Blossoms & Blood update

I finished proofreading copy-edits on the manuscript and mailed it off this morning. Seems symbolically appropriate to finish the year by putting that project behind me (not really, of course; I'll probably spend the summer proofreading layout pages and doing indexing, but close enough--I'm really over it).

In honor, I thought I'd post one of my all-time favorite fan videos--a mash-up of Punch Drunk Love with Radiohead's "No Surprises" (two of my greatest joys in life). This is something I had really wanted to write about in the book once upon a time, but for whatever reason it never fit. Now, I suppose I'll just be content to set it aside, part of the deep affection I have for this movie which will continue to remain mine alone (as in, not part of the "research" per se).



And there is something in there, on more than one level, about the coming year, I hope. Happy New Year.

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Star Trek post over at Antenna

I haven't posted much lately, but since the traffic is pretty minimal, I suppose its not a big deal. Anyway, I have a post up on the mutually contemptuous relationship between Trek fans and JJ in anticipation of next year's Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) over at UW-Madison's media blog, Antenna. I wrote it awhile ago and would have posted it here but thought it might fit over there, where I haven't contributed as much as I would have liked in the last year.


Like Bond, I enjoy keeping my rabid Trek fandom to myself (meaning, as a scholar, I'm generally not interested in researching, or publishing, on it). The occasional blog rant is about the extent of my discursive production on those topics.

But that said, a lot of the ideas that come up in the Antenna piece are drawn from my current project on nostalgia and digital cinema. In particular, the ways in which fandom is not only mainstream but also thoroughly commodified by the industry today as another form of cheap (free?) labor on behalf of the studios. In fact, this is partly what I'm planning to present at SCMS in March--the difference is I don't talk about Trek (though the franchise comes up peripherally throughout Haunted Nerves). The proposed chapter on this topic instead focuses on the Disney corporation and the revival of the TRON franchise.

So, that's one of my projects for the break, along with finishing revisions on another piece from Haunted Nerves regarding the new "nostalgia film" in the digital age (focusing on The Artist and especially Hugo). I'm really proud of that one, and as I was revising it in the last week I realized it shifted from just being one chapter from the manuscript to really articulating the heart of what Haunted Nerves will encompass: nostalgia, digital cinema, postmodernism and industry studies. That project is coming into focus nicely, and my hope will be to begin book proposals next fall.

Speaking of books, Disney's Most Notorious Film is now out. There's a FB page up for it (hint, hint), and a review due from Slate any day now (fingers crossed). Also, my other big research task is finishing up proofreading the copy edits on the PT Anderson book, which I've put off for far too long.

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