We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things.

Yesterday, the new album from Jason Mraz hit stores with a startling lack of shelf space. And because I just completed my fourth and final AP exam today, I decided to treat myself to a nice, musical treat to enjoy while working on my long-neglected homework pile.

After listening to the CD, I have some definite favorites which I am sure I will point out. My first favorite would be the second track, "I'm Yours" which I'd already heard from a mix my friend Danielle made me. I'd loved it already and was pleased to find it on the CD. It's a mellow, beachy song that makes you want to sit down, close your eyes and sway from side to side (so get your lighters out, people). Another favorite of mine is "Lucky" which features Colbie Caillat. It's a really happy, pretty song and the duet is absolutely amazing. The lyrics are really relatable and fun and Jason seems to really have fun through the entire beginning of the song (listen and you'll hear what I mean).

Another one of my favorites "Details in the Fabric" which features James Morrison. I heard this song was immediately reminded of another soft, acoustic musician but I can't put my finger on the name. I got this vibe with a lot of the songs on the album, so perhaps it only shows that all the songs are distinctly new and yet distinctly Mraz-esque. But this song is really beautiful and there's a lurking emotion behind each of the melodies and all the vocals that really makes it come to life and stick out from most of the other songs.

The next three songs, "Coyotes", "Only Human" and "The Dynamo of Volition" are probably my favorite songs of the whole album. They have the familiar fast-talking lyrics that we're familiar with from songs such as "Wordplay" (Mr A-Z) and "The Remedy" (Waiting for my Rocket to Come). They all have more minor-sounding melodies which makes them a bitter sort of upbeat. And did I mention there are traces of synthesized beat tracks in the background as well? These songs are really fun, especially if you focus and try to concentrate on the flow of the words (especially on "The Dynamo of Volition"). And the end of "Coyotes" have little kids singing. Which is absolutely adorable.

The only song I wish hadn't appeared on this album was the fourth track, "Butterfly." This song was a little awkward to listen to because it showed all the sexual thoughts running through Jason's head in some strange, somewhat comical metaphors. It is fun to listen to but you still feel awkward listening to it. It could have been just as well-rounded without that particular track.

Songs I excluded: "Live High", "Love for a Child", "If It Kills Me" and "A Beautiful Mess" all of which are good but not immediate favorites.

7 Year Old... In an SUV?!

... this is so wrong.



SPOILERS HERE:

HOW DOES A SEVEN YEAR OLD MANAGE TO STEAL AND DRIVE A CAR??!!?

AND HOW DOES THAT NOT DESERVE TIME IN A JUVENILE DETENTION FACILITY?!?!

ARE YOU KIDDING?!?!

I don't understand. This kid isn't even sorry. He's like, "It's fun to drive cars and 'do hoodrat stuff'." And he has a seven year old friend who smokes CIGARETTES?!?!

What is it that has gone horribly wrong in our world today that a seven year old can get cigarettes or drive an SUV without people noticing? I mean, I've got a seven year old brother and all he cares about it playing the PS3 and acing his spelling test and playing with his friends after school. How is it that someone the same age can have the brain capacity to even IMAGINE stealing a car? And then not show any signs of any sort of remorse?

I bet this kid is going to grow up and be a complete delinquient. I mean... when a kid is this young and is already getting into heavy crimes like this, what do you think he's going to be doing five... ten years from now? This is horrible. Usually, people only have delusions of grandeur if they are schizophrenic or bipolar. This kid just has no boundaries to his active imagination, apparently.

And for this, he'll probably hunt me down and do some "hoodrat stuff" to me.

Give me a break.

Three Songs I Love

Right now, things are incredibly stressful. With all the various tests, exams and assignments I have from school, prom, and personal events that I have coming up, I hardly have time to root myself in anything for more than fifteen minutes of concentration. This includes my blog, my AP Lang essay, my AP Bio lab report and TV shows.

Thankfully, my favorite songs aren't over fifteen minutes long because then I'd be in serious trouble. Three songs I've been listening to obsessively to keep myself "in the zone" I will now dissect for you here in my blog.

