"... Gold Hair & Lightning"

All but one of these songs were taken from movie trailers for upcoming films I wish to see. Each are in heavy rotation on my sansa so it is with pleasure that I share them! These songs can be found on Rhapsody unless otherwise stated. To hear each song click on the song title/artist name under each picture.

*


'The Lightning Strike'
Snow Patrol

The first 5 minutes and 16 seconds of this 16 minute opus are deliriously stirring, calling the listener to a brilliant peak. A '... Lightning Strike' indeed. Its opening bars remind me of the instrumental piece at the start of the film trailer for 'The Box' (starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden). I'm nearly certain these two songs are not one and the same and that the latter is a product of an independent music company such as DeWolfe. Unfortunately the trailer I'm referencing no longer appears to exist. Here's the trailer anway -- interesting, right?

*


'Set Fire To The Third Bar'
Snow Patrol, feat Martha Wainwright

I found this song in the film trailer for 'Dear John', a Nicolas Sparks adaptation starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried. Against my will I liked 'A Walk to Remember' but not even the hotness that is Ryan Gosling could tempt me to like the sentimental 'The Notebook'. That I am so drawn to 'Dear John' comes as a surprise but the mood of the trailer is right, the story seems uncomplicated and the starring actors are good, so I might have to give this a shot.

*


'Running Up That Hill'
Placebo

I want to watch this film. I want to watch it. 'Daybreakers' starring Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill (my mom's old school crush), Willem Dafoe is about vampires, a world where every human is a vampire-turned. Well, not every human save those few hunted and sent to hematological banks to be farmed for their blood. It just looks so cool. As the trailer reaches its climax this song kicks in and it is brilliant!

"Everybody's Got The Way I Should Feel..."

All for love of a Krumper named Russell (<-- click "hidden" link to see a j-peg), I have taken to watching the reality gem, So You Think You Can Dance? From it I received this selection of songs and a nascent fascination with dance. To hear each song just click the song title/artist name beneath each photo. Every song can be found on Rhapsody unless otherwise stated.

*


'Be Be Your Love'
Rachael Yamagata

I sampled Rachael Yamagata a few years ago (upon the recommendation of Rhapsody) and was not impressed. So imagine my surprise upon hearing Yamagata's 'Be Be Your Love' and falling in love with it. The dance (<--- click "hidden" link to see it) which accompanied it was lovely as well.

*


'Warrior, part II'
Lloyd Banks, feat Eminem, 50 Cent, Nate Dogg

*


'2 Steps Away'
Patti LaBelle

I promised you pictures!

I promised pictures and so here they are (I apologize in advance for the extreme close-ups):






Usually I do my twists smaller than this, however, the increased in length has caused a scraggly look I cannot abide. It's all 'eye of the beholder' stuff but by my eye, my current length looks better with thicker twists. With that first one (as I snapped the picture) I thought, only a bajillion more to go! Now that I think on it, it took me a full day less to "twistify" my whole head of hair which is fan-friggin'-tastic since the last few months has seen it take upwards to two days. Huh. Anyway, those are my pics. Of me. Terrifying. LOL

Oh, just so there are no illusions as to how far my happy nappy self has come, let me remind my gentle readers of my last length check <--- click cleverly "hidden" link. Brandon, you've seen my teeny-weeny, tiny-whiny 'fro so you really know.

This entire process has really opened me up to my sisters in the community. It made me so happy some nerd created and open sourced the internet so many decades ago. The amount of information and sharing that goes on about Black hair, its care, its meaning within and without the community has been affirming, eye-opening, confirming, bewildering, enraging and joyful. It's amazing the equal amounts of hatred and devotion our hair inspires. Like, take for instance the word 'nappy'; the connotations within the community are varied. In my household 'nappy' is simply another way of saying 'kinky' which is the state of our hair particularly the 4a/4b range; it is not derogatory. However that seems to be a cultural/West Indian (maybe also African) thing, though that varies place to place and by age groups. Among generationally American Blacks 'nappy' is tantamount to saying 'ugly'. I find that weird but it is this nation's inheritance to us and I was only inoculated from it by growing up in my immigrant household. For that I am grateful -- I cannot imagine hating my hair the way some Blacks do. The things some say if given enough rope to hang themselves are just staggering. It makes me cling to what I'm doing more and more. What I'm trying to write is this is not wholly vanity -- there is a lot of cultural, division, sadness and joy in our locks. This may also be true of other cultures but I'm not chronicling their journey, I'm chronicling my own. /preaching

August? Wow. August?!

August. That was the last time I wrote a blog entry, or checked my blog. Sigh. I was trying to be so good about it too. Attempting to stay on top of it and come up with at least one thing a week.

On a separate yet related note: I am the laziest person ever. It must be said, I am. Lazy with a capital L. It's quite pathetic. Again, sigh. Hmm. Following this not-so-groundbreaking confession is:

I need to put up pictures... of my hair!!! Ha! So vain, I know. :smile: Where's my camera?! I think the battery needs to be recharged, then I can get to snapping!

In October, happy birthday me! Approaching that all important age of 30, closer and closer. The weird thing? I don't feel close to 30. I don't feel my age, whatever that is supposed to feel like. I worry if that is a good thing (we are all forever young) or if its the sign of some dangerous arrested development I need to clear away now. Food for thought.

A lot of music, new and old, to share. Reading has mostly been centered on poetry with a few romance novels thrown in, definitely some manga.

Hmm, what else? I can't think of anything right now off the top of my head. Sleepless night and I'm only just getting tired. Sigh.

I'll try not to go so long between posts again.

Hair!

My current haircare routine: baking soda rinse (1x/week); apple cider vinegar/ACV rinse (every other week); Aubrey's Organics Honeysuckle & Rose conditioner (1x/month [DC]); combing hair every other week. These are my staples.

