Mumford and Me

sometimes, you hear a song by a band, and you love it immediately.

they're not getting any radio play, so you start looking their songs up, and you find that you really dig the rest of their stuff, even the b-sides which aren't going to be on their forthcoming studio album.

when that album finally releases, you listen to it so much that you know it backward and forward, and then a second album is scheduled to be released.

you're insanely nervous because how can anything live up to that first album which was, for you, absolute perfection?

and then the pre-order of that second album downloads to your iTunes, and you lose your mind, because it's so freaking fantastic.

that's me and mumford, people.

there are a litany of reasons i love them

i love that marcus mumford writes songs based on his residual feelings after he finished books.

i love that marcus mumford's lyrics are compelling and lovely to read all on their own, regardless of the sound that comes along with them.

i love their vocal harmonies.

i love the grating behind marcus' voice.

i love that winston does inappropriate things to the air while playing a fiddle.

i love that ben's absurdly adorable (even if he's sort of the worst dj in the world).

i love that ted is so lovely and smart, and that it's so cool to listen to him ramble on about their music.

but mostly, i love that their songs always, always, always hit me right in the FEELS.

mumford's lyrics are steeped in religion, conflict based on religion, love, and some of the harsh realities of life. as a result, they speak to me on a long list of levels, my tortured religious history being rather high on that list. also, some things that have happened in  my life recently are almost narrated by a handful of their songs, so much so that i can't adequately explain it.

they're one of my favorite bands. the end.

alice in wonderland

here's a funny little fact about me:

i really dislike most classic literature.

yeah, yeah, i know. "but all modern literature wouldn't exist if not for the classics." i know that. but i hate reading them. i can't name a single piece of victorian literature that i have enjoyed reading. i do love shakespeare, though, and i like more "modern" classics, like The Great Gatsby. but generally? meh squared.

however:

i have a sort of life long obsession with Alice in Wonderland.



Disney's Alice

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(side note: i read it and thought it was only okay.)

despite the glorious meh i felt after reading it again (as an adult), i just love the idea. i love the spins it could take, the way you can manipulate it into something so very different than what's canon. this is why i loved syfy's Alice miniseries, and why i really enjoyed tim burton's take on the story as well. (more on tim burton here.)

A DeviantArt Wallpaper for Tim Burton's film

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SyFy's Hatter. My Favorite.

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as a matter of fact, i have a dark little spin on Alice in Wonderland in my pile of ideas - one day, i'll write it all down (at present, i have about 1500 words, and the bones of the story in a scrivener doc). it was inspired by this image, which was originally sent to me by my friend, Bec:
 

and i just love this image:

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(side note: i have just realized that my life-long affinity for striped socks probably originated with my affection for this story.)

What's your favorite kid's story?



my favorite nightmare

anyone who's known me for any period of time can guess what this post is going to be about based solely on the title. i thought it a fitting topic, considering today is halloween!

the rest of you can stay in the dark for a tiny bit longer, yes? yes. here's a little scene setting for you:

it's 1993. i'm 10ish. i see previews for a movie that i want to see so badly, i can hardly see straight.

but movies were never really an option for me as a kid, so i never got to see it.

i am either 10 or 11, and it's early 1994. i'm with my dad at a store, and he's buying a big screen television. i'm wandering the store while he haggles with the guy over price, and lo and behold, the movie is playing on one of their TVs, with audio and everything.

i plop down on a couch (convenient, those living room mock ups are!) and watch half an hour of it, completely enraptured. i am a very unhappy camper when dad makes me leave the store before the movie is over.

the movie i'm talking about, of course, is The Nightmare Before Christmas.

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still, to this day, i love everything about it. i love the soundtrack, i love the creepy aesthetic, and i love the stop-motion claymation business. (the aesthetic - goth-lite, perhaps? - has always been something i love, though i've never made myself up as such). i love the covers the soundtrack has garnered (especially the Vitamin String Quartet one), and i love the implications of the story for real life.

for me, The Nightmare Before Christmas represents the very best of my childhood; it makes me nostalgic, it makes me happy, and it has always, always spoken to some part of my psyche that it continues to assuage today. in fact, i love almost everything tim burton has ever produced (save for one thing in particular) - edward scissorhands, corpse bride, 9, james and the giant peach ... but Nightmare is my favorite.

and, as proof that the apple often doesn't fall far from the tree? my daughter adores it, too.

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HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYBODY! <3

music and me: my favorite band

one really important thing people should know about me?

i'm a music fanatic - unabashed, almost to the point of pain sometimes.

from a very young age, i learned that music was incredibly important to me - it could deepen or adjust my mood, and what's more, i found that i could sing, and that made it all fun. at this point in my life, music plays heavily into anything i write, so in a very real way, it helps me develop tone and characters and the whole nine.

 

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i listen to every type of music from pop to metal to classical and Broadway tunes, but my favorite - my home base, if you will - is rock. i can't really explain why. i do love me some pop music (as a matter of fact, robyn, the singer of the song that inspired this blog url, is one of my all time favorite performers ever), but at the end of the day, my favorite band plays rock music and i wouldn't have it any other way.

that band?

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foo fighters.

aside from the fact that dave grohl is a rock god, i love every album they've ever released, and i've been listening to them since i was fifteen. it's impossible for me to choose my top 5 favorites from their catalog - i actually just tried and failed rather spectacularly, for the record. however, i will say that if i ever get up the nerve to get any of the three tattoos i would like to have, the first one will be a snippet of a foo lyric.

bamf

so, yeah. foo. love them.

but i still haven't seen them live. le suck. i'm hoping to remedy that in 2013.

i've decided that maybe album reviews or at least "here's what i'm loving right now" sort of posts will be a regular thing here, which is pretty exciting, all things considered.

in that vein? sometime this week, you can expect a review of the new mumford & sons album, babel, because they have cemented themselves a place on my list of favorite bands with its release. hope everybody's having a killer week.

what's your favorite band?


hearts,
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