| iTunes and Augustana |
[Jun. 21st, 2005|09:50 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  happy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Augustana: Boston | ] |
There are lots of reasons to like the iTunes music store: tons of music is readily available and easily searchable. It is relatively cheap. The songs download quickly. It is Mac friendly (which I guess doesn't count for everyone, but honestly - how can that be a bad thing??). My favorite thing, however, is none of the above. Instead, I love the way that they'll post random songs for free during any given week. True, some of the singles that they put up there are well and truly shite. That's unavoidable, though. I mean, the reason these songs are being given away - the bands responsible for them are new and supposedly up-and-coming, ones who need the publicity. Hardly anyone would intentionally search out their music at the time iTunes decides to post it for free. The good folks at iTunes do it anyway, though, because they're hoping that people who get that single free download then go on to buy more of the band's music once it is available.
So far I've gotten a couple of things for free. The first song I got was the recording of Bright Eyes singing "When the President Talks to God." Absolutely amazing, but that was one of the hidden freebies, and Bright Eyes is an established musician at this point. Maybe I shouldn't be mentioning that I like the song, though, since apparently it's sacrelig to like BOTH the Decemberists and Bright Eyes. At least, this is what I've gathered from occasionally reading all the comments to posts on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) thedecemberists. *rolls eyes*
I also got a "Single of the Week" (ha - doesn't that kind of sound like an award that would be given out by a dating service? Congratulations, you successfully went on a date and secured a follow-up - you, Sir, are our Single of the Week!) by some guy called Kyle Riabko. I think I've listened to it once. Maybe. I think from that alone you can figure out just what I think of it.
But I hit gold a couple of days ago when I downloaded "Stars and Boulevards" by this SoCal band called Augustana. It's pretty poppy stuff, but I like the lead singer's voice and the overall sound of the band. Really, it's good summer music, wistful and somewhat nostalgic, but not depressing or emo. ;-) "Stars and Boulevards" isnt' the song that made me a fan, though. After I got that, I decided that $1.98 would be a perfectly acceptable price to pay for the entire, 3-song EP, and that's where I found "Boston."
People who know me and know my music taste will probably already know this, but I'll spell it out for you all anyway: I'm a total sap, and I love music that is wistful, somewhat sad, somewhat hopeful, beautifully arranged and sung in a way that makes you feel like the song has actual meaning. I like songs that connect with me and my life experiences on some level or another (sometimes these levels are far off in the distance, but othertimes they're right there in my chest, squeezing my heart up against my ribcage). Some of my all time favorites are perfect examples of this: "Imagine," by John Lennon; "Red Right Ankle," by the Decemberists; "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead," by STARS; "My Happy Ending," by Avril Lavigne; "Collide," by Howie Day; "Romeo and Juliet," by Dire Straits...I could bore you all with a much bigger list, but I won't because if I did that, I'd never get to my next point.
My next point being that "Boston" is a ridiculously amazing song. It might not be destined for critically acclaimed greatness. I don't really know what other people would/will think of it. All I know is that I'm hooked. It's got this great piano riff going on throughout, quiet for the most part, but when it gets louder and the guitar comes in everything fits together without sounding jarring. The vocals aren't all that different from those in so many other songs that have come out in the past couples of years - more than once I catch myself thinking that the guy sounds almost exactly like Howie Day - but something about them is different. I can't put my finger on it yet. I just know that I like...whatever it is.
And then there's the actual lyrics. Call me naîeve and sappy and all of that, but I think they're beautiful. Read them for yourself - anything I write about them is going to make them sound overly clichéd, not to mentionally totally ridiculous. Just trust me when I say that you should try to find a copy of this song ASAP. I don't think it's free on iTunes anymore, but like I said, the EP is a whopping $1.98 (for three 99¢ songs), so it's not really something that would put any kind of dent in the average person's wallet.
( LYRICS )
I feel kind of lame for tying this all up in iTunes, but I really do have to give credit where credit is due. I might have found this song eventually (knowing me and my music-filled life, it's almost certain), but the reason I found it now is because of the ingenuity of iTunes and their music store.
God, it's like I'm putting a huge bill board on my LJ. GO USE AN "ILLEGAL" P2P DOWNLOADING APPLICATION NOW! DO IT! *grin* |
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| Mean Girl Gossip |
[Jun. 14th, 2005|04:35 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | calm | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Soundtrack: "Wonder Boys" | ] |
My wisdom teeth are gone, I no longer look like a chipmunk, and I can almost chew normally again. Thank god, too, because I was getting really sick of eating soft food. There's only so much that can be said for pudding, ice cream, and oatmeal, which was pretty much all I ate during the first two days of my post-extraction life. Today I ate popcorn, and it was delicious in a salty, crunchy, chewing-definitely-necessary way.