In need of a week-in/week-out conditioner (WI/WO) and a leave-in conditioner. I plan on adding an egg wash to my routine (for protein) on the same cycle as my ACV rinse. I created a new moisturizing spritz -- honey, apricot oil and water. I put too much honey in it so I get this gritty residue if I spray my hair liberally. But my hair is soft and moisturized, I just need to split the mixture by three and add more water to each.

My hair growth has been steady and I'm quite pleased. Pulling my kinky-curly hair from the hairline reaches my bottom lip. Straightened, my hair is approximately chin length, so yay! I recently flat-ironed my hair ... and swore never to do it again, lol! Every time I ran the flat-iron down a hank of hair I thought, "Damage." But I completed the job because I knew later I would wish I had. It was sort of fun to see it in a new way but it's not worth the hassle or the heat damage.

If you've been paying attention, then you know I am really into all-natural hair care for my all-natural hair. I'm not really a stickler for organic vs. natural but the former does tickle me pink (as pink as a Black girl can get). Aubrey's Organics makes an absolutely wonderful conditioner and I love its effect on my hair. I'm not so fond of the Honeysuckle & Rose "scent" (it's pretty minimal) so I recently purchased the Island Tropics version. Aubrey's has stuff for women and men and isn't hair exclusive. I'd recommend them heartily.

The baking soda and ACV act as a cleanser and clarifier; I'm a no (sham)poo girl. I prefer using my Aubrey's as my deep conditoner which I only do once a month, so I need a WI/WO conditioner -- 'cause that's what I do, condition once a week. My last conditioner, Honey Hemp by Oyin Handmade, is severely lacking. Many of the nat-girls I respect (Erin of Scandalous Beauty for example) swear by the stuff, and I dabbled in it several years ago to tepid results. However, that involved skincare products and I admit I wasn't diligent about it so I decided to give it another go. It doesn't moisturize or soften my hair for a comparative period of time (Aubrey's Organics being the comparison when used as a WI/WO). Not even in conjunction with my post-leave-in conditioner. After a few hours it was as if I hadn't conditioned my hair at all. Annoying.

So I've been on the hunt for a good WI/WO, checking prices and ingredients (plus a good leave-in) and have finally arrived at a relatively small list of vendors I am dying to try:

* Afroveda -- this is first up to bat. I bought the Holy Basil conditioner and Ginger Almond butter. I'm crossing my fingers, hoping it is as good as it reads.
* KynkCurls
* Ohm
* Chic Afrique -- this doesn't have much I want specifically for my hair but I like what I see for skincare.
* Max Green Alchemy -- the only thing I want here is the conditioner.
* Darcy's Botanicals
* Inky Loves Nature
* Treasured Locks

Sapphics

Sappho by Charles Mengin [pic source: virgotex.wordpress.com]

I think I finally have my sapphic verse poem down... and still it is grossly inadequate. Sigh. The deeper I get into strengthening this poem, finding new and more detailed sources on the form, the more the poem seems wanting. A while back I found an example of sapphic verse written by (surprise!) Sappho which fulfilled the brief and is lovely to read. 'The Anactoria Poem' translated by Lattimore (an excerpt):

Some there are who say that the fairest thing seen
on the black earth is an array of horsemen;
some, men marching; some would say ships; but I say
.... she whom one loves best
[click on the stanza to read full poem]

Throughout this experience I have come upon various essays on craft and sapphics, each one opening my eyes to my flaws and, hopefully, influencing a better crafted poem in the end. In case someone else types 'sapphics' or 'Sappho' or 'sapphic verse' into a search engine looking for someone to shed a little light on the subject matter, I'll list (with links) the webpages and sites which are giving me a leg up, so to speak.

I started first with examples of sapphic verse and settled on three poets/poems --
* Sappho's 'The Anactoria Poem', trans. by Lattimore;

* Swinburne's 'Sapphics';
* Isaac Watts' 'The Day of Judgement';
These three helped me with the intangibles as it were -- the flow, the sense of the form. They also provided concrete help when my dactyls were kicking my butt. I didn't lift any from the poems it's just that seeing how others handled dactyls talked me "down from the ledge" whenever I over-thought my own.

* An audio track at least an 90 minutes in length, of Allen Ginsberg teaching Basic Poetics, specifically sapphic verse. You can download the track or simply listen to it; I highly recommend it. It is an invaluable listen. He presents the material in an approachable way. Here's his stab at sapphic verse (better than mere mortals) --

Red cheeked boyfriends tenderly kiss me sweet mouthed
under Boulder coverlets winter springtime
hug me naked laughing & telling girl friends
.... gossip til autumn

* I am currently rummaging through Eratosphere on AbleMuse.com for more insight on sapphics and meter in general. If you use the search function on the site and type in sapphics, as I did, you can find a wealth of information.

After I do some more clean-up; submit for critique and review my piece I'll probably post a draft of it on this blog soon.

A Girl's 4 Star Review

[pic source: themusicslut.com]

I have mentioned Florence + The Machine on this blog before, specifically the song, 'Dog Days Are Over'. Her album, 'Lungs', has been hotly anticipated in Britain (from which she hails) and by those lucky enough to be in-the-know here in the States. If you have listened to any of the three singles ('Dog Days...', 'My Boy Builds Coffins' and 'Drumming Song') dropped since its release (July 6, 2009), then you understand why this is. Passionate and evocative her music grabs your guts by way of your ears and shakes you until you capitulate. To what I don't know. The beauty of a bashing female voice, perhaps? No trembling juvenile vocals here, ladies and gentlemen, oh no! Hers is a vocal expression ripened to fruition. They don't make 'em like this anymore.

For a mini-sampling of the album check out Florence + The Machine's MySpace page. For background information check out Florence + The Machine's wiki page. The album may be purchased on iTunes, Rhapsody and (I'm sure) Amazon.

