"Where the Boats Go" -- M83

"Take Us Back"

...Just because it came up on my mp3-player again this afternoon, and I enjoyed it. :o)

Random Music Obsession

Music Obsession of the Month:
M83-- particularly the soundtrack for Oblivion:

Random Music

Just some music I've been enjoying lately... :o)

"Blackwinged Bird", Nina Persson:



"Comptine d'un autre été : L'Après-midi" , from the Amélie soundtrack:



"Long Time Traveller", The Wailin' Jennys:



"Glory Bound", The Wailin' Jennys:

Dream Pop

Stumbleine - "Fade Into You (feat. Steffaloo)"

Loving this song, lately.
As usual, I first heard it on TV (The Following).  That's just about the only place I find new music I like, these days.  Too lazy to go looking for it on my own.  

Musical Obsession of the Week

Last weekend, I caught a few minutes here and there of an old movie (The Black Cat). I didn't see enough of the movie to say anything about the plot, but whoever was in charge of the music did a good job of choosing memorable bits of classical music.

I recognized the melody of this one, but couldn't remember the name or composer.  A little investigating online-- and here it is!  ...And now it keeps coming back to me.  (There are worse things to have stuck in your head. (g))

The best part (imho) is the first two and a half minutes. 

52 Weeks of Happy (4/52)

Four Things That Made Me Happy This Week: 


1.  Good deals.
This week brought good deals on clothing, decorative plants for the garden, thrift-store sweaters for felting and unraveling, and more.  Finding a bargain is always a mood-lifter!


2.  Making progress on the afghan.
I'm still not finished-- just not putting in enough crochet-time every evening for that-- but I did finish attaching all the whole hexagons, and I'm on to crocheting in the 10 half-hexagons I need to even out two sides of the blanket.  It sometimes feels like I'm crawling on this project, but the end is in sight.


3.  Open windows.
Three days this weeks, the weather has been warm and nice enough for us to open some of the windows.  Having them open again has literally been a breath of fresh air!  (Downside: Trixie barks noticeably more when the windows are open, because she can hear more little noises/dogs barking/etc.)


4.  Rediscovering music.
The mp3-player surprised me by playing some music that I hadn't listened to for a long while.   ("The North Wind Blew South", by Headless Heroes, for instance.)  I'm glad to be reminded.  I think it's time to rearrange the contents of the mp3-player, one of these days.

Vaguely Creepy Song of the Day*

Music for when you're walking in leather boots through a rain-slick, eerily empty city at night, possibly pursued by an ominous foe, in which case I suggest you pick up the pace... 

"Tick of the Clock", by the Chromatics



*Why "vaguely creepy"?  Well, we are getting close to the end of October...  (There may be more Vaguely Creepy Songs of the Day to come.)

"Silver Factory Theme", by Dean + Britta

Music for a lazy, hazy afternoon in early September... ;o)



Create a playlist at MixPod.com

...Something Completely Different

Summer music.  Almost makes you want to go to the beach.
Almost.  ;o) 

Random Songs of the Day

"Big Broom", by Races:

"Black Winged Bird", by The Cake Sale, featuring Nina Persson:

Song du Jour

Peter Bradley Adams, "Darkening Sky"

Apparently it was on The Mentalist, which I don't watch (so I wouldn't know).  I found it a while ago among Amazon's freebies.  (There are more than are listed on that page, too, but at the moment I can't find an easy way to see them all listed... Just click on a freebie and more are usually recommended somewhere on the new page.)  If you're looking for new (free) music, it's a good place to start, and the offerings change regularly.  Never know what you'll find! 

"Crystal Sounds", by Thirteen Senses

...music to listen to as you realize that you twisted a cable the wrong way in your knitting. ;o) The plus side-- you don't mind (quite) as much when you have to figure out how to fix the mistake.

Lazy Afternoon

Dropping by to post a couple songs for a languid early spring (but more in line with early summer) afternoon.

First, a drowsy, day-at-the-beachy, 70's/Fleetwood Mac-esque melody:

And for the next one... Eh, just ignore the photo. (g) This song feels like a lazy sprawl in a cool, shaded room... decorated with floral prints in lavender, powder blue, and green... blue hydrangeas... ice slowly melting in a glass pitcher of water... ceiling fan barely rotating... Or maybe that's just what comes to mind for me. (g)

Music Via TV Programs

All my favorite (new-to-me) music, lately, comes from TV shows...  It's probably because that's the only place I encounter new music, since when I listen to the radio it's talk radio, 99.9% of the time.

...Though that anti-smoking jingle they've been playing for the past few months is pretty catchy, even if I don't usually like words like "cancer" and "toxins" popping up in my music...



"Take smoke; put it out!" ;o)

Anyway, anti-smoking jingles aside, apparently I enjoy "dream-pop" and bands influenced by "shoegazing". (Where do they come up with the names for all these musical sub-genres?  Not that I'm complaining.  They seem appropriate, somehow... just a little funny-sounding.) 

Thanks to Revenge, "Anyone's Ghost" is on repeat...  (I prefer the Silver Swans version, though the original by The National isn't bad, either.)



More via Revenge...
First, we have "Riverside" by Agnes Obel:



For a beachy 60's throwback, may I suggest "Catamaran", by the Allah-Las?



Then there's "Wait", by M83, found through "The Secret Circle":



To end with something a little more up-beat, it's back to Revenge with "Home" by OK Sweetheart:



Has Target used that song for a commercial? If not, I'm surprised, because it just screams "Target commercial". That's not an insult; I tend to like Target commercial music, though it's best in small doses. Perfect for bouncing around the house to. ;o)

Random Stuff

And I mean random.

- - - - - - -

Via Twitter--

Valerie Jarrett: Obama 'getting absolutely no sleep' because of debt crisis.

Oh, no!
*wipes away a tear*
 

This whole situation is infuriating.
...I'll leave it at that.

- - - - - - -

Donald dislikes "Primetime: What Would You Do?"

Haven't seen it?  Here's the description for tonight's episode:

Scenarios (suggested by viewers) include a little person being mocked for his size; a teenager telling her boyfriend that she's pregnant and wants the baby--to his loudly expressed disapproval; a child disapproving loudly upon hearing his dad is gay; a young woman in a wheelchair being offered help in public when she doesn't need it; and a boy being harassed by others boys because he has red hair.

Ick.  This show gives me the shudders.  Why didn't they bring back Candid Camera, instead?

Programs on Michael's "Change the Channel QUICK" List:

• "Extreme Makeover:  Home Edition"  
• It was ok in the earliest episodes, but then it degenerated into every single week being about people with the most depressing stories they can find, tears being a must, and the designers going crazy and doing weird, over-the-top things every episode.  I'm glad if people in bad (beyond their control) situations basically win the lottery and get a free home makeover, but... I don't want to watch it happen over an emotional hour of TV.  I just don't like it.
• "The Doctors" and "Dr. Oz"
• Medical stuff?  And in a "talk show" format?  No, thank you. Not now, not ever.  This is pretty much how I feel about most "talk shows", but the medical aspect makes me hit the "next channel" button with record-breaking speed.  (I may have mentioned before-- in passing-- that I run screaming from serious medical/health-related stuff?  I was telling the truth. Fiction, non-fiction, fan fiction-- doesn't matter.  I don't like it.  I can barely fathom that there are enough people out there who do like it that programs like these stay on the air...)

- - - - - - -

When I pulled aside the curtain on our kitchen door this morning (preparing to open it to let Trixie out for her morning stroll), there were two deer standing right outside our gate!  That's probably the closest I've ever been to a wild deer.  I was so surprised I didn't notice if they were does, bucks, whatever.  (I tend to think neither of them had antlers, though.)

- - - - - - -

Sometime in the past month or two, Donald spotted a young armadillo rooting around in our side yard (outside the fence).  We got some photos and videos of it.  Maybe I'll get around to editing and uploading some of the video soon...  (What a treat for you all! ;o))

- - - - - - -

Someone ought to make a satire of The Rainbow Fish in which the rainbow-scaled fish is replaced by a fluffy-haired dog.  The other (short-haired) neighborhood dogs are jealous of Fluffy Dog's luxuriously long, silky fur and begin demanding that she share patches of it.  Fluffy Dog is guilted into giving away all her fur (after some exceptionally bad advice from a mysterious alley cat), and in the end, every dog in the 'hood has a patch of her fluffy fur.  Fluffy Dog herself now looks something like this:

...Only uglier.

The story continues for a page or two more to say that since the other dogs only liked (Formerly-)Fluffy Dog when and because she gave them her beautiful fur, their friendship is shallow and short-lived.  Soon, they're off pestering the new pup on the block (a poofy poodle) for a lock of his curly hair.  Fluffy Dog, realizing that she has given away her natural-born gifts for nothing-- to a group who don't even truly value them-- is left sad and alone.  Until her fur grows back in, that is.  Then the others will be back for more, because it isn't right that she should have something they don't have.

The End.  ;o)
(Maybe it's already been done?)

- - - - - - -

There are people actually looking forward to this new movie about golf.
I am baffled.

Of course, I am also fully aware of the fact that there are plenty of people who'd be baffled by the things I look forward to, so...

(That Cowboys & Aliens thing looks interesting, for example.)

