Locks Of Love

Amelia decided a few weeks ago to cut her hair and donate it to Locks of Love. A friend of hers did it recently and although it took Amelia awhile to get comfortable with the idea of taking off the requisite ten inches, she ultimately decided to go for it. So we went to the Hair’s Lair today.

Here was Amelia’s hair before and after the cut. (click on the thumbnails for larger versions)

Natalie had alot of split ends but wanted to keep her hair long. I wasn’t able to talk her into taking off 10 inches but she did agree to let Ms Margo cut off all the split ends. That ended up being about 8 inches, which Margo said we should go ahead and send as they are able to use shorter strands sometimes. I didn’t get a good “before” picture of Natalie and her hair is still wet in the “after” but you can tell from these photos that it was pretty darned long to begin with.

Here’s the hair they are donating. Natalie’s is the one on the left, Amelia’s are the two on the right. Amelia’s hair is blonder than Natalie’s but their cut hair is exactly the same color.

Fan Fiction

This discussion of legal and other issues with fan fiction is pretty interesting. The tension on both sides of the issue is fascinating: the copyright holder has obvious interests in protecting the copyrighted material but can’t go too far in protecting the original work or risks alienating the fan base, while the fans creating the derivative material have to keep it on the down low and adhere to some silly-yet-meaningful general guidelines to keep from pissing off the copyright holders and inviting a crackdown.

It seems to me that there’s a parallel – not exact, but close – in the music industry. Bands need to get paid for what they do but to grow and reward their fan base they really need to give at least some of their music away. People like getting free music but if they want their favorite band to continue recording and touring, they have to be willing to buy songs or concert tickets. Obviously, the comparison isn’t exact and breaks down when you start talking about very popular, established bands. But at some level, there is a balance to be struck, with each side giving up just a little or making concessions for the other side. Maybe mash-ups are a better comparison since there’s actual use of copyrighted material involved.

My secret shame — I sometimes read Star Trek: Enterprise fan fiction (although I suppose publicly admitting it blows the secret aspect, so now I am just openly humiliated). I watched Enterprise in reruns on the SciFi channel but was, like many who watched the show during its original run, completely pissed at how they handled the series finale. (Among other things, the holodeck aspect was pretty annoying – although the biggest offense in my book was killing off Trip Tucker, who was totally my boyfriend.) Having known a few Star Trek geeks in my time, I was aware of the existence of Trek fan fiction and it occurred to me that a fan or three had very likely written an alternate ending. Sure enough, there were alternate endings all over the net, along with lots of other fan fic, and I sort of got hooked. Some is unreadable – poorly written, predictable – but some is not bad. And I have to admit, it is fun to see characters and a story framework you grew to like continuing the adventure.