Blue M. Hart

Okay, I just have to infodump about everything that’s been going on with Nickel Creek lately, because it’s living rent-free in my mind right now.

I guess I should start with: Celebrants, their new album, is INCREDIBLE. My first reaction, when listening, was 1. Chris Thile is dominating their songwriting and I’m not mad, and 2. it’s impossible to go through and pick the best songs and just listen to those. This has to be experienced as a whole every time. It’s definitely Nickel Creek’s finest album in my opinion, and I could talk about it a lot more, but I won’t.

SO, first off, before the tour started, they posted a video of them teaching the stomp-clap rhythm for their opening song “Celebrants” (which I really love). Chris was wearing my two favorite colors, pink and yellow, and bounced around in excitement at the beginning, which was very endearing. Sara was also wearing pink. My heart melted. THEN my heart melted even more a few days later when Sara posted a video of her being (lovingly) attacked by a bunch of puppies backstage, and she was rolling on the floor laughing while they were climbing over her and I’m pretty sure that’s the best video that I’ve ever seen. 💗

Then I looked up their setlist. Was vaguely disappointed to see that they aren’t playing a few certain tracks from Celebrants, or the song “Rest of My Life,” but given that they have so many great songs, and that Celebrants really should be performed as an entire album all in one sitting, I understood their choices, even if I was disappointed. Still was super excited to see them!

Then, a show in Birmingham got cancelled because Chris was recovering from the flu, which led to that stress-dream I had about my mom and I getting into a screaming match over Nickel Creek’s musical value. I’m not sure why I dreamed about this considering that she is literally the one who got the concert tickets and was going to accompany me to the show, but okay. The day after the Birmingham show was cancelled, my mom made a group chat for me, her, and her friends who were going to the show, so we could make plans. It was all happening!

…until it wasn’t. Just yesterday, my mom texted the group chat saying that the show was postponed, and that she had insider info but wouldn’t reveal it. The insider info came out in a statement a few hours later. Chris’ flu, which he’d had on the heels of a sinus infection, had turned into potential vocal damage when he tried to sing through it, and now he was on vocal rest for two weeks. Well, IS on vocal rest, I should say. I found myself more worried about him than bummed about the show. “Get the man some rest!” I texted my mom, although what I was thinking was “Get the man some chicken soup and tea!” I wasn’t sure what she’d think about me expressing my domestic tendencies towards a 42-year-old mandolinist 😅

So anyway, the show’s postponed, which means their two-night residency in Nashville was going to be postponed… but then Sara and Sean announced that to make up for it, they’re going to do a special touring edition of Watkins Family Hour and invite some friends!! I can only imagine who the friends are, considering I’m sure they know a LOT of people in Nashville. Everyone who had tickets to the Nashville shows are able to get in free, and according to social media posts, the line was all the way down the block by 6:00. A lot of people commented saying that they had traveled far to make it to the show, and now I’m so happy for them that their trip was not in vain!

Shortly after that, the news came in that all the postponed dates had been rescheduled. The one I was going to see is now in June, the day before the music festival I'm going to, and the week before the Sparks concert. Whew :'D I'm going to have a LOT of fun those last two weeks in June, I just know it.

Finally, Chris posted a photo of him masked on an airplane, with a very sad look in his eye, giving us all a hand-heart. He said he was upset that he couldn’t perform, but he knew what was best for him and was flying back home, where he would relax for two weeks and maybe use the time to perfect his latte art skills. I look forward to seeing the results. Right on cue, Claire Coffee, Chris’ wife, posted some cute things on her IG story- one was a picture of a mask that had “I can’t talk right now” written on it, along with a whiteboard message that said “Sorry for your (vocal) loss :(,” and the other was a stick figure drawing of a dude with messy hair and an instrument looking sad onstage in front of a bunch of other stick figures. I hope that Claire gets him some chicken soup and tea. :P (if he even likes those things, idk. I know he said he’d be limiting his coffee and refraining from cocktails, so I can only imagine how hard THAT’S going to be…)

