Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

More fun madness from the mind of Joss Whedon!!

I thought I had missed this--just a week too late. But then I went to show Ron the site and see how we might get the itunes version, and low and behold, there was a "watch it now" button...and we did. With a headphone in one ear each we watched it in the internet cafe though I think we bothered people anyway what with the hysterical laughter and everything....

Academia sans Ivory Tower

Well, I am editing, editing, edition. After so many long years of academia in which
a) I had many resources at my fingertips for working on papers and
b) I was usually working to find enough to say to meet length requirements
it is now proving very strange and challenging to attempt to cut a nearly 19,000 word thesis down to a 9000-10,000 word article with no resources but my laptop and whatever is available online (mostly relevant in the form of Webster's Dictionary which my publisher uses as their standard for spelling). I also need to adapt to Chicago Style rather than my more accustomed MLA (Chicago Manual of Style offers some quick and dirty guides to their system, but I could really use the handbook). I don't even have the original texts of the works I'm analyzing. Oh, sure, I could find a version of them online, but it wouldn't be the edition I'd used for the rest. Thankfully that hasn't yet become an issue given that I am frantically cutting things, not looking to add any extra quotes.

Well, I've got things down to 15,000 words, cutting about 4000 so far (I remember writing essays that were only 4000 words long!) but the next 4000 will be far harder cut and that last 1000 will, I imagine, be hardest yet.

I've had more discipline than I might have guessed after such a long break at actually working on this paper in a sustained manner. Nevertheless, editing has to be one of my least favorite parts of paper writing--researching being the most fun, followed by analyzing the research.

Immigration Update

So today Ron and I both mailed off the latest sets of forms needed for the process of getting Ron to the States. Fingers crossed that these will have fast turn around. With luck, all that is left should be the interview in London and the medical requirements, but it is hard to be certain of that.

In the mean time, my own latest visitor visa runs out in early September and with July fast running out, we will need to decide soon whether I am returning for another visitor visa or acting as the advance force in moving to California. Either tactic has drawbacks, but I'll need to look for plane tickets soon--either a round-trip to Europe to re-set the visitor visa, or a one-way to the States.


This week, however, will largely be given over to academic pursuits: revising my thesis into a book article. It is certainly strange to be going through all this again--a subject so very familiar but one I haven't touched in a year. I have a contract at last, and now have only to make good on it. I need to cut the length nearly in half, and it would be nice if the half cut away could resolve itself into a second publishable work, but we shall have to see. Much the word count may go simply in tightening up individual paragraphs and sentences to be more succinct.

Bat in the Tea Shop

After several castle-less weeks, Janet and I made up for it yesterday. On thursday we had one of those moments where, having let a couple weeks slide by without talking, we both decided at the same time it was time to plan a castle trip--I called Janet just as she was planning to call me as soon as she got home. She delegated me to plan a trip (a dangerous move, but it worked out fine!). Since I was out in internet cafe land I didn't have my member's handbook with me, so I decided to simply use the webpage...and it was fortunate I did since I stumbled on to the fact that Rowallan castle is only open 10 days a year (plus three additional Saturdays) and Friday was to be day #10. So, of several possible routes, the decision had been made. I scouted out the presence of a few other Historic Scotland sites in the same direction and reported to Janet with my progress. And for once, everything went to plan!!

We were both a bit sleep deprived. I had a fiction-related allnighter just two nights previous and then only managed four hours of sleep the night before our Friday expedition. Janet too was tired, but excitement carried us through and off we set Southeast for Ayrshire.

Rowallan Old Castle (apparently as opposed to Rowallan New Castle which we did not see) is well worth a visit if you can manage it. The property appears to be maintained by Historic Scotland but owned by a landlord who holds the larger estate the castle is situated on, and the landlord does not seem best pleased with people coming around to see the castle. It seems he's agreed only to the minimum number of open days to still have HS maintain the castle, and provides no parking at all and is, reportedly, consistently cranky about the whole thing (this from some gossip from someone at one of the other castles later in the day). We did have our own brief encounter with someone who certainly fit his description, but escaped unscathed.

