Lies and damn lies

[altariel]

This meme is one in which I tell you five things about me, one of which is not true, and you have to guess which.

1. My first piece of fanfiction was a Blake's 7 stickman cartoon.
2. In a primary school Christmas play, I played the Christmas Pudding.
3. While doing my master's degree, I supported myself by proofreading erotic fiction.
4. I have never read Hamlet.
5. I once had dinner with Michael Portillo.

Comments

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

You've never read Hamlet?

Idunno. That Christmas Pudding one just seems too... believable. (;

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

I'll go with 4...just b/c it's my favorite game to admit to the most important text you haven't read...and I win every time :-)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Hee! I like that game too. Doesn't it pop up in a David Lodge novel?

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

That's where I might have it from :-) Though I know one of my frinds played it at Penn...

I loved those Lodge novels...the best description of the MLA ever *g*

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Have you read any books by Amanda Cross (pseudonym for Carolyn Heilbrun)? There's a hilarious scene about the viva from hell in one of her books (the student's dissertation is on WH Auden and, unfortunately, they have invited the wrong Dr Chang - not the one from Department of Asian Civilization, but the one from the School of Engineering).

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

No, never read them...but that scene alone makes me wanna hunt them down :-)

btw, not sure if you saw my post, but i'm reading the hills and enjoying it enormously (including certain footnotes where certain critical eraders made certain suggestions :-)

and i guess we both owe each other comments, don't we...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

That particular book is called 'Poetic Justice'. They're a series of books about a New York professor of English Lit and her friends - together they fight crime! (And talk about a Mary Sue!) Lots of people stand around being erudite and lobbing quotations at each other. Good clean fun, good holiday reading. She likes Le Carre a lot, which is another point in her favour.

I'm so glad you're enjoying the Hills book! I missed your post, it was while I was away. He is quite, quite brilliant.

I certainly do owe you comments. The wheels of Altariel grind exceeding slow... My apologies :-(

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Yes, I am quite enchanted with the book...I'll be his fangirl :-) And I think he'll actually be on a panel that I might be on next spring at our little slash gathering... I really like the way he questions the ways academia has coopted fan culture...I like the fan-academic versus the academic-fan distinction! Lots of good stuff!!!

As for your papers...I'm not sure I told you, but the less slashy one I actually showed DH to see where he'd put himself...needless to say it was with the plot-driven story-arc folks (did you interview any males? I'd assume most of them where in that category with a few in the humor one???)

Well, I'm frantically revising my paper to send it of end of the months (plus at the moment I'm writing a HP abstract to go to the spring conference), so I'm all in fan studies mode :-)

Are you working on fannish theory things right now? You said you were revising the not yet published paper you sent me???

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The slash gathering does sound great - I look forward to full reports on it!

The fan-academic/academic-fan thing is incredibly interesting, and one that I think about a lot these days!

I did interview a few males for the study - all the data is packed away in a drawer somewhere, but off the top of my head I can remember at least 4. They did indeed feature on the story-arc factor, and also on the politics one. None of them on the humour one, that was all female!

Right now I'm slogging on a fiction ms. that's due very soon (15th, gulp), and then the next thing I have to turn to is an essay on B7 for a book of essays on British TV science fiction. A slight departure for me since it's an analysis of the show rather than a discussion of the fandom, and I've not done much of that kind of thing (I'm a sociologist, Jim, not a critic!). Oh, and teaching starts again, probably next week!

The not yet published paper... I'm not quite sure what to do about that. It was supposed to appear in a special edition of a journal coming from a conference where I presented it, but that was... gosh, two years ago now, and I haven't heard anything further. I'm thinking of putting it elsewhere - I think it's a good paper and I'd like to see it published, although I think it still needs some work. The end gets a bit garbled, I think.

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

Hey, how can I get a job proofreading erotic fiction? Not only would it pay the bills, no one would ever suspect ME of something like that! (;

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Hm. Most of the erotic fiction I've read didn't look as if anyone had proofread it. I'll go for that one!

[runor.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

I just HAD to add you because of your Garak icon. *drools*
And I'm gonna put him up on my interest list. Don't know how I could have forgotten about him. *sighs*

And I saw you through Dybedahl's LJ. :)

--Jenx

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Garak Good! :-D

Happy 30th birthday! I've enjoyed my thirties enormously, hope you have the same experience.

[ex-harrietva568.livejournal.com]

So hoping the Hamlet thing's a lie.

Where are the statistics? And why can't we get away from MPs? Is this reference too oblique? Am I just insane?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The statistics were in the master's thesis.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

I love all of these, and my world would be better if all of them were true. Perhaps the lie is the introductory paragraph?

Failing that, I'll go for number 1.

:-)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Gosh, I would have thought I'd admitted to at least some of these in your presence before.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was kind of surprised to find that there were even more Altariel-related outrages than I'd previously been aware of. It just goes to show.

I tried to think up some for myself, but there wasn't anything funny enough!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

That should be Altariel-perpetrated outrages.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

I too would like all of these to be true.

I might go for 2. It sounds too suspiciously plausible, and strangely American rather than British. (I'm thinking of the scene in To Kill A Mockingbird where Scout has to play a ham, and all the other kids also had to dress up as products of the state. Or maybe, it was just my school where everything was mostly people-based.

[cruisedirector]

I'm going with Hamlet just because I like the idea. Though I have taught Hamlet repeatedly, and encourage you to read it if you have not!