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...
Friday, January 17, 2014
Music is so much about mood...and on those days when anything spirited seems like a slap to the face, music can still soothe. One of the most beautiful film scores ever is Somewhere In Time. It's lovely in and of itself, but always dependable for those days when your spirits are pretty much low key. For over thirty years, this album has gotten me through studying for exams and been a constant companion while reading or dreaming. John Barry was surely one of the most talented composers to ever grace a soundtrack.
Monday, December 2, 2013
Puppy Love, as you might guess from the title and cover, is an absolutely
adorable read, which is an absolutely great thing for a book to be, especially
on a very lazy Saturday afternoon, when you're sick in bed with a
cold.
As with L.T. Smith's See Right Through Me, Puppy Love is full of humor, love and lots of strong writing. The humor can go from sweet and vulnerable ("My heart banged dramatically inside my chest, as if it was auditioning for a new play called Hope.") to downright I-really-shouldn't-laugh-but-how-can-I-not? ("I know, I'm up and down like a prostitute's underwear about how I wanted our relationship to pan out.")
One reason I love L.T. Smith's books so much is that she creates characters who may need a little kick in the pants sometimes (the kind of people who need runway clearance and big, flashing lights before they realize someone likes them) but are nonetheless incredibly endearing and cute for being so clueless in all matters relating to love and relationships. Anyone who may find this frustrating has clearly never suffered from doubts when meeting someone she really likes and wants to have her like her back.
When Ellie and Emma, the two very likable leads in Puppy Love, first meet there is an actual spark between them. This happens along the way while they are getting to know each other and in its initial appearances, Ellie wonders if her "time with power tools made me electric."
It's stuff like this, along with genuine chemistry, down-to-earth people, a terrific dog named Charlie and Ellie's heartbreakingly and all-too-realistic abandonment by her homophobic parents that make Puppy Love such a soulful, warm and wonderful read! My only complaint, as with all truly terrific reads, is that finishing books like this make returning to your own world very hard. :)
As with L.T. Smith's See Right Through Me, Puppy Love is full of humor, love and lots of strong writing. The humor can go from sweet and vulnerable ("My heart banged dramatically inside my chest, as if it was auditioning for a new play called Hope.") to downright I-really-shouldn't-laugh-but-how-can-I-not? ("I know, I'm up and down like a prostitute's underwear about how I wanted our relationship to pan out.")
One reason I love L.T. Smith's books so much is that she creates characters who may need a little kick in the pants sometimes (the kind of people who need runway clearance and big, flashing lights before they realize someone likes them) but are nonetheless incredibly endearing and cute for being so clueless in all matters relating to love and relationships. Anyone who may find this frustrating has clearly never suffered from doubts when meeting someone she really likes and wants to have her like her back.
When Ellie and Emma, the two very likable leads in Puppy Love, first meet there is an actual spark between them. This happens along the way while they are getting to know each other and in its initial appearances, Ellie wonders if her "time with power tools made me electric."
It's stuff like this, along with genuine chemistry, down-to-earth people, a terrific dog named Charlie and Ellie's heartbreakingly and all-too-realistic abandonment by her homophobic parents that make Puppy Love such a soulful, warm and wonderful read! My only complaint, as with all truly terrific reads, is that finishing books like this make returning to your own world very hard. :)
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Someone once said that writing about music is like dancing about
architecture. I don't think I have ever felt more like that than when
wanting to do justice to Gem Club. Everything beautiful and sad on their
Acid and Everything EP, everything that made it so mesmerizingly
haunting, is back on Breakers, a full-length album so intoxicatingly
lovely it makes a mess of your heart in the best way possible.
Its quiet restraint (the cello and piano are as much the stars as the gorgeous vocals) should not fool you. This is a very passionate album and a wonderful balm for a soul yearning for healing.
I purchased the entire MP3 album because every single track is worth its weight in gold. So if any are more outstanding than others, it's more a matter of which ones speak most to the individual listener. In my case, it's: "Breakers," "Lands," "I Heard The Party" (oh. my. gosh.), "Black Ships" and "252." Whenever someone says today's music is just awful, I silently wish I could correct them and just say they're listening in the all wrong places. Gem Club is the perfect antidote to everything that is wrong in so much of today's music scene.
Its quiet restraint (the cello and piano are as much the stars as the gorgeous vocals) should not fool you. This is a very passionate album and a wonderful balm for a soul yearning for healing.
I purchased the entire MP3 album because every single track is worth its weight in gold. So if any are more outstanding than others, it's more a matter of which ones speak most to the individual listener. In my case, it's: "Breakers," "Lands," "I Heard The Party" (oh. my. gosh.), "Black Ships" and "252." Whenever someone says today's music is just awful, I silently wish I could correct them and just say they're listening in the all wrong places. Gem Club is the perfect antidote to everything that is wrong in so much of today's music scene.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
50 Shades of Double Standards
A few months ago I finished the first book in the 50 Shades trilogy. I couldn't stomach any more, not so much because of the content (television and movies have shown far worse) but because the writing is just plain bad.