But as I said, Rowallan Castle is certainly worth a visit. It is apparently possible to arrange a viewing at other times, though given the above, I don't know how difficult that might prove to be. The castle was built and remodeled and added to over the 13th-18th centuries on a site that has archaeological evidence back to the bronze age (they showed us a nice pot decorated with nicely done typically-bronze age zig-zags and dots that was found on site). It is built on a hill, though not the highest hill in the region. The majority of the surviving castle is 16th-17th century. A bit more than a third--oddly the oldest and the youngest parts of the castle, though both on the same side--is ruined, the side that when facing the entrance is off to your right (east). Front right was the original towerhouse which would have been three or four stories high. You can still see parts of the second floor and bits of a fireplace, but mostly only the "ground" floor remains. Because of the way the hill is situated the ground floor of the towerhouse is nearly as high up as the second floor of the building across the way (which in turn has one of those basements that is completely underground on the courtyard side but has gunloop windows on the far side.

The surviving section of the castle are really more of a fortified manor house than a strategic castle, and there are really interesting indication of how the style of living shifted through the aras when it was lived in by a family and household. The really amazing thing about this castle are the relatively rare survivals in the better preserved section of the castle. There is still woodwork--not just doors but banisters and built-in cupboards and the like. There is is plaster and even paint in a number of places. There is an exceedingly rare kind of temporary wall--I've completely forgotten the name of it, but it basically consists of "bricks" made of straw and mud slotted into a thin wooden framework and then plastered over. Once plastered it wouldn't have looked any different from the plastered stone walls, but it would go up easy and go down just as easy. These two walls were put up to divide a larger room into two bedrooms. It has deteriorated just enough in one of the bedrooms that you can see the bricks and the wooden framework of most of it, plaster clinging only to a small section. Very suceptable to the damp, these walls don't often survive in Scottish castles, and our tour guide said she didn't know of another one in Scotland and has asked every tour group to go through if they've ever seen one--so far one man had seen one in England, and that's it. They're not quite sure when that particular wall was put up. Probably 17th or 18th century, so not medieval, but still very cool.

One of the things that very much sparked my interest was the "Woman's House." This section of the main building has it's own entrance and is the last part of the south side of the castle to be built, extending a little along the west as well. From that entrance there isn't access to the "ground" floor--that space was accessible through the main set of rooms though we didn't get to go in there. Instead you get faced with a stairway leading up and down. The upstairs room is one of the most light and airy in the whole place and in many ways it looks like it could exist in a tasteful modern house. Hard to tell exactly what is restored and what is original--I think the wood paneling is original, the plaster work was restored and the windows replaced entirely, but that's just my guess. There is a small room off to the side ("dressing room" according to our guide). But while this part was built for one of the owners' (laird?) wives, I really have to wonder if it was really her bedroom (as the presence of a dressing room would certainly indicate) or if it was a salon/sitting room type space or something. Because while it used to be common practice to have separate bedrooms for noble husbands and wives, having to go outside and cross the courtyard to get to the domain of the other is a bit much!

Well, there were some other cool things at Rowallan--the buckles on the stonework come to mind!--but we'll move on with the day. We headed into Kilmarnock for lunch and settled on the visitor center at the Dean Castle Park. In the tea shop/cafeteria we were dive-bombed by a bat!! The poor thing had somehow ended up inside in the middle of the day and was not at all happy about it. He kept swooping all over the place. Occasionally he would briefly land on a wall before streaking off again, but he seemed unable to either settle anywhere nor find his way outside. He was very cute though.

Off we went to peek briefly in Dean Castle. Unfortunately most is closed to tours only (Rowallan too was tours only) and we were a bit too nackered to face another 45 minute tour. It looked like a very cool castle though, of similar eras (mostly Renaissance I'd guess) built on a somewhat larger scale. I was impressed with the covered walkways running along the inside of the upper level around the courtyard. And they have a proper well rather than a hole in the ground like so many have been reduced to.

Then it was off to Dundonald Castle, "cradle of the Stewarts." This was far more ruined than the other two. 15th century. And it's history (inevitably I suppose, being so close) was twined with that of Rowallan. Elizabeth Mure came from the family at Rowallan. She was the first wife of Robert, then High Steward of Scotland and later King Robert II. She bore him quite a few children (ten?) including John who became King Robert III (the name John wasn't going over well, what with John Balliol's severe unpopularity so he changed his name to Robert). She died before Robert II became king, however, so she was never Queen. The Mures continued to make much of their royal connections, though, as is reflected on the imagery on the front of Rowallan Castle.

