Vicissitude and Season

Things that have happened lately:

1) Saw Vienna Teng perform on Saturday night! Just so lovely and perfect. I got the tickets way back in December, ended up asking a MG friend to come along because I thought she'd like the music, and indeed she loved it, so that's good; the venue (the Hamilton in DC) was very nice (table seating, with food), even if a slightly late arrival meant that we basically couldn't see Vienna's face for most of the show. But she sang one after another of my favorites, everything from the generally appealing "City Hall," "Landsailor," "Whatever You Want," "Grandmother Song" (to close, which was great), to the personal WoT soundtrack items like "Eric's Song" and "Augustine," and so much more. I'd expected more emphasis on "Aims," but I guess she did that tour already, and it was wonderful to hear her reaching far back into her catalog.

It was a solo show (she had a NZ duo, the Bollands, opening for her on the tour, and they were pretty entertaining, but none of her usual backup group), so pretty much just Vienna, a piano, and technology. The last of which was a fascinating addition - probably old hat for those who go to a lot of live shows, but for me it's all happening mysteriously in the background usually, so it was fun to see her setting up tracks and letting them play in parallel. I'd seen the magical voice-splitting thing for "Hymn of Acxiom" on video before, but it's cool in person.

The between-song patter was interesting, too, with some details about where the songs came from and what she's doing (real corporate job now, which apparently she was working from the passenger seat of the van on tour, conference calls and spreadsheets and the like). She didn't have a set list, and was taking requests; the funniest moment was when some deep-voiced guys at the bar called out "Lullabye for a Stormy Night!" and she turned and said, "Are you from Boston?" (because apparently either they or someone just like them had come to both her Massachusetts shows and shouted the same thing).

Anyway - wonderful wonderful, made my week. More details on request.

2) And then we got up early the next morning (I got almost no sleep, due to mistimed insomnia, if it's ever timed right) and drove up to Allentown. Awards ceremony (P. got a prize for history) and then "Romeo and Juliet" that evening, which was done as a tribute to Ferguson et al. with the Capulets being rich (for inner city) black and the Montagues poor white, and lots of police barriers (marked VPD) and Catholic schools and dirty streets and Mercutio in full punk mode. It was very well done, even if the story doesn't quite map right to the theme (family rivalry doesn't tidily broaden to state oppression and societal prejudice, if you stick with the text instead of going all "West Side Story"), but I give them full credit for trying. For saying something. (And P.'s girlfriend E. did a lovely job in the small roles of Lady Montague and the Apothecary (as legless Vietnam vet drug pusher).)

Interestingly, Chesapeake Shakespeare in Baltimore is also doing R&J right now, with apparently the same casting decisions (just going by the website photos), and has had to cancel several shows due to the unrest.

3) I keep meaning to do a catchup post for book and TV consumption (I have read all the way through Lev Grossman's "Magicians" trilogy, finally, for one thing), but for now I'll just say, wow, "Person of Interest," good job ramping the tension up at the end of the season. I am wondering about the timing of this "Correction" on May 6, which is the day after the finale airs next week, but not at all congruent with the snow they were (literally) digging through in last night's episode. Are we going to skip through time, or are they just going to prevent (or perhaps not prevent!) something that's scheduled for months in the future? Anyway, very curious to see how they're going to pull all the plot threads together, if they do; I think the season's theme of separation is still pretty relevant, and the two teams (of villains and heroes and ambiguous figures) that have been making distinct circles all season still seem to be doing so. Though there are some points where they touch, so maybe that'll be important. The Machine is playing some very big game (and talking!).

I need to take care of plants now. Have a good day!

Just to catch up, things I have been doing recently (including at Thanksgiving):

Performances attended:

Messiah with the Handel and Haydn Society, which I'm embarrassed to say I knew nothing about before (I've never lived in Boston, but I have visited there a lot). It's their 200th anniversary this year!

It's a Wonderful Life with the visiting Immediate Theatre Project. This was great fun! The concept is that the employees of a financially-stressed radio station have to improvise to put on a live performance of IAWL while the regular actors are kept away by a snowstorm. Four actors doing all the parts and sound effects. Check it out if it comes to your town (which, er, would be a few places in Ohio and Wisconsin at this point, but I'm sure they'll do it again next year).

Museums visited:

The Harvard Art Museums, all nicely joined together now by a new atrium. Lots of well-known works here.

