Am in the midst of having a music Renaissance. I've been listening to all my old favourites on a rotation -- Headstones, Tragically Hip, Spirited of the West. I've now punched 'Headstones' into last.fm and am getting a galaxy of...Headstones, Tragically Hip, and Spirited of the West! It is AWESOME!

There needs to be more Canadian music gigs in England. They don't know what they're missing over here!!!

*headbangs self across the length of the kitchen and back*

Holy updating, Batman. I have a lot to say today it seems.

I did go and study, which mostly involved lots of writing and watching clips from Top Hat to remind myself of things. Not only do I love that movie, I also have huge admiration for Ginger Rogers. I am just so impressed at how she can do the dance during 'Cheek to Cheek' in those heels. I mean, dude. I am developing such a girlcrush on her, she is so fabulous and pretty and amazing!

On the subject of girlcrushes, I think I am developing one on the whole of The Like. It is like they wrote Fair Game just for me, I swear. I am pretty excited for their new album coming out because I was not overenthused by their last one, but the new songs on their myspace are so delightfully catchy!

Finally, it's saturday. You know what that means, right? ( Merlin :D :D :D )

Tomorrow we get new Doctor Who! I am so ridiculously excited!

HELLO yuletide WRITER! HOW EXCITED AM I? A LOT, OMGGGGG. \:D/ \:D/

I gather from my flist that I am supposed to leave you a letter here! ( Click to read )

I'm going to California on Wednesday.

So this morning(/afternoon, oh man my sleeping patterns are so bad) I woke up, checked my emails and proceeded to have this fabulous conversation about elves with coppertone:

coppertone: I have been thinking. That if our personal Angrod is a hobag by elf standards.
And if, or rather since, EVERY variation on Angrod/Celegorm/Caranthir needs to exist.
Then, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu32vyCldh8
:D??????
Me: asasdkjsahfkasfh oh my god i love you
coppertone: :DDDDD
Me: and yes, Angrod is a giant hobag! But I think the best thing about it is that he is sort of an accidental giant hobag
coppertone: I love that he is an accidental hobag. He just hasn't found the right man! :(
But I love even more the idea of Celegorm warning his baby brother. Also I love the idea of Angrod wearing what the dude in the video is wearing, amirite?
Me: He can't help it, he just gets tangled up in things too quickly!
Oh god yes and yes. that dude's outfit is so hot.
So pretty much carrie underwood is what girl celegorm would look like?
coppertone: <3_______________<3
...Is Lady Gaga still what girl!spy!Angrod would look like? Because uh.
Me: oh god. Yessssss.
coppertone: Now imagine them both fighting crime with Julia Stiles!
Me: :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
coppertone: The cowboy casanova video just makes me want all the Jazz Age Elves. :( :( :(
Me: oh my god <3__________<3
I want.
I want Prohibition era elves
coppertone: serhjustfkjsxzd
Me: It would be so amazing! Illegal mob alcohol smuggling elves!
coppertone: <3______________________________________________<3 I can't EVEN
Me: oh my god though. They would be the WORST alcohol smugglers!
coppertone: They really would. :D
...Please tell me Angrod is secret undercover law enforcement who falls for his mark(s)?
Come on come on it would be perfect.
Me: oh my god yes yes yes
Oh my god the Finarfians are totally law enforcers. Finrod, dude
coppertone: Angrod is sympathetic to the alcohol-smugglers anyway, not that his superiors ( Finrod. Police Finrod! ) know that
- :DDDDD
Me: :DDDDDDDD Yes
Because goddammit he still appreciates fine whiskey
coppertone: Ohhh this is so going to an Angrod/Celegorm/Caranthir place in my head
I blame Carrie Underwood
But he is made to work with them! And they completely spark off, and Celegorm is like his soulmate in hellraising and he and Caranthir are just one constant game of Asshole Tennis and. :DDDDDDDDD
Me: yessssss and and they are constantly getting in awkward situations, not least because of over enthusiastic law officer Argon!
coppertone: Oh my god yes. :DDDDDDD
And Mae is in charge of the alcohol smugglers and he is probably ex-law enforcement due to a series of Very Tragic Circumstances
And he PINES for Fingon who is still on the Right Side of the Law.
Me: oh my god yes
and Fingon, unbeknownst to Mae, is constantly arguing against prohibition all while still having to do his job. And then! Fingon gets assigned on a case to track Mae down and there are shenanigans!
coppertone: <3___________________________________<3
(contrariangie: What happens then? Does Fingon get busted accidentally?)
Me: :DDDDDDDDDDD
Maybe! But first he and Angrod get together and comisserate on liking their marks too much :D
coppertone: Oh god they totally do.
Finrod despairs.
Me: I think maybe Mae deliberately lets fingon get a hold of him and then declares his undying love or some shit like that and fingon is all <3______<3 i hate you i am supposed to arrest you now D:
and then fingon goes rogue too :D
coppertone: Oh god he would too.
Me: He WOULD

So uh. Yeah. The majority of mine and claire's conversations consist of us gleefacing at each other ridiculously. Someone please write me this AU, my heart aches for it!

