Category: Music

words and music and pictures

Conflikt Frog

(c)Onflikt is this weekend. All the filking will be done on Zoom. I hope to see the Talis Kimberly concert at least, although I’ll likely need a nap for the hour it’s at.

11179 on Best Roommate. Hug scene today if I can deal with it (this is only going to mean anything to my faithful readermOm.)

Made flower rolls yesterday (and pork patties) and the flower rolls are ALL GONE.

Letters will go off to Mary and Jan M and someone else, can’t now remember, so I’ll probably do a small shopping expotition while I’m out getting sufficient postage on Jan’s package, since I’m almost out of milk.

Effective immediately, no more cloth masks, only N95 or K95 while I’m out. The new variant is incredibly contagious and even if I got COVID in March I can still likely catch and carry it.

I see that some of my pre-posted stuff popped up already, and I don’t really understand how that happened, but I’m going to tuck them back in where they belong if I can.

I’LL BE ABLE TO CONVERT MY MIDI FILES. That is an IMMENSE relief because without that I’d have a hard time filling the entire year of tunes.

I need to review my list of songs again. It’s like an amorphous blob of pulsating weirdness how I don’t actually have a grip on the number.

Mira Furlan has passed at 65 of complications of West Nile Virus. Her role as Delenn was iconic and amazing and she was a hero to both kids, when the grandparents exposed them to B5. Rest in power, Ambassador.

power failures

3 in one 24 hour period. Killed one of Jeff’s router power supplies. Resetting clocks over and over. Power failures feel weird now; like we’re prepping for the big one, like civil unrest is ‘about’.

Funny tale of waking up: I tossed my fluffy hoody into a laundry hamper but when I woke up this morning it looked like a sandworm head coming out of the floor and I almost squawked in terror.

Biscotti in oven for Tom. I cleaned the racks and wiped down the interior of the oven, it’s started to smell oily and smoky. Soon, Time Team (we’re in the last season unhappy sigh) and running the dishwasher and the rest of the day gets underway.

Total word count 9189 on Best Roommate. In this latest bit, Amorfo came to pick up the sproing and scared the living shit of Keegan.

Watched the movie Synchronic. I liked it – there are some visuals that were quite striking and the basic concept is interesting. It is a B movie – very earnest and low key. The final shot has an element of ambiguity, but it also contains friendship, which is kind of the point. Anthony Mackie is quite good.

I blew an incredible kazoo solo this morning. I can only ask an intemperate universe that Jeff had his gd headphones on.

rain rain

So the rain of course prevented any chance to see the Geminids; another year no streaks in the sky. Sigh.

Had an EEG yesterday. Taxi there and back (easier now I know with all the fucking construction down on Columbia for blocks around RCH where the taxi stand is.) The part where your hair is coated in slimy goo and it’s time for you to go home was suboptimal, and I didn’t like closing my eyes while a strobe light flashed (I was having trouble talking for about two hours after that – felt like a migraine coming on but I was fine after.) Results over Christmas will take two weeks at minimum, so I’ve diarized to call the doc at year end and find out whether the results are back, then to make an appointment.

I feel very stupid for how much I babbled at the tech. Am I that hard up for company? (nods head yes sadly) I realized what I was doing and asked her questions about her kid and her Christmas after a while and she’s got a toddler who’s bitey so I commiserated with her. Keith had a bitey phase, and passed through it with speed, but Katie was straight up mean about it just as she was coming up on a year and man, when you’re nursing it just sucks so bad. I didn’t mention that though.

I should have had a shower as soon as I got home but I delayed it until I realized that I was going to be showering while Jeff was attempting to sleep. Didn’t sing in the shower for a change, but it’s still noisy. Sorry about that brO.

Finally cleaned the veggie ichor out of the fridge so the kitchen is a much happier place to be. Today I make a vegan veggie pizza for Jeff, he wants to see if it’s different without the milk powder.

The fridge is full of tasty Indian food (the channa masala and palak paneer are so yummy) and there’s a pile of veggie samosas NOM and so the rest of the day was quite nice.

Grocery shop yesterday.

Wrote two songs yesterday. I’m about to go downstairs and see if they actually stuck in my brain.

Booked to record at a studio in New West on January 4. This year upcoming is going to be a challenge, and I hope to meet it.

Re-reading Sweetie’s House of Tentacles – my UPSUN in universe porn novel. I’d forgotten how sweet and funny it is, also how much poor Slider gets misgendered. Worked on The Best Roommate in the World – it’s now 2200 words long, if you can believe it. Poor Jesse, trying to move when he’s still recovering from the last stupid thing a sixer did to get him nearly killed.

I am having a lazy day

I managed to a tiny bit of writing on UPSUN, I am attempting to work on the scene where Jesse moves in with Slider.

Lots of practicing today, mallet work among other things. Brief trek to London Drugs, we have a new toaster, huzzah. There was a moose mask… I bought it. I was hoping to go to the bank, but yelling broke out in the line up so I scooted back to the car.

