Cheshire Cat grin

I’m an Animal, Neko Case

 

We picked up Neko’s new CD on the basis of listening to the promos on iTunes and loving her voice from her work with the New Pornographers. It is, in a word, gorgeous. The songs are lush and layered and interesting in the best sense of the word. I’m An Animal is 2 minutes and 20 seconds of jangly guitars, soft percussion, an almost-marching band rhythm, and Neko’s courageous vocals. The male backing vocals over the chorus line send the whole thing over into ecstasy for me. It’s a simple and yet complicated love song/confessional, and I adore it.

 

14 Forever, Stars

 

I heard this song on satellite radio last fall, searched iTunes for it and failed, and then realized the record it belongs to, Sad Robots, hadn’t been released yet. I waited until February and promptly bought this song and I think I have played it every day since. It’s wistful and contemplative but dance-y and almost happy and when Amy Millan finally takes over the lead vocal from Torquil Campbell for the coda, I realize I’ve been waiting for her since the song began.

 

The Lovecats, Luke Doucet

 

Okay, to be fair, I’m listening to this entire record a lot these days, ever since we saw Luke play live in Montreal a month ago. Blood’s Too Rich is, in my opinion, a career-defining record for Mr. Doucet, and I lament the fact that few people seem to know about it. The Lovecats is apparently a Cure song, though I never heard the original until two weeks ago, and this is the only cover on the record. It’s a playful song to begin with, and Luke gives it just the right amount of bounce and twang and sass to make it both self-conscious and smartass.

 

Come on Get Higher, Matt Nathanson

 

A sappy love song by a moody male singer-songwriter. One of these things is not like the others? Sort of. But Nathanson is a smartass of the highest order - Chris has a hilarious, expletive-laden bootleg track called “Gospel Song” that came from a live show where Nathanson began freestyling about Jesus, just for kicks. So he’s got cred, with me, and so I can like his silly love songs. Especially with a subtle throwaway line in the bridge where he sings “I see angels and devils when you come/on, come on, hold on…” Wink, nudge.

 

Signs, Bloc Party

 

A song I picked up from a show I don’t even watch (yet), Chuck. It’s on before Heroes and sometimes if I hit the couch a few minutes early I’ll watch the last bit of the show. This song played over the end of what I gather was somewhat of a “game-changing” episode a few weeks ago, and I had to look it up before Heroes ended, because it was still in my head. It opens with what sounds like tiny angels playing tiny xylophones, and by the time the poetic vocal starts and the subtle beat kicks in, you’ll be hooked too, I promise. It took a few listens to catch that the “signs” referenced in the title are things the singer see that make him hopeful that his love is “not dead, you’re sleeping”. It’s so very sad, and so very lovely.

The annoying: Grandma still in hospital. She obviously needed to be there, as in the first 24 hours she lost 9 POUNDS of fluid that had built up in her lower body. I cannot imagine what a relief that must be. We went to visit her on Saturday evening and she was in pretty good spirits. We wheeled her around the floor and waved at the nurses every time we went by. She was actually nice to both of us. I’m not counting on it continuing, but it was pretty cool.

 

The good: My dad is here! Which means my mom is at the hotel with him and not living in my house anymore! And she is definitely going home on Friday with him, unless my grandma takes a major turn for the worse, which at the moment doesn’t look imminent. Chris and I have the house back to ourselves, and we are just reveling in it. It’s so quiet. The TV stays off unless we want it on. We don’t have to talk to each other or wear decent clothes or consider anyone else’s feelings/sleep time/dinner preferences. It is AWESOME.

 

Fun things we did this weekend: Went out for dinner with my friend L and her boyfriend. We ate delicious charcuterie and drank good wine and had a lovely conversation.

 

We also went out for brunch with my family on Sunday, at our favourite brunch place, and it was delicious.

 

I bought us tickets to see Luke Doucet play in Montreal next month. He’s coming here too, but we thought a mini-road trip was in order, so we’ll drive down after work on the Friday, get a hotel, have dinner, catch the show, crash, then maybe wander the used CD stores a bit on Saturday before we come home.

 

Fun things coming up: My birthday is this Friday, and we are going out for dinner, then using my FREE night at the swanky downtown hotel, then on Saturday I have a massage and then P squared are coming over for dinner and cupcakes. I am psyched.

