Dark Side of the Moon

The music section of a recent issue of the New Yorker (I suspect Sept. 14th) talked about the Nine Inch Nails "Wave Goodbye" small club performances and gave some background on the... well, it's hard to say "group" since Trent Reznor is the overwhelming presence.   This reviewer, like most, pushed the loud industrial dissonance aspect of the music, but it would have been nice if there'd been even a passing mention of the surprisingly lyrical pieces that do exist and are considered a serious part of the canon, not just throwaway "something different".  Now I like even the dissonant stuff (the more you hear, the more you realize how cyclical it is, how the newest lyrics reference the oldest ones and no, please, not because Reznor can't think of anything new to say).   But I started to put together my own version of a somewhat lighter and more tonal list with which to woo those who think they'd never like NIN.  When I did, I found the oddest thing: the track numbers lined up with only a single duplicate.  It's not perfect, there's a few instrumental pieces I'd switch around if it were an actual album, and some of the pieces aren't totally dissonance-free, but they have a musicality to them that a non-industrial fan should still appreciate.  Soooo... here's my take on it:

NIN : LIGHTS
01 - I Ghosts 1 (Ghosts I-IV, 2008)
02 - Piggy (The Downward Spiral, 1994)
03 - The Frail (The Fragile, disk 1, 1999)
04 - The Good Soldier (Year Zero, 2007)
05 - Something I Can Never Have (Pretty Hate Machine, 1989)
alternate 05 - Echoplex (The Slip, 2008)
06 - The Fragile (The Fragile, disk 1, 1999)
07 - Lights in the Sky (The Slip, 2008)
08 - I'm Looking Forward to Joining You Finally (The Fragile, disk 2, 1999)
09 - The Four of Us Are Dying (The Slip, 2008)
10 - A Warm Place (The Downward Spiral, 1994)
11 - La Mer (The Fragile, disk 2, 1999)
12 - The Great Below (The Fragile, disk 1, 1999)
13 - Right Where It Belongs (With Teeth, 2005)
14 - Hurt (The Downward Spiral, 1994)

What would you add? what would you change?

Oh, and re: the coinage fuss:
I like research. I like full documentation. I like details and disclosure and history and all possibilities available for discussion.  It's turning into a big piece and will need to be split into parts, but I need to get everything together first. 
  

Someone new has friended me! 

*waves to the EK seneschal*

Mmmhmmm.
  

Copy of post sent to SCA-East today (long):

( ~ post ~ )

I have already been told I should apologize for daring to compare the screwing I got to sexual assault.    

What I will apologize for is that I called it a metaphor, when of course it was a simile.  

Added:

 

( ~ follow up post to list ~ )

 

I ended up not going to the SCA event yesterday.  Things got hectic in the morning in getting everyone and everything together and I said I'd go later in the second car, but an end-of-summer cold and severe lack of sleep and the amount of rain made me keep putting it off till I decided not to go at all.  There were some classes I'd wanted to take, and I always look forward to commedia performances, but... oh well.

I did go out once during the day, to a pet store to see what could be found to help the hermit crabs.  My two kids each bought two of the things this summer, early June, when we were at Old Orchard Beach.  They ended up in the same habitat because it turns out that "hermit" crabs are actually very social and prefer living in large groups. (Helpful for them: there's a chain effect when one crab moved to a larger shell, then another smaller crab picks up the discarded one as its new home, etc.)  The habitat had some sand and aquarium type gravel, maybe an inch deep.  On-line research said that wasn't appropriate, and not sufficient depth if the crabs needed to moult, so I picked up the recommended fibrous mulch and more sand (some of it calcium-digestible), and also a half-round hollowed log for climbing & hiding, and more types of foods, and a water-conditioning spray/mist bottle.

Random hermit crab "facts" (Unverified, i.e. Wikipedia):

Hermit crabs have been using gastropod shells since the Late Cretaceous.  Before then, at least some used ammonite shells (apparently, a fossil record exists).

The coconut crab, the world's largest living arthropod, is a hermit crab, but one that uses a borrowed shell only when very young.

