Nina Simone - "Remixed and reimagined"

First track, "I can't see nobody", remixed by a certain Daniel Y. I realise it's probably sacrilege to many people to even think about remixing Nina Simone, but while listening to the first track I think, well, she does have the voice for it... the swung of her words, it does seem to fit the strange beats.

But after a few more tracks, it becomes fairly monotone. Now breakbeatish music has never been much of my taste, so that might be a problem here, but I doubt this one is on my squeezebox to stay.

By the way, "reimagined", is that really so different from "remixed"? To the connaisseur perhaps, but remixing a track well, doesn't that require re-imagining the song in the first place?

Blaine L. Reiniger & Steven Brown - "100 years of music : live in Lisbon 1989"

Have no clue how or why I ever got this CD. Must be X-Rated on which I heard something.

It's wonderful. The first track, "Iberia", with its jumping chords, reminds me of  one of Evangelion's themes.

Music that rumbles, grumbles, rolls forward, sweeping everything away...

There's more. I hear Die Anarchistische Abendunterhalting in track "Licorice Stick Ostinato"

Andrew Motion - interview BBC World

Andrew Motion - ex poet laureate. What a wonderful man!

"A parent who does not teach his child the love for poetry, has failed"

about Rudyard Kipling, the interviewer asks him: "Didn't he say a poet should never become a paid civil servant?"
A.M; "well, he refused to become poet laureate, didn't he?"

(about the strength of simple language) "let a glass of water always taste like a glass of gin"

Toon Tellegen - "Het bezoek"

Op een dag was het zover.
Ik besloot haar eindelijk eens op te zoeken.
Haar gieren deden mij peinzend open.
Haar honden gingen mij voor naar haar vertrekken,
de sporen van hun tanden in mijn been.
Haar slangen schonken mij een kopje thee in,
met een wolkje melk, en roerden het om met hun tongen.
Haar slakken likten mijn mondhoeken schoon.
Zij was er niet, zij was zojuist vertrokken,
zei haar hyena, huilend in mijn nek.
En zij komt nooit meer terug,
zei haar spin, de aanzet tot een web
reeds strak gespannen om mij heen.

Muse - "Unintended"

Have been watching the clip over and over again. Love the effect.

It's every time in every scene the same, but keeps mesmerizing... and just fits the music perfectly.

'A' net station

Based in Antartica, it plays "mostly music by artists who perform internationally, and typically do not to seek the music industry's favor" according to the website and Wikipedia.

It's nice. No idea why it's listed in the "Decades / 70's" listing of the Squeezebox Boom, but still.

For once, a link: http://www.anetstation.com/

La Roux - "Bulletproof"

Catchy. Daft Punk, but better. Kraftwork-ish video, but too many colours. Too many recognizable facial parts, while we're at it.

But catchy.

Leonard Cohen - "Came so far for beauty"

Must have heard it before of course, but didn't really remember it.

As so many of his songs, beautiful. The minor chords after a while, the lyrics.

Simplicity. There is so much to learn.

La vie en rose

Gripping, to say the very least.

Why is it that biographies often tell the bad ending before unfolding the story that led to it? Is it because it is often wellknown and can't be used as a plot-device?

I agree that pretending the ending is "new" isn't the point. Taking the viewer by the hand and making him believe and feel the story, is. Impregnating him with the doom to come adds extra tension? Sure, but it feels a bit forced, because it is so commonly used.

"La vie en rose" differs slightly from this by showing Edith Piaf's end "often" inbetween scenes of her youth and past. It becomes a bit more functional.

It did in no way defer me from the real story or the brilliant acting of Marion Cotillard. She's a diamond in every portrait of la môme piaf.

Harsh story, in which the crying is often drunken revelry, making it all the more painful.

What to do with the singing. A film about one of the greatest voices of mankind cannot be dubbed. So she has to playback. What about singing of which no recording has been made? Scrap it from the script?

The assassination of Jesse James by the coward Robert Ford

Wonderful film, no action-thriller at all, au contraire, a slow pace.

Admirable, or merely wondrous, that Warner Brothers went with the director's cut while he didn't have final cut. They wanted more action, he didn't. Brad Pitt made a difference, perhaps.

Casey Affleck did a great job. He was scary, he was ambitious. Convincing.

What I missed, was -why- Jesse James was so popular. He gave money to the poor... but we never saw that.

