Tech read done! Cover letter also done! And it’s all been sent in!
Great book. I hate being nitpicky, though, because I know how the author feels when they get the edits. Your book is good, except….
Now I’m going to walk away from the computer for a bit.
I like Sting.
I love John Dowland.
Sting singing John Dowland? Um. I’m not sold.
The lute playing is awesome so far, though. It’s just that Sting’s voice and style are so modern, and the Dowland is so, well, Tudor. I’m not sure it works. What I am sure of is that it’s going to introduce Dowland to a whole new set of people, which can only be a good thing. And he sounds like he’s very in love with the music and respects it, which I respect in turn, and kudos to him for recording a Dowland album at all.
Maybe it’s just that the album opens with “Can She Excuse My Wrongs?”, which is my very favourite Dowland song, and the pace of it along with his expression don’t quite fit. The slower tracks aren’t as jarring, possibly because he sounds less modern. And the spoken word bits are very good too.
Did I mention the excellent lute playing?
My liking for the whole thing is certainly improving as the album progresses.
Currently Listening: Songs From the Labyrinth, Sting
I keep reading “native Celtic deity” as “naive Celtic diety”.
And I want to stab every single comma. Stabbity stabbity stab. I am in an anti-comma mood today.
This has nothing to do with the MS itself; it’s a wonderful and very solid book. And I envy this author’s ability to write meditations. They’re incredible.
Twenty pages to go! Then a second read-through to make sure I didn’t miss anything and all my comments are in order, polish up the overview memo, and away it goes. Then I can return to ESTC.
I got to meet a couple of people I’d only ever chatted with online with last night. Yay!
I received compliments on my red shoes. More yay!
Why are people so amazed that I actually screamed onstage, and more than once? It was in the script, after all…
(Overheard: “Has she been on stage before?” I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.)
As HRH and I were driving home at midnight, I had the oddest craving for Lafleur’s poutine, and I was totally mystified as to why I was craving something that I haven’t had in years. About four minutes from home I finally said out loud, “I have a really odd craving for Lafleur’s poutine, and I have no idea why.” I heard the words as I said them, and suddenly I knew exactly why: t! and I used to stop by Lafleur’s after an evening rehearsal once every week, because we’d be very awake and ravenous after working for two and a half hours. I’d order poutine, he’d order a Michigan, and we’d sit and talk.
“Would you like a poutine?” said HRH.
I almost brushed it off with a laugh, but then I paused and thought about it. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I think I do.”
“Then we will go to Lafleur’s and get you a poutine,” said HRH, and so we drove to the Lafleur’s just around the corner, and he bought me a poutine. I brought it home, washed up and changed, curled up in bed and ate it, ate every single bit of it. The gravy was a bit too peppery, but the nostalgia tasted wonderful.
Tarasmas was a phenomenal success this year, as in previous years. This one, however, was particularly poignant (it saw the final chapter of the Dickens Carter saga), ambitious (the production of four (four!) radio dramas), and multi-layered (the inclusion of an overarching metastory of backstage production). We enjoyed a PI story, a soap opera, a horror story, and a superhero story, all linked together by the director character, a main actor character, the narrator character, and the stage manager character.
t! is a genius, of course. He’s a brilliant writer (something I can honestly say is common among the people I know, and it’s not just because a lot of them make a living by doing it), has excellent sense of casting, a beautiful understanding of what his audience wants and can take, and, above all, a real desire to entertain and share his birthday with forty other people.
ADZO put it this way:
It’s a unique experience, what t! has done with Tarasmas. The idea of participating and watching, of being and not being part of the show, plus the self-organizing chaos surrounding everything is special.
For those who aren’t familiar with Tarasmas, it’s the celebration of the inestimable t!’s birthday. t! writes two to three hours’ worth of radio dramas, and casts the attendees of the party in various roles. A very few people get a script ahead of the evening itself, if they have a very large role or a part that requires tricky delivery. In general, however, people get their scripts a half-hour before they go on the stage, and never do they get a script for the entire evening (unless, again, they require one, such as those who are on every page or so), for that would spoil the fun.
t! rents the hall, provides drinks, everyone brings snacks and specific beverages if they desire them, and away we go.
It’s a hilarious way to spend the evening. There are inside jokes, genre send-ups, homages, and the fun of seeing people enjoy themselves on and off the stage. The most touching thing, however, is knowing that this is t!’s gift to us, every year. The planning, writing (this year clocked in at somewhere around 21K of words), and execution are handled by t! (now with the support of his lovely assistant ai731), in a beautiful turnabout of the birthday tradition.
We love Tarasmas. We get to see people we don’t see very often. We get to act. We get to laugh until we cry. We get to appreciate the artistry of the writing, the talent of everyone involved, and the giant conglomeration of history and source culture behind it all. And we embrace the opportunity to celebrate a dear friend.
Happy birthday, t!. And thank you for everything that you give us, both at this time of year and the other three hundred and sixty four days. Life would be the poorer for us all without you.
Total word count, ESTC: 40,035
Total words today and yesterday: 1,508
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|
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40,035 / 50,000
(80.1%) |
Yikes; less than 10K to go. At least there now exist three pages’ worth of Chapter Two.
Like some others, I am working today. This is one of the blessing/curses of the freelancer and the self-employed: you can work on the weekend to make up for lost time during the week. Of course, the other side of the coin is that sometimes you have to work on weekends when you really don’t want to.
Everyone slept in till eight o’clock this morning, which was absolutely delightful although not likely to become a regular thing. We went out to the craft shop where I picked up beeswax (finally!), new votive molds, and wick tabs. Then we picked up three new fish to add to Liam’s aquarium, three because we usually have a death rate of one within twenty-four hours, which would leave us with a total of one old and two new fish. There were two Abyssinian cats at the pet shop, lovely ruddy Abyssinians who were probably around eight months old. I wanted them, of course, but not as badly as I wanted the little green parrot-type bird who flirted with me through the glass of his cage. I so adore birds. I should stop looking at them in shops, because I fall in love with them and they with me and everyone’s heartbroken when I leave. Liam was positively ecstatic about the huge waterfall/koi pond whose front glass wall was as tall as he was. He could peek over the top at the surface of the water, or crouch down and stare at the fish eye to eye. Big fish, too, some of them half his size. And we saw tiny tiny little corn snakes, about the size of a pencil! They were adorable, and it was hard to believe that they would eventually be the size of the six-foot corn snakes upstairs. Of course, we have to go out again once Liam is awake, because I’ve just discovered that my printer’s ink cartridge is dead.
Tarasmas tonight! I have a lovely role in a serious radio drama. And I have a pot of stew on, which is making the whole house smell cosy and defended against the grey and sometimes-rainy afternoon outside.
Liam has now been asleep for two hours. If we can keep him busy till lunch then put him to bed right afterwards, he really embraces the whole one-long-nap thing. And… he just woke up!
