Why/How do I LJ, mp3 player playlists, a South-Asian song, and the music of 'Supernatural'
ginger001 has written a very thoughtful and thought-provoking post here about what we do with our LJs. She asks some very good questions and discusses such things as for whom we write and how we reconcile our interests with our flist. As for me, I started this LJ because of BSG more than a year ago and I was very hesitant in the beginning. I've found my voice, more or less in the intervening time, and I love this medium for the freedom it affords me to explore and share my interests and my life. I write about what I feel like, and that changes all the time. I DO write about my various fandoms, but I also write a lot about my real life. I like to share information and I adore picspams. I love being able to find people who share any of my wide-flung varied interests, and because of LJ I've been introduced to some amazing things that I never would have discovered otherwise. Right now, chiefly that is Takuya Kimura and the world of Japanese dramas. *smooches flist with eternal gratitude*
I rarely ever completely "fall out" with any interests, though - it just fades while something else takes the main stage. Currently I have not been paying as much attention to Doctor Who partly because my fascination with the world of Johnny's Entertainment has taken over.
Do I write for my flist? No, not really. Most of the time I am compelled to share the things I do, and I'm afraid that any flist consideration is practically non-existent. I don't want to annoy people, however, so I am sorry if you hate that I post about X or Y topic. I'm sorry, and yet, I find myself unable to hold back. Do I censor myself? Weeellll, that's a bit trickier. I mean it was a whole 2+ months before I was able to confess and share my growing fascination with Japanese boybands (other than SMAP) to anyone other than catdecember and koalathebear. I still foolishly worry about what people will think of such an interest, but I'm trying to get over myself. ;) After all, my friends know that I'm insane, and they still love me. I can't be anything but myself, so if I'm going to go on about one thing, I might as well go on about the rest as well. I hope that makes sense.
My interests change all the time, and I go through phases of obsession like everyone else. LJ is great for me because I can pour most of it into here and not annoy my real life friends as much as I might otherwise. I still blather to them, of course, because as I mentioned earlier, this stuff is a compulsion for me! Whether it's fandom or a fabulous meal at a restaurant, or the intense blue color of sea and sky at twilight, or the soul-shaking moments of a great music concert...all of these and more are things that I can't help but think about and talk about, whether it is here in my LJ or with the dear people who populate my life. I can't help getting excited about all of these things in my life that beautify and expand my existence, so it all comes out one way or another.
So that brings me to the final item of note, which is my flist itself. I do not casually add people, and I don't generally like to add people with whom I share only one interest. I really like to get to know people on my flist, and I look for people who write about a variety of topics and who write interestingly and even passionately. When I look at my friends page, I love the variety of personalities and the variety of interests and topics to which I am exposed on a daily basis. If we all liked the same things and wrote about the same things all the time, I'd be bored. Even when I don't share the interest, or don't watch the same tv shows or see the same films, I am always interested in what my flist has to say - because you are all different and very cool in your own ways. I learn new things all the time!
I hope this does not offend anyone! I'm strange, and I'm particular, and I don't expect anyone to be like me at all, of course. Like most people, I like what I like, and we all have different comfort levels. Having an LJ is extremely personal - of course everyone has their reasons and uses for their LJ, and their own ways of doing things.
How does everyone organize their mp3 players? I'm really curious if my level of organization is similar to others or not. The reason I ask is because I recently went to a party where two laptops and two iPods were hooked up to a stereo and I was incredibly frustrated by the LACK of organization when trying to find music to play. These people had not put their music into playlists in iTunes at all! Now presumably many of you also use iPods so you're familiar with playlists.
Here is an example of one of my iPods (the new one). I haven't loaded even half of my music onto here yet, so the variety is still fairly sparse, but I am a firm believer in playlists! Yes, the iPod can automatically sort my music by artist, album, song, etc., but I like finding things easier than that. All my music is firstly organized in playlists by artist or soundtrack. Within artist playlists, albums are listed chronologically with singles interspersed chronologically as well. I have separate playlists for live music and within those, the live albums are also listed chronologically. Occasionally I have separate playlists for individual live albums or for selections of certain live albums, or even studio albums, if for example I know that I want to listen to a mix of ONLY Rush albums from the 1990s. Considering that their music spans four decades now, I can do that!
