Valentine’s Day, with music

solarbird came to the realization this weekend that she really needed a decent bodhran to finish up her CD, given that her little Kimi, which is essentially a toy, just wasn’t cutting it. So since we’re recovering well financially, we scampered down to Dusty Strings yesterday to get her a real drum!

They didn’t have the drum she really wanted–mostly because those, Dusty String’s highest end bodhrans–are made by an artisan in Ireland who makes new drums quite slowly and there was no real estimate on when he might get more to them. But happily they had a couple of drums that were kind of the next tier down, and Dara ultimately chose one of those. The new drum’s got a nice deep resonant voice to it and should sound awesome recorded. Its only drawback is that Dara can’t do that nifty rip noise around the rim, but it ain’t like she’s tossing Kimi, so she can still break out the little drum for that.

Meanwhile, because this is pretty much mandated any time I set foot in that place, I checked out their wall of acoustic guitars. They had a few Seagulls as well as two smaller guitars that said Art & Lutherie on the heads–and the Dusty Strings staff said that those were actually made by the same parent company, which was kind of neat. The A&L guitars I liked were these guys, and the one I particularly liked was about the size of Rags but with a bit more punch. Ultimately though Dara and I agreed that that instrument didn’t really have the capability to roar, so I started playing with the Seagulls, and the third one I tried had a really lovely voice to it, a good deep low end and some clear, precise upper notes as well.

I have to admit that a good Seagull is very likely a contender for the Cargo for the guitar I’ll ultimately buy. I have more than a little fear that the Cargo is possibly way more guitar than I actually need, since I have no aspirations to be a real performer; I just want a nice guitar I can play at jams and take to local conventions for filking purposes, and occasional busking as well. The Seagull very well may be about right.

On the other hand, Dara pointed out quite correctly that it’s very possible that I could grow enough as a guitarist to match the Cargo. The Seagull would certainly give me good room to grow–but I shouldn’t necessarily dismiss the possibility of growing to match the Cargo, either. What I would really like to do is go to the Bellevue store that carries the Cargos, see if they have Seagulls as well, and then just compare both instruments side by side and see which one calls to me louder.

Of course, this depends upon me selling enough copies of Faerie Blood to actually afford the Cargo. *^_^*;;

In the meantime, in the interests of giving me more room to grow as a guitarist, I snagged a copy of the same fakebook I’d bought for mandolin, only this is the guitar version. So I’ll see if I can start picking out some of these melodies on Rags, which will give me some fingerwork practice. Looking forward to that!

Last but not least, I snagged a couple of CDs from the store since they do have a small selection–and I was stunned, stunned I tell you, to see that they actually had a couple of La Bottine Souriante CDs! So I promptly grabbed one of those, as well as one by an Irish lady named Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh who appears on a previous CD I bought. Also, the name Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh is just awesome.

All in all a lovely way to spend Valentine’s Day afternoon, and Dara and I were the last ones out of the store since we were there right up until they closed. Always a pleasure to visit there! Because as far as I’m concerned, music is love.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Book Log #11: Apricot Brandy, by Lynn Cesar

It’s safe to say that Apricot Brandy by Lynn Cesar is one of the more unusual urban fantasy novels I’ve ever read, and I’m a little sorry I missed it when it first came out. It’s got its flaws, but I give it quite a bit of credit for what it tried to do. Being an unusual urban fantasy novel these days is very hard to pull off.

First of all, we’ve got the title, which is pretty much the thing that drew me to the novel. The drink for which the title’s named has good plot relevance, and it stands out very nicely against the glut of urban fantasy titles that involve “night” or “blood” or “darkness” or whatever. And thank you, Cover Art, for actually showing us a heroine’s face rather than making her a headless torso! Both of these got my interested enough to look at the actual blurb about a small town being overrun by a rising Mayan god.

Huge, huge points as well for the heroine being a lesbian. Gay men are getting more inroads in fantasy novels to be sure, but lesbian heroines are still pretty thin on the ground and it’s nice to see one have the lead role in an urban fantasy for once. On the other hand, I was really disappointed that her beloved–and I’ll say this only because this happens fairly early on in the story–is killed off, after her one on camera scene shows her acting pretty heavily out of character due to supernatural influence. I was similarly disappointed that the only other person in the cast who has sexual interest in their own gender is one of the bad guys, because this could leave a less discerning reader with the impression that queer people are screwed up.