Anyway. It’s been an interesting time following the news. Nothing like this has happened before in this fandom, and in fact the only time I can remember anything like this happening in a fandom I’ve been in was when Bono had a cycling accident on the week that U2 were supposed to do a residency at the Tonight Show. That, and when Bono injured his back and they had to cancel their Glastonbury set… man, that fellow sure is accident prone… But anyway, I feel very connected to my fellow fans at this time and very protective of Chris, and I hope everything turns out okay. (I especially hope that he’s recovered for the show I’m seeing him do on May 19th, but I understand if they need to postpone that one too.)

FIVE DAYS until I see Chris Thile again!!!! AHHHHHHHHH!! Sara & Sean Watkins will be there too, and I have GA tickets so you better believe I’m going to try to get front row so I can properly swoon over Sara, lol. Who knew I’d ever be this excited to see Nickel Creek? It’s just that their new album is so good…

There has been some bad news on tour lately, though. They had to cancel last night’s show because Chris had the flu. So I went to bed last night vaguely worried that he wouldn’t be recovered in time for the show I’m seeing, and then that led to me having a dream where I got into a screaming match with my mother that started when I said that Chris Thile was an “incredible composer” and she said “No he’s not.” 😐

Yeah, sorry, I’ve kept it on the down-low but this thing is still very much consuming my life 😅 anyway, here are some thoughts that I find are overflowing lately:

-Do you have any idea how hard it is to write dialogue for characters who don’t have canonical voices?! When I write fanfiction, it always helps IMMENSELY if I can hear the characters’ voices in my head as I write, which is usually the voice of the actor who portrays them. If the source is a text-based work, the characters usually have enough dialogue that I can invent voices for them in my head, and focus more on their way of speaking instead of how it specifically sounds. And if I’m writing my own characters, I’m in control of their voice and don’t have to worry so much about the way it sounds in my head. So Mylo & Xyloto I have no problem with, because they’re essentially OCs that just happen to have been inspired by the songs from Coldplay’s album (just like how Julie & Jack from WTC? are both OCs inspired by specific songs from Diamond Dogs). Ziggy I have no problem with either, as he basically just sounds like David Bowie and I’ve heard his speaking voice enough times to easily conjure it to mind on demand. But with the rest, we run into some problems because, well. Johnny (the Jesus of Suburbia) has been portrayed by multiple actors onstage, so I’m not sure which one I should consider the “canonical” take. Rael, although created and portrayed onstage by an Englishman, is not only American, but half-Puerto Rican as well, meaning that he probably sounds absolutely nothing like Peter Gabriel (though tbh, thank god PG didn’t give him an actual speaking voice, it’s bad enough that he did brownface while portraying him on tour 😅). And the worst one of all is Pink, who not only was only given one speaking line in the filmed version of The Wall, but that line is screamed at the top of his lungs, so I have no idea what his voice ACTUALLY sounds like. And if you’re thinking right now that hey, why not just use his actor’s regular speaking voice- Pink is English. His actor, Bob Geldof, is VERY Irish. Although I’m fairly familiar with Geldof’s speaking voice and could probably conjure it to mind on demand, I just can’t imagine Pink speaking with an Irish accent. Which means that his voice is impossible for me to imagine, which means that I’m constantly having trouble writing his dialogue throughout SF: ALS because I can’t HEAR him saying it and when I can’t hear a character’s voice in my head, it just becomes my voice, and NO ONE WANTS THAT.

(And if you’re also thinking “well, how is that any different from writing fic based on a book?”- It is very different, because the dialogue in books is written as dialogue. On these albums, everyone speaks in LYRICS. Which means they’re not really speaking those words, which means it’s not the natural rhythms of their voice, which means I can’t find my way in.)