I also have playlist mixes for various 'topics' (for lack of a better word). I have playlists of music that ease me into my work day with peppy tunes that take me from the moment I step off the metro train, walk through the station, ride the elevator up to my office and sit down at my desk. These 2-3 songs are designed to cheer me and excite me so that I am in the optimum mood to begin my day. I also have playlists for walking around, and I have playlists of current favorites and also for various moods, and also for "topic" of music such as "latin" or "south asian" or "fave soundtrack instrumentals" - these may change all the time, so I keep making new ones. I can delete them if I feel like it, but adding a playlist that is a mix of music already on the mp3 player takes up virtually no space and adds to my enjoyment of the player's capability.
In conjuction with all this organziation, I can get obsessive about tagging my music in iTunes. I hate not having complete artist/musical source info, so I will chase around trying to obtain dates for live tracks if I can and I try to fill in as many fields as I can, even if I am forced to state "unknown" for KAT-TUN live rips from miscellaneous Shounen Club performances.
That's how I do it, more or less. How do YOU do it?
I've mentioned previously that I really love the album Journey by Ali Akbar Khan, which is a fantastic collection of South Asian music performed on the sarod and inspired from old, classical pieces. I have a lot of very fond memories of this CD that are tied up with wonderful memories of my mother. I've never known anyone outside my family who has heard of this music, so I'm sharing the last piece, a 14+ minute instrumental entitled 09 Morning Meditation.mp3. When I listen to it, I can almost imagine the cool stone of a temple and the silent prayers of devotees as the sun is just rising and has not yet lent its heat to stone or flesh. [You can buy Journey here.]
Finally, I've watched through episode 4 of Supernatural, and I am enjoying it quite a lot. However, one thing that I adore that I haven't heard anyone on my flist mention yet is THE MUSIC! How much do I lovelovelove Dean for his taste in music? The fact that I've now heard TWO RUSH SONGS played during two different episodes has me howling in glee! I love that Dean teaches this one kid how to say "Zeppelin rules!" - it tickles me to no end, as do the humorous choices for some of the tunes in conjunction with the episode's happenings. The seventies/eighties classic rock/hard rock/heavy metal is all the music of my teen years (and no, I'm not dating myself too much, because I always listened to music that wasn't quite right for my time) - and it's all still music that I adore. I nearly died laughing when Dean hummed Metallica to relieve his fear of flying stress in Ep. 4. I want to hug Dean all the time, but never more than that moment.
I rarely ever completely "fall out" with any interests, though - it just fades while something else takes the main stage. Currently I have not been paying as much attention to Doctor Who partly because my fascination with the world of Johnny's Entertainment has taken over.
Do I write for my flist? No, not really. Most of the time I am compelled to share the things I do, and I'm afraid that any flist consideration is practically non-existent. I don't want to annoy people, however, so I am sorry if you hate that I post about X or Y topic. I'm sorry, and yet, I find myself unable to hold back. Do I censor myself? Weeellll, that's a bit trickier. I mean it was a whole 2+ months before I was able to confess and share my growing fascination with Japanese boybands (other than SMAP) to anyone other than catdecember and koalathebear. I still foolishly worry about what people will think of such an interest, but I'm trying to get over myself. ;) After all, my friends know that I'm insane, and they still love me. I can't be anything but myself, so if I'm going to go on about one thing, I might as well go on about the rest as well. I hope that makes sense.
My interests change all the time, and I go through phases of obsession like everyone else. LJ is great for me because I can pour most of it into here and not annoy my real life friends as much as I might otherwise. I still blather to them, of course, because as I mentioned earlier, this stuff is a compulsion for me! Whether it's fandom or a fabulous meal at a restaurant, or the intense blue color of sea and sky at twilight, or the soul-shaking moments of a great music concert...all of these and more are things that I can't help but think about and talk about, whether it is here in my LJ or with the dear people who populate my life. I can't help getting excited about all of these things in my life that beautify and expand my existence, so it all comes out one way or another.
