yay for alphabet rubber stamps

Today I went to some museums. The first one costed £1.30, and the ticket lasts for a month, this is fine, I am willing to pay that, it was a fun little crazy museum about my home town, and there was a printing press, and I have a bit of a thing about printing presses.

The second one (well it wasn't a museum but it was kind of), promised me live butterflies, lots and lots of butterflies. But it cost £3.50, and, well, I am self employed, with currently no job prospects, and about to start an ma which costs £4000. Therefore I am quite poor. So I didn't get to see Butterflies today (except the ones in my garden, which will just have to do for now).

The third one I'm sure was supposed to be free. But I arrived, with my museum going friend in tow, and lo and behold it costs £5. And well, I like trains and railway stuff, but at the moment, I don't like it £5 worth.

Our final stop was successful, the wonderful galleries at Darlington Arts Centre, which have magically changed what is being shown since I was there last (which was last week, which makes it better). Three lovely exhibitions, all completely different but quite lovely. And best of all? Its FREE!!!

I like free museums and art.

Yesterday I went to see another free art gallery. In Newcastle. Its called the Baltic. Sorry, I meant to say its in Gateshead. I forget sometimes about that one side of the river thing.

Usually the Baltic doesn't show things I want to see. But at the moment it does. Some nice prints and drawings by John Cage (not the one from Ally MacBeal, but one who is apparently more famous and also a composer, who knew?), some strange sculptures/installations/drawings by Cornelia Parker, which I had mixed expectations of but I quite enjoyed. Finally some bizarre things inspired by John Cage, and a strange spiderweb. All of these things were really quite lovely, and interesting. And of course it was free, which is always nice when you are on a budget.

I mean, I understand that museums and galleries have to charge sometimes because it costs money to run a gallery/museum, and its only going to get worse with all this budget cut rubbish that is hanging over the art world like an anvil about to drop. But sometimes, I wish I could go and see everything for free, especially at the moment when I don't have money to spare.

In other news, my day was made much better when I discovered some alphabet rubber stamps on sale for 99p in a local art shop. I LOVE alphabet rubber stamps. You can stamp words, or whole sentences, and its just wonderful.

I also got some isometric paper. Which is just about as exciting as the rubber stamps, because its all triangles, and I can mix them with the stripes, or draw maps on it, and there will be triangles.

Yes, I do get excited by alphabet rubber stamps, and isometric paper. That is my life. Its quite sad, but also quite nice. (I also quite like graph paper, and printing presses, alot.)

PS - the stripes and stamps are for a new idea/project I am working on. I'm using squares and putting on stripes, and there are some maps mixed in, its quite nice, photographic evidence will arrive shortly.

Rain.

Rain is quite annoying.

Most especially lately because my windscreen wipers are not so great. So whenever it rains I have to avoid driving places.

I've been reading some lovely books lately. They are by Maria Snyder, and are kind of fantasy type magic themed. But of course they are not that high fantasy I'm-going-to-spend-100-pages-describing-a-tree type thing. Stuff actually happens, and its all in a made up world of magic and magicians, and people who live in trees, and in the desert, and evil people who steal other peoples magic. (and they aren't ridiculously long and heavy)

The first trilogy is about Yelena, who starts off as a prisoner, then becomes a food taster, and finally realises she is a magician. Then she goes off on some adventures, and gets in trouble, and nearly dies, etc. I read all 3 in a few days, because I wanted to know what happened next.

The second trilogy is a bit of a spin off, about Opal, who is a glass magician. There are only 2 books of this trilogy that have currently been released, which annoys my impatient streak quite alot.

These books have a lovely mix of fantasy, magic, action, with a bit of a love story, and some mystery and adventure. The lead is, in both cases, a strong female, who sometimes is a bit more of a damsel in distress, but most of the time she saves herself, which is important, because in the end we all must save ourselves. These books are not amazingly amazing (like anything by Jim Butcher), but they are worth reading I think. For an enjoyable time more than anything. And that's why we read books isn't it? For fun? At least thats my reason.

Lovely Lifehouse

Yesterday I booked tickets to see Lifehouse in London in October. They are my FAVOURITE band. I mean, I don't usually pick favourites for things like that (like books, films, etc), but really, its true, Lifehouse are my favourite.

They haven't been to England on tour for like 8 years, I know this because last time they were here me and my friend tried to decide if it was worth running away from home to london to see them. We were 15, so a trip to London by ourselves was not a good idea. Ever since then I have waited patiently, and soon my waiting is over.

