counting at war (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kerpingtack) wrote2010-05-07 01:24 am
kerpingtack) wrote2010-05-07 01:24 am
enjoy everything!
*blissed out as Here Comes the Sun starts playing*
me: The Abbey Road medley is one of the coolest things in the history of music.
me: No, the entire second side of Abbey Road.
me: No, all of Abbey Road.
me: NO, THE BEATLES
omg I love Abbey Road. It's so GOOD. That's kind of a ridiculous thing to say about the Beatles, but damnit it's true. It's just so accomplished. I love every inch and second and fiber of it. I love the first six songs. I love the second side. I love, love, LOVE the ending triptych medley. I love Her Majesty. And I love that this is how they ended it, even though Let It Be was released last and whatever. WHATEVER! I love that this was after the suicidal sad bastard trainwreck of the Let It Be sessions and they all still wanted to vomit all over each other's heads but god-damnit, say what you will about the man, but Paul got shit DONE. He got them back in the studio even when everyone was probably annoyed as shit with him as Band Leader and they made this beautiful, cohesive thing. I really like the White Album and Let It Be is... uh... not bad... but both are portraits of disintegration, the former as post-modern splintered madness and the latter as cut-paste-copies from misery. But Abbey Road is about them as a group, completely. Everyone has a song on there, including Ringo, sung and written by. Everyone is heard, and heard together (HARMONIES! Carry That Weight!!). The solos in The End: the fact that everyone has one, and the fact that they trade off. The songs connecting to each other, obviously in the medley, but also how the five sections in You Never Give Me Your Money pre-echo or whatever the little mini-character songs in the medley and the different sections in I Want You, and how it repeats later in the medley. Sun King playing off of Here Comes the Sun. And even Her Majesty, chopped off from the middle of the medley with its hanging beginning and ending notes. All of them on the same picture on the cover. And I'm a Paul person, so whatever, but I love that the ending is Paul's, because he fought so hard for the Beatles as a group and it was his baby in the end and I'm glad he got to lead it out and glad that he got to close it. I think it's the most perfect album possible to end their career. Because it rose above the bad sentiments between four men and was instead a group doing what it does best, not angry or bitter or conflicted, so technically good, it just sounds so so beautiful, because it's fucking unassailable damnit. It was a goodbye by a group to a group, done so gracefully that it was almost done for the fans, to heal or some other corny shit, because something THAT good, songwriting and musicianship and fucking... magic at that level, it's like they really did all that could be done together, and now it's okay to be over. Because the group was ending, they could do this, and because they could do this, the group could end. I mean everyone still wanted to kill themselves because the Beatles split up but I don't think they COULD have stayed togetherbecause Something Fucking Happened in India and shit turned into a proper dramatic tragedy. With Abbey Road, they get to be the Beatles who started and closed an era. It's just good closure. I love that they could do that.
Gotdamn I felt corny as fuck writing that but oh how I meant it. I love Abbey Road amazing amounts. Sidebar, I need to find sentence structures that don't use the word 'but' and/or 'because.'
Other things I love!!
YOTSUBA&! I don't even know what to say. It really is printed joy. Azuma Kiyohiko, who also did Azumanga Daioh, is so good at... like, the charm of everyday people and life. And I love that he writes girls so much. There's a bit of fanservice but the girls are so present as people that it's really easy to brush aside, and the fanservice itself is so mild that there's little to no cognitive dissonance. There's so much charm and unassuming joy in his art and writing. It hits something close to ~the heart, which is also why it's so funny. I laugh out loud when I read it. And when I'm not laughing, I'm literally just sitting there smiling at it. It would be ridiculous if it wasn't so understandable. Yotsuba&! makes it easy to believe its motto, which is a tough goddamn sale: Today is the always the most enjoyable day.
STUART MURDOCH. I don't have anything to say, I'm just renewing this statement. I LOVE HIM.