-Two little signs of growth/progression (or regression, in one case?) in relation to my work on this story that I wanted to share:

Original angsty OTP headcanons: Ziggy is tragically killed after spiraling into drug addiction and Floyd never mentally recovers, before dying himself a few months later.

Current angsty OTP headcanons: Ziggy survives his near-death experience, beats his drug addiction, and goes to live with Floyd, eventually spending over forty (Earth) years with him. Although he still struggles with his mental health, Floyd finally has the time, space, willingness, and ability to process and begin to heal from his trauma. They help co-parent Ziggy’s son, who grows up to get married and adopt children, and make a lot of new friends in their community, as well as strengthen their relationships with old friends. …And then Floyd dies of natural causes in his 80’s, and Ziggy and the rest of his friends/family mourn him. (Essentially, I don’t know if I’m saying that it’s funny that this bittersweet but ultimately heartwarming scenario is the saddest headcanon I can come up with/care to subject myself to, or if I’m pointing out how odd it is that after creating such a happy, fluffy ending, I’m still bothering to think of what happens after one half of my OTP dies. Maybe it’s both…)

-Me at 16: The Wall is awesome but I don’t really understand Pink.

Me now: The Wall is awesome and holy shit, I AM Pink.

(On the one hand, it’s NEVER a good sign if you relate to Pink, but on the other hand, at least revisiting this story has caused me to realize some things about myself?)

Diversity win! The character on a show I watch who shares my first (real) name is confirmed to be bi! Part of me is very amused that we have something else in common now, and part of me is just happy to see, for the first time that I've ever experienced, a character on a comedy show who has made comments expressing attraction to the same gender actually then be shown getting into a same-sex relationship, revealing that those comments weren't just meant to be played for laughs. I feel like a lot of comedy shows I've seen will do that with their characters- have one jokingly express attraction towards another, and then not follow up on it- so it's actually really cool to see this show go all the way with it.

Someone left a (positive) comment on Strange Fascination: A Love Story, and it wasn’t someone I know!!! I’m so happy that a stranger is reading my story, and that they like it!!!! This has definitely given me motivation to keep writing after struggling to find the time for it all week. (I also skipped over the scene that was giving me issues, and that has made things go a lot more smoothly.)

Me after watching Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence last night:



Would you believe that movie was sad in ALMOST THE EXACT SAME WAY that The Left Hand of Darkness was sad, too?! The climax of TLHOD was all “I’m going to sacrifice myself to save this person to whom I’ve grown very close after initially believing we would never overcome our fundamental differences,” and the ending of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence was all “I’m going to sacrifice myself by taking advantage of the conflicted feelings this person has for me, which are caused by our fundamental differences.” And in both cases, there was a LOT of queer subtext (I mean, arguably both are just text, but…) The only thing I knew about this movie before I saw it (because of COURSE this is the only thing I knew about this movie before I saw it) was that Ryuichi Sakamota’s character (RIP… I decided to watch this movie yesterday after I heard the news of his death and I figured a tribute was a good excuse to finally watch it, as I’d never been exposed to any of his work) and David Bowie’s character have a sort of homoerotic villain/hero relationship and even share a kiss. That was… SORT OF true, but I had no idea as to the true context of the kiss, and therefore I had NO idea how deeply it would affect me, and tbh I wasn’t heartbroken because of Jack’s sacrifice- I was heartbroken because of the way Yonoi reacted to being kissed. God. It just made me think, if only he hadn’t been raised in the culture and era that he had been raised in, if only he was given the chance to healthily explore his feelings for men like Jack, if only he wasn’t a soldier and Jack wasn’t his prisoner of war! And then of course it’s a war movie so no one has a happy ending (except MAYBE Lawrence, but the happiest part of his ending was that he was the only main character to actually survive the whole movie, so actually it wasn’t very happy at all).

