Recently emo has been coming back to me. I may have encountered much of the genre in high school, but it has that undeniable junior high quality to it. Its the kind of music that gives you free license to feel sorry for yourself for whatever real or ridiculous problems you're having, and it makes me feel better to feed that completely self-involved part of myself. If you're not in the mood for it, it can come off at totally pretentious and juvenille, but like I said, jr. high. There's even new stuff these days that maintians the late 90's/early 2000's emo tinge (yes yes, I know it started in the 80's, but then we just called it Punk), and it takes me back. I feel like a lot of music is reminding me of my younger years, before I could drive, when I was even worse at dealing with my hair, when I was too shy to talk to a clerk to find something in a store.
I remember being in my friend's basement at her 15th birthday party and someone had a mix tape that had 'What's my Age Again?' that we kept rewinding and replaying... that's such an awesome song. One line is "nobody likes you when you're 23", and last year I took special note to that sentiment being in the midst of 23-ness. But I'm not sure I acted in the same manner as the blink boys at that age.
Anyway, a small sampling... I'm sure many potential readers will wince and say "I know craploads more about emo and punk than this lame chick", and honestly I'm completely ok with that. I don't claim to be an expert or connoisseur. Its the sound and the corresponding response of the music that I'm referring to. Disagree with comments at will.
But what all this reminiscing really tells me is that I'm getting ooold. Some of the music I've been remembering is from 10 years ago or more. I make random 90's pop culture references to some of the students I TA, and I can't tell if they're laughing b/c they get it or b/c they feel sorry for me and the reference goes over their heads. Most people around me tell me that 24 is not very old, but when I was 17 I would have been like, dude! That is like so old! Its all relative.
Anyway...
April 22, 2009
April 13, 2009
204 extravaganza!
I didn't do anything particularly fun for the 200th post, and so I'm going to do a little bit o' that now for the big 204! What a momentous number. I wonder if there's anyone out there who has read them all... I can only think of one possible candidate other than myself, but perhaps I flatter myself.
If you're happy and you know it say a swear:
The theme will be... media! Including media I like, and random internet media (which are not actually non-intersecting subsets of media, but whatever). I know that I'm not a media guru compared to many, but I do have a pretty extensive music collection. If my iPod is any indication I currently have 3283 tracks, and I haven't added about 12 albums of music I got from a friend yet. Beginning with planet Beth's iPod (yes, that's what pops up in the iTunes sidebar... I already used up "Magnum" on my cell phone...) here are the top played songs, with associated play counts:
boobs!
1. Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens (PC 145)
2. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service (PC 128)
3. The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades - Sufjan Stevens (PC 112)
4. Optimistic - Radiohead (PC 109)
5. The Avalanche - Sufjan Stevens (PC 108)
6. ...Off By Heart - City and Colour (PC 105)
7. Mr Brightside - The Killers (PC 103)
8. Like Knives - City and Colour (PC 102)
9. Concerning the UFO Sighting - Sufjan Stevens (PC 97)
10. A Message - Coldplay (PC 96)
11. Kid A - Radiohead (PC 92)
12. Everything I Am - Kanye West (PC 90)
13. Warning Sign - Coldplay (PC 88)
14. Brand New Colony - The Postal Service (PC 87)
15. Got to Sleep (Little Man Being Erased) - Radiohead (PC 87)
hiney!
Mittens!
Ok, so clearly I'm a creature of habit. But let me explain. First off, I do love The Postal Service 'Give Up', but another reason for the multiple high play count is that this was the first album I put onto my iPod. And for a while I only had like 5 albums, and that was the one most befitting of my mood during such a time period. Clearly the overwhelming winner is Sufjan Stevens, and only from two different (yet closely related) albums. I make no apologies for Casimir Pulaski Day, and if you knew it you'd know. But again I think this has something do with the fact that 'The Avalance' and 'Illinois' are also some of the oldest albums on my iPod (relative to the iPod, of course). I assure you my whole music collection is much more diverse than these top 15. Which I will now prove with 5 songs chosen faithfully from shuffle:
"Cheese eating surrender monkey's" is a derogatory term for the French.
