Captain Awesome and the Spacecapades

So oh man! I just remembered there was this adorable moment with the waitress when we hit up Applebee's after the zoo on Sunday!

You see, we had a party of six-- three couples, Bret and Dustin, Danny and myself, and Christian and Alicia-- anyway, Alicia, Bret and I were all wooed by the 'infinite soup and salad' deal, Bret because he is a vegetarian, me because HOLY CRAP TOMATO BASIL SOUP, and Alicia because she is fiscally wise. On the second round, the waitress showed up to find out what everybody was reordering:

Bret: Uh, I will try the tomato basil soup again, but with the house salad. Er, what're the dressings on those?
Waitress: Well! There's ranch, and blue cheese, and I-talian, and vinaigrette--
(I freeze up, thinking OHMYGOSHTOOCUTE, then catch Danny to my left stifling a giggle, and glance at Christian, who is grinning ear to ear. The order progresses, and after the waitress leaves I can't hold back anymore:)
Dev: I-talian!
Christian: I can't believe she actually said that! *laughing*
Danny: That was real? I thought I just imagined it!
Dev: I'm totally tipping her more for being cute.
Christian: At least she didn't make a joke about Angry Birds.

As for D&D summary, I wrote about half of it up and then got totally sidetracked with this work thing I have to do.

Exciting news: I received an invitation to work with an artist in Austria on a short comic project! I'm really looking forward to it! This came on the tail of an agreement with Danny to write a script treatment of the Gwenn-centric D&D game together and switch off illustrating it, so I'm mired happily in comic work at the moment; that, and editing already finished projects and sending them out. In the process of all that, I'm also picking up revisions of Berimbau's Letters, especially since it turns out certain personages on my friendlist are apparently running copy-editing businesses and, well, what better motivation to work on one's novel than a potential editor?

As for fandom, I still want to finish all of the fills I started for both T&B and Dragon Age (the Dragon Age ones have certainly been sitting long enough, eesh); but in the interest of ever getting other work done, I'm trying to cut back on that. No new fills (except those that I've been working on anyway) and only finishing one fill at a time, instead of expending all of my creative energy on fanfiction.

I'm fairly certain nobody much cares what I'm doing with regards to my fanfiction, but I sort of feel like I'll be more accountable to these rules if I note them here.

Also, I've been turning this over in my head for ages, but reviews of the Hairspray musical and subsequent musical-movie mentioned expressly that they thought that I Know Where I've Been was 'melodramatic' and that there were criticisms about the song being preachy and going over the same old stuff we've heard before, blah blah, and that Tracy, not Maybelle, should be singing the big number in the eleventh hour if anyone.

I basically love the number; sure, it's a bit melodramatic, but was anyone paying attention to the rest of Hairspray? Melodrama's sort of the name of the game here. And really, what right have the probably white critics to decide when we've heard enough about how hard a struggle it's been (and still is!) for black equality? Exactly none, says I!

And as for whether Tracy or Maybelle should sing it-- I really liked the sentiment of the makers of the musical, who stood by the number saying that it seemed to them that it's not diminishing to Tracy at all to let the characters whose cause she's championing actually be the ones speaking for themselves. Rock, rock on, you guys!

Also also also, since I'm doing comic stuff, I picked up the paneling I'd done for that short story about Leonard and Ibtesam in Aztec ruins somewhere in Peru, so I might even finish that while doing all this other stuff!

I can't remember every lyric to the songs I wrote.

I need to find my book with all the lyrics and chord progressions in it. Oh, try-hard little Dev with your dreams of being a musician!

So, spontaneously, a music meme! A variant of one.

Rules A: Guess the song from the lyric line posted
Rules B: Or, alternatively, write the lyric line you think would best follow the one posted.

1. A summer Sunday when you went insane; you said you're going but I said I came
2. Out of sight in the night, out of sight in the day
3. 'Cause no one's gonna catch you if you can't just let go. No one's gonna love you if you can't let love show - End Love, Ok Go (guessed by Rex-Sun)
4. I can't stop crying, and so in my own tears I'm gonna drown
5. Make believe I'm everywhere, living in the lines - Never Ending Story, Limahl (guessed by Uftaki)
6. Transmit the message to the receiver, hope for an answer some day; I got three passports, couple of visas, don't even know my real name
7. And I'm lost in the window; and I hide on the stairway, and I hang in the curtain, and I sleep in your hat.
8. Them dogs'll lay down and play dead, if you've got the bones, if you've got the bread
9. Yeah, I heard the duck sayin' to the drake, there ain't no crawdads in this lake
10. I didn't see it comin’, creepin’ up from behind; I was almost swallowed whole by the thrill of the fight

Excerpt, Session 11:

Sabine did not know of where it would be but the library at Varseilles might have the information they were seeking. She noted that he might not have been to Varseilles, but-- Faure looked away and answered that oh, he'd been once or twice.

