Wish List

If anyone’s feeling generous, feel free to purchase these things for me…haha. I’ve had my eye on a few things as of late that I’ve been SLOWLY trying to purchase, but hey it’s a recession. Here’s a wish list in no particular order. 

1. Weeds Season 4 – I spent a week this winter watching the 3 previous seasons that I bought for $8 each on black friday. Suh-weet! Not so sweet, is knowing the new season is coming out and not having the monies to pay for Season 4…ahhh…but I need to know what happens!

2. Perfect Fifths by Megan McCafferty – I started reading this series as a Freshman in college. Jessica Darling’s character has pretty much grown at the same rate as I have, and I adore these books and so did a certain Harvard student back in 2006…eh hem. It’s the 5th and final book in the series and I won’t read it until I am done all the writing I have to do, but I’ve been anticipating this book since last summer!

3. Diana + Deluxe Kit – I’ve had an interest in photography for quite some time. Unfortunately, I only had the opportunity to take one photography class, which I LOVED but never got to explore this hobby further. You know with life plans and future getting all in the way. I’m really digging this camera kit and the images it can produce. For now, I’ll have to make do with the Camera Bag app on my Iphone, which I highly recommend if you have. Here’s a great write-up on the app. 

4. Portable USB Turntable – Oh so beautiful! I’ve been eyeing the Crosley AV Room Portable USB Turntable for the last two months. It’s perfect, and the color matches my room! I want this so badly! Hmmm, what should my first vinyl be?

5. Pocket Watch Necklace – I’m a sucker for long chains with big pendants and I fell in love with this Old and New Pocket Watch Necklace from ModCloth. I have a couple other pieces from them that I get compliments on all the time. The filigree cover caught my eye and the texture looks so pleasing.

6. Moroccan Lantern – Just because it’s pretty and I’m a fan of mood lighting.

 

7. Phillies Tickets – Last but not least, Phillies tickets! Baseball season is upon us and I’m oh-so-happy, except it will be sad without Harry Kalas around to announce (R.I.P.). But I’m ready for those summer nights in Citizens Bank Park rooting for the Phils, drinking beers, and chillin’ with friends. 

Can you tell I’m a girl? Anyway, with this list I leave you a new Deerhunter track, Deerhunter – Rainwater Cassette Exchange. Enjoy!

PS – To anyone who purchases any of these for me, I offer you a mix cd made personally by me or you could be my +1 to a show. It’s all I got peoples.

My Love Affair with Plants & Animals

A quiet Monday night after a huge snowstorm hit the Northeast, I walked into the cozy and familiar territory of Johnny Brenda’s to see Montreal based band Plants and Animals. I don’t think I could have asked for a more perfect Monday night show. On Monday, March 2nd I went through all the emotions of love and heartache with Plants and Animals. Let me first say that their album Parc Avenue, as much as I love this album, does not do justice to their live act. I still highly recommend it and suggest listening to it from beginning to end over and over again.

As they began, an excitement overcame me. Warren Spicer’s voice blew me away. It was the beginning of our relationship, the new and exciting part of getting to know someone and realizing how truly fantastic they are. I fell in love during the appropriately named “New Kind Of Love.” The quality of Spicer’s voice is so lush that it carries you through the evening, like the arms of your lover wrapping around you and holding you tight.

During “Faerie Dance” and “Feedback in the Field” I knew I never wanted to see them go. The show was so intimate, it felt as though they were playing in my living room or bedroom for me and only me. I’ve stated this before, but whenever I see a band play and realize I never want the show to end it means they’re amazing in my eyes. Plants and Animals captured my heart and I didn’t want them to ever let go.

As they sang “Bye Bye Bye,” the song that got me interested in them, I knew our relationship was coming to an end. We had to part ways soon, our whirlwind romance was over. The encore was “Guru/Sinnerman” and what a fantastic way to end the evening, even though it meant they had to break my heart by ending the show. It was a 12-minute encore that celebrated the fantastic set they had just put on, and a dedication to our love affair.

I will revisit our relationship every time they come back to town.

Plants and Animals – Bye Bye Bye

Plants and Animals – New Kind Of Love

Singles Worth Checking Out

Although I’m more of an album lover, here are some excellent singles (from 2009 upcoming releases) that I’ve been listening to:

Suckers – Easy Chairs

Foreign Born – Vacationing People

St. Vincent – Strangers

Dum Dum Girls – Baby Don\'t Go (????)

Crocodiles – Neon Jesus

Phoenix – 1901

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Statues

Black Gold – Shine

Palomar – Alone

Limousines – Very Busy People

Fake Male Voice – OMG!!!FMV!!!

