"People die all the time. Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely. It's too easy not to make the effort, then weep and wring your hands after the person dies.” - Dance Dance Dance (1988)
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

I love this man's novels and cannot wait until his new one comes out on August 12th. It's called Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage and sounds very Murakami-like which, if you enjoy his work, is a good thing. :)

 

 

 

Easy Come, Easy Go



Boy, do I love this song. It always puts a smile on my face with its overall bubble gum pop sound and optimistic spirit of bouncing back from a bad time in love. How can it not put someone willing to embrace an era light years away in fashion and music into a great mood? Plus, Bobby Sherman just looks like an overall nice guy. He has long been retired from show business and devotes lots of time to a children's charity he and his wife started.

 

So sweet, so wonderfully goofy, "Easy Come, Easy Go" :

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqty94GA9-g

 

 

 

Takin the shade out of the sun

Whatever made me think that I was number one
I oughta know easy come, easy go
Sittin' it out, spinnin' the dial
Thinkin' about the chump I've been
I have to smile
Didn't I know easy come, easy go
She wasn't kind, I wasn't smart
I lost my mind and fell apart
I had to find myself in time
Now I can start all over again
Hangin' around takin' it slow
Happy I found
I still can smile and dig the show
Lettin' me know easy come, easy go

Songwriters
Keller, Jack / Hilderbrand, Diane

Published by
Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

 
I'm into my second week of feeling like I haven't in ages and much of it has to do with the music I've been listening to and some of it with the absence of certain stressors. I'm trying to hold on to these feelings for as long as possible because soon some of those issues return. 

Inner peace seems more attainable when you accept what you cannot change and realize the things you want or the people you like who do not feel the same are what you need to let go of once and for all.

It's no wonder insomnia is so prevalent among those of us who tend to worry a lot. Other people, family, bills and, most fearsome of all, the future can all combine into a huge snowball of worry that seems to wreck your soul.

Insomnia, after a while, becomes something so common a part of your life you either sink or swim with it. I've been swimming most of the time, lately, mostly because pills, meditation and exercise (earlier in the day, of course) just don't seem to work. So I get up to clean or watch an old movie or sitcom or I pick up something light like the book below, which I read in one sitting.

I enjoyed Departure From The Script a lot; even if it's on the predictable side, it's the good kind of dependable, where you know you're going to get a solid romantic read. The characters (both main and secondary) are extremely likable and fully fleshed out and Jae, as always, writes well.

I'd strongly recommend this for a cozy afternoon, especially if you need to escape from real life for a few hours. Cute, sweet and full of refreshing sincerity, Departure is a stand-out in its genre.

 I'm not crazy about insomnia (who is?) but I do like to think of not sleeping as a chance to read as much as possible. There's no way I'd have taken in as many novels as I have without it...which is a good thing, I suppose, since this terrific new book has me jotting down even more titles for my Kindle and nightstand:

 

Here's another title I found in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Combining "the didactic and the euphoric" (writes literary editor Daniel Soar), The Fruits Of The Earth mixes prose and poetry. It's really quite beautiful, full of passages that can truly speak to the heart.



"Let your waiting be not even longing, but simply a welcoming. Welcome everything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else. Long only for what you have."

"Old hands soil, it seems, whatever they caress, but they too have their beauty when they are joined in prayer. Young hands were made for caresses and the sheathing of love. It is a pity to make them join too soon."

On rare days when pop or rock is just too much for me, I turn to the quieter, but no less magnetic, side of music. This album has been on my cd player all day and has helped me find amazing amounts of peace. It's also a truly lovely listen.


All Music  has a solid review for it here:

Review by James Manheim  [-]

Originally recorded in 1988, this was one of the recordings that made historical performance practice the mainstream when it came to Bach's major choral works. Every moment of the mass was thought through anew, every bit of conventional piety purged. Major B minor mass recordings in the following years have developed one aspect or another further than conductor Philippe Herreweghe does here; Masaaki Suzuki's Bach Collegium Japan chisels out the counterpoint in greater detail, and for grand reverential warmth there's always John Eliot Gardiner. But for a constant sense of wonder that makes even the larger harmonic structure of the mass seem surprising as it unfolds -- for a real sense of a group responding not only to a conductor's control but to his artistic vision -- this reading by Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Ghent remains unexcelled. Herreweghe returned to the Mass in B minor in 2000; that later recording features soloists who are sublime (Véronique Gens, Andreas Scholl) rather than merely good, but it does not exceed the marvelous freshness of this release, which is holding up well close to a quarter century later. At a budget price, this can't be beat. The recording was also a milestone in its engineering technique; the choir and soloists sound natural and clear in the Ghent church where they were recorded. Basic booklet notes are provided in English, German, and French.