Now to study, sigh.

I've been looking for a new hardcore deep-winter parka, preferably with a big fur-trimmed hood. I'd been batting zeros until I ventured into The Bay looking for the already-iconic Vancouver 2010 mittens. Didn't find the mits (these are going to be a pain in the ass to find) but I struck gold with the PARKA! Just what I wanted PLUS more Olympics gear, of which I am stupidly fanatic. GO CANADA.








Oh, and a WOLF HAT! arooooooooo.

- Jonas Brothers music, NEVER EVER LEAVE ME AGAIN. I want to crawl into the Burnin' Up music video and never remove myself from its warm embrace. Nick Jonas as James Bond yes please. WHERE IS THE NEW SINGLE? Why don't I have a video for Much Better (Speaking of, can anyone hook me up with a good live mp3 of Much Better? Doo doo doo?)

- I am writing again! And it is weird and kinky! :D? :D? No zombies or gangsters. I really should stop telling people what I'm writing because I almost always fail at following through. Baw.

- My thoughts about Yuletide: AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

- So on Monday, I step into a grade 8 classroom and for five weeks will be their teacher. I wish I could describe how much panic this is inspiring right now. It's at the point where I can no longer put my fingers in my ears and pretend like I don't have to do this. I am actually going to be doing a full time job that my whole future depends upon. I AM GOING TO FAIL AND ALL THE CHILDREN WILL HATE ME BAWWW ;____;

- So one of the recurring themes that come up when talking about the Brothers of Jonas is my desperate need for them cover certain songs. Joe doing MGMT's "Time to Pretend," for instance, or my intense desire for Kevin to cover Shakira's "She Wolf" (PLEASE MAKE THAT HAPPEN, GOD). Do you any song you want a Brother Jonas to cover? Share.

- Remember how I was all, today I will like Nick? Luckily it was only a day because holy goddamn shit Joe Jonas you are heart stoppingly beautiful. (No homo.)



(Okay, yes homo.)

I kind of feel like I have not flailed publicly enough over the slew of new MCR press we've been getting recently. But I don't want anyone to think I am not completely inside-out with longing for this fucking record, okay, I totally am. If you've sarvered the articles, I cannot recommend tothetune enough for all your My Chem needs. It's all in one place! Right there on your flist! Awesome.

I don't know why I haven't really talked about it. My relationship with MCR is a little bit different than my other objects of fannish affection because I was a fan for so long before bandom, I guess, so I've never flailed fannishly about an upcoming record of theirs before! I'm not sure how to go about it! TBP had been out for quite a while by the time I started writing stories about them having sex with each other.

Speaking of stories, who is going to write me the story of how Frank was so afraid Gerard was going to say the band was breaking up that he wouldn't answer whenever Gerard called? And then Gerard sent him text messages that Frank deleted without reading, and Gerard is in LA going :( :( Frank's not speaking to me, and Lindsey is all, ffs, and calls Jamia to get it sorted out. Then foursomes.

I think the other thing is that I'm worried it'll be shit. I mean I know it won't be, I do know that, but I just want it to be amazing so bad, not for me but for THEM. The same way I wanted Umbrella Academy to be amazing so that everyone would have to love it and it IS and they DO and the same way I really want Adam's album to be amazing (in a very different way to My Chem) so the skeptics have to shut up and so he can have everything that he wants and the same way I wanted Dollhouse to be amazing so Joss could have a show again AND IT WASN'T AND MY HEART BROKE.

I really want this record to be everything they want it to be and I get so anxious about it! Like when the Desolation Row cover came out and I had no internet so I couldn't listen and olivia_circe brought it over to my house and I had to bring her into my bedroom and shut the door and hold a pillow over my face while we listened in case it wasn't good, and then I loved it but I kept anxiously asking her, "It's awesome, right? I mean it is awesome. It's totally awesome. Is it awesome?" because...because I'm a crazy person, I don't know. Because as I have said before, overinvestment is the fangirl's way.

Does anyone else feel like this? Is it just me? It's just me, isn't it. /o\

P.S. how much do I love that they tried to make a really quick, short album, and it ended up taking forever? MY BAND IS BAFFLINGLY LONG-WINDED AS WELL, YOU GUYS. I love all of their heads.

Dear yuletide author,

( Cut for everyone else! )

In conclusion: surprise me! I'm not picky in the least. Emotional scenes get to me really easily and funny scenes make me laugh just as easily, so it's not like you have to try real hard to write fic that I like! I'm just excited to be getting fic and to be able to write something for someone else for the first time.

