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I am so totally out of the Olympic loop - though I heard there's a top-secret (not really: it's just not listed on their website) plan by the Museum Gardens in York to do public screenings of Olympic events, so I might go to one of those. If it's not raining, which it is EVERY SINGLE DAY OH MY GOD okay I am done now. I missed the torch when it passed through a few weeks ago. So far the biggest impact the Olympics has had on my life is to make train travel between here and the south much, much more expensive. Also the mishandling of this event gives British people something to whinge about, which of course they love to do.

(In fairness to them, the way the Olympic committee has been handling security and public transport reroutes in London is fairly horrific. Some overground stops are closed and entire lanes are being reserved for "athletes and VIPs only", making it actually impossible for some people to commute to work. Also, the committee is going nuts with copyright enforcement, leading Waterstones in London to refer to "the big sporting event" as "Voldesport. That which cannot be named!" What is this, 2007? Furthermore, how can the Olympic committee claim that this is a public celebration of amateurism when there are 300 people whose sole job is to look for unauthorized use of the Olympic brand by non-sponsors? etc etc etc. (I'm getting all this info from metafilter, by the way. The same way I get all my news!))

Since I'm into Kpop now, I'll mention that Korea loves this event more than England. Here's some arena-ready pop songs that came out recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLunOf5QsYQ&feature=bf_next&list=PL260E01B49C1B1BA2

In other news, Blur is performing at the Olympics, and also have a new single out. <3!

Convinced by this GIF set to watch Teen Wolf. The first eight episodes are really, really good and make you feel good about the state of cable television. The second season drops most of what was good about the first season in favor of being more generic. ;_; Still, at least I have the memories.

Let's start with the positives. Here’s what’s great about the first season:

1. When he doesn’t have that overly-intense, borderline-psycho look in his eyes, Scott (the Teen Wolf) is one of those dreamy and unfocused guys whose main charm is that he actually listens to women (sometimes even including his great single mom). Apart from actively pursuing the girl, he is a passive character who can generally be counted on to prioritize his love life over whatever very sensible and intelligent (or alternately crazy and dangerous) thing his best friend is currently pushing him to do. The gif maker didn’t like this version of Scott, but I loved it because it left more space for the girlfriend and best friend characters to really shine (and they are great). Also the fact that Scott's regular and full-moon selves are distinctly different allows the writers to explore "becoming a werewolf" as a metaphor for mania (e.g. starting about 25 minutes into this episode).

2. Stiles!!! Stiles is the best character. He’s like this hyperactive nerd, but with a huge attraction to danger and dangerous situations, and an ability to fill in Scott’s awkward silences with constant (entertaining) chatter. Although he's passionately nerdy about helping Scott figure out the werewolf thing and is generally a supportive friend, he also pursues his own goals, or in other words isn't just a sidekick. Actually I am kind of disappointed that "he and Derrick are boyfriends" from the GIF set didn’t turn out to be really true, since that would have given the character more screentime.**

3. Not as impressed by the way the show handles Alison - it almost feels like they make her physically strong (e.g. good with a bow, good at gymnastics) because it’s an easier way to signal "strength" than mental toughness - but she is a very sympathetic character, not just because of her bad family situation, but also because she is nice on top of being pretty and smart. Also, the chemistry between her and Scott is real, yo.

4. OTOH, the other main female character in Teen Wolf, Lydia, is mentally tough and a good contrast to Alison. The show was doing something really interesting with her and Jackson, the seemingly dominant guy (captain of the lacrosse team etc) who is actually deeply insecure. Actually they are sort of an insecure-narcissistic pair, pretty well suited to each other, until Jackson decides he'd rather use Alison to figure out Scott's secrets and Lydia never recovers from the breakup. Too bad they had to make her CRAZY in season 2 >_>.

5. The way the show is shot, the writing. Teen Wolf really does have the feel of an 80s teen movie, kind of de-saturated and slow(er)-paced. There are more shots of people staring intensely at each other and fewer abrupt scene changes. People talk less, but their individual lines are better and the show will often refer back to things that happened earlier in the episode in a wordless shot, trusting the audience to get it. It's not the same post-Buffy pacing we are used to, but it's very good.

6. The soundtrack, 'cause it's this funny combination of 80s music and 00s music that sounds like 80s music, as if we are in an alternate reality where the 90s never happened.

