Not Anonymous

From imaginarycircus!

Type these words into the search bar on your iTunes Music library and list the first song that appears in the results.

happy: Happy - Brandi Carlile
love: Love - John Lennon/The Plastic Ono Band
hate: Hate You Too - Martha Wainright
light: Invisible Light - Philip Glass
dark: Dark Paradise - Lana Del Rey
good: Good Enough - Sarah McLachlan
bad: Bad Romance - Lady Gaga
smile: Smile - Pearl Jam
cry: Pretty When You Cry - VAST
girl: Girl - Tori Amos
boy: For Today I Am a Boy - The Unthanks
sad: Sad - Eisley
lost: Lost - Sarah McLachlan
night: Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream - Simon and Garfunkel
day: Day Wasted - Thomas Newman
wolf: The Wolf is Getting Married - Sinead O'Connor
robot: Robot Boy - Linkin Park
dance: You Watched Me Dance - Chumbawamba
time: Time - Pink Floyd
life: American Life - Madonna
death: Deathly - Aimee Mann

Last meme for now, as I have thinky thoughts about things!

1. If you'd like to play along, reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. You then list at least five songs that start with that letter.
3. Then, as I'm doing here, you'll post the list to your journal with the instructions.

sabotabby gave me L and funnily enough a lot of the songs begin with, Love. I know, uncanny.

All links go to YouTube.

Lost in Space by Aimee Mann.

Love is a Stranger by Eurythmics.

Love Song by Sara Bareilles.

Luka by Suzanne Vega.

Lolita by Lana Del Rey.

Lacrimosa by Regina Spektor.

And one more!

Lost by Sarah McLachlan.

A lot of the choices I've made, throughout my life and especially the last couple of years, have been due to the fact that I've had the privilege to make them.

I chose to study the Humanities on my parent's dime, because I was able to do so with little sacrifice on my side. I took my time, four years instead of three, because I was not able to handle a year in which a lot of shit happened - so I let my studies go and had to re-do a year.

I still feel guilty about that.

I had considered taking a year off between BA and going on to an MA, because, well, obviously I'll be doing an MA. This is the way the life of a privileged middle class girl goes, right? But first, I should probably get onto a career path of some kind. I enjoyed the Library, I loved being in the Library and I had various Librarian role models that made me think that being a Librarian was a good idea.

Well, the studies made me want to kill myself and the more I thought about where I wanted to go with my life, the notion of being on that path looked less and less like the thing I wanted to be.

So I decided to drop out.

I feel guilty about that too.

It's "another" thing I started and didn't finish. It's another "phase" that fizzled out because I got "bored". Never mind that the studies, depressed me to a degree to which I hadn't felt in a long while, probably not the subject matter itself (though really, my brain felt like it was leaking out of my skull while I was in class), but the frame of being in school, again.

I enjoy learning. But studying...

I feel guilty about the choosing to veer away from this plan, without a backup plan. I'm still unemployed, living off my savings at the moment, working on the side for my father so that I don't sink utterly. There's not a bit of shame involved in that, despite it being a concious choice I made.

And wouldn't you know, I feel guilty about that, as well.

The thing is, my parents were paying for these studies as well and I just couldn't have that any more.

I'm 26, and moved out and still, my parents were paying for my life.

You know, I'd much rather suck up the shame and ask them for help with the rent, than have them help me coast through life just so I can be put on a career path that was numbing me out.

I'm still numb, because I am overwhelmed by death, disease and the feelings of failure that will probably not leave me until I get a job, because I am nothing if not a loyal subject to the economic system.

But ever since I made the choice of leaving school, I've felt lighter and more at ease with the my guilt. I feel guilty for letting down my parents, not for making a choice they think is a mistake - because it's not a mistake for me. I feel guilty for not being financially secure at the moment, but I know that's a dynamic situation that can and will change and it's less to do with me personally and more to do with the structure of work force.
I feel guilty that everything is coming to a head at a time where there has been a death in the family and we are about to begin to revolve around a disease which we thought we wouldn't have to deal with again.

But nothing goes according to plan.

So really, why feel guilty?

For now, it's an outlet for me. Feeling all my feelings through the prism of guilt. It motivates me to try and not feel guilty. Feeling guilty informs me that I am being manipulated, in one way or another.

Feeling guilty reminds me that it could be worse. It reminds me of my privilege, I suppose.

Yesterday though, a song came on my shuffle that really helped me put it somewhat in perspective:


Hand In My Pocket - Alanis Morissette
( no one's really got it figured out just yet )

I recently acquired the new Florence + The Machine album Ceremonials. It is very good in my opinion.

But tell me friends, how do you know which if the contemporary artists and musicians you like are popular or not?

I don't watch MTV, my trawling through Youtube is sketchy at best and usually directed towards videos of cute cat or various political gatherings and suffice to say that Israel is so stuck in the 90's that the website selling tickets for the K's Choice tour crashed several times when it opened up for locals to buy (yes, I have a ticket, weehee!). Oh, and I don't follow the charts or the Grammy's unless it's research for something I'm writing that's set in a certain time frame (which means I'm more likely going to be looking at charts from the 60's or the 70's).

