Archive for November, 2009

27
Nov
09

70 Favorite Albums: 42. Bjork and the Brodsky Quartet Live at the Union Chapel

Artist:  Bjork and the Brodsky Quartet
Title:  Live at the Union Chapel
Released: 1999 Dec
Genre: Alternative Pop
Download: hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=TJDW07QP
Favorite Tracks:  Who do You Think You Are, Possibly Maybe, Hyperballad, I’ve Seen it All, Unravel, Bachelorette, Gotham Lullaby, Sod Off, It’s Oh So Quiet, 5 Years, Hunter, Anyone Who Had a Heart

I’m cheating a little here as this doesn’t seem to be an official release but I just love this so much, I mean how can you not? All my favorite Bjork songs + chamber music = heaven.

Listen: can’t find the first track (Unravel) in youtube, so I’m posting my favorite track instead

26
Nov
09

70 Favorite Albums: 43. In Rainbows

Artist:  Radiohead
Title:  In Rainbows
Released: 2007 Oct
Genre: Alternative Rock
Download: hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=18NU6XQ4
Favorite Tracks:  Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, All I Need, Up On a Ladder, 15 Step, Nude, Bodysnatchers, Jigsaw Falling into Place, Reckoner, Videotape, House of Cards, Faust Arp, Down is the New Up, Bangers & Mash

Yeah, I think I wrote almost every song. haha. I can just listen to this album the whole day. I guess you can say that about any Radiohead album, but this has the distinction of being the first full Radiohead album I listened to. (as I said yesterday, late convert.) And can I just say that if they ever make a movie/tv show/whatever about Radiohead, they should totally get John Simm to play Thom Yorke because…

…and my head will explode with awesomeness

Listen:

25
Nov
09

70 Favorite Albums: 44. When the Pawn…

Artist:  Fiona Apple
Title:  When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king what he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight and he’ll win the whole thing ‘fore he enters the ring there’s no body to batter when your mind is your might so when you go solo, you hold your own hand and remember that depth is the greatest of heights and if you know where you stand, then you know where to land and if you fall it won’t matter, cuz you’ll know that you’re right
Released: 1999 Nov
Genre: Alternative Pop
Download: hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?hkwzwyv0ymj
Favorite Tracks:  Paper Bag, Limp, Fast as You Can, On the Bound, Get Gone, Love Ridden, A Mistake

For the next few artists, I was a late convert to fanhood (I know right? How slow of me. haha.) It was mostly because I heard one or two songs I liked but never really listened to (ahem*downloaded*ahem) their albums. Well,  good thing I finally got around to it.

Listen:

24
Nov
09

70 Favorite Albums: 45. Want Two

Artist:  Rufus Wainwright
Title:  Want Two
Released: 2004 Nov
Genre: Baroque Pop
Download: hxxp://www.megaupload.com/?d=2BZ41UG0
Favorite Tracks:  Waiting for a Dream, The Art Teacher, Memphis Skyline, This Love Affair, The One You Love, Agnus Dei

Oh Rufus, you big drama queen, don’t ever change. (Really, that’s what I think whenever I think of Rufus Wainwright. haha.)

Listen:

23
Nov
09

70 Favorite Albums: 46. I am a Bird Now

Artist: Antony and the Johnsons
Title:  I am a Bird Now
Released: 2005 Feb
Genre: Baroque Pop
Download: hxxp://www.megaupload.com/es/?d=7EIZLEG0
Favorite Tracks:  Hope There’s Someone, Bird Gehrl, What Can I Do, Spiralling, Man is the Baby, Fistful of Love

Oh lord, his voice is just so gorgeous, it’s impossible not to love.

Listen:

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:




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.