Area 22

Just made two new blogs!

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:58:05 +0900

One is strictly photos, and the other is a blog about Korea that I moved from blogger to tumblr about five seconds ago so I could actually start updating it again instead of passively wondering when I’ll get around to it. If you want to check them out, the links are down below:

Photo Blog - The Puffington Host

Korea Blog - Letters Home

I know it’s been a while, but I’ve been listening to...

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:19:00 +0900

I know it’s been a while, but I’ve been listening to a metric fuck ton of music that has done nothing to inspire a post. Over the past couple of days, though, I’ve reinvested in my music library, and I come bearing for you Architecture in Helsinki.

Architecture in Helsinki is an Australia-based indie pop group who has been around since about 2003. Their music is upbeat, and (for me, at least) makes you want to dance like you’re in the 80s again. If you don’t know what that means, just let American Apparel throw up on you, add some shoulder pads, and make your hair AWESOME. Then dance like a spastic white person (me).

“Contact High” is from their 2011 release Moment Bends. Out of all of their albums, this is by far my favorite. If you enjoy 80s-inspired indie pop, you’ll love this entire album, so I suggest you go and get it.

hey leo, this one’s for you.

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:58:45 +0900

hey leo, this one’s for you.

andreagibson: I DoI do. But the fuckers say we can’t, ‘cause...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:48:49 +0900

andreagibson:

I Do

I do.
But the fuckers say we can’t,
‘cause you’re a girl and I’m a girl (or at least something close)
so the most we can hope for is an uncivil union in Vermont but I want church bells –
I want rosary beads;
I want Jesus on his knees.
I want to walk down the aisle feeling the patriarchy smile – that’s not true.
But I do want to spend my life with you.
And I want to know fifty years from now when you’re in a hospital room; getting ready to die, when visiting hours are for family members only, I want to know they’ll let me in
To say goodbye.
‘Cause I’ve been fifty years memorizing the way the lines beneath your eyes form rivers when you cry and I’ve held my hand like an ocean at your cheek saying, “Baby, flow to me.”
‘Cause fifty years I’ve watched you grow with me –
fifty years of you never letting go of me, through nightmares and dreams and everything in between from the day I said “Buy me a ring.”
Buy me a ring that will turn my finger green so I can imagine our love is a forest –
I wanna get lost in you. And I swear
I grew like a wild flower every hour of the fifty years I was with you – and that’s not to say we didn’t have bad days.
Like the day you said, “That checkout clerk was so sweet.” And I said I’d like to eat that checkout clerk and you said, “Honey, that’s not funny” and I said “Baby, maybe you could take a fucking joke now and then,” so I slept on the couch that night.
But when morning came, you were laughing.
Yeah, there were times we were both half-in and half out the door but I never needed more than the stars on your skin to lead me home.
For fifty years, you were my favorite poem and I’d read you every night knowing I might never understand every word but that was okay – ‘cause the lines of you were the closest thing to holy I’d ever heard. You’d say, “This kind of love has to be a verb.”
We are paint on a slick canvas – it’s gonna take a whole lot to stick but if we do, we’ll be a masterpiece.
And we were –
from the beginning living in towns that frowned at our hand-holding, folding their stares like hate notes into our pockets so we could pretend they weren’t there.
You said, “Fear is only a verb if you let it be. Don’t you dare let go of my hand”;
that was my favorite line.
That and the time we saw two boys kissing on the streets in Kansas, and we both broke down crying, ‘cause it was Kansas and you said, “What are the chances of seeing anything but corn in Kansas? “
We were born again that day.
I cut your cord and you cut mine, and the chords of time played like a concerto of hope that we could feel the rope unwind, the noose of hate loosening, loosening from the years of “People like you aren’t welcome here. People like you cannot work here. People like you cannot adopt” – so we had lots of cats and dogs and once even a couple of monkeys you taught to sing, “Hey, hey, we’re the monkeys.”
You were crazy like that – and I was so crazy about you.
On nights you couldn’t sleep, I’d lay awake for hours counting sheep for you and you would rewrite the rhythm of my heartbeat with the way you held me in the morning, resting your head on my chest, I swear my breath turned silver the day your hair did, like I swore marigolds grew in the folds of my eyelids the first time I saw you and they bloomed the first time I watched you dance to the tune of our kitchen kettle in our living room
In a world that could have left us hard as metal, we were soft as nostalgia together.
For fifty years, we feathered wings too wide to be prey and we flew through days strong and through days as fragile as sand-castles at high tide.
You would fold your love into an origami firefly and throw it through my passageways ‘till all my hidden chambers were lit with lanterns.
Now, every trap door, of every pore of my heart is open because of you – because of us – so I do, I do,I do want to be in that room with you.
When visiting hours are for family members only, I want to know they’ll let me in.
I want to know they’ll let me hold you while I sing, “Ba be de bop de ba ba, baby I’m so in love with you. Baby, I’m so in love with you. Ba be de bop de ba bop be be da bop ba –
Goodbye.”

