Obsession update: End of summer 2010 edition

[This is a bit darker than I’ve been lately. I’m publishing it here because this blog is a document of this crazy experience and because I attempt to be honest. You, my cherished readers, have been encouraging and reassuring me all along and it must get tiring for you to write the same things repeatedly. So comment if you like, but please don’t feel the need to reassure here. I’m ok. Just putting this down to let go of it, so I can think again.]

Unlike RAFrenzy, I don’t have any records of my early experiences of Armitage in my diary; I didn’t anticipate this development would ever be all that important in my life, and at the point at which I realized what was happening I started blogging because I felt like I had to talk to someone about it. It seems appropriate at the moment to write a brief retrospective of the first moment in my pre-blogging experiences.

Ricky Deeming (Richard Armitage) under threat from Billy Lister’s father in George Gently. Source: Richard Armitage Central Gallery

I was remembering, recently, that I saw Richard Armitage on screen for the first time about a year ago. I was introduced to North & South by a very close friend. We were looking for distraction from a bad situation. We both suspected that something bad was about to happen, but what actually happened in the end was much worse for her than she had anticipated. I knew exactly what was about to happen to me, although that didn’t make the waiting easier. (Sorry to be vague. Eventually I will say more about this, I’m sure.) While we were waiting on fate, we were looking to escape, and my friend suggested both N&S and the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice. She had seen them both several times before. I think because we had watched P&P the August before in a markedly similar situation, we decided for North & South, which I had not yet seen. She assured me that it was not only a great piece, but that among half a score of memorable performances in the work, the performance of the actor playing Mr. Thornton was electrifying. She was right on both counts. That this was not the decisive viewing for me — that came in January, 2010 — has mostly to do with the weird suspense of those weeks. Waiting for the hammer to fall while still getting up and going to work every day took all of my energy. (I know this sounds melodramatic, but it’s really no exaggeration. I was having problems getting myself to shower. Another friend was supplying us both with food. I was going to the movies every night, to a theatre that delivers food and booze to your seat, to keep my mind numb, and stumbling out at midnight and driving home and throwing myself into bed.)

I don’t think any of my reactions to the piece at that time were very novel; I was horrified by Thornton’s first appearance on screen and like viewers since 2004, gradually seduced by Mr. Armitage’s portrayal into falling in love with both him and Gaskell’s narrative. Of course I loved the tea scene, and of course my friend and I repeated the train scene at the end a few times before putting away the DVDs. (I have another colleague who estimates that she’s seen the train scene roughly five dozen times.) We talked about it for quite some time — perhaps an hour so after finishing watching it. We agreed that Armitage is beautiful. Interestingly, I think, we looked at the interview with Armitage himself and were both sort of turned off — I think because it somehow broke the spell created by his creation of Mr. Thornton, interfering with the magical world of the piece — and our reactions were a testament to the skill of his acting, as at the time, he apparently was a much better actor than an interviewee. We also discussed the potential for using the film in the classroom. My friend shows the scene where Margaret encounters the mill for the first time. Although I don’t care to show fictional dramatizations in classes because I prefer primary sources, I made a mental note that I needed to look at the novel, with which I was not familiar. I remember thinking it was odd that I didn’t know the novel, since I took a doctoral prelim field in modern European social history and had read dozens of continental novels from the mid- to late nineteenth century. But then dealing with life took over and I didn’t think about Mr. Armitage again until January. (I’ll also talk about that some more at some point — those viewings seem key to me because that was the point at which I stopped being able to look away from the screen anymore — and as you know, I eventually did end up using it in the classroom.)

Mr. Thornton immediately after Margaret has rejected his proposal of marriage, in North & South, episode 3. The raw power of Thornton’s emotions, the proud man’s proximity to tears here, has always taken my breath away. That such emotion is clear despite (or because of?) the strong discipline of Armitage’s expressional repertoire in this piece witnesses to his unique talent. Source: Richard Armitage Central Gallery

So why am I writing about this now? It’s been a year with Mr. Armitage and eight months of especial intensity. I’m going to confess that since about mid-July I’ve been occupied with the problem mentioned above — my sheer physical inability to look away from the screen where Armitage is involved. At some point RAFrenzy reported that her first flare of Armitagemania had lasted 2-3 months. At the time, that was already longer than my first flare, which is still going on, and if that’s possible, intensifying. The long viewing sessions take time, and I can’t put Armitage on in the background while I’m doing something else; his performances demand my every attention. I’ve been a bit more successful with using his audiobooks in the background of other activities, and have had the opportunity for a few long drives with them, but they also take time.

And then there’s the writing. It’s wonderful to be writing, but it’s a double-edged sword. Even as I wrote them, I was horrified in June and July by the number of words I generated regarding questions of identity, Armitage’s formal clothing and on the problems around Genevieve O’Reilly in Spooks 8. Every attempt to write about Mr. Armitage, even those intended as short one-offs, threatened to become a long writing session. As I write this, for example, I’ve already jotted down three things I’ve cut out of the piece because they deserve their own separate posts. I’ve got numerous things almost completed that I’m trying to get the guts to publish because they seem too personal. It was hard even just to write about his body, as I have been for about the last month, without being tempted to go into long expositions. Some mornings I woke up jonesing to write about him. The numbers of hits on the blog started growing; its ranking in google searches started rising. My qualms about how doing this affects me continued to be augmented to my qualms about how doing this affects him, a problem I documented in a lengthy, angsty post that chewed at my nerves as I wrote it. “This can’t be sane,” I thought, and about a month ago I decided I was going to stop blogging on Mr. Armitage’s birthday as his birthday present from me. I wrote quick endings to stuff that had been brewing for weeks, scrapped other ideas, and prepared a series of valedictory posts.