Anyway. I did like both works of fiction and I don’t believe either of them were trying to make a negative statement about queer relationships in the way that they killed off one of the characters involved in the relationship (…I’m using “relationship” VERY loosely here when it comes to Jack & Yonoi, not to mention it was never made clear whether Jack was queer himself or whether he simply knew Yonoi had feelings for him and took advantage of that, but you know what I mean), but now I’m just like. I want to read or watch a queer romance where one of the characters doesn’t make a self-sacrifice, please 🥲

I was just listening to my vinyl copy of Angst In My Pants by Sparks, because today is its 41st anniversary, and I found myself thinking a lot more deeply about the song "Sextown USA" than I ever had before. To me, it seemed to be making fun of rampant sexualization in society/the media. I then read the lyrics, and realized my interpretation doesn't really hold up, but I'd still like to talk about it and even tie it in with another Sparks song, "Giddy Giddy" (which I'd love to analyze in full someday).

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Me after finishing The Left Hand of Darkness this morning:



Seeing as I spent the first half of the book only mildly interested, I was wholly unprepared for how emotionally invested I'd become by the second half, oh my god. I actually want to go back and read the first half again now, because I feel like I missed out on a lot/had forgotten a lot of it since it took me such a long time to read it. (Now we're getting into spoiler territory, but: I had completely missed the fact that Estraven and Arek vowed kemmering to each other, for example, and I had also forgotten who the Handdara were and what their role in the story was.) I happen to be naturally impatient so any kind of slow-burn narrative is a struggle for me to read, and at times I felt as frustrated as Genly with the seeming lack of progress. However, by the time Genly was sent to the Voluntary Farms and Estraven broke him out and they went on a journey across the ice together... That became the point where I couldn't put the book down. I also feel like that was the point where I finally got what I wanted out of the underlying social commentary on gender roles. The parts where Genly resents Estraven's taking care of him because of his idea of masculinity, where he describes women to Estraven and realizes how sexist his description comes across, and then the very moving moment where he finally accepts Estraven's identity as "man and woman" and stops mentally categorizing him were what I expected more of in this book. I'm glad Genly eventually got there... but I did feel like the potential to truly depict a society with no distinction between gender was wasted a bit in the first half, which felt more like a generic story of political intrigue. Yes, the Gethenians have more differences in their society than just the gender thing, and I found it particularly interesting how the differences between the countries of Karhide and Orgoreyn were depicted, but I felt like there should be more emphasis on what a society would be like when there's no strict division of labor between gender, when children are raised not by a mother and father but by a community... I just felt Le Guin could have explored those structures more. I also think it's a shame that gender-neutral pronouns were not widely in use at the time that it was written (though Genly might not have thought to use them, so it fits his character, in a way), because referring to each character as "he" already sort of predisposes one to thinking of them as a certain gender... but again, that might have more to do with Genly's perception than Le Guin's, because for so much of the story he WAS trying to fit the Gethenians into rigid boxes, instead of accepting them for who and what they are. (Side note, I love how after Genly's realization, he thinks of Estraven as "whole" and "complete" for being what he sees as a blend of two genders, and how he tied this into the yin-yang concept and in a way, into the duality of existence as a whole. Something about it struck me as very spiritual, which makes me think, non-binary people are therefore inherently divine by that logic...)

Anyway, I got a little off-track there. All I can say is that I feel so empty inside after reading the ending. I'll be okay- I liked the ending- but I was NOT expecting it to break my heart like that. I think that's all I'm capable of saying...

When I started reading this book, both my friend/crush and my dad told me it was a masterpiece, and encouraged me to keep reading even when I couldn't get into it right away. Now that I've finished it, I'm glad I stuck with it (though tbh, I would have made myself keep going anyway because I felt this was a story that I needed to read), and in fact, I agree with them. Now I need to re-read A Wizard of Earthsea, because I personally consider THAT to be a masterpiece as well and I think I was a teenager when I last re-read it, so who knows how it will speak to me now? But first, I'm really excited to finally start the book I bought as a Christmas present to myself, The Dream of Dr. Bantham by Jeanne Thornton. I hope it will be just as good as her other book, Summer Fun.