National Museum of Women in the Arts, for the Picturing Mary exhibit. I liked the division by concepts, and they've acquired lots of beautiful paintings and other artworks, though I agree with the critics who say they should have extended the time frame to include modern works and perhaps those with critical commentary. I went upstairs as well to see the 20th-century exhibits, and discovered Remedios Varo, who I'd never even heard of before but is now a favorite, at least as far as Surrealists go. This museum is great for that - so many women creating art over so many centuries, and being ignored even though the work is as good as that of their male contemporaries.

TV:

Greatly enjoying Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries as a fun and escapist treat. Missing most of the other shows that are on hiatus. Looking forward to tomorrow's POI episode, even if they are then going to stretch out the midseason three-parter into January, and waiting for Hannibal to return.

Cooking:

No, there is no reason I put this right after mentioning Hannibal, why do you ask? (I did just check out the NBC page to see if there were airing dates yet, and saw a section labeled "Episodes and Recaps," and thought it said "Episodes and Recipes." WTF. Though it seems there will be an official cookbook out at some point.)

But yes, me. Squash, mostly. And trying to get to some of the WPost's cookie recipes; I made Spicy Smoked Tea Pecan Crisps, although the dough was sooo sticky even before I spilled the egg whites onto it, and disaster pretty much ensued, although the result was perfectly edible and yummy, just not at all tidy. I'd add more flour next time, making sure that the dough could be properly rolled out. And I will be making my usual chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds for the party we're going to next weekend.

Reading:

For reasons of Italy, I've been dipping back into Michael Dibdin's Zen series, but after I finish the one I'm on I am finally going to read Code Name Verity, and then maybe one of the Christmas books.

Writing:

Not at all, dammit. But maybe soon?

We have the Christmas tree up and no cat has yet climbed it, but the ornaments aren't hung yet, so temptation is not at its highest. We'll see…

Miscellany: writing, cats, TV, etc.

1) I wrote the first sentence in Book Five last night:

The muffled oars whispered secrets to the river as the boat slipped downstream, returning Major John André to the safety of the Vulture.

Which should alert those familiar with the incident that something weird is going on, but never fear, I will explain what and why and how very quickly. I haven't written any more yet, but perhaps I'll get time to do that today; I do know how it goes on. For a little while, at least. And am very glad to get started, and impressed that I've written something considering my mental state a couple of weeks ago.

Also got a laugh when I reviewed the history and saw what the name of the sloop was. Birds, I tell you: following me around.

(The next line in the "How to Suppress Women's Writing" litany goes: She wrote it, and then she wouldn't shut up about it. Sorry not sorry.)

2) Cats! I said I'd write about cats, and I haven't done an update in ages. We still have Lancelot and Hotspurr, and they are well. Hotspurr is now an indoor-outdoor cat - I swore this wasn't going to happen, after losing the last cat (plus others, previously) to outdoor threats, but he had other ideas, and as soon as spring arrived he began scratching and whining constantly (I mean, for hours at a time) and shooting out the door whenever we opened it, and we eventually gave in. (Tried the leash thing first - nope, not going for it.) He's five years old, so he had fully-developed habits before we adopted him, and clearly no one ever denied him anything, including access to the outdoors. He's also refused to wear a collar (he lost six of them outdoors before we stopped putting them on) but he does have a chip at least. And he's smart about what's out there, though I'm reconciled to the possibility that some of it will eventually kill him. He'd just be miserable inside all the time; some cats just are The Cat Who Walks By Himself, and that's how it is. He's done two all-nighters out so far, and been caught out in several thunderstorms, though he tends to curl up on a chair and sleep the whole next day.

Lancelot is still an indoor kitty, because I don't trust him to avoid danger outside, and because the only reason he seems to want to go out is because Hotspurr's there. They bonded nicely in the winter, but while Hotspurr is fond of Lancelot, Lancelot loves Hotspurr, and now he spends days waiting by doors and windows for his friend to come back. We are seriously thinking of getting a third cat, if we can find one guaranteed to prefer the indoors.