But I don't want to spend any more time talking about my wisdom teeth. Last week I finally got around to reading The A-List. My old boss Wendy had sent it to me while I was at school, but I just hadn't sat down to read it until last Thursday night. In the most basic sense, it's yet another fluffy, easy-to-read, pointless chic novel. The story has all the requisit plot twists and character entanglements, but really there's nothing very special about it. The dialogue is almost uniformly flat and listless, and usually comes across as sounding very unpolished and amature.
Normally I would have stopped thinking about this book almost as soon as I had finished it, but The A-List actually got me thinking. Starting with the Gossip Girl books, there had been a recent trend in the books aimed at teenage girls. They all follow the exploits of catty, superficial, fashion- and boy-obsessed girls whose parents made grotesque amounts of money at some points in their lives and who show an incredibly small amount of interest in the lives of their children. Of these girls the heroine is not the best of the lot, but more often the least repulsive. I know that all humans are flawed, but "flawed" doesn't really even begin to describe most of these girls. They look down on everyone, use their smarts for the oh-so-taxing activity of coming up with more and more horrible insults for eachother, are absolutely incapable of being good friends with anyone, and are ultimately downright terrible people.
What I don't understand is why these books are so successful. They are engrossing, to be sure, but when you finish reading them you realize that you just wasted several hours of your life reading about mean girls, the type of girls who one hopes never to come across. Or maybe that's where I'm going wrong here, and in fact people do want to know about these girls and their "trials and tribulations." Is it the endless descriptions of the luxury that these people live in? Is it the fact that not any one of them can ever be described as ugly or plain?
Though I keep reading, I still don't understand. Feel free to enlighten me.
I had meant this to be a much more carefully crafted commentary, but what with Mony Python singing about how "every sperm is sacred," this was the best that I could do. I went back to work today, so now summer can get back to normal for a week or so until I go off to Lake Tahoe (!!) with my family for a week. |
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| Meme and Wisdom Teeth |
[Jun. 11th, 2005|11:29 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  bored | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Sun Kil Moon: Ghosts of the Great Highway | ] |
( A meme )
All right then. Now that that's out of the way, I'm sure that everyone out there in LiveJournal land is just dying to know about me getting my wisdom teeth pulled yesterday. It was...well, not fun, that's for sure, but I'm not going to lie: it was kind of fun to be all doped up. First there was the valium (which I actually really liked), and then the anesthesia (sp?), which stung like a mofo. I didn't remember it doing that from the last time I had to have it, but then again, that was...*counts*...seven years ago. Wow. So yeah, that sucked. And then vicadin. Wow. Not as good as valium, since it eventually just knocks me out completely, but still. Wow. It's a good thing that I'm not the type of person to let myself get addicted to anything other than chic flicks and iTunes, otherwise I'd definitely be at risk.
On the way home I was apparently trying to talk to my mum, but I remember it being more like charades. For some reason or another I asked her to buy me some vasalin, and in retrospect this doesn't make sense at all. There is absolutely no reason that I would need vasaline, and the only explanation I can come up with is that there was some put on to my mouth right before I went under the anesthesia. Maybe I thought I'd need some more, I don't know. I was also talking/miming to her about finding cheap plane tickets for Dan so that he can get out here for a visit next month (omg omg omg!). She said I was making almost *no* sense and somehow I'm not surprised.
Dan called me around 2, waking me up from my first of many drug-induced crashes. It was so sweet of him to call me, though, since normally we don't talk until after 6pm my time (it costs less money for him or something). Couldn't talk for long, though, mainly because of my inability to open my mouth very far. I still can't open it as wide as I usually can, but it's getting there.
I'm trying not to take too much vicadin during the day, because if I do it means that I can't really do anything except for lie around and probably fall asleep. I'll say one thing though: last night I had the best and deepest sleep I've had in a looong time, and I'm looking forward to another one tonight.
Finally, a bit of actual griping: last week the weather was pretty shitty. Shitty as in it was cold and rainy and grey and ugly. This meant that I didn't really want to go out and do anything other than what I had to. However, today, a day when I most definitely can't go to the beach or go swimming or anything like that, it's gorgeous. I might still slather myself with sunscreen and go sit out on the chaise in the backyard. I need to keep working on my tan, and right now I'm extra pale from being knocked out for so long.
