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lenora_rose(WARNING: Even with cuts this is long...)
So there was this festival...
I was resigned to missing what felt like half of it, as I missed the entirety of Saturday (10-hour volunteer shift, after which i decided I was too worn out to head to the mainstage from the campground, and thus ended up reading umpteen chapters of Death of the Necromancer - see below - then napping until my alarm went off at One AM). And I had to pack up the tent through the end of Sunday afternoon workshops. And of course, while on site, there are those times one is doing things like looking at pretties or looking at CDs or waiting in line for dinner, and thus missing music. Among other things, I didn't listen to Stephen Fearing once all weekend, not for lack of fondness for his music, but because I was that intent on hearing stuff that was new for this year.
My impression this year was that there were fewer of the familiar names onstage, and of those that were fairly big, neither Los Lobos nor Randy Newman are exactly considered as major FOLK groups. The Duhks are huge HERE, not in general. There were all of one maritime and one Scottish Celtic groups, though a few other groups had Celtic influence. There was a huge influx of Old Tyme styles and bluegrass, and it seemed like fewer World beat groups. Also, fewer really uptempo groups, and fewer of those deeply infectious; maybe that was my choice of workshops, but even on the mainstage, the only two bands that got me up and dancing were the Duhks (of course) and Los Lobos. For a while I was thinking it was a festival of overall decent music, but no groups that made me bound with excitement at a new discovery.
Yes, I've thought that before, but only prior to the actual festival. I've almost never kept thinking it well into Friday's Mainstage, and certainly not after a Thursday evening mainstage where 4 out of the 5 main acts had me thinking "That was GOOD" (I didn't stick around for Corb Lund, but my impression of him in the past has been "okay but not my thing."). The whole festival was kicked off with Ollabelle, who were maybe a quieter opening act than one might want, but were full of tasty harmonies to convince me to stay were I was, listening, even though I hadn't been able to spot the family tarp, so I was sitting in the grass.
My favourite thing, though, was the number of weird details in the musical styles or artist names this year. For instance:
Dya Singh, the strongly traditional Punjabi group, came from Australia. You couldn't tell when they sang, but when they spoke... The African Guitar Summit were from BC. The Israeli group had a tuba for the bass line (Okay, that's more like *any* group had a tuba...). Ndidi Onukwulu was a kickass Blues singer. Abigail Washburn was the woman performing music from Beijing.
So: the best bands I heard, in quick:
Ollabelle: multipart harmony, bluegrass/gospel on the gentler side.
Crooked Still: Warped Bluegrass with a capacity for the manic. Their cellist was one of their biggest selling points while playing or singing, one of their worst opening his mouth in between songs. Or maybe the fact that he was insane enough that their lead singer apologized for him several times was a draw. not sure.
John Jorgenson Quintet: mostly-instrumental gypsy jazz. I think more Jeff's thing than mine, but no complaints here.
The Duhks: predictably enough. Or not. They have a new lead singer with a very similar feel to the prior one, no surprise as they're friends. A little shaky blending with the band, but some of the new tracks were good.
Indigo Girls: And I thought I was clearly a lost cause for never having heard them before. Mom hadn't heard OF them. They deserve their reputation as folk-pop icons.
Kiran Ahluwalia: Indian Style singing and instrumentation, occasional modern Twists. I've heard her for a while as Colin really likes her music, but I think she was better live.
Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra: Okay, I confess that they didn't jump out strongly from other African bands I've heard, but they were a solid offering.
Chirgilchin: Tuvan Throat Singing. Considering my penchant for incredibly weird vocal stylings in general, I might almost like them just for singing at all, but yes, they did some tasty things with it.
Los Lobos: Were here a few years ago and while they did prove even then that they were far more than "La Bamba" at that time, they fell into the good but not great. This year, as my brother said, "If this place had a roof, they'd have brought it down."
