5 posts tagged “books”
It was a "time travel/fish out of water" story of sorts. The main character, who was stricken with Alzheimer's, is cured 20 years later, through the miracles of medical technology, and of course, the world he awakens to is very different. The main difference being how pervasive wireless/network/communications technology is at that point. Hand-held devices are a thing of the past and most people "wear" their computers and phones, which are built into their clothing. Extra bonus: you also have the ability to "overlay" different virtual realities on your view of the world.
If you are any kind of gamer or Internet-aholic, this novel is for you.
I don't know where to begin, except that it was a great experience and well worth it. Thanks to the organizers for giving us this opportunity. We were the first act in the Tavern on Friday night, so there wasn't a huge turnout, but I think we got some folks' attention. Saturday, we had the good fortune of going on right before the raffle, and the room was packed. I was glad that some friends I know from Pennsic were able to make it to the show on Sat. I think we made some new fans, and I hope they ask us back for next year. I think our act fit in very well with the faire.
It was an interesting event to say the least. I was impressed with the size of the turnout on both days. Despite all the issues that the organizers had to deal with, I'm told that the attendance was up significantly from last year. Of course, I've been to Ren faires and SCA events, but this was a bit different. It had a strong SCA flavor to it. The private parties we attended certainly had that feel to it, but there were lots of ninjas, pirates, LARPers, HP Lovecraft, and "adult" content thrown in...as if the "swamp" from Pennsic took over a hotel, or perhaps a Ren faire threw up on goth night? There were vendors galore, selling everything from Medieval to fantasy costuming, LARP gear, swords, musical instruments, adult toys, jewelry, books, and so on.
I ended up purchasing the following titles:
HP Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror, Issue Number 4
Cthulhu Sex, I:22
A Field Guide to Monsters, Dave Elliott
Best of Weird Tales, edited by John Betancourt
Weird Tales, the 21st Century: Volume One, edited by Stephen H. Segal & Sean Wallace
Hardboiled Cthulhu: Two-Fisted Tales of Tentacled Terror, edited by James Ambuehl
High Seas Cthulhu, edited by William Jones
Baby's First Mythos, by CJ Henderson & Erica Henderson
The last three titles, I got signed by one of the contributing authors, CJ Henderson, who was there. I don't know when I'm going to find time to read all that stuff, but I have to try.
PW and I put on two
very good sets. We had rather short notice to come up with 45 minutes
of material, but we pulled it off. No train wrecks. Any show where I
didn't trip and fall down, I consider a success. There are still some
songs that are a "work in progress," at least on my end, but I look
forward to polishing them up, and we are going to be absolutely awesome
at the Baby Dee show, March 1. Hopefully we'll have the demo finished
by then. For our first "tour" experience, I couldn't have expected a
better outcome. I couldn't be more proud of PW and myself. We are a
couple of brave little firecrackers.
One of the unexpected benefits of going to Wicked Faire was having the Harold's experience (the restaurant located in the hotel). I unwittingly went in there looking for a bite to eat and had no idea what the place was all about until I saw the prices on the menu---$20-$40 for a deli sandwich? You gotta be kidding...but the menu says they are big enough to serve multiple people, and then I saw them...GI-normous sandwich monstrosities! I had to try one (throws diet to the wind). This was the BLT. The photo doesn't do it justice, but this thing was like a foot high, couple pounds of bacon, a whole tomato and head of lettuce on it---the tiny triangles of toast on top just for show, really. We shared among three people and still took half of it home. I also ordered a single pancake that came on a pizza plate...it was like two feet across...more photos are on the flickr blog.
Back in July, when Martin Bowes was here with Attrition, he was bandying about a book that he contributed to, and that he highly recommended to anyone working in the music biz...and so today I got to meet the author of this book.
Martin Atkins was effing brilliant. Patricia and I went to his book signing at Eide's today. He spoke about touring and the music biz for about three hours, and it was all good practical advice and a lot of ideas I never would have thought of. He was also thoroughly entertaining as a story teller. I was LMFAO most of the time. Basically, he talked about all the ways in which things can go horribly wrong, and the really stupid things that bands do; the mistakes that even really good bands make. I would pay to see him speak again. It was inspiring and enlightening.
This is a must-read if you ever want to break your band---Tour:Smart and Break the Band.
Book: Share a self-help book that meant a lot to you.
This book explains why so many women seem to end up with the wrong guy over and over again. I didn't want to be this person, and I didn't think I was following this pattern. However, even though the last few relationships I had were all different situations with very different people, the one thing they all had in common was that they were emotionally unavailable.
I recommend this book to anyone who grew up in a dysfunctional family, or dealt with addiction or codependency, as it will change your life.
