Random update about stuff

So here I am again. Bringing this blog back from the dead once again. For some reason I can’t bring myself to abandon it completely, though I’m not sure there’s anyone left to read it by now.

My blogging life has been overtaken quite unapologetically by Tumblr for at least 4 years now, but there’s still some space, every now and then, for random updates and over-excited reviews about the things I’ve been reading, right?

Thing is, for a long while now, I haven’t had anything to add to my “books I’ve read” list. NOTHING. Not one single book in, like, months - could be even a whole year . And yet I have been reading. Not as voraciously and anxiously as I once did, but I have.

Fanfiction happened. Or more accurately, shipping happened. A shit load of it. Real shipping, not the light-hearted giddiness at two people I moderately love finally getting together that I often experienced before, with no serious consequences to my emotional health. No, this was painful, heart-wrenching, insane NEED for these two fictional people to be happy and together and forever because they’re my babies and they deserve it dammit. 

So last year I somehow found myself reading Stargate SG-1 fics like there was no tomorrow. Not before having acquired a kindle though, thanks to my lovely internet wifey, because how do people even read stuff on computer screens, I will never understand it. I even wrote a couple myself. But mostly I read, because the amount of brilliant stuff people have come up with over the years about these two idiots is astounding.

So, you see, I could hardly add Yet Another Fanfic By This Amazing Writer on my “read list”. Or, I suppose I could have, but I didn’t think anyone cared.

And then I discovered another passion, this time for National Geographic and for all things science. Black holes! Interstellar gas clouds! Giant squids! Mysterious Latin American tombs! Endangered, bizarre-looking birds that only exist in some protected areas of the north-east coast of New Zealand!

I can’t get enough of that shit.

So again, I left those ones out of the big list.

But now I’m back on the literature train, I think. I’m on my way to finishing The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and I’m loving it and I will be raving about it quite profusely when I’m done with it. I hope. Don’t let me down Michael.

And I have a huge list of TBR stuff, because lists are cool even if you never stick to them. Next is totally gonna be the latest Sarah Waters BECAUSE LESBIANS! Yay! (I missed them too, Sarah)

                                     

So, I'll see you soon, blog.

New passions

Last Sunday I've been to the Ukulele festival in Dun Laoghaire. Beside having a wonderful day in the sunshine (and occasional liquid sunshine, too), listening to great gigs and meeting beautiful people, I've been struck with a sudden and irrepressible desire to own a ukulele. I entered the raffle convinced I'd win one, but alas, it wasn't meant to be so easy. By Tuesday my fickle desire hadn't evaporate yet, so off I went to by myself one! I am now the proud owner of a cheap but lovely wooden ukulele and I am on my way to "accomplish my goal of becoming a proficient ukulele player", according to the Ukuelele Method Book 1 's introduction.
Now, the last time I ever read a note on a music sheet, I was probably thirteen. And they were in Italian. Playing an instrument or reading music, I can safely say, is NOT like cycling. But I'm hopeful. I've only practised for about two hours last night and it's going swimmingly. Let's see how long it'll last.

It will be easy to remain inspired, if I keep attending gigs as great as the ones I've been to lately. There are so many amazing musicians here and everywhere. The Dublin scene is full of them.
One of these special musicians I'd like to introduce you is the crazily talented Riona Sally Hartman. I had the pleasure to listen to her live last Monday in the International Bar, during the Glor Sessions, and I was mesmerised. Listen to her and you'll know why.

Seasnail by Ríona Sally Hartman


Kamikaze by Ríona Sally Hartman

"Oh Rapunzel!" by Ríona Sally Hartman

04 Song for the Dead, Song for the Living by Ríona Sally Hartman

Also, not a new passion, but FLORENCE HAS A NEW SONG AND VIDEO OUT!
And a RELEASE DATE (November 7th) for her NEW ALBUM!


*happy happy dance*

Quick update about stuff: crafty market, trip to London, etc...