Nicole Byblow: I spent a while Friday afternoon at the "young performers program", where total unknowns, mentored by various more experienced musicians, present a couple of their songs. I heard four female singer-songwriters playing piano, and one young man who played piano for one song and electric guitar for the other. Two of the girls were decent, "almost there" as professionals, one, a friend of _aura_'s, was good as some of the performers at the festival (I dare say better than her mentor, who was *the* performer I didn't like this festival), but didn't jump out. The young man played one indifferent song and one noticeably better one (The one with the guitar), even kind of funny. Nicole Byblow made me essentially sit up and go, "Okay, she's going somewhere very soon. Or else." Yes, her lyrics did kind of prove she was in her late teens, but they seemed a more sincere record of that age, and a more poetic one.
Dya Singh: The man sings in a very traditional punjabi style; the girl sings in a much more polished and western manner (Or since she's from Australia, which is east of India, have I got the direction wrong?), but blended nicely. Good Indian music.
Dyad: Gentler than I was led to expect from the description, but another excellent vocal harmony based bluegrass/old tyme group.
Ndidi Onukwulu: One hell of a voice. I'm not big on blues, but she sold me on her brand of it.
Final Fantasy: I heard him do only one song at a workshop, playing piano, and he sounded like a good but not too unusual singer-songwriter. But I went over to the alternate stage for a listen Sunday Night when i was bored of Randy Newman's mainstage stuff, and... what he usually does is sing, play classical violin, with an electronica background, and one of those machines that takes samples and loops on the spot under his foot, so that the things he was playing on the violin would suddenly turn into loops while he moved on to doing something else entirely. Very much its own thing. Had I heard him doing more of that earlier, I might have a different set of CDs at home. Although I'm not altogether sure how much of it would really be captured in a recording. Also, I have to confess I'd have a hard time convincing myself to buy anything called "He Poos Clouds", no matter how good it sounded.
I heard very little of The Cat Empire, the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir, or Boom Pam, alas, but what I heard I did like.
Offstage, in the campground, however, there was Baggiecon.
Baggiecon is a selection of musicians and friends of musicians, mostly from Winnipeg, Minneapolis, and occasionally Ontario, and a few from further abroad. They centre, at least for me, around "Decadent" Dave Clement, artist Erin McKee, who doesn't sing but is an avid listener, Lanna whose last name (and correct spelling of her first) I never seem to learn, and, when he's there, Graham Leathers, and a father/daughter duo whose names I tend to forget at the drop of a bandanna (I don't currently have a hat). Every night, after the mainstage is done, they gather in a circle in the campground, and try to play music. Actually, they succeed very well -- if not drowned out by manic random drummers or illegal fireworks. It's a circle where amateurs are welcome, too, so I occasionally open my mouth, though I'm still shy about starting or jumping in.
I found their campsite Wednesday evening, and visited to listen avidly on Thursday, when almost no music happened, but some great conversation did. I met Mary, a newcomer to the festival but not to music or folk festivals in general, and a renfaire regular. She sang ballads mainly, with a very sweet voice, and exactly the sort of music I tend to want to sing but don't have the guts because I'm terrified what would happen if I tried to hold an audience for 17 verses in a row. (Although she also did a memorable not-traditional song called "I'll be Dysfunctional for You").
On Friday and Saturday both, I ended up napping a while, after the mainstage, getting up to my alarm, and then wandering over, so as to be able to be up for even longer. Thus, I got to hear some very tasty musical offerings from an unusually small circle. Lanna's son has also started trying to perform in the circle; so far his repertoire are things familiar to us all, but that just meant that I got to hear a pretty decent rendition of A Well-Earned Vacation in spite of Gray's absence. (I didn't get to play the Lady Moose, though...)
Saturday I also wandered the rest of the campground, to watch at a safe distance the massive rave by Pope's Hill, which is now not only an accepted thing, but includes some of the more off-kilter planned performers and a big video screen, and to go see the people who set up their whole campsite as a massive pirate ship.
Normally, since I pack up my tent Sunday to go home,(and I did this year, as my hair was horrible and needed a wash no later than that night), I don't get to hear anything they do Sunday night. However, they made a big change to the usual course of events, and the big volunteer/performer's backstage party was being had on site in the Park, instead of back at the hotel in the city. Thus, there would be shuttle buses until 3:00 AM.