Just as him going more and more paranoia. It is voice-overed, once, but made believable by the fact that other members of his gang were being rounded up soon after. Him fleeing the city was smart. At the end though, it is suggested he was quite paranoia, but this is conveyed through dialogue by others, hardly by anything he shows.

OST by Nick Cave was good. Don't know whether it'll hold up without the images.

Prodigy - "Omen"

Sziget 2009.

In all honesty, the concert would personally have been better when I wouldn't have to take care of anyone else, but so it goes.

Awesome concert, full of favourites, enough new stuff, like "Omen" from the '09 album "Invaders must die!"

Jace Everett - "Bad Things"

Watched the first episode of "True Blood"'s second season. Still not convinced about it, but it's good popcorn stuff.

Openingssong and visuals haven't changed, and still consider them really good.

Openingssequences not featuring actors or scenes; you know they intentionally thought about which images suited the series. Like it, it's good.

Doors - "You're lost little girl"

Watched 2/3rd of Oliver Stone's "The Doors" last friday. Highly entertaining, right up there with Cohen' "I'm your man" in the list of films one watches out of sheer joy for the music they portray.

Logically, and because it seems to agree with a cloudy after-party head (BBQ), listening a lot to the Doors. Trying to listen to the more obscure songs

• "You're lost little girl" (strange, mineerie (music in minor, eerie))
• "Whiskey, Mystics and Men" (hey ho!)
• "Orange County Suite"

Gulag - "track 14/3"

(mostly) instrumental surf, catchy!

not sure which of the songs above it is, but taking the Russian spoken words, I go with Gulag. (Otherwise it'd be something by "Electric Joe")

Happy surfing on a boring friday-afternoon!

*jiggles back 'n forth* hey! *keeps jiggling*

update

they keep changing the names! now it's "Gulag Tunes"

Stephen Fry - "The ode less travelled"

ti tum, ti tum, ti tum, ti tum, ti tum, ti tum

Now you, and read it out loud!

That's how he describes a iambic pentameter.

Gotta love the guy, if just for his grant love of, amongst a thousand other things, language, words and poetry.

Had to write 10 iambic pentameters as an exercise.

This book will reside rather long in the "started" phase because you don't just browse over it every moment. But it is wonderful. I already know three people I'll recommend it to.

Remco Campert - "Brief die is blijven liggen"

Je komt dus niet er is iets
waardoor je niet komen kunt

ik neem aan er is een diertje dood
het behoeft begraving

of de hak van je pump
zit vast in de plank

het struikgewas is te hoog gegroeid
het vuilnis opgestapeld

hoe ook de knappe telegrambesteller
boerenzoon met werk bij het rijk

zwoegt en ploetert
hij komt er niet doorheen

met zijn ijlboodschap
dring aan op aanwezigheid

ben je het dak op gevlucht?
lees je een boek in een kast?

80 jaar, dat moet toch even vermeld.

Sarah Waters - "The little stranger"

Bought it a while ago because I liked "Tipping the Velvet".

"Tipping the Velvet" isn't the craziest or most amazing of stories, but she does an impressive job at describing her characters as plausible, believable and likeable personae, even though they are often far from perfect. 

Nothing difficult, just a nice and easy read...

Coil - "Musick to play in the dark" (vol 1. and vol. 2)

Listening a lot to these albums again. Ripped them partly because I suddenly became afraid of diskrot after unpacking hundreds of recordables after 3 years (fortunately, most of them are on quality discs, but still), but they help to imagine and write.

Used them while writing preliminary ideas for the first "crazy" letters (him ---> her) of "Poste restante" (working title, though I like it very much).

It seems I need estranged music for estranged writing.

the Buddha of Suburbia

Written bij acclaimed writer Hanif Kureishi, produced by the BBC with David Bowie providing the soundtrack, this must be something... 

It is comprised of four episodes of about 45 minutes, haven't heard the commentary track.

Good, enjoyable, giving a good (I think?) idea of the bleak prospects and hopeless dreams of suburban people, the vibrant soundtrack was at a positive juxtaposition, but I was confused throughout the series.

Changes in time happened quickly and seemingly at random. This wouldn't have been so much of a problem when the changes in character though, felt "hastened" as well. Sudden changes in main character "Creamy" weren't believable in my eyes.

Loved the music, the scenes, decor, as I said, it seems to give - wasn't there, alas - a good impression.

Portishead - "Machine gun"

Can't help but feeling the sudden change around 3'16 is, well, strange.

The second version of the beat is identical concerning rhythm and style, it's "just" as if the samples are switched.

But why do that?

Must be missing something here.