Ah, December, when top ten and best of lists proliferate on the Internet and elsewhere. I don’t profess to be a music critic, but I do love music, so here, in no particular order, are ten songs I really dug that were released this year (or very late last year):

Sleeping Sickness – City and Colour w/Gord Downie
City and Colour is the pseudonym for Dallas Green, who is also one of the members of Canadian scream band Alexisonfire. As a solo artist he does melancholoy acoustic folk-pop guitar songs, mostly about death. Not the happiest of material, but this song absolutely blows my mind every time I hear it. The legendary Gord Downie, frontman for the Tragically Hip, sings on this track, which only makes it more awesome.

The Midway State – Never Again
Got this song free off iTunes one night after listening to the 30 free seconds and the hooky chorus done in falsetto captured my heart. The rest of the album is meh, sadly, but this track is gorgeous and lush, with the piano driving everything along, and the bridge with its lyrics tripping one over the other will put your foot to the floor.

Your Love Alone is not Enough – Manic Street Preachers w/Nina Persson
We’re big Cardigans fans, or should I say, we adore their album Long Gone Before Daylight and like a few other tracks. Their singer Nina’s involvement in this song was enough to hook us in, but I don’t mind the Preachers either. Fun Britpop.

I Will Possess Your Heart – Death Cab for Cutie
Any band that dares write a song with a three minute instrumental intro, and then release it as the first single, either has balls or thinks too much of itself. Good thing this song is so awesome. I mean, yes, the lyrics are a little stalker-y, but the music is gorgeous. (I still think Transatlanticism was their best record ever, but this ain’t bad.)

Heroes of the Sidewalk - Two Hours Traffic
These guys are a four-piece rock-pop outfit from Prince Edward Island. Two of the band members have been friends since kindergarten. Their record was produced by another personal fave, Joel Plaskett. Seriously upbeat stuff, this track is a head-nodding, toe-tapping number that features the words “booty” AND “mallrats”. Need I say more?

You Don’t Know Me At All – Ben Folds w/Regina Spektor
Welcome back, Ben. And you brought a friend! How nice! Seriously, it’s a bit of a novelty single, but I’m a sucker for those. And for Ben. And for songs about dysfunctional relationships that feature the f word.

Take Back The City - Snow Patrol
In the old apartment (where we used to live!), the upstairs neighbours used to play “Chasing Cars” on repeat every Sunday morning. We think they were doing it. I can’t listen to that song anymore. This one, however, is a much better song anyway and I’m glad they’re feeling happier as a band these days. It shows.

Buffalo/Goodnight, California – Kathleen Edwards
I cannot pick just one song from Kathleen’s excellent third studio album Asking for Flowers. It’s very solid as a whole, but I don’t love either of the songs she’s released as singles. I think these two, the opening and closing tracks, are some of her best work ever. Buffalo details a harrowing trip home through a snowstorm, while Goodnight, California is a quiet conversation in a bar about the state of the singer’s union with the person being sung to. Again with the long instrumental intros, but hey, if it works…and trust me, it does.

Free Fallin’ (Cover) – John Mayer
I love the original. I’m a Tom Petty fan from way back. This is very nearly better. It makes me smile every time I hear it. I love how restrained he is until the very last chorus, when he just lets it all out, and then reins it right back in before it gets overblown. With the vampire references, it makes me think that they should have used it in that movie. What’s it called? Moonlight? Twill pants? Something like that?

 Electric Feel – MGMT
Hated their first single. Hated this on first listen. Can now not get enough of it. My brain is weird. This song makes me want to be bad. In a good way. Also makes me want to watch that Swingtown show.

Do the Panic – Phantom Planet
This song was, as far as I can tell, re-recorded this year, but I prefer by far the old, demo-y version I found on iTunes, fron the “Negatives” record. Its “bop bop bop, bop bop sha doo be doo” gets me singing along every time, much to my 5-year-old nephew’s amusement, apparently.

Ripped off from candragon, because it's Tuesday and I have my iPod at work:
"Put your music on shuffle, first line of twenty songs, the first line of the twenty-first song is the title."