- - - - - - -

Musical obsession of the moment-- Patrick O'Hearn's "Beyond This Moment":

Typical

Ugh!
Two days after I start using Grooveshark to put a music widget on this blog, they appear to have disabled that feature.  Man, do I have great timing, or what? 

Maybe this is temporary... Otherwise, annoyance.

Musical Resemblance

Do you ever listen to a song and think, "Wow, this really sounds like so-and-so (another band or singer).  I know it's not them, but there is definitely a resemblance!"?

The lead singer (only singer?) for The 88:

...sounds a lot like Rod Stewart to me:



(Maybe not particularly in that song, so much, but just in general.)

Then there's "Change of Heart" by El Perro Del Mar:



...which feels very Fleetwood Mac to me:



(Though "Dreams" may be a better match...)

Agree? Disagree? Don't care one way or t'other? ;o)

I Just Don't GET IT

Five Random Things I've Never Really "Gotten":


#1:  "NKOTB" and "boy bands" in general
That's just not my style of music. Besides, I thought the NKOTB guys were gross (and wasn't shy about saying so, I'm afraid).  New Kids on the Block were big when I was in about the 5th and 6th grades.  I was one of (I think) only two girls in our class who didn't swoon over them.  (You'd be surprised how big a deal that sort of thing can be for girls at that age.  It certainly played a role in who I spent time with and how I related to my female classmates for years to come.)  I still haven't completely forgiven NKOTB for existing. ;o)


#2:  Waxing
Nope, just not worth it-- not by a long shot.  Give me a good old-fashioned razor instead.  (Maybe this is TMI.  Oh well.)  Many women say something silly like, "This is the price we pay for beauty.  Bring it on!" (followed by the sound of hair being ripped from follicles-- and a stifled scream)... to which I reply, "I'm beautiful enough as I am, thanks all the same."  (Well, as beautiful as I'm going to get, waxing or no waxing.) 


#3:  Sunbathing / Tanning Beds
I probably have my mother to thank for this.  (And no, I'm not being sarcastic.  Seriously, thanks, Mom.)  She taught us young that cigarettes and sunbathing (among other things) were Bad For You.  We used sunscreen at the beach-- so on and so forth.  Result: I've never been tempted in the least to sunbathe or use a tanning bed.

(Some might argue that this isn't much of a feat, since my natural skin tone isn't that light.  Maybe... But I never understood why people thought being pale was a bad thing.  In fact, I've sometimes felt that those who hold out milky arms and legs, bemoaning their lack of a tan, might actually be fishing for compliments on their perfectly creamy complexions.  *shrug*)


#4:  SPAM & Pop-Ups
No, I don't love the edible SPAM, either, but what I really meant was computer SPAM-- and those incredibly annoying pop-up ads that some sites still persist in having.  I know in theory that the reason they exist is that someone, somewhere is clicking and buying the junk in the ads, but I just don't get WHY anyone would do so.  WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE??


#5:  Disease/Death-Centric Novels
You know the ones I mean?  Novels in which the main character or his/her love interest (or his/her family member or close friend) has a very limited life expectancy-- and that's the whole point of the book, apparently.  For examples, look at practically anything Lurlene McDaniel has ever written.  With titles like Mother, Please Don't Die...  Don't Die, My Love...  If I Should Die Before I Wake...  She Died Too Young...  Sixteen and Dying...  and Why Did She Have to Die, how can you go wrong?

I recognize that there may be a need for this type of book... When an adolescent has to deal with serious disease or death in her own life, she may benefit from reading about similar situations and how characters deal with them.  One could even argue that reading such books gives those as yet untouched by tragedy a better sense of what her friends may go through.  ...But the thing is, most of the teen/pre-teen girls I knew who read those types of titles didn't seem to be doing it for therapeutic reasons or to gain greater empathy.  They just liked the melodrama.  I, on the other hand, did not.  Nor do I now.  This is one of the reasons I don't watch medical dramas-- and if I start reading a book, only to discover that it's going to focus on something so utterly depressing, my first instinct is to get rid of the horrible thing ASAP.

(One exception:  The Blue Castle, by L.M. Montgomery.  But that one doesn't really count, for reasons I can't go into without spoiling the whole book.)

Found on Twitter

"Urban yodeling". 

Well, that term is new to me. 

It refers to the tendency of some singers (such as Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and far too many people who think they can sing better than they actually can) to draw out (or "oscillate") notes-- excessively, some would say. 

Yes, I remember when I first noticed singers doing that.  I think Whitney Houston was the first I noticed (or rather, a girl in a talent show singing one of Houston's songs)-- and ever since it was popularized (in the 90s?), it's been a menace to my ears. 

Nope, not a big fan of the urban yodeling, I have to admit.  I don't think I can take much rural yodeling, either.  All yodeling seems like one of those things that are more fun to do than to listen to.