Monday, April 14, 2014

Two Meetups

This afternoon I hosted the latest ROLT event.  I tried to do science fiction again, with the clever event title "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow..." But only three people showed up. (Why not repeat your mistakes?) Also, because I only reserved our place at the last minute we didn't have our usual room but a louder area.  I'm glad I was careless with just a small group:  I'll be sure to reserve earlier with larger groups.

I read a passage from Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, about the battle with the giant squid.  The Nautilus crew normally speaks an Esperanto-like language, but a sailor who gets carried away in a tentacle reverts to his native French and yells "Au secours!" which makes a big impression on the French hero.  I also read a passage from Arthur C. Clarke's novelization of 2001:  A Space Odyssey, imagining the state of the world in 2001. (His world population estimate of six billion proved accurate.) And I read Clarke's story "Encounter in the Dawn," about an encounter between spacemen from a technologically-advanced planet and savages from a primitive one, which influenced 2001 greatly.

Craig read Mina Loy's futuristic poem "Lunar Baedeker," while Christina preferred to listen. (I always tell such members, "The world needs more people who listen.") For next month I'm going to do humorous writing again.

In the evening I had dinner with a Karaoke Meetup group at Milestone's just south of Empress Walk.  I ate Chicken Harissa, whose name I remember because it rhymes with Clarissa. (It was a spicy Middle Eastern dish that included quinoa and chickpeas.) 

Afterward we rented a karaoke booth and got in two hours of songs.  I was one of the only people who could handle the remote control, because it was similar to the ones at Bar Plus.  I saw a video with Katy Perry shooting fireworks out of her bosom! (I couldn't make that up.)

No comments: