Immaturity, revolutionaries, and a mix
I've been a horrible good-for-nothing all day, and it's left me with a headache and a nauseating getting-a-cold feeling, presumably from walking in the awful shower we had yesterday and then devouring a pint of ice-cream last night and this morning as if we faced imminent separation. I managed, however, to turn my pitifully short paper in in time: 7pm before class - very unaccomodating in general, don't you think? - though in this case I'm infinitely glad, because no way could I have been able to work tonight. Either way, I have another to turn in this week, and a third that I have already done but that needs a proofread and probably minor revisions.
Today is also my salsa class night, and I was determined not to miss it, as I missed last week and it was canceled the week before that, so it was really getting out of hand, so I shook my miserable self, plugged in the headphones, and walked to school and back. Salsa was fun, we learned one move that I distinctly remember was in Havana Nights because I remember how it looked and I realized as we were doing it that my body was doing exactly the same. Curiously, we had two (two!) guys partnerless today - but we normally rotate anyway, so it's no big deal; still. Most importantly, the walk was what I needed. I need to do it more often - my chronic lateness (and laziness) is usually the reason I don't; and the weather, if a bit undecided after raining all through Sunday, is nice enough. It takes me one hour flat to get from my doorstep to the school building, and I think I actually made it in 50 minutes back unless I misread the clock. Since my head was pretty much pounding, I went with an audiobook instead of music - not exactly an audiobook, a radio play that I've had on the ipod for several weeks now: The Possessed, adapted from Dostoevsky by Lou Stein, with John Sessions, Benedict Cumberbatch and Anne-Marie Duff -- I mention only those I knew previously, though all of them were superb, especially Paul McGann, who did Verhovensky, and Verhovensky is probably one of the very few fictional characters that truly terrify me, so I commend the guy for evoking the same emotions from me as the orignial text did.
Tl;dr, a really great production of a deeply tragic novel, and, just like the novel, feels like sawing your limb off with a rusty tool for an hour and a half -- though maybe that's just me, because it had really affected me tremendously when I read it. And idea occurred to me, and I would have gladly done a poll on it, but I don't think there's enoug people on my flist who have read all I want to poll about - namely, seminal fictional characters in Russian prose and poetry, of whom Nikolai Stavrogin is definitely one. (And whose personality and story attracts me much more, than, say, Lermontov's Pechorin, though I know that would probably not be the case for most people.)
More tl:dr, I know, but I actually have a mixtape for you - all you lovely girls whom I love.
NGL, this all started with Rachael Yamagata, Laura Marling and Rilo Kiley, and was supposed to be a mix about girls with a perpetual one-way ticket in their gut for when I was leaving Moscow for several months (again), and it sat around in my playlists under the working title She's Not Staying since then. Now that March 8, International Women's Day (as per Russian and other Socialist affectionados' holiday calendar) came around, I decided I needed to post it after all, except it grew a dozen male-perspective songs (don't judge me, I can't help it) and so I contemplated it for a moment, slapped a witty (according to me) alliterated title on it, and swapped some songs around so the sequencing would go like tiny musical dialogues about amazing girls who leave. And come back. And leave. And then there's mentions of funerals. Colour me suprised.
I don't even know what it is about anymore, because now I think that the following quote from Before Sunset (the ultimate carpe diem long-distance romance with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, anyone?) would be a suitable epigraph.
‟Men go out with me, we break up and then they get married. And later they call me to thank me for teaching them what love is. That I taught them to care and respect women. I want to kill them! Why didn't they ask me to marry them? I would've said no, but at least they could have asked.”
So, make of what you will; enjoy --hopefully. If a disclaimer is necessary to excuse the lack earnestness towards the date on my part, I am happy to provide it: I don't subscribe to feminism as a comprehensive, overarching concept (mostly because I don't know enough, I suppose), but I will defend to the death any woman's right to stand for whatever sort of feminism she likes, if I'm permitted my naive, warped, idealistic fiction-fantasy. (For I am completely incapable of being aromantic - in fact, I am well in danger of being a daughter of Aphrodite is there a PJO sorting comm somewhere? cutting the OOT now!) Oh, and when there's French, there's crack. Just a warning.