Photo

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:26:59 +0900

Hey, you said that you know how to work piratebay? My roomie is trying to download an album but we don't know how, haha. Do you think you could help me out? We've never used it before for anything

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 08:35:40 +0900

Sure! I’m on my phone and it’s only 8 am and I’ve had 2 hrs of sleep (that exclamation point is deceptive), so if there are typos then oops. Do you have a torrent host? Utorrent is what I use. It’s user friendly; just install and go. Use their premade settings and you’ll be fine. When you go to thepiratebay, just type your query into the search bar and look for a file with a lot of seeders. Seeders are the people who host the torrent on their network and they contribute to your download. You can find the number of seeders in the first column of numbers on the right hand side of the page. The numbers next to it are leechers. This is important because the number of leechers affects your download rate just like the number of seeders. Make sure there are more seeders than leechers. When you click on a torrent, scroll down and read the reviews. If they’re favorable, download the file by clicking on ‘download torrent’. It’s a nondescript tiny prompt at the top and bottom of the file description. If you use Firefox, the download will show in the popup, and you double click on it and it automatically goes to utorrent. From there, you just wait for it to download. When you’re finished downloading, leave it in utorrent for as long as you like/can so you can contribute as a seeder. If you don’t know where your file is, just right click on it. Idk why I just told you that like you didn’t know. I’m rambly now. If any of that confused you, let me know and I’ll clarify when I’m not a zombie.

If I was as promiscuous and passionately fickle in my life as I...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 01:44:00 +0900

If I was as promiscuous and passionately fickle in my life as I am with my music, I would probably be dead from some mutant disease no one’s heard of (let’s call it ‘auralius whoritus’ for the sake of this post, and also to sate my need to name ALL OF THE THINGS). This week, I’ve gone from blues and jazz to run-of-the-mill Indie to Rostropovich’s take on Bach’s cello suites to Bob Dylan, through my collection of mash ups about six times, through my power metal collection (I’m still partially deaf, by the way), and now - now, after three days of experiencing a musical supernova in my head - I found something that helps me focus enough to write a coherent, original sentence that doesn’t make me want to lobotomize myself out of embarrassment.

The xx is, for no particular reason, the savior of my sanity this week. The xx is an indie pop band hailing from London that, in my opinion, has a hint of post-rock thrown in to their pop. Romy Croft’s vocals are enough to have me listening in a music thrall for days on end, and their song “Islands” makes my head buzz. Could be the contented hum it keeps eliciting…

Either way, have a listen. If you like it, check out the rest of their album, and keep a look out for their next release, coming out at some point in the very near future.

Things I listen to when my mind is going too fast for life: Dragonforce.

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:44:25 +0900

I need more epically fast, wonderfully loud music. Any suggestions (that aren’t metal)?

Because I am obsessed with apples and good music, this song is...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 14:44:00 +0900

Because I am obsessed with apples and good music, this song is pretty much made for me. If you follow me, it’s now made for you, too. Alamo Race Track is an Amsterdam-based band that’s been around since about 2001, and besides the fact that their music is great, they also have a member who plays the upright bass. Any band who can successfully fit in an upright bass is a winner in my book. “Apples” is from their 2011 release Unicorn Loves Deer (what’s not to love about that album title, hipsters?), and this guy says you should invest in their album if you love this song:

Since this is my first post of the new year, I’m giving...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:35:00 +0900

Since this is my first post of the new year, I’m giving you a mash up of all the top songs in 2011. Sure, it would have been more appropriate on December 31st, but I was busy getting shithammered on December 31st, so it’s a few days late.

“United States of Pop 2011 (World Go Boom)” is by none other than DJ Earworm, who I did a post on earlier in 2011. DJ Earworm is, for those of you who don’t click on the links I provide (ungrateful), is a master mash up artist who has a series of US of Pop songs dating back to 2007. His first is less than stellar (I blame it on the lack of good top 40 songs in 2007), but the others are absolutely fantastic, and you should check out his website to hear all of his other work, too.

Anyway, happy 2012, everyone, and enjoy this mashup of songs from the penultimate year on the Mayan calendar.

“You think it’s humiliating to look like a girl, because...

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 01:40:00 +0900

“You think it’s humiliating to look like a girl, because you think it’s humiliating to be a girl. Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it’s okay to be a boy; for girls it’s like a promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading.”