1. "Plane" by Jason Mraz
This song is really mellow at the beginning with a minor key tonality and pretty piano key tinkling. The lyrics are comprehensible and are, at times, clever. Jason manages to keep himself almost monotone through the first part of the song before the strings cut in and he lets go... a little. However, in the next part of the song, there is a controlled intensity in the music as well as in his vocals. Then it calms down again only to close with a crescendo of cathartic emotion.
Listen here

2. "Mad World" by Gary Jules
This song has been on my mind since I saw in the last scenes from the movie Donnie Darko (which is beyond amazing). The lyrics are flowing and so is the music and vocals and basically every aspect of this song. It's easy to sing along to, without much of a range of notes to be had, and it moves so seamlessly from verse to chorus to verse that by the time the song is over you can hardly remember what exactly you just heard. So you listen to it again. And again.
Listen here

3. "If I Was a House" by Beasts and Superbeasts
I've already dissected this song enough with my last post so I'll just summarize my feelings here. This song is amazing. I like to think of it as three parts that all fall together in a puzzle pieces way that makes it fantastic. It is all at once whimsical, emotional and magical. I listen to this song over and over trying to hear each and every detail of the dual vocals and the unique sound of each instrument present in the song.
Listen here

These three songs have kept me fueled throughout a long and grueling batch of homework that seems to grow and grow like a Chia Pet without any reprieve in sight. Hopefully, they can last me until the end of the school year. I'll cross my fingers.

Beasts and Superbeasts

I have a Youtube account (to which I will not link because I don't have any videos worth anyone's time) which I use mostly just to favorite videos and subscribe to cool Youtubers. One of these 'tubers happens to be mememolly, a formerly-British, now-Canadian teenage girl who I discovered over the summer from her homemade music video to Rilo Kiley's "The Frug."

In her latest video, "Glamorous," Molly told her viewers about all the books she bought recently (including one of my favorites Looking for Alaska) as well as a CD she bought. It was the debut album from the band Beasts and Superbeasts. The cover was really pretty so I decided to Google them and listen to the music on their Mypsace.

I didn't even get halfway through the first song of four before I absolutely fell in love with their style. The song, "If I Was a House," is completely magical. It starts with a cool accordion sound that is then accompanied by a mellow guitar melody. Soon the accordion drops out, yields to piano tinkling and male-female paired vocals that are fairly toneless but fantastic nonetheless. A little over halfway through the song, the guitar melody returns with a darker sound and so does the accordion, as if you just went from a mellow sailing trip to a journey into the dark and stormy sea. The lyrics and the vocals become more intense and emotional with about a minute left of the song. But then you come out of the storm and back into the sunny sea with toneless but happier vocals and piano tinkling.

I haven't gotten around to their other songs because I am so in love with this one I'm afraid nothing else of theirs will compare (though I doubt this is true in practice).

Books I Want To Write

Writing a book sounds like a huge task. For some, it may be a dark and looming task as well, especially if you love telling stories and have wanted to write a novel for years but just haven't gotten there yet.

But if I were to write a book, there would be two possible books I'd want to put onto paper (or, more appropriately, into a Word document).

The first would be the novel I have been working on since October that I worked on dilligently all through November, AKA: National Novel Writing Month. It's a fantasy novel about kids, but not meant for a child audience (think His Dark Materials type of novel). It's fun to write and plot this story but I haven't made much time basically since the end of winter break to get anything written. Since then, I've written about 15 pages, which is not very much considering I wrote probably 120 or so during November alone. It's a total of 167 pages as of right now and I'm waiting for the time to be able to dedicate to some serious, hardcore writing time.

The second book I would want to write is a novel that would mix basically everything I could ever want to read about. It would be a horribly self-indulgent novel and I would probably be the only person to purchase a copy in any bookstore anywhere. I would somehow manage to blend drug culture and vampires and magic (which sounds incredibly corny now that I type it out but does not in my head). It would probably end up being somewhat epic, because I'd need some sort of social drama, adventure drama and immortal drama. But it would be so much fun to write! If only for my own personal joy. :)


PS: I stole this topic from Chris Brogan's website where he has a list of 100 topics people should write about. I chose: #25: Books I Want to Write. (His list is very helpful.)

The Sims (2)

Yesterday, for lack of anything else (except homework) to do, I decided to play the Sims. I installed the Seasons expansion pack and haven't been able to use it as much as I'd like yet so I made great use of it. I made a Sim with Knowledge aspiration so that all her Wants would be easy to fulfil and went to town. I gave everything a Country theme except one room, which was a Tiki room. She has a gerbil and a green house and a pond to fish in. And I sat there and played for at least eight hours. I am not even kidding.