{ original photo credit: ann he | randy p. martin | meredith amadee }
Fireflies
Rachael Yamagata ft. Rhett Miller
You've got terrible vision
You should have seen I was leaving
When I first appeared
Never say you'll never leave
'Cause you never know till you try
In a jar fireflies only last for one night
Une Dernière Danse
Kyo
Mais je connais l'histoire, il est déjà trop tard,
Dans son regard, on peut apercevoir qu'elle se prépare
Au long voyage
Je peux mourir demain ça ne change rien
J'ai reçu de ses mains
Le bonheur ancré dans mon âme
C'est même trop pour un seul homme
Et je l'ai vue partir sans rien dire
Il fallait seulement qu'elle respire
Merci d'avoir enchanté ma vie
[But I know the story, it's already too late
I can see in her eyes that she' preparing
For a long journey
I can die tomorrow, it woudn't change a thing
From her hands I've received
The happiness anchored in my heart
It's even too much for one single man
I watched her leave without saying a word
It was enough that she breathed
Thank you for having brought magic into my life]
I'm a Bitch
The Plasticines
I’m a bitch
When I walk my dog
I’m a bitch
When I fall in love
I’m a bitch
When I give a kiss
I’m a bitch
When I sing like this
I’m a bitch
Just realize
I’m a bitch
All the time
Valkyrie in the Roller Disco
The New Pornographers
Valkyrie, don't go home
It's not right, not right
Leave with the lights up
It's half for you, half for love
You're a gold mine, gold mine
There, just like that
There, you're doing it again
Come on, be the one
And what's worst, worst, worst
There's no words, words, words
Mobile
Avril Lavigne
Everything's changing when I turn around
All out of my control, I'm a mobile
Everything's changing out of what I know
Everywhere I go, I'm a mobile
Hanging from the ceiling
Life's a mobile
Spinning 'round with mixed feelings
Crazy and wild
Your Heart Is an Empty Room
Death Cab for Cutie
Burn it down till the embers smoke on the ground
And start new when your heart is an empty room
With walls of the deepest blue
And all you see is where else you could be
When you're at home
And out on the street
Are so many possibilities to not be alone
The flames and smoke climbed out of every window
And disappeared with everything that you held dear
But you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn't need
'Cause you knew you were finally free
Tire Swing
Kimya Dawson
I took the Polaroid down in my room
I’m pretty sure you have a new girlfriend
It’s not as if I don’t like you
It just makes me sad whenever I see it
'Cause I like to be gone most of the time
And you like to be home most of the time
If I stay in one place I lose my mind
I’m a pretty impossible lady to be with
Now I’m home for less than twenty-four hours
That’s hardly time to take a shower
Hug my family and take your picture off the wall
Check my email, write a song and make a few phone calls
Before it’s time to leave again
I’ve got one hand on the steering wheel
One waving out the window
if I’m a spinster for the rest of my life
My arms will keep me warm on cold and lonely nights
Girls Like You
The Naked and Famous
Run, whirlwind run
Further and further away
Into the sun
In 20 minutes
Everyone will remember you when you're gone
How would you cope it the world decided to
Make you suffer for all that you were?
How would you feel if nobody chased you?
What if it happened tonight?
Nothing Like a Song
Azure Ray
We learn to live we live to die
Just accept and don't ask why
My lips, they form a crooked smile
Giving a sign of no reply
I'm not what you write in your books
And no, I'm nothing like a song
You don't ask because you already know
(Will you come back home?)
I Want You Back
The Kooks
How did you do it, females?
So how did you do it, angels?
