Oh I just Can’t Wait…

… for tonight!

Tonight’s the Coppelius concert I’ve been looking forward to for month. I got me the new album last week and haven’t stopped listening (well, except for another song, but that’s too off-topic now).

My favourites so far are:

• Diener 5er Herren (“Servant of 5 Masters”) – “The sufferings of young B.”, about the work of Coppelius’ butler Bastille.
  
• Gumbagubanga - Nonsensical song about a witch doctor which has pretty good choral parts.
  
• Stetig Fromm (“Always Docile”) – About a marriage gone very, very wrong.
  
• Ade mein Lieb (the German version of The Turtle Dove) – So beautiful, I can’t even tell. It’s a great texture with wonderful voices weaving into each other…

I’m also looking forward to hear Damen (“Ladies”), Nachtwache (“Night Watch”) and Klein Zaches (“Little Zaches”), the eponymous song for Zinnober.

As always when it comes to a Coppelius concert I’m a little concerned with my outfit for tonight. I’m struggling to decide whether to go for a more simple-could-be-anywhere-from-rennaissance-to-1900s look or something nearly baroque… but I’ll get a little help from Jules. The time between picking up Tristan, another acquaintance (dare I say friend?) of mine, from the station and meeting the others at the concert we’ll spend at his house, planning outfits. We’re girls, after all (except Tristan).

But now I’ve got to iron my about ten yards of fabric and get something to eat before I leave. I’ll bring you some photos!

10 Things I Love In December

1. Blue Monday. I just recovered this comic after years of oblivion while cleaning up all my boxes at my mother’s house. And instantly I had to order the whole series in English, as I had only two volumes in German (it’s already out of print here and the last two books weren’t even in print anyway).
2. Eloise. Sadly, I haven’t read the books yet, but as far as I may say this, the movies are very, very heartwarming.
   
3. Snow. We had plenty in Marburg, and I do hope that it will last, no, be more!, at least until new year’s eve. I just can’t understand how one can’t like snow, except those folks that can’t get anywhere trough the white masses as the public transport tends to be a little weak at this point.
   
4. Vintage Christmas. I love old-fashioned Christmas cards! I’ve got a whole book full of examples of weird post cards featuring hog-riding hams, pillow fights and cherub jockeys on bats.
   
5. Chai Tea. When I first tried it I thought I wouldn’t like it, but since I discovered the Yogi Tea bags with their wise sayings (just like fortune cookies!), I somehow managed to drink my way though two boxes already.
   
6. The First Pictures of Bioshock Infinite. Absolutely Steampunk! There are not so many trailers around at the aethernet yet, but what they show is splendid!
   
7. Zinnober, the new album of Coppelius. What a surprise!
8. Gregorian Chants. I always had a soft spot for sacred music, and this is one of my favourite variations. It just has something epic to it, especially if you imagine an old church with a ceiling so high that you have to lay back your head to really see it, reverberating with the voices…
   
9. Hair, the song from the musical of the same name. I love the revival of the Broadway musical, too (and the leading actor, Gavin Creel, was in the Eloise films, too).
   
10. Merry-Go-Rounds. There’s an old-fashioned one at the Frankfurt Christmas market and I just love the motif! I think about making at least a carousel-themed t-shirt, if not a whole outfit.

Clockworking

As I mentioned before I’m working at a pillow case at the moment, shaped like a clock, or, more precisely, like a pocket watch. The progress is quite slow, but now I’m at least done with the clock face, so here’s a little teaser:

As I’m talking about crafts, I’m proud to tell you for the give-away that one and a half hat bases are finished. The first one is ready to be decorated and hopefully, it will be sent on its way before Christmas. The schedule for the others say that they will be finished this year.

Yesterday I also got the material for Bambi’s Christmas present, half a meter of smoky baby blue terry cloth. I hope I’ll finish everything in time!

On Tuesday I’ll be heading off to my mother’s house for a week, but gladly not without any connections to the aethernet so I’ll be able to contact my dear ones via webcam and update here at least once. I’m really looking forward to the Coppelius concert on Thursday! I still don’t really know what to wear, but I’ll surely bring you back a picture.

But now I’ve got to stitch that clock face on further, so you’ll have to excuse me. Oh, and I hope you’re not too bored about my recent updates at the moment! If there’s something you want to read here, just let me know, I really appreciate your ideas and opinions!

Plans Without Photos

I haven’t been writing here for a little more than two weeks (except of my list yesterday, sure), which is kind of a record, I think. I’m always a little sad when one of the blogs I read daily – about forty when I last counted – hasn’t updated for two weeks or more.
After all, like everyone to neglect their blogs, I had my reasons. But instead of telling you the not-so-exciting stories of what I did during the last weeks, I’d rather tell you what I’m up to in the upcoming few!

First of all, there is a Coppelius concert coming up in December. I don’t know what exactly to wear, and I fear I’ll have to sew something new. Maybe I can relate this project somehow to my new Steampunk clothing, which is also something you might read more about here soon.

