Posted by Splay on June 25, 2004 at 11:46:02:
Barbanne dead here, Barbanne dead there, Barbanne dead everywhere. Female playdead, uh, fantasy? I'm not so sure.
When I started reading I thought, "Oh, great--more subliterate internet drivel from some self-styled artiste." Then I told that part of my brain to shut the fuck up and let me read, and I haven't heard from it since. I hope it's ashamed of itself.
"Actress" is brilliant stuff. Barbanne has taken the relatively new idiom of extemporaneous newsgroup-style compact fiction and made it her own: aggressively first-person, feverish, exhibitionistic, with something of the feel of a personal letter. But that's only the underlying idiom. Barbanne has overlaid that with a sharply-focused character, a verisimilar voice, masterly word choice, intelligent humor and an almost song-like format. She's made a silk shroud out of a sow's ear.
One way I gauge the quality of a piece is the images that remain in my mind from it the next day, and I see her slumped all over the place. I loved it to death.