Spoke to Peggy briefly. She hopes Tom will perk up in hospital, it wasn’t happening at home. She’s had a chance to social distance interact with grandkids so that always helps.

I love this so I decided to try to leave a link

 

writing back to the world

Yes, there was an election. No, it isn’t settled. Even if the worst happens, the world survived before, and it will keep surviving. My story isn’t done, neither is yours.

This is a long boring text-heavy oversharing post, ya been told.

Continue reading writing back to the world

another letter

this one to Jan in Toronto

I practiced this morning, that’s a plus, also reprinted the lyrics for Shit’s Fucked Up, because it annoys me that I went to all the trouble to work up an arrangement and can never remember the freaking lyrics.

I am feeling very wretched and frightened of the future, but Mike made soup two months ago and I’m eating it today and it is so very good.

Cold and overcast and miserable here today.

Paul’s out of quarantine.

Signed this today.

excellent morning so far

finished the fanfic, just shy of 19K words, then went downstairs and completely reworked Standard of the Crow (Thorfinn’s song) for octave mandolin, since Otto yelled at me that he would do a much better job than Smokey. He was definitely right about that.

It amazes me how different the percussion guitar song Gelis and Nicholas sounds when it’s capo 4 and when it’s standard …. anyway, lots of writing, and a good practice, and now I have to force myself to eat something that isn’t tea or carbs, and I don wanna.

40 hits on the fanfic so far; final word count 20K

Spoke to Dave D and Tom L, and these days what a relief to actually interact with someone….

red moon rising

last night the Harvest Moon incoming was red as a glass of wine in a streaky sky

Still feeling congested but I distinctly feel more lively today.

Breadsticks. I must make breadsticks. or naan or buns or summat

l8r:ah me, I made Sixer Sticks. LIKE ALL FUCKING CANADIAN RECIPES IT USES MIXED MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS and people wonder how Sumerian and Akkadian survived for 1000 years side by side WAAL LEMME TELL YOU

make bread dough in the machine. Use less salt and sugar and a little more yeast.

Preheat oven to 375

after a second rise roll the dough out around 2 cm thick, ensuring it’s no longer than the pan you’re baking it in. Cut in 2.5 to 3 cm strips and move to a baking sheet with parchment

in a ceramic cup nuke 3 tbsps salted butter 3 tbsps white sugar and lots of cinnamon for 25 – 30 seconds. Apply to naked Sixer Sticks with a pastry brush, (and let me tell you I love my silicone pastry brush, that thing’s a champ) like a gorilla expecting to lick the pot afterward. Try to get all the doughy bits at least brushed with the mixture

Slam those tentacles of goodness in the oven for twenty minutes and yank them out and try not to eat the entire batch while they’re still warm

One of the songs came back to me (the other one vanished), it’s called You do me wrong, and it’s about a woman telling a man that it’s a very good song but please don’t sing it because it reminds me of my dead brother. Yeah, I’m in a fucking terrible mood why do you ask? No this has nothing to do with Jeff and everything to do with John. It’s on Rowena so it’s one of those annoying neotrad tunes that’s really completely modern because it rips at the Empire. I hear fiddle, bowed bass and tambour as well.

Little over a week before Supernatural fires up again. I don’t know if I’ll ever rewatch it after it finishes this November (after the election, so …); if so I’ll wait until Jeff’s desperate for something new and then WAAL THERE ARE 320 EPISODES that’s even more than Time Team, SG1 and ER!

ha ha

fic 16261 and I still haven’t (this para deleted)

 

listening to Oumou Sangaré on Spotify

the album is called Seya

Kept Buster in overnight, let him out at 4:30.

Trying to think what else to do today besides go for a walk with Paul.

I have a lot of swirling thoughts in my head

Once upon a time
there was a staple gun
it mostly was for work
but sometimes was for fun
when there were bills to post
and scores to settle
we could do it all
with hurtling bits of metal

Picture the tune for this as something like a fifties pablum ballad

scratch track

the distortion is part of the charm – it’s a natural feature of whacking the guitar this hard at a harmonic point with a rubber mallet – yes this is a hammered guitar

It’s the hottest part of the summer and I’m treating myself to beer. God I love this song. Anyway, it sounds MUCH BETTER on headphones, I’m hearing stuff I didn’t hear the first time. It’s just got depth, you know, and then this sort of pounding howl of a chorus, so much pent up jealousy and rage and then back to… I do this, I do this, I do this, life has a rhythm, and then I JUST GET SO MAD. I LOVE IT so there

 

the difference is amazing

On this page there are at least two versions of Toy Town Parade, one corrected and one original, and ain’t technology grand. Anyhoo pOp you should like this tune.

brO and I went for a walk in Hilda Park today, and we got to watch crows feed their babies and one of those crows send an adult bald eagle packing. The eagle twitched its tail in irritation as a crow pecked at it… and it all took place at low altitude so a) we got a great view but b) sadly very brief.

Trees are already growing in the playground, coming up through the mulch. They would have been ground into nothingness by the kids playing, but now they’re coming up in dozens.

I believe – I will know for sure in a couple of days, but I believe one of the bambara beans sprouted.