My New Virtual Bookshelf

Books!

Ok, I've added a new spiffy feature to my blog! In a blatant display of procrastination, I was doing one of my periodic web surfs through the web pages of my favorite authors. Most of the time I just do this to see if there are any new announcements of upcoming releases. But this time I noticed several of them had blogs or other pages to post writing advice, news, and random musings. Well, on Gail Dayton's blog I noticed she had a cool bookshelf thing. I had noticed something like it on someone else's--Jacqueline Carey's maybe?--page too; but Gail Dayton's stood out more because she uses the same exact blog site as me. And I thought--If she can stick this up on her blog, then so can I...somehow. Now in both cases, one of the fascinating things had been the fact that right up at the top of these bookshelves were books I knew and loved! So of course that (and the fact that these are authors I respect anyway) made me all the more interested in the books I didn't know.

Anyway, I soon tracked down the Shelfari site and got signed up and figured out how to put it on my blog. So here it is!! Well, adding things to it is also a bit of work and procrastination could only last so long. So some of my favorites are up, and anything that happened to turn up in the searches for my favorites that I've also read. So, as things occur to me, or as the need for procrastinatory activities strikes, I'll expand the collection.

Music!
My last performance with the Madrigirls was last week. It was great fun, as usual. We performed in the Kibble Palace in the Botanical Gardens as part of the West End Festival in Glasgow. We sold out! And the people running it said we had a record number of pre-sales (Ron being one of them). It was a very pretty venue, though I have to say most of the churches we've performed in had nicer acoustics; not bad though. Perhaps because of the venue, or the summery feel, or the fact we were all still recovering from all the excitement a week and a half back, this concert had a somewhat informal feel to it, at least to me. This was definitely increased by the fact that the serious readings from the Life of St Kentigern from the tour were replaced by our director's very funny summaries of the same ("And next St Mungo went to Wales...I don't remember why. Oh he wanted to see St David. Or was it St David that wanted to see him? *looks back at choir for guidance* Anyway, he went to Wales and....was there anything else? *hint from our ranks* Oh yes, he met St Columba too. That might have been after Wales. But we have this lovely piece of chant about St Columba." ...ok, so that's not a direct quote, and hopefully it won't get me killed if someone from choir reads this blog, but I think that was a fair impression. ;)

Anyway, the last concert was fun. Though I'm very sad it's all over now. They've promised to send me CDs or a DVD of the movie when it comes out if I can't see the movie in the States. I'm very very glad I decided to join. Amazing where volunteering to help out with the role playing table at Fresher's Fair led to eventually!! If I hadn't been promoting gaming, I wouldn't have seen the information about the choir tryouts on the table kinny-corner, and thus wouldn't have tried out, and thus wouldn't have had all this fun singing with an awesome choir this year.

Sing, Sing, and Sing Some More!

So, last weekend the Madrigirls (the chamber singing group I'm in) went on tour down to the Borders and Northumberland (you know, I always have to stop and think whether Northumberland or Northumbria is the modern term and which is medieval). We all got matching sweatshirts--Madri-hoodies--and headed down in a minibus rented from Glasgow Uni--the Madi-bus--and got down to Simonburn in Northumberland (vaguely near Hexham) for our concert for friday night. Naturally we sang most of the way down.

The reason we picked the tiny village of Simonburn for our first full-weekend tour ever (despite the fact that the West End Festival information persistently says we went on tour in Europe "last year"...they've said this for two years now, and it was true for neither, which we keep telling them, but that's all neither here nor there) is because their church is St Mungo's Church and as everyone knows, St Mungo is the patron saint of Glasgow (what do you mean everyone doesn't know that?). So, yes, we got to sing in a gorgeous 14th century church. We had a great turn out--the church was nearly full. We saw fliers all around on our way and they were clearly excited to have us and it was great fun. We had an incredible dinner at the local tea room before hand and then the proprietors bought one of our CDs after the concert and said we'd be heard in the tea room for a long time to come! They must have really liked us.

Well then we headed off in the trusty madri-bus for our first hostel which we had entirely to ourselves. It was incredibly picturesque, very cottage-like looking out over a lovely valley and complete with their own chickens in the yard. We sang more on the way there. And then we talked half the night. I introduced the game "How's Yours?" (any BREAK@8 readers in the audience groaning at that?) and we played all the way around till everyone had a go. Then we went to bed...which didn't mean going to sleep since I seem to have ended up in the rambunctious room both nights. Anyway, eventually sleep was had. The bunk beds were novelties to some and nostalgic to others. I suppose I fell in the latter category.