3) I'm kind of liking the break from TV in the summer (though the POI preview clip from ComicCon looked awesome), which we are filling desultorily with episodes of "Borgen" - it's a Danish political drama about a female prime minister in a coalition government, and it's intriguing and fun and poignant in a way that's more "West Wing" than "House of Cards" (or "Yes, Minister"), and blends the political and the personal in a balanced way. We're about halfway through the second season. In Danish with subtitles - which means I can't watch it if I'm sleepy, because my eyes will close and I'll have no idea what's going on, but it's been interesting. Neither of us speaks Danish, but I know a little German and J. used to be fluent, so some of the roots are familiar and occasionally we'll pick up a word here and there. We concluded pretty quickly that a lot of sounds get seriously elided, because when there's something you know they should be saying (because it's in the subtitle and not likely to be a mistranslation) you still don't hear it. And then occasionally there will be phrases in English - there are whole scenes in English, I mean, when they're talking to people from other countries, but also just little bits of jargon or idiom that apparently have been adopted into Danish parlance, which is kind of weirdly endearing and startling. Only available here on DVD - which, wow, when was the last time we watched one of those?

4) Subject line is one of my favorite bits of Vienna Teng, from "In Another Life":

In another life
I was married at thirteen
You were killed at twenty-one
On a minor battlefield

which I just think is genius in the "adding insult to injury" way. Minor battlefield, ha. It's the sort of thing Rinaldo would like, and since that's his POV up there in the first line of Book Five (which still has no title) I am particularly inclined to attach to it. (Last book used all female POVs; this one will be all male, which makes it the first book without Olivia's interior perspective, though possibly I'll give her the epilogue.)

5) I've been having shoulder panics. When you've had two frozen shoulders, any lasting pain or stiffness in those joints leads to worry (which probably doesn't help in terms of loosening up) about the possibility of losing most of your range of motion, plus any ability to exercise (because of extreme pain on jarring), for a year or so. I am just back in the swing of things where exercise is concerned, after the frustration of the knee problem, and having that go away again would be devastating. But I'm hoping it's just the temporary result of doing too-speedy hand-weight lifts in Jazzercise. Lots of stretching is in order.

Random things:

In my continuing quest to convince others (and myself, if I could reacquire the fic-writing urge) that Rivers of London and Bryant & May are meant for crossovers, I note that not only does the latter involve a specialist London police unit that solves a mystery having to do with underground rivers, but (since I've now progressed from rereading the early series at random to reading the later books that didn't exist when I was doing the first read) also a crime apparently committed by Mr. Punch. I may manage, at some point, a conversation between Nightingale and Arthur Bryant on Waterloo Bridge; it's always tricky to reconcile magical and non-magical worlds, but Bryant is at least spectacularly open to the existence of supernatural forces. And he may not be aging backwards, but he doesn't appear to be doing it forwards either.

I wrote a short blog post on themes and moral imperatives in Time and Fevers (non-spoilery, unless you count George growing the fuck up as a spoiler) - and thanks to those who have written about and to me on enjoying Time for Tea! Slowly but surely getting somewhere…

Where I am just now is King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (yes that is a place), and I am apparently going to enjoy Chanticleer Pleasure Gardens in the rain later this morning (it's supposed to clear up for afternoon) before picking up Younger Son and friends at the Philly airport.

Much more weed-pulling in store this weekend, and buying of soft foods in preparation for Younger Son having his wisdom teeth out. Hopefully his having acquired strep throat (and amoxicillin) in Ghana will not interfere with the timing of the surgery, because he has to start work later in the week. (He was well into Time and Fevers last I heard, but his girlfriend (also on the trip) was just at the point in Time for Tea where George comes down with SPOILER EXCEPT FOR OBVIOUS IMPLICATION when he began running a fever. We made jokes, because you can't not. He missed the canopy walk and the Cape Coast Castle, but thank goodness for antibiotics.)

I managed not to blow up at fellow gardeners on Tuesday, but oh dear, it's nice to be admired and depended upon, but sometimes being in charge drives me nuts, especially when you have no office door to close but are just trying to get a few minutes to yourself to decide what needs to be done next, and are continually interrupted by people asking what you want them to do next. And then when I'd finally persuaded them to leave me alone a little, there was the one who came up and said, "Just go ahead, but say it out loud; I want to hear your thought process." NO NO NO. (I love them all dearly, but NO.) I guess I need to start trying to get there half an hour before everyone else (which is 7:30 a.m., which means leaving home at 7, while not forgetting half my stuff).

Don't think I've mentioned here how much I'm enjoying Orphan Black season 2, but I am. Having rewatched the first season recently, I can also echo others in saying there's a moment in each episode where I convince myself that each of the clones is actually played by a different actress, and my favorite moments are those in which one clone is pretending to be another one. It's also amusing that Alison is much better at being Sarah than Sarah is at being Alison. (Suburban soccer moms, whether they are in community theatre or not, are naturals at protective coloration.) The balance of humor and pathos continues to be perfect and delightful.

