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Let me sing for you the songs of my people
I’ve mentioned before that something I ardently respond to in both Quebecois and Newfoundland trad music is how many of the bands and singers I’m following have learned their music from their parents, who learned it from their parents, etc. I.e., they grew up with this music, and it was woven into their lives so…
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My first Quebecois session: Incroyable!
Tonight, O Internets, I participated in my very first “Chanson et langue” group and Quebecois session at the home of La Famille Léger. And I am here to tell you that that was unmitigated, 100%, home-grown organic AWESOME! (This post is long, so clickie on the cut link for the evening’s adventures!) (And I need,…
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Language epiphanies ROCK
Here’s one of the biggest reasons I have fallen so passionately in love with Quebecois music: part of me has latched onto it with an unconscious reaction of holy crap! There’s a whole extra LANGUAGE over here for music to be awesome in! Which is really pretty silly of me, given that I already had…
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2012 Book Log #8: Those Who Went Remain There Still, by Cherie Priest
My rating: 3 of 5 stars One of the big reasons I’ve picked up everything Cherie Priest has written is her propensity for taking established SF/F tropes and finding not only new ways to look at them, but actively odd ones as well–and in a run of intriguingly odd books, Those Who Went Remain There…
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2011 Book Log #45: Mystic and Rider, by Sharon Shinn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars I was previously familiar with Sharon Shinn via her Samaria novels, and so when I was in the mood to take on some epic fantasy, I was pleased to check out her Twelve Houses books. Mystic and Rider is the first of these, introducing the mystic Senneth, who has…
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2012 Book Log #7: Bloodshot, by Cherie Priest
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Urban fantasy has to work very, very hard to seize and hold my attention these days, and I say this fully cognizant of how there are a great number of authors out there writing awesome books. For me, it’s just been a matter of wanting to read so many…
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2011 Book Log #44: Die in Plain Sight, by Elizabeth Lowell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars Die in Plain Sight is a bit of an odd duck in the run of Elizabeth Lowell novels, straddling as it does the line between her Donovan series and her Rarities Unlimited ones. Goodreads classifies it as a Rarities book, but the two series are set in the same…
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Americanization of Sherlock Holmes: how bad an idea is this?
I’m seeing initial waves of nerd rage over this news that CBS is trying to develop its own pilot for a modernization of Sherlock Holmes, set in New York City. The timing of this, given that there is another active modernization of Sherlock Holmes in production with the BBC, is not a coincidence; note that…
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2012 Book Log #6: Ganymede, by Cherie Priest
My rating: 5 of 5 stars The fourth installment in Cherie Priest’s Clockwork Century series, Ganymede is now finally getting into actual sequel territory. Like Clementine and Dreadnought, it’s a standalone story–but this time, one of the spotlight characters in fact someone who previously showed up in Boneshaker, and we’ve got clear followup to the…
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Another year, another round of LJ fail
For those of you who may not have seen this yet, this story started going around last night. I saw the LJ Twitter account link to it, so one presumes this is indeed legit. The article’s talking about future plans for LJ, and it’s looking like the ongoing trend of not giving a damn about…
