Okay, this may be embarrassing to admit, but I just bought the song "Island Fever" by Jack Wagner and am thinking about my old cassette copy of the All I Need album and wondering if I still own it.

Seriously! The dude wasn't half that bad a singer back in the 80s. I used to own all three of his albums (All I Need, Lighting Up The Night, and Don't Give Up Your Day Job.)

I always liked "Island Fever" because its haunting, hi-tech (for that time!) sound really appealed to me and at the same time actually struck me as a bit creepy. And all these years later, I still think it sounds pretty good...almost up there in quality with that "other soap singer," Rick Springield.

Jack Wagner recently appeared on an episode of "Hot In Cleveland" and he's aged very well. I don't know why, exactly, but I've always sort of thought he seems like a nice guy:)

I need somebody to keep me away from the keyboard so I don't end up buying "Sneak Attack" and "Tell Him (That You Won't Go)" off All I Need!!:)

One of my favorite songs of all time is "Mary's Prayer" by Danny Wilson. I still get chills whenever I hear it and I just discovered the video for it:


watch here

Other amazing songs on the album it's from (Meet Danny Wilson) include: "Davy," "Nothing Ever Goes To Plan," "Steamtrains to the Milky Way" and "A Girl I Used to Know."  The whole album is just magically wonderful!!

Thank God for music!! It's better and safer and more fun than drugs!!! Plus there are a lot more kinds of music for your moods than there are drugs...really!!

Amazon.com essential recording

Technique is New Order's most fully realized dance album. Although other New Order albums have been mighty danceable, this recording contains a masterful use of the acid-house trends storming the club scene in 1989, when this album was released. New Order embraced the technology that was available at the time but never substituted brilliant song structures with prefabricated formats that sequencers, samplers, and other high-tech noisemakers can easily provide. They intelligently used these devices to incorporate elements of a broader genre beyond the "New Order sound," proving that even while experimenting with musical trends and other fleeting diversions, this accomplished group is capable of pulling off a genre-defining album without ever losing sight of their own identity. --Beth Bessmer

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Even better than rediscovering old favorites is finding an album you completely missed the first time around (I think I pretty much slept through 1989 as far as music went.)

Been listening to New Order's Technique ever since I found it in a used cd sale bin a few weeks ago and I'm loving it.

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Also loving this:

I first heard Royksopp back in 2009,  but on this quiet evening I dug it out of my cd collection and added it to my MP3 player....absolute favorite track off of it is called "Royksopp Fever"...very mystical and empowering instrumental that builds to an amazing finish...I actually feel like I'm levitating if I close my eyes and sit in a Yoga position while listening!! Seriously, levitating...off the floor and into a really dreamy, buzzy state where nothing can bother me.

You outta try it sometime!!!!:) Amazing stuff!

"The melodramatic doings in Watch and Ward probably caused James some embarrassment in later years, and it's easy to see why he disowned the book and spoke of Roderick Hudson as his first novel. Still, many critics have pointed out that melodrama always held a certain fascination for James. Watch and Ward is only a particularly gauche example."--from Wikipedia


There's a certain amount of creepiness and immaturity in Henry James' first novel or maybe it's just because I have a certain amount of impatience with characters (male or female) who set out to groom young wards into potential future lovers.

While most certainly not his best work, Watch and Ward still shows that even at his worst James had this amazing insight into emotional complexities and matters of the heart.

This sentence reminds me of how determined the human heart can be to not get attached:

He used to lie awake at night, trying hard to fix in his mind the happy medium between coldness and weak fondness.


In an early part of the story the main character, Roger, refuses to recognize at first that the young woman he is persuing (who is much closer to his own age than the ward he is soon to take on) has no romantic interest in him whatsoever. His letters to her are so insistent and lacking in awareness that she writes back: "Do leave me alone!"

Poor Roger! The reader's pity for him battles with an understanding that what so often motivates the heart for more is the very undoing of it...

At times I do I think Mr. James was probably a lot less stuffy than he came across as...

I love how Amazon's MP3 store offers free songs on a daily basis. The problem is that when you end up really liking the song (like the one above!!) you want to buy the whole damn album (in this case, a mere $5.99, worth every penny!!)

Bobby Long has a voice that reminds me of whisky and warm comforters, with some Cat Stevens thrown in. I can't stop listening to his album! "Who Have You Been Loving?" (again, free!) is a little bit country, a little bit rock 'n roll, a whole lot good!!!

To paraphrase an octogenarian friend of mine (talking about Robert Redford) he can put his boots under my stereo any old day! (My friend said 'bed'.)