So I hung around for a very minuscule part of the backstage party, left before the bands began (We get extra performances by 3 of the festival performers, so really, I could have heard more of Cat Empire if I hadn't been more in the mood for a small music-circle party, rather than a dance-and-booze-up.) And I joined Baggiecon in time to get a small shot of Irish Whiskey added to the dregs of my improvised Mocha. Which was apparently enough to give me the nerve to sing twice, the first time partly in Finnish. Erin complimented me, even, and on an unrelated note, Mary asked some pointed questions about volunteering for when she comes back in two years. From what she said about her volunteer/organizer experience at other festival, she's a shoo-in**.
Anyhow. Camping was fun, my hair was actually pretty decent about the primitive conditions until Sunday, and I blame that mostly on _aura_'s aerosol sunscreen. I borrowed a little of it Saturday, but I stuck to my own until Sunday, when I'd run the tube out. The aerosol may seem more convenient a shape, but I found it peeled in interesting ways, discoloured worse, seemed to cling on the surface instead of absorbing so I had a sort of sticky-film feeling on my arms and neck and face.
I spent a lot of time with _Aura_ and Abacchus, and their cousins, as I was camping with them, a lot of evening time with Murren, as that was the one time she could find us (she wasn't camping because she hadn't realised there were people she knew camping in a group, so I flat out invited her to share my tent for next year's festival, since it is an eight person monstrosity with only me in it.) And with my family because they were the ones who set up our tarp to hang out on during the evening mainstages. I ran into and chatted with a good number of other people I see every festival, and one co-worker of mine who, it turns out, is an ex-co-worker of my mother's.
I bought a very pretty glass pendant, made the way individual glass beads are made, except far larger and far more elaborate, with a turquoise heart and slightly orange poppies. (It's gorgeous. It was also my third choice, but my first choice sold and my second, which I think also sold, was also well out of my price range.
I've also been half-joking about wanting a lute, but this year, they didn't have a luthier there, never mind one making an instrument so out-of-the-norm. Maybe I really should just borrow mom/Jeff's old guitar and take lessons. But it was listening to a lute that had me start seriously thinking, "I could learn a string instrument. I should." Such that while I don't exactly want to spend that kind of money for a whim that may well be a short term idea, it's the one I keep making jokes about.
Nah. First I should get a pottery wheel again.
And now, to halfway change subject...
Some reviews. First music, then books.
Ollabelle's Riverside Battle Songs is well ahead of all the other new CDs from the Folk Fest for number of times I've played it through, and behind only Buried Things amid the albums I've picked up this month.
Part of this is Blue Northern Lights, which is not only a song that made me stop dead in the middle of editing to register just what a beautiful thing was happening, but is so painfully apropos to parts of Bird of Dusk. Everything is Broken is almost as lovely and almost as lonely and sad, but I shouldn't make it sound like the album, which has some strong cheerful moments and some gospel work in its midst, is all songs that are beautiful because bittersweet.
It's not a perfectly even album - the two songs immediately following Blue Northern Lights leave me somewhat cold - but overall, it wins me over with the triumvir; good tunes, good lyrics, stunning vocal harmony work.
Crooked Still is probably just as good an album, and has certainly gotten itself heard enough to let me form an opinion. The lead singer's voice is softer and sweeter than I recall, but the cello, frequently played in ways Cello was Not Meant to Know, is just as cool as it was on stage, though it's not as obvious hearing and not seeing, how Weird the performance style is.
(I'm still a little thrown by the fact that Come On in My Kitchen has almost the same opening chord progression as the Sesame Street Theme, though. That weirded me out at the festival, but mom didn't know what I meant when, as the lead singer started, I said, "Those weren't the words I was expecting...")
Oh Susanna and Varttina both seem to have supplied perfectly decent albums in their respective styles. This is not meant to be damning with faint praise, or even damning with faint damns; it just means that the two new groups have taken up my attention, so I haven't had a lot of chances to really register or react to the highs and lows. So far, Oh Susanna's Cain is Rising jumped out as acidic and powerful as it ought to be, and the closing track on Varttina's album, Vaiten Valvoin, sounds like the first really deeply stirring slow work they've done since Kyla Vuotti Uutta Kuuta, the track I used as my wedding song.
_________________________
Books!
