From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V2 #82 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Saturday, March 30 2002 Volume 02 : Number 082 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [chakram-refugees] Recycled props-- & [cr] [chakram-refugees] From AOL News [MelosaQu@aol.com] [chakram-refugees] AOL News-2 [MelosaQu@aol.com] [chakram-refugees] CON 2002 Day 2 Part 3 [KTL ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 22:38:58 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Recycled props-- & On Friday 29 March 2002 03:12, mirrordrum wrote: > At 08:01 PM 3/28/2002 +1200, cr wrote: > > > >Oh, md, you and your classical allusions. > > um, i'd be more inclined to say classical illusions. i tell you i only > explored beowulf b/c i knew the ring arc was upcoming. i'd read it when > forced back in the dark ages of my youth. xena caused me to get seamus > heaney's version and listen to it. i only know things are classics because > people refer to them as classics. or if it's written in large print on the > spine: CLASSIC. That's how I tell the Westerns with John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in them in my local video store. :) > except for xena. nobody had to tell me *that's* a classic. Amen, sister :) > > there's a sword hilt > > > > > sticking up at one point that i feel quite sure belongs to callisto's > > > sword. > > > > >The answer is (yes, I *had* to go and get out my tapes and watch it! :) > > - no, it isn't. \ > > well thanks. you've saved me a passel of work. but i'm vaguely > disappointed. > > >By the way, and I've had this difficulty before, what are the parts of a > >sword called? > > i finally gave up and searched for "sword parts" (well, that's what i > wanted) and found this site: > > http://www.historicalweapons.com/swordparts.html > > sekh's site is a lot better. as usual. drat. > > md Umm, with all due respect to Sekh, yours is just as good. Didja look at the other pages on the site, particularly the one about 'other weapons'? No? Shame on you, and you a Gabfan too. Let me quote an excerpt: Quarterstaff - a long, stout pole, caarried for personal defense, and sport, in England. The English swordsman, George Silver, said the staff should be as tall as the users outstretched finger tips, when he lifted his hand above his head, and as thick as a wrist. The quarter staff was so called because, when being used, the first hand gripped the staff a quarter of the way from the bottom, and the second hand gripped it at the mid-point. Although a simple, commoner weapon, the staff was truly fearsome in the hands of a master, so much so, that Silver felt it was superior to any form of sword, used alone, or with a buckler or dagger. The shortstaff eventually became known as the quarterstaff, and could vary in length between 6 feet to 9 feet, while the longstaff would be around twelve feet in length. The English shortstaff fighting system was a composite of quarter-staffing and half-staffing. The former took its name from the fact that a quarter of the length of the staff was held between the hands with the tip of the weapon pointing directly at the opponent. The latter from the fact that half the length of the staff was held between the hands, with the hands being held equidistant from each end of the staff. Half-staffing, because the staff was held at right-angles to the body, was for close-in fighting, whereas quarter-staffing was used to fight at longer range . Ironically, thanks to theatrical performances and stage combats of the 17th - 19th centuries, what we think of as "quarterstaffing" is really "halfstaffing." So much for Gabby's harmless staff ;) Thelonius ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 08:18:33 EST From: MelosaQu@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] From AOL News :::Good Day, Y'all!::::: Here is one of two articles that came to me via aol last week but I didn't get a chance to forward until now....I was at the Star Trek Grand Slam Convention last weekend. I tell ya.....Trekkers (Trekkies?) have nothing on Xenite convention goers...none of the magic, "family like" atmosphere was there. Sure, it was fun but nothing like the Pasadena when Xena is the theme! :-) Anyway....here is the first article and all I can say is....."Yikes! Really???? That many scenes! > Study: Sex, Violence Are Down on TV By LYNN ELBER .c The Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) - Television has become less infused with sex and violence over the past few years but movies are unchanged, according to a study released Thursday by a Washington think tank. The findings about television apply both to broadcast and cable, with premium cable channels showing even steeper drops in sexual and violent content, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs. The report represents ``a victory of sorts for an industry that has been criticized on this score for some time,'' Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said in a statement. He has been among those critics. ``There is evidence that television has started to clean up its act,'' the nonpartisan center said in its report. The only exception to the decline was on basic cable networks, which showed an increase in violence and the same