Arrrh!

Henry V in the open air last night, which was fun (and wonderfully reminiscent: I used to go to open-air summer productions all the time when I was a kid in Oxford, all the colleges did them; it's how I saw half my early Shakespeares. And The Royal Hunt of the Sun, and The Hobbit, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Magdalen deer park with herds of deer trotting about in the background, and...).

And then didn't sleep, bugger it, so was late up this morning; and have nevertheless written a page of the novel and done some necessary admin and other stuff.

Two prompts to go elsewhere: I know I've mentioned it before, but Wonderlands is a new fantasy community site, well worth your time and attention; and

m'friend'n'colleague Daniel Fox has a book coming out from Del Rey in January; he also now has an LJ. Go ye, and make friends with moshui!

While you all rush off to do that, I'm going to sit here and write lots. I am coffee'd to the gills; there is no alternative. And then this evening Gail and I are going to the Sage, for a Rogue's Gallery of pirate ballads, sea songs and shanties. And yes, I know everyone else says "chanteys" these days, but I grew up with shanties and shanties they shall remain, in this tiny iconoclastic head-in-the-mud corner of ancient England.

Also, the sun is shining. Why am I indoors?

Oh, yes. *types*

Rogues' Gallery

That was ... remarkable. Three hours of unbroken music: some of it clearly shanties, some of it unclearly shanties, some clearly not but all seaward-looking and much piratical.

I can haz Tim Robbins for my backing singer, plz?

I didn't love it all; I don't get the more weirdly eccentric noisemakers, though they clearly love each other. (Like I stopped listening to Tom Waits, whom I adored, when he seemed to do nothing but rant through megaphones: not my thing.) Also, I thought Suzanne Vega's song was dull, and didn't stretch her. But! There was plenty to send an eerie chill down my spine, which is the most I ever ask of music. And God, I do love being sung to. 'Specially with drums. I shoulda bin a percussionist, perhaps.

I want the CD now.

In other news...

Seoul has a museum of kimchi.

How can I not have known this, when I was there? How can nobody have told me? Why wasn't it in the guidebook? Why, why, why?