If you could perform alongside any artist (actor, dancer, musician, etc.), who would it be, and what would you perform?
Submitted by Kristin.
The scene above is just brilliant, it really brought Shakespeare to life for me for the first time. I think the whole movie is a totally amazing achievement of his as both an actor and a director, although a couple of minutes in the middle of the battle it gets a bit gross, which makes me hesitate before recommending it to folks. (That said, it's a PG, I just am not into movie violence, lol)
I'd kill to be able to carry off a speech like that, I may try to learn it off by heart for next time we paintball. ;)
...so let it be filed somewhere and ignored.
I have finished the novel, it felt good, at 2:30 this morning when I word counted and it was over 50k, needless to say there was no one around to share my momentary joy with. I did however eat two jaffa cakes and shimmy around the kitchen while pouring my orange juice. (oh, the extravagance of my celebration.) I also removed the "working title" from the end of title, as I figure a finished novel probably needs a finished title.
I'm a little unsure on the length, as fifty thousand words is not terribly long, but maybe it will grow a little in the edit. As the story is basically complete, I don't want to extend it any at the end, and don't think I could. This has left me a little stumped, I like short reads, Prisoner of Zenda, Gatsby, 39 steps, Tolstoy's The Cossacks, To have and Have not. All short books, but lets face it novel length seems to have grown, so, do I try to lengthen it or accept that the writing of it has been enjoyable and never ever send it off to anyone?
Anyway, one thing is for certain, I have completed nanowrimo, which is what I set out to do, it was enjoyable and challenging, so I'm pleased as punch to have done it. The word count of the first draft was 50,189, although it does have 39 chapters, as I rather like short chapters like in early Tolstoy as it lets you move around the adventure a little quicker. It's not really literary fiction, it's not deep and emotional, it's just a bit of fun that whizzes you through an adventure in Imperial Russia.
It probably has a million and one grammatical errors, and I'm fairly sure no publishing house has published this style of book for about 80 years, but it's been fun!
Next step is re-reading it for any glaring errors. Fun, fun, fun.
My NaNoWriMo page is over here, where there is a short, and possibly rather silly, excerpt.
So, yesterday the London Symphony Orchestra were playing at the rather lavish Sage Gateshead, yes, a real cosmopolitan, world famous orchestra visiting us in stick-stickyville, and I, needless to say, did not have tickets. I went up in time for the rehearsal yesterday, thinking as I'm not going I may as well at least get to see the rehearsal if its open, and so I did, they sat around, tuned up, and then Valery Gergiev walks out and two seconds later 115 instruments, perfectly in time start belting out Alma's Theme.
I watched rehearsal for about an hour and kept being hit by a recurring vision - me sat in the bath that evening with nothing to do, choosing Mahler's 6th on my iPod and regretting not trying to get a late ticket. See, I'm fine not going to something if I'm doing something else, but if I end up with nothing else to do and sat on my own, I kick myself, repeatedly. So I tootled over to the ticket office and sure enough they had one or two odd ones left. As Akon would say, Wooo-hoooo Yeee-hoooo. So I got a great price on a ticket, £13, because of the seat position.
The seat was behind the Orchestra, which may at first sound like you can't see, but turned out to be an amazing view, I was dead central and elevated just above the percussion, so close I could literally read their sheet music. Or at least, I could have read their sheet music, had I not forgotten how to do so. It meant I did see a lot of backs of heads but as they curve round at each side I got a great view of the strings, the brass and such. Gergiev himself was directly in front of where I sat and it was amazing to watch the conductor for the whole performance, he's so expressive and totally absorbed by the piece.
The piece, as mentioned above, was Mahler's 6th, which is one of my favourite symphonies but hearing it live left me with the feeling that I had never heard it before. Yes, the themes were familiar, but listening though headphones, even good ones, is never going to give the detail of sitting next to all those instruments, you here every bell, every string plucked, and as it was positioned about five feet away, every hammer blow of fate. Of which there were two. (I'm not sure if any orchestra's play the third any more after Mahler tripped out and decided the third hammer blow represented his own death.) The music in the live setting picked up such a huge amount of emotional intensity, I can now much more understand the tragic side to it that I couldn't see before, the end is so entirely pessimistic it's quite unbelievable.
Anyway, that was my first ever concert from an Orchestra and proved a very enjoyable way to spend the evening, the massive round of applause at the end showing just how appreciated it was to see such a talented orchestra up here. It's on at the Barbican in London this evening and while it's probably sold out, if anyone is free it's well worth checking for any late release seats.
Ringtones: What's yours and how often do you change it?
Submitted by enrico.
I should apologise unreservedly for having a ringtone, I never used too, I was Mr Discrete and always had my phone on vibrate (I still do for texts). However, on holiday our cottage had only one spot where you got phone signal - in the kitchen, by the back door. So I had to put a ring tone on and I have to be honest I kinda liked being able to hear the phone. When I replaced my phone last week I was sticking mp3's on for ringtones and thought I'd pop this on as it always makes me smile so maybe it would make everyone else smile, but I've never got far enough into the tune to see yet.
For Christmas I was planning on changing it to this, one of my favourite Christmas songs ever, but now Next have appropriated it for their Christmas Adverts I'm not so sure...
Music-wise, what was the first 45, single or download you bought?
Submitted by Paddy Melt Wagon.
I own two 45's, which is, I suppose, a little odd as I don't have a deck. However, I like vinyl, and as I play music via computer or iPod it seems to make no difference what medium I buy singles in, and eventually when I do get a wee deck, I shall have something to put on it. The first I actually bought, however, was not one of the above but Funny Little Frog by Belle and Sebastian, which I bought for a friend. These are the first I have bought and kept, I love the way vinyl comes and is packaged, it's so much nicer than jewel cases...
Show us your favorite word, sentence or quote.
Oh and apologies for the mess - I am having a big cabin clean out and there is stuff everywhere!
Today is Veterans Day. Is there anyone you know who has served or is serving in the military that you'd like to honor today?
George. My Great Grandfather. He was in The Green Howard's during World War One, and fought at a number of the infamously bad battles such as The Somme, Flanders and Ypres. I know very little about him, as he died long before I was born, but I do know from an old newspaper obituary I read when I was a kid that he won the Military Cross for running ammunition along the lines at Flanders. He made the front page of the local paper when he died. I have great admiration for the bravery of everyone in that war, but those who risked their lives in situations where they could not fight back (stretcher bearers, running ammo, etc) really do stun me by their bravery. He took shrapnel in the lungs, but fought through the whole war.
After he left the military he became a bank manager and eventually died, in his 60's, because he had some sort of attack that should not have been fatal, but because of the shrapnel in his lungs, he couldn't breathe through it. I am very proud of what he did, even though he's not actually blood relation (his son was my mothers adoptive father), it's odd to feel so proud of someone you never knew, but he's the personal face of that most terrible of wars for me.
It makes me sad because I can find no more about him, the lists seem generally to cover only those killed in action, or who won the VC/GC, but he was MC & MM. He also had a common surname, which doesn't help any! It makes me wonder how many more brave people aren't properly remembered. There should be an online roll of honour with every soldier who fought during both world wars, along with any info/press clippings about them. Lest we forget.
There are others but I know very little about them, I know that someone else on my mothers side of the family (my Grandma's cousin, I think) was murdered* by the Germans at Dunkirk. He was in a tank trying to protect the access to the beaches and a dive bomber got him. They never recovered the body.
All this makes me very sad.
* - Dive Bombing retreating soldiers is murder, it's not war when they're cowered on a beach and can't fight back.
Show us your lunch.
Submitted by Oink.
