Two more days until Halloween...
... which means I'll soon have to shelve this icon for another year! *sniffle*
So, since my last post I _did_ in fact finish both the writerverse story (adding about 10 words-so much for expanding!) and also got the White Collar story done before the close at run_the_con. Yay on both fronts!
This weekend, I discovered that my husband was horribly mistaken about the cost of tickets to see the Sacramento Ballet (an earlier birthday wish), so we went to the Sunday matinee and Christopher agreed to go. Oh, people. I'd wanted to see The Firebird, which hardly ever gets staged and has music I've known and loved since I was about 9. But it was an all-Stravinsky program, so it turned out that the second-half performance was The Rite Of Spring. THAT ballet is also rarely staged. It is famous for having caused a riot at its Paris premiere 100 years ago, and even now, if a radio station airs the music I can guarantee that at least 1 time out of 4, people will complain that the piece is "too modern." The ballet's subject is a primitive pagan ritual that culminates in a human sacrifice, and the music is unapologetically vibrant and dischordant and unsettling. Huge walls of sound, cross-rhythms, moments that (rightly) sound like soul-sickness... and the choreography, necessarily, is not Princesses En Pointe. It is as modern and energetic as you'd expect, given the topic and musical style. For Paris audiences, both the music AND the dancing style at the premiere were an affront, and it still seems pretty daring even now. Both ballets featured really terrific original choreography from the Sac Ballet's director. It was an amazing afternoon, capped off by frozen yogurt (chocolate and orange sorbet!) *happy sigh*
So, now I've got Stravinsky on the brain. I loaded up The Rite of Spring on my PC (the ballet used my favorite performance, with Zubin Mehta and the NY Philharmonic, which I would know anywhere). I'm playing it while writing docs for work.
Other news: mistyzeo recommended listening to podcasts while running, so on Sunday I tried that out with more of Nightvale. The podcasts got around my problems of pacing to music, and resolved the boredom issue (now that Christopher no longer scooters with me and distracts me with yakking). I love Nightvale's recurring story threads-I LOL'd at the announcement of a surprising new member of the PTA, and then there's the tragic ongoing saga of lost radio-station interns. Oh, Chad...
I'm also amassing my list of potential prompts/etc. for November, in which I participate in wrisomifu with the goal of writing every day. I have a story to finish, a Yuletide offering to write, a completely open table for 5_prompts (my third), a collection of the weekly offerings at writers_choice, the ongoing daily watching of comment_fic, several half-written stories that I would sincerely like to finish, and if I get desperate you'll see a drabble meme or something pop up. How about you? I know several of you are doing NaNoWriMo (byeeee! See you in December!), but how many of you are going for shorter works with daily writing? And if you'd like to weigh in with random drabble/story ideas in the comments below, well, why the hell not? No promises, but anything could happen!
ETA: Oopsishness. Bad enough that we never got around to buying Halloween pumpkins, but we still haven't bought the candy! Stoopid middle-of-the-week holidays!
So, since my last post I _did_ in fact finish both the writerverse story (adding about 10 words-so much for expanding!) and also got the White Collar story done before the close at run_the_con. Yay on both fronts!
This weekend, I discovered that my husband was horribly mistaken about the cost of tickets to see the Sacramento Ballet (an earlier birthday wish), so we went to the Sunday matinee and Christopher agreed to go. Oh, people. I'd wanted to see The Firebird, which hardly ever gets staged and has music I've known and loved since I was about 9. But it was an all-Stravinsky program, so it turned out that the second-half performance was The Rite Of Spring. THAT ballet is also rarely staged. It is famous for having caused a riot at its Paris premiere 100 years ago, and even now, if a radio station airs the music I can guarantee that at least 1 time out of 4, people will complain that the piece is "too modern." The ballet's subject is a primitive pagan ritual that culminates in a human sacrifice, and the music is unapologetically vibrant and dischordant and unsettling. Huge walls of sound, cross-rhythms, moments that (rightly) sound like soul-sickness... and the choreography, necessarily, is not Princesses En Pointe. It is as modern and energetic as you'd expect, given the topic and musical style. For Paris audiences, both the music AND the dancing style at the premiere were an affront, and it still seems pretty daring even now. Both ballets featured really terrific original choreography from the Sac Ballet's director. It was an amazing afternoon, capped off by frozen yogurt (chocolate and orange sorbet!) *happy sigh*
So, now I've got Stravinsky on the brain. I loaded up The Rite of Spring on my PC (the ballet used my favorite performance, with Zubin Mehta and the NY Philharmonic, which I would know anywhere). I'm playing it while writing docs for work.
Other news: mistyzeo recommended listening to podcasts while running, so on Sunday I tried that out with more of Nightvale. The podcasts got around my problems of pacing to music, and resolved the boredom issue (now that Christopher no longer scooters with me and distracts me with yakking). I love Nightvale's recurring story threads-I LOL'd at the announcement of a surprising new member of the PTA, and then there's the tragic ongoing saga of lost radio-station interns. Oh, Chad...
I'm also amassing my list of potential prompts/etc. for November, in which I participate in wrisomifu with the goal of writing every day. I have a story to finish, a Yuletide offering to write, a completely open table for 5_prompts (my third), a collection of the weekly offerings at writers_choice, the ongoing daily watching of comment_fic, several half-written stories that I would sincerely like to finish, and if I get desperate you'll see a drabble meme or something pop up. How about you? I know several of you are doing NaNoWriMo (byeeee! See you in December!), but how many of you are going for shorter works with daily writing? And if you'd like to weigh in with random drabble/story ideas in the comments below, well, why the hell not? No promises, but anything could happen!
ETA: Oopsishness. Bad enough that we never got around to buying Halloween pumpkins, but we still haven't bought the candy! Stoopid middle-of-the-week holidays!