Having stayed up late reading Goblin Quest and Goblin Hero (And the latter did indeed get me laughing by page 5, the same place someone else commented about on your LJ, Jim), I didn't do enough of my own writing that week. (I've been wanting to push those books at many and various people, because I think any gamer would appreciate them, as would any fantasy reader, and I know so many of both!) Naturally, the next weeks I would buckle down and write and not read more addictive books?
Heh.
Immediately after, I got to reading two Martha Wells' at the same time, by dumb chance. The Gate of Gods I meant to be reading, as it's the close of the trilogy I'd started some while before. But The Death of the Necromancer was the almost broken apart book I got for 30 cents, and after ending up with a rather nice hardcover edition much more battered than it deserved by getting hauled around in the backpack, I decided my Emergency Book* should be one where I didn't mind if it got beat up, wet, or further damaged, so long as it was readable. Unfortunately I did end up pulling my Emergency book out at a couple of breathers during folk fest, and... Well, Death of the Necromancer fails badly as an Emergency book in almost every respect other than physical condition. It's slightly complicated, and you have to pay attention (This is a plus for me in every situation but drastic flu and Emergency book). It's addictive reading, and I didn't want to set it aside or save it up for emergencies or long bus rides, I wanted to devour it all now. (I'm not done, but I'm closer that I meant to be.)
Of course, it did mean I was reading two books set in the same place, at noteably different times, with one major character in common, and the cognitive dissonance was a mite louder than anticipated. it took some effort to read both without thinking too hard about what Nicholas (And later, Arisilde) used to be like before, or were going to do later...
But, self-created confusion aside, The Gate of Gods is definitely that satisfying conclusion a third book should be. Good, very good. I liked Tremaine more than ever by the end, and that's saying something. I think I actually really attached myself to Ilias before I did Tremaine, but she wins in the long run as The Cool Character out of pretty much all my recent reading. And she's up against people like Jig, and her own father. And Francis Crawford of Lymond. Yes, she wins against Lymond. The explosions were fabulous. The cultural details and clashes were as well-etched as in the first two, but the payoffs started coming in. It was nice to see a character have a major reconsideration of her own prejudices (And here I mean Tremaine's progress through the whole trilogy, not the Syprian stuff about magic) without stating it flat-out. The very ending (the post-climax) felt slightly too easy, but at least it was set up as a possibility well beforehand, and didn't feel tacked on. And it's not like it wasn't what I was screaming to have happen. I did think the dialogue at that very final moments seemed like less than those two characters were capable of.
Death of the Necromancer is probably as good. Nicholas as a young man is... both not what I expected from the clues we get in the later trilogy, and very much as he should be. I was also reading it while Colin, downstairs was watching various Sherlock Holmes movies. That seemed appropriate, with the gaslights, and coaches, and criminal masterminds. it feels odd to say it's possibly a more fun read than the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy, considering how dire things get, how truly cruel the villainy is, and in some cases, how close to the emotional heart of the characters it occasionally cuts, but... if it didn't take emotional risks and have that really dark danger, I wouldn't be enjoying it as much. So yes, those things are part of the fun, at least for me. I kind of feel for Nicholas and Madeline, though.
I think I'll end up doing a mutual book-borrowing with mom soon, as she doesn't have Death of the Necromancer (Or Wheel of the Infinite) and I don't have City of Bones, and right now, in spite of some of the pretties in the stack behind me (Holly Black! Scott Lynch! Doyle and Macdonald! ELLEN KUSHNER, DAMMIT!), I seem to be caught up in Martha Wells.
* Emergency Book - the book that lives in my backpack so that if I should end up somewhere far from home with time to kill, I don't spend that time sneaking into the nearest store to find me something to read. The ideal Emergency book is good enough that I'm perfectly happy to pick it up, not so good I end up pulling it out and finishing it when I'm not supposed to, and not so complicated I'd lose track if I read it in snippets or several days apart, nor so predictable it annoys me. Margaret Mahy's Maddigan's Fantasia was a pretty good choice in most respects for an Emergency Book -- even though a bit weaker than her other serious works that I've read, and more predictable than I liked -- with the added advantage of being somewhat episodic.
** Or is it shoe-in? I don't know the etymology of the expression, so I don't know whether the implication as that one has a foot in the door, or whether it's that one gets waved through on the spot.