I also found myself getting a little upset that many local libraries are bending over backwards to get more copies ordered, yet you'd be hard-stretched to find any GLBT fiction in their collections.
How is it a novel about a straight couple (not married nor planning to have a child) having all kinds of sex and kinky adventures can be all the rage on morning talk shows and on bestseller lists, but gay and lesbian fiction is still considered a "no no" in most mainstream bookstores and in many libraries? How is it Christian conservatives stay mum on things like this, but have a cow whenever the topic of gay marriage is brought up?
Recently, Kindle opened a whole new world to me of lesbian fiction, some of which is quality lesbian fiction, where there is genuine love and romance long before the women even consider a physical relationship.
When there's no one in your life to talk about certain topics (your straight friends say it's okay you're gay as long as you never talk about it) the right book can almost, no make that actually, save your life.
I like it when I see characters who feel like I do reflected in books (find it very helpful and healing) and though I'd prefer to find libraries carrying gay and lesbian fiction (there's certainly no shortage of violent crime novels, Zane books or other less than scrupulous subject matter at hand in them) I sigh and shrug and decide to buy my own. I'd rather make up the loss in my budget by skimping on food because books talk to me and food doesn't. Books help me feel less lonely and food does not. "Calories," as someone on my Twitter account recently tweeted,"do not heal heartache."
Books, I firmly believe, can! I find comfort in reading books by women who understand the emotions, heartache, romance and longing of being gay in a world that still has trouble accepting them.
I don't read lesbian fiction to be rebellious or to "sin," but to survive...because when you're surrounded by people who don't understand what it means to be gay, you can feel very lonely...
I also found myself getting a little upset that many local libraries are bending over backwards to get more copies ordered, yet you'd be hard-stretched to find any GLBT fiction in their collections.
How is it a novel about a straight couple (not married nor planning to have a child) having all kinds of sex and kinky adventures can be all the rage on morning talk shows and on bestseller lists, but gay and lesbian fiction is still considered a "no no" in most mainstream bookstores and in many libraries? How is it Christian conservatives stay mum on things like this, but have a cow whenever the topic of gay marriage is brought up?
Recently, Kindle opened a whole new world to me of lesbian fiction, some of which is quality lesbian fiction, where there is genuine love and romance long before the women even consider a physical relationship.
When there's no one in your life to talk about certain topics (your straight friends say it's okay you're gay as long as you never talk about it) the right book can almost, no make that actually, save your life.
I like it when I see characters who feel like I do reflected in books (find it very helpful and healing) and though I'd prefer to find libraries carrying gay and lesbian fiction (there's certainly no shortage of violent crime novels, Zane books or other less than scrupulous subject matter at hand in them) I sigh and shrug and decide to buy my own. I'd rather make up the loss in my budget by skimping on food because books talk to me and food doesn't. Books help me feel less lonely and food does not. "Calories," as someone on my Twitter account recently tweeted,"do not heal heartache."
Books, I firmly believe, can! I find comfort in reading books by women who understand the emotions, heartache, romance and longing of being gay in a world that still has trouble accepting them.
I don't read lesbian fiction to be rebellious or to "sin," but to survive...because when you're surrounded by people who don't understand what it means to be gay, you can feel very lonely...
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
I don't write as much as I used to. It's funny how one thing leads to another. I got Invisalign braces back in December, discovered they did wonders for curbing my appetite, realized that (for me) watching tv is inevitably linked to wanting to eat so I stopped watching tv, except when I'm already in bed, ready to fall asleep.
All that open time where I no longer eat so much or watch tv has lead me back to reading passionately, whenever and wherever I can. I'd rather read than write, except when I'm troubled (writing is therapy) or excited (about a new book or song).
Tell The Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt is something to be excited about. On Twitter, lulu 34 writes: "Stop what you're doing and read Tell The Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt. This book DESTROYED me. All my tears."
People magazine (often a great source for book reviews...I did not know this until recently) had this to say:
Tell the Wolves I'm Home
by Carol Rifka Brunt
by Carol Rifka Brunt
Remember how it felt to be 14? In this lovely debut novel set in the 1980s, Carol Rifka Brunt takes us under the skin and inside the tumultuous heart of June Elbus. Lonely at school and tormented by her older sister, June habitually vanishes into the woods near her suburban New York home to pretend she's living in the Middle Ages. "I look at everything-rocks, fallen leaves, dead trees-like I have the power to read those things. Like my life depends on understanding exactly what the forest has to say." Like most 14-year-olds, June is full of secret emotions too powerful to reveal-in particular, her "wrong" love for Finn, her uncle and godfather. An artist who has introduced his goddaughter to a world of beauty, Finn is gay, and dying of AIDS. Once he's gone, the grief-shattered June recklessly embarks on a new relationship that's just as obsessive, just as secret, and ends up shaking her family to its core. Distracted parents, tussling adolescents, the awful ghost-world of the AIDS-afflicted before AZT-all of it springs to life in Brunt's touching and ultimately hopeful book.
Reviewed by Helen Rogan
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)