Honey honey up in the trees

 

They’re tearing up streets again

I’m the kinda girl that hangs with the guys

you know he’s not the one for you but that’s no fault of mine

I don’t think you notice when you see my face

 

I have a ringing in my head

what a surprise, wearing your disguise on the telephone line

well, it’s a marvelous night for a moondance

I’m a drunkard, a loser, a talker

 

Somebody I never met but in a way I know

Now that the furniture’s returning to its Goodwill home

I got a long long list of things

A long time ago, we used to be friends

 

an old man lying by the road, black as night

rico was a short man

keep her away from me

something in the moonlight catches my eye

 

love a man who loves a diamond

I fell for sure last night

on the boulevard he walks alone

nobody knows it, but you’ve got a secret smile

 
 

 

( Songs and artists )

 

I appear to have an obsession with cover songs. This isn’t a new phenomenon to me; I’ve been intrigued by the concept of rethinking the way a song sounds and putting a new twist on it since I started going to see live shows in my teens. The first one I remember with any certainty was Matchbox 20’s stunning acoustic reworking of “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper, which I was lucky enough to see performed at a club called Barrymore’s here in Ottawa. I know they got to be an overblown annoying mainstream pop band in the end, but when they were young and unpolished – stunning stuff.

 

Since then, I’ve added many songs to my mental list of “much more awesome than the original artist could ever have imagined”. Danny Greaves of the Watchmen doing Simon and Garfunkel’s “Richard Cory” a cappella in the residence quad at Carleton. Kathleen Edwards rocking out AC/DC’s “Money Talks” live at the Tulip Festival one summer. John Mayer’s gorgeous acoustic version of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’”. Holly Cole Trio’s total reinvention of “I Can See Clearly Now”, a song that breaks my heart with its hopefulness every time I hear it. Feist’s reimagination of the Bee Gees’ “Love you Inside Out”. Placebo’s moody, eerie take on Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”. The Sundays’ ethereal and sexy steal of the Stones’ “Wild Horses”. Ryan Adams’ mournful, completely unironic “Wonderwall”, which is like an entirely different song when he does it.

 

These days I find myself adding to the collection more regularly, especially thanks to movie and TV soundtracks. Jeff Buckley’s stirring, stunning cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is the best I’ve ever heard, back in a third-season episode of The West Wing. Jose Gonzalez’s delicate, tinkling, barely-recognizable “Teardrop” by Massive Attack snuck up on me in an episode of House this past spring, and amazed me with its ability to bring the same otherworldly sound to the song without any electronic instruments, just a jangling acoustic guitar and Gonzalez’ slightly broken English. Eddie Vedder’s take on “Hard Sun”, from the film Into the Wild, was everywhere on my radio last winter and though it sticks pretty close to the original Indio recording, his gruff voice brings an edginess to the song that the original lacked. The other night I had to add Emile Millar’s remake of Howard Jones’ 80s classic “No One is to Blame” to my collection, having heard it in a pivotal scene in the film Waitress. Less cheese, but same amount of heart. Millar’s a relatively unknown Austin musician, which is a shame, as he’s got a nifty sound.

 

I know it takes an incredible amount of creativity to write songs (believe me, I’ve tried my own hand at it, back in the day) but for some reason, it interests me just as much when someone tries to reinvent something that’s already been done a certain way. If they can do it and bring something distinctive of their own to it, that catches me.

 

What are your favourite cover songs? Share in the comments – I can always use some new material.

Today we went to Costco just to pick up milk.

That's it, just 4 litres of milk to get us through the week. (We also visited two other grocery stores, one for produce and the other for the rest.)

We re-upped our membership a couple weeks ago and since then have purchased nothing that we didn't actually need except for two jars of fancy French pickles, the kind we've been daydreaming about since our trip to France in 2005, so I don't call that extravagance.

The Costco people must think we are freaks or something. We buy toilet paper and paper towels, face cleanser and deodorant, milk and occasionally butter or vanilla extract or brown sugar. Sometimes ginger snaps. That's it. No books, no clothes, no massive cases of canned tuna or vats of mayonnaise. We are only two people, and no one can eat that much tuna, even in a year.

We are pretty much failing the sagging economy by failing to impulse buy at Costco, methinks. Ah well.

There’s been a lot of negative attention paid to the revamp of CBC Radio Two lately. For those of you from south of the border, CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation)’s radio arm is a lot like your NPR – it’s publicly funded and has affiliates all over the country, but many of its programs are heard nationally. Radio One is the mostly talk station, with national news on the hour (and local news on the half hour during the weekday). Radio Two has traditionally been the classical, jazz and blues station, but due to declining listenership, the station recently remodeled itself as more widely encompassing of music in general. Its new slogan is “everywhere music takes you”.

