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Jan. 7th, 2013 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreTwo things about today:
1) Today was the first rehearsal for the spring session of choir. We are doing a really odd program this time, with half of it being stuff by Beethoven and Brahms, and the other half is all Broadway. I am mentally subtitling the second half "Sara's Adolescence: the Concert." We are doing a medley from Les Miz. We are doing a medley from Phantom. We are doing Memory from Cats (because of course we are). We are doing a piece from Newsies. Seriously, if we swapped out the Wicked medley for one from Jekyll and Hyde or Rent, it would completely be the soundtrack of my teenage years. It's kinda fun but also kinda ridiculous.
There are loads of solos in the Les Miz medley. I want all of the Fantine solos so bad it kinda hurts. (Once, I had to write one of those ridiculous What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up essays for school. I totally wrote it about how I wanted to sing the role of Fantine on Broadway. That is obviously not going to happen but I will accept singing the role in a community choir medley as a consolation prize.)
2) So, I am currently reading Grettir's Saga. I am about 60-some pages in and it's pretty awesome. So far, there have been shipboard battles, shipwrecks, people making up poetry to mock their enemies, guys fighting a bear, the hero single-handedly fighting off some 12 berserkers, and the hero fighting a zombie inside a gravemound. And a random person in a throwaway genealogy named Ivar Horse-Prick. Yes.
And! So there's this guy named Thorgeir. This other guy, named Flosi, hates Thorgeir for complicated Icelandic reasons so he sends his servant - Thorfinn - to kill Thorgeir*. Thorfinn ambushes Thorgeir in the dark, hits him in the back with an axe, and then runs away, assuming that Thorgeir is dead. But Thorgeir is not dead - the axe actually hit a big drinking-flask Thorgeir was wearing on his back. So he gets called Thorgeir Flask-back. Later, Thorgeir and his buddies get in a fight with Flosi and his buddies over who owns a certain beached whale**. Thorfinn has actually climbed up on the whale and Thorgeir comes up after him, says "Here is your axe back," and cuts off Thorfinn's head.
A couple people at choir asked me what I was reading and then gave me blank looks when I showed them the cover, so I had to explain how awesome Icelandic sagas are. I told them about all the awesome things listed above - they were very impressed by the zombie - and a couple of particularly awesome things from Njal's Saga - the decapitation-while-ice-skating battle, the wonderful bit about Gunnar's halberd being at home***. I haven't read a lot of sagas - just Njals, the beginning Grettir's, and part of Egil's Saga - but all the ones I've read have been totally badass.
(I have this sort of vague desire to make a sort of audiobook recording of at least one of them. I'm thinking of starting with Grettir's Saga, since I'm in the middle of it. Half the time, I think this would be totally fun and the other half the time it seems kinda ridiculous and also I don't speak Icelandic so my pronunciation of the names would probably be completely wrong. So I haven't done it yet, but I still sort of want to.)
*At least 60% of all the people in Icelandic sagas have "Thor" somewhere in their name. I am only 60-some pages into this saga and already there have been three separate people named Thorfinn. Fortunately, there's a helpful list at the back that reminds you which one each of them is.
**Driftage rights = very important in medieval Iceland.
***For those who have not read Njal's Saga (you totally should, btw):
Gunnar caught sight of a red tunic at the window. He lunged out with his halberd and struck Thorgrim in the belly. Thorgrim dropped his shield, lost his footing, and toppled down from the roof. He strode over to where Gizur and the others were sitting.
Gizur looked up at him and asked, "Is Gunnar at home?"
"That's for you to find out," replied Thorgrim. "But I know that his halberd certainly is."
And with that he fell dead.
1) Today was the first rehearsal for the spring session of choir. We are doing a really odd program this time, with half of it being stuff by Beethoven and Brahms, and the other half is all Broadway. I am mentally subtitling the second half "Sara's Adolescence: the Concert." We are doing a medley from Les Miz. We are doing a medley from Phantom. We are doing Memory from Cats (because of course we are). We are doing a piece from Newsies. Seriously, if we swapped out the Wicked medley for one from Jekyll and Hyde or Rent, it would completely be the soundtrack of my teenage years. It's kinda fun but also kinda ridiculous.
There are loads of solos in the Les Miz medley. I want all of the Fantine solos so bad it kinda hurts. (Once, I had to write one of those ridiculous What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up essays for school. I totally wrote it about how I wanted to sing the role of Fantine on Broadway. That is obviously not going to happen but I will accept singing the role in a community choir medley as a consolation prize.)
2) So, I am currently reading Grettir's Saga. I am about 60-some pages in and it's pretty awesome. So far, there have been shipboard battles, shipwrecks, people making up poetry to mock their enemies, guys fighting a bear, the hero single-handedly fighting off some 12 berserkers, and the hero fighting a zombie inside a gravemound. And a random person in a throwaway genealogy named Ivar Horse-Prick. Yes.
And! So there's this guy named Thorgeir. This other guy, named Flosi, hates Thorgeir for complicated Icelandic reasons so he sends his servant - Thorfinn - to kill Thorgeir*. Thorfinn ambushes Thorgeir in the dark, hits him in the back with an axe, and then runs away, assuming that Thorgeir is dead. But Thorgeir is not dead - the axe actually hit a big drinking-flask Thorgeir was wearing on his back. So he gets called Thorgeir Flask-back. Later, Thorgeir and his buddies get in a fight with Flosi and his buddies over who owns a certain beached whale**. Thorfinn has actually climbed up on the whale and Thorgeir comes up after him, says "Here is your axe back," and cuts off Thorfinn's head.
A couple people at choir asked me what I was reading and then gave me blank looks when I showed them the cover, so I had to explain how awesome Icelandic sagas are. I told them about all the awesome things listed above - they were very impressed by the zombie - and a couple of particularly awesome things from Njal's Saga - the decapitation-while-ice-skating battle, the wonderful bit about Gunnar's halberd being at home***. I haven't read a lot of sagas - just Njals, the beginning Grettir's, and part of Egil's Saga - but all the ones I've read have been totally badass.
(I have this sort of vague desire to make a sort of audiobook recording of at least one of them. I'm thinking of starting with Grettir's Saga, since I'm in the middle of it. Half the time, I think this would be totally fun and the other half the time it seems kinda ridiculous and also I don't speak Icelandic so my pronunciation of the names would probably be completely wrong. So I haven't done it yet, but I still sort of want to.)
*At least 60% of all the people in Icelandic sagas have "Thor" somewhere in their name. I am only 60-some pages into this saga and already there have been three separate people named Thorfinn. Fortunately, there's a helpful list at the back that reminds you which one each of them is.
**Driftage rights = very important in medieval Iceland.
***For those who have not read Njal's Saga (you totally should, btw):
Gunnar caught sight of a red tunic at the window. He lunged out with his halberd and struck Thorgrim in the belly. Thorgrim dropped his shield, lost his footing, and toppled down from the roof. He strode over to where Gizur and the others were sitting.
Gizur looked up at him and asked, "Is Gunnar at home?"
"That's for you to find out," replied Thorgrim. "But I know that his halberd certainly is."
And with that he fell dead.
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