The World Spins Madly On

I haven't updated since February? O_o

I kind of haven't kept up with my f-list since then, either. So, hi! What's up in your life?

I have been busy, mostly spinning wheels, but some key highlights have been coming off my meds, a trip to Lisbon for a few days with travel-buddy!J, and a couple of days in Exeter with same.

I did a couple of months temp work, but I have so much on over summer I decided not to really work. Financially speaking, it's a... bold move. >_> I've got the odd day of temp work though, and I'm doing some freelance stuff proof listening to audiobooks and pulling together some paperwork for someone. I am beginning to wonder whether I can drum up enough freelance stuff to keep myself afloat. Not having to be in an office 9-5 would be so great.

The training dig is on at the end of this month, and A is coming over for smarla's wedding, also at the end of this month. In July, we're back to the Roman site, this time for two weeks, instead of four days. It looks like it was a glassworks, the third found in the UK, so that's pretty exciting!

Next Wednesday I am going to see Newton Faulkner live. Man can play guitar:




And the other night I went to see Thor, knowing absolutely nothing about it. ( Thoughts about Thor )

So, November was a bit of a No Posting month. Whoops! I spent most of the last week violently ill, with what sounded like the rising of the Old Ones in my belly. Not good! Fortunately I am now recovered, apart from a touch of Post-Illness Feebleness.

A month or so back I joined a choir at long last. It's a pretty laid back sort of choir, we just sing a bit, we'll probably do the odd concert here and there because the conductor has lots of concerts. There's one next Saturday - apparently we'll be warming up the audience with some Christmas carols. The thing is, I have come to dread doing carols in a choir. I'm sure you're wondering what on earth could be hard about carols. Everyone knows them, right? The problem is, you see, that I'm an alto. The bits of carols that everyone knows are the melodies. But that's not what we get to sing. So every time, we have to unlearn what we know, and start over. While someone else is singing the bit we actually know over the top. It sounds great when we get it right, but OMG SO HARD!

ETA: ALSO! It is snowing again. Only about another centimeter so far, but it looks set to keep going for a while yet.

And now on to Stuff That's Neat!

cluegirl wrote a glorious little Greek Mythology fic. It's about 900 words, so a quick read - you should check it out, especially mah Classics Geek Peeps. In September - In September, the Oracle of Delphi came, carrying a box of brightly colored chalk.

Pansy cookies! How cute are these? I am totally having a go next spring.

Pink has a new single called Raise Your Glass. The video is glorious and a bit weird. And has the F word in it a couple of times, so probably don't play it at work.

Last night I saw a play in London.

Sort of.

You see, the play was at the National Theatre in London. But I wasn't. I was at the Little Theatre (cinema) with a friend. The National Theatre have devised the ingenious notion of live broadcasts of their plays to participating cinemas around the world. Yes, around the world.

How fucking cool is that?

The play was Alan Bennett's latest, A Habit of Art. It's conceptually a pretty interesting play in itself, even before adding in the broadcast aspect. Bennett began writing a play about the poet WH Auden (you probably recognise 'Funeral Blues' - Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone...), and his former friend and colleague, the composer Benjamin Britten. They are two very intense characters, almost completely opposite in temperament. They worked together in the '30s writing early films, but fell out over a project that flopped utterly and didn't speak for about 25 years.

Somewhere in the course of writing this play, Bennett decided to add another layer, and in fact write a play about this play being rehearsed. It's a complicated beast as the 'actors' in the internal play, Caliban's Day, break out of character, introducing us to Richard Griffiths' aging and insecure actor playing Auden, Alex Jennings' gloriously camp actor who plays the astoundingly uptight Britten ("Rent boys had little bags" "Really? What for?" "Oh, a towel, you know, accessories." "I never read that." "I never read it, either."), the writer, who is horrified by the artistic decisions of the absent director ("You can't cut that bit. That's the whole point of the play!"), and Frances de la Tour (who is Queen of Everything) as Kay the Stage Manager.

