(no subject)

[sebastienne]

Might I second secutatrix's observation about the sudden removal of termtime stresses leading to illness on an unfamiliar scale?

I spend most of yesterday in bed with Prince Caspian (Dawn Treader next!!) and gatty's novel (gatty dearest, when are you going to come online so I can tell you how fabulous you are?), and today I am going over to neoanjou's to watch all three Lord of The Rings extended editions back-to-back, which equates to another day spent in bed, with added geek points.

I want to not be sneezing now, dammit!

Hedwig was so amazingly good. It's better as a stage show than a film, and it's one of my favourite films of all time. The themes knit together better, and I know that I cried the first x times that I saw the film (at least once a day for the first week after I bought it) but really the show is more emotionally affecting. And the song, Midnight Radio? I want every last word and note and inflection of it tattooed across my body. Listening to it on the movie soundtrack CD now it seems so overproduced, so bland, so lacking in the raw immediacy of the live show. I want that live feeling forced into me forever with needles and ink.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I need a Hedwig tattoo more than ever. If nothing else to commemorate the emotional intensity of this week. And still tempts me more than ever. Talk me out of it soon, give me another suggestion, or that appears on my right hip forever.

Comments

[chrisvenus]

Oh yeah. there was some lord of the rings thing. I have vague recollections of mention of that when drunk. I'm trying to remember any details of it but failing miserably short of thinking that I could probably manage to get there for the last film at least...

And yeah, don't get a tattoo. That talked you out of it at all?

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

not talk me out of .any. tattoo; more, talk me out of that specific rather clichéd desire which won't leave my Hedwig-addled brain.

[chrisvenus]

Don't get that tattoo. Any better?

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

hum. still not exactly an incisive logical argument...

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

It'll hurt?
I'm doing the end-of-term-illness thing too. Sucks. And I can't get away with staying in bed. :-/

[chrisvenus]

Don't do it. It'll look stupid.

Anyway, you're the one that is saying you shouldn't have it. Shouldn't *you* be the one coming out with logical arguments? :)

And will I actually know anybody at the lord of the rings thing apart from you? I don't actually remember who is hosting it. Was it the guy whose name I've forgotten that I was talking to on wednesday or am I imagining that (with apologies for name forgetting if he is reading this). I'm suffering from the social fear. :)

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

neoanjou was at the OU3FS christmas party. i imagine you probably were speaking to him about it. he was one of the sultan's guards in the panto. there will be many OULES there, and you know them at least by sight. laurie will be turning up c. 8 when she gets off work, and i don't really know exactly who else is going.

[chrisvenus]

It probably was him I was talking to then. Well, I think I will try to be brave and turn up then. :) I've met thee host which is always a good start to turning up to things. Just as long as I can get past that horrible bit when I've rung the doorbell and I'm trying to work out if people will know who I am. At least you'll be there and know who I am. :)

I'll probably aim to get there for about 7:30-8:00ish... And I can't believe how long that film is! :)

[anariel-di-gaia.livejournal.com]

Oh come one, you know you'd rather have a little blonde Hedwig wig as your tattoo (*mutters about mutilation, cuz she's and medic and can't help herself*).

Midnight Radio is such a fantastic sing along to kind of song, like a couple of my favourite manics songs, you know you could scream along to the song, and it actually mean something.

Miss you honey.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

see, it's my body. i never quite understood the objections; surely more people die every year in sexual accidents than through body-mods-gone-wrong, but that doesn't mean we should abstain from sex. but i'd love to hear the objections from a medic's point of view, if you don't mind my friendly disagreement?

also, i like the idea of the little hedWIG, only it's not really about .her. exactly. for me it's about the philosophy of the whole film, the fact that the two halves of a perfect whole are already inside of me, the fact that i .am. a strange rock&roller, more than any god could ever plan, and so on.

[anariel-di-gaia.livejournal.com]

I don't mind friendly disagreement at all. Actually, I'm not particularly against tattoos, more against piercing as a rule. However, I am specifically against tattoos on the hip, because my friend Jen had a tattoo on her hip, and then put on a load of weight and ended up with half a tatto on her thigh, and half a tattoo on her stomach and a bluish tinge to her skin between. It didn't look nice. Tattoos on say the lower back are much better, you don't even get too much degeneration of the skin there even when you're old. I'm against piercings more than tattoos because they can get in the way in operations, and are an extra thing to check before MRIs, and can get infected, etc, etc and are just in general a pain in the arse for the medical establishment. I'm against piercing and tattoos in general, as they are contrived damage to the body, sex is a natural act (no matter what certain parties may claim) whereas, these are purely man-made damages. Plus, it just seems a little weird to me, that so many people want blemished removed, or accidently shoot a nail through their finger (as my friend Andy once did, whilst trying to demonstrate why nail guns weren't dangerous, idiot!) and want it fixed, it seems weird that someone would go through it on purpose when to others it's such suffering.

Tattoos really weird me out in general, because they shouldn't last, I can't find anyone who has given me a satisfactory explanation why replacement cells should stay pigmented, yet they do.

Well, that was a long ramble and didn't entirely come to a point, did it? I don't really have a completely tangible reason, I suppose part of it, is the medic in me revolting at damage to a system as perfect and awe-inspiring to the human body, and when I want to spend my life preventing pain it being inflicted purposefully (I know, not actually in keeping with some of my, erm, tendancies, that bit, is it?)

