21
Nov
09

The I-Really-Should-Finish-Fixing-My-Library-But-I’m-Gonna-Flood-You-With-YouTube-Videos-Instead Post

Sorry about the short hiatus, I became  too busy/sleepy/lazy to schedule the albums list so it’ll continue next week. In the meantime, I spent half the day in teh internetz so I just have to share:

Merlin Children in Need Special

Yay for Shirtless Arthur! and Uther Pendragon answering that cellphone…hilarious!

Doctor Who Children in Need Special

since I can’t say it enough: bring on the Simm!Master! I am so totally ready for a new Doctor because I still miss Nine. darn you Eccleston, couldn’t you have stayed at least another year?!

speaking of leaving doctors… David Tennant as Hamlet

thou knowst ’tis common all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity
aye madam it is common
if it be why seems it so particularly with thee?

I can’t watch this without hearing Saltillo’s trip-hop beats in the background and thanks to that, I can quote Hamlet now! (well, this part at least and the get thee to a nunnery conversation with Ophelia) so lieten to Saltillo!

TAKESHI KANESHIRO AND TONY LEUNG ARE IN THE SAME MOVIE!

really, there’s nothing else you need to know. I miss you, Takeshi Kaneshiro. Please make more movies preferably without the facial hair. k tnx bye.

speaking of hot guys…Beastly teaser trailer without the awesome that is Neil Patrick Harris

Alex Pettyfer is freakishly beautiful yet somewhat annoying when he speaks. Vanessa Hudgens is yet again the  pretty token love interest and still annoying when she speaks. But maybe it’s just the ominous cracktastic voiceover. That said, I hope they don’t muck up this Beauty and the Beast adaptation especially since it’s depriving me of the cute and cuddly furred Beast I love (ie Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and La Belle et La Bete)  and where the hell is Neil Patrick Harris?

and lastly because this is so cute…the Elbow cover of Independent Women (by Destiny’s Child)

17
Nov
09

70 Favorite Albums: 47. The Baroness

Artist:  Sarah Slean
Title:  The Baroness
Released: 2008 Mar
Genre: Pop
Download: hxxp://rapidshare.com/files/163301620/Sarah_Slean_-_The_Baroness.rar
Favorite Tracks:  Shadowland, Please Be Good to Me, Hopeful Hearts, Get Home, Euphoria,  So Many Miles, Looking for Someone

I love Sarah Slean and can’t seem to find any of her earlier albums so this wins by default but oh what a lovely default nonetheless. (and if you know where I can find her early albums, tell me. haha.)

Listen:

16
Nov
09

70 Favorie Albums: 48. Ganglion

Artist:  Saltillo
Title:  Ganglion
Released: 2006 Dec
Genre: Trip-hop / neo-classical
Download: *EDIT* most of the links on google search seem password protected so go here. The uploader provides the link and password. :)
Favorite Tracks:  A Hair on the Head of John the Baptist, Giving In, The Opening, A Necessary End, Grafting

Forgive me if I lapse into hyperbole and say that this is probably the best trip-hop album you’re not listening to, deftly weaving chamber music, electronica and spoken word together, referencing among others, Shakespeare (Hamlet in “A Hair on  the Head of John the Baptist”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“Blood and Milk”). Of course, music is highly subjective, so give it a listen and you might love it as much as I do.

Listen:

13
Nov
09

70 Favorite Albums: 49. Lo-Fi

Artist: Bosques de Mi Mente (Forests of My Mind)
Title: LO-FI
Released: 2007
Genre: Minimalism, Lo-Fi
Download: http://www.archive.org/details/ca104_bdmm
Favorite TracksPaseo 1, primavera (Walk 1, Spring), Los titanicos esfuerzos de una bicicleta oxidada por avanzar (The titanic efforts of a rusty bicycle to move), Un nino que ya no existe jugando con el viejo piano (A boy who no longer exists playing with the old piano), Paseo 2, verano [la nina de Hiroshima] (Walk 2, Summer [the girl of Hiroshima]), Tormenta de verano (Summer Storm), El amanecer reflejado en tus ojos, Parte 1 (The dawn reflected in your eyes, Part 1), Paseo 3, otono (Walk 3, Fall), El mensaje de las ballenas (The Message of the Whales), El amanecer reflejado en tus ojos, Parte 2 (The dawn reflected in your eyes, Part 2), Paseo 4, invierno [el largo y tedioso camino a casa] (Walk 4, winter [the long and tedious way home]), Cuando se hayan ido todos, tan solo quedara el crujir de sus columpios al viento (When all are gone, only the crunch of the swing in the wind remains)

Whew! Sorry had to yahoo!translate the titles because they’re really lovely. Really, few artists can capture such perfect melancholy so be sure to check out his other albums “Trenes de Juguete”, “Ruido Blanco”,  and “Inocencia” which he shares for free in the internet, because in his words:

Music is art, a subjective expression of reality, and as such it enriches everyone that listen, so I think each form of art should be available for everyone, and that’s why my music is under Creative Commons licenses, allowing you to download, share, copy and distribute it.

Another reason to love Bosques de mi mente.