So that brings me to the final item of note, which is my flist itself. I do not casually add people, and I don't generally like to add people with whom I share only one interest. I really like to get to know people on my flist, and I look for people who write about a variety of topics and who write interestingly and even passionately. When I look at my friends page, I love the variety of personalities and the variety of interests and topics to which I am exposed on a daily basis. If we all liked the same things and wrote about the same things all the time, I'd be bored. Even when I don't share the interest, or don't watch the same tv shows or see the same films, I am always interested in what my flist has to say - because you are all different and very cool in your own ways. I learn new things all the time!
I hope this does not offend anyone! I'm strange, and I'm particular, and I don't expect anyone to be like me at all, of course. Like most people, I like what I like, and we all have different comfort levels. Having an LJ is extremely personal - of course everyone has their reasons and uses for their LJ, and their own ways of doing things.
How does everyone organize their mp3 players? I'm really curious if my level of organization is similar to others or not. The reason I ask is because I recently went to a party where two laptops and two iPods were hooked up to a stereo and I was incredibly frustrated by the LACK of organization when trying to find music to play. These people had not put their music into playlists in iTunes at all! Now presumably many of you also use iPods so you're familiar with playlists.
Here is an example of one of my iPods (the new one). I haven't loaded even half of my music onto here yet, so the variety is still fairly sparse, but I am a firm believer in playlists! Yes, the iPod can automatically sort my music by artist, album, song, etc., but I like finding things easier than that. All my music is firstly organized in playlists by artist or soundtrack. Within artist playlists, albums are listed chronologically with singles interspersed chronologically as well. I have separate playlists for live music and within those, the live albums are also listed chronologically. Occasionally I have separate playlists for individual live albums or for selections of certain live albums, or even studio albums, if for example I know that I want to listen to a mix of ONLY Rush albums from the 1990s. Considering that their music spans four decades now, I can do that!
I also have playlist mixes for various 'topics' (for lack of a better word). I have playlists of music that ease me into my work day with peppy tunes that take me from the moment I step off the metro train, walk through the station, ride the elevator up to my office and sit down at my desk. These 2-3 songs are designed to cheer me and excite me so that I am in the optimum mood to begin my day. I also have playlists for walking around, and I have playlists of current favorites and also for various moods, and also for "topic" of music such as "latin" or "south asian" or "fave soundtrack instrumentals" - these may change all the time, so I keep making new ones. I can delete them if I feel like it, but adding a playlist that is a mix of music already on the mp3 player takes up virtually no space and adds to my enjoyment of the player's capability.
In conjuction with all this organziation, I can get obsessive about tagging my music in iTunes. I hate not having complete artist/musical source info, so I will chase around trying to obtain dates for live tracks if I can and I try to fill in as many fields as I can, even if I am forced to state "unknown" for KAT-TUN live rips from miscellaneous Shounen Club performances.
That's how I do it, more or less. How do YOU do it?
I've mentioned previously that I really love the album Journey by Ali Akbar Khan, which is a fantastic collection of South Asian music performed on the sarod and inspired from old, classical pieces. I have a lot of very fond memories of this CD that are tied up with wonderful memories of my mother. I've never known anyone outside my family who has heard of this music, so I'm sharing the last piece, a 14+ minute instrumental entitled 09 Morning Meditation.mp3. When I listen to it, I can almost imagine the cool stone of a temple and the silent prayers of devotees as the sun is just rising and has not yet lent its heat to stone or flesh. [You can buy Journey here.]
Finally, I've watched through episode 4 of Supernatural, and I am enjoying it quite a lot. However, one thing that I adore that I haven't heard anyone on my flist mention yet is THE MUSIC! How much do I lovelovelove Dean for his taste in music? The fact that I've now heard TWO RUSH SONGS played during two different episodes has me howling in glee! I love that Dean teaches this one kid how to say "Zeppelin rules!" - it tickles me to no end, as do the humorous choices for some of the tunes in conjunction with the episode's happenings. The seventies/eighties classic rock/hard rock/heavy metal is all the music of my teen years (and no, I'm not dating myself too much, because I always listened to music that wasn't quite right for my time) - and it's all still music that I adore. I nearly died laughing when Dean hummed Metallica to relieve his fear of flying stress in Ep. 4. I want to hug Dean all the time, but never more than that moment.