Andy and Darcy’s Blog

So my interest in an artist named Imogen Heap started with Garden State, a wonderful Zach Braff film with tons of Indie music, one of the songs in the film was “Let Go” by Frou Frou. What struck me about the song was really the vocals, Imogen’s voice has this haunting quality that gets to me in some way. I can and have listened to her music for hours, I get lost in it.

Imogen was a member of the now defunct duo named Frou Frou along with Guy Sigsworth. She is now making solo records of just as good or better quality than her work in Frou Frou. I highly recommend the Frou Frou disc, it spans everything from highly electronic tracks to just straight up vocals. One of the really best aspects of Frou Frou’s album, Details, is the crazy lyrics. It almost feels like this strange concatenation of randomness, that somehow works in the end, I don’t really know how to describe. I suggest you listen and try it for yourself.

Well, now continuing with my story… Kristi and Jon Wesley were visiting right before our wedding and Jon kept playing this very very unique song on his phone, and it sort of made me think back to something, that I couldn’t put my finger on. After a bit of research I found that it was Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap, so that got me looking into her music again. A quick trip to the iTunes music store and I found her latest album, Speak For Yourself. I started listening to the short 30 second clips they have on iTunes and I knew that I had to have this album as well.

Fast forward to this week, and I was perusing Jeremiah’s blog and I came upon a post about Imogen that was a youtube video of a live performance she gave. Then I played it… I’ll pause and let you do the same.

So is your jaw on the floor as mine was? If not, you might want to stop reading here. IF you don’t stop reading there just might be something near the bottom that might interest you.

That got me looking for more of her work on youtube. Here is a small selection.

Headlock

Hide and Seek

Goodnight & Go

And now for something completely different, but still Imogen related…

So if you have gotten anything from this I hope that I’ve made you smile and perhaps gave you some sense of why Imogen is as awesome as I think she is. If you enjoyed any of the above, I highly recommend any of her albums. They are all good.

I feel like I’ve recommended nearly all the books I’ve read lately, but I think I might just be on a lucky streak. Usually I am not that happy with a lot of the books I’ve read, so please don’t think I blog only about the good ones.

This book is actually based on a fairy tale. It took me some time before I realized it. This is not a well known fairy tale. I think I had just read it once or twice when I read books of fairy tales in my youth. This is the fairy tale of 7 children, 6 brothers and 1 sister. The brothers are turned into swans, and the sister must spin and make 6 shirts of a thorny plant to break the spell. She cannot speak while she makes the shirts either, so you can imagine that all kinds of things happen to her. Not all of them were good, but none were so bad (or so vividly described) that I could not go on reading.

This was a very good book. It was suspenseful, not too violent, and still wonderfully told. I like fantasy books where the main character is a female. There are way too few of them. There are some Druids in this book, and a magical forest. No leprechauns though, just in case Wayne and Garth read this blog. I kinda feel like there ought to be.

Since I would read this book again for pure enjoyment, it must get 5 stars.

Here are the highlights from the last eleven days. There was flooding in our area in Minnesota, since we got 12 inches or so delivered by very harsh rainfalls in just a few days. So for some of this time, we’ve had crappy weather. The rest of it has been pretty nice.

Katie’s bachelorette party was in the Wisconsin Dells, and this was my first trip to the Dells. Amber, Lee, Pam, Katie, Kristi, and Kelly left Friday after work to get there. We met some of Katie’s friends and family there. We all stayed in a condo on a lake, which put us a nice distance from all the craziness of the city. This city may be the Las Vegas of the north. When we got there, games were ready to be played, and fun was ready to be had. I played Guesstures for the first time. We also played Scattergories, which I am never any good at.

The Wisconsin Dells is a city that grew out of a carnival, or that’s how it appears to me. There are amusement parks, waterparks, and all kind of crazy stuff to see on the side of the road. For example, one of the pictures below is an upside down White House taken while we were driving by. And there are lots and lots of candy stores. And it was raining, so we went inside!

When we got back on Saturday evening it was raining. And this is the rain that was involved in the flooding. It kept raining until sometime on Sunday evening. As some of you know, I live almost at the top of a big hill (but not quite at the top). There were mini-rivers running along the sides of my house, and at the bottom of the hill water was collecting. The Corn On The Cob festival was cancelled because Plainview flooded, and I am very sorry about that! I was really disappointed.