 

Naturally, the hardcore classical listeners went berserk, howling about how you can hear popular music anywhere, but classical is an endangered species, blah blah blah. Never mind that a huge chunk of Radio Two’s schedule is still devoted to classical, jazz, opera, and other in-between stuff like show tunes. Basically, most people are mad about the afternoon show, Drive, which features newer (less than 5 years old) contemporary music from both Canadian and international composers. The host, Rich Terfry, is a popular musician who records oddball rap/rock under the name Buck 65.

 

Frankly speaking, the show’s great. It runs from 3 to 6 p.m. and so far, I absolutely love it. Terfry talks a little bit about the songs he plays, but not too much, and the range of stuff is insane – from Arcade Fire to obscure French pop singers to Canadian R&B sensation Jully Black to Nelly Furtado. Yes, some of these artists will get some mainstream radio play elsewhere, but the band that’s playing right now, the Weakerthans, are a favourite of mine and sell a fair few albums in Canada –  but you’ll never hear them anywhere but on CBC. Ditto artists like Jim Bryson, Kathleen Edwards, Two Hours Traffic, Luke Doucet… I could go on.

The station also features a concert every evening on Canada Live – sometimes the shows are actually live, sometimes they’re prerecorded, but it’s stuff you’d never get to hear anywhere else. They archive a lot of them on a section of their website called Concerts on Demand, too. Makes for a rich repository of entertainment on a boring Friday afternoon at work, let me tell you.

 

Suffice it to say, the public broadcaster is trying to embrace a new generation of people who love music, and I’m all in favour.

 

You can listen to Radio Two online by visiting www.cbc.ca/radio. I highly recommend it.

Instructions:
Copy and paste this list into your journal.
BOLD everything you've eaten.
Cross out anything you would never eat.
Discuss.

Here's my list:

1. Venison (YUM YUM YUM)
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros (must do this again soon)
4. Steak tartare (I prefer carpaccio, myself)
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding (involuntarily, as a child. My mom just called it “boudin”. How was I to know??)
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari (Best Brazilian beachside food EVAR yom.)
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich (I’m not a fan of the combo)
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (raspberry, I think, at a winery in Ontario)
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (love you, French exchange host family!)
24. Rice and beans (every damn day at school in Brazil)
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (why would I knowingly hurt myself like that?)

27. Dulce de leche (food of the GODS)
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted Cream Tea (Chateau Laurier hotel, baby)
38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat (bony, but surprisingly delicious)
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat's milk (only in cheese)
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer (with spinach! Yay!)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (but not since high school)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang Souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom Yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam (just recently thanks to Monty Python obsessed BIL. Not that bad.)
92. Soft shell crab (only in spider sushi rolls)
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano (shoutout to El Dorado in Brooklin!)
96. Bagel and lox (I would eat this every day for breakfast if I could)
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

I figured I could start pimping the food blog over here; what the heck, right? New entry about my fabulous fish dinner on Sunday night is right here.

...I'm dusting off my library card and coming in to pay off my fines. And I need book recs. Lots of 'em. I'm going to try to start working through Alison Weir's catalogue, because she's supposed to be like Philippa Gregory, but better. I'm going to finally read all those Janet Evanovich number books about the bountry hunter. And I'm going to try to get my hands on some YA classics I haven't read in years, like Paula Danziger, Judy Blume, Zilpha Keatley Snyder. But I read fast, and I know I'll have to go on the request list for a lot of these, so help a voracious bookworm out.

I like, and have read most of:

Charles de Lint
Marian Keyes
Maeve Binchy
William Gibson
Rosamunde Pilcher
L.M. Montgomery
Jaclyn Moriarty
Freya North

Some of my favourite books by other authors are: The Time Traveler's Wife; Our Lady of the Lost and Found; Possession (A.S.Byatt). I like mass-market fiction, fantasy, light sci-fi, historical fiction, but rarely high literary fiction. I dislike most mystery, true crime, romance, and horror.

Go for it.

1. List your top five favorite musical artists.
2. List your top five favorite songs from each artist.
3. Tag five people to do the same.