Lenore Look! And LeUyen Pham! Who, respectively, wrote and illustrated Alvin Ho: Allergic to School, Girls, and Other Scary Stuff, a really cute and fresh early chapter book about a scaredy-cat second-grade boy with selective mutism when it comes to school. I was at Borders (also where I read the first three volumes of Yotsuba&! in one sitting) and there was a Buy One, Get One Free section. I found Half Magic by Edward Eager, which I have been v fond of since I first read it in fourth grade, and I was struggling to find the Get One Free book in the pile of mediocre whatevers when I saw the book wedged sideways in one bin. "'Alvin Ho'? I wonder..." And I pulled it out and was gratified. The boy on the cover was immediately recognizable as Asian. (It's hard for me to say why, like it's hard to say why I IMMEDIATELY recognized that Russell from Up! was Asian. And I say it's hard to say why because neither of those two examples have the super slanty/'chinky' eyes or ~exotic dress that usually mark Asian-ness in drawing or animation. I mention this because I read a post a while ago where someone didn't know that Russell was Asian and that was really whoaaa for me. Though Russell has the added indicator of his voice, which is provided by 10 year old Jordan Nagai. Oh my god, that one's REALLY hard to quantify, but his voice has ASIAN-AMERICAN allllll over it.) I seized upon it. Lately I'm obsessed with finding Asian figures in media for JJB. He's not so hung up over his Asian/Korean-ness anymore (like, he's really proud of his Korean name now and he writes it on everything. LOL he wrote it as his middle initial in the scantron bubble sheet for his practice test for the state testing) and I definitely want to encourage it. I remember being little and kinda jumping anytime I was remotely acknowledged by any kind of media: "Claudia is Japanese!! they said Korea!! that boy's last name sounds Chinese!!" I want to have that kind of normalized for him, so it's not a shock and it's not a scrap. There's not a lot out there (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jackie Chan.... video games and anime/manga and stuff but that's not really recognized as American too, strictly import even with the precursory dubs) so I was excited as shit to find Alvin Ho, even moreso when I read it. It's funny and moves well and the drawings are really cute. It's really... skilled? That seems like a cold word, but I mean that it knows what it's doing and it knows what it wants to make real to its audience. It doesn't hit you over the head with anything, not Alvin's Chinese-ness, not his loneliness, not his therapy, not Flea's awesomity, I was really giddy reading it. So yeah! I got Alvin Ho and Half Magic for $4.38 total. Very excellent deal. (By the by, the first review on the Amazon link is really good.)
Kyon from Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi! Also not much to say! Hey I like that guy!!
me: The Abbey Road medley is one of the coolest things in the history of music.
me: No, the entire second side of Abbey Road.
me: No, all of Abbey Road.
me: NO, THE BEATLES
omg I love Abbey Road. It's so GOOD. That's kind of a ridiculous thing to say about the Beatles, but damnit it's true. It's just so accomplished. I love every inch and second and fiber of it. I love the first six songs. I love the second side. I love, love, LOVE the ending triptych medley. I love Her Majesty. And I love that this is how they ended it, even though Let It Be was released last and whatever. WHATEVER! I love that this was after the suicidal sad bastard trainwreck of the Let It Be sessions and they all still wanted to vomit all over each other's heads but god-damnit, say what you will about the man, but Paul got shit DONE. He got them back in the studio even when everyone was probably annoyed as shit with him as Band Leader and they made this beautiful, cohesive thing. I really like the White Album and Let It Be is... uh... not bad... but both are portraits of disintegration, the former as post-modern splintered madness and the latter as cut-paste-copies from misery. But Abbey Road is about them as a group, completely. Everyone has a song on there, including Ringo, sung and written by. Everyone is heard, and heard together (HARMONIES! Carry That Weight!!). The solos in The End: the fact that everyone has one, and the fact that they trade off. The songs connecting to each other, obviously in the medley, but also how the five sections in You Never Give Me Your Money pre-echo or whatever the little mini-character songs in the medley and the different sections in I Want You, and how it repeats later in the medley. Sun King playing off of Here Comes the Sun. And even Her Majesty, chopped off from the middle of the medley with its hanging beginning and ending notes. All of them on the same picture on the cover. And I'm a Paul person, so whatever, but I love that the ending is Paul's, because he fought so hard for the Beatles as a group and it was his baby in the end and I'm glad he got to lead it out and glad that he got to close it. I think it's the most perfect album possible to end their career. Because it rose above the bad sentiments between four men and was instead a group doing what it does best, not angry or bitter or conflicted, so technically good, it just sounds so so beautiful, because it's fucking unassailable damnit. It was a goodbye by a group to a group, done so gracefully that it was almost done for the fans, to heal or some other corny shit, because something THAT good, songwriting and musicianship and fucking... magic at that level, it's like they really did all that could be done together, and now it's okay to be over. Because the group was ending, they could do this, and because they could do this, the group could end. I mean everyone still wanted to kill themselves because the Beatles split up but I don't think they COULD have stayed together
Gotdamn I felt corny as fuck writing that but oh how I meant it. I love Abbey Road amazing amounts. Sidebar, I need to find sentence structures that don't use the word 'but' and/or 'because.'
