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reileenHere's a site that sells really fucking awesome sculptures based on mathematic and scientific principles. I think I want one!
Making Light has a blog post on St. Barbara, the patron saint ofBomberman explosions.
OH FUCK YES. Vienna Teng's 4th album is tentatively titled "Inland Territory."
***
I'm almost done with reading The Elder Gods by David & Leigh Eddings, which looks to be book 1 of a sword-and-sorcery trilogy called The Dreamers. There's some big bad evil called the Vlagh...'scuse me, called "That-Called-the-Vlagh"...trying to cause havoc in the land of Dhrall. Because it wanted to, I suppose. Thus, the four gods and goddesses who each rule over a different cardinal direction (and elemental power) are banding together to pwn That-Called-theVlagh's sorry ass, assembling a motley crew of different human races as their army: Neanderthal seafarers, noble savages, and generic citypeople.
Their most potent weapon, however, are a set of four children called the Dreamers, raised by the Gods themselves. (Think of the children!) See, despite the fact that these Dhrallian Gods can live off light as a nutrition force, own pet lightning bolts, speak dolphin, and can think nearly anything into existence, they can't actually kill (no, I don't know why). Which is why it makes poifect sense to send the kids after the forces of That-Called-the-Vlagh, right? Okay, granted, these kids have the ability to, as the back flap of the book jacket says, "summon dreams that can alter the fabric of reality." It also makes slightly more sense when you learn (minor spoiler) that the Dhrallian Gods are part of a greater cycle, and that there are four other Dharllian Gods who "sleep" when the other four are awake, and that these Dreamers are essentially the other four Dhrallian Gods reborn sans memories of being Gods (one of the current Gods, Dahlaine, stuck a couple of memory locks on their minds)(end minor spoiler).
I suppose this is a competent enough book, but it reads more like a first or second draft of a novel as opposed to a polish final draft. It's not that it's ridden with typos or logical inconsistencies or anything like that, but that overall, it feels...bare. Like we're looking at a pencil sketch instead of a full-color illustration. One of the biggest offenders in this regard is what the Turkey City Lexicon calls "Brenda Starr dialogue", long sections of talk with not much else in-between. The Eddings wrote long sections of dialogue into this novel without other things breaking the monotony besides maybe a few dialogue tags and maybe, once in a while, a significant character action. The overall effect, to me, is that of two actors performing whose method of acting is: "Recite line. Stop acting and wait for the other person to finish speaking. Recite next line." This results in the character renderings coming off as a bit hollow and unfinished, which is a shame because these characters seem to have seeds of greatness and likability. (Except Eleria, who's the Dreamer of the goddess Zelana. Eleria is so damn precious that she makes the Precious Moments dolls look like devilborn kids, and I can't tell whether the authors intended for us to think that she's cute or that she's annoying. Personally, I find her annoying.)
***
Paraphrasing a conversation I had with Emilia after performing at Borders...
I seem to have made a good impression on the Borders staff that Emilia talked to, and I seem to have affected enough cafe patrons for me to earn $13.47 in tips from playing (I can buy a trade paperback book with this money!), but overall it didn't go as decently as I would've liked. Still, I suppose that's as well as it could have gone. It was hard to tell after a while whether I was shaking violently because of nerves or because of the draft that blew in from the windows behind me. I also suffered intermittent flashes of what I am currently terming "anxietinesia", which is amnesia induced by being anxious or otherwise frazzled. The most blatant case was when I attempted to play Vienna Teng's "Gravity" and seriously forgot all of the piano right after the second stanza and before the second repetition of the chorus. Other cases include messing up verses on Noe Venable's "Woods Part of When" and original song "Almost" when I played it a second time.
Of course I wasn't nervous about this thing at all until I sat my ass down and began playing. Of course.
Still, I'll probably come back eventually. I need the practice, as yesterday night so eloquently proved, and hey, maybe I'll only get $13 again, but it's still money. Thank Artemis I'm just doing this on the side.
***
The Artemisian festival of Theronia is today. This is actually a modern creation of Thista Minai, but it incorporates elements from the Spartan cult of Artemis Orthia. The cult worshipped Artemis as Potnia Theron, or the "Lady of Beasts/Mistress of Animals".
-Reileen
sing us a song, you're the piano man
Making Light has a blog post on St. Barbara, the patron saint of
OH FUCK YES. Vienna Teng's 4th album is tentatively titled "Inland Territory."
***
I'm almost done with reading The Elder Gods by David & Leigh Eddings, which looks to be book 1 of a sword-and-sorcery trilogy called The Dreamers. There's some big bad evil called the Vlagh...'scuse me, called "That-Called-the-Vlagh"...trying to cause havoc in the land of Dhrall. Because it wanted to, I suppose. Thus, the four gods and goddesses who each rule over a different cardinal direction (and elemental power) are banding together to pwn That-Called-theVlagh's sorry ass, assembling a motley crew of different human races as their army: Neanderthal seafarers, noble savages, and generic citypeople.