Top 5 (Currently):
Kathleen Edwards
The Weakerthans
Jimmy Eat World
The Watchmen
Sarah Harmer/Weeping Tile

Kathleen Edwards:
National Steel
Copied Keys
Hockey Skates
In State
Buffalo

The Weakerthans:
One Great City!
Plea from a Cat Named Virtute
Night Windows
Virtute the Cat Explains her Departure
Left and Leaving

Jimmy Eat World:
Night Drive
Polaris
Let it Happen
Always Be
Sweetness

The Watchmen:
Beach Music
Brighter Hell
All Uncovered
Middle East
Incarnate

Sarah Harmer/Weeping Tile:
Dogs and Thunder
In the Road
Weakened State
Lodestar
Greeting Card Aisle

I tag squintt, enochs_fable, amelia_eve, millabelland wipeout24.

1. Pick 15 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them on your LJ for everyone to guess (no fair using IMDb or Google!).
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.

Have at it!

1- "I know this is wrong, but do you ever wonder if she just made the whole thing up? I mean, it's a pretty good one. It's not like anyone can ever use virgin birth as an excuse again."

2 -"Would you like a free condom? They're boysenberry."

millabell

 

3 -"You know William, from this light, you somewhat resemble David Duchovny."

4 -"Each time I wear black, or like, lose my temper, or say anything about anything, you know, they always go, "Oh it's so French. It's so cute." Ugh! I hate that!"

5 -"Listen, I'm a big supporter of fixing potholes and erecting swing sets and building shelters. I am *more* than happy to pay those taxes. I'm just not such a big fan of the percentage that the government uses for national defense, corporate bailouts, and campaign discretionary funds. So, I didn't pay those taxes. I think I sent a letter to that effect with my return."

6 -I am by no means assured of his regard and even were he to feel such a preference I think we should both be very foolish to assume that there would not be many obstacles to his marrying a woman of no rank who cannot afford to buy sugar.

7- "You seriously think I could kill anybody. Even if I could, I mean, everlasting life? I imagine it would be kind of lonely. Well, maybe if you had someone to share it with. Someone you loved. Then it might be different."

8- "What's the Czech for "Do you love him"?"

9-"The last twenty times I done this journey, you've got an average of 32 minutes and a top time of 50, but if we had green lights all the way, we could do it in 14 minutes."

10-"You look down, they know you're lying and up, they know you don't know the truth. Don't use seven words when four will do. Don't shift your weight, look always at your mark but don't stare, be specific but not memorable, be funny but don't make him laugh. He's got to like you then forget you the moment you've left his side. And for God's sake, whatever you do, don't, under any circumstances..."

millabell

 

11-"I am the best goddamn dancer in the American Ballet Academy. Who the hell are you? Nobody."

12-"It's not everyday you find a girl who'll flash someone to get you out of detention. "

candragon

 

13-"You know, everyone's saying that your ambition broke Carver's leg."

14-"A finger. That's all that was left, a finger. Nothing else."

15-"Twice I took the name of the Lord in vain, once I slept with the brother of my fiancee, and once I bounced a check at the liquor store, but that was really an accident."

House is clean. Well, as clean as it's going to get in one day. I still plan to do the big spring cleaning thing once we can open the windows, maybe in late March. Then I'll clean the windows inside and out, wash down the walls and basebaords, and do a de-clutter. But for now, it's clean and shiny and smells good in here, and I feel much calmer.

My parents and sister and BIL are coming over later for drinks to celebrate a job accomplishment (not mine). I will be glad to see them. but I will be also glad when they go home and I can make a nice dinner for Chris and I to enjoy. It's been a peaceful weekend so far - Friday night we spent on the couch watching two movies, yesterday we did groceries and then went to sis and BIL's for supper and Ticket To Ride Europe. Even the cleaning relaxed me. Now I'm all recharged and ready for Birthday Week.

What I wore to take the bus to work this morning:

Thermal leggings
Microfibre ¾ sleeve t-shirt
Heavy wool hooded cardigan sweater
Cotton pants
Full-length lined wool coat
Fuzzy red cloche hat (pulled so low I could barely see)
Thick acrylic knit scarf (pulled up over my nose and cheeks)
Leather gloves
Wool mittens (over the gloves)

I was warm enough, standing waiting for my second bus, but only just. The thermal mug of hot coffee helped too, but my eyelashes froze from the condensation caused by my breathing through a scarf, and I was mighty grateful when my bus came, a few minutes early.

Man, I really wish we had a car this week.