Listen:

12
Nov
09

70 Favorite Albums: 50. Lantern

Artist: Lantern
Title: Clogs
Released: 2006
Genre: Post-Rock, Instrumental
Download: hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?adxirbcoxmz
Favorite Tracks: Kapsburger, Canon, 5/4, 2:3:5, Death and the Maiden, Lantern, Tides of Washington Bridge, The Song of the Cricket, Fiddlegree, Compass, Voisins, Tides

Yes, I put everything on favorite tracks because everything is beautiful in its own way. In fact, I fell in love as soon as I pressed play and something like Philip Glass on a guitar emerged. In fact the whole album sounds like all my favorite film scores rolled into one (some tracks remind me of Clint Mansell) but is still uniquely itself.

Listen:

11
Nov
09

70 Favorite Albums: 51. Youth Novels

Artist: Lykke Li
Title: Youth Novels
Released: Jan 2008
Genre: Pop/Electronica
Download: hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?vjhuwx4vz1i
Favorite Tracks: Little Bit, I’m Good I’m Gone, Dance Dance Dance, Let it Fall, Breaking it Up, Time Flies

There are three things from Sweden that I absolutely adore: Alexander Skarsgard, that “There’s a party in Sweden pants and you’re all invited” tourism video (search it in youtube…hysterical!) and Lykke Li. Just listen to her sing in the bathroom here, she’s amazing:

Listen:

10
Nov
09

70 Favorite Albums: 52. Barb4ry

Artist: Ez3kiel
Title: Barb4ry
Released: 2004
Genre: Experimental / Trip-hop
Download: hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?lucset2e0gb
Favorite Tracks: Kika, Akik, Phantom Land, 3 Rue Monplaisir

If you love music that mixes the classical with electronic (like me) this is one band to listen to. On another note, Sufjan Stevens who I discovered after I began this list does it perfectly so discover him too, if you haven’t.

Listen:




ah ahm vahmpyrrr!

"Vous m’avez dit “Je t’aime.” Je vous ai it “Attendez.” J’ai Presque dit “Oui.” Vous avez dit “Partez.”" (You told me “I love you.” I told you “Wait.” I almost said “Yes.” You said “Go away.”) ~ from Jules et Jim by Francois Truffaut

Ayn Marie Dimaya: Fangirling since 2003

Bittergrace is derived from the hebrew variants of her first names: hannah loosely meaning "graced" and miriam loosely meaning "sea of bitterness".

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Recent Viewings

Strings
(Anders Rønnow Klarlund, 2004
Mad Men Season 2
(Matthew Weiner, 2008)
G.I. Joe
(Stephen Sommers, 2009)
And I Love You So
(Laurenti Dyogi, 2009)
Bones Season 4
(Hart Hanson, 2008)
How I Met Your Mother Season 4
(Carter Bays & Craig Thomas, 2008)
House Season 5
(David Shore, 2008)

Recent Books

Skylight Confessions
by Alice Hoffman
Echo
by Francesca Lia Block
Verses
by Ani DiFranco
Changeling
by Kristin Cashore
Briar Rose
by Robert Coover
Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea
by Chelsea Handler
Fragile Eternity
by Melissa Marr

Recent Songs

Wicked Girls Saving Ourselves
by Seanan McGuire
(2008)

Wendy played fair, and she played by the rules that they gave her;
They say she grew up and grew old -- Peter Pan couldn't save her.
They say she went home, and she never looked back,
Got her feet on the ground, got her life on its track.
She's the patron saint priestess of all the lost girls who got found.
And she once had her head in the clouds, but she died on the ground.

Dorothy just wanted something that she could believe in,
A gray dustbowl girl in a life she was better off leavin'.
She made her escape, went from gray into green,
And she could have got clear, and she could have got clean,
But she chose to be good and go back to the gray Kansas sky
Where color's a fable and freedom's a fairy tale lie.

Dorothy, Alice and Wendy and Jane,
Susan and Lucy, we're calling your names,
All the Lost Girls who came out of the rain
And chose to go back on the shelf.
Tinker Bell says, and I find I agree
You have to break rules if you want to break free.
So do as you like -- we're determined to be
Wicked girls saving ourselves.

Alice got lost, and I guess that we really can't blame her;
They say she got tangled and tied in the lies that became her.
They say she went mad, and she never complained,
For there's peace of a kind in a life unconstrained.
She gives Cheshire kisses, she's easy with white rabbit smiles,
And she'll never be free, but she's won herself safe for a while.

Susan and Lucy were queens, and they ruled well and proudly.
They honored their land and their lord, rang the bells long and loudly.
They never once asked to return to their lives
To be children and chattel and mothers and wives,
But the land cast them out in a lesson that only one learned;
And one queen said 'I am not a toy', and she never returned.

Mandy's a pirate, and Mia weaves silk shrouds for faeries,
And Deborah will pour you red wine pressed from sweet poisoned berries.
Kate poses riddles and Mary plays tricks,
While Kaia builds towers from brambles and sticks,
And the rules that we live by are simple and clear:
Be wicked and lovely and don't live in fear --

For we will be wicked and we will be fair
And they'll call us such names, and we really won't care,
So go, tell your Wendys, your Susans, your Janes,
There's a place they can go if they're tired of chains,
And our roads may be golden, or broken, or lost,
But we'll walk on them willingly, knowing the cost --
We won't take our place on the shelves.
It's better to fly and it's better to die
Say the wicked girls saving ourselves.