Words cannot express how excited I am to see them.

For those of you in the world that do not know who Lifehouse are, shame on you! They are a band, who play songs, lovely songs. Their lead singer has a wonderful low, slightly scratchy, kind of mellow lovely voice. I could listen to him sing always. Plus he writes these amazing beautiful songs. "Everything" is a true love song I think, as is "Breathing". "Broken" I find surprisingly uplifting, even though its a bit depressing at the same time. And "Storm" is lovely and depressing (which is a little bit of an oxymoron, but I don't care).

When their new album was due out last year, I listened to the first single streaming on repeat via their website for days. I am still not sick of it. I don't think I've ever been sick of them.

Now I have to save up for a T-shirt, because I imagine, like my John Mayer at Royal Albert Hall T-shirt, I will sleep much better wearing a Lifehouse t-shirt.

In other news, my exhibition has finished, and I am exhausted, but it went well. Next is some more workshops, then a bit of a break before University again. I am looking forward to being a student again (although I do have to skip one of the first few days for Lifehouse, they are definitely worth it).

Graph Paper is my favourite paper.

My exhibition is now fully installed and open and such. I am enjoying playing shopkeeper, opening shutters and doors, turning on the lights with the fancy keys, and sitting in the shop watching out for weirdos. I even sold a picture today which was exciting.

In other news, I have re-discovered my love of graph paper for drawing on. It makes precise squares easier.

And I finally cleaned Horatio's fish tank, so he has nice clean water to swim in. Of course he is still as weird as ever, sitting very still in various positions for a while. He is a bizarre fish.

Graph paper is nice. I like that it is blue, and makes all my pictures automatically more blue.

Also I have received my new shipment of quickprint (which is basically polystyrene I can draw into and take relief prints from) so I can start experimenting with layers of prints and such. I'm very excited. And I get to use the printing press next week, I do like printing presses.

I was watching some Season 5 of Buffy the other day, the wonderful episode Checkpoint. Its wonderful because of Buffy's little power speech. She does make some good speeches that girl. I also watched some Dawn being extra annoying episodes. She really does annoy me.

And I have been reading the Buffy comics. I like them, although they aren't like the real Buffy. I suppose they are real Buffy really, I'm just not a massive comic/graphic novel fan. It is nice to see how the story develops, although some elements confuse me. I won't go into too much detail in case of spoilers, but there are some interesting things that happen, some of which make sense, some don't. But I don't like Oz's wife and child, well I don't think they are married, but whatever. Oz should never love anyone after Willow (except me). Also comic Oz is not nearly attractive enough. And Warren would never have survived being skinned alive, that is a little far fetched. But aside from that I like this mysterious Twilight character, and that Riley is there, and Faith, and all the old gang. Comic Giles looks a little young, but hey maybe he should get a little bit of eternal youth, he works hard.

I want to bake.

I really do.

Baking is a very good way for me to deal with stress.

But you see, if I bake, I eat. And I'm trying to be good about that. No cookies or cakes or such. And certainly not flapjack. But you know pineapple and pears and raspberries and strawberries just don't cut it right now.

I watched a slightly sappy, but rather lovely film. 500 days of summer. I have been wanting to watch this since it was showing in cinemas. My mum bought the dvd months ago. Finally tonight I got to watch it. Its really quite good. It isn't a love story. But it is quite nice all the same.

Yesterday I watched Happy Gilmore and Big Daddy, because Adam Sandler is AWESOME. Never fails to cheer me up. Not that I'm down. Just a bit stressed.

My exhibition is next week, and I have finished the work, but now I'm starting to doubt the work, and I'm thinking of acquiring frames for some of the darker stuff. But that stuff is all irregular shapes. Why couldn't I conform to regular sizes? Damn my emotional outbursts in ink. But really I do like my recent attempts, I just, I just feel they are a bit rubbish. I think its just nerves. And stress. But still, more frames I think, because better safe than sorry.

Oh gosh I must think of names for the triptych. Can't they all just be called the same darn thing? They could be called "emotional outburst landscape" I actually like that.

I'm having a barbecue next week (weather permitting). This might be my opportunity to bake, because then I don't necessarily have to eat the baked things, I can feed them to my friends. Yes, that is the solution. Bake cookies, and potentially lemon cake, and make other people eat them!

PS - I watched the entire of Season 1 of Supernatural in 4 days this week. It was a little bit too much of an extremely attractive men fighting evil overload, but in a good way. I need Season 2 now. I've seen it once before, but with men that attractive, it is always best to watch it again.