-Ian McEwan (via bwenner)

This song from Madonna is from Music 2000. I got this CD for my 13th birthday, and when I saw this quote in a friend’s post, it called this song to mind so strongly that I had to post it. Crazy how even after 10 years, Madonna’s songs are still engraved into my brain.

it’s like the universe knooooows.

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:36:03 +0900

it’s like the universe knooooows.

oh fuck, i need some adderall.

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 00:16:36 +0900

Since I’ve started forcing myself out of this self-imposed...

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:49:02 +0900

Since I’ve started forcing myself out of this self-imposed 3 year stint of writer’s block, I’ve rediscovered my electronica library, and will now give to you as a Yuletide present Bonobo.

Bonobo is the stage name of a wonderful British man named Simon Green. He’s been creating music since 2000, and if he stops any time soon, I will resent him acutely for sullying the name of my favorite primate. “Nothing Owed” is from his 2003 release Dial “M” for Monkey, and the album is fantastic if you need some relaxing instrumentals to help you block out the world and focus on a task. I don’t know about you, but electronica is the only thing outside of copious amounts of Adderall that can get me to focus on anything at all for longer than five minutes…

holy fuck. this is seriously the only woman who has ever left me...

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 04:31:36 +0900

holy fuck. this is seriously the only woman who has ever left me stupid from a goddamn picture.

fuckyeahrizzoli-isles:

O H M Y G O D

That moment when you forget you have headphones in and turn on music, only to have it blast a hole inside your head.

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:32:00 +0900

The Presets are an electronic group from Australia formed in...

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:59:00 +0900

The Presets are an electronic group from Australia formed in 2003. The duo have created a veritable cornucopia of excellent electronica for nearly a decade (I feel so old saying that, by the way), and from the looks of it, they’ll keep on churning out the awesome.

“Girl and the Sea” is from their 2005 debut release, Beams, and if it doesn’t make you want to get up and dance like Ellen, you should maybe just cut off your legs for as much use as they are to you. Just saying.

Patsy Cline is the greatest female country music artist of all time.

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 03:35:00 +0900

Bonnie Raitt can suck my strap-on.

The Magnetic Fields have been a staple in my music library since...

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:50:00 +0900

The Magnetic Fields have been a staple in my music library since 2005, but they’ve been around since 1989. Since I mark the beginning of humanity at the age of 5, they’ve been around longer than I’ve existed as more than a nebulous, recently un-diapered parasite. While their most famous song is generally accepted as the 1991 single “100,000 Fireflies”, their #1 song in my book is “Let’s Pretend We’re Bunny Rabbits”, from their 1999 release 69 Love Songs, Vol. 1. If you don’t own 69 Love Songs, you need to get it now, because if you ever attempt to make a mix tape/CD/iTunes playlist for your love/crush/insane stalker obsession without it, you’ll have to work twice as hard to get the desired effect (affection, sex, and a possible relaxation of that restraining order).

That said, The Magnetic Fields have provided for us on a (woefully not platinum) vinyl platter the quintessential guide to all things love song. Their three volume set runs the gamut of love, from delightful crush to absolutely cuckoo to madly in love to deep, abiding hatred and bitterness. If you love 69 Love Songs, be sure to check out their other albums, and their other projects, as they have many.

The winter holidays always bring to mind so many things for me;...

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 01:16:00 +0900

The winter holidays always bring to mind so many things for me; food, capitalism, hypoglycemia, and delighted satiation being just a few. One thing that tends to negate all of these positive aspects of the holiday season, are fucking Christmas songs. When I hear a Christmas song, I turn into a raging, hulked-out Scrooge. Unlike Scrooge, though, who just wanted to keep his shop open to improve his profit margins and ended up having a life-altering schizophrenic episode because of it, my holiday anger management issues come from being vehemently, violently opposed to hearing Christmas songs. Every year, I go to such lengths to avoid being inundated with Christmas cheer that I almost forget it’s Christmastime.

Not this year, though. This year, I’m filling my ears with shiny holiday cheer, because after craving Zooey Deschanel’s voice singing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, I found She & Him’s holiday 2011 release, A Very She & Him Christmas, and lo and behold, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” was featured on the album, along with 11 other excellent songs (I’m qualifying “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” as excellent only because I never fail to pull up the image of Macaulay Culkin dancing to the song with an animated Michael Jordan standie). If you hate holiday music as much as I do, but you’re craving it for some reason or another (I live in Asia; what’s your excuse?), this album is your best bet to maintain your sanity and satiate your sick, sick desires.

Happy Holidays, everyone!