silver

I am disorganized! (1 down, 1 to go.)

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 04:25:56 GMT

I have links about Star Wars! Here is an article on why The Phantom Menace is needed: http://www.jedinews.co.uk/news/news.aspx?newsID=12452

I never understood the theory that midichlorians=the Force. The movie implies they are an indicator, not an agent that causes the possessor to have the Force.

But what better reason for TPM than we get to see Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan go on an adventure? On a gorgeous planet like Naboo, no less? The older I get, the more I cringe (I always fastforward through any Padmé and Anakin scene) but I liked the adventuring very much.

And a ridiculously cute comic about Leia and Darth Vader: http://subaroosmiles.tumblr.com/post/49827583031

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Choir! CHOIR omg omg omg. I found out our program. Do you know what we're singing this season??

Haydn's The Creation.

!!!

The Creation (actually, technically, Die Schöpfung) is an oratorio about...the creation of everything, with a libretto set to mostly Biblical text. This is one of the works I learned about in music history. A snippet of the chorus' singing was included on the anthology's CD track ("The heavens are telling", plus a chunk of the recitatives before it), and I loved it. It seriously boggles my mind that I'm singing what was on our curriculum; it is a big work, and famous, and I always thought of it as too difficult to really do--not just me personally, but the choir has to be skilled enough too.

To put the icing on the cake--the trills in the aria? the cadenza on the ending?--we're singing with an orchestra! Our conductor also conducts an orchestra, so we're teaming up, and it's going to be such a cool sound.

The only drawback is the German. I can...kind of deal with Latin now, but I'm pretty sure one of the reasons Lobet den Herrn was so ~~horribly~~ difficult was trying to deal with German on top of Bach's madness. (I have such conflicting feelings about that man. For now, I don't want to do any of his stuff, piano or vocal.)

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I tried to type about piano, but...I don't think it's actually very interesting. In the heat of the moment I think about all sorts of things (usually thoughts that go "third finger there! move under now! THREE TRILLS INCOMING! be quieter! be louder!) Except I don't really think about fingering in terms of words, just feeling--you know how the thumb goes under? Words are longhand. If I try to think about something else, or about my playing on a meta level, my playing deteriorates. This is especially obvious any time I'm sightreading.

Instead, please try Marina and the Diamonds! Her voice is so distinctive and powerful.

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jumble of things

Sun, 30 Jun 2013 06:02:37 GMT

I'm tired, I spent all day running about with friends (fun but exhausting), I have to get up tomorrow at a reasonable hour, and I can't go to sleep, apparently.

What was going to be an hour of bowling turned into an hour of bowling, then a quick run to the mall (one friend is leaving for two months tomorrow, and needed to return something), then about four hours at karaoke. As a result, I've been earwormed terrifically with this song. I am going to link you to the video with lyrics, because the music video is an incredibly emotionally-manipulative, sad piece of...of...film. WHY are so many Chinese music videos so sad?

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(Totally unrelated.)

You know, when I used to live in a 4-person household, the milk never went bad. This is because other family members are much bigger fans of milk and obviously we'd drink it long before the expiry date. But on my own, I keep milk mostly for tea, and sometimes I'm unpleasantly surprised by curdled stuff. So I've gotten used to sniffing and tasting milk very carefully every time to make sure it's still okay.

Milk is such a ubiquitous thing that I used to drink it without ever thinking about taste. But now that I have to assess its freshness, I can taste so clearly the animalness of it. It's not milk, it's quite unavoidably liquid that came from an animal, and while it doesn't really gross me out, it's so weird. How does this even come through taste? I think I'd like to go back to my ignorance.

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THERE ARE TOO MANY BOOKS IN MY ROOM. They're on my shelves and on the floor and under my desk and under my bed and on my night table and stacked on my table and desk and EVERYWHERE. It's starting to drive me a bit bonkers. Every time I tidy up, they just get sprawled everywhere again. I need to make another trip to the library, but I haven't reviewed them yet! Oh god.

While I was waiting for friends this morning--I love them, but J was a full hour late and generally they're never punctual--I sat in Chapters and read Karen Miller's Empress. I've read Karen Miller before--she wrote some really great stuff set in the Star Wars Prequel EU mostly focused on Kenobi and Skywalker (easy path to my heart). Empress is gritty fantasy instead. Somehow, considering the extensive torture sequence in Wild Space, in which iirc Kenobi touched a lightsaber to his wound in order to use the pain to connect with Coruscant (AUGH), I'm not terribly surprised by the darkness of Empress.

The interesting thing (to me, anyway) is that while I'm interested in continuing with Empress, which starts off with the protagonist (a girl) watching her mother be beaten and then raped and being subjected to regular beatings herself--as indeed all the women are in this tiny, desert-locked village--I couldn't get more than five pages past Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. Like Empress, Wolf Hall starts with a son getting beat by his father, but I think there's a vein of kindness running through Empress that I really didn't think was going to happen in Mantel's novel, and I immediately ditched. Hekat in Empress is definitely subjected to highly distilled misogyny, but she gets away, and starts exploring a new land. Mantel on the other hand--well, it's straight up historical fiction, and there's no getting away.

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Tue, 25 Sep 2012 21:21:41 GMT

(may or may not have listened to this on repeat many, many times...)
Dessa: The Bullpen

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And here's your video of the day!

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 05:44:33 GMT

Being the history geek I am, I read Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards, a rather light-hearted history book that enumerated all the regents from Egbert.

( And then I found this video. I can't stop laughing at the chorus. )

(Starts from 1066 and William, but it's amazing. Just amazing.)

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don't forget your umbrella.

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 23:57:56 GMT

It is nice to be reminded of the fact "Earth possesses a great deal of liquid water" - sometimes. Can't complain, since I don't live anywhere that has monsoon season. So many worms. But the wild-rose is blooming (finally) and the grass that is unmowed - i.e. the city green-spaces - is absolutely ridiculous and is waist-height.

( Here, have a video )

I've read three books within the last three days (one of them reminded me why I really don't like Robespierre! Hi, French Revolution!) and I'm wondering if I ought to finish off the godforsaken Atlas Shrugged, which I began perhaps six months ago and abandoned. I also have the most amazing backlog of books to review, because I always put it off and oops! There goes my resolve.

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