Now, onto the song by song review! I'm keeping it simple, just stars --

* being crap
* * being 'eh'
* * * being 'good'
* * * * being 'hell yeah!'
* * * * * being fan-friggin'-tastic

-- to indicate which I like best and perhaps a word or two on the extra special ones. I'm also providing links to my favorite songs in case you don't wish to got to MySpace. Plus I also get to backdoor some pretty cool music blogs, ha! Here we go:

* * * * Dog Days Are Over pagan and gorgeous.
* * * * Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) pagan gorgeousness.
* * * I’m Not Calling You A Liar
** * * Howl I had to come back to this song and mark it up! Love it!
* * Kiss With A Fist
* * Girl With One Eye
* * * * Drumming Song gut-grabber!
* * * Between Two Lungs
* * * * Cosmic Love transportive!
* * My Boy Builds Coffins
* * * Hurricane Drunk
* * * Blinding
* * * * You’ve Got The Love a celebration of a song! Warning: link leads to a live version.


I just had to put the video of 'Drumming Song' on my blog, I just had to! Say, "Hello Florence!"


Florence + The Machine - Drumming Song

To Quote

[source:.. http://www.skirtfulloffire.com]

"When I was a teenager, one of my favourite things was to go off with my tent, and just be alone for two weeks, and just walk and sing at the top of my lungs. There’s nothing better in the world; you can’t be any happier than that. It’s the best. I guess that’s sort of my temple. "

*
Listening to... Florence + The Machine, album 'Lungs'
review to come

A Girl's Been Gone Too Long

Does absence make the heart grow fonder? Well, I'm in for an entire helping of love now, aren't I? I have been keeping busy with my writing pursuits. Lots of writing... one poem. Really, weeks upon weeks of intense communion with dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, my personal thesaurus and dictionaries, encyclopedic and pronunciation respectively. All this is supplemented with 'Blurbs of Wisdom' (Poetry Free-For-All on everypoet.com) and critiquing of other's poetry. It's been fun if exhausting. As I wrote in previous posts (I think) I'm making a concerted effort to work on meter and form, and I'm still "stuck" on sapphic. Every revision of the poem so far has ended up adding two more blank quatrains. Four... Six... Will eight' be next?

I really need to put some new hair pictures up. I've been lazy about my camera -- the battery is near-dead and I haven't bothered to recharge it.

*
Listening to... Anjulie, song 'The Heat'
What a hot little summer number!

A Girl's Open Thread

Post anything in the comments or on the blog's face to your heart's content.

*
Saturday Morning Otaku
I recently added a couple of new manga to my reading list (when did I become such a manga-nerd?):



'Ane Doki' which is more ecchi-absurdity than I typically care for but the kid is so cutely horrified and there is a sure-handed warmth to his portrayal that is a notch above the typical manga horndog. Click the title/link and you'll find a summary and manga chapters. [pic source: onemanga.com]








'Cage of Eden' is much more up my alley what with the harrowing attempts at survival, bloody deaths and tight friendships. Click the title/link and you'll find a summary and manga chapters. [pic source: onemanga.com]





*
Oh, Brandon your blog's address is so cute 'blondemixedblood', hee. Aw, I miss you too! Give me details on how you are doing, what you're doing -- let a girl live vicariously!

Thanks for the recommendation! I added Evelyn Duprai to my playlist of new music! You know you are a creeping f-er: your recommendations seem to work on a subconscious level, working their way up until kablooey full blown love. You are a dangerous person. LOL Speaking of music...

New Music Everyone Must Like Because I Said So!!! LOL, I kid! I don't even know if I like the music let alone if anyone else would, should... pay no attention to the girl with the notebook! Since Brandon dropped me a music suggestion I opened Rhapsody to find this talented artist (and she must be talented if Brandon likes her) and came across a raft of Rhapsody new music/album recommendations:



Shakira. Song, 'She Wolf', isn't half bad! It will probably be a song I love against my will as with that Ciara & Justin song.



Anjulie. Song, 'The Heat' -- this song and I will have a short summer fling, then I'll disavow ever liking it, I can tell. I am an idiot -- I love this song! It's so sultry.

Jordin Sparks. Song, 'Battlefield', is just okay. I have never been mightily impressed by Miss Sparks but what can be done? Very few Idols can pull a 'Kelly Clarkson'.

Maxwell. If you love dulcet soul falsettos as I do, and a damn sexy man as I do, then listen to and drool over Maxwell. These songs off his new album are smooth. 'Stop the World' and 'Love You'. For 'Pretty Wings' I have provided the vid below --




One Republic feat Sara Bareilles. Song, 'Come Home' is a song I think you might really like Brandon; I'm not sure why I think that I just do. I am, of course, open to being wrong.

The Dead Weathers. Song, 'I Cut Like A Buffalo' is okay, very Jack White of White Stripes fame.

Evelyn Duprai. Songs, 'No Ordinary Day' and 'You Can Be Happy'. She's British?! There have been a number of British ingenue-imports flooding the market lately. I pulled a small sample (four songs) off her only available album on Rhapsody and these are the two I like most.

Thursday Rush Update

I'm rushing to publish an update before putting up the A Girl's Open Thread post; and yes, I know technically it is already Friday -- the open thread start date -- but for me, a day starts with the first blush of dawn.

I have a couple of updates -- let me start with my hair: It's vain and admittedly shallow but I love my hair; I love the feel of it, the length; I love taking care of it. It is time-consuming yet oddly fun. I've been natural for a while but I have never embraced it in its totality until recently. Choosing all natural products has left my hair silky, strong and long-long-long!!! Not (Black girl) perm long but kinky curl long where the twists hang enough to pull into pony tails, create full bangs or stylish 'bumps'. It's strange to me now, the idea that our natural hair is considered "hard" to style or "limited". It's not! The hair styles are half the fun! Yesterday I cornrowed my twists and I'm looking mighty cute if I do write so myself, LOL. Initially I attempted to do a 'faux-hawk' by cornrowing the sides but, with twists, the middle falls too limply. I still want to blowout my hair to get an accurate measurement of length but I'm terrified of the heat, literally. As a small child I couldn't stand the hot comb or the blow dryer. I winced and whimpered so much under their use my mother thought I suffered from sensitive scalp (nope, it's as tough as the Rock of Gibralter). Now the fear is under control (somewhat) and my fear is based more on the damage heat can do to hair.

