Since I couldn’t quite fit a trip to Bali with a group of very attractive and warm-hearted people into my schedule last month, I was very gratified and honored by some info from the two people at the heart of the trip, Sandy Partowidjojo and Nicole Partowidjojo — formerly Nicole Beaver, who participated in my pro-V for Vendetta protest two years ago. They got married on the trip and at my suggestion included a phrase from another DC Comic, Green Lantern, in their vows: “In brightest day, in blackest night.” Sounds nice, doesn’t it? They didn’t include the part of Green Lantern’s vow about “those who worship evil’s might” being unable to escape “Green Lantern’s light,” but that’s OK.
That makes their wedding probably the nerdiest in which I’ve been involved (in absentia) since Ali Kokmen and Michelle Gengaro had groomsmen with Legion of Super-Heroes flight rings, used Star Wars medal ceremony music as their (perfectly classy) recessional, and introduced the wedding party members to the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme song. Yet both weddings avoided the overt nerdiness of, say, Spock ears, which might alarm the normals by too-blatantly drawing attention to what’s going down.
And on a somewhat related note: Did you know the polyamorous actress Tilda Swinton — perhaps best known for playing the gender-switching fantasy character Orlando, the androgynous angel in Constantine, and the White Witch of Narnia — lives partly in Nairn (not Narnia) in the Scottish Highlands with her husband — named John Byrne — and has twins by him, named Xavier and Honor? There’s something very X-Men about all that.
If she turns out to secretly be Emma Frost, White Queen of the Hellfire Club (a character so S&M she belongs in tomorrow’s issue #2 of the ominous and twisted Final Crisis), and Honor turns out to have the mutant power to possess people or something — and tries to kill the other kid — I for one am not going to be shocked.
P.S. I haven’t yet told Sandy and Nicole that the prophecied “blackest night” is actually going to befall the Green Lantern Corps next year, after millennia, in some big storyline involving a new Black Lantern Corps full of zombies powered by the dreaded Anti-Monitor. But I’m stopping with Final Crisis, because it’s final. Enough with zombies already. Might be a fitting first anniversary gift, though.
P.P.S. Having persuaded a couple to use part of the Green Lantern vow — and not wanting to have children myself — I can now turn to my other goal of persuading some couple to name their kids Voltaire and Groucho, my two favorite pseudonyms. You have to admit Groucho Partowidjojo has a ring to it. And despite someone I once mentioned these pseudonyms to saying that naming a kid Voltaire would be child abuse, I say any bullies smart enough to find Voltaire pretentious (rather than just thinking it sounds like a cool robot name) probably aren’t that thuggish.
7 comments:
I’d think that Tilda Swinton was now best-known for Michael Clayton– the norms have caught on to her.
No, given that _Michael Clayton_ — which I never heard of before today — made less than $50m domestic, it’s safe to say this is _not_ what she will be best known for.
(And given that it’s another scientifically-groundless “chemicals are deadly” movie, thank goodness it went unnoticed by the public, regardless of whether the Academy liked it.)
I would also add that not only was their wedding nerdy, it was *gorgeous*. And they both looked so incredibly happy that I did indeed get weepy. :)
As opposed to Orlando, which grossed $5 million domestic?
The great god Google reports:
about 1,130,000 for tilda swinton michael clayton
about 491,000 for tilda swinton orlando
about 127,000 for tilda swinton lion witch wardrobe
about 117,000 for tilda swinton constantine
regardless, of course: yay Tilda Swinton!
No, no, I mean as opposed to _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_: over $300 million domestic, over $400 million overseas, armies of child fans, and sequels in progress.
But, yes, yay Tilda. And Emma.
And the Google rankings tend to be heavily tilted toward recent events (as opposed to just growing in number over time) — they will settle out over time (which means that’s quite a showing for that little $5 million picture from sixteen years ago).
the poly community was all atwitter a few months ago, when the tilda-is-poly stories hit the presses.
and while i am most partial to her performance in constantine (probably due my sympathies with the character’s wonderfully twisted logic that most humans should die so that the remaining ones have a greater appreciation for their existence), i’m also looking forward to her performance in burn after reading, in which she has a very different relationship with george clooney than the one in michael clayton.
as far as orlando goes – tilda’s gender-bending performance, while excellent, was to some degree in my mind overshadowed by quentin crisp as elizabeth i (making orlando, perhaps, the final installation of the cate blanchett elizabeth: movies) and a gold-clad, floating jimmy somervillel at the end of the movie. (seen at 3:24 on the youtube clip.)
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