1. Dum Diddly - Black Eyed Peas
2. Last Flowers to the Hospital - Radiohead
3. Smile - Weezer
4. Objects of my Affection - Peter Bjorn and John
5. Minus - Beck
And it took me a second to get the fishsticks/gay fish joke... it helps if you say it outloud
I do love my alt rock... or whatever it is that I've been calling "alt rock". I remember when 'Jagged Little Pill' and alternative was all the rage. But I was in grade school, so I just pretended to know what the cool kids who were in touch with current music were talking about. Music I actually knew when I was a kid was stuff like the Beach Boys and Patsy Cline that my parent's had. Also there were some Boney M and Puff the Magic Dragon records in there somewhere. But collecting (good) music is awesome. But never ask me what a song is "about", b/c its almost guaranteed that I have no freaking idea. At best I'll have some vague notion: "Love? No wait, a breakup... political commentary?"This is because the value I place on music is the actual sound of the music rather than the lyric portion of this medium. Some people look down on others for projecting some deep interpretation onto the lyrical value of a song, only to later find out that the artist who created those lyrics had something rather shallow in mind. But when I projects, its as a true observer reappropriating the artform to my own purposes. Its how the sound makes me feel, and how I relate to the sound rather than the direct message a lyric might be trying to send. At least a lot of the time, not all of it.
You know who I've always loved? Phil Collins.
Recently I'm on a total 80's kick. And by total I mean Joy Division and The Smiths, both of which turn out to be awesome. A friend of mine, who's 80's experience is much more salient than mine said "The 80's are simply the best". Which makes me chuckle. I don't know anyone else who would utter that statement, given the general perception of that decade of music. I'm a little more up on the 90's music (does anyone remember how good Third Eye Blind was? b/c its really good) and I can actually tie those singles to my life experience. Like hearing "Hey Leonardo (she likes me for me)" and "She's so High" at Canada's Wonderland on a sweaty hot teenaged day.
I'm effectively procrastinating. Huge due date in 3 days. Going to die.
A small collection of things I've come across, such as webcomics and yoube-tube videos. The day I started writing this post seemed to be a good day for some of comics I frequent, at least at the time:
I secretly feel like an idiot when I don't get the math jokes, like I don't remember anything from my math degree anymore.
For the previously unconnected Rollover: Police reported three dozen cheerful bystanders, yet no one claims to have seen who did it.
On the PhD front, this is an issue almost every student I talk to has.
My strategy used to be to avoid the use of a name or title altogether, until I got embarassingly called out by my supervisor who said his name is not 'Hi,' or 'Hello,'...
Right, so you know how I'm irrationally obsessed with Stephen Colbert (possibly on par with my irrational fear of a certain limbless animal), so I found this mega old clip from his Chicago days. I think Paul Dinello is trying to play some kind of teenager, but the squeak in his voice makes me believe.
Kinda hott, no?
Makes me laugh. C'mon, don't be so uptight.
Watch Strangers With Candy if you want to see Colbert and Dinello get their lovin' ooon.
Another kind of media (*brilliant and seamless segue*) is like newspapers! We get the Montreal Gazette for free at the gym (oddly, no one ever has been able to find it free anywhere else on campus... its only for those who, um, pay the gym membership? maybe there was a newspaper subscription somewhere in the fine print of the not-contract we didn't have to not sign). I used to
get the Toronto Star for free at U of T, which is where I started doing SuDoKu. It took me a couple times to actually figure out how it works, but don't worry, I've caught up to basic human functioning by now. And U of T's weekly the newspaper had normal SuDoKu as well as a squiggly/kid one and a monster one (like 12x12 or 16x16, which takes way long, but the time is directly proportional to the feeling of satisfaction obtained).
I posted a completed hard monster sudoku on the ling lounge fridge.
Anyway, I've been planning for a long time now to write an angry letter to the Gazette editor because the SuDoKus are way to easy. Even the ones that are 'very hard' would only be so if the challenge was to do it in under 4 minutes, but I think I could still swing that. I don't even have to write little number in the corner for theirs. It makes me very angry. You can ask my office mates, they've heard the repeated rants. dailysudoku
Hugh Jackman is a beautiful man.