So there was this festival...
I was resigned to missing what felt like half of it, as I missed the entirety of Saturday (10-hour volunteer shift, after which i decided I was too worn out to head to the mainstage from the campground, and thus ended up reading umpteen chapters of Death of the Necromancer - see below - then napping until my alarm went off at One AM). And I had to pack up the tent through the end of Sunday afternoon workshops. And of course, while on site, there are those times one is doing things like looking at pretties or looking at CDs or waiting in line for dinner, and thus missing music. Among other things, I didn't listen to Stephen Fearing once all weekend, not for lack of fondness for his music, but because I was that intent on hearing stuff that was new for this year.
My impression this year was that there were fewer of the familiar names onstage, and of those that were fairly big, neither Los Lobos nor Randy Newman are exactly considered as major FOLK groups. The Duhks are huge HERE, not in general. There were all of one maritime and one Scottish Celtic groups, though a few other groups had Celtic influence. There was a huge influx of Old Tyme styles and bluegrass, and it seemed like fewer World beat groups. Also, fewer really uptempo groups, and fewer of those deeply infectious; maybe that was my choice of workshops, but even on the mainstage, the only two bands that got me up and dancing were the Duhks (of course) and Los Lobos. For a while I was thinking it was a festival of overall decent music, but no groups that made me bound with excitement at a new discovery.
Yes, I've thought that before, but only prior to the actual festival. I've almost never kept thinking it well into Friday's Mainstage, and certainly not after a Thursday evening mainstage where 4 out of the 5 main acts had me thinking "That was GOOD" (I didn't stick around for Corb Lund, but my impression of him in the past has been "okay but not my thing."). The whole festival was kicked off with Ollabelle, who were maybe a quieter opening act than one might want, but were full of tasty harmonies to convince me to stay were I was, listening, even though I hadn't been able to spot the family tarp, so I was sitting in the grass.
My favourite thing, though, was the number of weird details in the musical styles or artist names this year. For instance:
Dya Singh, the strongly traditional Punjabi group, came from Australia. You couldn't tell when they sang, but when they spoke... The African Guitar Summit were from BC. The Israeli group had a tuba for the bass line (Okay, that's more like *any* group had a tuba...). Ndidi Onukwulu was a kickass Blues singer. Abigail Washburn was the woman performing music from Beijing.
So: the best bands I heard, in quick:
Ollabelle: multipart harmony, bluegrass/gospel on the gentler side.
Crooked Still: Warped Bluegrass with a capacity for the manic. Their cellist was one of their biggest selling points while playing or singing, one of their worst opening his mouth in between songs. Or maybe the fact that he was insane enough that their lead singer apologized for him several times was a draw. not sure.
John Jorgenson Quintet: mostly-instrumental gypsy jazz. I think more Jeff's thing than mine, but no complaints here.
The Duhks: predictably enough. Or not. They have a new lead singer with a very similar feel to the prior one, no surprise as they're friends. A little shaky blending with the band, but some of the new tracks were good.
Indigo Girls: And I thought I was clearly a lost cause for never having heard them before. Mom hadn't heard OF them. They deserve their reputation as folk-pop icons.
Kiran Ahluwalia: Indian Style singing and instrumentation, occasional modern Twists. I've heard her for a while as Colin really likes her music, but I think she was better live.
Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra: Okay, I confess that they didn't jump out strongly from other African bands I've heard, but they were a solid offering.
Chirgilchin: Tuvan Throat Singing. Considering my penchant for incredibly weird vocal stylings in general, I might almost like them just for singing at all, but yes, they did some tasty things with it.
Los Lobos: Were here a few years ago and while they did prove even then that they were far more than "La Bamba" at that time, they fell into the good but not great. This year, as my brother said, "If this place had a roof, they'd have brought it down."