I have been listening to five albums of Vienna Teng on shuffle, pretty much constantly (well, no, but when it's the right time to listen to things). <3 <3 <3

Oh god exhausted, but such is the nature of first demo garden workday of the season. I will sort of get used to it again. (And, by the way, we had another inch of immediately-melting snow on Sunday. Today feels like spring, though.)

Since this has been such a gardening-intensive couple of weeks (I have a talk on edible landscaping to give tomorrow evening, and then I can not exactly relax, but space out the duties a bit more) I've been holding back on stuff like creating the cover for Time and Fevers, and instead have been doing an editing pass through Time Goes By, probably way too early except for one factor discussed under the cut, and mostly just because I want to and it has to be done sometime and it's happy-making. ( long discussion of song lyrics and copyright issues )

I'm through The Ringed Castle in the Lymond reread, and trying to decide how to write a review that focuses on romance without making it seem like I am shallow enough to read the books only for those aspects (which would be an exercise in frustration, really). But I appreciate deeply how it's handled, as a minor development that's tremendously central, I guess, and it fits nicely into my observations (which should have been more formal) of POV use. (Which is the only relevance of the subject line, sorry; but I can hear Francis humming "oh no, not now" at the end of the Revels scene, I really can. Except that it would be under copyright.) Anyway, perhaps I'll just wait till I'm through the last book.

Oh, crap; I guess it's frozen pizza for dinner.

I've been enjoying - nay, exulting in - Vienna Teng's album "Aims" this week - thanks to raven for pointing it out. (She has a lovely multi-fandom vid to one of the songs. Go watch!) I note that both "The Hymn of Acxiom" and "Goodnight New York" are good POI songs (especially the former, considering the themes of this season ("Someone is gathering every crumb that you drop, these mindless decisions and moments you long forgot: keep them all, let our formulas find your soul…")). Anyway, you can listen to the whole thing here (and read the lyrics here).

I woke up this morning with "Flyweight Love" from the album in my head, which goes with the lightweight fluttering snow we're still having (though it looks to be slowing down, at far less than the five inches predicted). Teng's "The Last Snowfall" (from an earlier album) worked perfectly in the Winter playlist I use for walking in snow (Simon and Garfunkel, Mumford and Sons, Rod Stewart, the Moody Blues, the Staves, etc.). Second snowfall in three days, this one nicely coordinated with Older Son flying home from Texas, though I think the weather should have settled by the evening. I see, looking ahead, that they're predicting more snow for Saturday, which is drive-back-from-Allentown day (I'm not going up this time, so I get to worry about the others - but hopefully it won't amount to much). In any case, it's beautiful outside, that fleeting moment when an inch of pure white snow is clinging to every branch and looks shiny and edible.

Right now playing "A Chanticleer Christmas" which I hope is the right music for creating a PowerPoint about root vegetables...

Just for fun while I'm waiting to leave for the airport: the Body of Work playlist. A work in progress, of course, though I've been building this one for about a year. (I'll happily take suggestions, though really there are only so many songs about hearts and eyes one can deal with.) With YouTube links to a few of my favorites.

I hardly ever play it in order now, but it's kind of amusing that way. Apologies for a couple of the transitions.

( body and soul, but mostly body )

Things:

1) Final big garden show-off event of the season tomorrow. And we are already planning next year's events, which is cool with me; I think I'll need the lead time.

2) I have, however, failed at posting every day on the garden blog. It's hard! Not so much finding things to say, as long as I accept the inconsequential and the inane, but remembering that it is a day and I have to put words online before it's over. Oh well.

3) Both having trouble remembering/scheduling and having trouble making decisions are symptoms for me of mild depression, so I'm watching out and moderating expectations. But it doesn't take much to get me revved up again, and I think what little time I have next week I'll use for working out more book details - I've done a lot; I need to fill in gaps and make a firm schedule now. And the following week Younger Son and I will hopefully be photographing a teacup on the rocky shores of New Hampshire.

4) In the meanwhile I've been editing Time and Fevers more, so that will be ready to go when Time for Tea is out. I think a few months' gap between is reasonable, and then a nice anticipatory wait for Time Goes By. I'm still taking out words; this is good.

