This weekend, so far.
Jan. 16th, 2005 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasOver the past week, Lis has been working like a maniac to get Librarian Illuminati up and running before the American Library Association Midwinter Conference. She got it done, too. There are still things she wants to change and improve about the site design, but it's up, running, and usable. And it has t-shirts.
We went to the ALA exhibit hall yesterday. It's like the dealer's room at Worldcon, only four times as big. Okay, a quarter of it is furniture (bookshelves, reading chairs, and so forth), and maybe another quarter is technology, but that's still twice as many books as a Worldcon. Dangerous, dangerous exhibit hall. With many freebie books, too. . .
Lis got a Jane Austen bobblehead. I saw books I want to buy -- like that geneological chart of the Greek gods, which has a show special price of $10, and a copy of the Hans Tallhoffer combat manual from 1450, which is $20, but will be $10 on Monday. I'm going back Monday to buy it if it hasn't sold full-price.
When we got home, I got a phone call from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vonbeck asking if I was busy that night, it being a Saturday night and therefore a good time to socialize. Especially as I didn't have Hebrew school today, so no class prep. As it turned out, I did have plans -- Lyman was holding a music party at his house. So I invited Ben to come along with me.
I picked him up and we dropped by his folks' place first -- he had some stuff to drop off to them, so we chatted for a while. His parents are in severe cat deprivation. Their cats died probably close on a year ago now, and it really hit them hard. They'd been catsitting various friends' cats, but those cats also recently passed away by old age. So they're cat-depped. They're not ready to get more cats, but we should have them over to play with the cats that live here.
After that, we headed out to Cambridge to Lyman's house. Lyman has a GORGEOUS house outside of Central Square. He has no furniture yet, but he doesn't need it for this sort of party. We were among the first people to show up. Now, Ben doesn't sing or play any instruments, so he fulfilled the vital role of "audience". He also fulfilled the vital role of "technically compitent helpful guy who is willing to pitch in beforehand, change dead lightbulbs, and hold flashlights so that people who are setting up amps can do so easily." So he made himself popular quite easily.
The only people I knew there were Ben and Lyman when we started out. Later on, two people from the cast of Iolanthe also showed up, although one showed about thirty seconds before we left.
The party was great. When we left at midnight, the house was packed. In the living room, with the fireplace (and a roaring fire), there had been bellydancing and Middle Eastern music. That was over when we left, but people were playing acousticy stuff in there. One of the back rooms, people were playing guitar acoustic stuff. On the second floor, people were rocking out with a country sort of sound, and, in another room, hanging out and talking. In the basement, people were just rocking out full-bore, and the floor was shaking. On the third floor, in the attic (which was carpeted and comfortable, people were playing open tuning sort of aimless pot-influenced music with Om-chanting and improvised beatnik lyrics and contact-dancing. Real hippie-type stuff. I don't do any drugs except for alcohol (and not that much of that), but I was up there for a while for the chanting and aimless open-tuning music.
So, basically, it was an awesome party.
Now, Lis is going back to the ALA conference, and I'm going to hang out at home and, maybe we'll be able to hang out and see more people this afternoon, after Lis gets back.
We went to the ALA exhibit hall yesterday. It's like the dealer's room at Worldcon, only four times as big. Okay, a quarter of it is furniture (bookshelves, reading chairs, and so forth), and maybe another quarter is technology, but that's still twice as many books as a Worldcon. Dangerous, dangerous exhibit hall. With many freebie books, too. . .
Lis got a Jane Austen bobblehead. I saw books I want to buy -- like that geneological chart of the Greek gods, which has a show special price of $10, and a copy of the Hans Tallhoffer combat manual from 1450, which is $20, but will be $10 on Monday. I'm going back Monday to buy it if it hasn't sold full-price.
When we got home, I got a phone call from
vonbeck asking if I was busy that night, it being a Saturday night and therefore a good time to socialize. Especially as I didn't have Hebrew school today, so no class prep. As it turned out, I did have plans -- Lyman was holding a music party at his house. So I invited Ben to come along with me.I picked him up and we dropped by his folks' place first -- he had some stuff to drop off to them, so we chatted for a while. His parents are in severe cat deprivation. Their cats died probably close on a year ago now, and it really hit them hard. They'd been catsitting various friends' cats, but those cats also recently passed away by old age. So they're cat-depped. They're not ready to get more cats, but we should have them over to play with the cats that live here.
After that, we headed out to Cambridge to Lyman's house. Lyman has a GORGEOUS house outside of Central Square. He has no furniture yet, but he doesn't need it for this sort of party. We were among the first people to show up. Now, Ben doesn't sing or play any instruments, so he fulfilled the vital role of "audience". He also fulfilled the vital role of "technically compitent helpful guy who is willing to pitch in beforehand, change dead lightbulbs, and hold flashlights so that people who are setting up amps can do so easily." So he made himself popular quite easily.
The only people I knew there were Ben and Lyman when we started out. Later on, two people from the cast of Iolanthe also showed up, although one showed about thirty seconds before we left.
The party was great. When we left at midnight, the house was packed. In the living room, with the fireplace (and a roaring fire), there had been bellydancing and Middle Eastern music. That was over when we left, but people were playing acousticy stuff in there. One of the back rooms, people were playing guitar acoustic stuff. On the second floor, people were rocking out with a country sort of sound, and, in another room, hanging out and talking. In the basement, people were just rocking out full-bore, and the floor was shaking. On the third floor, in the attic (which was carpeted and comfortable, people were playing open tuning sort of aimless pot-influenced music with Om-chanting and improvised beatnik lyrics and contact-dancing. Real hippie-type stuff. I don't do any drugs except for alcohol (and not that much of that), but I was up there for a while for the chanting and aimless open-tuning music.
So, basically, it was an awesome party.
Now, Lis is going back to the ALA conference, and I'm going to hang out at home and, maybe we'll be able to hang out and see more people this afternoon, after Lis gets back.