Thanksgiving

Is Regina Spektor at the Macy's Thanksgiving parade in an Ocean Spray float something I'd expected to come up on my TV when I turned it on as background "noise" for my wrestling match with my turkey? (first time ever cooking one) No. Did it happen?... yep!!. There she is on my TV (and somebody really needs to work on their spelling).
Probably one thing I can give thanks for this bad, bad year: life's unexpected good blips. If scarce.
Though she didn't even choose one of the few new songs I like.

Elections... or the state of acceptance.

Days away from these unthinkable elections, and  most of us are thinking the same thing... well, just be aware that the only reason these are the candidates is people put them there with their choices.
Also impressed @ how incredibly biased the media is, they don't even bother to pretend anymore. Not a good thing no matter what. Yuck.
So I thought I'd post this beautiful soothing song on acceptance and dealing with bad hands. Which we will have to do regardless.
And I thought House of Cards was too extreme...
PS Nov 8:  sick of receiving prerecorded calls and messages on my phone asking for democrat vote. I got them from a "Hey it's Tess..." (703 3729398), "Hi, it's Charlotte..." (703 9918928) "Hey it's Sarah..." (703 9918928) and so on. Not helping, guys.

Oy to the world

This grandma prop with the serious Halloweenish/creepy streak was at a Christmas shop the other day. Seems someone had knocked the J out of the Joy.

Kinda sums up the year!
So, oi to the world. Surely humanity can do better than this?


Thankfully in music we had these:

* The Vaccines' English Graffiti (unexpected!). I adjusted a bit my summer holidays so I could catch them in Chicago (posted video on youtube). Luckily even had a lively chat with Freddie at the meet &greet. They knew a big chunk of their fans would not agree with the change of direction and still went ahead. "Couldn't keep doing 3 chord songs forever", "had been listening to new music we really liked"). Way to go.
* Tim Wheeler's Lost Domain. Takes a lot of courage to put out an album like this one and a lot of skill to balance it and come up with something this good.
* Quite good too Ryan Adams's take on Taylor Swift's 1989 (isn't it impressive what he's done with Blank Space?). Daring move.
* Marina & the diamonds' Froot, as bold as usual.
But also listened a lot to some tracks from end of last year's Adrien Gallo's Gemini and this year's Laura Marling, Lisa Ekdahl, Soko, Emika, Sara Lov, Natalia Lafourcade..


Personally it's been the best year ever, "only" because I'll just say that milk and eggs are no longer handled like cyanide in my kitchen and that a 10 yr old someone had his first donut, his first fried egg, his first proper pizza. After very tough years of not only not advancing but adding new allergies to the list (some remain), this is a reminder that there's always hope, even when. How cheesy is that!! (←double meaning!)

Marshmallow pops

Jeez, how difficult is it to post after so long? Most, so I will this once. It's Valentine's and for those in the US who still have time, anyone want an idea for a quick easy treat? I've done these today and they've turned out quite ok, thought I'd share (well,  I've had to make them egg and dairy free - always harder). Recipe here, much nicer ones than my sloppy version in the pic. Otherwise these pancakes are amazing. There's so many terrible recipes out there, you can't tell, but these are great.
It's the day for sharing and stuff so..music: my favourite cd of 2012: Julia Stone, "By the horns", wouldn't have predicted it but she's really taken a huge leap with this one (a grower, takes a lot of listens to get to the bottom and the first few times most of it may not even seem any appealing, but it's fantastic -half the songs). Video I liked best probably Knots, by Dan Michaelson, most simple and yet...
2013 now, it has started with enjoying a few perfect pop songs off the new Tegan and Sara (with the help of mighty omnipresent Kurstin, now busy with Sia  -btw so happy to see a sheet music shop in their website, finally someone doing that!-), the cosy if this time too diluted Dido (she's giving away a reallly good acoustic of an oldie today, check out her facebook. Not one of my favourites though), the This is 40 soundtrack (Fiona's ace back in 2012 but Norah's now, bravo-h) and this and that like Blackbird Blackbird's It's a war -last year's though. And old The Kills (Sour cherry, a natural reaction today to so many hearts and marshmallows I suppose! -and to other things other days). Oh, and Solange!!, Losing you is fantastic (Rice-Oxley recommended, really surprised to love it  and later found out someone familiar is behind it: Dev Hynes!: that explained it, long time no see, a music genious). Lots of my favourites preparing releases these days, may be a good year.
The other day I set out to discover new blogs, thought I'd do so with a search of  my two favourite songs of 2012 "with quotation marks", see which blogs/websites were in the same "niche". Got only one hit: me!!! (the lastfm I use now, that is). Unexpected, gets you thinking...

Back to my cave now :P To the people like me out there may patience, temperance, resignation be with you in the most unreasonably huge amounts.

February 21st: Went to Madrid fashion week today, managed to attend one of the fashion shows, Sita Murt. One of the three songs they used was Solange's "Losing you", serendipity!. Took the bad camera so bad pic:

The experience of going to the Cibelespacio was somehow bitter, seeing too many people around trying too hard and failing miserably, not a nice sight. But there certainly are bigger issues out there.
27th: And on second thought I need to mention Kathleen Edward's Voyager as another one of my favourites from last year if it took me quite a while, but again half the songs are just gorgeous, and inevitably she always ends up being my most played. She's just released a new video. So brilliant-.

Not pretending to be what she's not, thankfully. But again, some absolutely don't need to.

March...here, again...saw this Solange (+ Dev) performance, flawless, wanted to include it. Another fabulous song. I should finish this post at some point though. Because otherwise I'd also want to talk about Brooke Waggoner's Originator (with last lines like Be wise, you fool..), and Solange's page of vibes on Soundcloud -very original!-and then about this free download of SXSW artists that includes the fantastic Haley Bonar... -listened to her wonderful ditty Raggedy Man yet?-  And I'd never end. So I'm going to try now, seriously. With crisis of every colour and shape out there inspiring music is so necessary.