local bands, grammar
I figure I should get to writing some blogs. I've kinda NOT been doin that.
I haven't been to the movies much, or renting DVDs (I get lots of DVDs from the library, so for the hell of it let's just call that "renting" a movie), but I've read a couple books and gone to some shows.
When I talk to folks about shows I go to locally, it becomes quite clear that a couple of my faves are Swallows and Autopilot aka Autopilot Is For Lovers. The two are quite different. Swallows is a gtr/ drums duo, rock in an indie way. Sleater-Kinney is an okay reference point for sound, although I hate to compare bands too much, and Em has been doin some work with loop pedals that's unique. Em and Jon are blogging like mad lately, so if you want some idea of "influence," what they're playing and so on, they mention that (and all sorts of bloggo stuff) here: http://gaycondo.wordpress.com/
Autopilot shows are neat in that the line-up isn't fixed. I've seen them with just Adrienne and Paul, but also with bass players (Bobby), violin (Kyle and more- see below), people using melodica and glockenspiel. They're housemates with Porches now, so the Americana/ alt-folk has increased a slight bit. Adrienne took advantage of Towne Lounge having an upright piano at the 2nd-last show, which was great. The last show (at Alberts St Pub) was great, with Autopilot joining in the Porches set, and the Porches violinist in theirs, a true your-choco-in-my-peanut-butter delight. The one drag of that evening was a drunk (who was cut off for the night) smashing out a window; I guess he was of Irish heritage, since his big insult to the owner (among many swear words) was that the owner was really ENGLISH, not Irish... some wild drunks smash up things, some smash up people, and I'm glad our champ there that night was one of the former.
I read a English-usage book by Bill Bryson. I also started Notes On A Small Island, but I stopped it when he went off on a tirade about the "fat" family who took "his" dessert from a hotel assortment. One or two fat jokes is no biggie, I get it, but when someone goes on and on about people being "pigs" and such i think it's a bit ugly, and I don't approve of that sort of sizeist hate.
Anyway, it seemed to me after reading the English vocab/ grammar book that English has hard-fast rules, bendable rules, and things that anyone can dispute, and choosing which are which is kind of personal, from the examples he gave from other books. Just for the hell of it, I thought I'd type up a few here that were new to me and might help you all's writing:
bereft - doesn't just mean somebody doesn't have something; it means they HAD it but now have lost it or had it taken from them. Rather than say someone you don't like is "bereft of talent," you'd probably want to use another word.
enormity - Doesn't just mean a task/ job/ project was big, but that it was big and evil. You can speak of the enormity of Hitler's work, but prob want another term when discussing, for example, the enormous project by NASA of the moon landing.
forego - means to precede
forgo - means to go without
kudos - an ancient Greek word for glory or fame. It is a singular term; there is no "one kudo," but rather a term like "media" or "phenomena" that happens to end in "s."
libel - must be published. Someone can slander you in speech, but they have to have had the words in print somewhere for it to be libel.
livid - originally meant a shade of dark, leaden blue, like a bruise. Usually, we associate "livid" with red, since someone who's livid is angry.
overly - Leave off the "ly." "Over" suffices as an adverb. (I'll prob still use overly sometimes, though, for fun.)
repulse - to stave off, fend off
repel - to cause distaste or revulsion. The two are often mixed up.
There's a lot more in there, but... yeah, if you ever want to look up books of weird words and language usage, they're usually in the 423 section, the dictionary section, at a library.