Nordipalooza Fanwork Fest

I received notice that my offer for this year's Fandom Trumps Hate auction has been accepted and posted. I'm so glad!

A few years ago, I had an offer that I could not actually complete - it was for beta services and the person who won it never got back to me. Since then, they seem to have dropped out of fandom. I haven't participated in FTH since. So, I was kind of worried it wouldn't get accepted, since I technically still have an outstanding assignment.

Mind you, if that person ever shows up again, then sure, I'd be happy to fulfill that assignment! ;V In the meantime, I'm just glad I can participate this year.

There are still a few days before everything officially opens; they have so many to post that it needs to go in batches. I'll make a separate post when that happens.

On Wednesday, I went to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. Not my first time going up there, but it's the first time bothering to take the bus - I've been very tired lately and I just couldn't be arsed to walk it. ;V

One of the feature exhibits, which happened to be my favourite, was on Asian inkwork (mostly Chinese and Japanese). Very cool, some really beautiful stuff there. Super glad I went. Some of them had poetry incorporated into the inkwork, and there were translations to go along with them - I appreciated that.

They also had a small exhibition of prints by Albrecht Dürer. Fascinating stuff. So detailed! There were magnifying glasses available to take closer looks. Necessary, as some of them were quite small.

Anyway. In the evening there was the thing that I came to Victoria for... the Pacific Opera Victoria performance of Tosca!

I've never seen an in-person opera performance of this level; my previous experiences were all small-scale productions by small companies. So, this was a real treat.

The performance was amazing! The singing, the costuming, the everything. I was already familiar with the story as I've seen a recorded version, but in-person was so much better. I had a great seat, too. (And actually remembered my glasses this time, hooray). 100/10, no notes.

One thing I loved that I didn't remember from the recorded version was that there are some moments that have great comedic timing. Like yeah, sure, it's a tragedy, but in the earlier parts there's the stuff like Mario going in for a smooch and Tosca being like "Not in front of the Madonna", haha.

And now I'm like... turning over the general premise of this opera in my head, trying to shove certain favourite characters into it. You know, "The enemy pressures the protagonist to sleep with him in exchange for the love interest's freedom while the love interest is tortured in a nearby room" dealio. It's a little challenging to make anything a 1:1 fit, but man is it fun.

Anyway, the opera was lovely. I'm glad that I made the decision to come see it in person; very good decision. I could see myself doing so again; we'll have to see what comes up in the future.

So, today was kind of cold and drizzly again, but not too bad.

There were some things that I wanted to do, but they didn't open until late in the morning, so I spent the earlier portion writing fic. Or trying to. My vibe is really off, as the kids might say these days. IDK what it is. But at least I had some good coffee while doing it, and left when the place started to get busy.

Went to do some geocaching after that. Didn't succeed in finding anything, but to be fair there were only micros in the area I was looking at. Plus, like, downtown Victoria always has lots of people around even when it's a cold and drizzly morning, and poking around like geocaching involves makes one look hella sketchy. So I wasn't really trying very hard.

I went to the Gage Gallery to take in the most recent exhibit, new as of today. It's a collection of acrylics by Mark Osberg; both landscape and architectural stuff, of locations in both Vancouver Island and Portugal. Really beautiful work. Definitely glad that I checked it out. The formal opening is Thursday evening (time unspecified, probably after the gallery's regular hours) and even though I've already looked at the works I'm kind of thinking about going again. I love a good gallery reception.

Not for the first time I found myself wondering about the process of like, buying a painting and having it shipped home. This is something I've considered a few times over the years when I see something in various galleries, stuff that's for sale and that I like and would theoretically want in my apartment. There is a large space in my living room that looks kind of plain... but I have no idea what it would cost to mail that kind of thing. Maybe I should actually ask about it one of these days.

After that, I headed over to Chinatown. I'd finished one of the books I'd brought for the airplane, so I left it in the Little Library over in Dragon Alley. Then I headed over to Fan Tan Alley to visit the Chinatown museum. This museum is relatively new; glancing at the dates, it looks like it was open the last time I was here, but it wasn't on my radar. So I'm glad I took the opportunity to visit, especially with it being around Lunar New Year and all. I was aware of the general historical overview, but there were a few things that were new to me. The museum is small but definitely worth a visit if you happen to already be in Victoria (and also it's free).

Rest of the afternoon was spent working on fic (or trying to). And also napping. I've been very tired lately - like, super exhausted. I think I needed it. And also I haven't been feeling particularly well, which I am thinking may have something to do with not eating enough vegetables recently, and so I made sure that my supper today involved Lots Of Vegetables. Hooray.

Going to the opera tomorrow! Really looking forward to it!