Second, I’m re-organizing my sports stuff. As I’m in advanced training now, it’s time to get some kind of order into that mess of boxing gloves, trainers and fighting trousers! Plus, I definitely need a bag for my canes. Well there goes another hand full of sewing projects. At the moment, sadly, I’m kind of not allowed to go to training due to another sickness – again. But I decided to go to watch training, at least on Wednesday at Savate. It is incredibly salutary to watch the older ones at the assaut – no, that’s not a typo but the french term for our kind of combat in both Canne de Combat and Savate – and that’s something you really can’t do while being in an assaut yourself. So maybe I can learn something even if I’m not able to go into combat myself this week.

I’m also being some kind of creative with words – due to NaNoWriMo, but I think I’ll dedicate another post to that  – and pencils as I’m trying to revive my beloved Splinterworld project.

As a little life update I can tell you that we’ve got two wonderful new girls here living with us after Abigail and Kajal, Bambi’s rabbits, moved back to his sister. They are small, fluffy and incredibly sweet and go by the names Emma and Feline.
Oh, and the River Lahn is bursting its banks again thanks to the rain during the last week. Maybe it will still be as wild and fast as it was yesterday when I’m going for a walk tomorrow so I can take some pictures.

And last but not least, no, I didn’t forget about the give-away. I’ll soon reveal my plans concerning the wonderful descriptions I got and of course, I will let you read these descriptions, too.

Intermezzo: I’m A Fangirl

Well, at least sometimes, and at least concerning one special band.

Coppelius, who might have thought of that.

And due to this fact I simply had finally to get a fan shirt at the last concert. Actually, I thought my band shirt days were done – I wore the last one when I was still at my old grammar school back in 2006 or 07. But as Coppelius isn’t just any metal band with slaying heros as a motif, here I go again.

Quiet Please!

The shirt refers to Bastille’s sign for the audience.

Applause - A little blurry, I fear.

It even worked on the camp ground while I was packing at Sunday morning: Every time I turned around, our neighbors began to applaud. ^^

And finally I go myself another patch and more buttons – buttons, for you can never have enough of them (at least when they look quite well), and another patch as I couldn’t decide where to put the first one as I can’t patch it somewhere else, then… If you know what I mean.

One will land on the lest arm of my upcoming parkacorps (I’ll explain that another day) and the other one… I still don’t have a clue. ^^

Back Without Pictures

Oh well, no, I didn’t manage to write something about my festival wardrobe. Which means that I’ll have to plan a little sooner next year. But there are no photos of my outfit or me in general, anyway, which results from the fact that I was the only one in our group to bring a camera. There aren’t any pictures of the bands, too, which is caused by the fact that I’m quite small compared with all those people who stood in front of me… you know what I mean.

The Veldenstein Castle festival itself was great, my personal highlights being ASP and, as always and expected, my beloved Coppelius. I got sunburned although it rained all Friday to Saturday morning and then the sky was covered with clouds and the evening was really, really chilly. The scoundrel was so nice to cook for us (we’ve got a deal that he’s to cook in spring and summer and I’m to be the kitchen fairy in autumn and winter) and hot, good food is worth a lot in cold, damp July nights.

As for my highlight bands, here’s a short summary:

ASP, being the head liner of the evening, started playing at 10 P.M. and as soon as we had found us a nice place on the green quite in the back of the festival ground but still in sight of the stage, Jules diffused into the crowd after we told him that ASP are quite electronic. ^^ Well, our place was well-chosen as we had more space than anyone right in front of the stage for dancing, and without space, dancing isn’t half as much fun… Bambi didn’t dance, though, as he’s pretty convinced that “nobody wants to see that, anyway” so he got our supply bag and wandered though the masses during the concert. I think my favourite song of the evening was Krabat, and it was really, really sweet of ASP to play a tribute to Dio at the end.

Coppelius, as my favourite band, were great as they were supposed to be. They introduced some songs from their upcoming album of which I especially liked the one about Bastille’s life as a butler. Bastille quite surprised the audience by *gasp* undressing on stage (he kept his underwear on, by the way), which didn’t  have any effect on his splendid performance, though. The other gentlemen were great, too, of course, especially when the eternal conflict between Max Copella and Le Comte Caspar had some moments on stage during some songs. Even Graf Lindorf was involved, and only Sissy Voss kept his stiff upper lip. For Nobusama joined the “Undress!”-chorus for his butler… ^^ The Scoundrel had never heard them before, at least not being aware of it but he had a quite good time, too, I dare say.

When we came home last night – after a stopover in Aschaffenburg again, after which my mother kindly decided to drive us to the Frankfurt central train station as “it would have been quite a Oddyssee otherwise” (her own words) – the Scoundrel headed home for a little rest while I took a nice, hot bath with lotus bathing salt and Anne of Green Gables – The Sequel until my beloved returned to make a wonderful dinner out of the leftover from the weekend.

And now, after I told you about the past three days, I’ve got to hurry up with my breakfast as my first Breton lesson starts at 9 A.M..