stupidhippy.com

I finished Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama by Tim Wise, and loved it. I read Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins (author of The Hunger Games) and started Gregor and the Prophecy of the Bane today. I am enjoying the series, and am really loving “youth” fiction in general this year. Also, it may be dorky, but I’ve been reading Classical Music for Dummies, and also have Opera for Dummies, both by David Pogue. I know some people don’t like the “dummies” books, but I’ve been pretty happy with all the ones I’ve read and these, so far, are pretty good. I like them as introductions to things I’m unsure about, so I can decide if I want to delve further into a subject or not, or just have a “dummy” exposure. I like the classical music book so far. I really just wanted to know a little more about terminology and maybe a little guidance for choosing music I might like.

I’ve turned my blog into some kind of glorified twitter account or something. I won’t blog for a week to make up for all the posts today! But I just watched this video, twice, and I had to post it so I won’t forget.

The first couple of commenters have it completely right. At first, I was fairly sure I didn’t like him at all, but I kept thinking about him, and then I’d go listen again, and after a while I was totally enamored and now I’m just a hardcore fan. His lyrics remind me of a poet I used to know, it makes me happy, and then melancholy, to listen. There’s a song on his latest album that I really love (crappy video-less video, pfft):

I’m thinking I might get weird search engine hits from the title to this entry. Heh.

I have “Beggars Banquet” on repeat on my iPod this week. It’s a perfect album. I completely love every song. And I don’t generally consider myself a big Rolling Stones fan. The other album of theirs I love is “Some Girls.” The other albums, well, I’ll like a song or two, but not the rest. I’m pretty sure I can’t stand anything they did after “Some Girls.” I went to youtube looking for “Beggars Banquet” songs, and it’s slim-pickings, although I found this fantastic video (not from that album, but hahaha, the boys look like they’re 12!):

What I really love, though, is “Dear Doctor” like so:

I’ve been playing Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings. Very.very.loud. Awesome.

I just adore the Avett Brothers. Sigh.

The Avett Brothers – Sanguine

I really want to have a garden, but omg it just sucks here. Our pathetic back yard is pathetic. Not only is it tiny, but the ground is steeply sloped over more than half the area, and it gets almost no sun because of the height of the building, the huge tree and the big stupid falling-down fence. It’s just lame back there, and I don’t think the soil is very good. Buh. I like the look of windowfarms, but I’m unsure how it would work with our insane cats, I’m sure they’d be constantly messing with the whole set-up. Ugh!

Oh, here’s a video about window farms.

I love Florence and the Machine:

YouTube – PomplamooseMusic’s Channel.  I saw one of their videos linked on wow.com, and whoa, I’m hooked!  I adore these two!  I haven’t watched all the videos or read anything about them, but I haven’t seen any original songs yet, only covers.  And what covers, they’re fabulous!  Love love love!

One thing about being a parent, for me anyway, I’ve been dreading the day when Rebecca starts listening to pop music. I don’t intentionally shield her from what other girls her age are listening to, but because we don’t have a television, I think it’s sort of happening by default. She’s watched Hannah Montana and some other shows on television at friends’ houses and told me she thought they were “sort of stupid,” (which is saying a lot for her, “stupid” is not a word we use lightly in our family). She’s had friends play popular music for her and she’s been mostly “meh” about it. I’m going to do my best to be tolerant of whatever musical tastes she develops, but for now I’m having fun introducing her to things I like.

Sometimes when we go to bed, Becca and I take my iPod with us. We have a splitter thingy so we can use two pairs of headphones. Sometimes we just put it on shuffle, other times she hunts down some song she loves and plays it over and over (and over) until my head explodes. Sometimes we listen to one of my playlists, or I surf around for songs I think she might like.

Last night was sort of a combo night, but here’s a list of songs she either sang along with, asked for a repeat of, or tapped feet/ clapped/snapped/head-bobbed to, and then requested I put them on *her* ipod (which isn’t a “real” ipod, just a cheapie mp3 player):

Non je ne regrette rien – Edith Piaf
Home – Magnetic Zeros
Saving Grace – Everlast
My Eyes – Dr. Horrible Soundtrack
Defying Gravity – Glee cast
Nth Degree – Morningwood
Elephant Love Song Medley – Moulin Rouge soundtrack
Abantwana Basethempeleni – Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Heart & Soul – T’Pau (hahaha, who remembers that song???)
Temptation Inside Your Heart – Velvet Underground
Memories Are Made of This – Dean Martin
Alice’s Restaurant – Arlo Guthrie

Let me tell you, I couldn’t help be tickled to see her hitting the pause-rewind-forward to try to memorize the words to an Everlast song, heh.

I finished another one of the Percy and the Olympians books and have requested the next one from the library. I’m enjoying the series. Rebecca and I are reading Akiko and the Planet Smoo series and liking it Very Much, we just picked up books two and three at the library today. I also finished Dismantled by Jennifer McMahon. It’s one of those books that I have a hard time saying I liked a whole lot, but I finished it really fast, it kept my attention. I just started Drucula Un-Dead by Dacre Stoker (relative of Bram even), an impulse pick-up from the library. I love the original, so I was wary of this, and I’m only about 50 pages in so it could go badly, but so far it’s pretty good (oh hahaha, I just looked at the amazon page and the reviews are mostly pretty grim, doh!).

Today’s song has been in my head off and on since I first heard it on Daily Coyote in a video of Charlie and Chloe. The talking part in the middle reminds me of Mickey and Sylvia.

I don’t go out for coffee that much. It’s ‘spensive, yo! I go out by myself once a month or so, hang out at the coffee shop with a book and my ipod. Or sometimes Rebecca and I will “do school” at a cafe for a change of scenery. Twice in the last couple of weeks, we’ve been caught in the rain and stopped in a coffee shop to wait out a downpour. Last week we went to a Starbucks, today we went to Peet’s (I much prefer Peet’s!). What follows is me and Ed texting about my coffee:

A: Don’t be tempted by the dark cherry mocha at starbucks, it tastes like a mocha spiked with cough syrup.
E: Ew.
A: Raspberry mocha at peets is yum, tho.
E: Starbucks pretty much sucks now, they should just merge with jack in the box or something.