Next on the update list -- poetry. I've continued to write. I resumed reading 'The Book of Forms' by Lewis Turco(?), once more from the start, and it has made me feel bad about myself. LOL, I kid. No, really, Turco writes there is no such thing as "free verse" because verse requires meter, measurement, a foundational pattern of a kind which it either holds to or breaks but a pattern nonetheless. Yeah, I rarely... Never. I never do that. Sigh. Without that it's all just prose, pretty prose perhaps, but prose. It also explains why my rondeau, though it fits a basic, prescribed structure still sounds wrong. I dread the redo but it must be done. Currently I'm working on sapphic verse -- it's a Greek form relying on a strict format of (in this order) two trochees, a dactyl, and two trochees per line for three lines, then an adonic line, which is a dactyl and a trochee, for the fourth and final line of the stanza. It's a blank quatrain; blank means unrhymed. Dactyls and trochees are different units of paired stressed and unstressed syllables.

Let's say this little guy [ ' ] represents a stressed syllable and this little guy [ - ] an unstressed syllable, trochees and dactyls look as follows:

trochee ' -
dactyl ' - -

So, a sapphic line looks like this: ' -..... ' -..... ' - -..... ' -..... ' -
And an adonic line looks like this: ' - -..... ' -

My creative brain is still frustrating me; it took me three days to crack that first sapphic stanza, three damn days to finish the first two and a half lines! I just completed the third line's latter half and the adonic today! Then I lit through the other quatrains as if on fire! It's as if my brain needed time to click onto the syllabic pattern because suddenly the dactyls which had troubled me so much troubled me no longer. I have one last stanza (I hope) and then I will submit the poem for critical review on the site, The Critical Poet. It's an excellent board full of knowledgeable writers and poets. It's also partially the reason why writing this poem has been so difficult. You see, this is in answer to a ten word challenge, an exercise in which ten random words are provided and must be used, in one form or another, within a freshly created poem. So on top of trying to obey a metrical pattern I also had to factor in ten odd words. Maddening! I really, really, really wanted to give up; I nearly did. However I realized quitting would only further complicate my writing path since the next form I try will probably be just as difficult if not more so. So I stuck with it and I'm glad I did. Of course I'm pretty sure once I submit the thing those who post on The Critical Poet will 'red pen' it to death but I'm cool with that -- how else does one learn? How else does one get better?

That's all for now!

Yay! Success! Success!

I have completed my rondeau, and quite a run-around the exercise gave me! To remind those kind of enough to read this blog, a rondeau is a French form of poetry which was set to music long ago. It is 15 lines consisting of this specific structure:

a
a
b
b
a

a
a
b
R

a
a
b
b
a
R

The 'R' stands for refrain which is taken from the first half of the first line of the poem. Each line, excepting for the refrain or half line, is eight syllables long; the refrain/half line is only four. When it came to rhyming I used both blatant, internal and/or off-rhymes.

A few things I will admit upfront: the needle of my creative juices is quivering near to nil; I do not write enough and so do not exercise the necessary muscles for poetry and creative writing. That's my own fault. My solution to a case of writer's, or rather, poet's block has always been to read my old poems and commence an editing frenzy. Inevitably this activity stirred my writing brain to produce something even if no more than a phrase. In this instance, I tweaked my customary writing prod and reworked an old poem into the rondeau's construction. The creative prod within this tweak is not all in the original may remain, in fact, the original's driving point may need to be forgotten all together in order to satisfy the rondeau's demands. While the original subject of my poem remains, the overall thrust is different and not simply due to the rhymes and beat count.

The original poem is named 'Ave Maria' and centers wholly on myself and my experience in the Catholic church, how Mary (and the song titled 'Ave Maria') moved my soul. It is a (clumsy) interpretation of my past feelings. This new poem still has the church as a theme but it specifies no one aspect nor focuses on 'I', instead it concentrates on a collective 'we' and how this body is the essence and the light of said church. Or at least that is what my latest clumsy attempt is about.

A Girl's Open Thread

Again?! Yes, again. It's meant to mark the weekend, and it's the weekend. I hadn't much to write in the interim days so two open threads in a row.

What has happened this week? Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died. The latter was sadly expected while the former was a shock. If only, in the wake of his death, the only memories we embraced of him were positive, his music for one. Yet the media appears determined to make a circus of his funeral, the welfare of his estate and his children. He did not always make the wisest choices -- who among us does? However he deserves a funeral free of the malicious gawking and self-righteous judgments which marked the later years of his life. Let the man rest in peace. My first real experience with Farrah Fawcett was in a telefilm about a woman who was raped; when her rapist comes for her again, she traps him in her fireplace. It is a crazy movie but her intensity, the rawness of her situation grabbed my attention as a child. She acted the hell out of that role; I believed in her pressure, her overwhelming fear and unbridled rage. For many Farrah is Charlie's Angel; for others she is the woman from 'The Burning Bed'; for me she will always be that broken yet fierce woman wielding a poker demanding justice for herself. /passings

Moving briefly to politics: Sarah Palin announced the resignation of her governorship. O-kay. I am not big on her; I don't like her, but I'm dyed blue and her message is not for me. I can say she did herself no favors neither with her resignation nor with the rambling press conference marking the announcement. /politics

If you are a fan of Moby, his new album 'Wait For Me' just dropped. It's very Moby and a pretty listen. /music

