This and that

[brigdh]

Hey, livejournal. What is up? I know I haven't posted in ages, but I'm still around, so feel free to comment or email if you ever want my attention. I blame the not posting on, well, everyone else not posting. Which is a terrible excuse, I know. I could follow fandom to Tumblr, but I don't like Tumblr. It is fine for pictures of cute animals (which is an important part of the internet), but I don't like it for conversation, or fic, or making friends, which are the things I want to do.

Anyway, who else is panicking about Yuletide? Hopefully not just me! At least my story is already 1,300 words long, so I will have something to upload by this evening, even if it's not a masterpiece. I may be looking for a beta later.

Also, I have a favor to ask. I'm looking for a few songs that I used to have, but have lost in past computer crashes/ipods inexplicably erasing all their music/lost thumb drives/etc. If anyone has any of these songs and is willing to upload them for me, I will be eternally grateful.
Massive Attack - Safe from Harm (Live in Berlin '03) I'm not sure the parenthesis on this is accurate, but I remember it was a lot more acoustic/guitar sounding than the album version.
Spoon - The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine
Head Automatica - Please Please Please (Young Hollywood)
Matthew Herbet - Birds of a Feather
Shout Out Out Out Out - Self Loathing Rulz (Malente Remix)
Gogol Bordello - Gypsy Part of Town
Freezepop - Bike Thief (Tubeway Mix)
Freezepop - Mastermind (Manipulate Mix)
Kaiser Chiefs - Every Day I Love You Less and Less (Boys Noise Remix)
Stars - He Lied About Death
The Spill Canvas - The Tide
Magnetic Fields - No One Will Ever Love You
Peter Mulvey - Ithaca
Mindless Self Indulgence - You'll Rebel to Anything (As Long As It's Not Challenging)
Rufus Wainwright - Greek Song
Regina Spektor - Fidelity (Blockhead Remix)
The Hold Steady - Citrus
Bif Naked - Lucky
Madeleine Peyroux - Dance Me to the End of Love
Bowerbirds - In Our Talons
Moses - Beautiful Gun
Professional Killer - KMFDM
Hannah Fury - The Necklace of Marie Antoinette
Suede - Attitude
Bell X1 - Flame (Chicken Lips Mix)
Steeleye Span - Boys of Bedlam
Ryan Adams - New York, New York
Nump featuring M.I.A - Grapes (Remix)

What a strange list. Also, if anyone has anything from the Alec FST I made a few years ago, I would really, really appreciate it. I'm so sad that I put all that work into it and then lost the whole thing.

Comments

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

The conversations I've seen seem very, hmm, individual-focused? If that makes sense. One person posts a thing, or answers a question, and other people reply (either simply by reposting the whole thing, or by writing something of their own), and then the original person might continue it, or not. But there's no group dynamic to it, no sort of natural flow or change of topic. And if you're not following each person involved and constantly updating, you might well miss all of it. It's like a wordpress blog, if each commentator only ever speaks to the blogger and never to each other.

I could be totally wrong. I don't even have one of my own to play with, so it's possible I've misunderstood the dynamic.

You're too kind, as usual. You underestimate my skill at typos, misspellings, and dropped words, if nothing else. I'm encouraged with this one, though: now it's up to 2,400 words! However, I still have not reached what was supposed to be the point of the story.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

So it turns out that I do not have the Steeleye Span (or at least, not on the hard drives I've found and checked). I do, however, have the complete Alec FST, in order and with the bonus track. Now that megaupload is no more and it's the holidays, it may take me a little while to figure out how to upload it for you (do you have a recommended cloud service? ideally, one for which you don't need an ongoing registration?), but that's only a matter of logistics. And hell, maybe while I'm trying to figure out the upload I'll find the other thing.

I've had that same impression of tumblr conversations, but I keep thinking that the people insisting they have good discussions over there must have something more in mind. Because how can that make for a good discussion, as we know them? The best discussions LJ ever had were the ones where you could talk to more than one person at once, and where even if it started as a colloquy among a few interesting people, readers passing by could jump in if they were so inclined. That's still the way good comments sections work, in the few places where they still exist. Which brings me back to my dark suspicion that the people talking about the great conversations they have on tumblr don't mean what I mean by 'great conversation.' Though I certainly wouldn't mind being wrong.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I can hardly hold losing some music against you, when I clearly do the same so often myself. The loss of upload sites has been just terrible this year; I was particularly sad when Demonoid went down, because that used to be my best source for obscure music and audiobooks I couldn't find anywhere else, even if I paid. I think SendSpace (www.sendspace.com) is the best of the ones left. Box.net, 4shared.com and mediafire.com are also easy enough to use, though you would have to register. The worst is some of the new ones that have popped up recently that are nearly impossible to use; they make you go through so many links and popups and scrolling ads that you can hardly figure out where you should click.

Anyway, I am so grateful whenever you should find a moment to upload it; I know how time-consuming an entire fst can be.

I suppose it could be a pendulum swing in how fandom works; for a while it was all about shared meta analysis and conversations, love memes and gif posts and interacting in a more social way. Now there seems to be more of a focus on producing spreadable content, stuff that doesn't have to come with knowledge of the creator- fic, fanart, photosets, music calls. Which apparently some people prefer, or so I've heard; they were frustrated by everyone having to be friends, rather than just strangers with a shared interest. If this is the case, it's more that Tumblr's popular because it lends itself to such interactions than that it's tolerated despite stifling them, which means it might be a while before things swing back the other way. I won't like the wait, personally, but there's not much to do about it.