things happen.) Three of my classes are the once-a-week ones, but that's what happens when you register less then two weeks before classes start. I'm just grateful I wasn't stuck with completely random shit that had nothing to do with anything.

By the way, I'm so happy I can officially say I'm majoring in English now. I can finally stop explaining about how I'm in Liberal Studies at the moment, because it's the closest to an English major that blah blah blah. ENGLISH. MAJOR. NOW QUALIFIED TO BE TOTALLY PRETENTIOUS WITH NO WARNING WHATSOEVER. FUCK YEAH.

So after that, I had food. I know you were worried. I had an egg salad wrap and overly sweet lemonade, which I guess were light enough to be acceptable after being hungry so long, because I didn't get sick. I really don't know why I wrote that last sentence. I'm still tired and probably not making with the sense in the traditional idea of the word. Anyway, I went to financial aid to borrow money, and the lady who helped me was awesome. She was really sarcastically perky and helpful and we both ended up laughing as I was leaving the office, whch is probably a nice change for someone who works in the financial aid department.

Then I got to go home, and technically I live within walking distance of campus, which is nice, but the walk home involves a hike up the steepest fucking hill in all of Maine, which is not so fun. And now I'm looking at the semester schedule, and check this out: We have Election Day off entirely! I have never heard of that before, but it is so awesome. It will give me time to do something to celebrate voting for Obama, instead of just trying to squeeze it into my day like I had to four years ago. (Well, every year, I haven't missed a year since I turned eighteen, but it's only my second Presidential Election Day.) So I'm excited about that, too.

So! Now all I have to do is figure out a decent work schedule and force myself to remember that just because I can designate a day or half-day available for work doesn't mean I should. I'm not in community college anymore. USM is going to be more work, and I'm putting myself deeper into debt than I might otherwise so I can AVOID having to work too much and be able to focus on classes. I even signed up for the mentor program. Gotta keep more organized and in touch.

Hi I'm not dead! My brain has just been eaten. These things happen. I will try to keep posting more regularly, though.

I've been getting back into playing at milliways_bar, which is a panfandom RP I was into for a while back in 2005. It's still going strong and many of you have probably heard of it. I'm a lot less shy this time around, which - surprise - makes for more RP fun to be had.

OH AND ALSO. When did I become a person to whom people spontaneously send links pertaining to John Barrowman? I'm not complaining, but how did that happen? I still don't really consider myself a fan. He induces me to *facepalm* entirely too often. (Also, it was really, REALLY hard to find halfway acceptable, relatively non-cheesy icons for isaysimplewords. Just saying. Be NORMAL for thirty seconds so I can get a decent, thoughtful-looking icon for Cal, Barrowman, and maybe I will consider fandom. MAYBE.)

. . . yes, and this is why I haven't posted. Nothing to SAY. God. Give me drabble challenges or something so I at least have a speck of substance to put into an entry.

Part two of "Lucky Streak." Part one is here.



( If there's one thing Martha knows better than almost anyone else on the planet, it's how easily a nightmare can be hidden inside an appealing human package. )

TITLE: "Lucky Streak"
AUTHOR: Cathryn (catslash)
SUMMARY: Owen finds himself in the middle of something a little outside his usual frame of reference. AU starting shortly after "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and continuing through "Dead Man Walking."
RATING: R for violence.
WORD COUNT: Approximately 5200.
CHARACTERS/PAIRINGS: Owen, Martha, Jack, Michael. Owen/Michael, a touch of Jack/Ianto, and a vague bit of Owen/Martha.
WARNING: Character death. Also, slash.
SPOILERS: From 2x01 through 2x07.
NOTES THE FIRST: Thanks to americanleaguer for the beta, and to gileonnen and apiphile for other helpful input. Oh yeah, and huge thanks to nightanddaze, who inspired the idea and threatened to cry cheerleaded hard when the fic stalled and I started to lose hope of ever finishing it. This never, ever would have been written without her.
NOTES THE SECOND: This fic is sort of experimental. Very spoilery notes about what the experiment was can be found at the end.
DISCLAIMER: Torchwood was created by Russell T Davies and belongs to the BBC. I make neither claim nor money.



( It's really just a one-night stand. )