Writing and Rock Bands and Puppets, Oh My!
Last night I went with my sempai, Chris, to go see They Might Be Giants in concert at Rams Head Live in Baltimore. I really had no idea what to expect, but the person Sempai had originally invited backed out, so I tagged along instead. I'm familiar with their music and I've liked what I heard, but I couldn't probably name more than three songs they've done.
That's going to change.
It was an incredible concert. It may have helped that Rams Head is a smaller, more immediate venue than say Merriweather here in Columbia, but wow, what a fun time. They put a lot of energy into the show and they have a very devoted following from what I could tell from watching the crowd's reactions.
But, the part I really enjoyed was when the two lead singers stepped off stage to do the sock puppets, known as the Avatars of Them. Now, it was a little hard to hear what they were saying over the milling (and somewhat inebriated) crowd, but when the Avatars broke into doing Black Sabbath's Paranoid, I nearly fell over from laughing. It was so surreal and yet, somehow, so appropriate.
So, TMBG has converted yet another person to their fandom. I plan on investing in some of their albums (or at least the best of) next payday.
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On the writing scene, I'm up to just under 14000 words on The Full Moon Affair. I'm not writing every day due to college and such, but I have been able to average about 2000 words a writing session, so that's a good thing. I think I've turned the corner in the story, so I'd say we're probably looking at 25,000 for the story, pre-edits. And then it's back to The Mountain of Night and other stuff.
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College week #3 has come and gone. I got an A on my first paper for Literary Criticism and survived the New Frankfurt Philosophers. This upcoming week - the Neo-Marxists. If I'm still writing coherent sentences by the end of this semester, I will count this a victory, regardless of my grades. However, I may have settled on a topic for my paper, since the professor suggested a critique of Dracula would be acceptable. I just have to decide what school of criticism do I want to base my critique on or do I want to do a paper deconstructing someone else's critique of the book, which is what I'm leaning more toward.
In my Seminar of Drama class, we finished our discussion of Othello and reviewed C. Bernard Jackson's retelling of the story in Iago. As soon as I read it, I mentioned to Wishweaver that it was written in the late 60's/early 70's. I was off by a few years (1978), but it had that feeling of social commentary that was prevalent when I was in college the first time. I'm going to be settling in with The Importance of Being Earnest and M. Butterfly this afternoon.
Oh well, time to finish my coffee, gird my loins and hit the books. Ah, the whirlwind life of a graduate student. *grin*
That's going to change.
It was an incredible concert. It may have helped that Rams Head is a smaller, more immediate venue than say Merriweather here in Columbia, but wow, what a fun time. They put a lot of energy into the show and they have a very devoted following from what I could tell from watching the crowd's reactions.
But, the part I really enjoyed was when the two lead singers stepped off stage to do the sock puppets, known as the Avatars of Them. Now, it was a little hard to hear what they were saying over the milling (and somewhat inebriated) crowd, but when the Avatars broke into doing Black Sabbath's Paranoid, I nearly fell over from laughing. It was so surreal and yet, somehow, so appropriate.
So, TMBG has converted yet another person to their fandom. I plan on investing in some of their albums (or at least the best of) next payday.
_______________________________________________________________
On the writing scene, I'm up to just under 14000 words on The Full Moon Affair. I'm not writing every day due to college and such, but I have been able to average about 2000 words a writing session, so that's a good thing. I think I've turned the corner in the story, so I'd say we're probably looking at 25,000 for the story, pre-edits. And then it's back to The Mountain of Night and other stuff.
_____________________________________________________________
College week #3 has come and gone. I got an A on my first paper for Literary Criticism and survived the New Frankfurt Philosophers. This upcoming week - the Neo-Marxists. If I'm still writing coherent sentences by the end of this semester, I will count this a victory, regardless of my grades. However, I may have settled on a topic for my paper, since the professor suggested a critique of Dracula would be acceptable. I just have to decide what school of criticism do I want to base my critique on or do I want to do a paper deconstructing someone else's critique of the book, which is what I'm leaning more toward.
In my Seminar of Drama class, we finished our discussion of Othello and reviewed C. Bernard Jackson's retelling of the story in Iago. As soon as I read it, I mentioned to Wishweaver that it was written in the late 60's/early 70's. I was off by a few years (1978), but it had that feeling of social commentary that was prevalent when I was in college the first time. I'm going to be settling in with The Importance of Being Earnest and M. Butterfly this afternoon.
Oh well, time to finish my coffee, gird my loins and hit the books. Ah, the whirlwind life of a graduate student. *grin*