Also, I read some more Buffy comics, more on that later.

I'd forgotten

Just how very much I love this song. And all the things that are associated with this song.

What song is this, I hear you ask, well its "That Kind of Love" by Alison Krauss. It is playing at the end of the Season 6 episode of Buffy, the 18th I think, called "Entropy". The one where Spike and Anya get drunk and have sex and everyone sees via a secret camera that the trio has planted in the Magic Box, and it makes everyone sad, or sadder than they were (because some of them started off feeling sad, hence the drinking and the sex).

This episode, and those following it, are awesome examples of Buffy. They are some of my favourites in fact. Especially "Grave", the finale. I love that the big bad for this Season is Willow. We spend the year thinking its the Trio (Andrew, Warren & Jonathon), but its not. This group of episodes has some quality Buffy, some good fights, some emotional stuff, and the best Xander speech ever. I could watch them over and over (which, of course, I have).

It also has some quality music. Including this song, (and "Prayer of Saint Francis" by Sarah McLachlan that just finishes the series perfectly) that I love, but I had forgotten I loved. Its like how I forgot that I loved sweetcorn. And embroidery. I mean they're all completely different, but still, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed them, and I rediscovered them recently.

Embroidery makes my fingers hurt, but it makes pretty things. Pretty things that take weeks to create, but the end is so worth the means. I put all the embroideries in frames today, it makes me feel special. That I get to show these things, these pictures, captures of my emotional mental state, to the world (or at least a small portion of it).

Now back to my original topic. This wonderful song, this beautiful song.

There are few truly beautiful songs around (in my opinion anyway). Another is "Everything" by Lifehouse. Oh and "Storm" by them too. Lifehouse are good that way (in fact Lifehouse are generally awesomely wonderful, they are maybe my favourite, if I had a favourite). I also like "Full of Grace" by Sarah McLachlan, but that's probably got something to do with its Buffy link. It plays out the second series, "Becoming Part 2" when Buffy kills Angel and sends him to hell, then runs away. That's another example of some good Buffy. I fear that all these lovely songs may be sad songs. Although Everything is a love song really, in a good way I think, so that's ok. There is hope yet.

I really shouldn't watch these particular episodes of Buffy. I end up all contemplative, and random. But they are wonderful, don't let my contemplation put you off. Others may not end up like me. I have watched them too much, and am too much of a Buffy Geek (meaning sometimes I forget that the characters and the world, and the vampires and the stuff isn't really real).

So dear world, please listen to this pretty song (That Kind of Love, by Alison Krauss), and please watch more Buffy (watch it all, the good and the bad, because it's worth it). I shall leave you with this quote, that makes me want to cry whenever I watch it, because it is beautiful, and everyone should have a Xander, oh if only he were real. So, "crayon breaky, scary veiny.....

"It doesn't matter, I'll still love you."

You knew it had to happen sometime.

I went to see eclipse last night. It was awful.

There are no words for how ridiculous it was. How can a film/franchise get so far away from its starting point? These books that I read in a 72 hour period in New York oh so many years ago (well like 3), that I refused to get on a plane without owning all 3 (I'm not mentioning number 4), and reading all 3 of, what happened?

Those of you out there in the world that have read the books, that have enjoyed the books, that have been moved by this tension and romance filled love triangle, that have wanted to read them over and over, and are truly on a team Edward or team Jacob, the true Edward and Jacob that is. Do you agree with me?

These last 2 films have just plain made me angry. Gratuitous shirt removal, chops and changes to the plot and the fundamental facts, and the eventual creation of this farce they now call the Twilight Saga. (I must point out that the atmosphere and visuals of the first film endeared me towards it more, it had that feeling that the book has, so I shall forgive some changes and less than amazing casting)

I have only ever walked out of a film at the cinema once. I came very close last night.

So this blog is a plea, dear world, read the books, read these books, read other vampire books. But don't do it because you fancy Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner (because you don't have a hope in hell with them, or any vampire or werewolf because like these mythical hollywood types, they aren't real), don't do it because you like the films, or that TV show. Do it because they are good, sometimes scary and sometimes heartbreaking, always interesting, and because books are magical things that can take you to another world, a world where imagination rules, anything can happen, and vampires and werewolves can be real for a time.

PS - if you must watch anything vampire related, watch Buffy, its awesome (and there are much more attractive vampires and werewolves).