Bard's Folly

4:37pm: Answers to '80s Music Video Quiz!
[Yeah, okay, so I said I was gonna post these, like, two weeks ago, but then... I only got halfway into writing the post, and it was time to go out of town for a week, and... yeah. But better late than never, I hope!]

( Screencaps behind the cut -- now with ANSWERS! )

7:54pm: '80s Music Video Quiz, Round Three!
More good guesses came in yesterday, with one of the previous unguessed ones finally identified and some reasonably close guesses on the others. Let's see if Round Three clears up any more of them for ya....


( Pretty, pretty pictures behind the cut )

Answers (with links to videos, and who guessed correctly, and perhaps some comments about why I chose some of the ones I did) tomorrow evening....

6:35pm: '80s Music Video Quiz, Round Two!
I've been very amused so far by the answers coming in on Round 1 of the '80s Music Video Quiz. There've been a lot of correct answers -- among you, I think you've gotten all but three of them after the first round (and a few of you appear to have been as obsessive about '80s videos as I was) -- as well as some good guesses that went wrong in ways that amused me.


( Screencaps behind the cut -- now with twice as many images! )
Round 3 to come in another day or so.... ETA: ...here!

9:04pm: '80s Music Video Quiz
Over the weekend this struck me as an amusing thing to do -- and then I mentioned it to bushi7 and drives_a_mini and they thought it sounded fun, too, so....

( Rules and images behind the cut )

ETA: Round Two is now up!
ETA2: ...and also Round Three!

10:26pm: And Speaking Of Things That Are Awesome (That You Could Wear On Your Head)...
...if Crookshanks is breeding an army, he might be interested to know there's an armorer that might meet his needs.

9:44pm: Free Music Recommendation: Jukebox the Ghost
On Saturday we saw Ben Folds at the Murat. I'd been excited to see Ben Folds in a venue with good acoustics since the only other time I saw him live, at Bonnaroo several years ago. This weekend's show turned out to be almost but not quite what I was hoping for -- a good show full of great performances of songs I love, but marred by a muddy mix. (At some point in the set Folds said something about not having done a sound check, at which point I sort of wanted to slap him or whoever was on the board. Whenever it was more than just voice and piano, the vocals were too low in the mix. BAH.) Oh, and let's not get this vertically-challenged old fogey started complaining about the audience deciding to stand for the entirety of the set in a reserved-seating auditorium. (After the show I said to spouse, "The first time I stood up, the only way I could tell that there was a fourth member of the band was that there were obviously electronic keyboard parts being played by someone I couldn't see," to which he replied, "Uh... actually there were five people in the band." D'oh.)

Despite the sound issues (and, for me, the visual issues), there was one unexpectedly awesome thing about the show: the opening band, Jukebox the Ghost. They were exactly the sort of band you might expect to open for Ben Folds: three guys, great keyboard work, nice vocal harmonies, and stage patter that marked them as One Of Us ("This next song is really in two parts. The first part is, as so many songs are, a love song. And the second part is about setting myself on fire.")

I've ordered their album based on the strength of their set. You can check out a couple of their songs here. Highly recommended, if you're into that sort of thing.

10:23am: Musical Artists: Thanks!
Many thanks to those who offered suggestions of musical artists the young people are listening to these days. As some of you know, this month spouse is teaching a class at his temple, the objective of which (as I understand it) is to get his (14-year-old) students interested in getting involved with temple youth activities. To that end, for many of his sessions he is drawing on existing materials for NFTY (National Federation of Temple Youth) programs and activities.

This week's class includes an activity/discussion on musicians and gender. Spouse mentioned this in passing Thursday night, because part of the activity required him to have a lot of images of musicians, and he hadn't heard back yet from the person who'd offered to dig some up for him. Of course, this sounded like fun to me (images! of musicians! that will be used in a discussion of sex/gender and music!), so I volunteered to find some for him.

( More discussion under the cut, including additional suggestions for spouse )

( The list of artists I've gathered up images of so far )

Thanks again for all your suggestions, which were helpful and also fascinating. (Why are there so many all-male bands, and so few bands that manage even to include more than one woman, let alone exclusively women? Feh. I think it's time to dust off my instruments....)