I haven't written about it since it is depressing but my boy, my favorite of faves, Nadal, has been sidelined with tendonitis in his knee. I really miss watching him play especially at Wimbledon which is currently ongoing. However, the tournament is drawing to its close and most of the usual suspects are in the final but there is one welcome surprise. Andy Roddick. He's in the Wimbledon final!!! Congratulations Andy, it's been a long slog! Juan Carlos Ferrero was my first tennis crush but Andy was the first male tennis player I ever rooted for with obsessive zeal (kind of like the way I am with Nadal now). So, he's still in my "stable" and I do a little mental happy dance when he does well. He appears to have found the next level, now he needs to bring it against Roger. Come on, Andy! My girls, Venus and Serena Williams, are in the women's final for the second year in a row. Suck it on it, haters! For me choosing between them is no longer like choosing between children, for the longest time now it has been Venus all the way. Tomorrow is no different! Bring the pain, Venus -- take that title! My girls are also in the doubles final for the second year in the row, defending champions. That's right, they carried twice the hardware out of England last year and I'm crossing my fingers they'll do so again. As it is, they are guaranteed first and second place finishes, as it were, in the single's match. I admit I skipped the first week at Wimbledon due to the lack of Nadal but the second week is typically where all the fire is anyhow. Some of those matches were really sweet! Ooh, good luck to my favorites! Just bring a good fight, the best fight and (hopefully) the rest will follow. /sports fanaticism

Oh, I picked out a new manga to read. Actually it's a manwha (the Korean version of the Japanese manga) called 'Psyren'. I was randomly searching for 'Veritas' raws and came across a board on which someone stated (paraphrase), 'Veritas' is so good I like it better than 'Psyren' now. I decided to check out 'Psyren' based on that alone since the writer and I shared a love of 'Veritas'; I figured it meant we had similar taste in manwha. Turns out we do! 'Psyren' is great though I also understand why 'Veritas' blows it out of the water -- better artwork, tighter plotting, in most categories this manwha loses to 'Veritas'. It's still wonderful with a compelling the story that seems to have picked up its pacing as the tale progresses. /otaku

I will write a rondeau. It is a poetry form requiring the repetition of the first part of the first line (a refrain) and a rhyming scheme of:
a
a
b
b
a

a
a
b
R(efrain)

a
a
b
b
a
R(efrain)

Not in this post, silly! I haven't started yet but I want to declare my intention. /Friday

A Girl's Open Thread

You know what to do. Comment on stuff. Whatever you like.

Me? Today I made a cherry clafouti and a Mexican chocolate cake with butter-cream icing. I guess I was in a baking mood. Clafouti is a French dessert and it turned out okay. Someone on Saveur -- where I got the recipe -- described it as a cross between custard and cake. I'd go more with custard, like a bread pudding type custard. It's a tea-time snack so I enjoyed a slice with a scalding hot cup of tea which I forgot was scalding hence my now scalded tongue. I am an idiot, ha!

The Mexican chocolate cake (from Real Simple) is quite delicious. It has cayenne pepper in it which, to be honest, is the driving reason behind why I made the cake in the first place. The recipe called for a chocolate glaze but knowing myself and family not to be chocolate people, I decided to avoid a chocolate-on-chocolate disaster and instead pilfered an icing from another Saveur recipe. I now know how to make a passable butter-cream icing. Huh. While I don't feel precisely accomplished, I don't feel precisely unaccomplished, so yeah, I'm good heading into this weekend.

[][][][][][][][][][][][][S][][A][][T][][U][][R][][D][][A][][Y][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

'allo! Today a few new recommendations:
Regina Spektor, a Russian-born singer of pretty talent. When sampling her work might I recommend skipping her album, 'Soviet Kitsch', and beginning with 'Begin To Hope' -- it has a better flavor of songs in my humble opinion. She recently released another CD, 'Far', and her musical maturity really shines through every song. I'm currently listening to it (via Rhapsody) and so far 'Far' is fantastic! My favorites off the album as of now: 'Blue Lips' and 'Human of the Year' and 'Laughing With' and 'Dance Anthem of the '80s' is a fun little diddy.

*

Going through the site, Ffffound, and came across this JPEG; the Rilke quote reminded me of the feeling the pic evokes. "My eyes already touch the sunny hill. / going far ahead of the road I have begun." (Rilke); click on the quote to see the pic. Speaking of evoking feelings, I'd love to have this piece. Isn't it gorgeous?

[][][][][][][][][][][][][S][][U][][N][][D][][A][][Y][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

"The lover whose soul shaken is
In some decuman billow of bliss."
~ Francis Thompson; The Way of a Maid; c. 1890.

Courtesy of A Word A Day, a mailing group dedicated to expanding the vocabulary of the masses by sharing the wonder and eccentricities of words. The italicized word within the quote, decuman, is A Word A Day fare. Do not be fooled by its noun like appearance -- it is an adjective; its meaning? 'Very large'. What I find so interesting about it is A) it is an adjective and B) its etymology. Rooted in the Latin decumanus, itself rooted in decimanus... decimus... and finally decem... each a variation on the theme of 'ten'. Decumanus was used many times by the Romans in conjunction with waves because they held to a belief that every tenth wave was the strongest. It also referred to the main gate of a military camp; the tenth cohort of the legion was stationed at that gate. Since it shares a root, decimate is also a relation and the word, dean, literally means 'a chief of ten'. Isn't that last part just fascinating?

Did you know atone is nothing more than a contraction of 'at one'? Is that not weird?! At least according to A Word A Day. I have my doubts.

--
currently running through my mind: Bertie Blackman's 'Heart'
open in a new tab

Man, you are singing my song.