amount of sexual content. As for movies, the study found, the amount of sex and violence in the most popular theatrical releases during the same time periods remained unchanged. The 50 top-grossing films averaged identical rates in 1998 and 2000, with seven scenes of sexual material and 15 scenes of violence per film in both years. The most violent movies of 2000 were ``The Patriot'' with 159 violent scenes, ``Gladiator'' with 110, ``Mission Impossible II'' with 108 and ``Shanghai Noon'' with 99. According to the study, sexual content dropped 29 percent on all television outlets in primetime, from 17 scenes per hour in the 1998-99 season to 12 scenes per hour in 2000-01. There was a 27 percent drop in sexual content on broadcast television, while shows on premium cable channels such as HBO and Showtime averaged a 49 percent decline, the study found. Seventeen percent less primetime violence was found on TV overall. The decrease was 11 percent on broadcast and a whopping 65 percent on premium cable. The series with the most sexual content was UPN's ``Girlfriends,'' which averaged 25 scenes of sexual material per episode. The most violent show overall was the syndicated drama ``Xena: Warrior Princess,'' which averaged 63 scenes of violence per episode. The findings are ironic in light of broadcast network laments about competing with cable's looser standards. Last year, NBC Chairman Robert Wright solicited input from his executives on meeting the threat of hits like HBO's ``The Sopranos.'' The picture was different for basic cable, however, which includes channels like USA and TNN. Violence was up 20 percent, with the most violent show being USA's ``La Femme Nikita.'' Another study this year, from the Parents Television Council, found vulgarity and violence on basic cable to be double that of broadcast TV. Overall, programs with sex were more likely to receive a cautionary rating of TV-14 (for children 14 and older) or above. Many highly violent programs continued to receive PG ratings. The report is part of an ongoing study of sex, violence and vulgar language in popular culture. Researchers analyzed the content of 284 episodes from TV series, apart from daytime serial and children's programming, that ran during the 2000-01 season on cable and broadcast and compared the results with a similar sample from 1998-99. AP-NY-03-21-02 1744EST ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 08:22:10 EST From: MelosaQu@aol.com Subject: [chakram-refugees] AOL News-2 Oh, we do love our memorabilia, don't we? That's a lot of moolah! >>Studios sell props, plug films on the Internet By Doug Young LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Ever wonder what happened to the boat that got swallowed up by the ocean in the movie "The Perfect Storm," or Felicity Shagwell's Corvette from "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me"? Those and other items just a few years ago would have been tucked away in a storage shed are now among hundreds of pieces of movie memorabilia making their way into the marketplace in a new era of online auctions. Nearly all the major Hollywood studios have jumped on the online auction bandwagon in the last two years, offering items that range from the more mundane movie posters to high-profile props and trips to star-studded movie premieres. With the Academy Awards less than a week away, there are 14 pages of memorabilia from current Oscar nominees and previous winners on one prominent Internet auction site. With few exceptions, most of the big studios have left the handling of their auctions to Internet heavyweights Yahoo! and eBay, the former at http://www.auctions.yahoo.com and the latter at http://www.pages.ebay.com/theme/movies.html. Studios that frequently work with Yahoo include News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox, Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures, USA Studios and Viacom's Paramount Pictures. The ones that have worked with eBay include AOL Time Warner's Warner Bros. and The Walt Disney Co.. AOL Time Warner's New Line Cinema has taken the extra step of setting up its own independent auction site at http://www.auction.newline.com, while Disney has also taken a more active role in the arena with its own separate eBay site at http://www.pages.ebay.disney.com. A quick look at the sites reveals that items from Fox's new animated film "Ice Age" and Paramount's "We Were Soldiers" are being auctioned at Yahoo!; objects from "Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring", "John Q" and the upcoming "Blade II" are on the block from New Line; and items from the coming release "The Rookie" are up for sale at Disney's eBay site. Oscar-related memorabilia may be accessed by going to eBay, then typing "Oscar" in the search window and clicking on "Movies & Television Memorabilia." BIG BUCKS Studio auctioneers said they use the online sales mostly to promote upcoming films and television shows. But the events can also be very lucrative, they added. One of the all-time biggest earners at the Yahoo site was an auction last year of items from the syndicated show "Xena: Warrior Princess," which ended production after a six-year run, said Rich Godwin, senior brand manager for Yahoo! auctions. He said the auction, with