You always keep me on the run
I want it back
Well, yes I want it back
Yes, I want you back
Please, give it me back
'Cause I want your love
But I can't let myself love you
If You Want Me
Marketa Irglova
When I get really lonely
And the distance causes our silence
I think of you smiling
With pride in your eyes
A lover that sighs
If you want me, satisfy me
And I'll do what you ask me
If you'll let me be free
Pigeons in the Attic Room
Everything But the Girl
Well, I hate to have to tell you this
But there are pigeons in the attic room
Where you left me spent and gasping that afternoon
And where the floorboards left their splinters
And you left me so soon
Pardon me, I'm drunk again
And when I'm drunk I make no sense
But I crack more jokes and that's my self-defence
You caused me to think
And I thought about what I had home without you
You drove me to drink
And I never had the courtesy to thank you
Such a Common Bird
Ane Brun
I am a lone wolf
A beauty and a beast
Both hunter and hunted
Soft tongue and sharp teeth
I have seen angels
They were sleeping in gutters
They were standing in bank lines
They were jumping from towers
They were calling like seagulls
But nobody heard
Such a beautiful message
From such a common bird
We want freedom for ourselves
But we can't give it to each other
Magic Trick
M. Ward
She's got one magic trick
Just one and that's it
Oh, she disappears
It's like, now you see her, now you don't
You think you're gonna get to know her now
Well you won't
Show Me What You're Made Of
Stephanie Kirkham
Watching a clock through the day
Wide awake at night
Wild ideas like fireworks cascade in your mind
The hourglass is turning
Your time starts now
Stop chasing your tail and then spacing out
I'm watching you
Show me what you're made of
Everybody's got their problems to share
Everybody's road is going somewhere
Tell me where you're headed
And I'll meet you there
It's hard to break away
Without seeming like you don't care
Come on now
Show me what you're made of
Girls of Summer
Aerosmith
Some girls are all about it
Some girls they love to let it fly
Some girls can't live without it
Some girls are born to make you cry
Over and over again
My favorite thing that drives me wild
Is when a city girl walks a county mile
For the boy she loves
God bless the child
Inside the girls of summer
I Love LA
Rilo Kiley
Let it be printed, let it be known
I'm leaving you, I'm going home
And all you can do is just watch me go
With my heart in a sling
Tail between my legs a swingin'
I'm sorry for leavin'
But when the palm trees bow their heads
No matter how cruel I've been
LA, you always let me back in
And you can bury me when my body breaks
In the earth that created me
In the Golden State
By my mama and her brother
And their mama too
'Cause I had a dream I was carried on backs
Of a thousand green birds
And they carried me to a place without words
And there was nothin'
But there was everything
Your Picture
Camera Obscura
She told me you'd given up drinking
To be with somebody you knew
And you tried to get into the Bible
But it never got into you
But you've still got some loyal disciples
I suppose that I'm one of the few
And I shouldn't have laughed
Because I mean you no harm
But my friend got to me before you
So next time I see you
I'll be pleased to see you
I hope you'll be pleased to see me
I'll visit your pictute
I won't have the nerve to tell them
That they've got you all wrong
To Let Myself Go
Ane Brun
To let myself go
To let myself flow
Is the only way of being
There's no use telling me
There's no use taking a step back
A step back for me
Wild World
Mike Bailey
You know I've seen a lot of what the world can do
And it's breakin' my heart in two
Because I never wanna see you sad, girl
Don't be a bad girl
But if you wanna leave, take good care
I hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware
Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)
Laura Marling
And a friend of mine says
It's good to hear you believe in love
Even if set in fear
Well I'll hold you there, brother, and set you straight
I won't make believe that love is frail and willing to break
I will come back here
Bring me back when I'm old
I want to lay here forever in the cold
I might be cold but I'm just skin and bones
And I never love England more than when covered in snow
I wrote my name in your book
Only God knows why
And I bet you that he cracked a smile
And I'm clearing all the stuff out of my room
Trying desperately to figure out
What it is that makes me blue
And I wrote an epic letter to you
But it's 22 pages front and back
But it's too good to be used
And I tried to be a girl who likes to be used
I'm too good for that
There's a mind under this hat
And I called them all and told them I've got to move
Feel like running
.ZIP
I'm open to comments, cuddles and criticism equally, as per usual. Happy 8th March!