Hiya!
I meant to write this ages ago, but I never got around it, of course...
A while ago I managed to participate in my first crafty market, selling what I've been making in the last few months, so I thought I'd share.
I was really proud of it, even though it was tiny, in a badly lit corner, and I didn't make much of a profit. But I got the support of my wonderful friends and lots and lots of praises from random people, so I was quite happy with the experience. Next time I'll try and team up with someone else to share the costs, or just got to a cheaper market.
I love having a stall. It's what I've grown up with. My parents were jewellery makers and all-around artists back in the 80's. When they weren't in their shop they would be selling their products at fairs and such and I'd be sleeping beneath their stalls during those hot Italian summers, or running around during the day wearing tiny rings still too big for my fingers. I kept loosing them and coming back for more.
After my parents split up and sold the shop, my mother kept doing markets and I'd stay with her sometimes. I remember making earrings with her with just some bits of metal and some permanent markers to decorate them. I must have been 10 or 11. I was so proud of myself when I sold my first pair!
Today my mum still runs a successful stall, where she sells crystals and handmade jewellery, so it really runs in the family :)

Here is how my first solo stall looked like (click the photos to see the details):

This is from the front

and this is from the back

I thought it looked pretty:)

So, that was the old news. The new news is that I'm just back from a week in London. I went to see my brother who lives there, and to see "Season's Greetings", a play which starred Katherine Parkinson, from the IT Crowd. The play was brilliant, although I lost a bit of concentration on the main action when Katherine Parkinson was on the side of the stage doing nothing. I could't help but stare:P I was in the front row, and it was amazing. After the play I waited for her to come outside, and I managed to meet her and get a photo with her. I know most of you don't know who she is, so probably you can't share my excitement, but I was absolutely over the moon. Especially cause she was so lovely. She asked me if I was Irish! I'm quite pleased with that. And when I told her I was Italian she said she lived in Italy for a bit, but I can't remember much of that, cause I was too excited. I took a photo with her and three other girls and I really hope I didn't mess it up cause my hand was shaking like a mad thing!
Here's me with her:

Isn't she just gorgeous?
Oh yeah. The other bit of news is that I dyed my hair purple! It's not exactly the colour in the photo. It's lighter, and it's already starting to fade, but I love it! I'm gonna get a proper haircut soon, this is just messy, overgrown hair with no shape. But I love the colour:) It took ages to get it right. It turns out my hair doesn't give up its brown colour that easily. But in the end we managed. Now I feel like I could experiment with lots of other colours. Blue, pink, red...

So yeah, that's it for now. I'm not gonna promise a post soon, cause it's probably not gonna happen, but you never know. I'm almost finished with Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and wouldn't you know it, I adore it! So I'll probably share my thoughts on that one. Can't say when tough:P

The Dublin Flea Market

Back in August I visited the Dublin Flea Market, and I was enchanted. The atmosphere is great, very laid-back and very colourful. The stalls, being a flea market, are a mix of everything, as you would expect: gorgeous vintage clothes, jewellery, old books and furniture, boxes full of random stuff...On top of that it's also in a really cool location, both indoor and outdoor, with a café, a sunny (weather permitting) veranda and live music (although I wasn't there at gig-time, so I can't report on that. I'm sure it just added to the coolness of the whole thing). And I didn't even mention the handcraft section. It's small, and it has its own little room away from the big crowd, but I liked it too.

The indoor venue.

The Newmarket Square

Every month a new artist is commissioned to illustrate the market's poster. You can buy them for €5 and the proceeds go to the artists, or so I'm told. There's a gallery here and if you have a moment go and look at them, I think they're beautiful. I wish I could buy the whole collection! .

The stalls:

Oh and there's a co-op, as well, that sells organic/eco-friendly stuff for less.