Nicole Byblow: I spent a while Friday afternoon at the "young performers program", where total unknowns, mentored by various more experienced musicians, present a couple of their songs. I heard four female singer-songwriters playing piano, and one young man who played piano for one song and electric guitar for the other. Two of the girls were decent, "almost there" as professionals, one, a friend of _aura_'s, was good as some of the performers at the festival (I dare say better than her mentor, who was *the* performer I didn't like this festival), but didn't jump out. The young man played one indifferent song and one noticeably better one (The one with the guitar), even kind of funny. Nicole Byblow made me essentially sit up and go, "Okay, she's going somewhere very soon. Or else." Yes, her lyrics did kind of prove she was in her late teens, but they seemed a more sincere record of that age, and a more poetic one.
Dya Singh: The man sings in a very traditional punjabi style; the girl sings in a much more polished and western manner (Or since she's from Australia, which is east of India, have I got the direction wrong?), but blended nicely. Good Indian music.
Dyad: Gentler than I was led to expect from the description, but another excellent vocal harmony based bluegrass/old tyme group.
Ndidi Onukwulu: One hell of a voice. I'm not big on blues, but she sold me on her brand of it.
Final Fantasy: I heard him do only one song at a workshop, playing piano, and he sounded like a good but not too unusual singer-songwriter. But I went over to the alternate stage for a listen Sunday Night when i was bored of Randy Newman's mainstage stuff, and... what he usually does is sing, play classical violin, with an electronica background, and one of those machines that takes samples and loops on the spot under his foot, so that the things he was playing on the violin would suddenly turn into loops while he moved on to doing something else entirely. Very much its own thing. Had I heard him doing more of that earlier, I might have a different set of CDs at home. Although I'm not altogether sure how much of it would really be captured in a recording. Also, I have to confess I'd have a hard time convincing myself to buy anything called "He Poos Clouds", no matter how good it sounded.
I heard very little of The Cat Empire, the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir, or Boom Pam, alas, but what I heard I did like.
Offstage, in the campground, however, there was Baggiecon.
Baggiecon is a selection of musicians and friends of musicians, mostly from Winnipeg, Minneapolis, and occasionally Ontario, and a few from further abroad. They centre, at least for me, around "Decadent" Dave Clement, artist Erin McKee, who doesn't sing but is an avid listener, Lanna whose last name (and correct spelling of her first) I never seem to learn, and, when he's there, Graham Leathers, and a father/daughter duo whose names I tend to forget at the drop of a bandanna (I don't currently have a hat). Every night, after the mainstage is done, they gather in a circle in the campground, and try to play music. Actually, they succeed very well -- if not drowned out by manic random drummers or illegal fireworks. It's a circle where amateurs are welcome, too, so I occasionally open my mouth, though I'm still shy about starting or jumping in.
I found their campsite Wednesday evening, and visited to listen avidly on Thursday, when almost no music happened, but some great conversation did. I met Mary, a newcomer to the festival but not to music or folk festivals in general, and a renfaire regular. She sang ballads mainly, with a very sweet voice, and exactly the sort of music I tend to want to sing but don't have the guts because I'm terrified what would happen if I tried to hold an audience for 17 verses in a row. (Although she also did a memorable not-traditional song called "I'll be Dysfunctional for You").
On Friday and Saturday both, I ended up napping a while, after the mainstage, getting up to my alarm, and then wandering over, so as to be able to be up for even longer. Thus, I got to hear some very tasty musical offerings from an unusually small circle. Lanna's son has also started trying to perform in the circle; so far his repertoire are things familiar to us all, but that just meant that I got to hear a pretty decent rendition of A Well-Earned Vacation in spite of Gray's absence. (I didn't get to play the Lady Moose, though...)
Saturday I also wandered the rest of the campground, to watch at a safe distance the massive rave by Pope's Hill, which is now not only an accepted thing, but includes some of the more off-kilter planned performers and a big video screen, and to go see the people who set up their whole campsite as a massive pirate ship.
Normally, since I pack up my tent Sunday to go home,(and I did this year, as my hair was horrible and needed a wash no later than that night), I don't get to hear anything they do Sunday night. However, they made a big change to the usual course of events, and the big volunteer/performer's backstage party was being had on site in the Park, instead of back at the hotel in the city. Thus, there would be shuttle buses until 3:00 AM.
