Song and Text (With digressions)

[lenora_rose]

Saturday night was a party at the Bhigg house I've wanted to say something about, if only because it was a lot of fun, and I want to go again, but I've found there really isn't much more to say than that. Coplin and I played one board game new to us, then he continued with the board games and the good company downstairs (Including Bodi's husband), while Bodi and I ended up upstairs in a music circle in the library (A science fiction book collection to put most anyone else's to shame, though I did ahve to wonder if at least one inhabitant of the house actually did like and could justify keeping every book there or if they just never traded anything in for fear of wanting to reread it.) Most of the usual Winnipeggers were in for a tleast a while, soem people from Manitoba but out of Winnipeg, and Peggy o'Niell, whom I think is from Minnesota. The music was good and I stayed until Colin begged to go home -- even though the warmth of the room meant I sat still at least as much because the headache was in full force, including the dizziness, and I was afraid to stand too often for fear of falling down. New faces, too, always good, as well as old friendly ones. and I made bodi_kat sing the long version of the itsy bitsy spider again.

Someone actually complimented my singing after I'd gone downstairs. I wasn't totally happy with my solo endeavours, but I was having fun doing something relatively new to me. I used to try to train myself to sing harminies along with CDs or the radio, but I could never tell which parts were me failing to match because I was on an off note and which the strange effects you soemtimes get just because you're singing along to a pre-recorded track with the vocals slicked. (I could usually tell if I found a major key harmony of the dead basic down-a-third kind... but I also tended to lose them. Minor? Fuggeddaboudit).

But choir seems to be making it easier for me to track down actual real harmonies to live music more often. At least ones that resemble an alto line.

Still need to work on my low range and projecting. And I can't *apply* the breathing tricks I figured out consistently, so I still run short of breath or break a phrase in half too often. All the more reason to stick with choir.

Anyhow, the night ended on a not so good note; the protective device that you have to use a magnetized key on so you can actually use the normal key and start the car (What the heck is the word for it again? I manage to forget it *every* time. The one time prior to this I had to tell Colin he'd forgotten to switch it off, I just pointed to the light and said "Blinky!")... well, it wouldn't turn off. We couldn't even get far enough to find out if the car would start. We tried a hair dryer to warm, it, but no luck; thankfully, other people leaving at the same time gave us a lift in a cranky - but working - truck. Hurrah, we got home and slept until noon.

Turns out it was probably only the extreme cold affecting it, the same way it might have frozen the battery or other parts. The hair dryer either wasn't strong enough or was pointed at the wrong part of its system.
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I know that lately I've been complaining about money. But. There was a book sale at the University today to support the libraries, which included Donations from the library's own stock as well as donations by random people. I swore I wouldn't pick up anything that wasn't on my rarities list -- or else 25 cents. I spent $6.75 anyhow, but I find it heard to feel guilty when the first two books are ones I've been hunting for for months to years, and I'd have spent a hell of a lot more to get, even in worse financial straits:

Samuel Schellabarger - Prince of Foxes (I had my choice of two Schellabargers, but this one is the one Teresa Nielsen Hayden said I should read at Viable Paradise, before I tried writing a story plot that involved court intrigue, and I have one more still at home.)
Nicholas Stuart Gray - The Stone Cage (An obscure early sixties' children's novel - based on Rapunzel -- by a Scottish writer; I read the University library's copy of it in my first year of my first degree - late 1994 or early 1995. I've never seen or heard of a copy since, even when doing Abebooks searches for Gray's works. This *IS* the university library's now-former copy, so I've still never heard of another.)
Margaret Mead - From the South Seas (A collection of three books of "Studies in primitive societies" from the 1930's - the interest is almost as much in her assumptions and outlook and what one would see of that between the cracks as with the people she's looking at, but the first pages proved readable)

Scheffer - The Year of the Whale (biological study, somewhat fictionalized - the sort of thing Lockley does so well: the first pages beign readable, I figured for 25 cents it could be a consolation prize for there being no actual Lockley. I *still* want a copy of the Saga of the Grey Seal, which I loved like anything, and I'ms till Curious about Year of the Rabbit, because the combination of same author as Saga plus being inspiration for Watership Down... havign foudn the Stone Cage, I half expected Saga, my other major University of Manitoba Libraries' discovery, to show up on the table. Alas for me but not for others, they've probably decided to keep it in their catalogue.)
John D. Macdonald - Cinnamon Skin (Because it was 25 cents, and I think I've read one Travis McGee ever, when i was heavy into mom's mystery collection. I'm not sure, because if I did, it must've been a library book.)
Virginia Hamilton - The House of Dies Drear (Because it was 25 cents, the author is of mild interest, and the story looked suitably gothy in spite of the YA title.)

Comments

[forodwaith.livejournal.com]

Heh. I went to Chapters last night just for a latte, and walked out with two books from the discount tables (Firethorn and a collection of Elizabeth I's works/letters).

If I grovel, would you lend me the Stuart Gray? I *loved* his version of the Seventh Swan (which may be in the box of kids' books stored away, I should check).

Sorry to hear the headache is still in effect.

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

You can borrow and you don't ahve to grovel. You'd think my brother's childhood inability to keep books in remotely decent shape would make me wary (Plus the boy who managed to drop my first of the Dragonlance Chronicles in a lake - he recovered the book, but algae is worse than mildew, and at thirteen I was very much distressed by the loss). Never happened.

I also have another silly novel of Gray's (Grimbolds's Other World, a lost prince type fantasy with a cat who crosses worlds -- and a **dreadful** cover) and a collection of short stories.

In both novels, you might have to watch out for the poetry. it works okay as rhymelets for young children, which is about what he meant, but...