David Bromige, 1933-2009
Published poet & teacher

I never knew the man, never saw him or heard him before. I have not read a lick of him until tonight and even that not poetry but an answer to a question in a Review. However, the following quoted passage produced a movement in my chest, my mind, a lump in the throat. I feel as if I am at the start of what he describes. He's singing my song, man. He's singing my song.

courtesy of Bob & Margery's Poetry Blog on About.com:
Bromige described the place of poetry in his life in a long interview published by Electronic Poetry Review in 2001: “It’s given me my life. It’s given me being. It was my entry to being. I didn’t know what else to do with my life. I had no idea what to do with my life. It seemed like there wasn't anything to do, with a life, and that in itself is a poetic recognition, I think. I didn’t get there as soon as I might have, but I had a very strong "get a job" ethic instilled into me, so I guess I felt the purpose of life was to find a job, and do it as well as you could, and then have all the fun you could fit in, around the edges of it. But when I started to write, then I realized that there was something else that I could do that filled me and was a space I could keep filling with myself. And also that it was something to be obedient to. It was a reason to have conscience, for me, because I really didn’t have much reason to have a conscience. I believe this is often an affliction of the young. So that I wouldn’t consider other people’s feelings. But as a poet, I felt like I had to. Now I’m sure you can meet plenty of people who will tell you I didn’t consider their feelings, thanks very much, but at least I was trying. It’s an incentive to consciousness. It’s an incentive to be conscious, because if you can notice things, you never know when the next thing that you can join with is going to appear. So it was an instigation of consciousness.”

*

E.B. White's Advice to a Young Writer, courtesy of About.com Grammar & Composition:
Dear Miss R---:

At seventeen, the future is apt to seem formidable, even depressing. You should see the pages of my journal circa 1916.

You asked me about writing--how I did it. There is no trick to it. If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed. I must have written half a million words (mostly in my journal) before I had anything published, save for a couple of short items in St. Nicholas. If you want to write about feelings, about the end of summer, about growing, write about it. A great deal of writing is not "plotted"--most of my essays have no plot structure, they are a ramble in the woods, or a ramble in the basement of my mind. You ask, "Who cares?" Everybody cares. You say, "It's been written before." Everything has been written before.

I went to college but not direct from high school; there was an interval of six or eight months. Sometimes it works out well to take a short vacation from the academic world--I have a grandson who took a year off and got a job in Aspen, Colorado. After a year of skiing and working, he is now settled into Colby College as a freshman. But I can't advise you, or won't advise you, on any such decision. If you have a counselor at school, I'd seek the counselor's advice. In college (Cornell), I got on the daily newspaper and ended up as editor of it. It enabled me to do a lot of writing and gave me a good journalistic experience. You are right that a person's real duty in life is to save his dream, but don't worry about it and don't let them scare you. Henry Thoreau, who wrote Walden, said, "I learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." The sentence, after more than a hundred years, is still alive. So, advance confidently. And when you write something, send it (neatly typed) to a magazine or a publishing house. Not all magazines read unsolicited contributions, but some do. The New Yorker is always looking for new talent. Write a short piece for them, send it to The Editor. That's what I did forty-some years ago. Good luck.

a long silence precedes the explosion, part two

Ag'smg post continued!!! Don't worry. This is only a two part installment, only the handful of songs which have captured my ear more often than others. Note: some, if not all, of the songs listed here should be opened in a new tab or window so as not to lose my awesome, wonderful blogger page, lol.

...................................................................................................................*....*....*

The Stars of My Song List

[PLAY] 'Runaway' by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, album 'It's Blitz' (youtube). I'm a sucker for a piano; for the full-blooded darkness of cellos; are those violins I hear? Add Karen O's compelling voice to the mix and I'm there! First heard on the television series, 'Gossip Girl'... yeah, I know, you're sensing a pattern aren't you? Look, I disdain the radio and so my new music needs are satisfied by scavenging other media -- TV, film, Rhapsody (tm), the internet.

[PLAY1] 'To Build A Home' & [PLAY2] 'That Home' by Cinematic Orchestra, album 'Ma Fleur' (youtube). Don't mind PLAY1's weird video; it's the only one I could find which played the full album version. 'That Home' is a corollary to 'To Build A Home'; it is firmer and a brief introduction to the theme gently and more fully explored in 'To Build A Home'. The latter is another TV-found song, this time from 'Criminal Minds'. I went on a crazy 'Criminal Minds' binge for, like, two months. I inhaled four seasons of the stuff and came away with an appreciation for the procedural and a couple of kick-*ss songs. This one wistfully builds itself across the melodyscape, all bruising longing and homecomings. Guess what I just found out? Patrick Watson is singing this song! I love him! His album, 'Close to Paradise' is a quiet little treasure. Also, PLAY2? Pure poetry: "Where the doors are moaning all day long / Where the stairs are leaning dusk 'till dawn / Where the windows are breathing in the light / Where the rooms are a collection of our lives / This is a place where I don't feel alone / This is a place that I call my home."

[PLAY] 'That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be' by Carly Simon, album 'The Best of Carly Simon'. No link here I'm afraid. I can only find amateur covers and lyrics. It is a beautiful song.

[PLAY] 'The Fear' by Lily Allen, album 'It's Not Me, It's You' (youtube). I'm surprised I like this song, really I am. I am not a Lily Allen fan, not by a long shot. However, this single is just good flirty fun and sometimes you just need a well-crafted pop confection.

[PLAY] 'The Moment I Said It' by Imogen Heap, album 'Speak for Yourself' (youtube). Recall my 'Criminal Minds' binge? Well, this is another one of those kick-*ss songs I mentioned collecting. This is not my first time hearing Imogen Heap -- I have bookmarked a couple of her songs as favorites before. However I find her a bit hit-and-miss so I'm not too aggressive about exploring her discography. Her voice though, is right in my wheelhouse.

'Walk Into River' by Mychael Danna, soundtrack 'Water' (archive.org). Whenever I'm down for a good cry or the resonant call of Indian instrumentations tugs on my heart strings, I play this baby. You have to watch the movie, 'Water' -- excellent by the way -- to fully appreciate the song's effort. It is sweeping, deep and gorgeous. The entire soundtrack is a feast for the ears, the film a feast for the eyes and Mychael Danna a blessing to any cinematic score.

a long silence precedes the explosion, part one

An (ag'smg) post.

