Halloween is my favourite holiday; I love dressing up, carving pumpkins, and the general fun atmosphere.I’ve had some very creative costumes over the years — last year I was a fairy (sewn from scratch), I’ve been an Oompa Loompa, Edward Scissorhands, a hobbit, Cinderella, and more.

Last night I dressed up at Magenta and we went to Rocky Horror Picture Show at The Ridge Theatre. It was really fun because while the movie was playing, a cast acted out on stage, and then there were props that audience members brought. When it rained in the first scenes, there were water guns; during the wedding, people threw rice; when Frank proposed a toast, everyone threw (unbuttered) toast. People also shouted different things during the show — asking questions at the right time and the next line in the movie would produce a funny answer.

This year is the first year that I haven’t carved a pumpkin. Normally I carve a pumpkin for my parent’s house to denote it as “open” for trick-or-treating. But because I’m living in my own basement suite, there will be no trick-or-treaters coming round tonight. (Pumpkin/cat photo is from last year)

Tonight (Halloween night!) I’m going to Mountain View Cemetery for the Night of All Souls event. It goes on all weekend honouring the dead and celebrating life. You can create memorials, look in the cemetery records, participate in ceremonies, and listen to local poets. The special event tonight is a Mexican Day of the Dead celebration including mariachi, special food and drink, and traditional dances. I’m looking forward to checking this out!

The inaugural BookCamp Vancouver was organized by Monique Trottier of Boxcar Marketing, Nick Bouton of Protagonize.com, Sean Cranbury of Books on the Radio, John Maxwell of SFU’s publishing program, and Morgan Cowie from BookNet Canada.

BookCamp Vancouver was an incredible experience! It took place on Friday October 16, 2009 and there was so much to absorb! I wasn’t able to make it to every event that I wanted to because there were four events going on at a time. The great thing about BookCamp is it was organized as an “unconference”; instead of having a speaker or a lecture, the person was more of a moderator or host.

Grab a cup of something warm and get comfy, this post is a long one!

Read the rest of this entry »

Before the Knitter’s FOtoshoot, I managed to finish up my red cowl! Yaaay! Now I just need a grey coat (my current Autumn coat is turquoise). The red of the Cascade Luna yarn is very true in the first photo. Kinda too pinky in the second photo (based on my monitor).

And yes, that is purple in my hair! I dyed it again over Thanksgiving weekend. I needed my colour!

Once again (I feel like I’ve updated about this damn cowl so many times for such a small object) the pattern is the Quickie Cowl.

Those of you following my Twitter or my Flickr might already know that last Sunday we Terminal City Yarn Wranglers had a photo shoot with our FOs (finished objects). This was certainly the first of many because it was a huge success. There were cameras going off in all directions and I even brought the tripod. Take a look at our new Terminal City Yarn Wranglers Flickr pool or my personal Flickr to see all the lovely FOs.

A couple knitters commented afterwards that my photos were really good quality (yay!), but there were so many FOs that I was glad to not be the only FO-tographer (like my puns?). Here are some of the funnier pictures that resulted from our shoot:

Janel makes lovely faces while showing off Tammy‘s shawl

Sexy Nadia… work it! work it!

How you dooooin’?

More silly Janel faces

Boob shot!

Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret Sara!

*SQUEEEE* so cute!!

Ninja Cowl!

Okay, so this one I was trying to photograph the tam… but look at the BACKGROUND!

Too funny!!

Purdy smiles or just more funny faces :)

Chelle and Faye!

Rawk on! Sara and Erin sittin’ in a tree!

Us all taking a photo OF a photo! I had to use my cell phone camera cause my real camera is on the tripod taking this photo. Heheh (This is the only picture where you can kindasorta see Hilary — she and Tammy are the only ones who never modelled anything)

Last night’s event at the Vancouver International Writer’s Festival was amazing, despite my embarrassing fangirl moment(s). Jerry Wasserman was a fantastic host who had insightful questions, observations, and genuinely connected with Audrey and her work. I was very pleased that the session didn’t just focus on The Time Traveller’s Wife or Her Fearful Symmetry. In fact, Jerry discussed her beginnings as a visual artist and bookbinder. My only regret is not getting to hear more about her upcoming projects and ideas (besides The Chinchilla Girl which sounds hilarious).

It’s difficult to summarize an hour and a half of conversation between Jerry and Audrey, but I will do my best to mention some of the evening’s highlights:

While discussing Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey mentioned that everything in the novel has an exact opposite or mirror event. Upon first read, this is very interesting in how the characters mirror each other; for example, Elspeth can’t leave her apartment as a ghost and Martin also can’t leave his apartment due to severe OCD, Julia and Elspeth both have strong control issues, and both Marijke and Valentina want to leave their current situations. But apparently the novel’s structure is also symmetrical and all the events also have mirror events. I can’t wait to reread the book to look for these small details.

One of the things we kept coming back to was the “rules” that an author sets up for themselves. Not only does Audrey’s writing have a supernatural element with an underlying love-story, but the supernatural ideas are different than anything else out there. For example, when they were discussing The Time Traveller’s Wife, Audrey set certain rules around Henry’s time travelling to avoid paradox. In The Time Traveller’s Wife, everything can only happen once — even if you go back in time, you cannot change the past. Audrey stressed that she wanted the time travelling element to reflect memories more — Henry keeps returning to places with strong memories.

Jerry Wasserman asked some of her favourite authors and inspirations. She mentioned Kelly Link, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James, among others that I can’t recall. Audrey admitted that she hasn’t yet seen The Time Traveller’s Wife movie because she doesn’t want the actors to replace her vision of the character. One of the audience members also asked who she would have picked to play Henry instead of Eric Bana, and she replied “Egon Schiele, but he died in the early 1900s”. Another audience member asked about the inspiration for Henry’s daughter’s name, Alba. The answer is twofold, Audrey was inspired by Delacorte’s character Alba, and also the name “Alba” means “white, or blank”.

Now for my embarrassing fangirl moments:

My question (the last of the night) was regarding her inspirations for characters. She mentioned that Jessica in Her Fearful Symmetry was inspired by the director of the Friends of Highgate Cemetary (Jean). She also said that Martin’s particular form of OCD was based on a close friend’s condition. Also, several of the minor librarian characters who work at the Newberry Library with Henry in The Time Traveller’s Wife hint to friends of her own at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

I got to meet her and get my copy of Her Fearful Symmetry signed! I would have gotten The Time Traveller’s Wife signed, but my copy is quite beat up after being lent to a number of friends.

I got my photo taken with her! I then told her I was excited about The Chinchilla Girl because I have a chinchilla…