And my brother exposed me to The Show, which I wish I knew of at the time, but I'm a loser and am not up on the current type things. Here's one I like. theshowwithzefrank
I think I'm still missing "books". Honestly I haven't read any books recently, because linguistics articles are all the reading I get to do during the school year, but summer I usually catch up. Hmmm, what book should I tell you to read today? If you've never read Dickens, here's your chance, and if you want someone to mess with your head do up some Crime and Punishment, and if you want to feel completely desolate and hopeless read A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, and if you want a crazy book with some humour but an underlying message that is serious and penetrating read Slaughterhouse V, and if you want to feel like shooting yourself read the 200 page account of the battle of Waterloo buried in Les Miserables, and if you want to the same plot cycling around itself, each time only undergoing minor detail alternations, read Pillars of the Earth, and if you want to suffer the terrible writing of an evil "philosopher" who can justify murder by industrial ideology read Atlas Shrugged.
I don't like "The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime"... I don't understand the kid's problem with synonyms...
But if you just want to read a really good book read Lord of the Rings. That's right, I said it.
You know Samwise is the real hero. And that Pippin's accent is way sexy.
Happy 204. If you take out the "0" that's how old I be.
If you're happy and you know it say a swear:
The theme will be... media! Including media I like, and random internet media (which are not actually non-intersecting subsets of media, but whatever). I know that I'm not a media guru compared to many, but I do have a pretty extensive music collection. If my iPod is any indication I currently have 3283 tracks, and I haven't added about 12 albums of music I got from a friend yet. Beginning with planet Beth's iPod (yes, that's what pops up in the iTunes sidebar... I already used up "Magnum" on my cell phone...) here are the top played songs, with associated play counts:
boobs!
1. Casimir Pulaski Day - Sufjan Stevens (PC 145)
2. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service (PC 128)
3. The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades - Sufjan Stevens (PC 112)
4. Optimistic - Radiohead (PC 109)
5. The Avalanche - Sufjan Stevens (PC 108)
6. ...Off By Heart - City and Colour (PC 105)
7. Mr Brightside - The Killers (PC 103)
8. Like Knives - City and Colour (PC 102)
9. Concerning the UFO Sighting - Sufjan Stevens (PC 97)
10. A Message - Coldplay (PC 96)
11. Kid A - Radiohead (PC 92)
12. Everything I Am - Kanye West (PC 90)
13. Warning Sign - Coldplay (PC 88)
14. Brand New Colony - The Postal Service (PC 87)
15. Got to Sleep (Little Man Being Erased) - Radiohead (PC 87)
hiney!
Mittens!Ok, so clearly I'm a creature of habit. But let me explain. First off, I do love The Postal Service 'Give Up', but another reason for the multiple high play count is that this was the first album I put onto my iPod. And for a while I only had like 5 albums, and that was the one most befitting of my mood during such a time period. Clearly the overwhelming winner is Sufjan Stevens, and only from two different (yet closely related) albums. I make no apologies for Casimir Pulaski Day, and if you knew it you'd know. But again I think this has something do with the fact that 'The Avalance' and 'Illinois' are also some of the oldest albums on my iPod (relative to the iPod, of course). I assure you my whole music collection is much more diverse than these top 15. Which I will now prove with 5 songs chosen faithfully from shuffle:
"Cheese eating surrender monkey's" is a derogatory term for the French.
1. Dum Diddly - Black Eyed Peas
2. Last Flowers to the Hospital - Radiohead
3. Smile - Weezer
4. Objects of my Affection - Peter Bjorn and John
5. Minus - Beck
And it took me a second to get the fishsticks/gay fish joke... it helps if you say it outloud
I do love my alt rock... or whatever it is that I've been calling "alt rock". I remember when 'Jagged Little Pill' and alternative was all the rage. But I was in grade school, so I just pretended to know what the cool kids who were in touch with current music were talking about. Music I actually knew when I was a kid was stuff like the Beach Boys and Patsy Cline that my parent's had. Also there were some Boney M and Puff the Magic Dragon records in there somewhere. But collecting (good) music is awesome. But never ask me what a song is "about", b/c its almost guaranteed that I have no freaking idea. At best I'll have some vague notion: "Love? No wait, a breakup... political commentary?"This is because the value I place on music is the actual sound of the music rather than the lyric portion of this medium. Some people look down on others for projecting some deep interpretation onto the lyrical value of a song, only to later find out that the artist who created those lyrics had something rather shallow in mind. But when I projects, its as a true observer reappropriating the artform to my own purposes. Its how the sound makes me feel, and how I relate to the sound rather than the direct message a lyric might be trying to send. At least a lot of the time, not all of it.