5) In TV World, we've just barely started Breaking Bad s3; watched the opening episode of the new season of The Good Wife, which I thought hit the ball out of the park; and of course watched Person of Interest. The first two episodes of this season were strong for character re-introduction, nice ensemble moments, and setting up interesting potential conflicts. And I'm finally watching s2 of Once Upon a Time, which for some reason I dropped the ball on last year; I'm not fannish enough about it to care about being a year behind, and hey, now I finally get all the Lost jokes. :)

6) I'm making regular visits to the library to check out CDs; what they have is totally unpredictable, but it's free music and I am doing a lot of walking and weeding and other activities that require distraction (since I don't happen to be plotting a book at the moment, though I'll need to start that in the spring). There was this great ultra-nostalgic day last week when I picked up Rod Stewart's "Every Picture Tells a Story," which we had on vinyl when I was a teenager, and REM's "Document" and "Murmur" which are uselessly on cassette tape somewhere. Also the soundtrack of "Pippin." Music insinuates itself into your brain chemistry in a way nothing else does, and the physical reaction I have on hearing songs again always amazes me, and the way it stimulates memory, and how well I recall tunes and lyrics that should be long-vanished. Oh, and yesterday: Joni Mitchell's "Free Man in Paris" - wow, I hadn't heard that in *guesses* 25 years? And it's all there.

7) Current state of the Oh, Mr. Finch playlist under the cut, just in case you're interested.

( albatross, blackbird, blue jay, bluebird, buzzard, crane, crow, cuckoo, dove, eagle, goose, heron, lark, nightingale, raven, rook, skylark, sparrow, vulture, wren, etc. )

8) I have finished all the Rivers of London books that are available in the US, and am tapping my fingers with impatience for February (I mean - February??) but I'll manage. So, any guesses on how Nightingale is related to Finch? *grin* Although the crossover I really want is with the Bryant & May books.

Wow, we just had a little rainstorm. I mean, really brief, and it won't make any difference to speak of in this drought (which has been unusually hard to adjust to after all the rain earlier in the season) but at least I don't have to water things today.

I meant to say that I did some of my editing on "This Rough Magic" to this compilation of the Machine's musical themes. And I downloaded that together with Finch's themes and Reese's themes and did my walk to it yesterday. If I can trust MapMyWalk's accuracy, which I know better than to do, I did the first mile in exactly Finch + Reese, which was amusing, and pretty fast (Reese's theme is great for powering up hills).

The same person has a comparison of the themes for Ben Linus and Harold Finch, which is interesting.

And someone else pulled together a bunch of Lost theme music via actual clips (spoilers, natch). Yes, of course there's a Ben one. :) I am also quite fond of There's No Place Like Home. (God, the music on that show. Serious heartstring-tugging.)

While I have you on YouTube, do watch the two new great POI vids: When I Ruled the World by astolat, and Some Nights by pureflummery. Oh, the feelings.

*dusts hands*

Things that are pleasing me:

1) Apropos of nothing other than that I'm listening to it a lot, I now have 42 songs in my "Oh, Mr. Finch" playlist, covering the following: albatross, blackbird, blue jay, bluebird, crane, crow, cuckoo, dove, eagle, goose, lark, nightingale, raven, rook, sparrow, vulture, and wren; also chick in the sense of female human; also generic birds and flying; also occasional airplanes. :) I need to add "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" but I keep saying "it's on an LP, I will mp3-convert it" (because I'm not going to buy something I already have, am I now) and then not getting around to it (the process requires that I click a button at the end of every song, which means not straying far and not doing anything too distracting. ("And the bitch of it was, I only had 108 minutes to bury the poor bastard.")).

2) The weather is altogether lovely this week, just what summer should be and what it so seldom is. I can actually take a walk in the afternoon.

3) I did a thing today on Tumblr that people liked. I'm not sure what else I will do there (quote of the day, maybe?) but it is certainly an entertaining place and I must stop myself from refreshing the page all the time, dammit.

4) I had a POI story idea that might work and have started writing it down. Also must work on Vorkosiverse promptfic that I know the beginning of but little else. Also yes I know the book; I'm giving myself another week to make decisions.

5) I am really enjoying "Orphan Black" and, in small doses, "Welcome to Night Vale."

6) Also I continue to be very appreciative of the existence of Michael Emerson. (And colleagues.)

I think that's enough to be going on with.