It's on every last Sunday of the month :)

A quick note

[one of the things I've been making]

Hey guys,
my book reviewing has been put on hold lately, but I've been busy busy making artsy stuff out of magazines and glass jars, photographing anything shiny that catches my eye with my new gorgeous digital camera, watching episodes of the IT crowd over and over again, and generally playing with the internet a lot. The latter activity has resulted in me adventuring into new blogging grounds i.e. TUMBLR! It's a mysterious land, and I'm still finding my feet there, but it's fun, and quick.
This is my page: La stella piumata. Feel free to have a look!

Well...

I haven't been around much, have I? But that's how it is at the moment. I've read some incredibly good books, and I will one day talk about them, probably in one post filled with mini-reviews, but I will, definitely. For now, though, I'm going away again, to Sicily and to my beloved, tiny, magical island of Levanzo. I will have to spend the night in London airport, but I have lots of books with me, should I not be able to fall asleep on a chair.
For my 10-day-holiday I chose books that have been waiting for at least 3 years to be read:
Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
Epic by Conor Kostick
and My Tender Matador by Pedro Lemebel.
With the exception of the last one, they are all YA and mostly fantasy (not sure about Wolf Brother), so it's pure indulgence. Exactly what I want on my holidays.
Oh and Framed by Cottrell Boyce which I'm halfway through it and loving it.

Talking about great books, I've literally just finished Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness, the third volume in his stunning Chaos Walking trilogy. I'm not going to write a proper review, I'm somehow too invested in it. Besides, lots of people have already done it brilliantly before me. I just want to join the choruses of "OMGOMGOMGOMG"s and "WOW"s and "I'm still recovering from it, I can't really talk about it"'s. It was just that good. I was forced to read it faster that I would have, cause I didn't want to bring the huge hardback with me, hence making it an even more intense experience. I have never been that much on edge reading a book as I was with this one. I was almost scared to turn the pages, knowing something terrible was gonna happen, but that didn't make me turn them any slower. I love the characters so much, I had to hope things were gonna turn out well for them, but at almost every end of paragraph, especially towards to end, I was like "f***k's sake! Can't it go smoothly for once?" And of course I can't tell you if it does, you'll have to read and suffer exactly like me! And no peeking ahead, it's wrong.
OK, off to the airport, see you when I'm back, all tanned and rested.

pic from http://tomorrowmaybe-megone.blogspot.com/

I survived Nano!

and I won!
I never thought it would be so exhausting. Since I'm such a slow writer (I found out), the most I wrote in one day was 4500 words. And that meant hours sitting down at the desk trying to type something legible. My back wanted to kill me for putting it under so much strain. And let's not talk about the quality or the coherency (is that a word?)...
But I made it, and I'm sort of proud of it. I was probably too sure of myself at the beginning, and crumbled a bit toward the middle and the end, but I made it to the finish line JUST one hour before the deadline! OK, I cheated just a tiny bit by adding the whole lyrics for a song (calling it extra features) but it was an important song, very meaningful (not really...)
I guess I should start editing and rewriting pretty soon, but I'm taking a week off to recover. Right now even thinking of going back to The Novel makes me feel queasy.
I was writing in Italian, and as I struggled to think up words in my own language (how many times I had to look an English word up to translate it into Italian, you'd be amazed!) I realised I need to start reading in Italian again asap, so I can expand my vocabulary - again. This is a bit embarrassing considering I'm not even THAT fluent in English. I'm already forgetting my native tongue. In other words, I should go back to school. Me not happy.

Other non-Nano-related news...I turned 30.
Holy Moly.
It's scary even to type it.
But anyway, let's not dwell on that unspeakable round number. The fun bit is that I got to go to London to see my long lost brother (I hadn't seen him in I don't know how long, 3 years maybe?), see The Gossip gig (loved it!) and meet two of my best friends. It was lovely even if very short. It was literally a 24-hour visit. I felt a bit overwhelmed by London and all those people running about...Dublin is so provincial in comparison. Or maybe it was just the short stay that made everything feel very rushed, even the emotions.