Well, that didn't last long. "Bored, bored, bored," is what I wrote in my last post. So apathetic I could not find a song to post or sing. That's weird for me, a girl who loves my sansa so much I biked to Wal-Mart to buy a new player when my old one broke. As frustrating as the situation had been, it actually provided an opportunity to clean up my song list, to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak. It's sort of disconcerting playing my randomized playlist and not run into a skippable song; even when I'm not in the mood for a song, I still heart hearing it.

The apathy has lifted -- it couldn't last forever (thank god)! So, with which song should I begin? Note: some, if not all, of the songs listed here should be opened in a new tab or window so as not to lose my awesome, wonderful blogger page, lol.

...................................................................................................................*....*....*

The Stars of My Song List

[PLAY] '15 Steps' by Radiohead, album 'In Rainbows' (stream sourced to www.minneapolisfuckingrocks.com). I briefly ducked in and out of Radiohead's 'In Rainbows', and because I beat a hasty path through this audible treat I missed/dismissed a lot of good songs, '15 Steps' being one of them. I first took note of the song after watching 'Twilight'. As the credits rolled the song struck: the tin and the drum of the opening bars and the signature silk of Thom Yorke's voice riveted me. It was a poorly done film with an awesomely done-up credit roll containing all the froth and mystery, sensuality and danger the movie was too meek to deliver. I will say though, Robert Pattinson is deliciousness on legs. *ahem* Apart from the start of the song, my other fave portion is the child chorus crying "Yay!"; there is something so playful about it which I love.

[PLAY] 'Answer' by Sarah McLachlan, album 'Afterglow' (youtube). It took me a long minute to really feel this album and even longer to like this song, but the album's mellow flow at last worked its magic. Perhaps I needed a mellow moment of my own to appreciate what Sarah was offering? "Cast me gently into morning / For the night has been unkind / Take me to a place so holy / That I can wash this from my mind / The memory of choosing not to fight..." The lady can turn a lovely phrase and her voice, as always, is a dream!

[PLAY] 'God of Wine' by Third Eye Blind, album 'Third Eye Blind' (youtube). One of my first adolescent CD purchases, I highly recommend the entire album. This song in particular crept into the top spot after repeated album listens -- but really, the entire album is good.

[PLAY] 'I've Seen It All' by Bjork feat. Thom Yorke, soundtrack 'Selmasongs' (youtube). I love Bjork, and one of my favorite albums by her is the 'Selmasongs' soundtrack. Again, Thom Yorke makes a wonderful vocal appearance (I didn't know that until just now!) but Bjork is the power and the presence of the song. Her wail as the song rises to its conclusion gets me every time.

[PLAY] 'Kingdom of Rust' by Doves, album 'Kingdom of Rust' (youtube). No real story here -- was introduced to the single by Rhapsody (tm) and fell in love with its easy melodic drama.

[PLAY] 'List of Demands (Reparations)' by Saul Williams, album 'The Inevitable Rise of Niggy Tardust' (youtube). Again. Again, a song's opening draws me in and holds me fast. I never saw the infamous Nike (tm) commercial which used this song... not until after I had perused the music blog, The Stranger Dance, and had come across their music-in-commercials series. I can't even begin to describe that opening! A brutal assault full of pepper and strength; the rap which follows is just as ruthless and demanding -- it's great!!!

[PLAY] 'Live Your Life' by T.I. feat Rihanna, album 'Paper Trail' (youtube). Really I only like the hook and beat, the rap is kind of weak.

[PLAY] 'Lonely Ghosts' by O+S, album 'O+S' (jrk.posterous.com). I heard this song during the first brilliant episode of Whedon's television series, 'Dollhouse'. It framed the action so well, amplifying the scenes and bringing tears to my eyes. Love that deep bass voice laying ground beneath the ethereality.

[PLAY] 'Metal Heart' by Cat Power, album 'Jukebox' (youtube). Cat Power is fast becoming my darkhorse artist. This song breaks my heart! Heard it on the now cancelled (boo) television series, 'The Unusuals'. On the smoky strength of the lyric, "I once was lost but now I'm found / Was blind but now I see you..." I sought out the title and artist. The lyric contained therein which now cuts me to the quick? "Sew your fortunes on a string / Blue smoke will take / A very violent flight / And you will be changed..."

[PLAY] 'One Word' by Kelly Osbourne, album 'Sleeping in the Nothing' (youtube). 'One Word'. Kelly Osbourne. Oh god, don't ask me why I like this song so much. It's been forever since I last listened to it and suddenly a craving came upon me: Must. Listen. To. Kelly. Well, Kelly's single. I never ventured beyond this song since outside this instance, her voice doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. There's just something about the sexy, electronic, psuedo-French noir of this song! Don't you judge me!!!

Nothing New / A Girl's Open Thread

I have nothing new to report. No music. No TV. No poetry. No reading. Nothing. All is barren in sGland which is sad, but true. I thought I'd write a post though to let Brandon and anyone else curious enough to read this blog know I'm alive and well.

Oh, I'm having some yummy fried chicken! That's new. LOL Sigh, at some point I'll have to stop being so bored. Post any comments here you want, I'll be checking back throughout the weekend. Oh, and Brandon: I haven't received an e-mail from you. The search function turned up nada. Also, any e-mails I send you are being rejected as a wrong address thing. I thought I had corrected that but perhaps I haven't. Let me know what I'm doing wrong.

a girl's purple tub

When I am old, I am shall bathe in purple...



...............................................................Isn't this just delicious???

Now I dream of a violet footed bathtub and golden roman shades for my windows.
I am such a style whore, ^_^! Thank you, Tha Hotness blog, for sharing your 'bathroom porn'
with the interweb at large.

(ag'smg) reminds me of winter

.......................................................... . Vespertine .