* an amazing Mazzy Star song everyone should listen to

I have to add to my earlier music-related post two albums we acquired over Christmas that definitely deserve noting and nicely round out my list to five:

Jimmy Eat World, Chase This Light. I have no idea why we waited so long to buy this – it came out in November and we’d both been eagerly anticipating it, but with the holidays we’ve both trained ourselves not to buy anything that isn’t a gift, and in the end neither of us purchased it for the other so Chris got it with a gift certificate. The lead single, Big Casino, isn’t a bad song, but there are several others on the album that totally blow me away. The second single (thus far unplayed in Canada, but heavily in rotation on Sirius) is called Always Be, and I like it very much indeed. It’s all hooky and upbeat and quick with the signature bittersweet, angsty and thoughtful lyrics we’ve come to know and love from these guys. Most of the rest of the CD follows that format (particularly the awesome Electable (Give It Up) which features a chorus of “oh ohs” that includes the sons and daughter of two of the band members) but Gotta Be Somebody’s Blues veers into slightly moodier territory, more like Get It Faster or Drugs or Me. It’s here that you can hear the production values that Butch Vig from Garbage brought to the table (he executive produced the record).

I’m still getting to know these songs, but I have a feeling that many of them will become as beloved to me as Polaris, Night Drive and Kill from Futures. Snatches of Let it Happen, Electable and Carry You are already getting stuck in my head when I let them. It’s wonderful.

David Gray, Greatest Hits. This one’s cheating a little, since only two of the songs were officially released for the first time in 2007, but many of them are new to me, and several are like long-lost acquaintances. Two are old friends (Babylon and The One I Love). I’ve been listening to Gray’s discs in record stores on and off for years; I know some of the tracks have appeared in movies I’ve seen; he’s sort of an omnipresent artist yet hovers out of the mainstream, at least in Canada. I know in his native UK he’s a huge star, and deservedly so. I’m thrilled to finally be discovering his back catalogue, and I think Chris said it best: it’s been ages since we’ve heard a CD that felt so familiar and comforting from the very first time we played it.

Sail Away is an older track, and one I didn’t think I knew until I heard it. Shine, which appears as a live acoustic version on this compilation, is a very old song indeed but a lovely and heartfelt one. There are songs I like more than others, but none I dislike of these fourteen tracks. The two new songs, Destroyer and You’re the World to Me, which bookend the record, are both pretty, and it’s interesting to try and decipher which songs belong to which albums (the liner notes don’t say, though they do include a blurb written by David about how the song came to be). This Year’s Love, for instance, was apparently written for a film of the same name. I’ve never heard of the movie, but the song aches and swells and is probably too good for whatever piece of throwaway celluloid it graced. (I see from a quick IMdB search that it was a British flick about young singletons meeting and parting in Camden Town, London. How creative!)

The most amazing thing about Gray’s work is the ability he has with melody. The music is lovely, mainly based around piano rather than guitar, which I always find refreshing, but it’s his voice and the things he does with it that makes him unique and enticing. Listen to Sail Away or Alibi once and I dare you not to hit repeat.

Things I have cooked today:make-ahead turkey gravy (form stock I made yesterday out of turkey wings)
white cheddar mac and cheese (from a box) with broccoli on the side
chocolate truffles - half plain, half Mexican (cinnamon and chipotle)
poached shrimp (to eat with cocktail sauce tomorrow)
tomato and vegetable soup

Things I will cook tomorrow:
scones
a thirteen-pound turkey
mashed potatoes
peas from a can

Believe it or not, this is way, way better than it has been in previous years. I have delegated a ton of stuff - my grandma is doing the stuffing, my mom's bringing sweet potato casserole and some puff pastry things stuffed with fake crab (old family recipe which we all LOVE), my sister's making a gingerbread cake, her husband's doing his legendary layered dip, and my in-laws brought over some cheeses and a huge box of those nice crackers today. I have nuts to crack and olives to munch and my sister's bringing cider to mull. So I am much less busy, especially since we all like peas out of a can.

After tomorrow I'm not eating til Friday.