So I hung around for a very minuscule part of the backstage party, left before the bands began (We get extra performances by 3 of the festival performers, so really, I could have heard more of Cat Empire if I hadn't been more in the mood for a small music-circle party, rather than a dance-and-booze-up.) And I joined Baggiecon in time to get a small shot of Irish Whiskey added to the dregs of my improvised Mocha. Which was apparently enough to give me the nerve to sing twice, the first time partly in Finnish. Erin complimented me, even, and on an unrelated note, Mary asked some pointed questions about volunteering for when she comes back in two years. From what she said about her volunteer/organizer experience at other festival, she's a shoo-in**.
Anyhow. Camping was fun, my hair was actually pretty decent about the primitive conditions until Sunday, and I blame that mostly on _aura_'s aerosol sunscreen. I borrowed a little of it Saturday, but I stuck to my own until Sunday, when I'd run the tube out. The aerosol may seem more convenient a shape, but I found it peeled in interesting ways, discoloured worse, seemed to cling on the surface instead of absorbing so I had a sort of sticky-film feeling on my arms and neck and face.
I spent a lot of time with _Aura_ and Abacchus, and their cousins, as I was camping with them, a lot of evening time with Murren, as that was the one time she could find us (she wasn't camping because she hadn't realised there were people she knew camping in a group, so I flat out invited her to share my tent for next year's festival, since it is an eight person monstrosity with only me in it.) And with my family because they were the ones who set up our tarp to hang out on during the evening mainstages. I ran into and chatted with a good number of other people I see every festival, and one co-worker of mine who, it turns out, is an ex-co-worker of my mother's.
I bought a very pretty glass pendant, made the way individual glass beads are made, except far larger and far more elaborate, with a turquoise heart and slightly orange poppies. (It's gorgeous. It was also my third choice, but my first choice sold and my second, which I think also sold, was also well out of my price range.
I've also been half-joking about wanting a lute, but this year, they didn't have a luthier there, never mind one making an instrument so out-of-the-norm. Maybe I really should just borrow mom/Jeff's old guitar and take lessons. But it was listening to a lute that had me start seriously thinking, "I could learn a string instrument. I should." Such that while I don't exactly want to spend that kind of money for a whim that may well be a short term idea, it's the one I keep making jokes about.
Nah. First I should get a pottery wheel again.
And now, to halfway change subject...
Some reviews. First music, then books.
Ollabelle's Riverside Battle Songs is well ahead of all the other new CDs from the Folk Fest for number of times I've played it through, and behind only Buried Things amid the albums I've picked up this month.
Part of this is Blue Northern Lights, which is not only a song that made me stop dead in the middle of editing to register just what a beautiful thing was happening, but is so painfully apropos to parts of Bird of Dusk. Everything is Broken is almost as lovely and almost as lonely and sad, but I shouldn't make it sound like the album, which has some strong cheerful moments and some gospel work in its midst, is all songs that are beautiful because bittersweet.
It's not a perfectly even album - the two songs immediately following Blue Northern Lights leave me somewhat cold - but overall, it wins me over with the triumvir; good tunes, good lyrics, stunning vocal harmony work.
Crooked Still is probably just as good an album, and has certainly gotten itself heard enough to let me form an opinion. The lead singer's voice is softer and sweeter than I recall, but the cello, frequently played in ways Cello was Not Meant to Know, is just as cool as it was on stage, though it's not as obvious hearing and not seeing, how Weird the performance style is.
(I'm still a little thrown by the fact that Come On in My Kitchen has almost the same opening chord progression as the Sesame Street Theme, though. That weirded me out at the festival, but mom didn't know what I meant when, as the lead singer started, I said, "Those weren't the words I was expecting...")
Oh Susanna and Varttina both seem to have supplied perfectly decent albums in their respective styles. This is not meant to be damning with faint praise, or even damning with faint damns; it just means that the two new groups have taken up my attention, so I haven't had a lot of chances to really register or react to the highs and lows. So far, Oh Susanna's Cain is Rising jumped out as acidic and powerful as it ought to be, and the closing track on Varttina's album, Vaiten Valvoin, sounds like the first really deeply stirring slow work they've done since Kyla Vuotti Uutta Kuuta, the track I used as my wedding song.
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Books!