Winter Gloves – Let Me Drive

Project Jenny, Project Jan – Pins and Needles

Blind Man\'s Colour – Waterfall Freedom

Antlers – Kettering

Thermals – Now We Can See

Phone Tag – I\'ve Got Your Number (Passion Pit Cover)

Richard Swift – Lady Luck

Emil & Friends – Sleepyhead (Passion Pit Cover)

Friend – Secret (Air France Cover)

Cryptacize – Blue Tears

Alela Diane – White As Diamonds

Bodies of Water – Dear Boy

The Watchmen Review – Spoiler Alert

 

Fanboy geekdom to the fullest was going on last night in theaters everywhere and then there was me. Now I never read the graphic novel, but I did go with someone who did. They enjoyed the movie and said they probably would have thought it was even better had he not read the graphic novel. I on the other hand, had a different take. 

Let me begin with saying I was not a huge fan of 300. I thought the movie’s acting never lived up to it’s cinematic hype. At first I thought, perhaps I’m asking for too much – visually mind-blowing with great acting? 

Here’s the list of what I did not like about this movie:

1. Too long! First off, this definitely says something about the pace of the movie because The Departed was just as long of a movie, and not for one moment did I think that movie was too long. Some parts of The Watchmen just seemed to crawl. I believe a lot of it had to do with an over-indulgence in a teenage fanboy’s fantasy of the world of the Watchmen. A friend stated after the movie that it seemed like it would have been better as a TV series and not a movie, and I couldn’t have agreed more.

2. Uh what was up with that soft core porn in the middle of the movie? I mean maybe this will get people all hot and bothered in a good way, but the sex scene between Dan and Laurie is just too long. Maybe I was supposed to be pulled in, and feel the strong connection between these two old friends but instead it felt awkward and unnecessary. It felt like a self-indulgent sexual fantasy of a Watchmen obsessive to the fullest. Also, “Hallelujah” really?! Putting that song over this sex scene I think made almost everyone in the theater uncomfortable. I should have expected this after seeing 300 and taking into account the sex scenes in that movie. 

3. The music! Oh god the music! The amount of money they must have spent to get the rights on the music, I can’t even begin to imagine. I thought we were in a recession, I mean damn. Anyway, I wanted to believe the choice of music was based on the time periods and I took this as a way to justify the poor music choices. But still, the music in a movie is suppose to set the mood and pull you into the movie, not completely disconnect you from the scene. That was exactly what the music did in this movie. Almost every time a song played, I was immediately jolted out of the scene and became an observer. I don’t understand the choice of iconic songs, considering the trailers had music much better suited for the style of cinematography.

4. The acting was sub-par. I also should have expected this from director Zack Snyder after seeing 300. The sex scenes are uncomfortable and the amputations comical. I can only attribute this to the lack of acting or perhaps the over acting in these movies. Silk Spectre II was completely lifeless for me, her emotional fragility was interpreted as weakness due to the absence of good dialogue that should have given a story substance but instead butchered the plot. I couldn’t help thinking that Natalie Portman would have made that character more believable, but the lack of good dialogue probably would have made it tough on anyone.

Essentially the first 20 minutes of The Watchmen were good. The rest of the movie is spent trying to live up to those beginning scenes. I’m not sure I get the “Visionary Director” title said about Zack Snyder so often. Slow motion fight scenes and other worldly, computer generated landscapes seem more masturbatory than visionary. I give props to Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan but that’s about as far as it goes. Quite simply, I left the movie not giving a shit about a single character.

As a side note: Best part about the movie was when someone just yelled “PANTS!” when Dr. Manhattan was on screen and naked for the 546889838 time.

The World of Fever Ray

Fever Ray – Fever Ray

Fever Ray is the self-titled debut of The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson. In my opinion, behind Animal Collective’s MPP, it is sure to go down as one of the best records of 2009.

Since I am more of an affective listener, I do not pay a lot of attention to the lyrics or the technical aspects of the record; instead, as the record plays, I come to a standstill and lay upon the hibernating world, slowly inhaling and exhaling–my lungs gently breathing in and out the cold whispering air. A hypnotic and repetitive synth beat stirs into a boundless loop as a disfigured voice declares “This will never end cause I want more / More, give me more, give me more”. A deep, droning base line resonates like the ebb and flow of brooding waves as I am transported to a Godless world composed of an endless oceanic swirl of melancholic affects and sensual desires. As the the smoke lingers slowly in the cold air of the abyss, bodies begin to dissolve into a rhythmic dance of dark shades and tones. The disembodied voice–blurring the lines between the masculine and feminine, the human and inhuman–reaches out beyond to the dark territories of imperceptibility. This is the world of Fever Ray. 

Ultimately, Fever Ray is an album heavy on repetitive, synthetic tribal beats that along with Andersson’s filtered inhuman voice, creates a dark underworld of primitive melancholy and sensuality.

Here is a crazy video of the beautiful opening track: