Creator Fannishness

[selenak]

There is something incredibly endearing, to me, when people whose creations I admire show their enthusiasm for someone else’s creations. On a basic level, this is very similar to how fandom works – we get to know a fellow fan of a certain fandom, they’re also enthusiastic about something else we don’t know yet, and we decide to have a look. (That’s how I got to watch Blake’s 7, BTVS, and Farscape, among other shows. And how I got to read Harry Potter - it was recced to me by honor just a nanosecond before the hype started.)

If I already know the recommended show/book/film, it’s the fun of sharing. For example, watching Steven Spielberg go all fanboy on the Lawrence of Arabia DVD. If I don’t know, I’m at the very least curious, and stimulated by the enthusiasm. Which means I’ll probably try and watch Veronica Mars now, because who can resist Joss Whedon in fanboy mode, when he’s sounding like this after having watched Veronica Mars:

Big emotion, I mean BIG, and charsimatic actors and I was just DYING from the mystery and the relationships and PAIN, this show knows from pain and no, I don't care, laugh all you want, I had to share this. These guys know what they're doing on a level that intimidates me. It's the Harry Potter of shows. There. I said it. People should do whatever they can to check out this first season so the second won't be a spoiler fest. I'm nutty.

So, monanotlisa, kskitten, anyone, who has the Veronica Mars PAIN available? Trust Joss to get wild about this particular trait. I mean, this is the man who in another example of fannish enthusiasm, in this case about Stephen Sondheim, confessed in an interview:

"Sondheim wasn't someone you would go to if you wanted to be told that everything was perfect. Neither were my parents, for that matter — all concerned were greatly relieved when they got divorced. I told my therapist that I knew all of Follies by the age of nine; she said, 'We have our work cut out for us.'" One of Follies numbers, "The Road You Didn't Take," posed a particular challenge to young Whedon: "the notion that every choice you make means that other possibilities are eliminated forever — as a kid, I found that terrifying. As an adult, I still find it scary."

Joss Whedon getting raised on Sondheim tunes in the 70s explains a lot.*g* As andrastewhite said to me, will future therapists hear from other people “I have the sixth season of Buffy memorized”?

Meanwhile, friends’ list, share. What is your favourite example of a writer/creator/composer/whatever whose creations you like going fanboy/fangirl over something?

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

And who went fannish about whom?

*betrays ignorance*

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

As Laurie Anderson told it--and I'm working off of fifteen-year-old memories, so I may have some of the particulars wrong, but not the gist of the story--she was walking through the Berlin airport when a man approached her and said, "Are you Laurie Anderson?" She said, "Yes, I am," and he began raving about her work. This led to a long conversation which Anderson really enjoyed, and forty-five minutes later she asked him who he was, and he said, "Wim Wenders." Whereupon she began raving to him about -his- work.

Another one. When, about a decade or so ago, Sony released the complete recordings of bluesman Robert Johnson, they included a hitherto-unknown photo of Johnson. I read--somewhere, I don't remember where, Rolling Stone or Spin, maybe--quotes from people like Eric Clapton and Keith Richards raving about Johnson's work and fixating on the length of Johnson's fingers and saying things like, "*That's* how he got those notes! I've been trying for years to play that progression and never managed it."