We bought a box of vanilla scone mix from Target, and they were incredible. We bought them completely on impulse (and we were probably spurred on by hungry stomachs). They are light and airy, and not too sweet. And they are vanilla flavored, so you know their good. I highly recommend them. We’ve already bought more.

We went to our first Thursdays on First in downtown Rochester. It was really fun, and dinner was super. I had the Billotti’s pizza by the slice! I’ve never had such a big piece of Billotti’s pizza, so that was great for me. There was a salsa band there , and we had some really awesome warm chocolate chip cookies. City Market was responsible for the warm chocolate chip cookies, and they were making them before our eyes. Good idea!

Andy and I went hiking at Oxbow park. We drove there this time so we would have some energy to hike! They definitely had some flood damage there, especially in the campgrounds. We hiked through the trees, and then through the meadow. You’ll have to check out Andy’s pictures. I know he got some good ones!

We’re continuing to use stuff from our garden. Andy made bread and butter pickles.

So tonight, Nikon released their D300 digital SLR, and boy let me tell you, it’s sweet… I’ll just let you read on.

Nikon D300

Now all I need to do is recoup from the TV purchase and sometime next year I will own that beauty. Oh did you see it had 51 AF points, 100% viewfinder, dust reduction system, live view, HDMI out AND 3″ lcd with 900k pixels, thats friggin nuts. Just making sure you were paying attention.

Oh if you really want to drool, take a look at the D3, which was also released today, a bit out of my price range though at $5k, but still full frame and lovely.

Well ta-ta for now, it’s way too late.

The last time we were at the library, Amber pointed out a very intriguing program they have going on there. You can check out book club kits. The kits come with 10 books, study guide questions, and bookmarks!! There is a good selection of books, too.

Something like this could put our book club on the fast track. If we even manage to schedule a followup book club meeting, we usually have to plan for at least a week or two for everyone to acquire books. There is a $5 a day late fee if the kits are returned late. That alone is quite an incentive to get things done. And there are no books written by actors on their list, did I mention that?

So anyway, I am just throwing the idea out there. If it is indeed your turn to select a book (and that may be me since the rand() algorithm is selecting our names in alphabetical order), feel free to explore this option.

I have a list, so send me a message if you want to know more. Speaking of book club, we should schedule a date. Maybe someone should write a script to automagically schedule book club, send out a roch-group invite, and other cool stuff like that.

I love those lines. I can’t help laughing a little to myself every time the word “clearance” turns up in my life. So this post is just an update on what’s going on with illustrations. Since my last update of this nature, there has been practicing of the violin and viola, we have been picking things out of our garden and using them, and we’ve been biking to work. The weather has consisted of a good mixture rain and sun. Now I’m just going to throw a bunch of pictures out there.

Amber, the elusive Pam, and I went to the library where I got a bunch of new books. Pam didn’t make it into any of the pictures. How did that happen!

Our only watermelon didn’t make it. It is mush, unfortunately. But our peppers are starting to turn colors!

I planted a bunch of plants that needed planting before the winter comes around. I must say that I hate moving rocks. Those rocks are the main reason it takes me so long to get stuff planted.

We pressure washed the deck. It looks great.

We made a brisket in the new grill. And this pie which is not a pie was incredible. Jon said he used a jar of mixed berries from Lund’s Byerlys as the filling. And the crust was ample, sugary, and delicious.

Andy and I took pictures of lightning from our deck. Even I got a few decent shots.

Ombria in Shadow is written by Patricia McKillip, who has also written The Riddle Master trilogy. I enjoyed the The Riddle Master trilogy, so I thought, “Why not another?”. I borrowed this book from the Rochester Public Library from their several shelves devoted to books of the fantasy genre. It has a very detailed cover that promises good things…castles, sailing, and at least one character that is a woman.

Here is the plot in as few words as I can manage: The prince of Ombria dies, probably as a result of poison administered in small doses. He leaves behind his legal heir, a boy of approximately 7 years. He also leaves behind a mistress who is cast out in the streets and and an illegitimate nephew. The nephew is an odd silver-haired man in his twenties who spends his time in the taverns of Ombria and makes prophetic sketches with charcoal. The great aunt of all the royalty involved in this book, Domina Pearl, is the regent and happens to be evil and very into the dark arts.

This book reminds me a bit of Magician by Raymond Feist without the fantastic character development. It’s not that Patricia doesn’t develop her characters. She does, but I feel that some quality is lacking. I’m probably being vague, but I can’t come up with any supporting arguments. It’s just the feeling I get reading this book.

