Welcome to my little corner...All over the map with thoughts, I'm just here to blog about different things: life, music, stuffed animals, restaurants, shops, dreams, film, books, magazines, short stories, food, the sometimes silly, drink, feelings, love and tons more...
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
I saw this on Pinterest and wanted to share it with anyone who needs it.
So far, this year is not off to the great start I wanted it to have.
But I'm not giving up...I'll work harder with my different situations and accept what can never be. And though I don't think love is in my future that doesn't mean I can't find other ways to share with people (if that makes sense.)
Until I can see things through better, I plan on blogging less. I just want to get my life back to where it used to be a long time ago. I want to be peaceful again, if not happy. And I hope anyone else looking for that finds it as well.
Until next time...be safe and warm, no matter the weather. :)
Saturday, January 24, 2015
hugs, life without daily human touch, skin hunger, dreams...the intangible is haunting my mind
Today someone accidentally bumped into me and quickly apologized. I said it was okay immediately and then realized it was not only okay, I was almost grateful, since it's so rare I experience human touch unless I hug a good friend or she hugs me.
I joked about it with another friend who was there at the time and she said, perfectly seriously, "There's a name for that."
When I asked her what she meant she told me the term was "skin hunger," which I'd never heard used before:
When you've been without a date for a long, long time, haven't seen your Mom for ages, and no one has hugged you forever and you need someone to touch and hug you, that's skin hunger.
To complicate things I'd been having the same dream each night this week that someone was hugging me (a pure and simple hug) and that each time I woke from the dream it was almost a physical pain to discover it wasn't real.
My dreams (as I imagine a lot of people's are) often hurt because they feel so real. I sometimes wonder why more people don't talk about them on a regular basis, they're so fascinating...
Sometimes dreams and longing for something you can never have are one and the same...they certainly are both equally elusive.
it's funny, heartfelt in a
non-sentimental manner and kind of Dickensian in its narrative (though
in a much lighter way). It's not a romance at all, but more a fictional
look at how much one woman can affect another woman's life. If you
remember the first person you ever looked up to with love and pure
adoration, then this book is for you...
At school I remembered how I daydreamed while
doodling wobbly profiles of beautiful women in the margins of my
exercise books. Women I would mean everything to, women I would save.
There was never any doubt in my mind that I could save them and yet
within a few fleeting years Aunt Ed, the first (and maybe only) woman
I’d ever
love, was dead.
Friday, January 23, 2015
This is exactly what I needed to see today and at the right time too. Though I think I like more than seven out of 500 people, I relate to all the rest :)
If you hit the link with the second picture you can better read what is on the other side of the bag.
I went to the liquor store to get some wine and they were out of the only screw top pinot grigio they sell. I went with some Moscato instead. Screw top is supposed to be easier to open and I wanted to try something new.
I've only been to the liquor store three times in the past year, but I know enough to know corkscrews and I don't get along. I keep reminding myself of my limited history of visits to that kind of store as I worry that I like wine when I always thought I didn't. Apparently, though, it's only pinot I like because I'm not liking what I'm drinking this evening.
To be completely honest, the only reason I ended up opening the bottle is because I'm stubborn. When I first got home I wanted a sip to unwind from what has turned out to be a very emotional week. I tried twisting one way, then the other.
I tried pulling and pummeling and knocking...nothing. The screw top was screwing me over big time. Now I only wanted the drink because I couldn't have it.
I hate giving up, especially on simple things, so I watched videos (yes, there are videos for opening screw top wines) and read online articles....still nothing. I couldn't budge it.
Then I found this guy* two hours later (while I was doing other things) and (yes!) it worked. The video, unlike the others I watched, offeres more than one option and clearly displays the handling of the bottle and each technique. Plus, the man is so pleasant.
I'm not happy because I got the wine open (at first I thought the bottle wasn't opening because God was trying to show me I am just not meant for alcohol) but because I didn't give up...I kept trying. It reminded me that the whole reason I wanted to have some wine in the first place was because I've been feeling a bit defeated lately.
