Dept. of She Lives. No, Really.
Saturday, 19 February 2022 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaffy_rFebruary is For Freezes
And by "freezes", I mean my inability to actually post anything for *checks* 17 days. This post is my desperate attempt to break a dry spell.
Also, "freezes" as in some relatively cold weather, here in the frigid Midwest of North America, U.S. section. Not as bad as it's been earlier this winter, but more of a roller-coaster; one day it's in the 50s, and the next it's down to 19 during the day and in the single digits at night. Yay, Chicago weather.
I hope that my friends in the U.K. and Europe are safe after the bludgeoning by Storm Eunice. I'll try to check on folks' journals to see if they're doing alright.
As for here at Casa KathBob, we have done at least one neat thing.
/We attended a neat evening of jazz at one of our local high schools, which for 18 years has run a one-day jazz festival involving jazz education for jazz players from multiple area high schools, and two concerts with jazz pros playing with the kids and on their own.
The concert we attended was by the Orbert Davis' Octet, playing the Chicago-based Davis' amazing jazz suite "Soul Migration", which celebrates the Great Migration of black Americans from the south to the North, specifically to Chicago. The high school jazz players who were the opening act were really, really good, and Davis had a visible blast playing trumpet on one piece with them, but the octet was the main event.
It was absolutely amazing. (It was actually a nonet for the evening, as he pointed out, because he convinced a jazz guitarist friend to sit in with them.) One unexpected joy was discovering that Maggie Brown, the woman who spoke the various pieces of poetry that were part of it, was the daughter of Oscar Brown, Jr., a Chicago musical jazz and theater polymath who wrote my favorite weekend song, "Hymn to Friday". I'm fairly sure my "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod" wasn't loud enough to carry to the stage.
I continue to plug away at the novel. Although January and February are supposed to be NaNo's revision months, I haven't made it to the end yet, so revision is still a long way away.
I've been trying to finish "Black Sun" by Rebecca Roanhorse, but I'm still unable to get up any interest in doing so. This doesn't often happen to me, especially when it's a novel that many people think a great deal of. Can't figure out what it is that's hampering me. I may go to "Riot Baby" by Tochi Onyebuchi, or take a run at "Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language" by Gretchen McCulloch. The latter is luring me in because I've had some arguments with both Bob and my good friend Dr. Gonzo about how language is used on the internet. They are a little less enamored of Speaking Internet than I am, and I wonder why I am so enamored.
And finally, I've been watching the almost three-week corrosively extremist foolishness of the various *ptui* "freedom" *ptui* convoys in Canada, particularly the one in Ottawa. I was so frustrated with the "measured response" (which seemed to me to be ... oh, I don't know ... bureaucratic double-speak for panicky refusal to act) and get these fucking idiots out of Ottawa center and into courtrooms ASAFP. When Trudeau finally invoked the Emergencies Act I cheered, even as I know a lot of people had some arguably reasonable concerns. These yahoos, as the Mayor of Ottawa called them, drone on - well, actually, they yell at the tops of their voices - about Muh Freedumb.
It's not a "choice", it's a pandemic, you assholes. A virus. A sickness, not a political or philosophical football Feel free to die yourself, but maybe think of your families and those around you before you do that?
*stops to pant and calm self down*
Anyhow, I, someone who these days eyes police with a certain wariness, was cheering on the Ottawa operations on Friday and Saturday.
And by "freezes", I mean my inability to actually post anything for *checks* 17 days. This post is my desperate attempt to break a dry spell.
Also, "freezes" as in some relatively cold weather, here in the frigid Midwest of North America, U.S. section. Not as bad as it's been earlier this winter, but more of a roller-coaster; one day it's in the 50s, and the next it's down to 19 during the day and in the single digits at night. Yay, Chicago weather.
I hope that my friends in the U.K. and Europe are safe after the bludgeoning by Storm Eunice. I'll try to check on folks' journals to see if they're doing alright.
As for here at Casa KathBob, we have done at least one neat thing.
/We attended a neat evening of jazz at one of our local high schools, which for 18 years has run a one-day jazz festival involving jazz education for jazz players from multiple area high schools, and two concerts with jazz pros playing with the kids and on their own.
The concert we attended was by the Orbert Davis' Octet, playing the Chicago-based Davis' amazing jazz suite "Soul Migration", which celebrates the Great Migration of black Americans from the south to the North, specifically to Chicago. The high school jazz players who were the opening act were really, really good, and Davis had a visible blast playing trumpet on one piece with them, but the octet was the main event.
It was absolutely amazing. (It was actually a nonet for the evening, as he pointed out, because he convinced a jazz guitarist friend to sit in with them.) One unexpected joy was discovering that Maggie Brown, the woman who spoke the various pieces of poetry that were part of it, was the daughter of Oscar Brown, Jr., a Chicago musical jazz and theater polymath who wrote my favorite weekend song, "Hymn to Friday". I'm fairly sure my "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod" wasn't loud enough to carry to the stage.
I continue to plug away at the novel. Although January and February are supposed to be NaNo's revision months, I haven't made it to the end yet, so revision is still a long way away.
I've been trying to finish "Black Sun" by Rebecca Roanhorse, but I'm still unable to get up any interest in doing so. This doesn't often happen to me, especially when it's a novel that many people think a great deal of. Can't figure out what it is that's hampering me. I may go to "Riot Baby" by Tochi Onyebuchi, or take a run at "Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language" by Gretchen McCulloch. The latter is luring me in because I've had some arguments with both Bob and my good friend Dr. Gonzo about how language is used on the internet. They are a little less enamored of Speaking Internet than I am, and I wonder why I am so enamored.
And finally, I've been watching the almost three-week corrosively extremist foolishness of the various *ptui* "freedom" *ptui* convoys in Canada, particularly the one in Ottawa. I was so frustrated with the "measured response" (which seemed to me to be ... oh, I don't know ... bureaucratic double-speak for panicky refusal to act) and get these fucking idiots out of Ottawa center and into courtrooms ASAFP. When Trudeau finally invoked the Emergencies Act I cheered, even as I know a lot of people had some arguably reasonable concerns. These yahoos, as the Mayor of Ottawa called them, drone on - well, actually, they yell at the tops of their voices - about Muh Freedumb.
It's not a "choice", it's a pandemic, you assholes. A virus. A sickness, not a political or philosophical football Feel free to die yourself, but maybe think of your families and those around you before you do that?
*stops to pant and calm self down*
Anyhow, I, someone who these days eyes police with a certain wariness, was cheering on the Ottawa operations on Friday and Saturday.
