in Soviet Russia, something is rotten in the state of YOU

[raven]

It has now been raining for twelve hours. It's beautiful, in a glad-I'm-not-out-in-it way; of course, for much of my day, that was not true.

I dreamed last night that I was rolling off a hill, and woke up to note that a) my mattress has a dip in it and b) the fire alarm was going off. It's really loud. It's really, really loud. I jumped out of bed, realised I was only wearing a Boston Red Sox t-shirt, bounced back into bed, found pyjamas, could not find shoes, decided I might burn to death if I went to Ben's room to find my shoes, ran into the kitchen, found flatmates in various states of undress, traipsed downstairs barefoot through rainwater.

Yeah, all things considered, it was a great start to the day. (A drill, of course; Balliol's lugubrious domestic bursar was on hand to tell us we were not on an outing to the seaside, could people try not to amble.) And possibly because I was standing outside on a cold autumn morning not wearing very much, I now have the variant of freshers' flu that everyone I know seems to have - it involves woe, eating a lot of sugar and sounding like Billie Holiday) and so decided I was entirely justified in going back to bed between lectures.

And the rest of the day was spent reading about the Cuban missile crisis, sitting in my alcove and watching the rain. Things I have learned today:

-The CIA once tried to assassinate Castro by means of exploding molluscs;

-According to the OED, "reconceptualise" is not a word, and neither is "preroration", thank you kindly;

-Khrushchev and Castro were on first-name terms (I found an oddly endearing picture of them hugging and grinning up at the camera);

-On the first day of the Cuban missle crisis, global nuclear war was nearly caused by a member of the grizzly family;

(Which would that mean humanity's closing stage direction would have been "exit, pursued by a bear", and that makes me far too happy in a very morbid way);

-Stalin's exact (okay, translated) words when the Nazis arrived in Moscow in 1941 were, "Lenin gave us paradise and we fucked it up!";

-Most of the Russian troops in Cuba had never seen palm trees before;

-Mao and Khrushchev had at least one conversation in a swimming pool;

-one of my flatmates had, until this point, been under the impression I was a historian. Oh, dear.

I'm liking this topic - at least, I would be if I were not having to read and write about the Cuban missle crisis and the Vietnam War for the one essay - mainly because it feels immediate, somehow. I mean, I may not remember 1989 very well if at all, but I was alive. The Cold War was happening then. Maria, my flatmate, my friend, who is the same age as me within six weeks or so, grew up as a citizen of the USSR. That, probably, more than anything, makes the concept relevant. And certainly, reading about boys playing with their toys, when the boys are major world leaders and the toys hundred-megaton hydrogen bombs, is disconcerting in the extreme.

Unfortunately for me, I need to drag myself out of bed tomorrow and read ridiculous amounts on Vietnam, then write the essay, rather than doing anything fun that was planned.

Anyway, my life is very dull, let me show you it. I was helping cook dinner last night when lizziwig waved a utensil about and said happily, "In Soviet Russia, garlic presses YOU!"

Over the resultant hysteria, jacinthsong expressed a desire to not be friends with us any more, which seems perfectly understandable given the circumstances.

And the night before that, I hefted my laptop out with me with the thought that maybe I'd get people to watch one episode of Slings & Arrows.

Maybe one episode, you understand. Approximately four hours later lizziwig and foulds and I had got through about three gallons of tea and all of the first season. Ah, the sweet smell of vindication in the morning, but I have been telling everyone I know to watch this show for a reason. And that takes the number of people I've pimped into it up to five, so I've been a good fangirl this year.

I love that show, though, I really do. I mean, I like Due South - it's slashy, charming, endlessly crack-addled fun, and the fic is great - but Slings & Arrows is, I think, much the better show. As likethesun2 put it once, it would be a good show even if it were not a show about Geoffrey Tennant, but it is a show about Geoffrey Tennant, and, well. As fictional characters go, he's a good one. Re-watching it, it's the details that stick out: the skull; the utter, utter greatness of Anna and her Bolivians; Geoffrey on the floor reciting Jack's lines alongside him; the random bits of nudity; the swans.

My fic, for whoever was asking, is under my fic tag. Of the last nine stories, seven are S&A in some capacity. Oh dear.

Enough babble. Sleep.