On the books front, I haven't got my bookworm mojo back, yet. I'm still working on it. But I finished the new Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked, which was nice. I enjoyed it, it took me ages to finish it, but I did enjoy it. There was a kind of low-key cynical mood to it, which was pleasant at times, and a bit boring at others. I loved the dialogues though. They were never ever boring. And the metaphors. I wish I could come up with those myself.
Awww will I ever be able to read a book again without thinking "Hmm this turn of phrase is brilliant, why did I never think of that?"
I'm reading Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, now, and I'm doing the same thing. It's good though. It means I'm learning something...right?
I'll stop blabbing now. I just wanted to apologise for not answering to all your comments lately and for neglecting the book blogging community. I promise I'll go back to being a better blogger soon!
In the mean time, thanks for your supporting comments, I really appreciate them:)

The Electric Picnic 2009

After few days away from the blogosphere, it's scary to come back and try to fit in again. So much it's been going on and I haven't been part of it. Not that I'm much of a blogger socialite, but looking at my 1000+ unread posts on my Reader, I feel overwhelmed and intimidated. I'll take a step at a time and just post some photos of the festival I was telling you about. It was so much more than I expected. It's not just about the music, even though the thing that will stay with me forever and which is standing out from the whole experience, was seeing Florence and the Machine live. I tried to get tickets to see them again in Dublin but it was physically impossible. They sold out in minutes. So here's few photos I took personally:


I also really enjoyed Julie Feeney. She's so unique, and such a great performer, even though ever so shy when it comes to the talking bits.

Another gig I loved was the Flaming Lips. Such a show!
But if I have to be perfectly honest, the reason that made me decide to go was the presence of my beloved drag queens. They had their own tent, called Poptopia, and they were amazing.

Photo taken from Facebook, can't remember from who!

Especially Veda Beaux Reves. She should be a huge rock star, she looked stunning on that stage and the reviewer on The Irish Times loved her too!


I was saying there was so much more than music. It's not called Music and Arts Festival for nothing.The whole festival was so artistic. It looked to me like a big fun fair for adults. Everywhere you turned there was something to photograph, especially in the Body and Soul Area. It was so pretty!
This is a part of the stage there.
This is me inside the sculpture of an elk!

This is Natasha's food stall. She makes everything completely raw, with no dairy, no wheat, no gluten, no sugar. And it's delicious. The chocolate cake was the best chocolate cake I've ever had. No kidding.
The rest of the food stalls were also really good, if not cheap. The tofu burgers at the Vegan and Vegetarian place were a favourite. So were the "bloody mary" crumpets at the Strumpets with Crumpets stall. I wish I took a picture of those. But my camera battery barely lasted to take pictures of Florence on the last day.
More pretty things on the stalls.


A new thing I tried there was the silent disco. SO MUCH FUN!

I bought myself a wholly hat because it was freezing at night. Here it is, where is sort of makes me look like a hobbit.
So many parents were carrying their kids around in these carts, and so many kids were dressed up as fairies. So cute:)
The ground was very very very very veeeeery muddy, sometimes resembling quick sands. It was great fun. You would have been very brave (or very foolish) not to wear a pair of wellies. I don't think I've ever seen that many people wearing wellies all in one place. The variety was incredible, I was jealous of basically every other girl who passed by me. I had nice pink flowery ones, but they leaked so I in the end I had to buy sensible green farmer-style ones, which weren't fashionable, but they kept me dry and warm!

I only have good memories about this festival. Even though the last day our tents got flooded, and we were covered in mud from head to toe and had to leave the tents there. Even though at night I barely got any sleep because the wankers beside us stayed up 24/7, drinking and being really annoying (I wondered if they saw anything else in the festival beside their gazebo). Even though I was freezing at night, and I didn't take any shower for 3 days, and my hair looked horrible all the time cause there was no power to use straighteners and if you wanted to use 10 minutes of hairdryer you had to pay 10 euro!
So despite all this, I can't complain one bit. It was awesome. I'd do it all again tomorrow. (although I'd bring warmer pjs, stronger tents and would find a quieter spot to camp!)