But gah! Why does the weather have to be nice today? Why couldn't it have been gross out for just two more days so that my being stuck at home wouldn't seem so bad?
Love,
Anna
P.S. Who wants to go see Howl's Moving Castle with me early next week? It's supposed to be fantastic.... |
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| I can't believe how long away this feels! |
[Jun. 6th, 2005|08:49 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | mellow | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Dire Straits: Romeo and Juliet | ] |
Today when I talked to Dan he said that he would "get his act together" and try to come out to visit me around the time of my birthday (July 14th!). I told him that he'd better, or else he would be arrested and have his head cut off.
Obviously I was joking. ;-)
But still, 74 days left until I get back to AU. When I first saw that I had to count it out myself because I didn't believe that it was so long from now. Argh. |
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| Sarah Dessen |
[Jun. 2nd, 2005|10:16 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Ryan Adams: Wonderwall | ] |
I begin every summer with the same, deceptively simple goal: read a lot of books that are new to me, ones that I haven't already read. But inevitably I turn to my old favorites, the ones that I've read and re-read countless times, the ones I always enjoy for whatever reason there may be. I have been out of school for exactly one month*, but as of yesterday I have officially begun my summer re-reading†.
The first old book of the summer was Dreamland by Sarah Dessen. Ever since I read Someone Like You for the first time I've been a fan of Dessen's books, and ever since I read This Lullaby I've considered her to be one of my all-time favorite authors. All the same, Dreamland has never been a book that I liked very much. I don't think I made it all the way through it the first time I tried reading it (so maybe I'm wrong, maybe my summer re-reading *didn't* start yesterday...hmmm), and since then I've had it in my head that it was my least favorite Dessen book, the one that didn't quite measure up to the standards set by her others. And believe me, those standards are high.
I decided to re-read Dreamland, though, mainly because of the fact that I didn't really remember what I didn't like about it, why I didn't think it was as good as Dessen's other books. I started last night while I was at my grandmother's house, and I finished today while I was at work. Re-reading it, however, only made me more confused about why I didn't have good memories of it, and here's why: it's a really, really good book! It might not quite on the same level as This Lullaby, but then, in my opinion, not many books are.
But I digress. Back to Dreamland and why it's good and why I might not have remembered it that way. It's good for pretty much the same reasons that all of Sarah Dessen's books are so good: the writing is lyrical and flows so smoothly that the pages are easy to get through despite the fact that the language is not really all that easy or uncomplicated. Dessen's fantastic writing is what allows her to write what are, at their core, such clichéd stories: This Lullaby is about a girl who doesn't know how to love or be loved until she unexpectedly meets a boy who brings her out of her shell. Dreamland is about a girl who has grown up in the shadow of her older sister and as a result tries to break free and make her own identity, mainly by dating a boy who is gorgeous and different and dangerous. These plot lines, just like those of Dessen's other books, are ones that have been made into countless made-for-tv movies and after-school specials, but Dessen's writing skills make them lift them above these genres and make them so much more.
It's not just her writing, either. It's also her ability to create characters who one can't help but be involved with. Even if one is completely different in personality, or in background, or whatever, s/he will still care and still understand, or want to understand. I believe it was Philip Pullman who said in an interview that it isn't that young readers want to be the hero or the heroine of the stories they're reading. It's that they want to be the hero or heroine's best friend, the one to be able to help them overcome whatever difficulty they are facing in their life. This is true, but only when the protagonist in question is brought to the kind of vivid life that cannot be ignored or overshadowed.
In Dessen's case, this applies not only to her main characters, but to her secondary characters as well. Every boy who is involved with one of Dessen's girls is, for better or for worse, there and alive and completely fleshed out without any of the flatness that plagues so many contemporary supporting characters these days, epsecially those who can be labeled as "love interests." And it's not just the secondary characters, but all the ones who play bit parts. Their roles are often just as interesting and as important as those of the leading ladies, and it is lovely to read books where these small characters are given enough attention to make them more than simple extras.
