Manson, Moon, Magic, Medecine...
Dec. 17th, 2017 03:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearLast weekend, I braved a trip to Wembley for a Marilyn Manson concert. I was told to arrive early, which saw me trying to exit Wembley Park Underground station just as thousands of riled up football fans were pouring out of the stadium and trying to get in. So, that wasn't a great start to the evening! Still, I had a lovely dinner at Ping Pong, where I met another couple of people who were going to the gig, and I made it through the queue and security checks very easily. Marilyn Manson was still recovering from his accident in October and had a case on one leg, but that didn't stop him from giving a great show. He started off in a powered wheel-throne, hopped about on one leg quite a lot, and did a costume change between every song! I loved hearing the songs I particularly like from The Pale Emperor, and it was fun to be part of such a huge and enthusiastic crowd.
My audiobook for last week was Artemis by Andy Weir. I loved The Martian, but didn't get on quite so well with this one. It's much less realistic in that it tells the story of a young woman living in a colony on the moon, but still has quite a bit of presumably credible science to back up the ideas. The problem I had was that I didn't really like the protagonist. It was interesting to have a female Arabic narrator, but her motivations were almost entirely selfish, which made it difficult to get behind her when she was engaging in illegal activity purely for her own profit. Still, I liked a lot of the supporting characters, and it moved along at an exciting pace. Bits of it very entertaining - I just would have liked Jas to be heroic for a better reason than her own survival.
Last Sunday, we went to the Chiswick Magic Lantern Festival, which was a trail through the extensive grounds of Chiswick House after dark, looking at very colourful, glowing displays of animals, plants and fantasy creatures. A lot of them seemed to be almost-Disney, but I preferred those that were more generic. I particularly liked the Chinese dragon and pagoda, and also the bird made out of spoons. It was all very impressive and intermittently very beautiful, and made for a good night out with plenty of exercise along the way.
This week, I also read Lobster is the Best Medecine, a collection of cartoons by Liz Climo. Her cast of characters are animals of varying types, who interact in amusing ways. A lot of the jokes were pun-related, but I still enjoyed the book for the most part. The animals were all very appealing, and some of the juxtapositions of unlikely pairings were very silly.
My audiobook for last week was Artemis by Andy Weir. I loved The Martian, but didn't get on quite so well with this one. It's much less realistic in that it tells the story of a young woman living in a colony on the moon, but still has quite a bit of presumably credible science to back up the ideas. The problem I had was that I didn't really like the protagonist. It was interesting to have a female Arabic narrator, but her motivations were almost entirely selfish, which made it difficult to get behind her when she was engaging in illegal activity purely for her own profit. Still, I liked a lot of the supporting characters, and it moved along at an exciting pace. Bits of it very entertaining - I just would have liked Jas to be heroic for a better reason than her own survival.
Last Sunday, we went to the Chiswick Magic Lantern Festival, which was a trail through the extensive grounds of Chiswick House after dark, looking at very colourful, glowing displays of animals, plants and fantasy creatures. A lot of them seemed to be almost-Disney, but I preferred those that were more generic. I particularly liked the Chinese dragon and pagoda, and also the bird made out of spoons. It was all very impressive and intermittently very beautiful, and made for a good night out with plenty of exercise along the way.
This week, I also read Lobster is the Best Medecine, a collection of cartoons by Liz Climo. Her cast of characters are animals of varying types, who interact in amusing ways. A lot of the jokes were pun-related, but I still enjoyed the book for the most part. The animals were all very appealing, and some of the juxtapositions of unlikely pairings were very silly.