Blogging Break

I haven't written anything in a while. I haven't read much either. I start a book and then I put it down, and start another another one. I'm definitely not in the mood for reading, let alone talking about books. I hope this feeling goes away quickly because it doesn't feel like me. I want things to go back to normal, but I'm in such a state of internal turmoil these days, that I don't know when it will happen.
On the other hand music is easier, it makes me forget about things, and it heals.
I have been to a wonderful festival of music and arts called Electric Picnic last weekend, which happens in Ireland, in a big country field, like Glastonbury. It was my first time and it was amazing. I was walking in mud with wellies most of the time. We were camping out and barely got any sleep for three days. And it was all worth it!
I fell in love with Florence and the Machine. Such a powerful voice. I listen to her music on repeat now.
If you don't know her yet, check her out, but keep in mind that she sounds a million time better live. Mind-blowing!

Drumming Song

Rabbit Heart

Cosmic Love

Gotta go now, I'll be back to post some photos of the festival. And when things get calm again, I'll be a bookworm again.xxx

Some photos...

Hi everyone, I'm back to my usual cloudy life...and blogging:)
As promised I'll post some pics of my beautiful holiday in Italy. I didn't have my camera, so I only took few pictures with somebody else's camera in Sicily, while I didn't take any in Tuscany.
I was for a week in Levanzo, a small island off the coast of Trapani. It's my favourite place in the entire world. It's my little paradise. This year my father rented a house away from the town. To reach it you had to climb up a very steep road, called "pittata".Or you could just use my dad's quad :D

Here's the entrance to the house, from the inside. There's also a lovely kitchen garden.
This is the house.
And this is me with my dad's partner's son, Ruggiero, in the veranda. It was one of our favourite reading spots.
Usually my father collect lots of sea shells and sea food snorkeling around. This was part of his loot one day. I think I'm gonna try and make one of those things you hang from the ceiling, with them. I forget what you call them:P a mobile! One day...And now I'd like to show you some photos I didn't get a chance to post last year. We saw some dolphins while we were on the boat. It was beautiful! Click on them to see better!
This is a little guy my dad caught. He was released soon after we finished playing with him:)
This is our fierce cat.
A view of the village.

And a little taste of what the sea looks like:)

There. Gotta run to work now. Hope you enjoyed them:)

A quick update

I'm back to civilization and internet, although not at home. I had a wonderful time in Sicily and I will post some photos when I can use my laptop. For now I thought I'd write few lines about what I've read recently. I can hardly keep my mouth (fingers?) shut! I loved absolutely everything and I finished both books so fast that I had to borrow the next book to read on my flight to Pisa.

The Time Traveler's Wife is everything that I thought it'd be, only I didn't think it's be such a page-turner. My flight to Sicily was more than 3 hours long and I didn't feel them at all! I kept reading like a mad thing till I finished it. I cried a bit almost at the end, and felt sort of melancholic from then on, but it was beautiful and it was worth it! Now I can't wait to watch the trailer for the movie.

The Hunger Games was also incredibly absorbing, adventurous and even sort of romantic. I thought it was the perfect summer read, mostly because it made me feel good that I was lying on the beach sunbathing while those poor souls had to fight for their lives with little water and food.Ahah!I can't wait to read the sequel, obviously. Has it lived up to the expectations?

My third book is La Danza del Gabbiano, the new inspector Montalbano book by Andrea Camilleri. I thought it was very good, better than the last two. It was also a very quick read.

Now I've borrowed Fahrenheit 451 and I'm already half-way through. All I can say now is that I'm happy it shows just how horrible a society without books would become. Ugh!

So, yes, I'm loving my summer holiday reading so far! But I miss blogging and reading other people's blogs. Hope everything is good in the bookblogging sphere.

Any new amazing unmissable books I should know about?