We are slightly dated, also the radio is an unreliable source of knowing which acts are popular or not in my opinion.

I'll be the first to admit that my taste in music is terribly banal and ordinary. I have a few bootlegs (that I digitised) of underground queer core songs, but I don't listen to those on a regular basis and I bought the bootlegs in order to support an anarchist collective as opposed to actually liking the music, so, yeah...

It's just that, I read this article about Florence + The Machine and the middle class apathy and I really couldn't figure out what this guy was talking about?

Am I utterly mixed in my genres? Since when is a remixed to death and multi voice track recording considered folk?

I'll admit that I'm slightly dated in my definitions (seeing as I'm an avid Joni Mitchell listener, as well as Joan Baez and Tracy Chapman), but um, am I missing something?

I mean, isn't Florence + The Machine more like Lady Gaga than, say, Suzanne Vega?

I am Jewish today!

I was Jewish yesterday too, and I'll continue to be Jewish... forever, I guess.

I'm going to leave the Jewish navel gazing for the Days of Awe, when that's supposed to happen.

For now, to all who celebrate have a good evening and a happy new year, to all those who don't, a good Wednesday to you!

If you find a nice Jewish family that will take you in and feed you, do so! We make awesome food. Also, there's wine, honey and apple crumble/pie most of the time.

Enjoy a video, different from years past:

A big thank you to my BFF for introdusing me to these videos, they are amazing and moving. Check the rest out over at Symphony of Science.

Various people on my f/r-list have done this, so here's what I'm doing!

Put your iPod/mp3 player/iTunes/music player of choice on Shuffle mode.

For each question, press the 'Next' button to get your answer.

You MUST write the song name down that comes up, no matter how silly it sounds as an answer to the question or how embarrassing it is.

Make snarky comments as necessary.

( Cut for length )

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
Little Boxes
Tee hee!

Will wonders never cease.

No, this isn't the Eames of Inception meta I've been threatening, alas, that will probably be on hold until I have my own copy of the movie so that I can analyse every scene he's in - because dude, it's all about the clothes, mannerisms and his turn of phrase and... yeah.

Any way, ever since I saw Inception I've been going over other movies I've missed due to having awful Hollywood taste and skipping a bunch of indie flicks that had Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page in them.

The films I'll be mentioning are: "500 Days of Summer", "Mysterious Skin", "Shadowboxer", "Smart People", "Whip It", "RockNRolla" and "Bronson".
This post may contain spoilers regarding some characters, but I'll be doing my best to keep plot out of it.

Don't say I didn't tell you!

( In which I go on about Joseph Gordon-Levitt )

By the way, Joseph Gordon-Levitt covers songs by women and listening to him singing "Express Yourself", "Bad Romance" and "Natural Woman" is just fucking grand.
The man is scarily talented.

Watching all those movies made me appreciate him a whole lot more - There's barely an audience here for Indie Cinema and the Cinemateques are not very close by to me and I generally miss screenings and had no idea these movies even existed until I see a mainstream movie, go to IMDB and find out that whoa! These people are prolific!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is awesome y'all!

Ellen Page is lovely. She really is. Obviously I'd seen Juno, because everyone had seen Juno and I saw her as Kitty Pride in the third X-Men movie and she was very sweet there as well.
I've yet to see Hard Candy and yes, I know, it's a huge cavern in my film viewing arsenal, but I saw other movies instead!
( Now Ellen Page! )

Tom Hardy is a curious case. As it happens, except Bronson (which I will get to), I'd actually seen most of the feature films he'd been in! (he's acted in a few British mini-series and drama shows, which I've yet to see). Like Layer Cake - I've seen that a few times, because of Daniel Craig and Burn Gorman! And there he is on IMDB, Mr. Eames!
Not to mention Star Trek: Nemesis, which really, let's not mention it.

And Rock N Rolla the underrated (and also not as good as previous) Ritchie film. The first Guy Ritchie film (correct me if I'm wrong) with a canon gay character! ( Tom Hardy, I knew thee before I knew of thee! )

Getting back to Rock N Rolla for a mo'.
When I saw it all those many moons ago I expected to go online and find a whole slew of fanfiction! A canon gay character! A canon gay character with a crush! A canon gay character in the same 'verse as Jason Statham! (*wink-wink nudge-nudge*)
And 'lo, there was none. Or more to the point, barely any.
What with Tom Hardy's sudden popularity, the movie is getting rewatched and there were at least ten new fics I've found since I'd seen Inception back in August.

I find that interesting. I'm not really all that sure what to make of it. Especially considering that Eames, as a character, most definitely put ambiguous vibes sexuality and gender wise, there's nothing in the actual text to suggest that he's queer in any way - he's just got excellent chemistry with everyone.

Handsome Bob (Ritchie, you love your Statham^*, don't you?) played by Tom Hardy is very much not ambiguous, seeing as he comes out to the audience and protagonist early on and would appear to have been out to everyone else since before the events of the movie!