objects supplied by USA Studios, ran for three months, with the average piece of memorabilia attracting 60 bids. When all was said and done, the event raised about $1.2 million. "We knew they had a big fan base, but it was just incredible," Godwin said. "There were props, wardrobe items, axes, shields and other stuff like that. They had a 96 percent sell through." While selling prices for the average movie prop tend to be on the low side, so-called "experiences" tied to movie and television releases fetch higher amounts, according to auction executives. In that category, among the most coveted items are tickets to premieres. For example, the opportunity to attend the London premiere of "Lord of the Rings" went for $6,700, said Nevin Shalit, senior vice president of new media projects at New Line. Other items attract big prices because of their inherent value, such as the $77,000 paid for Bruce Willis' Porsche from "Disney's The Kid." Along similar lines, the Felicity Shagwell Corvette from the second "Austin Powers" movie went for $121,000, while the boat from "Perfect Storm" was purchased by a Boston seafood restaurant for $141,100. CLEARINGHOUSES Many studio auctioneers also acknowledged that online sales provide a way to make some money and provide valuable mementos for fans from props that would have been relegated to warehouses in the pre-Internet era. "The advent of the Internet and eBay created an opportunity to bring auctions to the masses," said George Grobar, vice president of auctions for Walt Disney Internet Group. "It changed the world of auctions from a high-end intimidating experience to ... taking it to the masses." Drawing on its vast array of properties, Disney has become one of the most aggressive entertainment companies in the Internet auction arena, offering items from movies old and new, as well as related wares like theme park and other company memorabilia. To expand its reach beyond Disney-branded items, the company late last year launched auction sites for its ESPN and ABC television network properties at http://www.espnauctions.com, and http://www.abcauctions.com respectively. Among the items sold on the ABC site were 20 signed scripts from the recent Stephen King series "Rose Red" for a combined $22,000, and a trip to ESPN headquarters during the final week of the NFL in December, which went for $8,600. Reuters/Variety 13:25 03-20-02 ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 13:44:38 -0900 (AKST) From: KTL Subject: [chakram-refugees] CON 2002 Day 2 Part 3 "Yes, no, sadly, maybe, nope, WHAT?, not really, yup, ya think?, not since that one time years ago, naw, okay and perhaps". These are the answers to those folks who asked me (or some of my known accomplices) if I was okay, dead, thrown offline by the infamous UAF nodies, sulking, asked to leave (insert list name here) by an overwhelming majority vote, turned into a putrid melted mass by the horrid Houston humidity, suffering amnesia or forgotten my password. Or all of the above. It's so nice to know people are concerned. (Or perhaps just hopeful?) Whatever, I'll take it. I just had to return home for work for a few weeks and got ferociously busy hauling 30 senior tourists around the Fairbanks Winter Carnival (to look at the fabulous ice art sculptures which were demonstrating two of the three states of water by turning back into liquid before our very eyes, it being forty furken above for three days straight) and down to Denali National park to peek inside the entrance at the access road which is closed for the winter. And yes, everybody had to come whether they wanted to be hauled or not. While gone, I DID work on my con reports. And finally finished Hudson's. SACRIFICE II SPOILER BELOW Next up was Hudson. She came out wearing what looked to me like a sheer, pinky-beige glittery dress accented by strategically placed strips of cloth. It reminded me of the dress that Marilyn Monroe wore when she sang happy birthday to President Kennedy in Madison Square Garden in the sixties. You know, I wonder where Hudson gets these dresses that she auctions off. I've never heard her say anything about them. Hudson came out as herself, which as those of us who go to cons know, is very unusual. She usually prances onstage as her deranged sex-kitten persona and we never get to see the real Hudson. Except for sometimes when she's interacting with certain individuals from the audience. Then she drops the act and becomes just a person, not a character. But when she does this, she always turns away from the audience and interacts with the person away from the spotlight, so that they can have some privacy. I remember one con where a woman told Hudson that her son was going to the same high school that Hudson had attended. And Hudson immediately said to give her son her "sincere condolences" and said something like, "That high school made me what I am today-my experiences there created the pool I drew upon to play Callisto." It was hysterical. Then the woman asked if Hudson would take a picture with her son. So this poor, blushing boy came up on stage. He appeared to be at the same time both mortified and happily stunned at getting so close to Hudson. And I seem to remember that Hudson leapt into his arms for pictures? At