Today is also my salsa class night, and I was determined not to miss it, as I missed last week and it was canceled the week before that, so it was really getting out of hand, so I shook my miserable self, plugged in the headphones, and walked to school and back. Salsa was fun, we learned one move that I distinctly remember was in Havana Nights because I remember how it looked and I realized as we were doing it that my body was doing exactly the same. Curiously, we had two (two!) guys partnerless today - but we normally rotate anyway, so it's no big deal; still. Most importantly, the walk was what I needed. I need to do it more often - my chronic lateness (and laziness) is usually the reason I don't; and the weather, if a bit undecided after raining all through Sunday, is nice enough. It takes me one hour flat to get from my doorstep to the school building, and I think I actually made it in 50 minutes back unless I misread the clock. Since my head was pretty much pounding, I went with an audiobook instead of music - not exactly an audiobook, a radio play that I've had on the ipod for several weeks now: The Possessed, adapted from Dostoevsky by Lou Stein, with John Sessions, Benedict Cumberbatch and Anne-Marie Duff -- I mention only those I knew previously, though all of them were superb, especially Paul McGann, who did Verhovensky, and Verhovensky is probably one of the very few fictional characters that truly terrify me, so I commend the guy for evoking the same emotions from me as the orignial text did.
Tl;dr, a really great production of a deeply tragic novel, and, just like the novel, feels like sawing your limb off with a rusty tool for an hour and a half -- though maybe that's just me, because it had really affected me tremendously when I read it. And idea occurred to me, and I would have gladly done a poll on it, but I don't think there's enoug people on my flist who have read all I want to poll about - namely, seminal fictional characters in Russian prose and poetry, of whom Nikolai Stavrogin is definitely one. (And whose personality and story attracts me much more, than, say, Lermontov's Pechorin, though I know that would probably not be the case for most people.)
More tl:dr, I know, but I actually have a mixtape for you - all you lovely girls whom I love.
NGL, this all started with Rachael Yamagata, Laura Marling and Rilo Kiley, and was supposed to be a mix about girls with a perpetual one-way ticket in their gut for when I was leaving Moscow for several months (again), and it sat around in my playlists under the working title She's Not Staying since then. Now that March 8, International Women's Day (as per Russian and other Socialist affectionados' holiday calendar) came around, I decided I needed to post it after all, except it grew a dozen male-perspective songs (don't judge me, I can't help it) and so I contemplated it for a moment, slapped a witty (according to me) alliterated title on it, and swapped some songs around so the sequencing would go like tiny musical dialogues about amazing girls who leave. And come back. And leave. And then there's mentions of funerals. Colour me suprised.
I don't even know what it is about anymore, because now I think that the following quote from Before Sunset (the ultimate carpe diem long-distance romance with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, anyone?) would be a suitable epigraph.
‟Men go out with me, we break up and then they get married. And later they call me to thank me for teaching them what love is. That I taught them to care and respect women. I want to kill them! Why didn't they ask me to marry them? I would've said no, but at least they could have asked.”
So, make of what you will; enjoy --hopefully. If a disclaimer is necessary to excuse the lack earnestness towards the date on my part, I am happy to provide it: I don't subscribe to feminism as a comprehensive, overarching concept (mostly because I don't know enough, I suppose), but I will defend to the death any woman's right to stand for whatever sort of feminism she likes, if I'm permitted my naive, warped, idealistic fiction-fantasy. (For I am completely incapable of being aromantic - in fact, I am well in danger of being a daughter of Aphrodite is there a PJO sorting comm somewhere? cutting the OOT now!) Oh, and when there's French, there's crack. Just a warning.