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

where to draw the line, though; is a single set of ear piercings to be frowned upon? is bleaching one's hair just contrived damage to the body? isn't it my body and shouldn't i be free to do what i want to it? and sure, penis-vagina sex may be a natural act, but aren't love bites contrived damage to the body? what about the marks from consensual BDSM? autoerotic asphyxiation?

i don't know. i just feel defensive towards body modification as a field because it's NOT just some nutter in a back room with a needle, it's a dynamic innovative process that always, if done right, has the safety of both artist and subject at the core of its philosophy, whether you're having your ears pierced, tattooing your cock, or having horns attached as transdermal implants.

[queerpup.livejournal.com]

Do it! Get the tattoo! It'll look fab - especially when you're 80, it'll co-ordinate with the hip replacement scar beautifully!

No, really. I would love a Hedwig tattoo, but I don't know if I'd get that one, or the one at the end where that face has come together.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

i can see me with that tattoo when i'm 80. and i like the idea. the wrinkled sagging skin still with that little mark and reminder of perfection and youth and days when i thought i could change the world.

even though i don't want it because i believe in what the origin of love is saying, i still prefer the split face aesthetically and because i see myself as being split.

[queerpup.livejournal.com]

I have a similar feeling about my tattoos - I look forward to being ancient, lying in the bath going "ooh, that purple blotch was done when I was really in love", and "What was I thinking to get that one done? Oh well!".

[aliche.livejournal.com]

Oh go on get the tattoo, you've wanted it for as long as I've known you. I'll even come with you when you get it because I'm going to go get a second one soon. HEHE, I'm totally not helping the whole 'talk me out of it thing'.
When are you back in London, I'm lonely and bored and want someone I can drag round pretty art expaditions.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

i'm working in Oxford for the next month. but i'm coming back for at least a camden-trip at some point. where were you thinking of getting your next tattoo done (in terms of, what's the tat to be, and who might do it?)

[aliche.livejournal.com]

I have no idea where to go for it as the last one I got was in Folkestone. I'm thinking of getting a very simple small butterfly on the nape of my neck. I'm having a house warming/christmas party maybe on the 17th of dec, you have to come or die.

[floweringjudas.livejournal.com]

See, would be more attracted to the whole one at the end:

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

oooh!

i thought that it became homogenised, but it doesn't, does it, it is one complete face with the two different eyes... i wonder which is more like what i am saying about myself?

i think (at 1.30 in the morning, ill and sleep-deprived, this may not make sense) that i am saying i aspire to be the complete image, but i am currently the split image. i want to combine my disparate traits but in practice i am not there yet.

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

Surprisingly, I for once haven't done my sleep for 24 hours that usually follows the end of the term. I can't work out if this is because I was less stressed, or because I had to get back into Oxford to help with make-up for Autumn. But I feel all happy and perky and fine (so maybe next year you'll be able to cope better too?)

[ninepointfive.livejournal.com]

I think you should get it.
Tattoos are meant to symbolise something, whether it's a love for tattoos, or a movie, or a certain shape, or piece of music.
But most of all, they should be used to commemorate.
There is nothing more wonderful than charting your life on your body. There is nothing more warming than being able to see a tattoo, and know exactly why you got it, exactly how you felt, exactly who you WERE at that time.
This is why I'm getting another tattoo soon, as my life has changed so much in the past few months, and I want to be able to remember the freedom of being young and in college with no real worries, and having my first taste of adult responsibility.
Do not listen to anyone. If someone says your tattoo is cliche, or horrible, or a silly idea. This is what you want.. no, NEED to do at this time in your life. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks. This is your experience to chart, it's your body, your life, your memories.
Love.

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

d'you know any good tattooists in oxford? because i've only heard good things said about bob eagles on the cowley road and to be honest they scare me a bit.

[parsnip.livejournal.com]

I think you should go for it. Especially if you do it now in the heat of Hedwiggy love and obsession.

Tattoos aren't meant to sum you up as a person, they're just a way of expressing things you feel strongly about on your skin. You might not be a Hedwig fan all your life, but what's important is that you ARE now, and that image would mean so much to you in this moment that THAT would become its meaning over the years. Does any of that make sense?

And besides, it's such a meaning-laden image that you could interpret it entirely differently every year of your life. Plus it's purdy. Never underestimate aesthetics.

You might live to be 107 and slightly regret it for the last few years of your life when strangers comment on it while they give you bed-baths (but then most of our generation is going to be tattooed anyway, so it won't be remarkable when we're all in old-age homes) or, equally, you might get run over by a bus on Thursday and end your life without ever had the exhileration of loving something so strongly that you have it put under your skin.

Which would you regret more?

[threadbarewolf.livejournal.com]

Do it! I read the bit in Symposium t'other week (a friend had written an essay on the Hedwig-love-bit as I like to call it and he wanted me to draw the keg-people on it for his tutor but he said I had to read it first). Tis teh lovely, and anyway Hedwig, and also Hedwig, and some more Hedwig, and I'm so grah that I wasn't able to come down for it, fnyeh fnyeh, but I shall try to get up next week or after but the trainline won't accept my card because it's £1500 overdrawn so no love there kids ooh this is getting a little joycean, even supposing---

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

don't get the train, get the coach, it takes notime and is cheapness. i'm here all december.