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Aug. 26th, 2008 11:18 pmArtsy closeup shot!
( the whole thing under the cut )
Eh, I must be pms'ing because I've been feeling kinda cranky lately. I had the past three days off of work which is a good thing or I'd probably be ready to rip somebody's head off right now.
But other than a general sense of blah, things have actually been okay.
Yesterday, I took my mom to see the Roman Art from the Louvre exhibit at the art museum. It was really fascinating and if you're in town, I highly recommend it. I realized though that my total knowledge of Roman history is derived from the HBO series Rome, I, Claudius and Gladiator (and um, Wikipedia) because in the first gallery, I was pointing out statues to my mom and explaining, "This is Livia. Remember, she was married to Augustus and poisoned off half his family? This statue is of Caligula. He slept with his sister and liked dancing. And killing people." Then I had pretty much nothing else to say in any of the other galleries because I hadn't seen the relevant subjects on tv. (I liked the collection of busts showing different women's hairstyles especially though. That was pretty neat.)
Then we had lunch at the museum cafe. Which you should do, because they have the best vanilla bean crème brûlée ever. OMG DROOL. We also had fried okra for an appetizer, which had a really good cornmeal batter and tasty dipping sauces, but was kind of gross because they didn't cut up the okra into pieces and just fried the whole thing. I love fried okra, but I've never had whole pieces of it before and that's for a very good reason in that it is pretty gross whole. It's
Books I've been reading:
The Nature of Monsters by Clare Clark - I really didn't like this, but finished it because for the most part, I was stuck with it on a plane. Basically, a crazy pharmacist tries to create birth defects by freaking out pregnant women. None of the characters are remotely likeable. It reminded me of The Dress Lodger, but even more miserable, if possible.
Man, I don't think I've read a happy Victorian historical novel in ages. I'm beginning to think the whole of the Victorian era was populated entirely by lunatics and whores. Miserably grim lunatics and whores, none of your happy-go lucky lunatics and whores, mind you.
Okay, where was I? Oh yes, I'm continuing with Joan Aiken's Wolves Chronicles and I read Dido and Pa and Midwinter Nightingale. In comparison to Clark, Aiken is someone who can do dark, yet still have sympathetic characters and maintain a sense of humor. It amazes me how violent these are for children's books. I mean, people seemed shocked by how dark Harry Potter took a turn for, but this series has been around for awhile and ( so far in just these two books... )
Also, I finished Strange Poison by Dorothy L Sayers and am currently reading the next in the series, Have His Carcase. Lord Peter Whimsy is kind of goofy and amusing and Harriet rocks so far.
( the whole thing under the cut )
Eh, I must be pms'ing because I've been feeling kinda cranky lately. I had the past three days off of work which is a good thing or I'd probably be ready to rip somebody's head off right now.
But other than a general sense of blah, things have actually been okay.
Yesterday, I took my mom to see the Roman Art from the Louvre exhibit at the art museum. It was really fascinating and if you're in town, I highly recommend it. I realized though that my total knowledge of Roman history is derived from the HBO series Rome, I, Claudius and Gladiator (and um, Wikipedia) because in the first gallery, I was pointing out statues to my mom and explaining, "This is Livia. Remember, she was married to Augustus and poisoned off half his family? This statue is of Caligula. He slept with his sister and liked dancing. And killing people." Then I had pretty much nothing else to say in any of the other galleries because I hadn't seen the relevant subjects on tv. (I liked the collection of busts showing different women's hairstyles especially though. That was pretty neat.)
Then we had lunch at the museum cafe. Which you should do, because they have the best vanilla bean crème brûlée ever. OMG DROOL. We also had fried okra for an appetizer, which had a really good cornmeal batter and tasty dipping sauces, but was kind of gross because they didn't cut up the okra into pieces and just fried the whole thing. I love fried okra, but I've never had whole pieces of it before and that's for a very good reason in that it is pretty gross whole. It's
really
slimy even after frying and has lots of little white seed pods and just in general, very alien looking. Books I've been reading:
The Nature of Monsters by Clare Clark - I really didn't like this, but finished it because for the most part, I was stuck with it on a plane. Basically, a crazy pharmacist tries to create birth defects by freaking out pregnant women. None of the characters are remotely likeable. It reminded me of The Dress Lodger, but even more miserable, if possible.
Man, I don't think I've read a happy Victorian historical novel in ages. I'm beginning to think the whole of the Victorian era was populated entirely by lunatics and whores. Miserably grim lunatics and whores, none of your happy-go lucky lunatics and whores, mind you.
Okay, where was I? Oh yes, I'm continuing with Joan Aiken's Wolves Chronicles and I read Dido and Pa and Midwinter Nightingale. In comparison to Clark, Aiken is someone who can do dark, yet still have sympathetic characters and maintain a sense of humor. It amazes me how violent these are for children's books. I mean, people seemed shocked by how dark Harry Potter took a turn for, but this series has been around for awhile and ( so far in just these two books... )
Also, I finished Strange Poison by Dorothy L Sayers and am currently reading the next in the series, Have His Carcase. Lord Peter Whimsy is kind of goofy and amusing and Harriet rocks so far.