But I can’t stop. For better or for worse, this blog is what I’m getting out of bed to write at the moment. Yeah, the term is starting; yeah, I have a translation contract that I really need to fulfill on time for a bonus; yeah, I’ve got other writing to do, yeah, there are two graduate students who I’ve got to get through some significant stuff, and yeah, I’m at least notionally on the job market and maybe I am switching careers. Then there’s all the other stuff, like cleaning my apartment, feeding myself, dealing with my family, and so on. But somehow, I just don’t care. If that means this blog is my fatal addiction I am going to have to live with that, at least for now. If those other things are important enough, eventually work on them will swallow the writing here, and if that’s the case, I’m willing to have that happen. But I am not going to stop this arbitrarily. Not right now. It gives me an incomparable jolt of energy.

So this marks stuff I’ve been doing since around the middle of July, keeping in mind that a lot of travel has been happening–around Germany, back to the U.S., and then back to Texas. Roughly in reverse order.

• This morning, purchased Malice Aforethought and Frozen, neither of which I’ve seen except in brief excerpts on youtube.
• Last night, watched Cold Feet 5.1. Lee’s first appearance is obviously brief, but this was worth it for two reasons: finally, I understood what Lee says to Ramona in the second line of his response to her indignation that he thought she might be pregnant (“can’t tell for sure without an internal,” or something crudely flirtatious like that), and I get a better sense of what Lee means to Ramona, but second, learning something about the relationship between Jo and Pete helps me understand the significance of her one-night stand with Lee in the hotel. Context is everything. I also thought this was kind of a sweet piece.
• I bought the Cold Feet S5 discs, and although I only watched one last night, I could see myself watching the earlier episodes of this series sometime. It’s kind of sweet and sad and naive all at the same time, and I can see why it would have been popular. It gave me another view of my beloved Hermione Norris. I mention this because it struck me repeatedly this summer that even when I am watching Armitage’s “bit parts,” at least with the stuff I’ve seen up until now, there’s practically nothing where I’ll fast forward just to see “his part.” When I watch Sparkhouse, for example, I watch a complete episode or the whole thing. The one exception I can think of with stuff I own is Marie Lloyd — I don’t find her story all that interesting, so when Armitage leaves the story I quit watching, but I think I’ve only seen that piece two or three times anyway. This adds an additional dimension to his work — it’s not just that his acting is relational, but that his parts, or the way he portrays them, primarily become intelligible or comprehensible in the context of the narrative flow of the pieces he’s in. Intriguing, assuming he’s choosing these roles, because it suggests something about his own dramatic preferences.
• Day before yesterday I finally figured out how the links widget works and created a blogroll so I don’t lose track of my favorite Armitage writers. I included blogs that make regular mention of Mr. Armitage. If yours isn’t there, put the URL in the comments to this post, OK?
• Once each Venetia and Sylvester while writing syllabuses. They’re both done now.
• Upon my return to Texas, one complete Sparkhouse viewthrough.
• Serious obsession the whole time with fanfics, and if I like a fanfic I can read it dozens of times before I stop. Some of this I’ve documented already, as with my reaction to The Tempest and pointing readers in the direction of khandy’s fics. Continuing to enjoy Truce, which is drawing to a close. Now sucked into Grant What I Wish and unable to stop re-reading The Countess. Also still rereading my favs from before, and enjoying Every Shadow Comes from Light, and The Sheriff’s Collector. I think I’m getting closer to being able to analyze my fascination with this genre, even when (or because) it includes sex scenes of various quality. One odd effect is that my fanfic reading actually ramps up my response to visual Armitage exposure. Not sure why that would be.
• Listened to “Will You Tolerate This?” audiobook on trip back to Texas once. I am not going to have a lot to say about this, but I still have five more audiobooks to listen to.
• Lords of the North: first disc four times while packing up my apartment in Germany; then each of first four discs twice on the road. I’m really affected by this performance. I am seriously mesmerized, more than by any of the other audiobooks so far, which is saying a lot, as Venetia just about caused me to faint while driving through the Ozarks back in May. Thought I fell pray to Damerel, but that’s nothing in comparison to my feelings about Uhtred.
• Re-read Chris Ryan’s Strike Back while in airport lounge, as I had nothing else to hand. It’s still really awful. I still like things about it. It’s no worse than fanfic, right?
• Read used copy of Heyer’s Venetia, finally — had been ordered as reading material for trip to Europe but was delivered late and awaited me at home when I got there.
• Serious descent into fanvid euphoria after returning to the U.S. where I don’t constantly get the message that the video is unavailable in my area. Mostly, this involves watching something that RAFrenzy recommends and then surfing around afterwards.
• Perusing the web for the different Armitage birthday posts. Also, besides Phylly3, there were four more Armitage birthday vids that I was aware of: by spikesbint, PhoenixLupin, ambgusmao1, and another one I’ve lost track of.
• Also notified by RAFrenzy of the imminent closing of Yorkshire Wench‘s fanvids site, I downloaded a bunch of those videos so as to be able to at least look at them myself forever. Now that is a talented woman.
• Probably another dozen watches of the Strike Back Viral Video, accompanied by sound made when pelvic floor drops out of my body.
• Something like four watch-throughs of Strike Back complete
• Spooks 8 off the web, complete twice
• Spooks 7.1 and 7.2 on the computer. Wanted to write more for the Spooks 7 rewatch, but no time.
• Two complete North & South viewthroughs.

Just this catalog explains why I have to keep writing. With each of these lines I thought of something I still have to say. We’ll see how it goes. One day at a time.

~ by Servetus on August 25, 2010.