And while looking up Moscato wine I discovered it comes from muscat, a family of grapes, with over 200 varieties. I'd rather learn something new than drink wine anyway.
Honesty...the woman can't carry a tune that well, but when Jessica Lange takes center stage and sings David Bowie you kind of can't help but want to watch. "Heroes" is definitely not her strong suit, but she's not half bad when she covers "Life on Mars."
This season of American Horror Story was off and on dreadful, but the last fifteen minutes of the finale almost redeemed the entire thirteen episode run and not just because my favorite living actress sang my favorite song ever, David Bowie's "Heroes."
Jessica Lange is never better than when she plays sad and very tormented divas. As Elsa Mars in Freak Show she oddly veers between being the queen of mean and being a very insecure woman, sometimes both at the same time.
There's one particular scene in "Curtain Call" that shows just how powerful the actress is when she embraces emotion. Having waited all day for the head of tv network only to find out he slipped out the back, Elsa loses it and slaps the receptionist when she offers a bit of unsought advice: "If you ask me, change your act. Marlene did it better."
Following that (and a tussle with a studio security guard) she falls onto the floor a crumpled mess of exhausted desperation. The look in her eyes, genuine and haunting (along with the way she says "My name is Elsa Mars" to the man who helps her), is one of the greatest moments in all of AHS's fourth incarnation.
Once Elsa's dreams come true after moving to Hollywood and getting "discovered," she realizes that dreams can quickly turn to nightmares. Soon, all she wants is for things to be the way they once were when she was happy with all her "monsters" and running her "freak show" in Juniper, Florida.
The last few minutes of "Curtain Call" are so easy to understand and just feel. The minute Elsa agrees to do her variety program live on Halloween (Elsa never performs on Halloween for interesting reasons made clear early on in the season) you know her life has gotten bad enough that she wants to die (or go to Hell)...either option is okay with her.
When she began singing "Heroes," I thought this is it, this is as good as my life gets. I wasn't being sarcastic, but for that moment felt the most bliss I'd experienced in weeks, as pathetic as that may sound. Freak Show might have mostly been bad this year but when it was good it was very good.
Elsa's performance is cut short because Edward Mordrake (it's a long back story, let's just say he knows his way around Hell) comes calling. Instead of punishing her, though, he sends Elsa back to when she was most herself, in Juniper, Florida, singing and being with her beloved "monsters."
It's kind of cheesy and might seem like way more than she should get, but considering Elsa's horrid past and few (but very sincere) attempts to be human (plus throw in this is probably Jessica Lange's last time on AHS), the lavish ending is kind of fitting.
"I just...I need to be with someone I love."-Elsa says to the man (Massimo Dolcefino, played by Danny Huston) she once hoped to be with before all her dreams crashed and burned.
Work closed early because of snow and so it makes a cozy night of reading at home. I pulled Helen MacInnes (so underrated, I think) off the shelf and am really liking While Still We Live.
Not too long ago, the New York Times ran an article largely about her and the times she was writing about in her novels:
This year’s news felt disarmingly retro. Israel bombing Gaza. Russia invading portions of Ukraine. A nuclear arsenal ramp-up by both America and Russia. Had we traveled back in time to the 1980s, albeit with a millisecond-long news cycle sped up by smartphones and social media?
My response was to time-travel too, after a fashion. If the present is explained by the past, might espionage fiction, especially the 20th-century variety, help us understand the cycles of history and perhaps even help us make better choices?
Choosing the right guide was critical: Eric Ambler seemed too distant. John le Carré, too in tune with the present. Robert Littell or Charles McCarry? Adam Hall or Len Deighton? All excellent in varying ways, but not quite right. Instead, I chose the only major female spy novelist, unsurprisingly the most ignored by her peers, the kind of woman writer Ken Follett derided as producing plots that were “just a channel through which a love story can flow.”