any rate, she at least hugged him and took pictures with him. And told him to show them around school to anybody who might be tormenting him. It was funny but very sweet and knowing, remembering some of the horrors of high school some kids go through. Encouraging and supportive. Ya know, another thing that has always struck me about Hudson is that she alone of all the American actors on the show has never rhapsodized over Lucy, or over Lucy and Renee. All the other American actors do. They ALWAYS mention how kind, how hard-working, how down to earth Lucy is, the fact that making the best show you can is the most important goal for her. That there is just no "star" nonsense, no ego-stoking crap as is usual on sets. Renee also gets lauded for these same qualities. The American actors always seemed very surprised and delighted by this. The Kiwis on the other hand, very seldom mention this aspect. And I suspect that it's because in En Zed, being hard-working, not complaining, working as part of a team, not setting yourself up as being better than other folks on the job because of some work hierarchy is just how things are supposed to be. Equality of treatment is an idealistic goal in that society. Kiwis just seem to expect people's heads to be on straight. (Russell Crowe notwithstanding. Maybe this is why he moved to Australia-perhaps he thinks it's okay to act like a star there? ;->) But Hudson, alone of all the folks I've seen at cons, is the only American I can remember who doesn't "pwaise Lucy". And thinking this over, I believe that part of the reason for this is that Hudson never talks about her work at all. She doesn't tell us little set stories, she doesn't talk about her character or her favorite episodes, she doesn't discuss how she interpreted the scripts and why she made the artistic choices she did to present that interpretation. She does talk about the audition that got her the part of Callisto, she tells this little story about it. And I did hear her say once that she preferred to fight Lucy rather than the guys because the guys bodies are "harder" when she slams into them. But talk about her work on set, no, she generally doesn't do that. I remember once someone asking her about Sacrifice 2 when Callisto was killed by Xena. And the question was something about how Callisto collapsed slowly, almost sliding down Xena's body, certainly pressing her hand against Xena's breast and torso as she slid slowly down to the ground. And when asked why she chose that way to die, Hudson blew off the chance to talk seriously about her work, to talk perhaps about Callisto's obsession and extremely emotional relationship with Xena. She merely claimed that she did it that way just to cop a feel off Lucy. Which of course made perfect sense to many of us... Hudson never tells us about her upcoming plans, about her hopes for her future either. We all know that Claire and Alex are both working on producing their own movies, that Adrienne is making a new TV show, that Tim has continuing work with "Judging Amy", that Greg may not be on Dark Angel in the future and etc. etc. But Hudson? She just doesn't do that, doesn't share her future projects or hopes with the con audiences. Again, she just doesn't share Hudson at all with us. She's got that sex kitten persona and that's what she always plays at cons. Except for this one. This time she came out just as Hudson. Very quiet and soft-spoken. Hudson was another one who thanked us very sincerely for coming, for showing up for them. I believe it was she who said that she felt so much love coming from us and that they needed to feel our love at this time. She talked about Kevin first and said, "He's fine. Where he is, he's just doing fine. It's his family we have to give our love and support to now." She talked about being scheduled to do "Love Letters" with Kevin at a con. And that they were in a hotel room where they were supposed to be reading through the script. And they started to but instead began to just talk to each other. And she said they sat there alone for like two hours or so and just talked about life and the eternal verities and the unknowable mysteries. (This was shortly after September 11th.) They had never really talked that much to each other before. She said that the talk was very connecting, very personal and very spiritual. She said that was her last interaction with him. And she was deeply pleased and satisfied that they had had that night talking together, that she had that memory to keep within her. And then she repeated, "And I know, that where he is, he's just fine now." Keeping with that theme, Hudson didn't cry that I noticed. But as she talked, she did have to stop every so often and collect herself. Take a break from speaking and stand still and silent for a moment. She visibly took time to...control or possibly to just feel her emotions, then used those feelings to create the words she wanted to use to talk about Kevin. She said that Kevin wouldn't want us to feel sad. That he would want us to enjoy ourselves. And then she pinned us with a challenging stare and said, "So let's party!" She told us she had just finished an hour of yoga. And that she therefore felt very relaxed. She recommended it to us. Someone asked her to do the