7. But the characters all have cell phones, use computers, use services like Find My Phone and Skype, etc etc. This show handles technology really well.

8. Horror-movie shots!. Actually this is still true in season 2 and might even be a bit better this season - not everything is downhill. The best shots are the ones where the characters are having vivid horrible nightmares that turn out to have actually happened. Approve.

Things I don’t like about season 2, compared to season 1 (SPOILERS):

( cut for spoilers )

I feel like I'm reaching the end of the road with these guys, but it's not going to be a gradual fading away of interest, I'm gonna have to wrench myself away. XD; At least until my end of term work is finished. Writing fanfiction for a group probably the worst thing you can do if you want to stay detached.

Anyway here's some more stuff:
Skinship (Gdragon/Seungri)
Sun and Moon (Gdragon/TOP)

On tumblr:
Big Bang's History of Songs About People Who Don't Pick Up Their Phones and Postscript

The thing about those tumblr posts is, while it's stuff that absolutely can't be proven one way or the other, it's also something that, once you see, is very hard to unsee. >_> I wrote something up with this premise (that Gdragon is, or can be, a bit manipulative and abusive) and put it on yokshim, but then I decided that I couldn't in good conscience ruin other people's enjoyment over something that is basically only exposing my own issues (Or,the "RPF is only marginally acceptable if it's fun and not hurtful" school of thought). I dunno, I still feel kinda ambivalent about the whole thing. But I think writing it out did help me to process certain things I don't really want to talk about, so.

Yes, it's true, I'm a kpop fan now, two years after R first showed me Haru Haru with the comment, isn't this kind of gay?

(Well yeah, but it's also kind of contrieved and boybandy, and I had other things on my plate! And then, two years passed... but we're here now, and we're 'bout to set the roof on Fire! /lame joke)

Here's my stuff so far:

Disordered (2NE1, Park Bom)
Stealing Members (Big Bang & 2NE1, everyone)
The Best Part of Waking Up (Big Bang, GD-Seungri-TOP)
Skinship (Big Bang, GD-Seungri)
Sun and Moon (Big Bang, GD-TOP)

Some videos, for (mostly my own) reference:

( Big Bang )

Or, books I have been reading for class, Part 2. Skipping The Century and Postmodernism and Discipline and Punish to post this, since I have it typed up already:

Bauman is awesome because he speaks directly to young people – he talks about "searching out ways of being" and "looking for job skills to be employable" – and because he gets all his metaphors from physics (time/space, heavy/light, solid/liquid), so that I can understand them. I found his books the easiest to read of all of the books we've been assigned so far, with Foucault a close second (because his references are historical and he includes novelistic descriptions of them within the text, so you don't need to read anything else to understand him).

To bring in contemporary events: Bauman is a true 99%er, because his enemies are those in the ruling class who are absolutely free to flit from place to place, and who never have to worry about the consequences of their choices. These are the people who can afford unlimited instantaneous travel (being able to afford an internet connection counts for Bauman – it was 1999). Moreover, they can "afford" travel because their assets are liquid, in the form of stocks and property investments, so that they don't have to live where they work, or can change where they work to match where they live. Or maybe they just don't have to work at all, XD.

The 1% (my phrase not Bauman's) are, additionally, the people best served by our modern consumer society. This is because being a good consumer means being able to make good choices, and these people have so many resources that they can't make a truly bad choice - if they buy something they don't like, they can discard it and buy something else. They therefore don't suffer the choice paralysis suffered by the people who have to worry about choosing wrongly.

Bauman's really popular, and I think this focus on the very wealthiest is part of the reason for his popularity (although he includes academics in the ranks of the elite). Apart from all the other reasons (brilliant writer, sympathetic to those on the very bottom, good at naming things, etc), I mean.

Specific books under the cut: mostly just a summary without a critique. The blanket critique would be that these books are full of broad, sweeping statements not backed up by empirical evidence, I guess.

( Globalization: The Human Consequences )

( Liquid Modernity )

Liquid is the more popular book, maybe because of the points it makes about the erosion of public discourse (OK no it's probably because people love a novel metaphor), but I liked Globalization better, partly for its focus on the very poorest and very richest (kind of rare in sociology?), and partly for the way it directly links the fortunes of the two groups. I just worry that I can't really evaluate the stuff he says about the experiences of the poorest and most marginalized, since they are outside of my direct experience (except through daytime chat shows etc).