And, was it really necessary to make the lesbian heroine a victim of sexual child abuse? You could make an argument that it’s plot-relevant, but I wouldn’t necessarily buy it; there’s a lot in the plot about how Karen’s beloved father turns into a monster and how this eventually makes Karen an alcholic in her adulthood. But I’m thinking you could have pulled this off without involving rape.

Similarly, I was disappointed at how the heroine’s interactions with the main male character came perilously close to being romantic. They didn’t actually cross that line; at no point does our heroine show any actual sexual interest to the guy. But he’s definitely got sexual interest in her, and there are moments between them that are definitely intimate even if they’re not romantic. The circumstances that force this closeness on them are pretty brutal, and it’s reasonable for them to form a bond. Yet, again, I could see a less discerning reader leaping to the conclusion that our heroine is romantically interested in the guy.

This sort of unfocused treatment of the main characters has similar echoes out in the plot at large. There’s a lot of POV jumping, and in fact, the heroine actually vanishes out of the action for a big section of the last third of the novel. I must give Cesar credit for her heroine not actually being the main driving force behind fighting the Big Bad of the story, but on the other hand, it was quite disconcerting to have her vanish entirely for a big swath of the narrative. Likewise, Cesar’s prose has moments where it’s surprisingly lyrical and others where it swings right into purple floridity.

All in all though a decent read, even if it never did quite come together fully for me, and even despite its disappointments. There are bits in particular where Cesar describes the townsfolk being subsumed by the plant god that are genuinely creepy and worth reading. Three stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

February 2010 Blog Tour!

We’ve had a bit of a hiatus on this, y’all, but as of this month I’m reinstating the Drollerie Blog Tour! This time around, though, we’re doing something different: we’re inviting non-Drollerie authors to come participate, and so for the February round, several of my fellow Drollerie authors and I will be swapping posts with several non-Drollerie authors. I hope to make this a regular thing–so any non-Drollerie authors reading this, if you’d like in on the blog action, do drop me a comment and let me know.

But! This month’s topic, aside from general introductions of various authors, is “best and worst experiences with works in progress”. And this month’s lineup of posts is as follows:

Nora Fleischer is hosting Brandon Bell, with a post right here. Brandon is hosting posts by Sarah Avery and Nora here and here.

Anna Kashina is hosting a post by author Gayleen Froese, here. Gayleen in return is hosting a post by Anna here.

John Rosenman and I are both hosting Hamish MacDonald, a true self-published author. My link for him is here, and John has his version of the post over here. In exchange, Hamish has posts up for both me and John!

Our own David Sklar is exchanging posts with Angelia Sparrow. David’s post on Angelia’s blog is here, and David has Angelia’s post up on his LJ over here.

As always, thanks for reading these posts, y’all, and I highly encourage you to visit all the posts on the tour. Drop comments and say hi, and tell the authors I sent you! We’ll be back again in another month or so, and we hope to expand the scope of where Drollerie authors visit. Watch this space for more details!

(Crossposted between Drollerie Press and angelakorrati.com. Please feel free to comment in either place!)

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

A character in the making

I don’t know who this character is yet, but she’s been lurking in my brain for a while now as I’ve thought about how to do an urban fantasy with an overweight woman as the heroine. I don’t even have a name for her, or any real idea yet of what her story is. But these words wanted out of my brain tonight nonetheless.

Right off the bat, the first thought that pops into someone’s head when they see me is oh god, a fat psychic. Not that anybody ever actually says that, but they don’t need to. I can see it in the way eyes go wide and then flick a glance up and down my frame, as if expecting that a woman of what we shall charitably refer to as “size”, a woman who also claims paranormal abilities, isn’t dressed more outrageously–as if perhaps I should be swathed in a leopard-print caftan, with an artfully arranged fruit basket on my head.

Also, hello? Psychic. In my case, that packs a double whammy. I get visions, but I get people’s thoughts too. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, those I meet don’t need to say a word to convey their doubts about me. I can pick them fresh and piping hot right out of their brains. I swear, it’s enough to drive a girl into the warm, loving company of the nearest chocolate cake.

All of which is why, when a man came into my shop on a Thursday afternoon and broadcast not the slightest hint of disdain for either my body type or what the colorfully painted sign by the door proclaimed I could do, I was absolutely thunderstruck.

I’ll see what else I can figure out about her later.

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.