Another at-sea day, which meant a ton of stuff on the schedule, most of which I simply ignored to enjoy the last day of being on a cruise ship on the water. We did manage to get up and get our coffee in time to attend Zoe Keating's Armpit Farting Colloquium, which was entirely worth it. If you get a chance, you should check out Zoe Keating's music on the Cello. And also see if you can find a video where she teaches you to make farting noises with various parts of your body that aren't usually involved in farting noises.
Since it was a Friday, for lunch Jean and I partook of a hot dog, as is the custom of our people. And while we were doing that, Jean and I played "One Deck Dungeon", which is a fun little card game which I bought specifically because all of the characters in the game are women -- heroes, villains, final bosses -- and that got the babymen het up and so I tossed some money that way to encourage the designer to keep on being awesome. It's fun, and has a solo play version in addition to the 2-player game. Jean pointed out that it seemed a little easy, which generally indicates that we've misread the rules somewhere, but even at that it was a fun little game.
Then, after a bit of lounging, we had a nap. Because when given the option of a mid-day nap, you should ALWAYS partake.
As it was the last day and I had not yet blown the budget, I bought a crap-ton of merch from the various artists on board, because "if you put it on your room key it's like it never happened!". In addition, we were given some books by artists who were on board, and I was looking over what sounded like a really intriguing book, The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss, but when I flipped to the author page, it was a white dude, and I've sworn off white dude writers for the forseeable future. Then, reading the "about the author" blurb, I noted that the author lives with his editor-husband. Yay! The author is queer, so there's my exception! So I'll be reading that in the near future. We also got The Fifth Season which is awesome and painful and brilliant, and entirely deserving of the Hugo.
The concert that night was billed as "Jonathan Coulton and Friends", and by that apparently was meant "everyone we could possibly fit on stage, and probably a couple more". I'm always a little surprised when an artist picks a song and then is surprised that their fans like it; in this case, the song in question is "Good Morning, Tucson", a song about a newscaster summoning up the end of the world and broadcasting it live (or possibly going crazy, it's not clear). Which is one of my favourite songs ever, containing the lyric "and I am still sort of amazed that you can be born in the 90s" which I fully connect with on a level below consciousness. He also sang his brilliant biographic song about George Plimpton, which I adore for both the message and the sadness.
Then the Friends started pouring on stage, and we moved into the "cover song" portion of the evening, which was all songs by dead people (except Elvis Costello, who isn't dead, but wrote a song about the death of Democracy, so he gets a pass). There was a moment when both Jean and I wondered if we'd missed some news, though (having been out of touch with the world for a week), but John Roderick, after a great version of "What's So Funny About Peace, Love, And Understanding" assured us that in fact, Elvis Costello was still alive. For now.
A brilliant "Purple Rain" cover by Janet Varney and Tawny Newsome was included in the set, which was amazing. Principal Sabourin did a fantastic job covering "Freedom", and Aimee Mann did a brilliant job with "Love is All Around". Jean Grae invented "the Jean Grae" where even before the music stops and the clapping starts the artist saunters off the stage (she deserved all the clapping, of course).
To finish it all up and send us off right, they filled the stage to bursting and encouraged the audience to sing along to "Sloop John B", because boats. It was a brilliant show, a great cap to a great series of shows, and an excellent way to top off the trip. So then Jean and I went to dinner, which was excellent, and Jean had the cheese plate for dessert while I had the Baked Alaska and it was really, really good. Al took care of us once again, and I was back to thinking that retiring to a cruise ship wouldn't be so bad, really...
One last stroll around the promenade to walk off a bit of dinner, then we set our luggage out to be offloaded, took off our robes, and went to sleep dreaming of home, our pets, and the real world.
Since it was a Friday, for lunch Jean and I partook of a hot dog, as is the custom of our people. And while we were doing that, Jean and I played "One Deck Dungeon", which is a fun little card game which I bought specifically because all of the characters in the game are women -- heroes, villains, final bosses -- and that got the babymen het up and so I tossed some money that way to encourage the designer to keep on being awesome. It's fun, and has a solo play version in addition to the 2-player game. Jean pointed out that it seemed a little easy, which generally indicates that we've misread the rules somewhere, but even at that it was a fun little game.
Then, after a bit of lounging, we had a nap. Because when given the option of a mid-day nap, you should ALWAYS partake.
As it was the last day and I had not yet blown the budget, I bought a crap-ton of merch from the various artists on board, because "if you put it on your room key it's like it never happened!". In addition, we were given some books by artists who were on board, and I was looking over what sounded like a really intriguing book, The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss, but when I flipped to the author page, it was a white dude, and I've sworn off white dude writers for the forseeable future. Then, reading the "about the author" blurb, I noted that the author lives with his editor-husband. Yay! The author is queer, so there's my exception! So I'll be reading that in the near future. We also got The Fifth Season which is awesome and painful and brilliant, and entirely deserving of the Hugo.
The concert that night was billed as "Jonathan Coulton and Friends", and by that apparently was meant "everyone we could possibly fit on stage, and probably a couple more". I'm always a little surprised when an artist picks a song and then is surprised that their fans like it; in this case, the song in question is "Good Morning, Tucson", a song about a newscaster summoning up the end of the world and broadcasting it live (or possibly going crazy, it's not clear). Which is one of my favourite songs ever, containing the lyric "and I am still sort of amazed that you can be born in the 90s" which I fully connect with on a level below consciousness. He also sang his brilliant biographic song about George Plimpton, which I adore for both the message and the sadness.
Then the Friends started pouring on stage, and we moved into the "cover song" portion of the evening, which was all songs by dead people (except Elvis Costello, who isn't dead, but wrote a song about the death of Democracy, so he gets a pass). There was a moment when both Jean and I wondered if we'd missed some news, though (having been out of touch with the world for a week), but John Roderick, after a great version of "What's So Funny About Peace, Love, And Understanding" assured us that in fact, Elvis Costello was still alive. For now.
A brilliant "Purple Rain" cover by Janet Varney and Tawny Newsome was included in the set, which was amazing. Principal Sabourin did a fantastic job covering "Freedom", and Aimee Mann did a brilliant job with "Love is All Around". Jean Grae invented "the Jean Grae" where even before the music stops and the clapping starts the artist saunters off the stage (she deserved all the clapping, of course).
To finish it all up and send us off right, they filled the stage to bursting and encouraged the audience to sing along to "Sloop John B", because boats. It was a brilliant show, a great cap to a great series of shows, and an excellent way to top off the trip. So then Jean and I went to dinner, which was excellent, and Jean had the cheese plate for dessert while I had the Baked Alaska and it was really, really good. Al took care of us once again, and I was back to thinking that retiring to a cruise ship wouldn't be so bad, really...
One last stroll around the promenade to walk off a bit of dinner, then we set our luggage out to be offloaded, took off our robes, and went to sleep dreaming of home, our pets, and the real world.
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