My friend Sam showed me this video. The song is fun, though it seriously sounds like so many other songs I will probably get it confused with other ones.
What I really like in this video is all the cute clothes the girls are wearing. I would totally wear these outfits. I especially like the girl with the orange highlights and the pink mini coat that the girl with pigtails is wearing.
And Dwight! Gotta love Dwight. He would totally show up in a music video.
I hate to admit it, but I am not a music expert. When I heard that Teen Marie died, I had no idea who she was.
I like her work. This is "Ooh la la la." I would love to see someone do a cover of this song.
The video for "Lovergirl." I love the fashion that the Teena and her band are rocking. I'd love to wear a flashy blouse like that and the guy wearing the leather pants is really rocking them.
One of the other things I love Teena Marie for is not having a perfect body. So many of the images of women we have are really skinny and for most women, achieving that look means being abusive of yourself. I love that Teena Marie is proud of her imperfect body and that no one in these videos seems to hate her body.
Given this special day, I'm posting a favorite Christmas song, "White Wine in the Sun." I love this cover; Kate Miller-Heidke is lovely. I love the detail of "socks, jocks and chocolates."
Merry Christmas everyone. :)
I was reading this interview with a member of Thievery Corporation. I'm not taking issue with anything said in the interview, just with the detail that audience members didn't like the politics in Massive Attack's part of the show. (They're on tour together.)
This really irks me, because their latest album, Heligoland, is political. And not in a bad way. "Atlas Air," for example, is about torture. "The Flat of the Blade" is about the recent stabbings in South London. Audience members apparently couldn't see what politics had to do with the music, but if you're listening to the music, you know the answer.
And, seriously, check the album out. It's amazing.
I guess I'm just having a video kind of day. I found this lecture by Ann Hansen about Direct Action. Hansen is usually considered an anarchist, and much of her work and writing is about bringing down the oppressive nature of capitalism. She also has a memoir about her experiences.
I like how you can hear the Canadian accent in her voice too.
I've been listening to folk music tonight, so I thought I'd post some of them.
I love "The Water is Wide." I first discovered this song when I was about thirteen, through Charlotte Church, who did a cover of it. Years later, I was in a choir that actually sang this song, which was really nice, because often when you're in a choir, you're learning totally new songs you're unfamiliar with (or at least I was), so it was a nice change of pace to sing a song I already knew and liked. This is a cover by Pete Seeger. I was reading about him today and the article noted he had done this song, so I knew I had to go looking for it. I assume he's doing the guitar playing, since I don't really hear much of his voice. He's talking in bits and pieces of it, but it sounds like a choir is doing the singing. I would love to be in a choir that got to work with Seeger. Given his speaking parts, I'm curious to hear this song done with more chanting than singing.
What I really love about this song is how sad the ending is. It basically says that love doesn't last, which is not a sentiment you hear very often in music, especially in what melodically sounds like a very peaceful and happy song.
Charlotte Church and Enya singing "The Water is Wide." This is the version of the song I first became familiar with when I was younger. I'm not really sure why this video cited Enya as singing the song as well, since I don't hear her at all. Perhaps she produced it?
Pete Seeger's "We Shall Not Be Moved."
Pete Seeger's cover of "Somagwaza." This is an African song, which really fascinates me, since I really enjoy African music. This is from a concert that Seeger gave where the audience basically sang along with every song. This audience sounds really good. I wish I had been there at that concert, because it sounds like it was tons of fun. Sadly, at a certain point this video cuts out and then suddenly picks up again. Seeger singing the high part actually sounds really good. A lot of men have a hard time singing high notes, but Seeger manages to sound like his throat is really open, making it sound natural. Also, there is clearly a woman singing the high part too, and she sounds amazing too.
Pete Seeger singing "Jacob's Ladder."
Pete Seeger singing the folk song "Greensleeves." I developed an appreciation for this song well before I knew Seeger had done a version of it. I find this cover to be the most haunting version of it, especially since there are no words, just the humming. The lute (is that a lute?) is also especially haunting. This song is appropriate for the end of fall, just as winter begins to take over.
As a final note, I'd just like to share with you a quote from Seeger I really enjoyed: "Us born-again atheists sing a lot of Christian hymns."
Wednesday night I was informed that there was a Quidditch World Cup. I thought this was pretty brillant. What no one told me was that my school, Michigan State University, would be playing. So basically, in addition to the football games I usually think about on Saturday, tomorrow I'm going to be thinking about the Qudditch Game.
I love the above video. This was taken a few years ago, but it includes a couple of my friends, Virginia and Bailey. I'm so proud of them for participating.
I really want to go to this. I really want to cheer and say things like "Tonight we dine IN THE GREAT HALL!"
One of my ex-roommates pointed me to this first great video of Conan scrubbing up his desk for his new late night gig. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I'm disappointed to see him not take his shirt off. (The little bit we can see through the dark t-shirt is pretty intriguing.) This is just meant to be funny, but I think it's like that moment where Conan is playing guitar over his friends playing Guitar Hero; hilarious but also very attractive.
I started watching Conan back in middle school, back when they would play him in the evenings before the previous night's Daily Show. I loved him and spent a lot of time thinking he would make a great boyfriend just because he'd be random and strange all the time, but in an endearing way, not in the creepy or embarrassing way that sometimes happens.
So, yeah, I'm excited for Conan to be bringing sexy back, even if I don't really have a tv right now.
Daniel once commented that he didn't like Evanescence's second album, The Open Door. After I got over the shock of imagining Daniel listening to Evanescence, I found myself comparing the two albums.
I love The Open Door. Second albums tend to be the same thing from bands, but this was distinct and different and extraordinary baroque in its darkness and fury and pain. I love how unafraid it is to be so demonstrative. A lot of people would mock that, but Evanescence embraces it.
Probably my favorite song on the album is "Like You," which is about losing a loved one. Apparently Amy Lee wrote it about losing her sister. I love my sister, and I know, without a doubt in my mind, that I would throw myself in front of a bus for her. Or anything else large and deadly, for that matter. If I lost my sister, I don't think I could begin to deal with my despair. And somehow that makes this song all the better for me.
"Cloud Nine" at one point samples a section of Mozart's infamous Requiem. For a long time I could hear it in the song, and it would nag at me, because I was certain I was hearing something I knew. A couple of years ago I was listening to Requiem and I realized what it was about this song. And I love that about so much music: finding little things in it long after I've listened to it over and over again. I probably do this because I have no music knowledge whatsoever and am slow. But it tickles me all the same.
And it's the little touches that make this album for me. Introductions like in "Snow White Queen" and "Lacymosa" have wonderfully little additions that add up to lovely sounds. I wish more rock was produced like this.
None of this is to say their first album, Fallen, is bad. Far from it. But Fallen is a much more subdued set of songs; it's not as angry, it's a more stripped down sound.
I happened upon this post about recently banned books. I notice they're almost all young adult books, which makes me shake my head and quote a particularly great rapper: Parents just don't understand.
If you look at that list, you don't seen poetry books by Charles Bukowski or novels by John Updike. No, it's the stuff that teens read. I feel terrible having read only two of the books on that list, but some of these books weren't even out when I was a teen, and I can already tell you, my teen!self would be totally all over at least one of them just based on the title alone.
And if there's anything my parents failed to do, it was stopping me reading, especially if I decided I needed to read it. I worked through a lot of romance novels and religious books as a teen because I wanted to.
So, besides all the other problems with censoring books, I'm pretty sure it's a useless endeavor because bookish teens are usually the last people who are going to be told what they can't or shouldn't read. And if anything probably encourages them, it's telling them no. I can say from personal experience that it is really easy to hide books from your parents. I just removed the jackets of my Danielle Steele books and put all my religious books under the bed for easy night time access. (That's right: normal teens put porn under their bed; I put The Book of Mormon.)
So make sure you celebrate banned book week by doing something naughty: getting into bed with an "illicit" book. Trust me when I say it doesn't have to be a dramatic choice like Story of O.
Clearly, I'm having a strange day, because I have videos to show you of various great songs from Tom Lehrer.
This one is called "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park," which is delightful as it sounds. It starts off as a nice song, you think it's going to be about a nice song, and no, it turns into a silly song about doing something no one sane or decent would do.
I love that he wrote a parody of the kinds of songs that you might hear in a college. I love that he introduces the song by saying that everyone at these reunions gets "soggy with nostalgia." This sounds a lot like those alumni songs, and indeed, it is related to a certain alumni song...
...like this one.
Lehrer reminds me vaguely of Victor Borge, who is most famous for combining classical music and comedy. My friend Philip introduced me almost six years ago. (He had Borge only on cassette tape, so he had to work to make me a copy of it.) He made classical music, and its preposterous nature, fun, sort of like Lehrer, who makes fun of lots of different kinds of music. Here, he dances around with someone while trying to work through Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2.
I stood in Jimmy's room, trying to ignore all the signs of life that I would normally find interesting. I was on the phone with my Dad.
"Can I come home a little later?" I asked. I figured the answer would be no, because my Grandma was in the hospital, again. And to some degree, rightly so.
"Why?"
"I got invited to a brunch with some friends."
"Okay."
I was relieved. I wanted to squeeze out every last drop of goodness from this trip, especially since it looked like I wouldn't be coming home to anything good. I had a bunch of business to attend to immediately coming home.
This trip ended up being far more stressful than I thought it would be, mostly because the problems that I had last semester (my Grandma being sick, friends needing support, my various boy problems) all flared up again. Mostly, it made me think that for all my trying to move on, nothing has really changed yet. It's been a disappointment, to be honest. I steeled myself to go back out to everyone.
Luckily, no one asked what the phone call was about. Maybe, given what they know about me, they could have already guessed.
Paul was working on shredding cheese for our meal. Jimmy was cutting up onions. There was nothing for me to do (though I offered to pay for my bit of the meal), so I watched.
"That's some great cutting," I told Jimmy. It looked like the moves you see on one of those cooking programs.
Jimmy didn't say anything, as usual.
"Jimmy won't take a compliment," I explained to Ben, who was sitting at Jimmy's computer in the living room area. Ben laughed. "I'm working on him."
Ben, meanwhile, was watching YouTube videos, everyone's favorite way to blow off time. He told us he really liked Old Spice commercials, which sort of baffles me, because there's something gross and sleazy about so many of them. We found one featuring everyone's favorite child star, Neil Patrick Harris.
Then Paul got on my political hero, Robert Byrd. After looking awhile, we found what I consider his best speech, where he tells people he's older. Ben watched it and said it was a really good speech.
Once Jimmy finished the dinner, we ate. It was delicious. Everyone fell silent as we ate. Jimmy said that was a huge compliment in itself. I'd be happy to have Jimmy cook for me all the time.
Ben, it turns out, is a fan of Doctor Who. Perhaps someone tipped him off to my love about it, because we got talking about it. He was telling me he had just watched "The Lodger."
"That's the episode right before the two episode season finale." Don't be surprised by this recall of mine. I often am the one correcting people's knowledge of the show.
They were apparently showing that first episode of the finale, which I told him was good. He was all baffled by my geekiness. Get used to it, I thought.
We then started on the dishes.
I spent the evening with Erin and Nori. Erin recently moved into this new place, so I was unfamiliar with everything. Earlier in the evening John and Liz had stopped by. Liz wanted to go to Pinball Pete's, which I had never been to.
One of the few regrets I have about college is that I didn't do as many social things as I wish I had. I spent a lot of my Saturday's working on homework, which is really sad. It panned out, I guess, in that I had excellent marks, but now that I have nothing better to do, I find myself wanting to make up for lost time.
Liz said they'd be back soon, so the three of us waited around for her to call us back. I find myself wanting to go out to the bar and try new drinks and have some nice conversation.
Erin decided she was going to start text bombing people. What this apparently involves several people texting someone else a nonsense phrase. Erin first decided to try Matt (which I wished she wouldn't, because I still have to talk to him and have tentative plans to hang out with him in a few days), and then focused her energy on Jonathan, her roommate.
"Where is John?" I asked.
"Luda," Nori said.
What? "Luda?"
"Ludacris."
Oh, man, I really must be getting old. I had no idea that Ludacris went by Luda now.
Matt texted back, asking what this was all about. Then Jonathan, who doesn't even know my number, texted me back some choice phrases.
Then Erin and Nori started telling me stories about their hometown. I've heard so much about it at this point that I suspect I could talk about it like I lived there. (Though I think of this as a good thing.) They started on Hannah Bethel, who I though was a fictional person until they showed me this:
It's not a bad song, per se, but it's not really impressive either. It just seems to be a rehashing of a bunch of tropes common in country music. Also, the backroads thing just makes me thing of inappropriate things.
"She's not that good," Nori said. I agree, but mostly because my favorite music is the stuff that is different from other things I've already seen.
Erin and Nori and I played mop baseball, which is this game we made up where you take a mop and try to hit a bouncy ball.
Then we went up the stairs to Erin and John's room. It was a mess in a way that reminds me of every picture I've ever seen of Kurt Cobain's homes. The only nice thing was this beautiful mural on the wall and ceiling of a tree. Whoever did that did a really nice job. It looked great.
As we were talking, I was spouting off hilarious zingers after another. I don't know why but sometimes I get into this mood where everything that comes out of my mouth is funny and strange. "You don't have to act like you're in a sitcom," Erin commented. Okay, I guess that's my cue to tone it down a little.
Nori was playing all this cool music. Nori herself is a musician, and a very talented one. I love listening to her stuff. "I wish I was twenty-one," she said. "So that I could go out dancing."
I feel the exact same way. I always want to go out and dance.