I’ve been reading the end-of-year music critics’ discussion over on Slate this week. As with most years, I’ve never heard of more than half the bands they’re discussing, which I suppose speaks to my uncoolness or something. I don’t care, much – I skim for artists I’ve heard of, see whether they liked them or hated them, and generally disagree anyway. I can’t claim to be a widely-read or listened music critic, but in response, here are three albums from 2007 that I really, really liked:

 

The Weakerthans, Reunion Tour. This Winnipeg band’s last record, Reconstruction Site, is in my top ten of all time, so their newest effort was unlikely to beat it out, and in fact, it hasn’t. But there are several songs on Reunion Tour that I love more than anything on Reconstruction Site, a record I can listen to end-to-end and never experience displeasure. Chris and I see these guys live every time they come to town, so we were already familiar with many of the songs on the new record, and had been anticipating it eagerly for nigh on two years already, so it was bound to disappoint a little.

 

Tour has a couple of songs I outright dislike, or am simply bored by, but I skip over those and instead rejoice in the gorgeousness of Night Windows, with its haunting images of a man lost in the memory of a past relationship, wandering the streets seeing visions of his former lover; or the relentless happy-sad pop of Sun in an Empty Room (anthropomorphizing the last month’s rent and the damage deposit, singing elegies to the day-to-day misery of unpicking a household whose members are going their separate ways); or even and especially the weepy Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure (which is a whole other entry on its own; suffice it to say, it’s a sequel to a song on Reconstruction Site about a cat with a miserable, self-absorbed owner, and it makes me cry every time I hear it).

 

These songs, plus the raucous and funny Relative Surplus Value, the goofy curling-inspired Tournament of Hearts, and the excellent bus-driver-narrated Civil Twilight, make Reunion Tour a worthy listen, and a solid successor to its antecedent albums.

 

Feist, The Reminder. This one is going to be all over top ten lists this Christmas, and to that I say: deservedly so. I liked some of Feist’s songs from her previous, widely-acclaimed album Let it Die, but this one is a full-length listen, comfortable and loungey and a little sexy and a lot of fun. We were at a restaurant in Montreal the other week that played it over dinner, and it was wonderful. Highlights include the ubiquitous 1 2 3 4 (from the iPod commercial), the shuffle-y I Feel It All, and the gorgeous, lush, gloriously poppy My Moon My Man, which I could listen to all afternoon without getting tired of it but that really begs for a low-lit nightclub with turquoise drinks and sexy hipsters in tight jeans and collared shirts and sparkly dresses and cat-eyeliner. Listening to Feist makes me feel more alive, makes me want to go out and live, experience, spend time doing fun and decadent things with fun and decadent friends. More of that in my life cannot be a bad thing. 

The New Pornographers, Challengers. Despite the hype, despite the fact that I have resisted liking these guys for years now, despite the fact that I actually hate several of the songs from Twin Cinema (Mass Romantic, I’m looking at you), the damn theme to The Hour with George Strombolopolopolopolous finally got to me, and I had to give the Pornographers a chance. I’m so glad I did, because there are some fucking fantastic songs on here. The lead-off single, My Rights Versus Yours, is almost illegally catchy, with a great build, nonsensical yet singable lyrics, and an excellent hook. The title track, sung by indie redhead goddess Neko Case (whose solo CDs I really must obtain, for the love of dogs and fishes) is achingly beautiful and begs to be listened to in the dark, on headphones, with a lot of red wine and a photograph of your first love lying morosely on the coffee table next to your glass. Failsafe is a fun track until you realize it’s a metaphor for being pathologically unable to commit. And Mutiny, I Promise You is one of the best howl-along tracks I’ve heard this year, with its told-ya-so choruses. If Adventures in Solitude doesn’t break your heart just a little bit, and prove to you that Carl Newman really can sing, then you’re probably an alien.

 

So, tell me: what are your top three albums from 2007, and why? Bonus points if you use melodramatic metaphors and the word “delicious” to describe a non-edible object at least once.

 

I don’t see very many movies in the theatre. It’s not a habit I have, for various reasons – it’s an expensive night out, many Hollywood-produced movies are not ones I have any interest in seeing, and there are so many other ways I could spend an evening. Plus, the allure of just waiting to rent a movie on DVD: I can watch it in my PJs! From my couch! And pause it if I get hungry or have to pee! (If you’ve ever been to a movie with me, you know I miss at least five minutes of every film because of a trip to the ladies’.)

