Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

...Usually, I think of weekends as off-limits, because the usual days that Audrey works for me are Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and the weekends are her time at home.

But last week, when she asked if there was any "day out" thing that I wanted to do, I'd just heard the announcement on the radio a few minutes before that the "folk-rock" band Tanglefoot would be playing in the autitorium at the Virgina Beach Central library on Saturday night, so I mentioned that I wanted to go to that. After all, it had been ages since I'd heard any live folk-music of truly professional quality... I mean, I've heard a few local bands about seven years ago, or so, at a couple of Pagan picnic-like events... But that's sort of Folk garage band, you know? Nice, fun, "a good time was had by all," but a little rough around the edges...

So yes. Very nice. I like their stuff. Mostly original music written about moments in Canadian history, and nice humorous banter among all the band members, and lead singing pretty much evenly distributed among them.

The venue was nice, too -- a small lecture hall-like space, with the stage flat on the floor, and the seating rising above it. Very nice accoustics, too, not too loud, even though the only place for me to sit was right in front of the speakers.

And about that -- that would be my only gripe. There was no cut-away in the seating where I could park my chair, so I had to sit in front of the front row, and my feet overlaped the front of the stage a little bit. That sounds like "The Best seat in the house," but when you're that close, you can hear that the sound is coming more from the speakers than the instruments (which were all accoustic, but miked), which I found just a bit disconcerting.

And when all five of them came out in front of the speakers, to stand in a line, and sing a (very lovely) hymn/prayer) a cappella, I had to quickly adjust my personal space buffer.

But other than that: Lovely.

I need more live entertainment in my life: music, theater, storytelling, lectures. I need my oralture!

Then, I got home in time for Episode 4 or "Robot," with Tom Baker, Lis Sladen, et alia.

Good night.

Of course, I got zilch written on my Screnzy story... I should be doing that now. But yanno.

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*Though, now that I've heard them, they're not really "rock," imo, just high-energy original music in the folk fashion.

And I actually spent money...

At Audrey's suggestion, we went to the local Den of Evilness in Bookseller Form Barnes and Noble. She likes to look through the remainders bins for unusual and quirky books, and I... Well, I was feeling weak.

Right smack dab in the middle of my birthday octave, I heard this story on NPR about the annual awards from the American Library Association for children's literature, and what was said about the winner of the Caldecot (illustration): that it was a highly controversial decision and all the librarians in the audince stood up and cheered -- made me Want.

So we went.

We stopped in the "Cafe" first, and I thoroughly spoiled my appitite on a hot chocolate, and a chocolate cupcake. And then we split up and went hunting. I headed for the children's section, and was greatly annoyed that the recent most winner of the big award was not front and center. Neither was the staffmember for the section (she was there -- but there was no centralized counter for her to stand at, so I couldn't find her until I got help from the Customer Service desk.

So in the end, I did indeed snag myself a copy of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and so far, after a few brief glances, it does indeed look shiny.

I also wanted a paperpack edition of a complete Jane Austen -- if I'm going to study her for the nuts and bolts of her writing craft, it would do me good to have a copy of my own that I can go back to and reread. ... They had a special Jane Austen display (No doubt to tie into the current run on PBS's Masterpiece: Classics), but half the stuff on that display were just Jane Austen spin-offs: notecards, fanfiction-that-pretends-it's-not, criticsm, etc.. So I go looking for the general fiction section (Which was nearly impossible to find -- a set of shelves in the center of the store, completely surrounded by a maze of specialized subgenres of non-fiction. If I were walking, it might have been easier to locate, but being down so low, I felt like I was trying to navigate one of those Victorian Garden privet hedge mazes). And once I got to the fiction section, I couldn't find Austen in with the "A"s... Audrey finally located me, and said that she'd seen a Complete Austen in the Bargain shelves, so I bought that, too... even though it's a hardcover, and therefore harder to read without a table... interestingly, it contains seven novels (Including Lady Susan -- a really early, really rough draft, that she never intended to publish, I think).

So I guess that counts as a win and a half-win. Really, I think that Barnes and Noble is deliberately designed to get you lost and confused, so you wander around more, and are therefore more likely to buy stuff on impulse. ... If I had come under my own power, or with someone like-minded, that design concept would have backfired in my case, because I would have left a lot sooner, out of frustration, and just gone home to buy the books on Amazon. But because I was there with Audrey, and she was shopping happily, I stuck it out... Still, I got out with only two books, and none that I hadn't gone in looking to buy.

Yay, Me?

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ETA: Also, there was a woman directly in front of us in the check-out line who saw all the books Audrey was carrying (her half-dozen of paperbacks, and my two hardcovers) and said: "Boy, it looks like you're really buying books to read!" (she, herself, was carrying one slim paperback... I didn't see what it was).

Audrey and I exchanged a look, and after the woman was out of earshot, Audrey said: "...Actually, I bought this one to be a coaster..."