Drive-by post

Drive by post to mention that the rumors you've heard our true--marina's mutation is indeed the ability to transmogrify any space into a purring fangirl cuddle pile.

There have been adventures! marina has narrated them! There was twitter party liveblogging excellence during the XMFC Sobriety Was Never An Option party. kuwdora has consolidated them! I have seen many delightful people who I hadn't met before or hadn't seen in months or even years!

This morning I tiptoed out of a household full of slowly-stirring fangirls and went off to work a shift at my chorus's booze booth at the Folsom Street Fair, where I mixed twelve-gallon jugs of alcohol and snuck off to see TurbonegrA when they turned out to be performing a block away! And then I got to wander around with kuwdora and marina, taking smutty photographs of candy and boggling at the anatomy of others. I also acquired a delightful riding crop, although my rigorous comparison process... might mean that I have to wear long sleeves to work tomorrow >_<.

Tomorrow there will be Neon Trees, step 28339862695 in the clever process by which I intend to lure everyone around me into bandom in general, and the Neon Trees fandom I wish existed in particular. According to stories from Marina, though, I'm not nearly as clever at this as roga is...

Signal boost

naraht is doing a series of reviews on e-books, and her most recent one is for Christopher Isherwood's Lions and Shadows, which I am almost certainly going to nominate for Yuletide.

Naraht goes into the beauty of the book; I'll mention here its absurdity. It's an example of that thing that is catnip to me, the self-aware elitist mocking hi own elitism by playing it out to an ironic degree. For example, from the stretch of time when Isherwood worked as a secretary to a well-known violinist:

And not merely was I now a humble member of the enormous musical community ; I had my colleagues, my equals. Over the telephone, at any rate, one secretary was as good as another. We knew each others' names; we said good morning and chatted politely for a few moments before stating our business.

True, I could hardly echo the words of Miss Gibson, of the B.B.C., whose invariable formula was: "I'll just call down to the porter's lodge and find out if Mr. So-and-So's still in the building." But I did try to convey the illusion that Cheuret had to be hunted for through a whole suite of rooms; and, even when he was sitting in the opposite chair, I liked to keep the enquirer waiting for at least a couple of minutes. My particular friend was Mr. Hardy, of the Gramophone Society. We had never me, but our politeness was excessive. Picturing a dynamic middle-aged man seated amidst a sub- servient staff of stenographers, I was, nevertheless, determined not to be outdone. " Very well, Mr. Hardy," I would rattle briskly into the mouthpiece, " I'll have that typed out and sent round to you to-night . . . oh, splendid, thanks . . . Rather busy, you know . . . Yes, certainly, Mr. Hardy; I'll take the matter up with Monsieur Cheuret at once . . . Good morning. ..." Nearly a year later, we met at a concert and were introduced. Mr. Hardy proved to be a mild, agreeable, literary young man of my own age. He told me that he had always supposed me to be forty, at least.