But there's a point at which you realize that nobody is all bad

[sovay]

In which cool stuff happens to people I know.

Shout-out to time_shark and David Kopaska-Merkel for independently setting the record for the highest number of Rhysling-nominated poems in a year. That's six. That's one more than me. The pressure's off.

Shout-out to spectre_general for the upcoming reprint of his poem "Jolly Bonnet" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: 19th Annual Collection. Also for making me want to subscribe to the Newfoundland Independent, even though I have no geographical or cultural excuse for this. Does a fondness for Great Big Sea count?

My brother has returned to West Hartford; but first I took him for dinner at Miya's, where he was duly stunned. For an appetizer, we got Bun Lai's famed ebibaba (shrimp wrapped in potato skins with havarti cheese and lemon dill sauce), and then he had the Water Piglet Roll (curried tuna, goat cheese, cranberries) and the Drunken Pig Roll (tempura shrimp and asparagus) while I had Romping with the Goats (tuna, papaya, goat cheese, Ethiopian berbere) and Ride the Wild Donkey (shrimp, apricot, papaya, and brie, all tempura-fried). The waitress joked that we'd bought the barnyard. For dessert, tempura-fried bananas with green tea ice cream. And it all worked. By all rights, none of it should—come on, papaya and berbere? Sushi with brie? But because this is Miya's, it all impeccably, deliciously, does.

I listened this evening to the Sisters of Mercy's Floodland (1987) and Some Girls Wander By Mistake (1992) for the first time. It's good writing music: I like. I maintain it's a total coincidence that I'm writing about characters who, from the proper angle, look a lot like vampires. I am blaming lesser_celery for all of this.

Comments

[spectre-general.livejournal.com]

There is actually precedent for making someone a Newfoundlander, which would make you not only eligible to read the Independent but incredibly talented, fortunate and popular. I mean moreso.

Anyway, it's a complicated process; involving a North Atlantic Cod, Jamaican Rum, and the ways of love; known as getting "Screeched in". We'll do you free of charge.

[sovay]

The fact that this ceremony exists impresses me. I assume it involves drinking the rum,* but dare I ask where the cod figures?

*And possibly yelling, which may depend on the quality of the rum involved. At least it's Jamaican rum, as opposed to Nepalese. The manufacture of rum in a country known more for its yaks than its sugarcane has always worried me.

[kraada.livejournal.com]

Well it's better than a waitress looking at the menu and going "Well, you just bought the farm" . . .

And how have you not heard Floodland? Even I have a copy of that album (somehow, don't ask how, for I do not know . . .)

[sovay]

I have no idea how I missed the Sisters of Mercy. I'd been aware of their existence for some years, primarily because of greyselke, but up until tonight I'd only heard "Lucretia, My Reflection" and "Driven Like the Snow" and those only for the first time last year. I have musical blind spots. I'm working on them.

Even I have a copy of that album (somehow, don't ask how, for I do not know . . .)

I don't know how you picked it up either, but since the copy I listened to tonight was the one I downloaded from you, I'm glad you did. : )

[kraada.livejournal.com]

Hehe, yeah well, just wait until next week.

I should be getting an influx of ~15G of music.

If Apple didn't have its head up its ass, I'd have gotten it tonight. (Did you know that a mac formatted iPod can't be used on a PC? Isn't that retarded?)

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

You know, we're going to a Great Big Sea concert in April...

[sovay]

Very cool. We saw them here in the fall, right before their new album came out. They were fantastic. Even if I didn't know all the words to "Rant and Roar," which apparently everyone else in Toad's Place did, by heart.

[xterminal.livejournal.com]

I listened this evening to the Sisters of Mercy's Floodland (1987) and Some Girls Wander By Mistake (1992) for the first time.

I cannot tell you how much I envy you, discovering the Sisters for the first time. Been many, many years since I had that experience. (And after all this time, I still consider "This Corrosion" to be one of the best-written songs I have ever heard.)

Now, when you're through the gateway and onto the harder stuff, it'll be time to introduce you to Death in June. heh.

[coraline]

i thought i was the only person ever to make sushi with brie! (ok, maybe not, but it's cool that there's a restaurant that does.)

if i ever have any reason to be in that neck of the woods, it sounds as if i MUST go to that restaurant... yum.

[sovay]

You must. They are definitely yum. And their menu is constantly changing.

i thought i was the only person ever to make sushi with brie!

That's marvelous. I thought Miya's was. You rock.