burned! party! help!

[erastes]

I'm still reeling from the burning of The Cutty Sark. I really feel like I've lost a friend. Always there, always beautiful. I'm in 2 minds as to whether she SHOULD be restored, when does restoration become reproduction? I still can't believe she's now a charred blackened lump.

*sniffs*

There's been an influx of new friends recently. When I was underlucius I used to welcome each and every one and I've got out of the habit, but I'm going to start again.

Welcome!

biwriters, hskinn, latetocomics, learningtoread, ~msminpdx finneganthepoet ann_amalie, bialogue, darkseaglass,gavinatlas, geishawhite, mylodon, willshenillshe, wolfbear catherineldf, djebrin, galadhir, girluknow, jefffunk,liz_dejesus, logophilos, moshi, tigerblak, vinnie_tesla

You can drink anything except the good absinthe. And the blond poledancer is mine. Thank you. Make yourselves at home. moshi - I can SEE you, I think this is your fourth party. You could at least bring a present.

I really need a title for this Regency. You don't realise just how clever a title Sense & Sensibility is until you try and copy it. I came up with Male & Malleable, Reason & Reasonability, Arse & Asininity. *chokes * Not REALLY what I want... Any ideas guys? Basically its just a man back from the war who meets a snarky cripple with BIG chips on his shoulders. And the first person to say Chip and Dale will be eviserated with a Quizzing Glass.

FINALLY - Everyone with any interest in Queer Fiction needs to read scottynola's thoughts

Comments

[lunalelle.livejournal.com]

Anal & Analysis
Rectum & Recommended

I'm kidding, but you've got me started on teh fun. :D

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Anal & Analyis is GENIUS.

Shame it's completely unusable! However I shall keep it in mind, perhaps it can be used for a Freudian piece later on?

Thank you!

[aunty_marion]

It could be argued that the Cutty Sark was already pretty much replaced by the time she was dry-docked. Anything that went rotten etc got replaced along the way while she was in service.

Much the same as H.M.S. Victory - there's a company, The Victory Oak Collection, that makes lovely wooden items (but too expensive for me, mostly!) from wood and copper reclaimed when they've restored her. And a proportion of the profits goes back into keeping her sound. Their literature/info points out that repair/replacement of unsound parts was always an ongoing thing, and the amount of replacement that has to be done these days is pretty minimal in comparison. It'd be quite nice if they could do that for the Cutty Sark too, and I believe that has been mooted, from what I overheard at the Victory Oak stand at Hatfield a week ago.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

It is true, it's like the old adage "this is the knife of my ancestor, the blade was replaced in 1650 and the handle was replaced in 1780 but it is the knife of my ancestor..."

[aunty_marion]

Their website says they've only used about 30 tons, out of a total weight for the ship of well over 2,000 tons - about 1 or 2 percent. So it's not even an ancestor's knife, it's the real thing...

[ter369.livejournal.com]

Any ideas guys? Basically its just a man back from the war who meets a snarky cripple with BIG chips on his shoulders.

So, War and Peace is right out, then.

Are you trying to do Thing & OtherThing as a title format?

Great character conflict premise, by the by.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes I was attempting something like Scent & Sensuality but that doesn't fit at all - but I may have to give up, I think Austen nicked all the good ones - and that was WITHOUT a computer!!!

Thank you!

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

"Sense & Sensuality?" Actually, "Quizzing Glass" sounds good, it's got a "Q" in it, and it's period...

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

"Poufs and Prejudice?" No, sorry, it's late...

[logophilos.livejournal.com]

::waves::

'Hard and Fast'?

(please don't hit me, I am horrible with titles too!'

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I actually quite like that...

*G*

[rmanley.livejournal.com]

After throwing in the towel where non-LJ networking's concerned (see my latest blog entry), seeing this reminder of the state of queer publishing's really depressing me even more.

I bought many queer titles via ISO in the past. I can't wrap my mind around the loss of Planetout and their subsidiaries. *sigh*

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I missed all this! Have replied now.