As to why I didn't always reflect on Dreamland with the same kind of pleasure that I do all of Dessen's other books...this may be, and actually most probably is because the story of Dreamland is so much darker than the stories of all of Dessen's other books. Caitlin's life spirals out of control beginning on her 16th birthday when she wakes up to find that her older sister, Cass, has run away to live her own life, leaving a gaping hole in the fabric of their family. Because of Caitlin's inability to fill that hole, as well as her uncertainty about her own identity, she begins to drift away from the quiet if boring comfort of her old life and into uncharted waters, led by the dark and handsome Rogerson Biscoe, a boy with problems of his own. Instead of chronicling a girl's blossoming under the attention of people who are willing to accept her as she is, and instead of telling the story of how one boy manages to warm a girl's icey heart, Dreamland is about the opposite. It is about how a relationship can be horribly abusive, and how it can result in the girl being so covered in bruises that she can't wear anything except for long sleeves and pants.
Even writing that now took me a little while, because it's difficult to put into words, and it's very difficult for me to think about. I can't just barely imagine what it might be like to be in that kind of situation, and even then my imaginings are based of very peripheral knowledge, and not a whole lot else.
I realized about two-thirds of the way through the story is that part of why I hadn't liked it my first time was that even just a year ago I would have had such a difficult time respecting anyone who would let themselves get into a relationship like that. Even now it's difficult for me to understand how it could happen, how anyone could ever let that happen, but if I've grown and changed at all in the past year I think one of the biggest effects is that I'm a little slower to pass judgement without making allowences for differences in character. Re-reading Dreamland over the past two days, I realized that I couldn't disrespect Caitlin for letting herself get into that mess. I realized that had to be one of, if not the penultimate point that Sarah Dessed set out to make when she wrote the book.
And here's where I come back to what I said earlier, about Sarah Dessen's writing skill. If her characters weren't so real, so fleshed out, and so alive, I wouldn't be giving them the same consideration that I would give to a living, breathing, in-the-flesh human being. Furthermore, it would be so much easier for me to read the story unemotionally, without forming any kind of attachment, and without caring much about the characters. Certainly I wouldn't still be thinking about the story and its characters and their reasons for behaving in the way that they do.
Finally, this comes back to my original "problem" of re-reading books that I've already read over and over again. Or, in the case of books like Dreamland, books that I've read only once before, or even just half-read. I re-read them because I'm curious about them, or because they are so well written that they stay with me and make me want to revisit them because I know that I'll be able to find something there that I didn't catch the first time around (or even the second, or the third, or the fourth°). And I re-read them because sometimes it's comforting to read books that you already know about, books that have chacaters whose lives are better or worse than one's one, because as long as you can connect to them they'll be able to remind you that things can be different. Sometimes you need that, and when you have a truly extraordinary book at your fingertips there's no way to resist.
*Just on a side note, this past month has been one of the longest of my life. I kid you not.
†I'm not counting the Stravanganza books by Mary Hoffman because I re-read those so that I would be up to speed when I finally bought and read the most recent book in the series, City of Flowers. That's a completely different kind of re-reading. :-)
°Even after reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy more times than I can count (I think I've read The Golden Compass approximately 8-10 times, not counting the 3 or so times that I've listened to it on tape), I am still able to find something new the next time through, regardless of how closely I read them the time before that. |
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| Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith |
[May. 22nd, 2005|10:45 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | bookish | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | None | ] |
Thin plot: check, but we were all expecting this, so it's okay.
Connection to "The West Wing": ha - check. Is it wrong of me to find it so hilarious that there is an entire thread in west_wing_fans dedicated to Jimmy Smits as whoever he is in Episode III??? Though there is one really cool piece of information to be found in that thread: a live-action Star Wars television series has been confirmed and it is being speculated that it will revolve around the formation of the rebellion. Score!!!!
Soaring music: check.
Wookie planet: um, yeah, check.
Badass light saber fights: definitely check. I mean, c'mon! The coughing robot guy was going after Obi Wan with four light sabers in four different hands! And Yoda fights the Emperor!
Terribly written dialogue: check. For some reason George Lucas thinks that he should be writing the screen plays. While many brilliant ideas can be credited to this man (see "Star Wars," episodes IV V and VI), this idea is not among them. He cannot write for shit, and manages to make the romance between Anakin and Padame not only hard to believe, but laughable as well. Additionally, why didn't someone tell him that it was completely unnecessary for Yoda to invert every single sentence? And completely wrong for Obi Wan Kenobi to be so cheeky and sarcastic? And one more thin: Darth Vadar is super badass and would *never* feel enough distress to let out a pathetic howl of "Noooooooooooooo!" over anything! God!
Millenium Falcon: check, even if Kat didn't see it.
And finally, Hayden Chrsistensen looking unbelievably, unimaginably, unbeatably hot?