Helen MacInnes (1907-85) was born and raised in Glasgow but spent much of her 40-year career living and working in New York City. She drew on her extensive research and travel, and her marriage to Gilbert Highet, a classics scholar at Columbia University (and agent for British intelligence), to portray Cold War intrigue with a keen understanding of the machinations of power. Documents declassified in the late 1990s revealed just how acutely the couple understood the rise of Nazism and Fascism.
Photo
Credit Triangle Books
Highet first worked for the British Security Coordination (an umbrella organization encompassing MI5, the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6 and others that operated out of Rockefeller Center) during World War II. He would maintain links to MI6, preparing influential psychological profiles of Nazi leaders including Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and Himmler, supposedly anticipating many of their decisions, and at the end of the war was tasked with drafting a key report that was rejected for being “too dry and academic” (it was revised in part by Roald Dahl).
It’s tempting to imagine Richard and Frances Myles, the adventurous married couple of MacInnes’s debut, “Above Suspicion,” as stand-ins for the Highets — and indeed MacInnes based the novel on diary entries she kept while on her honeymoon in Bavaria. Troubled by Nazi activity, she documented the instances of violence she witnessed and, years later, revisited her notes to create the story of a couple looking for an anti-Nazi agent while seemingly on holiday.
The flavor of much of MacInnes’s work — some 21 novels including “Decision at Delphi,” “The Salzburg Connection” and “Message From Málaga” — depended on a vibrant sense of place, suspense and Iron Curtain paranoia. The specter of Soviet influence as antagonist hovered over the volumes, be it in the form of disinformation techniques like mind control (“The Venetian Affair”), journalists naïvely swearing fervent oaths to the Communist cause (“Neither Five Nor Three”) or details from a propaganda conference (“Ride a Pale Horse”). No wonder MacInnes counted the C.I.A. chief Allen Dulles as a loyal fan.
But I found myself gravitating toward MacInnes’s heroines: “While Still We Live,” which chronicles the transformation of a young Englishwoman into a resistance fighter, or “I and My True Love,” in which the suspense derives as much from a woman’s love for a possible Communist spy as it does from her attempts to escape her smothering and much older diplomat husband. The most addicting quality of MacInnes’s novels is her utter lack of sentimentality. She was entirely without illusions about human nature. Her characters choose mates as much for love as for practicality; they are full of ambivalence and wary of ideology. To them, Communism, religion, nationalism are invitations to moral corruption and violence.
But her pragmatism was not without wit and optimism. “We have paid too much attention to political differences, just as we used to pay too much attention to religious differences,” she wrote in “While Still We Live.” “Nowadays the word Communist or Fascist rouses the same emotions as Protestant and Catholic once caused. If these religious factions can learn to live together by giving up all persecution and forms of torture, it is quite possible that a future world will see many forms of political ideology living and working side by side.”
Seventy years later, that hope remains, yet it seems we must learn these lessons anew. And if, in our ignorance of history, we are too overwhelmed to reckon with it outright, the novels of Helen MacInnes provide the grim lessons we need under the guise of suspenseful entertainments.
Les Yeux sans Visage is one of the best films I've seen in ages, yet it is also almost unbearable to watch, both for its horror and its heartbreak.
I can't say much about it without spoiling things since the fact that you don't quite know what is going on in the beginning is exactly what pulls you in and adds to the overall creepiness.
Actress Edith Scob wears a mask most of the time, but that only adds to the underlying sadness and beauty of the film and her presence (and those eyes of hers) is what gives the movie its only humanity. I have never ever seen anything like Les Yeux nor been so affected by a horror film.
I was so overwhelmed by the film's mood the other night I had to turn the lights back on in my living room and watch some "Golden Girls" episodes before I could go to sleep.
Just some FYI: Billy Idol based the title of his song "Eyes Without A Face" on this movie.
I don't think I truly realized how un-pretty I was until I hit middle school and I started hearing the word "ugly" tossed around. Insulated by the constant comfort that I just didn't really care about being popular or having boys like me I mostly ignored the taunts about my weird hair and the clothes I wore. I tried my best to just read during recess (when I was allowed to) and homeroom and just pretended the world around me did not exist.
I was lucky that my being teased was not 24/7 and only a matter of who was around at the wrong time. Art class was fun, for instance, because I had nice classmates there and at our table we would always talk about Duran Duran or Boy George before the last bell rang. Plus, our teacher was awesome. She encouraged us to be free spirits with our drawing. Of course the very fact that I liked my teachers and did well in school was also part of why I was such an easy target.
It was always the girls who were cruel, not the boys. Sure, some of the boys would say mean things and call me "weirdo" or "brillo pad" or "orphan Annie," but it was the girls who got violent or really knew how to hurt with their words. I remember one girl threatening me for not letting her copy off me during a test. I was afraid and started running down the hall when a small group of the kids who always tried to sneak cigarettes in during lunch stood in front of me and the girl to buzz off. To this day, I have an affinity for smokers.
I am very grateful that I was a teenager in the 80s and not now when social media can mean being bullied long after the school day is over. The worst part about not being pretty and the way people treat you because of that isn't the cruelness experienced in middle school for being different. That pain goes away in time and, in some ways, can make you stronger and more ready for what comes later.
Sometimes the girl who isn't asked out all school who becomes invisible later on in life. I think I grew into my non-looks so that instead of being picked on I just became a non-entity in the world of love and romance. And, in a way, I'm almost grateful to the teasers for helping me learn early in life that I may always be a wallflower...and that I'm okay with that.
Still, for those who are tormented much worse than I was, the damage is not always slight:
Nylon is for a younger crowd (I'd say 20somethings through early 30s) but the magazine always has great book and music reviews. I've already listened to "I'm Not Falling Asleep" and can't wait to hear the rest of the album when it's released on February 3rd.
Funny Girl by Nick Hornby is getting lots of buzz and is mini-reviewed below as is Miranda July's The First Bad Man.
The lyrics aren't very long, but they get to the point and along with the music reach a sadness that can really pull at your heart:
When will I ever be safe from myself If the danger all lies between heaven and hell? When I close my eyes, I'm not falling asleep, I am opening drawers, I am sifting through papers.
Please stay a while, I'm not falling asleep
Though it's well after the holidays, I still enjoyed Joanne Lee's holiday tale a lot. Adorable, plus incredibly sweet and tender, AnUnexpected
Gift is indeed unexpected in just how nice it is.
In between the sweet, though, is a lot of sorrow. The main character lost her the love of her life five years ago and has never been the same since. Most of her days are spent being the "queen of mean" while her nights are ones of drinking by herself:
Solitude had not only been her safety net over the past several years; she had also craved it. Sometimes she wondered if working all day and returning all alone to an empty home even consisted of living.
I had no clue
something so tiny (it's under 50 pages) could be so huge in delivery. My
only complaint would be that I wish it had been longer. Otherwise, this
is a lovely treat with wonderful characters and a welcome read, no
matter what time of year! :)
This afternoon I'm reading all the Sunday papers from yesterday that originate from Britain. Some of the more interesting articles follow below. I can really relate to the first one because I'm horrible at multi-tasking and yet I continually do it. There's a part about our impulse control suffering when we try to do too much at once. I also (wish though that I didn't) can relate to that way too well...
Daniel J. Levitin says: "We've created more information in the past few years than in all of human history before us." No wonder we can be so frazzled at times.
This fascinating article looks at just what technology is doing to our brains and how harmful it can be:
I am pretty much smitten with Beginnings. Ash is one of the most appealing, all-around likable and caring characters I've encountered in a novel in ages. It's easy to see why Lou adores her, though Lou herself, with her bursts of anger and fits of jealousy as an adult, tries my patience at times.
As with her other tales, L.T. Smith captures the pain and awkwardness of insecurity like no one else does. Meshing such intense self-doubt with such a pure love that seems destined from the day the two young girls meet makes all that insecurity much more believable...after all, those of us who question our worth the most are bound to feel we don't deserve the very love we most crave.
Perhaps because there is a lot of pain in here I can relate to I didn't laugh as much as I did when I read L.T. Smith's absolutely amazing See Right Through Me. There are definitely moments where you laugh, but your heart ends up aching more than your stomach does.
Even so, Beginnings is breathtaking when it comes to emotions. The reader is there with Lou as she struggles through childhood, her teens and then life as an adult. She may not always be the most composed or even mature, but she is very real. This line, for instance, is all too familiar:
"I flirt, I am a flirt, but the kind that is shocked when flirting actually works. The kind that when a woman smiles at me in an empty room, I still look over my shoulder just to make sure she’s smiling at me, then look back over it a second time."
Oddly enough (or maybe not, if you have ever been in Lou's shoes) it's the first half of the novel that has most lingered with me. Young Lou is someone your heart just breaks for as she agonizes over her own appeal, what it's like to be in love with someone you shouldn't (or think you shouldn't) and how on earth she's going to move on after losing the best friend she has ever known.
Another constant for Lou (that helps me sympathize with her even when she's a bit maddening) is how she battles her own emotions and longs to master them in certain situations, especially when it comes to Ash, whom she is convinced would "freak" if she knew about her love.
"There was no way I could have done that. I just had to tighten the reins on my feelings, be more careful with what I let show. I would have to learn how to do that. And quickly. But I know for definite—in that split second she held my gaze, she must have seen everything I had tried so hard to keep hidden."
I absolutely love how Beginnings comes full circle, the pop culture references that you might remember from your own childhood, the writing itself and how you can just fall into this story as if it is actually real life. As always when I finish anything by L.T. Smith, I hope there's more around the corner soon! :)
art by Kevin Nowlan
"A woman's most powerful weapon, she discovers then, is the state of emotional independence. And if she is far from possessing this emotional independence, then she must make a pretense of having it."-Tereska Torres, By Cecile
Yesterday was not
one of my finer moments. As soon as I got to where I was going, I tried (I swear I tried) to
get into “I can cope seeing her” mode, battling silly butterflies and wondering why I can't just be normal around people I like...really, people in general, for that matter.
Ironically, (don’t ask me why…there’s no rationality to it) I panicked
(only on the inside) when I didn’t see her. I pictured the bad weather
affecting her commute. I worried about her, another inappropriate reaction, since we're not friends.
Then, when I did see
her, I panicked again and retreated into my version of Spock, which apparently
comes across more as “forlorn and confused." I just can’t pull off
sophisticated and detached, I just can’t.
Maybe this makes me a very bad person, but, sometimes, it is near impossible for me to be around someone I like
a lot and hold it all in. I just want to find a nice balance (not just in this area, but in any emotional situation) between composed and kind, without letting everything I feel fall all over the place.
All
I want, all I can ever hope for, is to find a way to be able to live with
myself in peace and get past this and the other things that challenge me. And since I’m certainly never going to be living with anyone else in a
cohabitating, mutually loving way I also have to accept that and I have to stop hating myself so much on the days I fail.
I need to be my own heroine, my own rescuer from loneliness and pain and overwhelming emotions. They say you need to fake it until you make it. I don't take that to mean to lie or be false...just to find the appropriate feelings you're striving and pretend to feel it, until you really do.
That's good advice most of the time, but according to Inc. magazine it actually might not be:
The maxim "fake it until you make it" makes sense on some levels. Most people occasionally struggle with feeling overwhelmed or unconfident, so the idea of pushing through those negative emotions seems logical.
But sustaining a false front for the long term isn't in your best interest. Here are a few reasons why.
You'll repel people.
Show me someone who pretends to have it all together, and you'll find me walking the other direction. Though authenticity is hard to define, you probably know its opposite when you see it.
Magnetic and likable people are not afraid to share things about themselves that might even make them look bad. In doing so, they convey a sense of humility, honesty, and vulnerability that work to lower people's defenses.
Faking it is stressful.
If you've purchased something from Walgreens lately, the cashier may have used the branded salutation "be well," which the drugstore chain thinks makes customers happier.