Callisto scream and she kidded around for a little bit. And then said with a little laugh that she didn't really feel like screaming today. So we said, "Then don't. You don't have to." And she gave us this huge smile and laughed, saying, "Wow. I thought you'd all be saying, "What do you mean, you don't feel like screaming? I paid $65 for these seats-now SCREAM!" She was touched that we weren't pushing her into doing something she obviously didn't feel like doing at the moment. And then she decided that she would scream after all. So she did. And so we applauded her madly. She said something like, "Let's get to it" and pretended to peel off her dress to start the usual dress auction. This auction was for the benefit of the Ellis Foundation as always. After the auction, she continued to talk and joke around with us and began to tease someone about asking her for a kiss. And a few people in the audience yelled out that she should auction off a kiss for Kevin's family. She was a bit taken aback by this. She hesitated and looked a little nonplussed. She was honestly almost shy about selling her kiss. And I feel certain that the reason was that she was Hudson this time and not a character. As were all the people at this con who were close to Kevin, she was just being herself, not an actor playing a role on stage. And as I said, she never had been just herself before that I ever saw during the con. (Except for those private times as noted above. Note: I should also say that I haven't seen all of her performances. Only the ones at the big con in California, and only starting with year two.) And just being herself made a real difference in her behavior and her attitude. The gods know the Hudson psycho sex-kitten would never demure from something like this-that persona would wallow in a situation like this and enjoy refusing any requests for kisses with a sexually flip comment. But plain old herself Hudson-this was obviously something that made her somewhat uncomfortable. And then she said something about "For Kevin's family" and agreed to auction off a kiss. Once she made the decision to do it, she began to play around again. She made a few jokes about Anita who runs the dresses for charity thing being her pimp. The auction got rolling and the numbers quickly got rolling up there too. I don't remember how high it was when my roommate (who never sits with me at cons-I can't imagine why) yelled out, "Why don't you just sell kisses to anybody who wants them? You'll make more money that way." We all liked this idea. A lot. So we began to cheer and applaud our approval. Hudson weakly repeated, "Sell kisses?" Since we all thought it was a great idea, we began to scream out suggestions for how to run the kissing. And again, Hudson didn't seem as sure about it being a great idea as we were. And again, it was just SO strange to see Hudson being reluctant and shy. But she did decide to go ahead with it, for Kevin's family. So we talked back and forth a bit and we all decided that the price for a kiss should be one thousand dollars. And as I said in my earlier post, this truly was a collective decision. There was just no psychological distance between them and us this year. Not for most of the time. For most of the time, we were just all having ourselves a kind of little Irish wake for Kevin and feeling very glad that we were together at it. Hudson was still a little taken aback by the whole scene. Then you could see the point at which she decided to just go ahead and do it, to sell kisses to all takers. Again, we gave her mad applause. Mike and I yelled out that she should charge more for tongue. I doubt that she heard us, (Mike and I being the shy, quiet, retiring sorts we are) but she was obviously thinking along those same lines. Because she said, "Hmmm. And how much do you think I should charge for a blow job?" We laughed and cheered that (but didn't press her on that one). So six people decided to take Hudson up on her kiss offer. She pulled out some breath mints, saying that they were for the benefit of the people she was about to kiss. And for just a second or two, this very bemused, self-aware, "Gods I can't believe I'm doing this" look crossed her face and then she smiled at the first person and waited for them to come up on stage. And she took the "contract" very seriously. She took her time with everyone. She created a bubble of privacy and gave out sincere kisses all around. And raised $6,000 for Kevin's family in about 10 minutes. While I always enjoy Hudson on stage, this was obviously a very different appearance. It was totally honest and very sweet. Her "sacrifice" touched my heart, that she would do something that she wasn't totally comfortable with in order to help out Kevin's family. And that once she decided to do it, she totally set aside her reluctance and gave her all to those people who were also so willing to sacrifice something, to offer up part of their pocketbooks for the family. It was just one of those incredibly poignant, very emotional, totally human responses that occur sometimes in those moments when we realize just how helpless we are when confronted by the implacable face of death. KT ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V2 #82 *************************************