Their most potent weapon, however, are a set of four children called the Dreamers, raised by the Gods themselves. (Think of the children!) See, despite the fact that these Dhrallian Gods can live off light as a nutrition force, own pet lightning bolts, speak dolphin, and can think nearly anything into existence, they can't actually kill (no, I don't know why). Which is why it makes poifect sense to send the kids after the forces of That-Called-the-Vlagh, right? Okay, granted, these kids have the ability to, as the back flap of the book jacket says, "summon dreams that can alter the fabric of reality." It also makes slightly more sense when you learn (minor spoiler) that the Dhrallian Gods are part of a greater cycle, and that there are four other Dharllian Gods who "sleep" when the other four are awake, and that these Dreamers are essentially the other four Dhrallian Gods reborn sans memories of being Gods (one of the current Gods, Dahlaine, stuck a couple of memory locks on their minds)(end minor spoiler).
I suppose this is a competent enough book, but it reads more like a first or second draft of a novel as opposed to a polish final draft. It's not that it's ridden with typos or logical inconsistencies or anything like that, but that overall, it feels...bare. Like we're looking at a pencil sketch instead of a full-color illustration. One of the biggest offenders in this regard is what the Turkey City Lexicon calls "Brenda Starr dialogue", long sections of talk with not much else in-between. The Eddings wrote long sections of dialogue into this novel without other things breaking the monotony besides maybe a few dialogue tags and maybe, once in a while, a significant character action. The overall effect, to me, is that of two actors performing whose method of acting is: "Recite line. Stop acting and wait for the other person to finish speaking. Recite next line." This results in the character renderings coming off as a bit hollow and unfinished, which is a shame because these characters seem to have seeds of greatness and likability. (Except Eleria, who's the Dreamer of the goddess Zelana. Eleria is so damn precious that she makes the Precious Moments dolls look like devilborn kids, and I can't tell whether the authors intended for us to think that she's cute or that she's annoying. Personally, I find her annoying.)
***
Paraphrasing a conversation I had with Emilia after performing at Borders...
Emilia: Reileen! How'd it go?
Me: Eh. *makes weird, displeased cavewoman noise*
Emilia: Aww. Crappy audience?
Me: Nah. Crappy performer.
I seem to have made a good impression on the Borders staff that Emilia talked to, and I seem to have affected enough cafe patrons for me to earn $13.47 in tips from playing (I can buy a trade paperback book with this money!), but overall it didn't go as decently as I would've liked. Still, I suppose that's as well as it could have gone. It was hard to tell after a while whether I was shaking violently because of nerves or because of the draft that blew in from the windows behind me. I also suffered intermittent flashes of what I am currently terming "anxietinesia", which is amnesia induced by being anxious or otherwise frazzled. The most blatant case was when I attempted to play Vienna Teng's "Gravity" and seriously forgot all of the piano right after the second stanza and before the second repetition of the chorus. Other cases include messing up verses on Noe Venable's "Woods Part of When" and original song "Almost" when I played it a second time.
Of course I wasn't nervous about this thing at all until I sat my ass down and began playing. Of course.
Still, I'll probably come back eventually. I need the practice, as yesterday night so eloquently proved, and hey, maybe I'll only get $13 again, but it's still money. Thank Artemis I'm just doing this on the side.
***
The Artemisian festival of Theronia is today. This is actually a modern creation of Thista Minai, but it incorporates elements from the Spartan cult of Artemis Orthia. The cult worshipped Artemis as Potnia Theron, or the "Lady of Beasts/Mistress of Animals".
The Theronia should remind all of us that we too are animals. Like the Arkteia, the Theronia shows us that despite the societal customs that restrict our behavior, deep within we are beasts of the wild. When we pray for Her to protect animals, we also pray for Her to protect us, and to help us understand and embrace the animals within us, so that we too can live within the chaotically ordered cycles and recombinant harmonies of Nature.
-Thista Minai, Dancing in Moonlight: Understanding Artemis Through Celebration, p.84
-Reileen
sing us a song, you're the piano man
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-06 11:01 pm (UTC)Also, $13.47 in tips is great. You don't make big money doing that sort of thing, believe me. The one time I played for tips in café, I don't think I even made that much, and that was even when I had people I knew taking pity on me and throwing me some spare change. :D;;
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-06 11:08 pm (UTC)I was really fucking embarrassed when I woke up today and realized that my mom was watching the video recording my dad made of my performance last night, though. I ended up staying in my room for most of the day until it was finished playing.
And yeah, I wasn't sure how much money one normally made on something like this. Like I said, at least I'm not living off this, and if I add this to my checking account, I've got about $200 to spend on Christmas presents! Though it'd be nice to not spend all of that on presents.