Kiever wanted to know what the one or two reasons he had gone had been, and Faure answered with a grin that they had been Charise and Marjorie. His first dwarf, actually. Sabine squawked, "Philippe! you're as bad as ever!" while Kiever embarrassedly said "Now it's time to change the subject." and Faure countered, "Well, it was a long time ago."

I love these characters so much!

D&D happens tonight! With different Sabine than NPC Sabine! And with Esra, and with Llewain and Denar and Iris! Last week we averted an attempt to assassinate us and steal the anti-magic rod of power we hunted down--actually, two attempts at different times, now I think of it--and this week we're rushing to the Grand Cathedral (having already arrived in Lunel) to inform Bishop Barlowe of Dinta's treachery.

...hopefully it works out for us!

Man! Hosanna is playing, and making me love Caiaphas all over again. I even like smug-asshole Jesus in this one.

"Why waste your breath moaning at the crowd?
Nothing can be done to stop the shouting!
If every tongue were stilled,
the noise would still continue:
the rocks and stones themselves would start to sing!"

Tonight, for my dad's birthday, we will be having dinner with my folks! I will go forth bearing gifts for my folks' birthdays, as I forgot to get anything for my mom back when it was hers.

I post about this because I'm giving my dad Hadestown for his birthday, and happen to be listening to it right now. I don't often talk about how much I like the lyrics of things (okay, maybe I do, I don't know!), but I really love the lyrics of Hadestown. Basically, I always found the story of Orpheus to be interesting, since it deals with that very natural desire to protect what you love and try to keep it from being lost; but it is also very Greek, so Orpheus himself had always been a character I didn't much like. The original myth paints him as a narcississtic asshole, full of himself and upset by the death of his beloved not because he would miss her, but because it happened to HIM, and that is unfair; thus, his own hubris results in his failure to retrieve Eurydice in the end.

But in Hadestown, the characters are all a bit different. Even though I like the music all the way through, the muses piss me off-- they make excuses for Eurydice's seduction, defensively claiming that she had no choice instead of acknowledging that people can make mistakes and regret them. So I find it difficult to like those songs as much, even though I like Eurydice-- as she is portrayed, she clearly covets a life she thinks she will get if she goes down below the Earth, and so allows it to seduce her. When she gets it, it is not as she expected.

What really intrigues me about the story is how they change Orpheus, though. He becomes this interesting character that actually appeals to all the kinds of flaws I like to play in my own characters; he's a bit naive and over-hopeful, but is aware of the world. He tries to talk Eurydice out of going to Hadestown because he's afraid it will destroy them, but when she leaves he follows out of desperation, willing to be there if it means they face adversity together (a pleasant change from self-important Orpheus of the original myth). He is unrealistic in his idealism, but he nearly wins out, only to be outmaneuvered by Hades, who plays on his fear of loneliness and doubt to separate him from Eurydice before she escapes. What's really interesting about Hadestown, to me, is that the final song-- 'I Raise My Cup to Him'-- makes it feel as though he is actually the one who dies, or at the very least, is driven mad (possibly blinded) and left to wander, while Hadestown continues to be a very real and alive place, if a place of horror and tyranny. I liked that about it best of all. Ironically, I do not have 'I Raise My Cup to Him' on my mp3 player, I should fix that.

Anyway, I like the way the lyrics not only shape the characters to be different people than they were in their original telling, but also allude to the other stories relating to those characters. For example, Orpheus was written about in other stories but never settled with another maid after the death of Eurydice. It was implied that he did take young, beautiful men to his bed and walk among them freely, and there's a taste of that in Hadestown. There's also notes about Eurydice being pulled down by vipers and vultures, which are both attributed to her death in the garden; just all sorts of little subtle play that really makes me love the CD.

Anyway, this is my favorite lyrical play from the whole thing at the moment, though I'm sure it'll change again or I'll start lusting over another passage again in a few minutes. I've never been very good at picking one, solid favorite thing.

But the ones who tell the lies are the solemnest to swear
and the ones who load the dice always say the toss is fair
and the ones who deal the cards are the ones who take the tricks
with their hands over their hearts while we play the game they fixed
and the ones who speak the words always say it is the last
and no answers will be heard to the questions no one asks
so I ask you as a brother
and I ask you as a friend
and I ask you as a lover
and I ask you, once again: is it true, what they say?