After reading the entire book, I wonder why is Ombria so special…is it just because the characters in the book live there? In my interpretation, it’s a city state with a monarchy. I don’t really have any idea what is outside of Ombria. Maybe its just a suburb of Amber.

One other detail about this book is that it has no glossary. Sometimes glossaries tell me a lot…like that the author had a vivid imagination and had to make up so much that he or she couldn’t find subtle ways to introduce his fantasy concepts. And that’s ok with me. There is no glossary in this book. There isn’t a lot that needs explaining.

So now I come to the end of my thoughts on this book. If you have to choose between reading Being Dead and this book, you should definitely pick this book. But there are so many better books out there. Hmm…I wonder if I should really bother with blogging for mediocre books.

So this morning Andy and I drove to work instead of biking because it was pouring out. And we heard a really weird commercial on the radio. It was for Autismfest. When I heard them say it, I thought I had misheard. But they said it again, so I’m sure that’s what they meant. If we’re going to spread the word about autism I think that “Run For Austism” or “Autism Awareness Fair” may be appropriate names, but Autismfest….ummm…no. I keep thinking this must have been a mistake or something. If I’m wrong, correct me, please.

The commercial was definitely local to the southern Minnesota region. They mentioned several towns in our area. I was so perplexed that I didn’t really catch any other details about this “fest”, but I think the commercial may have been on FM 101.

I have never been able to sit through a showing of Starship Troopers, even though I’m very familiar with the beginning of it. But everyone seems to love this book, so I wanted to find out what its all about. And I have found out that the book is pretty good.

This is a Heinlein book. So that means it could be either kind of good, weird, and well written like Stranger in A Strange Land or really bad like Time Enough For Love. It is definitely more like Stranger in a Stranger Land in the fact that it is enjoyable and succinct. (There is no shocker at the end, unlike SIASL.)

Heinlein’s military is probably the main exhibit in this book. He points out some deficiencies in the militaries of the past (which is now), so this must be why Starship Troopers is called “controversial”. One point that Heinlein makes is about how there are so many officers compared to soldiers in militaries of the past (he means now, again). Everyone in Heinlein’s military fights, and those who do not are civilians. Heinlein draws attention to how many of the officers of our era are commissioned without ever being “experienced” soldiers. And another interesting tidbit about Heinlein’s society is this: only those people who have served a term in the military and retired are allowed to vote. The idea is that you make a sacrifice for the honor of having a voice in the government. Another very interesting concept.

Here’s one more thing that I saw. Heinlein has quite an obvious stance on corporal punishment. He’s for it. In this book a public flogging was the punishment for drunk driving. And that sounds like a fitting punishment to me.

And if there is any other controversy in this book, I didn’t catch it. I am, after all, reading for pleasure.

So one thing about this book is that the war involves space-alien hive bugs. Have you ever heard of this plot before? Hmm…Uncle Orson, if you’re out there…would you like to comment on that?

This is a short and easy read, if you like science fiction. And the story is enjoyable, even if it is about war. So I say go for it. Much of what I read isn’t as good as this book.

If only Jane Austen had written more! This what I think at times, and this sentiment is also related to the reason I decided to read this book. It doesn’t disappoint. I haven’t read anything as good in the realm of fiction since my months reading the Jane Austen books.

The Mysteries of Udolpho is the first novel that was considered to be gothic horror. There is not a lot of what we would consider horror in this book. It is very suspenseful, and there are a lot of supposed supernatural occurrences that are all explained by the end of the book. This book (set in France and Italy) is the story of Emily St. Aubert, a 16 year old, who loses her parents (just after you start to like them) at the beginning of the book. She goes to live with her aunt who marries a shady character, Montoni, an Italian mobster with a castle. Emily is confined to the castle by Montoni and is separated from her true love, Valancourt.

The Mysteries of Udolpho was mentioned extensively in Northanger Abbey. And after reading this book, I think that people should actually read the Mysteries of Udolpho before reading Northanger Abbey. If you haven’t read Northanger Abbey, you should know that the main plot in this book centers around the hilarious hijinks that are a result of the heroine reading too many gothic novels and seeing a lot of intrigue and mystery where there is none.

This book is also public domain, since it was written in the 1800′s and the copyright has expired. So you don’t even have to rush out to your library to get it. It is available for download at gutenberg.org. But this book is so good I’m going to buy it.