But according to LinkedIn influencer Annie Murphy Paul, the people it doesn’t please are the employees who have to say it regardless of their feelings about the customers they're mandated to bless.
She says organizational experts define this kind of behavior as "surface acting," which is essentially faking cheerfulness--and in Walgreens's case, concern--all day long while interacting with customers.
"This kind of faking is hard work--sociologists call it 'emotional labor'--and research shows that it's often experienced as stressful," Paul writes. "It's psychologically and even physically draining; it can lead to lowered motivation and engagement with work and ultimately to job burnout."
"Stand down, feelings, stand down."-from Bob's Burgers
Trying to go through old magazines and put some in recycling, I can't bear to let go of a 2011 copy of 501 Lost Songs, put out as a collaboration between NME and UNCUT magazines.
There is still a link online to all of the info, plus various other "best of" type lists:
When I saw both of the songs mentioned below I grabbed my a-ha and Fifth Dimension cds off the shelf and popped them in. Cleaning is always better if you have music playing. :)
Sunday, January 18, 2015
those sad eyes...
Maybe it's because I'm coming off a bad headache (which always leaves me emotionally weird before, during and afterward) and the sadness of a very lonely stranger who called into where I work today plus worries about my mother, but I am really feeling this article that showed up in my email today.
Edgar Allan Poe has always interested me, more as a person than a writer, though I do like his poetry and some of his short stories. His eyes always seem to be telling their own tale, his desperation so intense it seemed like a separate entity.
He is so the exact opposite of the stodgy-looking Henry James whom I've read much more of over the years. James once said of Poe: “An enthusiasm for him is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection.” I'm not so sure that is true, but then each man came from completely different worlds and I'm super-tired so my thinking cap may be a bit off right now.
This part of the New York Review of Books article struck me hard:
The writer Thomas Wentworth Higginson said Poe had “the look of over-sensitiveness which when uncontrolled may prove more debasing than coarseness.” And he does seem to have been overwhelmed by himself, intolerably sensitive and proud and intolerably brilliant, his drinking and bitterness abetting his discomfitures and humiliations. That said, his strange little household of aunt/mother and cousin/wife, through it all and while it lasted, was always reported to be warm and sweet. He was a strong, athletic man who, through the whole of his career, bore up under his weaknesses and afflictions well enough to be very productive, most notably in the unique inventiveness, the odd purity, of his fiction.
The February 2015 issue of Elle has lots of intriguing books reviewed or highlighted that sound great! These are just some of them:
Saturday, January 17, 2015
The most recent Ultra collection is very upbeat and terrific for exercising. It's not particularly deep and definitely not something to listen to as you would music that takes you away from everything for a while and becomes a mind-altering experience. Last year's compilation stood on its own and had some great zen-like moments.
2015's edition is strictly for the beats and the infectious urge to dance. Stand-outs include: "Delirious (Boneless)," "Five Hours," "My Head Is A Jungle" (MK Remix) and "Brand New (Extended Version)."
Packed with club hits like Calvin Harris' "Thinking About You," Steve Aoki and Chris Lake's "Boneless," plus the Benny Benassi and John Legend team-up "Dance the Pain Away," Ultra 2014 continues to display the mighty licensing muscle this Universal label's annual series has previously wielded, but the difference is in the "details," which in other series is called "filler." Here, powerful, excellent, and yet lesser-known numbers make all the difference, with Hadouken!'s "Levitate" and Lazy Jay's "On the Rocks" being the top candidates, although the delicious and unexpected gathering of Flosstradamus, Yellow Claw, and Green Velvet on "Pillz" will jump right to the top of the list for anyone who loves speaker-ripping electro eccentrics. Being mixed well is icing on the cake, leaving nothing to complain about except for this being one of the shorter (disc one comes in at under 50 minutes) entries. Minor complaint; otherwise the Ultra series remains ultra.
