Old School Hardcore Root Polka
Thursday, the 2nd of December, 2004 - 5 past 10pm
Current Song ~ "Treacher Song (Toxic)" by Suspiria.
Behold, I come again in something very faintly resembling glory!
Or some such milarky...
Regular followers of my NaNoWriMo adventures in bad (but really, really fast) writing will be surprised, nay, shocked to the very core of their being to learn that this year not only did I not finish, but I did not get to the 10,000 mark that would have earned me a red (or was it blue?) star on my NaNo London Contingent name badge.
The reasons for this are thus (she says, not at all sounding like she's trying to justify a grievous error):
For a start, for some reason that hasn't quite been pinned down, I spent much of November in a semi-conscious state of perpetual exhaustion, broken only by periods of excessive sleep that appeared to have all the effect of a paper dart lightly tossed at a hundred-strong legion of well-armed invaders.
This was not exactly conducive to... well, moving in a forward direction with anything, really.
There also seemed to be more distractions this year - though given that last NaNo coincided with the Doctor Who anniversary weekend and the dramatic departure of my then-best friend, possibly my memory of 2003 as a time where writing hours were endless is just a tad off.
However, the main problem I encountered was that, somewhat curiously, the story turned out to be really rather good. It wasn't polished, and it sure as eggs is eggs didn't have a complete plot summary, but it seemed to be going in a forward direction.
This being the case, it seemed a bit mad to catch up on wordcount deficit in my usual frantic last-week style by writing utter schlock that will have to be cut once enough months have passed for me to steel myself to actually open to document and survey the damages. So, I opted to call it a day and continue the story at a more leisurely pace and with a bit more planning.
So, there you have it, folks. I'm either a sane and balanced individual sacrificing my deep desire to win for the good of one of my beloved novels-in-progress, or alternatively, lazy feckless scum. You decide!
In other news, largely thanks to the combined efforts of eMusic (free trial) and Calabash World Music (actual genuine paid-up membership), my music collection has become even more vast and sprawling.
Most notably (and by extension, most played within an inch of their little digital lives), I now own:
* Every single track of Human Drama's live album; the lengthily titled Fourteen Thousand Three Hundred Eighty Four Days Later: Live. I much prefer it to any of the studio tracks that I'd heard previously, and it would seem that the songs that I particularly rate hail from Feel. That would be the debut album that's apparently a smidgen harder to find than true love and happiness in the present day, but I shall not abandon hope!
I will, however, grovel before you on the off-chance: do any of you lovely people happen to have mp3 copies of Death of an Angel or Dying in a Moment of Splendor kicking about, by any chance...?
* Most of Suspiria's best-of album, which makes me want to rush out and buy all of Suspiria's other albums right now.
It also makes me wish fervently that the Suspiria lyrics page that I found a while back still existed, because I can't make out all the words. But heigh-ho, I have at least extended my Suspiria listening beyond Assassin Soul and Olympian in Ivory (which you can only alternate between for so many hours before it all gets a bit... same-songs-for-an-excessively-long-time-y).
* Edie (Ciao Baby) by The Cult. Which was played all afternoon and well into the evening upon being found, for it rocks. Oh, how it rocks. And moreover, it rocks with bowed strings. I loves me some bowed string accompaniment in rock songs, I do.
* Any number of other absolutely splendid tracks that I shall endeavour to rec properly any year now.
On a similar but even more momentous note (that I almost forgot, to my eternal shame, hence the interesting priorities shown in this entry's subject order), I have now seen The Warsaw Village Band in concert, and have some simple easy-to-follow advice for all ye with a mind to hear live music: the very second that this band comes to your local area, book tickets, for they are spiffy beyond the realms of normal spiffiness!
The concert was exactly the right length, had the most perfectly balanced amplification I've had the pleasure to encounter, and featured some of the most brilliant hammered dulcimer playing anyone's likely to encounter outside of Michael Masley (oh, I know my independent world artists, I do).
I think the best description of the music is the one provided by the band themselves, when introducing the first polka of the evening:
"We don't do commercial polka. We do old school hardcore root polka."
I must also briefly comment that I continue to find world music audiences by far the loveliest of all concert-goers. Relaxed and not obviously pretentious, yet attentive, non-fidgety and polite.
Really, it's tempting to attempt to go into world music simply for the quality of audience...
I'm sure that many things of great import have been neglected here (indeed, I have choral events that should at least be touched on), but as this entry scrolls quite a way and midnight is upon us, I had best be calling it a day here.
Au revoir!
Lily