During moulting, a hermit crab can regenerate lost claws or limbs.

Hermit crabs were once thought to be "throw-away" pets, that would live only a few months in captivity.  Now that people know more about the needs, some species can live 20-30 years.

Oh joy. :-)
  

Busy long weekend.

( ~ Saturday, Sunday, Monday... with recipe for beef/pepper stew ~ ) 
  

Great NorthEastern War, for those not in the SCA, or even not in this region of the SCA.  It was a very good GNEW.  I got five beads and my husband got a rock. 

 

( :-) )

   
  

We had an SCA event yesterday.  It was fun.  Many people came. Many of those said they liked it.   (No one said they didn't, but I'm allowing that some that didn't talk to me might have felt so.)

We lost money.  It wasn't an enormous amount of money, but the event wasn't intended to lose money and so I'm sorry it did, but I'm not going to get all angsty because the Barony will still be solvent and I've run events in the past that made more money than this one lost, and overall, in the autocrating books, I'm still in the black.   But we'll definitely include a "lessons learned" section in the event report.

Many people helped to make it the enjoyable event it was.   I'll be sending out more specific thanks on the various lists, but I'm amazed and appreciative at the amount of help, both from those who volunteered beforehand and at the event.   Thank you! ^_^
  
My brain is still fried.
  

 

Some of you know that tomorrow there's an SCA event called "The Twa Corbies Tavern" and I'm in charge. There's been the normal amount of work involved in coordinating this, plus some extra roadbumps, and some completely unnecessary outside stress. We have a project that went live at work, so those of us involved are carrying pagers, and yesterday evening my pager went off. This was during the drive home on a major highway in rush hour traffic, and I got a little tense because the rules say you have to respond to a page within a set time, but I made it (eventually) to the next exit and pulled off that road into a parking lot to check the pager and see who I needed to call. No page. Pager clock says : "00:05 AM 01/01/00". In going over a pothole, the battery had briefly disconnected and then reconnected, and the pager beeps when you put in a new battery, to let you know it's working. So, extra stress for nothing.

What can help reduce stress is a nice goblet of warm spiced wine. (See, I did work in a relevance!) But most event sites won't 'allow you to have alcohol without a lot of extra regulations, and the SCA itself won't let it be paid for by the event. So tomorrow we'll serve "hypocritical hyppocras" which pretends to be what it isn't.

( ~ Hypocritical Hyppocras ~ )

rufinia posted about the Cooks Guild meeting that made curd cheese from a Roman recipe, which reminded me of a collection of non-SCA-period recipes I'd put together at one point.

( ~ four methods of making curd cheese ~ )

"Uisquebathe", "usquebath", "usquebaugh", the water of life, which word eventually became "whiskey", though the recipes from the 16th-18th century for this "Irish cordial" are very far from what whiskey is now.

( ~ Usquebath, the Irish cordial ~ )  

Must not forget this:  http://www.foodtimeline.org/
  

So there was this Coronation today in Carolinginia, in the Kingdom of the East, and afterward the crown was (were?) sitting in state and a long line formed to offer tribute, to pay homage, to swear fealty, and I among them. And because I care about words, I cared about what I said and looked up again what was appropriate.

( ~ dissertation and disclosure ~ )

What do others say? What do you say, or would if you swore fealty?
  

For everyone who's done an SCA/LARP/Con car trip in garb/costume/whatever...

A few pictures of friends from the Great Northeastern War in Maine this past July... 


   

Been busy, and this is what's been going on... 

   

Today I'm giving a class at Great NorthEastern War on "Simple Fancy Desserts". Mostly a discussion of a dessert board I did all of five years ago, but, ya know, 16th century recipes and presentation haven't changed that much in five years?  (From when I first joined the SCA, yes, they did.  Initial research, including non-SCA but what was generally "known", was often pretty bad.  All those spices to kill the taste of rotting meat.... um, sure.)

Those not able to attend can follow along at home... or at least review the handout (warning: about 750 KB because of pictures):

http://www.dragonbear.com/text/SimpleFancyDesserts.doc