{ original photo credit: ann he | randy p. martin | meredith amadee }
Fireflies
Rachael Yamagata ft. Rhett Miller
You've got terrible vision
You should have seen I was leaving
When I first appeared
Never say you'll never leave
'Cause you never know till you try
In a jar fireflies only last for one night
Une Dernière Danse
Kyo
Mais je connais l'histoire, il est déjà trop tard,
Dans son regard, on peut apercevoir qu'elle se prépare
Au long voyage
Je peux mourir demain ça ne change rien
J'ai reçu de ses mains
Le bonheur ancré dans mon âme
C'est même trop pour un seul homme
Et je l'ai vue partir sans rien dire
Il fallait seulement qu'elle respire
Merci d'avoir enchanté ma vie
[But I know the story, it's already too late
I can see in her eyes that she' preparing
For a long journey
I can die tomorrow, it woudn't change a thing
From her hands I've received
The happiness anchored in my heart
It's even too much for one single man
I watched her leave without saying a word
It was enough that she breathed
Thank you for having brought magic into my life]
I'm a Bitch
The Plasticines
I’m a bitch
When I walk my dog
I’m a bitch
When I fall in love
I’m a bitch
When I give a kiss
I’m a bitch
When I sing like this
I’m a bitch
Just realize
I’m a bitch
All the time
Valkyrie in the Roller Disco
The New Pornographers
Valkyrie, don't go home
It's not right, not right
Leave with the lights up
It's half for you, half for love
You're a gold mine, gold mine
There, just like that
There, you're doing it again
Come on, be the one
And what's worst, worst, worst
There's no words, words, words
Mobile
Avril Lavigne
Everything's changing when I turn around
All out of my control, I'm a mobile
Everything's changing out of what I know
Everywhere I go, I'm a mobile
Hanging from the ceiling
Life's a mobile
Spinning 'round with mixed feelings
Crazy and wild
Your Heart Is an Empty Room
Death Cab for Cutie
Burn it down till the embers smoke on the ground
And start new when your heart is an empty room
With walls of the deepest blue
And all you see is where else you could be
When you're at home
And out on the street
Are so many possibilities to not be alone
The flames and smoke climbed out of every window
And disappeared with everything that you held dear
But you shed not a single tear for the things that you didn't need
'Cause you knew you were finally free
Tire Swing
Kimya Dawson
I took the Polaroid down in my room
I’m pretty sure you have a new girlfriend
It’s not as if I don’t like you
It just makes me sad whenever I see it
'Cause I like to be gone most of the time
And you like to be home most of the time
If I stay in one place I lose my mind
I’m a pretty impossible lady to be with
Now I’m home for less than twenty-four hours
That’s hardly time to take a shower
Hug my family and take your picture off the wall
Check my email, write a song and make a few phone calls
Before it’s time to leave again
I’ve got one hand on the steering wheel
One waving out the window
if I’m a spinster for the rest of my life
My arms will keep me warm on cold and lonely nights
Girls Like You
The Naked and Famous
Run, whirlwind run
Further and further away
Into the sun
In 20 minutes
Everyone will remember you when you're gone
How would you cope it the world decided to
Make you suffer for all that you were?
How would you feel if nobody chased you?
What if it happened tonight?
Nothing Like a Song
Azure Ray
We learn to live we live to die
Just accept and don't ask why
My lips, they form a crooked smile
Giving a sign of no reply
I'm not what you write in your books
And no, I'm nothing like a song
You don't ask because you already know
(Will you come back home?)
I Want You Back
The Kooks
How did you do it, females?
So how did you do it, angels?