I can only try and stay optimistic that more mainstream publishers will take gay themed works as the smaller ones drop out -or new ones will spring up.

It sucks here though. We have no gay themed publisher in the UK.

[learningtoread.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the welcome, and hi to all the other new friends, too! I'm on the HNS list, but I'm rarely active there...it all seems so stodgy. Eljay is a much friendlier inerface than a mail program.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

*waves* I'm glad you popped over here for the chat. It IS a much easier interface than any of the blogspots/myspaces email groups, I love it.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

If this fire had happened when the Cutty Sark was in service--she'd be rebuilt, and she'd still be the same ship. And it isn't as though there are any others like her--that's living history. She was closed to visitors when I was there a few years ago, but I would hate to see her junked after being preserved all this time.

[tharain.livejournal.com]

Who the HELL would do that? EVIL! HATEFUL!

I have a boat thing, you see.

I read elsewhere that she'd been largely dismantled for renovation, so the decks are the worst damage. Pray it's so.

As far as reprodcution? The Constitution is only about 15 percent original timbers, she's been redone for so long. But a ship...is a ship. And as long as there some of her there, her spirit lives.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Yes, all of her rigging, masts and most of the cabins had been removed together with all the movable things, the figure head (thank god) and the collection of figureheads on display.

I just hope the frame isn't too damaged.

[latetocomics.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the Welcome Party...can we flip for the Poledancer? I agree about all the good titles be taken ...but I have no good items to offer up. sorry.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

No. The poledancer belongs to me. Hee. *G*

Welcome and no worries, it's just nice to see newbies comment.

xxx

[galadhir.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see everyone's said it, but yes, these wooden ships carried stocks of timber and carpenters and were always being repaired, rebuilt, messed with, etc just to keep them floating. So they are very much like living things; they need to be continually being renewed, and only if that stops will they die and start to decay.

[galadhir.livejournal.com]

Also 'Refuse and Refuge'?

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

ooh, do i not count as new any more?

um, and apologies for drinking all the red wine....

[erastes.livejournal.com]

No you aren't new, silly. You've been around for ages!

You are welcome to the red wine, *hic*

xxx

[djebrin.livejournal.com]

Hallo! Don't worry about the poledancer, I'll just be over by the buffet ...

I had a crack at the title but stuck fast. Much harder than it looks. Austen pinched Pride & Prejudice from Fanny Burney (much better than First Impressions, deeply feeble title) and I think S&S was a phrase in general usage at the time so I guess even she had to wrack her brains ...

The best I could do was Diffidence & Desire. Yawn.

Altho' it's been used before (by CM Yonge) I like Love & Self-Love. If we are to believe Mr Tyrold in Camilla lecturing the poxy Eugenia that a too great a sense of personal defects arises from vanity, it would seem apt ... and the smutty connotations wouldn't go amiss, either!

Very interested by Scottynola's analysis of the demographic for gay romance. I think he misses the mark about female readers wanting a mix of straight and gay characters, though. I always skip the straight parts in Maupin! Straight stories are so scripted they bog down under their own predictability ... and it's not like I can't read them everywhere else, all the damn time. It reminds me of the criticism feminists get if they "exclude" men by focusing on women's (trival) activities. Concentrating on the marginalized group is deemed an artistic failure because it refuses to depict the dominant majority, without which any picture is flawed and incomplete ... feh. So having been squeezed out of dominant discourse, we still have to admit THEM into our marginal world or be condemned as a fanatic.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I think I'd like to have something about love in the title, my protag has never been in love before - he's had (het) sex which he didn't particularly enjoy and he's not ignorant - he's seen men with men having been in the army for 10 years but he thinks it disgusts him, as he's seen it brutal and dirty and secretive. So when he finds himself falling in love with a man his whole world turns upside down.

I don't know. Ive never had so much trouble naming a book before... *fume* Perhaps its because my mother always came up with titles and she's gone! *wah*