Happy writing!

so we're all reading King Leopold's Ghost: A story of greed, terror and heroism in colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild for our Modern History class. I've only read the introduction and part of chapter one and frankly I'm having trouble reading it without getting emotional.

because I went to elementary and high school in the Jewish school system, a lot of my education revolved around studying the Holocaust. we never learned very much about World War II, just a few dates and who was on which side. this is one of the many problems with my old high school. I wish they had taught us more. I wish they had made us more aware and more educated and more intelligent and more capable. I wish they had used the Holocaust as a stepping stone to learning about all the other atrocities committed against other people. I wish my education hadn't been so singularly centred.

I did not know anything about the genocide in the Congo. I didn't know anything about Africa's history, aside from the fact that bits of it had periodically been stumbled upon by european explorers until they managed to tromp through the entire continent with their guns and take over.

I got to the part, in chapter one, where the author talks about the African king Affonso I and had to stop reading because I felt about to burst into tears right there in the middle of starbucks. Affonso was born before any europeans had set foot in Africa (aside from the northern coastal tip) and when he died, european slave trade had taken over his land. he learned to speak portuguese fluently. he converted to christianity. was a selective modernizer, wishing to take advantage of the trades and tools brought to Africa by the portuguese priests and slavers. slavery had been a part of african society before the europeans arrived, but it was a lot less brutal and on a much smaller scale. affonso tried desperately to get the portuguese king to send more teachers and doctors and priests and fewer slave traders. he dictated compelling, powerfully-worded letters to the european king, describing the he and his people felt for their abducted family members. towards the end of his life, ten of his nephews and grandsons that he had sent to portugal to be educated went missing. he couldn't even protect his own family.

millions were torn away from their families and friends and homes - either abducted by strangers or betrayed by their fellows - enslaved, kept in painful and unhealthy conditions, transported to other continents, and put to hopeless work for the rest of their lives. millions were murdered. mass slavery and genocide, and I didn't know a fucking thing until just now. I feel disgusted. And that's just the beginning of the book. I have hundreds more pages detailing the european dominion of africa yet to read. fuck me.

something rather alarming that just occurred to me now: yesterday at the salon the aesthetician told me she doesn't let her students who are learning to wax work on people for 7 months. So what the fuck are they waxing for 7 months?!

It's Remembrance Day. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm ridiculously obsessed with War Poets. Usually on remembrance day I post Sassoon's Aftermath but this time around I'm posting Sick Leave. It's ... softer, and is probably one of my favourite of his poems.

Sick Leave

When I’m asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,
They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead.
While the dim charging breakers of the storm
Bellow and drone and rumble overhead,
Out of the gloom they gather about my bed.
They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine.
‘Why are you here with all your watches ended?
From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the Line.’
In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;
And while the dawn begins with slashing rain
I think of the Battalion in the mud.
‘When are you going out to them again?
Are they not still your brothers through our blood?’

- Siegfried Sassoon


Also have his Declaration, because it is amazing and everyone ever should read it. It came to my attention lately that some people didn't know about The Declaration and that is TERRIBLE. You don't even know, guys. ( Siegfried Sassoon is my hero )

You guys, he is making a willful defiance of military authority. I pretty much make this face over that phrase: ♥_____________♥ I cannot even begin to explain my love for him, it is explosive.

On a serious note, I think The Declaration and his poetry are so, so relevant still. War is such a terrible thing and I admire those who are directly involved with it and yet have the strength to speak out against it.



Otherwise, I still have elves on the brain. The hs au idea is sprawling massively out of control in all sorts of ridiculous ways :D. Out of interest, how do y'all feel about a SeaQuest style AU? Or something like it? Really I just want elves at sea, um.

- I haven't actually been listening to any Jonas Brothers music in, like, a month. The closest I've come is walking to class listening to Demi's new album, but the Walmart Soundcheck came out and liminalliz's discussions of it made me put on Burnin' Up (slipping into the lava? Really, Sonny? Really?) and goddamn man, I remember why I love these guys so much.

KNOW WHAT'S GREAT GUYS? Their music and the Walmart soundcheck. Nick is so into it, I don't even mind the screaming because it has that perfect rush of energy and I am pining (pining!) for more concerts and getting jizzed on again. I fucking love the horns on S.O.S. which for some reason I never really liked until I started hearing it live.

Truth: I thought Joe was saying "computer make a noise" instead of "consider me destroyed" on the studio version of Paranoid. I think I just in general refused to believe Nick wrote a lyric like "slipping into the lava" which is why I thought it was "slipping in the love, uh" (or even better, "slipping into my lover")

ETA: I am still convinced that Nick is saying "there she goes again, the girl I made love with" at the beginning of Just Friends. It is what he is saying and I won't hear any differently.