12:20pm: Friday Distraction: Help Me With This Project
I am helping spouse assemble images of musicians (for reasons I may reveal later in the comments, but will avoid stating for now so as not to bias your thinking).

My question is this: what are the young people listening to these days (where by "young people" I mean "late junior high/early high school" and by "listening to these days" I mean "would have been into or at least aware of in the last few years")?

Thanks! I look forward to your suggestions.

8:15pm: Scenes from a Mexican-Americal Restaurant
I hadn't eaten much yet today, and hadn't seen much of my sweetie all weekend (he's been involved with youth group stuff), so spouse agreed to go with me to Qdoba even though he'd already had three meals. He had some work he needed to get done, though -- making marker-and-construction-paper signs for a class he's leading this week -- so he brought that along with him.

At some point he began reading -- out loud -- the packaging of the Sharpie he'd brought for sign-making. Perhaps because we were in a Mexican(-ish) restaurant, this turned into his reading only the Spanish portions, and seeing if I could tell what he'd said. (I've never studied Spanish, but my Comprehend Languages: Spanish is sometimes not bad.) When I couldn't get it, he'd offer his own translation.

He read a phrase that he initially mis-translated as "Industrial-Resistant" before deciding it really meant "Industrial-Strength." I was amused by the mis-translation, though: "Industrial-Resistant? What is that, like, pro-labor? A proletariat pen? .... It's... a MARXER!"

We laughed and laughed and laughed, because we're nerdy like that. Then spouse asked, "Who are you going to try to explain that joke to?"

"The Internet!"

11:01pm: A Little Bit of Happy: MPR Song of the Day
While in my grumpy funk earlier this week, I somehow stumbled upon the MPR Song of the Day archive. Yay! I stayed up waaay too late a couple nights ago, listening to things that caught my attention. ( Some highlights: )

Also awesome: in response to the RIDICULOUSLY COLD temperatures of the last couple days (currently -7 F, with windchill of -22, which is awesome in its own way), I have had comfort-food for dinner the last two nights. Yesterday: shells and cheese from a box. Today: waffles that I found in the freezer, heated up in the toaster-oven and then spread with peanut butter and nutella the way the good Lord intended (unless you're immlass, in which case maybe just the nutella). Mmmmm.

6:24pm: Year In Movies 2008
( What I watched this year )

Total movies watched: 59
Movies watched in theater: 19
Movies watched on an airplane: 7 (Becoming Jane through the first viewing of Enchanted. ...It's a long way to New Zealand.)
Movies watched during the 15 weeks of fall-semester classes: 5 (Burn After Reading through The Good German)

12:28am: Weather Forecast: Scattered everything
...which I suppose could also describe a tornado warning, but I'm talking about last night's local weather map:

( Precipitation: All of the above. )

I think the only color that's left out is Ice. AWESOME.

3:51pm: Game Seed: Hamlet: The LARP
Spouse and I watched parts of the Ethan Hawke version of Hamlet yesterday (meaning TiVo had recorded it and spouse fast-forwarded through to the scenes from the play that he liked, or the scenes that looked like they might be interesting.)

Today, as we were wandering around downtown after lunch, we were talking about the play, and gaming, and somehow these things melded together and spouse suggested "Hamlet as a LARP". We came up with a couple of different ways this might work:

Players take on actual roles from the play, and -- in a "How to Host a Mystery" sort of way -- they're trying to figure out who killed the King. However, the characters might have recent backgrounds and motivations that differed somewhat from those in the actual play. Some mechanism (Tarot-style card draws or somesuch) would determine important details, like who had actually killed the King. Players improv and play from there.

or...

Rather in the style of "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead", players take on small secondary characters or non-characters and interact with GMs who are more-or-less acting out the play, with room for improvised interactions with the PCs. The PCs try to figure out what the hell is going on. (Based on the one con-session of InSpectres I played in which the PCs were trying to figure out who that Carl Corey fellow was and what he was up to, set more-or-less in the first few chapters of Nine Princes in Amber, this scenario could possibly be tweaked to work with that system, or vice-versa.)