Credit Peggy Fortnum When Paddington Bear landed in London in 1958, it was still quite a provincial place. Safe, settled, a little gray — no sign of the Beatles or the swinging ’60s yet — it upheld the ceremonial proprieties immortalized in “Brief Encounter” and “84, Charing Cross Road.” Men wore ties to dinner, women skirts; the post-nuclear nightmares and beatnik explosions of America were barely visible on occasional television screens. Yes, the likes of the Trinidad-born novelist Samuel Selvon were beginning to give voice to other realities in works like “The Lonely Londoners,” but if a British family’s name was Brown, you could be fairly sure its skin was not.
Speaking of beloved children's books, I will always be very grateful that my parents, especially my mom, read to me as a child and that I got my love of fiction from them. I also have fond memories of elementary school teachers reading out loud during class:
This essay from last Sunday's New York Times sums it up so well when it comes to religious objection to gay marriage. One passage that really stands out is this one:
Their owners are routinely interacting with customers who behave in ways they deem sinful. They don’t get to single out one group of supposed sinners. If they’re allowed to, who’s to say they’ll stop at that group?
It has long gotten to me that very conservative Christians say they object to all sins and that they are not being bigoted when it comes to gay people. If this is so, then why are we their only scapegoats?
If, for instance, their religious sensibilities are offended by serving gay people, where are their objections to serving straight people living together, but not married? They supposedly believe it is a sin to have any relations outside of traditional marriage, yet they are not denouncing those between unmarried men and women. When was the last time a minister spoke ill of straight people "living in sin"? The 1960s, maybe?
I am so tired of feeling frustrated and getting preachy over something that will probably always be a huge wedge issue in our world. I certainly don't think homophobia will ever disappear in my lifetime. And while it doesn't personally affect me, unless we reach a point where religious fanatics start going after single and celibate gays and lesbians as well, it deeply hurts.
The thing is it should bother all people when someone's right to love and spent the rest of her life with her partner is infringed upon. No one should ever have the right to keep two people in love apart. And the idea of putting that right up to voters (most of whom are straight and would certainly be devastated if their right to love were treated that way) is both mind-blowing and heartbreaking.
I've never listened to Aphex Twin before, but this album is pretty neat and definitely unlike anything I've ever heard before. Though it's a bit too cold and clinical for me, it's definitely not boring. Track 5 is the most pop-friendly of them all while track 12 is the closest to being beautiful and almost warm.* Reviews for Syro have been glowing and I imagine fans of techno, trance and electronic music will be happy. :)
Review by Andy Kellman
Thirteen years passed between Drukqs and Syro, the fifth and sixth Aphex Twin albums. The long stretch, however, wasn't short on new material from Richard D. James. From 2005 through early 2014, the frequently dazzling Analord EPs (all but one of which was credited to AFX), an EP and LP as the Tuss, and a liberated Caustic Window LP all reached the public. In August 2014, a nylon Aphex blimp -- not quite as immense as the S.O.S. Band's presumably decommissioned aircraft, yet transfixing nonetheless -- was spotted over London, and the following month, Syro arrived on Warp. Low on frenetics, Syro is anchored by rotund and agile basslines that zip and glide, and it's decked in accents and melodies that are lively even at their most distressed. It also flows easily, a notion epitomized by the sequencing of "XMAS_EVET10 [Thanaton3 Mix]" and "Produk 29," where a mesmerizing combination of snaking low-end synthesizers (10:31, not 12:24 in length) is trailed by an avant-rap body mover that bears some resemblance to Dabrye's lithe and sprightly early releases. Components of certain tracks, like the squiggled Mr. Fingers spin-cycle bassline in "4 bit 9d api+e+6" and scrambled rhythms of "CIRCLONT6A [Syrobonkus Mix]," make the album seem like a bright progression from the Analord releases. Apart from the straight-ahead slamming drums in "180db_," the most striking aspect of Syro is the funkiness of its synthesizers relative to James' previous output. His playing here is far too fidgety to be grafted onto the likes of "You Dropped a Bomb on Me," "You're the One for Me," and "Just Be Good to Me," though some of the lines in, uh, the title cut, have that grimace-triggering quality. Only a trace of the indiscriminate sequencing and stylistic switch-ups heard on Drukqs remains. It's saved for the end, with a rather elegant, part-drum'n'bass excursion as the penultimate number, followed by a placid piano-only piece in the vein of those heard on the 2001 album. These tracks actually enhance, rather than hinder, one of James' most inviting and enjoyable releases.