- It's funny, I was talking about Paranoid and how for some reason, my favourite part of the song is the cymbals right at the beginning, how at the end of every phrase they release the high-hat for those two notes (wow describing music is hard). You know it goes: dun dun dun dun dun tss-tss?

THE QUESTION IS: Do you ever like a song purely for one weird, fairly insignificant element of it? Like, I love the strings in the chorus of Hold On which is mostly why I love Hold On? Am I just being weird here?

- OBLIGATORY OOOOOOMG SEASON 2 OF JONAS AND NICK IS GOING TO BE A SURFER AND I WANT KEVIN TO DRESS UP IN SCARVES AND BERETS ALL DAY LONG.

- I am a Joe boy, but today -- AND JUST FOR TODAY -- I will appreciate the goodness and greatness of Nick's everything.

HOLD UP

LET'S TALK ABOUT MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE'S UPCOMING RECORD.

( Scans of the new Kerrang article )

Working track titles:
Black Dragon Fighting Society
Boy Division
The Only Hope For Me Is You
Save Yourself
I'll Hold Them Back
Still Alive
Death For(/Before?) Disco
Trans AM

THEY ARE SUCH DORKS. THEY ARE SUCH DORKS. Oh my god, I love them, they're unbelievably fantastic.

Favorite quotes:

This album will not have one overall concept, instead focusing on several themes like "strength" and "self-preservation".
So basically they're taking my favorite bits of Famous Last Words and Welcome To The Black Parade and expanding. ♥_____♥

...the most raucous, dirty rock 'n' roll gems

"Oh, it's filthy," notes Gerard, "That's what I love about it!"

...a new air of unabashed defiance... As though they never had an air of unabashed defiance. OH BOYS. ♥

"Even before my daughter was born, I was writing lyrics that were basically, if anything were to happen to me, and she were to turn 15 years old, she'd be able to listen to it and realise that her father and her father's bandmates and everyone involved in this, weren't victims. There's a huge amount of humour in The Black Parade, but there was so much angst."

DOWN AND DIRTY ROCK 'N' ROLL
STADIUM ROCK
A CHORUS THAT MAKES YOU WANT TO JUMP UP AND DOWN IN A SEA OF THOUSANDS OF OTHER PEOPLE
A BOUNCY AND PLAYFUL ROMP
ALL-GIRL GANG VOCALS (OH GOD LISTENING TO THIS IS GOING TO MAKE ME CREAM MYSELF, I KNOW IT WILL)
A THUMPING GREAT ODE TO THE PLEASURES OF RAUCOUS ROCK 'N' ROLL HEDONISM WITH AN UNABASHEDLY POP CHORUS
HUGE MELODIES
A GLORIOUS RUNAWAY TEEN RIOT

oh my god this is actually going to be the best album ever holy fuck


Man, today has been such a day for joyous gritty pop-punk. It's still sunny and nice out, thanks to some miracle, and I spent the ride/walk home from my doctor appointment listening to Take This To Your Grave and Bullet In A Bible.

Okay, am I stupid? I added a $15 gift certificate to mine and Kelly's iTunes account, which I was planning on using for iPhone apps. Except every time I try to buy one on the phone or directly on iTunes, it tries to charge the credit card instead. Meanwhile the $15 is just sitting there.

Anyone know how to use that balance for app purchases?

'sup homies. Do any of you know any fun movie musicals from before 1950ish? I need to write an essay and out of all the musicals we have watched there is only one (Top Hat) that I really want to write on. (Well, and Meet Me in St Louis but I've already written an essay on that one). However, we do not have to write exclusively about the musicals we've studied so I am looking for a fun one to watch and write about along with Top Hat. Any suggestions? Anyone? Help me Obi-Wan Flist, you're my only hope!


On a more entertaining note, I was going through some emails and found one to coppertone that simply reads "IS ANGROD A CHEERLEADER?" I have no idea what I was going on about now, but oh my god Angrod as a cheerleader would be the most HILARIOUS THING EVER.

Like. Guys. Celegorm would be the all-star football/rugby player and Angrod would be head cheerleader and cheer him on and Caranthir would lurk in the stands sulking! And -- idk, maybe Argon would also be on the cheerleading squad and would secretly brood about how he would totally be a better head cheerleader than Angrod, he has all the moves and twice as much pep!

Also in the hypothetical universe Maedhros would probably be a prefect/head boy (YES THIS UNIVERSE HAS BOTH PREFECTS AND CHEERLEADERS, WHATEVER) and headdesk at his family a lot. Oh my god and Maglor would be the resident emo and would just sit in the back of all his classes writing emo poetry and painting his nails black like his soul or something. He would only attend Celegorm's football games because Maedhros threatened to a) give him detention and b) hide all the jaffa cakes if he didn't show some school spirit!


... there is something deeply wrong with me /o\

ETA: ( more under the cut, because some people encourage my ridiculousness )