Comments

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Thirteen Days (http://imdb.com/title/tt0146309/) is an excellent movie, if you get the chance to see it. I am certain it is the best movie ever made about the Cuban Missile Crisis, anyway.

And I agree with you that S&A is a better show than, well, just about anything else. When I watched it for the first time, I was awestruck; each episode made me thing, "wow, it can't get better than this"...and then, it got better. I envy the writers' ability like whoa. It makes me endlessly unhappy that my husband is uninterested in seeing it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

When this term is over, I am going to sit in a dark room and watch lots and lots of Cold War-themed movies. Thanks for the rec. :)

S&A is just so much love. I've given up trying to explain how great it is and just pimped it mercilessly.

[nerves-patterns.livejournal.com]

The subject line of this post is hilarious. It might become an away message. XD

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heeee. I am resisting the temptation to invert any syntax in this comment. :)

[troyswann.livejournal.com]

-On the first day of the Cuban missle crisis, global nuclear war was nearly caused by a member of the grizzly family;

(Which would that mean humanity's closing stage direction would have been "exit, pursued by a bear", and that makes me far too happy in a very morbid way);

I'm overcome with the urge to hug you :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*grins* *squishes you*

[rillarilla.livejournal.com]

(Which would that mean humanity's closing stage direction would have been "exit, pursued by a bear", and that makes me far too happy in a very morbid way);

Ah ha ha ha! Yes.

Oh, and this:

On the first day of the Cuban missle crisis, global nuclear war was nearly caused by a member of the grizzly family;

sounds like the opening line to the best christmas carol ever.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha, that sounds like a very merry Christmas indeed! And on the twelfth day of Christmas, there was NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST, the END. *g*

[amchau.livejournal.com]

Ahem.

In Soviet Russia, the bear is pursued by YOU.

That's all I've got.

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

Who are we going to convert next...? *evil smile*

[foulds.livejournal.com]

Now I shall go and concert others to S&A. Soon, the world will love it...

[badbadbookworm.livejournal.com]

The CIA did not try to assassinate Castro. I was the SURREALISTS. Other attempts were made with ants, a wobbly clock, and a grand piano being sodomised by a skull.

Hello - you don't know me. (Aren't you glad?)

[marymac.livejournal.com]

Oh God, I thought it was only eejits I live with did the Soviet Russia thing...
And by the way, finished all of Slings and Arrows and working my way back through it, and you may actually be a crack dealer of a weird, Canadian TV sort.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heee, I forgot you when counting! And after tonight, the number has got into double figures. I am a one-woman crack van, clearly. *g*

(Oh, Geoffrey's Lear breaks me. Into tiny wee pieces.)

[marymac.livejournal.com]

It was the under-the-stage that did for me. And Nahum.

I'm going to pimping it to a Canadian at the weekend. Which seems slightly wrong, somehow.

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

My favourite Khrushchev anecdote (the one about him demanding to visit Disneyland is a close second): Stalin used to order him into his office and make him do Cossack dances - because he was Ukrainian, I guess. This is what classes as humour if you're Stalin.

I have spent several years carefully not trying to find out if this was actually true, for fear of the crushing disappointment if it isn't.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heeeeee! Oh, oh, thank you so much for telling me this. I will never look it up. I want so much for it to be true.

[pinkishmew.livejournal.com]

[giggles] I just love that phrase.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Apparently, so do I to an unhealthy degree. *grins*

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I love your Facts About Cuba. Especially the one with the bear.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

loneraven: educating everyone one random fact at a time! *g*

[rosariotijeras.livejournal.com]

While I would venture to say that the actual quality of the writing itself in S&A is better, I think that the two shows accomplish what they set out to do very much equally (and very well, but duh). S&A seeks to be a nuanced, fast-pastced (dare I say Sorkinesque), soul-searching portrait of various people and their daily lives. Due South, it seems, is much more interested in entertaining, through either comedy, emotional drama or action, occasionally providing portraits of its characters (Dr. Longball, Victoria's Secret, that one with Beth Botrelle/RayK).

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's fair enough; they certainly both succeed in terms of their own genres. But S&A does all it does, and manages to be bloody entertaining as well, which I think is a real achievement. The humour is so well-done, so blackly nuanced, I love it.