*
Rather than a studio-birthed composition like the rest of Syro, ‘Aisatsana’ (presumably a reference to Aphex’s wife, Anastasia) is a recording or replay of the part of Aphex’s 2012 “remote orchestra” show at London’s Barbican where music was produced from a suspended, swinging piano (with added bird song). Naturally, some Aphex fans have picked up on this, but most reviews of Syro - ours included – completely missed it.--factmag.com
So The Queen’s Companion is that kind of gentle and sweet that I love in a romance yet (especially because of its time period) also struggles with the impossibilities that come with being a woman in love with a woman.
There is a scene where the main character goes to church to pray away her feelings. It is
so sad and all too easy to relate to:
No matter how hard she
tried to extinguish them, her thoughts returned again and again to Bella…The
more she tried to shake her feelings loose, the more intense they became and
the more she was afraid…
She prays and prays to God until her heart aches and still she
has strong feelings for Bella, one of the ladies who attends to her. THIS is why I need lesfic in my life…because it
speaks to me in a way nothing (or no one) else does. Everything Catherine feels
and prays to leave her body and soul…THAT is how it’s been with me much of the time when I've liked someone I shouldn't.
The Queen has reluctantly agreed to marry for
the sake of her country and for Bella’s safety (people are beginning to suspect
the two women are in love). The pressure she faces to marry would seem like a mockery of the sacred institution (i.e. forcing someone to marry someone she doesn’t
love) but given the time period, I imagine there isn't much choice involved. Gay or straight, many women throughout history were made to get married, through societal or family pressure.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
I've been keeping a dream journal for a long time now, but I stopped a few weeks ago to see if I could un-train myself to remember my dreams. I figured since I taught myself how to improve dream recall and even have lucid dreams I could do the reverse. I was desperate, not because of the nightmares I was having, but because of the occasional beautiful ones where someone I liked liked me back.
Thosewere the tormenting dreams, not the nightmares, because besides how awfully disappointing it is to wake up from a lovely dream, I also feel terribly guilty. Maybe I can't help what dreams I have and how real the falsehoods feel, but I certainly can make myself not remember them if I try hard enough.
I think perhaps because I'm not remembering my dreams as much anymore, I am sleeping somewhat better and my daily life is receiving the benefit. I am not over my crush yet, but I think I'm reacting better and I have reached this point in my life where I am neither ecstatic nor despondent...I'm just kind of there.
Just like my iPod always seems to know what mood I am when I put it on shuffle, books seem to jump into my arms at just the right time. I pulled Paul Bowles off the shelf today because the particular one in question was a Library Of America book and I'm always lulled by a collection I haven't seen before.
I had just smiled at someone I know and been greeted with what could have been nothing intentional but certainly seemed like an icy response. Then I looked back down at the book and the page I had opened:
It seemed to Kit that each time he looked at her it was as if he suspected her of harboring secret and reprehensible motives. The resentment she felt at his accusatory gaze helped her to regain a little of her lost sense of reality. "I'm sure he doesn't look at everyone that way." She thought. "Then why me?" But she felt too utterly dependent upon the man to allow herself the satisfaction of letting him perceive anything of her reactions.
All I know for sure when I encounter people I worry I've offended and therefore (I think) that is why they're being abrupt is that I can't be the same way back. I try to balance being nice with not showing just how much I like them. And when I'm that situation I'm always so tense I feel my smile is more like the Joker's than someone who has genuine good intentions. :(
It's so hard sometimes to know how to be with certain people. But, in general, with people who are not always nice, it's still important to be kind:
And it really does seem like the more
kind you are to an unkind person, the more they respond positively. We
never really know what's going on in someone else's life and what they
may be suffering...everyone needs kindness and love in their lives.