The blurb on the website is appallingly dry. We were geared up for something very... worthy. Which left us entirely unprepared for the conversation about penises, or the moment when an enormous fart erupts and Richard Griffiths pipes up with, "That was Auden farting, not me!" I'm still not quite sure whether that was a scripted sound effect or The Fart That Was Heard Around the World, but the cameraman was certainly quick to show us the cast creasing themselves. This contrasted rather beautifully with some wonderfully charged scenes. There is an exchange where Auden and Britten are talking about Britten's penchant for mentoring pretty young lads that was amazing. Mind-blowingly intense.

Impressively, you always knew which play you were in, which is no small feat. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend it to anyone. And indeed, anywhere.

Keep an eye on the National Theatre's website for future programmes.


( Funeral Blues - W.H. Auden )

Dogs and Goddesses - Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart, Lani Diane Rich

This is one of those books that started out as a lark for the authors, and ended up getting published. It shows a little. It's fairly predictable, and has the same basic plot and structure as Crusie and Stuart's last collaboration, The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes.

The thing is, I don't care. I took it on holiday with me, to read in airports and while waiting for a group of 6 people to get organised, and it was exactly the right speed for that. There's a Mesopotamian temple in a small University town in the States, there's a creepy lady running a dog training class and her psychotically creepy sidekick. There are no big surprises, but it's well written and funny. Snark and sex and girl-power. Sign me up.

I can take or leave the talking dogs. If it was cats, now...

( The List )

New Moon. No really. If this doesn't crack your shit up, your funny bone might be broken.

I has seen it!

On the whole? ♥

( Cut partly for spoilers and partly for length )

No pictures for Sunday and Monday. Have the Epic Book Review of Doom instead.

This one was a gift from J, who knows me well enough to that I would enjoy this book, and also well enough to know that I would probably not buy it for myself. :o)

I have to say that on the whole, I don’t feel all that consoled. But I do feel very well informed, which is nothing to sneeze at. I enjoyed this – Alain de Botton’s style is very warm and friendly, and the set up is charming and includes lots of pictures, sometimes to illustrate a point, and sometimes just for giggles. Although he is clearly a great deal smarter than me, he is in no way condescending about it. I’m looking at you, Mr Chesterton.

The book is split into six sections, each providing consolation from a particular philosopher for a particular ill. I may possibly have gone a little crazy and ended up doing a chapter by chapter recap. I have no idea how that happened, except to cry temporary insanity. Feel free to tl;dr.

The sections are:
Consolation for Unpopularity – Socrates
Consolation for Not Having Enough Money - Epicurus
Consolation for Frustration - Seneca
Consolation for Inadequacy - Montaigne
Consolation for a Broken Heart - Schopenhauer
Consolation for Difficulties – Nietzsche

It’s quite a line up.

( Unpopularity )

( Not Having Enough Money )

( Frustration )

( Inadequacy )

At this point we move to more modern philosophers (by which I mean C19-20). The opening sections of both these chapters are fairly amusing, as the writer begins with why you might write them off if you knew a bit about them. Schopenhauer was an emo whinger (“Arthur Schopenhauer is born in Danzig. In later years he looks back on the event with regret: ‘We can regard our life as a uselessly disturbing episode in the blissful repose of nothingness.’”) and Nietzsche was an arrogant arse (“’It is my fate to have to be the first decent human being,’ he recognised with a degree of embarrassment in the autumn of 1888. ‘I have a terrible fear that I shall one day be pronounced holy’”. Aw yeah.

( A Broken Heart )

( Difficulties )

( Tithe - Holly Black )

Judging by the state of The List I could be at this a while. Are there things I should change about the way I do these that might make it more interesting for you? I'm deliberately avoiding going into too much detail about plots because I don't want to spoil them. Any thoughts? You are, after all, the ones reading the reviews.

( The List )

( Lean Mean Thirteen - Janet Evanovich )

On the whole, the plots are still interesting, the comedy is still funny and thirteen books in, JE has not yet jumped the relationship shark. I continue to enjoy them.


( Fool Moon - Jim Butcher )

( The List )