It's about a 4-hour play, which seems about right for a con slot. Whaddaya think? Awesome? Dreadful? Cracktastic? And which scenario seems like more fun? (Or is there another variant that might work even better?)

9:56am: PSA: FUUUUCK!
Arrived in my office this morning to learn that during the night, a pipe burst in a lab in the Biology department (one floor up) and proceeded to dump gallons and gallons of water into the BME office suite -- specifically, into my office and the offices of my three closest neighbors. By the time I got to the office, a bunch of maintenance dudes were running wet/dry shopvacs all over our end of the suite, and everything that was formerly in my floor or on the three large shelves in my office is now piled all over my desk and chair. I can *just* reach my computer keyboard through all the mess; however, since my afternoon was already booked solid with advising appointments, I will be spending most of the rest of the day in a dry lab where my computer isn't.

Don't expect to see too much from me over the next couple of days. I've already cancelled tomorrow morning's class (didn't bother to cancel today's since there wasn't much I could do in the office 'til the shopvac dudes went away) so that I can sort through my shit and assess the damage.

On the plus side, I'm very adaptable! The prospective student who attended my lecture today and then spent the last hour (in the dry lab) chatting with me about our program may have managed to get a positive impression of our department despite the deluge. Yay!

12:47am: From Dark Pages
It's been a great few days for artistic endeavors, as an audience member and otherwise.

Thursday evening, thanks to textdeviant, spouse and I got to attend the preview of this year's From Dark Pages, the biggest annual fundraiser for the historic Morris-Butler House. The "progressive mystery play" follows Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes (literally -- the small audience moves from room to room throughout the house to watch each scene unfold) as they search for clues to track down Jack the Ripper, interacting with macabre Victorian figures both literary (Faust, Dracula) and historical (Lizzie Borden, Edgar Allen Poe) along the way. textdeviant has contributed scenes as a writer in past years, and is appearing for the first time this year as Lucy opposite her husband's Dracula. (Oh, and her mom is directing.)

I had a fabulous time, and particularly enjoyed the way the scenes make use of the space. (I had never been inside the Morris Butler House, so getting to see it was totally bonus.) Some of the acting was occasionally a bit amateurish, but textdeviant and her husband did a fine job, and spouse and I agreed that the guy playing Edgar Allan Poe and the woman playing the medium Madame Alexandra did particularly fabulous jobs. And also: gratuitous squid reference! (It was decided that Sir Richard Francis Burton needed a hunting trophy of some kind, so he's carrying a lovingly handcrafted plush squid tucked into his belt. "Of course!" I said to textdeviant as we were chatting after the show. "The answer is ALWAYS squid!" She told me she'd been thinking of me when she made the suggestion. That just makes me all kinds of happy.)

The show runs a little under an hour and will be performed Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings in October (starting at 6:30, 7:30, 8:30 and 9:30 pm). More details at the first link above. Check it out!

10:02pm: Bands I'm Groovin' On Right Now: Ra Ra Riot
Last week, after hearing an interview with them and catching the video for their song 'Ghost Under Rocks', I picked up Ra Ra Riot's first album. I dig it, because I am a sucker for interesting string parts and they have a cellist and a violinist, yay. (If you'd like to check out more, they have another song, "Dying Is Fine", available for download from their site.)

Perhaps the most interesting (to me, anyway) song on the album is their cover of Kate Bush's "Suspended In Gaffa". It's such a weird song to decide to cover. (Video for the original is here so you can see what I mean if you're not already familiar with the song.) I listened to the cover a good half-dozen times before I'd decided whether I liked it (which... I think I do). It's got a great, building transition from verse to chorus, maybe even better than the original (hooray for dynamics!) On the other hand, I'm still not entirely convinced it's possible to deliver that vocal while not being Kate Bush -- but it's not a bad attempt. (Here is a video of Ra Ra Riot performing the song live. The sound is pretty muddy, unfortunately, but it at least gives an idea of the kick-ass arrangement. I rather like how they've used the violin in place of the backing vocal in some places, and of course the drums in the transition to the chorus.)