(I wrote this for International Women’s Day and I’m not 100% happy with it- I fear that it could be seen as anti-feminist or lessening hardships- but eh, I’ll post it anyway.)

I am a woman because I’m not “not” a woman.

I am a woman because a doctor saw my form on an ultrasound and declared me to be one.

I am a woman because that’s what it says on my birth certificate.

I am a woman because when my worldview expanded and I discovered that birth certificates are not the be-all end-all in declaring one’s gender, I asked myself if I still felt like a woman and the immediate answer was: yes.

I am woman. Hear me roar. Or hear me softly mutter under my breath.

But.

I am NOT a woman BECAUSE I was born with XX chromosomes.

I am NOT a woman BECAUSE I feel comfortable wearing dresses and lipstick.

I am NOT a woman BECAUSE I am sensitive and caring.

I relate to womanhood. I do not relate to femininity.

This is not my way of saying, “I’m not like all the other girls.” There’s an implicit binary in that statement. If you’re “not like the other girls,” you probably have traits or interests that are considered masculine. I am NOT “one of the boys.” I choose to reject the binary, while still placing myself at one end of its confines.

I AM a woman. But I am not a social construct.

I do NOT find it empowering to wear revealing clothing, make my face up, or get my hair done, BECAUSE conforming to those beauty standards feels too rigid.

“I’m proud to be a woman!… a conventionally attractive, no deviation from the norm, presentable for public consumption woman!”

I do NOT find any resonance in “pussy power,” not only BECAUSE this doesn’t apply to a lot of women, but also because I find it reductive to define myself via a body part. And I do NOT (often) feel a connection to “rah rah, you go girl” feminist empowerment, either.

“Your song that you wrote about your complex experience with romantic attraction could be a feminist anthem! Because no one else could ever relate to something like that!”

And for the love of god, I CANNOT filter my own experience of being a woman through the sole lens of how it differs from being a man.

“Men are stupid.”

“Men are dicks.”

“Men suck.”

Again, an implicit binary- woman are smart, women are kind, women should be celebrated. I won’t disagree. But I CANNOT empower myself by tearing another person down. And I CANNOT categorize people by gender identity in the first place, because the world is so much more varied than that.

I am NOT a mirror image. I am NOT half of a whole. I AM COMPLETE.

If any of the above empowers you- I’m happy for you. Or at least I won’t criticize the ways that you find strength. I’m also not saying that we SHOULDN’T celebrate women every March (and every day, honestly), that we SHOULD exclude women’s voices from society, that we SHOULDN’T stand up and denounce it when laws are passed that disproportionately affect women, that we SHOULD shame women for being too loud, for being too quiet, for being fat, for being thin, for shaving their body hair, for not shaving their body hair, for liking sex, for not liking sex, for expressing their emotions, for not expressing their emotions, for having children, for not having children, for deviating in any way from what one’s imagined standard of “normal” womanhood is.

I’m saying that there is no singular experience of being a woman, and that THAT is what should be celebrated.

I’m saying that femininity can be toxic, just as masculinity can be toxic. Though I don’t mean to diminish the issue of toxic masculinity at all, because any strict reinforcement of gendered stereotypes is unhealthy in my eyes.

I’m saying- to quote Fiona Apple, who I believe was quoting someone else- fetch the fucking bolt cutters.

I am a human before I’m a woman. But I am still a woman. And while that may not matter a WHOLE lot to me (probably because I never had to question, or had anyone question, whether I was one or not), it DOES matter.

Happy International Women’s Day. 💖

[insert photos of me in my flannel & jeans and in my nicest dress- two outfits that I feel equally comfortable in, but which give completely different impressions]

As I've mentioned, I've been drawing a lot lately, and also as I've mentioned, my OC Kylie/Julie Martin has gone through a lot of changes recently. I've been having fun drawing various versions of her, and I wanted to quickly take a look at how she's evolved.

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