I'm still here

I know... it's been a while. I needed to drop off for a little while, 'specially during October. Life's just been busier than ever, but things are beginning to calm down now. And so.

I haven't yet scanned any photographs that I've made this semester, but I like what I've been doing and I think you will too. Later today I'm heading to northeastern CT for a wedding at a manor house, an old family friend. I packed three cameras.

In other internet news, here's what you should know:

- pick up this book if you haven't yet!
- lend an ear to this album if you haven't yet!
- watch this trailer if you haven't yet!
- these ceramics
- these photographs
- this [new and brilliant] literary mag
- oh, and this genius blog.

I'm still on a lady singers kick!

I've got long johns under slacks for blustery days

It's not here yet, but I feel it coming.

All week long...

The National

call me back, i'm on a plane

i think i'm somewhere over spain

i'm in a dark without the stars

i've never seen a black so dark

thought i'd be above the rain

somewhere on a higher plane...

I nabbed tickets to see these guys with The War on Drugs in December. I'm quite excited for it. They've always struck a chord for me, but since I was in Paris, up through the summertime, they've gone from great to downright brilliant. I can't get enough. I may even be going to this if I'm not working that night... !

My Favorite Song

This song, originally by Bob Dylan, is my favorite song of all time. It has rhythm, soul, poetry, a little rhyme, and the perfect bits of sentiment all rolled into it. I never get tired of listening to it– that counts too. Blood on the Tracks is my favorite album of all time too (if I absolutely had to pick one.)

This cover is one of the best I've ever heard. I really enjoy Marissa Nadler's voice, her little lilt and almost squeaky harmony. It works here, the high note to low note dips and all that jazz. Her detail adds something to it without detracting from the essence of the original.

Speaking of female vocalists and soaring harmonies... talk about a song/ an album I can't stop listening to! Buy A Creature I Don't Know immediately and it will quickly become your most worthy purchase this week, promise.

New music from Feist!

It's about time! I'm quite, quite excited. The album is called Metals and it won't be out until October– but I like having something to look forward to. Big thanks to The Alternate Side for the heads up.

jj- new work

new favorite !

New Laura Marling

I can't wait!
Out in September.
Pre-order it here.

Reliving Paris a little bit...

Video proof from this post! I enjoy youtube.

Plenty Is Never Enough

original by Tenement Halls:

cover by The Shins:

This second video has some of the most ridiculous pictures in it, ha! It's one of the only ones available on youtube though, so here you have it. I can't decided which I like better; they're both good in their own right.

M. Ward takes the cake

Every single time I see him live, he confirms for me even further how truly talented he is as an artist, and how much I've grown up beside his music. His albums brought me through adolescence. I swear I can attribute to him at least a smidge of my slightly lacking quality of gracefulness, my ability to recognize poetry in music, and many, many white nights, bus rides, plane rides, and awful situations turned tranquil. Seeing him now, at this point in my youth, feels so good. After years of being a fan and watching his hair turn salt-and-peppery in the same way that I am aging (perhaps not as visibly but inevitably am) makes me feel like we've arrived at something. Or maybe I've just arrived at something, I don't know what. Je sais pas quoi.

At one point in the concert, someone requested "Rollercoaster". He said, I'd love to play that but I need someone to come up and play the piano with me (as he was completely solo on stage), maybe in D major... any takers? (At this point I was kicking myself for quitting piano at age 12 and immediately thereafter forgetting every bit of it.) So a random dude from Iceland hopped up on stage and played the piano with him! While M. Ward was showing him what to do, the guy did something and M. Ward said, "Yeah yeah that's perfect." We were right in the front at this tiny venue, and it was basically silent in there (so parisian), so my immediate reaction to this resonated rather loudly: "Dude, M. Ward just called you perfect." My group and I burst into laughter at how ridiculous I am... and it was all just a really good time.

He also played this song and dedicated it to all the artists living in Paris. I had a happiness brain explosion. *sigh*.

This is another really great fan video. I'm impressed at how many of them exist out there.

Most Lovely Track 2011

Fleet Foxes - "Helplessness Blues"
 
These guys could not be more in my head.

note: this is not the official music video but rather a distinctly awesome fan video.

 

Come and find me

So I keep you in a flower vase
   with your fatalism, your crooked face

with the daisies and the violet brocades

and I keep me in a vacant lot

in the ivies and forget-me-nots

hoping you'll come and untangle me one of these days

I will never hear this song and not think of riding buses all around Spain.
Weaving tales in my head and daydreaming for hours on end.
Passing by wind energy turbines and huge silhouette cutouts of bulls
perched on the tops of hills.
Rest stops. Fields and mountains.

All week long

You know how you can listen to a song rather frequently for, I don't know, SEVEN YEARS, and finally one day, completely out of the blue, realize how truly terrific it is? Yeah.

Classical in springtime...

Coming off of spring break

and back into real life. It's no easy task.

I spent a really lovely, relaxing week in Madrid and Valencia with a few old friends. We sat in the park, drank wine, and played cards while watching the sunset over a gorgeous horizon. We searched out croquettas at midnight and learned how to salsa from some really nice South Americans. It was all so great. Now I'm bit sick (traveling and over-exertion does that, I hear). I came back only to be faced with a stressful ending to the most relaxing semester I've ever had. I am determined to make time to enjoy Paris in spring and not let finals get the best of me, though. There is still so much I want to do in this city...

I'm heading out to see Noah and the Whale tonight!

On being culturally well-read

and why we can't know everything. Damn I love NPR!

This article speaks to my innermost overachiever. The girl who tried to read a book a week at age 7. The girl who tried to read a book a week, for a summer, at age 15 (and succeeded this time.) The girl who can't get enough music, even if it means her computer is starting to give notifications of an almost-full hard drive. The girl who tried dancing, who tried piano lessons, who tried the saxophone, who sings in the shower. Who tried to make herself completely ambidextrous in pre-K. Who makes lists of movies to see, people to look up on wikipedia, and who learned French just because it sounds beautiful.

Sigh.

Yet, I persist. My new favorite paintings, seen at the Magritte museum in Brussels. I like his work so much more than I thought I did.

L'Empire des lumières, 1954

La Magie noire, 1935

Springtime in music

This week turned out to be my annual celebration I like to call "Catherine's springtime love affair with great music"! Every year when the temperatures rise after cold and dreary winters, I swear music just sounds different. Better, even. Some of my favorite videos from this week...

The secret show Arcade Fire played in Haiti. Looks like fun, right?

My good friend Matt Sucich (sue-sitch) debuted his new album Jubilation and Jealousy at Joe's Pub on March 26! This is a new song not on the record. You can find the record and other recordings of him on Bandcamp and iTunes, all linked on his website above. Fancy!

The Bewitched Hands on the Top of our Heads performed "Hard to Cry" for La Blogothèque (up there with Daytrotter for one of the best music collaboration ideas ever). This sesh was recorded in Reims, France. The end is just... SO good.

EDIT:

This one too. It's been a favorite for some months, but lately it's really hitting home.

Clementines sunshine printemps

and this.

I had a wonderful weekend, and I'll be back to tell all about it as soon as I finish my film research paper.

I woke up with this song in my head

these past four days.

and saying that always makes me sing this song.