But what I always forget about is the greatness of the second-run repertory theatre. We’re blessed with two of them in Ottawa: the Bytowne, which shows two movies a night, at separate cost, and a matinee on weekends; and the Mayfair, whose specialty is their nightly double bill of two sometimes-related, sometimes-not movies for $9 a pair. On a whim, a few weeks ago, I looked up the Bytowne’s schedule online looking for a little musical called Once that a girl I know online had recommended. It wasn’t playing at a convenient time for me to get to it, but when I checked the Mayfair, they had it booked in over the Thanksgiving weekend along with Stardust, another movie I’d been interested in seeing. It was serendipity, I decided, and immediately booked the last night of the double bill into my calendar.

On a Tuesday night, the theatre was mostly empty, but a dozen or so filmgoers were scattered throughout the theatre when we arrived, and a few more straggled in before the curtain opened and the lights went down. Once was the first movie that night, and it reminded me of all the reasons why I adore small, intimate, lower-budget movies set in faraway cities with little-known actors holding up the marquee. Because sometimes, they’re awful, and pretentious, and boring, but sometimes they’re transcendent, and Once fell firmly into the latter category. It moved me profoundly, with both its story and its songs (written mainly by Glen Hansard, an Irish musician famous for his role in The Commitments), leaving me alternately tearful and grinning, shaking me with its intensity and quiet passion. It’s a sparse story, told quietly and fairly quickly, and it reminds me of a great conversation with a stranger on a bus or airplane: brief, developing into something of great importance, ending without much resolution but making us better for having experienced it. See this movie. Please. I, for one, will be buying it (and its soundtrack) very soon.

After a quick bathroom break and a run on the snack counter for chocolate-covered peanuts, we settled back in for Stardust, an adaptation of the Neil Gaiman short novel of the same name. Stardust is a fairy tale, in the best sense of the word: it’s fantasy, but with elements of both ancient myth and modern life held within it. The search for unconditional love; the fear of aging and death; the desire to be seen as successful and popular; the overbearing hunger for power – all are contained within this little film, which deftly weaves four journeys together and makes sense of them all in the end, a rare feat in the movie business. I like Claire Danes well enough, and certainly loved MSCL as much as any sixteen-year-old girl did for the year it was on; I enjoyed her in Romeo and Juliet, but I’ve lost interest in recent years. But she nailed the role of Yvaine, the fallen star turned slightly cranky young woman, with both style and grace.
Tristan, the male protagonist manages to be neither annoyingly perfect nor haplessly ridiculous, but incorporates a little of each, as we all do at times. I wasn’t familiar with the actor Charlie Cox, but I thought he inhabited the role very easily as well. Michelle Pfeiffer as the head witch was a little grating and over the top, but she made it work, for the most part. De Niro played Captain Shakespeare for laughs but conveyed tenderness as only he can do, and provided excellent comic relief in the bottom half of the film.

Best of all, it’s an accessible fantasy film – not dense like the Lord of the Rings films, not ookily sweet like Ever After. I compared it to The Princess Bride – a fantasy that doesn’t take itself too seriously, even when engaged in matters of life or death. It was utterly charming, and I simply loved it.

Talk about a winning evening – nine bucks for two of the best movies I’ve seen in years? What a steal.

Books! Bolded are the ones I've read. Underlined, I've seen the film or stage adaptation. It's a half-decent list, but there are books on here I have no interest in whatsoever, and some of the ones I've read I considered to be total crap. (Dog in the night-time, I'm looking at you.)

1984
The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
Angels and Demons
Anna Karenina
Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World
The Brothers Karamazov
The Canterbury Tales
Catch-22
The Catcher in the Rye
A Clockwork Orange
Cloud Atlas
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dracula
Dubliners
Dune
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
Emma
Foucault's Pendulum
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
The God of Small Things
The Grapes of Wrath
Gravity's Rainbow
Great Expectations
Gulliver's Travels
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Historian
The Hobbit
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad
In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
Inferno
Jane Eyre
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
The Kite Runner
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lolita
Love in the Time of Cholera
Madame Bovary
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlemarch
Middlesex
The Mists of Avalon
Moby Dick
Mrs. Dalloway
The Name of the Rose
Neverwhere
Northanger Abbey
The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
On the Road
The Once and Future King
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Oryx and Crake
A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Poisonwood Bible
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Pride and Prejudice
The Prince
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Scarlet Letter
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Silmarillion
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Sound and the Fury
A Tale of Two Cities
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
The Three Musketeers
The Time Traveler's Wife
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
Ulysses
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Vanity Fair
War and Peace
Watership Down
White Teeth
Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values