Tangled Mind

True, I still haven't finished writing up the last few books read in 2011.

But I have finished moving all my book reviews -- personal, Vector, other -- to my book blog, http://tamaranth.blogspot.com/. (This is a response to the demise of my old website some time last year.) Interviews and essays are listed separately; there's a tag for Vector reviews; blogger's indexing is occasionally odd, but everything seems searchable.

One of these days, in my copious spare time, I shall cross-reference everything. Perhaps after the next set of improvements to the editing interface ...

In Armour Complete -- or not Ian Kelly, author of biographies of Casanova and Beau Brummell, speaking at the Royal College of Surgeons, 23.4.09

Kelly: "I'm here to do down Starkey's current theory that we're undergoing a feminisation of history." He's thoroughly researched both his subjects, from asylum records to the Venetian Inquisition to the original MS of Casanova's memoirs, and he conveyed that sense of the thrill of discovery.

( cut for mildly NSFW sex and contraception stuff, also nuns )

Better late than never ...

By type (going by the tickets I have!)
♫ Classical Concerts: 11 (not including free lunchtime concerts at Kettle's Yard / ARU)
Θ Theatre: 8
♦ Film: 7
ℑ Exhibitions: 7
♪ Opera: 4
⊗ Gigs or similar: 4
SF Conventions: 3
Parks / Places: 3

List, with some linked reviews, below the cut: I let a lot -- especially some of the really good things -- fade to memory, unblogged. (Though not un-scribbled in notebook.) I'd like to post more reviews this year.( Read more... )

A pleasant concert at the RFH yesterday:

-- Sibelius Finlandia, which I didn't realise was on the programme and which I find tremendously evocative of my idealised mental Finland. (There are trees and lakes in it. And snow.)

-- Grieg Piano Concerto. Gosh, it really is as overwrought as I thought it was. Spectacular performance from Yundi Li, who I've never heard play before.

-- Holst Planets (without Colin Matthew's 'Pluto', which I suppose is now obsolete what with the declassification of said object). I found myself noticing things I don't remember noticing before: the violin 'morse code' in 'Mercury', the syncopation of the rollicking main theme in 'Jupiter' ...

All in all a very pleasant concert. Though I must remember that afternoon concerts are not efficient -- two hours of music equated to nearly six hours away from home (and the return journey was unpleasant in a way that only engineering works and reduced service can achieve).

On Saturday I went with ladymoonray and swisstone to Brighton to hear Simon Armitage (poet) and Robert Macfarlane (mountaineer, author) talking -- with particular emphasis on the role of English nature in the poem -- about Armitage's new translation of Gawain and the Green Knight.( Read more... )
in other news, have been in bed all day. And much of yesterday, as soon as Demon Decorators had departed. What a waste of a bank holiday weekend! Next time I feel this rough, I'd like it to be the result of wild partying and alcoholic overindulgence.

Boo to werk tomorrow.

[Poll #708213]

I deliberately haven't specified the medium of the review -- could be LJ, printed magazine, respectable website, misspelt rants in 'customer reviews' section of Amazon. Does that make a difference to you? Should it?

Last night ladymoonray and I went to a ( Prom )

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Thanks to everyone who's wished me well re medication, BP etc. I suspect that it's low because of the pills -- indicating that it might have settled down of its own accord by now. Anyway, am off everything and hoping to stay that way -- though I have felt rather strange* all weekend, probably because my blood is now very confused.

*falling-over-in-Tesco's strange, how embarrassing. Sober, too.