Check, check. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Really, that's all I clearly remember about the movie: sitting there, bug eyed, amazed that anyone could ever be that good looking without being, I don't know, genetically engineered or something. I annoyed the hell out of Kat, but fuck that: he's hot, and I just can't get over it.
Even more startling is the striking similarity between how he looks and how Thad can look.
Goood. Lord.
That is all. |
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| Calculus, Civilization, and Legos |
[May. 15th, 2005|11:16 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | pessimistic | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | The Decemberists: Picaresque | ] |
I know everyone out there has been wondering how I'm planning to survive this coming summer without my crazy AU friends by my side. Well, I think I may have found a way to get through at least 2-3 hours each day:
Calculus.
At the beginning of my senior year of high school I bought myself the Saxon Calculus book, and this summer I might actually get around to plowing my way through it. I spent quite a while on it today, making it through just one lesson because I kept having to start over. Why, you might ask, did I need to start over and over and over? That would be because I was working in pen and because I am a horrific perfectionist who does not like scribble scrabble on her papers. And besides, doing so meant that I had to sit and work on it for that much longer. That's a few more hours not spent thinking about how loooong the summer is going to be.
For all you people out there shaking your heads because you think I'm crazy for doing math during my vacation: I know I'm crazy. But I'm also a geek, and I happen to like math when I'm allowed to do it on my own time, and when I can make sure I understand everything I'm doing. I was telling my dad earlier today, after we were coming back from his warehouse (my calculus textbook was there in one of the many boxes of stuff I couldn't bring to school with me), that if I had enough free credits at AU I wouldn't mind minoring in mathematics. That probably sounds really strange, especially to those individuals unfortunate enough to have had to listen to me bitch about statistics last semester, but it's the truth. I like math. I think it's comforting.
The other way I spend my time these days is by playing Civilization III on the computer in my brother Cyrus' room. CIVILIZATION III!!! I played the original Civilization: Call to Power, which was on floppy discs, when I was about 9-years-old. Maybe 10. Maybe. My mum's half-brother, Christian, gave it to me and I looooved it. I would wake up really early in the morning (7:30 or so, which is very early for a homeschooler!) and go play for a few hours before my mum and dad got up because when they were up they'd make me stop playing and go do something "productive" or whatever. But now Cyrus has Civilization III and I can play it all I want. Too bad I suck and can never out perform the other people. Grrr.
Finally, the remaining bulk of my time today was spent pawing through our container of (very dirty) legos in an attempt to rebuild my AquaZone sets. When I was younger I saved up my money just so that I could by first a sub and then the whole base for the good AquaZone guys. This was many, many years ago (around the same time I was playing the original Civilization, actually), and since then the pieces for my sets have been mixed about with the pieces for all the other sets that my brothers accumulated over the years. I'm sure some pieces have been lost, so I'm not so optimistic about being able to finish the two sets, but I think I'm going to give it a try anyway. I worked on them this evening until my eyes started to get sore and I stopped being able to distinguish between pieces of the same color.
It probably didn't help much that the lighting in the livingroom is terrible. *sigh* In any case, if I do manage to finish even one of my Lego sets, I'll have to take pictures, because it will surely be a momentous affair.
That's how my summer's looking so far, people: peak was the Decemberists concert and now all I have to look forward to is finally winning Civ III and the completion of Lego sets that I loved when I was 10. Oh, and daily bouts with my calc textbook. Can't forget that. *rolls eyes* |
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| Philadelphia and the Decemberists |
[May. 12th, 2005|10:29 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | peaceful | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | George Winston | ] |
Perhaps the most exciting thing I've done all summer was to go see the Decemberists live in Philadelphia with Johanna. The show was on May 5th at the Theatre of Living Arts, which is on South St.
I had never been to Philadelphia before, but have since decided that I would not be sorry to live there, at least for a little while. We were in Philly eary because we'd wanted to beat the traffic (which we did), so Johanna, her dad, and I speed walked around for quite some time. The plan was to get to the Franklin Institute, but we got there just after 5pm, which is apparently when it closes. I felt bad, too, because Johanna had been so excited about going there (according to her they've got an atomic clock, which I guess keeps very, very good time *grin*). Instead we had to content ourselves with sitting by the huge fountain. I wish I could remember its name, but I really can't.
The fountain, surprisingly enough, turned out to be a pretty interesting place to be. First off, there was a pair of German guys who were taking pictures of a stuffed animal they had perched on the edge of the fountain. It turned out that they were traveling around and that one of them had promised his girlfriend he'd take a picture of the stuffed rabbit (for rabbit it was) wherever he went. Sweet, right? I think so.
The second interesting thing that happened at the fountain was the arrival of a bus load of Catholic school girls. Judging from what I could make out of their conversation, they were Italian. Long skirts, white blouses, tights, sensible shoes...these girls were the real deal. So now imagine these girls coming up to the fountain, taking off their shoes, and then jumping into the water. Because that's definitely what happened.
It was one of those very bizarre sights that one probably will never see again. There were at least 25 or 30 or them, and almost all of them eventually wound up in the fountain, screaming and yelling as they went. Some girls just walked around the edges of the fountain, keeping their clothes relatively dry, while others immediately fell down and almost swam around, letting their clothes get completely soaked. Some even climbed the fountain, and overall you could tell that this was one of their only opportunities to let loose and get all their emotions and feelings out there into the world. Johanna's dad talked to one of the nuns who was there, and she told him that the girls had been going on a trip (around the US, around the East Coast, around Pennsylvania, around Philly, I don't really know) and that this trip was a tradition with the school, and that every time, the girls were allowed to go into the fountain at the end.
I like that picture a lot. It reminds me of the movie "Garden State," when Zach Braff and Natalie Portman and the one other guy are all standing on the tractor in the rain, screaming just to scream. It's the same feeling here, with these girls who probably can't go crazy very often finally being allowed to let everything out. I've gotta say, while it looked fun, I wouldn't have wanted to be one of them. I'd rather be me, allowed to wear whatever I want whenever I want and able to be myself regardless of whether or not that fits a particular mold. I may have a cliché view of the kind of life these girls live, but I'm inclined to think it's close enough to the truth for me not to have to look it up. ;-)
The main event of the evening, the Decemberists show, started at 8pm when they let us in the doors. Johanna and I were there and in line about 20+ minutes in advance, and this meant that we were able to get in right away and snag awesome spots right by the stage. I've never been so close to the front before, and definitely never so front & center. There was just one row of people between us and the stage, and it was amazing. Of course, because we were there so early we had to wait an HOUR for the start of the show, and even then there was an opening act who played for about 45 minutes.
I don't remember the name of the opening act, I just remember that it was a woman who had a very good singing voice. Low, but very pretty. Unfortunately for her, this wasn't really enough to make her at all interesting as a musician. I think that one of the biggest problems was that she was playing an electric guitar, and because her voice was low it was easily overshadowed by the guitar music. By the end of her 45 minute set Johanna and I were really ready for her to go. Those 45 minutes would have felt long regardless of who was up there, since we were waiting for the Decemberists to come on, but they felt even longer due to the lack of a proper opening act. Oh well.
One of my favorite things about going to see the Decemberists is that they don't make their fans wait - everything runs on schedule and they don't make you stand around forever waiting and hoping. Just a little bit after 10pm, about fifteen minutes after the opening act had finished, the opening of "Infanta" came on and the rest...well, it's really indescribable. I could try to describe the music, or the antics, or the over all feeling, but in the end my words would never do them justice.
A picture is worth a thousand words, or so they tell me. So there's another 2000 words for you all. :-) Some of my favorite things about the concert were as follows:
-Petra covering a Kate Bush song. It was hauntingly beautiful when sung in her *very* high but very nice voice.
-Watching the drummer haphazardly push around one of his drums while beating it during "The Mariner's Revenge Song."
-Getting to see Colin do "Red Right Ankle," which is easily my favorite Decemberists song. Seeing him play it in SF last June was what made me realize just how good the song actually is.
-The whole band being dressed in their school uniforms from the "16 Military Wives" video.
-The plethora of good songs played for the entire set. Seeing "California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade" performed live was an experience in and of itself.
I could go on and on, but instead will end simply with this: Colin Meloy is geek cute to the max. This picture does not do him justice. That is all. |
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| Library Books, Due June 1 |
[May. 11th, 2005|01:44 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  energetic | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | The Mountaingoats: All Hail West Texas | ] |
TEMESCAL:
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Dreamland by Sarah Dessen
ROCKRIDGE:
Riddle-Master by Patricia A. McKillip
The Iliad by Homer, trans. by Richmond Lattimore
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
Stravaganza: City of Masks by Mary Hoffman
Stravaganza: City of Stars by Mary Hoffman
The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud
Lone Wolf and Cub, Volume I by Kazuo Koike
[EDIT]I've bolded the titles that I've actually gotten around to reading[/EDIT] |
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summertime05's journal