I'm wondering if it's because of this lack of ambiguity and the very real reaction that came from the character to whom Handsome Bob came out that there were barely any takers. I have a few fic ideas, but it takes me forever to write and I'm not very prolific, so don't expect anything from any time soon.
The more I think about, it really could be the fact that there was a reaction to the fact that here's a masculine bloke who likes the romantic and erotic company of other blokes, and the other blokes in the movie make it clear that being gay isn't as good as being straight in various and sundry ways - most of them are ambiguous in their malice, as in, clearly the actions were homophobic but it's unclear how much of it came from actual hatred of gay men and how much of it a part of macho gangster life.

That kind of ambiguity is rare. So often, you see a polarised split in reaction, not to mention the gay characters themselves are usually so stereotyped it's hard to watch... but in this film, the performances felt... friendly... a dangerously awkward moment in which I feared there would be yet-another-dead-queer-on-screen... but ended up being sweet and touching, throughout the film.

I think the fact that there was this reaction existed on screen, jostled the slash goggles a bit.

Your own thoughts on this?

Footnotes
* In case you weren't aware, Jason Statham played a character named "Handsome Rob" in the 2003 remake of The Italian Job, where he plays a fast driving British lady's man. Handsome Bob, is also the driver for the East End gang he's a member of - he's also referred to as a "lady killer" at a certain point... only, he's a gay man. Yeah.
Back to Text

Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" is being adapted to Television.

I find the fact that Supernatural's Eric Kripke has his thumb in this pie, distressing. Mainly because I find Supernatural to be derivative in the most unoriginal way, the writing horrendous and the gore not particularly entertaining.
Also the fact that it bleeds into other fandoms via crossovers in such a chronic way very irritating.

Let it be known, I'm not judging anyone who likes Supernatual (Hello, Torchwood fan!) but the actual show is just vomitous.

So anyone involved with that show touching anything to do with Sandman is very upsetting.

Of course at this point there is nothing but this announcement as far as I'm aware, so it would appear that there isn't even a proper pitch.
Still...

In the words of the Interwebs: Do Not Want.

Sandman in many ways was what got me to be a critical thinker. To doubt the world around me, note not reality, but the way the world is constructed. Mainly, how the world is narrative. It helped that the story itself is layered, multi functional as both text and image and the lines blurring between Morpheus' arc and the rest of players is really gorgeous.
Dream may have been the Sun of the solar system of Sandman, but everyone else was also a planet.

I like that metaphor.

Sandman also helped me, over reading it over and over for ten years, to rid myself of the idea that I needed to believe in a power greater than the story. Because even though I kept on trying to have faith in various and sundry gods, powers that be and even that good ole' time religion which believes that Earth and the Universe is a Libra eventually coming to the conclusion that myths of god, are just stories about people.

It's a great comfort of mine.

In relation to that, I don't remember my dreams, sometimes, very rarely, I'll remember a feeling I dreamt, but the actual plots I live through in my subconscious mind are locked away and put forth in the snippets of scenes I write and the characters who talk to me when I'm awake.
I think, much like Watchmen, that there are some stories that can't be translated into a different medium without losing something that made the original story an important turning point in that medium. Because while Watchmen the movie was terrible (except for the opening credits, which was absolute movie making genius!) the comic was a punch in the gut of everything that had come before it.
Samndman is seminal because it crosses genres, breaks them, talks about them consciously and is (was) presumptuous enough to talk about human nature without being condescending.

I fear that Sandman, should a television adaptation actually happen, will be dumbed down to suit the palate of what ever demographic television show makers think actually watch television.

And so I ask... for the love of all that I hold dear, why?

Here, have a song.
Day 6: Your favorite band.
Allow me to be completely cliché and give you…
"Norwegian Wood" by the Beatles!


( The Days )

Day 3: A song that makes you dance.

Any thing by Queen makes me want to dance, but this makes me move my butt!
Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls"


It is most opportune that I am finally watching what seems to be one of the best Rock n' Roll Comedy movie I've seen since "Almost Famous" and "This is Spinal Tap" (okay, that is a bit much but still).

The Boat That Rocked is really funny and has a huge repertoire of classic 60's rock which makes me feel all fuzzy inside. The pub hopping scene is especially lovely. Though I'm still not clear on why a Welshman dressed as a pimp is considered sexy.
Felicity the Lesbian cook (yes, that's what she's known as on this boat filled with stones highly sexed men) is a bit of a butt-monkey, but in the great tradition of British movies, there are (white) men of every size having sex with a great many type of woman, which makes it fun to watch as well.
Honestly not the main foci of the film, but the things you notice, right?

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Bill Nye are sexy beasts.

I'm only half way though at the moment, I'm hoping Felicity the Lesbian cook manages to have some sex with a bird at some point.
ETA - 13:20: She did! YAYS!

Enjoy the music!

( The Days Left To Sing To )

Hello there!

Let's get this started, yes?

Day 1: Your favorite song.
Oy, this is difficult. It changes over time, because I can't imagine ever being so constant in my tastes.
But were I to choose a favourite song at the moment it would probably be:
Sinead O'Connor's "Troy"



( More days to come! )