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Sep. 28th, 2008 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseLast Thursday i stopped at the very last farmer's market, because:
- If you like cucumber at all, there is nothing so nice as lemon cucumbers. I mean: small round yellow things about the size of a huge plum or a small apple, perfect to take for lunch, that taste like *especially good* cucumbers. (And this is after having bought their fresh regular cukes, too.) Ideal snack food, right up there with snap peas.
- Another place sells dried fruit. Which is usually, yawn. I mean, i like the apricots as camping food, but really, dried apples are strange spongy monstrosities. Banana chips are tooth-breaking unpleasances. These dried apples, though, are thin, crispy, and very very full of flavour. Ditto for the kiwis. The bananas aren't as hard, and have taste. Cost about twice what you'd pay for the spongy stuff, and far far more worthwhile.
______________________
So far, I've had three driving lessons scheduled; and none have happened. The first two were over the same weekend, and thus taken out by the same flu. This time, there was a different mixup.
I was okay with the mixup, things happen, he called to clear everything up and reschedule, and offered one for free (I intend to try and not take the offer, btw. He's already charging very low since it's our car/our gas.) What I don't like is the nervous terror ahead of time, leading up to... fizzle. It leaves me feeling very down when it fades.
______________________
Prose art:
Actually got writing done this week. A decent scene, too. The wrong project, as tends to happen after a long gap (Once again, I've jumped from Serpent Prince to Soldier, so once again, it's same character, different timeframe - this story just doesn't feel like coming out of my fingers in order.), but I'll take any prose that comes my way.
Just finished reading Gaudy Night and Ha'Penny.
The former is excellent; highly intellectual and emotionally quiet (Which is not to say emotionally lacking, The texture is there, but subtle, as these are not characters inclined to project their inner state), a little dated, but I can see why and how so many people have talked about Sayers' strengths. And the devilishness of gratitude.
The latter lacks some of the "Bleeding quietly over it"ness of Farthing, but still a powerful and powerfully disturbing book. And of course, considering the choice of quote on the opening page, and oddly apropos pairing.
(I reread Archer's Goon in between, because I did need the break for fluff.)
Just started Rebecca.
Visual art:
Pottery goes slowly, but I have the basics down for the first plate and goblet, which means that come Tuesday's class, I'll be able to work on the kind of detailing that will tell me if the concept is viable or not. (As dinnerware, it's 100% impractical. I can't think of much of anything I *would* serve on such a plate).
I got the confirmation that i can get the time off work for the trip to Regina. Which is good for many reasons, but still bad for production time. I leave Thursday. I'll probably take the Dana again, so i can at least get prose in.
Musical Art:
Colin just bought a hard drive to sit on the network, for the storage of vast quantities of music, video, and photos. Nummy. Means I get to raid his MP3 collection for the first time (And he pointed me to the Tom Smith folder because I've not heard nearly enough of him.) And if I ever thought my collection was eclectic...
Meantime, I was greatly amused to notice what happened when I named the first folder on my own MP3 player's current playlist (And stripped it of commas): "Barrage Cats Laughing and Boiled in Lead." Definitely evokes mental pictures. (The three bands actually complement one another exceedingly well; I tend to drift a bit listening to a purely instrumental album so Barrage's instrumentals come off stronger when intermixed with the other weirdness.)
The current playlist also cemented my opinions of the albums picked up at folk fest. Boiled in Lead was a WIN on all fronts. They'd bloody well ought not to wait so long between studio runs again (Their version of Death on Hennepin is AMAZING. This from one who Loffed the Flash Girls version with blind mad loff.) Kate Rusby was in decent form, but no surprises happened.
Calexico came across better in closer listening than they did putting on the album beside the computer, and have grown on me greatly, though my initial reaction had been that the album lost a lot to the live. (I'm still not sold on the singing style, which is near muttering. But, then again, Mark Knopfler used to do some of that.) And Cara Luft... alas, the things that drew me to her live are in shorter supply on the album. There are three tracks I like (and those are not unflawed), some I skip rather fast, and a lot which just feels uninteresting, nothing standout. Close to a mistake to have picked up, and in serious danger of moving straight to the trade-in pile.
Right after the folk fest, on first hearing, I would have expected those last two to be the opposite over time. But I'm growing possessive of my Calexico.