You know who I've always loved? Phil Collins.
Recently I'm on a total 80's kick. And by total I mean Joy Division and The Smiths, both of which turn out to be awesome. A friend of mine, who's 80's experience is much more salient than mine said "The 80's are simply the best". Which makes me chuckle. I don't know anyone else who would utter that statement, given the general perception of that decade of music. I'm a little more up on the 90's music (does anyone remember how good Third Eye Blind was? b/c its really good) and I can actually tie those singles to my life experience. Like hearing "Hey Leonardo (she likes me for me)" and "She's so High" at Canada's Wonderland on a sweaty hot teenaged day.
I'm effectively procrastinating. Huge due date in 3 days. Going to die.
A small collection of things I've come across, such as webcomics and yoube-tube videos. The day I started writing this post seemed to be a good day for some of comics I frequent, at least at the time:
I secretly feel like an idiot when I don't get the math jokes, like I don't remember anything from my math degree anymore.
For the previously unconnected Rollover: Police reported three dozen cheerful bystanders, yet no one claims to have seen who did it.On the PhD front, this is an issue almost every student I talk to has.
My strategy used to be to avoid the use of a name or title altogether, until I got embarassingly called out by my supervisor who said his name is not 'Hi,' or 'Hello,'...Right, so you know how I'm irrationally obsessed with Stephen Colbert (possibly on par with my irrational fear of a certain limbless animal), so I found this mega old clip from his Chicago days. I think Paul Dinello is trying to play some kind of teenager, but the squeak in his voice makes me believe.
Kinda hott, no?
Makes me laugh. C'mon, don't be so uptight.
Watch Strangers With Candy if you want to see Colbert and Dinello get their lovin' ooon.
Another kind of media (*brilliant and seamless segue*) is like newspapers! We get the Montreal Gazette for free at the gym (oddly, no one ever has been able to find it free anywhere else on campus... its only for those who, um, pay the gym membership? maybe there was a newspaper subscription somewhere in the fine print of the not-contract we didn't have to not sign). I used to
get the Toronto Star for free at U of T, which is where I started doing SuDoKu. It took me a couple times to actually figure out how it works, but don't worry, I've caught up to basic human functioning by now. And U of T's weekly the newspaper had normal SuDoKu as well as a squiggly/kid one and a monster one (like 12x12 or 16x16, which takes way long, but the time is directly proportional to the feeling of satisfaction obtained).I posted a completed hard monster sudoku on the ling lounge fridge.
Anyway, I've been planning for a long time now to write an angry letter to the Gazette editor because the SuDoKus are way to easy. Even the ones that are 'very hard' would only be so if the challenge was to do it in under 4 minutes, but I think I could still swing that. I don't even have to write little number in the corner for theirs. It makes me very angry. You can ask my office mates, they've heard the repeated rants. dailysudoku
Hugh Jackman is a beautiful man.And my brother exposed me to The Show, which I wish I knew of at the time, but I'm a loser and am not up on the current type things. Here's one I like. theshowwithzefrank
I think I'm still missing "books". Honestly I haven't read any books recently, because linguistics articles are all the reading I get to do during the school year, but summer I usually catch up. Hmmm, what book should I tell you to read today? If you've never read Dickens, here's your chance, and if you want someone to mess with your head do up some Crime and Punishment, and if you want to feel completely desolate and hopeless read A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, and if you want a crazy book with some humour but an underlying message that is serious and penetrating read Slaughterhouse V, and if you want to feel like shooting yourself read the 200 page account of the battle of Waterloo buried in Les Miserables, and if you want to the same plot cycling around itself, each time only undergoing minor detail alternations, read Pillars of the Earth, and if you want to suffer the terrible writing of an evil "philosopher" who can justify murder by industrial ideology read Atlas Shrugged.
I don't like "The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime"... I don't understand the kid's problem with synonyms...
But if you just want to read a really good book read Lord of the Rings. That's right, I said it.
You know Samwise is the real hero. And that Pippin's accent is way sexy.
Happy 204. If you take out the "0" that's how old I be.
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