The next day we headed back north for Scotland. We had lunch in Jedburgh and then sang in fairly substantial ruins of Jedburgh Abbey. It was very pretty. I wish I'd had time to explore. In fact, if I'd realized we would have so little time afterwards, I would have ditched the choir members to go explore during lunch since my Historic Scotland card would have got me in. But hindsight and all that. It was very fun nonetheless. We went for all quite medieval songs, naturally, most of them Latin and drew a small crowd. Sadly there wern't many people around that day, but practically everyone in the abbey came to listen to us, and one bought a CD and two came to the concert that night.

Then it was off to Bowden Kirk for our final performance. We got another quite decent turn out. By this time our voices were a bit on the tired side. We went into it tired and not quite in the mood, but inside another lovely old kirk with all the nice people there to hear us, how could we resist? Once again, fun was had. And if various people, myself included, faded out here and there, well, at least we never all did it at once and the concert came off splendidly anyway. I got an adrenaline kick right before my solo that carried me through a few more songs besides. After the performance we all filed out and then while Katy and Catriona (our directors) greeted people as they came out, some of the Madrigirls invented new lyrics to one of our warm up rounds. The original words are "Mango, Mango, Mango...Kiwi, Kiwi, Kiwi...Pineapple, Banana, Pineapple, Mmm." And it became "Mingle, Mingle, Mingle....Mingle with the people...Talk to them, talk to them--nah." Unfortunately we were overheard, but luckily people seemed to think it was rather endearing....I hope so anyway. Once on the bus Evonne and I introduced the version we had invented weeks ago "Mungo, Mungo, Mungo...holy, holy, holy...Kentigern, Kentigern" which was well received.

Then it was back to our mansion-like hostel in Melrose to change. Soon we were headed out to the pub--one of the two pubs in Melrose. The other one was showing sports of some kind, and in fact one of the two rooms of ours was too. After the first round or so of drinks we started singing...again. Actually, I have to admit, I instigated it this time. A pint of cider was enough to give me the courage to go teach "Battle is better when followed by beer" to Evonne who helped teach it to a half dozen others and soon we had nearly everyone singing it. We even tried it as a round--it more or less works. Well, once singing had started, we couldn't stop. For a while we sang non-concert stuff, searching for other fun things that we might know or could be learned quickly ("What would you do with a drunken sailor?"...) Soon after we'd started singing we seemed to have cleared the remaining locals out of the pub...but then one of the band of men who'd been drinking outside came in for a fresh round and dragged all his mates in to hear us and soon we had tons of men requesting more and more. At this point we fell back increasingly on our own repertoire, going through all the rowdiest, and most fun songs. Quite intoxicated by this time (well, I nursed two drinks through the whole night, but I'm a lightweight and most of the choir is undergrads after all), we *might* have shouted out the music a bit. But a grand time was had by all.

Despite being once more in the rowdy room, I was soon asleep. The next day I for one tried to refrain from idle singing since many of us we nearly hoarse from days of non-stop singing. We couldn't resist entirely though. It's so hard! Once you're around fellow-singers and let your hair down a bit, it's almost impossible not to sing and sing and sing some more.

Then it was back to Glasgow, but the singing wasn't over yet. We split up for lunch and then reconvened for a rehearsal because...wait for it...the next night we were scheduled to record for the BBC! So we rehearsed. One song was one we knew. The other was In the Bleak Midwinter, which of course, we all knew more or less, but I'd never sung the alto harmony for it. Nevertheless, one rehearsal really did suffice in this case. Then the next night we did the actual recording...from 7pm to 2:30am!!

In the movie this is for, Fiona's Story, the main character (named, surprisingly enough, Fiona; played by Gina McKee) is in a choir at the beginning of the movie then quits when her life falls apart. At the end (spoiler alert!) she comes back to the choir...presumably symbolizing how she's put her life back together. The choir director (Jimi Mistry) is a persistent character and probably urges her to come back--though I really know little about the middle of the movie. It was really funny watching the actor imitating our choir director and getting better at directing as things went on.