- If you like cucumber at all, there is nothing so nice as lemon cucumbers. I mean: small round yellow things about the size of a huge plum or a small apple, perfect to take for lunch, that taste like *especially good* cucumbers. (And this is after having bought their fresh regular cukes, too.) Ideal snack food, right up there with snap peas.
- Another place sells dried fruit. Which is usually, yawn. I mean, i like the apricots as camping food, but really, dried apples are strange spongy monstrosities. Banana chips are tooth-breaking unpleasances. These dried apples, though, are thin, crispy, and very very full of flavour. Ditto for the kiwis. The bananas aren't as hard, and have taste. Cost about twice what you'd pay for the spongy stuff, and far far more worthwhile.
______________________
So far, I've had three driving lessons scheduled; and none have happened. The first two were over the same weekend, and thus taken out by the same flu. This time, there was a different mixup.
I was okay with the mixup, things happen, he called to clear everything up and reschedule, and offered one for free (I intend to try and not take the offer, btw. He's already charging very low since it's our car/our gas.) What I don't like is the nervous terror ahead of time, leading up to... fizzle. It leaves me feeling very down when it fades.
______________________
Prose art:
Actually got writing done this week. A decent scene, too. The wrong project, as tends to happen after a long gap (Once again, I've jumped from Serpent Prince to Soldier, so once again, it's same character, different timeframe - this story just doesn't feel like coming out of my fingers in order.), but I'll take any prose that comes my way.
Just finished reading Gaudy Night and Ha'Penny.
The former is excellent; highly intellectual and emotionally quiet (Which is not to say emotionally lacking, The texture is there, but subtle, as these are not characters inclined to project their inner state), a little dated, but I can see why and how so many people have talked about Sayers' strengths. And the devilishness of gratitude.
The latter lacks some of the "Bleeding quietly over it"ness of Farthing, but still a powerful and powerfully disturbing book. And of course, considering the choice of quote on the opening page, and oddly apropos pairing.
(I reread Archer's Goon in between, because I did need the break for fluff.)
Just started Rebecca.
Visual art:
Pottery goes slowly, but I have the basics down for the first plate and goblet, which means that come Tuesday's class, I'll be able to work on the kind of detailing that will tell me if the concept is viable or not. (As dinnerware, it's 100% impractical. I can't think of much of anything I *would* serve on such a plate).
I got the confirmation that i can get the time off work for the trip to Regina. Which is good for many reasons, but still bad for production time. I leave Thursday. I'll probably take the Dana again, so i can at least get prose in.
Musical Art:
Colin just bought a hard drive to sit on the network, for the storage of vast quantities of music, video, and photos. Nummy. Means I get to raid his MP3 collection for the first time (And he pointed me to the Tom Smith folder because I've not heard nearly enough of him.) And if I ever thought my collection was eclectic...
Meantime, I was greatly amused to notice what happened when I named the first folder on my own MP3 player's current playlist (And stripped it of commas): "Barrage Cats Laughing and Boiled in Lead." Definitely evokes mental pictures. (The three bands actually complement one another exceedingly well; I tend to drift a bit listening to a purely instrumental album so Barrage's instrumentals come off stronger when intermixed with the other weirdness.)
The current playlist also cemented my opinions of the albums picked up at folk fest. Boiled in Lead was a WIN on all fronts. They'd bloody well ought not to wait so long between studio runs again (Their version of Death on Hennepin is AMAZING. This from one who Loffed the Flash Girls version with blind mad loff.) Kate Rusby was in decent form, but no surprises happened.
Calexico came across better in closer listening than they did putting on the album beside the computer, and have grown on me greatly, though my initial reaction had been that the album lost a lot to the live. (I'm still not sold on the singing style, which is near muttering. But, then again, Mark Knopfler used to do some of that.) And Cara Luft... alas, the things that drew me to her live are in shorter supply on the album. There are three tracks I like (and those are not unflawed), some I skip rather fast, and a lot which just feels uninteresting, nothing standout. Close to a mistake to have picked up, and in serious danger of moving straight to the trade-in pile.
Right after the folk fest, on first hearing, I would have expected those last two to be the opposite over time. But I'm growing possessive of my Calexico.