If you're looking for new music and enjoy indie rock with strings, check 'em out. (And Texas peeps: looks like they're going to be in Austin next Friday and in Houston next Saturday....)

11:29pm: Foo Fighters at Conseco Fieldhouse: 10 Awesome Things
( Cut for language and AWESOME )

7:53pm: TBR Report, Part 2
More gaming goodness!

( The Fiona Affair )

( Riddles in the Woods )

( Amber/Harry Potter crossover )

( Quotes! )

All-in-all, a great con. Next year I plan to make up for what an enormous slacker I was this year by running at least one game, possibly two (the next chapter of "Nine Rednecks", plus a tween-to-teen-friendly game if it looks like we'll have interested players).

ETA: Also, new icon! *Felice rolls her eyes*

5:14pm: TBR Report, Part 1
Apparently the universe owed me a favor: I came home from work early (i.e. right at 5 pm) to mow, because I'd been out of town all weekend, and when upon getting home yesterday evening I peeked into the backyard to see how bad it was I discovered that the neighbors had left a car parked on their half of the yard. That seemed like a good enough reason to procrastinate mowing, but the lawn was tall enough that I really HAD to do it today. And there are thunderstorms forecast to start kind of any minute now, so... here I am.

Except... it's already mowed. Neighbor apparently decided to do it this afternoon. And now I have an unexpectedly free evening, wheee! That means it's time for...

...THE TBR REPORT.

( Slot 1: The exciting conclusion of the Swan series )

( Swan quotes! )

( Slot 2: Night in the Lonesome October )

...and now I need food. Report continues a bit later....

6:25pm: Back From TBR!
I've made it safely home from TBR! I may make a longer post about it later, but the short version is that I played in five very different but all quite fabulous games, caught up with some of my favorite people on the planet, met new people (despite the smallness of the con) that I hope to game with again, and laughed a whole, whole lot. (And I wasn't even in the Kobolds game.)

I note with some horror that my best-behaved character may well have been Draco Malfoy, who neither peed on, slept with, nor stabbed anything or anyone (unlike my other four characters).

And now off to catching up on all my regular gamestuff that I've neglected for the last two weeks....

2:28pm: Need a Break from Editing, And So... A Poll!
Poll #1207520
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

You have just walked into your kitchen and flipped on the light to an unexpected sight. "Oh, my god, it's ______!" you exclaim. Which of the following would you most want it to be?

5:54pm: Poll: Dinner!
Spouse -- who usually helps ensure I eat -- is off to DC, and I'm starting to get hungry.

Poll #1202315
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

What should I do for dinner?

9:26pm: I Am (Sporadically) Useful!
Lawn: mowed!

Flying, stinging insect (in this case, a very sluggish bumblebee): wrangled!

Now, if one of our toilets will just start spewing raw sewage, we will have hit the whole trifecta of Household Chores That Are Officially Mine.

7:08pm: Free Sigur Ros Download
And while I'm on the subject of music....

Sigur Ros have made "Gobbledigook", a track from their upcoming album, available for free download at their website. (They require you to input an email address, but that didn't bother me too much since I'm already on their mailing list .)

It's a 3-minute, uptempo, very happy track. (In fact, sirvalence, this might not be a bad choice for what you were looking for. It's happy and uptempo pretty much from start to finish, so it would get the point across even from just a short clip....)

The (naked-people-riffic) music video is also available for viewing at the same link. It's not as awesome as the music videos I've posted these last couple of days, but the shots of gleeful naked people falling out of the sky make me weirdly happy.

10:28pm: Another Music Video...
...this time mostly for maerson.

If you thought that last video made you want to stare at it to see all the technical awesome, wait 'til you get a load of "Let Forever Be" by the Chemical Brothers (also directed by Gondry). It is one of my most favoritest music videos ever.

And la_directora, have you seen this HP commercial featuring Michel Gondry? (I hadn't, until I went hunting for the above.) His very last comment reminded me of your observation that he seems particularly good at capturing things that are dreamlike. (Which probably does make him a better music video than film director, but I do kind of love Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.)

Mmmm, videos.