All the actors and directors and everyone were very nice and down to earth. I guess I always pictured more scowling and shouting and "no, that's not right" stuff going on. But it was all quite cheerful and they plied us with food between shoots and water bottles between takes and despite going into it all quite thoroughly exhausted it was still great fun. We finished up just after 2 in the morning and they paid for taxis to take us home. Since we were filming on campus, I was really only 5 minutes from home, but given the hour I was quite happy to accept the cab though given all the one-way streets it took the cab longer to collect us and drive me there than it would have taken to walk.

So, you'll have to watch for Fiona's Story to come out and watch for me in the choir scenes!

But the singing's not over yet. Tonight we rehearse for our final performance of the year. This coming Wednesday we perform in the Kibble Palace (Botanical Gardens) as part of the annual West End Festival.

Skateboarding!

May is widely recognized as the most beautiful time of year in Glasgow—in Scotland really. Later in the summer is subject to hotter weather, muggier weather and colder rainier weather as well, all intermixed. But May is almost inevitably characterized by warm sunny days with cool breezes, with myriad types of flowers in bloom.

This is precisely the sort of weather we’ve been having when I was lured out into the park and onto a longboard. A longboard, for those of you not in the know, is a skateboard but—you guessed it—longer. It’s actually wider as well, all around a bigger board, though typically fairly low to the ground. This makes it much more stable for simply coasting around as opposed to the smaller more traditional boards whose shape and firmness is necessary for all those cool flips and grinds and other tricks. So, on Sunday I spent very little time on the longboard. There were three boards and four of us and I was in slightly-too-big sandals which are not the best footwear for such a sport. I clocked only about ten minutes total, but managed not to fall off the thing—leap off, stumble off, sometimes with a yelp of surprise, but not fall off.

Yesterday I came prepared in tennis shoes. I coasted around for a while with much the same results, though further impeded by the larger crowds of people, dogs, children, bikes, balls, and radio-controled-trucks.

Then the other skateboarders decided it would be fun to all go up this very mild hill. Beginners could go just a little ways up, and the more advanced people would go further up. It is a very very mild hill, mind you. The bottom of the slope I’d hardly dignify by the name if I was walking. Unfortunately, right at the base there is a huge metal cover (two yards across or more) that you have to dodge to one side of or the other. Oh, and turning right (lean on the balls of your feet) is easier than turning left (lean back on your heels). So I decided to go for the narrow strip between the metal cover of doom and the fencing of peril, and waited for a gap in pedestrian traffic. Now understand, I was only about four yards up this mild incline, by far the person furthest down this “slope” and this did not seem the least bit foolhardy…until it was time for me to pick up my breaking foot and get going. Well, what I hadn’t really paid attention to—concentrating as I was on missing the metal cover and not hitting pedestrians—is that in addition to sloping down the path, the edge of the path slopes off into the gutter to the right…which is edged by that metal fence I mentioned…and remember how it’s easier to turn right than left? Well I got past the metal cover fine going at my fastest speed yet (it can’t have been impressive to an outside observer though, alas) but I was in a tight right turn and the slope into the gutter wouldn’t let me out of it. As best I can recall I made some sort of attempt to leap off the board hoping to land on my feet and catch myself on the fence. It didn’t work out that way. In leaping I seem to have pushed off the board such that my feet came out from under me all the faster. There was a brief terrifying moment of being airborn……and then I hit asphalt. Well, they did say if you don’t fall off, you’re not trying hard enough.

Hip, arm, shoulder, hand and head all hit together; at least it distributed the force. I think the injury I resent the most is the one to my right thumb and hand. I had borrowed quite good hand protection, you see, but the protective bits were over the palm and the fronts of the fingers—what you’d land on if you fell forward and tried to catch yourself. I, on the other hand, managed to land on the side of my thumb, and the whole ball of my thumb got rather swollen and tender which has certainly made typing more hazardous. And picking things up, leaning on things, etc. I’m hoping my neck settles out soon though. It’s odd how these things work. I hit the ground on my right side…so now the left side of my neck hurts. Hmph. The rest of me was a bit bruised and rattled, but seems to be none the worse for wear today. Nonetheless, despite fellow boarders attempts to use quotes about getting back on the horse to goad me back into action, I think I’ll take a break from the wonders of longboarding.

Now if we could go windsurfing on the other hand…