The Sim that I started yesterday is now at the top of the Culinary career track as a Celebrity Chef. She has lots of funny outfits that she can wear to work, when she goes to work, three days a week making over 2,000 Simoleons a day. She has a gold gardening badge, which means she can talk to her plants to make them thrive, and a silver fishing badge, which means she can catch more kinds of fish. Her cooking and creativity skill points are maxxed out and her body points are nearl there. She has seven friends, who are all also best friends, and one love interest (though they have no chemistry... ??)

And now I am addicted to The Sims. And why? It's kind of sad that I sit in front of the computers for hours, only to control a simulated person's simulated life. But, let's face it.. Sim lives are so much better than our own. My Sim makes $2000 a day but her bills are ony $100. She has a maid who charges $20 a day (basically, because my Sim is consistently non-slob-ish) and I can just cheat to get my Sim anything she (or I...) want. Everything is easy and black and white as a Sim. There aren't social cliques or sexist bosses to keep you from the top of your career track or any of the other things that make our lives horribly complicated.

Despite the fact that the makers of The Sims are trying to make the game as real as possible, with chemistry factors between acquaintances and lots of customizable factors and traits, it gets farther and farther away from reality and farther into how harmoniously we wish we could really live.

Kelsey Wild

A few months ago, probably sometime during fall trimester, I went onto Purevolume (which I, apparently, pimp all the time) and looked at their featured artists. I stumbled upon an Indie/Acoustic arist named Kelsey Wild.

She's a seventeen year old artist from Byron, Illinois. Her music is basically her playing piano and her voice. She has a really unique voice that really defines her lyrics. In conjunction with her voice, her piano melodies give the perfect accents to her poetic lyrics. All her songs are very mellow, very stripped down and vulnerable and extremely pretty. She's immensely talented.

All of Kelsey's songs tell stories, in some way. They're all personal and have some kind of experience from her life to convey. Her music is mellow and perfect to listen to when trying to write a story, do your homework or any other time during the day. Once you start listening to Kelsey's music, it will be stuck in your head all day long, cycling through one of her five songs on her Purevolume.

The only depressing thing is that Kelsey's music is so good you just want more of it once you've listened to her five tracks. The sad thing is that she isn't yet signed to any record label. I think she'd be an immediate hit among mellow indie listeners, maybe even wider audiences, espcially in the Midwest because that's where she's from and where she's play shows. However, there is no news on new songs or a potential record deal. But she has many fans crossing their fingers for an album in the future.

Luther College Visit

I am going to take a quick break from my usual blog posts about music and movies and books to write about my visit that I took yesterday to Luther College.

I left my house, with my dad in tow, around 8:30 in the morning. It was a really nice day for a two hour drive. We were mostly on two-lane highways with 55 miles an hour speed limits. But the weather was perfect. It was nice and sunny and bright. The grass was green and I passed a propane truck after miles of slow-driving aggravation.

We got there at 10:40 and spent the next five minutes trying to figure out where would be the best place to park and then where to go from our selected parking lot. Eventually, we figured it out and then were on our way with our tour guide to sightsee around the campus.

It was a long hike around the campus, especially in the hillier bits. We went all through the Union building (where the food's at!) and their "wellness" facilities and some dorm buildings and some learning buildings and looked around basically all the campus, mostly. Everything was maintained really well and looked really nice. I dig/dug it.

After the tour, we were free to go get lunch in the cafeteria with little food card things they gave us. So my dad and I went to get food. The cafeteria only had a million choices. It was really good food too. Instead of the bland, plain, gross stuff they serve at our school cafeteria (which I decline to eat by bringing my own lunch).

After everyone ate, we went to an official "Welcome!" presentation in the Center for Life and Faith, which is a really pretty building. The told us all sorts of fun factoids about Luther and then sent us on our way to meet with various departments or to do a student-to-student conversation or go to a financial aid session. My dad and I went to the English department one together and then I went to the Education session while my dad went to learn about financial aid stuff (yet again).

After all the department sessions, you could go back to the Union, get free (COLD AND REFRESHING because it was hot outside) beverages and talk to the admissions counsellor who would be looking over your application, if you so chose to apply. So my dad and I did that for, like, five minutes. And then we left because we had to drive the whole two hours home. But first we drove all through most of Decorah. Which is a cute, small little quaint town. But it actually has a lot of stuff, at least more than I thought it would. And it's basically five minutes from the Luther campus (but then again, it is the closest town for, like, forever).

Overall, the visit was really fun and went really well. They ran everything really smoothly, with plenty of people there to help you get where you're going and feel really comfortable doing it. I had a really good time and I think that after my visit, Luther is definitely at the top of my "Colleges I Want To Go To" list.