Other things I love!!
YOTSUBA&! I don't even know what to say. It really is printed joy. Azuma Kiyohiko, who also did Azumanga Daioh, is so good at... like, the charm of everyday people and life. And I love that he writes girls so much. There's a bit of fanservice but the girls are so present as people that it's really easy to brush aside, and the fanservice itself is so mild that there's little to no cognitive dissonance. There's so much charm and unassuming joy in his art and writing. It hits something close to ~the heart, which is also why it's so funny. I laugh out loud when I read it. And when I'm not laughing, I'm literally just sitting there smiling at it. It would be ridiculous if it wasn't so understandable. Yotsuba&! makes it easy to believe its motto, which is a tough goddamn sale: Today is the always the most enjoyable day.
STUART MURDOCH. I don't have anything to say, I'm just renewing this statement. I LOVE HIM.
Lenore Look! And LeUyen Pham! Who, respectively, wrote and illustrated Alvin Ho: Allergic to School, Girls, and Other Scary Stuff, a really cute and fresh early chapter book about a scaredy-cat second-grade boy with selective mutism when it comes to school. I was at Borders (also where I read the first three volumes of Yotsuba&! in one sitting) and there was a Buy One, Get One Free section. I found Half Magic by Edward Eager, which I have been v fond of since I first read it in fourth grade, and I was struggling to find the Get One Free book in the pile of mediocre whatevers when I saw the book wedged sideways in one bin. "'Alvin Ho'? I wonder..." And I pulled it out and was gratified. The boy on the cover was immediately recognizable as Asian. (It's hard for me to say why, like it's hard to say why I IMMEDIATELY recognized that Russell from Up! was Asian. And I say it's hard to say why because neither of those two examples have the super slanty/'chinky' eyes or ~exotic dress that usually mark Asian-ness in drawing or animation. I mention this because I read a post a while ago where someone didn't know that Russell was Asian and that was really whoaaa for me. Though Russell has the added indicator of his voice, which is provided by 10 year old Jordan Nagai. Oh my god, that one's REALLY hard to quantify, but his voice has ASIAN-AMERICAN allllll over it.) I seized upon it. Lately I'm obsessed with finding Asian figures in media for JJB. He's not so hung up over his Asian/Korean-ness anymore (like, he's really proud of his Korean name now and he writes it on everything. LOL he wrote it as his middle initial in the scantron bubble sheet for his practice test for the state testing) and I definitely want to encourage it. I remember being little and kinda jumping anytime I was remotely acknowledged by any kind of media: "Claudia is Japanese!! they said Korea!! that boy's last name sounds Chinese!!" I want to have that kind of normalized for him, so it's not a shock and it's not a scrap. There's not a lot out there (Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jackie Chan.... video games and anime/manga and stuff but that's not really recognized as American too, strictly import even with the precursory dubs) so I was excited as shit to find Alvin Ho, even moreso when I read it. It's funny and moves well and the drawings are really cute. It's really... skilled? That seems like a cold word, but I mean that it knows what it's doing and it knows what it wants to make real to its audience. It doesn't hit you over the head with anything, not Alvin's Chinese-ness, not his loneliness, not his therapy, not Flea's awesomity, I was really giddy reading it. So yeah! I got Alvin Ho and Half Magic for $4.38 total. Very excellent deal. (By the by, the first review on the Amazon link is really good.)
Kyon from Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi! Also not much to say! Hey I like that guy!!