You always keep me on the run
I want it back
Well, yes I want it back
Yes, I want you back
Please, give it me back
'Cause I want your love
But I can't let myself love you
If You Want Me
Marketa Irglova
When I get really lonely
And the distance causes our silence
I think of you smiling
With pride in your eyes
A lover that sighs
If you want me, satisfy me
And I'll do what you ask me
If you'll let me be free
Pigeons in the Attic Room
Everything But the Girl
Well, I hate to have to tell you this
But there are pigeons in the attic room
Where you left me spent and gasping that afternoon
And where the floorboards left their splinters
And you left me so soon
Pardon me, I'm drunk again
And when I'm drunk I make no sense
But I crack more jokes and that's my self-defence
You caused me to think
And I thought about what I had home without you
You drove me to drink
And I never had the courtesy to thank you
Such a Common Bird
Ane Brun
I am a lone wolf
A beauty and a beast
Both hunter and hunted
Soft tongue and sharp teeth
I have seen angels
They were sleeping in gutters
They were standing in bank lines
They were jumping from towers
They were calling like seagulls
But nobody heard
Such a beautiful message
From such a common bird
We want freedom for ourselves
But we can't give it to each other
Magic Trick
M. Ward
She's got one magic trick
Just one and that's it
Oh, she disappears
It's like, now you see her, now you don't
You think you're gonna get to know her now
Well you won't
Show Me What You're Made Of
Stephanie Kirkham
Watching a clock through the day
Wide awake at night
Wild ideas like fireworks cascade in your mind
The hourglass is turning
Your time starts now
Stop chasing your tail and then spacing out
I'm watching you
Show me what you're made of
Everybody's got their problems to share
Everybody's road is going somewhere
Tell me where you're headed
And I'll meet you there
It's hard to break away
Without seeming like you don't care
Come on now
Show me what you're made of
Girls of Summer
Aerosmith
Some girls are all about it
Some girls they love to let it fly
Some girls can't live without it
Some girls are born to make you cry
Over and over again
My favorite thing that drives me wild
Is when a city girl walks a county mile
For the boy she loves
God bless the child
Inside the girls of summer
I Love LA
Rilo Kiley
Let it be printed, let it be known
I'm leaving you, I'm going home
And all you can do is just watch me go
With my heart in a sling
Tail between my legs a swingin'
I'm sorry for leavin'
But when the palm trees bow their heads
No matter how cruel I've been
LA, you always let me back in
And you can bury me when my body breaks
In the earth that created me
In the Golden State
By my mama and her brother
And their mama too
'Cause I had a dream I was carried on backs
Of a thousand green birds
And they carried me to a place without words
And there was nothin'
But there was everything
Your Picture
Camera Obscura
She told me you'd given up drinking
To be with somebody you knew
And you tried to get into the Bible
But it never got into you
But you've still got some loyal disciples
I suppose that I'm one of the few
And I shouldn't have laughed
Because I mean you no harm
But my friend got to me before you
So next time I see you
I'll be pleased to see you
I hope you'll be pleased to see me
I'll visit your pictute
I won't have the nerve to tell them
That they've got you all wrong
To Let Myself Go
Ane Brun
To let myself go
To let myself flow
Is the only way of being
There's no use telling me
There's no use taking a step back
A step back for me
Wild World
Mike Bailey
You know I've seen a lot of what the world can do
And it's breakin' my heart in two
Because I never wanna see you sad, girl
Don't be a bad girl
But if you wanna leave, take good care
I hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware
Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)
Laura Marling
And a friend of mine says
It's good to hear you believe in love
Even if set in fear
Well I'll hold you there, brother, and set you straight
I won't make believe that love is frail and willing to break
I will come back here
Bring me back when I'm old
I want to lay here forever in the cold
I might be cold but I'm just skin and bones
And I never love England more than when covered in snow
I wrote my name in your book
Only God knows why
And I bet you that he cracked a smile
And I'm clearing all the stuff out of my room
Trying desperately to figure out
What it is that makes me blue
And I wrote an epic letter to you
But it's 22 pages front and back
But it's too good to be used
And I tried to be a girl who likes to be used
I'm too good for that
There's a mind under this hat
And I called them all and told them I've got to move
Feel like running
.ZIP
I'm open to comments, cuddles and criticism equally, as per usual. Happy 8th March!