From the opening song's first note to the lingering strain of the last this album reminds me of
winter. Not frigid air but warm woolly mittens; not storm and hail but the gentle fall of snow one
early morning, myself safely tucked behind a window. Its silent blanket, its frank wind tossing
flakes or rap-rap-rapping against the pane. Quiet. Mysterious. Living under flesh; slipping into
bones -- Bjork's Vespertine sings like this to me. It is her quietest album but one of her best; it
solidified me as a fan. Click on the album title located under the picture to hear the album in its
entirety.

"Happiness hit her like a bullet in the head." (ag'smg)

Florence & The Machine
song: Dog Days Are Over

So they want Napolitano to resign...

Are these people stupid?! So, when the next such report comes out warning about KKK members and Neo-Nazis should they call for the resignation of a state official??? Plus you can only be insulted if you consider yourself an extremist or a terrorist bent on a radicalized or terrorizing action. Are these House members really admitting en masse that they are part and parcel of a violent threat to these United States? Really?

I hate how they are politicizing a report that is for serious nationwide law enforcement consumption. Such reports provide an important heads-up for law enforcement, keeping them abreast of trends to watch out for. It's this kind of stuff that helps to prevent a Timothy McVeigh or, god help us all, a 9-11. If someone is stockpiling weapons and ammo you can bet it is not because they want to throw the neighborhood a party! To trivialize something like that is ridiculous and dangerous and wrong. Besides I can recall instances over the years of radical environmentalist or animal rights groups on such reports. Where was their hue and cry then? It's just sickening.

Okay, If This Isn't Creepy and Disturbing

'The Tea Party'
artist: Ronit Baranga

Still. It has a disconcerting loveliness to it: the plaster skin, placid smiles and
vacant eyes, bending over cups of tea. It's interesting. Disturbing, but interesting.
Click on the artist's name (under the pic) to check out his (her?) website and
other artwork.

Unfettered Melancholy & Rage; 808s & Heartbreak (ag'smg)

'_' .....Say You Will *

'_' .....Welcome To Heartbreak

'_' .....Heartless

'_' .....Amazing *

'_' .....Love Lockdown *

'_' .....Paranoid

'_' .....Robocop

'_' .....Streetlights *

'_' .....Bad News *

'_' .....See You In My Nightmares

'_' .....Coldest Winter *


The *'s are my favorites of the album
Click on the emoticons to hear the songs

There is a sadness, a restless anger pounding throughout the album's synthesized beats. When I heard the lead single, Love Lockdown, I was unsure as to whether I liked Kanye's latest effort. After listening to the album, however, I found myself absorbed by the false (synthesizers and voice-thing-a-ma-gigs) and the natural (drums) ways in which he tried to introduce us to his grief. This album dropped last November but I was listening to a track just now and had to add my two cents about this interesting effort. One thing you can say about Kanye: he knows how to grow musically.

ag'smg: I Tuoi Fiori

Etta Scollo
song: I Tuoi Fiori

observation

From my fortress home I see
our neighbor's tree,
its thousand palms clapping in the breeze.

He's So F**king Hot

Don't mind me, y'all, just another Asian crush!
:claps excitedly:
You just don't know what these Asian men do to me!

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to:
Ananda Everingham,
a delicious Thai chap of Lao-Australian descent,
and he is all amounts of yum.

Oh, don't let me near him! I'm thisclose to pulling a "Takeshi!" on him;
those in the know know of what I speak! So, let's all admire The Pretty:



.....I have never in my life wanted to be milk...
........................Until now.
..........................(orgasm)



......Aw! He looks so super sweet and cute wearing
.....that soft expression and long hair... super sweet
.......and still oh-so super sexy...! Let me at him: I'll
.................drrty his pretty up right quick.



..........Ignore the woman! Worship The Pretty!
Seriously, how does a man contrive to look that hot?!
........Is it a global conspiracy?! Of Asian men?!
How else does one explain Takeshi Kaneshiro and now
............Ananda? There is no other explanation
.........................for such hotness.

This is not a natural hair blog!

But...

I tend to write about things I am into very intensely, and right now hair, as Brandon so astutely put it, is my project. There is sad news in the kingdom of Shanee: I am being a poor steward for my hair! Not enough moisture in my burgeoning all-natural hair process. I won't bore you with the details (this time) but it's all a learning curve. Sigh.

'_'

Obama, I already love you

"During Obama's recent visit to Fort Myers, Fla., to promote his economic stimulus plan, a black Baptist preacher delivered a prayer that carefully avoided mentioning Jesus, lest he offend anyone in the audience. And at Obama's appearance last week near Phoenix to unveil his mortgage bailout plan, an administrator for the Tohono O'odham Nation delivered the prayer, taking the unusual step of writing it down so he could E-mail it to the White House for vetting. American Indian prayers are typically improvised.

Though invocations have long been commonplace at presidential inaugurations and certain events like graduations or religious services at which presidents are guests, the practice of commissioning and vetting prayers for presidential rallies is unprecedented in modern history, according to religion and politics experts."

blog byline: Dan Gilgoff

full article here.

Oh My God! That Is The Most Terrible Song I've Ever Had The Misfortune Of Hearing!

.
.
Walter Egan
"Magnet & Steel"


Seriously folks, it's pretty damn bad.

---
So check it: speaking of crazy songs -- there's this song called MacArthur Park, awesome melody but the lyrics... It's about cake; it's supposed to be a metaphor but all I'm getting is cake so, metaphor-fail. Cake which is melting in a park with a little love mixed in. So yeah, I'm listening to it right now because I wanted to and well, I needed a little mind rinse after the Walter Egan's OMGWTF. And so as I listen it occurs to me that everyone, and I mean everyone from the songwriter to the producer on down, must have been seriously stoned during the making and recording of this song. A cake recipe... yeah, really stoned. Sh*t like this only makes sense when you're stoned.

"You've already lost."

Remember what I told you about Iowa last year, Brandon?



Vermont also struck down a similar amendment introduced by its governor.

Happy Nappy Length ^^

all photos are pre-wash

Yeah, sorry about the crooked glasses. Time for a new pair. ^^