Having stayed up late reading Goblin Quest and Goblin Hero (And the latter did indeed get me laughing by page 5, the same place someone else commented about on your LJ, Jim), I didn't do enough of my own writing that week. (I've been wanting to push those books at many and various people, because I think any gamer would appreciate them, as would any fantasy reader, and I know so many of both!) Naturally, the next weeks I would buckle down and write and not read more addictive books?
Heh.
Immediately after, I got to reading two Martha Wells' at the same time, by dumb chance. The Gate of Gods I meant to be reading, as it's the close of the trilogy I'd started some while before. But The Death of the Necromancer was the almost broken apart book I got for 30 cents, and after ending up with a rather nice hardcover edition much more battered than it deserved by getting hauled around in the backpack, I decided my Emergency Book* should be one where I didn't mind if it got beat up, wet, or further damaged, so long as it was readable. Unfortunately I did end up pulling my Emergency book out at a couple of breathers during folk fest, and... Well, Death of the Necromancer fails badly as an Emergency book in almost every respect other than physical condition. It's slightly complicated, and you have to pay attention (This is a plus for me in every situation but drastic flu and Emergency book). It's addictive reading, and I didn't want to set it aside or save it up for emergencies or long bus rides, I wanted to devour it all now. (I'm not done, but I'm closer that I meant to be.)
Of course, it did mean I was reading two books set in the same place, at noteably different times, with one major character in common, and the cognitive dissonance was a mite louder than anticipated. it took some effort to read both without thinking too hard about what Nicholas (And later, Arisilde) used to be like before, or were going to do later...
But, self-created confusion aside, The Gate of Gods is definitely that satisfying conclusion a third book should be. Good, very good. I liked Tremaine more than ever by the end, and that's saying something. I think I actually really attached myself to Ilias before I did Tremaine, but she wins in the long run as The Cool Character out of pretty much all my recent reading. And she's up against people like Jig, and her own father. And Francis Crawford of Lymond. Yes, she wins against Lymond. The explosions were fabulous. The cultural details and clashes were as well-etched as in the first two, but the payoffs started coming in. It was nice to see a character have a major reconsideration of her own prejudices (And here I mean Tremaine's progress through the whole trilogy, not the Syprian stuff about magic) without stating it flat-out. The very ending (the post-climax) felt slightly too easy, but at least it was set up as a possibility well beforehand, and didn't feel tacked on. And it's not like it wasn't what I was screaming to have happen. I did think the dialogue at that very final moments seemed like less than those two characters were capable of.
Death of the Necromancer is probably as good. Nicholas as a young man is... both not what I expected from the clues we get in the later trilogy, and very much as he should be. I was also reading it while Colin, downstairs was watching various Sherlock Holmes movies. That seemed appropriate, with the gaslights, and coaches, and criminal masterminds. it feels odd to say it's possibly a more fun read than the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy, considering how dire things get, how truly cruel the villainy is, and in some cases, how close to the emotional heart of the characters it occasionally cuts, but... if it didn't take emotional risks and have that really dark danger, I wouldn't be enjoying it as much. So yes, those things are part of the fun, at least for me. I kind of feel for Nicholas and Madeline, though.
I think I'll end up doing a mutual book-borrowing with mom soon, as she doesn't have Death of the Necromancer (Or Wheel of the Infinite) and I don't have City of Bones, and right now, in spite of some of the pretties in the stack behind me (Holly Black! Scott Lynch! Doyle and Macdonald! ELLEN KUSHNER, DAMMIT!), I seem to be caught up in Martha Wells.
* Emergency Book - the book that lives in my backpack so that if I should end up somewhere far from home with time to kill, I don't spend that time sneaking into the nearest store to find me something to read. The ideal Emergency book is good enough that I'm perfectly happy to pick it up, not so good I end up pulling it out and finishing it when I'm not supposed to, and not so complicated I'd lose track if I read it in snippets or several days apart, nor so predictable it annoys me. Margaret Mahy's Maddigan's Fantasia was a pretty good choice in most respects for an Emergency Book -- even though a bit weaker than her other serious works that I've read, and more predictable than I liked -- with the added advantage of being somewhat episodic.
** Or is it shoe-in? I don't know the etymology of the expression, so I don't know whether the implication as that one has a foot in the door, or whether it's that one gets waved through on the spot.
