I Might Love This A Bit

Long but worthwhile link.

So okay. In sum. Over the weekend, the Sherlock team held a screening of the next season's first episode with a Q&A. The moderator, a journalist who likes to appear edgy, took a derisive tone overall, saddling the stars with an impromptu reading of a fan-written story, and mocking the fans and the enterprise of fan fiction. 

Two things about journalists/reporters/media. 

Thing one: the dichotomy between fans who like to create work based on a popular show, and the people being paid to do so, isn't actually there. In this case, the show itself is fan fiction riffing on the original canon. And one of the showrunners has done work under a pseudonym. The media would like to have the story of two sides pitted against each other, but it really doesn't seem to exist. It seems to me that the problem is a chip on the shoulder of critics against creators. 

Thing two: the non-stop press cavalcade needs to stop. There's an Internet. There's Skype. There are green screens. Even if you're not Beyonce and you need a bit of promotion, why on earth must artists be salesmen and go on rounds? I'd much prefer if they were able to focus on their job, and maybe did one long, relaxed interview. Cut that up and syndicate it for promotion, then put the whole thing in the extras to give people another reason to purchase. Let's maybe stop treating talent quite so much like performing monkeys and be grateful for the few artists who are actually gifted. 

Saturday’s madness with the Empty House screening was the not just the last straw, but a turning point....

sovery

Sherlock: new behind the scenes photos (source)

These two chairs make my heart hurt more than home furnishings really have any right to.

Thank you

So since Anderson has been pretty well redeemed for us...

Doesn't that mean Sally was right about at least one of her judgment calls - about him?

Homework Part 1

A BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH MASTERPOST

Star Trek Into Darkness

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Wreckers

War Horse

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Whistleblower

Third Star

Four Lions

Creation

The Other Boleyn Girl

Atonement

Amazing Grace

Starter for 10 

If you are 35 or younger - and quite often, older - the advice of the old economy does not apply to you. You live in the post-employment economy, where corporations have decided not to pay people. Profits are still high. The money is still there. But not for you. You will work without a raise, benefits, or job security. Survival is now a laudable aspiration.

Quoted from Sarah Kendzior’s “Surviving the Post-Employment Economy" 

“In the United States, nine percent of computer science majors are unemployed, and 14.7 percent of those who hold degrees in information systems have no job. Graduates with degrees in STEM - science, technology, engineering and medicine - are facing record joblessness, with unemployment at more than twice pre-recession levels. The job market for law degree holders continues to erode, with only 55 percent of 2011 law graduates in full-time jobs. Even in the military, that behemoth of the national budget, positions are being eliminated or becoming contingent due to the sequester.

It is not skills or majors that are being devalued. It is people.”

Her work is frank, speaking of a reality I hope that will never be mine. At the same time, it gives me a strange comfort to know that I am not alone.

(via sextus—empiricus)

——

50 years ago, I would have been at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, in an office with my name on the door.

10 years ago, I would have been in Hannah Horvath’s version of GQ’s advertorial department, with my own cube and free snacks (as soon as the episode aired, viewers noted that even GQ has cut back, and the image of Hannah’s cheerful office is out of date)

Today, I do all of the same type of work from home, with no benefits or job security. 

BUT I CAN WORK IN MY PAJAMAS HEY

(via hello-the-future)

Note this was from a YEAR ago.

There are lots of things that occur to me far later than they should. The thing about Mrs Hudson that I should have noticed but didn’t was the first one: I’m sure there will be a million more, because I am not particularly detail-oriented, to be honest. This is the second thing I just realized: Sherlock didn’t originally want John to be his assistant. He wanted Anderson to play that role.

Sherlock: Who’s on forensics? Lestrade: Anderson. Sherlock: Anderson won’t work with me.

Not Anderson is an idiot, but Anderson won’t work with me. Sherlock then proceeds to take John along with him to a crime scene, and is remarkably patient and accommodating with him. Why does he do that? Sherlock is neither patient nor accommodating as a general rule. When John deduces only the most obvious and basic details about Jennifer Wilson’s death, Sherlock isn’t scornful at all. Why does he behave this way?

Lestrade: He’s not your assistant. Sherlock: I need an assistant!

We know he doesn’t bring John along for his own innate skills, because when John asks why he’s there, as they’re standing over Jennifer Wilson’s body, Sherlock says, “Proving a point.” He doesn’t really care what John has to offer to the investigation of the crime scene, that’s why he’s not bothered by John’s simple description of the cause of death. That wasn’t the point.

He’s trying to make Anderson jealous.

These two appear to have a tumultuous relationship; they must have argued over bodies before. Sherlock must respect Anderson’s abilities; why else would he want him as an assistant? So Sherlock wants to demonstrate, in the most childish way possible, that if Anderson won’t play ball, he will lock him out altogether. That’s the worst thing Sherlock can imagine: being tantalizingly close to the crime scene and his own dazzling deductions, but not be able to hear them or participate.

So Sherlock slams the door in Anderson’s face. It’s not because noting that Rache is a German word is dumb (It was something that passed through Sherlock’s mind as well, as we know); it’s becauseSherlock is proving his point.

 I don’t need you. See? See me not needing you? How do you like that, Anderson? HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT? I can deduce the fact that you’re cheating on your wife with Sally, I know what you were doing last night. See? Aren’t I good? That’s how good I am. You want to be my assistant, Anderson, don’t you. You need to, because I’m dazzling and you need to watch me. If you ask really nicely I might let you act as my assistant next time. I just might. 

Sherlock doesn’t realize at that point that the perfect assistant for him is John. Anderson won’t fire a bullet with the steadiest of hands through a window for him. Anderson won’t help him behave appropriately in social situations and smooth out the rough edges of his interactions. Anderson may admire Sherlock’s abilities, but he’d never say so out loud. Anderson will never love him. John’s arrival utterly alters the job description of “assistant” for Sherlock. We never hear the word “assistant” again, in fact (to my knowledge).

Sherlock’s reactions toward Anderson, and all the negative things he has to say about him thereafter, appear, in this light, to be more a reaction to Anderson’s rejection of Sherlock than any scornfulness about his abilities. 

Sherlock has the emotional life of a nine year old.

so many fucking ships send help

Proving that there are at least two perfect men in the world. 

Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen behind the scenes for Two Plays in Rep’s Waiting For Godot & No Man’s Land promotional photos