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In reading to The Daughter at night, we’ve recently started to read chapter books a bit at a time, each evening, as opposed to the single-volume storybooks that were the rule until then. This has opened up lots of new vistas for reading, and it’s really rejuvenated a time of night that had for a while felt more like a chore than a treasured portion of our daily routine. I’ve generally tried to choose books that are slightly above her reading level, so as to keep her challenged and exposed to new stuff, and I’ve tried to choose books thatDown the rabbit hole….

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A bunch of SF writers are asked to define SF; hilarity ensues. My favorite two definitions that I recall are: “SF is whatever I point at when I say SF”, and “SF is when you push a button to make something impossible happen, while fantasy is when you wave your have to make something impossible happen.” I think that Damon Knight said the former, but I don’t remember where I got the latter, so if anyone knows, feel free to give my memory a jog. Interestingly, that second definition still fails to classify Star Wars! Personally I consider Star WarsDown the rabbit hole….

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I’ve been listening, off and on, to my recently-acquired The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: The Complete Recordings set. Interestingly enough, this still isn’t the end of the major descent into the world of LotR music: Doug Adams, the guy who wrote the liner notes for the Complete Recordings releases, is working on a book about the music for release sometime in late 2008, and this book is supposed to include yet another CD of “rarities”, meaning, out-takes and un-used musical concepts and demos and all that sort of thing, in order to highlight the compositionalDown the rabbit hole….

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This is turning out to be quite the Holiday Season for Geek Music Stuff: :: The Lord of the Rings Complete Recordings: The Return of the King is available as of tomorrow. Mine should arrive via UPS the day after tomorrow. I can’t wait to spend a big chunk of Thanksgiving Weekend journeying by music back to Minas Tirith, and through Mordor, and thence to the Grey Havens. :: Intrada Records has issued the complete score to Alien, music by Jerry Goldsmith, on a two-disc set. I don’t know if I’ll pick this up or not; I’m not that bigDown the rabbit hole….

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Time to catch up on some recent reading I’ve done: :: As research for a short story I finished drafting a few weeks ago, I read a fascinating book called Stradivari’s Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection by Toby Faber. This is exactly what the title suggests: an examination of the violin making of Antonio Stradivari, the great Cremonese master whose hand produced stringed instruments that have never been surpassed in quality despite the fact that Stradivari died in 1737. I was most interested in the early parts of the book, the ones that dealDown the rabbit hole….

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Writer at work, originally uploaded by Jaquandor. Stop botherin’ me. I’m writin’ here. Sorry about the dearth of posting the last few days, folks, but the week here at Casa Jaquandor got a bit unexpectedly busy over the last few days. Not bad busy, just a whole lot of stuff that ended up on the plate and being more time-consuming than I’d figured at the time. Plus, I’ve been fending off a minor head cold. Regular posting should begin again tomorrow. By way of a progress report: I’ve been doing a lot more fiction writing lately — I finished aDown the rabbit hole….

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Time for some first impressions on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I finished reading about an hour ago. I’ll color-obscure the text here, so you’ll have to highlight to read it. Oh, and for the purposes of the comments thread for this post, I grant full spoiler power, seeing as how I’m writing spoilers in the post itself. So if you don’t want spoilers, don’t highlight the text below, and don’t read the comments, either! These are all just random thoughts, which I’m plopping out there as they come to me. :: I love that Rowling had itDown the rabbit hole….